September 28, 2025, Message by P. Kevin Clancey

Transcribed by Beluga AI.

There is no other name given on heaven and earth by which men and women might be saved than the Name of Jesus, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. You are saved. You are saved and you’re being saved. And He is a great and wonderful Savior.

We worship you tonight. Almighty God, our Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We welcome your presence with us, and now just open our eyes to your word that we might learn it and be transformed by it. We want more than Bible information. We want Bible transformation. And we ask this, and we trust that you will do it for us and in us in the name of King Jesus, Amen.

All right, so every once in a while, every year or two, I preach the reminder sermon of who as the Firehouse Church, and we are the church—I call it the three-legged stool, a stool of three legs, and then the seat is the fourth kind of thing, but… but a three-legged stool is a sign of stability. And what I mean by the three-legged stool is: what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus and filled with His Holy Spirit? What does that look like? All right?

Many people, the traditional kind of view is you say the prayer, you ask Jesus into your heart, and you’re filled with the Spirit. And then the Pentecostals came along, and actually before them, even the Wesleyans, and said, “No, there’s a second blessing, a second filling.” The Wesleyans believed it was for entire sanctification. The Pentecostals were seeking that and started speaking in tongues, said, “That’s it. That’s the evidence of the second filling, which is for power to do the ministry of Jesus.”

And so they’ve debated. It’s been a debate for the last hundred years or so, and you’ll hear Pentecostals say, and I always cringe when they say this, even though I kind of are one of them. I cringe when I hear them say this. They said, you know, they always say to evangelicals, “Have you received the Spirit?” And, you know, people feel like, “Well, yeah, you know, I got the Holy Spirit.” And in fact, I believe you do. I believe if you have Jesus in your heart, you have the Holy Spirit. But there is a blessing that comes. And here’s where I kind of agree with the others, the Pentecostal group. There is a blessing that comes, where there is anointing or anointings. I would actually say anointings with power.

One of the leaders of the Vineyard movement in the ’90s, Eleanor Mumford, somebody asked her one time a good Pentecostal question. “When did you receive the second blessing?” And I love her answer. She said, “Between the first and the third.” It’s a great answer. It’s a great answer.

Paul says in Ephesians, be filled with the Spirit. And that in the Greek tense is a continual “be filled and keep on being filled.” And so it’s not just a one time event, it’s not just a two time event.

But I want to ask another question tonight. Whatever it is, what does it look like? What does it look like? And this is kind of the theme verse for the Firehouse Church.

2 Timothy 1:6-7:

6 Therefore, I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment. (2 Timothy 1:6-7, CSB)

And God, may the words of my mouth, the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer.

All right, I’m going to use Greek words tonight because every once in a while I just want to remind you that I went to seminary and you can go, “Ooh, wow. Hey, great.” Yeah. All right.

Alright. So… no fear.

Four key things. The three legs are going to be power, love, and a sound mind, and fear—courage is the thing that holds those things together. C.S. Lewis says courage is the foundation of all other virtues. Courage—you know, if you make love your aim, but you don’t have courage, your love is going to quit when it gets scary. Your faith is going to quit when the risk gets too great. Your hope is going to wane when it seems hopeless. And so, courage is the thing that keeps you on your feet.

And so, he says you did not receive a spirit of fear. It’s very interesting… in the Book of Acts as people argue about what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit—and there are several instances in the Book of Acts when people are filled with the Holy Spirit, and they speak in tongues. That has become the Pentecostal doctrine. However, one of the things that’s mentioned, I think a few more times even than speaking in tongues, is they were filled with—anybody know?—boldness, boldness, courage, courage to proclaim the gospel.

One of the things that I’ve seen just, and this is too short a time to tell, but one of the things I have seen in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death has been other Christians rising up with more courage, more boldness.

And so the Spirit comes and He brings boldness to preach the gospel, boldness to live the Christian way, courage. The Holy Spirit does not bring fear, does not bring timidity. And, dear ones, we can have courage because if you heard me said, oh, a couple hundred times, we’re playing a game that we’ve already won. We’re playing a game that we already won. Bill Johnson says, “You know, you can’t threaten me with heaven.” You can’t threaten me with heaven.

Dear ones, we cannot lose if we do not quit. We are playing a game we’ve already won. When Jesus Christ rose from the dead, He won the eternal victory, and by us uniting ourselves with Him, we share in His life, death, and resurrection.

