TRANSCRIPT BELOW

😇 Flipping Power Switches With God’s Book of Ephesus. You Were Not Created to Live Half Full #god 😇

There is freedom waiting for you on the other side of tough times. I’m praying that you begin to identify the blessings in your life and focus on them until you breakthrough into a new, anointed light. PLEASE do not hesitate to reach out to me if you need someone to walk through the process with you.

Make sure to get connected at Five Stones Church – we have an incredible community and small groups.

Blessings and Honor,
Scott

OUR SHOP IS OPEN

STOP BY OUR SHOP – Every penny goes to ministry!

Flipping Power Switches With God’s Book of Ephesians. You Were Not Created to Live Half Full #god 😇

Transcript

you know this morning when I was I was getting ready and I’m in the closet and and I’m just buttoning up this shirt

and like the Holy Spirit just just came over and and reminded me that

you know for for 26 years of my life I worked in Special Operations and and and

I was thinking about you know I worked 12 years undercover and and you know when we were going on a mission or the

16 years in swat I may be going on a rescue operation that that there wasn’t the rah-rah hip hooray and this and that

it was it was people that were grounded in the work that they’d done that they were secure in the training that they

had they had experienced and they were and they were they were well equipped with the with the instruments that they

had and and it was this this quiet assuredness

and uh and as I’m getting dressed and I’m putting up my shirt and and the holy spirit’s like don’t you prefer this

uniform to those uniforms and I was like you know I do but the

challenge is the same the severity is the same we’re talking about doing work

for the greater good putting others above ourself and when I came here this

morning and in worship and and pre-service prayer team and and there’s this like Vibe of of seriousness like

what’s 2023 gonna look like I think we’re so rattled after 2020 and everything you know when covet hit it’s

like you know 2020 Clear Vision new year new me and then covert hit and everything got mixed up and I think now

we’re kind of skittish when it comes to beginning of the year optimism and that’s okay because the flick of the

calendar The Tick of the talk is not what determines what God’s got for us it’s the seasons that we’ve been called

to in our life and it’s in those Seasons that that I I believe that as a corporate body of this church that we’re

moving forward we’ve been equipped we’re a five-fold Ministry Church we’ve been equipped we’re equipping each other in

the word of the Lord in the service in our ministry and we’re moving forward together

not with hesitation but with with cautiousness to make sure nobody gets

gets left behind nobody falls through the Gap that we all that we leave no one

behind and that’s my prayer today if I can pray for this word it’s Lord father

God thank you for today today is a wonderful incredible day your blessings

have already been laid before us they have already been preordained predestined before the creation of this

world and all we’ve got to do is step into the act of ever flowing goodness of you God

so I pray today in this message and in our fellowship and as we go father God that we step into your goodness Lord I

pray for this message for the only words to be spoken of the words that you put on My Heart Lord I pray for this body

Lord in Jesus name amen you know we’re going to start a new series and it’s Ephesians and and a big

part of that that I took from Ephesians is about power and and I want to talk about power where

if they put the picture up so this is Margaret Hamilton and she was

the uh she was the scientist that was in charge of the Apollo moon mission she

was the computer technology she was the lead on the project like she was responsible for all the computer

technology that launched that moon mission in 1969 and that panel she’s

sitting behind there was four of those big instrument uh instrumentation panels in that rocket ship and you know in

today’s dollars the power of that was 257 billion

dollars for that instrumentation for the power of Technology

and if now today if you look in your phone or your purse and you take out that little iPhone

that thing is capable has millions of times more

memory than that it can process decisions and calculations and access data thousands of times faster than that

and I googled what a basic model or a reconditioned because I’m frugal

74 bucks on Amazon power

that little device that our kids are probably on right now upstairs or they shouldn’t be

you hear right we can miss what true power is

if we’re not sure of what we’re looking at you know that’s the one thing that I want to talk to you about today

I tell you guys the Lord puts puts one thing on my heart I preach out a burden and not that preaching is a burden but

the Lord puts it on my heart and if I don’t share it and until I share it it’s all I can think about it’s all I can

pray about and what God wants you to know today about power if you don’t know

whose you are you’ll never know the power of Who You Are

we get so wrapped up in thinking of ourselves in terms of who we used to be

who we could have been and should have been and maybe would have been instead of relying on what the word of the Lord

says and Who We Are we we have the power of God actually

one-third of us is the perfect righteousness of God when people are like well I ain’t

perfect well actually one-third of you is if you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you because you’ve got the Holy Spirit which is 100 righteousness

of God but we’ve got power but if we don’t know whose we are

we’ll never know the power of Who We Are you know the the reason that this is so

important is that unless you know who you belong to like God did not create your life to be lived at half capacity

and you’ll never run at full charge if you’re not living in the fullness of Christ

