FEB 29 2016 | Elvis Impersonators, Spiritual Gifts and a Prophet Called Agabus

Sea Change Church · "Elvis Impersonators, Spiritual Gifts and a Prophet Called Agabus" · Adam Stadtmiller · February 29, 2016
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

with them for a day. Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea, stayed at the house of Philip the Evangelist, one of the seven. He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it, and said, The Holy Spirit says, in this way, the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and hand him over to the Gentiles.

And when we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go to Jerusalem. But then Paul answered, Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I'm ready. I'm ready. Not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And when he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, The Lord's will be done. After this, we got ready and went up to Jerusalem, and some of the disciples from Caesarea accompanied us, brought us to the home of Nason, where we were to stay.

And he was a man from Cyprus and one of the many disciples. Lord, bless this word, we pray, to our hearts, our lives. We celebrate Paul's journey and his strength for our own, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Jim. Just got to do a little pulpit cleansing once I get up here. So, casting things out of the pulpit. A little theological humor there. Did you get it? See what I did there?

Yeah, if you have your Bibles or your phones, open them up to Acts 21, 7-14. Let me tell you and give you a little, since I'm kind of captaining at the moment, let me tell you where we're charting a course to and let you know what has happened in the last eight weeks at the church. We have been on a marathon spiritual gift series for eight weeks.

But I want you to know that it goes in alignment with what we started doing in the fall. In the fall, we started looking at what book? It was that profound, wasn't it? Amazing. Acts! Hey, Carol! Carol got it, but she prints the notes every week, so that doesn't count. I was crushing, obviously. We looked at the birth of a brand new church, of what God was doing through the Spirit, and we saw a new generation, a first generation of Christ followers as a church.

Now, obviously, you had these disciples, but it was a first generation. It was a new generation that was happening. And at the same time, it correlates, and the reason I picked the book of Acts is because it correlates with what God's doing here at our church. I think there's been 16 or 17 pastors of this church since 1927. And we are in a season now where we have been watering and putting seed into the ground, but it says, who causes the church to grow?

Paul says, but God causes the church to grow. And we are in a season of really dynamic growth. You know, I said to someone this week, I said, you know, it's really exciting. We've had about 25% growth since January. I mean, that's phenomenal growth. And they said, I'm not into numbers. And I was like, oh, really? Like, is that what you heard when I said that?

Because I think it's exciting when people, when you find a church that was actually going the opposite direction for a while, and we come in and say, no, there's something of value here. There's a DNA in the people that are here that are just wanting renewal, not knowing how it's going to come, and then seeing it begin to come to life. Has it been exciting over the last couple years to see God just invigorate those that were here before, and then to add, you know, those of you that have come, and the newcomers that have even come more recently, and get to experience a renewal of what God is doing on this corner.

You know, the rumors that this church's ability to change the culture of La Jolla and the four corners of the earth had ended, I think, was a little bit premature. And you guys, it's been amazing to watch that happen. And so what I wanted to do was parallel what was happening in the book of Acts as we look about what believers do when a new generation comes, and how they enfold together some very different people, the Jews and then Gentile believers, and how they enfold that in to becoming Christ's followers.

Now, the first eight, the first seven chapters of Acts are fun. There's a lot of growth. There's a lot of miracles. There's a lot of people coming to know Christ, 5,000 in one day. It's so much fun. And then, you know, the Holy Spirit comes, and he says, I'm going to equip you for this work. And so he equips the believers with gifts. So what I did was, in the fall, I really wanted to talk about a new generation of people.

And then starting this year, I want to do exactly what happened in the first church, which happened in Acts, is to allow you to understand what your gifts are. And so I've been speaking for eight weeks on gifts. We are finally handing out the spiritual gifts test in the back for you after we've heard all this, to go take a spiritual gifts test and see what God has gifted you with.

The scripture says that each person that has accepted Christ to come into their heart and become a Christ follower, believing that he died on the cross, will be given a spiritual gift, at least one. And that is for the purpose of the joy of serving. Now, here's the deal. The reason I stopped in chapter 7 and went in the fall and then started spiritual gifts here in January is because there's a major reboot in regard to persecution that the church goes through in chapter 8.

All of a sudden, there begins to be a persecution of the first church. And the question is, are you still going to continue on with Jesus when things get difficult? Are you still going to press on when it starts to cost you something? And I believe that following Jesus today, we are getting to the place in America, it's already happening in Syria and other places in Palestine, Palestinian Christians, where it's going to cost you something.

Maybe it's your reputation. Maybe it's your time. Maybe it's the dreams that you thought you had for your life. But God says, once again, it's not your will. It's not your purpose. It's my will and my purpose for you. You know, when Jesus comes, he bids you, as it says, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, let me know what it says. When Jesus calls a man or a woman, he calls them to what?

