I want to preach a little bit. I want to teach a little bit. Wow. What a God. My name is Kevin. I'm here with my wife Melissa. We're friends of the Colgrove, longtime friends. Some of our best friends in the world. Walk beside us in some of our most painful seasons of life. I don't know that we would even be here if it wasn't for friends like them. Could you just show some love for your pastors today? I'm telling you, this church is positioned right now on the edge. There sometimes God will hold hold pieces back. He lets other pieces move forward and he'll hold the piece back as he watches other things that are moving. And people are getting here and getting there, and they're doing their thing, and he's just got his hand on this one right here, and he's just holding it. And and this piece is going, Hello, Jesus. Do you see me? I mean, what are you what all the everybody else is just walking and running and and and what are you doing in us? Are we not are we not favored? Are we not measuring up? Are you not happy with us? And and God's saying, No, that's not it. That's not it. You're just right here under my hand. I just, I got you. Just just be patient. And there's gonna come a season of time. You're already feeling the beginnings of it. There's gonna be a season of time when God just releases his fingers, and that engine that's been revving right here in this spot this whole time, he's gonna let you go. And this church is gonna see things that you have only dreamed of seeing. Hear what I'm saying. I'm talking to somebody today. There's somebody in this room that you've been entertaining other thoughts, you've been entertaining other things. Don't you go anywhere. Don't you listen to the enemy. The enemy's been trying to get you restless and make you run somewhere else. But if you run, you're gonna miss what God's about to do in this house. You're gonna miss it. Don't miss it. This house is destined for something great. You're already walking in it. My God, the spirit that I feel in this house today is the spirit America needs. It's what this world needs. And he's he's he's starting something, he's blooming something. It's not it's not new, y'all. It's been cooking for 14 years. Is that right? 14 years it's been cooking, and God is about to do something that's gonna blow this church's mind. If you agree with that, would you say amen? That's not just a little church word, that's a Bible word, and it means I hear that, Lord. Give me some of that. That's what it means. It means, so be it, Lord. You've said it, I agree, I'm coming in alignment with heaven right now. What you're speaking over this house, I want it in my life. I want to be a part of it. Now, can I get another? Amen. Amen. I want to talk to you about windmills today. There was a young man, um, 14 years old, named William Kumkwamba. He had to drop out of school in a nation of Africa. His country had been hit with famine, and thousands were starving and dying. So he quit school and he came home to help his family forage for food. But his interest in science and in his dreams would not let him give up. With nothing but a little cornmeal in his stomach, a few forgotten science books, and this voracious drive for answers. William stood in the wind blowing across the African plains, and as he felt that dry wind on his face, he asked himself, How can I use this wind to help my family? So he went to the back of his family's farm and he started looking for parts using some scrap metal, some tractor parts, and a bicycle that had been cut in half. He constructed his first windmill. And it allowed him to install light switches complete with homemade circuit breakers made from nails and wire in his family's home that he used when the wind hit the windmill, it powered four lights for his parents' house. The only house in the village that had lights. And then he built a second windmill that he hooked up to a water pump that could battle the drought and famine, and they became the only family with water, and then they shared that water with other families in the community. And though everybody thought that this young man was crazy when he started, his family and community soon realized that this kid, a chap, had tapped into a life-changing concept, and here it is. Make something through which the wind can flow and see miraculous things happen. Somebody already going there ahead of me. I'm gonna say it again. Make something through which the wind can flow and see miraculous things happen. The concept of a windmill is so interesting because it involves two things to work. I'm about to blow your mind with some heavy education here. You ready? You're not ready. Are you ready? A windmill involves two things wind and a mill. I told you I came all the way from Texas just to bring you that next level education. It's as simple as that. William made a windmill. It had all the parts and the pieces to do what it needed to do, but there was only one thing that it needed to fulfill its full purpose, and that is for the wind to blow through it. And that made it come alive. When Jesus came onto the scene, he