Everyday, Spirit-Filled People

I am Russ, one of your ministers here. And you should know that you are beautiful, brave, and kind of crazy being here during the White Death. All right? So well done. So happy New Year.

Glad to be with you. If you know me, if you know me a little bit, you know how much I love a good story or a good conversation. Lately, a conversation I'm loving having is just talking about the pivotal moments in our lives, right? Think about a few pivotal moments in your lives and what made them important. I've had a couple in my life, more seasons than moments that have been running through my head a lot over the last several years, going back to when I was 17.

I've told this story before about how I encountered Jesus at 17. And what launched out of that was sort of a little mini revival where just other teenagers and I started gathering up at my buddy Paul's house. And we invited other students. And the first week we had 40 teenagers packed into his house, reading scripture together, praying together, singing together, hanging out. All of us are teenagers except for Paul's mom, Alice, who's sitting at the kitchen table chain smoking with a beehive hairdo.

And, man, what happened is, like, other students just started to want. They wanted to enter into life with Jesus, right? So they start to attend church as well. And we're baptizing them. We even baptized Alice, beehive hairdo and.

All right. And it makes me think of another season, pivotal season in my life. In the late 90s, I'm working with students on the Far east side of Cincinnati. Far east side. I want to be clear where we tap into these subcultures of emo punk, goth, metal kids, and their spiritual curiosity is just starting to boil over.

And they're coming and they're coming and they're coming. And again, they're leading each other. We're baptizing them. Tattoos, piercings. My friend Joe with the bone through his nose, right?

What these two seasons in my life have in common is that these were seasons and times where I got to participate in a thing that I didn't make happen, couldn't keep making happen, was not in charge of, and just simply wanted to make sure I didn't screw up, right? It was as if the spirit took off and we were running to keep up. I'm not a surfer, but I can only imagine if you hit a big wave and you're on the board, the one thing you want to know is, okay, there's a big wave. I didn't make the wave. I just want to stay on the board.

This is what it felt like in those windows. The Spirit was moving and we were just rushing to keep up. And today we're going to just kind of peek into the beginning of the Book of Acts. And it looks exactly like this. The Spirit taking off and the church racing to keep up as the book opens.

Jesus is still around. He's still alive, alive again. We call it Acts. That's short for Acts of the Apostles. It's just what the church was doing, what they were doing after Jesus.

Jesus is there. He's eating with them. He's continuing to teach them about the kingdom of God. And then he says this. This is Acts 1:8.

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. Earlier, he said to them, he said that the Spirit will clothe you in power. You will be my witnesses. Then in Jerusalem, in this city, Judea, the area around us, Samaria, those people, right? And all the way to the ends of the earth.

And here, Jesus introduces the main character in the Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit. And again, just like I mentioned, the Holy Spirit takes off. The church is going to be running to keep up, but he does come and he clothes them in power, right? Jesus says, I'm going to clothe you in power. And then Jesus splits.

He ascends to heaven and leaves it in their hands. Remember the people he's leaving this in, leaving in charge of this thing. And we'll see more about him is a guy named Peter, who, two months prior to this, just a little over two months prior to this, while Jesus was on trial, the night before he was executed the next day, Peter denies knowing him three times, curses and abandons Jesus. And Jesus says, here you go. I'm going to hand the whole thing to you.

Right? But he also says what the Holy Spirit will come with power.

And he hands it off. So there is a holiday that's coming up in this moment. So Jesus was crucified and resurrected over the Passover holiday, which is a pilgrim holiday. In other words, people were coming in from all sorts of other places to come to Jerusalem to celebrate. They all went back and they've come back again now, 49 days later for a festival called Shabbat.

It's just an opportunity for them to remember and to celebrate God giving Moses, the Torah, those first five books of scripture, what they think of as the Law. And so on that holiday, the Spirit showed up and a crowd gathers. He showed up with power. He filled the disciples. And even though people all speak different languages, they hear what they have to say in their own language, and 3,000 people repent and are baptized that day.

