[0:00] Good morning. Is it a blessed morning? It is. When we think in spiritual terms, what's special about today? Pentecost. Pentecost. And we say Merry Christmas and Happy Easter, and with Pentecost, it's Happy Pentecost. It's Happy Birthday, right? Pentecost is a birthday celebration. It's a birthday of the church. The same as we've chosen December for the birthday of Christ, but this is exact. This is bang on. Pentecost, the 50th day after
[1:00] Passover, we celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit and the formation, the birth of the church, as we read in Acts 2. And thank you, Mike, for us. The message this morning is titled The Baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit. And a few thoughts before before we dig in, have you ever questioned whether you have the Holy Spirit? We just have one person that questioned? Is there more of us? Is there times of doubt? Absolutely. I'll raise my hand, too. And how do we know? How do we know that we're not by the Holy Spirit?
[2:18] What are some reasons? How do we know? Our desires? Okay. What about our desires? So you have desires for the things of God? Okay. Peace in your soul. Yeah. And it's the Spirit in you that gives that peace. Absolutely. Next. How do we know? God promised it. When we confess our sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, believe, faith, He is just to forgive us, but also to baptize us with His Spirit. And what does this baptism then do? Empowers us?
[3:32] Leads us to all truth. Leads us to all truth. Absolutely. I'm looking for a couple more key answers.
[3:46] Okay. So it witnesses with God that we are children of God. Right? Scripture also tells us that the Holy Spirit seals us or secures us until the day of redemption and also is a guarantee of that day of redemption till God will remove us out of here. And we could go on and on, and we shall for a while, but this morning I want to give some base teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We'll look at the promise of it, and then we'll look upon the impact of the Holy Spirit in our lives, in the lives of, and I'm going to use this word, this phrase, ordinary believers. If I may. Ordinary believers. An ordinary believer speaks about me and you. And sometimes we look at others that are not ordinary. They're cut above in walking with God.
[5:18] But the Scripture speaks of all of us as humanity indwelt by the Spirit of God. And then we'll briefly look and read the fruit of the Spirit in closing this morning. There's a lot of confusion out there on this subject. In fact, I think I might say that of all the doctrines of the Bible, there's more variance and differences of understanding in the work of the Holy Spirit and even in the baptism of the Holy Spirit than in any other doctrine.
[6:05] We're very diverse about that. And we have both extremes. One is where we're not sure if we're indwelt, and the other extreme is to the point where it's satanic and many areas in between.
[6:35] Let's go to the roots. Mark chapter 1. Scriptures are a good place to go. Mark chapter 1.
[6:48] And verses 6 to 8. So this is the promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So Mark 1, 6.
[7:03] Now John was clothed with camel's hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, There comes one after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. I indeed baptized you with water. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. So John the Baptist, as we call him, the prophet John, as his preaching ministry was to baptize with water upon the confession of faith. And as a forerunner to Jesus Christ, he speaks of one that is greater. In fact, the picture that we get is that John says, I'm this small, and Jesus is so immense we can't measure. I'm not even worthy to stoop down and untie his sandal.
[8:12] That puts it in proper perspective of who Christ is in our lives. And this Christ that is so big, he's going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit. And what does baptism mean? We had a service last Sunday.
[8:33] What does baptism mean? What does the word baptize mean? Who is brave enough to venture?
[8:47] To submerse? To immerse? Okay. To dip, immerse, and in water baptism, it's in water. Right?
[9:00] And last Sunday, we had three individuals that went down and came back up, immersed. It has the idea of being identified with. And with water baptism, what are you identifying with?
[9:20] Jesus Christ. And we're telling the whole world, I'm with Christ.
[9:35] We're actually saying, I have been baptized with the Holy Spirit, with our water baptism. So now, if we take that definition of baptism, Jesus says, or John says, Jesus will come and baptize you with the Holy Spirit, what's going to happen to us?
[9:56] Let's use the same words. He's going to identify us. He's going to immerse us with the Spirit of God.
[10:10] That we will have that identification. And so literally, if you are a child of God, and have received, well, the two are inseparable.
[10:23] A child of God cannot not have the Holy Spirit. The two go together. You cannot separate. And so, it's that immersing of the Holy Spirit into my life.
