And I do also want to say that was not Dwayne playing the bagpipes. Although we did go into the kilt shop and I came back empty handed because they did not have the Smith tartan. But I'm not Scottish. But after this trip I want to be.

We did what we went and planned to do. We ran a recreation camp for kids, elementary age. Half of them were too small to do some of the things we did. And so Laura and Charay, along with the pastor's wife Carol and some others, did some arts and crafts for about half of those kids. They loved it.

They loved learning pickleball, right, Pop? Yep. They loved learning wiffle ball. They loved learning flag football, basketball. You saw Dwayne telling Bible stories.

They loved it. I think he had a different puppet for every day. And during the day we worked on getting that cafe ready to become a coffee shop. We did those two things. But what was the biggest thing that happened, and the only way I can describe it is to go back to one of the images where you saw those girls standing in a circle.

The last night we were there after the kalee, which is a folk dance, they didn't want us to leave and we didn't want to either.

It was a special bonding moment. It made the words of Acts 14:22 come to life where we saw the strengthening of souls of the disciples and encouraged them to continue in the faith. But it was reciprocated, no doubt. Our kids got to love on those MKS and PK's, missionary kids, Pastor kids, and they loved on our kids. They.

And they did have my dude's donuts and they ate every one of them.

But to the word of Life and to Waliford Living Room Church, our deepest heartfelt gratitude and appreciation stands firm as a testament to the connections that were made that week. It was a hard time to say goodbye, but I know that only an ocean separates us now as we left a part of our heart in Scotland and we brought a little bit back. Not just the socks I'm wearing today.

Two, three days ago, John Telles and his wife Leslie and Riley that you saw pictured in there, he is the missionary rep. He's the assistant director for Word of Life uk. And we got to drive down to Tomo Baptist Church Wednesday night because they were in the States looking to raise funds. And he shared some information that actually we didn't even get to talk about. We were so busy working while we were there.

But he has a vision called Project Reclaim that seeks to reach out to the county of East Lothian, which is kind of to the east of where we were in Musselburgh, which is east of Edinburgh. It's not o. It's, uh. I was corrected Wednesday night.

Only. Only 0.44% of that population is evangelical. Now you got to think about that for a moment. Because people groups are classified as unreached when they're below 2% in a country that used to send out more missionaries than any country in the world now has pockets that are unreached. And that blows your mind.

But then you begin to drive around and you begin to see these beautiful gothic style churches that are closing left and right and nightclubs buying in the mountain. In fact, one where we drove by a nightclub had bought this church. And do you know what they named the nightclub? Sin. And in the windows that once had these ornate and beautiful stained glasses now has the word Sin plastered on the face of the door.

Over 50% of the population has no religious or faith affiliation and is often aggressive against evangelism. But why Edinburgh? Why Scotland? Like, what difference does that country make? Because sometimes the ends of the earth is coming and circling back around to places that have become remote again.

In fact, listen to the words of some of our team members. I think they describe it best. Duane said, I don't think we'll know this side of heaven. The difference that we made this trip was important because it was good to see that there are Christians all over the world with the same heart of love for one another in Jesus Christ. Pop said he believed we went to establish a closer relationship with Ebenezer.

And I believe that happened and to give them hope from our support. And I believe that they felt encouraged. Sally Simmons said, the time spent in Scotland reaffirmed the importance of community by showing that God is bigger than our community. Joey Brown said, God used this trip to deepen my friendships, to grow my trust in him and remind me of what it means to be the church. Isn't that crazy to fly thousands of miles away to be reminded of what it means to be the church?

Heath Kirkland, I love what you said. You said, my first mission trip. That right there lit my fire before I read anything else. My first mission trip. And to say it impacted me would be an understatement.

It's amazing. Listen to what he says. Listen. Amazing to see how God can use us if we're willing to. I think they all agree that it helped to stretch us beyond what we were capable and comfortable.

My daughter Caroline, who began to liken what they experience as a student culturally over there where they go to schools and they're not allowed to talk about those things. And I think even just what I'm hearing from seniors this year and students about how shutting down with COVID and how it affected and made them all feel so lonely and isolated. She said people who go to school are in environments where there's lost people, but they themselves are still so on fire for Jesus. During that Kalee, three of the young men students, high school students, were over there joined in hands, dancing around, singing a gospel hymn, smiling and exuberant and they had no shame. Bradley said this to see the gospel at work in a place so far from home was truly amazing.

