Partners With God!

It's a great day to be in church. We're in a series, Reaching Into Their Future. I heard somebody wrote a book about that. And when it comes to our own faith, you know that we can have faith for ourselves or we can learn to have faith for the people around us and to be partners with God, which I'll be talking about a little bit in this message today in just a moment. And I just wanna encourage you, if you're in a group, keep meeting together. There's nothing more powerful than sharing faith and not just hearing it on a Sunday morning, but talking together with your faith. That's how we grow. And if you have yet to join a group, I encourage you to jump in on one of those. It'll really change your life. If you can just be in a conversation outside a Sunday morning, it really is worth it for anybody. I'm gonna encourage you to do that. Our foundational verse for the series is Hebrews 11, 20 out of the message. By an act of faith, Isaac reached into the future as he blessed Jacob and Esau. And of course, that particular text in Hebrews is looking back at a historical figure in the book of Genesis, Isaac, whose noteworthy part of his faith

wasn't what he did for himself, but what he did for his sons, who were not yet of the place where they were blessable, but he reached beyond the present to see into the future for them. And that's what we do in the people in our lives. And of course, we looked at there being no greater joy than to invest in the next generation or the people in our lives to see them succeed. And last week, didn't Susie and Kevin do a great job as they shared the word and so grateful for their ministry. Really, especially grateful for Kevin, stepping up and hearing from him. I just think, man, let's let our faith grow, not let's let our wives do it all. Come on, somebody. But allow there to be that. And it was really, it was faith giving and really, really appreciated hearing the word last week. Today, the title of the message is this, Partners With God, Partners With God. You know, from the beginning of the Bible until the end of the Bible, God chooses to accomplish his plans together with people. In other words, God doesn't just make a proclamation from heaven and everything changes. Beyond creation, now he partners with humanity. In fact, in Genesis chapter one, verse 27, you can find this in your manual MN notes or on the screen or with your physical Bible.

It says this in verse 27. So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky and all the animals that scurry along the ground. God gave a responsibility to humanity, to people that we do life with God. In other words, God didn't just say, I'm gonna create you and then let you spin into your own existence. But he actually creates responsibility and there's partnership with that. And beyond the garden, Noah and Abraham and Moses and the shepherds and the prophets and ordinary craftsmen, God would partner with them for the great things we read in the Old Testament. Then when you turn the corner into the New Testament, you see Jesus choosing to do ministry with disciples. He picks out people that were fishermen and said, come follow me. And how many of you know, God, Jesus still is calling us. He's turning and saying, hey, come follow me. And he did it with his disciples and then he did ministry with those disciples. And it was very important to Jesus that he didn't just do it all by himself. He did it with, everybody say with.

And John chapter 15, verse 16, he says, you didn't choose me, Jesus said this. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit so that the father will give you whatever you ask for using my name. Then when Jesus resurrected from the dead and he ascended to the father, he left the disciples, his followers, in the hands of the Holy Spirit because now the Holy Spirit was going to lead them. God was still doing work with the New Testament church. In fact, if you look at many of your Bibles, we'll say the Acts of the Apostles is the title for the book of Acts, the first early church. It really should be the Acts of the Holy Spirit with the apostles because there was a partnership back and forth with the people of God. The believers would call upon God and the Holy Spirit would inspire them to do all the things that they did. The Acts of the Holy Spirit were through and with the believers. and the believers followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit. In their ordinary day life, they'd be walking along and they would notice somebody on the side and then they would turn and instead of giving them silver and gold, they'd say, get up and walk. There was healings everywhere they went

because there was an ongoing partnership with the Holy Spirit. Church, I want you to hear me today. That's what Jesus wants to do with you today. That it's not just a promise in the Old Testament, but Holy Spirit wants to partner with you. You see, God views his relationship with us as a partnership. It is something that we do together. Everything that God does, he does with people. The word for that is covenant. Co, a prefix, means with. We do this together. We each have a different responsibility, but we do it together. When you get married and you have a covenant relationship in marriage, it's both sides having responsibility to be with. This last week, I went with a group of 20 people from Emmanuel to Turkey and Greece. And we represented all four of our locations. We went to ancient ruins where there were the seven churches of Revelation and we visited them. We saw coliseums and different aspects that are all written about in the book of Acts. Did you know beyond a few chapters into the book of Acts, almost all of the New Testament isn't in Israel? It's actually in other parts of the world. And so we're looking at our forefathers of the faith, if you will, at each of these locations.

