Sunday Morning Worship Service by Ryan Dean June 6, 2021 ยท First Apostolic Church of Knoxville (Knoxville, TN) Kind: sermon Scripture: Psalms 103:15-18, James 4:14, 1 Corinthians 10:13, Romans 8:1-6 Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/ryan-dean--sunday-morning-worship-service-178 Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page. Free to copy and share with attribution. ------------------------------------------------------------ today thank you so much i'll try to get to the scripture as quickly as possible so that y'all don't have to sit down and then get back up but i have to say something really quick a few things actually first of all the last time that i was here you guys were not in this building yet but they brought me over here and we saw what was going to happen and they explained everything that was going to take place and i've watched online a few times but this is my first time here and i've got to say god has been good to the people of fac knoxville this place is fantastic this is we like to say it this way we don't we don't build monuments necessarily for man's approval but part of this is you plan to grow and i see that you've done so and you planned on making a place that is really i like to call it a lure for people to come in we bring them in and give them things to draw them in but when they walk in they feel the presence of god and that's what actually catches them and brings them to the throne of glory so thank goodness to god for what he's done to this church and i think you should give him a handclap of praise for that [Applause] you got to understand what the mccools are to the deans because you got to understand my family the deans we are weepers we we cry very easily i've already cried once this service might cry again while i'm up here who knows we can't predict these kind of things but the mccools are encouragers and when they came to bossier and they went to our church they walked around and they said this is the most beautiful church that i've ever seen and we were like oh that's that's nice and then did you walk into the office this is the most beautiful office i believe i've ever walked into in my life and they went to my parents house and they said i've never been to a house this well decorated and this wonderful and we ate our dinner and they said these are the best enchiladas i've ever had in my life and you know the deans being weepers we're always like you know we're sorry this isn't better you know we're sorry that this isn't up to your standards that you're probably used to and we're thinking surely they don't think this stuff is that good and after a few hours you start thinking you know what they're right we're incredible aren't you thankful for some pastors and leadership that are encouragers of the body of christ i have no idea how y'all keep your egos in check with these people and leadership in your life so thank god for them it's an honor to stand in your pulpit thank you so much to the whitley's y'all are incredible and this choir is incredible this music team fantastic second to none y'all need to be grateful for that as well thank god for it and i got to say this one more thing anthony mccool is an answer to prayer for me and for my wife and our our leadership down there because we always knew that kelly had an anointing over her life we wanted a man of god who had an anointing that was going to help be a part of that team he was an answer to prayer for us and we are forever indebted to this church for what you have done for our girl because you gotta understand my wife that's not just one of our girls there's she you're not supposed to play favorites my wife probably played favorites a little bit with kelly let's just be honest here but we are thankful so much for them and i've got to stop because they're all looking at me kind of awkwardly now saying you need to be quiet i'm just trying to be an encourager but it's trying to fit the mode of the pulpit here but thank y'all and thank you connor for accompanying me on this trip i'm devastated that my wife and kids were not able to be here with me they were planning on it and then our kids camp starts tomorrow morning so my wife is packing for three kids and we our oldest son has been saying forever i'm gonna get the holy ghost at camp and we were like yes absolutely so we said we my wife was saying i've got to be down there because if we miss him getting the holy ghost we're never going to forgive ourselves and then the jury got the holy ghost a month in advance so he did not stick to the timetable he was very very selfish in regards to keeping the schedule in the way that it was supposed to go but we're just thankful that god filled him with the holy ghost let me get to the scripture so y'all can take a little break here but i'm going to read from psalms chapter 103 and verse 15. [Music] as for man his days are like grass as a flower of the field so he flourishes when the wind has passed over it is no more and its place acknowledges it no longer but the loving kindness of the lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him in his righteousness to children's children to those who keep his covenant and remember his precepts to do them our days are like grass like a flower in the field we flourish then we're swept away james 4 and 14 says it this way our life is like a vapor it's here and then it's gone in a moment but i'm going to preach with your help for a few moments this morning on this subject everybody makes mistakes but somebody say that back to me everybody makes mistakes amen father we need your presence today god i need you to help me to say your word with authority god get me out of the way and let your word speak for me father we want your presence to have its perfect will in this place god we love you we glorify you we honor you father this morning with our whole hearts be in this place god we put you in your rightful place of honor from the very beginning today let your will have its perfect way today we prayed in the precious name of jesus christ when everybody say in jesus name as you're seated here today our life is like a vapor it's here and it's gone in a moment and my dad when he was younger he said that in his bible school days he wishes that he had spent more time in the word of