And to see God work in so many different ways throughout that week left me encouraged to be bold for the gospel no matter where I am. Anita said this. She said it was an awesome, well planned, on purpose trip and it challenged, she said it challenged her to live and serve every day. Awesome. I want to have a shirt that's printed says every day.

Awesome. Because if we don't realize it that today we may not have tomorrow. Like that friend that you are going to school with that you're like, well, eventually I'll get them to come to school when practices are over and ball season's over, but you don't know if you have tomorrow. Megan Fowler said I have never been to a place and formed a bond to people I met so quickly as I did in Scotland. Their love for Jesus was apparent, she said.

It really opened my eyes to the fact that the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few, she said, my prayer is to be one of the few. Is that your prayer today? Charay Cannon, who helped to temper Dwayne Amen. The church sits in the middle of a community that desperately needs the love of Jesus. And they're reaching the youth and in turn will reach families.

The renovated cafe will always give the church a space where they can deepen relationships with the community and provide drip coffee because they don't have any over there. Y' all like drip coffee, don't you? You're like, what's drip coffee? It's where you get a coffee pot and it's trips, all of those things, deepening those connections, encouraging them. We felt like not only left a mark on them, it left a mark on us.

In fact, Pastor Andrew it's interesting, the makeup there. The pastor and his wife, Carol and Andrew are from Northern Ireland. John and Leslie are from South Africa. David is from Sweden, Switzerland. Close Andries who was working with us on the project was from Hungary.

The young lady that worked with the crafts was from Thailand. So just in our team on every day we had seven to eight nationalities and a whole bunch of rednecks from America.

He wrote to me on Easter and he said this. God bless you all this Resurrection Sunday. We ran out of chairs today, including the extras that we brought in. But do you know what he wants to do? He doesn't want to get another building.

You know what he wants to do? They want to go over into East Lothian and plant another church. And church. That's what lights my fire as a missions ministry. In this church, we don't want to go and just check off a box and say we put some boards on the wall.

What I want to do is see churches encouraged, strengthened, revitalized and planted, because that is who's going to disciple people. Not a week long journey, once a year. Carol wrote back, and this is what you want to hear. Two of the families from the outreach showed up to church on Easter.

I think it's fitting to say that we're not done yet. And so I want to challenge you right now to do two things. One, go ahead and open your Bible to Acts chapter two, and once you've got it, go ahead and stand with me. We're not going to stand to read. We're going to stand to pray.

Because I want to pray for Andrew and Carol. I want to pray for John and Leslie as they're here in the States raising support. He needs support because he wants to go full time. Up to this point, he's been part time, but in order to go into an area that only has three evangelical churches, about 118,000 people, that's 44% evangelical. He wants to make that step, to be able to be full time.

So pray for them today that God will bring those funds so that they can do that. He's 42% funded the last time we talked. But we want to pray for Waliford Living Room Church, that they'll continue to be a mission in the Musselboro community and village. Father, as we get ready to dig into your word, Lord, we want to pause and pray for our sisters and brothers in Scotland. God, we pray this morning they've already had church, they've already gathered.

And we just pray that that ministry will have its impact from the mums and tots that come on Thursdays that now have a place to have coffee, to them having kids come every morning to get on the school bus, to the youth outreach that they have to the camps that are forthcoming, all the things that they're doing, Lord, let it have a good effect. Lord, I pray for the young lady that we met in the restaurant who lost a child and then said to us, well, the faith thing is not for me. We pray today collectively for her salvation and for God to break through that stone wall that she built up because of that loss. Lord, I pray that you reach down and touch John and Leslie this morning as they're raising money. God, we pray you bring it and bring even more that you would make that ministry fruitful as David and John look to see this grow out beyond just Edinburgh.

I pray that you give them favor and bless them. Lord, we love you and thank you for the opportunity that we had and for this team. We ask God that you would use it not only to encourage them, but to encourage us. In Jesus name, Amen. If you will go ahead and have a seat and I want to ask you a question.

Like, you know, last two weeks we've been talking about God rewriting our story, changing our timeline. And he's given us so many good things. In fact, we've talked about three things that God has done for and given you and me. The first one was the resurrection of Jesus. That in the resurrection he's giving you and he's giving me new life.

And Jesus didn't just rise from the dead and die again. He's still alive. He's risen. Indeed. And because of that, he gives us a chance for a fresh start, a new direction.

