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Experience the life-changing messages from the Church of God’s annual Winterfest youth gathering. These are the sermons, moments, and voices that have shaped generations of young believers — now available anytime, anywhere.
If you're ready say I'm ready. Turn in the Bible to Acts chapter 3. This is the
closest example I can give to like post-winter fest life in the New Testament.
Acts chapter 2 is like winter fest. Okay? Our girl, where's our girl that preached
last night? She here? No? Man, that was Acts chapter 2. That was fire. How many was
touched my fire last night. Oh my gosh Mark. Oh my gosh I was there. I was like
yes that's what I need. That's Acts 2. Let me tell you what we're walking into.
Today we're walking into Acts chapter 3. If that was Winterfest, Acts chapter 3
and on, that's the rest of life. And here's what happens in Acts chapter 3.
Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth
hour and a man lame from birth was being carried whom they laid daily at the gate
of the temple that is called the beautiful gate to ask alms of those
entering the temple seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple he
asked to receive alms where's Ben Brett come out here these are friends of mine
I brought all my friends here all of them some of my best friends in the whole
world are here they will remain nameless. Where's Carson? Everybody give Carson a
hand. He's the newest member I think of the band for Power and Limited and
Campus Choir. Carson are you single? Ladies, Lee University right here,
recruitment right here, Lee University. This snack right here is at Lee
university right here. Okay? All right. He asked me to do that. Right? Yeah.
Awesome. I did exactly how you wrote down. You texted me and told me. I hear girls
saying, "I claim him. I volunteer as tribute." I hear them saying that. So weird.
I don't even know what that means. There's this man in Acts chapter 3. It
says he's lame from birth. In Acts chapter 3, there's this guy. He's lame.
From the beginning of his life, he's lame. Okay. Now, it's not that he doesn't
have legs. It's not that he doesn't have feet. They just don't work. Everything
looks as it should. It just doesn't work. He's lame from birth. Now Carson here,
he's up walking around. This is what it should like, but hop down on the mat
right there. This is what it does look like. It's different. He's got legs, he's
He's got feet, but it's just not working.
Is there anybody in this room that you are a self-proclaimed
like you're a big old boy?
Anybody here?
Any big old boys in the room?
Stand up if you're a big old boy.
Oh my gosh, look at this boy right here.
Young man, sit down.
He's not a big old boy.
Somebody get him a piece of cornbread on the front row.
My God, come on Midwest, what's wrong with you?
This boy over here, he's a big old boy.
I look at these big old boys.
I see him in the big old boy.
That's a big boy right there.
My Lord.
All right, all the big boys sit down.
All the big boys sit down.
I thought I was a big boy,
till y'all stood up.
I was one of you.
It's weird to imagine everybody starts out as a baby.
My man in the back that won the championship,
big old boy championship wave at everybody,
stand up one more time.
Santa, what's his name?
What is it?
Oh, awesome, generally.
It's what y'all just said to me, y'all spoke in tongues when you're trying to tell me his name.
Bunch of Pentecostals. Okay, this dude, look at, man, this guy started out as a baby.
Sit down bud, sit down bud. It's wild, he starts out as, I can't imagine that a baby grows in to be
that, the big old boy. And here's the thing about, we all started out as babies and we all started
out needing to be carried. Everybody started out that way. But there came a time, sit up Carson,
there came a time in this man's life when everybody else was learning to walk and it didn't happen for
him. I wonder if he had moments when he was talking to his mom and dad, he's like, "Mom, dad, when do I
I get to walk.
Everybody else looks like life is going the way it should.
I've got legs, I've got feet.
Why am I not walking?
See, everybody starts out being carried.
But there came a point where he should have been walking
by now because here's the thing,
you weren't created to be carried.
You weren't.
It was a developmental phase so that you could learn to walk,
but you weren't created to always be carrying him,
but he's lame.
Can I ask you a question?
Why are you lame?
What is it that keeps you from walking?
For him, it was something from birth.
You know what, there's people in this room, you're lame.
Not physically, but spiritually, emotionally.
You're barely making it.
It's like you're dragging yourself across the floor
with dead legs.
You got all the right pieces,
but they're not working in your life.
And you're being carried from place to place.
Why are you lame?
This man was lame from birth.
You know, there's different reasons why people are lame.
Maybe it was something they were born into.
You know what, there's kids in this room.
There's adults in this room.
You were born into your disability.
You lived in broken homes from birth.
Dad was an alcoholic, mom was a drug addict.
You were born into disability.
It's not your fault.
That is not what God wanted for your life.
But it was reality.
Some people were born into it.
Some people, come here, of course,
stand all the way up.
Some people weren't born lame.
There was a season in your life you could walk around.
You could walk, things were good.
You could maybe skip, bunny hop.
You were real fast with the juke.