He bids them to come in what? Let me see. When Jesus calls and bids a person to come, he bids them to come in what? Die. Rest is right. Great rest. To the point where you're dead. Yeah. Do we get that? I heard a thing. I was away again this week at a conference. It was Stuart and Jill Briscoe. They were friends at C.S. Lewis, and she was discipled by Billy Graham's wife, and it was like amazing people to be with.

They're in their 80s now. And they said, what we're finding is the higher you make the bar now to follow Christ, the more people that will follow. You'll get a greater rate of people wanting to follow Christ when you don't soft sell it. So this church all of a sudden that has grown becomes scattered. Just like Jesus grew his followers, and then when Jesus, on the night that he was betrayed, it says that the church scattered.

His disciples, not the church, his disciples scattered. And so what I wanted to do was I kind of wanted to fatten the congregation up a bit. And I feel that that's what happened in the first church, that there's all this goodness. But all of a sudden, what do you do when hard times comes? I would say when your faith is tested, it shows you if you have a faith or not.

When your faith is tested. And so the church begins in chapter 8. We're going to spend four weeks in chapter 8. I can't wait to get back into chapter-by-chapter teaching. I know people say they teach verse-by-verse. I've never met a person that teaches verse-by-verse. It's usually chapter-by-chapter, but it's exegetical. And we're going to get back into this story of Acts to Paul and the gang, talking about them.

We're jumping forward to talk about this ultimate persecution of Paul. Paul wanted... Did anybody know why Paul wanted to go to Rome? Because he appealed to who? Caesar. Who was Caesar? The head of Rome, which was the head of what? The world. Stuart Briscoe, who's a Brit, said there was a time when Britain ruled the world. Ruled the... Now I've messed it up.

But now he says they just keep the rules. But they don't rule anymore. So I totally messed that one up. But it was really clever. Trust me. Hashtag uber clever. Paul was willing to die. Why? So that he could stand... He could get an audience. He was going to get an audience. He appealed to Caesar. He knew that when he did that, it meant he might be martyred for the faith.

But he was willing to do that for the sake of the message of Christ. Few spiritual paths these days bid you to come and die. That's one of the things that is so unique about Christian spirituality is it says come and suffer and die with Christ that you might be resurrected in this life as well. Because we're being saved today and we will be saved. It's a powerful message.

Do you know that you signed up for that? So here we come. I'm going to look into... As we get into this final gifts of understanding, once again, kind of in this supernatural category. We're outside of the boundaries of human knowledge at this point. It's understanding. It's God speaking to us in really unique ways. And as we talk about this, I want to fast forward into the book of Acts to kind of towards the end of the story, chapter 21, where one of my favorite characters comes up.

Now, you used the soft G, but you called it agabus. I think it's agabus, although you also used the soft P and said ptolemy. And did anybody notice that? Did anybody pick up on stuff like that? Linguistics? He didn't say ptolemy. I think he used the soft P. Well, forget it. Nonetheless, I love agabus. I think agabus is so cool. I wish my name was agabus.

What a cool name. If your name is agabus, you can do things like take someone's belt, wrap it around yourself. And I don't know what he was doing in that story, but he was being a prophet, you know? And anybody have any prophet friends, people that'll just kind of tell you what they think God's going to do here in the future and what he's doing in our lives?

And so you have this guy named agabus. You also see some of these spiritual gifts. So it's 21 chapters later. It's multiple years later. But they're still talking about these gifts that were given when they were being fattened up, when they were getting the joy of being a new Christian family, being a home together. Isn't that exciting? But God began.

He knows when it's time. He knows how to feed his flock. And he knows how to care for his flock when the food shortage comes. And so he comes, and agabus, we're at verse 21, but it mentions these gifts. It says if you look at verse 8, we see Philip. What is Philip? What's he known by? He's an evangelist. He's known by what God has called him to do. He had four, I don't know why it says they were unmarried, but nonetheless, there's a reason for that.

He had four daughters that were prophets that were able to understand what God was going to do, what God was trying to communicate, and to share it in a way that edified the church. By edification, I mean to build up. All spiritual gifts, when used in the church, especially the ones that we would consider supernatural, although I feel that every gift is supernatural because it allows you to do more than you could on your own because God's Spirit is coming in and helping you with that, every spiritual gift is meant to build a wall and not to build a wall in the same way, like to build up, to like build something.

And so each spiritual gift we have is meant to build up. When you begin to see spiritual gifts break a church apart, you can realize that human beings have gotten in charge of the gifts. When you begin to see spiritual gifts, which are by the Holy Spirit and to be used through the Holy Spirit, working through human beings to accomplish beyond what they could do on their own, divide the church, you will know that human beings have gotten in charge of the gifts.