Did you know that God is not up there worrying about the past and he's not fretting about the future because God is outside of time.

He is for your present. And he's giving you, he gives you and he gives me. He died on that cross to take all that sin history and just wipe it away. Sin has no bounds on you, has no bounds on me. You know how I know that?

Because if the wages of sin is death, I saw and read about my Savior coming back to life. And if he can raise Jesus from the dead, he'll raise me from the dead. The second thing he gave us is connection. That's why it's so important that he appeared to the disciples alive and they touched his scars in the spear print. They saw him alive.

They testified. And 11 of the 12 disciples died martyr's death for the fact that Jesus was alive. They watched him as he went up into the clouds, into the Shekinah glory of God, to take his seat next to the Father, to intercede for you and me, right now, whatever you're going through, I can tell you I'm praying for you, but I know it to be true that Jesus is praying for you and that he is for you, and that he is telling the Father, look, I want the best for them. I want their lives. And then the third thing he gave us, he said, if I go to the Father, send another the Holy Spirit, as you and I lack the capability, the knowledge, and the power to live a faith life.

So what did God do for us? He put his spirit inside of us. And if you remember in the narrative, he told the disciples to do something, to wait. Now let's see if we can remember last week. How many days were was Jesus with his followers until he was ascended?

Y' all see Job down here? He's got a 4 and a 0. 40. Pentecost was 50 days after Passover. It was a celebration of first fruit.

And I want you to pick up with this story with me in Acts 2. 1. They have been sitting in this room, they have been praying, and they have been waiting, but they didn't know what was going to happen.

God was about to move. If you noticed in some of those testimonies, we talked about God moving a lot, didn't we? How do you know when God's really moving? Like, I honestly was tempted to sit down and give you, like, 10 ways that you can know that God's moving. But you know why I didn't do that?

Because that would put God in a box. Because you'd be going, well, wait a minute. There's an 11th one that's not in this list of 10, is that God. You see, our nature, by nature, we want to be able to control things. Something happens, unexplainable.

God moves in a certain way. And there's two extremes that happen. There's this one side over here that people begin to try to explain it with logic. Like, this miracle just happened and it doesn't make sense. And, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

That's got to be something I control. So I begin to try to explain it. We see that all over our culture that to control it, I must explain it. It must make reasonable, logical sense. It must be like Spock, it must be reasonable.

But then over here, I'm going to step on some toes with this one. I'm just forewarning you. You. You've got this culture of people who want to capitalize on everything that happens and make it more than it should be so they can make it about them. They want the Attention for themselves.

And where we see this a lot of times is where we begin to attribute moves of God to our emotions. Our culture is now so emotionally driven that what you are accused of and I am accused of that if I'm not overtly emotional about a certain situation, I. I must not be serious about it. But let me tell you what happens with emotions when you have an emotional experience. The integrity of any decision you make in that emotional experience is measured with time.

That when the emotion is gone, whether that's fear or happiness or sadness, if you make a decision in a moment and it's laced with emotion, when that emotion's gone, where's the decision? Does it have any integrity to stand? In fact, some of you sitting in this room today, you came down to an altar. Cause you were scared to death of hell. And you prayed a prayer to get saved.

And when the fear was gone, so was your relationship with Jesus. Because you made a decision in an emotional moment. Somewhere right here in this middle is this place where God is moving and he's working. Sometimes in ways we can't discern, sometimes in grand and glorious ways. And the mistake that I will make in my life is.

Is going to either of those extremes and dismissing it.

See, here's how you know. If a move of God is real, did it glorify Jesus Christ as King and Lord? In fact, here's the challenge I want to make to you today. Jesus has given you new life in the resurrection. He's giving you connection by the Ascension, and he's giving you power by the Holy Spirit.

But have you given your life to Him? I remember talking to a lady years ago, and it's almost like if I could talk to all of you, I would find something to be true. There was a point in your life when you said, you know what? I'm a sinner and I need to be saved. But then there was this other point later in your life where you decided that Jesus was Lord and King.

Maybe it's because you were just still putting all the pieces together, or maybe you didn't see the gravity of the decision that you made when you accepted Jesus. I remember a friend of mine, I'll leave nameless. And she was telling me that, you know, I was saved when I was a teenager, but I didn't really make it serious till I was in college. How many of you would identify with a story like that? That maybe you were a kid and you accepted Jesus, but it didn't really, really begin to rewrite your story until you decided to give something back to the Lord.

