Embracing Boldness and Living a Fresh Testimony

And I’ve actually asked him if he would come out today and pour out over you. So. Is there anybody in this room that is willing to receive a fresh outpour from the Holy Spirit?

Just let me see a show of hands. Yeah. God, you see all the hands. Just fill them up. Lord, in the name of Jesus. Okay. If Jesus and the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with the freshness of who he is today, then you are, and you are empowered and charged with boldness to go and to be and to go and to do just going to throw that out there.

So I have been given the assignment of the harvest. So we’re talking about evangelism. We’re talking about getting out there, being the life of Jesus, living the life of Jesus, and sharing that with every single person that we come in contact with. Okay. But I’m here to talk to you about the harvest. Okay. So what is the harvest?

The harvest is when you pick the fruit from the tree. That’s the harvest. Right now in this earth is the harvest the right the fruit is ripe and it is ready to be picked and to be gathered in to the storehouse, to the churches. Amen. I don’t know if you guys can sense that in the earth. you can go anywhere to Albany County or elsewhere.

And there is like a sense of like people are just like almost, almost asking you, will you tell me about Jesus? You know what I mean? It’s like, I just sense that everywhere I go. I wanted to read. Well, first of all, let me let me tell you why I evangelize and what what’s my purpose in evangelism?

I evangelize because Jesus changed my life. Because I was dead. I was a drug addict that was an alcoholic and a womanizer. And Jesus came into my life and he changed me. And he put the message of hope inside of me so that I can not hold on to it, not go over here in the corner and go, oh, cool, I got this message.

It’s so awesome. No, so that I can go, hey, I have a message of hope for you. I have the message of Jesus for you and for you and for everyone that I come in contact with. And, you know, just thinking about that song, the blood. It is so crazy to me. I mean, it’s it’s not, but it is that God sees me as a qualified leader, and it is only by his blood and his mercy.

It is nothing that I have done. I am no one special. I have done nothing special except fully surrendered my life to Jesus.

So that is why I evangelize. Because I see hopelessness and I know what hope. I know what hopelessness looks like because I’ve been there. I know what despair and depression and all that stuff looks like. But I also know what hope and joy and peace looks like, because I have it living in me, and I want every single person that I come in contact with or that can hear my voice to experience hope, joy, freedom.

The Bible says that where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. It’s the Spirit of God is in us. Wherever we go, there is freedom. It’s not something we have to work up to. It’s not something that we have to like, say the right thing or do the right thing. It’s in us wherever we go. We bring the freedom.

Matthew 935 through 38 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw can’t remember that word saw when he saw the multitudes, he was remember this word moved. He was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep, having no shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, the harvest truly is plentiful. But the laborers are few. Therefore another word to remember pray, pray the Lord of the harvest to send the laborers into the harvest. Okay, okay. Jesus saw them. Okay. He looked up and he saw them with his eyes. Okay, I have walked by so many people like this.

And I didn’t see them. Okay. Jesus is asking us to look up and see them. You don’t have to look very far. I promise you. Maybe even somebody in this room needs to be seen today and needs to be ministered and loved on and prayed for today. Will you see them? Will you love them right where they are?

Not trying to fix them, not trying to tell them what they’re doing wrong or what they need to do right, but just seeing them right where they are and offering them hope. I know I need that. That’s where I am, I need that, I need to be ministered to. I need to be loved on. I need hope in my life.

The next thing that I really kind of camped out here for a minute, just, seeking the Lord is, the word moved. Jesus saw them, and he was moved. That means he didn’t stay where he was. He didn’t just go. Oh, they’ll be okay. Way over there. They’re good. I’ll send somebody over there to get them. No, he got up and he said, I’m coming to you because you’re like sheep without a shepherd.

He went to where they are. He he was moved with compassion. Okay. And I think maybe I’m just speaking for me. The only way that I could be moved with compassion is to get past myself. If I’m so worried about what I have going on and my troubles and my cares and my concerns, or what I’ve got in my life, I will never have compassion on anybody else.

And so that is just to be open and transparent. That is what I am asking God to search me daily. God, so that I could be moved with compassion. I don’t want to stay where I am. I want to be so moved out of my comfort zone and so moved with compassion that they go, oh, that’s the guy.

Let’s go talk to him. He has compassion. He’ll pray he prays for everyone or he knows how to minister. I want to be that guy because Jesus lives in me and is calling me and us to be the those people.

Oh my gosh, I can’t see.

Everything we must do, everything we do must be rooted in love. And I believe in prayer. Right? We’ve heard that we’re going to keep on hearing. And I believe until Jesus comes back. Because love and prayer, in my opinion, are the two most important things that we have to saturate ourselves with. So that we can saturate others with.

