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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 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 R:9AM, good morning. Overflow is completely packed. So by 09:00, it was full. I I don't know what's happening other than there's a lot of people starting to come here which is great. Praise the Lord.
Darren R:Which also overwhelms me quite a bit. Just inside into my heart, we've been doing this for eighteen years and I I imagine a time when God would begin to draw people near to him and being in this moment where I'm seeing around the world or the rise of the church like for the This week stats that show that gen z and millennials attend church. They More gen z and millennials attend church than any other generation alive right now. So there's this this rise of God doing something and we just have to recognize that that the time is really important. Redeem the time.
Darren R:We're not wasting time. It feels like every week feels like a month of activity now. And I'm hearing conversations of what God's doing and it's like, man, it's it's amazing so press in. We're, teaching through the book of acts. We love God's word here and we're gonna teach this.
Darren R:Let me just see 9AM and overflow, you should do the same. Raise your bibles if you brought them. See, if you're new to our church, check this out. We read the bible here and if you brought your phone thinking you're gonna get away with it, you can put that idol away now that the giving link is gone. And so, we're in the book of acts and we're gonna I'm just taking my time.
Darren R:I I preached last week, so we started it four weeks ago in acts chapter one and we're stuck on acts chapter one verse eight. So that's how long it's taking right now. We'll pick up the pace but I'm gonna preach on acts one eight again. Last week, I focused on that Greek word witness. This idea or the word witness is where we get the word martyr from.
Darren R:So I really think it's important for us to recognize that the call of following Jesus is to lay down our lives. Right? The point of power from the holy spirit are not gifts. The point is not your own personal transformation, that's part of it. But it's that you become the kind of person that point to the resurrected Jesus Christ.
Darren R:Like your life is to bear witness, to bring a testimony, evidence for the resurrection. That's what it means to be a Christian. That people see you and they're like, gosh, there must be a God. Because I know her before. Happened.
Darren R:She says it's Jesus but you know, the soul cycle's done with, the yoga practice is done with, the Ayahuasca tripping's gone but she goes to church and she's different. You see this is the thing, You can't change on your own. That's right. You need grace. Right.
Darren R:Yes. Amen? Amen. You don't get to work your way into the kingdom. You receive the kingdom of God because of the cross.
Darren R:Right? But Jesus says wait. You will receive power when the holy spirit comes on you to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. I wanna talk about power today. Shall we do that?
Darren R:I'm gonna pray first. I need to pray for y'all. This section over here. Just kidding. Just kidding.
Darren R:Lord, we love you. We want more of you, Jesus. And I pray, I just wanna pray for those that are new that just come to a church with the Yelp review in mind. We can't help it. I pray our hearts would be open and not suspicious.
Darren R:I pray as we open your word that your spirit would make it alive. I pray for, there's a lot of people coming and I pray that your grace would settle into them to know who they are in you and to live not as consumer Christians in America but powerful witnesses of the resurrection Jesus. So where there's compromise, repent. Where there's suspicion, we repent. We don't wanna grieve your spirit.
Darren R:We wanna be fully alive in you in Jesus name, amen. One of my favorite stories is a story of a preacher who went who was unknown at the time, a young preacher named Billy Graham, visited Wales. He was invited by a man named Stephen Ulford. He was a well known Welsh evangelist that was known for being a fiery preacher, a man who carried the power of God. Years later, Billy would say that he was the the most influential man in his ministry.
Darren R:And it was in Oldford's company that Billy would be changed forever and the story goes like this, Billy goes on Oldford's request to preach. So he goes to a chapel, he preaches and Stephen Oldford writes about it in his journal. He says, it was ordinary. Not the Welsh kind of preaching they were used to in Wales. Billy gave an invitation and very few people responded.
Darren R:There's nothing remarkable about it. Nothing that would hint about Billy's future. The next day, the two men slipped away, no crowds, no microphones, they just got into a room, they prayed, they opened the scriptures, they worshiped, they cried out to God and all of a sudden Billy says out loud, he surrenders his whole life to Jesus and Oldford writes, all heaven broke loose in that dreary little room. It was like Jacob laying hold of God and crying, Lord, I will not let thee go except thou blessed me. The spirit of God fell on Billy and Billy leaps to his feet shouting, I have it.
Darren R:I'm filled. I'm filled. This is the turning point of my life. This will revolutionize my ministry. That same night, Billy goes to preach by nearby chapel.
Darren R:But this time, everything was different different. Olford writes, when he rose to preach, he was a man absolutely anointed. The power of God fell, people surged to the front even before the invitation was given, the aisles jammed, the crowds rushed forward and according to Ulford, he preached the same sermon at both gatherings. That's right. Same sermon, same words, same Billy, different power.