And it was a fantastic, fantastic trip. I might even have to preach a series on it coming up some point. Because each of those letters that are written in Revelation two and three to specific churches, they received that letter. And they did something with that. And there's some powerful things, really grateful for the friends. Now, when you're on a trip, you kind of have shared experiences. And those shared experiences develop relationship. We were close when we came back. Closer than we were when we got on the plane. Now something happens when you get on a plane, you check your luggage, and you get to Izmir, Turkey. And out of the 20 people, 13 of us did not receive our luggage. And for the first seven days of the trip, we all wore the same clothes every day. Now we got a little bit desperate. We were finding places, do they have undergarments? Do they have socks? Those kind of things. And they didn't have my size. So you had to make do. And you had to figure out how to make that work. Now something happens as we, everybody had a positive attitude. I'm so grateful for my teammates

and each of the locations that were represented. We were many different age groups. And everybody had a positive attitude. And we eventually got it when we flew from Izmir to Athens, Greece for the last two days of our trip. Our luggage was greeting us in the luggage area at the airport. It was almost like the lost sheep had come home. We're like, my luggage. And I was so happy, I was like, I'm gonna wear a different outfit in the morning, and in the afternoon, in the evening. I was like, let's go. And our bus, everything was better. We got to our bus, and it was a Mercedes Benz. And I was singing in my, ♪ Moving on up, moving on up to the top. ♪ And I was singing. You got so many old school people will know the reference there to the Jeffersons. Come on, somebody. But I was in my feels because of that. And I know this, when we got on the plane in Athens to come home on Friday, when we landed yesterday at about 12.30 in the afternoon, we felt very tight and close. We had shared experiences. We had been somewhere together. Did you know that that's how relationships are built? They're built through shared experiences.

And that's how God builds his relationship with you. He doesn't wanna be distant. He wants to have a shared daily experience with you. He wired us to have daily experiences with him, to dialogue with him, to share what we're going through, for him to share with us. He's all knowing, he could do it by himself, but he chooses to do it with us. And that's why it's crucial that we know whose we are. If you don't believe that God loves you and wants to be with you. with you, then you won't receive the other side of the relationship. You won't invite him into your journey. Couple weeks ago we talked about Psalm 139 where it says, you know me, you form me, you shape me in my mother's womb. You're intimately aware of who I am and where I am. Where can I go to hide from your presence, Psalm 139 says. I can go to the highest mountain, the lowest valley, you're there. That he's actually interested in us. It's really important that you receive that grace on a daily level, because when you did something last night that you regret, sometimes as human beings we want to withdraw from God because we messed up. That's the worst thing you can do. In fact, if you lean in, while we were sinners, Christ died for us. He already knew you got junk in your trunk.

He already knew that you had stuff in your story that you were ashamed of, and yet he still died for you. You need his grace when you mess up. You need to lean into the relationship and let him be a part of your journey when you go along. That's how God works. He's not just there with us on our best day. He's there on our worst day. That's a relationship with God. He likes you and he chooses to be with you. Turn to the person next to you and say he likes you and he chooses to be with you. If you believe this, then God wants to walk with you into your Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, with a fresh download of connection with the Holy Spirit. Each day can have purpose, even if you don't see it yet. God wants to bring purpose to your days. You are not a mistake. Where you are is not a mistake. Your age is not a mistake. You're exactly where he wants you to be. And God offers a prophetic partnership for all of us. God's plan all along wasn't just to work with a few select heroes in the Bible. No, his plan was to have a real partnership with you. And his plan was to take that partnership viral. In Acts chapter two, on the day of Pentecost, Peter stands up, there's all this noise going on, and people are prophesying, they're speaking in tongues,