When I read Acts, chapter two, this is probably second to the resurrection, the most important thing that's ever happened. It's the day that the church was born. It's the day that the promise that Jesus had made came about. And I want us to read through this. And as we're reading through this, I want you to notice that in this story there are a couple of things that are important to you and me.

There is an experience. There's an experience. Tangible things that were seen that no one could deny. But from that experience, these people began to seek an explanation. And because of their skepticism or because of other reasons, they began to dismiss the legitimacy of the experience.

But when they received the true explanation, which pointed back to, to the lordship of Jesus Christ, they had a response. They had the opportunity to express faith in what God had just done in front of them. So I want you to pick up with me as I read in verse number one, and I'm going to walk through this story just a little slowly, make a couple of comments, but then I'm going to challenge you at the end of this, because I think today might be the day somebody needs to say, you know what? The Lord has given me so much now in worship, I'm going to give something back. Very specific.

In verse number one, it says when the day of Pentecost had come, 50 days after the Passover, 10 days after Jesus ascended, give or take, they were all together in one place. Now, if this is Pentecost, how many people do you think were in the city at that time?

We will know by the end of chapter two that 3,000 people were saved that day. This is a feast. This is a time of celebration for Jews. And so there were Jews from all over in this city. So I want to wager that there was a whole lot more than 3,000 people in the city.

And we don't know specifically the 911 address of what room they were in when this happened. We do know there was about 120 people that were in this room. They had followed what Jesus said. They were waiting. And they're in this upper room and they're waiting and they're just like, okay, Jesus didn't tell them what was going to happen, but they would know it when it did.

Maybe they were in there and somebody over in the corner, they've got some kind of Jewish game of like Monopoly and they're playing a game, and maybe somebody over here, pop, you know, maybe they're having a snack together or Maybe some of them huddled up over here and they're praying, but they were waiting. But then the Bible says, and all of a sudden there was a sound, say sound. Sound of a mighty rushing wind. I mean, they knew what wind sounded like. You know what wind sounds like.

I mean, how many of you have seen all of these pictures of the little water spout that was down off Highway 60 in Hall county on Friday? Some people were close enough to it, they didn't even realize it was coming over them. Thankfully, it did no damage. But, you know, growing up, we went through a tornado when I was a young teenager, and mom threw us in the car, and we got in the car, we drove down to my Uncle Ronald's house and got in his basement. His basements are safe, or we think they are, but that was always the way that we.

If a storm was coming, we got in the car and went to his basement. But off in the distance, you could hear a relentless wind. I've always heard it. Said it sounds like a freight train. How many of you have ever been close enough to a tornado to hear it sound like freight train?

You know, there's no horns. Like, there wasn't a. And say, oh, the tornado's coming. It came all of a sudden. So they're sitting there, and all of a sudden they hear this noise.

Oh, my gosh. What is that? I mean, they didn't know what it was. They just knew something was happening. And you could kind of see them as they stood up, and they're bewildered as the wind begin to flap their clothes, and they're going like, oh, my gosh.

And then all of a sudden, it says that cloven tongues begin to appear and rest on them. Just like in Exodus when Moses came to the burning bush and he sees this bush, but it's not being consumed. Moses didn't go up going, hmm, that's kind of weird. I wonder why the bush isn't burning. The skeptic, the dismisser, that's looking at something miraculous but wants to find an explanation for it.

Do you know why the tongues appeared on there? You know when you're watching a campfire and you see that fire flicking. I love. It's beautiful to me to watch a fire burning. Fire always represents the presence of God.

Check this out. In Exodus, Moses walks up and God says, well, wait a minute. Take your shoes off. You're standing on holy ground. And now in that upper room, holy ground is standing on them and purifying them because he needed to sanctify them for the work that they were about to do.

And then it gets even better, because then it says. And then they begin to speak in other tongues as the Holy Spirit gave utterance. Now, guys, I'm going to be honest with you. I wish if I had a time machine, a DeLorean, I would punch in that, and I would want to go and see. So we could explain to all the denominations on the face of this planet what really happened that day.

Genesis, chapter 11. The people of the Earth began to build a tower. And God looked down and said, man, there's nothing that man can do but to stop them. Let's confuse their languages. It was a command of God to reverse that.

