The Unstoppable Church | Sean Braithwaite

If we haven't met before, my name's Sean Braithwaite. I'm one of the pastors here. It's good to see you guys. I wanna give a shout out to anyone joining us online in the God Behind Bars campus at Somerset. We love you guys. We're praying for you. You're with us. And I don't know if you heard the news, but we have a new lead pastor. Come on, somebody. This past Sunday, the members here at Allison Park Church, man, overwhelmingly voted to affirm Pastor Josh Leek as the next lead pastor here at Allison Park Church. So come on, can we give it up for that? It's incredible. Pastor Josh and his wife, Allison, and their kids, they're taking some time away to be together before they step into that role. Two weeks from today, throughout our services that weekend of June 6th and 7th, we're gonna have installment services for them. So it's gonna be a powerful time. Don't miss that. And I just wanna say, I'm so excited. Josh is the man. I've grown up here. Man, he's been a mentor in my life. He's been a great friend in my life. I've seen the growth.

I've seen the anointing on his life. I've seen, man, everything God has been doing. He's been my boss the last six years, so not much is changing for me, honestly. But come on, I'm excited for the future. Can we give it up one more time for Josh and Allie? Lauren and I, we love you guys. We're behind you. We love you guys so much. And again, I grew up here. My family started to come here at Allison Park Church about 29 years ago. So I went through KidZone. I went through the youth group here. And then after I graduated high school, I went through the ministry school. So Allison Park Leadership Academy. So I went through that. And during that year, I was going through the ministry school. I was also interning in the kids department. And then also I was on the facilities team. I was a janitor here. Shout out to our facilities team. Come on, they're incredible. But at some point throughout the year, someone thought it would be a good idea to make me the lead janitor. That was not a good idea, as you'll soon find out. So it's January, 2018.

And I am tasked with my facilities team to set up the baptism pool. It's a baptism weekend. Some of you may have heard me told this story before. And before, we have a different tank than we do now. We used to have an above ground pool. We would set up in the concourse. It was one of the inflatable ring pools that you'd fill up with water and go up together. We, it was big, so big that we could baptize two people at the same time. Come on, somebody, let's go back to that. And I had never set this up before. Here I am, the lead janitor, and I'm leading the other janitors. And I'm like, I don't know, do you know? And they're like, I don't know. And we're setting it up on the Friday before. And we're hurrying because a snowstorm is coming. So we don't fill it up yet. We just set down the base and we're like, okay, that looks good. And then we go home. Snowstorm comes. I'm the only one that can make it in the next day on Saturday. And we need to be up and running for Saturday night service, okay? So I get in there. I'm the only janitor that can make it in

because of the storm. So I come in and I have two jobs. One, I need to shovel the front entrance. And then two, I need to fill this pool. So I get two hoses. I put it in the pool. I start to fill it because you know, two is better than one, obviously, right? So I start to fill it. And then I go outside and I start to shovel. And then I go back and forth from shoveling, filling the pool, shoveling. I'm checking on it. I'm like, I'm so nervous about it. Finally, the pool gets to about 75% of the way full. And I'm like, okay, it looks stable. It looks good. I'm gonna go shovel the last 10, 15 minutes, finish up the front parking lot. Here we go. So I go outside. I'm shoveling, I'm shoveling, I'm shoveling. And then I come in. And some of you know where the story is headed. And I walk through. And you know, on sunny days, when there's snow on the ground, you get that sun glare, you know? So it's kind of blessed. So I was walking into the building,

the front entrance here of the concourse, and my eyes adjust to the room. And when they do, I see water everywhere. The entire carpet is drenched in water. And I stand there and I'm like, oh my gosh. And I start, I like panic. And I start to throw my shovel on the ground. I tear off my gloves. I tear off my jacket. I start to run toward the pool. I'm saying words that should not be said in a church. I'm sorry, Josh. Okay, so I'm over there. And I get to the pool and it's too late. The water's trickling out. There's still some water left. It's a mess. I'm looking at this. And look, I swear I said this. I'm not, this is not an exaggeration. I pray this prayer. I say, Jesus, you need to clean this up. You did it at the Red Sea. You did it at the Jordan. Can you do a little miracle here in Hampton Township in this concourse? And then all of a sudden the water, I'm just kidding. But I was like, what am I going to do? And I thought, you know what? I made the mess myself.

