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"Here as in Heaven."
For more information visit : garden.church
You're listening to the Garden Church podcast. We're in a series called church on fire, a journey through the book of acts. This is a story of ordinary people filled with the spirit, carrying the presence of Jesus into every corner of the world. The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is alive and in us today. Join us as we step into the call to be people set on fire for his mission.
Darren Rouanzoin:Oh, I'm so glad to be home. Hey, this is what happened at 10:00 today. Yeah. We I was I don't know. You think, oh you have it.
Darren Rouanzoin:You're so well put together. I'm I'm hanging on by a thread. I didn't anticipate that. I was praying yesterday at the prayer room and down there for for the day I'm like, gosh, it'd be so great if you know, 200 people show up maybe. And it's completely packed today and that's that's what launches do.
Darren Rouanzoin:People you know, go to the first one and they leave. That's at least that's what I I I tell myself. Because I was I'm a church planner, right? And but this is truly God was doing, it's like our churches over there now. It's so weird to me because we did not anticipate and like overnight, we My wife's like, man, our Sundays will never be the same.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm like, you're right. And God is moving and it's exciting. And it's also, I told our leaders, change is a form of loss and loss has to be grieved. Like so things are gonna change and there's a little more room. There's no room.
Darren Rouanzoin:So so anyways, we need God to do what he wants to do. But we're gonna follow Jesus wherever he leads us. Even if it scares us to death. Is that okay? So today, we're gonna read Acts four.
Darren Rouanzoin:Let me see your Bibles eleven fifteen. Oh, you guys are crushing it. Alright. You guys are like, why are you raising Bibles? I see over there.
Darren Rouanzoin:You're like, yeah, we read Bibles in this church. Just kidding. Giving me a hard time. Let me start. I I I've read this story from Brandon Manning.
Darren Rouanzoin:He tells a story about Arnold Palmer. The golfer not the drink. And he I know. And you're like, who? A very successful golfer.
Darren Rouanzoin:He went to play a series of exhibition matches in Saudi Arabia. And the king was so impressed and grateful for him to bring kind of the culture of golf from The US and The UK to Saudi Arabia. He wanted to present Arnold Palmer with a gift. But Arnold Palmer was a multimillionaire, successful, was like, no, we don't need anything, denied the gift. And the translator and the messenger that was kinda handling him was like, no, no, no.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's a dishonor to not receive a gift. So he's like, okay, I'll receive a golf club. And so the next day, the messenger came to his hotel room and did not bring a putter or a driver, but presented him an envelope and it was a golf club. It was the deed to a golf course. 36 holes with waterways, greens, everything in in the name of Arnold Palmer.
Darren Rouanzoin:And the moral of the story is in the presence of a king, don't ask for small gifts. So why is it that when you stand before the sovereign Lord, you pray such small prayers? I would like to suggest that for many of us, we pray these small prayers because we've been shaped, discipled or formed by something else. You see, Hebrews, the author of Hebrews writes in chapter four verse 16 and I'm gonna pull out the King James version. We had the message NIV.
Darren Rouanzoin:Here's the King James. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace. And that word boldly is audacious. Audacity. Let's have the audacity to come boldly to the throne of grace.
Darren Rouanzoin:And that word in Hebrew is chutzpah. Chutzpah. And it's just this like ridiculous, almost insulting way of moving forward with strength. And the reality is we don't approach God that way in prayer. We know the verse.
Darren Rouanzoin:We believe the verse. But for many of us, we don't pray that kind of prayer. Because we've been discipled by something else. Maybe you've been discipled by disappointment. You know, you prayed that prayer once but the outcome did not come as you hoped for so you stopped praying that way.
Darren Rouanzoin:Maybe you've been discipled into shame. I think a lot of you have this. You don't feel worthy to pray such a prayer. You have such a poor image of your belovedness that when you approach God, it's like you're conjuring up all the right words to try to somehow impress him more versus recognize he stands waiting for his precious beloved to speak. Maybe you don't pray that prayer because you have the wrong view of God.
Darren Rouanzoin:You think he's like your earthly dad who's disappointed and detached and somewhere else. He's an absentee landlord so he might tolerate your prayers but he's not deeply interested and pleased with them. But I think most of us have suddenly been formed by fear. You see, fear does not usually tell you to stop praying. Fear tells you to be careful.