Darren R:I wanna talk about power. Because what I've experienced in my journey of faith, if you don't know my journey, I grew up worshiping the father son holy bible. Cessation is this clever word for believing that the holy spirit died out with scriptures and when the apostles died off. It is a false teaching. It's not theologically accurate.
Darren R:If you have that, I can clearly walk you through that. It denies history, it denies the power of the church, it denies, it's a bad reading of one text in first Corinthians. There you go. There you go. Corrected your theology.
Darren R:William Barclay says that the days of the early church were days in which obviously the church seeded and surged with power. And when we read the book of acts, the author Luke's Luke wants you to know that every significant thing that happens in the book of acts is the result of the holy spirit. When you read the gospel of Luke, the Gospel the Gospel writer Luke wants you to know that everything Jesus does is done through the power of the Holy Spirit. It's part of the narrative. It's part of the literary tool that he uses.
Darren R:He doesn't begin ministry, Jesus, until he's baptized in the Holy Spirit. And then things start happening. Same with the church. And what the author of acts wants you to know is we are meant to be the same kinds of people as the people in acts. Ordinary men and women who do extraordinary things filled with extraordinary power through the power of the holy spirit, Jesus' presence with us, that's the norm.
Darren R:But we've settled, haven't we? That's my experience. My experience is that we've settled for powerless church life. We've settled for curated experiences that doesn't know the difference between God's glory and presence in the room and a good worship set. We've settled with practices to help make us behavior, behave better than the power of God to bring transformation and power to help us for the rest of eternity to look more like Jesus.
Darren R:Remember, our job is to partner with Jesus in the transformation. He I love what Dallas Willard says, grace is not opposed to effort. Grace is opposed to earning. Right. We partner with Jesus in this long sanctification process but I just wanna say, we need power.
Darren R:One author, a professor from Oxford writes this, and this is the best definition of that Greek word for power in Acts chapter one. Can you put, Acts one up? Did we put that up already? You guys read it? Acts one.
Darren R:Pull up your bibles. Acts chapter one. Just go there so you know. This is a different teaching. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna explore this word and I'm gonna give you a theological framework.
Darren R:So we teach verse by verse, we teach expository through the word of God. But today, I'm gonna anchor into this word and kind of expand and answer the question, how do you grow in the power of the holy spirit? Is that alright? Have you ever heard that? Yes.
Darren R:We need to raise up a bunch of disciples that know that this is not just getting zapped by God once and for all. Yes. I love getting zapped by God. I'm for the zaps. But most of my life with God is not zaps.
Darren R:It is a partnership in working through the unlikeness that I am. Right? If the goal is likeness of Christ, Christ likeness, I'm mostly unlike Christ. And so I partner with him in the in the places of my life where there's unlikeness. Yes.
Darren R:And I need his power for that. Right. And power to preach. And power to pray for the sick. And power to pray for those who don't know him to come to know.
Darren R:And power especially right now against the warfare that's going on because we live in tested times and the devil is on the prowl. He's going to feast on the church that's not standing in Christ. He loves to just isolate you and pick you off. He'll get you in a season of despair and isolation and depression and anxiety. He'll he'll have you focus on your wounds and unforgiveness, isolates you and then you deconstruct and you're gone.
Darren R:Doesn't need to do much work there. That's what he's been doing for a long time. We need to see how he's moving. He's shown us his cards. We need a different kind of power.
Darren R:Amen? Amen. This is the definition of that power. The Greek word for power is dunamis from which we derive words like dynamite, dynamo and dynamic. Christians who are filled with the holy spirit will be explosive.
Darren R:They will make noise and have an impact. Their words, lives, presence will change things. It is the fullness of that power that Paul wants us to enter into. That's Ephesians. Paul declares that the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
Darren R:Sadly, however, we often seem all talk and no power. Impotent, academic and anemic, we have placed God in a box, we have domesticated God and rarely want him to disturb us, but the scriptures reveal a God who is all powerful, who breaks our boxes, shatters our bonds, shakes whole rooms, and turns the world upside down and right side up. The holy spirit power was always the mark of the men and women in scripture. Power. Power is the spirit's capacity within you to do the things Jesus did.
Darren R:So if you grew up in a church like me and have an experience where you've been taught, put some money in a tight bucket, show up on Sundays, do some bible studies, believe in Jesus so that one day you can go to heaven when you die. Very little understanding that Jesus invites you to believe in him so that you can become the kind of person filled with heaven now. What what do I mean? He preaches and if you missed this the first talk, he preaches his message. Remember that we're just continuing the ministry of Jesus.
Darren R:His message is that the kingdom of God is at hand. God's way of life, his rule sovereign reign, his realm where his desires and will are manifest and experiential, you can reach out and grab it, are not just to be proclaimed at something one day you'll get to experience, but it's an invitation to experience it now. And if you believe that, then you have to ask the question, do you believe his words? So, I'm gonna do a quick, philosophical argument for this real quick. Okay.
