Gospel Power : Jeremiah & Olivia Stoddart

Well, good morning again. It's good to see you guys today. Well, you're in for a treat. We have a dynamic couple here with us today.

And I hope you get a glimpse of just a little bit of what God has called this couple to and what they've given up a lot of things we take for granted and have done it because of their love for Jesus and their love for the unreached people of the world and are filling the Great Commission of Disciples Nations. And we're so excited to be partners with you. Just come on up. Let's give a warm welcome to Jeremiah and Olivia Stoddard as they come up.

So we're going to have a real treat today. Jeremiah, last night, if you were here, we had probably 15 here last night. And Jeremiah did a two-hour teaching. He's the director for the Book of Acts training for SOS Adventure Ministries.

And he does training all over Africa, really. And from small groups to large groups, probably even sometimes in thousands. Yeah, so we were very honored to have him just impart to us last night. And this morning, we have just another great treat is that he and his wife, Olivia.

And you guys have been married now, what? Like six months, seven months? Newlyweds, that's awesome. And they're going to share with us.

We're excited for what God's laid on your hearts and excited to hear from you today. And God bless you. We're just honored to be partners with you in the Gospel. Can we give a hand for Pastor Fred and his wonderful wife, Kristen?

We're just super blessed. And we've just been so encouraged to be spending time with you both the last two days. Well, I got yesterday and today. And I think I can speak for myself.

And I know Olivia can probably say a few things too. But I think just being around you, just a genuine love for people when we're around you. So thank you so much for being that, for this community, for everyone here, just loving on people. And when we're around you, we just sense that genuine love and compassion that I think Jesus showed.

So thank you for that. Yeah, always smiling, so generous and so humble. Thank you so much. You're an example to all of us.

I believe it's like to follow Jesus. And yeah, so hello everyone. Everyone, good this morning. If you haven't met me, my name's Jeremiah.

And this is my wife, Olivia. I guess we'll just start off by telling you a little bit about ourselves, but how about you, start by telling them about yourself? Yeah, hi, Rastity Reach. I know I've been here one time before, but I'm super honored to be back.

Been super blessed to spend time with your pastors. I just want to honor them. Again, like Jeremiah did, it's just a blessing to be around you and see everything that you're doing in this city, the people you're pastoring and how the Holy Spirit led you are. That's what I've noticed being around you.

But yeah, my name's Olivia. I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I grew up there. I actually grew up in Williamsport.

I grew up in Williamsport, a couple hours from here. And then when I was 10, my family moved out to Pittsburgh. And that's where I spent the rest of my childhood. But I ended up giving my life to Jesus at age 17 and decided to go to a Christian school.

And that was where I was really discipled and grew in my faith. And that's where I actually met Jeremiah. So yeah, that's a little bit of my story. But we ended up getting married last year.

And now we both live on the mission field together in Africa. Yeah, it was awesome. Last year, I spent most of the year in Africa and was home for about two weeks last year for us to get married in and for us. So we got married in the next day.

We left the next morning. Yeah, next morning we left for seven months or so. And then now it's good to be back. I think the cold weather has shocked us just a little bit.

Especially yesterday. Yeah, yesterday was cold. But it's good to be back in the US. We've gotten some Chick-fil-A praise God.

Come on. Feeling blessed. I know there's a Chick-fil-A down the street. That's a blessing.

But no, it's really good to be back. We've been in Pittsburgh. We have to see family and friends. And we're just really blessed to be here.

If you don't know this, I'm sure somebody do know this, as Pastor Fred said. You are one of our supporters who really makes it possible for us to be able to do what we do in Africa. So from me and Olivia, we just want to say thank you so much for your generosity for giving to the church. And we know that it's having an impact all across the world.

And we'll tell you some few statistics about what God's been doing the last year, excuse me, in Africa. But we just wanted to just quickly, I know some of you, this is our first time meeting and some of you have met us before. But we just wanted to quickly share with you a little bit about what we do just so you have some context of what your giving to the kingdom is going towards across the world. So I'll start off by one of the things that I mean, Olivia are very heavily involved with is assisting our festival director.

Our position is Assistant Festival Director, where we get to really oversee and make sure that these festivals we're doing take place. So for example, this last year, I'll give you one statistic now. We went to six different cities across Africa. We were in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

We were in Burundi. We were also in Kenya. And then we were in West Africa in Senegal. And just last year, we got to preach the gospel to over 700,000 people in those six festivals.

So when I say a festival, how many of you have ever heard of Billy Graham or anyone ever heard of Billy Graham or if you've been to a big rock concert in a way, it kind of looks similar. It's usually a lot of people. You know, we can have festivals anywhere from 50 to 100,000 people in just one night where we have music dancing and cultural things. But our main focus is, of course, to preach the gospel and to see people saved and healed and set free.

So we oversee 18 departments. I won't get into all the specifics, because it's too much. And you'll probably start sleeping. I know it's early.

So we, one of the departments, for example, that is needed to have a festival take place is we have our security department, where we oversee. We actually travel with the largest stage and lighting system in the whole continent of Africa. So God is really blessed our ministry with a huge stage that we can preach the best news this world has to people. So we make sure with security, some countries, that we go into have high security risk.

