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"Here as in Heaven."
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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 the 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:Acts, can you show me your bibles? Let's go. Acts chapter one. Pull them out. 11, you won.
Darren Rouanzoin:You beat your 9AM brothers and sisters. I can't see you outside. Are you slow? I don't see bibles raised next to those beautiful yachts. Let me see those bibles.
Darren Rouanzoin:I see you. I see you. Alright. We had more people at the 9AM than ever. Like we have 200 and something people at the 9AM outside.
Darren Rouanzoin:So we're moving them to Beals next week. Got some AC over there. No barbecue. It's gone. I know.
Darren Rouanzoin:They are gone. But there will be fire. You just got to bring it. All right. We're in the Book of Acts.
Darren Rouanzoin:You ready? Some of you are ready? Acts one here we go verse one I'll read this. I feel Hold on. I feel 11:00.
Darren Rouanzoin:Fires can come. So let me just say this and then I'm gonna read it. Luke starts the book of Acts saying, all that Jesus began to do and teach. So Acts is the continuation of the Gospel of Luke. It's the continuation of Jesus' ministry.
Darren Rouanzoin:Let me just say the resurrection isn't the end of his ministry. It launched a new era. Right? So Jesus want What Luke wants you to know is Jesus is alive. He's active.
Darren Rouanzoin:He's speaking. He's he's leading the church in the power of the Holy Spirit. So this whole book and let me let me even frame it bigger than the book of Acts. All of Christianity hinges on Jesus being raised from the dead. Like we're not teaching about an idea or a subject or like Jesus the friendly ghost.
Darren Rouanzoin:Like Jesus like like the idea of Jesus and his teachings is not enough for Christianity to be effective. It is the reality that he lived, died on a cross and three days later, rose from the dead. Physically, historically, in real time and space. And currently reigns the cosmos according to Revelation which we all know extensively. Thanks to that epic teaching.
Darren Rouanzoin:So I just wanna say the apostles didn't start something new. They carried forward what Jesus began. So we pick up where we left off verse one. In my former book Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach. Until the day he was taken up to heaven have after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles that he had chosen.
Darren Rouanzoin:After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave them many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Remember Jesus' ministry in a nutshell is the kingdom of God. He proclaimed and demonstrated the reality of the kingdom. God's reign, rule, realm.
Darren Rouanzoin:What heaven looks like on earth. What life would look like if God was in charge. This is present right now and it will eventually come once and for all. Acts begins. Jesus, the resurrected Messiah, pre ascended, post resurrected Jesus teaches on the kingdom of God and then the book ends with Paul in Rome teaching on the kingdom of God.
Darren Rouanzoin:You with me? That's the whole narrative. But it goes on and this is the passage I wanna focus on. On one occasion, while he was eating with them. Praise God for good food.
Darren Rouanzoin:Let's just wait for that for a moment. He gave them his command and this is the only command. The post resurrected, the pre ascended Jesus Christ gives the church. Do not leave Jerusalem but wait for the gift my father promised which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized you with water but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
Darren Rouanzoin:Spirit. Let me pray. Lord Jesus, we wanna be baptized. We wanna be immersed in your presence. We wanna we wanna be filled with you.
Darren Rouanzoin:And Lord, I pray that as I talk, the presence of God would fall and that we'd experience more and more of you as we move forward in this book. As we we as we move forward in Christianity we would be empowered by your presence in Jesus name. Amen. Alright. So he says, wait.
Darren Rouanzoin:Now imagine this. Your guy wins. Right? You're obscure following this Messiah who gets defeated, executed the worst kind of death ever invented by humans. He gets takes on death, defeats death, resurrects from the dead.
Darren Rouanzoin:Your guy wins and then he speaks to you to the nations. You're gonna go to all nations now and bring this message. Are you kidding me? Let's go Jesus. Let's take it on.
Darren Rouanzoin:Let's take on Rome. Let's defeat our enemies. Let's go after it. But what Jesus says is wait. Wait.
Darren Rouanzoin:We hate waiting today. Right? Like I mean, let's be honest. Waiting is so uncomfortable. A two second buffer we get frustrated by.
Darren Rouanzoin:Go on the four zero five and you move over to one lane in traffic and all of a sudden because you were there ten seconds before that guy comes in, all of a sudden, you are entitled to that space. And someone that goes a little too slow on the gas when the light turns green, you get front You don't wanna wait. With two days of shipping feels like a long time now because of Amazon. I'm looking for the here of $3.99 to get by you know, get here at eight to 10:00 at night. Yes.