This is where we begin. 3,000 people in one day. And what do they start doing? The Holy Spirit shows up in power, and what do people start doing? They start meeting together in the larger spaces around the temple.

But mostly they're gathering in smaller numbers in each other's homes, and they're sharing meals, and they're hearing and repeating the teaching they heard from the apostles. They're praying together. They are taking communion together. And there's all kinds. I came across an ancient philosopher in Greece, in Athens.

His name is Aristides. So decades later, as he encounters the church, it looks so much like the church right here in Acts 2. I want you to hear how he put it, what he observed the church to be. He says they these are our spiritual ancest right here. Right?

They walk in humility and kindness, and falsehood is not found among them. And they love one another. And from the widows, they do not turn away their countenance, and they rescue the orphan from him who does him violence. And he who has, has gives to him who has not without grudging. And when they see the stranger, they bring him to their dwellings and rejoice over him as over a true brother.

For they do not call brothers those who are after the flesh, but those who are in the spirit and in God. But when one of their poor passes away from the world and any of them sees him, then he provides for his burial according to his ability. And if they hear that any one of their number is imprisoned or oppressed for the name of their king, Jesus, Messiah, all of them provide him for his needs. And if it is possible that he may be delivered, they deliver him. If there is among them a man that is poor or needy, catch this.

And they have not an abundance of necessaries. If they don't have what that person needs, they fast. They fast for two or three days that they may supply the needy with their necessary food. And they observe scrupulously the commandments of their Messiah, their king Jesus. These are our people.

This is where we come from. This is how they were treated. In other words, the Holy Spirit comes in power. And this is what the church begins to do. It's what results.

And then we get to Acts three, and we're going to center in on Acts three, beginning of four. I'm going to walk, fly through this passage there. If you got your Bible with you. We'll just kind of dip into a few verses as we go. As we See this story, it opens and we see two of Jesus trainees, Peter and John.

And as they're headed to the temple to pray in the afternoon, there's a man there, and he's begging for money. The man was born with some kind of condition that didn't allow him to walk. And so he's asking for money. And this is what Peter says to him. Silver or gold?

I do not have. We just read that maybe he had already given it away, right? So his pockets are empty. Silver or gold? I don't got that.

But what I do have, I give you in the name of King Jesus. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Walk in the name of King Jesus. This is not magic words. It's not an incantation.

When Peter says, in the name of Jesus, he means by everything that Jesus is and represents, in the name of Jesus, by Jesus work, his personality, his power, his authority, his reputation. In the name of all that Jesus is, walk. He's trusting in the authority and power of Jesus to heal this man. And he does. The man is healed.

His feet, his ankles become strong. And he's walking, and now he's leaping and he's praising God. And he draws a crowd because people recognize he's 40 years old. They recognize him as the guy who's been lame and sitting there begging for money. And now he's doing a tango in the courts.

And they're like, what? What is this? This crowd comes running to see. And when Peter sees them, he said to them, this fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?

And then he gives credit where credit is due. He says, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. Peter knows he's not powerful enough or godly enough for this to have happened. It doesn't depend on him. The man is dancing in front of them now, not by Peter's power, but by the power of King Jesus.

And then he begins to teach them about Jesus again, saying that in Jesus name and the faith that comes through Jesus, the man is healed. And he calls on them to repent. He says, turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, but also that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. And then we see something happening. Acts 4 Many who heard the message believed.

So the number of men who believed grew to about 5,000, 3,000 to 5,000 plus women and children. We see the church growing. People clamoring to get into life with Jesus. Some of the leaders saw what Peter was doing, what he was laying down. They didn't like it.

So they put him in jail overnight to gather, a kind of trial in the morning. And then the rulers, these are religious bigwigs, they had Peter and John brought before them, began to question them, saying, by what power or what name did you do this? And Peter. And here's a key line filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter's about to say something, but the writer here, Luke, wants us to know this.