Darren Rouanzoin:Be reasonable. Be realistic with your requests. You know, don't get your hopes up, don't look foolish, and over time fear doesn't just shape your emotions, it shapes your expectations of God. So your prayers are careful, measured and manageable. And we live in a world shaped by fear.
Darren Rouanzoin:We live in a world that's discipling us into anxiety. In fact, one study says that seventy one percent of Gen Z says that anxiety sorry, anxiety, deeply impacts their daily life. Fear is messing with their daily life. Now fear is a good thing. Can I say this?
Darren Rouanzoin:Fear is not a bad thing. Fear was designed by God to, as a physiological response that your body interprets a situation as a problem or a threat. And your brain sends signals to your body, neural pathways to respond to the threat. It's called fight or flight. Have you heard this term before?
Darren Rouanzoin:So fear's a good thing, you know. So if you're, you know, walking around outside in the woods and you hear and see a bear, fear comes into your brain. And that's a good thing because it shuts down your reasoning, your deep thinking part of your brain. It activates like the urgent response. It shuts down your digestive system.
Darren Rouanzoin:All of a sudden, you don't have to pee anymore because there's a bear and you gotta run. That's a good thing. Would you agree? It's a good thing as long as you're not experiencing it in daily life. Like let's say, you have a response like there's a bear in the room when you get a text message.
Darren Rouanzoin:Right? Because we're so connected like let me give you one today. Or yesterday, I was at the 10AM prayer that's that launched twenty four hours of prayer at at Vanguard. And I start the prayer and at ten Let me find it. Oh, this is so great.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm in a group chat and at 10:04, the group chat is hit up and this is what she says. She says oh, I went too far. Hold on. No. I'm not picking up the kids.
Darren Rouanzoin:You guys, Bubs, our dog their dog is missing if you see him anywhere. I'm like, wait, for real? Question mark. Yes. About to hop on a bike and look.
Darren Rouanzoin:The boys are surfing. Her son and and her husband were gone. And this is a group chat. Another person on a group chat says, oh my gosh. I'll come help you immediately.
Darren Rouanzoin:A few minutes go by, I'm panicked. My boys are with me. I'm like, guys, we gotta get back. We gotta find Bub's. Bub's is part of the family.
Darren Rouanzoin:Like, we gotta save Bub's. Panic is in my body. I can't pray. I'm not like, Lord, move in Costa Mesa. I'm like, Lord, help Bub's come home.
Darren Rouanzoin:She says, I'm an idiot. He's at the groomers. False alarm. I'm dying. Oh my lordy.
Darren Rouanzoin:I had a small heart attack. I've been driving around calling his name. You can't make this up. Fear has become our default setting. It leaks into our soul.
Darren Rouanzoin:It doesn't just impact our brains or our bodies. It, can I suggest has impacted our faith? When something other than scripture forms how we approach God. Our prayers shrink when our theology says they shouldn't shrink. So here's the question for the church today.
Darren Rouanzoin:When the world is being discipled by anxiety and fear, what disciples us into courage? The answer comes from Acts four. So if you have your Bibles, go to Acts chapter four and I give you four observations of what happens in the book of Acts that shapes the early church. So Acts four verse 23, I'll read this. It says this, and if you missed last week or you haven't been following along.
Darren Rouanzoin:Last week, the disciples were preaching a sermon and they get interrupted. Peter and John as they proclaimed that Jesus is the reason that the the paralyzed man is walking. So they were walking into the temple in Acts chapter three to see a paralyzed man. They heal him in the power of the in the name of Jesus and then they start proclaiming the resurrected Christ to the crowds. The Sanhedrin which would be like the supreme court, the highest authority in the land, arrests them and then questions them behind closed doors and says, you cannot preach the name of Jesus.
Darren Rouanzoin:They get that gag order and then this is the next scene. Are you with me? Alright. On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. When they heard this, so now the community hears the threats and the gag order.
Darren Rouanzoin:They raised their voices together in prayer to God. The first observation I have with the early church being formed not by fear, but being formed into something else like bold prayer and courage is that they gather as a community not as isolated individuals. This is so important for modern context discipleship. You cannot follow Jesus without being a part of his body. Can I say that again?