[10:42] So why then do we have moments of doubt? Satan? What has he got to do with this?
[10:56] He doesn't want us to have peace? So he plays with our mind, right? With lies. Why else do we struggle? Our feelings.
[11:11] What do our feelings tell us? Unworthy. It wasn't real. And?
[11:23] How many of you have a perfect life now? None of us, right? And so, when we fail, we're tempted to say, where's God in this picture?
[11:43] Where's the Holy Spirit? Where's he to guide me? And so, Satan can use thoughts like that to maybe cast doubts.
[11:55] Do I even have the Spirit? When in reality, it is my choice to obey. To take the advice of the Holy Spirit.
[12:10] Or to not take it. And so, we need to look at this in truth. So this is the baptism promised.
[12:23] John chapter 1. We're not going to read that. There's a longer portion there, very similar to Mark, of John identifying that Jesus would come and that he would baptize with the Spirit.
[12:39] All of John chapter 1. Read it for yourself sometime. Acts 1. Let's turn to Acts instead. The first chapter in Acts.
[13:01] And we'll start in verse 4. And being assembled together with them, he commanded not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You have heard from me.
[13:22] For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. What are they to do?
[13:37] They are to wait. They are to wait. And later in this chapter, in verse 9 through 11, Jesus is taken up out of their sight.
[13:51] And we know that day as Ascension Day. How many days would they have to wait? Ten days.
[14:03] We look back. We know that answer is firm. Did they know back then? Perhaps not. But Pentecost corresponds to their feast days.
[14:18] And if they were spiritually alert, because that feast promised the Holy Spirit, the coming of it. It looked forward. And so if they were engaged spiritually with depth, they might have thought on Pentecost or on this feast day, it's going to happen.
[14:37] I can't confirm whether they actually knew or not. But anyway, they were to wait. And you know what? How hard it is to wait.
[14:51] How hard it is to wait. He had given them their assignment that they were to go into all the world and to preach the gospel in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
[15:07] And Jesus then rose and left them. What else is there to do but to go out and work? To start.
[15:18] But Jesus said, wait. Wait. And it was an important lesson. Had they not waited, what would have happened?
[15:30] Nothing. Except that they would have fallen flat on their face. Right? Because the power of God is missing. How many of us have in one area or another not waited for God and nothing happened?
[15:55] Or we did a nose plant. I think, in honesty, we probably all have been there. We've all been there. It's so hard to wait on the Lord.
[16:09] Because we want to do. We want to do something. Well, you know what? They did do something. The rest of Acts 1 tells us that as they waited, as they went back to the upper room, God obviously revealed to Peter, you know what?
[16:30] Judas Iscariot is missing. We're only 11 now. And there's a prophecy that says, let another man take his office.
[16:40] And so, they proceeded in those 10 days to fulfill, or to fill that position. So there was 12 apostles. And so they, while they were waiting on the Lord, they could do.
[16:57] And I think there's a lesson in that for us, that there's never a time when we don't do anything. But when we're waiting for God to show us direction on something, we need to keep working in our regular things.
[17:16] And not to sit back and do nothing. So maybe, I'm sounding contradictory here, in saying that we like to work.
[17:29] Well, there are things which we need to continue to work in. while we're waiting on the Lord for direction in another area. And so, Acts exemplifies that very well.
[17:43] And so they refrained from going ahead in, in stepping out without the Holy Spirit. So that's a bit of background there.
[17:56] I'll also turn to John 16. A couple verses there in John 16. Verse 13 and 14.
[18:12] And these verses were alluded to already. John 16, verse 13 says, However, when He, the Spirit of truth, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak and He will tell you things to come.
[18:35] He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. So this prophecy of the coming of the Holy Spirit reveals a few things to us.
[18:50] What, what will happen when the Spirit comes? What will He do for us?
[19:07] He will guide us into all truth. Okay? Someone else had point us to Jesus and He will bring glory to Christ in verse 14.
[19:26] He will glorify Me. He will glorify Me. How does the Holy Spirit glorify Christ through you? Does He?
[19:52] That is a question. See, we're looking at the purpose of the Holy Spirit. How does He glorify Christ through your life? for giving us love?