it's an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And he quotes from the book of Joel, the promise. And it says this in verse 17 of Acts chapter two, verse 17. In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. And your old men will dream dreams. In those days, I will pour out my spirit, even on my servants, men and women alike, and they will, what? Prophesy. Now, when I was younger, I thought prophecy was just old people in the back of the service giving an apocalyptic message to which everybody cringed and waited for it to be over. That's not what is prophesied in the Old Testament. Yes, there are apocalyptic messages from time to time, but in reality, if you see all of the promises of the movement of God, Yahweh with the people of Israel, and he worked with specific leaders during those times, the promise was that God would take all of that partnership with a nation, and he would bring it to everyone. It would be as if it was only with the aristocrats or the high-class people or the people with religious titles were the ones talking in dialogue with God. But God said, that's not what I want. I want to partner with average single-parent homes. I want to be with young adults,

and I want to be with teenagers, and I want to work with people who are in retirement age. I want to partner with everybody, and he says, young and old. I don't know which category you put yourself in with that. It says sons and daughters. There's a promise not only for you, but also for your kids and your grandkids and the next generation. But it says men and women. There's no distinction here. God wants to partner with everybody, and they would prophesy. To prophesy is to speak God-inspired words in your native language. We have many people in our congregation that speak Spanish, or they come from a French-speaking background or country, or they come from the East, and we've got all kinds of languages in our church. I'm thankful God has called us to be a house of prayer for all nations, amen? But when God pours out his holy word, Spirit, he's not just gonna do some weird thing with you, but that he would inspire you in your native language. And that he would use you to communicate what God is saying to you to the people around you. Not in church only, in fact, I don't think this was meant to be a church context prophecy only. No, it was actually meant for our everyday activities.

When we go to work, when we go to school, when we're on the ball field, wherever we go, God wants to anoint you in such a way that everybody, virally, everyone, turn to the person next to you and say, he's talking about you too. Everyone to be used of God. But then there's God-inspired living, not just speech, but God-inspired listening. You know, there are times when God just tells me to close my mouth. How many of you know those are anointed times sometimes? And just listen to somebody. Instead of telling them what to do, maybe God is wanting me to listen. And then as I'm listening, the Holy Spirit will reveal what's really going on in a person's heart. Did you know, parents, that's what God wants to do through you with your kids. And not just evaluate their behavior, but maybe there's something else going on. You can't quite put your finger on it, but Holy Spirit will help you listen through it. What is God saying could be something that we can ask the Lord every single day as we partner with him. We can say, Lord, what are you saying to me? How many want more than just last year's camp experience to be the last time you heard from God? But you wanna hear a fresh word from Jesus.

You wanna have a fresh connection to him. But what is he saying to us? What is he saying to us in our church? I can tell you this, after visiting the seven churches of Revelation and hearing the letters that were spoken to individual churches, I was hungry to come back to this city, to our church, and say, God, what are you saying to Emmanuel? In the middle of all the stuff that's going on in our city and our state, and all of the confusion and all of the fighting and all of the stuff, I wanna know, Lord, what are you saying to us? Because I can't get it online from some podcast, and I don't really care just what everybody else is saying on the political aisle side of things. I wanna know what God is saying to our church right now. That's what I wanna know. If you look at the Revelation letters, the churches that received those words were responsible to respond to his words. We wanna have that real-time connection to God. What is God saying to the world around us? We know what we think judgmentally when we look and we critique the world around us, but what is God saying about your next-door neighbor? What is God saying about your family member, or that person you go to work with, or the person you sit next to at school?