And listen, this story—it’s hard here on earth. I was talking to a young man recently, and he was telling me his woes. And his woes are largely of his own making. Because though he gave his life to Christ, he still vacillates between two worlds. He gave his life to Christ when his wife was divorcing him, which a lot of people do in crisis. Now he’s upset because his teenage daughter won’t respect him.

I said, “Well, what’s going on?” He says, “Well, you know, she just, you know, her mother’s living with her boyfriend, and she doesn’t like that. I’m living with my girlfriend, and…” Whoa, time out, man. You gave your life to Jesus.

“I know, I know, but, you know… I want her to go to church with me and stuff. I just don’t want to push it.” And he’s trying to wiggle off the hook, you know. He says, “I know it’s wrong.”

And listen, I’m a nice guy. Don’t act, don’t look surprised. I’m a nice guy. I didn’t beat him over the head, but I said this. I said, “Lookit, John.” I said, you know, just, I said, “I get it. A woman’s love is a powerful thing, man. It feels great to have to hold a woman in your arms. And, you know, that’s a powerful thing.” I said, “But, but, you know, you’ve gone through a divorce, and it’s a tough time. And I get it. It’s hard to follow Jesus. You’re not following Him doing this. And it’s hard to follow Jesus. It’s hard to say no to that. But you know what? As you’re telling me the woes of your life, you know what’s harder than following Jesus? Not following Jesus. Pick your hard.” Pick your hard. It’s hard to follow Jesus. It’s harder not to follow Jesus.

And so, dear ones, in this world, we have struggles. Jesus said we’d have struggles. All right. I’m never going to blow smoke and tell you guys, “Oh, everything’s hap-, you know, everything’s wonderful. Zippity doo dah.” You know, they’re going to be—

I just, I tell you, I’m a little weird. It, like, big problems typically do not faze me. I’m very calm in big problems. You know, our house caught on fire. My wife’s like, “Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.” And I’m like, “Honey, it’s just… You know what? It’s just a house. We got insurance. It’ll be fine.” Big problems don’t faze me. But my jack on my computer wasn’t working. Oh my gosh. I’m just like, “I hate life. What’s going on here?” And my family is mystified by it. You know, little things like mosquito bites. You know, I get a broken leg, and I’d be like, “Well, just take me to the doctor.” You know, they’ll, but, you know, mosquito bites… “I hate mosquitoes. Curse on all mosquitoes.” I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never had it—and the problem is I’ve never had a day without the little things.

The little things are much more frequent than the big things. And the Lord is really drilling this into me. He’s like, “Kevin, be grateful. Be grateful. Be grateful. Stop focusing on the six or seven things.”

Listen. Rabid sports fan here. My team losing can ruin a weekend if I let it. And that’s just ridiculous. What’s even worse is my fantasy team losing, because that’s me, baby. That’s ridiculous. I got a beautiful wife. I got wonderful kids. I got you all in my life. How could I not be happy with these three families? I mean, I’m not even flattering you. I love you all. I love your kids. You know, just, I love your grandson. Haven’t met him yet, but if he’s anything like your two sons and his mom, he’s awesome. Maybe he’s just gonna be like you, Brian. What a blessing to the world that would be. Another generation. That would be awesome.

All right, so we have it good. We’re playing a game we’ve already won. Yes, life is hard. Yes, there’s daily stuff. But dear ones, be grateful. Be grateful. We’re playing a game we already won.

You know, it’s like, they can’t, I saw this great cartoon one time. There’s these two little old ladies in church with their purses and the hats. Remember how little old ladies used to dress for church in the 50s? And laid out before them on the ground was the devil, just flat cold, knocked out on the ground. And one of the little old ladies was looking at the other and said, “Well, Martha, he tried to steal my joy.”

That’s what we do with gratitude. Knock that devil out. We’re playing a game we’ve already won.

Boldness, as I said, is regularly mentioned as evidence of Holy Spirit flowing. The gospel would not spread around the world without boldness. It always takes boldness to witness.

“Lord, I just want to witness. When it’s easy”—you never will. “I just want to pray for the sick when I’m overwhelmed with faith and know for sure they’re going to be healed, and I’m not…” Listen, this whole thing is a risk. Take a risk, take a risk. And so boldness is evidence of the Holy Spirit filling you.

And in that boldness, we walk in power. Dunamis is the Greek word used here. Power to become more like Jesus in character.