began to speak about something that they had never really heard of before. He started using an Old Testament word, and the word was ruach, and the word just meant wind or spirit or breath. Anytime you see the word spirit in the Bible, it's going to be connected to these words: wind, spirit, breath. And so when he said that there was a helper that was coming, a a comforter that was coming, when he said that the spirit was coming, he was saying that the breath of God was about to blow into the earth and do a new thing. But how many of you know that the wind that was blowing across the African plains, as powerful as it was, was doing nothing productive until it ran into a windmill. This is divine partnership. A windmill cannot function without the wind, but the wind has no purpose unless it has a windmill to flow through. You see, God is God and He can do anything. He doesn't need anything or anybody, but when God decides to tether himself to his creation, those are the rules. And God says, I will not do anything in the earth apart from my windmills. I need somebody to open up and say, God, use me. God flow through me. Our lives were created to bring forth living water to a thirsty world. They were created to bring forth the bread of life to a hungry world. They were created to bring to be the light of the world and to shine in the darkness just like William's light bulbs in his parents' house. But all of that potential within us is no good unless we open ourselves to the breath of God. In John 16 and 7, Jesus said this nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper, capital H will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you. And when he has come, Jesus said that the Holy Spirit that is coming, the helper that is coming, the breath of God that's coming, is going to do several things. And the first word he uses is the word convict. He's going to convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Will you say those three words with me? Of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Now let's deal with this word convict first. This is this is the teaching portion. If you'll just give me a moment. The word convict does not register well with us. We don't like it in our society because it speaks of the legal system and it sounds like a judge handing down a sentence. You are convicted and and you're going to prison. And that's how we usually use the word convict. But there are homonyms in the English language that this uh it can be the same word with two very different meanings. And this is one of those homonyms. The word convict can mean a sentence handed down from a judge. But that, my friend, is not how our Lord and Savior is using that word in this situation. There is another way of using this word, and it has to do more with conviction, with a convincing, with a, it can also be translated to convince. The spirit is coming to convince you, to convince you of something, to to give you a conviction on the inside of your heart that no matter how much the devil breathes his lies to you in this life, you have a conviction from the Spirit that is on the inside of you that's greater than any pressure that's coming on the outs from the outside. So Jesus says the Holy Spirit, the helper, is coming, and he is coming to bring conviction to the world. All to all who will receive it. What three things did Jesus say the Spirit is coming to give us a conviction for, to convince us of? The first thing is sin. The second thing is righteousness, and the third thing is judgment. Now you may also say, listen, those things don't sound very positive either. You cleared up the first word, but let's go, let's look at these. I mean, we're talking about sin, we're talking about conviction, we're talking about righteousness, we're talking about judgment. Like I never can measure up. Some of you bring into this house some some church hurt, you bring some religious baggage, you bring with you some feelings of never being able to measure up. No matter how much I pray, it's not I'm never praying enough. No matter how much I read my Bible, I'm never reading enough. It's always a negative slant. You need to do more, you need to do more, you need to do more. God wants more out of you. And it's like, my God, I'm doing everything I know to do. When am I gonna be good enough to cross that line and actually be worthy of your blessings? This is this is a religious mindset, it's not a mindset of Christ. In fact, Jesus, on the contrary, said, Hey, all of you that are weighted down with all this religious baggage, come to me. Take my yoke upon you, learn of me, because my yoke is oh, I'm sorry. It's what my yoke is easy, and my burden is if you're wearing anything other than easy and light when it comes to trying to please God, it ain't coming from God, it's coming from a religious spirit. We don't serve God to get in his favor, we serve God from his favor. We don't work to get into rest, we work from a place of rest that he already secured for us that none of us could secure for ourselves. If we could have done it ourselves, then he would not have