[20:08] For, and we'll read the fruit of the Spirit a bit later, but it's, but it's to model Christ in this world. It's a changed life, a transformed life, the power of God working in you.
[20:26] this is what brings glory to God. And it's all about glory to Him and not to us as individuals.
[20:39] It's all about Him. Then let's go back to Acts chapter 2, the passage that was read for us this morning. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[20:51] Amen. Amen. Acts chapter 2. I'll read a few verses again.
[21:08] When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
[21:24] Then there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire and sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
[21:39] What has just happened as they are waiting in the upper room together roughly 120 disciples?
[21:52] What happened? They were baptized. Had they not been baptized already?
[22:08] By John in water baptism, but the promise that John spoke of happened. And how did they know? How did they know?
[22:21] They were speaking in tongues. What else happened?
[22:36] They saw tongues as of fire resting on their heads. And a third thing. They spoke, they saw, and they heard.
[22:49] What did they hear? the sound as of a rushing mighty wind. And so, it does not say there was a rushing mighty wind, but the sound as of.
[23:03] That's what they heard. And also, there sat on them what looked like tongues of fire. And they spoke in other languages. languages. Has any any one of these three happened to you?
[23:26] That there was tongues of fire and a rushing mighty wind and languages? filled. We have been filled by the Holy Spirit. We have been filled by the Holy Spirit.
[23:40] We have been filled by the Holy Spirit. And why did God have such visible outward signs here on this Pentecost?
[23:55] And why, why have none of us identified with those three? Because there's, there's lots of teaching out there.
[24:06] If you haven't experienced this, you're not there. You have not been filled by the Spirit. And yet, I have yet to meet a person.
[24:20] I'm not saying there is, that person doesn't exist. But I've yet to meet someone that has been given a free language. a language, a free language in a, in a, in a moment that God just instilled in their brain languages.
[24:43] I've yet to meet but that's what happened here. That's what happened here. And we have two more examples in Acts where this happened.
[24:55] One was when the Spirit was poured on the Gentiles. and, and another incident on some of John's believers. And after that, there's no more recording of the baptism in this way.
[25:12] We know that in Scripture, language, foreign language was a sign to the unbelievers. And so God did something wonderful and miraculous here on this morning where, where Jews and, and proselytes were gathered from all around for the feast of Pentecost.
[25:36] And, and he revealed to them the Holy Spirit. Peter preached that day after they accused them of being drunk.
[25:48] but he straightened them out and he says, not so. Look to the prophet Joel what he said. And then he, and then he started to preach a sermon about Christ and the fulfillment of all that Christ said would happen.
[26:06] And when he had finished preaching in verse thirty seven, now when they had heard this, they were cut to the heart.
[26:16] Acts two, verse thirty seven. They were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said to them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
[26:43] it. Next verse. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.
[26:58] And then verse forty-one, and those who gladly received his word were baptized that day, about three thousand souls were added to them.
[27:10] Of the three thousand, how many spoke in tongues? The original group.
[27:30] And the next day or a few days later, there was five thousand added, and there's no mention of tongues of fire or of a rushing mighty wind or of speaking in other languages.
[27:45] We need to be very, very careful that we see God's overarching theme in Scripture. What his purposes are with the giving of the Holy Spirit.
[27:59] And it is, the Spirit is given to us to seal us, to identify us with Christ, and then to give us power to live for God, to glorify Him through our life here on earth.
[28:19] Also, we get power to speak boldly on His behalf, and so on. And I'm not saying that God does not individuals to show extra power heal, to do various miracles.
[28:39] God still can work and does work through the hands of believers. He can even do that through an unbeliever. But this is God, and it's for His glory.
[28:56] When we think of Saul, who was later named Paul, on the road to Damascus, what happened to him? He saw a blinding light, and what did he do?
[29:15] He fell to the ground and worshipped, cried out to Jesus. He knew instantly who had blinded him.
[29:30] And furthermore, he heard a voice speaking from heaven. And those others around with him did not hear the voice, but they were blinded.
[29:44] How many of us had a conversion like that? Probably none of us. are we then we need to be very careful because we are ordinary people, sinners whom God has saved.
[30:11] And because we have some examples of where God intervened in Saul's life, but also brought down the Holy Spirit in extraordinary ways to grab the attention of the world.