God doesn’t want you to run it as a half charged battery God doesn’t want you to

live below the radar God has designed you to glorify the kingdom and the kingdoms about light in

the dark world you know we’re going to go into Ephesians and and the question is well why are we

going into Ephesians well I’ll make it simple because God said start with Ephesians but I’ll tell you what he did

last year about the last quarter of the year I started praying and I’m praying and we’re in First Corinthians about 17

weeks in First Corinthians and and now it’s like God like what like give me some time give me some time to prepare I

want to strategize I want to sketch it out and and he’s like no just just you be patient and then and then he tells me

towards the end of the year he goes Ephesians but let the body affirm that

I’m like okay I don’t know what that looks like do we do a vote or something like that so that night I would come to

Bible study and someone goes out of the blue and it’s never out of the blue right they’re like hey what book are we

starting in next year and I was like she goes let’s start Ephesians

and then two days later we’re meeting with a couple and this lady goes you know the Holy Spirit told me y’all need

to we need to start in the book of Ephesians and I said that’s affirmation that’s affirmation let me tell you something

whether it’s the book we start with it in in service or this what you’re going to go into the

next season of your life God’s going to give you that word and then sometimes he’s going to ask you to wait for affirmation

so often we’re just ready to rock and roll Lee and I used to get an idea and we’d run out there we’d like woohoo

and God would be like who I was like it was Leah’s fault

and now but you know what we weren’t waiting for the Holy Spirit when we learn to linger

when we waited for that affirmation and what the Holy Spirit wanted to impress upon me was that if we’re really going

to allow God to run his church we have truly got to get out of the way and allow God to run his church

when the Hallmark calendar says you got to do this because it’s on this day and the preaching calendar says this we’re

going with the word of the Lord we’ve never preached a social calendar and we and God has blessed us and I’m going to

tell y’all that that the that this season God’s going to do a mighty work in this body

God’s doing a mighty work that’s why it’s so important that we wait when God

gives a word and he says Let the Body affirm because this isn’t me driving the train this is me simply being obedient

to the Holy Spirit look y’all that have known me more than a half hour no I’m not smart enough to pull something like

this off but when I simply obey when we simply submit to the word of the Lord

he’s going to do some amazing things and that’s where the book of Ephesians really comes in you know what I love is

that is that our church five Stones we have core values and it’s listed on the website

and what I love is we’ve got five values we call them our five stones and Ephesians fits with that so perfectly as

should the word of the Lord fit with your values of your church our first core values relationships you

know Ephesians going to talk about that we’ve been adopted as heirs into the kingdom of God in unity with other

believers our second core value is generosity who more generous than God the father

that gave his son his only begotten son so that we have everlasting life

and you know I want to I want to sometimes people they think God they think in God in terms of of Heaven and

Hell and life and death and they think well when I die I’m going to begin the process of everlasting life let me tell

you something the second you receive Jesus Christ as your lord and savior everlasting life began it says you have

everlasting life not you will get or will start you have everlasting life we

are in the process of our everlasting life when death comes we drop the skin

suit and we continue with that process of Life Everlasting

you talk about generosity setting the setting the generations in Legacy our

third our third um poor value is equipping again if you’ve been in this church more

than 15 minutes we talked we were in equipping Apostolic Church Ephesians

talks about what Ephesians 4 11 12 the fivefold ministry the five-fold ministry

so we can do what equip the body for the work of ministry

our fourth is prayer Paul tells in Ephesians like I’m so I’m going to paraphrase I’m so crazy about y’all that

I can’t stop thanking God and praying for y’all and our last core values love

Ephesians is going to walk us through how the gospel transforms our life with God as we live unified in love I mean

we’re going to talk about today is our introduction to Ephesians it’s important to know about the author about the city

about the church and the cultural context of the time so it doesn’t just become an academic or

a literary exercise Paul in Ephesians is going to make some

Salient points and bring us and bring us into our understanding of the relationship of the gospel and the

transformative work of Jesus Christ in a level that that we’ve that as a church is that we’ve not explored

but I want you to see the seamless and the reason I see is the holy spirit leading Us From First Corinthians into