So we make sure with police and other things that things are happening safely. That's one thing. Another thing is we partner with over 600, or it depends the city, but many churches where we partner with them and all of them are engaged. When they come to the festival, they bring people they know who don't know Jesus.

So we partner with churches. We oversee counselor departments and logistics and hotels and airplanes and all that stuff. But yeah, this goes on. I won't get into all that.

But we're just a part of a lot of the logistics stuff too that takes to really pull off one of these huge festivals. But the other thing, we're really involved with Alilia Share. Yes, there's something we do in every city a couple months to a month before the festival. We have an event called the Book of Acts Training Camp.

And so this is a five day training event where we invite every local church that we're partnering with to bring a team leader and a team of young evangelists who they want to be trained in our training and they come. And we have two days of DNA teachings where we teach them foundational teachings that we find are really important in our ministry. One example, it's kind of like what Jeremiah was teaching last night. Some of them are how Jesus healed the sick and you can too.

Authority of the believer, how to be led by the Holy Spirit. And so we have two days of really foundational teachings. And then on the third day, we have a practical day where we teach them how to do street evangelism. We teach them how to preach the gospel on the street, how to preach a clear and simple gospel and how to do follow up the right way and in an effective way.

And then on the fourth day, we actually take them out onto the street so they can practice what they just learned. They can put it into place and we go with them out on the street and they will have their own street outreaches in their own city, which is really powerful because it's the local is administering to one another. And there's something really powerful about that. And we really believe in the next generation of Africa and the young people of Africa.

So we get them. Over 60% of Africa is under the age of 25. Yeah. And by 2050, the statistics are huge where most of the world's young population will be in Africa by 2050.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So we really focus on equipping the young generation in Africa.

And on the fifth day, we have a graduation for them. We send them off. And then about a month later, after the team leaders have trained their teams on street outreaches on evangelism, we actually go back into that city and evaluate and see how they've trained their teams and we watch them do street outreaches. And if they've effectively trained their teams, we actually bless them and give them a sound system that they can use in their own city way after we leave.

So they can continue doing the work far after we've left. So that's something that we really love to do in equipping the next generation to do evangelism and live the book of acts in our communities. And as an evangelistic ministry, we really want to be a part of raising up people who are evangelists and have that gifting. And of course, we're all called to make disciples, but really raise up that next generation and send them out.

And we get to bless them with a really state-of-the-art street equipment that we ship in from South Africa. So it's super a fun thing when we get to just leave that equipment there, because to them, that's such a blessing to be able to be equipped in that way. So that's one of our favorite things, so really see that take place. In a book of acts training camp, it can be anywhere from, we were in Mumbasa, Kenya on the coast, where 75% of the people living there aren't Christians.

And so we had around 1,000 people in our training. But then there's places like in the Congo, we've had up to 4,000 people in just one day who are there being trained. So there's a variety. And so that's a little bit about what we've been doing and what you're giving to.

Another statistic for the book of acts training camp is this year we've trained over 10,000 youth to come through the book of acts training camp and to be equipped and sent out to go and to preach the gospel. So that's another really big thing that you were a part of this year, which is really cool. And then let's see, we want to let them know how many people were saved in 2022. Yeah, so in 2022, we saw 170,000 salvation among all of the festivals that we did.

And we just see how we want to give all the glory to Jesus that he's just giving us the grace to do what we do. Really we couldn't do anything without his grace, without his favor upon what we're doing. And seeing thousands of people who are set free from demonic possession and people who are healed and delivered so a beautiful, a beautiful thing. Thank you so much for being a part of that.

And actually if we combine 20, let me think, 2021 and 2022, we've preached over 1.4 million people. And we hope that over the next few years, it continues to be millions every year. And then so thank you again for that. And then for today, we really just wanted to speak about the power of the gospel.

And we wanted to, I guess the way we framed this talk today or this sermon today is that we'll give a story, a testimony from the mission field, and then we'll kind of give scripture that backs up that story and how the gospel has the power to save, to sanctify. And when I say the word sanctify, I really mean to make us look more like Jesus. That's I guess the simplest way to put that. So the gospel has the power to save us and to make us look more like Jesus.

And then the gospel has the power to heal us and then also to deliver us. So we'll be telling testimonies from the mission field about God has been doing these things. And we really believe and we know that God can and wants to and we'll do these things through you here in Cumberland, Maryland as well. Amen.

So I'll let Olivia kind of tell you about something that we've seen a lot being in Africa. Yeah, so Jeremiah's been traveling in Africa for the last couple years and I've had the honor of being able to be there for the second half of last year after I graduated college and we got married. I was able to spend the last half of that last year in Africa. And one thing that I've seen in the church in Africa and that I love so much and has inspired me in my time in Africa is their faith.

They have massive giant elephant sized faith, faith for miracles, faith for God's provision, they have faith for salvation, you know, if God says it, they believe it. And that's something that has struck me very deeply in my spirit as I've been able to be around in the communities. It's just natural, there's a culture of faith there. And you know, I think we all have something we can learn from them.