Listen, you can’t make yourself a better person. If you could, diets would be successful. New Year’s resolutions would work. There wouldn’t be a 12-step group down the street that people have to go to every week and have rigorous, intense community. It would work if you just said, “Oh, drinking’s ruining my life, I guess I’ll stop.”

It doesn’t work that way. I mean, it sounds like it should. Sounds like it should, right? But you all have bad habits. I don’t know what they are, but if you want to confess them, you can. I don’t know what your bad habits are, but I know that you’ve tried that, you know, “Well, this is stupid. I should quit doing this.” You know, I should quit getting mad and upset about little things. But it doesn’t work that way.

We need help to be like Jesus. We need help to get better. And one of the promises is He will make us like Him in character. We will have the fruit of the Spirit, which grows over time in our lives when we abide and have fellowship with Him, and then what grows in our lives is things like love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

We will mature in the faith, and we will represent Jesus better in our daily walk, in our attitudes, and how well we love people. We will represent him better. That is dunamis power. The Holy Spirit brings the power to improve in character. For some Christians, that’s the whole enchilada. Or as I found out today, the whole Sushi burrito. So that’s, you know, God’s going to make you a better person.

Well, He will make you a better person, but He gives power for some other things. He gives power to become like Jesus in His ministry. The character of Jesus is called the fruit of the Spirit. The power of Jesus to do the ministry of Jesus is called what? Read the sign. Doesn’t it say so up there? No, it doesn’t. Oh, now you have to come up with the answer.

What is it called in the Bible to have the ministry of Jesus? Gifts. Spiritual gifts. You get to do the—

John Wimber is one of my heroes. The founder, well, kind of the founder of the Vineyard movement. When he first became a Christian, he didn’t have much church. He had no church background. He started reading a Bible, and he went to this little Quaker church. Everybody wore suits, and he was a professional musician, and he just, you know, he thought the music was horrible.

And he couldn’t believe—this was in the early 60s—he couldn’t believe that they didn’t have ashtrays in the church. You know, he was used to hanging out in bars and restaurants, and he would always smoke. And he’s like, “Where are the ashtrays?” And he found out they didn’t smoke. And so he’d always just like, bolt out of church the minute the service was over so he could light up his cigarette. And nobody—good Christian people, they’re like, “What do you do with this guy? You know, he’s smoking a cigarette. I don’t want to get too close.”

But anyway, you know, finally one of the elders came up and talked to him, and Wimber had a great question. He’d picked up a black—because he believed at the time the Bible has to be black, you know—got a big black King James Bible, and he started reading the Gospels. The elder came up to him and he said, “Well, brother, you’ve been coming here lately. Got any questions?” And Wimber goes, “Yeah, when do we get to do the stuff?” Great question.

He means, “What do you mean, ‘when do we get to do the stuff?'”

“You know, this guy, He raises the dead, He casts out demons, He heals the sick. When do we get to do the stuff?” And the guy says, “Oh, we don’t do that anymore. We just kind of admire him for doing it.”

Wimber says, “We don’t get to do the stuff?” The guy goes, “No.” And Wimber looked at him, he goes, “Really? What do we do then?” The guy just pointed at the church building where they just finished the service that Wimber did not like. The music was bad. He didn’t understand the sermons, blah, blah, blah. He said, “Well, we do that.” He goes, “That?” He goes, “Yeah.” And he looked at the guy—everybody, I think this line is so funny; nobody ever laughs. I think this line is so funny. He said, “For that, I gave up drugs?”

Guess what, church? We get to do the stuff. Guy came to the Firehouse today. He walks in, he says, “Yeah, I was watching one of your videos, and you mentioned something about deliverance. I need to talk to you after church.” All right, all right. We’re going to kick some devils. So we talked to him after church. I don’t think he had any. He wasn’t sure, but we—you know what happens if you sweep a clean house? Still clean. Yep. I knew you would know, Stevin. And it probably feels good doing it. Might have missed something. All right, so, yeah, still clean.

But, yeah, we get to do the stuff so that Julie can stand up here and give a testimony of the prayers of many righteous at many churches going before God, and we get to see Him do the stuff and give Him glory and give Him praise.

