You can turn in your Bibles to Romans 12. Yeah, I'm going to pray before we hop into the message here. Thank you, Lord. Lord, we say as your people, we want to be those that come up under your word.
And whatever you say goes. So when you say something, we want to be found as good and faithful servants that obey your word and take your word seriously. And we want to have your responses to what happens in our daily lives, in our daily lives as individuals, as families, as groups of friends, as cities, as a country. Lord, we want to have right responses to the current events of our day.
And so, God, we ask that you would help us by the power of your Holy Spirit to actually rightly divide current events, the Kingdom Way. We want to grow up. We want to become mature. You said in Hebrews that this is spiritual maturity that we would discern between good and evil.
So give us discernment to discern between what is good and what is evil as your children, as your sons and daughters. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. The plan for this week was that we would be talking about the final parable in our series on the Kingdom of Heaven.
And unfortunately, we're not talking about that. We are going to have to delay the parable of the 10 virgins. So someday. OK?
But as Katie and I were praying about today, we really felt like the Lord was wanting to help us as a people understand what his heart is for the tragedy that happened this week in our city with the shooting that took place at Annunciation and what the Lord's heart is for it and how we as the people of God respond in these moments, how we are to perceive what's taking place, how we are to carry God's heart, how the world responds, how we get to respond as a people. And so I think a lot of times what can happen is the church in these moments can have a reaction to tragedy that is very similar to the world or sometimes even worse than the world. And as the people of God, we actually want to carry his heart in these moments, especially when it's in our city. And I think as a city, we've had moments like this in the past and maybe have not known how to process this information and process pain and blood in the streets that are crying out.
And as a people, I want us as a community to go, I know that in these moments the Lord is maturing me to respond the way that he would respond. One of the first things that is important for us as the people of God to understand is when tragedy happens, when wickedness prevails, when demonic things take place, and when people that are influenced by evil spirits carry out heinous crimes and activities, and the innocent are lost. In those moments, we cannot be surprised as the people of God. We can't be shocked when evil happens in our culture.
And let me tell you why the people of God cannot be shocked, because what happens is if the church is surprised by sin and the church is surprised by tragedy, the church will sit on the sidelines when tragedy hits a city. Because the church then has to try to pick up the pieces and try to parse through the tragedy in the sidelines rather than knowing, well, I know that this age is evil. I know that there's brokenness in the world. I'm not surprised by this.
Jesus actually warned me that this was going to happen. Jesus warned me that this is the way of the world. So I actually have a foundation of understanding to process tragedy. I want to read a couple of verses, and I'm just going to kind of pass through them really quick.
And I just want to read a couple of phrases from scriptures that are Jesus' commentary about culture, that are the apostles' commentary about culture, so that we can start understanding, oh, you're right, I don't need to be surprised by wickedness. I don't need to be surprised by sin. Now, as I'm reading this, I don't want you to misunderstand me. Because you could misunderstand me and go, we are to be numb to tragedy and wickedness.
Or we are to have cold hearts and hearts and go, yeah, I was assuming that. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is that we need to take heed of what the Lord is saying and go, okay, when that happens, I have a context biblically for it, all right? Are you guys ready?
John 3, verse 19, people love darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil. John 15, 18, I'm gonna kind of pore through them, so if you're turning to every single one, you left behind. John 15, verse 18, if the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you. Matthew 24, lawlessness will increase in the last days.
In other words, rebellion will increase in the last days and the love of many is gonna grow cold. Romans 1, this is what the ways of the world is. They are filled, people that don't know Jesus, people that have rebellion in their hearts towards God, that have been given over to the flesh. They're gonna be filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, sorry, I'm getting a little feedback, so just, if there's sound issues, just ignore it.
They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, they are gossips, slanders, haters of God, insolent, prideful and haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. In the last days, in 2 Timothy 3, there will come times of difficulty. People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control. They will be brutal, not loving good, treacherous.
They will be reckless and swollen with pride, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Ephesians 2, they will follow the course of the world. They will follow the prince of the power of the air, Satan himself, they will follow him, the spirit that is now work in the sons of disobedience. This is a present evil age, as Galatians 1 says.