Darren R:Do you believe that Jesus' promises are true? Yes. Do you believe his words are true? Yes. Do you believe they're true for you in the same way they were true for whom it was written about?
Darren R:Yes. He says this in John chapter 14 verse 12. Would you go there? I want you to go to your scriptures so you can you can do this work later. Go read this text.
Darren R:I want you to see this this is the journey I had to take. I had to go from not believing the spirits for today to taking Jesus's words as reality. So I had to submit my experience. Oh, hear this. Here we go.
Darren R:Are we ready? I had to submit my experience to the word of God. I experienced no signs of the spirit. I submit that to your word because this is what you said. John chapter 14 verse 12, very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the father and I will do whatever you ask in my name so that my father may be glorified in the son.
Darren R:You may ask me anything in my name and I will do it. Okay. Come on. Do you believe his words are true? Do you believe they're for you?
Darren R:Yes. So the invitation as a believer, someone who comes to see Jesus as lord and savior, you're a Christian, you're a witness, you are told by the messiah, your rabbi, the lord Jesus Christ that you will do the greater works than he. Now, here's where it gets theological because I see it all the time. I did this. Well, what do you mean by greater?
Darren R:Let's do a Greek study on the word greater which theologians debate. Does it mean greater quality of miracle or greater quantity of miracles? Right? So, those who don't wanna practice the things that Jesus will say, well, just means quantity because the holy spirit fills up. We'll do more things because there's all of us now, not just Jesus.
Darren R:That make sense? Yes. Does that make sense? Quantity? Others will argue, well, it's quality.
Darren R:But I have a hard time with that because here are the works that Jesus had done before he makes a statement. He In John's gospel, there's seven signs and here are the seven signs. He turns water into wine. He heals the official son. He heals the lame man at Bethesda, the the paralyzed man.
Darren R:He feeds 5,000. He walks on water. He heals a man who's born blind and then he raises the dead. As far as far as qualitative miracles go. Raising the dead is pretty good.
Darren R:So whether it's quality or quantity, you have to do at least the baseline of what Jesus did. So he's saying, you will do at minimum these works. Hook, line and sinker. You're now, philosophically, I just won the argument. Persuasive argument here.
Darren R:So therefore, if you believe if you just follow that logical trail and maybe you haven't been a Christian that has been taught this, now you're like, wow. My life has been consumed with behavior modification. My life's been consumed with, you know, giving from my strengths, not out of my weaknesses. Giving from abundance, not out of my poverty. Giving from where I feel good, not serving when I'm terrified.
Darren R:How do we then grow in the capacity to do the things Jesus did? How do we grow in power? You good? Here's something that I've learned and so I'm gonna present this to you as a framework. Now, I just wanna say caveat.
Darren R:I'm gonna teach you scriptures so the scriptures will back this up. But this would be like a a systematic theology. Okay? So in in the course of making decisions, the bible is the most authoritative thing we have in our in our church, in our lives as Christians. Amen?
Darren R:Like your experience is not equal to scripture. Tradition is not equal to scripture. This is this is what we believe. You guys good? Everyone alright?
Darren R:Yes. K. So, biblical theology, we build systematic theology. Like trinity is never mentioned in the bible. It's a systematic theology that's revealed from the bible.
Darren R:Does that make sense? Yeah. Principles. I'm just giving you Is this alright? Church overflow, is this alright?
Darren R:Say amen, hallelujah. There we go. So, here's what an author came up with which became a lens for me who was a non non charismatic believer that helped me grow in the things of the spirit. I wanna give you this lens and we'll talk through it and then we'll pray and we'll baptize some folks and then we'll go get brunch. Well, some of you.
Darren R:It's called the He called it the power equation and his book is, Miracle Work by Jordan saying, he's a pastor out of Oahu, I think. A a vineyard pastor and he he's a great thinker and he developed this this framework and I'm gonna give it to you. He says, authority plus gifting plus faith plus consecration equals power. Now, I wanna say so many like, hey, like disclaimers. Doing these things does not give you more of the holy spirit.
Darren R:Doing these things does not give you power. Like it's not like, okay, a plus b plus c, give $4.99 every month and you're gonna get access. That's not how it's working. But it's a framework to see it in your life. And I'm preach it through my life because I I've seen this over the last sixteen years.
Darren R:Okay? So let's start with each one and we'll break them down. Are you guys good? Yeah. Okay.
Darren R:So number one is authority. Now, is an interesting word. Authority is the spirit given right to act on God's behalf. Right? Jesus gives away in Matthew, Mark, Luke and in Acts authority and power for the disciples to continue his ministry.