had to come and pay such a gruesome price for us on that cross. God's coming to break some religious bondage in some people's life. And he said, the Spirit, the helper, is coming today, and he's coming to give you a convincing of what? The first thing of sin. And then he explains it in verse 9. He said, He's coming to convince the world of sin. Why? Not because they're murderers, he didn't even name that sin. He could have. Is murder a sin? Of course it is. He could have said to convince the world of sin of because they're a bunch of adulterers. Is adultery a sin? Of course. It is because they're a bunch of thieves. Is thievery a sin? Yes, it is. But Jesus didn't name any of that because he knows there's shoots of the weed that you're trying to chop off at the above the surface. But how many of you have a yard that's got weeds in it when you cut them down? What happens the very next week? They're right back again. Because if you want to get rid of a weed, you can't just chop off the what you see. You got to go to an unseen realm. You got to go to the root of the matter, and you got to take care of the root. And this is exactly what Jesus did. He went to the root of the matter. He went back to the original sin. He went back all the way to the Garden of Eden when Lucifer appeared in a serpent and questioned the word of God in the minds of Eve and Adam. And he said, Did God really say? And the moment that he made Eve question the word of the Lord, and Adam questioned the word of the Lord, he created the original sin, the sin of not believing in him. When he says, I love you, I got you, I have a plan for you. Here's the tree of life, eat of it, and you're gonna live with me forever. We're gonna do beautiful things together. And he calls them to question that word from God, and it created the original sin from which all other sins flow. And here's a problem: there are some people under the sound of my voice today that you are busy, busy, busy trying to tackle some of these sins in your life that keep popping up and keep vexing you and keep keeping you bound. And you're just chopping weeds off above the surface of the ground. And your problem is not those sins, your problem is that you haven't really found uh the root faith in Jesus. The root faith that believes, God, I know you love me. When you say you love me, I'm gonna just be crazy enough to believe it. When you say you've called me out of darkness, I'm just gonna be crazy enough to believe it. I'm gonna go back to the original word and I'm gonna believe it because if I believe that, it'll make everything else fall in line. I quit searching for love in all the wrong places because I realize I got the original. I don't need all that fake counterfeit. I'll quit manipulating people because I remember that you said if you take care of the lilies of the field and the sparrows of the air, I don't have to worry about my tomorrow. I don't have to keep hustling because you're gonna take care of me, God. I don't keep having to wait on the government to meet my needs because I got the original king of kings that promise that he will supply all my need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. And there's a helper that's coming to give you a conviction on the inside that when Jesus said, I love you, Bubba, I love you, daughter, and I got you, that you're gonna believe it and you're gonna fall stop falling to all these spinoff sins because you went back to the original and you said, I know you love me, Lord. I know you got me. What's the second thing that he said he was coming to convince us of? The second thing is he said, Um, the Holy Spirit's coming to convince you of righteousness. Let's just stop there for a moment because religion will say, Oh yeah. You need to be more righteous. You need to get your ducks in a row, you're slacking. You you you I know you you're doing some things, but you're not doing enough. You gotta get, you gotta do more, you gotta do more, you gotta do more. And he gets you on this on this rat wheel and you keep spinning and spinning and spinning, never feeling like you can get ahead. The Holy Spirit is not coming to convince you to be more righteous, he's coming to convince you that Jesus was who he said he was, and that he is the righteous one, and he can be trusted, and he can be believed in. Pastor Matthew, if you were, if you were in a pit of quicksand today and you were sinking, I could come to you and I could say, Matthew, come on, bro. You are sinking. Now I need you to stop it. I I still see you sinking. Stop it. Stop stop sinking. You you are you are sinking, my man. And you need to you need to do the opposite. You need to rise, you need to, you need to do better, you need to, you need to get your act together. And if that was Pastor Matthew, he would helplessly look at me and say, I have done everything I know to do. And in fact, all my squirming makes me sink faster. In fact, the only way that Pastor Matthew could get out of a quicksand is if I walked over from a place of health and leverage and reached down and extended my hand and said, Let me pull