god and maybe a little less time reading louie lamore books but he kept if you don't know who lou lamore is this man wrote so many western novels that it would blow your mind and my dad kept all these novels and so as a kid i found the box in the attic with all the louis lamour novels and i brought them down and i i wasn't great socially i didn't make a lot of friends i was the awkward kid in the corner drawing on a notepad or reading a book and so i was reading these books and i just started devouring them there's this quote from one of his novels and it says this it's almost it kind of puts a darker spin on what james says in james chapter four he said you stick your finger in the water and then you pull it out and that is how much of a hole that you leave when you're gone and that sounds like something that he would say in one of his novels but i think that he's probably a little bit too pessimistic in regard to what we leave whenever we're gone thank you louie for your little saying there that i could use years later but i hate to tell him this he's a little bit wrong about it life is fleeting yes it's absolutely fleeting the memory of our lives will absolutely fade in the past but he's discounting that one day every person who sits in this place will stand before the judgment seat of the most high god and that every mark that we made will not dissipate like the waves in the water but it will be accounted for every word every action every thought every deed that ever takes place in this earth we will be held accountable for it now if you hear that and you don't know about jesus that sounds terrifying because i know the thoughts that i've had in this world have y'all ever heard of i forget what they're called now just dropped out of my mind but they're they're called intrusive thoughts has anybody ever heard of intrusive thoughts explain what this is intrusive thought has went about halfway through this message your mind begins to wonder and you just think what if i just ran up on the platform and took the guitar and just smashed it onto the platform out of nowhere that's an intrusive thought and you say well that's a ridiculous thing to say i'm sorry but everybody has these it's not a psychological rarity this is something that everybody does you say well what if i just jumped up and ran around the room one day when i was a kid during the middle of church one of my friends had an intrusive thought but he passed it on to me and he's i was probably seven or eight years old and he said what if one of us took a lap right now and it wasn't time to take a lap it was dead silent it was the introduction to the message and i was again socially awkward i was just trying to make friends and i said i'll do it he said no you won't and i did it but literally 10 feet into my lap one of the sunday school teachers grabbed my arm and he did a helicopter with me in the air and spun me back to my seat but i learned that day that the intrusive thoughts are usually supposed to just let them go don't act on them all the time however if the spirit moves you go ahead and let that intrusive thought take control if god says look the great thing about a pentecostal service when you're in an apostolic move of god you can let that intrusive thought that says you need to stand up and give god a little bit of praise in a way that does not make sense you have the liberty to let the intrusive take control if you just want to stand up at any moment in this service and you say i've got to talk to god right now there's somebody that will grab hold of you and pray you through that intrusive thought and let the anointing of the holy ghost have its perfect way you can be as intrusive as you want that's just a little side note that's not in the notes today that's just something that came across the mind the reason that we think about that future day in front of the judgment seat and that it kind of scares us a little bit is because that anybody who believes in god and who reads the word of god knows that he is a just god he's a merciful god he is a loving god a righteous god a holy god but also intrinsic to his character is the notion that he is a just god the reason that he had to die on the cross for our sins is look he could have snapped his fingers and just had it done but look if somebody if you're i hate to say this but i know this is a little further north in louisiana but this is still the south and whenever somebody comes down to louisiana we had one guy come to louisiana from i'm not going to mention exactly how far north not going to give you any clues but he he knew where he was and he said god bless how did he say it god bless guns sweet tea and chick-fil-a and everybody looked and we said we know what you're doing we know what you're doing you're wanting to get in good but then we all wanted chick-fil-a but it was sunday good thing we still have the guns in the sweet tea where was i but we believe in a just god and the way that it works is we tell our kids we say look if you don't start it but you finish it and that's like a southern phrase they say look you don't start a fight but you finish a fight now the problem is that's not exactly what jesus said he said you get hit in one side of the cheek and you give them the other side of the cheek but that's not really the lecture that we like to give our kids the first day of kindergarten when they say look if somebody hits you on the left cheek just turn the right cheek and it'll be fine but the reason that there's an impulse to strike back is because we have made in the image of god we have a natural sense of justice it has to be carried through if something happens to one person there has to be payment made for it it's the nature of justice that's why he implemented the sacrifice and that's why the people of israel had to offer the sacrifices year in and year out and that offering was made because god is a god of justice and being a god of justice he said somebody has to pay for all of this he could have being all-powerful snapped his fingers but it's part of his character and so he said i'm going to be that sacrifice on the cross for their sins he's a god of justice and knowing that we know what we've done and we know the payment that should be made for what we have done for what we have thought for the things