I know I've learned so much from the culture in Africa. And Jeremiah and I've been talking about how we think the church in America, we can each learn from each other. We can learn from the church in Africa, they can learn from us. But I think something we can really learn from them is their faith and how they really trust God and take him at his word.

And you know, I think a lot of us, sometimes we can have a more lack of faith in the gospel. And there's multiple reasons for this. I think it can be our culture, you know, we see this in ourselves. I think we could just be really here and say, we see this in America, but we also see this in ourselves.

There's a lot of reasons for this. It could be our culture. You know, maybe some of us have never actually seen the transformative power of God in our life. You know, maybe some of us just don't know.

We didn't grow up knowing the gospel. We didn't grow up knowing the power of God. You know, and some of us might think, you know, it won't make that much of a difference in my life. It won't make that much of a difference to share it with someone.

If we haven't known, it's true power. So if we don't truly believe it, we won't really be inspired to share it, if that makes sense. And I think what we've really seen in Africa, I don't think one of the things we want it to leave after we share these stories, the stories we share have happened in Africa. But what we really wanted you to know is that the gospel, the power of the gospel and the power of God isn't just limited to a different continent.

And that's what is taking place there, can take place here as well. Exactly. And we want to build your faith today. We want to share stories with you that are going to build your faith to see the power of God move in your community.

So you know that these stories, they're not just for the nations. You know, they're for Cumberland. You know, and so we really want to build your faith in the power of the gospel to do all the things that we listed. Yeah, and just seeing that in Africa, I know that's always been one thing that being around my brothers and sisters in Africa always stretched me in that way of believing that God can do the miraculous and save people, deliver people, see people set free.

And then also like you said, providing for them in miraculous ways. So we can go into now, I guess, there was two scriptures that we really have as the foundation of this teaching, you could say. And then from that, we'll kind of launch into how the gospel has the power to save, sanctify, heal and deliver. Yeah, the word of God says a lot about the power of the gospel.

And the scripture I want to read from is 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 4 through 5. It says, for we know brothers and sisters love by God that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. And Paul was speaking to the church in Thessalonica here and he's saying, we know our gospel didn't only come to you in words, but it came in power because we saw the effect that the gospel had on their community.

After Paul was there and he preached the gospel, people grabbed hold of it and they started spreading it in the surrounding cities and they started sharing it and they were seeing the miraculous take place and the gospel spreading like wildfire there. And so he's saying the gospel isn't just words. The gospel is not just a story that you've heard growing up or maybe you've just recently heard, it's the power of God and it's the power of God unto salvation. Meaning it carries the weight of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

So in the gospel there's power, it's not just words, it's power. Yeah, absolutely. And I wanted to read from Romans 15 verse 17 to 19. And it's Paul who, if you know about Paul, he's probably in history, one person who's probably led close to Jesus.

So many people, he's led so many people to Jesus. He's preached the gospel in so many places. And in the book of Acts and also in the letters, we see this and how Paul's going on preaching the gospel. And this is what he says in his letter to the Roman church.

He says, therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. Or he's saying, hey, I boast in Jesus. I boast in what he's done. And then it continues to, he continues to write.

He says, I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles who, those who weren't Jewish, to obey God by what I have said and done, by the power of signs and wonders and through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Lyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. And as we see here, Paul was saying, I've fully proclaimed the gospel into him, what it seems to be fully proclaiming the gospel is to see the power of the Holy Spirit touching lives and changing people and to see signs and wonders taking place. So I think that Paul expected a move of the Holy Spirit when the gospel was being preached.

I think Paul expected signs and wonders to take place because that's what accompanies the gospel. So we just want to talk about that today, how we've experienced that in our lives and how I believe you will experience that as well. Yeah, so I want to start out by sharing a story about the gospel's power to save, to bring salvation. And you know, this can seem like the simplest one the most obvious one, of course, the gospel brings salvation.

But it really is a miracle, you know, salvation itself is a miracle. And so I want to share a story about my friend Perin. There's a photo up here, Perin and Brian are two people from Kilgore's, which is the city that we live in in Kenya. Yeah, you can see a photo of us up there.

But yeah, I was walking around our town one day and Kilgore's I went to the market by myself and I just decided to walk in. And I asked the Holy Spirit to open my eyes that day and just give me ears that are attuned to his voice. And so I remember I was walking across the street, I decided to go catch a ride back to where we live. And I was walking across the street and I remember the Holy Spirit spoke to me and just said, turn to your right.

And I looked and there was Perin, she was just walking with her brother, she actually was picking him up from school and taking him home. And I just struck up a conversation with her and just started asking her about her life, about where she's from, what she's up to, about her family. And I just ended up continuing to walk with her all the way back to her house. And eventually I got to asking her about church and if she'd ever been to church, was she a Christian?

And she started to tell me, yeah, I was in the Catholic church a long time ago, but it wasn't a good experience for me. And she had really not enjoyed it, she didn't have a good experience and she didn't know Jesus. And so I just invited her to come to church the next day. And so she ended up coming, her and her brother Brian came and she ended up rededicating her life to Jesus that day and really surrendering.