And that dispersed. And even to this day, the greatest obstacle in life a lot of times is our ability to communicate. I mean, let's just be real. I get to Scotland, and we go to five guys that night. And the guy that was waiting on us, very nice guy, but his accent was so strong, I went, huh?

And I'm pretty sure after two sentences came out of my mouth, he probably went, what? Because I grew up in North Georgia, I have Appalachian slang to everything that I say. I went to Dallas, Texas, to. To take a seminary class. And the lady at the cafeteria said, you're not throwing around here.

And I'm like, no. I mean, it's just all of us, we have dialect. And these were Galileans. And Galileans, according to some scholars, they believe that they had trouble pronouncing their H's. Let me just explain it that way.

Cause in Aramaic and in Hebrew, there's the letter. It's like, hocken a luggie. And Galileans struggled with that letter for some reason. And so people knew when they heard them speaking that they were Galilean. Just like when you go to Atlanta and you order and they say, you must be from the South.

God took what was confused, and he proved that he could take the mouth and he could speak through it, that there was nothing to hinder. I mean, think about what Moses said to God. I stutter, Lord, I can't speak. That's not an excuse. I'll put Aaron with you.

And now, with the advent of the Holy Spirit, he's empowered us that even he can overcome our own inability to speak. And so they stumble out into the street and they're speaking. And the miracle of what's coming through their mouth is only half of it. Because the people that are gathered from all different kind of nations, proselytes to Judaism and Jews that were cast out in the Diaspora. And they've returned for the first fruits.

They're there, and they see these 120 people coming out, and they're speaking, and they're going like, boy, they're Galileans. But I hear them in my dialect and my language. The miracle wasn't just on the speaker, but on the hearer as well. Now, if that's you, there's. There's this move of God, and the first thing you do is go, hmm, ain't that something?

The Bible said they heard the sound, too. They didn't see the flames sitting on them, but they heard the sound.

They knew something had happened in that. I mean, they maybe didn't even know where it was coming from. They just all of a sudden see all these people spilling out in the street, and they're scratching their head and going like, what in the world is this? This? But in their dialect and in their language, they heard them declaring the mercies and the grace and the goodness and the works of Almighty God.

There was no language barrier at that moment. It was probably the best message that they could ever hear. But in that crowd, you had people standing there going, well, golly, these people must be drunk. Listen, I don't know where you're from, but the last time I was around a drunk person, they could barely talk. Why in the world would they conclude?

How in the world could they conclude? I'm hearing them speak in my language and they're drunk. Usually it's the opposite. You can't do things when you're drunk. You're stumbling and you're slurring.

But that's the conclusion they came to.

Well, Peter's going to answer this. Peter in verse number 16 says, but this he says, listen to me, listen to me. Now, I don't know at this point he's back in Galilean language or what. But he said this was what was spoken through the prophet Joel. That God would promise that he would in the last days, pour forth his spirit on all mankind and listen to the first sign of that your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

They were speaking of the goodness and the work of God. And this crowd that was gathered were devout Jews. How did they know that? I mean, how did they. I mean, you ever thought about how did Luke know?

I mean, this is a pretty exhaustive list. I mean, I started calling out nationalities of people at Walleford Church, but they. How did they know this? Can I make a suggestion? Because they got saved.

They were saved. And now afterwards, they're saying, well, man, I was there and I'm from the Medes area and oh man, I'm from Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is way over in Iraq and Iran. These people were from everywhere. And if they were dispersed at Babel, at the tower of Babel and their language is confused now, God has broke down that wall by the giving of the Holy Spirit to enable them to be able to communicate with the Gospel.

And that's why I'm telling you that a move of God is measured by whether or not it's exalting Jesus Christ as king and Lord. With ongoing effect he goes through and he begins to explain about Jesus and how he was predetermined to be nailed to a cross. But then in verse 24 that God raised him from the dead. Quoting Psalm 18, I saw the Lord always in my presence, for he will be at my right hand. He will not abandon him to hell.

He talked about the eternality of Christ. Verse 29 he said, Brother, I confidently say to you that he is this Davidic king who was promised that there would never cease to be anybody on the throne. 32 this Jesus raised up again, to which we are all witnesses, and has been exalted to the right hand of God. According to Psalm 110. He gets to verse 36.

Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord in Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. So I'm asking you today if you've truly experienced a move in a work of God, did it exalt Jesus Christ as king and Lord? And if he it has, have you given your life to him? Have you submitted your life to him? I think a lot of times in Christianity we talk so much about what God does for us and the blessings that he gives for us.