And in 1 John 5, 19, it says that we know what we are from God, and the whole world lies under the power of the evil one. Genesis 6 talks about the days of Noah. And Jesus says in Matthew 24 and 25, but at the end of the age, the last days, it will be like the days of Noah. And in the days of Noah, in Genesis 6 verse 5, it says this, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
When the church is surprised that sinners sin, that's a problem, okay? When sinners sin, that should be par for the course from our perspective as the church. So when sinners give themselves over to all sorts of evil and creating evil, that is not surprising for the church. We are not shocked by sinners sinning.
That is by nature who they are. Their core identity is, I serve self. They have not been given the Holy Spirit. They have not been made righteous in the Spirit.
They've not been justified. They've not been set apart and made holy unto the Lord. They've not been born again with a new nature. So their old nature, their sin nature, their nature is more like Satan's than it is the Lord's.
Is that right? So as the people of God, number one, is we are not surprised by wickedness. And we are not surprised when demonic spirits have opened doors into souls that are given over to evil. When tragedy happens, we need to be able to discern whose fault is this?
Because that is the question in these moments, isn't it? Oftentimes what happens is the world goes right into who do we point the finger at? That's human nature because Adam, after the first sin, you remember that? He goes in and God says, where are you?
The Lord knew where he was, but anyways he asks him, where are you? Then Adam responds, what does he respond with? You God, it's your fault because you gave me this woman. So it's your fault and it's her fault.
That is human nature, to go, where do we point the finger? And that is what the church often does in these moments of tragedy. Oftentimes the church starts pointing the finger just like who? The accuser of the brethren, just like Satan.
It's the language of lies and the language of accusation. That's how the enemy works in these moments. So the enemy doesn't go, that was a great moment here where there was death, loss and destruction. Instead he goes, now there's gonna be a snowball effect of accusation and bitterness and resentment and blaming different groups of people.
So now there's gonna be more division and more bad fruit. Yeah? And then he says, I'm gonna find some Christians that really like stirring the pot as well. I'm gonna find Christians that actually, okay, I'm gonna stay on course.
In these moments, the church, oftentimes, has too much commentary. The church has too much to say. Okay? We're all trying to make sense of the brokenness, the pain of it all, right?
And I'm not just talking about the circumstance, I'm just talking about the pain of life. And we need to understand that there's culprits of evil at play and that God is not in heaven. Now this, I just wanna name this. All throughout this community, there's gonna be maybe different beliefs on this and you can still be a part of this community and love Jesus and be born again and land in a different spot, okay?
And there's a lot of theologians that will study this topic of sovereignty of God. That's not the main point of the message, isn't a message on sovereignty. But I have to address it, okay? But theologians will study this for decades and decades and decades and land on different sides of the topic.
And then vehemently just go at each other in arguing about it, all right? But as a community, as we look at the scriptures, we see that God has actually laid out the foundations of how the world continues on since the garden. And one of the first things that you need to understand is that God is not, as I look at the scriptures, and there's mystery in this. I wanna name, there's mystery, okay?
So I'm not saying, oh man, I gotta give some qualifiers. Listen, this is what I believe. There's even different opinions on our pastoral staff on how we approach the topic of sovereignty. But I want you to know that 10 years down the road, I'm saying all these things and 10 years down the road, I might have to come to the community and I might have to go, hey, I missed it.
I said this and I'm actually wrong. And what I hope from you is that you're actually testing what your pastors are saying. Your pastor might confidently give a message and cast vision for it and show you in the word, but you don't take my word for it. You go and search out truth yourself.
We actually have to study the Bible ourselves. Don't take my word for it or the podcast or the YouTube videos word for it. Stop doing that, okay? Well, I heard this preacher say that, and that preacher say this.
Awesome, what do you say as you look at the scriptures and you look at centuries of centuries of centuries of the scriptures being studied by the people of God? Like let's all study the word, okay? All right, because I could be wrong. You listen to me, I could be wrong on this.
All right? As I look at the scriptures, I don't see the Lord in a control room orchestrating evil. I do not see the Lord pulling strings of evil to teach us lessons, okay? But a lot of times when bad things happen, I remember when I was a young man and I would screw up or I was in impurity.
Do you know what I was believing? There was all of these things where God was going to orchestrate evil in my life to start teaching me lessons so that I would repent. And I just want to name that's not how the Lord leads. The Lord leads and he goes, I discipline those that I love, but I'm not passive aggressive in my leadership.
The Lord is one that goes, I'm going to guide you and I want to speak to you and my kindness is going to lead you to repentance. I don't need to use demons to get a point across for you. I don't need to use demonic means to get a return on the investment of righteousness. The kingdom is not divided.