He wants us to know what he's about to say. And the power behind what he's saying isn't coming from Peter. It's not coming from Peter's holiness or his spiritual expertise that Peter is being prompted and guided by the Holy Spirit. And here's what he says. Rulers and elders of the people, if we're to be called to account today for an act of kindness, you can hear the edge in that.

We just did a kind thing and we're being called to account. Kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed. Then know this, you and all the people of Israel. It is by the name of Jesus Christ. It is by the name of King Jesus of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.

He quotes a little Old Testament. Jesus says, the stone the builders rejected, but has become the cornerstone, the most important stone. And then this line. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. It's almost like Peter can't say Jesus name enough.

And then here's the verse I want us to see. Acts 4:13. When they, the religious bigwigs saw this, saw the courage of Peter and John, they realized they were unschooled ordinary men, unschooled ordinary men. And they were astonished. And they took note that these men had been with Jesus, unschooled and ordinary.

They didn't have any kind of official training. They weren't public figures, they weren't experts. They were just everyday guys who had been with Jesus and who are now filled with the Holy Spirit. And then the rulers warned them to stop speaking in Jesus name. They responded boldly, saying, yeah, we can't do that.

And they were giving a stern talking to and then sent on their way. And as you keep reading the book of Acts, you begin to see how the Spirit continues to keep moving. 3,000 to 5,000 moving from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria, to the ends of the earth, to Africa, to Asia, to Rome itself. That in the first few centuries of our ancient brothers and sisters, historians and sociologists have looked at this and identified that at the end of year A.D. 100, there were more than 7,000 followers of Jesus. By the year of the year 200, it was over 200,000.

By the year 250, over a million. By the year 300, over 6 million. By 350, 33 million followers of Jesus. We see the Church growing and growing and growing. And who were they?

The same as they were from the very beginning. Peter and John. Unschooled, ordinary men, everyday people. Who is the Church? We are everyday people like Peter and John.

Centered on Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit continues to do what he's always done. Extraordinary things in partnership with everyday people like you and me. This has been who he's been from the very beginning. And when I read this, my question is about Peter.

I mentioned before. This is a guy who abandoned Jesus just a few months prior. Abandoned Jesus. And now suddenly, he looks like Jesus. He's confident, he's secure, he's humble.

He looks like Jesus, and he's doing the things Jesus did. A man is now walking, right? Signs and wonders, how did this change happen in Peter? How is Peter able to be like this, right? He is an ordinary guy, right?

Unschooled ordinary guy. An everyday guy who had been with Jesus and who is filled with the Holy Spirit. So we see two things going on. Peter's able to do some of this through imitation, right? He's followed Jesus.

He's imitating Jesus. Some of it's imitation, but it is also inhabitation. What do I mean by that? That he is filled with the Spirit. He's clothed in power.

And that is not just true of Peter. It is true of any of us in this room right now who have entered into life with Jesus. That you are inhabited by the Holy Spirit. Colossians says, christ in us, the hope of glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Philippians says, God works in you to will and act according to his good purpose. Romans 8. Man, catch this. The Spirit of God, who raised King Jesus from the dead. The spirit of God who raised King Jesus from the dead lives and in you.

Do you hear that?

Paul's writing to his friends in Ephesus and he's praying. And you just see him kind of just going, man. And he's like, I pray that out of God's glorious riches that he may strengthen you with power through his spirit, where in your inner being that King Jesus may dwell in your hearts through faith, then he crescendos in this direction towards God. Praise towards God, where he says now to him, now to God, who is able to do immeasurably, more immeasurably more than all we could ask or even imagine, according to his power. Where that is at work?

Where? Within us. To him, to that God be glory in the church, among us, the brothers and sisters, and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever. Amen. All this leads us to this.

That if you have entered into life with Jesus, you have access to the Holy Spirit.

Catch this. You have access to the Holy Spirit. He is in you. What does that mean? That means you have an inner counselor with you all the time.

When you need guidance and wisdom, he's there. When you need comfort, he's a comforter, offering you peace in hard times. He is a teacher. You have a teacher revealing spiritual truth to you, deepening your understanding of scripture, illuminating God's word for you. You have an accountability partner with you all the time, who's there to help convict you of sin, not to lead you into shame, but to repentance.