Darren Rouanzoin:We instant everything. One click groceries. We don't know how to wait as a culture anymore. And yet when I look at the scriptures, what I see is we we apply what culture has shaped us in in this hurry instant world and we we've mirrored it in our spiritual life with God. We want revival without repentance.
Darren Rouanzoin:We want growth without pruning. We want breakthrough without waiting and lingering in God's presence. Waiting feels like a failure. Yet his command is wait. Don't do it.
Darren Rouanzoin:Don't strategize. Don't go after it. Don't launch the new website. Don't do the missional campaign. No.
Darren Rouanzoin:No. No. Wait for my presence. And one of the greatest tragedies in the modern church is we've disciple people into programs not to his presence. We have taught people to believe the right doctrine.
Darren Rouanzoin:Doctrine is great to serve in the right ministries. Ministries are great. Service is great to attend the right gatherings. Gatherings are amazing but we have not taught them to live daily in step with the Holy Spirit like Galatians commands. In Acts the spirit is not an accessory.
Darren Rouanzoin:The spirit is the engine that moves everything forward. Luke makes it clear. Stuff happens through the Holy Spirit. The apostles wait and the spirit falls in Acts two. Then they preach in the power of the Holy Spirit in Acts two.
Darren Rouanzoin:Then they're directed in mission in the power of the Holy Spirit in Acts 13. They endure persecution and when they're filled with the Holy Spirit, ordinary Christians are not described as members or attenders but men and women who are filled with the Holy Spirit for power. With power. And in many churches today, we've disciple people into relying on our structures rather than the Holy Spirit. We are more comfortable in practicing disciplines than we are waiting for His presence.
Darren Rouanzoin:We equip people to serve a brand not to walk with the person of Jesus. So we produce consumers of religious goods and services rather than in spirit empowered witnesses and the results are this. We don't know the difference between a polished worship set and the presence of God in the room. We didn't know the difference between a leader who can strategize in spiritual discernment for the moment. We produce the wrong kind of graduates of Christianity.
Darren Rouanzoin:They manage their life but they don't surrender it. So I wanna I want help with my hurry. I might take on this rule of fasting because I'm I'm over indulging. It's my project self life that's helpful rather than die to myself and wait on his presence because I'm waiting for whisper. Here's what I know.
Darren Rouanzoin:We've taught a form of godliness but deny its power. That's why Simon Ponsonby warns us, we have as much of God as we are prepared to wait for. The spirit falls where there is hunger, thirst and desperation. Yet, we rarely disciple people into hunger. We feed them into busyness.
Darren Rouanzoin:I thought this was gonna be a bible study when I started writing this text. Oh, we're we're gonna study the bible alright but it's gonna wreck us today. The early church did not launch a vision with vision statements and compelling brands or leadership pipelines. They waited in prayer prayerful desperation for God to move and the world was turned upside down by ordinary people. And let me just say this because we have youth in our services and I wanna say this to the whole church.
Darren Rouanzoin:We cannot afford to disciple another generation into spiritless Christianity. We must recover what John Stott said bluntly. Before Christ sent the church into the world, he sent the spirit into the church. The same order must be observed today. So he says, wait.
Darren Rouanzoin:Wait for the gift my father promised. Waiting is so hard today. Yet it's where God does most of his work informing us. Look at a list of all the people that waited. That I could come up with from a morning.
Darren Rouanzoin:I was like walking I'm like, oh I gotta type all this out. Abraham and Sarah waited twenty five years. Joseph 13. I love David's story. He's anointed.
Darren Rouanzoin:You are the new king. And fifteen years of obscurity before he takes the throne. We hear a word of God and we don't think I'm gonna wait on this word. I gotta share it immediately. Yeah.
Darren Rouanzoin:The real prophetic gifts in our church are those that have a word and sit on it for years and no one knows. But we live with this instant culture where like I heard his voice great blah. We don't have any power because we don't know how to wait. Waiting does something to us and the early church learned this lesson that they could not change the world without God's presence. So we resist waiting because it confronts our illusion of control.
Darren Rouanzoin:But waiting is how God forms us and rewires us and we're not waiting for just anything. Jesus says, John baptized you with water. In a few days, I will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Brothers and sisters, I just have to say, this is my experience in the church. My experience has been we are so comfortable without his presence.
Darren Rouanzoin:I grew up in a church not believing in the ministry and power of the Holy Spirit. I love the Father, Son and Holy Bible. And we wonder why people are walking away because we don't have the presence of God with us anymore. We're comfortable with just ideas about God rather than becoming what he says. A stream of living water will flow through us.