The Holy Spirit wants his gifts back, and he wants to use them to build and to edify the church. And so we see these gifts. He's got four unmarried daughters that were prophets. He was a prophet himself. It talks about an evangelist. You'll see in your notes there, point one, it says, are we going to be willing to serve and use God's gifts when things aren't going so well?

Great, great question. Great question. Here's the gifts real quick. Let's go through those five categories we've gone. I'm just going to hit them briefly. The first week was the shepherding gifts. These are for the care and direction of God's people. You'll see these gifts. These are all mentioned in scripture. The serving gifts. These are gifts that allow, that people, they just have a passion to pour their lives out, give their time, talent, and treasure.

These are giving, help, serving, hospitality. Maybe some of these you resonate with. The compassion gifts. I love the gifts of compassion. I would say if I had a favorite set of gifts, it would just be the gifts of compassion. Now, all of these gifts are meant to lead people to be used that they can have a saving knowledge of Christ. Unless you've forgotten, Christianity believes in an eternal hell.

It's what separates it from any other spiritual path. No other spiritual path believes in eternal damnation. So it is definitely a line in the sand. And it is one that causes much persecution for Christianity. Every other spiritual path that I know of has a second heaven or a way that you can kind of make your way back in. And this is what causes a divide.

But it is, and Christianity for thousands of years has believed in what the scripture says. And so they are on a mission, and that's why they use the term evangelicals, believing that people will be lost. That people will be lost and separated to God from eternity. It's not a nice message. But that's not the message of the gospel. The message of the gospel is that Jesus Christ died on a cross that you might be saved.

It was never God's intention. Hell, it says in the scripture, in the Bible, was created for Satan and his demons. Human beings were never meant to be there. But according to scripture, human beings rebelled, putting them into that camp. And so through scripture, it says that we are called to be an evangelical, to evangelize, to tell people the good news.

The gospel is good news. And I think Christians need to get back in the business of sharing good news because we've been doomsdayers, negativity casting, you know, oftentimes speaking so much, I would say things that border on hate, when the gospel is the good news. We are evangelists. And so what I want to make clear is as we go through these next eight, ten chapters of the book of Acts going into summer and then we'll take a break to fall, is we really are going to be looking at sharing the message of the gospel.

How we share the message, how they shared it. In chapter eight, there's a sorcerer that comes around. How do they deal, how does the gospel go to this magician, very into spiritual things. Later on, Paul, Paul comes into the story. He was a Jewish Pharisee who was killing Christians, who has a vision of Jesus and becomes the most prominent figure, wrote, you know, a large portion of the New Testament, becomes one of the most prominent figures.

This guy was a complete hater. And he turns because of the gospel, because he accepts the good news and turns. So we look at the gifts of compassion, the gifts of salvation. This is leading people to a saving faith. This is so important. You know, I've led a fair amount of people to Christ, but oftentimes it's in settings like this. I want to get better at leading people to Christ one-on-one.

I mean, I've probably led people to make a decision to follow Jesus, and I believe sometimes that decision doesn't always happen in a moment. Sometimes it happens over years. We have people that have been going to this church for a couple years now that are still kind of in the process, like Jesus had, of like, hey, just come follow me. You come hang out, and at some point you'll make a decision that'll be one that you're willing to die for.

Because Christianity does ask that. Jesus does ask that. Are you willing to die for that faith? But not everybody who he said, follow me, was willing to make that decision when they started. Peter was one of them. Peter, obviously, we know, took off. You know, you have others that wouldn't follow. Nicodemus, in John chapter 3, you know, the scripture, that it's, you know, that says, what does anybody know, John 3, 16?

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. He spoke that to Nicodemus, who came to Jesus, when? Secret disciple. You know who took Jesus off the cross? Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea. With enough anointing, oils, and spices, 75 pounds, from what I understand, that was showing that that was the amount you give for a kingly burial.

Which means he was going up to someone who was crucified by the Romans that day, that was considered a traitor of the Roman government, and said, no, this is a king, and everyone knows when I bring this much, because it's expensive, for a kingly burial, and he did the ministry. Can you imagine taking Jesus off the cross? How hardcore that is? We'll be talking about him, and some of the others.

We're doing four stories of Easter. So on Easter, I'm going to be sharing four backstories of the cross narrative. But he takes Jesus off the cross, no longer a secret disciple. Now something happened between, I'm coming to you at night, I don't want anybody to know, and taking Jesus off the cross, going to Pilate, and asking, with Joseph of Arimathea, may we take Jesus off the cross?