How many of you know that Jesus as he's sleeping in the boat on his way to actually bring deliverance to legion for the man that has legion? Gosh. That as he's sleeping in the boat, he is not tossing a storm over the lake that they're on. The Lord is not divided in his kingdom.
Well, how do we make sense of that story? Well, there's culprits of evil in this world. The first one is that humanity is very broken. We just read verse after verse after verse and it's basically, if I could sum it all up, people are evil, people sin.
And what happens when people are evil and they sin, whether they're believers that sin or they're non-believers that sin, there's consequences for sin and sin starts multiplying and it creates what? Pain. There's a lot of trauma in this room. And the majority of the trauma in this room is because people sinned against you.
Not because God was trying to teach you a lesson through the abuse from that person that was actually just broken. And we try to put the band-aid on it of what God works all things for the good of those who love him. And this, I would have never experienced God in this way if I hadn't gone through this so that we feel better. And I just got to name it.
That should have never happened to you. God wasn't the one behind that. God's not the one that did that. God's not the one that willed that and desired for that to happen just so you would encounter him in this way.
No, that whole thing happened because people sin because bad things take place and bad things happen. Some of us are going, well, I thought it was like God's leadership and it's beautiful. No, no, no, no, what's beautiful is this? That he's so good that he can take the hellish thing that happened to you.
And he's so good, even though he wasn't a part of making it happen, even though he's not the one that was behind it happening, he is so masterful and good as a Lord that he can even take those bad evil things happen to you and he can turn them for your good. You see, that's different than the perspective that I've suffered year after year. I've had all of these bad things happening. And God is the one that was doing all of it to me, but I give God glory.
I wanna tell you, you give God glory because he is so masterful he can turn it all for your good because you love him. But man, humanity is broken. Okay? The next culprit of evil is that we live in a broken world.
Romans A says that creation is subjected to futility. In other words, all of creation is broken. When Adam and Eve sin, now the earth is out of alignment and it's broken and it needs to get renewed. Right?
It needs, that's why it says in Romans A, that the earth is groaning for the sons of God to be revealed and actually exercise dominion and steward the earth. How many of you know that the son of man, God, he's gonna come down and he's gonna really steward the earth well? Right now, things are, creation is broken. Life is bad things just happen on planet earth.
Some of us are like, well, when I look at what I've experienced, it wasn't even that someone was sinning against me and it wasn't on purpose, but something just happened. Yeah? And those are sometimes the most difficult things to process because you're going, this was just a freak thing. How do I process that?
Who do I blame? And you just go, life is broken and the world is broken, but God is not the one up here. Go in, I'm gonna have this freak thing happen. Okay?
God is not the one that's behind hurricanes. And toward tornado, if God was the one, I love using this example. Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, you look at the most evil streets in New Orleans, all the bars, the strip clubs, so much immorality that's happening on that street, that street goes untouched with Hurricane Katrina. All of the residential areas, completely obliterated, even a couple of streets away, completely destroyed.
But we on our insurance plan say that storms are acts of God. And I've got to tell you that he has horrible aim. If he's trying to teach New Orleans a lesson because of their wickedness, are you hearing me? Okay.
The free will of humans, broken humans, culprit of evil and pain number one, creation is subjected to futility, Romans eight, number two. And demonic evil powers, number three, you can turn your Bibles to John 10. I just want you to see this on the page. I know that many of you know this, maybe by heart.
Jesus talking about himself being the good shepherd. I want you to look at John 10, 10. Says this, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And then Jesus contrasts his kingdom and his way.
And he says, but I came, that you may have life and have it abundantly. Next verse says, I'm even gonna lay down my life for you. If it is destruction and killing and stealing, that's bad. If it's life and life abundantly, that's good.
Jesus says, Satan and demons and the enemy bring bad. And I am Jesus and I come and I bring good. And you're like, yeah, duh. And then all of a sudden, Christianese starts flooding out of our mouths because we have so much commentary on the brokenness of life.
And we don't know what to say because we feel uncomfortable when there's grief and mourning. And then we give God the credit for what the enemy did. Or what just happened because we live in a fallen world. We say things like, well, the Lord needed another angel in heaven.
No, he didn't. No. He wasn't in need of one more in heaven. Okay.
