MAY 19 2024 | The Gospel of John S3E7 | When Love Comes to Town

Sea Change Church · MAY 19 2024 | The Gospel of John – S3 Ep 7: When Love Comes to Town
John 4:27-30
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

God, thank you so much for being generous. Thank you for stirring up Christian surfers to want to serve and reach people at the beach. We ask you bless the beach communities and bring many salvations. Many salvations, Lord. And we just stir up our hearts to be generous and bless the preaching of the word. In Jesus' name, amen. The Gospel according to John, chapter 4, verses 27 through 42.

Just then, his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, What do you want? Or, Why are you talking with her? Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them. And he stayed two days. And because of his words, many more became believers. They said to the woman, We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves.

And we know that this man really is the Savior of the world. This is the word of the Lord. If you have your Bibles, open up to John chapter 4. It's going to be in your notes as well. We've been lingering in John chapter 4 because it's a very powerful story. It really comes right out. It's one of the first stories after all the theological work that John does in the first three chapters.

And now we're out in the countryside with Jesus and with this woman. And we've been three weeks. I think this is the third or the fourth week we've been with this woman. And today we're talking about the ability of a testimony to change somebody's life. And the power of a testimony when people actually see a life change in someone's life. When they actually see that something has happened, it has power.

And so there's two things that have happened. One, people just see the nuts and bolts of the life that has been changed. And number two, the power of the Holy Spirit comes and it just infuses that testimony supernaturally. When you testify to who Jesus is, God comes around, alongside, infuses, empowers, and actually supernaturally, just exponentially increases the power of that testimony.

One of the ways you can guarantee that your testimony will not be empowered is to not testify. We saw a few weeks ago that testimony is a legal, it's legal speak. It is when you testify, it's different than just a God story about your life. You're testifying something that would legally convict you before a, you know, a judge that you were a Christian.

And that's what we see happening with this woman as her life has changed. We've got two points we're going to look at today. And then we're going to end the service with some space for the Holy Spirit. This is Pentecost Sunday. We're going to do a couple songs at the end. And if you're an adult and you've not been baptized as an adult and you want to be baptized, we would love to see you baptized today at the service.

We had 11 people last year on Pentecost Sunday get baptized. Start thinking about it. We went to Walmart. No, you know, I'm not trying to promote Walmart. But we got shorts all sizes, T-shirts, and we can have you baptized lickety-split. So if you want to get baptized, be thinking about it now because there's going to be a challenge. And during the first song, we're going to have the prayer team up here.

And we're just going to linger for a couple songs at the end. So it's going to be a little bit short of a message because sometimes the Holy Spirit wants to work in our church. And he's going to do it through the Word right now. So two things we're going to look at. One, the power of testimony. We talked about that a couple weeks ago. I really want to challenge you to know a testimony, to have a testimony, and to share your testimony.

Number two, the impact of an actual encounter with Jesus. She tells a story, but then they go out and they meet Jesus, and people are changed for two different reasons. One, they're changed because just on her word of her testimony, people get saved. But then the whole town goes out, and they actually invite Jesus back, and Jesus kind of lingers with them.

So we see the power of a testimony. I want to keep challenging you to share your testimony. One, I like what Shane was saying out in the water. You know, part of that is, are you dropping in on people? What's your attitude when you're out in the water? The other is the words that you were testifying to Christ. And even if you make a mistake in the water, you can actually go up to somebody and say, you know what?

I didn't live out my values on that right there. I just totally cut you off. I want to ask forgiveness for that. I'm a believer, and Christ is in my life, and I just want to commit to not doing that again. I mean, that's a great way. Don't disqualify yourself. Let's look at this power of the testimony. If you want to go to verse 28, verse 28, we see that this testimony has an element to it.

We'll speak about that element in a moment. Verse 28 says, then, leaving, circle the word leaving, her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said, circle the word said. Two key words there in regard to testimony. She left something, and something was said. Now, when it comes to testimonies, the proof is in the pudding. And there's one thing that makes a testimony different than a story.

Stories are great, but that thing is change. You've actually had change in your life. People see the change. Something has happened. Now, I don't know how something happened that quickly to this woman. I mean, what is it, 20 minutes back to town, 15 minutes back to town, whatever it is. For me, I had a testimony where I was talking to somebody recently.

I went to Point Loma Nazarene College. And part of my testimony, and to all my friends was, the night before I started Point Loma, many of you have heard this. I've been here 10 years. But it is powerful. That I passed out drunk in a gutter in Mexico. My friend, don't remember how he got me to the car. And the next day was the first day of the registration for Point Loma Nazarene.