Can we have, that's our Lord. Can we take him? What is, I don't know what happened, but it was a three year period. There wasn't a moment, that it shows in scripture, where Nicodemus, although we see him kind of stand up, and talk more. He's a fascinating story in scripture. But it just shows, that all Christ following, doesn't happen by in the moment. Now I think at times, you know, my father was on his deathbed, and my mom prayed with him, and said, hey do you believe, that Jesus died for your sins?

That's crucial to believe, that Christianity for 2000 years, says that is a crucial belief, that you believe, that man is sinful, that human beings are sinful, and that Jesus' death on the cross, is what saves us. That's what makes us unique. That is, that is what makes Christianity unique. And I get that. We can't soft sell that message, but we need to say it in a way, that people are willing to follow, for a few years.

Does that make sense? Because if you just draw a line in the sand, with every person you meet, I'll tell you what, people are just going to run, from the gospel. I want to say, I just love, he's so mellow. He's so cruisy. He's like, somebody says, I'm going to follow you. And he says, but I got to go do this. You know, I got to go, my dad's dying, or my parent, and he says, you know what, go bury your dead, come back when you're ready.

It's all good. He didn't have this like, he didn't have this anxiety about it. It was just, come follow me. Have you had anybody in your life, that you've been walking with, for 10 years, 11 years, 12 years, but slowly they show up, and they're like, I just want to be there. I just want to hang, I want to get to know more, about this Jesus you talked to, because he's so intriguing.

We've got to make Jesus intriguing again, because he's one of the most, I believe he's the most intriguing character, in all of history. Not only that, he's God. Fair enough. Let's just remind ourselves, what we believe again, and this is why, we're going to begin, I'm working with some of the elders, and leaders in the church, to begin some discipleship, where we can begin, to get back into the basics, of what we believe.

There's a lot of Christians, that don't know what they, what they don't know, and they believe, they say they follow Christ, but they don't know the basics. Some of us, I need to get back to the basics. Understanding why Jesus' death, on the cross matters, why the virgin birth matters, why creation matters. These things matter, and we want to be, a Bible teaching church, that lets you know, and disciples, so we're going to be, I see a big smile on Chris's face, you happy Chris?

All right, thank you very much. She hit me up this week, with some of that, so there we go. Finally, here we are, these gifts of understanding. We have the gifts of salvation, and the gifts of understanding. These are gifts, that give a heavenly understanding, or a perspective, to a past, current, or future happening. And these are discernment. Now, I told you, at this church, we believe, that the gifts, that you see in the scripture, anything that's in scripture, is still in play today.

I think you have to take a, make a reach, to say that the things, that happened in the first century, are not available, for the church today. I think it's a reach. But once again, we need to have these, using wisdom. And so we see these, as the gifts of understanding, or gifts, give a heavenly understanding, or perspective, to a past, current, or future happening.

These are discernment. Okay, how many people believe, that God has discernment today? Right? They just, okay, and discernment is this, being able to look at something, and discerning, what is right and wrong. Today, there's a big thing, don't judge. Okay, we're not supposed to, I would agree, Jesus says he doesn't judge. Why did, Jesus says I did not come to, to condemn, I didn't come to judge.

Why? Because the Father, had already set the laws in place. You never need to judge. Because God has already judged it. We never judge. But we do understand God's judgments. Does that make sense? So the lie today is, never judge, never judge. But what I would say is, never judge, I agree with, but know what God's judgments are, and be willing to discern, what is God's judgments, and it says, what is man's judgments, and to be able to step in, and follow God's judgments.

Do you think Jesus, didn't have an understanding, of what was right and wrong? Of course he did. But he didn't need to judge. Why? Because that's been taken out of his hands. God had already done it. Does that give a little understanding, on the whole, how we understand judgment? So as we see there, we see these gifts of understanding. And let me say, if you go to your notes, keys to the gift of understanding.

The gifts of understanding, these are gifts, where God wants to communicate. Give us an understanding, of what God is up to, now, or puts into context, what God has done. It is God, communicating to you, what you need to know. This is key. It is God, communicating to you, or to a church, or to a body, or to a group of believers, what you need to know, so you can get about, doing what you need to do.

It's all it is. It's, it's, it's not creepy, it's not weird, it's just God saying, look, first of all, I'm eternal, and I have hidden mysteries, that you will never understand. I can say more in one, I can say an eternity, in a word, that you would have to spend eternity, figuring out, and then a second eternity, and then a fifth eternity, and you'll still never figure it out, because God is the universe.

He's so big. God's beyond the universe. Do you know that science, it says that the universe is expanding, right? Because the universe is not eternal. Think with me for a second. Okay? Go here with me. The universe is not eternal, because the only thing that eternal is what? God. The universe is created. So the universe is not eternal, and science will tell you that, because they say that on the edge of the universe, it is constantly expanding from the big boom, whatever, yeah, that, from the big boom.