you out. That is exactly what Jesus did for us. And in some of the religious places that I grew up in, which was more of a works-based type of Christianity, we did a lot of preaching to people. You're a bunch of sinners, you're sinning, you're sinning, you're sinning, you're sinning, you're a sinner. Stop sinning, stop sinning, get your act together, do better. And we preach about what people need to do, and they are helplessly looking at us, saying, if I could change it, I would change it. I've done everything I need to do. Can anybody save me? And Jesus reached down into a quagmire of sinking sand, and he did for us what none of us could do for ourselves. He plucked us out of the muck and the mire. Because it's not about our righteousness, it's about his righteousness, it's about what he did for us, it's about what he secured for us. Every single one of us were born and shaped in iniquity. We could do nothing for ourselves. We were sinned. We in sin, our mothers uh gave birth to us, but we look to Jesus, the only righteous one, and the Holy Spirit has now come to convince us that not only is Jesus righteous, but he wants to impute his righteousness into your life. And why, why is he saying that he wants to do that? Jesus followed by saying, Because I'm going to the Father, and you see me no more. What does that mean? There's only one other place that I read that Jesus said that, and it's right after. He did a miracle. And then he looked at his disciples and said, Listen, we like this. Yeah, Jesus, we like that. Because greater works. I need you to do that I'm doing. Why? Because I'm going to the Father. And you're not going to see me anymore. You see, Jesus didn't show up to show to show off for three and a half years, and that just be a blip in history. He didn't come to show off. He came to set a template. He came to set an example. He came to kick a door open. And now where he was a single body body of Christ that was Jerusalem-based, he has now sent his spirit, the helper, to come and fill his people. And so now the body of Christ is a global-based body, which is why Paul said that he is the head and we are the body and we are his hands and feet in the earth. Well, what's that have to do with righteousness? Because you ain't gonna do anything with your head hung down low. You ever tried to coach a kid that was so down on himself that he just could you knew he had more potential in him than that. You knew he could kick the ball harder into the goal, you knew that he could throw the ball further, you knew he could swing the bat better, and you're over there frustrated trying to convince them, come on, brother. I know you got more. Come on, girl, you can swing better than that, you can hit harder than that. I know, but they are so down on themselves from their past failures that they can't move into their potential because they got their eyes on themselves and they can't get out of their own head. And the Holy Spirit is saying, Oh, that's a kingdom principle. Because you down there, you are so filled with failure, you're so filled with your own sin, you're so filled with your own mistakes in your own past, and the devil's reminding you every day, every day, you're nothing, you're a nobody, you're a failure. And the Holy Spirit is coming to convince you that it's not about your righteousness, it's about my righteousness in you. Not only has that righteousness of God been imputed to you, but now God is moving in you in a new identity. Oh, come on, somebody. I'm I'm preaching to somebody today. You you you you are now not just a person doing righteous deeds. The Bible says he's changed your identity. You now are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Do you know you cannot separate your beliefs from your behaviors? If you believe you're a nobody, you're gonna act like a nobody. If you believe you're a loser, you're gonna behave like a loser. And that leads me to a phrase, a statement that we have made in Christianity that we need to change. And I'm not I'm not beating anybody up about it because I myself have said it many times in the past until God just rocked my world. Have you ever said, I'm just an old sinner saved by grace? And you smiled when you said it and you shook your head, and somebody said, mmm. Because it sounds good, it sounds humble, and we appreciate your humility, but it ain't scriptural. One of my favorite groups I I grew up here in back in my Bible school days and my young adult days was by a group called the Williams Brothers. I love the Williams Brothers, they they put out a lot of good stuff, but this one song that they put out, it was good, it sounded good, it felt good. But it wasn't scriptural. It went like this. And the song sounds good. But here's the problem: Jesus didn't die for nobody's, He died for somebody's some bodies that are full of sin, some bodies that need a savior, some bodies that were made in God's image, but they're not walking in his likeness. See, there's a difference in being made in God's image and walking in his likeness. He didn't die for nobody, and here's the problem is when we walk around saying I'm just a sinner saved by grace, then I'm not letting God change my identity, and I can never rise above the identity that the devil has relegated me to. So when I fall and I sin, when I'm trying to live for God, and I fall on my face and I sin, I want to get back up, but the devil's there to say, you know what? How long are you gonna keep this mess up?