And then two times of refreshing and transformation in your life. You have a helper. A helper, Someone who is assisting you in your weakness, providing support in any of your spiritual endeavors. You have a sanctifier, It's a big word for somebody who's just helping to purify you and foster spiritual growth in your life. You have an intercessor, someone who is there to pray on your behalf when you don't have the words.

You have an empowerer. It's a word empowerer. In your life, right in you. You have someone bringing you power, giving you spiritual strength and gifts to live out God's purposes. You have all of that and more access right now.

Christ in you, the hope of glory. Who knew Little old you, right? And if you think I'm talking to somebody else, if you're like, I'm not that kind of everyday person, I'm just lucky to be in, right? I am talking to you. This is true of any of us who are followers of Jesus.

We have all of this, access to all of this and more. Right now. The same spirit who animated and energized Jesus ministry wants to animate and energize your life, to fill you, to clothe you with power, to partner with you. The Holy Spirit comes and we are what witnesses everyday. Joe's and Jane's junior partners.

He does the heavy lifting. We join him in the work he's doing in our lives and the lives of other people around us through us to reconcile, restore, to put back together what's gone wrong in our lives and the lives of other people. All right, this is all big high talk. What does it look like in our lives? I want to introduce you to a friend of mine, my friend Michelle, who is.

Yeah.

Who is celebrating a big win last night, so. By the Bengals. Yeah. Had. Had they lost, what would you have had to have done?

Wear different clothes. Okay. There was a bet, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Okay. So. Yeah, I thought so. Yeah. Okay.

So Michelle was just one of us here at the church. And how did you get connected. Involved at the church?

About. It's four years this year, I think. Four years this month. I found myself in a situation where I was just looking for something more. Something was missing, and I wasn't quite sure what it was, so found whitewater and found great things here.

Walking in the door, people greeted me, were very friendly. But as friendly as they were, I was still missing a key piece of community. I didn't have those people that I could spend time with that I could be friends with, that I could share life with.

So that's what brought me here. Yeah, that's good. Just to be clear, what do you do for a living? Oh, I'm retired. I retired at Covet.

I couldn't stand it anymore. I worked in healthcare. I did enough, had enough there. You have fans for that. So just to be clear, you're not some kind of secret Bible scholar?

No, no, Actually, I fall into that category of what? What did you say? Uneducated, ordinary person. Yeah, the Bible said that, not me. Just speak.

But in terms of you're not a spiritual, like, you know, you don't have all the Bible memorized, none of that stuff. No formal education. Yep. Nothing. So how are you participating in and through the church and with the spirit now?

Well, I started to volunteer, and through volunteering at the front desk, I was starting to pay attention to more things that were offered here at church. And there's a lot of educational opportunities, and I thought that might be a good way to meet more people and learn some things along the way. So I fell into an education class with Russ, and we talked about a lot of things, but the thing that stuck out to me is we talked about the rhythms of Jesus. So first thing I would say is, if you don't know the rhythms of Jesus, you might want to go to the whitewater discovers next door. It's really good, and, yeah, you'll learn lots of great stuff.

But one of the things that. The best thing that I learned is I was going through a really rough time. A couple years ago. Russ had invited me to a dinner table, so I came to his house. A small group of folks were there.

We shared a meal together. We shared our hards and our eas, not easies, our hards and our goods, and just got to know each other and found that over just a very short period of time, these people were some of the most supportive people in my life. Really got me through some tough stuff, and I knew that I was in a safe place. So as a result of that, I started doing my own dinner table. And we meet once a week.

I have a group of wonderful ladies, and we do life together. We share our hearts, we share our goods, and we practice the rhythms of Jesus. And it's while we eat and just have fun. It's a great, great situation. Yeah.

The amount of healing and growth that's happened in your life through that, as well as others. Yeah, it's really good. So I wanted to go back to when you and I first met. You were serving the church by sitting at the front desk during the week, answering phones, kind of as a receptionist role. Sure.

