Are You Enabled?

Paul the Apostle, he wrote to Timothy, his young disciple, and of course we know in the book of 2 Timothy, or 1 Timothy rather, and then he writes later in 2 Timothy, but Paul is writing to give his young disciple the keys, in a sense, to successful ministry, as Paul saw it. Now Paul had a difficult time. I don't know if anybody would want his resume, whipped and betrayed and beaten and left in the sea and in perils among the false brethren, etc., etc.

I don't know anybody here would sign up for this, but Paul the Apostle was able to make it through, and in the book of 1 Timothy, he gives us an incredible key to where is that ability that God gives to make it through all that he had to face, and I don't think anything we will face is more difficult than what the Apostle Paul had to face in his lifetime, but we will face some rough seas. My brother and my sister, in the days ahead, we will face some very, very difficult days. There may be a time coming where what we preach will become illegal.

It will be considered hate speech. There may be a time when some of us will have to even lose our freedom for a season for the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Almost unfathomable for many of us who were raised in an environment of religious freedom, but that's very quickly coming to an end in our time.

1 Timothy, I want to share with you just a thought, and I want to ask you a question. Are you enabled? Are you enabled in ministry? Because there's nothing else that's going to get you and I through the coming days. We will not get through because we have a skill set.

We'll not get through because we have natural enthusiasm. We'll not get through because we have any amount of natural intelligence. There's a force coming against everyone who stands to represent Jesus Christ that without the enablement of God, we will not get through it.

We have to go beyond all of our natural abilities. I've often said it from this pulpit and other places, that the end of me is the beginning of God, and when we come to the end of ourselves, when we see ourselves as Gideon, the last of the least of the smallest of the nobodies and the nothings in this whole conglomerate of people that were supposed to be the people of God, when we get to that point, it's really at that point that God is able to use our lives in a more powerful way than we ever dreamed possible. Because I want you to remember the message of the cross is all about mercy.

It's not about human strength. It's not about human ingenuity. It's not about obeying all the rules.

The message is a message of mercy, and you and I don't know mercy until we need mercy. Mercy is a concept until you need it, until you get to the point of saying, God, without your mercy, I'm not going any farther. Without your mercy, this aspect of my character is never going to change.

Without your mercy, God, I can speak, but my speech will never have any power. I'll never be able to reach beyond just people saying, well, that was interesting. I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in being interesting.

I'm interested in the body of Christ coming alive in the spirit of God, men and women rising up in the strength of their God in this generation. And as Daniel once said, speaking of a day of calamity on the earth, those who know their God will be strong and do exploits. I'm not interested in just being interesting.

The power of God has to come and the anointing is not determined. Pastor Gary is not determined by our exuberance. You can be spitting all over everybody and running all over the platform and people go home and say, oh, that was so anointed.

And then you ask the person, well, what did he speak on? Yeah, I'm trying to remember what it was, but oh, it was so anointed. There's a misunderstanding in America that the anointing has something to do with the exuberance of the speaker. It doesn't.

The anointing is determined by what happens in you when the speaker is speaking. That's if your eyes, your blinded eyes are seeing, if your wounded heart is being healed, if you're in prison, your prison doors are opening. If you are being given a vision of the power of God to come and strengthen you in the midst of your poverty, that's the anointing.

That's the anointing. It's got nothing to do with the exuberance of the speaker. I can shout, I can stop, I can cry.

That's not the anointing. The anointing is determined by what happens in you. And I don't care how I deliver this today.

If nothing happens in you, then I am not anointed by the Holy Spirit. It's really that simple. Somebody can get up and they can speak.

And remember, I think it was George Whitefield or one of the, who was the, Jonathan Edwards got up and they say he was the worst preacher that ever graced a pulpit in America. And he would write his sermons out longhand, and he had a candle or a lantern on the pulpit, and he would unfold it and read it. And they say it was boring.

His voice was monotone. It didn't even raise. But he read this sermon one time called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and it started the spiritual awakening in the country.

