I'm going to bring to
you a message that I'm calling unshackled spirit. Unshackled spirit, this is
sort of my preparation for us all as we get ready to take this
sacrificial step of generosity. You can't just jump
into stuff like that. A good trainer will not let
you just begin a hard workout without stretching some stuff
out, getting on that foam roller a little bit,
so if you have a Bible, acts chapter five is going
to be our foam roller. This is going to limber us up. This is our spiritual
calisthenics, getting us ready
for what we believe, that God is going to do
through us all in this moment. Jennie and I had
the chance recently to take a trip to
California, and we were there for Thanksgiving, and we
got to introduce Lennox to his great grandfather, whose
wife just recently passed away and Lennox had never
got to meet him. So from six feet away,
we were spatially spread out across the patio. It was pretty special to
see four generations there in that moment. The problem with
being in California, and I have all the love in
the world for every one of you in California, is that right
now you can't go in restaurants. You can't you can't
eat in restaurants, you can only order
in restaurants, but then they all have set up
on the curb a couple tables, or they've been very creative. It's unbelievable to
see the amount of-- I mean if those two
were deliberating when they were buying
their restaurant space, do we have a patio, do
we not have a patio? You're kicking yourself if
you went without the patio in these days. But it's incredible to see how
restaurants have figured this all out. And every morning
on this trip, I would wake up before my
family, because something's wrong with me. And even without an alarm clock
set, I wake up at 6 o'clock, and if I try and go back
to sleep it doesn't work. So I would just
roam the streets, and get some work done, and
have some time with Jesus, and work on messages or
whatever else I was doing. And I found a bakery that was
pretty close to our hotel that had pretty good coffee. And just about
every single morning I would find myself there,
because they had this big patio and the sun would
come up, eventually. Now when you say
California, you think it's going to be super warm,
but most mornings when I was out and about it was
about 40, 41 degrees. And I'm out there, I
think I have a photo here, working and trying to
prepare my message. And I'm sitting
here at this table, and you can see back here,
the sunshine is right there. And I'm freezing, my fingers
literally were going numb, and so I would just start
hitting the wrong keys on my writing tablet. And so I was just like hastening
the sun, and every day, about like 7:00, 7:02, 7:03,
the sun would finally get over this-- there was
this red structure, this red building-- and
the sun would finally crest that building. And then instant
warmth, there would be like a 15, 20
degree difference from just being in the sunlight. So here I was trying my best
to get out of the shade. I was trying to stay away from
the shade, because the sun brought me warmth. I have you there in that
moment, because here in act five, what we're going
to see is just the opposite. We're going to see people doing
absolutely everything they can to get into the shadows,
to get into the shade. I was trying to stay
out of it, they're going to try and get
into it, you'll see why, acts chapter five, verse 12. And through the hands
of the apostles, many signs and wonders
were done among the people. And they were all with one
accord, in Solomon's porch. Yet none of the rest
dared join them, but the people
esteemed them highly. And believers were increasingly
added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. So that they brought the
sick out into the streets and laid them on
beds and couches, that at least the shadow
of Peter passing by might fall on some of them. Also, a great multitude gathered
from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing
sick people and those who were tormented
by unclean spirits, and they were all healed. Pause right there,
what do we have here? We have dynamic breakthrough,
where you have the church operating at peak performance. Where you have these two
absolute threats to darkness operating simultaneously. You have evangelism,
and you have generosity, you have the church full of
the Holy Spirit that Jesus said would come upon them. He called it-- and I said the
word dynamic intentionally-- he said, you shall receive
dunamis, this word that we get our English word dynamite from. This is dynamite
power he said, you shall receive power, dunamis,
when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you
shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem,
Judea, Samaria, but also to the
ends of the world. The church was all in, they
were giving, they were sharing, and so there was such a
charged atmosphere of faith, as generosity and evangelism
powered by the Holy Spirit caused the church to be this
spitfire we were born to be, and so dynamic. Breakthrough was so
powerful, so prolific, that people were getting
healed by shadows, y'all. Ridiculous. And of course, we don't
mean healed by shadows. We mean God used that as
a touch point for faith. It's similar to when
the woman in the Gospels reached out and
said, if I could just touch the hem of
Jesus's jacket, I believe I could receive power. And it wasn't the jacket,
it wasn't nothing Holy or special about Jesus's jacket. It wasn't like after
his crucifixion that the soldier that ended up
with that piece of his clothes, because he gambled for
his clothing, wasn't like when he put that on all of a
sudden his bad knee got better. It wasn't the jacket, it was
just a touch point of faith. Jesus said, I see your faith,
your faith has made you well. So God is always
looking to use faith, always looking to bring
his power into a life. And when he finds faith
overflowing like that, someone willing to put themselves out
there, he's able to use it. So here we have
people just believing that the faith will
make them well. And so indeed, the
shadow of Peter, it's like a backwards
Groundhog Day, right? Where the shadow's
touching people, and all of a sudden dang, right? Someone say in the chat, dang. It has to be all capitals
D A N G. When I really mean something, I put a
space between every letter. So it's D space A