What is God saying to them? Do you know? Aha! I'm starting to wake up. Daylight savings. We were nine hours different when I came back. That's called jet lag. And then I lost an hour. Who cares, right? Who cares? Being prophetic is living ready for the nudge of the Holy Spirit. You see, God loves the world around us, and he'll use us to reach them. In Turkey and Greece, we had a evening prayer time and sharing as a team a few of our nights. And on a few of the nights, team members would share their salvation moment and story, and then we would also share what we love about the church. And I loved hearing from everybody in our group because we had lots of history and story and tried to shrink it into a small amount of time. Tears were beginning to flow. It was holy ground because we were remembering the sacred stuff that God had done in people's lives. And we actually knew each other better after hearing our stories. But as we were sharing, there were many different people. Almost every single person,

when they were sharing their story, didn't only talk about Jesus. They talked about the multiple other people in their salvation story. The person that invited them to church, the person that had prayed for them, the person that showed love to them when they didn't deserve to be loved. And God had used many other people in their story. One couple, they talked about how both of the husband and the wife did not grow up in church, didn't even think about church. There are a lot of people like that in the city right now. They got up this morning and they're like, should I go to Starbucks? They aren't even thinking about church. How many know Jesus loves those people? The people that are outside the church, the people that nobody else is thinking about. And so this couple were sharing their story and there was a person in their life that kept bugging them to go to church, inviting them, knocking on the door, being irritating with it. So finally they gave in just to get her off their back. They came to church, they had young kids at the time and one had to leave, the husband had to leave to go bring a diaper to one of them in the nursery during the service. So his wife was up in the front and he was in the back

and then the salvation moment came in the service and the preacher got up and offered the free gift of salvation and a sinner's prayer and all of that. And the wife, she said, I was in the front and I didn't even know what was going on and my heart was moved so big that my hand just went up in the air. And she said, while I'm doing that, people around me put their hands on my shoulder and I felt like I was connected to something bigger than just my relationship with Jesus. I was in a family, I was home. And at the same time, her husband comes back into the sanctuary and he's at the back of the room and at the same moment, in the back of the room, he raises his hand and gives his life to Christ. And a group of people in the back of the room gathered around him and began to pray and they both had the same experience, 100 feet away from each other. I love those pictures where God uses other people. There's another person that as a child, she grew up in a home where both mom and dad were alcoholics and they weren't ever gonna go to church. The mom had an attitude about churches but there was a local Baptist church that ran a bus and knocked on the door and said, hey, I'll take your kids to church. She was one of them. She gave her life to Jesus.

The cool thing is, several years later, her parents gave their lives to Jesus as well. See, God uses people, people. Yes, I love preaching and yes, we have lots of platforms and many people will give their lives to Jesus hearing a preacher. But the biggest life change happens when ordinary people are partners with God, prophetically, in real time, used of God to make a difference in other people's lives. Every single person who told their story had other people in it, God's partners in their story. Let me say this to you right now. You are God's partner. He loves the world but he sends you to show it. People will see Jesus through you. Second Corinthians 5.20. So we are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, come back to God. You know, there are people in your life that you make a difference in and you don't even know it. I used to take missions trips to New York City. We'd take teenagers there over the years to Brooklyn and we would serve in various ministries around New York City. One of them was the Bowery Mission. And the Bowery Mission's a historic mission in New York City where they have housing, they feed people and they have a chapel service.

In order to get food, you gotta sit through a chapel service. And I remember I got to preach in it, it was pretty powerful. And I heard a story at the Bowery Mission about a guy who had been an alcoholic addict who used to have a family and a good job but one thing led to another and he found himself homeless. And one day he gave his life to Christ and he decided to serve in the Bowery Mission after that. So after being saved, he decides I'm gonna love other people that have the experience that I have. And he ends up out in the streets serving people and one day he goes along and he sees a guy, there's a crowd around this guy who's on the ground, he's got vomit on the ground, he's had a horrible OD type of scenario and he bends down and he nurtures the guy, he takes care of him, he cleans him off, picks him up and he takes him back to the Bowery Mission and then he nurtures him over days and weeks. All those people around were watching Joe and he never made it, he wasn't preachy but they saw his life. Fast forward six months later, somebody comes in and they're preaching. in the daily chapel service and do an altar call and somebody, people are coming to the front and there's a guy over to the side that was on the steps, pounding the steps saying, make me like Joe, make me like Joe, make me like Joe.