The anointing was in the message that God had given him, that my prayer is, God, I want a living word. And I know you do as pastors, as leaders, as mothers and fathers. You want a living word for your children, a living word for people you're speaking to, a living word for your congregations.

Not just a history lesson, but a living word. What is God speaking? And what is he willing to speak to people through my life? Now Paul, beginning at 1st Timothy chapter 1, beginning at verse 12, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me. In other words, Paul is saying he's given me abilities beyond my natural ability.

Paul was a natural born leader in my opinion, for what that's worth. Even in his enraged, ungodly condition, he had the ability to convince governors and leaders to lead people into homes, to take people captive. He had a natural ability to study.

He worked his way to the top of the religious hierarchical system of the time, because elsewhere in scripture he declares himself as concerning the law blameless. I don't know of anybody else who could even say that. He literally in his own sight, he obeyed every letter, everything of the law, which took considerable effort and energy and ability.

But yet he acknowledges there's something in the kingdom of God that's beyond natural ability and natural zeal. Because trust me, that will go out the window eventually. If it's not gone yet, give it time.

Natural ability and zeal will run its course. I did it myself years ago. You get saved and you read, if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

And then we sing that song so fervently, though none go with thee, still I will follow. Peter did that, didn't he? Peter sang that song. No one else may go with you, but I will follow you right to Jerusalem and I will die with you if necessary.

And so we take up our cross and we brag of our natural ability and our natural strength. And we have a bit of an inner sneer to those who are not as strong as we are. We go down the road.

But if somebody with binoculars is watching us, eventually we go poof and this little pile of dust comes up in the horizon, because none of us can carry our cross. Jesus couldn't carry the cross all the way to Calvary. And if he couldn't carry it, what makes you and I think that we can carry our cross in our own strength? He couldn't.

A man called Simon had to come and help him finish the journey to where he was put to death for our sins. So I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, 1 Timothy 1.12, who has enabled me, because he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. In other words, Paul is just saying, God knew that as he gave me the ability, I would not draw back.

I would go the whole way. Although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent man, like a person who couldn't be reasoned with, but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love, which are in Christ Jesus.

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. However, for this reason, I obtained mercy that in me first, Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering as a pattern to those who are going to believe on him for everlasting life. Paul is saying, I was all of these things.

I hurt people. I couldn't be reasoned with. I blasphemed God.

And so Paul was very aware of his own frailties. And I thank God we've heard that in this conference. That speakers have gotten up here and been very aware as we all are of our own frailties, the thorns in our lives, the things that God has for whatever reason left there and not removed, at least up to this season in our lives.

And Paul knew this about himself, but he said, God sent me before you to show others how merciful he is. How longsuffering, he says, to show the longsuffering of Christ as a pattern. In other words, like Paul would say, like I did make mistakes along the way.

I really believe when he wrote off Mark, he made a terrible mistake and he split with Barnabas. Like he was not a perfect man. He was a bit of a zealot before he got saved and he stayed a bit of a zealot, at least a good part of his life in ministry.

He didn't tenderize, thank God in the end, but he did make mistakes along the way. And I'm sure he regretted some of the things he said and some of the things he did, but he said in a sense this, God enabled me to receive his mercy and to understand how kind he is with us in our struggles, our failings. When we fall, when we falter, we're so prone to condemning ourselves when God hasn't condemned us.

He's covered us and he's loved us. And he said, I made mistakes and I know what I was, but God showed a pattern of his longsuffering. And you know, the Greek meaning of longsuffering is long suffering.

It's just like long suffering. It's like a truck going up a hill when they go down to that low gear, long suffering. You know, sometimes that's what ministry is all about.

Long suffering. But God is long suffering with us. In other words, he's not quick.

He didn't come to this world to die for you, my friend, to be beaten and whipped and scourged and mocked and nailed to a cross and beaten to a pulp to go back to heaven to fold his arms and pick apart your mistakes. He died for you because he loves you. He died for you because he did not call you or I because we really had much to bring into the kingdom of God.

