What Would Revival Look Like at Watermark? Part II

Join me in Acts, chapter 2. We're going to begin in verse 22. Today is going to be a sermon about a sermon. That's kind of odd, isn't it? We're going to continue with Peter's sermon at Pentecost. I don't normally title sermons, but I'm going to title this based upon what TA preached last week. I'm going to title this sermon What Would Revival Look Like at Watermark? - Part 2.

Now, in order to do that, I had to negotiate with TA this week. I asked him if he would be so kind to let me preach part 2 of his sermon. He said, "Yes," as long as I mentioned one movie, so I'm going to do that now. Here's the movie we're going to talk about. There you go. Let me tell you what I'm not going to do today. I'm not going to do any crane kicks. It's not that I don't want to. I can't. I have an appointment with an orthopedic doctor on Thursday, so you can pray for me in that.

Here's what we're going to do today. As we look at Peter's sermon, Peter is going to be talking about the most important person in the Bible: Jesus. He's going to be sharing about the most important event that we see in all of human history: the resurrection of Jesus. He's going to be talking to us, as he's preaching at Pentecost, as to what that means in your life and my life.

So, join me in Acts 2:22. Now, as we begin there, I want you to understand what has already transpired. Jesus has lived the perfect life you and I couldn't live. Jesus has gone to the cross. He suffered and died there, dying the death we all deserve to die. Jesus was buried, but he was raised from the grave. He physically, bodily, was raised from the grave.

He met with his disciples for a while in Acts, chapter 1. He told them they were to take the good news of his resurrection into Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. He instructed them to go and wait for the outpouring of the power of the Holy Spirit. They've been praying in a room, and when we come to chapter 2, it's the day of Pentecost.

The Holy Spirit is poured out profoundly on the disciples of Jesus, and they begin to proclaim the gospel in languages that are recognizable by people who've gathered from all over the world to come to Jerusalem at that time. It has caused a stir. There's a lot of concern about what's happening.

Some people are skeptical, saying, "These people are just drunk." Peter makes the point, "It's 9:00 in the morning," and then he begins to proceed to explain exactly what's going on, and it has everything to do with Jesus. So, let me summarize Peter's sermon for you in four points…four points Peter makes about what God is doing through Jesus.

The first thing we see Peter proclaiming is God validated Jesus through miracles. Look at verse 22. "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know…"

As Peter is speaking to this big crowd, there are people listening who actually saw Jesus, and they saw Jesus do things no one else has ever done. Jesus performed miracles more than anyone else in the Bible ever did, and the nature of his miracles was more extraordinary than anyone else performed.

Now, last year, we read together the whole Bible in the Year of the Word. I know some of you are thinking, "There are a lot of miracles in the Old Testament leading up to Jesus." You would be right. The most prolific miracle worker in the Old Testament is a prophet named Elisha. Believe it or not, Elisha performed 16 miracles. Do you know how many Jesus performed that are recorded? Thirty-seven.

Jesus' miracles are prolific. They're profound. Jesus demonstrates authority over nature. He speaks to the waves and they still. Jesus goes out fishing and catches a lot of fish. Jesus walks on the water. Jesus turns water into wine. Jesus also expresses his authority over the spiritual realm. He casts out demons. When Jesus speaks to demons with authority, guess what? They shudder and obey him.

Of all of the miracles Jesus does, what I love is that he does the things that are most important to us as people. Jesus forgives sin. No one else can do that. Jesus heals people from sickness and disease, and Jesus raises the dead. So, Peter's first point at Pentecost in explaining what's happening at this time is that God validated Jesus through miracles.

Here's his second point. This one is kind of hard to accept. God willed Jesus to be crucified. It was God's will for Jesus to suffer, to bleed, and die on the cross. Listen to this. Verse 23: "…this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men."

Two things that seem incompatible. First, that it was always God's plan that Jesus would die. God willed it. God foreknew it. God allowed it to happen. Yet what we know about God is God is not responsible for the evil in our world. God, being perfect, cannot sin. What happened is God, in his perfect plan, allowed Jesus to die at the hands of lawless men.

Jesus died a brutal death on the cross. I had a conversation with a friend this week, and he asked me, "How do we understand and explain the brutality? Like, I know Jesus had to die. Why was it so brutal?" The only explanation I can have is because it was at the hands of men who by nature are merciless, brutal, and violent.