And that's good to count our blessings. But at what point in your life have you said, you know what, Lord, my life is yours. Take it and use it? The night that I was saved, I felt like that's what stirred in my own mind and heart as I knelt down to attempt to pray. You just got to believe that this is what happened to me.

And as I began to start praying, nothing would come out of my mouth. Conviction began to fall in my life and I felt like the Lord impressed on my heart and said, look at all these things I've given you. I want you to give me your life. And in that prayer I didn't say a whole lot. I said, alright, it's yours, take it and use it.

And my life has never been the Same. Has it been all glorious and fun? Well, I'd love to tell you that it has, but that's not what faith's about. God's not trying to take your life and make it better. God wants to give you a new life with a new purpose and a new trajectory.

See, this thing happened, and they sought explanation. But point number one, when we have an experience like this, we have to avoid being dismissive or impulsive. When the spirit of God is working, we must avoid being dismissive or impulsive. We've got to let God be God. We got to let God be in control.

Because if on the dismissive side, I'm trying to look for the logic, and, you know, if the logic doesn't add up, I'm like, well, it wasn't God. Or if over here, I'm going like, whoa, that was pretty cool. I could use that for my own benefit. None of those. Each of those will lead you to a place where you dismiss the truth of God.

And what's the truth of God? Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took on human flesh, died on a cross to take your sin away, raised again to give you, give you as a gift, eternal life has been ascended back to heaven, connecting with us, interceding for us, and sent the spirit back to seal us and give us power. If he's done that, and then I'm not careful, when I see a move of God just like these men did, I will dismiss it. Now, let me get into something that's a little bit touchy, because here you are, and something's happening, and you're going, is this a move of God? And the only qualifier I've given you is that if it's a move of God, it will exalt Jesus Christ as king and Lord with ongoing effect in your life.

Here's what I want you to see. You see that little not equal sign in your study guide? Emotions does not equal spiritual. Now, let me explain that, because you're gonna go, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. No, I'm.

Just. Because somebody has an emotional experience does not mean it was spiritual. But when I have a spiritual experience, can it produce emotion? Absolutely. I.

I mean, joy and happiness. And sometimes when God moves on me, it may be conviction. I mean, there's a lot of different emotional responses. But again, the integrity of any decision that you make in an experience is measured by the decision's integrity after the emotion's gone. Like right now, I don't want any food because I ate crackers this morning, and it's not liking Me.

So if you say to me, hey, what do you want to eat for lunch? I'm probably going to go, I don't know, because nothing sounds good right now. But you know what I love? I love a good steak, man. And I love pizza.

Unfortunately, at 50, pizza loves me. It likes to hang around on me.

I regret eating those crackers.

And the decision I made in a moment now has waned. But when you accepted Jesus, if you came to the altar for any other reason than the Lord inviting you into a relationship with him, because he's king and He's Lord and he's done these for you and he's given them to you as a free gift, if you did it out of guilt, if you did it out of shame, if you did it out of trying to please somebody else, if you did it because you thought this was going to give you some self help guide to making your life a little bit better, none of those are valid reasons. Did the Lord Jesus call you to repentance? Look again with me in the text at verse number 37. Now, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart.

The same people that were saying, y' all are drunk, are now saying, brethren, what shall we do? I have a theory. Some of the people in this crowd 50 days earlier were standing in that same courtyard saying, crucify him.

Because a lot of these people were like, maybe they were living in Mesopotamia, but they moved back to Jerusalem to be close to the temple. They probably were there when Jesus was condemned to death. But now they're saying, what must we do? It says that they were pierced to the heart. They were cut.

That's an emotional response to the truth that the Spirit had come.

And he said, repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Why is that important? Because repentance says, I'm not going to go down my life path anymore. I'm going to go down a new one.

Baptism. I'm going to tell the world, Jesus is my Lord and my King. I'm identifying with Him. And then it says, because of salvation, I would be saved. Does baptism save us?

Yes or no? The correct answer there is no. It does not save you. It is a sign to the world of repentance, just like it was with John the Baptist. And so it is now.

But then he says, and you will receive the Holy Spirit. So your baptism, your baptism in water is a declaration, but your baptism in the Spirit, life changing. You see, if we're not careful, if we're not careful, we'll let emotions determine all things spiritual. But that's not the case. We need a good explanation.