And so that was just, that was a powerful miracle that I saw. It's the simple, just the simple gospel to transform someone's life and to give them a purpose in a home. And her and Brian are now faithful church members. And her, yeah, Brian is only 10 now and he's plugged into our kids church, which is really awesome.

And I love in that story too, that simple, I think that's how the Holy Spirit loves to move through us. It's, well, we let him interrupt our day to day, right? Well, he, we let him interrupt us as we walk in at the grocery store, the Walmart store, well, we let him interrupt us as we're talking with a coworker. And he opens the door for us to give the message, the good news about what Jesus has done for us on the cross.

And being open to hearing from the Holy Spirit, but also when he speaks moving in what he's spoken. Exactly. Yeah, and the story always reminds me of the scripture in Romans 1, 16. Says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

And just like Jeremiah was saying, you know, there's people everywhere you go, everywhere you're walking in the day-to-day, there are people that God is longing to save. These longing to show his gospel power too, that he can transform their lives, that he can change lives. And I'm sure many of you are here because someone decided to tell you that, you know, it's a miracle, God's divine appointments that he sets up with you and others. And you know, it's his desire that all would be saved.

So I think for us to see the power of the gospel manifested in our communities, we have to align ourselves with the heart of God for people. You know, he's pursuing people, he's chasing them down, he wants them to be saved. And when we align our hearts with that, and we start to catch that vision, and we begin to have a heart that is bleeding for our community that's longing to see them come into church, longing to see them meet Jesus. I think we start to see the power of the gospel.

Absolutely. I wanted to read Romans 6, 23, and I'll tell you why in just a second, but let me read the scripture first. It says, for the wages of sin is death. Everyone say death.

Okay. But the gift of God is eternal life. Everyone say eternal life. Wonderful.

Great voices. In Christ, it's eternal life. In Christ, Jesus, our Lord. And what I really felt, I guess a burden to speak on this scripture is that, just like Olivia said earlier, sometimes for us, and I'm speaking for myself, for Olivia, not just putting things on all of us that I haven't felt before, but it can be, you know, the gospel, yeah, it's a good message, you know, or it's a nice moral message.

You know, you should just be a better person. But really, as believers, if you are a believer, we believe in eternal life or eternal death, right? We believe that one day we will be resurrected with God, or we will, everyone will be resurrected. And we'll either go into life with God, with Jesus, or we will go to eternal death.

And we believe in a place that is real. We believe in hell. So for us, I'm not trying to come across all gloomy in doomsday, but this is the reality, right? This is the truth that we believe.

And if this is the truth that we believe, it means that the message, the good news about Jesus' life and death and how he paid for our sins upon the cross and how he rose and how he conquered our sin, and how if we will just accept through faith what he's done, we can be forgiven and washed clean of our sins so we can be in relationship with God. If we believe this, it has eternal significance. And so we just can't think of all this nice, cute message. You know, maybe I'll talk about it sometimes.

Like this matters. Like the lives of your friends matter, the lives of your coworkers matter, the lives of those in your community matter. And if we really believe in this, we need to actually believe in it. And so for me, this scripture hits so deep because there's death and there's life and this message brings life.

This message is life because it is God's word and what he's done. And so I just want us as a church to see this message and see the power in it for salvation. Amen. That this message, it can bring hope and save those in every area of our lives.

Amen. Wonderful. Okay. So let me go on to the next thing.

So the first thing we touch on is the gospel is the power to salvation. And this second one really goes hand in hand with salvation. When we're saved, the Holy Spirit comes and brings life into our spirit, right? And then we start to live differently and desire different things because the spirit of God has given us life.

And I'll read, let me see, I'll tell the story and then I'll read the scripture. So we have a woman named Edna in our church in Kilgories. And Edna had lived in a culture where believing in God was the normal thing. And so she always believed in God but never really had a relationship with God through Jesus.

And one day she was praying and she was asking that she could find a church where she could go because in her culture, you know, that's a normal thing. And as she was praying, actually through a supernatural experience from the Holy Spirit, she got led into our church in Kilgories where she heard the gospel being preached and she surrendered her life to Jesus and she put her faith in what Jesus had done. And her husband was not coming to church. He did not believe in Jesus.

He would not proclaim himself or identify himself as a Christian. And they were praying for him. And after some time, her husband ended up coming to church. And he actually became friends with our pastor.

And through that relationship with our pastor, Ben heard the gospel, understood who Jesus was and what he'd done and gave his life to Jesus. And prior to this, prior to Ben's salvation, him and Enno were in an abusive relationship where there was, Ben was abusing her in some more violent ways. And after he had given his life to Jesus, something changed in their marriage. All of a sudden, the things that he used to do, he began to be convicted for in his spirit, you know, in his heart that what I'm doing is wrong.

And through that, he began to lead his marriage differently, right? And actually Enno was, so we have a Bible school at our church and Enno wanted to go to this Bible school. It was something she really wanted to do. But if she would go to our Bible school, it meant that Ben, her husband, would have to take on a lot of the roles in the house, taking care of the children, cooking breakfast for them.

And in the culture in Kenya, where we are, and I know this is a shocker for us in the West, but they're very much, a man does not take care of the children. And that's like, and that's like, that's their culture. It's not, it's not that they're trying to be mean. That's their culture.