Friends, if our story ended here, it would be a compelling story. We would look at Jesus as a good role model, someone who tried to make a difference but was killed for doing it. It might even be a motivating story, but it would be a sad story, wouldn't it? Here's the good news: the story doesn't end there.

The third point Peter is making in this sermon is that God raised Jesus from the dead. Look at verse 24. "God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it." You can look all over the world. Something you'll never find are the bones of Jesus Christ. He bodily, physically, was raised from the dead. He now has ascended to the right hand of God the Father, and one day he'll come back, maybe soon, and rule and reign forever.

I love what the Scripture says. If you look again at verse 24, it says he was raised from the dead because it was not possible for him to be held by it. In other words, we couldn't kill Jesus. Oh, sure, he was crucified. His heart stopped beating. He was brain dead. He was in the grave, but we could not hold him there. We could not keep him there. Why is that?

Here's what you need to know about Jesus: Jesus is one person with two natures. Jesus is truly human. Jesus is like you and me in every way. He feels things. He has to eat. He sleeps. He experiences pain. He experiences a full range of emotions. But Jesus is unlike us in one very significant way. He's without sin.

He was not born guilty of Adam's sin. He was conceived not by a man but by God the Holy Spirit. Jesus lived the only perfect life that has ever been lived. Jesus is truly human in every way, but he's without sin. But that's not all of who Jesus is. The second aspect of his nature is he's God in human skin. The God of the Bible is a triune God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is the eternal Son of God in human form; therefore, we couldn't kill him. I hope that's good news to you today. Jesus can't die. God can't die. You can't kill him. I can't kill him. No matter what anyone says, what the most hostile atheistic philosopher says, God is not dead because God cannot be killed. It was not possible for Jesus to stay in the grave. That's good news.

It gets even better. Peter's fourth point is God exalted Jesus as Lord and Christ. Look all the way down at verse 36. "Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." What a statement. Jesus is Lord. Based upon his resurrection and his ascension into heaven, God has declared that Jesus has authority over all things everywhere.

Jesus is Lord of Lords, King of Kings, and God of Gods. That's who he is. He's also the Christ, the liberator of God's people. We saw Jesus foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament. "One is coming, and he's going to inaugurate the kingdom, the rule of God forever. He's going to liberate God's people." We see that God has kept his promise to his people in the person and through the work of Jesus Christ. What an amazing thing to think about.

Now, if you were Jewish, and you were gathered around Peter listening to this sermon at Pentecost, and Peter began to speak this way, you would think of an Old Testament Bible character named David. God makes an unconditional promise to King David in 2 Samuel where he says a descendant of his will reign on the throne forever.

So, you would immediately be asking yourself, "Is Jesus greater than David?" What Peter says is Jesus is, in fact, the fulfillment of God's promise to David. As a matter of fact, Jesus is the greater David. Two reasons why. David's bones are in the ground. It's as if Peter is saying, "Hey, just go look over there and you'll go to his tomb. That's where David's bones are. You're never going to find Jesus. He has risen bodily from the dead."

Now, we know, spiritually thinking, theologically speaking, David being one who looked forward to belief in Jesus, when he died his spirit went to be in the presence of God, but he's waiting for the resurrection to receive a resurrected body. The other thing Peter makes clear through Psalm 16 and Psalm 110 is that David didn't ascend into heaven, but Jesus did, physically, bodily.

This is God's plan. This is God's plan of redemption. So, if you're in the crowd listening, and Peter is saying, "Here are the four things God did: God basically validated Jesus through miracles; God willed Jesus to be crucified; God raised Jesus from the dead; God exalted Jesus as Lord and Christ," you would be thinking, "Then what part do I play in this?"

Look again at verse 36. Here's what the people did. "Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ…" Here's the role we play in it: "…this Jesus whom you crucified." Friends, we crucified Jesus. Jesus comes on a rescue mission to save us. He lives the only perfect, loving life that has ever been lived. He heals the sick. He speaks the truth about God. He casts out demons. He ultimately is loving and kind and pursues us. We reject him, and the result of our rejection is that you and I crucified Jesus.

Has that dawned on you yet? Clearly, there are people listening to this sermon who weren't directly responsible for killing Jesus. Peter doesn't split hairs. He said, "You're all guilty." The apostle Paul picks up the same concept in Romans 5:8. He said, "God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." You killed Jesus. I killed Jesus. We killed Jesus. Your treason, my treason, your rebellion, my rebellion, your indifference, my indifference toward God is the ultimate reason Jesus had to die.

