Kevin Kennedy | Evangelism Encounter

Evangelist Kevin Kennedy, who serves with Witness to the Nations, tells how he came to be a follower of Jesus and challenges listeners to share with others the Good News about the hope found in Christ alone. “God wants you to step out in faith even if nothing happens,” he said.  “It’s not about you—it’s about Jesus,” he tells listeners.

Todd Beal and his wife Sonjah are the founders of New & Living Way Church in Kelso, Washington, where he serves as lead pastor. Since the church's beginning in 2012, their desire has and is to see breakthrough in the lives of God's people and for the local church be a fresh, loving and vibrant community of people who are passionately serving God

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to New and Living Ways Podcast, where we pursue the presence of God, the truth of His Word, and the life of Christ working in and through us. We pray today's message strengthens your faith, refreshes your heart, and draws you closer to Jesus. Here's today's message.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

I have news for you. This is what I'm here to talk to you about tonight. God didn't save you for you. God didn't save you so that you could come to church once or twice a week, get the Holy Ghost goosebumps, feel good about the life that you are living in the moment because your life was horrible before coming to God. Maybe your life gets a little bit better and you go from going to church every day of the week to maybe only two days a week, every day of the month to maybe only two days a month, to maybe one day a month because your life is good now. And then you show back up a few months later because you need the rent due. Because the rent, you need the rent paid, so you gotta pray to God. So you raise your hands again and you begin to ask God. That's not God didn't save us for us. Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. So when we come to the Lord, we realize our sins. See, I didn't know I was a sinner. I was radically saved in 2014. I was a 27-time convicted felon. I've been to prison three times. I if I was in another state, I probably wouldn't have been let out. And I came into a church service one night after somebody begged me to come for six months, and I didn't want nothing to do with God. And when I came into that church service, something shifted. And then the second night when I came there, I came into the service dead. And the evangelist began to preach. And what happened was one of the most radical things I'd ever seen. I had invited a friend with me, but not to church. I told him we were going to an NA meeting. I lied to him. I wasn't saved, but I was an evangelist, I guess, because I tricked him into coming with me. He told me in the parking lot that he'd hurt his knee and that the pain was shooting up into his back. Now he told me this in the parking lot. This was in a little church named Spirit of Life, a little Pentecostal church that does revivals where the presence of the Lord is thick in that building. And if you don't know Pastor Kenny, he's an amazing pastor. He's a father to me in the Lord. It's an amazing anointed church. I didn't know this. I didn't know what anointing was. I I may I might have caught my mom watching Benny Hen or Casey Treat or something when I was a little kid, but I didn't I didn't know anything about the Holy Spirit and that God could heal. I knew none of those things. And this was in 2014. He told me in the car that he'd hurt his knee running that day and the pain was coming up into his back. I was like, Well, that's too bad, man. You know, that that sucks to be you, essentially. I might have said some cuss words too. And uh we're sitting in the parking lot and we go inside. Well, the evangelist wasn't even there that night. His name was Evangelist Tim Richards. He's an anointed man of God, an amazing, amazing man of God. He came into the service late that night, and the night before he had preached, but we didn't, nothing really crazy happened. It was the first night of a revival, it was entertaining, so I came back. Well, the second night, something was different. My mom was there, there was people, maybe other people that are here tonight were there. But this night in 2014 changed my life forever. The Bible in Ephesians chapter 2 says that while we were dead in our trespasses, we used to walk according to the ways of the world, according to the power of the prince of the air. Yet while we were dead in our sins, Christ made us alive in Him. I had done nothing right, I had been a bad, I had three children, I was no father. I had I had a girlfriend, I had just gotten out of prison. Nothing I did was correct. Well, I would use people for whatever I could, and I would take whatever I could from people. I didn't show up there that night purged of my sins. I didn't show up there that night being aware of my sin. I showed up to that church that night, dead in my sin. Can I tell you the people that show up dead in their sin? That when they leave, they're gonna be alive for the very first time in their life. I traveled the world preaching the gospel, and I see people that are drunk, I see people that are on drugs, they come one way and they leave another. So that night I came to that church service, and he and we sat down. I was sitting like where Pastor Todd is sitting, and it was pretty full that night. And my friend Andy, his name's Andy Travis, he was sitting over here on this side. He's the one that I tricked into coming. He thought we were going to an NA meeting. We walked in, he's like, What is this? I said, Don't worry, just sit down, bro. It'll be fine. The Pentecostal music was playing. We went about 45 minutes longer than they when we went tonight. We were there for about three hours. But uh I stayed, man, for about an hour and a half of it. I was on the ground weeping. I hadn't cried in 12 years. I hadn't cried since I went to prison the last time, and I realized the error of my ways when they finally locked me in a cell over in the old jail, and I was getting ready to go do my sentence, and I began to realize how bad of a father I was and how I was leaving my family, and I wasn't crying because I loved them, I was crying because I had pity for myself. I just felt pitiful. So uh, anyways, we sit down and he begins to preach. And in the middle of his preaching, this is an evangelist. It seemed like they they talked about it at Azusa Street, like a cloud of smoke would fall in the room. And I'd never seen anything like this in my life, I'd never even heard anything like it. And I felt like a cloud of smoke fell into the room, and the evangelist stopped speaking. And he said, There was somebody here that hurt their knee today. He said, Today. He grabbed the same knee my friend said, and he said, It feels like they feel like the pain is shooting up into their back. He said, Stand up, God wants to heal you right now. And my friend looked down the aisle at me over here like this, and I'm sitting over there, my jaw was like hanging open because I'm like, verbatim. We were in a car, nobody he didn't say that to nobody, he didn't come in like this, you know. He didn't. The evangelist came in after him. And I looked over at him and he looked at me and he started going like this. And I'm like, You better get up there, you know. And he stood up, he's like, I guess it's me. And he comes up just like this. And the guy begins to pray for my friend. Now, this guy is about this much, he's about this tall, tattoos all over his neck, look like he just got out of a prison gang. And got and he began to get prayed for for healing, and God radically healed him in the moment. He started jumping up and down. I mean, he was hurting, and his knee got healed, his back got healed, and I am like, what in the world is going on? This is when I felt something like I had never felt before, and I became aware of my sin. You know, when they when they brought the man down, and in uh it's in John, they brought the man down and uh they he wanted to get healed and they couldn't get in. There was too big of a crowd. So they brought him down. If you remember what they said to Jesus when he said, Take up your mountain, walk, your sins are forgiven. And uh and and the the religious people of the time said, You don't have the power to sit forgive sins. Only God forgive can forgive sins. And Jesus said this, and it's very important. He said, Well, what would you rather I say? Your sins are forgiven or you're healed. See, a lot of us believe that God rose from the dead. We believe in a God that rose from the dead, right? We literally believe in a God who rose from the dead, he's seated at the right hand of God right now, and he is making intercession for us, and because he lives, we live, because he because he healed people, we are healed because uh he rose from the dead that night in that church. I rose from the dead because when he prayed for me, my whole life changed. And so to be forgiven of your sins and to be healed, they're they're one and the same. Jesus said that to them, he said, Well, what would you rather I say? So we can believe that God, that God rose from the dead, that Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, was buried in a tomb, and three days later he rose from the dead. We sometimes we have issues believing for healing for our own body. Sometimes we open Google rather than the Word of God. There's 17 times in the book of Luke that Jesus healed individuals. 