Darren Rouanzoin:When he speaks to what life of Christianity looks like in the gospel of John, he says you will be a stream of living water which is the fulfillment of Genesis one and two then the prophets of the old testament that there would be this this river that heals the nations. You become the river of life through the presence of God. So wherever you go wherever you go, God's there with you. So you're always on a prayer walk. You're always on mission because now you're carrying his presence into your schools.
Darren Rouanzoin:Into your home with a bunch of non christian parents. Into your school, your workplace. Wherever you go there, the presence of God. That's the whole strategy of Jesus. The problem is we're comfortable without power.
Darren Rouanzoin:We think that doing practices is the same as the presence of God with us transforming us. I'm all for practices. I'm all for spiritual disciplines but what I see is our over obsession with them rather than God himself. Practices should lead to communion with God. Should lead to Christ likeness.
Darren Rouanzoin:Not more practices. Yes. I don't get really good at learning the fundamentals of basketball. So look dad, I can still not double dribble. Look dad, I didn't go out of the lines, out of bounds.
Darren Rouanzoin:I stayed in the line. No. Play basketball son. Yeah. Do you know the difference?
Darren Rouanzoin:I remember when Ezra was like three years old we lived in down in Long Beach and we were walking to a coffee shop and there was this red ATV outside of a dumpster in the alley and I'm like, Oh, I bet that's, free. So I took it. I asked around and yes it was free and I It was covered in all sorts of stuff and I cleaned it all off and I put Ezra on it and it was the worst idea of my entire life because I spent three days like this pushing him around you know as he's As he laughed uncontrollably I'm just moving him around you know, like straining my back, working the muscles that I never worked down below. And for three days, it was exhausting. And one day, he like falls off of it, doesn't get hurt and the the seat falls off with it and inside there's a battery.
Darren Rouanzoin:Amazon primed a charger. Right? Overnighted it. Charged it. It takes forever to charge as always.
Darren Rouanzoin:Like what? Yeah. That's a whole other conversation. Speaking of waiting, like you give Christmas gifts to your kids and you don't charge the electronics like, come on, Santa Claus. Just charge it.
Darren Rouanzoin:Put them on it. I push the button to show them and it just takes off. He gets on it, touches it once and hops off and he says, no daddy push. You see you were made for power. You were made for a life of the spirit but most of you are just comfortable pushing it uphill.
Darren Rouanzoin:So Jesus says, no no no. When I come, the baptism that I bring will be a baptism in the Holy Spirit. Not of the Holy Spirit. In. You will be dunked, immersed, overflowed, overwhelmed in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Darren Rouanzoin:Now we have a lot of text where the Holy Spirit shows up and I'm gonna I'm just gonna take time to teach a theology of the Holy Spirit as I go. Because this question, what is the baptism in the Holy Spirit? Is what I get all the time. So and this is a little nuance because some of you have never heard of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Like Acts 19 you're like I didn't know there was a baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Darren Rouanzoin:There is. And some of us have been taught theologically. Now there wasn't a conversation around it until like the mid eighteen hundreds. When the holiness movement came around, there was like this debate theologically. When do you receive the holy spirit?
Darren Rouanzoin:Is it when you confess that Jesus is Lord and are saved? And that's when the indwelling of the holy spirit comes and you're baptized in the holy spirit? Or is there another event and it happens a second time like the, assemblies of God? Any Vanguard students here? Pentecostals.
Darren Rouanzoin:Let's go, Vanguard. The Pentecostal movement like took on. They they recognized there was like the second event that took place according to the scriptures. And then and then there's other arguments like it happened if you can have a third time or or it's an event that can happen a lot of times. And so people are like, is it this or this?
Darren Rouanzoin:Is it this? And I say, yes. Yes. Is. And like, no no which one?
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm like, let's For me, it always comes back. Well, what does the bible say? So Acts alone let alone the other text. Acts has lots of examples. In Acts two, the Holy Spirit falls on a group of people and then Acts four falls on the same group of people and more.
Darren Rouanzoin:And then in Acts eight, it falls in the the church in Samaria in a town that Philip evangelized to. And then Saul gets filled the spirit. Then the Gentiles get the Holy Spirit which is like mind blowing because the Jews are like, wait, this doesn't make sense but actually it does. If you read the Old Testament, recognize the vocation of Israel for was for the nations anyway. So now, God's presence is dwelling with the Gentiles.
Darren Rouanzoin:This is crazy. It's getting out of control. And then, ends with Ephesians where a group of believers who are baptized in John's baptism of repentance find out through Paul there's more. His name is Jesus. They say yes to Jesus.
Darren Rouanzoin:They're filled with the Holy Spirit and revival breaks out two and a half years later. Ephesus becomes the epicenter of Christianity for hundreds of years. Anyways, that's just the biblical stuff. Love this stuff. Do you love this?