If anything, he called us because he was going to enable us to represent him in the earth as the living God. We're not relegated to an argument about the existence of God and God forbid or God help us if we if we've done that, but we are to be a demonstration of the reality that Christ is raised from the dead and Christ lives in me in the power of his Holy Spirit. And please do me a favor.

Stop calling the Holy Spirit it. The Holy Spirit is not it. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead.

It is God himself was taken up residence inside our physical bodies. It's amazing and lives in us and moves through us. And all the years where we're doing stuff, he's laboring to bring us into compliance with what his will is and what he would have to do through our lives.

Paul tells us that he was enabled to become a different man than the one that he used to be. You all know the scripture second Corinthians 517. If any man be in Christ, he's a what? A new creation.

Behold, all things are the old things are passed away and all things are become new. We're enabled by the Spirit of God to become a new person. He doesn't save us and say, here's the rules that you have to obey.

Now, go clean up your character. Go get rid of that attitude in your heart. Go do this.

Go do that. No, he enables us by the indwelling of his Holy Spirit to become a new creation. We're enabled by God.

Now, Peter says it this way in second Peter chapter one, second Peter chapter one verses three and four. Peter says, as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who's called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceeding great and precious promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. So God says, I've come and I've indwelt your physical body and I've given you promises for your future promises of who you're going to be promises of what you're going to do.

It's your part is to believe what I say about you and what I say I'm going to do in your life. Your part is to believe it and just put one foot in front of the other. And God says, my part is to make it a reality in your life.

I will make you a new creation, not by might, not by power, but by my spirit says God, I will change you. You will be turned into us as happened to Saul. Unfortunately, he didn't really appreciate his calling.

But when Samuel said, you're going to meet people along the way, the spirit of God is going to come upon you and you're going to be turned into another man, not by human effort, not by sweat of our brow, not by trying to do better, but by the spirit of God inside of each of our lives, we will become the person that God has destined us to be. We will be enabled. I don't know how many, how many of you have ever read a passage of scripture and you'd look at it and say, God, how am I ever going to do that? I remember the first time, very first time I was reading my Bible and Ephesians five, it says, husbands, love your wisest.

Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. I remember thinking, I said it out loud. Actually, I said, well, that's easy for you to say.

I mean, Paul, you weren't even married. And if you're not playing the game, you shouldn't be making the rules for the rest of us. You understand? But I remember saying, God, I don't know how to do this.

But the Lord says, no, you don't. But if you will allow me, I will teach you how much I love you and how I'm given for you every day. And in turn, that love will be made known in your heart and through your heart for your wife.

And I will make you the husband I've destined you to be. And I'll make you the father I've destined you to be. I'll make you the friend I've destined you to be.

If you will let me work inside your life, I will change you from the inside out. I remember one night I was laying in bed and reading my Bible. I was a brand new believer in Christ.

And I'm not a weeper. Maybe a little more now, but I wasn't then. And I'm sitting in bed and the tears start coming down my face.

And Pastor Teresa said to me, what's wrong? And I said, I'm just reading about love in the Bible, but it's only a word to me. I was hard, folks. I was hard.

I could go to an accident scene as a cop. I could draw chalk lines around bodies and go eat my lunch. I didn't care.

I was hard. I was shut off. I was stone cold inside for various reasons of things that had been part of my upbringing.

But I said, it's just a word. I don't know. How do you do something when you don't know what it is? Like Nikki Cruz shared last night about holding a baby when you've never held one and you've never been held as a baby.

So if it's only a word and I don't understand the concept, then she looked at me and she said, before you die, as you grow old, you'll be known as a man of great love. It's amazing. It was a prophetic word for my life.

And I just simply started to believe it. I said, God, you're going to have to help me. I can't do this.

I don't even care. When I got out of my seat and responded to an altar call to give my life to Christ, I remember getting on my knees at an altar. I was only saved a short time.