We need to avoid over processing or under processing when the Spirit of God is working. They saw them as drunk. They were not drunk. They began to try to cut them down because they were Galileans and were going to dismiss the message and the call of God. But you saw how many came.

It didn't make logical sense. But you know what? Peter did this. Y' all know Peter was guilty of over processing in Matthew 17 on the Mount of Transfiguration. Here they are.

And all of a sudden Elijah appears and Moses appears and Jesus transfigures right in front of them. That's why we call it the Mount of Transfiguration. And Peter's like, over here. Oh man, I got this great idea, great idea. Listen to this Jesus.

Oh, this is so awesome. We're going to build a tabernacle for you and we're going to build a tabernacle for Elijah and we're going to build one for Moses. And it's the best church idea ever building program right now.

Then a voice from heaven comes and says, this is my son. You would do well to listen to him. Can I translate that for you, Peter? Be quiet.

Peter tried to make it as he did, oftentimes all about him. He over processed it over here on this logical sign. You can talk yourself out of any decision that you want to make. But what if you just kind of stood in the middle and in a yielded position, said, lord, sometimes things don't make sense. And sometimes there's this temptation to want to make things more than they should.

But what if I was just humbly yielded that you are the King and you're my Lord? That would keep me from missing the opportunity to see God in a fresh, in a new way. And it would give me this chance that a true move of the Spirit will lead people to submit their lives to the lordship of Christ. Listen again to verse 36. Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and in Christ, whom you crucified.

Romans 10:9 says, if we confess with our mouth, Jesus is what? Say it again, Lord, because listen again, you come to Jesus and he's giving you stuff. You're not giving him anything for salvation. But there's this invitation that comes back after that. It says, follow me.

And if we're going to follow him and he's not our Lord, we're going to get off the path pretty quick. First Peter 3:15 says, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart, always being accountable and ready to make a defense to anyone for the account of the hope that is in you. These men almost missed the opportunity because they saw them as drunk instead of filled with the Spirit. And I wonder if you and me today, we have dodged the question about Christ being Lord of our life because I just simply can't control it. I want to be in charge.

What is it for you today? Have you given your life? He's given you resurrection, new life, he's given you connection, and he's given you the Holy Spirit power. And I think what he's asking you today is, will you give your life to me? And that is.

That is the question that weighs on each and every one of us as we wrap this series up about our stories. Your story is being rewritten, whether you want it to be or not. Question is, do you want to be a participant in the rewriting of that story as you are following the Lord and finding those paths for your life? Can I ask you a question, anybody in this room? Have you perfectly lived for the Lord, the entirety of your Christianity?

And the answer is no. But we have an advocate with the Father sitting at the right hand of God, who is praying for you, who extends free forgiveness when we mess up, we screw up when we get off the path. But the question is, at what point will you yield your life to his leading? I'm going to ask you to stand with me as we get ready to go in this time. We're going to sing a song as we get ready to leave today.

And Randy's got some cool stuff to share with us in a few minutes. But I want to ask, are you here today? And maybe you've been in Church for 40, 50, 60 years, but you still have never yielded your life to the lordship of Jesus Christ. What if that day is today? Some of our pastors have moved into place up here.

We've got some ladies that are down, front, close. If you want somebody to pray with you today or to talk to somebody, come and just come up to us and say, hey, I'd like to talk to you. And we'll slip out the doors and go to the connection center and we'll talk with you because we'd rather you leave here and settle that question than to leave here going, I just don't know. I just can't. I can't really give myself over to that.

It doesn't make sense or it doesn't really benefit me directly. That's what humility is about. Humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God so that he can exalt you his way and at his time. Father, as we come into this time of decision, this altar is always open. Lord, there may be people here hurting today.

Some people asked last week. They raised their hand saying that they sense you calling them. Well, maybe they're still wrestling that out. Maybe they need to come back to this altar and continue praying with their friends and their loved ones. But today it's that question that's hanging out there.

You've given us new life. You've given us connection. You've given us the spirit. We have no excuse. Some of us are holding back because we want to control our life.

We want to keep the pen in our own hands rather than yielding that to you and saying, you know what, Lord? Here's the pen. I'm out of ink. My pencil's broken. Lord, I need you to rewrite my story.

Well, we love you. Ask you to move and speak now. In Jesus name, Amen.