He's not the Lord that's going, I, it was really their time to go. No. This broken moment happened and our world is fallen and it's evil and it was never supposed to be this way. This was never supposed to happen.
But we've got Christians that are giving their commentary, giving God the credit for the death, loss, and destruction. And I just want to name, we got to stop. Because I don't know, I believe one of the greatest things that has resulted in people leaving the faith is a misunderstanding on the sovereignty of God. How could an evil God fill in the blink?
How could an evil God let this happen? How could an evil God let this happen? And I just want you to know most of those conversations are actually accusations against the problem of sin, against the demonic. And there's all of this evil, and our world is broken, but we're thinking he's got strings.
Okay. I can give more commentary, but this isn't a message on sovereignty. But I just like, you must answer these questions as a follower of Jesus and seek this topic out because the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous. Stuff happens to all of us.
Diagnosis has come in, things happen, and we start giving God the credit for these things and we get confused. And we just got to go, no, but I want to know the truth. Okay. When that's not confusing, and we're not surprised by tragedy and sin.
We can go right into a rightful response when tragedy hits. And the tragedy hits and we go, this is the question. Instead of, okay, what does the world do? The world goes into blame game accusation.
The world says, what type of system created this problem? And how can we politicize this? How can we actually start naming all of the brokenness of the whole scenario? Because we got somebody to blame, right?
And so it's because of gun laws, it's because of legislation in Minnesota on gender, it's because of the oppression of organized religion on the LGBTQ, oh man, the LGBTQ, ugh. So many letters, LGBTQ community. That's never happened to be before. It's because, fill in the blank, it's because of Israel and the war in Palestine.
It's because of Donald Trump, no, it's because of Obama. Yeah, it's somebody's fault. And usually within the hour of tragedy, there's accusation that follows in a firestorm of opinions that happen in the world, but also from believers. And I want to call us into, no, the rightful response is zippurlips, and we go into Lord, what do you feel?
The world says, why did this happen? And who can I blame? The believer says, what's your heart, God? The believer turns to the sympathetic high priest that has empathy, the God of all comfort, the God of all compassion, and he or she goes, Lord, what's your heart?
For all of the parties that I play, all of the people that I could blame, what's your heart? For the shooter's parents, what's your heart? For those that are in our city, that are struggling with gender dysphoria, or from the transgender community, Lord, what's your heart? When they wake up the next morning, what's your heart for them?
Most of the time the church is bringing accusation, holding up our signs, and I just want to name the people of God, they're right in tune with the Lord. You're going, Lord, I don't know what to think. This is so wrong. What do you feel?
Romans 12, if you want to turn back there. I want to name that I'm not minimizing the role of the government or boundaries that the government sets to create human flourishing. And I'm not saying that that doesn't have value. And I'm not saying that your vote doesn't have value.
It does have value. Not saying that there's something wrong innately with the governmental sphere, and that it isn't important. It is important. But we live in a kingdom where Jesus didn't decide that he was going to set up the core of his kingdom on the earth, and he wasn't going to hand over his kingdom to a bunch of magistrates in Rome.
Rome was the power center of the earth when Jesus was alive. Rome was the most powerful empire. So if God's strategy is top-down transformation for culture, then what he would have done is he would have strategically got on the inside of the Roman army, Roman politics. He would have, instead of bringing accusation to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, he would have actually gotten on the inside of that power structure to advance his kingdom from the top down.
But instead, guess what he does? He says, oh, you followed John the Baptist, the guy that eats locust for breakfast? Come on board. And then he says, oh, you're hated by all of God's people, you're a tax collector.
Come on board to my team. Oh, you're a zealot that especially hates tax collectors. You guys sit on the bus together. And then he says, oh, you're a foul-mouthed fisherman?
They're just 13, 14 years old? Come on board. Peter, the oldest one who's in his 20s. Be a little bit more quiet, but you're on the team.
That's his strategy? Oh, Mary Magdalene, the one that had seven demons cast out of her. Yep, you're on board. You're part of the inner circle.
You guys, Pontus Pilate was not on his team. Herod, King Herod wasn't on the team. But we as Christians, we are thinking, see, this is what we do. We go, if Elon Musk would just surrender to Jesus.
And I love the idea of him surrendering to the Lord. But if Donald would just surrender to Jesus, or maybe you guys are like, no, he already has. And you got to listen. I want you to know that God's strategy for America to encounter the Lamb is not to save all of the top 50 CEOs of America and all of the Senate and all of the House of Representatives.