14 of them were by their faith. Fourteen of the 17, he said, Your faith has made you well. Now, if you open, if I open my Bible to Luke, every single healing verse is highlighted in pink. Because when I'm sick, I don't want to open. We've all done it. I got uh something wrong with my, especially during COVID, man. We were in our phones. We were reciting, uh, we were reciting the Psalms. We were reciting uh, you know, he who dwells in the sacred place, or he who abides, you know, that he who dwells in the sacred place of the we know, yeah, Psalms 91. We were all reciting that, but a lot of us weren't abiding, we weren't actually living in what he's talking about. But we were looking at Google more than anything, and we were checking the news to see if the sick people were next door. I'm guilty of it too. I was scared to death at first. I didn't want anybody. Ask my daughter, she remember, she remembers, and uh and so we need to come to a place where we believe God first because the facts may say one thing, but the truth is that God is a healer. So that night, I don't want to go too far off, but that night he prayed for him and he got healed. Well, the night before the guy had asked if he could pray for me, and I walked up to the front and I'm like, sure, whatever, you know, all super cool. Like, I'm not gonna lift my hands in a church. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go up there and get prayed for, and you know, I'm just gonna be like, Yeah, whatever, go ahead, pray for me. And he's like, All right, he prays for me. I'm like, I'm cool, and then I I leave, you know. I didn't see anything crazy. The next night, as soon as he got healed, he pointed right at me and he's like, You, and I'm like, No, not me. And uh, why me next, you know? And he called he called me forward and he asked me, he looked me right in the right in the eyes. I don't know if there's anybody that's not that doesn't know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. If you don't, we're gonna figure that out tonight. But he looked me right in my eyes, and he said, Are you gonna let me pray for you tonight? And I said, Yeah. And he said, Not like last night. I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you'll believe. And I looked him in the eyes, and the for the for the first time in my life, I said, I'll believe. And he went to pray for me and he lifted up his hand. Nobody had fell out in the Holy Ghost. You can believe that Pentecostals are wild and crazy, holy rollers. Call them what you want. I had no clue of what that was. He laid his hand on me right here, and when I fell, when I hit the ground, I was this far back in the church, and I was weeping and crying, and I was like completely undone, like Isaiah was in Isaiah chapter 6. I was undone. He picked me back, they picked me up, he said, I'm not done with them yet. He brought me forward. And he said this: he said, Ephesians 6 19, that I was called to boldly speak the mystery of the gospel, and that I was gonna go into the nations, and I was gonna see people get out of wheelchairs, and I was gonna see people get radically healed, and I was gonna go into bars and preach the gospel, and I was gonna go around the world, and that and that God was gonna return the years that the locusts had stolen, and he and he began to prophesy over my life. And he said the word of God would flow in and out of me, and I would be able to read it and understand it, even though I read the entire New Testament when I was in the IMU in prison trying to get out of trouble for selling drugs, and I I ended up well, shouldn't you? I know there might be younger people in here, but God can deliver people from anything. Anyways, I had read it, I didn't understand any of it, none of it. But Isaiah 55, 11 says, God's word never returns void. So, what happened when I got saved is the stuff that I couldn't even understand or never remembered started supernaturally coming back into my mind. I couldn't even believe what God was doing. I would go home and I would open the Word of God and I would read it. I remember the first book I read, it was Ephesians, and I began to read the book of Ephesians, Ephesians 17. There's a prayer where you begin, he begins to the Apostle Paul begins to pray for people. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3 says, We've all been blessed with the spiritual uh blessings in the heavenly places. I began to read the word of God, and for the first time in my life I could understand what it was being said, because the Bible is not a book that we read, it's a book that reads us. And I was nothing more than a burnout drug addict, and Jesus saved me that night, and I never got over it. See, when I fell to the ground, I was dead, and when they picked me back up, I was alive for the first time in my life. I went home, I loved people for the first time in my life. I never had loved, I never knew what love was because I thought love was I need you to complete me. I need this, I need you. You better tell me you love me. I need something from you. That's what love was to me. It was a, it was a it was so much less than what it is because love is found in a man, and his name is Jesus. And I'd been looking for Jesus my entire life in drugs, in women, and all of these things. And in one instant, in one moment, bam, my entire life was changed. And then he whispered something, he he didn't he said something to me personal that he didn't want other people to hear, and it had to do with when I was younger. And it and then he prayed for me again, and I fell out, I fell on the ground. My days of crying were over because I cried too much when I was a little kid, and my brother and my sister called me a baby, wavy baby, and things like that. And so I hadn't cried. And I'm telling you that that night my life was changed forever. Have I been perfect? Absolutely not, but you know what? I know who is perfect. And 10 years, this is 12 years later now, in 2021, I began to go into the nations. I'd been on an airplane two times in my life. I was with my uh a good friend who discipled me named Scott McNamara, he's an evangelist, and he asked me, He said, How many times have you been on an airplane? I said, only a couple times, and he said, That's all about to change. I leave Sunday night to go into Central America, and then I and then I'm gonna be going multiple other places this year because what that man spoke over my life, I received it. There's been words that have been spoken over our lives, but we believe the lie of the devil instead of what God says. We believe the problem over the promise, and so God has spoken words over your life. He's got an assignment for your life. You could say that we have a calling, like Pastor Todd's calling is a pastor, but that's not his calling. When God speaks of calling, that is God wooing you unto himself. Pastor Todd's assignment is a pastor. My assignment from the Lord is an evangelist, but my job is to tell you that you have the ability to share your testimony. You have the ability to be a witness, you have the power to go out in your first, even at your house with your neighbors, everywhere you go, you have the power of the living God on the inside of you. And I and this is what is gonna happen. There are people here that the light is gonna be flipped on for. And what will happen is God is gonna begin to work on your heart. There's people here tonight that the thought of somebody going to hell makes your heart begin to turn, like you, like you stay up and you pray about it, and you have family members and you have people, and the thought of them going to hell really bothers you. Can I tell you, if that's you, then you have the heart of an evangelist, you have the heart to go out and share the love of Jesus with people. I see people here tonight. I I don't even know your name, but I know that this is your wife, right? You are in the altar a lot, and I see you worshiping the Lord, and uh the Lord began to speak to me not Sunday, but the the time before about you. And he and and and there's been things that were spoken over your life when you were a little girl. There's been