Darren Rouanzoin:Yeah. Because I'm gonna offend all of you all self help me, myself and Jesus and my podcast theology. Problem is I'm not offending you because you're here. For everyone listening online, speak to you now. Get to a local church.
Darren Rouanzoin:But this is what's happened. And what I have to say is the enemy is involved in using fear to disciple you because fear will isolate you. The enemy wants you to get be alone. He wants you to get alone in the crisis and then begin to do what you always do which is allow the neural pathways that have been formed by culture, which goes into panic, goes into crisis, goes into circumstances. And he wants you to go down that road to present your future outcomes versus getting to your community.
Darren Rouanzoin:Knowing that we don't learn bold prayers in isolation. They don't pray bold prayers first. They pray together first. Remember Peter of all people knows better because just a few months ago, Peter followed Jesus from far, from afar and went to the high priest's house. He was outside his house.
Darren Rouanzoin:Remember? Peter was last last week, Peter was brought into the high priest's court, the Sanhedrin. The the same court that crucified his Messiah. A few months earlier, he followed Jesus from afar and he warmed himself up by fire outside of that high priest's home and a servant says, weren't you with Jesus? And he denies him.
Darren Rouanzoin:He was alone and he denies Jesus. Now the threat comes and he runs to his people. And Luke is making a distinction theologically. This is not, this is this is a really cool thing. The meeting place that they have this meeting is not in a home, it's probably in the temple courts.
Darren Rouanzoin:Because what we learn is that there's about 8,000 believers at this point in the church life. It just keeps growing. So they're going from Costa Mesa to or you know, to Long Beach, to Huntington Beach, to Riverside. Lord Jesus help us all. Wherever it goes, we will follow.
Darren Rouanzoin:Wherever you lead, we'll go. There's no place. We'll go to Barstow, Lord Jesus. I'm saying it. Because every every time I said I don't wanna go, he sends, I'll I love it.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'll go to Barstow. Just kidding. Love Bar Jesus is there. My point is it's just growing like crazy and they're gathering in the temple and they go to their people. Luke is saying this is a new temple.
Darren Rouanzoin:They gather in community to pray. They pray together. They and and I just have to I just have to recognize this for a second. There's something so beautiful as you study the scripture that you see, they hear the crisis and they don't go to strategy. They hear the crisis and they don't go to solutions.
Darren Rouanzoin:They go to prayer together. One voice. Imagine if people came here and were like, hey guys, we're gonna pray for this thing. And when people on the outside left our church, they they weren't a part of our our normal gathering. They said, man, they prayed in one voice.
Darren Rouanzoin:You know what that's called? Unity. Something that we lack in our current context in the church. It it I mean, I I experienced that for the first time the world of the online world this week. Put some things out into the world and I saw Christian comments.
Darren Rouanzoin:And I was like, I I was like, I just wanna I just wanna go back. I know I'll beat them down with my thumbs because they're clearly not educated. They don't have the credentials. They are unordinary and they are uneducated and they have not been with Jesus. I'm saying that right now.
Darren Rouanzoin:Just kidding. That was a joke from last week. You weren't here. It's cool. You had to be there.
Darren Rouanzoin:That was for me. Anyways, my point is, we don't have unity. We we immediately divide over every little thing that said, we want a pastor to say this and if he doesn't, we don't we leave. Want We everyone to agree with us. Like what world do we live in that everyone's supposed to agree?
Darren Rouanzoin:What do we agree on? The resurrected Jesus. Saved by grace. Bible's the authoritative word of God. Are you with me church?
Darren Rouanzoin:Okay. So there there's this beautiful thing where it's unified. They pray. They pray for those who persecute him. And then here's the content of the prayer.
Darren Rouanzoin:Here's the con I love the content. I want you to think, when was the last crisis that you had? Maybe you're in it now. What's the content of your prayer like? When you got the news, you lost the job.
Darren Rouanzoin:When you got the news, you didn't get in to the college of your dreams. When you got the news that you can't pay rent. What is the content of your prayer? Look at the content of the prayer. And why does this matter?