And when I registered up in the office, they said, would you sign this document that you won't drink anymore? And there was a few other things. You couldn't dance and a few other things. I didn't care about the dancing part. Now you can dance. Whatever you want, I think, over there. But I did sign that. And I was desperate for change. I was desperate for change.

And many of you, like me, are continuing on in a pattern, but you're desperate for change. And I signed that document. And somehow, through Bible studies and not leaving campus and the barometric pressure and the Holy Spirit and whatever happened, I haven't drank since. And that was the September 10th, 1989. I haven't had any substances since then.

God changed my life. Yeah, it's a good story. But the key was, and my friends saw it in my life, because I called my buddy. He says, are you going to Mexico next weekend? I said, I'm not going. He goes, yeah, I'll believe it when I see it. Well, he saw it. Ended up doing their weddings, both of my buddies' weddings who had been going to my Mexico buddies.

There was change. And so we see that. And that's the power that what happens here. And so the key word that I wanted to have you circling in verse 28 is then leaving her water jar. However, I want to say I don't know a true, powerful Christian testimony that doesn't involve leaving something behind. I don't know one. I've never heard somebody say, you know, I had this problem with marijuana.

Like, I smoked it all the time. I couldn't get away from it. It was just in my life, my routine. I wanted to get away from it. And then I met Jesus. And I just don't smoke quite as much, but I still smoke a ton of pot. And people were like, I want that Jesus. That's the Jesus I want. There's got to be change. And change is the willingness to leave something behind.

You don't know how easy it is to leave something behind until after you're five feet away from what you've left behind. When you're clinging on to that thing, it feels like you'll never be able to leave it behind. Until you leave it behind. And I can't tell you how to do that in your life. I have a friend who recently got sober, and we've been in a conversation for 10 years.

I can't. I can't. He'd get mad at me, and, you know, whatever. And then eventually he just started texting me like three months ago, got completely sober. And he's like, I can't believe how I got. I don't know how it happened. I said, I told you I couldn't explain it to you. I couldn't explain to you how it was going to happen. But it just happened, and that was the change that happened.

And so if you want a testimony, and you can continue to have testimonies. But if you want a testimony, you've got to change. And the question is, your water jar, this is the thing that she was going for. That's never going to thirst again. Jesus used it as a metaphor, but she left that behind. Next thing that I think is interesting is she was willing to risk rebuke in order to share the good news of that testimony.

Go to verse 29, actually 28, the end of 28. She went back to the town. Now, this is the town of her derision. This is the town of her scorn. They scorn her because five husbands. She's got a man on the side right now. She's probably ruined marriage. She's a homewrecker, this whole thing. And there was a scorn. That's why she's going to the well by herself, not with the other women.

And she went back to the place of her scorn, and she redeemed it by saying to the people. A testimony with change can redeem anything you've ever done. The power of Jesus' blood, right? But a testimony going back to that place. People might not believe you at first. If you go back to the place and you show that you have changed, you have left something behind, you can redeem.

Might not be able to change all the consequences of it, but you can redeem it for Christ if you want. And so she goes back there. And then in verse 29, she said, come and see. I love that. A man who told me everything I ever did. And then she said, could this be the Messiah? Now, who she thought Jesus was has changed. Remember, she says, sir, I see that you are a, does anybody know what she called him at the beginning?

A prophet. I see that you're a prophet. But Israel didn't need any more prophets. They hadn't had a prophet for 400 years. The prophecies didn't work. I mean, except the ones that were negative when they left God. What Israel needed now was a Messiah. And a true testimony is someone who has left something behind, not looking for prophets, not looking for gurus, not looking for, you know, platitudes.

But they're looking for a Savior and a Messiah. And this is something that she has found. And she actually says, could this be the Messiah? They came out of the town and made their way towards him. I think it would have been really easy for this woman to just disqualify herself. Would have been really easy for her just to take this testimony and keep it to herself, right?

But a testimony cannot stay silent. A testimony cannot just be private. You're hearing a change right now in our society. Instead of the freedom of religion, you're hearing the freedom of worship. And what that is, the hope is, is that you stay at home. You keep your worship to yourself. You keep your worship within your little church. You keep your worship in hushed tones.