times when you were around people, but yet you still felt alone. The enemy used people that were supposed to love you to hurt you, and things that uh that happened to you should have never happened. And God wants you to know that He's always been there, He was there when those things happened. But the lie from the devil that's been spoken over your life, I can see what God is doing. He's gonna use you. You have a voice, and those things that had been spoken over you, what happens is we begin to believe them. Even after we get saved, the enemy uses those darts to come after us. And I'm telling you right now that the more you spend in his presence, the more you're gonna begin to see yourself the way that he sees you. Even tonight, when you go home, I believe in Jesus' name that tonight, even though God is doing amazing things in your life, when you go into the bathroom and you look in the mirror, you're gonna see yourself differently than you ever have. And the things that you've been believing for, the thing, the things that you've been praying for, God is going to give those things to you. There is there is things that that you have that you have thought about, even dreamed about, and God is gonna open the door for you. But stay in his presence, stay in his word. There are women that need to hear your testimony. There are people that are out there that are facing a life, an eternity in hell, and God is asking someone like you to be the one who stands in the gap. And so I know that the more you seek God, the deeper he's going to take you. You'll be praying for people, you'll be in a grocery store at a gas station, and God's gonna give you the words to speak. And so I really want to encourage you. There is God's doing something in your life. And so I want to read a little bit of the Bible. I don't wanna, I don't wanna. Is it okay if I talk about the Bible? The word of God has power. The Bible says in the book of John that in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Everything that was made was made through Jesus. Without him, nothing that was made was made. And then if you go down to John chapter 1, verse 14, it says the word itself became flesh, took on a suit, took on flesh. The word became flesh, and he dwelt among us. He sent his spirit to dwell among us right now. It's the most amazing thing ever. But I want to I want to talk to you about uh a place in the Bible. I believe there's gonna be an uh an impartation tonight for God to begin to show you what he's called you to do in this church. If this is your home church, it's been since 2016 you guys moved into this building, and God has been preparing people and discipling people. Todd has been praying over his congregation, and there's been times I know where he's had to be where he's known that people that people weren't ready yet. On last Wednesday night, the Lord showed me that there is people in this church ready now to disciple new believers. See, the entire mission of the church is making disciples, making disciples, making disciples, disciples, making disciples. The Great Commission, the Great Commandment and the Great Commission, the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. We are called to make disciples, every single one of us, and there is something happening within this body. Yes, unity in inside of the inside this city, inside this county, inside this region will begin it will cause God to move even greater, but there is something happening in this building. There is something happening. Okay, so Matthew chapter 11, because I'll I'll start squirrel, I'll go in the wrong direction, but I'm gonna start in Matthew. I'm gonna paraphrase some of this. If you guys want to, uh I would say that if anything I say, you did you you go, hmm, I don't know about that. I would encourage you to read the word yourself. Get in the word of God, read the word of God. Don't take the word from me if I'm gonna paraphrase it. Write down these verses, get in the word of God and let the Bible read you. Matthew chapter 11. Jesus or John the Baptist is in prison, and he sends messengers to Jesus, and he says, basically, he says, Is this the Christ or should we look for another? Now, I believe that John, that's where I'm saying you can go read for yourself, but I believe that John was kind of being a smart aleck in this moment because he leapt in his mother's womb when he was a baby. He baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. He grew up with Jesus, he knew that Jesus was Lord. I think he was basically saying, When are you gonna do what you said you were gonna do? I'm sitting in prison. Are you the Lord or should we go find another? I I think he was just being facetious, if you will. See, because John, when he said there's one coming after me whose boot whose sandals I can't strap, he said, for sure, I I baptize with water, but there's one coming after me who's gonna baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. John was act or uh John was actually speaking of the eschatological reign of Christ. He was speaking about the end times, he was talking about literal fire. He thought that it was gonna be literal fire and they were gonna wipe out Rome, wipe out the adversaries. So he was at, he was, when he said that, he didn't know it was so prophetic because he thought it was actual fire. And Jesus, they come to Jesus and they ask him, and Jesus said yes. But go tell him it's not what he think he thinks it is. Go tell him that the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame arrays. I'm gonna read. Right right here, just so you can. Uh oh, I went to the wrong. I want to read it so that we have it. I don't know if um Ben can pull it up, but I'm gonna I'm gonna read it for you anyhow. He says, Are you the coming one, or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said to them, These are the people that came to get the answer for John. He said, Go and tell John the things which you hear and see. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of me. And as they departed, Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John, What did you go out into the wilderness to see? He said. So now he's talking to the multitudes about who John was. He said, What did you go out in the wilderness to see? Did you go out to see some weak individual or some person that was dressed in nice clothes? Or were you going to see an actual prophet? And so he said, What did you what did you go out in the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? Somebody that easily sways from one doctrine to another, somebody that easily makes compromises in the in the word, or did you go and see somebody who was about that business? Because John was about the Lord's business. It says he was the greatest prophet. He was actually the prop well Elijah, but I'm not going to get into all that. Um he said, he said, a reed shaken by the wind, but what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are are king, uh those who wear soft combing are in king's houses. But what did you go out to see? A prophet, yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet, for this is whom it is written. Behold, I send a messenger before you who will prepare the way or pay prepare your way before you. Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women, there is never not one risen greater than John the Baptist. So Jesus is saying, Every single person on earth was born of a woman, correct? He's saying that there was of all the Old Testament prophets, there was no greater prophet than John the Baptist. And this is a this is what you need to hear here tonight. This is a very important part. He said, but he who is the least, or she in this instance, he who is the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. That means you're greater than even the prophet John the Baptist. Why? Because John never got to live in the fulfilled uh message, he never got to live after the gospel, after the cross. He so he was a prophet that lived in the Old Testament. But we are have something even greater. So Jesus says, even he who is greater uh least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence. But the violent take it by force. Another version says, but by violent men lay hold of it. You see what's happening right now in America, across the world, what's happening in Nigeria, what could be very well be happening here. We don't think so, but if you look at what is going on in Seattle, you look at what is going on in Minneapolis, you look at what is going on in America, surely we don't think it can happen here. Did you see what happened in Ireland? Did you see what's happening all over the world right now? This the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force. Jesus, when he took, when he went to uh when he went up to Caesar uh Philippi, he