space N space g space. Ain't nothing but a G thing. All right, so we have
dynamic breakthrough, which is immediately-- someone say immediately-- Immediately. --followed by demonic backlash. That's what happens,
read The Book of X. You have dynamic breakthrough,
when people are doing what God calls them to do. And so what does
the devil do, who's threatened by these things,
there's demonic backlash. So you will always
see, any time you see in your life, or your
church, or in any ministry, any time you see in the world,
you see dynamic breakthrough, you can almost wait for it. 1/1,000, right, like thunder
and lightning go together, you will always see a
demonic backlash to dynamic breakthrough. And so what do we
see in verse 17? Then the high priest rose up. I'll have you know,
this breakthrough came from the religious people. So those who purport to
follow God, at times, can be used by the enemy. It can be from those
who are claiming to follow Christ that we
see the opposition come up. So the devils not just willing
to try and oppose the church from the outside, he's
also willing to come at it from the inside. The high priest rose up, and
all those who were with him, which is the sect
of the Sadducees, and they were filled
with indignation. That's an interesting
word, indignation. Many translations will
actually translate indignation to jealousy, but it's
not just jealousy. It's actually jealousy
masquerading as righteousness, which is one of the most
dangerous and lethal forms of jealousy, because
it's jealousy pretending to be pious. It's jealousy pretending
to have a purpose. The same word,
indignation, was used of Judas Iscariot,
who was the one who was stealing from Jesus, and
stealing from the Ministry team, who would go
on to betray Jesus when he saw a woman
give a great sacrifice. She did what many of the
people of Fresh Life Church are going to do all
around the country and world this very
week, give a great gift, pour it out of Jesus's feet. He was indignant, jealous, and
covered it up with piousness. So he said to Jesus,
why this waste? Shouldn't this money have
been sold to give to the poor? That's exactly what
is happening here. These who should
be the most excited about what God is doing in the
world, these who represent God, these who are the high
priest, the religious elite of their day, filled
with indignation. Because essentially,
they were not getting the attention they
wish they were getting. They were not
getting recognized. Peter, this common,
untaught fisherman, who's been with Jesus. What makes him think
he's so special? I got a shadow too. That's what these high
priests were saying. I throw a shadow to. They couldn't say that, because
if they actually said, hey, I have a shadow, I should
be getting attention. You all should be
liking my sermons. Everybody would see
for what it was. But instead, they
masqueraded their jealousy, they dressed their
jealousy up with-- here's what we think
is wrong with this, and here's why this
isn't working-- with this indignation. And then verse 18, it
says, they laid their hands on the apostles and put
them in the common prison. But at night, an angel of the
Lord opened the prison doors and brought them
out and said, go. Stand in the temple
and speak to the people all the words of this life. And when they heard that,
they entered the temple early in the morning and taught. But the high priest
and those with him came and called the
council together with all the elders of
the children of Israel, and sent to the prison
to have them brought out. OK, this is so funny. So they come in like, we need to
get those apostles out and give them another tongue lashing. So they sent their little
stooges to go to the prison and get them. But the officers, first
22 came, and did not find them in the prison. They returned and
reported saying, indeed, we found the
prison shut securely, and the guards standing
outside before the doors, but when we opened them,
we found no one inside. Now when the high priest,
the captain of the temple, and the chief priest
heard these things, they wondered what
the outcome would be. I bet they did. So one came and told them
while they were pondering these things, the men
whom you put in prison are standing in the temple
and teaching the people. All right, we just
give God some praise for 10 seconds real quick? Because this is so funny. And we're going to
come back to this, and we're going to come
back to the persecution, we're going to come back to
that situation in just a minute. But we started this
journey, the spitfire fun journey, some weeks ago
talking about Kickstarter. And I began by
telling you a couch story, a story about how
I bought a couch that was going to be crowdfunded. And you know, I figure
that a lot of you probably assume that my
stories are embellished, and it's like the fish
story, that a fish gets bigger, and by the time
multiple worship experiences, probably gets crazier. But I'm just going to
tell you the truth. That probably happens sometimes. But that couch story-- I got done preaching,
and the weekend was over, and my wife said,
I can't believe you didn't tell the craziest part. I was like, what part? She goes, don't you
remember the lawn furniture? I forgot about the
lawn furniture. You see I got so excited when
the company finally sent me a tracking number for
this new couch, that I gave my old couch away. And you got to make
space for the new. And so the old
couch got picked up and is no longer there, because
that day, or any day now, that couch is coming. And it didn't come for
a couple more weeks. And so my wife was not pleased. And she said, what
are we going to do? And so I brilliantly brought
all the lawn furniture in from our patio, and
so for several weeks while we waited for this
unbelievable holy grail couch with an extension
cord stapled to-- just go listen to the first
sermon, a wing and a prayer, and you listen to my stupidity--
but that story did get crazier, and I forgot all about it. All right, so
Kickstarter-- but where we began in the scriptures,
was in the Book of Exodus. And those of you who have the
kit that you've been mailed or you received, it has this
verse from Exodus chapter 35 on the bottom of it because
the building of God's house as it initially began
was crowdfunded. And it turned out a whole lot
better than my couch, man. It was unbelievable, the