And some good hearted Christian mature person came along, put a hand on his shoulder and said, don't you mean make me like Jesus? The guy looks up and says, is he like Joe? All those people in your life that are never in our church are gonna evaluate Jesus through your life. God is using you in the world around you to be a good partner with him. And listen, there are lots of opportunities and let me just say this as a church, my desire is for us to reach the people who aren't here right now. Because God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him won't perish, but they'll have eternal life if they know him. So you got a month until Easter, a little less than that now. What if you became that irritating person in a good way? You knocked on the door, invited people to come to church and you weren't just preparing for your family to come over for lunch, but you're thinking about what are we gonna do that weekend for the people God has placed us around in our world around us? And listen, all the pressure's not on you. Sometimes people are like, I don't even wanna try because there's so much need. I can never meet all the needs in my world around you.

Just do the assignment Jesus has called you to do and he will do it with you. In Matthew 11, 29, Jesus said, take my yoke upon you, let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear and the burden I give you is light. Now a yoke was farming equipment where it was a piece of wood that would tie two animals together to keep them at the same pace as they were pulling a plow or something else. So a yoke was used to help get the work done. And when you had two animals, they both carried the load together. When Jesus uses this language of take my yoke upon you, he's not doing that because he demands less of you but because he bears more of the load with you. You know, Jesus wants to come in and help you through the difficult things you're walking in. He wants to partner with you in ways that maybe you haven't even accepted in your story. All those battles that you face, the weight, the bills, the tension in your life. Did you know that Jesus wants to work with you? And we are partners with God and he knows how to send other partners our way to encourage us, to help us on the way. And he'll use all of us as we're ready. Listen, if you share the weight with Jesus,

you'll share the joy of Jesus. And if we do that, he will join us. So let me give you, just today, four essentials to partner with God and reach into their future. If your desire is to help the people around you, to partner with God, let me give you four essentials that will help you do that. Number one, turn on your Holy Spirit Wi-Fi. Live connected every single day. There is something about every, you know, when we were on a flight overseas and then we got off and there was different signals. Couldn't wait to get to the hotel where we got the Wi-Fi so we get all of the messages back and forth. And while we're there, oh, a war broke out on the country next to us. So there were some things going on and we were trying to figure out what to do. We were safe, by the way, there was no issues there. But we were kind of hungry for it. Until we were connected, we didn't know. We hadn't received the messaging. Does that make sense? How about your days? Until you connect with the Holy Spirit Wi-Fi, you don't know what God wants to do in the people in your life. So praying and reading the word and connecting with God is absolutely critical.

And check in and asking, Lord, what are you saying to me today? What are you saying to us in our family or the church? What are you saying about the world around? Connect to the Wi-Fi, get the current updates, the software that God wants to download in your life on Tuesday, not just Sunday morning when you're listening to me. But where you would say, God, I need you. See, partnership. It requires being connected, John chapter 15. Jesus says, yes, I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit, for apart from me you can do some things. What's it say? Apart from me you can do nothing. Four essentials to partner with God and reach into their future. Number one is turn on your Holy Spirit Wi-Fi. Number two, address blind spots on your path of travel. Your days are going different places, school, work, different places that you go digitally. And Jesus tells a story that his audience would understand in Luke chapter 10, when he says, Jesus replied with a story. A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.