There was a lady years ago at the Firehouse. Well, I just told a story today. We prayed for a woman who’s having seizures, and I remembered Celia. How many of you know Celia? You know Celia, if you’ve been to Bremerton church. Celia is one of our nursery workers. And years ago, she posted on Facebook. She said—you know, she’s a mother of three kids—and she said, “I get migraine headaches.” And she says, “The only place I can go and get any relief is I have to go into a dark, quiet room and just sit in the darkness and in the quiet.” She says, “I have three small children that, you know, this doesn’t happen. I can’t do it.”

And so I read that, and Celia’s sitting in church a couple weeks later, and that’s on my mind, and all of a sudden, God wants to do the stuff. I get what’s called a word of knowledge. I’m preaching my sermon, and I look at Celia, and the Lord stops me. He says, “Tell her that I want to heal her of those headaches.” And it’s always like, okay, is this weird? Am I going to be weird? Am I going to be weird? But I just stopped. I said, “Celia. I’m sorry.” And she kind of looked startled, and I said, “You have migraines, right?” She goes, “Yeah.” I said, “I just believe that God wants to heal you of those migraines.” And we prayed for her right then.

So, anyway, Celia’s kind of shy. She doesn’t talk a lot, so I found this out also on Facebook. A couple weeks later, shows up on my feed—I wasn’t stalking her wall, but it showed up on my feed. Though, listen, if you’re on Facebook, it’s not beyond me to stalk you. It’s public, you know, you want to put stuff out there, I’ll check it out.

But anyway, I wasn’t stalking her, but it came up on my feed again. And she wrote, she says, “Man,” she says, “something happened to me in church.” She said, “First of all, I learned, be careful what you post online because your pastor will read it.” That’s right. And dear ones, you already know this by now, but anything you post, anything you say, anything you do, can and will be used as a sermon illustration. So you’re fair game. All right, so she posts that. And she said—and here, and then she said, “And then he said, ‘You know, let’s pray for these migraines to go.'” And she said, “I felt so silly.” She said, “All these years I’ve been a Christian, and I just kept running off, trying to run off into a dark room.” She said, “I never even prayed about it.” But she said, “We prayed that day in church. When I got home, I prayed again.” And that was maybe eight, nine years ago. And last I checked with Celia, maybe it was a year ago. Never had another migraine. Never had another migraine.

Doing the stuff. He gives us power to do the ministry of Jesus. Supernatural Christianity is normal Christianity. We have been living subnormal Christianity. We’ve been worshiping the Great I Was and the Great I Will Be, but, dear ones, He’s the Great I Am. He’s omnipresent, He’s omniscient, He’s omnipotent. And He’s here. And He’s not just here to teach us about the wonderful things He did in the book. He’s here to release those kinds of things in His kingdom now so it might advance all over the world.

I hear people all the time say, “Jesus didn’t do miracles so that we’d replicate Him. He did miracles so that it would demonstrate that he’s the Son of God.”

Really? Then why did He send out His disciples two by two? And why is it all over the Book of Acts?

“Well, that was just for the first or third century. The first three centuries.” Okay, show me that chapter, verse, text. You know where it is? Nowhere. It’s not in the book. We receive power to become like Jesus in character. We receive power to become like Jesus in ministry.

Now, sometimes the gifts look strange. They look strange. God’s power shows up, and people react strangely, and I want to say two things about when it looks strange. Number one, if it looks strange, it doesn’t mean that God’s not in it. And if you feel uncomfortable, it doesn’t mean that God’s not in it. Some people say “I have the Spirit of discernment” when it simply is the spirit of fear.

Don’t miss the gift because you don’t like the package. Now, sometimes weird isn’t—weird means nothing. If something’s weird, it doesn’t mean it’s not that the Lord’s not in it. I mean, there’s all sorts of weird in the Bible. All right? There’s a prophet he told to walk around naked. What would we do if somebody started walking around the streets of Kitsap County naked saying God told him to do that? We’d all say, “No, he didn’t. That’s weird.” Probably, and that would probably be true. But you know what? You’d have to find out.

Now, there are other people, and I’ve run with this crowd, where if it’s weird, it must be God. It’s like, “No, that doesn’t work either.” What’s the test? Fruit. Does it produce fruit? Does it produce fruit? Don’t miss the gift because you don’t like the package, but don’t become so enamored with the package that you ignore the gift. You understand what I’m saying? Don’t be either of those two extremes.

Whenever something happens that looks a little bizarre, seems a little strange or out of the ordinary, through prayer, laying on hands, ask the Lord, “What are you doing?” It’s an invitation to seek Him. In and of itself, it’s a sign, all right? Signs are not the thing. Okay?