I'll clean it up myself. So like a fool, I go up and I go get a wet vac from our shop. And I go and I'm starting on the floor and I'm trying to get as much water as I can. I'm like, maybe I can get it in time enough to make it dry and then set up, reset the pool and do all these things. And then finally the Holy Spirit says, Sean, stop. He's like speaking to me on the inside. He said, Sean, stop, call for help. And I said, okay, okay. So I call my boss, I call, his name's Bill, Bill Miller. I think he might be here. Yeah, come on over here, the Miller family. Some of you know him. At the time, Bill was my boss. And I say, Bill, you're gonna wanna get here, okay? And he drives, and the whole time he's driving up, I'm thinking he's gonna be so mad at me. He's gonna be so mad. And he comes to the front door, he walks in, he sees the mess, and he starts to laugh. And I said to myself, I said, oh, he's not going to be mad at me, he's going to murder me. And he goes in for a hug, he gives me a hug, and he says, Sean, it's gonna be okay. Let's make some calls. And so we start to make calls, and within an hour, we have 20 to 30 people here

with wet vacs and shop vacs and the different equipment coming in. I called some of my ministry school fellow students. They came in with their own towels, and they're stomping on the floor. On the concourse floor, and then taking the towels outside in the cold and wringing them out. We had to reset the pool. There's some water we had to move. My dad, he worked at Mount Royal Cemetery for years. He goes and gets the pump they use to dig out water from the graves, and we put that in to pump the water. There's a picture of me somewhere with a huge pump of just water going out the door. And within a couple hours' time, this is early afternoon on Saturday, within a couple hours' time, we had the floor cleared, fans going, it was drying. We reset the pool, and we filled it up enough for people to get baptized that night. Come on. And the irony of the story is, I'm now in charge of baptisms. So Josh, we need to change that, okay? But I just remember in that moment, I remember looking around at all the people there to help, at the moment's notice, they came, and they were giving of their equipment, of their time.

My dad going to get that crazy water pump, all these other things. Man, I am so thankful for the church. I'm so thankful for the church. I made, I flooded the church, but the church helped me clean it up. Because how many of you know, church is more than just a building? Church is more than just a service. It's not a program, it is a people. It is the people of God coming together to worship God, to connect together, to serve together, to love and support one another. In that moment, I saw the beauty of the church. This is what I wanna talk about today, the beauty of the church. And there's a great passage we find in Acts chapter two, verses 42 to 47, you can pull it up, we'll have it on the screen as well. I'll give some context for this passage in a moment, but I just wanna read, this is a description of the early church, the early disciples, how they lived. And let's dive into it together right now. Verses 42 to 47, it says, they devoted themselves, everyone say devoted. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.

All the believers were together, they had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day, they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and they ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. Isn't that an awesome description? Isn't that great? This is a blueprint of the church. And I realized too, there may be a few different ways to look at this, depending on your background, depending how you're viewing it, maybe it depends on the day. You could look at it maybe like a skeptic. You could say, Sean, this sounds like a bit much. Daily, they were meeting, they were doing all these things and it's a lot of people, that's a lot of time. I don't know about that. I'm more of a lone wolf, I don't know. Or you might look at it like a fantasy. You could say, oh, Sean, doesn't that sound nice? It sounds like the end of a movie, right? It sounds like at the end of the movie,

everyone's together, they're having a meal, peace on earth, there's fireworks going off. It feels great, but it's not reality, Sean. It sounds like a fantasy. Or you might say, you could look at it like it's a dream. You could say, I wish church was like this, but this is not what I've experienced. I've experienced some hurt or pain, or this is not exactly the description maybe I would give for it. But I think what we wanna look at it as, we wanna look at it as a model for how we should live our lives, for how we should operate and move forward and together as a church. And I just wanna say, I love Allison Park Church. This is my home church. When I read this passage, I can see it here in this church. And I just wanna step back for a moment. Let's give some context to this passage, okay? So Jesus dies, right? He goes to the cross, he takes our sin. He dies, he's then resurrected. He's around for a little bit to prove that he's alive. And then he ascends to heaven. But before doing that though, he tells his disciples to wait for the power from the Holy Spirit. Wait for the Holy Spirit. So the disciples, they go in the upper room, they're praying.