Peter finishes his sermon here, but I'm going to keep going. What do we do with this? How should we think about this? One of my favorite hymns is "How Deep the Father's Love for Us." See if this resonates with you.

Behold the man upon a cross:

My sin upon his shoulders;

Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice

Call out among the scoffers.

It was my sin…

Friend, it was your sin. Church, it was our sin that held him there until it was accomplished. We killed Jesus. It's so important that we identify with the right characters in Scripture. Can I tell you something? We're never the good guys. There's only one good guy. His name is Jesus. The rest of us are sinners, and our sin caused the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. What do we do with that? Imagine hearing this sermon. How would you feel? What would you do? I love that the text gives us how we should respond. Look at how the people respond. Verse 37:

"Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?' And Peter said to them, 'Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.' And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, 'Save yourselves from this crooked generation.'"

Here's the good news: "So those who received his word [those who believed] were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls." What do we do with Peter's sermon? How should you and I respond to all that God has done for us in Jesus? The only thing we contributed to God's redemptive plan is we sinned, and we are responsible for the death of Jesus. How should we respond to this?

Here's what we should do: We should repent and be baptized. That's exactly what we should do. Look at how the people respond. They are cut to the heart. Their hearts are broken. They're wrecked. They're destroyed before God. Have you ever had that experience? Have you come to the place in your spiritual journey where you've seen your sin for what it is in the eyes of a holy and loving God and you are just wrecked?

This is my story. I know it's your story too. I didn't grow up in a Christian home. My mom and dad both came to faith in their mid-30s. At the time, I was right in the middle of middle school. As they came to faith, they began to take my little brother and me to church. I sat through a lot of sermons. I went through a lot of youth group meetings and, I'll be honest with you. I didn't get it. The gospel was constantly being preached. This truth that Peter is sharing at Pentecost I heard over and over again, and it just didn't resonate.

I was at a Disciple Now. Has anybody been to a Disciple Now before? Are some of you Disciple Now veterans? Weekend gathering. You go in someone's home. There was a visiting youth pastor there named Vern Greene (15:52) from Missouri. I was in New Mexico. Vern sat down, as was his custom, with each person individually. He opened up his Bible, and he shared the gospel.

Something happened when Vern shared this story with me. For the first time in my life, I was wrecked. I felt the weight of what I had done to God. I knew that I was one who killed Jesus, and it stuck with me, and it hurt. Tears began to flow down my face, but I simultaneously felt something else. I felt this invitation that if I turned to Jesus and owned what I had done, there was going to be forgiveness and freedom. My life radically changed from that point forth.

What is repentance? It's not a word we use very often. Right? You're not going to turn on a football game later today and see a guy make a really bad play and have the announcer say, "You know what? He should really repent at this point in time." We talk about redemption; we don't talk about repentance.

Let me give you a biblical definition of repentance. Here's the way Wayne Grudem defines it in his Systematic Theology. He says repentance is "A heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ." In other words, repentance is about entirely changing your perspective, head, heart, and hands, about what you think and feel about Jesus. Turning away from sin, walking away from that, and turning to Jesus.

You may ask the question…What is the connection, then, between repentance and faith? I think of them as combined, one coin. Repentance is the flip side of faith. Faith has three elements to it. Theologians will say faith has this idea of knowledge. You have to know the facts. Faith is acknowledging all that Peter says here is understood. "I get it, Peter. I hear what you're saying." The second component of faith is assent. "I agree with this. I agree what you're saying in your sermon, Peter, is true." Then there's this third critically important element: personal trust.

I'm so glad you're here today. If you're here today and have never repented of your sin, turned from your sin and trusted in Jesus, why not today? What a great day to do that. I believe you're here for that very purpose. Whether you came with friends who dragged you here, you came reluctantly, or you came eagerly, God brought you here today because his desire for you is to repent. Will you trust him today?

Jesus stands before you with arms wide open. He's inviting you to turn away from your sin. Give Jesus your sin, and do you know what he's going to give you? His perfect righteousness. The result is you're going to be forgiven of sin, and it gets even better. You're going to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You're going to receive the Holy Spirit.

What do you and I get when we repent and believe the gospel? We get God himself. What could be better than that? Would you repent now, right where you are? Just let God know, "I'm turning, Lord, from my sin. I'm trusting all that you say to be true. Would you forgive me? Would you give me the Holy Spirit?" Would you do that right now?