But we don't have a freedom of worship. We have a freedom to practice religion. And I want to encourage you to share, to find a way to share that matters. She went back to people that were hungry. She went back to people, obviously, that were hungry because she knew her audience. And she went back and they came out to him. And so I want to challenge you, if you're with friends and you go to coffee, pull out your Bible, read your Bible in public.

Don't be afraid. Pray in public. I'm not saying stand up on the table and preach a message. That's not what I'm saying. Say, hey, may the Lord bless you today. May God bless you. Or somebody tells you something negative that has happened in their life. Can I pray for you? Hey, there's a new series starting at my church. I want you to come and see. Could this possibly be the Messiah?

Do you have a testimony? We have to testify. We can't hide behind a secret veil of private worship. We live in a testifying. So we see that this woman here, and she could have easily, I think, disqualified herself. For a couple reasons. One, as I said, Nacho Libre, she is a flussie, you know. She is a person who the other women hate. They want nothing to do with her.

Men probably don't like her either. She's probably been used, abused. You can feel the darkness in her soul, and she's talking to another man. But this man didn't want something from her other than her heart. And what he wanted to do was give her eternal life. She could have easily disqualified herself for that. She could have disqualified herself just because of the message of who she was speaking about.

Jesus was a Jew. She was in Samaria. I said it's very similar as if a Jewish person were to go into Gaza today and say, I've met the Messiah, a Messianic Christian to go into Gaza today to sit at a well in Rafa and say, I want to share with you, or maybe even a Palestinian woman from the Gaza Strip, to go who had met Christ, to go back to the people and to share about this Jew she had met.

I want to say that that tension was palpable then. The Jews had destroyed the Samaritan's temple. They had gone and torn it down. There was fighting. People had lost their lives. There was a whole bunch of things happening. She could have easily disqualified herself because this kind of isn't the topic you talk about in polite conversation, and we definitely don't talk about this type of person.

Not only did she have the barrier of who she was, but we just don't want to talk about this thing or this person. In polite conversation. I want to say that she had found something so revolutionary to her heart that she couldn't stop from speaking. The arguments of he's a Jew, the arguments of we're Samaritan, the arguments of that I've done this and done that, something had so impacted and quenched her thirst for the Holy Spirit and for God that she just had to speak and she had to testify.

You'll know when you're spending time and you're being filled with the Spirit where the testimony will bubble out because he says it'll become like a river. It actually says later on in John chapter 7, this well that goes up to eternal life will become a river that will go through you. I've got a river of life. I remember that for camp when you were kids.

You go to camp, I've got a river of life flowing out of me. Makes the lame to walk in the what? Blind to see. Some of us went to camp. That's the power of testimony. Another person that could have disqualified themselves was John Newton. I've got a picture of John Newton. You might not know who John Newton is. John Newton's an Anglican pastor. John Newton was also a slave trader.

In 1954, excuse me, in 1754, he was involved in the slave trade back and forth. God got a hold of his heart at a certain time and he left that, but he could never get over the shame of what had happened and what he had done. If you've seen the movie Amazing Grace, it's mostly about William Wilberforce, William Pitt, but John Newton plays a key role here in this.

And God began working on his heart as he began to feel disqualified. And he said he would be haunted by the 20,000 voices that he would hear in his head that he did injustice to. And over and over again, he would pray. And so one of the things that he did later in the 1700s is he helped found the society to affect the abolition of slavery. It was interesting that he did not disqualify himself because of what he had done.

And this is really powerful. And what is even more powerful is three months after he died, slavery was abolished in England. Three months. He never saw it. But he began to work towards something. Maybe some of you have gotten sober and now you sponsor other people. Maybe you've had this life of darkness, but now you've turned it around. Do not disqualify yourself.

The word and the picture the Lord gave me when I was praying for this sermon is like a lion in a thicket. My friend, Bishop Collins, who was here, spoke on Friday night. He's from Nigeria. He's seen a lion or two in his day. I've only seen him at the zoo. One of the things I've seen on YouTube, because I safely watch my lions, is sometimes lions will hide in a thicket.

They'll hide because of fear, because of coy, because they're coy, but for one reason or another. But they'll get into a thicket. And the thicket can have thorns that are this big. And they get themselves and they inculcate themselves into the thicket and they hide. But when push comes to shove, the lion is ready to roar. And he comes out of the thicket.

And he gets cut and bruised by all these giant thorns, like the ones that Jesus had to. And he attacks what is in front of him with ferocity and with power. I feel like some of you are the lion in the thicket. As I prayed this week, the Lord said, I have lions that are in the thicket and they're just being oppressed. And I want them to roar. I want them to stand up and to come out with the ferocity of a lion and to roar.