Darren R:He gives power which is the ability to do something and the authority which is the right to do the thing. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. I love what Rob Reimer says in his book, Spiritual Authority.
Darren R:He says, authority and this is my modification, is rooted in identity, expanded through intimacy and released through obedience. It's always for God's glory and the sake of others. Right? You should write this down. Authority is rooted in identity, expanded through intimacy and released through obedience always for the glory, God's glory and the sake of others.
Darren R:So, what do I what do I see? So authority, how do you grow in authority? Well, me, this is just observations from my life. Number one is it's authority flows from God, not from yourself. Authority that you you gain access to authority, it always flows from God not self.
Darren R:So authority doesn't come from your talent, your title, your personality, your resource. The authority in the kingdom comes from God's sovereignty. So that's that's just first. Okay? Positional authority is great.
Darren R:Spiritual authority is much better. Let me give you an example from scripture. Jesus is being questioned. I love this. Could you imagine the self restraint and self control that the creator of the universe had when he's being handcuffed and questioned by the Sanhedrin.
Darren R:The temple spoke of him. The high priest is is the is the trailer for who he is. The high priest is in the in the zone. All these religious leaders are saying, you aren't the law. He is the law that Moses spoke.
Darren R:Yeah. He is the manna. Right? He is God incarnate and he remains quiet until the high priest asks the question. Even the real high priest submits to the authority of the high priest.
Darren R:Can you believe that? Positional authority. He submits his spiritual authority to the position authority. I mean, Jesus honors. It's so fascinating.
Darren R:That's a whole other talk. Come to our leadership night this Wednesday. Actually, you're not invited. You have to be invited. I'm gonna talk about that.
Darren R:That's a pretty good There you go. If you serve, you can come. There you go. The second observation. So, authority is always rooted in identity.
Darren R:So we Identity. We exercise authority because it belongs to Jesus and we belong to Jesus. If you are a son and daughter, seated with Christ, Ephesians chapter two verse six. If you have an authority because you've been adopted into sonship and daughtership, it's not gained through through achievement. Your capacity to exercise authority is based on your ability to receive what Jesus has already given you without limitation so that you can be useful in the kingdom of God.
Darren R:But what we do is we live with insecurity. We live with false identities. We make agreements about who we are. So when we come to Jesus, we're not seated as a co heir. We don't believe that he wants to do greater things through us.
Darren R:Instead, we're like, well, if you could, you may be. It's like you won that power ball and you're still living in your rent, one bedroom apartment apartment with eight roommates splitting the check. You have an inheritance. It's yours. You have access.
Darren R:Live like it. The only way you get in there is by accepting your identity. You with me? So, identity, it's rooted in identity and then it's expanded through intimacy. So, the closer you walk with Jesus, the more authority you you you will carry.
Darren R:Authority will always grow in communion with him. So, that's that is about a life of living with Jesus. It's it's worship, it's prayer, it's intimacy, it's reading his word, it's quiet time. It's recognizing that authority will always be limited based on your intimacy. All week long, I've been thinking about what's going on this week with Charlie Kirk and the youth and the gen z and the people that are it's every generation but specifically the younger generations that's grieving this loss.
Darren R:And it stirred obviously, I know it's like the dynamics like it's so controversial for some reason and I understand the controversies. I'm not diminishing that. But violence is never a good thing. We never celebrate violence as followers of Jesus. No matter what.
Darren R:And I was thinking about, this idea of power and how the world operates and how the kingdom of God operates and if you wanna grow, it requires intimacy. There's a story in Mark nine. In Mark nine, Jesus comes down the mountain after the transfiguration where his glory is revealed to three disciples. He's with Elijah and Moses and then the the shadow overcomes, this is my son, listen to him. Right?
Darren R:And the disciples like, oh my gosh, let's build shelters and then they just The other guys disappeared, it's just Jesus and he comes down and it says, there's like a chaotic crowd. The teachers of the law are arguing with the disciples. They're And there's like chaos in the in the community and Jesus says, what are you arguing about? And this father goes, I brought my son who's demonized and he can't be healed. Your disciples couldn't cast out the demon.
Darren R:So, there's a there's this boy who's suffering and the plea of the father is to get him to Jesus but Jesus is up somewhere else and the disciples can't do what they've been doing this whole time, which is casting out demons and healing the sick, giving sight to the blind. They're doing what Jesus commissioned them, but in chapter nine, they run into a problem. They couldn't exercise this demon and Jesus doesn't rebuke the disciples. He's he doesn't speak to the father or the teachers of the law. He says this line, you unbelieving generation.
Darren R:And I was thinking about that. Wow. There is a systemic evil. A systemic curse, a a corporate evil right now that's impacting the most vulnerable. There are children suffering with anxiety and depression and demonization and ideological views that are demon ideologies.