[30:26] I have not had tongues of fire, but I do have the Holy Spirit indwelling. We need to be sure of that. And not to be led, like Johnny said, with feelings, to be led with emotions, but with fact, and with that inner knowledge that I am now connecting with God, with the Spirit of God, through the Spirit of God.
[31:08] God has a purpose for you. Paul said in Galatians that he was burdened for them and was continuing to teach them till Christ was formed in them.
[31:31] Till Christ was formed in them. This is God's heart and desire and will for your life.
[31:41] life. And that is why he baptized you with the Holy Spirit. That Christ would be formed in you.
[31:58] In Romans 8, he talked about us being conformed to his image, to the image of Christ. This is purpose.
[32:10] purpose. This is purpose for all of us. And God may choose some of you in human eyes to do greater things than others, but in God's eyes it's not greater.
[32:37] it's him that's greater. And he's working through us. We need to realize that.
[32:49] Am I submitted to that? Let's turn to Galatians 5. Galatians 5. Galatians 5. Galatians 5. Galatians 5.
[33:01] Galatians 5. Galatians 5. Galatians 5. Galatians 5. I have two more scriptures here to close with the last point of the fruit of the Spirit.
[33:15] Galatians 5. Galatians 5. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
[33:40] Against such there is no law. And those who are of, sorry, those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
[33:51] If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
[34:03] The fruit of the Spirit. When you look at that list, does this describe you as a person full of love and joy and peace and long suffering or patient, enduring, kindness, goodness.
[34:35] How about faithful? Gentle and controlling self.
[34:50] Maybe if you look at this list, you feel like the ladies with the woman in Proverbs 31. And it feels impossible to meet that.
[35:04] But this is, this list is given to us perhaps also as a self-examination tool, but it is the work and the fruit of the Spirit this is the evidence that we belong to Christ.
[35:33] The evidence of that. And we can, and it's healthy to examine and check.
[35:47] Of all these words, I think there's nine of them, them, is there one or two that I particularly struggle with? That I identify and I can come to God in prayer, Lord, I want to submit in this area as well.
[36:13] I want the fruit to be evident. By the way, none of us have all of them perfected.
[36:29] None of us have even one perfected because we are a work in progress. The Spirit is at work and we can be confident that if we look back to before, I was a believer till now, there should be change.
[36:59] There should be a lot of change. And the more time that elapses, the more time the Spirit has had to model us.
[37:11] to conform us. The last verses in 2 Corinthians chapter 3. The last two verses, 17 and 18.
[37:26] 2 Corinthians 3, 17 and 18. He says, Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
[37:37] But we all with unveiled face, behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
[37:54] We are being transformed into the same image, the image of Christ, the glory of Christ. He says glory by glory, or trial by trial, by trial, by trial, day by day.
[38:14] Every time there's victory, there's glory, and it's one at a time. And so we don't wake up or become and now I've been perfected in practice, and all my life is glory to God.
[38:39] That might be my standing, but not my practice. And it's one at a time. For me, that is encouraging. That's encouraging.
[38:52] That when I do fail, God is at work in me. He's showing me. He's picking me up. He's helping me.
[39:04] The grace of God is doing this for all of us. As we close, none of us likely have had a very dramatic experience.
[39:32] it might vary among individuals, but God doesn't do that. It boils down to have I surrendered to Christ, invited Him into my life, asked Him to forgive my sins, and if so, He promised and He fulfilled, He baptized you with the Holy Spirit.
[40:07] And like Mr. Teigrup said, the peace of God floods over us at that moment because our sins are forgiven and we are right with our Maker.
[40:20] May the Lord bless you and continue to be vessels for Him, surrendering to Him day by day. Let's pray. Father, You are a God of grace, of mercy, and we thank You that during the church age that You decided to your Holy Spirit to indwell Your people for Your glory and for Your honor.
[41:00] Lord, You have done many miracles in the Old Testament where the Spirit did not indwell, and likewise You've done many miracles in the new, in the church age.
[41:12] But in both cases, God, it was about You. And so we recognize, Father, that we have been given the Spirit to empower us, to give us the ability to live a holy life.
[41:34] May that knowledge embolden us, God. I just commit this congregation, each one, to You. In the name of Jesus, Amen.