And maybe that's you. And that is the word I feel like God has put on my heart. And John Newton was in the thicket. But he began to roar. And he came out and he actually changed the world, no matter what anybody would say about him today. Romans 10, 14. It's a beautiful verse, 14 and 15. I want to read it to you. How then can they call on the one they have not believed in?

And how can they believe in the one they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news. When you testify, Jesus will bless your life. I hear a lot of people on TV about all the things you do.

And they're going to bring blessing. And it's all about the blessing. When you testify, Jesus will bless your life. And he's going to bless it that you're going to see the fruit of your words, the fruit of the cross, and the fruit of lives changed. One of the things I rarely hear on TV when I listen to all the blessing you're going to get from Jesus when you do the right thing, one of the few things I rarely hear is the blessing of seeing other people's lives changed.

Because you got to input into their life. That's a blessing. That's more than the cars. That's more than the money. That's more than the property. That's more than what a favor and all these things. To see someone's life change. This woman saw a city change. She is the least possible candidate. If you were to walk into that town and say, who is the person who is the runt of the litter, the David of the brothers, like David and Goliath, who is the one you would not choose, this is the woman you would not choose, but God chose her.

And God is choosing you to speak. If you would leave your jars behind and loose your tongue to speak a testimony, this is the word. It says in verse 39, go to verse 39. Many of the Samaritan town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did. He told me everything I ever did. She was looking for someone to see her.

One of the things I realize about our society today, as I look at all the things that are happening with young people, college campuses, is that people are out there looking for something to believe in. They're looking, they're desperate for something to believe in. And these people, when she tells them that this might possibly not just be a prophet, this might be the Messiah, they're desperate and the whole town goes out to her.

Now is that just because of her testimony? Yes, but the power of God infused her testimony and made it exponentially greater. People are out there. I think one of the lies of the enemy is that if you speak up about Jesus, if you share with somebody, you're just going to offend them immediately and they're never going to come to church. One of the things I love is that with the impact of an encounter, the next final point is this, the impact of an encounter with Jesus.

When she shared this testimony with people who were ready to believe, she shared it with an invitation. It's easy to share, oh, Jesus shared my life, he's changed my life. He changed my life. Oh, that's good for you. But she followed up with come and see. She followed up. Go to verse 29. Verse 29 says, come see a man who told me everything I ever did.

Could this be the Messiah? I love that. You see, a testimony, a true testimony in the scripture is followed by an invitation, right? We have to be an inviting culture. If you truly believe that Jesus is who he says he is, if you truly believe that he has something to offer beyond what this world has to offer, then we will be sharing that story and not only sharing what he did in our life, but testifying and inviting you into relationship with Jesus.

She invited them out to Jesus. And you know what they did in return? They invited him to come into their town. I'm not saying you have to invite them to this Sunday service, but you can go buy them a Bible, somebody you know who's struggling, and keep your ears open for when people are struggling with something. I mean, that's when people are open to the gospel.

Tribulation in people's lives is a fertile soil for the grace of God's work in their life. Say, hey, I want you to know I got you a Bible. I just want you to know I put a little word on the inside, or I wrote you a letter, and I just want to invite you. Would you like to get together for coffee and talk about life, and I want to share more, invite people.

A true testimony is not just a story of what God did with a hanging clause at the end or an incomplete sentence. It is followed by an invitation. That's the hard part, right? The hard part is, hey, would you like to come to a worship night on Thursday night? Hey, I have prayer on Tuesday. You said you're sick. Would you like to pray? Can I pray for you now?

It is followed by an invitation. That is a testimony. If you're not sharing what Christ has done in your life, if you're not inviting people, I would say that God loves you. You're going to end up in heaven. He has your grace for you, but you're not testifying to his glory, and you're not witnessing of who he is, and we have to do that as a church.

If all of us go out and do that, it'll make an impact. The final thing I just like in verse 40 and 41, Jesus tends to linger where he is invited. Let me say that again, because this is true for you. Jesus tends to linger where he is invited. Verse 40 and 41, so when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them. Stop there until we go to the next bit.

They urged him to stay with him, with them. I was thinking about this in my prayer time. I try, now I got my 20 minutes. I'm gonna do 20 minutes here. I'm gonna, whatever, I'm waiting for the clock to go off. A lot of times I'll experience God's spirit. I'll be, oh, I feel the peace of the spirit. That'll be sweet, I can bounce. I don't know if you get that way.