I said, God, I have nothing to give you. Nothing. I said, if you want a bad temper, I'm your man.

I said, if you want somebody who's selfish, I'm selfish to the core of my being. I don't know how to be a husband. I'm not a good father.

And I don't like people. And I felt the altar call was to give your all for the future for the sake of others. I said, God, I'm on my knees.

I said, God, I got nothing to give you. But if you can use nothing, you can use nothing. You can have my life.

That was my prayer that day. And it's been an amazing journey ever since, because God loves to take nothing and do something with it. That's just who he is.

That's just what he does. I'm going to take a moment to pray for you now. It's not the end of my message.

So worship team, stay where you are. Okay. This is not good.

Father, I pray in Jesus name. God, for everybody who's just struggling with an issue of character right now. I don't know what it is, but it's you do.

Would you enable us? Would you enable us by the Holy spirit to be the person that you say in your word that we will be? When you met people, Jesus, when you walked on the earth, you always called them by another name. You said, this is what you are, but this is what you will be. So Lord God, would you give us the ability to believe you? And would you enable us Lord to be the people we need to be, whether it's in our homes, our marriages, our families, our private life, whatever it is, God, we just put it all in your hands.

And as Paul once said to Timothy, I was put in the ministry and he enabled me. Lord, let it be our testimony coming out of this conference, or at least this session that we were enabled to become people that we weren't. When we went in, we were enabled by the spirit of God to go beyond the limitations of our lives and the boundaries and the borders that we and others placed around us or natural ability told us this far and no farther.

Would you enable us God? Would you enable us Lord to be the people you've called us to be Jesus Christ, we yield ourselves into your hands. Lord, as you once said, Jesus father into thy hands, I commit my spirit. So Lord, we put our futures into your hands.

God, your own son knew that without your power, he would stay in the grave. He had to trust you to be raised from the dead. So Lord, here we are as followers of your son.

And we have to trust you Lord, that you will raise us to life in areas where we have died in areas where we've lost hope and lost heart in areas where we feel like we'll never change. God, do a miracle in us that we can start to preach to others about who you are and about what you do. Let the anointing touch us first, oh God.

Paul once said to Timothy, the husbandman that labors must be first partaker of the fruits. The Lord give you understanding in these things. So Lord, we don't want to preach to others what we're not living or experiencing ourselves.

We don't want to talk about miracles if we're flatlined and left in the flesh. We open our hearts to you, Holy Spirit. You live inside these earthen bodies.

So God, we're asking you Lord, wherever we fall short, wherever there's rough edges, things we know and things we don't, we just give you full access spirit of the living God to do whatever you want to do. Open our eyes to the word of God. If our eyes are blind, open our eyes to your word.

Give us understanding of the promises that you have for each of our lives. Help us to see where we're blind. Give us faith to believe.

Even faith has to come for you. We can't even muster that by ourselves, God. And may I say so, Lord, I know it's a shameful thing sometimes, but God, I need you to love you.

I can't even do that without your strength within me, Lord. And you know that's true. God, we're not ashamed to say it, Lord, because we want to glorify you in this generation.

We're tired of gimmicks as we heard in the last session. We're tired of powerless prayers. We're tired of endless sermons that do nothing.

We're tired of all this stuff, Lord, and we want your Holy Spirit to take over. We want your power again in our midst, God. We want it to be noised abroad in our towns that you're healing the sick, you're raising the dead, you're giving hearing to the deaf, you're giving sight to the blind, you're opening prison doors.

You're doing marvelous things that can only be done by God. And we don't care, Lord. We'd rather be called names than be accepted by a generation on their way to hell.

God, we want to identify with you, Jesus Christ. Give us life for the days ahead. In Jesus' mighty and holy name.

And secondly, Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 16 and 17, at my first defense, no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me.

And all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. God enabled Paul to speak.

And we need an enablement. Folks, listen, you got to stop getting your messages from somebody else online. Get God's willing to give you a word, a living word, a word.