and they're praising God together, and then all of a sudden, this is the beginning of Acts chapter two, all of a sudden, boom, they are baptized in the Holy Spirit. This was actually the day of Pentecost. Pentecost was actually one of the main Jewish festivals. So people from all around the world were in Jerusalem, where the disciples were at, and actually today, this Sunday, is this is Pentecost Sunday. So what we're reading about right now, what I'm talking about right now, 2,000 years ago, we can trace it back to that point. Pentecost Sunday, this is today. So the disciples were empowered in this moment. The Holy Spirit, there's a dramatic scene if you read the beginning of Acts chapter two. Dramatic scene, the wind blows, tongues of fire lay on them. They start to now speak in other languages as the Spirit enables them. So I'll just pause here for a second. This is what we call the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We believe in this year that God still does this today. It's different from water baptism. It is a moment where the Holy Spirit overflows in your life, and you might have questions about that, or you might be like, Sean, I've never heard of that, or maybe there's some weird experience you've had with that before.

Listen, I don't have the time to dive into that today, but there's a better teacher that I can point you to. His name's Jeff Leek, and he did a great sermon just a while back about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So if you go on the app and you're tracking along in the notes, there's gonna be a link for that message. He also wrote a book about that. If you have questions about that, I would love to talk to you about that, but I just wanna point that resource to you because it's powerful, it's powerful. And so again, the church is started in this moment. This miracle happens, the Holy Spirit is poured out, they begin to speak these other languages. And as they're doing it, they're in the upper room, they're in Jerusalem, the other people in the area, they begin to hear their own native tongue being spoken. Like they hear their language, and they see that these men, they're not educated. How can they be speaking these languages? And Peter uses that moment to go out and preach the gospel. He begins by talking about the prophets, and how all of that points to Jesus and what he did for us. And 3,000 people that day are saved, and they're baptized in water. Isn't that incredible? The church is birthed in this moment. It's an amazing thing. And I just wanna point out too, how do we get from the moment

where all these people are being saved? Remember, they're people from different areas, they have different languages, different backgrounds, different customs, different preferences, all this difference, how do we get from that, all those different people, to then what we just read a few seconds ago, where the church is together in unity, where the church is moving as a force and loving and serving each other and all these things, how do we get to that? And the answer is this, the Holy Spirit united the church. The Holy Spirit was poured out. And many scholars, they'll look at the day of Pentecost as a redemption of what we read in Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel. If you've read that story before, you'll remember that the people of that time, the people of the world at that time, they were not following God, but there was all these people, they had one language, and they were trying to build a tower for their own glory. They were trying to build it up to the heavens. And they were, it was pretty big and massive, and it actually gets God's attention. And God comes down and he sees this, and he says, if they have the same language, and if they've built this tower, then nothing will be impossible for them.

So he goes down and he disrupts them, he disrupts the languages, then they're now in confusion, they can't build it up any higher. And then we get, again, 2,000 years, or not 2,000, thousands of years later to the day of Pentecost, the Spirit is poured out, and what happens? They all start to speak different languages as the Spirit enables them. But in this moment, instead of disunity, the Holy Spirit brings unity. Instead of building a tower for our glory, God wants to build a church for his glory. And he does that by the power of the Holy Spirit, uniting us together as a church united. And here's what I wanna talk about today. A united church is a unstoppable church. A united church is an unstoppable church. You know, we're gathering together, but we're not just in our own section, in our own area. We belong to a rich history that goes back 2,000 years. What I was just reading about in the book of Acts, we can trace the church's origin all the way back to that point. For 2,000 years, the believers of Jesus have gathered together in different ways, in different eras, in different times, and they've moved forward the gospel, building the kingdom.

We're part of that legacy. I love the church. I don't know if you can tell, I love the church. I love the church in all its different, unique ways and fashion. And I also, I love this church. This is a local expression of what God is doing around the world. I'm so thankful for this church. Aren't you thankful for our church? I'm thankful that this is a place where God is moving. This place has been united for 60 years. Man, God has been doing a work in our house here. We've been able to raise up sons and daughters, of which I'm a product of, the next generation to send them out. We've planted hundreds of churches. We've been able to raise millions of dollars for kingdom builders. We've been able to steward what God has given us in a beautiful way. I'm so thankful for the church. And again, I believe the church has been. but I believe as we step into the future, we need to stay united, right? And Josh was speaking about this so well last week. That was such a great message. I just wanna put fuel on that fire and say how do we walk in the future united as a church family?