said that uh, speaking of the gospel, he said the gates of hell shall not prevail. That means we are not the hunted, we are actually the hunters. We press back against the gates of hell. But for many years, especially in the West, we've been we've cowered back and we've been afraid of a culture that might make us uncomfortable. We've been afraid of a culture that is uh that has caused us, the Capital C church, to be where we are today. Because 50 years ago, when they went to have a meeting about something that was gonna happen in the city, guess who else? Guess who they would call? The pastor. Because they would find out what the pastor thought first. Do we call the pastors anymore? Absolutely not. They don't want anything to do with calling the pastor because the world is going exactly where Jesus said it was going to go. Next verse, I don't want to get too excited. I gotta I gotta preach, so I gotta get this out so God can do what he's gonna do. Um okay. For the prophets and the law prophesied and tell John, and if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. Who he who has ears to hear, let him hear. But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to their companions and saying, We played the flute for you and you did not dance, we mourned to you and you did not lament. Jesus is saying, Those who have ears to hear, let them hear. See, you have ears to hear, and God is calling you to do the very thing that Jesus is talking about in here, to go lay hands on the sick, see them recover, to go do all these things. But what's happened is the same way the enemy had complete control over my life, you don't have to be fully living in sin to for the enemy to be doing stuff in your life. You don't have to be not saved for the enemy to do stuff in your life. You could come to church, run the words, sing on the worship team, you can do all those things, and you can walk out that door and put your head to the ground. And when you go home, you can look in the mirror and you can hate yourself. How are we supposed to love others as God has loved us and love others as we love ourselves when we don't love ourselves? And so there's so many people in the church that the devil's not worried about. Come to church every Sunday. You've got stuff going on in your life. I gotta go to church so I can feel better about what's going on. That is a very important because there's people and a community in the church that will raise you up. That's why Hebrews 10, 24 and 25 says, We don't we do not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, that we would stir one another up in love and good works. So we need to come to the church, but the church is a training ground. The church is a place where you come, you get filled up, not just to get filled up so you can feel good about the way your life is doing, and then go back home and continue to do what it is that you're doing, and the devil isn't worried about you. I don't know about you, but the reason why I'm getting on an airplane on Sunday night is because I want to live before I die. It would be amazing to just make money and be feel happy about having a bunch of money. It wouldn't be amazing. I'm being sarcastic. And then hope and then hopefully I outlive my wife so she doesn't have to go through me dying, and I can go through that because I don't want her to. And then you could put me in a home someday. Cameron, you get you guys could put me in a home, Shitley, whatever. You could put me in a home and come visit me once a month or two times a year or whatever you visit me. I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound like a life to me. What sounds like a life to me is dying to myself, because Jesus said, if you want to keep your life, you'll lose it. But if you lose your life for his sake, then you've gained it. So what do I want to do? I want to live before I die. I want to go out and do what God has called me to do because that night in that church, when God when God moved in my life, he put an assignment on my life. He said I would preach to thousands, and I have done that, and I and I continue to do that. But the fact of the matter is, when I speak to one person, it's greater. Last night I was driving home. This is for you. I don't know if Benjamin's in here or not, but somebody is, maybe they have the pictures. Last night I was driving home. And I and I was driving down my road, and there was a guy out selling uh security systems, and I and I drove past him, and as I drove past him, the Lord said, He's mine. Stop and tell him he needs to do what I'm asking him to do because now is the time to do it. Well, I'm obedient to God, so I drove down to my I knew he was gonna come. He's walking down the road. I mean, salesmen are probably coming if you see them, huh? And so I pulled into my driveway and I walked out there, and I sat on a stump in my yard and I waited. I'm praying to God, and God's telling me what's going on with the kid. Because if you read First Corinthians chapter 2, it literally says, Who knows the it says the spirit searches the deep things of God. But who knows the things of a man but the spirit of the man? Who knows the things of God but the spirit of God? You and I and Pastor Todd have not been given the spirit that's of the world, but the spirit that's of God, that we might know all things that have been freely given. So I pray that all the time. If I'm gonna go into a Walmart or I'm at a gas station, I pray 1 Corinthians chapter 2. It's the power chapter of the Bible. And so I know God knows him. I know God. I I knew that God wasn't wrong with what he told me. So he comes, he comes down and I started, I kind of like laid a fleece out to God, which was just I was just being dumb. I'm like, God, if he actually comes down this way and doesn't turn on that other street, I'll talk to him. He turned to go down the other street, and I'm like, hey dude, come here, man. I knew God had already spoken, but we talk ourselves out of doing things all the time. I know that there's people under the sound of my voice that God has spoken to you at a grocery store. God has told you to do something and you didn't want to be uncomfortable, so you didn't do it. And I'm telling you that God, when He is asking you to do something, if you step out in faith and you were wrong, it's not a big deal. You know why? Because you go up to somebody and you and you go to talk to them and they don't receive what you have to say. That it doesn't matter because faith that pleases God is not faith that pleases man. God wants you to step out in faith regardless of what happens. So you could ask people that you think are sick, you could pray for 30 people and none of them get healed, or you could talk to 30 people and every one of them tell you no. But God wants to know if you're gonna go to the 31st person. God wants to know if you're actually going to keep doing these things. Because if God if God moved every time you spoke to somebody, that would be faith that pleases you. That would be faith that pleases you because you're like, man, look at me. I get it, I did it again, I did it again. Faith that pleases God means you're gonna keep walking, and when nobody, and when somebody doesn't, somebody doesn't receive what you have to say, you praise God for that, and you keep moving, you keep going. And so I came up to him and I said, uh, hey man, this may sound kind of crazy. And I I showed him the picture of Jesus at the door, and I began to I began to lead him to the Lord. And uh, you know, I I I I I went through everything and then I said, you know, can you can you see the wind? Like when it's blowing, can you see it? And he said, No. And I said, but you can feel it, right? And he said, Yeah. I said, Well, just like the wind, Jesus is here right now, and I'm gonna pray for you, and you're going to feel his presence, and God is gonna speak to you. And he said, Go for it. Go ahead. I gotta lay my hands on you. He said, Yeah, I lay my hands on him, and I said, God has been calling you, God has been speaking to you. He has an assignment on your life, he actually wants you to go into the nations. I said, but there's I said, but there's something greater. You've known for a long time that you're supposed to be doing something greater. And God told me to stop and tell you, if you're looking for a sign, this is it. He began to nearly weep. This is he started, I get done and I say, you know, even the devil believes in Jesus, but what we're doing is we're going down uh the road of life without him. He wants us to change direction and begin to follow him. I said, You have a mother, you have family that believe in Jesus that have been praying for you. And he said, This is crazy. He's like, This is crazy. And I said, and uh you've been one kind of one foot in, one foot out, and God