You know that you are just a sinner. Why do you expect anything to stop the frustration? Stop being frustrated. Stop frustrating yourself. Just to accept that you're just a sinner. Save by grace, yeah, you'll get to heaven, but you'll never be better than you are right now.

And he convinces us through a voice of religious reasoning to live contrary to what God's word has said about us. Because what did God's word say? God's word said that when I I was a sinner, but then I got saved by grace. Now I'm a child of God. A child of God that sins a lot. You ever seen that t-shirt that says I'm saved, but I cuss sometimes? Yeah. We're children of God that still sin sometimes, but but we we cannot believe the lie that we are sinners saved by grace. I was a sinner, I got saved by grace, now I'm a child of God. Because the Bible says that uh that that bit that old things have passed away, and behold, all things have become new because we are now new creatures in Christ Jesus. So when I fall and when I sin and when I make a mistake, the devil comes to me and gets on my shoulder and says, You're nothing but a sinner, then you can say, Oh no, no, no, no, no, devil. I I was a sinner. Now I'm a child of God. I know I sinned, I know I failed, but I ain't staying here because children of God don't stay in a pit of sin. I'm getting up, I'm moving forward because I got a new spirit, the spirit of God that is here to tell me I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus has gone to the Father and I don't see him anymore. Now I am Jesus' hands and feet in the earth, and I can't do it from a broken down place. I gotta believe that I am who God says I am. I'm coming into alignment with your word about my life, Lord. I feel like a failure, but I ain't a failure. I failed, but I'm not a failure. I lost, but I ain't a loser. That's how you see yourself. You're gonna drive down any old road the devil presents to you. Because I don't have any value anyway. Yes, I'll sleep with that one. Yes, I'll do that. Yes, I'll drink that, yes, I'll smoke that, yes, I'll I I I will do this, I'll do that. And we're out there sinning because we don't know who we are, because we don't see our value. But if you see yourself as a Mercedes, because that's who Jesus says you are now, not because of you, but because of his spirit in you, then when the devil says, Come on, drive down here, you look down that road and you see it's full of potholes and thistles and logs over the road, and you go, I don't think so, devil. Not in this. I'm a new creature in Christ Jesus. I don't drive down roads like that anymore. Because I know who I am in Christ. I'm a child of the King. That's true humility. This head hung down low kind of stuff, that ain't that's false humility. That's religion. True humility is I wake up every day and I say, Jesus, I got nothing without you, I can be nothing without you. I I if if if if I don't have you today, Lord, I am toast. But I know your spirit lives in me and you love me, and you said you did, and even though I feel unlovable today, I'm gonna believe you instead of my own soul. When my heart condemns me, you're greater than my heart, God. And I'm gonna wake up today and I'm gonna say, What are we gonna do together today, Lord? Because I am your vessel and I am your child. And when I start living like that, I got a lot less time to be distracted by your sin, devil. Come on, I gotta close, y'all. I gotta stop. Let me tell you this third one. The Holy Spirit, Jesus said the Holy Spirit is coming to convict the world of judgment. And somebody says, Ah, here we go. See, I told you it was too good to be true. We had to eventually get in there to God flinging lightning bolts. No, y'all. I have heard people try to quote that scripture that way. Read the verse. The Holy Spirit's coming to convince you that judgment is here, but it's not your judgment. Who's he come to convince you that is judged? The ruler of this world. Who did Jesus say that is? It's Satan. The Holy Spirit's coming to talk about Satan's judgment, not your judgment. You're a child of God, you're the apple of God's eye. He has no interest in judging you, he wants to lift you up. Didn't he already say that I know the plans I have for you? They are plans of goodness, plans of blessing, plans of prosperity, not of judgment, not of destruction. My God, somebody needs to be convinced of this today. You've been lying in your pit, and God needs you up and out because He got things that y'all need to do together. And you can't do it when your head's hung down, sitting in a dugout, not in the game. Get your head in the game. Get your get your get your head in the game. I had a teenage girl. Come on y'all. Let me let me finish. You