A Spirit-Filled, Prophetic Church

[0:00] We hope that you enjoy this teaching from Christ Church. This material is copyrighted and no unauthorized duplication, redistribution, or any other use of any part is permitted without prior consent from Christ Church.

[0:15] Please consider donating to this work in the San Francisco Bay Area online at ChristChurchEastBay.org. Today's scripture reading is from the Acts of the Apostle, chapter 1, verse 14, and chapter 2, verses 1 to 21, as printed in the liturgy.

[0:40] A reading from the Acts of the Apostles. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the woman and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. When the day of the Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

[0:55] Suddenly, a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

[1:10] All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in their tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now they were staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.

[1:24] When they heard the sounds, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked, Aren't all those who are speaking Galileans?

[1:38] Then how is that each of us hear them as in our native languages? Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya near Cyrene.

[2:05] Visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues.

[2:20] Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, What does this mean? Some, however, made fun of them and said, They had too much wine. Then Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice, and addressed the crowd, Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you.

[2:38] Listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning. No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. In the last days, God says, I will pour my spirit on all people.

[2:57] Your sons and daughters will prophecy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out on my spirit in those days.

[3:11] And they will prophecy. I will show wonders in the heavens above, and signs on the earth below. Blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood.

[3:23] Before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

[3:38] Thank you for that wonderful reading, Sebastian. Appreciate that. Good morning. If you were here last week, you know that we began a new sermon series in this great book called The Acts of the Apostles.

[3:54] And we were introduced to the author of this book, a man named Luke, who is a doctor, a historian. He's a highly educated companion of the Apostle Paul.

[4:06] He's the only Gentile author in the New Testament. The only of the four evangelists who gave us a second volume of this exciting story of the continuing works and words of Jesus in and through the life of the church.

[4:22] And we also met last week, we met Luke's student named Theophilus. Theophilus was like many of us, intellectually educated and sophisticated.

[4:35] He had been trained in the worldviews of the Greco-Roman Empire and the various life systems that were on offer to him. But he had come to encounter Jesus and he became a new convert.

[4:49] And so Luke has written his gospel. He's written this Acts of the Apostles in order to teach Theophilus what it means to trust in Jesus, what it means to serve the church, what it means to think like a Christian and to live like a Christian.

[5:05] And Luke is really inviting and challenging Theophilus and people like Theophilus, people like us, to come to understand and to be convinced by the great doctrines of the Christian faith.

[5:18] The doctrine of Jesus' resurrection, that Jesus is alive. The doctrine of Jesus' ascension, that he has been exalted to God's throne where he's ruling over all things.

[5:30] The doctrine of Pentecost, where Jesus pours out the Holy Spirit to empower the church. And so today we're going to be focusing on this third person of the Trinity that we call the Holy Spirit.

[5:45] And we said recently that there's a great deal of ignorance and confusion about the Holy Spirit today. We've heard the Nicene Creed paraphrased this way, that I believe in God the Father and I believe in Jesus Christ as Son, but I'm not so sure about the Holy Spirit.

[6:03] And the person and the work of the Holy Spirit is often ignored and often glossed over. But of all the gifts that Jesus gives, the Holy Spirit is the greatest gift.

[6:19] It is impossible to become a Christian, let alone to live and to grow as a Christian without the Holy Spirit. And if you're a Christian, all that you have and all that you are is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

[6:36] You owe it all to the Holy Spirit. But it's also true that wherever we look at the church in the Western world especially, wherever we look at the church in North America, it seems clear that there's an evident need for a deeper work of the Holy Spirit, both individually and collectively.

[6:58] And so we do well, like Theophilus, the student of Luke, to come and learn about the Holy Spirit and to learn about what the Holy Spirit might be wanting to do in and among us today.

[7:14] And so I want to talk about four things today. And I know this makes you nervous when I don't have three points but four points, but I proved to you last week with a four-point sermon that I got you out on time.

[7:26] So do not worry. I want to talk about four things. The signs of the Spirit, the prophecy of the Spirit, the new life of the Spirit, and the fullness of the Spirit.