Because if we're a united church, we are an unstoppable church. And so what does that look like today? So we're reading this Acts 2 passage. This is what church should look like. This is what gathering together as believers should look like. And it's not just about the building. It's not about service. It's about God's people coming together. But what does this look like? Because just like they faced early on in the church with all their differences, we face some of that today where we all come from different backgrounds. We're all different. We have different opinions, different preferences, different maybe politics, a lot of difference. How can we then unite together to walk in the future that God has for us? There's a few things I wanna point out today of what a united church looks like. First is this, a united church is rooted in community. A united church is rooted in community. In verse 46, it says this. Every day, they continue to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and they ate together with glad and sincere hearts. We see that the early church gathered

both in large gatherings, just like this one today, and in small gatherings. And the point is for this, one of the main points for this is that you can't follow Jesus alone. I don't care how much you know about the Bible. I don't care, man, how self-reliant or independent you are. Listen, no amount of that can replace the need for other people in your walk of faith. We can't follow Jesus alone. And actually, when God created man and he created Adam, we see this, that he looked at Adam and he said, it's not good for him to be alone. So he took one of his ribs, he made Eve. And then we even see in the life of Jesus, Jesus, anyone could have come down and done everything alone, but he decided to come down and surround himself with 12 guys, unlikely guys, to then pass the mission that he came for. He passed the church, the mission off to them. Isn't that incredible? So if Jesus emphasized others, we need to emphasize that as well in both the large gatherings and the small gatherings. And part of this too means, also community means commitment. Community means commitment. The beginning of the passage that we read together, it says they devoted themselves. They devoted themselves

to all the different things that we read. And the Greek word for that phrase, devoted themselves is proskutero. And it means, it implies persistent, continual commitment, not casual participation. The church prioritized gathering together. They saw it was needed. They saw it was like, man, we got, for them, it was every day. I'm not saying we do that. Hey, we'll see you tomorrow. No, for them, it was that there's a commitment there to gather together. They realized the importance of doing that. And listen, I know too that there's so many things that can fill the schedule. But the early church, the early church, they prioritized gathering over football games. That's a sin I just said, I know, in Pittsburgh. But they prioritized church over children's sports commitments. They prioritized church and gathering rather than good weather. And it's like, oh, it's gonna be nice outside. I'll just, you know, whatever, it's okay. They prioritized gathering more than whatever else they felt like doing that day. And listen, I'm not here to bring shame about church or life group attendance or anything like that.

Listen, I get it. Isn't life busy? Doesn't life just fill up so quick? Who's with me? You can blank and your week is already full. Or you blink and you're already at the end of it. What in the world happened? But even to that point, isn't that the reason why we should guard the time that we gather together? Isn't that like, you know, life, there's so noisy. Life is so busy. There's so many things that can distract us. But man, if this is important to the early church, if this is important to the heart of God, it should be important for us. And you might be here and you're like, Sean, I'm sorry. I haven't been here for a while. Or, you know, life is busy and all these things. And listen, there's grace. I'm not, again, I'm not trying to give shame. I'm trying to invite you in further. I wanna say, hey, there's something going on here. There's something about being in community that's so life transforming and powerful. And, you know, people will come up to me and they'll say things like this. They'll say, oh, pastor, I'm sorry. I haven't been here for a while. And I, you know what? I get it.

If you've ever said that to me before, just know I love you. And I understand their heart. They're like, oh, maybe something's come up and they wanna be here. But, you know, and I always say, listen, I'm glad you're here. It's good to see you. Like, I want you here. Like, how are you doing? But can I tell you what I really wanna say? Can I just be honest with you? What I really wanna say to them is don't say sorry to me. Say sorry to yourself. Because there is such a blessing in being in biblical community. There is such a blessing to be surrounded by others, both in big gatherings and in small gatherings, pursuing Jesus together. And listen, I know life can happen and things can be crazy, but man, there's. something powerful about that. And listen, when you have vacation, go on vacation. I'm not saying you, this is not about religious, check the boxes, we're taking attendance. It's not about that at all. Listen, some of you, you're on vacation right now. I hope you're enjoying the beach. Come on, somebody, to go on vacation. There's not a problem with that.