that we have had in our lives that we wish were not part of our past and even if it's under the blood of jesus christ a lot of times that memory comes back and you remember where you were and what you have done because we understand that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god see my oldest son raylen he's nine years old now in this last year during the early months of quarantine he was taking his test and he's great at math he doesn't need any help with math no problems whatsoever but reading is a different story and so he we noticed during one of these online quizzes and we were pulling our hair out we had a newborn baby and we had this online school that we had to do and we are not equipped for that nor we as patient for that thank god for the teachers of your school somebody say amen but we weren't equipped for it and raylan at one point fails a reading quiz online and we can see all of it and we see the score and we're kind of look i'm maybe we're a little bit too strict about it but we knew we could do better and we we spent a while talking to him about this and i sat down beside him i said raylen you're too smart to fail a quiz and then i said something that sounds like something a dad would say that later it'd say i probably could have phrased it differently i said deans don't fail quizzes and then my wife shot me and looked like too far too far because she's trying to be supportive you know and i'm looking i said look buddy i know that you are good with math and that reading is harder for you but you can't just pay attention to the things that you're good at and ignore the things that you're bad at you can't do that so i need you to put in an extra effort for the reading because we cannot fail quizzes and my son at this point he had little tears trickling down his cheeks and he kind of looked up at me and he said what about that math class you failed in college and i just looked at my wife and she went and a few things to point out first of all i didn't fail it i made a d i did lose the scholarship because of it but i didn't fail it and second of all she didn't have to tell him that part of the story but who knew that a math class 18 years ago and look it's also not entirely my fault that professor did not dismiss class on 9 11. that class took place between the two towers falling and we all thought we were going to get out and he said look it's just we're just going to act like it's a normal day how dare you that's why alan jackson had to write the song have you forgotten because that guy probably forgot and so i blamed it on him even though it's a little bit my fault but who knew that 18 years later my son would be bringing up my mistake and throwing that back in my face and it also ended the argument he was free to go for the rest of the day but he told me at the end of it he said dad everybody makes mistakes and the argument was immediately finished because of course everybody makes mistakes even mommy even if mommy didn't have to tell you about it everybody makes mistakes but that's the way that it is a word spoken against us decades ago can still be as fresh on our minds as it was the day that it was uttered and maybe it's not what was spoken to us but by us against another and we remember the pain and the division that it caused in that moment maybe it's the sins of your past the decisions that mar your record and you cannot quite shake it somebody today who knows that they are covered by the blood of jesus christ still remembers amar on your record something that you carried in here today and you have forgotten that yes everybody makes mistakes but everybody has a blood that they can access at the moment's notice when you say god i need your blood to cover me to wash me to purify me and to make me white as snow maybe whatever it is it doesn't matter we have trouble accepting the past for what it was and to be honest be honest maybe we're not all that good at accepting the present either not one of us are guaranteed a tomorrow but so long as there is breath in our lungs in a resolve to go ahead and keep on going tomorrow just might hold something beautiful ahead of us somebody needs to give god a handclap of praise not for what he has done but for what he is about to do in your lives across this house today [Applause] see the thing that's wonderful about the word of god you can go through and no matter what your personality type no matter your background you can find somebody to relate to you can find these people in the word of god and you know your story matches their story in some form or fashion you can find it in the pages you'll find no shortage of men and women who often fell short of god's plan people whose flesh got the best of them their failures were all too public their limitations were embarrassing and their words were insufficient for the task at hand they were an awful lot like us they didn't tend to believe in themselves all that great even if they believed in god their struggle was believing that god could use them but god has a way of doing something that we don't expect they had trouble forgiving others they had trouble forgiving themselves they had trouble reigning in their lust in their life they had trouble remaining vigilant fighting their apathy but our god is good our god is just good enough to take care of any blemish from your past and not only make it white as snow and cast it into the sea of forgetfulness but make your present day as powerful as it can be through his anointing but all too often we let that past shape our present god's taking care of it but maybe we haven't always see in first corinthians 10 13 it says this no temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man and god is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able but with the temptation will provide a way of escape also so that you will be able to interred there's always a way out of every circumstance that you have whether your past your present or your future in that way is a path of repentance a turning away from the past that holds you back would somebody today take one first step towards relinquishing control of those past mistakes by giving god a handclap of praise and saying god begin to break the chains of my yesterday so that my tomorrow is exactly as you have ordained across