Darren R:Masquerading as liberation and he says to the suffering unbelieving generation and then he he talks to the father and he's The father's desperate like, if you can, he's like, man, anything's possible. He says, I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief. And then he rebukes the demon, he raises up the boy who looks like he's dead and then the disciples go, why couldn't we do it? And he says, in Mark's gospel it says, this kind can only come out with prayer. Now, other manuscripts will add fasting which I don't think that's in the original manuscript because I think that's a way of trying to You working out your way to hear Have God move more powerfully because you did something.
Darren R:That's not how it works. That's not in the original text and I think it's it's not in there for a reason. It was added later. This kind can only come out with prayer. Why?
Darren R:You can't exercise authority without ongoing intimacy with God. The liberation this generation needs are Christians who are intimate with Jesus And they don't just pray prayers and thoughts, they exercise demons. How are we doing church? Is that right? It's activated through obedience meaning as you walk with Jesus and he whispers ideas to you that are so unrelated to the power you're asking for, he whispers, it's time to start tithing.
Darren R:It's You should give to that guy. Go pay for that meal. Hey, I think you should give up the social media and Netflix for a season and just seek me. He begins to whisper and when you say yes, it gives you access to more of his kingdom. That limitation, that step of obedience, he's training you to hear his word.
Darren R:He's training you to hear his voice and so that's how authority grows. You guys good? Lastly, observation about authority, it's always exercise for service. In the kingdom of God, we exercise authority not like the world which is for control. We exercise like our king who takes off his garments and washes his feet.
Darren R:Amen? Come on church. This is preaching right now. I don't even pushed go. Push play.
Darren R:Okay. That's authority. I got three more and then we'll pray. I'll go through this one quickly. Gifting.
Darren R:Is this okay? Overflow, are you good? What camera? I'm looking at here. You good overflow?
Darren R:Love you guys. Sorry you're not in here. Get here at 07:20. You got here 08:55 and had no room. Keep praying, we're praying for space.
Darren R:We believe like we need like thousand seats and we can do just three services. It'll be great. And then start planting churches all over the world. The next one's gifting and and this is where, I just wanna speak to this because I've seen the Lord move through the power of the Holy Spirit in giving gifts. When it comes to the gifts of the spirit, here's what I've learned, they're not metals that you earn by being extra spiritual.
Darren R:Right? They're tools God puts in your hand not for your sake but for the sake of mission. The only gift given by the holy spirit that's for your personal edification and encouragement is speaking in tongues. And that's not a public gift, that's the private prayer language. We'll get to that in a couple of weeks.
Darren R:We'll do a whole thing on tongues. Some of you are like, yeah. Some of you are like, oh no. Give you good theology, make you less scared of that thing. So, that's the only All the other gifts are not for you, they're for the people that you use them for.
Darren R:Right? So, gifts are are are tools that you can get better in by practicing them. You don't grow in the power of the holy spirit by waiting around for lightning to strike you. You grow in the power of the holy spirit by asking, by practicing, by risking. Here's what Paul says about the gifts.
Darren R:He says, now for to each one of the of the manifestations of the spirit is given the common good. So, the point of the gifts is for the common good of the local church. To one there is given through the spirit a message of wisdom or a word of wisdom. To another the message of knowledge by means of the same spirit. So there's gifts of wisdom and the gifts of knowledge.
Darren R:So you Knowledge is knowing something about somebody that you can't know unless the holy spirit illuminated in you. Yesterday, was at an airport and I was talking to a guy that I was golfing with, the last three days, don't know him very well. And as I was talking to him, he said something about Disneyland and I saw him as a little kid locked in a closet. And then he talked about his fear of crowds and I said, this is so weird. Are you Were you ever locked in a closet as a child?
Darren R:And he's And he just got so serious. Now, for me, I have I've been doing this for eighteen years. I began to trust what was like a flash thought, like a butterfly laying on my shoulder and I just say it and if it's not, I'm like, oh, that's if that was a weird thought, you know, no big deal. It's not, thus saith the lord if, about if, this is. The difference between wisdom and knowledge is, is this parable like, let me see if I get it right.
Darren R:Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad. You're welcome for that one. To another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing the gifts, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues still, another the interpretation of tongues, all these work, the all these are the work of one in the same spirit and he distributes them to each one just as he determines. So, the gifts are given and they give you, you you can grow on them, you can have access to them, we'll talk about how in one second.
Darren R:But I just wanna say, you don't need gifts to do the things of Jesus. Like what I see is a paralyzed generation, paralyzed church where we're just like, well, My Enneagram type, my Myers Briggs personality profile, like, I've been trained in, you know, administration as my gift, so you refuse to do it. And if that's true, then Acts six and Acts eight don't belong in the bible. Acts six, what did what did the spirit of God need? What did the church need and the spirit and power?