Of course, the rest of the story is about the Good Samaritan. Many people know that story. But there are three individuals in Jesus' story. One of them is a priest, who is a religious person, who might have had reasons to not look at somebody who was bloodied on the ground. And so he crossed to the other side of the road. Then his assistant pastor, or his assistant worship leader, crossed as well, because he was following the leader. And then meanwhile, a despised Samaritan, one that the Jews would not respect, did not like, was the hero in Jesus' story, who bent down, took care of the guy's wounds, put him in a hotel, or in a hospital, or something like that, to have his needs met. And of course, many people not know that story. But I want you to think for a moment about what Jesus was saying in the story. Who do you see yourself as in the story? When you think about your Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and the people that Jesus cares about in your life, are you passing to the other side of the road and ignoring him? Or do you have some blind spots? Because if you're wanting the Holy Spirit to speak to you, and he's saying, I want you to go over to this person, and you're like, nope, I'm going this way. How many know he might stop talking to you?

If we don't respond to what the Holy Spirit is saying, we're not reaching the people who are on God's heart. And by the way, it's not all on you. Jesus carries the yoke with you. You're only to be obedient and do your part. And you might only be one of many people God is calling on to intervene in that person's story. We have willful blind spots and ignorant blind spots. Things we're even unaware of. What if we paused and said, Lord, would you open my eyes to see the people you're wanting me to connect with? Lord, help me to see it. Lord, I'm sorry if I've crossed to the other side of the road. I'm sorry I'm not noticing those individuals. We need to start seeing them. Four essentials to partner with God and reach into their future. One was turn on your Holy Spirit Wi-Fi. Two is address blind spots on your path of travel. Number three, partner with God in prayer for them. Number three, partner with God in prayer for your people. What if you approached your prayer as a partnership, where you enter in and you begin to say, Lord, my son or my daughter, they're teenagers now, and I'm not as smart to them as I used to be. But Lord, you're in their life. Would you help me to partner with you? We're tag teaming.

We're in this thing together. What if you thought about the people that you work with, the people that you can't, Lord, what's in your mind about them? What's their story? And you begin to pray. And if we wanna reach other people, I'm gonna give you an acronym, BLESS, B-L-E-S-S. The BLESS acronym is this. The first is B. The B stands for B, begin with prayer. What if before you talk to them, you ask God to show you how he wants you to connect with the people in your life? And let that be the prayer connection. The L is listen to them. Pay attention to their struggles, their stories, their dreams, without rushing to fix or judge. I think the church talks too much judgmentally, and we don't listen enough. What if we listen to people's story a little bit more? We had prophetic hearing. Tell me more about your life. Tell me about your backstory. Where did you come from? Not, you shouldn't be living this way. That comes later if they ask for it. So, L, listen to them. E, eat with them.

Look for creative ways to meet real needs. Did you know when you go out for a meal, it's kind of relational? Or maybe it's just for coffee. You're across. the table and you can have good conversations. S stands for serve them, the first S is. What if you look for creative ways to serve them? How can I help them? And then S, the final S, is share your story. After you've done all these things, you've prayed, you've listened to them, you've eaten with them, you've served them, then that gives you the open door to share your story. Instead of starting with your story, what if you started with their story? And you started before that with the prayer partnership that you have with God. When the time is right, you talk about how God has worked in your life. A praying heart is a ready heart, tuned in to God's voice, open to his prompting, and prepared to respond when he puts someone in our path. It's not on your shoulders alone, but when you're praying, there's something moving in the spirit. Four essentials to partner with God and reach into their future. One was turn on your Holy Spirit Wi-Fi. Two, address blind spots on your path of travel. Three, partner with God in prayer for your people.