And that's how they do things. So from man to cook breakfast or to cook the tea in the morning, and to take the kids to school to dress them, it's just completely opposite, you know? They're culture, men kill lions, they don't make tea. Seriously, they're a must- It's not kidding.

It's not kidding. It's a good look at the must-eye tribe. So, but Ben, because of the work of the Holy Spirit in his life, just like Jesus humbled himself and served us, Ben humbled himself and began to serve his wife, and began to address the kids and began to cook breakfast for them so his wife could go off and to do this Bible school. And I don't, maybe it's a you, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but to him, it's like the biggest deal.

Without the work of the Holy Spirit in his life, that would not have been taking place. And then even Ben's brother and his sister-in-law gave their lives to Jesus. And now their whole family is coming to our church and their four, six kids. And just a powerful demonstration of what the gospel and the power of God and the grace of God through the Holy Spirit can do in someone's life.

And I know there's many people in here who have experienced the grace of God making us look more like Christ, amen? And I want to just read the scripture, because I think it really just shows so much of what we see in Ben's life and Edna's life. It's in Titus 2, 11 to 14. It says this, for the grace of God, God's his undeserved favor has appeared that offers salvation to all people.

It teaches us to say no, everyone say no. It teaches us to deny some things. How many of you know, sometimes we need to say no to some things our flesh wants to do. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live, everyone say live.

It teaches us how to live, the grace of God, the Holy Spirit teaches us how to live a different way. To live self-controlled upright and golly lives in this present age, in this life. While we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. So the grace of God, according to the apostles, it teaches us to deny things, to live according to new things, gollyness, and then also to look forward to Christ's return where, you know, revelation says there'll be no more tear and they'll, I won't get into all that because of time, but the joy of salvation.

So we see this, how the gospel is redeeming and restoring individuals' lives, but also parts of culture that aren't good. There's many people in our church who have multiple wives. According to the Bible, we believe that, you know, it's one man and one woman in a marriage. And so we get to partner with them and see the Holy Spirit working in their lives and the grace of God working in their lives to now they used to treat one wife much different than the other wife, but now they start to serve and love each of their wives differently.

And now I'm getting to other stuff. I won't get into that discipleship material. No, but the thing of everyone's like, what? But that's the culture.

But it's God redeeming and restoring cultures through the gospel, through the work of his Holy Spirit. So I believe that, and I know many of you have experienced that in your own life and have experienced that in your community, but that's what we're seeing as well in Kilgore's. And even Ezekiel 36, 26 to 27, it says, it's God speaking. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.

I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, a heart that loves and desires to follow him. And I will put my spirit, the Holy Spirit in you, and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my law. So it's not our great strength, and of course, we're partnering with the Holy Spirit's work in our life, but it is his grace. But I just like Paul says, it was his grace, but also Paul was working.

And as the grace was moving, as Paul was working, we see what happened through his life. And now I'm getting off topic a little bit. Okay, number three, everyone say deliverance. So we've been the gospel, has the power to deliver people, to set people free from today.

We're really gonna focus on specifically possession when someone is fully possessed by a demon. But we know that the devil does many things. He loves to build strongholds in our lives through lies, you know, the battlefield of the mind that takes place. And that can be around lust and anger and unforgiveness and bitterness.

And there's so many different ways that the enemy loves to build up strongholds in our lives. But when I'm speaking about deliverance today, I believe that God wants to deliver us from all those things, but I guess our stories are specifically speaking to those who have been possessed by a demon. So I remember, it wasn't the first time I experienced this, but we were in Kampala, Uganda. And I remember there was a woman who was brought into the freedom tent.

And I'll tell you this, because it's one story that's always really impacted me throughout the years. And she was brought into the freedom tent. And I started, the freedom tent is a place where we cast out demons. We believe in the supernatural that there's both angels and demons, that the devil and demons left to steal or to kill and destroy from what God loves.

And God loves people, amen? Because people have eternal value. Okay, so there was a woman who was brought in and she was laid before me. And she was speaking humanly possible, how fast her mouth was moving, it wasn't possible.

And I remember she was saying this, or the demon was speaking through her mouth saying this, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex. She's kept saying, Alex. And as the demon was speaking, I just commanded the demon to be silenced. We have authority in Jesus name to tell demons to be quiet.

And they listen. And I binded the demon and I told it to leave and the woman was set free from the demon. We led her to salvation in Jesus and she was even baptized in the Holy Spirit. And then she was so touched by what took place that she wanted to be baptized in water.

And we had a baptism pool outside of our freedom tent. And remember baptism and water, it's, you know, our old life is being crucified and we're coming into a new life with Christ. And as she went down under the water and she came back up, they brought her out of the pool. And then I began to talk to her about what her story was.

And she began to tell me that her uncle took care of her from a young age but was violent, but also there was sexual abuse that was taking place. And even witchcraft that he would do different things, I won't get into specifics over her. And he tattooed the name Alex upon her skin. And this demon was identifying itself as Alex.