He knows your congregation. He knows the visitors are going to be in your church. He knows what they were crying on their bedside the night before they came to church.

He knows the struggle in their homes. And your people don't need to hear what brother so-and-so in another state is speaking. They need a word from God.

And you need to be enabled. God will enable you to speak. Yes, the lion might be standing right now and saying, ah, you got no word.

You got no minister. You got nothing to say. Your church is going nowhere.

The devil is a liar. God is alive. And he is willing to stand with you and he will give you the words to speak.

It might be 15 minutes long. One guy asked me one time, he said, pastor, your message is three points. I said, most of my messages are pointless because I don't have a beginning point, a middle point, and an end point.

It's just one thought. I start at the beginning and I go to the end. That was free.

I don't know why I said that, but I said that. That was the biggest amen I got, pastor Tim, with everything I've been saying when I said that. In the upper room in Acts 2, it was 120 failures.

Peter, with all his boasting, turned out to be a coward. When push came to shove, John, with his head leaning on Jesus' chest, telling him how much he loved him at the last supper, runs naked out of the garden. As the scripture says, everybody takes off on him.

Even his friends, it says, are standing afar off. So in that room, there are no boasters. Everybody in that room knows my speech is worthless.

My promises amount to nothing. Then suddenly, the fire of God, the power, the fire of God came into that room, and cloven tongues of fire sat upon each of them. We're talking now about fire in our bones.

We're talking about the real fire. We're not talking about just getting excited about being a Christian or being a minister. We're talking about the fire of God coming upon us.

The very first thing that happened to them is they were given an ability to speak things they couldn't speak before. They were given words. In the Greek, it says the megalios.

They stepped out of that upper room. They went into the marketplace, stood in front of a hostile, formerly hostile crowd, and probably presently so, and they began declaring down to them the wonderful works of God. That's what it actually means in the Greek, the megalios of God.

In other words, let me tell you who God is, what God has done, what God is doing, and what God is going to do. They started speaking in unison with God, not just about God. You understand the difference between the two? The 5,000 or so are coming home.

It's a religious feast. They're coming back from the temple. The scrolls have been opened.

The scriptures have been read. Everything they heard was true, but it was just things about God. Those are good things.

Thank God we have to learn things about his character and such like, but it was all things that God had done. It was things about God, about character of God, etc., etc., and it's all true, but on the way home, they encountered 120 failures who now God is speaking to. Oh, there's a huge difference between the two, between speaking about God and God speaking through you.

See, when God starts to speak through you, things start to change. The dead come to life. The blind start to see.

The captives start to be released. Chains start falling to the floor. The lost start believing there is a God.

There is forgiveness, and there's a way forward. Oh, yes, there's a huge difference between speaking about God and God in the Holy Spirit speaking through you. I had a habit here when I pastored here.

Every Thursday and Friday, I would stay home, and I would spend the time just in my own personal devotion time. I'd be reading and praying and puttering and doing different things, but I would spend that time with God, and at the end of my time, I would take this fictitious empty basket up, and I'd hold it to the same wall. I would stand there, and I'd say, God, I have to stand before your people on Sunday, and I don't have anything to give them, and they're hungry, so I'm asking you, Lord, to fill the basket and feed them, and he was faithful.

He would fill the basket. He would give me, and most Sundays that I would preach, I didn't preach on what I was studying throughout the week. I preached the message that God gave me, the word that he knew that whoever was going to be listening was going to be hearing.

Paul said, I was enabled. The Lord stood with me and strengthened me that the message might be preached fully through me. Father, I pray, Lord Jesus Christ, for the men and women that you have here, Lord, that you would enable us to speak.

God, I'm asking for this touch of the Holy Spirit to come upon all of us, O God. Lord, that you would give us a living word. You'd give us your heart, that your power might flow through the words you give us to speak, and do what only you can do.