Darren R:He needed some men full of the spirit to practice administrative gifts of caring for the widows in the daily distribution of food. Seven men rise to the occasion, Philip being one of them. He serves the widows. An amazing task. I cannot believe in our story of faith, the church was already caring for the hungry and the marginalized.
Darren R:Isn't that awesome? That's our that's what we belong to. Yes, the church has hurt a lot of people. We also are the ones responsible for hospitals, orphanages, universities, women's rights, ending slavery. I mean, let's just be real.
Darren R:Put that in the same category because of the Christian world view and the church, we have those things. Thank you very much. That was just for me. That was the online critics. There we go.
Darren R:But acts eight, Philip gets kicked out of Jerusalem, administrative gifts, passing out food to widows. He goes to a city in Samaria. They don't need food distribution, they need an evangelist. He's not saying, well, I got my Myers Briggs testing profile, I've done my growth track and the growth track put me here. He's saying, well, what does Jesus need in this moment?
Darren R:Whether he was gifted or not, the spirit empowered him with gifts of evangelism, proclaiming the kingdom, healing the sick, casting out demons for the missional need of the moment. What you need is courage.
Intro/Outro:That's good.
Darren R:Gifts help. Like, if we didn't have gifted teachers preaching the word, church would be a lot smaller. We have bill and teaching and worship gifts and leadership gifts and prayer like the church is now using and it's overflowing with gifts and that's that's a beautiful thing. Gifts help but you don't need them to exercise the things of Jesus. Yeah?
Darren R:But how do you grow in the gifts of the spirit? Number one, ask boldly. It says in first Corinthians that we should, he distributes the gifts but he also says to eagerly desire them. When was the last time you looked at that list and go, I wanna grow in that gift. I want more prophecy.
Darren R:I want all of them. I was like, I I'm like, I'm not holding back. I'll take the buffet and I It's thanksgiving for me. Like, let's just go. I'm not holding back.
Darren R:Ask for prophecy. Ask for words of knowledge. Ask for healing. But when you ask, know this. They're not gonna come when you're having your little quiet time with your latte in your room with you know, a candle lit, scented pumpkin candle right now.
Darren R:Whatever new album's out, you're like, you're listening to John Wilde's or whatever or upper room and you got the It's all That's not how it works. It works when you're serving others. Right. You're laying hands and praying for someone that needs healing. You're not saying, look, well I only want words of knowledge.
Darren R:Lord, may gifts of healing flow. Yes. Does that make sense? Yeah. Little clinic, could show it to you later.
Darren R:If we had time, I would. Second, practice them. Third, don't be afraid to fail. I had more on this. And fourth, this is what I was getting at.
Darren R:Remember gifts are situational. So the spirit is like a golf bag. Alright. Let's just stay here for it. Just trust me, okay?
Darren R:Because because here's the thing, this is what this will help you. If you I'm I'm a new golfer, started in April, obsessed, love it. Thank you for all of you that have supported my golf game. Much love. Pro v ones, whatever you wanna do, my weight.
Darren R:No, I'm just kidding. But if you ask a golfer which I'm now, I would consider myself that, what's the best club in the bag? It would The answer would be, well, depends on where the ball is. That's right. Right?
Darren R:So, you don't want a driver if you're in the sand. You don't want a three, iron if you're putting. So, based on where the ball is is the determines what club you'll use. Same with the holy spirit. The spirit of God gives gifts based on the situation.
Darren R:Right. So, might have been trained in teaching but what God wants to give you is words of knowledge knowledge and signs and wonders. I don't know. Like, somebody might need a word of encouragement and you might have a word of knowledge that encourages them to keep going. I've seen it all the time.
Darren R:It's not based on you. Because the gifts are not for you, they're for the people that you serve. Amen? Can we keep going? The goal of all the gifts is is love.
Darren R:The aim is love. This isn't about showing off or looking spiritual, It's always about demonstrating the love of God. Alright. Let me keep going. Last one.
Darren R:No, we got two more. Faith. There's no way of getting around this. There can there can be no doubt that there's a connection between what you believe God can and will do and what God actually does. People ask why isn't there more healing in the western church?
Darren R:I would say, well you're looking at the wrong churches. There's a lot of healing in churches that pray for healing. So if you have determined that this is not for today, then your prayers are not gonna be, Lord, heal. Or if you have determined that God doesn't exercise his power the way he did in the New Testament church, then that church will be expressed that way. Authority and gifts without faith become dormant.