Yeah.
And then, something happened to you.
You used to could walk, but at nine years old,
somebody did something to you that they should not have done.
And suddenly you found yourself lame.
Something happened.
Here's what came to answer.
What happened?
It made you lame.
Some people it happened slowly, like a sickness or a disease that left you lame.
When I was pastoring, there was a lady in our church that got ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease.
It eventually slowly took her ability to move, to speak.
she lost the ability to walk. You know what there are some people doing right now? This right here.
You're slowly losing your ability to walk. And I came to tell you this morning,
you weren't created to be carried. Come on boys. In the passage it says,
he's lame from birth and every day, daily, they carry him. All right, put him down.
Brett switched directions right there.
Every day they carry him.
Oh, squat, whoa, baby.
Here we go.
We're calling reinforcements.
I'll get my big old boy to come help on that one right there.
You know the tricky thing about being carried?
You have to go wherever they're going.
I came to tell you, Winterfest,
you better be careful who you let carry you because they will carry you where
they're going. Fortunately they carried him to a gate called beautiful. You know
that's not the only gate. There's a gate called the sheep gate. Everybody say it.
My, yeah the sheep gate. And Carson is gonna be a beggar. Y'all go ahead and put
him down. Let me help in case he didn't drop right there. We're trying to get on worship
fails but we don't want to do it today.
Wherever he gets carried they drop him off and he's a beggar and as a beggar you
know what he has to do? Live on the leftovers. He has to live on whatever
somebody else has left over and there are these carriers and they care there's
a sheep gate behind and if you beg at the sheep gate what do you think you're
gonna get. There's also a fish gate. Fish gate. Right? I don't, I'm in my mind it's
like Red Lobster with the cheddar biscuits, you know, or Captain D's a
three-piece with fries and a little crunchies, the Krispies. Y'all have Captain
D's out here, Long John Silver or something? The fish gate. If you back at the fish gate,
what are you gonna get? You know what else there was? There was a trash gate, a dung
gate, poop gate, right? We're not talking about water gate, we're talking about trash gate. If
they carry him to the trash gate, what do you think he's going to end up with? I'm telling you,
you better be careful who you let carry you. All right, pick him up, boys. You know what some of us,
y'all can, you can face each other this time. That's fine. Yeah, I should have made him do the
the turnaround one. Weird angle he said. They they gonna carry him. That's okay as
long as they're both going the same place. But when he wants to go to youth
group and worship the Lord and he wants to go get high after the football
game, we got people and they're trying to carry us in two different
directions and we end up going in circles. And there's people you're not
going anywhere in your life. Why? Because you got some friends carrying you to
church and some friends carrying you to foolishness.
And you wonder, why is my life always, why do I feel the same today as I
always feel? You're letting the wrong people carry you.
You got to be careful who you let carry you.
Put them down. Young ladies,
you can't let some boy carry you that's not committed to you.
They want to carry you to a place that they're not willing to commit to.
If he wants to carry you ladies, let him marry you.
I came to stir a pot. If he wants to carry me, let him marry me.
But that's not what happens. And you're so starved for attention.
You want someone to love you and you should.
And we're letting them carry us to gates.
Let me ask you this. Who's carrying you?
Because everybody's got an opinion about your life.
Everybody wants to carry a piece of you.
Your mom and dad want you to go to technical school.
You should be a cosmetologist.
You should be a nurse.
You should be a truck driver.
You should work on dad's farm.
Everybody's got a place they want to carry you.
Everybody wants a piece of you.
And it becomes real confusing.
Who do we listen to?
Who do we let carry us?
And we need carriers.
Because why?
walk. We're broken. And so some days you let the youth pastor carry you. You know
what some days we maybe we let uh I don't we let Taylor Swift carry us.
Billie Eilish, Zach Top, I don't, yeah somebody said yes. In Jesus name
deliverance right now in Jesus name. I don't even know Kendra Lamar. Listen
there is a culture that wants to carry you. They want to carry you to other
gates, not the gate beautiful, they want to carry you to the gate of sexuality.
There's a culture that worships at the altar of sexuality and tells you that, oh my gosh,
are you with me? They tell you this, they tell you that your activity is the same as your identity,
right? That's what they tell you, that whatever you do is who you are.
and they tell you that your sexuality is your identity.
And it's all because that's the gate they worship. Do you know why they carried to
that temple? Because they were going to pray. People carry you to the place they worship.
So if they worship money, they carry you to the gate of ambition.
If they worship sexuality, they carry you to gates like Pornhub.
and you wonder why you live with anxiety and depression and you're begging at the gate of Pornhub.
And on Sundays you let them carry you to Spring Place Baptist or wherever and then on Monday
nights you're being carried to a different gate. You weren't meant to be carried.