We sing a song, do what you are famous for, God. We want to see it in our lifetime. Give us the ability to step out of our comfort zone and just speak what you give us.

God Almighty, thank you, Lord, that you're going to transform some ministries here today. You're going to change people, God. You're going to give them abilities they didn't have before, and as you said through Paul, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that the message might be preached.

Now, the last thing I want to share is in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, where Paul, he says in verse 8, we don't want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia. We were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Now, this is the Apostle Paul speaking now, who also says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Now, the only reason he could write the next verse is because he had written this one and gone through this experience. We were burdened beyond measure. We had never known a struggle like this.

And I know there's people here today that you could say, that's me. That's me. I'm in a war now.

I've never been in. I'm in a fight for my spiritual life like I've never... I never thought I would ever be in a place like this. Paul says, above strength.

There's nothing in me left to fight this. I can't fight it in my own strength. It's a despair, perhaps, so deep.

I had an experience once in my life. I was in my 30s when I experienced a burnout, and I burned out just trying to serve God, just trying to do the best I could, heading out to win the whole country to Him, et cetera, et cetera. I was in church one Sunday, and I was due to speak, and I was standing in the front row, and I couldn't even sing.

I had so lost... I had lost all strength. I couldn't... I opened my mouth and nothing but air came out. I couldn't form the words.

I was, as Paul says, beyond measure, above strength. I didn't have the strength to even sing. I could hardly raise my hands, and finally, when I could speak, I said these words, I'm finished.

God, I can't do this anymore. I can't. I can't go forward.

I have no strength left to go forward. I've given it all. I've laid it all down on the road.

I've run the country and countries serving you, and I'm out of strength. And it was at that point, and it's only ever happened once in my life, I heard an audible voice, not an impression on my heart, an actual voice. In my right ear, somebody came behind my shoulder and said these words, I've come to help you.

And it shocked me. It startled me. I was like this, and I was just in my moment of despair, and I jumped, and I turned to look and see who was speaking to me, and there was nobody there.

In the strength of that voice, I got back into the pulpit that morning, and I've never stepped down since, never drawn back since. Paul says, we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired of life. Think that one through.

We felt that we couldn't go forward. It was so hard that we thought we were going to actually lose our lives in this trouble that came to us. But he goes on, he says, yes, we had the sense of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivers us, delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us, and whom we trust, he will still deliver us.

Phenomenal. He enabled us, in other words, to stand. We weren't standing by our own strength.

We're not standing by our own ingenuity. We're not standing by just pulling up our bootstraps. God had to come and enable us.

And I know there's people here today that you're on fumes. You've come to fire in your bones, but your bones are burnt, and you know it. And say, I don't know how I'm going to go forward.

I love God. I do. And I can hear it in your worship.

I don't think there's anybody here that doesn't love God. You really do love God. And that's not even the issue.

But the issue is the strength to go forward. The situation I'm in now, I don't know how I can go forward. If Paul thought he was in trouble, he obviously wasn't co-pastoring my church.

Because I feel the same as Paul did. I'm burdened beyond measure. I can't handle any more of the criticism.

I can't handle any more of the problems, the negative talk. The people are saying, Pastor, you've got us on a goose chase. It's never going to happen.

This grand vision of yours 10 years ago, where is it? What happened to it? I don't have the strength to go forward. I've made boasts of you, God, but I don't have the strength to go forward. I'm telling people God will strengthen you, but I'm out of strength.

I can't go forward. That was Paul. And I despair of life.

And there's people here today, you're despairing of your spiritual life. You're despairing of your ministry. You just don't know, God, how am I going to go forward? And I want to tell you, that's not an abnormality.

That's part of the natural journey of every believer in Jesus Christ. There is a point where we die that we might live. There's a point where we have to commit ourselves into the hands of God, and trust God to raise us up, and trust God to give us strength.

And that's why Paul would say we were enabled. Everything in Paul's writings speak about this enablement of God, this ability of God that takes over when our natural ability fails. And here's one of the greatest of all.