Darren R:Faith steps us beyond our comfort zones and it causes us to pray bold prayers where we risk failure because we believe God will act. I love what John Wimber says. He says, faith is spelled r I s k. When was the last time you took a step out in faith and risked your reputation because of Jesus? When was the last time Jesus pushed you on beyond your comfort zone?
Darren R:Like, where in your because think about what our consumer culture does, it makes us comfortable. Your brain is hardwired for comfort. Right? Your brain is hardwired to make it as easy as possible. That's why you hate cold plunges and you love Jacuzzis.
Darren R:Hardwired in but so is your faith. It will It's hardwired because you've been, discipled into our culture of comfort. So, you wanna grow in the power, you're gonna have to take some risks. And so, just think about your life. Where can you take small risks?
Darren R:I always start with generosity. Oh, mean, this is our elders, our staff, our leaders, we always start with the practical way to align our hearts to believe in faith. That's the most tangible way to take risk is to give without restraint. It's easy to give when your heart's tugged and you have control over your giving but to give without restraint to a local church or, to say this year I'm gonna give 11% before I know what's coming. I'm gonna give 15% before I know what's coming.
Darren R:There Now, I believe in stewardship so I'm not saying like, you should know where you're What money's coming in. You should be as wise as stewards, please. But also, you should be generous and foolish in your giving. That trains you. But also when it comes to praying like, I have faith for me early on was just preaching.
Darren R:I had panic attacks speaking to about 12 people when we started our church. I remember laying on the floor in our one bedroom apartment in Long Beach and I was crying and overwhelmed and my wife's like, why are you so afraid? Like I was like hyperventilating, she was counting to 10 as I breathe. Do you remember that? And she said this line, it's changed my life.
Darren R:She said, I wish I'm gonna paraphrase you. You said it so much better. She said something like, I wish I had what you have because your fear is a bull's eye. Cause what you're afraid of is exactly what God's called you to. I wish I had that clarity.
Darren R:So, when we begin to operate in things of the spirit, we have to begin to take steps. So, preaching became less scary. Then, it was calling people forward in our church to pray. Do you remember this? Alan, us, you were there?
Darren R:We're like 40 of us, I'd be like, alright, we got words of knowledge, we did pre service prayer. Somebody here that's just struggling, period. Somebody here that is really sad. And then then we get real specific like, at some point in your life, your heart was broken, come forward. Nobody would come forward.
Darren R:For a year. Yeah. I mean, it was like it was like I was so defeated. It took so much faith. Yes.
Darren R:It took so much faith. And then it was like that that became norm. Yeah. Like that's not risk. The risk was like take it to the streets.
Darren R:So now, a group of us in our church were like, every time we see a neck brace, a person in crutches, a a broken hand or a wheelchair, we're gonna pray for healing. I prayed for so many people. I mean, Alex would be with me. We'd be walking There's a story in Ralph's where I was like, babe, I see someone. I got a word of knowledge I'm gonna go pray for them.
Darren R:I've told this story before. So great. I walk up to this woman, I see that she's pregnant. She's clearly pregnant. I've made that mistake before too.
Darren R:And I don't do that anymore. Clearly pregnant and I'm like, okay. Gosh, I gotta hurry because we gotta we gotta get this. Okay. She, I'm like, I I sense I had this prayer for you like maybe this is like your first kid and you're afraid of being a mom and you got some issues with your parents, haven't seen them in a while.
Darren R:And she's like, no, that's not at all. This is like my fourth or fifth kid, I don't remember what she said. Then her mom comes walking with groceries and her other kids and she's like, I have a great relationship. I'm like, I'm out. And I text Alex, I'm in the grocery store.
Darren R:I left the cart, she had aim at Ezra, Ezra was like one years old and I was like, babe, I'm leaving. I said this thing,
Intro/Outro:I'm out
Darren R:and I left everything. Aisle 6, I'm going home. Same day, k? UPS driver Eddie knocks on my door, braces all over his arms and knees. I said, I have no faith.
Darren R:He hands me a package and I'm like, oh gosh, okay, what happened? And he's like, I'm going on disability, I got all this I have to have surgery, I can't work. It's getting into the busy season. I'm like, okay, can I pray for you? Doors like this, he's like, barely open.
Darren R:I'm like, Jesus, heal my brother, amen. Close the door. Zero faith, obedience. Month later, comes in to our office. We have a small office on Broadway.
Darren R:Darren, oh, God healed me. Your prayer, heal me. I'm back in church. My wife and I are going, my kids are going, I'd see him occasionally through Long Beach. He still tells me he's been healed.
Darren R:It's been like twelve or fourteen years since that story. It's absolutely amazing. He's like, your prayer, heal me. And I was like, what prayer? This is why I so believe it has nothing to do with you but your willingness like the donkeys in the scriptures to be the ones that God speaks through or Jesus rides on into town on.