Perfect timing. So that it all blew up, and now, on the edge, now what I would say is, what's one foot beyond, where that expansion is expanding? I don't know the rate that they say it's expanding, but what's beyond that? That's God. You see, God's eternal space is not eternal. You know, it might be the final frontier, but it's not eternal. Even scientists tell us that.

See, once again, science is proving, biblical truth, that God is beyond time, and so the space will continue to expand. I don't know where I was going with that, but it's super interesting. I do know where I was going with it. There's this thing that, there's all this truth, that is so far beyond us, that God wants to communicate deep truths to you about you.

God knows more about you, than you'll ever know about yourself. He knows about the situations you're in. He knows how to come in and soothe them. He knows how to spur you on. He knows how to give you encouragement. He knows what's right for you, what's wrong for you, and he wants to communicate to you. Jesus died on the cross, so that he might communicate with you.

The first way God communicated, is to a thing called natural revelation. It says in Romans, that that is the world that he created. That if you look at the world, you can know about God. Romans 2. It says that the world, as you look at it, the things you see in divine creation, will show you his invisible qualities, and his divine nature. That God put the imprint, of his message, of who he is, and everything that he created.

It also says, that other people will see that, they'll be so overwhelmed, because creation, it is so overwhelming. Because why? The artist God created it, and in him, is his values. Like we're going to put our values on the wall. God's values are in creation. And it said that some people, will look at that, and they'll stumble over it, and miss God in the midst.

And then creation, the universe will become God. But the universe will never love you like a father. Creation will never love you, like a God can only love you, like a father and a friend. The world needs a father. And part of the core message, of Christian spirituality, is that we have a father. And Jesus came to make the father known. To come to your heart, to comfort you.

He's the one that will crawl in beside you, as a little child cries at night, with no one there, and crawl in beside you, and comfort you. That's the kind of father, that's God. That's the picture that Jesus died. And Jesus died on the cross, to reveal the father, so that you could know, that it isn't just a black, expanding thing out there, but there's something beyond the expansion.

And that expansion, is a loving God, and a loving father. That's the message of the gospel. And that is what we don't talk about. We talk about abortion, we talk about politics, we talk about whatever our thing is, and all those things, I think Christians need to have a voice. And all those things. But beyond those, those things will die away. And there'll be a loving father, who will wait for us in heaven.

That's the core message. That's our message. That's the one that Paul was speaking. That's the one that these, this church in Acts was speaking. And this is the one, that I'm challenging you, to live as sent people, to go share that message. But you need to know it yourself. That God is a loving father. I heard this week, I don't talk enough about sin.

As we were talking. Look, I could talk about sin all day. It's easy, to talk about sin. And we're a sinful people. Here's what I feel. Most of us are pretty aware of our sin. Most of us feel shame constantly. Most of us feel broken, away from God, guilt. And the message of the gospel, is peace and grace. And we will continue to talk about it. I'm not afraid to talk about sin.

I know what it is. But I believe the message, of the loving father, is one that I really want to focus on, with the gifts. So in discipleship, we're going to learn more about that. These gifts of understanding, I was thrust into these, at Point Loma Nazarene, as a 19 year old. I was fresh off, two weeks off of, of drinking for the last time, in a gutter in Mexico.

I fell into a gutter, in front of Club A. Anybody know Club A? Yeah, in the back. What's up home girl? Good to see you Doris. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Woo woo. Ha ha ha ha. Got some bacon wrapped taco, or bacon wrapped hot dogs. Right. Ha ha ha ha. Tijuana dogs. Got a mule, painted like a zebra, back in the day. Ha ha ha ha ha. Pass out. Thank you Craig. Pass out.

He's getting happy now. He's like, yeah! I pass out, I end up at, and I go, and I'm, and for weeks, I've been crying, asking God to save me. I couldn't get sober, and I went to Point Loma Nazarene, and I signed the thing, that said I wouldn't drink. Thank God I got into Point Loma Nazarene, and I said, I'm not going to leave campus for six to eight weeks, started going to Bible studies.

Long story, boom, God just rocked my life. And what he rocked it with, had to be something as radical as cocaine was for me. It had to be as radical as methamphetamine, it had to be as radical as PB at four in the morning, on a Tuesday, which is crazy. What are they doing up at four in the morning on Tuesday? It just had, it had to match. It had to be something that matched that for me, because it just wasn't going to translate, and God beats each of us where we are, and probably, you know, you know, April, you probably didn't need that same, you know, extreme thing that I did, but I did, and God showed up in a powerful way, and he started just giving me these spiritual gifts that I had nothing, I knew nothing about, because I was coming out of a church that didn't believe in them.