is, I am here to tell you that the very thing that you've been asking about, God is answering it right now. He said, This is the craziest thing ever. I said, What? He said, I was down in Medford, Oregon, two weeks ago and I knocked on a door and there was a Bible study, and they invited me in. And I hadn't been reading the Bible, I hadn't been praying, I'm not, he's not following Jesus, he's living for himself. And now this kid's name is Nai, I don't know, you know, maybe you had a picture not, but his name is Naibu. He's from Mozambique. He came over here when he was two years old. He has a brother that's 50. He's only 20, but he has a brother that's 50. His mom still speaks a version of Swahili, but it's a little bit different. Now, uh something similar, yeah, from Mozambique. Um, and so he can even speak the language. I uh I begin to talk to him, and then he says, This is crazy. I said, What? He said, I went to this Bible study, and when I left there, I remember that my mom kept telling me I'm supposed to be a pastor, I'm supposed to be doing something for the Lord, that I know I'm supposed to be doing something for the Lord. And so for the last two weeks, when I'm out walking around and I'm doing sales, I'm asking God to show me a sign that I'm actually supposed to do it. He's been praying, asking God to show him a sign. I stopped, got out, and said, Hey, if you're looking for a sign, here it is. And he lost it. He's like, I can't believe this. God willing, he'll go on a mission trip with me because he doesn't work in the wintertime. I'm gonna take him back over to Africa, maybe Ethiopia, and we're gonna go over there and we're gonna win souls. And then his mother, he's like, I gotta call my mom. I cannot believe this. She goes to an African church in Michigan, and I'm telling you right now, if you're open to hearing the voice of God, you don't have to be charismatic, you don't have to be an extrovert, you don't have to be a, you don't have to actually be a five-fold evangelist. All you have to be is somebody that's willing to say yes. But here's the problem: the devil has us too focused on our sin. This is what God sent me here to tell you tonight. The devil has us too focused on what we've done wrong. We disqualify ourselves from what God's called us to do. See, I haven't been perfect my entire life. I haven't been perfect since the time I got saved, but I know who is perfect. The very first major crusade I did, I walked outside, I sat on a table and I began to cry. And a mile away I could see the light. There's 30,000 people down there. We'd done a pastor's conference. I was getting ready to go speak. And I sat on that, I sat on that table, and I began to I began to feel a lot of fear because I'm gonna stand in front of all these people, and I know that there is lives and souls at stake. There's been prayer intercessors praying underneath the stage for two days since we before we'd even gotten there. And I began to think, man, this I'm not I'm a my God, I I haven't been perfect. I have I have messed up, God. Why am I here? I I there's so many, and he goes, Kevin, had you not given me your life that that March in two, he didn't say March 2014, I'm saying that. But I felt the Lord say, Kevin, if you hadn't given me your life, you would either be dead or in prison. And I began to like, I began to come undone. I began to feel uh just how holy God is. I began to realize, I began to see the error of my ways as the Lord was speaking to me. And then I still said, but God, there's so many more qualified people than me. There's so many people that could come down here and speak much more eloquent to me, know better words than me. I gave God every reason that there were so many people better than me. And he said, Kevin, I use you because you know it's not you doing it. And I became undone in that moment. But the people came out, they're like, bro, we're about ready to go preach. You, you're you got you gotta come on, dude. And I'm I've lost I've literally lost it out there because I was at a place where I was realizing that like I didn't deserve this. And so I go, I go down there. We have I have pictures of it, but there was probably 30,000 people there. And when I did the altar call, there'd been people that were drunk in the front of the crusade. Because not only do we bring churches from this whole entire state, but I told them if I bought posters, I didn't want them hung at the church, I wanted them hung at the bar. I told them that I wanted the posters hung every place where people did not know Jesus. I said, I don't want just church people coming to the event. I want people that don't know God. Because if the people that don't know God show up, they're gonna leave that field differently than when they came. And God radically moved. We saw millions, we saw not millions, but we saw we saw thousands of people give their life to Jesus. They got planted in churches, they filled out the paper that's so that the correct pastors could get the stuff, and God moved mightily. But I'm telling you right now, if it if it was to go by qualifications, the police should come right now, lock me up, and take me to prison for the rest of my life. But Jesus, but Jesus, when I was guilty of my sins, stood up and said, You know what? Don't take him, God, I'll take the punishment for that. First Corinthians or 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20 says that he took our sins. And I'm gonna, and I wanna be fast now because I don't want to go too long. Okay, here we go. I'm gonna prove to you that it's not about you. Everywhere I preach, everywhere I talk, I tell people, man, you're not, it's not about you. This whole thing is about Jesus, it's all about Adam and Jesus. Adam's sin caused us, caused sin to enter the earth, and Jesus' righteousness caused life to enter the earth. What are you gonna do with it? That's the question. So I I'm gonna I'm gonna prove to you in the Old Testament that it's not about you, Isaiah chapter 6. Similar to what we were just singing, man, the the presence of God hit me. This is the gospel before the gospel. So it says, in the year that that King Uzziah had died. If you go to 2 Chronicles chapter 26, uh it talks about King Uzziah. See, he was 16 years old when he became a king, and for 50 years he reigned in Israel. But guess what? They were very prosperous under King Uzziah. He had done, fought battles, dug ditches, built walls, done all kinds of amazing things. Second people, that's what I said. Uh it's 2 Chronicles chapter 26, talks all about King Uzziah. But near the end, he sinned against God. He went into the temple to burn incense when that was supposed to be what the priests do. And so what happened was he ended up getting leprosy, and then he had to be cast out where he died of leprosy, but they took him away. When you get leprosy in the Old Testament, they would take you away from people. Why? Because you were unclean. So they removed him. So there's some significance to when it says the year that King Uzziah died. Because there were prosperous under uh King Uzziah, the nation was prosperous. So it says this in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on the throne high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. You've probably heard this before. Above it stood a seraphim. Each one had six wings with two covered, two that covered his face, with two he covered his feet, with two he flew, and one cried to another and said the same thing we were singing earlier. He said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his glory. What does that mean? That means that Lake Sacredaria, right now, even though nobody's there, it's filled with the glory of God. That means that right down here in South Kelso and North Kelso, the trap house, the dope house, everywhere you go, guess what? It's filled with the glory of God. The problem is our eyes are blind. We can't see it. But God's glory is everywhere. It is everywhere, and our eyes are blind. We can't see the glory of God. So we allow all these things to happen. Guess what? Khalitz County Jail, right over there, right now, there are people where God's glory is in that cell with them and they're praying and they have freedom. The whole earth is filled with his glory. That means that when they have a pride festival, the whole earth is filled with his glory. That means when you go somewhere where there's a bunch of people that are living in sin, the whole earth is filled with his glory. The people don't know it, and so they're blind. That's why Jesus said on the cross, he said, forgive them. They know not what they do. He wasn't saying that they didn't know what they were doing, they knew they nailed them to a cross. He might as well have said, forgive them, they don't know who they are. So what our job is to do is to