And you got a call. Yeah, I did get a call. I got a call from a lady's family, lady who was in a local nursing home. And the family called and asked if somebody would come to visit her and pray with her. And I was going to be in that area, But I told russ that this lady needed a visit.

I told him I was going to be in the area. I'd be happy to go and see her. I mean, how hard can it be? You meet somebody new, you say, hey, how are you healing? And all that fun stuff.

And I said, sure. And he said, you might want to pray for her. And I said, nope, I'm out. Not doing it. I was raised catholic, and I did not know how to pray anything but rehearsed, memorized prayers.

So to have to pray with someone out loud was not going to be a comfortable thing for me. So what I heard you say was this. She said, I want to do this. I don't know how exactly. Right, right.

So embarrassing to be at the church for that many years and say out loud, I don't know how to pray. And I responded with like, oh, my gosh. I know he did. He was like, what is wrong with you? I think I said, I Can show you how.

Yeah, he did. I don't know, maybe 10 minutes. Took no time at all. Yeah, yeah, we kind of modeled it. We practiced.

And then you went off, and out I go. It went really well. There was more people than just this lady and her husband. They had. I mean, there were cousins there, and it was like a whole room full of people.

But it was fun. I got to meet them, talk with them, pray with them. Probably a lot longer than they wanted me to, but I wanted to make sure I covered all my bases. And, yeah, it was really good. And to this day, I still keep in touch with her.

It was really, really great experience. Beautiful. Well, I wanted you to meet Michelle because she's worth knowing. Number one, two, that spirit may resonate with you. I want to do that.

I don't know how. And so I'm gonna let Michelle get off the stool. But just so you know, she had no clue when she said that to me that that would eventually lead her to facilitating a group of women for over a year and joining in with what the spirit was doing. And to wind up for the first time sitting on a stage with a microphone in your. Yeah, this is my platform premiere.

It is. It is.

But, yeah, there's lots of great things here, things that, if you're searching, reach out. There's lots of things here to. To help you through. So that's it. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. That's Michelle.

So if somewhere in you, there is a spirit that says, I want to do those kind of things, but I don't know how I want to pray for somebody. I don't know how I want to read scripture with somebody. Just sit down and read Scripture and let the Bible do the work. I don't know how I want to. The day that they look at me and go, hey, I want to enter into life with Jesus, I can go.

I can baptize you confidently if there's something in you that says, I want to do those things. I don't know how. Our response to you is going to be the same to Michelle that day. We'd love to show you how. Love to show you how.

Because the part you're doing is junior partner work, right? You just show up and you go, you know what? Maybe I can bless you by praying for you. You know, Can I just pray for that for you? It's just simple and small and easy.

It's opening up the Bible and reading it. Not in a way where you have to be like a Bible scholar to get all the stuff but to simply read it together and always have something to take away way, right? And be able to do that around your dinner table with your family or with friends or whoever it is. We want to show you how to do these things. And so the invitation is, let us show you how.

So here's the thing. It's way too easy for people to let people like me as they see as the minister, the pastor, the holy person, right? Good night. Let them do those things, right? Like if you've got a minister or a pastor or some kind of religious person in your family, are they the ones you ask to pray for meals whenever you have a big family meal?

We're tired of it. Let me tell you.

We want to show you how to pray so I don't have to, right? You can do it at your own meal. I'm joking about that. Here's the thing. The same Holy Spirit that's available to me, that is in me, Christ in me, hope of glory, the same Holy Spirit that is in me with resurrection power, is the exact same spirit you have.

We don't get some kind of special dose, right? It's the exact same spirit. And when, when we do it for you, we are stealing from you 100% stealing the abundant life that Jesus has for you because he wants to collaborate with you. He not only wants you to experience life with him, he wants to live life with you interactively and to join in with that, to be partnered with him and in doing these things. And I got to tell you, when you do it, when you show up with a little, you have, the little bit you have, I know how to do this.