My wife and I just took a road trip through Idaho, and there would be signs. “Coeur d’Alene—so many miles.” We didn’t stop when we saw the sign and say, “Oh, look, honey, let’s rest here. We’re underneath the sign. This is Coeur d’Alene, 54 miles.” No. We wanted to get to Coeur d’Alene. But the sign was helpful. It told us, all right? It prepared us. Like, this is, how much, do we need more gas? Signs prepared us.

The goal is Jesus, not the signs. But the signs point us to Jesus. Don’t hate the signs because they’re not Jesus. Don’t worship the signs because they’re not Jesus. Let the signs be an invitation to you to draw closer to Jesus.

Follow? Say yes even if you don’t. Otherwise, I won’t go on. I’ll keep hitting this point until you get it.

All right. Next, love. We love God through worship and obedience. We give God our lives. He becomes the center. We love God through living a discipled life. We love others through service and generosity. We make others more important than ourselves. And the school of love is your home. Man, it is so easy to love humanity in a vague, warm, fuzzy kind of way. “I just love all people.” You treat your wife like garbage. No. Home is the school of love.

The next school of love is church. Now, we got a really—I mean, it’s a small church, and y’ all are really easy to love. We need, I don’t even want to say this, but we could use a few EGRs in here. Now, I’m not inviting you to become one. I’m just saying, you know what an EGR is right? Extra Grace Required. Yeah, God sends some EGR— You got some EGRs in your life, Karen? Yeah, me, too. I got some EGRs in my life. None in this room, though. None in this room. Isaiah graduated from an EGR a couple months ago, so you’re doing great.

Nah, you’ve always been really easy to love.

All right. We even love and accept ourselves in that Christ has forgiven us. We accept who we are in Christ.

I was, this morning in Bremerton, Derek H. preached, and H. preached, and he preached on 2 Peter. It says, “You are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people chosen by God. You once weren’t a people of God, and now you are a people of God.” That’s who we are. That’s who we are.

And many of us listen to the devil’s lies. We walk around and say, “Oh, I’m such a loser, everybody’s better than me.” Listen. Humility—that’s not humility. Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself. It’s just thinking less about yourself and more about others and God. That’s what humility is. You’re not consumed with yourself. It really isn’t about me, and it’s not about you. And actually, that is so relieving. Right? I am so glad I don’t have to run the universe. I can’t run my own life, let alone run the universe.

So we love unconditionally. We love first. Love is the greatest of all virtues, all other virtues, really. All the fruit of the Spirit, all the gifts of the Spirit are love. The fruit of the Spirit gives us the character of Christ, which is love. The ministry, the gifts of the Spirit, are how we demonstrate in action the love of Jesus to the world we live in today. And so the power is given out in love.

And finally, the last word is a difficult word to describe. It’s sophronismos, and it means a combination, kind of self-control… If you have seven different Bibles, this word is often translated seven different ways. It’s not a Greek word that we’re very familiar with, but it means something like self-control, sound mind, disciplined thinking.

I look at it as discipleship. I look at it as discipleship. We want to live a long obedience in the same direction. This is a long-distance race and we want to—and you’ve heard me say it a hundred times, you cannot lose if you do not quit. Keep putting the right foot in front of the left and the left foot in front of the right. There’ll be good days, there’ll be bad days, there’ll be days you want to quit. There’ll be days where you’ll be grumpy and you don’t even know why you’re grumpy. You know, and just keep going, just keep going, just keep going. Follow Jesus. Be a lifetime apprentice and disciple of Jesus, and that gives you a sound mind.

Ready? Read your Bible on a daily basis. “Well, I don’t understand it.” Well, you—I gotta, I can guarantee you, there’s one way that I can guarantee you will never understand your Bible: if you never read it.

And here’s one of the keys to understanding your Bible. Ask me questions. I know every- No, don’t do that. You can ask me questions, but no. Begin to apply the things you do understand. That then creates a foundation for you to understand the next thing that you didn’t understand before. But if you wait till you understand it all to do it, you’ll be stuck at the ground floor all right?

“Well, I don’t know what this means.” Well, do you know what love your enemy means? Yeah, do that and then maybe you’ll understand who the Nephilim are. Just start where you’re at. Do what you do, do what you understand.