In first Timothy 1 15, we go back to the beginning. He says, this is a faithful saying and worthy of acceptance. So he's saying, what I'm saying is worthy for you to receive it in your heart, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first, Jesus Christ might show all long-suffering as a pattern to those who are going to believe on him for everlasting life. Paul was saying, in spite of my present mistakes, my past mistakes, or my present weakness, God is showing through me that he is able, and he is willing, because he has called me, and he will enable me. Just as God the Father enabled his son to be raised on the third day from the dead, I too will be enabled out of, and lifted out of weakness, and lifted out of the end of my own strength, and brought into the strength of God.

I will be enabled to change in areas of my life where I have felt that I will never change. I will be enabled to speak, because God will stand with me. I want to tell you something.

You don't know how to preach mercy until you've needed mercy. You don't know what grace is until you've needed grace. So you might have a fanciful Hebrew definition or Greek definition, but you don't know the word yet until grace has been the only thing left in your life.

You don't know what it is to be enabled to stand until you had to trust in God who raises the dead. But even more so, there's a present enablement to receive all of this in spite of our present condition. Oh, hallelujah.

God, I pray, please, Lord, help your people. Help the ministers and their spouses that are here. Help our families.

Help our churches. Oh, God, we're living in a generation that feel dead. They don't have a future.

They don't see a way out. They're in situations that will never change. Raise us up, Lord God, so that through us you can speak and raise them up.

We're asking you, Lord, to do miracles again in your house. The gospel, my friend, was never intended to be preached without signs and wonders following. Never, never.

We've left people today wondering where the signs are. But it was never intended to be preached without signs and wonders following. And we are the ambassadors of this incredible mercy of God.

And we must be the first recipients of this mercy, or we can't convey it to others. Otherwise, we're conveying a false strength or bravado that none of us have to the people and bringing them into the same bondage that we found ourselves in. No, we preach mercy.

We preach grace. And people turn from sin. It's amazing when you begin to preach grace, when you begin to preach the love of God.

I spoke at an Ivy League school recently, and about 400 students came out just to consider, I guess, what they're hearing, that there might be a God, that there might be a... He might have some relevance to my life. After speaking for, I don't know, maybe a half hour, whatever, I had to define it. They didn't know what it was.

I gave them an altar call. I invited them to come forward, to step out of where they are into the plan that God has for each of their lives by dealing first with the issues. I had to define sin.

A lot of students don't know what that is. They don't know the definition of the word. Don't forget, folks, we've got a whole generation here that have been raised without God and the knowledge of God.

They have no idea what you're talking about. When you say the word sin, it's just a foreign word. They don't even know what it means.

So you define it. And I gave them an opportunity to step out, and I wasn't sure how many would come. This is an Ivy League school that prides itself on godlessness, this particular school.

And 400 students that came out to hear, about 200, got out of their seats, came forward. They got on their knees. And the interesting thing is they started weeping.

I didn't tell them to weep. They just naturally started weeping. It just started spreading.

I remember one football player, big tough guy. There was a lot of athletes came out to this particular evening. And I remember him on his hands and knees crying so hard he left a puddle of water on the hardwood floor, just touched by the mercy of God, touched by the grace of God, touched by the hope for their future.

And then they rose up to their feet and started spontaneously confessing sin. I never talked about that. The young people that seemingly in the natural have everything going for them.

They have six-figure salaries before they even graduate. They're all recruited right out of university and started talking about bondages in their lives and things. I don't want to live like this anymore.

I don't want to be like this. And they didn't care who was around. I love that about this generation.

I hope you do too. I mean they're just right in your face. They just say it.

And it's like, some of it was shocking. It's like, okay, all right. I think that's a good idea to stop doing that.

And they don't care who's around. They don't care if it's guys or girls or whatever. They just start talking about what they've been doing.

And then they started to dance and shout and worship and clap. And one of the young men saved that night. We're going to go back there to this particular college, I believe this year.