And so I began to have these experiences. I went to Bible study, and I said, Jesus, I want to follow you, and I started growing my hair out long, and I was wearing white clothes, and I went to AIDS hospices. This is before I knew there was a divide between, you know, homosexuals and Christianity. I was too stupid to know that there was supposed to be this big wall between us, so I got some friends and said, let's just go to the AIDS hospice.

It was 1989, you know, I don't know any churches that were doing that at the time. I didn't know any better, but I know that they needed some help, and they needed to be painted, so I just went there like an idiot, and we painted all the walls, and painted the AIDS hospice. Little did I know that there would be this big thing going on 25 years later that now we're trying to navigate through as a church, but I just ended up there, and there was a six-foot-eight transvestite, okay, I think that's what they called it at the time, and his name was Damien, and he came in, and he goes, man, I want to show you my Loretta Lynn outfit.

Now, can you imagine a six-eight African-American guy dressed like Loretta Lynn? Right. We went out into my car. I had a stereo system. He brought his things out. He ended up passing away a few months later of AIDS, but we listened to records together and sat in the car. I didn't know that he was transgender. There was no such thing as transgender. There was just transvestite dudes that dressed up and went to bars and drank and sang like Loretta Lynn, which is an interesting choice for a six-foot African-American guy.

Loretta Lynn. But he did a Donna Summers number as well that I thought was great, so he had a sequined dress. That's what I did. I know there were some prostitutes that needed some help on Rosecrans, so we got some people together, and we said, let's go down to Rosecrans and make a deal with Soup Plantation that was down there, and we'll get the muffins at 11 o'clock at night and get some coffee, and I had this idea, and this girl, and I told some people about it at the school, and this girl comes up to me, she goes, are you going to go down to work with the prostitutes?

And I said, yeah. She goes, I want to come. And I said, sure, yeah. Everyone's welcome. Let's do it. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just going to show up and just kind of serve Jesus. She goes, my mom was a prostitute. And she goes, I was had, my mom had me, and I don't know who my father was, but it was one of her Johns. And I said, okay, now we're real. You know a little bit more about this than I do.

And we ended up there that year, and we would hand out, we would hand out blueberry muffins and hot coffee and tell girls about Jesus, and then there was times when it would get really dark, and they were doing drive-bys on the prostitutes on Rosecrans, so all the different gang prostitutes, they would hang together in groups. They'd be like in groups of eight so they wouldn't get shot.

And even though they were from different gangs, they would hang out. And there was another time I was there, and I was with, I think her name was Mary, was this gal I told you about. And we were there, and this girl comes up to us, and she's 14 years old, and she's from Green Bay, Wisconsin. And she starts talking to us and telling us that she's there.

And I'm thinking, what's a 14-year-old doing here on the streets of Rosecrans? We're having a conversation about home and why she left high school. She's as sweet as ever. And this dude walks up right to us and starts talking to her, and she just like changes to like this, I don't even know what personality. It was like the most sexual, like, it was like, hey, we're talking cookies and donuts and high school, and then bam, and then they left and walked into the dumpster at the Target together and closed the dumpster and things behind them.

I'm a brand-new Christian. I'm just showing up, growing my hair out, just trying to be like Jesus. I didn't know any better. The problem is I know too much now. I haven't led a person to Christ one-on-one since those days. I've led a lot of people to Christ at camps. I don't think I, I mean, it counts. For sure it counts in eternity. They hear me out. I've just kind of lost, I've kind of lost, you know, there's a lot of people that are following Jesus that know me and they're interested, and I guess it's, I'm just doing it different.

I, I, I, I led a guy, another guy that died of AIDS to, to Christ. We were driving and he was a Elvis impersonator. I was hanging out with some trippy people. Elvis impersonator in Vegas and he also got AIDS at, at 19 years old and we were driving. I said, do you know Jesus? He says, no. I said, let's pull the car over and we pulled into Benita and the shopping and I said, let's get in the back and we got in the back and my buddy was there and I pulled the Bible out and I showed him, we read the Bible.

I said, do you want to know Jesus? He starts crying. I says, yeah, I want to know Jesus and, you know, and he made a commitment to Christ, ended up going back into his lifestyle in Vegas and continuing to do Elvis and he died of AIDS too. In a bathtub. I heard he died in a bathtub. Yeah, he just died in a bathtub. I don't know if it's stuck. I think it's stuck.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's, that's, that's the gospel. That's what I want to, I want to do. I want, I want that back. I just, I never want, I don't want to become a professional pastor. I don't want us to be professional Christians. I am so off the grid right now on our map. Story, yeah, right? But the coffee machine didn't work today. It's ruined. Everything's ruined.

Stories are good. I don't know. Yeah, right? It's percolating right now. Yay. Right. Praise God. Well, two in the morning I was at, I was there and I, I, I, all those that were extra stories and I was at, I was 19 and I was at my desk and I was sitting there, it was two in the morning I was studying, I was starting to get good grades because I was a high school dropout.