There's something else, though, that we need to talk about. We need to be baptized. I want you to understand what baptism is biblically. Here at Watermark, we believe baptism is for those who profess faith in Jesus. We believe in believer's baptism. Baptism is two things. It's a symbol. One of the amazing things that happens when you and I turn and trust in Jesus… Scripture says we're now one with him.

All the work he does in us and the fact he gives us and sends us the Holy Spirit and changes us means that we're now one with Jesus. Practically speaking, that means his life is our life. His death is our death. His new resurrected life is ours and will ultimately be ours. So, the picture we paint in baptism by immersion is this. You are going under the water. This is you going under the water. There's the waterline. It's a symbol of you dying with Jesus. Then, coming out of the water is a picture of you rising again to a new life, forgiven by Jesus and freed to worship him forever.

Baptism is also a statement. That's why we do it publicly. It's why we do it in the Town Center. It's why we do it out at the pond. You are saying to the world, "Hey, world, I'm with Jesus now. My loyalty is with him. I am one with him and I'm now with him." Can I tell you something that's really discouraging to me, personally, and at times perplexing? I meet so many people who profess faith in Jesus who have never been baptized.

Is that your story this morning? My question for you is "Why not?" What in the world are you waiting for? The pattern we see in the book of Acts… "Oh, you just professed faith? Where's the water? Let's find water. Let's take care of this right here and now." All you need to know to be baptized is to understand the gospel, profess your faith in it, and know what baptism means. That's it.

But I run into so many people who are just thinking, "I just have to get my life together." Maybe you're here this morning, and you're saying, "You know what? I think the pond is probably a little bit cold right now. I may wait till spring thaw." We can do baptisms here in the Town Center. We can. At least the air temperature is warm. I can't promise you anything about the water temperature, but the air temperature is nice.

Or some people think, "You know what? Let's just wait until the whole family reunites. We have five years coming up. We're going to get together again. I'm just going to wait for that." Today is the day, friend. There's no reason to delay. If you profess faith in Jesus, why not today? Here's what you can do. You can take out your phone right now. Go to watermark.org/baptism. I give you full permission to look at your iPhone right now, or whatever phone you have…your Android. Okay. That's between you and Jesus. Whatever you have, go there now and take the next step. There's no reason to wait. No reason to wait.

I was serving in a church in Albuquerque right by the University of New Mexico, and there was a college student at UNM named Kwame. I loved Kwame. Kwame came to faith. We'd been praying for Kwame a long time. His friends were sharing Jesus with him. He came to faith. We had a baptism service planned, so we encouraged Kwame to be baptized right after he had come to faith, and he delayed. I didn't know why.

So, the next time I saw Kwame at a service, I confronted him, like, "Hey, man. We set this up. A lot of people got baptized. Where were you?" He said, "There's this thing in my life right now that's not perfect. I'm going to wait to get baptized until I get it in order." That's not what baptism is about at all. Baptism is always for people who need Jesus. It's not for people who have their lives all cleaned up; it's for people who need the righteousness of Jesus to be made right with God.

I explained that to Kwame, and I explained the urgency, like, "Today is the day, man. Let's go." I explained to him, "We have another baptism service coming up in two weeks." He was so convicted he said, "No. Tomorrow." I said, "Tomorrow?" He said, "Tomorrow." He said, "Meet me here at the church." He told me the time. He said, "We're going to drive an hour away to the hot springs in the mountains, and you can baptize me there." I said, "I'm in."

We got together as a huge entourage, 30 to 40 people. We made our way up to the mountains. Here's the big mistake we made. We didn't realize that the hot springs there were "clothing optional." For whatever reason, on this day, everybody decided to exercise that option that was already there. We had an advance party. They went there, and they said, "Hey, this is not an appropriate place to do a baptism."

So, we hiked a little bit, and we found a stream that was all of eight inches deep, barely trickling. We said, "This is the place," and we baptized Kwame. Two incredible miracles of the grace of God happened that day. One was Kwame, a sinner, was saved by Jesus. The other is we were able to baptize a man who was 6'2" in eight inches of water, fully immersed, to the glory of God.

Why wait? Don't wait any longer. If you profess faith in Jesus, take the next step toward baptism. We'll take it from there. You simply go to that site, and we'll begin to work on it, and we'll baptize you as soon as we possibly can.