Oh, I got it. I got what I needed. I got my cup of coffee. I'm ready to go. Spirit coffee, let's go. One of the things I wanna get is I wanna linger. I wanna, hey, Jesus, can we just stay another 10 minutes? You got 15 more minutes for me. I just wanna sit in this peace. I wanna sit with you, this scripture you give me. I wanna read this scripture over and over again.

I wanna linger with you. If you invite Jesus to linger, he gotta linger. We serve a lingering God. He's got all the time in the world and more because he doesn't live according to time. You're not going to bother him. You're not inconvenience him. Oh, I gotta get over to Ukraine. Gotta sort that out. No, he has time to deal with Ukraine, with anything happening with the environment, with anything happening in geopolitics, to still sit with you for as long as you want.

See, he tends to linger with them and they urged him to stay. Are you, and this is just a personal point except for the testimony. Do you urge him to stay with you? Or do we ever slow down? Are we just so caught up in this and the next hustle that we gotta get that we just don't linger and just urge, Jesus, just stay with me a little longer. Let's just kick this out a little bit.

Let's this conversation go. Let's let the time go. Where did the time go? When was the last time you prayed and at the end you're like, whoa, an hour. Where did the time go? I think that's rare. That's rare for me. And I love what they did. They asked him to stay and then it says, he stayed two days and because of his words, many more became believers. Now what's so interesting, this isn't in your notes, but if you have your Bible with you, in verse 44, right after this story ends, it says, for Jesus himself testified that a prophet hath no honor in his own country.

Do you know why he was in Samaria? Because he was being rejected in Jerusalem. He was being rejected by that group. Then he goes to Galilee and it says they warmly received him. Jesus wants to go with who wants to linger and if you want to linger, he wants to go with you. I want to encourage you to linger with Jesus. Today we're going to give you an opportunity to come out of the thicket, right?

Tonight, we're going to take a couple of times. We're going to ask Kalina to come forward and I told you it would be a little bit of a shorter sermon because we want to give the Holy Spirit time to linger with us a little bit today. I'm going to ask my prayer team to come forward. In a moment, we're going to stand and I'm going to ask you to stand. We're going to do two songs and during the first song, I want you to just ask yourself in your heart, God can do great things in your seat.

God can do amazing things in your seat. But today, if you need prayer, and this is something we do every Pentecost Sunday, this is the day the Holy Spirit came on his church, we're going to invite you to come forward to be prayed for. We have oil. We're going to anoint you with oil for healing or to pray for somebody else. But if you want to be baptized, Pastor Joshua is going to be in the baptismal and we can baptize you today.

If you are that lion in the thicket, if you have never been baptized, if you want to follow Jesus and turn your life around, if you feel that you are at that well today, we're going to give you opportunity to do that. Like I said last year, 11 people got baptized. We'll see what God wants to do today. But let's have you stand. And during this song, we're going to invite you.

If you want to get baptized, you can just go to Drea up in the front. We'll baptize you in the second song. It takes about two minutes to get ready for baptism. And let's just invite the Holy Spirit. Let's give him margin right now to linger. You just want to extend your hands right now just like this. And just invite him. As a group, let's just invite him.

The presence, the Spirit of Jesus, we invite you. Just invite him. Don't disqualify yourself. I don't care what happened last night. I don't care what happened last month. I don't care what happened last year. The blood of Jesus is greater than anything you've ever done. We invite the Spirit now, the Spirit of God, come. And as Kalina leads us, begin to say, do I need to go to the well today?