But one of the young men saved that night. They say he's been running all over the campus telling anybody he could tell. Next time they come, you got to come.

He says, best concert I've ever been to in my life. I was enabled. I was enabled, Paul said.

I was enabled. And this is what I believe that God wants to do. This is where the fire comes from.

It's the enablement of the Holy Spirit in your life and mine. Can I have the worship team come back to the platform, if you will? And I want to go back to the original question. Are you enabled? Are you enabled? Are you enabled in areas where you're weak in your life? Are you enabled to speak when you stand in the pulpit? Or even just to your own family? Do you have a word from God? Are you enabled to stand when your natural body wants to give out, your natural mind wants to quit? And are you enabled to receive this incredible power that God is willing to give? Not in our success, but in our failure.

Not in our strength, but in our weakness. Not when we have it all together, but like Gideon, when we have nothing together. Like Esther, when we feel unloved or unlovely, and we haven't even been talking to the king for 30 days.

It's in those moments the call comes. It's in those moments the fire of God desires to burn in us again. And because it's all about God.

I love, and this will only take a minute, but I love the story of the prodigal son when he comes down the road and his mantra is, I'm not worthy, make me a slave. You know, like, you know, the whole thing, right? He's coming. That's what he did.

Kind of the church taught him, I guess, of his time. And his father meets him and doesn't even talk to him. He just, he just says, bring the robe, covers him.

First of all, he kisses him and takes his uncleanness on himself. Then he covers him with the best robe in the house, which you and I know is the blood of Jesus. Then he calls for the ring and puts the ring and gives him the empowerment of the kingdom of his father is his again.

He hasn't earned it. He doesn't deserve it. He's carried the father's name, but he's lived far, far away from the heart of his father.

Then he gives him shoes, which is indicates you're ready for the journey. Now you're ready to, usually God says, take your shoes off when you meet him. In this case, he puts shoes on his feet.

In other words, you're ready now to represent my house. Then he invites him in the house and the band all comes and they start singing. And the poor kid, he's just in the corner.

He's covered in the robe, the rings on his hand, the shoes on his feet, the band singing. His father is dancing, says there's music and dancing in the house. And the kid is there.

And the father says, you're ready now. You're ready now. From a ministry standpoint, I mean, we'd say that the kids not ready, but the father says, you're ready.

What do you think his message was? What do you think his message was? You got to know my dad. You got to meet my father. He's awesome.

He's amazing. I was a mess. I was a failure.

I, I smelled like a pig. He met me coming down the road. He covered my stench.

He took my failure upon himself. He empowered me to represent his house. He gave me shoes to represent his kingdom.

He called forth the band and they all began to dance and it was all about me. It was all about me. The son that was a failure, the son that made a mess, the son that was feeding pigs.

It was all about me. And he sent me out. Go tell them about me.

Go tell them who I am. Go tell them what I do. Go tell them about the miracle power and the incredible mercy of God.

Hallelujah to the lamb of God. You want to know what the end time message is for this generation? Mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, the mercy of God, the grace of God, the goodness of our God. Hallelujah to the lamb of God.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Glory to the name of Jesus. Glory, glory, glory, glory, glory.

As we sing, you might want to come to an altar if that means something to you. If it does, you're welcome to do that. You might want to sit where you are.

You might want to stand where you are, but the issue really is God enabled me. God enabled me. God enabled me.

God enabled me. Cover me, empower me, commission me anew and afresh. Oh, let the true fire of heaven become my portion.

Put your fire in these bones because my fire has gone out. My fire is dim. My fire of God has left me burnt.

But oh God, your fire will send me into the highways and the byways. And through my life, you will compel them to come into your kingdom. Praise be to God.

Praise be to God. Praise be to God. Oh Jesus, I want you to give God a shout of glory.

Would you do that before we worship? Give him a shout of glory. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory.

God is good and his mercy endures forever. God is good and his mercy endures forever. Give him a shout of glory in the town.