I'll show up and do this. The fun, the absolute delight it is to watch him come to work. And when you step back and go, I cannot take credit for that because I know how little I showed up with. But in the name of Jesus Christ, I want you to know what that is like. So here's your simple response.

And that is you can simply text a word. There's a number on the screen right now. You can text the word train. Because that's what we want to do. We want to show you how, train you, train you to pray with people.

Simple ways to pray with people, train you to read scripture with people, train you to baptize them. Here's the deal. Baptizing people. You don't see us special pastors in the water a whole lot, right? Because it's the thing that any follower of Jesus can participate in and join in.

I just want to help show you how to be confident in doing it so that maybe you do those things here, Pray and read scripture and baptize, or maybe you're doing them where you are, right in your homes, in your neighborhoods, maybe workplaces, wherever you are. The friends that I have who have baptized people in their ponds, right? Or my friends who live on Harrison Avenue in Westwood, who bought a horse trough to be able to baptize people right on the street, they're neighbors. We want to show you how to do this stuff. All you gotta do is text the word train to that number, and what you'll get is a link.

And when you tap that, it'll take you to an event page on our website. And all you're signing up, V Register. All you're registering for is, this is for me to send you information about how and when we'll do those trainings. Do you catch that? When you send that word train and then you hit that link and you sign up.

And this works from home today, if you're sitting there with your hot cocoa as the snow is coming down outside, or if you're watching it this week. So if you sign up for that, I will make sure that you get information over the next few months as we provide opportunities to come together, to learn and practice together these things so that we can start to join in and bring our little part into the big part that the power of the spirit takes off and does. And if you think this is not for you, two things you need to be two things. One. One, you need to be an everyday person.

You need to know you're an everyday person. Because if you think you're special, probably not much God can do with you, right? Humble enough to go, that's me. I'm an everyday person. Like, if you think you're unqualified, you're actually qualified, right?

Humble. An everyday person, too. Willing. Humble and willing. Everyday person and willing.

Willing. All I mean by that is willing to text that number, willing to sign up, willing to show up whatever the next thing is. That's it. Just willing enough to take the next step. If you heard Michelle was willing enough to take a next step, that's all it takes.

It's all it takes. So text train to that number. Love to be able to welcome you in to groups of us, right, who are starting to practice these things that we could do.

This is all the stuff the church was doing from the very beginning. Remember, Holy Spirit shows up in power, and what do they do? They start gathering together. They start repeating the teaching that they're hearing from the apostles, they're praying together, they're baptizing each other, and they're taking communion. There it is.

So something we can do today. And we'll do today, center ourselves on Jesus just as our ancestors have been doing from the very beginning. So if you want to join us in taking communion, if you've got picked it up on your way in, that's great. If you need somebody to hand you one, raise a hand and some of these lovely folks will be willing to make sure you have one.

There we go.

Some days I'm really good at this, some days I'm not. Maybe you feel the same.

Centered on Jesus. Remember Peter saying, salvation is found in no one else. We are always centered on King Jesus, crucified and resurrected. That as we remember him, remember what he did. And that through what he did, he saved us from our sins.

He showed us God's love. Shut down Satan. Shut down a religious spirit. We can't earn this. It's a gift.

Setting up his kingdom. And he looked at us and he said, this is all happening through the power of sacrifice. That this is my body broken for you. Take it and eat. Let's take it.

And this is my body. It's my blood poured out for you. Take it and drink.

Father, I long for the day when we as your church are just racing to keep up. Holy Spirit, come and take off. Come and take off. We want to have to wrestle with figuring out how to keep up with you.

We want to see all that you bring. We want to be a people who are not ever settling for a little bit of what you have to offer in us. Holy Spirit. We want all that you have to offer. We want all that is available to us.

Come.

Let us always be ready to want to do what we don't know yet how to. And to trust that you'll take us there. Keep us craving and longing, yearning for you and your kingdom. And always open and available around us to see where we can participate with you in the good that you're doing and bringing your kingdom, bringing your kingdom and your will being done. Come, Holy Spirit, come.

Amen.