Darren Rouanzoin:Because Luke is not just writing a history, he's writing a theology of what happened. So it shapes your Christ likeness. So when Luke, when you read the the the sermons that are preached, the long narratives of the sermons or the or the prayers that are prayed, he's shaping your theology. So that your theology will shape how you live. You good?
Darren Rouanzoin:So he said, they say this. When they heard this they raised their voices together in prayer to God. Sovereign Lord, they said, you made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. How's that for a start? Life is out of control.
Darren Rouanzoin:You have crisis. Let me re anchor my imagination to who he is. I'm not strategizing a solution. I'm going to get my soul back into alignment with the ultimate truth. There's a high court saying we can't speak but you made the heavens and the earth and everything in it so we appeal to your boss.
Darren Rouanzoin:You alright? You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David. Why do the nations rage and the people plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord, against his anointed one. Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in the city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed.
Darren Rouanzoin:They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. How about some rich theology there? Yeah? What do they do? They pray scripture and locate their story in God's story.
Darren Rouanzoin:When crisis comes, they pray scripture and they reorient their story into God's story. I'll get to that in a second. But listen, this is the key difference between a fearful church and a faithful church. A fearful church interprets the crisis and the circumstances through the adrenaline and the perceived outcome. But a faithful church or a faithful disciple interprets crisis through the scriptures.
Darren Rouanzoin:They do not pray like victims, they pray like theologians. They interpret their suffering through the bible and they don't have a panic vent session. If you read this, this is the people, this is God's people responding to God with God's word. It's God's people responding to God in worship and prayer with God's word. That's how they begin to pray.
Darren Rouanzoin:Right. They call him sovereign Lord. This is a very important phrase. They're they're they're appealing to who he is, his nature, his character, his power. The truth of reality is built on this.
Darren Rouanzoin:They begin with adoration and worship. They recalibrate their souls based on the person of God. Based on his nature and character and how he exists. They call him sovereign Lord. They say God's And and what that means is God's sovereignty means that God is in charge even when it feels like no one's in charge.
Darren Rouanzoin:God's sovereignty means that God is never surprised. That God is stronger than the issue you're dealing with. Right? God's bigger than your fear or sickness. He's greater than even death.
Darren Rouanzoin:Yes? Sovereignty means he's wise and not random. Sovereignty means he's good and in a good mood. I love that one. And he's not cruel.
Darren Rouanzoin:Sovereignty does not produce passivity in the church. Sovereignty produces boldness. In view of who he is, we're gonna get bold. In view of what's true, we're gonna live in response. So we we pray the word of God and that is a really good thing.
Darren Rouanzoin:And for many of us, we don't know how to pray the word of God. I love holding God accountable to his word. Maybe you've never lived in a place that required you to hold God accountable to his word. Because you've been so comfortable and fear based, you have a need to pray those kind of bold prayers. Have you thought about that?
Darren Rouanzoin:Well, okay. A couple of years ago, no, it's a long time ago, eleven years ago. No, nine years ago. My second son was born and before that, my wife and I bought a house for the first time in our lives. And as church planners and pastors, that was a miracle in itself.
Darren Rouanzoin:We bought a tiny little home by an airport and we got help from grandparents and we're like, it was my wife's dream to own a home and we got a home and we're planning a church. We have two kids and like this is amazing. And the same way that I've I've heard God's voice in the past about becoming a pastor or planning to do all the ways I hear his voice. I heard this whisper when my boy was three weeks old. He said, God said, sell your home, give the money away and move back to where you lived in Belmont Heights and rent again.
Darren Rouanzoin:Does it make sense? And I'm like, clearly that's not from you Lord. It's got got like, you gotta talk to Alex about this. I'll share her. I'll share it with her.
Darren Rouanzoin:But obviously, she's wiser than me. She prayed like, think it's from the Lord. What? So we when we hear from the Lord, we move. So we literally moved and signed a three year lease before we could list and sell our home.
Darren Rouanzoin:Because we needed to wait two years for capital gains reasons. Okay? Is that alright? So we did that. We moved and now we're in this crisis.