[7:37] The signs of the Spirit, the prophecy of the Spirit, the new life of the Spirit, and the fullness of the Spirit. And let's start with the signs of the Spirit. It's not as if the Holy Spirit did not exist prior to the day of Pentecost.

[7:53] The Holy Spirit, like the Father and like the Son, is eternal and has shown up in history and been given to particular people here and there.

[8:05] And of course, Jesus, His whole life was full of the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit had never been poured out en masse. And never come in an overwhelming and unmistakable way.

[8:18] And on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes down on this group of 120 disciples at one time. And then through their preaching, the Holy Spirit comes down on 3,000 new converts, new believers on that day.

[8:36] And we read in Acts chapter 1 verse 14, it says that they all joined together constantly in prayer. And that in verse 1, it says, on the day of Pentecost, when Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

[8:53] Now, why were they there? They were there because the resurrected Jesus told them, I want you to wait together to be clothed with power from on high. And I'm going to baptize you in the power of the Holy Spirit so that you can be my witnesses.

[9:09] And so instinctively, they went for 10 days to pray, to pray together in a unified way, to pray constantly in a persevering way.

[9:24] And this is how the great movements of the Holy Spirit have happened throughout the course of history, is when the church gets together to constantly pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

[9:36] And we'll come back to that at the end. But who is this Holy Spirit that they're praying so fervently to receive? Well, we see in our text today three observable signs or wonders that tell us who the Holy Spirit is and what the Holy Spirit does.

[9:55] And first of all, we see the wind of new creation. The wind of new creation. It says in verse 2 that suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

[10:08] And both in Hebrew and in Greek, the word for spirit means wind or it means breath. And this takes us back to the very first page of the Bible.

[10:20] In Genesis 1, it says that the Spirit of God is blowing like a wind to turn the chaos into creation. And then on page 2 of our Bible, in Genesis chapter 2, it says that the Spirit of God breathes into the lungs of Adam to fill him with life.

[10:38] And so the Holy Spirit has this creative and life-giving power. And so here on Pentecost, when the sound in their ears is like a Category 5 hurricane force wind, it's telling these disciples that God's Spirit is doing a new creation.

[11:01] The new creation that he began in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he's continuing in the life of the church. And that God's Spirit has come here now to fill the church's lungs with life and with power.

[11:15] And to enable the church to breathe in the presence of God. God's Spirit is the new wind of new creation.

[11:28] But it's also the fresh fire of a new exodus. Not just the wind of new creation, but the fire of a new exodus. In verse 3, it says that they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

[11:45] So they can hear the wind with their ears and they can see the fire with their eyes and it looked like the fire in the book of Exodus. The burning bush.

[11:56] The pillar of fire that came down on the people of God and led them from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land. And everywhere that pillar of fire came to rest, you knew that this is the place where the presence of God and the glory of the Lord dwells.

[12:16] And you note that the fire is here marking each individual believer as a holy tabernacle, as a holy temple of the holy God.

[12:29] And this fire with its radiating light and its purifying heat symbolizes that this God who's a consuming fire has come to His people to burn away and to purify and to refine all that's polluted and all that's unworthy of Him that we might be holy as God is holy.

[12:50] So they hear the wind of Genesis. They see the fire of Exodus and it tells them that a new creation and a new exodus is underway. And the wind and the fire of the Holy Spirit is releasing this immense power, the uncreated energies of God into the people of God.

[13:10] And when the Holy Spirit comes, what happens? Well, the spirit that ordered the chaos of creation and the spirit who liberated God's people from bondage, the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead, that spirit is now enlivening and animating the church and enabling her to speak.

[13:31] And the Holy Spirit affects several major changes on the speech of the disciples which are described here as quote-unquote utterly amazing.

[13:44] And first of all, what we see is that these disciples begin speaking courageously. In verse 4, it says that all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

[13:56] And down in verse 11, it says, You remember before Pentecost, these disciples were weak and quite helpless and afraid.

[14:08] But here, after Pentecost, they're filled with a blazing power. And you can see the courage of Peter. Peter, who denied his Lord, is now fearlessly standing up and facing this crowd, facing the same authorities that have the same power to do to him what they'd just done to Jesus.