Jesus. They carried him to the gate where he could beg.
Says this in verse three.
That Peter and John going into that same temple, said he asked
to receive alms. He's begging. And Peter directed his gaze at
him as did John and said, look at us. And he fixed his
attention on them expecting to receive something from them. But
Peter said, I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give
to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. JD are you
still here? Come out here.
All right this is my buddy JD he's gonna represent the Apostle Peter. Everybody
wave at the Apostle Peter. Hey guys girl there's some girl said how you doing?
Right? Golly man you Midwest girls got some energy about you. I got all these boys on the
stage man y'all are something okay listen everybody's going to worship
everybody's not just going through the same gate all these gates are leading to
the temple and Peter and John they're going to the temple and they're going
through the gate beautiful and I love these guys y'all come over here I love
these guys because they have a heart to help they're helping him they are
carrying him and they have a heart to help. But here's the thing, eventually somebody comes along,
Peter and John, and they says, "You know what? I can't help you,
but I sure would like to be involved in healing you."
Young people, can you learn to tell the difference in the people who will help you and the people
who will heal you? Because they got enough energy to carry him, but they don't have what it takes to
him and Peter and John just one chapter earlier what happened they were touched by fire.
So when they walked by a layman they said I cannot carry you because I'll only be able to carry you
for as long as my arms have strength but when my arms have strength I can't carry you anymore
and some of you you've been dropped by adults who ran out of strength.
Don't curse your mama, but she ran out of strength and she dropped you.
Your dad was fighting his own demons and he
dropped you. They were trying to help you but they
what they needed it was to be involved in healing you.
And in walks Peter and John.
And they say you know what I refuse to carry somebody
who was created to walk.
came to tell you this morning you were not created to be carried, you were created to walk.
That's why Jesus, he says to follow me. Let me tell you what life with Jesus is not.
I mean don't take me down but like a piggyback bro, like a piggyback. I'm a big old boy.
This is not what Jesus is inviting you to.
He's not inviting you to be carried by Him, although He can.
He can carry us.
He's inviting you to follow Him.
He wants you to have the strength.
That's what's beautiful about our God.
God wants to empower you.
God is not interested in making you a puppet.
He wants you to be a son and a daughter.
And so we end up praying prayers like what's God's will for my life and what's God's will for my life and should I do this and should I do that?
You know what God's will for your life is? Life.
John 10, he says, "I've come that you might have life."
God did not die for your career.
He died for you to be his son and his daughter.
Let me ask you this.
How many have been touched by God this week?
We can.
Yeah.
Here's what happens.
Come here, Carson.
Once you get in position, you go to Winterfest and you get touched by the Lord and somebody
speaks into your life and says, "In the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk."
Live life, break addictions and anxiety and break all that stuff off of you.
You're created to walk and you hear that, but then when you go home, the people who have
always carried you are waiting to carry you again.
When you get home, there are people that will try to carry you.
They will want to carry you like they always have
because they, they're getting their identity as carriers.
You know what, some people in this room, you're lame
and God is giving you strength.
There's some people, God's trying to deliver you
from carrying everybody else.
Get back in place.
Pick him up.
Youth pastor, man, woman of God,
He called you to do more than this right here.
You got ministry burnout because you're trying to do this
with your church, with your youth ministry.
How many kids can you load up and carry?
It'll never work.
You're gonna lose your marriage.
You'll lose your own children trying to carry it.
But there are people they want to carry you
because of what it makes them feel like.
But you cannot carry your friend.
There's a young girl for sure, you're here
and you have that complex.
You're always trying to help everybody else,
always trying to carry your friends.
You know what?
You end up both being lame
'cause you weren't created to carry people.
Sit them down.
When Jesus empowers his disciples,
he empowers them to say, "Lay hands on the sick
and they will."
I don't ever read him saying,
"I want you to go find all the lame people
and carry them around."
If you go home and you try to carry your friends
and you try to carry your parents and you try to carry,
and you say, "I'm strong now, I'm gonna carry everything,"
you end up lame.
Because God wants to send people into your life
not to help you, to heal you.
You need healing.
That's why you go from church service to church service
church service, always dealing with the same stuff because you're getting helped
and not healed. You know what pornography did? It didn't just create a sin barrier
in you. It wounded you. And so people in this room have addictions to pornography.
You don't just need delivered. You need healed. Something happened to you when
you were a kid. You don't just need to forget it. You don't forget it, but you
get healed. And after he's healed, says this,
and leaping up, he stood up and began to walk
and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping
and praising God. Team, would you come back?
Come up here Carson.
Let me ask you a question.
Can you be the kind of person who says,
if I was made to walk, I refuse to be carried?
Because your generation, there is a plot to carry you,
but there is a plan to heal you. There is a plot, Snapchat, TikTok,
Instagram, Facebook, whatever it is, there are all these plots.