I did drop out of high school but had someone take my SAT test for me. So I got, for real, um, $50, $50, $50 in five cases of Miller Genuine Draft. Got me a 1380, got me into college. So easy to do, trust me. Fanny, look at Fanny back there, you're right, she knows. It's a lot easier than taking it, I'll tell you that much. He wanted to practice, it was just a fake ID, he made that in the library, went to the library and made a fake ID for John, John Moynes.

But I did really well, I got a 375 in college, that was good and I didn't try that hard so it was good and God redeemed that story. I'm so far off the map and I'm sitting there at two in the morning and I'm studying and I get this thought in my head and there was this guy that was in the dorm and it's, and I was at this time, I'm all in for Jesus, like I'm, I'm crazy all in, like, crazy, like crack on Jesus, you know what I mean, like crazy and I'm sitting there and I get this thought because God gives me picture thoughts, like I get these picture thoughts and that's just how God speaks to me, I get a picture thought and it's just a picture in my mind, it's not a vision, it's not an open vision like Daniel and it says to me and I get this thought, go see, go see Gabe and I get a picture of him sitting out in front of the, the food area that it was called the, forgot what it was called, the tank, that's it and so I said, go to the tank up at Point Loma and I'm like, it's two in the morning, I'm like, I'd never heard from God before, I didn't, you know, God doesn't speak that way anyways, right?

So, I run up there and no, no, like three or four times, this keeps coming back, probably it's like 2.45 now and it's like, go see him, so I walk up and there's Gabe and his girlfriend sitting out in front of the tank all by themselves, it's like 2.45 in the morning, I'm like, that's random, ah, coincidence, so then I walk up there and I start talking to Gabe and I start sharing scripture, now I was reading the Bible voraciously, I meant to bring it and show you guys what I did, but I, he said highlight everything that's important and so like the first 12 pages of the Bible are all highlighted, the whole thing, I sat there and I spoke to him and I literally think I, I, I, like word for word spoke four chapters of the Bible straight to him, it was miraculous, I hadn't memorized it, I just spoke, it was a Romans or John, I don't remember what it was but it was like, whoa, and, and I, and when I was doing it I didn't realize, I was just quoting scripture, it was so crazy and then I prayed with him and his girlfriend and I said, do you want to accept Jesus because that's what I did back then, everybody said, I want to accept Jesus, do you want to, you know, and they said yes and then I walked, I walked away and this, only, you can only, if you were plugged into like 10,000 volts but it wouldn't kill you, I get this like, hit through my body, I'm like bam as I'm walking away, it felt like I lit up like a Christmas tree and I get this thought, don't ever forget that I'm real and for that point it was off to the AIDS hospice, it was just like, there was just no stopping from that point on and that's, and it's stuck, you know, I'm 46 now and it's stuck, God began to speak in really strange ways to me but I was being told from the church that I was in that he only speaks one way and here's the counter argument in your notes, look at your counter argument, it says, here's the counter argument, isn't God's word the final authority and if we have it no further revelation is necessary, now maybe you've heard that before, we got God's word, I love God's word, right, we got the bible, we don't need anything else besides the bible, and I fully, and I fully, I love the bible and I do believe that it is God's final authority and everything that God does or says we find if it's true or not, this is our kind of, this is where we proof it out, this is where we filter whatever God says to us but with that said, God has spoken to me so many different ways, Gabe is up at the tank, like I had a hard time finding that in the bible, okay, I just couldn't find that, you know, the scripture itself says in Romans that if you look, God will speak to you through creation, there's a story of Robert the Bruce, Scottish, okay, and he's in a cave, you ever know the story of Robert the Bruce and the spider and it says he's in a cave and the British are going to defeat him and he's getting ready to just give up and he looks and he sees a spider trying to make a web and it misses and it misses over and over again, over and over again until it finally comes and stops and the spider makes the web and he thought never give up and he went and fought and they beat the British that day.

Did God speak to him? I don't know. I know he beat the British, you know, I don't know. Could God speak to us that way? I don't think it's outside of the lines to think that God can speak. Now once again, Carrie and I are looking at buying a van again. We want to get like a 1986 van again, a little pop top, take the kids to the beach, hang out. And I'm thinking, we had just had a conversation, let's get the van, let's get a van again, let's start looking at it and then I see a van again and then we're changing to go surfing at Doheny the other day and a gal pulls up in a van, like one of the ones we're looking at and she says, you know, if you had one of these, you wouldn't have to towel change in the parking lot.