And so it’s a long obedience. A disciple is a disciplined learner. Discipline is not a bad word. We think of discipline like God spanking us, but actually discipline is simply a trained habit so that we can achieve something that we can’t just automatically achieve.

I’m a big sports fan. Super Bowl is going to be in February. And I always tell people the Super Bowl is won in July. The Super Bowl is won in July, when you’re working out in the hot sun, doing two-a-days and lifting weights, and there’s no cameras, and there’s no media, and there’s no crowds, and there’s no cheerleaders. You are just sweating and barfing and exercising and lifting weights and working so that when the time comes, when there are lights and crowds and cheerleaders and TV cameras, you have disciplined yourself into that player that can contribute to a Super Bowl-winning team. It’s all, that’s what discipline is. You know that. Nothing is ever achieved in life without intention. It doesn’t come just like snap, automatically. It is a continued repetitive habit.

Discipline is the fruit of passion. It’s not the fruit of will. And so many of us, we try to “All right, I’m going to read my Bible, I’m going to say my prayers, I’m going to have my quiet time.” And then it becomes just this horrible burden to us, like, “Oh, I don’t want to do this.”

No, no, no, no. Just fall in love with Jesus, and you’ll hear me say this. You know, this is one of, I’ve said this many times. You come to church here, and I’m going to tell you, you don’t have to read your Bibles. You get to. You don’t have to say your prayers. You get to.

That’s one of the things the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that God’s so good. He’s kind of just like, oh, my goodness. Oh my goodness.

I’ve been praying regularly lately that I would be a friend of God. And I was kind of complaining about it. It’s like, “God, I want to feel like I’m your friend. Why don’t I feel like your friend?” And He said, “You know, Kev, the problem’s not on my side.” It’s like, “Oh, maybe because I’m not acting like your friend.” Do I really want to be His friend? Maybe I should start acting like his friend. You know, like, if I had somebody who just always whined to me, that wouldn’t be my best friend. “Kevin, we’re good buddies, but let me tell you how bad my life is…” I mean, every once in a while, yeah, your life’s going hard. I’ll be an empathetic friend. I’ll listen to you. But you know, be cheerful once in a while.

So you want something? Be a disciple. Pursue it. Pursue it. Right? 90 something percent of the millionaires—Brian, you probably know this. What percentage of the millionaires were not born into money? Yeah, yeah, let’s go with that. Let’s, let’s go. Yeah.

I mean, the vast majority of people who have a million dollars weren’t born with money. And here’s how they got it. They got a job, and they worked that job faithfully. They realized we live in a society that really rewards compound interest. And so they took some money aside, and they disciplined, in a disciplined way, they didn’t spend all that money on their own immediate fleshly pleasures. They spent some on the, don’t you know, you got to spend some. You got to take some vacations and go out to eat with your wife once in a while and all that. But they had a disciplined approach to it.

And lo and behold, one day they’re millionaires. They’re millionaires. It’s like, “Well, how did I become a millionaire?” Well, there was an intention. It wasn’t like, listen, people who win the lottery don’t end up being that happy. I don’t know if this is true, but I heard this years ago that the one thing, one characteristic of everybody who wins the lottery is they gain weight, which nobody wants to do, because they got all this money… what are you gonna do when you got all that money? You’re not going to cook. You go out and let somebody cook for you. Well, what happens when you go to restaurants? They make bigger portions than you make at home. A lot bigger portions.

And they do really sneaky things. After you’re done, they come by and they ask you a blatantly obvious question. “Would you like some dessert?” Of course I would like some dessert. What do you think? I’m a knucklehead. Yes, I want some dessert. So yeah.

But if you want something, if you want a million dollars, get a job, get a job. If you want to pay more taxes, play the lottery.

Alright. Michael Sullivant, one of my friends, wrote a great book called Prophetic Etiquette, and that’s where I got this idea of the three-legged stool. Because he began to describe what happens when we as Christians or churches don’t operate in love, power, and a sound mind. When we just focus on one of the three or two of the three.

And so when all you focus on is power—and I’ve seen this, where people are so enamored with the power of God and the move of the Holy Spirit, that that becomes everything—what happens is it becomes triumphalism and hype. And I’ve seen it. “This conference is going to usher in the second coming. This is the greatest thing ever. Blah, blah, blah, blah.” Every year it’s like, all right, you know, there’s just this hype, man.