But I would say that there is a problem when coming to church becomes, or gathering together, becomes a decision based on comfort and convenience rather than on commitment. Because church is, again, so much more than just attendance. It's about sharing life with others. And I remember growing up here, I was in youth group, and through kids in youth group, and we had small groups and things like that. And to me, I'll just be honest, I love the services. I was like, let's do a service all the time. Let's do another worship night. Like that was, I was like, I love that. Whenever we got the time to go to small groups, I was like, oh man. And it wasn't because of any of the people or whatever. It was because it felt like every time the answer to a life group was like, I need to read the Bible more, and I need to pray more. Like, okay, I understand. But I got older. As I got older, it was actually my ministry school year. There was a group, one of the guys formed, we gathered together, and we studied the Bible together. But it was more than just studying the Bible. Like that was the core of it. But we were also sharing our struggles together. We were able to be real with one another. We were able to pray with one another,

to hold each other accountable. We were able to do life together, to be there when someone was going through something. That was the first time I realized this. If you ever come to Next Steps, you'll hear me say this, that life change happens in life groups. But rather, life change happens in biblical community. Life change happens when we're gathered together with the power of the Holy Spirit moving through us. There's something about being together. And when I made a mess in the concourse, and I thought I had to clean it up all myself, I couldn't have cleaned it up all myself. I needed the help of others. Some of you, there might be a mess in your life you're trying to clean up yourself, or you feel stuck. I just wanna say, don't try to clean it up alone. Reach out first to God, and then reach out to others. Find a group. If you can't find a group, that's one of the best ways to do it. Then find someone to go get coffee with. Find a mentor. Find someone to be able to pour into you. Find whatever you need. Invite people over for dinner. Break bread with others. Listen, it doesn't have to look like one thing. It could look like many things. But the importance is that we are rooted in community.

So number one, a united church is rooted in community. Number two, a united church is moved to compassion. Moved to compassion. It says this in verse 45, that they sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. So they didn't just meet together. They actually took care of one another. And if you think about it too, all these people that they just got saved, many of them may have not even been from Jerusalem, from the area that all this was happening. They probably were traveling in from different areas, and they probably, as soon as they got saved, they probably wanted to stay a little bit longer. And so the disciples, they looked around, and it was like, oh man, they need a place to stay, or they need some food, or, you know, and they started to think, okay, well, let me sell this. Let me sell my land. Let me sell anything I have. Let me do what it takes. Oh, you can come over and stay at my place. Oh, here's some food. They did whatever it took to take care of their brothers and sisters in Christ. And on top of that, they saw, okay, if there's anyone hungry, they started to set up, later on, you read in the book of Acts, they set up a food bank to help feed people.

And it would have been easy for the disciples, the early church, not to do this. It would have been maybe totally fine to say, you gotta worry about it yourself. That's your problem. But being a follower of Jesus means that life no longer revolves around you. It's about serving God and serving others. It's not something that's passive either. This idea of being moved by compassion, it is an active thing. We have an active faith. This includes serving and giving and loving the one. And life can go by so quick and we can be, I know I can sometimes wake up and be thinking about all my issues, all my problems, my schedule. But this idea takes us to the point where we need to say, Holy Spirit, give me eyes to see. Give me eyes to see the need right in front of me. Who do I need to text some encouragement today? Who do I need to go help today? Who do I need to reach out to? Lord, when I'm going through my day, not just blindly going through and trying to get my task list done, but Lord, interrupt that so that I can be moved to compassion. And maybe you're saying, Sean, this sounds great. How do I do this?

Well, you can come to Difference Makers and find out. You can find out your spiritual gifts. You can find out how to maybe get on a serve team, how to jump in somewhere. This is also where we talk about membership. And I know some of you, as we were going through the process the last few weeks, that you were surprised you weren't a member. And listen, I just want to say, we want to invite you into that. And it starts at Difference Makers. And membership is so much more than voting and going through a process. Membership is saying, I'm all in. It's saying to God, here's my time. Here's my talent. my treasure, and it's all for you. And you might say, Sean, well, I don't have much of that. I don't have a lot of time, I don't have a lot of treasure, I don't have a lot of talent, like I'm not a speaker, or I'm not a great worship leader like Sarah, like I don't have property to give, like I don't have much to contribute. People have also said this to me, they would say, look around, there's so many people here, you don't need me, you don't need, like I can't even bring anything, and I wanna say, you're wrong. We do, we want you, there's a space for you here. God has a purpose for you in being here,