people brought what they had. You had young people
bringing stuff, you had old people
bringing stuff, you had single people
bringing stuff, you had widows bringing stuff. You had people giving what
to them was a huge gift, you had people giving
what to other people would be a small gift but
represented a huge gift, because for them to
give a small gift was a huge deal in the
light of their total budget. God always looks, not at
the portion of our gift, but the proportion with which it
represents the entirety of what we've been entrusted. So you might give a
gift today that is not impressive to
someone else, but God is lit up because it
is a big gift to you, it's a sacrifice to you. And I would just
say, keep giving and you will watch that grow. Not only because you
become safe to bless, as generosity breaks
the back of greed, but also because
I believe you're wiser as you spend what remains
with a heavenly mentality over it all. There's a wisdom that protects
you and also blesses you. And so this Tabernacle project
from Exodus was crowdfunded. And what was the last verse
that we read that day? It was Exodus 34:38, when the
Tabernacle was finally built, everybody got to participate. Just like the spitfire,
fire fell by night. In the sight of all
the House of Israel, throughout all
their journeys, they had this pillar of fire
to guide them by night, and the pillar of cloud
to guide them by day. So that's where the story ended. God's people were generous,
and the spirit fell. Spirit and generosity, these
things always go hand in hand. And there was a visible
sign in the sky, fire in the sky as a result of this. God was with them in
all the generosity, they could know where
to meet with God. He was at that Tabernacle,
he was at that house. Now the purpose of that was
to point toward The Book of X to where we're in today, this
unfinished story of the church that God is building. The Tabernacle not
only pointed towards, but was paving the
way for, God to send his Holy Spirit, the pillar of
fire, into all of our hearts. And that's what
Pentecost is all about. That's what Acts
chapter 2 was all about. There appeared to
them, when God's house became clearly known as
the church, this mystery of the church, divided
tongues as of fire and one set upon each of them. Now what I realized as I
was studying this week, in preparation for
this time of giving and this time of seeing God
move through the Spitfire fund, was that it wasn't like
a bunch of fires appeared on each of their heads, it
was one fire that divided out. The presence of
the word division is where you can
see that comes from. And when I looked at the
original language indeed, this fire showed up
that divided out. So one fire, just like
in the Exodus story, this pillar of fire which
represents God's spirit, which represents his glory,
this fire showed up and to every single person
present that day it divided up. What is this? It's multiplication. Because division is just
multiplication backwards. So God was multiplying
out, taking one thing, and dividing it out. It's multiplication every
single person, and I love it. You could see that
clearly when you look at it in another translation. The passion translation,
which is a paraphrase, looking at the language and then
giving a dynamic equivalence into our culture today
puts it this way. It says, then all at
once a pillar of fire appeared before their eyes, is
separated into tongues of fire that engulfed each one of them. Now what's beautiful about
this picture of Pentecost, of God building the
spitfire of his church, is that it was limited
when it was just a pillar over the Tabernacle. Because there is
one place, there is one location, where no matter
where you are in the world, if you want to be with God you
got to get to that structure. You've got to get
to that building, you've got to get to that
house, and if you can't get there well sucks to
be you a little bit. But what God was
always moving towards was not one building,
not one structure, and not one geographical
limitation, but a people. This has always
been the mystery. This Colossians
chapter 1 verse 27 is the mystery, the mystery
of the church, which is what? Christ in you,
the hope of glory. It's not one pillar
of fire above a tent, above a Tabernacle, no
matter how cool that was. It's all about every
single one of you each having your own
individual pillar of fire. And not just to rest above you,
but to come live inside of you. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would
be in you, and be with you, and come upon you. So here's the thing,
when the pillar of fire rested upon the
Tabernacle, it was so crazy and so thick the Bible
says Moses couldn't even go in. Moses couldn't even enter. And so there was
always a limitation, there was always
something missing. But here's the thing. The Holy Spirit can do
what Moses couldn't do, he has come in you. He is with you, he
will never forsake you. So here's the beautiful
thing about this all, is that here we
live in a time when some buildings we can't
go in, when there are places that we can't go, where
there are some gatherings we can't be a part of. But the Church of Jesus
Christ can never be cancelled. The Church of Jesus Christ
can never be stopped. It was never about a building,
it was always about a people. And we are spread
out around the world. You might not be able to eat
at a restaurant in California, but Jesus's Holy Spirit
is still inside of you. The fire is still inside of you. He's still building
Spitfires today. And in every age,
and in every time he will, until Jesus
returns in power and glory, and we will be with him
and live with him forever. I'm a little bit excited
about it, I'm so sorry. But the efficiency of
the plan was beautiful. Because with one
structure, it could never do what he intended to
do, reach the whole world. And when you start multiplying
out, you can cover more ground. How is the church going to
get to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the
ends of the world if there's just one structure
everybody's got to go to? But with that pillar
of fire divided out, and the multiplication,
you can now get to the fulfillment
of the great commission. As Leviticus 26:8 puts it, five
of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall
put 10,000 to flight. And just like we saw in