And finally, number four, choose the daily adventure. Anything is possible. What if you got up in the morning, you're like, all right, Lord, what are we gonna do today? And you have this perspective that, as Psalm 118 says, this is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. What if you got up and go, Lord, this is Monday. This is the day you have made. What you got up your sleeve today? And you went into it with a partnership attitude. We are excited. Even when you've got things that are disappointing around you and you don't know how it's gonna work out, but you get up and you're like, Lord, I wanna partner with you today, and I know life with you is an adventure. It's kind of like, we don't have any luggage today. So what you gonna do? What's gonna happen instead of, I don't have any luggage today. We focus only on what we don't have. What if our eyes were opened up and we said, anything is possible. I've got previous days where people's lives are not turning around and we're disappointed with our children or disappointed with somebody that we work with, but instead of that, say, Lord, today, what do you want to do? I want eyes of faith for what you can do

because anything is possible. Anything is possible. I got the picture in my head of Kevin Garnett back in the day. Anything is possible! That's what I'm feeling. Let's say, anything is. Come on, church. Anything is possible at school. Anything is possible in your neighborhood. Anything is possible with your family. Anything. God can transform anyone. What if you started each day with a possibility of faith for other people? My favorite thing to do with teammates, and I did it today, was walking around as a little fist bump. Turn to the person next to you and give them a good fist bump. You know what that does? It's kind of like, we're in this together. I see you. Let's go. Before I get up on the platform today, I was walking up to the platform. We do a little exchange. Nathan and I, and I'm about to take the pulpit and preach. We just give a little fist bump.

What if you did that with God? We're gonna fist bump today. I'm in this with you. I'm a partner with you. It's not all on my shoulders. We're in this together. With God, anything is possible. With God, I can do this thing. I'm more than a conqueror through him that loved me. With Holy Spirit with me, even though I'm weak, he makes me strong. I don't have to live with a half full picture of life because with God, he fills my cup. I have the ability to keep moving. Some of you are like, well, I don't have a wife yet, or I don't have a husband yet. Don't you worry about a husband or a wife. God will fill you up. And if you're full, then you'll get another full person maybe down the road, but you don't need that in order to be full today. Give your fist bump to God. You're not alone. Come on, somebody. You are not by yourself. You're not by yourself at work. You're not by yourself at school. You're not by yourself at home. You got somebody to fist bump with right now. Come on, somebody.

He's with you. Would you stand with me today? I'm calling you. church to partner with God for others. I'm tired of only wanting to get a word for myself. Only thinking about how God's gonna fill my cup. I want the kind of faith in our church where we're believing God for the people around us. We're partners with God for the people in our life. What if we begin to ask God, what are you saying to me? What are you saying to us? What are you saying to the world around us? What if Holy Spirit wants to do more? He's waiting for us to put the Wi-Fi up. He's waiting for us to stop trying to do it on our own. Did you know the promise is for everybody? If you have not yet been baptized in the Holy Spirit, you begin to seek God for everything he has, he will fill you with his spirit. And it won't be for you, it'll be for the world that is around you. God has called you to be his ambassador to the family that you're in, to the school that you go to, to the neighborhood that you live in. But you cannot do it alone. You are a partner with God. Come on, somebody. What is he saying to the world around us? We're gonna worship the Lord in a few moments,

but I'd like you to do this. It's almost like throwing the Wi-Fi out. Put your hands up in the air, church. Lord, we come before you today. We thank you, Lord, that you sent other people who are partners with you into our life. Lord, they nudged us along, they got us to where we are. Thank you for, Lord, moms and dads and friends and people in the church world that have mentored us, people that have brought us to this place. But Lord, now, we wanna partner with you for other people. We want to be a partner, we wanna fist bump heaven. And we wanna be on mission for where you've called us to go and to be. So as we lean into intimacy with you, Lord, would you pour out your spirit. I pray that you would baptize afresh in the power of the Holy Spirit, everyone under the sound of my voice, that we wouldn't be waiting for just an inspirational message from a pastor or a fired-up worship team, but we would go into our Mondays saying, this is the day that the Lord has made, and I will rejoice and be glad in it. I'd be filled with the Spirit. Lord, fill us up outside the church. Fill us up in our homes. Fill us up in our bedrooms. Fill us up everywhere that we go, Lord, with everything promised in your word.

We thank you, Father, as we call upon your name. In Jesus' name, amen, amen, amen.