and it's not just coming in and out, it's going all in. So I wanna say, come on in, we invite you in. There's a place for you to step in, to be moved by compassion, and to take what's happening here, to serve God with anything and everything that you have. So number one, United Church is rooted in community. Number two, move to compassion. Number three is this, a United Church is focused on the Great Commission. In verse 47, it says, they were praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. So as all those things were being done, as they were praying together and breaking bread together, as they were gathering at the temple courts and having worship services together, all these different things, there is something different that the people there noticed about them. This was so unique for its time, it still is today. Where the world started to look at them and said, what are you doing? What do you mean you're taking care of that person? What do you mean you're gathering together? What do you mean you're, they started to notice something different about the people. Because how many of you know, when you give your life to Jesus, something changes about you?

Like there's something different that's noticeable. And they started to notice, and then they were like, what's going on? And they were able to then preach the gospel to them, to share Jesus with them, to invite them in. Jesus even said this in John 13, 35, he said, your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. The way that we love and serve and connect and care for each other is a testament to the world about who Jesus is. And so maybe there's someone that you need to invest in. Maybe there's someone that you need to say, hey, come under my wing. Maybe there's someone that, you know, as you're out in the world and people are asking you questions, you might be like, Sean, like, I don't know how to answer people. I don't know how to give them the right thing to say. Like, if they ask questions about faith and Jesus. Listen, we can get to that, but it first starts by showing people what has changed about you. And listen, when you say yes to Jesus, something happens on the inside of you. There's something that, as you start to gather together with people and you go to Bible study, or as you start to give of your time and talent

and treasure, as you start to serve, as you start to go all in on Jesus, there's something that's different about your life. These people will see it and they'll notice it, and they'll ask questions, and that's an opportunity to say, hey, I invite you in. I invite you in, come to church with me, come to group with me, come to breakfast with me with some guys from my life group. Listen, there's something that changes when you go all in with Jesus. And just to illustrate this point, use Pastor Joe as an illustration. How many are you thankful for Pastor Joe? He's just incredible. He's been incredible this whole time and this season of our church. And I remember, you know, he served on so many different roles here. He was youth pastor and kids pastor and a lot of different things, a lot of next generation focused. And about 10 years ago, there was a moment when a lot of us, and some of you might remember this, there was something that was different about Joe. It was like, and you could actually see it. There was something different.

Here, Joe, at that time, up until 10 years ago, he wore glasses and he dressed like he was still in the 90s, which actually right now in this, you know, 2026, that would be pretty cool. Joe should have kept it like that. I don't know why. But back then, 10 years ago, that wasn't trendy. And Joe was so, so committed to the next generation. There's no one, I don't think anyone else in our church more committed to the next generation than Joe Schaefer. So he decided to put his preferences aside to then be able to be relevant for the next generation. So what happened was, it happened overnight, I think. The haircut was different. The shirts were different. The shoes were cooler. And again, 10 years ago, the pants were tighter. Again, baggies more in now, whatever. But, and then the glasses came off. He got LASIK. And we started to look around and we were like talking to each other. Those here were like, what happened to Joe? Do you remember that? Do you see that? Like, what, Renaissance Joe? Like, who is this? This is crazy. Listen, when you say yes to Jesus,