God's strategy isn't a takeover of every sphere of society. It's not God's strategy. Despite what you grew up in, despite how you got trained, God's strategy isn't OK, if just those top people surrender, then it's just a domino effect. I love that.
I love the idea of that. So amazing. And I want them to surrender to Jesus. It's amazing.
I love it. It's powerful. But he has a way of just going, no, I'm going to get all of the people that don't think that they deserve to be on the team. They're going to be the all-stars.
And they're going to get in the game. All of the people that they think are disqualified, like Gideon, remember, he's like, I'm the least of my tribe. And my tribe, my family line, is the least of all the other tribes of Israel. Why are you calling my name?
And that's how most of us feel. And I want you to know, you're on the team. However disqualified you feel from your past, God's strategy is to activate all of us to bring the kingdom of heaven in every sphere of society. And it is not for you to take over the company that you're serving, because you're a Christian.
It's not for you to take over the industry that you're in. It's not for you to be the most powerful broker in the sphere of the arts and media, or politics, or religion, or education, or health care. No, no, no. You are a faithful, obedient servant of God, that wherever you go, flourishing happens, chaos turns to shalom.
And you, the greatest reward is not even impact for you. Oh, no. The greatest reward isn't revival for you. The greatest reward is you standing before the Lord and him going, well done.
You were a good and faithful leader of a Fortune 500 company that really caused amazing things to happen in transformed culture in America. You really took that whole thing over and you really influenced a lot of people. My son, no. Well done.
Good and faithful, lowly servants. Just like the one that didn't promote himself, that was humble, that was obedient to the point of death on the cross. We just sang about that in Philippians 2. That's what we worship him for.
But we think, as Americans, know it's culture war time. It's takeover time. That's not even Jesus' strategy. Jesus' strategy is that we'd be more like a Romans 12 people.
Would you just read this with me, Romans 12? I believe this is what God wants for the Church of the Twin Cities, not just every day as a community. But this is kind of his design for us, OK? Within the context of what's happened this week, I want you to read this with me, Romans 12 verse 9, that love be genuine.
Hate what is evil. I was talking to an administrator in a school that's in South Minneapolis, actually at the 230 service. And they were saying, when everything happened, I closed the door to my office. This is just an everyday believer.
He said, I closed the door to my office. And I asked the question, Lord, what's your heart right now? And the Lord spoke to him and said, I hate evil. He was going, I couldn't even believe it when you turned to Romans 12.
And then it was right popping out to me on the page. It's exactly what the Lord said to me. The Lord said, I hate evil, and I love people. Abhore and hate what is evil.
Hold fast and cling to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Don't be slothful and zeal, but be fervent in spirit and serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope. Intribulation, be patient. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
And I want you to bless those who are persecuting you. Bless them. Don't curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice.
Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another and don't be prideful in Hadi. Associate yourself with the lowly, not the power brokers, the powerful people, people that can give you something back in return for your good works. Never be wise, I added that.
Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Don't inflame and start conflict all the time.
I want you to live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves. But remember that I am going to bring forth wrath and justice. In vengeance is mine.
I'm actually going to repay what has been done to you and others with true justice. There's 20. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, instead of bringing vengeance on them, feed them. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink.
For by so doing, you're going to keep burning coals and make him feel ashamed for how he's treating you. Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. So instead of having all the answers as the people of God, when tragedy hits, instead of having all of the commentary, instead of feeling like you need to fill in the silence, what does the Lord say? He says, you should be like me in a moment where Lazarus died.
And I know the end of the story. I know I'm going to raise him from the dead. But I didn't give a bunch of commentary. I just mourned with him.
I just wept. I don't know how many times Christians have actually soured moments of grief, trying to fill the pain and apply a hope bandaid of things that we already know. We already know that Jesus is going to come back. We already know that they're with the Lord.
No, Jesus is not the one that was behind taking them. No, we don't fill in the gap with all of the reasons of God is going to work everything for our good in this. You don't need to say anything. What's the command?
The command is not filled with silence. The command is just cry. And if you can't cry, that's OK. Ask God to help you cry.
Lord, help me mourn. Help me not to be numb. Help me not to have a cold heart. Help me be connected.
