Sermon Tone Analysis

Fresh Power - What Happens When God Leads and You Follow!

Last Week, Kenny

This week we turn back to our summer reading of Fresh Power.

What happens when God leads and you follow.

Or what happens when we turn our lives over to the leading of God’s Holy Spirit.

And here is what we have discovered so far.

That if you are willing to heed the Holy Spirit’s leading, he will have you in the right place at the right time for what he is up to in the world all around you.

The thought from that was that God has a plan for your life, but also for the lives of those around you.

And he expects to use you to fulfill it.

That the Holy Spirit would teach us what is important in life and have us committed to those things.

And that the Holy Spirit knows our giftings, because he placed them within us, so he knows how to use those giftings and in what circumstances they are needed.

And then our last message was how God does that.

He makes us witnesses.

He opens our eyes to the truth and then allows the truth to change us

He works in our lives and cleans up all of those rough edges.

He gives us Witness

He gives us the ability to speak in tough situations

He knows the situation that he has placed us in and how to get his result done in it

I remember saying in that message that the Holy Spirit gives us the right words to say, the right attitude to say them in and the right time to smile, cry or even pray with them.

He Empowers us to Witness

He gives us the goods to match the words.

Before him, we didn’t have that.

Turn with me over to Acts 2

and today I want to talk about

Shock and Awe

On Friday March 19, 2003 the United States and its allies launched a massive aerial assault against Iraq

In just moments after the attack started, tremendous explosions began to rock the capital city of Baghdad.

Other cities such as Mosul and Kirkuk were attacked as well.

This attack was named Shock and Awe.

A name for what the United States expected it to do in the hearts of Iraq’s leaders, strike shock and awe into their hearts.

The attack was done on such a large scale to alert the Iraqis to the fact that Saddam and his leadership was over.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held a news conference after about an hour and a half of this attack to let the American people know that it had started and to report these words.

“Iraqi leaders are starting to lose control of their country and that the confusion among Iraqi generals was growing.

He speculated that those close to the Iraqi leader would question where they stood in terms of their support for Saddam

According to our then president, George W. Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, the coalition aimed to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism and to free the Iraqi people.

I chose to share those facts with you today because I believe that we as believers are called to do the same in our world.

We are here to be used by the Holy Spirit to:

disarm the enemies weapons of mass destruction.

To end the father of terrorism, Satan’s effect in peoples lives

And to free those whom we live with and work with and just do life with.

All of these were accomplished on the cross and are part of God’s plan for humanity.

How do we do it?

Shock and Awe.

Acts

If you read the chapter in the book with us this week, then you will remember that Pastor Cymbala is speaking about the Word that is spoken in the church.

He speaks about how weak the word is spoken to save the size of the crowd or to amass a large crowd

He speaks of how pastors don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.

And that’s great, but how do people change if it is the Word of God that changes us?

How many know it’s good when the word of God brings some pain of the truth into our lives?

How many know that we need the power of the Holy Spirit in us

How would Pastor Michael and Maria Durso ever be where they were today had not the Holy Spirit showed them the truth that it’s time to clean house?

Listen to me church, the world has enough to keep it distracted from the truth.

We have mind blowing technology in our pockets and at our fingertips all the time

We have video and instant communication

We have cars that are just about to drive themselves

We have VR that’s not perfected yet, but it is pretty cool

Hours upon hours are spent in these and many other distractions of our day.

We aren’t going to win their ears or their time, but speaking some watered down, everyone’s going to heaven version of the gospel.

WE need the Shock and Awe of the Holy Spirit.

This is that third point from the last message

He gives us the power to be witnesses.

To back up what we say with the power of heaven in full demonstration on this earth.

This is pastors and church leaders and teachers speaking powerful, dramatic and truthful lessons from the gospel that rival all the distractions in our lives and demand attention.

Pastor Cymbala put it this way in our reading this week.

God is more interested in whether his church is living out what it was meant to be: the Holy of Holies for His Spirit.

He wants the church to be a place of awe and wonder - two qualities that we have largely lost in our meetings.

How man would say with me today that we are going to continue to pray for and believe for the authentic move of God’s Holy Spirit in our services and in our lives?

Amen.

Shock and Awe Confuses the Enemy

Look at

I remember watching the TV reports during the Iraqi war.

I remember pictures of and reports of Saddam Hussein’s ranks, in total chaos.

They didn’t know what had hit them.

I believe that this is what our enemy needs to experience today.

He is so comfortable in our world.

He is much to comfortable in believers lives and in the church.

How many know that needs to change?

I don’t want to run our services to gather the throngs of people to fill our pews because they like what they hear.

I want to sing and celebrate and preach in a way that invites the power of the Holy Spirit into our service that our pews would be filled because peoples lives are being changes.

The enemy is running in confusion

He has figured Christianity out, but he can’t figure out the power and actions of Gods Spirit.

We need more of that in our lives.

I believe that as I preach the Holy Spirit inspired and filled Word of God for us today that Satan has to run from us instead of abiding with us

That the compromises of this world would be broken in our lives

And that ranks of the soldiers of hell would be put into utter chaos and confusion.

That satan would not know what to do next.

It would cancel his control over us

It would negate his attacks on us

Examples:

Some of us need to begin to pray in our spiritual prayer language a little more.

I know that there is confusion in the church on this subject, but I want to tell you, it brings confusion to the ranks of hell.

And if you are not there yet, then we need to pray that God would move in our lives and in a new and powerful way

We need to pray that our church services would be spiritually charged atmospheres where God’s Spirit is free to move the way that He wants to move every time we get together

And then we need to open our lives up to allow Him to move amongst us.

Not to judge it or mock it when he does.

When the enemy is confused, people will be set free.

Shock and Awe Brings Marvel and Amazement

I remember in the war the bands of Saddams men who would wave the flag of surrender as our soldiers crested a hill in their caravans of weapons.

Shock and Awe had won out.

When the power of the Holy Spirit moves in the church, the world will show up.