the Tabernacle building, just like we've seen
in crowdfunded projects throughout history, as everybody
watching this broadcast, as everybody listening to this
message contributes something, I'm telling you, it
just gets more powerful. It just gets more loud. It just gets more dynamic. We can cover more ground,
come on, we can do this. But we got to work
together, it's going to take every
single one of us to pull off this Spitfire fund. But the problem is
we get comfortable. And so these disciples, they
had the great commission, now they have the
Spitfire upon them. But it took agitation
for them to get out of their comfort zone. These followers of
Jesus, even after Jesus ascended to heaven, an angel had
to come down and go, hey man, you guys are just looking
up into the clouds. The church loves to just
look up into the clouds. And angels came down like
hey, Bubba, don't you got work to do? Don't you need to go down,
isn't there a message to tell? And left to its own
the church will always default towards cloud gazing. What do you think
this verse means? What do you think about these? Should the baptismal water
be 84 degrees or 91 degrees? Should the communion juice
be leaded or unleaded, right? We have a gospel to get out. We got people to reach. There's time and place
for conversations about methodology,
but let's never stop being a rescue mission. Let's never stop being about
the Great Commission Let's never stop fighting
for those who are stranded in sin, to find
life and liberty in Jesus Christ. So then and now, it
takes a little agitation. Which is one of the reasons
I believe in a sovereignty. God allows the demonic
backlash to follow up the dynamic breakthrough. And it is what allows
us to be inspired to do the thing he called us to do. For example Acts chapter
8, after another period of breakthrough, there was what? After breakthrough there's-- Backlash. Now Saul was consenting
to Stephen's death, at that time of
great persecution arose against the church,
which was at Jerusalem. And they were all,
say it with me, scattered throughout the
regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Therefore, those
who were scattered went everywhere
preaching the word. The persecution ended up
being the best thing that ever happened to
the early church, because they might have
just stayed in Jerusalem and gotten cozy, stayed in
Jerusalem and gotten comfy. But it was the persecution,
it was the demonic bray, it was the demonic
backlash that caused the next dynamic breakthrough. And the next crying out for
God's help, and the next crying out for in faith,
and sometimes it's those hard times that
gives us the impetus to lash out in faith
again, that allows them to be that next breakthrough. And guess what? The same thing happened with
the actual Spitfire airplane. We heard an absolutely
brilliant message last week from my friend Paice about
how the factory started to be targeted. The Spitfire factories
in Southampton were targeted by
the Nazi bombers, because they were threatened. Any enemy will always target
what he's threatened by. So if there's an
area in your life that he's going after,
you shouldn't go, well maybe I shouldn't
have been doing that thing, no, no this listen. He goes after it
because it's a threat. So he went after the
Spitfire factories because he was threatened
by them, Hitler was. And so that's how
it always goes. So what did the Beaver do? Have you been with us
from the beginning? The minister of
aircraft production was Lord Beaverbrook,
who was nicknamed, usually behind his
back, the Beaver. And the Beaver
realized, man, as long as we rely on a few factories
to put these airplanes out, we could always be in jeopardy
because the Nazis will always target those things. So what did he do? He did one of the most
important things that was ever done during the
Battle of Britain, he dispersed manufacturing. He dispersed manufacturing
through the creation of what he called shadow factories. He put things into the shadows. And these shadow factories, they
would take a massive factory-- there was one that was a big
factory in Birmingham, that was in one giant complex,
and he spread it out into 23 different
buildings in eight towns. Another factory in Vickers
had 10,000 employees, it was one structure,
and he broke it up into 42 different buildings. Now you're like, where do
you get buildings like that? Here's where you
get them, ready? You get them out of laundries,
garages, bus stations, glove factories, steamroller
plants, strawberry basket manufacturers, and even homes. He took every structure
he could get his hands on, and they were converted into
these shadow factories that would shadow the work that
a manufacturing plant would do to produce one part. And this strawberry basket
facility would actually be shadowing that, and
then would be retooled to create that one piece. So you could never take out
the factories, because you just took out one little building,
or one little garage, or one little auto
manufacturing area, and it just took out the
part that created this one little piece, and
they would just pop another one tomorrow
that could do the same thing. And you had people
who would say, hey. Wealthy people would say,
hey, I got this big house, you can have a
room in this house. And you could create the
propeller in this part. And some people were like
I don't got an extra room, but I will build a
freaking addition. You had literal people building
additions on their properties, on their manor, so
a piece of the work could be done at their house. You had the Spitfire plane being
built in hundreds and thousands of locations. There were thousands
upon thousands of pieces to every
single airplane, and they were all being built
by thousands of thousands of different people, from
every class of society. From those who
could afford to have a structure on their manor, to
those who could just show up, and every day make rivets. They had crews that
would work day, they had crews that
would work night. And so the interruption
of production could never actually take
place, because no one building was responsible
for the total creation of this airplane. It took an army,
it took a village, it took a nation galvanized
by the idea and the symbol of the plane that
saved the world, that would be a threat to our enemies
and a shield for our homes. And they all said, you