when you start to take steps of faith, when you go all in, when you make gathering an important part of your week in your life, when you start to serve, when you start to give, when you start to move in faith for whatever God has called you to do, there is something that'll change about the. sphere of your life that people will know this. And you might be like, Sean, like, I don't know what to do. Like, I'm nobody. Listen, listen, listen. It's not about having enough. It's not about trying to do better. It's about saying, Holy Spirit, I give you my life. Use what you want. Here I am. Here I am. Just use whatever you want to use. And we have one more point here in a second, but I just want to give, I know there might be people in the room today, you've never made that first decision to follow Jesus. You've never said, Hey, I'm committing my life and I want to give us the opportunity. If we could just close our eyes and lift our faces toward heaven right now. And maybe you're in the room today and you're like, Sean, like, I've never made that decision or I've walked away and it's been a minute and I need to, I need to recommit. Listen, we're going to have an opportunity here. I'll give you a chance to respond to this. And there's some of you, maybe you're here today too. And you've made a mess of your life. You've made a mess of your life and you're trying to clean it up and you're trying to do better and you're finding yourself trapped. I want to say to you today, don't stay there. You can reach out to Jesus. He is waiting to step in to help you clean it up, to make you new, to make you into a new person. Listen, he has a new life for you because here's the deal. Jesus went to the cross and he took our sin there. He took your shame and your guilt. He died on that cross, a sinner's death. But three days later, he rose from the grave and today he's offering you new life. And so if you're here today, you've never made that decision or you're saying, Sean, I need to come back. I've been walking away. Today is the day. On the count of three, I want you to raise your hand. One, two, three. Put that hand in the air right now. If that's you, I see that. I see that. Come on, if that's you, put that hand high in the air today. I see that hand. I'll give another opportunity here. One, two, three. If that's you, put that hand up today.

I see that. I see that. Come on, can we pray together right now as a church family with those that are making that decision today? Say, Jesus. Come on, say it from deep within. Say, Jesus, thank you for going to the cross and taking my sin and shame. I turned from my old ways and now I turn toward you. Give me that new life. Fill me with your spirit. I choose to follow you the rest of my life. I make you my king. I make you my lord and I make you my savior. You are alive today. In Jesus' name, everybody said amen. Amen. Can we give it up for those that made that decision? And listen, if you just made that decision today, we're going to have some staff on the side of the room here. We have a little area. We want to give you a Bible. We want to equip you. We want to be pastors in your life. So stop by over that corner right over there on your way out today. We want to be able to resource you and walk with you today. But before we do that, let's do this. I have one more point. Let's all stand up together right now. And I've been trying to do the alliteration thing that so many others have been doing, the Pastor Jeff way. So here's my final, final point. A unified church is Holy Spirit-centered. A unified church is Holy Spirit-centered. Acts 1-8, at the beginning of the book of Acts, it says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Listen, none of what I talked about is possible without the Holy Spirit. The church was birthed after having an encounter with the Spirit of God, that then they go, they went out, they preached the gospel. They then were gathering in community. They were gathering to help one another, to serve one another, to then take the message of Jesus all over the earth. And that's been what's been happening 2,000 years. And I'm so thankful for that. But we have to remember that if there's any change that starts in your life, maybe you're saying, Sean, I know I need to be this here more consistent. I need to make this a priority or I need to get in a group or I need to serve or I need to take that next step. Listen, it doesn't start with just trying to do better. There's a lot of people I talked to who are like, I just need to lock in. I just need to lock in on reading my Bible. I just need to lock in on getting to a group. I just need to lock in and stepping out what God's calling me. Listen, it's not about you locking in. It's about you saying, Holy Spirit, help me. I need you. Each and every day, I rely on you. I need your help. I need your power. And I believe that's for us individually, but I believe that's also for us as a church to say, Holy Spirit, you've done so many great things here the last 60 years, but Lord, we're expecting more.

And we know we can't move into the future without you, without your power, without your anointing. So right now, I don't know if you're, I'm feeling this in my spirit this morning. I'm hungry. I'm hungry for more of the presence of God. I'm hungry to see the Holy Spirit move. I'm hungry to be touched by him, to be able to go into the future doing everything that he's called us to do. Are you hungry with me this morning? And I just want to give us a chance to respond in that way. We're going to Sing a song here, and I just want us to position our hearts to say, Holy Spirit, have your way. So even right now, before we sing, can we just lift our hands together, and lift our voices, and we just say, Holy Spirit, have your way. Lord, you're maybe challenging us, convicting us to step out into more, but Lord, we first realize we need you. We don't just need to lock in, we don't just need to do better. Lord, we need you. We need your anointing and your power, and we say, Lord, do what only you can do, and we are hungry for more. We pursue you now. And everything you want to do, let's sing together. We sing, Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere. Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for. To be overcome by your presence, Lord. Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere. Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for.