[14:26] And he's totally unafraid. These Christians who had been hiding behind locked doors, they become a force that will in due course turn the Roman Empire upside down.

[14:37] How do we explain that change? Well, the Spirit of God came down. Through the Holy Spirit, the risen and enthroned Lord Jesus is making his energy and his power and his authority available to those who are calling on his name.

[14:56] But what's amazing is the disciples not only begin to speak courageously, but they also begin to speak truthfully. Right? Because what's going on here is not just a new creation and a new exodus, but there's new revelation.

[15:11] The new revelation that's recorded for us in the New Testament. And you remember Jesus' favorite name for the Holy Spirit. What's his favorite name for the Holy Spirit? It's the Spirit of truth.

[15:24] The Spirit who reveals the truth. And when the Holy Spirit comes, he brings people under the revelation of God, under the truth of God's word.

[15:36] And what is the truth that this Holy Spirit is enabling his disciples to speak? Well, in verse 11, it says, we hear them declaring the wonders of God, the megalia to theu.

[15:49] We hear them declaring the megaworks of God. We hear them declaring the mighty acts of salvation by God in history.

[16:01] And we're going to look on another Sunday at the heart of Peter's Pentecost sermon. But Peter begins telling them about the wonderful works that God the Father has done through his son Jesus to achieve and to accomplish our salvation.

[16:18] He tells them about the wonderful work that Jesus did in his life, which was perfectly righteous. And he tells them about the wonderful work of Jesus' death that is sufficient to atone for sins.

[16:32] And he tells them about the wonderful work of Jesus' resurrection that he conquered over death. That he tells them about the wonderful work of Jesus' ascension into heaven where he reigns from God's throne and where he applies his righteousness and life to us, his people.

[16:50] You see, through the disciples, the Holy Spirit is speaking the truth of the gospel, the truth of the wonderful salvation in Jesus Christ. And not only are they speaking courageously, not only are they speaking truthfully, but they're also beginning to speak internationally.

[17:07] The Holy Spirit is dancing over the disciples with tongues of fire and is enabling the church to find her tongue, to open her mouth, and to begin to speak in reasonable, meaningful, persuasive content in languages that everyone can understand.

[17:25] And if you'll notice in verse 9 through 11, it outlines for us 15 language groups, 15 distinct dialects that were spoken throughout the Roman Empire that represent every point of the compass from east to west and north to south, from the Middle East to Asia, from Africa to Europe.

[17:47] The Holy Spirit comes upon these 120 disciples and he transcends their ability and he transforms their inability and begins empowering them to do well beyond what they could ever have imagined doing on their own.

[18:07] And it says that they're speaking the wonderful works of God in languages that they've never studied and never learned to speak. And nothing could have demonstrated more clearly the international nature of the kingdom of God in Christ.

[18:22] That here God is creating the beginnings of a new international family that's centered on Jesus Christ. And as we read through the New Testament, as you read through church history, the more the church is faithful to her mission to bear witness to Christ to the very ends of the earth, the more this church becomes even more international, even more multicultural, even more polychromatic.

[18:47] And so let's pause here for some brief application. You know, one of the most ancient and foundational prayers of the church is a very simple prayer. It's come Holy Spirit.

[19:00] Come Holy Spirit. And when we say this prayer, we don't expect the unique and miraculous signs of Pentecost, like hearing wind and seeing fire and speaking in unknown languages.

[19:14] But here's what we do expect when we pray, Come Holy Spirit. When you say, Come Holy Spirit, you can expect that He will blow a power into your life like the wind.

[19:27] When you say, Come Holy Spirit, you can expect that He will bring a blazing purity into your life like fire. When you say, Come Holy Spirit, you can expect that He's going to put you in situations like He did with Peter and the disciples, where He'll enable you to become fearless and courageous.

[19:47] And He'll put you in conversations where you may be the only Christian from which another person can hear the truth of the gospel and the wonderful works of God and Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit, when you ask Him to come, He will shake up your relationships and your priorities so that you begin to feel a burden for people who are completely unlike you, people that do not look like you and do not talk like you and do not eat like you, and He'll send you to all different kinds of peoples and cultures.