Help me to be in tune with the pain and the suffering I've experienced rather than stuffing it so that I have a numbness that I'm not willing to approach pain generally because I'm not willing to approach my own pain with the Lord and allow God to comfort me in my pain so that I can comfort others. We're going, I don't want to go there. I don't want to encounter the God of all comfort. And the Lord is going, no, you should go there.
So you can encounter me as the God of all comfort. And then you'll have grace to mourn with those who mourn and have the gift of tears so that you can be present and you can be a brother or a sister for tragedy. A brother and a sister that's born for adversity is what I mean. Proverbs says that there's nothing like a brother or a sister that's born to go through adversity with you.
That's the type of brother I want to be. That's not natural. I remember there's moments in our marriage where something happens in one of our friends' lives and Katie buys plane tickets to be there when tragedy hits. For me, that's not even coming to my mind.
You mean we would inconvenience ourselves and pay all the money and we got kids, we got all these things that are our responsibilities and you're buying plane tickets. And now we're all going to mourn with those who mourn. I'd prefer not. I don't want to do that.
And the Lord is working it in me. And maybe you're like me and you're like, I'd prefer not. But that provokes me. That's what he does.
When pain happens, when tragedy hits, we see our Lord, the God of all comfort running, weeping with those who are weeping, full of compassion and comfort. So as a people of God, we go right into Lord, what's your heart? We go right in as the priests of the Lord. Jesus gave us direct access to be in relationship with the Lord in these moments of trial, on behalf of our city, on behalf of our communities.
And guess what happens when you go to him and you ask him, Lord, what's your heart? He begins to unravel his character. He begins to unravel the stories of brokenness that he's walked through. He begins to unravel.
I'm the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I will have scars on my hands and my feet for eternity. I'm the wounded healer from Minneapolis. I'm the wounded healer from Minneapolis.
I walk the streets of Minneapolis. And I got wounds on my hands and my feet. I'm acquainted with suffering. I'm the son of suffering.
I'm not afraid of the brokenness. I'm not afraid of the pain. I'm not afraid of all of the tragedies of this hour in our city. And then he also says, I'm a healer.
I'm the wounded Lord. And there's an and because he doesn't just leave us in the valley. He says, I'm the shepherd that leads you through the valley of the shadow of death. And I'm a healer too.
And I can take what the enemy meant for evil, right? And I have a different vision than what the enemy has. The enemy has death, loss and destruction. But we don't just serve a God that stayed in the grave.
We don't just serve a weak wound to God. He's got a different plan. He's got a children's prayer revival for Minneapolis. He has a kingdom business, men's revival and prayer revival.
He's got music coming out of Minneapolis. Where is that sound coming from? Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota. He's got plans for Minnesota.
He has racial reconciliation for Minnesota. Enemy hates every nation, tribe, and tongue and people group that are going to be around the throne. Guess what the Lord does? He brings them all here.
And he says, they're going to surrender to me. Enemy hates children. Enemy doesn't play fair. Guess what he's going to do in Minneapolis?
Oh, there's a different story. There's going to be little four, five, six-year-olds. They're going to get a vision for prayer. And all of a sudden, there's revival that's going to hit because we got a little two-year-old, second graders that are starting to pray, kindergarten starting to pray.
This last week, there was a sick body in our house and our five-year-old just comes over and says, let me pray for you. Put your hand, starts praying, healing confidently. And I'm going, Lord, you're starting them young. Yeah?
Guess what the enemy is doing? He's starting them young. He's not going to wait. The kingdom of heaven out of the mouths of babes.
You've ordained praise. God is up to something. He's going to move in power. And what the enemy meant for evil?
Guess what? He's going to turn it. And I don't know how he's going to turn it, but he's going to turn it through his people that have the Holy Spirit inside of them. And the Holy Spirit's got a long job description of what he does.
He does a lot of stuff. And you go, well, is God just detached? If he's not pulling the strings, then what is he doing? Well, I'll tell you what he's doing.
He says, I'm going to give you my spirit. And my spirit is going to be in all of my people. And my spirit is going to go everywhere. And he's going to remind them of what I'm saying.
He's going to empower them with healing power. He's going to move and remind them and touch them, and then move through them in signs and wonders and healings and comfort and all of the things that we see in the kingdom of heaven. Holy Spirit's going to do it. And he's not going to do it through the power brokers of this age.