can use my building. All I do is do laundry,
but not today, baby. This today is going to
be a part of something bigger than my own little life. You can use what I have in my
hands towards a bigger cause. You had people coming together,
creating a workforce built out of every segment of society. Beaver then realized, well
we finished the problem, because they started
turning these suckers out. They took a hit at first, but
soon they actually exceeded pre-dispersal output numbers. They were cranking out
six complete Spitfires every single week,
and there was a matter of where do you store them? Because before
the dispersal they would just store them in these
big buildings at RAF airfields. But he realized seeing them,
they were all together. All these planes were together. Again, same problem when we
finish these planes they're all together and they could
all again be taken out. So he had a dream that he
called the Robin's nest. And the Robin's nest was
scattered and isolated, doesn't sound like COVID-19? Scattered and isolated. He said we can't keep
the planes together, So we're to scatter them, and
we're going to isolate them, and we're going to
tuck them into garages, and we're going to
tuck them into barns, we're going to tuck them
into these shelters that are going to be Robin's nest for
these precious baby airplanes, until they get brought
by the ATA girls to the front lines where
they could be flown. I couldn't help but
think about these shadows and these nests, these
shadows and these nests, these two things
coming together. Psalm 57 verse one says,
have mercy on me, Oh God. Have mercy on me, for in
you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in
the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. I just want you to know that
we are in the Robin's nest, we're safe under the
shadow of his wings. Our father has taken care of
us, he's got a plan for us. We might feel like
I'm being torn apart, I might feel like I being
stretched to my capacity. I don't know how much
more of this I can bear. What new developments are
going to come in 2021? I just got news for you, you
are safe under the shadow of his wings. There is shelter for you. He's already gone
ahead into your future, he's prepared for you. He's prepared for
what's to come. So what was supposed to kill the
Spitfire, the enemy targeting the manufacturing facilities,
actually made it stronger. The backlash always backfires. So we see breakthrough,
the enemy comes against it. All of us get scared,
Holy crap how are we going to make it through this one? This trial, this difficulty,
this issue, this lack, this uncertainty, this
opposition, this new challenge, this new thing, right? So we're excited. The dove has descended,
like at Jesus's baptism. And then what? Sent into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil. It's always the dove
and then the devil, it's the dove and
then the devil. It's the it's the glory
and then the gory. I'm telling you,
that's ministry. That's life, that's
following Christ. It's breakthrough on the
mountain of transfiguration coming straight down. And guess what? Teacher, there's a
demon possessed kid that none of your
disciples can cast out. Oi vey, he would want to say. It's the dove and
then it's the devil. I'm telling you, we're going on
15 years at Fresh Life Church. It's the best of times,
and the worst of times, and the best of times. But here's the thing, the enemy
always overplays his hand. Because when he responds
to the dynamic breakthrough with his demonic
backlash, God always has a plan to cause
what the enemy meant for evil to accomplish his
good perfect plan for our life and for the story of the gospel. So the targeting of
the Spitfire caused there to be actually more
Spitfires in the world, not less. And I think the same thing
is true for our church. I think about the
hardship of having to navigate Fresh Life in these
past months of this pandemic. And to be told by the state
that we want to honor you can't gather, and you
got to close buildings, and how do you do this thing,
and how is that going to go? You mean our gatherings are sort
of like our bread and butter, and so you think like, how
would these last months have gone for the church? How would it go for
the story of the gospel when you can't gather
people to tell them the story of the gospel? Well, how about this? Since March 15, the
start of the pandemic, we have had the gospel
message beamed out through our live church
online opportunities. And people who will watch
the message on demand after the fact, we
have had this message go out into 4,528 cities, 4,528
different cities for people who have been able to log on. And you think about globally
as it continues to spill out, we've been able to
reach out the number is 128 different nations
of people have logged on and joined us in this house. Come on, we get struck down
and we rise up stronger, we rise up better. We have seen the dispersal
of manufacturing. We were one house
in 13 locations, now it's all across the world. We're seeing people
logging on, what? The spitfire is within them. It's not about one building,
it's not about one house, we look forward to the day when
everywhere we can gather again and it's different,
and all that. But we're not waiting
for the pandemic and to engage and do what
God has called us to do, we're doing it right now. God is touching people,
building his bride, saving people, healing people,
engaging people, enlisting people. Unshackled spirit,
unshackled spirit, that's the story of
Acts chapter five. These men were thrown
in jail, so what are they doing outside preaching? What are they doing outside
preaching when they were supposed to be behind bars? And how about the fact that when
the soldiers came to get them, the doors were locked. The doors were still shut. The bars were still
across the jail cell. They're outside
preaching, and the doors that should have held
them back are still bound firmly in place. Now I love that God chose
to do this miracle this way, because you know
he can open doors. Amen? God can open doors. In fact, in Acts chapter
16, Paul and Silas will get put in jail, and while
they're worshipping earthquake happens, the doors bust open. And they're brought out of the
jail cell through open doors. So I believe God can open doors,
but what I love about Acts five is that God brought them