Christianity is not just adding Jesus or incorporating Jesus into our life. Christianity is surrendering our lives to him. There’s a difference. There’s a difference. And for so long, all I was doing was just adding Jesus up. Yep, that sounds good. But then there was deep parts of my heart where I said, no, Jesus, you can’t have that. I don’t want to be moved with compassion for that person or for those people or for that group of people.

But I am so at a place in my life where I’m like, yes, God, have your way, have your way in me, God. I surrender it all. You know, I believe, salvation initial salvation is amazing. And I’m so thankful that Jesus Christ saved me. And I’m looking at so many other people that that walk out salvation on a daily basis.

But do you do you think that salvation is a daily thing? I do, I think I need to be saved every single day from myself, from my own will.

Thank you. Jesus.

I was going to say something else, but I didn’t read it in my notes. So let’s give it.

I believe that everything that we do, everything that we do, must start be filled with and end with prayer. I believe that everything that we do, whether it’s just our daily lives, going out to the grocery store, going to school, going to our work, going anywhere, being at home with our families, being alone by ourselves. Everything must be bathed in prayer.

I believe that we can live a lifestyle of prayer, constantly communicating with Jesus through the Holy Spirit who lives in us and is alive and active and wanting us to communicate with Jesus. He’s given us access to directly to communicate with God the Father. So, you know, I, I was just telling Colleen, and I told I tell a lot of people, this is, you know, the number one way that I have found to minister to people is actually not going and telling them about Jesus or not inviting them to coffee or any of those things, it actually doesn’t even involve other people.

It’s actually in Matthew six, it talks about going into your prayer closet, and when you have shut the door behind you and pray in secret for your father knows what you pray in secret, and he will reward you. And so, in my experience, that has been the number one way that I have seen breakthrough in other people’s lives is I go to my closet.

And that could be. I’ve created a prayer closet on my bus surrounded by 40 kids. I’ve created a prayer closet at Walmart. I’ve created a prayer closet everywhere I go because I don’t think it’s about a physical place. It’s a heart posture. But there is times when there is a room in your house and you need to go physically into that room and shut the door behind you.

Leave your phone, leave your tablets and all your distractions outside and just prayWe really want to see this harvest that is ripe for the picking be picked, and we must pray for it to happen. We must pray for others to be sent out because that’s what it says right here. Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.

But just know that somebody might be praying for you to be sent out. It’s real, it’s reality. And it’s. We gotta take it head on. We have to, you know, I’ve just I’ve heard even especially just recently about. Yeah. You know, there’s that group of people and they’re just. I don’t think Jesus can reach them or that’s going to take a ton of work or they’re they don’t they don’t want what we have.

And I’ve just heard so many things that are, in my opinion, totally contrary to what the Bible says, what the word of truth actually says. I watch a lot of Todd White, so if you don’t know who Todd White is, you should go look him up. He is. He is becoming one of my heroes of faith. He’s an amazing man of God.

This man literally goes to satanic conventions and prays for people to be saved. Like he’s on a mission because he understands that nobody is off limits to the love of Jesus Christ. I. Todd. Yeah. Amen. Thank you, Jesus, for your love. I told a brother that one time we were talking about someone who was, was, you know, just not doing good.

They were on their deathbed, actually, and, me and his brother were praying, and I sat and I prayed. I said, Jesus, as long as there’s breath in his lungs, there’s hope for him. And my buddy said, even if there’s not breath in as long as there’s still hope for him. I said, whoa, okay, okay, I can receive that.

You know? Our God is just so amazing. He’s on the move and he is wanting to get out of us, and he is wanting us to get outside of ourselves. Amen.

John 439 do not say there are still four months. And then comes the harvest. Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white. For harvest came to me. This scripture means, Jerry, put your phone down. Look up. Stop looking down. Look up. That’s what God was speaking to me.

Look up and see that the harvest is right. So where? Where do we go to evangelize? Who is who are we supposed to evangelize to? Yeah. So, you know, we’re supposed to live a lifestyle of evangelism. Hey, it’s not an event. Yes, there is events. I’ve done events before, and they’re awesome. And we’ve seen God move in powerful ways.

But God wants us to live our lives out before him in such a way that people are drawn to us. And it just opens doors. And even if they’re not drawn to us, where they come and talk to us, we’ll go talk to them. Right. Because if if God has really changed our lives and we really want that change in other people’s lives, then we will be moved with compassion to go and talk with them.

And if we have the Holy Spirit living in us, then I believe that we don’t have to have some preconceived thing to say. We’ll just go up to them and just love on them. Just start a conversation with them. You know, I, I love telling people, hey, can I share some good news with you? Because everybody wants to hear good news.

And then I tell them, I just wanted to let you know that Jesus is so in love with you. And in my experience, people are open to that. Like I have not. This is maybe just me. I have not received a lot of like, hesitation or a lot of like, oh well, I don’t know. And, leave me alone.