And that was a spirit that was really tormenting her and possessing her for many years. And she said that as she went into the pool, you know, her old life was being crucified. It was being done away with. And God was bringing her to resurrection life, you know, new power in him.

She said, and she showed me her risk that the tattoo of Alex was gone off of her skin after she came up out of the water. And that's, you know, that's the power of the gospel that, you know, our old life is gone. We've come into a new life. We're a new creation in Christ and with Christ.

So that was always one that really showed me, you know, the power of the gospel. Yeah. My story is from the first trip I went on with SOS. It was in Kibalha, Tanzania.

And I actually think I told this story here the last time we were here, but I'm gonna tell it again, because it's an awesome one. And it really showed me the power of the name of Jesus and the authority of Jesus over the demonic. And I remember it was my first mission trip to Africa. And after evangelist Johannes preaches the gospel from the stage, he begins to bind and to call out the demons.

And so people begin to manifest and come into the freedom tent, but it's the power of the gospel, you know, when the gospel is preached, signs and wonders follow. And so I was told I was gonna be in the freedom tent that night. So I was there waiting, a little nervous because it was my first time. And I really had no experience except I knew the authority and the name of Jesus was what I needed to lean on it to depend on.

And so a woman was brought into the freedom tent and I began to pray for her and called the demons out. And the demon began to speak and say, you can't have her back. I've marked her. She's mine.

I've marked her. And I looked at her arms and there was markings all down her arms of snakes and different images. And I just began to rebuke that and say, no, she's marked by the blood of Jesus. And after a few minutes, she was actually, yeah, she was delivered.

And afterwards I led her to salvation and she was baptized in the Holy Spirit. There's a photo up here and she was just yelling, Asante as, it was Asante as, which means thank you Jesus and she was crying. And I began to learn her story. And what happened was in 1999, which struck me because it was as long as I had been alive, I was born in 1999, she had trouble with infertility.

So she was unable to have children. And so she ended up going to a witch doctor, which is pretty common, you know, any stuff or because she needed a solution to her problem. And so she went there. And, you know, the devil has some power in this world, but there's always a cost.

So she was able to have children after she went to the witch doctor, but there was a cost. And so after she gave birth, she had no memory of any of her children. So she went years and years having, I think five, I think there was five children. That could be a mistake, but I think there was five children.

But the cost was that she had no memory of her children. She didn't know that she was their mother. And so she was kind of written off in the community as kind of going crazy. And this, who is this lady?

She doesn't even know who her kids are. But thankfully she had a couple of people around her that raised her kids and kind of took care of them while she wasn't mentally there. And the beautiful thing about this story is that her kids were the ones who brought her to the festival this night. So her five kids and they're assuming their last ditch attempt to get their mom back brought their mom to this festival where they knew that Jesus was going to be preached.

And so right after she was delivered, all of these memories began flooding back to her of the 21 years that she had lost with her kids. And so they were reconciled, they were reunited as a family. And she was really restored that night, which is such a powerful testimony of the power of the gospel. That when the gospel is preached, you know, people are delivered and families are restored and stories are being rewritten.

And I think that story is just so powerful. But I want to read the scripture to you from Luke 10, verses 17 through 20. It's when Jesus sent out 72 and they're returning. It says, the 72 returned with joy and said, Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.

He replied, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirit submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

At that time, Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you're pleased to do. How many of you know that we have authority in Christ because his name is above every name? And even the demons have to submit to his authority because it's a higher authority.

And the Bible says that Jesus has given us authority to trample over snakes and scorpions, so that when we proclaim the name of Jesus, the demons have to go, they have to submit. And I know that this was not for my intellect or for my experience, because I knew nothing going into that except the name of Jesus and that the gospel has the power. It carries the weight of salvation and the weight to deliver people from demons and from strongholds and from all the demonic. So I want to read a quote to you.

It says, this is from Charles Spurgeon. It says, so where the gospel is preached with divine power, Satan comes down from his throne in human hearts and human minds as rapidly as lightning flash falls from heaven. And when we see his kingdom shaken, then like Jesus, we rejoice in spirit. So where the gospel is preached, Satan has to come down from his throne.

He has to be taken down from his throne because the name of Jesus carries victory, the victory of the cross that he triumphed over him on the cross. And there's a scripture that actually says that in Colossians 2. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. So when we enforce and use the authority of Jesus, it actually disarms the dark powers.

And it takes away the weapons that Satan has in his age to use against people. And we actually see the victory of Jesus on display. And people are saved and delivered and families are restored. And the last scripture I want to read, first John 5, 4, everyone born of God overcomes the world.

This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. So the victory of Jesus is what we stand on in deliverance. We know when the power of the gospel comes that the power, the deliverance power is coming to a city. I mean, it's really beautiful.

I believe that will happen in your community too. I've seen people delivered from demons in Pittsburgh. And it's a beautiful thing because we say, oh, this only happens in other countries, but it's not true. We just have to go with an expectation to see people delivered and to know that the gospel, when you preach the gospel, the deliverance in signs and wonders will follow the preaching of the gospel.

Absolutely. Now, we just want to go into this last one. I know we're getting close to our time here. So let's go into the last one, the gospel has the power to heal.