Ephesians but when we were studying the First Corinthians that was 17 weeks that

we walked through First Corinthians and I pray that it was a blessing to you as a body because it was a blessing to me

and you know in there Paul was really talking about the church in Corinth like these were more micro issues that

affected people in a daily way I mean they’re talking about sexual sin they’re

talking about how do we act in church like it’s you know now we can kind of giggle because we’re like well we got to

order a service and you know according to this and that it’s got to be done you can only worship for 26 minutes and then

you can do this and then but you know that’s not the way church was meant to be it’s not the way church was meant to

be but there’s still got to be structure and there’s got to be order because God is a god of order God’s a

god of structure and he will work within five seconds like he’ll work in five hours so what

Paul was doing in First Corinthians was really laying some structure laying some order and really dealing with these

micro issues and a lot of times if we don’t look at it in the cultural context and then we take it from an Apostolic

view is is how does that apply to us today like how do we bust them Brown and

what Paul was dealing with then and what we’re dealing with now and I believe we saw in the church in First Corinthians

the Church of Corinth like we’ve not really moved the needle a lot since First Corinthians

we’re still dealing with a lot of those issues

and in that Paul taught us how to lay a foundation what what the

true the Church of God the Ecclesia should look like could look like talking about spiritual gifts and remember it’s

not if you have spiritual gifts it’s which spiritual gifts do you have because if you have the power of the

Holy Spirit you have to have gifts and you know we remind you we always talk we

used to say well I’m only human when I messed up I’m only human let me tell you if you got the power of the Holy Spirit

living inside of you you’re not only human you’re Supernatural

so Ephesians is going to walk us into a season of talking about uh the truths of

God’s Redemptive work in Christ I’m going to talk about unity in the church amongst diverse people like Paul

is trying to get Jews and Gentiles and pagans and who knows what else to come

into unity in the body of Christ and we say well that’s easy

I mean come on we all agree really like if you have

social media post something up there that’s not controversial and see how crazy controversial it’ll get

they didn’t agree then they still don’t agree now but it doesn’t mean we stopped working for Unity it doesn’t mean we

stop working and look I want to talk about the church in Ephesus and before we start I would

like for us to stand as the body and read the anchor scripture now what you’ll realize and you’re thinking okay

Scott we’re in the book of Ephesians and that says revelation

yeah so we’re going to read this from from Revelation 2 4 through 6 together as the body and we’ll begin

but I have this against you that you have left your first Love Therefore remember from where you have fallen and

repent and do the Deeds you did at first or else I’m coming to you and I’ll

remove your lampstand from his place unless you repent but you have this that

you hate the Deeds of the nicolations which I also hate thank you Jesus thank you for that word

you know so it’s like all right now I’m confused I’m really confused right

where do how do we fall into Revelation we’re talking about the book of Ephesians well this Ephesians was one of

the seven churches in the Book of Revelation like can you imagine being singled out

by God like having your church singled out in the Book of Revelation like most churches are like I just want

to be cool I want to stay under the radar I want to get through this service I want to go to my lunch at Veracruz and

I want to get back onto my daily living and boom you show up in the Book of Revelation let me tell you something

it’s not a bad thing Revelation people like oh I don’t understand all that stuff like this is

this is a story of Victory this is a story of Victory and what God is doing is he does with all the churches is he’s

going to give some correction and then he’s going to give some encouragement and he said this is what I have against

you but this is what you do well I want you to understand that in that verse the lampstand is the church

five Stones Church is a lampstand five Stones Church has an angel has a

messenger that is assigned to this church making sure that we walk in righteousness making sure that we honor

the word of the Lord we’ve got a responsibility as a church as God’s Church to be a light to a dark

and lost world this doesn’t just go for the church in Ephesus it goes for us today so I want

to ask you I want to remind you that that’s the reason why you’ve got to understand whose we are

if you’re trying to operate in a kingdom on your own will or your own great

personality or your own social media presence you’re operating without power you’re operating without power you know

I want to tell you let’s not confuse power and I forgot this and I want to I want to bring it up at the end of last

year we ordained uh two folks say they’re planning a church there are they’re our first Aquila and Priscilla

planted a church in Chattanooga Tennessee and and we were as our first ordination and I wasn’t 100 sure what it

what to do and so I Googled like what are the benefits of of being ordained you know and and this is Google and at

the end it goes you have special parking privileges as a pastor I’m like nobody

told me and I said but you know what and I believe a Shepherd if you look at

the further spot from the front door in a parking lot if that ain’t the pastor’s car then you need to go somewhere else

so I got this signed today and it’s from Edgar and Anna and they’re they’re they’ve taken their five-fold tests

according to Ephesians 4 11 12. uh and they’re they’re in our pastor school and so they bite me they bought me this sign