Darren Rouanzoin:I do. So the answer to the question is, is it one time event? Is it twice? Is it Yes. And that's my experience.
Darren Rouanzoin:This is this is part of what happened. I love what Martin Lloyd Jones says. He says, obviously distinct from and separate from becoming a Christian, being regenerate, being sanctified or becoming more like Jesus is the way you could say it. Having the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. I am putting it like this.
Darren Rouanzoin:You can be a child of God and yet not be baptized with or in the Holy Spirit. I believe that's true. That's my experience. So when I was a believer, when I came to faith, I went to a church that believed in the Father, Son, Holy Bible. They taught against the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Darren Rouanzoin:I was like, watch out for the crazy charismatics. And I love the bible and that's that's where I came out of. And and then I got saved, back in college like I rededicated my life to Jesus at a very conservative Calvary Chapel Church. And then I went to Rock Harbor and started going to Vanguard University. And it was at Vanguard that pastor Bill discipled me into the theology of the kingdom and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Darren Rouanzoin:So what happened is when I was growing up, I had a theology that fit my experience. I don't believe in the spirit working today. I really don't believe God moves at all so prayer doesn't matter. So that fit my experience and then I went to Vanguard and had a theology that didn't fit my experience. I hadn't experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit ministering in power but I believed it.
Darren Rouanzoin:I believed he could move so my thought was he's doing this in places that are undeveloped around the world. That's what I thought. And then I felt called to ministry. I start working at that church Rock Harbor at 22 years old in March 2007. On my way to India, I stopped at a church in The UK that was planted at Holy Trinity Brompton.
Darren Rouanzoin:They were doing life course or the Alpha course there and they were telling stories. There were thousands of people going to this church in Central London. In 02/2007, young people were getting saved because someone would prophesy on the streets. So they would get healed of a disease or someone would have a word of knowledge about their past and they would encounter God. And I was like, this is crazy.
Darren Rouanzoin:Wow. And he's like, oh no, it's everyone gets to do this. It's not the pastors. It's like you get saved and this is what you do at our church. And I was like, I want this.
Darren Rouanzoin:He's like, well let's just pray for all the pastors. There's a group of us. Open up our hands, close our eyes. We're in a basement of the church. People pray for me like, oh this is great.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm looking around you know. And then the pastor came over, prayed for me and I was filled with the Holy Spirit. I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. What do I mean? Well, it's like last week, remember the sermon I said where it's like having listening to a song.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's like, some of you aren't gonna understand this but some of you this is language that you're like, I get you. I was ambushed by the love of God. This guy prayed things that were so I didn't have I didn't know what a word of knowledge was. I didn't know what prophecy was. He prayed things and when I was done sobbing on the floor because I I had to sit down because I was uncontrollably sobbing.
Darren Rouanzoin:He had whispered the secrets of my heart. He had opened what felt like I had to go look in my bag to make sure he didn't read my journal. Because I didn't know that you could You have access to what Jesus has access to and the power has access to in the power of the Holy Spirit. And he wanted to unlock something in me. And it was a a heart to heal my father wound.
Darren Rouanzoin:It was a heart to know that there's more, that I was on the right track. And then he prophesied I would plant a church. And that I would I would do these things and all these was absolutely bonkers. But I felt electricity through my body. I felt waves of his presence.
Darren Rouanzoin:I didn't have language. I didn't know what to experience but I was changed. In a moment, the next day I'm on a train to India and I hear God say, plan a church in Long Beach. Because if you follow the scriptures, the Holy Spirit sends you. He doesn't fill you for warm fuzzies.
Darren Rouanzoin:He's not filling you so that you get your next hit here and then when Jesus image here you get your next hit or that one event on Monday night happens and you get No. No. No. It's all for mission. Yeah.
Darren Rouanzoin:We're four Monday nights by the way. They're back. Let's go. 6PM circuit riders is a Monday night. We love circuit riders.
Darren Rouanzoin:Here's my point. The spirit I was baptized in the spirit. So now, I had a theology that fit my experience. And I had to process what was going on because I was saved. I had heard the voice of God.
Darren Rouanzoin:I had experienced things. I had been in worship but I was undone. And then what happened to me was like, I wanna plant a church so I'm gonna do this but I wanna plant a church that looked like that church. I wanna be a church that's filled with the spirit where people can come forward and encounter God's presence. They can be unlocked like I was unlocked.