TA spoke to us last week on "What would revival look like at Watermark?" Look at what happens here in the power of the Holy Spirit. Three thousand souls are added in a single day. Literally, in the flash of a moment, the church goes from 120 people gathering and praying in an upper room to 3,120.

What would that look like here? I'm glad you asked, because I did the math last night. I couldn't sleep. I did the math. If there are 10,000 of us here on a Sunday, if the Holy Spirit worked in the same way and we saw the same proportion of new believers, we'd baptize 250,000 people. That's the entire population of the city of Garland, Texas.

May God move in such a way here. Wouldn't that be incredible? Wouldn't it be amazing if we were able to see that many people come to faith? And all of the churches that love Jesus in the DFW area that preach the gospel would see an overflow of new believers. We should pray for that. We should long for that. We should work toward that together.

Now, what about for those of us who've repented and been baptized? One thing I want to say first. Martin Luther was right. All of the Christian life is repentance. I hope you never get past repentance. Every day affords you a new opportunity to turn away from your sin and turn and trust in Jesus and experience his forgiveness afresh and be filled again with God the Holy Spirit.

The big takeaway for those of us who are Christians is we have the Holy Spirit. We've received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Anytime you give somebody a gift, you give them a gift so they will enjoy that gift. Are we enjoying the presence of the Holy Spirit? Are we experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives?

What might that look like? Let me give you two specific things that I think are really important here. These are based on what TA shared with us last week, that what we would see if revival happened here at Watermark is a newfound pleasure in the presence of God and an urgency for mission.

Here's the first thing we can do. We can gather together as worshipers. I hope you know how significant today is. So often on Sunday morning we just go through the motions, not thinking for a minute how significant and how important it is that we gather together. It's really important that we worship privately. It's really important that all of life for the Christian is an act of worship. That's why every Sunday, when we dismiss, we say, "Have a great week of worship," because worship goes on.

But there's something profoundly unique when we come together as God's people, as a local church. Here's the way I like to say it. Why do we come on Sundays? We come on Sundays as God's people in God's presence to find pleasure in God to his praise. That's why. God manifests his presence among us in special and profound ways that are different when we're not together. Do you experience that?

I want you to get this. This is more than a Bible class. Now, don't get me wrong. I hope you come here and, as you learn, you learn the Bible. We are a Bible-revering church. We're a gospel-saturated church. The Bible is going to lead everything we do here. But there's something more important than you and me learning the Bible when we come together. We get to be in the presence of God, as the people of God, finding pleasure in his presence that results in us praising him. We get a small preview, a small taste of heaven.

It's important that you do the work of ministry. At Watermark Community Church, we believe our members are the ministers. So, when you come together, I hope you're equipped, but this isn't just an equipping conference that meets every week throughout the course of the year. There's something much greater going on here. I hope you're equipped. I hope you're empowered when you leave this place, but we are coming together to experience pleasure in the presence of God so that we might praise him.

This isn't an evangelistic crusade. Oh, I hope people meet Jesus here every week. I hope somebody just did in our time together today, but there's something much bigger and greater going on here. We're God's people. We are in the presence of God today. My hope is that you're filled with an exhilarating joy and pleasure in him that you can't contain yourself. You just have to worship him. This is the very reason God created you: to be with you and for you to worship and enjoy him forever. Is that happening?

Every Sunday morning, there's a group of us that meets at 7:45. We meet in the South Community Room. You're welcome to join us. This morning was really encouraging. We had about 40 people here. What we do is we just pray over the auditorium. We need to start praying in the Chapel too. We'll get there next week.

We pray and just ask that God would move in profound ways. One of the things we pray is that you would acknowledge that this is different, that you would come here every week because you just can't stand to not be here. What I do is I go to the doors, and I go through all of the different entry points into this auditorium, and I simply pray that when you walk into this place, you would have a sense of the presence of God that literally knocks you off your feet.

Here's what I liken it to. You're going to relate to this. If you're new to Dallas… As a matter of fact, if you just moved here in the last couple of months, I have to tell you our summers are really bad. Okay? This is about as cold as it gets, so if this is okay with you… Occasionally it gets a little worse, but this is about it. Summer is a different story.

For about 90 days, maybe longer in some years, pretty much from the end of June all the way to the end of September, you're going to walk out the door of your apartment or the door of your office or the door of your house, and it's going to be like that last cycle on your dishwasher, just opening it up and sticking your head right in there. That's what it feels like…heat and humidity and all kinds of ungodliness.