Darren Rouanzoin:We have this rent and we have this mortgage and we have to list list this house and we're pastors and we gave up our dream home. But we're following you and the word associated to the whisper he gave me was from Mark chapter 10 verse 29. Mark ten twenty nine and thirty says, no one who has left his home or brother or sister or mother or father or child or fields from me and this gospel, verse 30, will fail to receive a 100 times as much in this present age. So what did I do? I said, Lord, it better be a 100 times as much.
Darren Rouanzoin:I held him to his word. I used his word. I'm like, it's not prosperity. This is what he said to me. Our house closed on October 29.
Darren Rouanzoin:10/29. You can't make this up. It was sold. And then, the grace of God. There have been these moments in our life where I'm I'm pleading for months.
Darren Rouanzoin:We're so stressed. We're pleading with God to fulfill your promise. You said this in your word. There are so many of you, seventy one percent of Gen Z say that anxiety has a negative impact on your daily life. Have you memorized Philippians chapter four where it says, do not be anxious about anything but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to God.
Darren Rouanzoin:Listen, I'm not saying psychology is bad or therapy is bad. I am saying, stop being formed by the condition of this world. And it goes on to say, and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. The scripture has to create new neural pathways in your brain. You're allowing what the enemy wants to condition you.
Darren Rouanzoin:Choose as the church to pray scripture, to meditate. It says in Joshua chapter one, to be strong and courageous. It says, meditate. That word meditate is to gnaw on a bone. Be like a dog with a giant bone with the word of God.
Darren Rouanzoin:Let it transform the neural pathways of your brain so the fastest route when crisis comes is straight to prayer. Straight to his word. Have you been immersed in the scriptures? The early church teaches us to become the kind of people that pray scripture. When I deal with spiritual attack and this there's been a lot of it in 2025.
Darren Rouanzoin:And everyone, you know, they go to they go to Ephesians like, oh, the battle is not against flesh and blood. And I love that. That's great. I love it. Put on the armor of God.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm like, no. That's not what I'm praying. I'm praying Romans 16 verse 20. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. I am praying Romans chapter 16 verse 20 prophetically.
Darren Rouanzoin:This is the future that I'm walking in as my kids deal with night terrors. This is the future that I'm walking with with my wife is dealing with this ridiculous health crisis. I believe that God of peace will crush Satan under my feet. Yeah. Come on.
Darren Rouanzoin:Yeah. You're like, this is crazy. You need to let scripture shape your faith. Not your emotions. But it feels true.
Darren Rouanzoin:I feel it. Yes. But it's lying. Honor the honor the feeling. Move into truth.
Darren Rouanzoin:Submit those experiences to the word of God. I'm not denying depression. I'm not denying anxiety. I'm not denying any of those things. That's not what I'm saying.
Darren Rouanzoin:But I do see the way that our church has been deeply shaped by a condition of the world. The question is not, can you write it down in a journal for your therapist on Tuesday? The question is, can you get into community and pray into God? Pray with God. Pray it with God's perspective.
Darren Rouanzoin:And what the church does is they don't they don't speculate the outcomes. They don't speculate what's gonna happen. They don't go into crisis mode speculating what God's gonna do. Instead, they exegete scripture. They they go, oh, Psalm two.
Darren Rouanzoin:And they quote Psalm two to God. And Psalm two is the coronation Psalm. It's the messianic Psalm that prophesies what happened to Jesus. And as they see, wait the Sanhedrin court, Pontius Pilate, Herod and the Gentiles, they all conspired in this holy city Jerusalem against your anointed, the Messiah Jesus Christ. The Psalm two which was written by David was a prophecy for what we're living in and they locate their story in God's story because their story isn't the main character.
Darren Rouanzoin:They don't show up going, I just want you to help me with my calling. No. Jesus says, your calling is to the cross. Follow me there to the ends of the earth. They're not like, okay, help me with my life goals and my life dreams so I can have that hashtag blessed life.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's not the calling of the church. That's not the calling of Jesus. That is the consumer gospel. That is the wrong gospel. And it's formed you into fear and pleasure, not discipleship to Jesus Christ.
Darren Rouanzoin:The early church says, no, no, no. What's going on in our present moment is is that the kings and rulers have plotted in vanity against God. But God's sovereign. So they locate their story in the scripture. This is what's going on and apparently evil doesn't have the final say.