[20:19] And I find myself, when I read this, on the one hand, I'm quite attracted to the power of the Holy Spirit. But on the other hand, I'm not really sure if I want all the uncomfortable inconveniences of what the Spirit might bring into my life, which He's clearly doing here in the early church.

[20:40] And so I say to you this morning, be careful what you pray for. Be careful what you ask for. When you pray, come Holy Spirit, He won't let you remain as you are.

[20:53] He'll bring His wind. He'll bring His fire. He'll bring courage and truth. He'll bring all kinds of people into your life you never expected. These are the signs of the Holy Spirit.

[21:05] But let's talk about the prophecy of the Spirit. Let's talk a little bit about the prophecy of the Holy Spirit. For some reason, a minority of these people that are there on that day, they understand none of the languages that are being spoken.

[21:21] And it says in verse 13 that some, however, made fun of them and they said they have had too much wine. The gift of the Holy Spirit made God's wonders clear to so many people and yet it was a garbled message to others who dismissed it.

[21:40] They dismissed the Spirit-given gospel as a bunch of drunken, incomprehensible nonsense. And this is why Peter stands to address the crowd. Now, I wonder if you were Peter and someone accused you of behaving like you were drunk.

[21:57] Would you be so biblically literate and so Bible-saturated that you would start quoting the prophet Joel? Is that what you would do in this moment? Peter is so Spirit-filled, he's so Spirit-inspired that his instinct is to open the Bible and gather a crowd and say, let's do a study of the Old Testament.

[22:16] Let's open the Scriptures to see what God has revealed about himself. And that's one of the ways you know that you're a Spirit-empowered Christian is that you know the Bible and you open the Bible.

[22:27] And what does Peter want them to see? Well, in verse 14, he says to the crowd, fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you. Listen carefully to what I say.

[22:39] These people are not drunk as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning for goodness sake. No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

[22:52] Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. And even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days and they will prophesy.

[23:07] No, Peter says, we are not intoxicated with alcoholic spirits. We are, in fact, experiencing God's ancient promises of the Holy Spirit.

[23:18] God promised long ago that in the last days when the Messiah comes, the Holy Spirit will be poured out and He'll be poured out in generous and abundant measure.

[23:30] It will not be like a little drizzle. It will not be a little shower of rain. It will be like a tropical rainstorm. It will be an absolute downpour of the Holy Spirit.

[23:41] And it won't be like in times past in the Old Testament where the Holy Spirit came on particular people at particular places for particular purposes like the judges and the priests and the kings and the prophets.

[23:54] No, He says, the Holy Spirit will be poured out on all people. Now, I have to clarify here because all people does not mean everybody irrespective of their inward readiness to receive the sacred gift of the Holy Spirit.

[24:11] All people means everybody irrespective of their outward status. God is not going to give the precious gift of the Holy Spirit to just anybody.

[24:23] He has certain spiritual conditions by which we are to receive the Holy Spirit. That is a repentant heart and a believing heart.

[24:36] But this is a wonderfully inclusive vision because it says that there's no category of people left out. Both genders, all ages, every class, every race, God gives His Holy Spirit to all regardless of social distinctions.

[24:52] And yet, though it's a wonderfully inclusive vision, it's also a wonderfully focused vision because it happens as verse 21 says, to all who call on the name of the Lord in penitent faith.

[25:06] Male and female, young and old, slave and free, all who call on the name of the Lord in humble trust. These are the ones who will be empowered to prophesy.

[25:22] And this was the vision of Moses, the prophet of prophets. He said in the Torah in Numbers chapter 11, it says, Moses said, I wish that all of the Lord's people were prophets and I wish that the Lord would put His Spirit on absolutely all of them.

[25:37] And now, here at Pentecost, this ancient vision of Moses and this ancient word of the prophet Joel have come to fulfillment where the Holy Spirit is abundantly poured out so that all of God's faith-filled people are prophesying.

[25:53] These 120 men and women are declaring the wonderful works of God in Jesus Christ. And again, let's pause for a little bit of application here because last week we heard Jesus say that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses.

[26:12] And these 120 men and women are now empowered to be prophetic witnesses of Jesus Christ. And they're different than we are. They are eyewitnesses of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in a way that we are not.