Do I need to come out of the thicket? You can come forward and come for prayer or you can get baptized. Let's have Kalina lead. Let's go. Let's go. I've been set free Amazing grace How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me Oh, I once was lost But now I am found Was blind But now I see Oh, I can see you now Oh, I can see the love In your eyes Laying yourself down Raising up the broken You take our failure You take our weakness You take our weakness You set your treasure In jars of clay So take this heart I'll be your vessel I'll be your vessel The world to see Your life in me Amazing grace How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me That saved a wretch like me Oh, I once was lost I once was lost But now I am found Was blind But now I see Oh, I can see you now Oh, I can see the love In your eyes Laying yourself down Laying yourself down Raising up the broken To life Oh, I can see you now Oh, I can see the love In your eyes Laying yourself down Laying yourself down Laying yourself down You need prayer today You need breakthrough in your life I learned one time in a conference They said There's something about opportunities And opportunities pass I believe God has something There's some people that need breakthrough You need breakthrough You have a request from the Lord today You want to seek the Lord Like Hannah sought the Lord In the Old Testament On the steps of the temple As we continue to sing We just want to open this up If there's anybody That wants breakthrough today We want to give you the opportunity To not let that opportunity You'll know You'll know in your heart You'll just know You'll need to Whoop it up or anything You'll just know You need that clean and leave There's nothing worth more That will ever come close Nothing can compare You're a living hope Your presence I have tasted and seen Of the sweetest of loves When my heart becomes free And my shame is undone In your presence In your presence In your presence In your presence Lord Holy Spirit You are welcome here Come flood this place And fill the atmosphere Your glory Your glory God Is what our hearts long for To be overcome By your presence Lord Your presence Lord Your presence Lord Lord There's nothing worth more That will ever come close There's nothing worth more That will ever come close No thing can compare You're a living hope You're a living hope Your presence Lord Your presence Lord I have tasted and seen Of the sweetest of loves When my heart becomes free And my shame is undone To shave His eyes To shave His eyes In your presence In your presence Lord Holy Spirit Come Holy Spirit You are welcome here Come flood this place And fill the atmosphere And fill the atmosphere Your glory God Is what our hearts long for To be overcome By your presence Lord Your presence Lord Your presence Lord Your presence Your presence Lord Your presence As we linger just for a couple minutes We're gonna end the service Then we'll probably just linger up here It is on this Pentecost Sunday I still feel like there's some people that God says You just know it You're just like so desperate Those that hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied My friend Bishop Collins from Nigeria He was here on sharing with us and ask him to share a blessing or pray a blessing over our church right now Today we celebrate the greatest gift The gift of power The gift of His presence that was put upon the church The gift of living a supernatural life Life without limits Can you please take your hands up to receive this great gift He said come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest Rest from every kind of sickness Rest from cancer Rest from depression Rest from every kind of hopelessness Rest from every type of trouble Rest from our children that are taken to streets Rest from every type of worry and sickness I therefore call upon this power of supernatural wonder power that heals power that equips power that gives wisdom power that releases faith power that makes men to give just as Joseph give and the church change his name from Joseph to Barnabas power that makes men to go all out of the way to begin to serve Let this power come upon you now in the name of Jesus Christ I speak over your life every medical report every report that does not agree with the promises of God He has promised with long life every medical report that is out of cut your life short I stand in authority to declare that that which the doctor cannot heal let the power of the Holy Ghost that found the prodigal soul find every child that the Holy Ghost let the Holy Ghost come upon you for the children that have run away that have not been able to communicate with their parents that the Bible said in Psalm chapter 127 that those that have the gift of children that they shall stand with the enemy at the gate every enemy of hopelessness and loneliness at all age because the children are not communicating let the power of the Holy Ghost that found the prodigal soul find every child that has lost contact come from everywhere I speak the power of Jesus Christ every teaching in the university that is making our children lust after strange religions lust after Eastern Orthodox religions and every religion that does not represent Christ I therefore speak over your life peace from the Holy Ghost in Jesus wonder walking name God walk your name getting ready to close the service you can see why I bring in my African friends he said to me we don't have hospitals we don't have doctors we don't have healthcare so we have to believe in Jesus to heal us I was like all right hey we're gonna keep lingering let me just bless you if you still want to come forward you're like hey that wasn't for me like during the midst of it you want to come forward your prayer team's gonna hang out we're gonna linger up here at the front you guys can go you know come forward you still have time to do that you want to get baptized you can do that as well extend your hands let me just bless you today Lord Jesus we thank you God for that word that convicting word God and the truth of your word that our brother prayed over us Lord God we pray God for any power you have in the spirit that you're doing that you would unite what's happening in Africa what's happening here in California Jesus and let the strongholds come down especially in the rest of this service God as people come forward I bless you today I bless you with the power of the Holy Spirit the desire to linger that your hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied for Jesus said it that you will be satisfied and I pray that you will be satisfied I pray a blessing of satisfaction not from money not from wealth not from prosperity of any kind but that you know him and you know the power of his resurrection the fellowship of his suffering that we might live with him and know him I bless you I bless the top of your head I bless your feet I bless your hands the things that you look at the things that you say the things that you hear I bless your families and like he said may the prodigals come home in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we're gonna keep hanging out God bless you guys I bless you guys Let us become more aware of your presence Let us experience the glory of your goodness Let us become more aware of your presence I'm the one to be a man the one to be a the to the the one to be a the the the Thank you.