Darren Rouanzoin:God has the final say. Are you with me? So they recognize that the suffering that Jesus went through was not some you know random act that was a detour to God's ultimate plan. God wasn't overpowered by evil. Betrayal and injustice and violence and his execution.
Darren Rouanzoin:God wasn't absent from that experience. God didn't author evil. No. Evil doesn't have the final say. The cross was not a detour.
Darren Rouanzoin:The cross was the plan. And t Wright says that the early Christians learned to read the cross not as proof that God was absent or lost control. But proof that God had a kind of control that exercises differently. He says, sovereignty that works through suffering love, not coercive force. The early Christians did not believe that suffering meant God was absent.
Darren Rouanzoin:They believed suffering was the sign that God was at work in a deeper and more paradoxical way. In other words, as they see what's going on before them, they reframe their crisis with scripture and they pray. And here's the content of their prayer from here. They they use scripture, they orient their selves in it and then they pray this prayer after that. Now Lord, consider their threats and give us comfort.
Darren Rouanzoin:No, that's not what they say. Lord, consider their threats and shut their mouths. Consider their threats and put our guy into position. Consider their threats and give us a better system that makes it justice focused for everyone. No.
Darren Rouanzoin:Consider their threats. Can we just, can I speak clearly real quick? There's only one king and one kingdom, yes? And both sides will be offended by the true Jesus if we allow it. Jesus is not our mascot for our ideologies.
Darren Rouanzoin:And when we wave a flag thinking that this Jesus looks like this way, we miss it. He will offend every way and that's who we follow. Are you okay? Some of you don't know what I'm talking about. That's okay.
Darren Rouanzoin:Some of you, I'm offending you. That's okay. We need space. Can find a puppet somewhere else. Jesus, I just wanna say it.
Darren Rouanzoin:Is that I know. Like, but the You're like, I'm checking it out. Well, this is what it's gonna be like. That's right. It's gonna be like this.
Darren Rouanzoin:I have a view of politics. I have a strong view of the way society should be organized. We have to have a politics. The The church is a politic. Christ had a politic.
Darren Rouanzoin:But we have to submit our ideologies to Jesus. Because we're not unified by the same ideology. We're not unified by our politics. We're unified by the fact that Jesus is Lord and raised from the dead. That's it.
Darren Rouanzoin:And you get to take bread and juice every single week and say no matter what comes against us, this meal, which is his body, this juice which is his blood is what draws us into heaven's grace and we say thank you. We didn't get here on our own. Alright. That's a freebie. It could have been the fingers that were talking to me over the week.
Darren Rouanzoin:But here's what I love. They asked for boldness, not escape. They asked for boldness. To do what? To speak Jesus.
Darren Rouanzoin:When you go through crisis, when you go through your life, do do you and when was the last time you prayed, oh Lord Jesus, fill me with your spirit that I may say Jesus more in the workplace. Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit that I may speak Jesus to my spouse as we struggle with conflict. Lord, give me your Holy Spirit so that rather than respond tit for tat, scoreboard with my roommate, I respond with Jesus incarnated. As I say that, I'm convicted about the time I did that as a college student. I still hold a grudge against a guy who is a famous plastic surgeon now.
Darren Rouanzoin:He ate half of my chipotle burrito. Lord, I forgive him. Hey, can I tell you? This is for the 11 because I shared it here. Remember I talked about my neighbor?
Darren Rouanzoin:Yeah. So the next day. So I shared was that last week? Wow, it's been like a month. The next day I was running in the morning and I came across her house and the the trash can was left where I saw her when I hid inside and the pile was there and the Lord said, clean it all up.
Darren Rouanzoin:And I just want you to know because this is how I live, I cleaned up the whole front yard. Not to show you that I did it because actually the Lord convicted me when I shared. I should have done it in the first place. So now, I'm looking for ways to serve my neighbor especially because it oozed out of me. And Lord's saying, this is not who you are.
Darren Rouanzoin:That is who you are. So I put my my hands and I got dirty and then I did all the things and it was gnarly and nasty and it took a long time. But that's what I did. I wanna share that with you because I confessed it but I I made, what's it called? Penance.
Darren Rouanzoin:Yeah. In the Catholic church. I I did five Hail Marys. Is that right? I'm good, yeah.