Everyone say, heal. Heal. Let's make sure you're still with me. Who had their coffee this morning?

In a donut. In a donut. Praise God for Dunkin' Donuts. I actually don't know where those donuts are found, but I don't think they're Dunkin' Donuts.

They're probably better than. OK. OK. So we had this super wonderful testimony that took place when we were in Dakar, Senegal.

This is a country of 95% are not believers. So there was a ton of really the miraculous that we saw upon the streets. And I'll have Olivia share one story that we saw. Yeah, the festival in Dakar was a little bit of a tough one because there was a ton of rain.

There was flooding. All the streets were just filled with water. And so the festival feel actually flooded. But the beautiful thing.

It looked like a pond. Yeah, it looked like a river flowing through the streets. It's a bummer. So we had to cancel a couple nights at the festival.

But the street outreaches that we were able to have were just amazing and super powerful testimonies came out of them. But during our festivals, during the daytime, before the festival starts, we send out teams onto the streets to preach the gospel and to pray for the sick. And so on one of the street outreaches, they were preaching the gospel on the corner. And there was a man that had been crippled for two years who was sitting and actually laying on the side of the road.

I think we have a picture of. Wait, we should. Yeah. That guy reveals what happens.

Oh, man. Totally blew that. I think he gave it away. It's OK.

But he's walking. He walks now. Oh, yes. Anyway, this man had a friend who was really his caretaker for the two years that he was crippled and unable to take care of himself.

He would bring him water and food and basically everything he needed to survive. This man that you see on the left here, he was just the best friend to him. And so after the gospel's preach, his friend came over to our team and said, can you please pray for my friend? He's been crippled.

I believe Jesus can heal him. So they laid their hands on him. And he snowed up and started to walk down the street. A man who'd been crippled for two years is like strengthened and the power of God healed him, which is super powerful.

That's powerful in itself. But then after that, the friend was like, I have a business that I want you to come to right now. And I'm going to shut the whole business down. And I want you to do this exact thing, but do it there for all of them.

So they took all their system and everybody walked over to the business. And it was actually 300 women in this business that were working. And they shut everything down. And they said, everybody listen to what they have to say.

And so they preached the gospel to them. And there were 66 women that were saved that day that were Muslim women. Yeah. Isn't that awesome?

So this miracle actually created an open door for 66 Muslim women to be saved that day, which is just an incredible story. Absolutely. And that's things that we pray for you that as you move in faith that God will move through you, that you'll see doors open and that allow you to preach the gospel to more people or that allow you to bring more glory to the name of Jesus. And when I hear that story, I think about an ax where Paul is on an island, Malta, and how he prays for one of the leaders over the island and how the leaders healed.

And then through that, it allows him to preach to all these people. And I don't know, maybe one day you preach over one of your friends and she gets healed. And then she wants you to come tell her family about what happened. Yeah.

I don't know what would take place in your life. But I pray that you'll have that faith to move in the gospel and its power in and through your life. Just like Paul said, I boast in only Christ and what he's done through me, not what I can do in my own strength. So let me finish with this last story.

And it's a video. Did the video come through? Let's see. I was scared it might be a black screen.

OK. So I'll tell you, it was a little hard to hear anyway. I have to store the video on my phone if anyone after she ever wants to see it. But it was a man by the name of Alex.

And in the video, he's telling the testimony about what happened. So we had done a small festival. It was a small stage in a city in Kenya a few months ago. And we had one of our co-workers.

I think he's been here before. His name's Fernando. He was preaching from the stage. And after he preached the gospel, he then asked anyone who was sick to raise up their hands.

And he was going to pray for them from the stage. And Alex, who's in this video, is telling me how he keeps calling Fernando the pastor. He was like, once the pastor told me to raise my hands. I raised my hands.

And he's just super. It's a really beautiful video because he's being so genuine. And he's saying, the pastor told me to raise my hands. And I raised my hands.

And he was telling me how when he came into the festival that night, he had a large swelling on his head that he's had for over three years. And he's gone to many doctors. He's gone to many hospitals, what she talks about in the video. And they didn't give him any type of anything that could help what was going on with his head.

And he said that as he raised his hand and as the pastor prayed, he said it felt like something hit the back of his head. And the swelling that he came in with like this was gone, and that his head was normal. So super powerful. Sorry.

I'm sorry I couldn't get that video. I was worried that that might happen. But if you really want to see it, I have it on my phone. And I'd love to show you.

And let me just read one scripture about healing. And then we'll start to wrap it up here. It says, when you read Acts 8, Acts 8, 5 to 7, talks about the Philip as he went out to preach. It says, Philip went down to the city in Samaria, and he proclaimed the Messiah there.

He proclaimed about Jesus. And when the crowd heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks and impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. And then there's another story about how when Jesus sends out his disciples, he tells them to heal the sick and to declare that the kingdom of God, God's restoration power is in that place.

And I believe that healing is a part of the gospel message that God still heals, that it's his will to heal. And we can't get into all that, the scriptures that back that up tonight, but that's just a story that happened two months, three months ago, that shows that God still heals. Amen. Yeah, so I think as we go from this place, and you're thinking of what can I really take away from this, what we would say is your application point or your takeaway should be preached the gospel with an expectation and with faith that God will move.