you stay just stay standing with me. Stay standing. Israel had a prophet. His name was Ezekiel, and this man was worn out. He was worn to the bone. He's tired because he's been trying to tell these people that God loves you. He's got so much better for you than how you've been living. Why are you worshiping those false gods? Why are you holding on to those idols? They didn't do anything for you. God's the one that brought you out of slavery. Let go of that false junk. But they're not listening, they won't believe God. They've fallen to the original sin. They didn't have the Holy Spirit there yet. They they got the prophet, the spirit's moving on him, but they're not listening to him. And now they have been taken into captivity by the Babylonians, their slaves in Persia, so much beneath where God called them to. And God takes this wore-out prophet into the spirit, and he shows him a vision. And in the vision, there's a valley filled with dry, dead bones. And he asked Ezekiel a question in the middle of his hopelessness. He says, Ezekiel, can these bones live? And Ezekiel was so tired and worn out he couldn't even muster. But yes, he just gave a cop-out answer and he said, Lord, you know. And God said, Well, Ezekiel, at least you didn't say no, buddy. I'll take it. And God said, Ezekiel, I want you to open your mouth and I want you to muster up just enough faith to start prophesying over that situation. And I want you to command those bones to come together. And that Ezekiel started doing it, and the Bible says, Bone came the bone, and then the flesh was over the bones, and then the skin was over the bones, uh, over the flesh, and their standing before him was a valley full of windmills. But the next verse says, But there was no breath in them, all the potential in the world, everything created into the fiber of their very being to be the change agent of the world. But no breath. And so God said, Now Ezekiel, we're almost there. We got potential, but no power. I need you to prophesy to the wind. I need you to call on the spirit. And Ezekiel began to prophesy over the winds, and the Bible says that the wind began to blow through that valley, and it filled the lungs and the hearts and the spirits of an army that had the potential that had no breath. And now suddenly standing before him was a valley filled with living, breathing windmills, ready to function, ready to make a difference, ready to bring the water, ready to bring the bread, ready to bring the light. You've been created in the image of God, you have been made by God for a purpose, but God is saying, Are you ready to let me give you the breath? Are you ready to let me blow into your life and give you power that you only dreamed you could have? Somebody here today, you have succumbed to the hopelessness, you have believed the lie, and you've said, But God, I hear what you're saying, but we are very dry, and our bones are dead, and we are cut off, our situation is beyond hope. And God is saying, Oh, really? Have you encountered my spirit? Have you met my helper? Have you met the Holy Spirit? Have you received the breath of God since you believed? God is looking for somebody that will open their heart, open their life up on the dry plains, and say, God, blow through me. Blow into my spirit, fill me with your love, fill me with your righteousness, fill me with your peace. I will be convinced. I will be convicted, Lord. I will be convicted. I repent of not believing you when you said you love me. I repent of not believing in you when you said you chose me for a higher purpose. I repent, Lord, I'll be convicted of the righteousness that you have put in me. Not my own righteousness, not what I can produce, not what I can make happen, but your righteousness within me. I'll be convinced that I am a new creature in Christ Jesus, and I won't believe that enemy anymore when he tells me who I'm not. I'll believe you when you tell me who I am, God. And by the way, I will be convinced that that same enemy is judged already. He is judged, and I will not let a judge speak to my life any longer. I receive your Holy Spirit. Listen, if that's you today, if you're in this house and you have succumbed to the hopelessness of this world, but you know you're called to something higher, to something greater. Will you open your heart to God today? Will you step out from where you're standing and come stand across the front of this building and say, Jesus, I'm ready. I will stop believing a lie. I will stop agreeing with the world. I will stop agreeing with my circumstance. I'm aligning myself with your word today. I will say only what you say about my life. I will say only what you say about me, God, about my situation. I am who you say I am, and I will be who you can say I can be, God. I will have what you say I can have. I will be called to what you are calling me to. I agree with you today, Lord. In the name of Jesus. Will you come today? Will you get away with God? Will you be encouraged? Will you be filled with? Will you be filled with the peace that passes understanding? Let's worship him in this house.