People are like, yeah, yeah, he does or wow, how do you know? And then boom, conversation.

So we are called to speak to about Jesus, the people that are not saved, the people that have zero understanding about Jesus, about the blood of Jesus, about the cross, about any of it. We are called to those people. We are called to the people that have walked away, that have some kind of foundation, that have some kind of understanding of who God is, of his power, maybe of his authority, of his love.

But for whatever reason, they’ve walked away from the fellowship of the faith. Those are the people were called to. I’ll say that the number one group of people that I run into while I’m out evangelizing the number one group of people I talk to, is people that are hurt by the church. And that just completely breaks my heart, completely breaks my heart.

And I know it breaks God’s heart, too. I know it does. So those people are out there. And when they come in, let’s live our lives so that we don’t be the ones that hurt them. Because that’s important to.

Acts one, verse eight. But you will receive power and ability when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses to tell people

about me, to tell people about me. This is Jesus. His actual last words on the earth. This is what he chose to tell his disciples. Tell people about me, both in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth.

It starts here and then it goes out. We can’t be trying to reach China or Africa or any other part of the world. It’s we have to reach those parts. Yes, but it starts here. If we can’t reach people here in our sphere of influence, God will never be able to be able to send us out there. So we have to be able to be bold and reach people in our sphere of influence.

That’s your work, your job, your school. I’m so thankful for the kids that I get to work with every day. I have. I’m a bus driver. I have some amazing kids I know, I have some spirit-filled evangelistic kids on my bus. I’ve heard them preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to other kids and it is insane. I’ve seen kids fall in the playground and kids run up to them to see if they could pray for them.

I had a prayer meeting at the school one time and just invited some teachers, and one of the teachers said, oh, well, I have seven kids that I have to watch over. And I was like, it’s okay, bring them. And so she did. And I asked these kids, I said, what’s the one thing you need prayer for?

And they said, we want to be bold. These are second and third graders. And that’s the one thing that they wanted prayer for, was to be bold, to be able to tell people and pray for people. So God is moving young or old, younger or older. It doesn’t matter. And everywhere in between. God. If God is calling you, which I believe he is.

Let’s go. Let’s do this.

The only limit that God has is that he has no limits. That’s it. Planted. Simple.

I believe that we have to go search out and seek in the word and in prayer, a fresh testimony today. It’s awesome that we and I was saved almost 20 years ago, and I’m so grateful for that. And I’m thankful beyond measure for that. But I want to go and read my Bible.

Read the Word of God, the word of truth. And I want him in me so that he changes me and rearranges my thoughts today, today, because that’s what he wants to do. He wants to give us a fresh testimony so that we can go out and present people. Guess what God is doing in my life today? Like right now, he’s elevated me past fear in the name of Jesus.

He’s elevated me to a level of boldness and authority to preach and to proclaim. The kingdom of heaven is here, and it’s within us, and it needs to get out.

Did you know that God did not give you a spirit of fear? Did you guys know that? It’s so crazy. God didn’t give me a spirit of fear. But yet so often I fear. And I’m like, that’s not the spirit that God gave me. The word of truth says that he’s given us a spirit of power. And that word power in there denotes boldness.

It means stepping out, right? And that, to me, means boldness. That’s the spirit that he’s given us. He’s given us the spirit of love. It’s in us. It’s in us now. And he’s given us the power of a sound mind, self-control. It’s in us. It’s in us now. What are we doing with it? What am I doing with it?

I want to just. This is a, a quote from Todd White. He said, is the life that you are living today worth the price that he paid thousands of years ago? Just some to ponder is the price is the life that you are living today? Worth the price that Jesus paid on the cross all those thousands of years ago.

And then I’m going to just end with just this one scripture. This verse just kept going through my mind over and over in the last couple weeks. It says, if you are trying to find your life, you will lose it. But if you are willing to lose your life for my sake, for Jesus’ sake, you will surely find it.

So, can I pray for you guys? Okay. Thank you. Jesus. Jesus, you have given us your power and your authority. You’ve given us your Holy Spirit to be alive and to be active, not only to live within us, but to permeate through us and get out of us. Everywhere we go, God, right now, in the name of Jesus, I take authority over fear in the name of Jesus, and I command you to leave in the name of Jesus.

Fear you will no longer plague God’s people. There is a freedom that is here today and I just pray in the mighty name of Jesus, Holy Spirit, will you release true freedom over us today so that we can be bold in the mighty name of Jesus? Amen.

man, we had Wednesday night. one of the young men here, Matthew Venkat, share, his favorite scripture. And, he expounded on that and gave me this, this line that I wrote down. And it goes along with what just shared. If you’re not ready to die, then you’re not ready to live. And that is, I feel like what God is calling his church to today.