this house today see the crazy thing about knowing the story of the gospel is that the longer that we know about it the more likely it's to become old news to us i wish that i could be that young man again at 19 years old that gave my heart back to god after telling everybody that would listen to me that i did not believe in a god at all i wish i could go back then because that experience was so fresh and i couldn't stop crying every time that i prayed because i knew that i did not deserve his grace but after a while you start to become accustomed to it i told my wife not long ago she she always rolls her eyes when i do this but it might be in the middle of the day and i'll come home from work and we'll be in conversation and she'll she'll be talking and she'll she puts her hair up in what we call the shell and our boys when they draw our family my wife always has the shell on the top of her head on top of her head and she's always done this because it's really quickly she can do it about half a second and it's up there on top and she's talking to me with the shell and when she she's very animated and so when she's talking her hands are going and the shells just and as she's talking i looked at her and she's in mid-sentence i'm like you're you're just pretty and she said shut up i'm talking i said no sorry young ones if you're in here that's my son admonishes me when i say that in the pulpit but i said you're just beautiful she's like i've got this to talk about but thank you i appreciate it but the problem is you live with somebody long enough and you start to get so used to their face that they can sometimes become a part of the landscape but every once in a while you're struck by how wonderful they are and you have to say it but i wish that we had a little bit more of that in us in the presence of the most high god because after 10 15 20 30 40 years we sometimes get so used to being able to be in the presence of god with how accessible it is that every once in a while we need to have that breaking moment where we say god i forgot how beautiful that your blood has been in my life i forget how good your grace has been to me i forget how much you have forgiven me of and given me a future that i do not deserve thank you jesus once again for the blood of jesus christ for the blood of the cross on golgotha thank you father for the blood see i have a friend who is now a missionary in paris france in the revival that they're seeing in paris used two people would say europe is a dead missionary zone it's difficult to win souls in europe but the the revival in europe began with the immigrants to europe and it began it began with people largely from africa they moved there and they became and also the filipino people that moved into the paris area that was where the revival began and now they're seeing it with the people of france all of a sudden it's happened with quarantine look i know everybody's tired of talking about that so i'm not going to belabor the point but there is something good that came out of all of that and what happened was a lot of people that had gotten very complacent about having a relationship with god suddenly realized i need something else and they're pouring into churches as they reopen and there's something happening and the revival is taking place right now in paris and that's taking place among the muslim population there i can't give you the full story i can't give you the full story because the man is actually a high priority target for al qaeda but there was a man who received the gift of the holy ghost was baptized and i've got the videos to to to show somebody if they wanted to but i've seen these videos and i asked my friend about this and he said i was driving down the road and i was taking him to the the embassy that he needed to go to and update some paperwork and he said we're listening to some worship music and this massive man just has his hands lifted in the car and a tear is trickling down his face because it's the first time that he had heard this particular worship song and he's saying god he's so good and he's singing about the blood of jesus and he's still saying i don't understand and then i had another friend in uh canada and he has a muslim man that has now just prayed through in the church and he's given him a bible study and he said i'm so used to this he's like me grew up in a pastor's home and he said i'm so used to the presence of god and he said i'm giving him a very basic bible study it's almost something that you would teach in sunday school and he said this grown man began to weep tears of joy and he said it convicted him as he's telling me the story over the phone he says it convicted me because he's fighting these tears away and he said all my life i have been terrified of my sins because i've known that my god was upset with my sins but what you're telling me is that jesus not only died for my sins but they will be washed away for good and he said that's what i'm telling you and he said it doesn't make sense but it changed my life forever don't ever get too used to the blood of jesus and what it's done for your life don't get too used to the fact that the blood of jesus can wash every stain away permanently don't get too used to it and comfortable in a pew and take any of this for granted god wants his word to be as fresh today as it ever has been he wants his cross to be new again he wants you to acknowledge his sacrifice whether it's your first time in this church or you've been here from the very beginning to praise him for it but also to accept it because a lot of people who believe in the precious saving name of jesus christ who have been baptized in the name of jesus and filled with his spirit as as the tongues are laid out and you're speaking a language you don't understand and it's the evidence you're accepting all that but we don't accept the washing away all too often look i know you're messed up i'm messed up too i'm a little goofy in the head sometimes i told y'all the last time i was here i don't know if you remember i'm prone i'm prone to depression have been since i was 11 years old but god gave me the tools to fight it and the ability to he gave me he helped me equip the tools to fight this in life but i have to acknowledge every morning the very first thing i have to