out, and for whatever reason had the angels leave
the doors securely shut. So whether they were able to
pass them through the bars, or whether they will be
able to shrink them down to itty bitty like Stuart
Little and get them out like honey I shrunk
the apostles, we don't know exactly. But we do know that when
they came looking for them, the doors are still shut. Nevertheless they're
out there preaching. Y'all I love this, because we
did pray and ask God to send the pandemic away, to open the
doors and let us do everything back like we [INAUDIBLE] but
God said in his own sovereignty and purposes, I'm going to
leave the door shut and reach the world. I'm going to leave the
door shut of this trial and do my purpose. I'm going to leave the agitation
of this demonic backlash and do good work. I'm going to glorify my
name by allowing this thing to remain and do what I
want to do through it. I love that God can calm
the storm for his child, but God can also calm his
child while the storm rages. And so whichever he picks, we
get to watch his plan unfold. Crisis is our catalyst,
and these initiatives that we've come up with, that
we've put out there as things we would love to fully fund. If all God's people
come together, these dreams beyond that
of the ministry that we're going to do, and
the ways that we're going to pave the way for the
future ministry of Fresh Life to continue to expand, to
continue to touch more lives. The way that we're
continually, as a church, through our tithes and offerings
going to in an ongoing way do the things that
God's already doing. This is our way
to say, we're not going to choose when
the doors are finally open to begin to
do these things. Because the heavens want to
pour out power on us right now. God intends, even in these days
while the doors remain shut, to like never before for poor
out his mercy on the earth. I want to give you
three words in a moment that I hope and pray would
mark your spirit as you give, and mark your life as you
participate in these days. But first, as
promised, let's return to the scene of the
preaching apostles who should be in
prison, as we finally find the religious leaders
deciding what to do about them. Verse 40, and when they
had called for the apostles and beaten them, they
commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus,
and they let them go. So they departed from the
presence of the council, rejoicing that they were
counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple,
and in every house, they did not cease teaching and
preaching Jesus as the Christ. They said, with all due respect,
we are the Easter people, and hallelujah is our song. So if you're going
to kill us, kill us. But we're going to preach
about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead until our last breath. And the three words
that I've pulled from this final part of
the story that I hope would your heart as you
give, are kindness, boldness, and gladness. Kindness, boldness,
and gladness. I see a kindness in the
apostles, in that this ministry was all done so that they could
get salvation to other people. They didn't need to suffer,
they were already saved. They didn't need to go through
any of this and get beat, they could say, I already
got salvation for me. Y'all this isn't about
us getting some blessing for ourselves. I believe God will
bless your finances, can bless your
finances, and wants to bless your finances, and
your life, and your soul, and your emotional health,
and your relational health, and your family's health. I believe God wants to
pour out blessing on you, but that's not really
what this is about. This is about other people. This is about more people. This is about to other
villages we must go. I'm hoping that there's a
kindness upon your heart as you give these
gifts, believing God, I'm not just doing this to get. I don't I don't
give to get, I give because I've already received. Now I want other
people to receive, and if you want to bless
me on the back end, which I believe is your
character, then so be it. But I'm not in it for that. There's a kindness, I'm
about other people receiving. And then secondly, the boldness. You cannot deny that upon the
apostle there's a boldness to their spirits. There's a dynamic,
energized enthusiasm. They're fired up,
they're fearless, it's hard to even believe
this is the same Peter that was denying Jesus
just a hot minute ago when a servant girl
said, don't you know Jesus? He's like nope, I don't,
never heard of the guy. It's like, who is this
man who's lit on fire? He's a man lit on fire. He's a man who had a piece
of that pillar of fire show up in his soul. And I'm praying that
you, with a boldness, would give and would live
for the name of Jesus. A boldness for, a
passion for souls, and that it would require
a boldness to give this kind of a gift that
you're going to give of what you have been given. That it would take
faith for you, that it would represent
a sacrifice for you, that there would be a
boldness about your life. And then Thirdly and finally, a gladness. That gladness is going
to need to be there. The disciples counted
themselves extremely blessed to be beaten for
the name of Jesus. All I'm trying to say
is if you participate in a breakthrough, what's going
to come for you is backlash. So there's going to need
to be a gladness, whatever happens next. Whatever happens on the
back, as you put yourself out there for God to
work in your life, you make yourself an
increasing target to the enemy. I speak that over every
one of you in the room, I speak that over every
one of you at home. As you put yourself out there
to watch God move through, you more and more become
hostile to the enemy who's going to come after you. And so what I'm
praying would mark your life would be a gladness,
and then when something goes bump in the night, you are
not only prepared for it, you are ready for it. And there's an instantly
hot, sort of worshipful, response to it. That you rejoice
that you would be counted worthy to suffer
for the name of Jesus. Kindness, boldness,
and gladness. In a moment I'm going
to pray, and I'm going to ask for God to
do all of that and more inside your journey. But a couple of the particulars,
the spitfire fund is now open. And with you watching on
the device that you're on, I'm not going to ask you to