go into the darkness and light it up. Because the glory of God is there. The glory of God is there. He's called us to go into those places. I'm gonna continue to read. Then the post of the door, we're gonna do it quick now, though. And the post of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. You see what happened in that moment. The glory of God was so thick that Isaiah, who was young, maybe 20 to 30 years old at this time, he was young, but he was completely undone because the The glory of God was in the room. I saw two same-sex partners, girls, down in Portland. They were that leaders of a pride festival that was happening. We were down there, and an evangelist friend of mine began to preach the gospel to one of them, the one that looked more like a man. And I and I was the one that, like, you know, played the part of the more masculine. And God wrecked this woman, and she got radically saved, and she broke off her engagement on the spot. And she goes out and shares the gospel with people today. Because somebody had the boldness not to sit there and tell them they're horrible, but to walk up to that woman who was living that way and say, God loves you so much. Do you know how much God loves you? See, see, I'm Jesus sees you for who you were created to be. When I was out there committing crimes, literally robbing churches, being one of the worst criminals in this area, stealing from people when they would come into the church. Nobody, when I came out of a store or I was out in the community and I was running amok and I and I was completely lost. I never walked out of a grocery store. I was never standing in line and somebody walked up to you and said, Hey man, I just want to let you know that God loves you so much. I just want to let you know that I see you the way that Jesus sees you, and you have a purpose. God has a purpose for your life. And I'm telling you that if you would just open up your heart to him, he could change your life. Nobody ever came up to me and said that. But we have people in churches praying that God would move, but nobody in the church ever came up to me and said that. But I'm telling you that this church is gonna begin to tell people that, the other churches are gonna tell people that. That that God is going to begin to capture the hearts of his people. There's a reformation coming where being the church will become as important as attending the church, and once that happens, guess what's gonna happen? Is that my phone? This music on my phone. She noticed it. Being the church will become as important as attending the church, and then God will fill every seat in this house. Just like that, you will have to get more benches. You will have to have two Wednesday night services, two Sunday morning services. The church down the road will be completely full. We won't be worried about who's going where. We'll be worried about how we can fit them all in the building. That's what happened when Billy Graham was preaching the gospel. That's what happened. There wasn't enough room, but but it's it can't happen. God's not gonna allow that to happen until the church sees who they are called to be and begins to go and be willing to make disciples. That's what's gonna happen. And I'm telling you right now, it's just awesome to see, bro. I just now realized it was you, man. God bless you. That's awesome. I just got kidding I got known since I was very, very young. My first beer, I think. Seven years old or something. Uh here we go. He said, He said, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips. So he realizes his sin in this moment. He's like, he realizes just how much of a sinner he is. And he says, And I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraph seraphim flew to me, having his hand, having his hand a live coal, which he'd taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth with it. He touched his mouth. What does the Bible say about the mouth? Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. It says the tongue has a power of what? Life and death. What we can do with our mouth, we can destroy people, or we can build people up. We can speak life into our family, or we can speak death into our family. We could speak life into our neighbor, or we can speak death into our neighbor. He touched his lips. He said, My lips are unclean. The cold touched his lips, and the fi, and then he and then he said, Behold, it touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is purged. This is an old testament example of the gospel. Isaiah hadn't done anything. All he did was realize who Jesus was, became aware of his sin. The glory of God came down, touched his lips. And what is the next thing he said? Here's the big part of everything we're talking about. He said, Whom shall he said also I heard the Lord, the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us? He didn't say where he was gonna send them, he didn't say how he was gonna send them, he didn't give him a five-point thing, he didn't tell him he needed to go to four years of seminary, he didn't tell him that you needed to go and do these classes and do all these things. He said, Here I am, Lord, send me. He said, He said, Here I am, Lord, send me. And he said, Go and tell the people this. And it was a very if you've read Isaiah, we're not gonna go into all that. My point is this Isaiah was a man of unclean lips, and one touch from God changed the man's entire life. He be he became the one of the greatest Old Testament prophets that ever lived. He was the one who prophesied more about the coming of Jesus than any other prophet. Why did he tell why did he speak more of Jesus than any other prophet? Because in Isaiah chapter 6, the gospel was preached to Isaiah in that moment, and he realized that he was literally speaking to the pre-incarnate Christ. It says it in John chapter 14, verse 12, that he was literally, he saw the pre-incarnate Christ and he became aware of who he was. He said, Lord, send me, and God changed Isaiah's life forever. He was more prophetic about the coming of Jesus than anybody, and he was nothing but a sinner with unclean lips who dwelt around unclean men. And in one moment, God purged those sins and sent him on a mission. See, the problem is we disqualify ourselves all the time. I preach all over the world, we disqualify ourselves. I want to read to you because how many of you believe in Jesus here today? God wants us to lead in love and show people who Jesus is and let the Holy Spirit change their life. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm going to the book of Acts, chapter 1, verses 4 through 8. This is our calling, this is our purpose, this is what we're called to do. And uh I am about ready to close and Pastor's talking too much. But we're ready. I believe that God is going to set people on fire here tonight. We talk about the agape love of God all the time, right? But before the agape love of God, the first time love is mentioned in the Bible, the Aramaic word for it is actually huba, and it is to set on fire in relationships, it is to literally set people on fire in relationally in love. God is a God who wants to set you on fire to love other people, have a relationship with other people, to have a relationship with other people that you normally would never talk to, to have to go and love somebody greater than their sin. To go and that's why it says love covers a multitude of sins. You know why? It's not saying that you could keep sinning because love is so good. It's saying that the love of God covers the multitude of sins because our love for the lost has to be greater than their sin, or we're completely powerless. But guess what? God has given you and me power. I'm gonna prove it to you biblically, Acts chapter 1, verse uh verse 4. I'm gonna start. And being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You have heard me. For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, and this is right here, even he said, John baptized with water, but you're gonna be baptized with the Holy Spirit not very many days from now. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in his own authority. We gotta stop being a church that says, Man, I can't wait for Jesus just to come back and take me up. Man, it's everything will be so much better, man. When Jesus just comes back, it's gonna be so much better. Lord, I've heard so many Christians say that over the years. Man, Jesus just come back so it can be so much better. Jesus made everything better 2,000 years ago when he hung on a cross and he died for our sins and he rose from the dead. When Jesus comes back, he's not coming back to make everything better. If you read the Bible, he is coming back for a bride who has made herself ready for a king. He is coming back for a purified church. He's not coming back to deal with something that he already dealt with 2,000 years ago. But you shall receive, here's the word power, dutymus power. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes to be what? Witnesses. Where? Longview, Kelso, Castle Rock, Callitz County, uh, Washington State, the United States of America. He says, You, he's speaking to, guess who he's speaking to here? Pastors like Pastor Todd. He's speaking to all the pastors. Oh, he's only speaking to the prophets, he's only speaking to the evangelists, he's speaking to the disciples. Are you a disciple of Jesus? He's speaking to you. And he says that when the Holy Spirit comes, it's not just for you to be able to go pray in a different language in your prayer closet. Is that important? Absolutely. Should people be praying for you? Should you wake up in the morning and seek the Lord? Absolutely, and you should, and and and there, and there is power in that. But he says the power that you get will be to be a witness for him. Do you all have to jump up on a table at a restaurant or stand up on an airplane and preach a five-point presentation of the gospel and preach the charismatic gospel, the birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus everywhere you go? No, you don't have to do that. But he's called you to be a witness in the children's church. He's called you to be a witness when you're ushering people at the church. He's called you to be a witness when you're at the grocery store, or he's called you to love somebody who is broken, or he's called you to stop and talk to somebody driving down the road. There isn't, I can you can have encounters every day of your life, every single day of your life, you can have encounters with people, man. It was so amazing yesterday with that one individual, and God knit us together in the Lord. If I didn't do that, what am I why should I ever speak on a stage? If I don't speak to people, if I don't talk to God and then talk to a man, why should I ever stand before people and preach if I'm not willing to go and speak to the to the lost person on the side of the road or the lost person in my house or whoever it may be? I watched my best friend, one of my really good friends, die just a couple weeks ago, and uh I never preached the gospel to him and I should have. I had the opportunity to share it with him and I didn't. Man, that tears me up inside because I had the opportunity to share it with him. I don't want to see more people die of fentanyl overdoses. I've done eight memorials in three years for people who have died of fentanyl overdoses. I know people that have died just recently, like two people. The enemy has taken people out any way he can. And I don't want over my dead body, do I want more people to die? I gotta tell them about Jesus because all they need to know is the very thing they're looking for their entire life is found in a man. There is no high like the most high. I've never been higher in my life than I was on Jesus because man, when I had the power of God flowing through me, there was nothing like it in the world. I used to do a lot of crazy things for when I was living in the world, and now I still do crazy things, but I do them for the kingdom of God. Traveling into the middle of Nigeria where they kill more Christians than anybody, knowing that God was with me and watching Muslims get radically saved, delivered, didn't even have to tell them about praying in the spirit, and they were pulling off their burqa, burkas and praying in tongues. So you can't tell me that it's not real because I've seen it with my eyes. I've seen a man who could not hear come running at us at a crusade. He came running, he was crying, he came running, and he's running and he's screaming. We have security. They jump out and grab him and he's freaking out. I got the video of it, he's freaking out, and he's like, I and he can't talk because he's been deaf his whole life. And he's saying, I can I can hear, and you can kind of talk. And they take him and they take him up on the stage, and he shares the testimony. He literally, out of nowhere, he began to hear. I'm not what I mean. Oh well, if you can do that, then you just go into the hospital and do it. Listen, man, I'm not trying to hear all that. I've seen what God can do. I know God's healed me. I know God's gonna heal me again. I know I'm healed until the day I fall into the grave. Guess why? Because I believe Jesus rose from the dead, and to be saved is to be healed. So even if my hand hurts now, I am still healed, I am still made whole. It doesn't matter what I see because the word says that I don't focus on the things that I see because those are temporary, I focus on the things that I don't see because those are eternal. So I'm gonna stick to what the Bible says, and I'm gonna open the book of Luke, who was a physician, and I'm gonna start where he healed the man's withered hand because he said, Lord, in Luke chapter 5, he said, Lord, if you are willing, heal me. And Jesus said this: He said, I am willing, be healed. And the man was healed, and from that point forward, he healed people everywhere he went, and then he said, The things that I do, even you will do greater. I don't think he was saying you could do greater things than Jesus, but he was saying greater in measure. Why? Because when the devil thought he had won, he had multiplied Jesus. He that's why in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, he said, if the kingdom, if the kings of the world would have known what they were doing, they would have never crucified the Lord of glory because what they didn't realize is they thought they were putting something to death, but what actually happened was they multiplied himself. Because in Acts chapter 2, here's what happened: he said, Go in the upper room and wait. This is like the upper room. There could be 120 people in here. We need to have more upper room experiences. Maybe we all need to be praying together, all need to be in one accord. Because if this small group of people were all in one accord and praying and in unity, and we went over to the lake, guess what would happen? Because when the Holy Spirit fell out of that upper room, 3,000 people in one day, God saved Peter, who was scared to death, ran down the stairs and with boldness stood up. This man denied Jesus, he ran away from him. He was a coward, he was a coward. Nobody had done anything right. Jesus came to Mary in the tomb and he said, You go tell my you go tell my disciples and Peter. He wanted Peter to know that he still loved him and that and that he was still his disciple. The disciples had done nothing right, but but Jesus did that when when Jesus rose from the dead, he made them right with God. And so he said, Go go tell my disciples and Peter, but he was the one who did it. So he tells them, he goes, and this is the very last thing. This is the very, you realize what I'm reading to you right here, it's the very last thing that Jesus said to the disciples in Acts chapter 1, verse 8. He said, Go to Samaria and to the end of the earth, Kelsa Longview, ends of the earth. Now, when he had spoken these things while they watched, he was taken up in a cloud and they received him. That was the last thing he said before he went back to be with Jesus. Then Acts chapter 2, verse 17. When when okay, the Holy Spirit comes and it's tongues of fire. Why was it tongues? Can I tell you today that you have the same fire that fell on those people in the upper room? He said it in and the prophet Joel said in the end times he poured his spirit on all flesh. This was the beginning of the end times. This was why Peter said, check it out, what Joel said is happening right now. So that's the beginning of the end times, and we're in the last seconds of the last minutes of what God is going to do on this earth before he returns. Yeah, we may not know the exact time, but Jesus said in Matthew chapter 24 that when you begin to see earthquakes, wars, rumors of wars, sicknesses. Oh, what's the what's the next sickness that's out on the ship? Oh my gosh, everything's gonna happen. Oh no, what's the next sickness? Jesus said, when you begin to see these things, you know what he said? Jump on your phone because you're scared. No, he said, look up, look up and see what's about to go down. And so I'm telling you, we're in the last seconds of the last minutes, and God is calling us to change the world. Here's the here's the greatest part of everything I'm saying. You, the church, the body of Christ on this earth has more power than anything on this earth. The body of Christ and the Holy Spirit has more power. We have something that nobody else has, and we have the power of God that fell in tongues of fire on their heads. We have the same Holy Spirit, and He's called us to go out and change the world. Peter was a