Darren Rouanzoin:I can't tell you how many stories of people that have grown up in the church, that have experienced God for a long time and then they get prayer by some teenager. They get prayer by some new Christian that just happens to be trained because they don't know any better. They weren't formed in a discipleship that said all we want is order. Yeah. Wow.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's good. Every time someone talks to me about the holy spirit like make sure there's order. I'm like what about all the other gifts that are listed? Prophecy. Words of knowledge.
Darren Rouanzoin:Signs and wonders. What about when Paul takes aprons and casts out demons and heals the sick with aprons. That's crazy. Peter's shadow falls on people and people get healed. I want order.
Darren Rouanzoin:I want Jesus. I want however he comes. And we gotta raise up a generation that doesn't know any better. It's like my friend whose dad got in an accident and was told by the doctors he would never walk again and when they went to see him he was walking. And they're like, the doctor said you weren't gonna walk.
Darren Rouanzoin:And he said, well they didn't tell me that. What if there's a generation that raises up that doesn't know any better? That doesn't know we we don't pray for the dead. We don't we raise the dead. We don't we pray for blind people.
Darren Rouanzoin:We we bring our faith wherever we go. We're, oh, I hope my son doesn't you know go to high school and lose his faith or go to college. No. No. I hope the college survives my son.
Darren Rouanzoin:But the problem is we just wanna teach you to you know, be fed. Jesus says be baptized. I don't Man, you're getting all this stuff that's on notes. So there you go. How did the first century hear baptism in the Holy Spirit?
Darren Rouanzoin:Well they heard it as conversion of new belief and immersion into something else. So baptism was used by the Jewish community as a ritualistic practice, a ritual of cleansing and a ritual of conversion but the word baptism comes from baptismo which means to dip, immerse, wash, plunge, sink, overwhelm, or soak. So when the gospel writers talk about Jesus' ministry, when Jesus in the book of Acts talks about what he's gonna do, he's going to wash, dip, plunge, drench, overwhelm, and soak believers in the spirit of God. And it's always synonymous in the in the bible as the spirit baptizing is promising clothing, empowering, pouring, receiving, filling, and gifting. So that's why Paul says in Ephesians, he prays for his body.
Darren Rouanzoin:That he says that they are filled with the fullness of God. And then he prays that they may also be filled with the fullness of God. And then in Ephesians five, he gives us command to be filled with the spirit. Not one time. In the Greek it's a continual present verb meaning keep on being filled.
Darren Rouanzoin:So is it one? Yes. Is it two? Yes. Is it three?
Darren Rouanzoin:Yes. Is it ongoing? Yes. Yes. All we need is more.
Darren Rouanzoin:There's always more and we've been satiated. This is the problem. When the bible speaks of being filled the holy spirit it is saying that one is consumed, taken over, impregnated, saturated, complete and replete in God's presence empowered. So to be filled with the Holy Spirit leaves no room to be filled with anything else. Which is why we don't want a spirit.
Darren Rouanzoin:You're comfortable. We love to be filled with everything else. We are consumers. We love money. We love pleasure.
Darren Rouanzoin:We love distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion. We love check checking out on Netflix because we think we deserve some me time. And then I talk to people like, hey, are you getting up to do quiet time? They're like, no. I don't have time.
Darren Rouanzoin:I can't wake up early except you're spending lots of me time at night checked out binge watching Wednesday which is why you don't have space and power for worship on Sunday. We fill ourselves with the world's stuff and we wonder why there's no room for God to move inside of us. We're satiated. We're not hungry. We don't even know what hunger is because the moment we need something it's instantly given.
Darren Rouanzoin:Postmates, door dash, we just we don't ever feel hunger. It's uncomfortable. But that's the very motivation that moves us into Christ likeness. We hunger for him and in the world when we feed we don't have hunger anymore. But when we feast on God and his presence, we get an insatiable hunger for more of him.
Darren Rouanzoin:But that's for those that have eyes to see and ears to hear. So we set apart space in our lives to to be allow the dependence, To allow our insufficiency. To allow our hunger and desperation to to create space in the waiting for power to come through his presence. We show up to our quiet times. I just gotta I gotta get I gotta get my hit.
Darren Rouanzoin:Utmost for his highest. Give me that five second. Great. Got that done. We don't know how to wake up so early that there's hours before the sun comes up And sit in silence for the whisper.
Darren Rouanzoin:Yeah. You don't know what I'm talking about. Some of you do. Some of you have never been taught to sit in his presence for your quiet time. It doesn't feel good at first.
Darren Rouanzoin:Maybe you need some caffeine to kick in and you just wait. You read scripture as a habit but then then he speaks and the tears come, the sense of nearness is there and you just wanna, you don't wanna miss it. Yeah. You just wanna hold on and you just and and it's it's like a butterfly that lands on your shoulder. Just pause.