do it while this is happening, but at some point today, or all
the way up until the last day of this year, you can grab
that spitfire fund drop down from the giving page
at Fresh Life Church and participate in this moment. And what we're going
to do, is we're going to contact you
when you give that gift, and we're going to ask you
how many adults would like to receive a card
with a pin on it, like the one I'm
holding in my hand that you can also see
on the screen here. And these are beautiful, and
they have an actual Fresh Life spitfire on don't with
the elliptical wings. And this card has been aged by
hand, by someone on our team, with prayer in their heart
for you and for your story. And this little pin's a
reminder you can wear, you can have
someone in your life to see and to remember
the Holy Spirit spitfire power inside your life. But then on the card
there's a space for you, on the back of it, to
write down one word. And we're asking
everybody with this gift, as you put it into
God's hands, that you would put some request. Something in your
life, this line could be a name,
that you're praying for someone's salvation. A husband, a child, that
you're praying for a spouse, you could write a spouse down. Or it could be some attribute,
or part of your life. You have some breakthrough
you want to see happen, a stronghold torn
down, a struggle that you don't want to
struggle with anymore, thorn in the flesh that's
hard for you to carry. Your word is your word,
and it is personal, and it is up to you. I'll just encourage you to be
really careful with your word, because I'm holding my
2020 card that I wrote down from last year's offering
at this time a year ago. And I made the mistake of
writing the word adjust down. That I wanted, in 2020,
to have to adjust. And I said God,
I want to adjust. And I am so sorry that
I ever wrote that, but you don't tell me God
doesn't answer prayers. Has this year not
been an opportunity? I'm not writing down
patience this year, you know what I'm saying? But you get what I'm
saying, and I really do believe that we're
going to watch God move in our lives in these days. We'll let you tell
us how many adult pins you'd like to receive. The reason I say adult
pins is because I want you to understand that
the kids get wings too. We're giving out wings to
adults, and guess what? Every child in the
Fresh Life house, every child who participates
who's given a gift, we got some wings for you too. And these wings are beautiful,
and they are colorful, and they are so
fantastic I might be tempted to want a kid's
wing because they might even be cooler. They're like the ones that you
used to get on airplanes back before they became plastic,
because these are enamel and they are beautiful. And we want every child
to know that regardless of what their gift was,
the size of it that might impress someone
or not impress someone, that your gift matters, that
your gift makes a difference, that you are a part of this too. One of my favorite
gifts that was ever given to the spitfire fund
back in the day in England, was a gift by Pamela Weeks. Pamela Weeks started
a spitfire fund, and gave what would be probably
a very meager contribution, but she encouraged
all of her friends in Liverpool to give too. And when asked why, she said,
because my daddy's in the Air Force. And every penny we give
makes a difference, because it's going
to help purchase planes to chase Hitler. And if we give enough,
then maybe our daddies will get to come home. And I want every child
in the Fresh Life house to know your father is
pleased by what you contribute towards this spitfire fund too. It was a little boy's lunch the
fed the 5,000 in Jesus's hands, and he will use your gift
to make a difference. So we'll ask you when
the gifts come in, make sure you put an email
address when I asked you for one so we can ask you how
many adult pins, how many kid pins, and for every gift we're
going to send those to you so you can have them
to wear and remember. And you can write down,
kids, your word too, and all kinds of great stuff. Now I've been saving this entire
series my favorite spitfire story. Out of all the myriad
gifts that came in that formed 13 million
pounds, enough to purchase 2600 Spitfire airplanes throughout
the entirety of the Second World War, perhaps the
most remarkable donation to a Spitfire fund came
from 2,500 British officers, who were prisoners of
war in a German prison in Wartburg, Germany,
outside Wartburg, Germany. And this particular
prison, it wasn't like a concentration
camp as much, they were allowed to work. They were each given
jobs in the prison, they were actually given
meager wages for the work that they did. And these 2,500 officers
who were prisoners of war in this
prison, they decided in hearing about what was
happening, to one month take every penny they earn from
the backbreaking work they were doing in the prison,
to give their gift that would go towards a
Swedish Red Cross account. Only through back channel
communications and letters in and out of the prison,
they actually arranged it. When the Germans,
who gave their gift and deposited it into that
Swedish account, had no idea that money was then transferred
into a Spitfire fund. And this group of
incredible soldiers all got to pick the
name of their airplane. And they bought enough, they
gave enough money for them to purchase an entire
Spitfire airplane. And they chose, for
the airplane they got to name, the two
words unshackled spirit. And I just love the
idea of these men behind bars, behind enemy
lines, using German money to fund an airplane that
would be used to win the war from behind bars. And that's sort of the
dreaming and thinking about one of my most emotional
spitfire projects. You've looked through
this and seen it, but one of the most emotional
to me is this Pando project. You saw during the offering
moment a little bit ago that-- and I'm actually holding
one in my hands here. This is one of the
Pando devices, that is even now in
prisons in Arkansas, this week will show up in
prisons both in Florida and in Arizona,
and by God's grace should we all give like I'm
praying we give, we, Fresh Life church, we're going to put
these into the hands of 5,000 prisoners across the country. And what's incredible
about them, is that they're $20 a tablet. And that's pretty astounding. And so for us to be able