There's an entire algorithm trying to carry you.
It's trying to carry you.
Why?
Because your attention is the most valuable thing in our economy.
Billion trillion dollar companies are fighting for your attention.
Why?
Because if they can carry you, they can control you.
But God is not the one trying to control.
God brings freedom.
That's why God says, "Rise and walk."
But when you get home, you're going to have to make a decision,
I won't be carried. I won't be carried.
God strengthened me to walk. I walk.
Youth pastor, woman of God, you're going to have to teach them to walk,
not be carried.
If all you ever get from the Bible is on Wednesday night, you're being carried.
If all you ever get is on Sunday morning, you're being carried.
If the only time you pray is at church, you're being carried and you're going to stay lame until you start walking.
But I think there's kids in here that you know on the other side of your healing.
There's something pretty ridiculous that God has planned for my life.
There's some people in this room you can feel God has more for me.
Get back down here.
There's some people here that you realize, sit up just right there.
you realize God has more for your life than this.
You know what?
He probably had some good days.
It's not the same as walking.
I wonder, he probably had friends
that would come by and check on him,
bring him some water.
I wonder what his name was.
We actually don't know what his name is.
Maybe Joey.
Yo, Joey.
You good today, bud?
Yeah, so there's a Joey over here.
My man.
It's not that his life was unbearable.
His life was incomplete.
And if you weren't created to be carried,
can I invite you to walk and follow God?
And then when you leave here,
it says that he got up leaping and praising,
and it says all the people saw him walking,
praising God and recognized him.
And they were filled with wonder and amazement
at what happened.
I don't know who in this room is gonna grow up
and be a pastor or a doctor or a nurse
or any of those things, but I do know this.
There's a world that needs to see you walk.
I know you're called to walk,
and I know there's a world that needs to see it.
And you know what he did?
Once he got healed, he went and started walking in public.
When I've been carried, I become addicted to walking.
When I've spent my whole life, I bet,
when he finally learned to walk,
I bet he took the stairs and not the escalator.
I bet in the airport, he didn't take that little moving thing,
you know, where you're like moving like that.
No, no, no.
This guy loves to walk.
Why?
Because he remembers what it was like to be carried.
You know what I, you know why I wake up every morning
with coffee in my Bible?
It's not because somebody makes me.
I love to walk.
I remember what it was like to be carried
and I love to walk with him.
Do you know why?
I have worship lists that when I get in my truck,
I'm listening to worship.
It's not because God's mad at me
if I listen to whoever else.
It's because I love to walk.
You know what you're called to when you leave here?
You gotta let people see you walk.
You gotta let people see.
That's why you had to snap your street friend
because that person needs to know I'm walking now.
I got more than just, and I'm not following Snapchat
and TikTok and instant social.
I am following the Lord.
So if God is gonna give you the ability to walk,
for the first time now he can walk,
He had to also know who to follow.
And you know who he followed? Jesus.
How do I know he followed Jesus?
Because he's following Peter and John.
And they are the disciples of Jesus.
Young people, stand with me all over the room.
Every head bowed, every eye closed.
♪♪
Every head bowed, every eye closed.
Look up, baby.
No, I said close your eyes and look at me.
See, we're a miracle believing church.
Believe in miracles.
Close your eyes and look at me.
Ha ha!
Take that devil.
Actually, I don't even want you to close your eyes.
Just look at me.
In a second, I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand
if you want to.
Having in this room,
in your life, you've been helped.
There are people that have helped you and you're thankful,
but you know there's some places in your life
you ain't been healed yet.
I was a grown man, still feeling like what happened to me when I was a kid was my fault,
Kathy.
I was a grown man, I was a kid and somebody took advantage of me and I was a grown man
and I still felt like it was my fault.
You know why?
Because I'd been helped but not healed.
I wonder if I'm the only person or if there are other people in your life you've been helped
but you ain't been healed yet.
therapy can help you but if Jesus ain't in it it won't heal you. Your coach he
can help you football can help you but if Jesus ain't in it it can't heal you. If
you're here you say listen man, Brian James that's my middle name you can use
it if you want. Brian James, I said Brian James man I've been helped but I ain't been
healed. All week long I've been helped but I know I ain't been healed. If that's
you on the count of three I want you to throw your hand up as fast as you can. One, two,
three. I ain't been handed. You know why I think you're throwing your hand up?
Because it's like that. So I throw up my hand. Praise you again and again.
Because all that I have is a heart. If somebody's hand up beside you, can you just start praying
for them? Like if somebody's got their hand up can you just circle up and pray
for them if they've got their hand raised? If you got your hand up, say I've
been held but I ain't been healed. My man right here in the hoodie, somebody turn around and pray for him.
Rock got Steve.