Darren Rouanzoin:And that that like moment in his presence is worth a thousand elsewhere. For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. That's what I'm after. That's what I want you to be after. Not a minute Not a life marked by programs in attendance but a life consumed by his presence.
Darren Rouanzoin:Do you want more? Do you want more? His baptism is readily available always for you. That today we're gonna we're gonna stand and wait on the Lord. We're gonna call people forward and we're gonna lay hands.
Darren Rouanzoin:We had so many people come forward, was just jam packed down the aisles and God was ministering so powerfully this morning at the 9AM, it was overwhelming. I know that when you present your true self which is broken and holy, that is put together and falling apart, that is filled with faith and doubt, that has a sense of peace and fear and anxiety and you are a mixed bag like everyone else. When that person shows up, God can do something. It's when you choose to put on the show, you bring on you bring out your Sunday's best which is still casual in most places. It's fine.
Darren Rouanzoin:I don't care. I'm preaching the same uniform. I asked Alex, I'm like, Hey babe, what shoes should I wear? She's like, Just the comfortable ones because my ankles and knees hurt from standing and obviously I'm sprinting on the stage. She's like, Just wear running shoes.
Darren Rouanzoin:Just doesn't doesn't matter anymore so that you can play with the boys after three services. So that's what I do. It's not about style. I'm not projecting it. I'm not trying to prove anything by where I'm wearing the same thing with running shoes so that I can play with my boys after.
Darren Rouanzoin:There's a part of me that died to projection of an image that I want you to see for the sake of my boys. That was obedience. As a kid who was so insecure and suicidal in high school and cared so much about image and wanted to be seen a certain way to I really don't care anymore. I wanna have energy for my kids. That's a pretty good shift for me.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's the work of the Holy Spirit. It's twenty something years of the No. Yeah, I'm 41. So yeah, do the math. That's a lot of years.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's a lot of waiting. Dylan, I've seen God do amazing breakthrough in certain people's lives and I've seen God heal things that I'm praying for healing for and it's frustrating to be in that tension of weight. And so anyways, where I wanna get you to is this posture of waiting. This is, Look, I want you to see also real quick. Can I show you something?
Darren Rouanzoin:We're preaching through a couple of verses the last two weeks. I want you to be trained as a disciple to read the way I'm teaching. This is the inner work That actually we could just do a couple of verses and there's this much content. Are you kidding me? I have so many Like you're not getting any of my notes.
Darren Rouanzoin:I have like 20 quotes. I've used like a couple. And but this is what God wants you to see. He wants you to be lit on fire to go, I don't need to cherry pick the verses to make my life make sense. I can do wait on the Holy Spirit and it could transform my life because it's the word of God.
Darren Rouanzoin:Yes. This is what he's doing for this generation. I'm not I'm not gonna give you 10 steps to help you with anxiety but I was like say come forward, submit to the word and let the Holy Spirit work in you. And you might wait for fifteen years for that to happen. It's worth it.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's worth it. Okay. Couple of observations I'm missing a whole bunch of stuff but that's alright. The call today, this Sunday is to wait. This is the only command that Jesus gives the church.
Darren Rouanzoin:He says to wait. The command to wait is theological, it's practical but most importantly, it gave the disciples a posture of dependence, expectancy and vulnerability. Waiting is a form of prayer and this is where it lands. We don't gain power by rushing and strategizing or speculating about when he's gonna return. We gain power through waiting with Jesus.
Darren Rouanzoin:I love what Oswald's chamber says. He says, prayer is not preparation for the greater work prayer is the greater work. Oh I love the Amens except we don't show up to the prayer room. I get it. It's easier it's easier to say the thing than do it.
Darren Rouanzoin:07:00 on Tuesday night, 07:30AM on Wednesday and then if you're in youth, a all the youth, 05:00 let's go. 05:00 youth. If you wanna come to the 05:00, you can't. It's for the youth and all the volunteer leaders that have been background background checks. So you can't come.
Darren Rouanzoin:The early church did not begin with a movement of strategy. They began with waiting in prayer and the spirit falls which we'll read about in a couple weeks, not in the boardroom but in the upper room. And so here's what I wanna say. A couple of thoughts on waiting and then we're gonna pray for the Holy Spirit. Number one is waiting forms us before God uses us.
Darren Rouanzoin:Right? In our culture of immediacy, instant waiting feels like a waste but biblically it's where God forms character, roots us in identity and strengthens our faith. There's a list of Abraham and Sarah waited and their faith deepened. Joseph waited and his character was refined. Oh, that did not come out the way I was supposed to.
