Empowered to Fulfill the Great Commission

1) "You know, these men and women, they brought the truth. They brought the truth of God to us, and they paid for it with their lives and with their families. And, you know, I was thinking about how every quarter we have child dedication, and for every baby we dedicate, we give them a Bible. You know, a little blue one for the boys, a little pink one for the girls. And that privilege is just common in our culture today, but that privilege was paid for by the blood and the lives and energy of countless thousands of people. And now Jesus says, now it's your job. It's mine. It's my job to take that gospel message to your generation. There's no more Justin Martyrs, Tertullian. There's no more Paul and Peter. It's just you." [08:14] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "Stop and think about that for a minute. We just read they were ordinary, common people, not something special. They were uneducated, not great speakers. They were people like us. You would look at this message and you'd say, that sounds like a good message for a missionary, you know, or a pastor. But remember, these guys were fishermen. You know, they were common people. Luke was a doctor. They were ordinary folks. And yet God chose them and his power went with them. And it's our job to hold on to the gospel. They were pressured to change the story. They were pressured to deny what their eyes had seen. And yet they died so they wouldn't give up the truth. It's our job now to not let this gospel message be changed by the political shenanigans of our world today. God's word is truth. It's unchanged. And the Bible says God's word will stand when the world is on fire. We hold on to that truth. That's your job now. That's my job. And each of us has to go forward in that." [10:30] (61 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "I want to challenge you today that God still wants us to walk in his authority. He said, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. And I want you now to take that authority and go with it and show the truth and the power of God's word. And so that's exactly what they did. We read that in Acts chapter 1, and then in Acts chapter 3, you see the first bona fide miracle of the New Testament church." [10:30] (21 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "God's power flows where he's present. Okay. That's really simple, but I want to emphasize that because he was, the guy kept coming to this building. Okay. The crippled man and nothing was happening for him. How many of you realize that just because a building has God's name on it, it doesn't mean it has God's presence inside of it. You can have a steeple, all the religious people, a cross. God doesn't, oh, there's a cross there. I have to go. That's not how God responds. And far too many places, you house a lot of religion in those buildings, but not a lot of God's presence." [12:32] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "The lame man was at the temple gate his whole life, but he never experienced the power of God. On this day, the power of God happened outside the temple. Why is that? Well, it's because the power of God wasn't in brick and mortar. It was in Peter and John. And so Peter reached out his hand. He said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And he touched him and the man was healed. And so here's the question. Who touched that man? Peter or God? And the answer is yes." [15:25] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "The second thing is that God's power flows where there's someone who expects it, where there's expectation. Verse 5 says he looked up to Peter and John expecting something, you know. Expectation is the belief that something's about to happen. He just believed something's going to happen. And I don't think he knew what was going to happen, but that's the beautiful thing about God, is that you don't have to understand what's going on to experience what's going on. You don't have to understand God to experience God." [16:47] (26 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "God's power flows where his authority flows. Is recognized. Something interesting about this story is John and Peter never prayed for the lame man. That's the first thing we do, right? Can I pray for you? They don't ask him for prayer if he could be prayed for. They don't ask him anything about his life. They just walk right up to him and say in the name of Jesus. We don't really use that language a whole lot, in the name of, you know, you know, if I said. Would you go get me a cup of coffee? You would be like, in the name of Pastor Jerry, I want a cup of coffee. We don't really talk like that. But in those days, that phrasing meant in the authority, in the authority of Jesus." [21:15] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "If Jesus has all authority, how much authority does the devil have in your life? This is super important for you as a believer because the reason we're not going out on the streets and sharing the gospel, the reason we're not praying over people at work or at school when they're in crisis is because we feel like we're not able or we don't have what it takes or there's something in your life that you feel like is out of order. And I'm telling you, whatever there is in your life, a sickness, an addiction, a weakness, a sin issue, that Satan has no authority in your life. No authority because Jesus has all of the authority." [21:15] (37 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9) "I want to see somebody today believe for their own personal breakthrough, for God's authority. Change your life today. At the end of service, we have prayer times. We want to pray for you to see God's authority change something in your life. And really, it's not just for you. God's power is in you so it can go through you. Everything God does is so that he can minister in your life and reach through you to reach other people. That's what the Great Commission is all about. That is why Jesus begins the Great Commission by saying all authority has been given to me. Therefore. Go. I'm going to give you that authority. I've got everything you need. I'm going to put it inside of you. Now you go take it to other people." [23:24] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10) "Why do we come in here and just keep singing and worshiping? Well, there's something in that, in the story, Acts chapter three, that we just read. I want to read you a couple more verses of it. There's two words in there that jumped off the page at me. Verse eight. Okay. He raises him up. He prays for him or actually speaks, speaks over him, God's authority. And it says in verse eight, he jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with him into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God. and when all the people saw him walking and praising God they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had just happened." [30:11] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)