it says Reserve porking ordained ministers unauthorized Vehicles towed

away can you imagine thinking that this is

power can you imagine being given an assignment by the Lord to Shepherd his people it means you got power it means

you should be the first on your knees with a bowl of water to wash feet so what I think I’m going to do is I’m

going to hang this sign out by the highway in that little grassy area where the cars parked right now but I

appreciate that message how beautiful is that so let me ask you

talking about power what’s your what not your what or your why your what

w-a-t-t what’s your wattage

what’s your spiritual wattage are you able to go and light up a room are you able to generate enough Lumen to

give Illumination in the whole room are you a 25 watt bulb some people yeah that’s cool I’m cool with being a 25

watt bulb you know what in a regular room in a house it takes about 3 000 Lumen to light that room up a 25 watt

bulb about 150 Lumen so you’re a little bit shy of being able to light up a room

but don’t let that stop you because how do you how do you increase that capacity you become equally yoked with other

light bulbs right that’s where if that’s where we’re at right now this is why Unity is so important do you have power

yeah what’s your wattage now if you pump it up to 100 watt bulb you’re operating

pretty good so it’s like well can I can I even be affected by myself yes you can you know

that a lighthouse shines this light 28 miles from the source

28 miles from The Source we can and are called to be lights in a dark world but

let me assure you if you’re not in the word and you’re not in discipleship training you’re not here

on Thursday nights you’re not you’re not bonding and bonding with other believers

you may be like a you know you’re like a 25 watt bulb or even less you might not

even be plugged in Ephesians is introducing us to the power because I just want to assure you

like in this time in this season God’s not messing around with people our churches who mess around

like it don’t mean we got to be hum glum and beating the drum there should be joy in the house of the Lord there should be

joy that we’re here on a Sunday morning there should be joy that we that we’re friends throughout the week there should

be joy to come here on Thursday nights there should be joy that we could stand in the closet before we come to church

buttoning up a shirt and Lord descend upon and like ain’t you

glad amen ain’t you glad

what’s your what is what I want you to ask yourself y’all it’s time to turn on the lights with the

power of Jesus Christ it’s time to turn on that light and Ephesians is going to walk us through

that season of flipping the switch we’re going to learn about the power of Christ and and I want to now I’m jumping ahead

or actually just trying to catch up I want to put Ephesians in a cultural context

before next week we actually get into the into the scripture of Ephesians it’s important to understand who wrote it who

he wrote it to and in the cultural context of the city at the time you know we talk about Paul

and and everybody’s oh man Paul is fantastic Paul is fantastic but Paul wasn’t always fantastic you know Paul

was a terrorist Paul hated Christians I want to read to you from acts 9 1-2

it says meanwhile Saul he was Saul before his trans uh his transformation on the road to Damascus Saul was

breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples he went to the high priest and asked him for letters uh to

the synagogues in Damascus so that if he found any there who belonged to the way which were the Christians the way

whether men or women he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem like Paul Saul was serious about the

persecution he wasn’t just trolling your social media accounts with hail Satan or something dumb like

that he is actively aggressively pursuing God’s people he was even president at the stoning of

Stephen and Saul approved of his execution this is the same man who wrote 14 of the

27 New Testament books this is the man who wrote first Corinthians this is the man who wrote

Ephesians this is the man who wrote it from prison one of the prison Epistles

like this is Paul and if we get just too religious if we get too religious and we

just look at the word of the Lord as a literary document we lose the flavor and the depth of understanding that the real

people like Paul was not a good dude in the beginning

and God through the power of God transformed him

how many of us in no shape don’t don’t raise your hands because I don’t want to have to raise my hand how many of us

could say or somebody else say you were not a good person

you were not living for the Lord you did some pretty terrible things

and but father of grace of God we have been given a second chance

so it’s important that we don’t over idealize some of these folks and that we don’t also under under respect what God

did for them because they are in the same shoes that we’re in you know we talk about suffering for

Christ and and it’s like well you know I come almost every Sunday and I come on Thursdays and I reply to most social

media posts if that’s your level of suffering let’s put it in comparative analysis in second

Corinthians this is Paul five times I received from the Jews 39

lashes you know why they gave 39 they figured 40 would kill you what Mercy they had three times I was beaten

with rods once I was stoned three times I was Shipwrecked a day and a night I’ve spent adrift at sea

I’ve been on frequent Journeys and dangers from Rivers dangers from robbers dangers from my countrymen

dangers from the Gentiles dangers in the city dangers in the wilderness dangers that see dangers amongst false Brothers