Now 10 years ago, I would have said, that's God, we're buying the van again, okay? You know, like it's all I needed, you know? I don't know, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But what I can know is that we hear from God and we have to get to this because I'm just, I'm going to close in about three minutes. We have to get to this. How do we hear from God? Let me just look at this because it can't just be all coincidence.

I was living, when I started experiencing the gifts, every coincidence was God's word to me. Every, I mean, I was just, I was, I felt like I was so far outside of, hey, you know, I experienced it so, you know, God must have said it. I've really come back to making sure everything is being filtered through the word. But let me just give these four things real quick.

First thing I want to say is we hear together. Look at that in your notes. When we hear from God, and maybe it isn't in your notes because I made a second copy, but we have to hear together. One of the best ways to know if you're hearing from God is to speak to other believers who have discernment and wisdom. A lot of times when I get an idea for the church, I'll talk to, you know, Elliot or I'll talk to Jim or I'll talk to Glenda.

I'll talk to my wife. I'll filter it through. So one, when hearing from God, take counsel, but ultimately you're going to have to make a decision, right? Let me look at this thing. There's a thing called the Wesleyan quadrilateral. It's a big word. I don't know how Jim would pronounce it, but I would pronounce it quadrilateral without a silent Q. It's a joke.

How do we hear from God? God's word, right? Have you ever got a verse? Has someone ever given you a verse that's just amazing and you hear it and it's just like, ah, that just touched my life. A verse from the Lord, you know? God's word is one of the best. I mean, that is the primary way that I believe that we hear from God is a revelation. The next is experience.

You experience something. You ever experience something and God speaks to you through the experience? God will use your experiences to teach you lessons. When you are taught a lesson from God, he's communicated to you. Our experiences are so important, but once again, our experiences need to be filtered through God's word. I'm just going to keep this Bible up here because I keep walking over to it.

How about our reason? Can't throw our reason out. Making really good decisions. You know, the thing is with the van. Yeah, God spoke to me. A person came up and said, you don't have to towel change anymore if you had a van like this. Then you got to look at your finances and say, we can't afford a van like that, but God spoke. Let's jump off the cliff in faith because God spoke.

No, reason. Use your reason. God gave us a mind for a reason. I think we get off the map and we stop using reason and let experience. Experience. Now, I went to the full extreme where I was in a church that was all about experience. Like, we got to drum it up every single week. We got to have it and experiences are great. Why? Because you get to experience them.

Because it's hard to experience God, right? But we want to have an experience, right? But it's important. And then finally, I think this is key, tradition. Looking back at what the church has said, there's a lot of ideas right now, especially in regard to human sexuality. Many of these ideas are not as old as cell phones. It's true. And if you look back through the history of all mankind, mankind seems to speak about certain things.

You look at the traditions of what the people have said. You know, there is an arrogance and C.S. Lewis called it chronological arrogance where we believe that just because we come after people, we know more. I've got to say, we have to be real careful with that. There's a reason, especially in regard to, you know, human sexuality. If you look at even cultures that aren't Christians, why they value the importance of having a father in every home.

The Chinese believe that. You look back at African societies that believe that. You look back at all, it's important, why mothers are important. I don't just need to be a Christian to have these ideas. I can look at tradition. One of the ways we hear from God is tradition. I want to show you a picture of something I've been doing in my free time and we're done.

Here's a picture up on the thing. This is my adult coloring. Does anybody do adult coloring? Did we get it up there? Maybe. Bingo. Looks. Let's pray it in. Come on. Jesus. Yes. Please. Now. Oh. Well, see if you can find it. Nope. Not there. Well, I've been getting into a thing called adult coloring. You get the adult coloring book. And here's what I have found when I hear from God.

I believe that there's these lines that God, you ever seen a coloring book? There's these lines, but the lines are blank. And in between these lines, God can draw whatever color he wants. He can take whatever color he wants, but there's lines. There are definitely lines. And he seems to color within the lines. But there can be a beautiful cornucopia in each coloring.

The way he colors for you, we want to stay in the lines, but he's going to color it different from you. And he's going to speak uniquely to you. And you will discern God's path for your life through the intrinsic personality that he has given you. You will understand God's will for your life through the intrinsic personality that he has given you. And that's why we've been focusing on these spiritual gifts and things like that.

Did we get it? So close. Let's have the worship band come up and we'll begin to worship and sing. If you would stand. If you have never made a decision to follow Jesus. Oh, almost. Hey, there it is. Woo! Yay, media team. You guys rock. That's what I do on my free time to clear my mind out. I do adult coloring. You can color. Hey, all of us would color that different.

We just stay in the lines of God's word in bounds. Lord Jesus, thank you, God. We worship this final song here and we thank you for bringing us all together another time to gather together, God, that we can share the message of your gospel in Jesus' name. Amen. Take us away. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.