To be overcome by your presence, Lord. Come on, keep singing that. Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere. Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for. To be overcome by your presence, Lord. We want more of your presence, Lord. Let's sing this, let us become. Let us become more aware of your presence, Lord. Let us experience the glory of your goodness. Let us become more aware of your presence. Let us experience, come on, we make this our prayer this morning. Let us become, let us become more aware of your presence. Let us experience the glory of your goodness. Let us become more aware of your presence. Let us experience the glory of your goodness. And let this be an upper room, like the flag of Israel. Let this be an upper room, like the flame we burn for you. Holy, holy, holy Spirit. Like a mighty rushing wind, pour your Spirit out again. Holy, holy, holy Spirit. Let this be an upper room, like the flame we burn for you. Holy, holy, holy Spirit. Like a mighty rushing wind, pour your Spirit out again. Holy, holy, holy Spirit. Holy, holy, holy Spirit. Holy, holy, holy Spirit. Sing holy Spirit, you are welcome here. Sing holy Spirit, you are welcome here.

Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere. Glory, God is what our hearts long for. To be overcome by your presence, we invite you here. Holy Spirit, you are welcome. Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere. ♪ Endless fear, your glory, God is what our hearts long for ♪ ♪ To be overcome by your presence, God ♪ Come on, let's just spend a moment right here. Again, if you feel comfortable to lift your hands and just cry out to God, God, we need you. Holy Spirit, we need you. It's not so much of like an optional thing. No, Lord, we need you. We're relying on you to do everything that you've called us to do, to step out in faith, Lord, to be gathering, to make that a priority, to be serving. Lord, we can't do that apart from you, so we just rely on you, Holy Spirit. And we thank you for your presence. We thank you, Lord. You know, maybe you're in the room today and you're like, Sean, I know I need to do something, but I'm afraid, or I don't know, or there's something God's calling me toward, or I just don't, I don't know if I'm ready yet, or I just wanna challenge you with this. Sometimes the best things in life are past 20 seconds of just insane courage. Sometimes it just takes 20 seconds of insane courage

to say, I'm gonna show up to that group, and it might feel a little bit uncomfortable at first, but I'm stepping into, or I'm gonna get on that serve team at 20 seconds of, okay, okay, okay, I can do this, I can do this, or maybe it's just, I need to reach out to someone, I need someone to mentor me, or maybe, man, I wanna pour out into someone, I wanna disciple someone. Listen, I wanna say, do it afraid. Do it with boldness. Do it with the power of the Holy Spirit. And here's what's just one of my life verses, the 2 Timothy 1, 7, it says this. For the spirit God has given you is not of fear and timidity, but one of power and of love and a sound mind. So as you begin to step out, whatever step you might need to take today, whatever step you need to take, the Holy Spirit will give you that power, that love, and a sound mind to move forward. Another thing I was thinking about this morning as I was preparing is there might be some people in the room that I feel like the passion has started to fade a little bit, or the fire for what God has given you to start to go out a little bit. I just wanna pray for you this morning. If that's you, maybe you could lift your hand,

if you feel comfortable. If not, that's okay too. But I wanna pray for you this morning that God would reignite that passion. He would reignite that fire. He would give you more dreams and more visions for the future of what he wants to do in and through your life. Can we pray together right now? God, I thank you so much, Lord, that you have a plan and you have a purpose for each person in here. Lord, I thank you, Lord, that you are moving before us, Lord, and that, Lord, we're declaring right now, Ephesians 3.20, that you would do more than we could ever ask for or imagine according to your purpose in Christ Jesus. I pray for anyone in here, Lord, that they need a spark again. They need a reignition of faith again. Lord, I declare right now by your Holy Spirit, Lord, that you would draw that fire in them in the name of Jesus. Lord, that they would dream dreams again. They would have visions, Father. Lord, I pray you do that for the youth of this house, God. Lord, that they would dream, Lord, of what you wanna do in and through them. Lord, that you would call them to higher things. Lord, I pray that, Lord, for the elders in the room today, Lord, that you would cause them to grow younger even as they age, to pour into the next generation, to still step out in faith.

And Lord, for everyone here, help us, Lord, to do what you've called us to do. We thank you, Holy Spirit, for your calling. We thank you for your power. We thank you for what you're doing in our lives. We lift you up. In Jesus' name we pray, everybody said. Amen, amen. Come on, give it up for Jesus. Give it up for the Holy Spirit. And listen, have a great weekend. We love you guys so much. Go and say hello to someone outside in the concourse, and we'll see you next week.