Darren R:Yeah? Yeah. Let's go. Gosh. I should do part two next week but God, consecration, I'm just gonna finish it.
Darren R:Consecration is a big part. Right? So, the reality is power leaks out of our divided lives. Power leaks out of our divided lives. Consecration means to make holy.
Darren R:Jesus makes us holy. It means to be set apart from, to be set apart for, it means to be dedicated to. This is not about perfection but it's a posture to say, Lord, set me apart, use me. Saying no to compromise but saying yes to God's purposes. You can't expect to carry kingdom authority if you're compromising your integrity at work.
Darren R:You can't expect for God to heal the sick when you pray, when you're feeding on pornography. You can't flirt with sin because it dulls your spiritual edge. The flip side to every temptation is also an invitation. When you resist compromise, every time you say yes to obedience, it's like God widens the channel for power to flow through you, which means every temptation to disobey is also an opportunity to obey and grow in his power. So for me, it's always a moving target.
Darren R:The big things are no longer the big things, it's smaller things. God said, steward your imagination. Steward the things that you read. Steward your time. He says, say no to things that are okay watching Netflix, watch being on social media, whatever it is.
Darren R:Those are not bad. But he says, steward it so I can fill your imagination with my purposes and desires. This is what we have to do. Redeem the time. So, hunger for the presence of Jesus.
Darren R:Surrender like Billy Graham and cry out for more of his spirit. Grow in authority through deepening your identity in Christ and intimacy with the father and boldness and obedience to the spirit's voice. Ask for the spirit to give you gifts of healing and prophecy and discernment for the sake of his mission. Build faith by taking risks. Step beyond what's comfortable.
Darren R:Pray bold prayers and consecrate yourself. Ask God to purify your heart for the sake of fulfilling Jesus' promises in your life. Greater works will come through you. Amen? Amen.
Darren R:Amen. Will you stand? We're gonna baptize some folks. How's that? If you We have like 10 people signed up between the three services.
Darren R:So if you signed up, can go change into the restroom over there. Every We do this once a month and we're we're just filling the baptismal pool every month. It's a sign of the gospel moving forward. Isn't that amazing? We're doing it every month.
Darren R:We just We made that shift as a team because I wanted to put this out here to say this is why we're here. For the work of Jesus to move forward. Actually, me grab this real I'm sorry. I'm gonna say one more thing. So if you have never been baptized, today's the day.
Darren R:We got shirts and clothes for you to change into towels. We're gonna have a pastor over to my right. Is he there right now? He's coming. There's gonna be a pastor over there.
Darren R:To my right, if you would like to be baptized, we'd love to baptize you. He's just gonna ask some questions. Do you believe that Jesus is Lord and raised from the dead? Will you commit to following him for the rest of your life? And a couple other other questions but I just wanna say today's the day, it's time to get dunked.
Darren R:It's the only biblical response to following Jesus. It's not a private prayer, it's a an immersion, it's a full surrender. It's being identified as being crucified with Jesus, buried with Jesus and raised from the dead. So if you wanna be baptized, we love to baptize you. But can I end with this as we pray and worship?
Darren R:I just wanna read a couple more stories real fast and I had this as a rant. If if you know some of the most amazing evangelists throughout history and revivalists, they all write stories of when they met God's power in the holy spirit. D l Moody who was a preacher well known in Chicago at the time was constantly asked by elderly women if he was baptized in the spirit. And one day when he was in Wall Street, he he was walking and suddenly he writes, oh, what a day. I can only say God revealed himself to me and I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand, to take his hand off because it was overwhelming him.
Darren R:His sermons were never the same, tens of thousands of conversions. John Wesley at Saint Aldates Street was already a priest, discipled moral and religious. He wrestled with God, he had some despair and he sat in a service where a pastor was reading, Luther's intro to the book of Romans and Wesley writes, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ Christ alone for salvation and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, which led this discouraged preacher to be the founder of the Methodist movement. John Edwards talks about being flooded with tears in the backwoods and he became part of the great awakening.
Darren R:Charles Finney, I loved his story. A lawyer turns preacher, he prays in his room, in his office and he says, the holy spirit descended upon me in a matter that seemed to go through my body and soul. I could feel the impression like a wave of electricity going through me. It seemed to come in waves of liquid love. When we started this series, we started with the expectation that the kingdom of God is not just about being proclaimed, but it's a reality to be experienced.
Darren R:You can have more of him. And I wanna invite you to pray what Evan Roberts prayed. Bend me, oh Lord. Bend me. Holy Spirit, would you just release freedom in this room to worship, to honor, to be marked by your Holy Spirit.
Darren R:And as we come before you to worship today, I pray you'd move in power in Jesus name. Amen.
Intro/Outro:For more information, visit us at garden.church.