[26:29] None of us are capital A apostles. None of us are capital P prophets. None of us are organs of divine revelation. None of us can say, thus saith the Lord and add to the canon of God's word.

[26:45] But I do want to say that the church today, and that includes every single one of us here, we do have a subsidiary prophetic calling and prophetic ministry to bear witness to the revelation of God that He completed in Christ and in the Scriptures.

[27:03] And Joel's vision is that the people of God, all the people of God would be brought under the control of the Spirit of God and the Word of God.

[27:15] And the result of our coming under the control of the Spirit of God and the Word of God is that our mouths would begin to speak prophetic truth about God and about His salvation.

[27:27] That all of our lips would begin to bear witness to Jesus that we in our own generation would declare the mighty works of God. And we would proclaim that wonderful word of the gospel and that we would boldly go public with the good news and share the knowledge that we've been given of God the Father through His Son that's kindled by the Holy Spirit.

[27:52] What a treasure the church has. And Joel tells us that it doesn't matter if you're young and in middle school or high school.

[28:03] It doesn't matter if you're old in your 80s or your 90s. It doesn't matter if you're rich and at the end of your life it doesn't matter if you're poor and you're a grad student living on refried beans or whatever it is you eat.

[28:19] It doesn't matter if you're male or female. It doesn't matter if you're African, Asian, Latino, or European. It doesn't matter if you're a lay person or you're an ordained person.

[28:30] The Holy Spirit wants to enable each and every one of you to know the Lord and to know His prophetic word. And the Holy Spirit wants to make all of us into a prophetic community, a witnessing community that makes the Lord known.

[28:48] And so friends, if your heart is open and humble and repentant and believing, the Holy Spirit who reveals His prophetic truth can come in and make you a mouthpiece of that truth.

[29:02] He can come and He can make you an ambassador of the truth of the gospel to your friends and neighbors and coworkers and family members. This is the prophecy of the Spirit and we've talked about the signs of the Spirit.

[29:17] I want to say a word about the new life of the Spirit because some of you may be wondering about the second part of Joel's prophecy and all these strange things, the blood and the fire and the billows of smoke which comes up quite a lot in the prophets when you read the prophets.

[29:32] What in the world is going on here? Well, let's read it in verse 19. It says, I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.

[29:50] These wonders and these signs are not only literal natural phenomena but they represent earth-shattering events, right? Things that would shake any society at her foundations and bring about among the people a sense of instability and uncertainty.

[30:09] For example, if you were to see the creator of the cosmos nailed on a cross and if in that moment the sky turned dark for three hours, that should be a sign to you.

[30:25] If three days later you found a tomb that was emptied out and you met a man who was walking around no longer dead but alive, that should be a sign and a wonder to you.

[30:36] It should indicate something to you that what the prophet Joel said is now coming true that the great and glorious day of the Lord, the day of Yahweh, the day of His salvation has come.

[30:49] That the long-awaited day of the Lord has arrived and Jesus our crucified yet risen Lord, ascended into heaven pouring out the Holy Spirit. And verse 21 says, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

[31:06] Will be saved. And the question is saved from what? Saved into what? I think many of us know the message of the Scriptures is that we're saved out of our sin and our death.

[31:22] We're saved out of judgment. We're saved out of being eternally separated from God. But what are we saved into? What's the new life that we're saved into? The Holy Spirit saves us into a new life.

[31:36] And that life, I think, is beautifully summarized by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 4, 6. He says, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, Abba, Father.

[31:50] God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, Abba, Father. That's what happened to you when you became a Christian. The Holy Spirit breathed new life into you.

[32:02] The Holy Spirit came and made you a new creature and He adopted you as a son or a daughter of God the Father and He enabled you to say the name that Jesus uses for God, Abba, Father.

[32:17] The Holy Spirit saves you into a new life of relationship with God Himself. But the Holy Spirit also saves you into new relationships with the family of God.

[32:29] And the Apostle Paul goes on in Galatians 5 and he says, when the Holy Spirit comes into your life and He saves you into this new life, you should expect for the Holy Spirit to begin to grow up some new fruit in you.