Darren Rouanzoin:Sorry, Seth. Thanks for that. I Oh, no. It's good. Good.
Darren Rouanzoin:Okay, sorry. Yeah, no go back. That was right. David waits and integrity is tested. Hannah waits and intercession is developed.
Darren Rouanzoin:What I love about the intercessors which we need more intercessors in our church. And that's the thing. I What's gonna happen is I'm gonna pray for it in a second. I ask I'm asking the Lord to bring intercessors. Intercessors are the ones that see it first and their job is to to pray into reality.
Darren Rouanzoin:They're the ones secretly praying for the the things that we've been waiting on. When we be When we see it, they were praying five, ten, fifteen years before. They're the ones that heart Their heart breaks for a generation. Their heart breaks for regions. Their hearts breaks for conditions and they go to the Lord.
Darren Rouanzoin:They don't go to their friends. Intercessors are prayer warriors. They're not telling people about what they heard from God. They're not disclosing their intimacies, they're interceding their intimacies with God. Which again, we don't get that because we blast everything.
Darren Rouanzoin:Any encounter, we're just sharing it immediately. But I think the Lord's gonna raise up prophets and intercessors that carry secrets of God's heart in their hearts like like Mary. They ponder it. They intercede. They meditate on these things on behalf of others.
Darren Rouanzoin:Not they're not wow God spoke to me. They're like, okay God spoke to me. What do I do? Alright. That's also a freebie.
Darren Rouanzoin:Okay. Keep going. Number one, waiting forms us before God uses us. It creates dependency. It strengthens our faith.
Darren Rouanzoin:It recognizes that we can It's a confession that we cannot do God's work in human strength. The disciples had to see Jesus heal the sick, cast out demon demons and raise the dead but he still told them to move not move until the spirit came. So this is not passive. This is participating in God's timing. When we wait, we admit that clever sermons, strategy and leadership and programs are not enough.
Darren Rouanzoin:We can't lean on talent, personality or virality. We have to rely on God's presence and that's what shaped as he forms us. Second, waiting makes room for the Holy Spirit. I love what Ian Bowne said. He says, the church is looking for better methods.
Darren Rouanzoin:God is looking for better men and women. Men and women of prayer. When we make room for the Holy Spirit, we surrender control and we we open our hearts to receive the spirit of God, not as a tool for ministry, but as a presence for life in the kingdom. So we don't cast vision through meetings. We don't try to fundraise.
Darren Rouanzoin:We simply wait for him to move. Third, waiting reveals what we really trust. What we're really trusting in. Do we trust God or do we only trust the outcomes we preset in our imagination? Do we trust his power and his presence?
Darren Rouanzoin:Or do we trust our capacity to get things done? Waiting humbles us and reminds us that he's in charge. It purifies our hearts. It surfaces. What happens when we wait is God surfaces all of our distractions and idols.
Darren Rouanzoin:Right? So I I don't know about you but I regularly confess the things I do when I'm impatient. On my sabbatical when I was meeting with the Lord, he kept telling me to slow down. And I was asking for other things. He's like, no, just slow down.
Darren Rouanzoin:Slow down. Slow down. Slow down. And he showed me how many mistakes I would make relationally with my kids or my wife because I was in a hurry. And I realized that my hurriedness was creating all sorts of sin.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's what I would call it. A distortion of connection with my son. A thing that I said in an urgent moment because I was hurried to get out the door that caused in something that later resulted in me having to apologize to my kid because I shouldn't have said that in the first place. Hurriedness kept made made me sin. And so he was showing me slowing down is in waiting and being patient allowed for things to to be resolved that I didn't even realize needed to be resolved.
Darren Rouanzoin:It is that four or five moment. Right? You're in the four or five and you think all these horrible thoughts to the person that cuts you off. Or like when it turns green and they stay a little too long and you're trying to get somewhere in time and so that what comes out comes out. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Darren Rouanzoin:Yes. Am I the only one? No. You're all saints. Okay great.
Darren Rouanzoin:You are saints but better than me. Number four, the last thing I'll say and then we're gonna invite you to pray is waiting cultivates hunger and unity. We need to create hunger. We create hunger by feasting on God and by starving out the things of the flesh. Like right now, talks going long.
Darren Rouanzoin:You feel like you gotta get up because you're sitting so close and you have you're uncomfortable waiting this long. That tends to be the case. And I get it. But we as a church need to get comfortable waiting. Because here's what R.
Darren Rouanzoin:A. Torrey says in '19, in his book, sorry, the the person and work of the Holy Spirit. He he said, the Holy Spirit comes where he is wanted, where he is invited, and where he is waited for. And if you study the presence of God in the bible which I've done a lot, you see that consecration or holiness always leads to greater visitation. That when the temple is consecrated, the glory of the Lord shows up.