Darren Rouanzoin:Forgot. I don't study Catholicism anymore. So the problem today Oh, we got time. Yeah, we're good, alright. I don't have to drive anymore anymore.
Darren Rouanzoin:They don't pray remove the threat, they say fortify our witness. John Wimber says, the early church did not pray for safety, they prayed for power. And I love their line, it says consider their threats and listen, this is theology. So listen, this is so important. Enable your servants.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's not empower your leaders. Release an apostolic manifold global senior leader movement across the earth as we may, you know, take over the seven mountains of the Enable your slaves. It's a translation. They see themselves exactly based on who God is. On who Jesus is.
Darren Rouanzoin:And they orient their prayer so simply. Give us courage to speak Jesus and to do his ministry. Jesus said in Acts one, you will be my witnesses. Right? And remember witnesses is to point to the risen risen Lord Jesus Christ.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's to do Jesus's ministry which was to proclaim the kingdom of God and to set captives free, heal the sick, raise the dead, all those things. They're simply asking for God to give them the courage to do what Jesus already told them to do in the face of opposition. And then, God responds after they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. God answers their prayer not with explanation, not with a strategy document, not with a timeline.
Darren Rouanzoin:He answers their prayer with his presence. This is the case throughout all of the scripture that God will answer with his presence. It says that the place they were meeting was shaken and I know that in the Old Testament, this happens all the time. This is called the Theophany. And Theophany's are all over the place.
Darren Rouanzoin:In Sinai, God shook the mountain when God's presence descended as fire on the mountain. In Isaiah six, the threshold of the temple shake at the sound of worship. In Exodus, the tabernacle's filled with God's presence and glory and it's so thick, priests can't even go in to do the worship service. And so that happens again in first Kings chapter eight. All of this is a sign of the manifest presence of God and that's what Luke wants you to know.
Darren Rouanzoin:The church prays and the manifest presence of God comes in. The church prays and God shakes not to create chaos but to create courage. To reinforce his people. And it says, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. I come back to this every time because I just need you to think about this.
Darren Rouanzoin:Over and over again, we see the outpouring and filling of the Holy Spirit. Acts chapter two, the Holy Spirit fills the church. They speak in tongues. It happens again in Acts chapter four. And we already read about this in Acts three and in Acts four.
Darren Rouanzoin:Peter as an individual is filled with the Holy Spirit. Why does that matter? Because the spirit hasn't left and filling is not a one time event. It's an ongoing experience that creates a church dependent on the presence of God. And Simon Ponsaby, the theologian from Oxford, he says, when the bible speaks of being filled, the Holy Spirit is saying that one is consumed, taken over, impregnated, saturated, complete and replete with God's presence and power.
Darren Rouanzoin:Listen to this. To be filled with the Holy Spirit leaves no room to be filled with anything else. That's probably a word for the moment. In a culture that is defined by consumerism, what are you filled with outside of the presence of God? What have you filled your mind with outside of the presence of God?
Darren Rouanzoin:Remember, I'm trying to answer this question. If the world disciples us into fear and anxiety, what disciples us? What forms us into courage? How do we learn to pray fearless prayers? Number one, we ought to be in community.
Darren Rouanzoin:Number two, we gotta learn to pray scripture and orient, re define our our story by God's story. And number three, we need to ask for boldness not escape. But most importantly, we need to create a level of dependence on the presence of God for everyday life. God is moving right now. I can't tell you how many stories I've had with friends whose family members have never wanted to come to church or coming to church right now.
Darren Rouanzoin:Whose kids have been far away and they're coming back to faith. This is the harvest, church. We don't need you to be full of fear. We don't need you to be full of Instagram feeds. We don't need you to be filled with YouTube or TikTok or Netflix or that series.
Darren Rouanzoin:We need the church to be filled with the spirit of God. Some of you need to give up alcohol for a season. This is prophetic word I think. I'm just gonna throw this out there. This is a word of knowledge.
Darren Rouanzoin:Some of you, alcohol has consumed and made you dull in your family life, in your leadership and God is asking you right now to give it up. And that you've been doing all the other things but you know deep down inside, he's asking for a season of sobriety. So that because it says in Ephesians chapter five, before it says, keep on being filled with the spirit. It says, do not get drunk off wine which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Darren Rouanzoin:This is a command to the church. Some of you, if Paul was here, he would say, yep, follow the alcohol thing. Some of you would say, get off Instagram. Get off social media. Because you've been filled.