There’s hype around the rapture, people. There’s hype around the rapture. I didn’t even know that last week there was a big prediction out. Some guy had a dream from God and it was going to happen. And here we all are. Here we all are, you know? And Covid, man, all sorts of people, “Oh, it’s coming…”

My daughter, she had one friend, and her parents and family were all into, you know, September 2020 or 2021. It was a sure thing. They didn’t know the date, but it was going to be in September. And she was all worked up about it. This girl says, “I don’t know if that’s true, and my family’s saying I got to get ready and all this kind of stuff.” And so my daughter called me and said, “Will you talk to my friend and talk some sense into her?” And so, “I would gladly, gladly.” I said, “I’ll tell you what. October 1st, life’s gonna still be going on. Just keep going.”

By the way, if somebody predicts the rapture and they get it right and you missed it, here’s the great news. You still get to go. You still get to go. I always feel like if, you know, the whole pre-trib stuff is right, you know, that I’m like, “Eh, I’m not so sure,” I’ll just be going up to people saying, “Hey, man, you were right, I was wrong.”

Listen, I’ve been married 44 years. I’m very used to saying those words. You were right, I was wrong.

Sometimes my wife walks in the room and she says, “You know…” and I don’t even, I don’t even want to hear. I just say, “You were right, I was wrong. You were right. And, honey, I have it so good. Stand down, stand down.”

You know, she did it to me again. Remember the original? I told you the story where she, like, went in and just changed the channel on me. So I’m watching TV again just this weekend. I’m watching a football game, watching Notre Dame beat up on Arkansas. It was great. I was having a blast. And my son FaceTimes me, FaceTimed me, not her, thank you very much. And his son, my grandson, was celebrating his birthday in Telluride, Colorado.

So we’re talking on FaceTime, and I have not turned the TV off. The TV’s going on in the background. I’m talking to him just fine. My wife walks in. Again, no asking, no just like, “Stupid man, you do not know how to talk on the phone. Woman will show you.” She picks up the remote, hits the mute, sits down and sits next to me, and within a minute or two, she has the phone. She takes the remote, and it’s moved out of my reach. Then she gets up, and she goes and talks in the other room.

And I’m sitting there with a quiet TV, no phone, no grandkids, and I have to get off my butt to get the remote, which is a sin. No man should have to get up off his tush to get the remote. And all I could think of is, I’m getting that remote, thinking, “What just took place here? Shouldn’t she have asked me, ‘Hey, can I mute the TV?’ Wouldn’t that be the respectful thing to do?” Not too loud, Stevin. All I could think of as I stood up and got that remote was, “I got it so good.” She did it to me again.

What does that have to do with my sermon? I don’t know. Love. Power without love and discipline is triumphalism and hype. It’s just like… oh, the rapture. Yeah, I went down a long rabbit trail.

There’s just a lot of, in some of the circles that I run in, man, or I’ve ran in, there just is a lot of hype. And listen, I love all that stuff. I love people dancing and waving flags and blowing their shofars and prophesying and healing and laying hands on people. I get excited when I go to a service and the pastor starts praying, praying for people, and they start dropping and flopping. I go, “Whoa, whoa, Holy Spirit’s here.” But dear ones, if it’s not followed, are not married to love and discipline, it simply is empty hype. How many times did you fall?

All right. Love without power or discipline becomes humanism. If you want to see the example of how ugly love gets without power and discipline, look at the inclusive, tolerant, diverse culture we live in who love everybody but shoot their opponents. It becomes humanism, and it actually becomes the very opposite of love. It becomes codependent, enabling, and it becomes ugly.

I would say, at their extremes—not to label—power without love and discipline often has been the Charismatic Pentecostal renewal side of the church. Love without power and discipline has often been what we would call the progressive or the liberal church. And then discipline, thundering orthodoxy, without power and love becomes legalism, and this is often demonstrated through kind of hardcore evangelicalism. “We have the truth. You must believe the truth.” It’s almost like getting into heaven isn’t a matter of believing in Jesus; it’s a matter of believing the right doctrine about Jesus. There’s a difference. There’s a difference.

So, unbalanced stool, one of three. Hard to balance on one leg.

Two legs. What if you have two? That’s pretty good.

Well, Michael Sullivant says if you have love and disciplined thinking, but no power, you get spiritual boredom. That’s what John Wimber experienced, right? “When do we get to do the stuff?” That was a very loving church, and I’m sure they taught the Bible. He said those people were very loving to him, but it’s like, well, where’s God? We’re just learning stuff about God, but we’re not doing the stuff of God. And Christians just get bored with that. They get bored with that because that’s not where we’re supposed to live.