And I mean, as Jess just shared, this is who he’s been. And I am so excited about it. And this is the stuff that we are going to continue to just speak into and just get excited about. if you are wanting resources, we have this, Gospel of John resource. It’s in the foyer, right. You can grab it anytime.

You put a couple in your backpack, in your car or whatever. We have this, father’s love letter, you know, just some simple resources to, hand to somebody so they can maybe have some, to remember and to think about and to continue to, maybe, experience what God is doing. And so, equip yourself, you know, you are going to run into somebody this week that is desperate, desperate for hope and if we’re looking up, if we’re seeing, we’re going to be able to speak into those lives.

And, you know, the reason I’m so excited about this is because when the church responds in this way, the community gets better. And that is why this is going to be so exciting. to live in this hour. And so the generation that is having to face so much fear, they’re also the generation that carries the most to give and they are going to get to see transformation of their friends’ lives because of what they’re doing.

You know, I’m just I keep thinking about all these great high schoolers that we got. You know, Cody just graduated. I love Tristen, I love Stella, you know, Stella is a leader on the soccer field, and she does such a phenomenal job of carrying herself with honor and integrity. And it is such a, refreshing thing to see.

We have amazing leaders in our church today. we also have these connect cards or, these invite cards. you can invite people to church with these. It’s a simple, simple little resource. Again, we’re trying to make it as simple as possible for people to, to make it into, hopefully a place of love. And I know that’s what our church is.

You guys have made that just something so real here. And I’m just grateful to be a part of this house and what’s going on here. if you came today and it’s your first time and you want more information on the things we do, we have connect cards that you can fill out. Those sorts of things. But God is working and just one more thing.

okay, so I just wanted to give you just a couple of really quick, super simple testimonies that I’ve encountered, like just this last week. so this lady, we were at a restaurant rest stop, headed to San Diego, and I saw this lady, and she was walking with the cane, and I just went up to her and I just said, hey, are you okay?

Are you in, like, pain right now? And she said, yeah, I’m in a lot of pain. And I said, can I pray for you? And she said, that would be amazing. I prayed for her. And then she looked at me and she said, you know, I prayed to God that he would send somebody to pray for me. And I said, wow, that’s that’s pretty awesome.

And here I am, you know. So and then there was, there was a lady, that I encountered in McDonald’s, and she walked in with the Walker and, you know, she was in I just went up to her and said, hey, sorry to interrupt. Like, I just wondered if I could pray for you. I believe Jesus wants to just completely heal you and take your pain away and she let me pray for her.

And we talked and she ended up being a Christian. And, she actually told me that she had. And I was wearing a white shirt. She told me that she had a dream that I came and prayed for a guy wearing a white shirt, came and prayed for her. And I was like, no way, you know? And those are just like, those are the crazy, simple things that if you step out, God will.

He’ll just do that kind of stuff. and then one one other thing was, in San Diego, like it was the first morning where there’s like six in the morning. I had to go to the grocery store and there’s this guy. Nobody else is there. This guy stocking shelves, 20 year old guy. And I just told him, I just said, hey, man, can I, can I share some good news?

And he said, yeah, what’s thatI said, I just want to let you know Jesus loves you. And he just kind of looked at me like, yeah. He’s like, are you serious? And I was like, yeah, man, he really, really loves you. And he he told me. He said, it’s crazy because I’ve been thinking lately with all this crazy stuff happening in the world that there has to be something else.

And I said, yeah, it’s Jesus, Jesus’s hope. And he said, I need hope. And I said, and I literally just said, do you want to receive Jesus? And he said, that would be amazing. And so right there, I just prayed for him. He received Jesus. I was able to connect him to a church down there, fellowship with him for, you know, a couple minutes got his phone number.

So those are the kind of things that is happening. People are literally having dreams about us evangelizing them, and they’re praying for us to evangelize them. So it’s. That, yeah. Just thank you. And, if anybody is feeling that tug on their heart, you know, do respond today. Come on up. After we, pray here and close service and ask some questions, you know, just respond.

Respond. Your response makes our world better. And it’s going to be that kind of movement forward here that we just get to celebrate in this time that has so much ugliness. God is at work. So, father, we thank you for an amazing time today with you, God with one another. We thank you that you are at work, Lord, in our hearts and transforming our lives and giving us Lord, a greater determination to yield our wills to you.

Father, today continue that work. God, we say yes to you, continued the stirring that you’ve done in every heart in here. God. And continue, Lord, to make a way. When we walk out of this building, Father God, to bring your life and your message of hope to those we encounter, God may be natural. May it be easy. Lord, may it be just a opportunity to see you at work.

Let your grace abound in our lives. We thank you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Church, let’s go to fellowship if you want to join us. do do join us. We have food for you and opportunity to connect if you’re not overwhelmed already. All right.