Darren Rouanzoin:You've been consumed with the thoughts of this world. Satan doesn't need to attack you at night. He doesn't need to resist your prayers. He's won your imagination and the algorithms you have on your phone. This is what Jesus is after.
Darren Rouanzoin:Your soul being shaped into Christ likeness. Can I get an Amen? Hallelujah. That's just for myself. Fear of the Lord has come on the room.
Darren Rouanzoin:I believe it because you need to respond. This isn't good content. This is God's presence in the room. It was here. Right when I walked in the room I was like, Woah.
Darren Rouanzoin:Worship is something else. Did you feel it? How many of you felt it? It was special. I was like, this wasn't at the nine?
Darren Rouanzoin:They're sinners. No. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. No. I'm not talking to you bro. This wasn't at the 10.
Darren Rouanzoin:God showed up here and he's trying to move. Be obedient. When we call for response, I want If if you don't need to say what it is, I want you to come forward if the Lord spoke to you in this moment. Okay? You don't have to do it now.
Darren Rouanzoin:I wanna end with this. Revival doesn't begin with platforms. It doesn't begin with a cool, full service of Christians posting something online saying, SoCal revival. We can't ordain it because it's sovereign from God's sovereign work. We will know in hindsight.
Darren Rouanzoin:But if history has anything to teach us, revival does not start with clever ideas, it always starts with prayer. It starts when God's people gather to pray and they say, Lord, consider this moment. Consider the crisis. Anxiety is plaguing a generation. Suicide is plaguing men like never before.
Darren Rouanzoin:Consider the crisis that's unfolding. Consider this moment. Enable your servants with boldness to pray prayers that are audacious, outrageous. They don't make sense. You see John Wesley didn't begin to start a movement.
Darren Rouanzoin:He started a prayer club. A prayer room that turned into a global movement called the Methodist Movement that reformed and transformed and started the first Great Awakening, which moved into The US from The UK and brought about a whole new spirituality and social life. Evan Roberts, outside of a church service with a bunch of 18 year olds, Evan himself was mid twenties, gathered a small group of 18, 17, 19 year old kids outside of a church, about 12 of them. He prayed a prayer, Lord, bend me. And it began the Welsh revival.
Darren Rouanzoin:Azusa Street, one of my favorite stories, the Pentecostal movement began after William Seymour got fired when he moved his family out to a church in LA, preached one Sunday and they fired him. Must have been a bad sermon. Gathered in an upper room, no celebrity preacher, just hungry people, praying in a small room and the spirit fell and the Pentecostal movement was born from a guy who was fired after preaching one sermon. And the result was a move of God around the world. The Pentecostal movement which makes some of the largest denominations in the world, has over 500,000,000 Christians in it.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's a 120 years old. Catholicism has about a billion. It's been around for two thousand years. Think about that. It all started with a small group praying in a room.
Darren Rouanzoin:This is not just history. Just two years ago, something quiet and unmistakable happened at Asbury, where normal chapel service turned into days of non stop prayer, confession, worship and repentance. No hype, no schedule, just sustained humble hunger for God's presence. If history teaches us anything, it's this. When God wants to move powerfully, he teaches his church to pray boldly.
Darren Rouanzoin:Not polite prayers, not defensive prayers, audacious prayers. Prayers that do not ask God to make life easier. Prayers that ask God to make his people faithful. What if the spirit is waiting, not for better conditions, but for bolder prayers? Acts four reminds us that fearless prayer is formed in community shaped by scripture and released through bold obedience.
Darren Rouanzoin:Rooms will shake in our future. People will be transformed and the word of God will go forth because of your wild boldness. So let us become people who believe that God is near. That God has come near. Let us pray with people who do not have fear and know that fear does not have the final word.
Darren Rouanzoin:Let us pray as people who trust that the same God that shook the mountains and the temple and fills rooms is the same God that fills rooms with his presence today. Because God's people pray, history moves and follows. The question I have is, what are you waiting for? Remember, in the presence of a king, don't ask for small gifts. Can we all stand?
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