[32:41] The new fruit in your relationships with your church family. And you should begin to see as a result of the Holy Spirit's work in your life more of God's love toward your sisters and brothers in Christ.

[32:59] More and more of God's joy and His peace in your sibling relationships with one another. More and more of the forbearance of God and the kindness of God toward one another.

[33:10] More and more of the goodness of God expressed in good works to build one another up. You should be expecting to see more faithfulness in your life and more gentleness in your life toward other people in the church.

[33:24] He says you should expect to find yourself more in control of yourself so that you begin to value others as greater than yourself and begin to serve others as more important than yourself.

[33:39] This is the new life that the Holy Spirit saves us into. And as Joel says and as Peter says, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved by the Holy Spirit into a new life with God the Father.

[34:02] Saved into a new relationship where we can say on a daily basis, Abba, Father. Saved into the life of a community that's bursting with the fruit of the Holy Spirit that we did not have in our lives before.

[34:17] it's an amazing new life. Well, we've seen the signs of the Spirit, the prophecy of the Spirit. We've seen the new life that the Spirit saves us into.

[34:31] And I should probably close this sermon here but I've sensed all week that I should say a word about the fullness of the Spirit. And I'll just close by talking about the fullness of the Spirit. If you're a Christian, you have received the Holy Spirit.

[34:49] You have received God's initiatory once for all unrepeatable gift of the baptism of the Spirit that came on that day at Pentecost and that gift of the Spirit can never be taken away from you.

[35:02] However, I think it's important to say that God intends for you to be continuously and increasingly maintaining the fullness of the Spirit. And this is what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 5, 18.

[35:15] He says, Go on being filled with the Spirit. He says that to the whole church, every single one of you. Go on being filled with the Spirit.

[35:29] And that's not a tentative suggestion. It's not a mild recommendation. It's not even a polite piece of advice. It's an imperative. It's a command that comes from Christ with all of His authority.

[35:43] Go on being filled with the Holy Spirit. It's not optional for a Christian. It's obligatory. And all of us are to continue seeking the Spirit's fullness in our lives.

[36:00] And how do we do that? Well, it's fascinating that the Apostle Paul is writing to a church that is filled with Spirit-born Christians. Everyone has been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, but he's telling them, go on being filled with the Spirit.

[36:18] This is not a one-and-done filling, but it's a regular pattern of, as the Apostle says, continually be being filled with the Holy Spirit.

[36:30] And I think this is important to say because it's possible and it's all too pitifully common for Christians who are baptized with the Spirit to cease to be filled with the Spirit. And when we cease to be filled with the Spirit, we lose the holiness of life and we lose the boldness of testimony that we're meant to have.

[36:51] You know, we can grieve the Holy Spirit. We can so fill ourselves up with things other than the Spirit. We can fill ourselves up with sin.

[37:02] We can fill our lives up with unbelief. We can fill ourselves up with disobedience so that there's no room for the Holy Spirit. And when we do this, we find ourselves living our Christian lives on a lower level than our Spirit baptism has made possible because we're not remaining filled with the Spirit.

[37:31] You know, if that's you today, and I imagine it's maybe more than one of us, if you want to remain filled with the Holy Spirit, you've got to be doing what these 120 men and women were doing when the day of Pentecost came and the Holy Spirit was poured out.

[37:50] And what were they doing? It says in Acts 1.14, they were praying together in unified prayer for the Holy Spirit. it says that they were praying constantly in persevering prayer, we are not going to stop praying until you fill us with the Holy Spirit.

[38:12] Jesus said explicitly, if you ask your Father in heaven, He will give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks Him. And so, I just want to encourage some of you, if you have not yet found a group here at Christ Church, if you have not yet found a spiritual friend, if you have not yet found a mentor, who can help you pray in the Spirit and pray for the Spirit to make that the highest priority in this week and in this month ahead, I want to encourage you to find that person and to find those people and say to them, will you please help me pray for the continuous and increasing fullness of the Spirit in my life?

[38:57] Because if that's possible for me, that's what I want. And leaders of our groups, I want to encourage you to take the time this week to just pause and do something different this week and that is just pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

[39:14] Pray for the fullness of the Spirit. Friends, let's do this in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.