You know, a preacher, by preaching the gospel, the word preach is really talking about being a herald. And a herald is someone who takes the message from a king and goes and proclaims it to their community and to their people. And so that's really what you're doing, you know? The Bible says that God's entrusted us to the ministry of reconciliation.

And he's entrusted to us this gospel, that when we take it and we take it with faith and with an expectation to see people say that it will, that the gospel is power to save, that people's lives will be transformed. You know, the people in your workplaces, in your community, when you're walking along the streets in Cumberland, I believe that you're going to meet people and you're going to see people and hear the Holy Spirit speak to you to say share the gospel with this person, pray for this person with faith. And I believe even now faith is building in this room. And I hope that every one of you will take a story away from this that really built your faith and inspired you and that spoke to you about the power of God.

And I think that God wants to begin to use you as his mouthpiece in this community to share the gospel and proclaim the good news with faith and with joy. Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to finish off by reading this scripture and I really just want to pray this scripture over you as a church. So I'll read the scripture and then I'll always want to pray over everyone who's in the room.

And then we're going to go into one last, well, we're going to go into some worship here where we just want to allow and give just a, give some minutes for the Holy Spirit just to move and to touch us today because I believe that the Holy Spirit, he loves to move and he loves to show his power and to bring Jesus glory. So as we go into worship after I pray, if anyone's here and you know, if you're sick with something, if you've been struggling with something, even if it's lust, if it's bitterness, if it's anger, whatever it may be, we just want to open a space where we can pray for you and allow the Holy Spirit to move in your life, even if you're here and you want to give your life to Jesus or to rededicate your life to Jesus. We just want to have some prayer people up here. Me and Olivia will be here just to open that space to allow the Holy Spirit to move because we believe he will.

Does that sound good? Does that make sense? So once we're going to worship, don't run off just yet. Let's allow, let's give time to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us as we worship and invite him into this place.

So the scripture verse that really came to my heart as I was thinking about this morning was a scripture in Acts chapter four and the disciples, they were facing persecution. They were actually facing persecution from some of the religious people of that day. And I believe that in today's society, especially in America, when you move in faith, you're going to have persecution from religious people too. They're going to say you move in a way you shouldn't move or I don't agree with everything you do and that's okay.

But also I believe we live in a society right now where the gospel, where the Christian message isn't really desired. It doesn't really fit into what our culture is pushing is right is wrong. And so I think in today, especially in America, as believers, we need to have that boldness, right? That spirit like Olivia said, well we're heralds, where we're proclaiming this message and we're stepping out of fear.

And even if it means that, you know, people might not agree with us or maybe we'll lose a friend. But if it means preaching a message that has eternal significance for people, it matters. And I think of course we need to be a church who preaches with truth and with love, you know grace. I'm not saying we should just go out and you're all going to hell.

No, I don't think that's the great best way to preach. But I do think we need that boldness, that the disciples prayed for in our society today because I think culture is changing. And so I want us to be a bold church, amen? So I'll read the scripture and then I'll pray for us.

And it says this, the disciples, as they were speaking, they said, now Lord, and they're praying to God, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Everyone say great boldness. So they're saying, God, we know that they're threatening us. They're telling us we shouldn't preach this, that they don't agree with what we preach.

But God, give us boldness to preach anyways. And then verse 30, and they ask God, stretch out your hands to heal and to perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. Now let me just pray for us. So if you're here in the room, you can close your eyes and keep your eyes open.

But I look for you to put your hands out like this. I think like you're receiving a gift. I just wanted to impart and pray that spirit of boldness over us. So right now God, for everyone in this room who's listening, who's under, who can hear my voice, I just pray that we would have a spirit, not a spirit of timidity, not a spirit of fear.

But what would you give us a spirit of boldness, a spirit of power that comes from your holy spirit who is within us and when he's within us, God. We know that we walk with resurrection power in every place that we go, in every place that we step foot into, Lord. And I ask God that as we preach about what your son Jesus has done, and we ask and we pray with faith, God, that you would stretch out your hand to perform signs and wonders in every place that we go. May it take place in the Walmart or may it take place in the Chick-fil-A, may it take place in the hospitals, may it take place at our auto shop, may it take place as we walk on the street, may it take place in our family as we get together, God, may we step in and may we preach this simple, but powerful gospel and may eternal life come to those who hear, Lord, we pray and we ask these things, God.

Would you just give us that spirit of hunger, Lord, like we see in the early church, that they just had a burden, Lord, to preach what you've done, Jesus, to preach about your victory over sin, to preach about your victory over death, to preach about your victory over every sickness and every disease and to preach about the hope of eternal life through your son Jesus, Lord, we pray and we ask all these things in your mighty name, God, may we be a church who rises up and is your army here on earth, not an army that comes with violence or with anger, but an army that comes with joy, an army that comes with peace, an army that comes with the supernatural power of God into the places where we step, please. Lord, as we preach may, may gifts of your spirit be distributed according to your will, God. And Jesus, mighty name, we pray these things.