do when i wake up is remember that i am dependent upon the blood of jesus christ but he makes all things new he makes all things new again romans 8 and 1 therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus for the law of the spirit of life is christ ye in christ jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death for what the law could not do weak as it was through the flesh god did sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin he condemned sin in the flesh so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us somebody say in me who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit for those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh but those who are according to the spirit the things of the spirit for the mind set in the flesh is death but the mind set on the spirit is life and is peace see i'm speaking i told conor in the hotel room this morning i woke up several times this morning i had my alarm set and it goes off at i think it was 5 30 is what i had set for at first and i wake up and i start praying i'm like god i need you to give me perfect direction because i never felt great direction yesterday and then i'm looking through notes and i'm saying well what do i need to preach about and you hear the most terrifying thing for a preacher is to be at a place where you're speaking out of town especially at a place like this where you adore the people here and you got nothing you're like god i need you and he's like there's little crickets in the distance nothing and then i'm reading through some notes and i woke up again later and oh my god i really need you you know we took a little break here like i i really i really need you to help clarify this and i'd sent my stuff to the media team and i'm like i don't know lord and then i'm looking again and he's reminding me about the handcuffs that the people of god all too often put not on god but upon ourselves and i began to feel a little bit of peace and it wasn't until worship services they were singing i felt the presence of god and that's why i started crying again because every time i feel the presence of god and my mind goes back to i do not deserve this i don't deserve to feel the presence of god but as i'm worshiping you begin to feel a kinship with the spirits of the people in the church after a while and if you're worshiping together it's almost as like our spirits are not just reaching out to god but we're being tied together we're two or three together together in my name there i am in the midst of them something happens when we worship together and i i did feel that there's someone here and you're confused right now about this message because you're wondering if it applies to you or not and you say well i've let god forgive me and i would challenge that because there's a lot of people that live under the blood of jesus christ but we have come to we've basically come to a place of peace with limitation there are people that have been in the presence of god for decades and you've made your peace with a limitation because what happened is somewhere in our past we came to grips that we are not something in particular we say well i'm never going to be that so i'm going to be what i'm called to be and we kind of figure out what that means for us and some people say i'm just a good tithe paying member and god bless tithe paying members amen god bless tithe paying members but here's the thing god did not call anybody to simply be a tithe paying member and nothing more not one person in here is called to be that there is somebody in your life that you are called to reach out to and save through the grace of god to let the anointing of the holy ghost pour through you and you be a part of somebody being brought to the foot of the cross of jesus christ but you say maybe not an introvert i'm not supposed to be talking to y'all do we have any true introverts in the place today just raise your hand if you're a true introvert if you raised your hand you might be kind of a semi-introvert because real introverts you did not raise your hand you're like nobody's gonna know i shouldn't be up here and some of you say well i don't have the personality to do what god called me to do and what he put in my mind years ago to do and i've come to peace but that's just not me but i would say that is a limitation of the past that we are applying to the present and we are hindering the future because the blood of jesus is not just about wiping those stains away but letting you come to peace with the anointing of the holy ghost doing more through you than we let him do and that's who i'm speaking to today there are some people in here you know that you've not let go of your past and right now at this moment you're saying if you only knew what i did you don't know where i was either but god can do anything and god can make all things new again and if you would let him there would be a fresh anointing that sweeps through this house to let somebody know that god wants more than what we have limited him in god wants more through you than what we have handcuffed ourselves into if the musicians that come help me i'm about to close i growing up i i had kind of an old soul and look i'm not i'm not trying to be awfully carnal up here you're just going to have to forgive me but i listened to a lot of frank sinatra when i was young and it's a really weird thing when you see a 14 year old in the late 90s singing frank sinatra well i would walk around and sing it and frank sinatra in his later years was singing one time and he was 78 years old and this is a man who sold over 150 million records in his day he was on tour and the people that were on that tour with him they said the knights were hit or miss he said you just never knew what version of frank was gonna show up he said he got up there and he started forgetting lyrics he started forgetting the cadence he would sometimes the voice would crack and that the man was known his nickname was the voice but that voice would crack in front of arenas full of people that came to hear the man that they had heard on records and then tapes and then cds and and spotify and all this stuff it wasn't when he was 78 that didn't exist then but they were listening this man and his voice would crack and he would forget words to songs that he