He's going to do it through you. He's going to do it through little weak ones. He's going to do it through nurses when they wheel them in from the tragedy. And it's the nurses and the doctors that are connected to his heart that have been loving him, decade after decade, faithfully serving, faithfully being excellent at their craft, going through way too many years of school.
All of you nurses know what I'm talking about, but they remain faithful. And there's moments, honestly, on a daily basis for them that they were made for. And they're all kingdom moments. This is the kingdom here, but this is not really where the good stuff happens.
It's out on the streets where Jesus did all of his miracles. 90 plus percent of Jesus' miracles were not in church buildings. And they were on the streets wherever the people of God go. Let's all stand.
I would love for us to, just for a moment, allow the Holy Spirit to convict us of our righteousness. What happened today is there was some things, I almost see it kind of like a chiropractor moment, where there's some misalignment in a lot of our hearts. For instance, I kind of, I want to lead us into a time where we're actually going, Lord, was my response to what happened last week in alignment with how you're responding. Some of us, maybe your response was fear.
You go, Lord, I want to turn away from fear. Fear isn't, fear isn't cute. Fear's not cute. I want to actually repent of fear.
And I want you to encounter me in this place. Maybe you're going, I really did find myself pointing the finger and trying to give all the reasons of why this happened, to take you out of accusation. And I want you to be in mercy, you know, or maybe you are feeling disconnected in love. In this moment, in the Lord's helping you name that, you can go, okay, actually.
Lord, I want, I don't want to heart a stone that's cold. I want a heart of flesh that actually I can get pricked, okay? So there's a lot of different responses and so many different elements because we all have different stories, but I want to just present our hearts before the Lord and just say, Lord, would you search out my way? If there's anything that is not in alignment to who you've designed me to be and how you've designed me to respond as a son of God, would you just expose that because I want to repent of that?
I want to turn from that. And I want to agree with what you think, what you say. Let's just do that. The whole room we're just gonna take a moment here.
Say, Lord, here I am. All throughout the room, you can just say, Lord, here I am. Is there anything you want to put your finger on? It allows some space for all your spirit to believe and brainstorming yourself.
You're asking the Lord, Lord, would you highlight, be a lie that I'm believing? Lord, I choose with what his perspective is. Doing the same thing, I felt like the Lord really highlighted for me a moment where one of my kids' schools had responded to what happened. And I felt a Lord reminded me that I was really accusatory, internally towards how the leadership of the school handled the scenario.
And the Lord just kind of put his finger on that for me. And I was out of alignment in my response because the Lord is going, hey, I've given you First Timothy 2 that says you pray for those that are in leadership. My response was more so pointing the finger of what they could have done differently and why did they do that? I got into accusation mode following the way of the world really.
And I want to be one that prays for the leaders rather than points the fingers at the leaders. And we're all in process of how we respond in these moments because the things surface, right? So as we're leaving, I want you to know, as the Lord is bringing that alignment, I'm not in shame, guilt, condemnation mode, feeling bad for myself. Instead, I'm going, Lord, I'm so glad you exposed that.
So next time I can actually be more in tune with you in these moments, I'm so glad that you named that so I can walk in more connection with you. You see how that's different than you just leaving, feeling guilty and feeling the blank. You know what I'm saying? Let's all stand, you stand with me and you're able.
If you're willing, you can put out your hands in front of you. Lord, we thank you that you said that those that believe they will bring healing where they are. And so Lord, we thank you that these hands are hands of healing. Lord, we thank you that you've given us mouths to mostly be quiet and live quiet lives, but you've also given us mouths to sow seeds of the good news of the gospel everywhere we go.
Lord, I thank you for our feet that get to be fitted with the gospel of peace and that we get to share your good news everywhere we go. Lord, I thank you that each one that has hands in front of them is actually meant to be an evangelist with the good news that's almost too good to be true. The wanglion, as Greek says, it's the news that it's almost too good to be true that they've got, that they get to spread throughout our city. Lord, we thank you that these are the ones in our city that are not like the Muslims or the Hindus of our city or any of the other world religions that are in the Twin Cities.
These are the only ones in our city that actually have authority to bring deliverance to the oppressed from the demonic. Lord, we thank you that you've given us good news and a message of hope and a different story line than what the enemy has painted for our city. And so Lord, we say we wanna be those that serve faithfully, that intercede for our leaders and live peaceful, peaceful, quiet lives as good and faithful servants. In Jesus name I commission out these sons and daughters, and everybody said, amen.