I have been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights and hunger and thirst often without food and cold

and exposure apart from such external things there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches

what a brother that is what a brother how many of us are going through tough times right now how many of us have been

in the wilderness season how many of us have been struggling and what we feel is a is a season of darkness and obscurity

waiting well I know God gave me a promise but I just hadn’t seen it I was obedient to what God Said but nothing

happened you know sometimes when God asks you to be obedient he just wants you to be obedient

there’s not always a return on investment well I did this and he didn’t do that

sometimes he just wants you to be obedient and nothing’s going to happen the blessing comes in the obedience

so what about the city of Ephesus you know it was the capital of the Roman Providence of Asia which is the modern

day Turkey uh you know one one of the things that distinguished it was it was the Temple

of um of Artemis or Diana it was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

this was a pagan Temple prostitutes on duty as part of the worship practices it

was it was a center of Education Commerce and politics it was very very

influential in the time and it was a lot like America

and so when you think about this church in this in this decadent deviant City

you think about how amazing it is that we’re still talking about it today

you think about how the light what were the what what was the wattage of the

folks the Believers in that time you see we like oh it’s tough to be a Christian today we ain’t seen nothing

yet we’ve not seen anything what’s your what

you know what I love about this church you know who planted this church

it’s our favorite couple

Aquila and Priscilla Quilla and Priscilla how amazing was

this couple that’s our prayer and our next Plant we

are praying for our next Priscilla in Aquila they started this church can you imagine married couples

they’re working they were they they had business they were tent makers they were productive they were obedient they moved

to this area they plant this church and next door can you imagine across the road is the is the Temple of Diana one

of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and then issue in your little House Church

how tempting would it be to be like we ain’t got the market and budget we ain’t got the parking team

we don’t have a kid’s ministry like what are we going to do you know what you’re going to do you’re going to keep

pressing into the word of the Lord you’re going to keep being obedient because the Lord says be obedient and then you know the way God works is God

sent Paul there for three years to preach at that church then he sent Timothy to follow up for a year and a half like God’s going to send the

provisions in your life if you’re just willing to be obedient if you’re willing to step out even when it looks like like

the world is against you even when you say well I don’t have the education and the degree and the qualifications apply

for this job I don’t even know what I’m doing in this assignment if you’re just willing to say okay if

you’re just willing to say yes God will send the provisions God will

send the people to to help encourage you and sharpen your iron

you know when Timothy came in there this is the challenge that they were dealing with they had Elders that had

come in and started teaching false Doctrine those were the folks that he was talking

about in Revelation Nicholas he was called the the Conqueror the Devourer

and and they didn’t really know scripture so they started making up their own rules and their own laws and instead of love and unity they were

talking about about law and fear and control and we see that a lot in today’s

churches one person has an agenda and they’re going to shove it down your throat and

they’re going to use the word of the Lord to do it and it’s easy unless you’re walking through books of the Bible to take take

things out of context but it’s important that we walk through books of the Bible so we have the fullness of the scripture

so we stay in the context of the word of the Lord and that we’re accountable this is why five-fold Ministry is

non-negotiable when we planted this church before we planted God said Ephesians Ephesians 4

11 12 five-fold Ministry we knew what it was because we’d read it but we didn’t know what it was and we simply said okay

and what has God done over the last year he has begun bringing the office holders in this five-fold ministry

the accountability that comes with sharing your Authority by five is

absolutely incredible remember we said A week or so ago before that if you if you put yourself last you’ll always finish

first so because we’re in the book of Ephesians and I want to share a little scripture from the book of Ephesians

and I love the greeting the greeting from Paul in Ephesians 1 1 2 greeting

Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the Saints who are in

Ephesus and faithful in Jesus Christ to you and peace from God our Father and

the Lord Jesus Christ he’s talking to us is talking to us Grace and peace to you

I just want to encourage you the one thing that if you don’t know whose you are

you’ll never know the power of Who You Are I want to encourage you to press in to

this series in Ephesians I know that First Corinthians was 17 weeks

and I know that it’s brought so much revelation so much confirmation and there was a

reason that the holy spirit’s led us into the book of Ephesians it’s not by happenstance nothing’s by

circumstance Nothing by coincidence I believe that if we took a a personal and

a corporate and a spiritual and a financial and a professional and a personal snapshot of our lives right now

and at the end of this at the end of this series we’re not even going to recognize ourselves we’re not even going to recognize

ourselves and we’re going to move through this series as the cloud moves and when the cloud sets we’re going to

park and when it moves we’re going to pack up our tents and we’re going to move to the next scripture we’re truly

going to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit throughout this series

foreign [Music]

God’s good God’s so good