Darren Rouanzoin:When Joshua consecrates themselves because tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things, they cross over the Jordan River like this the Red Sea with Moses. You see over and over again seasons of con consecration lead to greater visitation and greater power. For the early church, they waited in expectation and the Holy Spirit came and the world changes because of a few. That's our story. Alright?
Darren Rouanzoin:So let's all stand together and we'll we'll invite the Holy Spirit to minister. If you wanna come forward, why don't you do that right now? Like God's putting on your heart, you want more of him. We're gonna lay hands on everyone. We're gonna wait.
Darren Rouanzoin:So if you need to use restroom, now's the time. If you're outside and wanna come in, please come in. I'll give you permission to cram the the aisles to fill up this space. But in a moment, we're just gonna sit or stand in waiting posture. If you've come forward, come all the way up because there's gonna be more people coming behind you.
Darren Rouanzoin:Just fill up every space. Would you just open your hands and close your eyes? And here's what I want. If you if you wanna receive If you've never Can I tell you a story? This is a very true story.
Darren Rouanzoin:And when I was filled with the Holy Spirit, I came back to Southern California and I went to every place that prayed for people because I wanted so desperately more of the Holy Spirit. So before we started our church, wife and I would go, I would take her all these places. We were engaged at the time and then we got married. And I would just take her to these crazy charismatic services. People would tell me all this thing starts at like 10:00 at night.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm like, I'll show up. It's like an 80 year old preaching. And I'm like, oh God, I don't know if this is for you or from you. And I would always put out a fleece like, alright. Have this guy have a word of knowledge that I'm called to Planet Church in Long Beach.
Darren Rouanzoin:Have him speak to my friend who came with me about this issue. I literally would do it and that specific event, he did all of them. One of the things I put on paper, this is my early experience in the presence of the Holy Spirit. As I said, Lord, if this is for If this thing that he's doing is is of you, have him confirm that I'm called to Planet Church in Long Beach and that I'll be doing what he's doing in the future. So he he does all the other things and he shuts off his mic and sits next to me.
Darren Rouanzoin:He says, Darren, says, he doesn't know my name. He says, young man, you're testing the Lord but he's kind enough to show you that it's true. You are called to plant a church in Long Beach. Now get up. Let me show you how I do this.
Darren Rouanzoin:And for the rest of the night, I prayed for people. He taught me. Like that's I'm like, I don't know. And then God kept being generous towards me. I would go places and they would be like, come forward if you want prayer.
Darren Rouanzoin:And then in some places it be like, only come forward if you're redheaded and you're pregnant. And this is a true story. I came forward because I was desperate. This time calls for desperation. So Lord Jesus, we just open ourselves.
Darren Rouanzoin:And I'm gonna invite you to be quiet. Look, I know some of you come from charismatic background, some of you don't. I wanna create a safe place right now for the presence of God to move. So we're just gonna ask the Lord in your own head and heart to move in power. So ask for more of him.
Darren Rouanzoin:Say, Holy Spirit in your own head and heart. Say, come Holy Spirit. Come, holy spirit. Minister in power. We welcome you here.
Darren Rouanzoin:We want more of you, Jesus. See that the spirit is beginning to move among you, some of you. So here's what I wanna say. Just let let him let the Holy Spirit know he's welcome. So some of you are crying and it's I wanna say it's okay to cry in church like it's okay to bleed in hospitals.
Darren Rouanzoin:So just don't worry about what people are thinking. I'm gonna I'm gonna steward this time so you're safe. Lord, we want more of you right now. Holy Spirit, release your power and presence. Some of you feel a sense of weight is put on you.
Darren Rouanzoin:You know, the Bible, in the Old Testament, the glory of the Lord is, also translated to weightiness. So if you feel that, just sit down. You don't need to like not fall over. Just sit down and ask for more. Some of you have a sense of joy bubbling up.
Darren Rouanzoin:Some of you right now, the thing that hurts the most is present. Because when he For whatever reason, when he begins to fill us, the things that we're carrying is what bubbles out. So Lord, we just want all of you Lord release release more power right now to minister. Come Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit.
Darren Rouanzoin:Lord, just release release it. You don't you don't have to earn this friends. You don't have to strive right now. You don't have to earn, work, strive, perform. He delights in his children and he gives good gifts to his kids.
Darren Rouanzoin:How much more will the heavenly father give the holy spirit to those who ask? Lord, would you bless us with your presence? We receive you right now, Lord. We want more of you.
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