had sang for decades and they didn't know what it was going to show up and the staff had conversations behind the scenes and they said at what point do we kind of help him move along and say you know what maybe maybe this is it maybe it's over maybe it's finished and one night he sold out a 20 000 seat arena and he's up there singing and it was one of those nights he forgot the words to one of the songs and usually after he forgot a few they would come back to him and he'd began the next line and he just act like nothing ever happened but that night measure after measure would play and he couldn't remember any of it and this man began to whisper into the microphone and he said i'm sorry and he shook his head and he said i'm i'm so sorry i'm sorry and the band realizing how tense it had become for him started one instrument after another began to slowly die down until suddenly the crowd were truly hearing what he was whispering into the mic and he would say i'm sorry and eventually the entire band stopped playing and all that they heard was a man 78 years old who would entertain people throughout the world he said i'm so sorry and he looked down at the ground and the stage manager said i was a few seconds away from walking out there and say frank it's been a good run it's time to go home and one guy in the upper deck one man cupped his hands to his mouth like this and he said it's okay frank it's okay we love you frank it's okay and he got up on his feet and he started clapping his hands as loud as he could still screaming it's okay frank we love you and then the guy beside him who was he didn't give in to the intrusive thought but he stood up beside him and he said yeah it's okay frank and then his wife stood up beside him and she's clapping and that section stands up and before you knew it the entire arena 20 000 people were giving the loudest standing ovation that that arena had ever heard and frank's head lifted up and he smiled and he looked at the band and he said go to the next one and they started playing a song and he began to sing flawlessly and the man who was a stage man or manager said it's like he was 19 years old again his voice was as clear as it had ever been every note every cadence was pitch perfect and he said it's like he was reborn in that moment as he finished the set for that night he looked up at the upper deck and he pointed and he smiled and he said i love you too pal and then he walked off to another ovation and then he continued for the next two years to tour arenas around the world because one guy one man stood up and said it's okay frank it's okay we love you and the sad thing about this story is it is astounding how little encouragement people need but it's even more astounding how little they receive so i'm here today to join in with a spirit of your pastorship and to encourage you that sinatra might have been famous on this earth i'm encouraging you to be famous in heaven and you might say i don't have the tools to do it and i would say to you you don't have to have the tools you just have to have the precious anointing of the holy ghost you need the blood of jesus christ stand with me across this house today if god is not going to hold one moment of your past against you then how dare we hold it against ourselves if god is not going to be limited by our shortcomings then why would we hold them so close to ourselves yes everybody makes mistakes but jesus died for every single one of them somebody today repent and leave it somebody get a refilling of the holy ghost and use it somebody for the very first time might need to be filled with that sweet presence of god all you have to do is receive it if you would everybody here who feels anything in the presence of god rush to the front don't worry don't hang back rush to the front as quickly as you can and for everybody who wants to take one more step to letting the blood of jesus not do its partial work in you but to complete the work that he has begun somebody raise your hands to the heaven close your eyes don't let the singers do your worshiping for you right now open up your heart and say god i'm ready i'm ready for that next step i'm not holding myself back any longer i'm letting you complete your anointing in me let that work take place somebody in the holy ghost right now [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] is moving forward [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i will follow you make all things [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] for those that are praying i pray that you will continue to do so for the rest of us i'm going to give us a quick little instruction if that's all right pastor [Music] i've lived all of my life in an apostolic pastor's home and so the problem about that is that i contain memories as a young boy and see i'm not a pessimist god is doing an incredible work right now i'm going to talk about it a little bit tonight god is doing an incredible work right now but i don't believe that he wants us to get too far away from some of the things that are a vital part of who we are and so this is what i'm going to point out and i want us to have it in the back of our minds every service what has happened is that apostolic people have begun at the altar call to let the worship teams worship for us by proxy and they're so good these days and so well prepared these days that we just let them do it for us they are not entertainers they are worship leaders and so at an altar call we're not meant to just look forward to the screens to let us remind us of the words and let them worship for us it requires a deliberate and thoughtful approach to prayer so right now i see a lot of powerful apostolic people with the anointing of the holy ghost in your life letting them worship for us by proxy so can i ask us to just try something out this morning when they begin to worship again i want every eye to be closed in this place every hand to be lifted up into the sky and if god has ever been good to you then we need to be good to god right back we need to pray with some authority and with some passion in our life so they're about to go back in the song and when they do it somebody make a deliberate choice to break open your alabaster box and to pour out that sweet savor to god right now jesus do it god