But there comes a break in the summer. Sometimes it's in mid-September. Sometimes it's Christmas Eve. There's this break, and you're going to walk out the door of your house, and you're going to feel this amazing cool breeze that you haven't felt for months. For that brief moment, all is right in the world.

You're going to say, "Thank you, God. This is what climate always… This is the weather. You created it. This must have been what it was like in the garden," and you're going to be filled with joy. You're going to love Jesus, you're going to love your neighbors, and it's going to be so different.

I want you to have that same experience in a spiritual sense when you come in here on Sundays. It's a hot and humid and broken world outside these doors, but when we come together as God's people in God's presence, there is an opportunity to find pleasure in him that results in praise. It's a foretaste, a picture of what eternity is going to be like when we're around Jesus. Will you find pleasure in the Holy Spirit today?

There's one other thing we can do together. We can go together as witnesses. There are at least two identities we have now as followers of Jesus. First, we're worshipers of him, but we're also his witnesses. The Holy Spirit empowers our witness. When we go out among our classmates, the people we work with, the people we shop with, the people we work out with, the people we hang out with, we get to go with the good news of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit to share the truth of all of the good things we've found in Jesus with those who are hopeless and broken.

I'm convinced we're to do it together. Community is so important to us at Watermark. I hope you're in a Community Group. If you're not, look at your news this morning. There are opportunities for Formation and Foundation later. Another way you can get quick access into being a part of a group is men's and women's Bible study is about to start up again. Equipped Disciple is about to happen. Just look at the opportunities there and commit yourself, if you're not in a group, to get into a group soon, because we don't just gather together to worship; we go together to be witnesses, and we go in groups. That's always God's plan.

This church I was serving in Albuquerque years ago had four guys who got together as a Community Group. As they got together and prayed together and shared their lives together, they began to grieve over the fact that their friends, their acquaintances, their coworkers, and their family members didn't know Jesus, so they made a pact together.

As they prayed and they felt guidance from the Holy Spirit, they decided, rather than meeting in a home or an apartment where they typically met, they were going to go next door to where the church met. The church met in an old theater, and next to the church there were restaurants and bars and small shops. There was a new bar that opened up on the corner called Imbibe. What a great name for a bar. Right?

They decided on Monday lunch hour, they were going to gather as a Community Group at Imbibe, and they were going to invite their friends who didn't know Jesus to join them. They had a really simple plan. They would alternate taking turns. One guy would simply open up the Bible, read the passage we covered the day before on Sunday, on Monday, and just give whoever was gathered a highlight of what that text meant, and then one guy was going to share his story of how Jesus changed his life.

So, they began to meet, and this thing just took off. There were so many guys who would show up at noon at Imbibe… Imbibe was a cigar bar. Maybe not a great place for all of you to be, but for these guys at work, they invited their friends who didn't know Jesus, and they showed up en masse. It got to the point where the restaurant had to say to them, "Hey, would you come at 1:00? You're kind of crowding out our regular lunch hour." They said, "Sure." They'd meet at 1:00 and 2:00.

I would see them, because my office was right next door. I would watch them walk out. I'd always run out. "Hey, guys, what happened?" Every time they met, somebody new met Jesus. About 18 months to two years passed, and as we looked back at that small group, there were 238 people who had come to faith just through those four guys getting together and determining, in the power of the Holy Spirit, this is what they were going to do.

Are you experiencing pleasure in the presence of the Holy Spirit? Are you experiencing power through the Holy Spirit to be empowered as a witness? Maybe this week, when you go to community, gather together and simply say, "Holy Spirit, what would you have us do that you desire to do beyond the walls of this gathering outside of this group? What would you have us do?" Would you listen to him? Would you be obedient to him?

Here's the good news today. Family, God loves us. He loves us so much he wants to be with us forever, and he made a way possible through the brutal death of his Son Jesus. Jesus lived the perfect life we couldn't live. Jesus died the death we deserve. Jesus is risen. He's ascended at the right hand of the Father. The Father and Son have sent us God the Holy Spirit. Are you enjoying him? Are you with him? Are you enjoying him? He wants to be with you today. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for all that you've achieved through Jesus. Thank you that through him we can experience not only the forgiveness of sin, Lord. That would be more than enough, but what we get through Jesus is we get God the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, may we find pleasure in your presence, and may we find power in your ministry. May we be the worshipers and witnesses you've designed us to be, all for the glory of Jesus, amen.