Steven Curtis Chapman, years ago, you know, he wrote the song about a guy. He just got up every week and tried to raise his family and went to church. But the song was “More to This Life.” There’s got to be more. There’s got to be more. If you’re real, Jesus, if you’re powerful, Jesus, if you’re here, Jesus.

Some people will chastise you for saying, “I want more.” They’ll say, “Just accept it by faith. Take your lot, you know, eat your porridge.” It’s like, no.

When I read the Bible, I get more excited than that. I get more excited than that. If the Bible doesn’t point you to someone and it just makes you religious, it makes you legalistic.

Now, if you love people, which is very important, but you have no power, you’re just, you know? You bring, you’re wonderfully comforting when people die, and you bring casseroles. But you know what? What if they didn’t have to die? Wouldn’t that be, isn’t that better than a casserole? Casseroles are good, but there’s better.

Now, if you have power and discipleship and disciplined thinking, but no love, then you have performance orientation. “Look how good we did.” And it becomes about, you know, how much I know and how much I manifest and show, but it becomes about my performance. And it’s kind of earning my salvation by the power I demonstrate and my correct theology, my correct thinking, but there’s no love.

If you have power and love, but no disciplined thinking, you get disorder and stagnancy. Everybody’s in love with everybody, and the Holy Spirit is moving, but nobody knows which way to point the ship. And so it’s like, it burns out.

I read one pastor, he said, “Yeah, a renewal swept through the church. But after everybody got renewed, we didn’t know what to do. You know, everybody had their Holy Spirit thrills and chills moment. It’s like, well, now what?” Because when they were having the thrills and chills, they didn’t ask the question then, “Lord, what are you leading us into?” Where’s the disciplined thinking?

So, one-legged stool: hype, humanism, legalism. Two-legged stool: better, but not good. Spiritual boredom, performance orientation, stagnancy, disorder. But power, love, and a sound mind, disciplined thinking, I believe, is a people of God that can’t be stopped. And I think that’s what it means to walk in the fullness of the Spirit.

I came up to Washington with this verse in my mind, like, “I got it. I know what it-” because I—remember Johnny Cash’s song? “I’ve been everywhere, man. I’ve been everywhere.” That is my Christian experience. I grew up Catholic, got born again in an evangelical Presbyterian, evangelical parachurch organization, went to an evangelical seminary, had Pentecostal siblings, and started speaking in tongues and got all wrapped up in the Holy Spirit and renewal movement.

And all of those things have been of a great benefit to me. But what I’ve realized is initially I try to pick out which one? You know, was my Catholic sacramentalism that I grew up in… was that the best? Was my evangelical Bible studying and programmed kind of apologetics, evangelism… was that the best? Was my fasting and praying in tongues and laying hands on the sick and seeing people slain in the Spirit… was that the best?

And all of a sudden, it just hit me, and I felt like God said, I said, you know, “Which, which road do I go on?” He said, “It’s one road, man. It’s one road.”

So we have communion, I preach a long time, and we lay hands on people. And I thought, “Man, I’m gonna go up to Washington, everybody’s gonna go, this is great. This is great.” I still think it’s great.

But, you know, just watch, just watch, all right? For I am certain—Isaiah, you can hold me accountable to this—I am certain that I’ll see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. When I start whining about not doing it, you can just say, “Hey, go read yourself some Psalm 27:13, preacher.” All right? Good.

Dear ones, that’s the Firehouse Church for good or for ill. That’s where we’re at. I still get that way still like, “Well, Lord, should we be more renewal oriented, more Bible centered, more, you know, sacramentalist?”

And I just feel like the Lord just says, “Hey, man, it’s all good. It’s all me.”

So now we come to the sacramental part of the service. The food of God for the people of God. Be nourished. Hopefully you were just nourished on the Word of God. Be nourished now on the food of God. That you might be filled with the power of God to be more like Jesus in character. I’ve always said this. We want to walk out that door more like Jesus than when we walked in. That you will be more like Jesus in character and more like Jesus in power to do His ministry that His kingdom might come and His will might be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Lord, we thank you for this meal. We thank you for your mercy. We thank you that our sins are forgiven and we walk in New Covenant with you. Amen.

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