to give out $100,000, they're estimating that
over the course of a year three different prisoners
will have one of these devices in their cells, in their hands. And what can God do through
15,000 inmates, who are not only going to receive
that salvation, but hopefully tell
other people about it. Come on, put it in the
check, unshackled spirit. We're believing for freedom
we've been set free. And I love it, I love that. I love that, I wish I could
talk about all 32 initiatives some more. But before you give, and
we'll sing out one more time and I'll pray for
you, I want you to look at what we believe
God's going to do through a very special grant that
we're going to give, that's very close
to my heart as well. To the Flathead Indian
Reservation Ministry called Family First. My name is Patrick Madden,
Jr. I am Upper Kalis Bay and Bitterroot Salish from
the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the
Flathead Indian reservation. My name in the language of my
people is [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH],, which means song of the thunder. There are three tribes,
the Bitterroot Salish, which was removed from
the Bitterroot Valley here in Western Montana in
1891 to the reservation. There is the Upper Kalis Bay
or the upper Pend d'Oreille, commonly known as the Kalispel. And also the lower band of
the Ksanka Kootenai, this is part of the
Aboriginal territory which extends all the
way up into Canada. Our tribes have intermingled
through the area, but officially in
1855 our tribes struck the Hellgate treaty with
the United States government, and we created the Flathead
Indian Reservation. I'm the program manager for
the Families First program, our vision is prevention
and reunification. We have a lot that
have been undervalued. They've been undereducated,
they feel underappreciated. A lot of them didn't
even finish high school and they started
having families. And they just really
haven't been given a chance. We like to help these
families with anything that might prevent
them from living in a healthy or successful
manner, such as maybe helping them with a bill, even
putting food on their table. And we just like to invite
the families to come in and to work with us. My wife and I were invited
to attend the Fresh Life Church in Polson. Pastor Killingsworth called
me and was asking about, maybe is there
somebody in the tribe that might need a
certain donation that could be made by the church? And I'm like,
listen my grant just took a hit, this
year we're not going to be operating with
our support of services, we're not going to be able
to help our clients like we were in the past. And so we just
warmly welcome that. I firmly believe that
the church is still ministering that message
of how to find the path, and that's directly
through Jesus Christ. And so as the tribal
people see something like this, that the
church is still there, that the church is
still there to help, and to love, and to minister
to the people, that it can help with the
reconciliation process. [MUSIC PLAYING] (SINGING) And if all
[INAUDIBLE] I would bring all I have to you, And if you
are the chosen son, can I come as I am to you? And if you are the calming
king, In this kingdom that we can't see, if you are the holy
one, can I come as I am to you? And it's such a testimony right
now to our tribal leadership. Our tribal council is
looking at this right now, and they're scratching
their heads going, what? We're actually getting
donations from a church that wants to help tribal families? And how did this happen again? And so to be able
to tell that story and to tell the connection
with the church, it's just such a beautiful
testimony for Fresh Life, beautiful testimony
for our personal lives, and basically all glory to God. Come on, let's thank
the Lord for that. We asked them what
the Families First grant that was lost, as
things change in regulations, about things that
they were not going to be able to do in 2021 because
of the loss of that revenue, and they talked about
how it was clothing. It was fixing windows that
would prevent people from having their children taken away. It was it was food, it was it
was these simple things that we take for granted every day. And I'm really excited
to preach the gospel and see people know that
Jesus is the bread of life, but it's hard
sometimes for people to hear about how
he's the bread of life if they don't have
actual bread to eat. And we ask what that
total was, and they said that the grant money
they're not going to have that would prevent them
from doing those things in the coming year was $47,000. And so we said on your
behalf, that should God do this work that we are
believing he's going to do, we're not only
going to give that. We're going to give $50,000
towards this ministry in this coming year,
and we're going to believe God is going to
continue to open up doors for us to even be more through
the Indian reservations in the coming days. Let me pray for you, every
single person participating. Just lifting your
heart up to God, you could through the posture
of your hands show that. Raise your hands up as
well if that's your choice. I believe that empty hands are
the only kind of hands that can receive a gift, so
when we give empty hands to God like that, when we hold
up our hands saying, God I give you me, I give you my life. I give you my heart. I believe God can
move a minister in us. And I pray, father, for your
blessing on these people, whose hearts beat in sync with yours. To say I want hungry
people to be fed, I want naked people
to be clothed, I want broken windows in a
cold climate to be repaired. We know the reservation
in particular, and prisons as well, have
been hit hard by COVID. Peoples even normal freedom
has been taken away. And in these days,
God, we want to be about your father's business,
our father's business, your business. We're not waiting
for a better time, we're not waiting for a time
that makes more sense on paper. No, we're not going to
wait to get this in place, or that in place, and
then I'll be generous. God, we want to be about
that now, and trust you now, in this crisis,
in these moments. I pray for kindness,
I pray for boldness, I pray for perfect
gladness upon your people. Fill us afresh with your spirit. Do more than we
could ask or think. Bless these gifts, and these
your children, in Jesus' name.