coward. He came downstairs and he said, or he came down the stairs, and this I'm closing with this. He said, And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, and he's reciting the book of Joel. He says, That I will pour out my spirit on the pastors. He said he would pour out his spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see see visions, your old men shall dream dream dreams, and my men's servants and my maidservants, I will pour my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy. If people tell you that you're not supposed to prophesy today, you could that they are completely wrong. Why? Because I'm gonna stick with what the word of God says. I'm not gonna stick with what a man says, I'm gonna read the word of God, and then I'm gonna believe the word of God, and then I'm gonna do the word of God, and I'm gonna prophesy about what God wants to do. And so, my question to you tonight is this what has God called you to do? You see, because Jesus He came, He lived a perfect life, He walked out 613 laws and Ten Commandments, He lived a sinless life, and in the beginning, God said that the penalty for sin was death. Jesus never sinned, so guess what? He couldn't die, so he came and he died to the sin. He hung on that cross, he said, Forgive them, Father, he don't they know not what they do. He was marred more than any man. Read it in Isaiah chapter 53 or 54. He was marred more than any man had been marred at the hands of men. He was physically unrecognizable, and it says in the Bible that it pleased the Father to bruise him. You know why? Because he saw you, he saw me, and when he hung on that cross and he said, Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do, and he was unrecognizable. He was what did they say in John? The word made flesh. So, what was he doing when he was in so much pain? He wasn't crying, he wasn't, he wasn't even it talks about in the Bible, people crying out in pain. No, he was speaking the word of God. He said, He said, John, Mary, that's your mom. Mary, John, that's your son. He's still speaking the word of God, physically unrecognizable. They he takes his last breath on the cross, they take him down, bury him in a tomb. And three days later, Jesus didn't stay in that tomb because the penalty of sin was death. So three days later, the stone was rolled away from the tomb, and Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he came out of the ground, he's seated on at the right hand of God the Father, and because he lives, I live. Because he healed the blind, my eyes were blind, but now I see. This is the entire gospel. And Jesus did all these things. And my question is this you know this, we know these things. We believe in a God who raised from the dead. What are you gonna do about it? What are we gonna do about it in the nations where we go? We have something that is powerful, and the enemy wants you to think that you're not good enough and you're unqualified. I will tell you this. It is important that you that you seek consecration before the Lord. It's important that you hate sin, that you don't want to sin. It's important that you recognize the sin in your life, you let your iniquities become transgressions, you remove that sin for your life, and that is vital. But my question is God has called you to be his hands and feet. Every single person is looking for Jesus. I have two questions. It says three times in the Bible Matthew chapter 16, verse 24 and 25, Mark chapter 8, verses 34 and 35, Luke chapter 9, verses 24 and 25. He says it a little differently. He says, Those who want to follow me, he didn't say believe in me, even the demons believe in God. He said, Those, if you want to follow me, you'll deny yourself. What does that mean? Lay down your own fleshly wants and lay down your own fleshly desires. The reason why your pastor preaches all the time on having holy living, not watching certain things and not doing certain things, is because when that happens, our eyes are blind to the glory of God that's right there with us. But when we remove those things out of our life, we begin to see his glory everywhere we go. So we have to deny ourselves, deny those things that we want. And then he says, Take up your cross. What was he saying? He said this before he ever even got on the cross. What he was saying is, you have to die. You have to die to yourself, you have to die to your own fleshly wants and desires. Take up your cross and follow me. For what does a man gain if he gets the entire world and loses his own soul? You see, there is people that have all the money in the world and they live a lavish life here on this earth. But my friends, this isn't a church that preaches that hell isn't a real thing. The reason why I do what I do is because the last thing I want to see is people that I love, and that is everybody go to a place where they can't get back from. And so this is why I preach the gospel. What is it for a man to gain the entire world and lose his own soul? In the book of Luke, he says it a little differently in the book than in the book of Matthew. He says, For if you want to keep your life, you'll lose it. But if you lose your life for his sake, then you've gained it. He says this multiple times. Here's the problem: it's not the fact that if we want to keep our own life, we'll lose it. But as you do that your entire life, you end up like the guy that had the one talent. He buried it because he was afraid of the master. He buried that talent. And when he came, he when the master came back, he said, You wicked servant. He said, You went and buried it. You knew I was a shrewd man, and you bring me that back, you didn't at least go get interest for it. And so, literally buried it. So, what happened? He was afraid of what would happen. And this is where God is calling us right now is to realize what he's called us to do, to step in to what Jesus has asked us to do. Lay down our lives, take up our cross, and follow him. Because when we lay down our wants and desires, when we give up our life, we gain it. And here's the thing, and this is something I really want to get into your head because I want you to remember this. He said, if you want to keep your life, you'll lose it, but if you lose your life for his sake, you'll gain it. I'm here to tell you tonight that when you decide to keep your own life, it's not only your life that you're losing, you're losing other people's lives as well. Because you're not just losing your own life. God has called you to reach people, and it's not just your life you're gonna lose, they're losing their life as well, because He has called us to reach people, so we don't, at the sake of trying to save our own lives, other people's lives are lost as well. And so, what is gonna happen? I'm not saying you gotta go beat somebody's head over the Bible with the Bible, and I'm not saying you gotta go up and say, turn or burn your sins and you know what Westboro Baptist Church stuff. What if all of us make it a point to pray to the Lord? God, reveal me what you want me to do, and I'll give you the glory. If you're with somebody, be like, hey man, let's pray. God, what do you God do something that's gonna blow our mind? Show us what who you want us to speak to, and maybe you just walk up to somebody and say, Hey, how are you doing? Are you okay? Is everything is everything okay? God has called us to do that. I have two questions. Here's one really fast. Do you know that Jesus is Lord? If you were to die tonight, heaven forbid you leave here and you get in a car wreck or you fall asleep and you never wake up. Do you know that you would be with Jesus? Because if you don't know that you know that you know, then you don't know. The Bible says that salvation is a gift, and if you have it, you know it. If I went up to this gentleman and I said, Hey, here's my phone. You can have this. Take it home. And he takes my phone and he goes home, and somebody goes, Hey, what's that? Is that your phone? He's gonna go, Yeah, man, a guy gave it to me as a gift. It's his, he knows he has it. If you don't know that you be with the Lord, then you need to get right with the Lord. If that's you tonight, repeat after me, say, Lord Jesus. I open the door of my heart, and I choose to follow you. Today, Lord, I ask that you would forgive me for my sins. In Jesus' mighty name. Amen.

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Thank you for joining us for this podcast from New and Living Way. For more messages, ministry updates, and ways to connect, visit us online at NewandLivingWay.church and follow us on YouTube and Facebook. And if you're in the Kelso Longview area, we'd love to welcome you in person. Join us Sundays at 10 a.m. and Wednesdays at 7 p.m. at 215 Academy Street in Kelso, Washington. May the Lord bless you in a rich and powerful way.