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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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs,
we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And we also met last week,
we met Luke's student named Theophilus.
Theophilus was like many of us,
intellectually educated and sophisticated.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And so instinctively, they went for 10 days to pray,
to pray together in a unified way,
to pray constantly in a persevering way.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And to enable the church to breathe in the presence of God.
God's Spirit is the new wind of new creation.
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.
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.
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.
And you note that
the fire is here marking each individual believer
as a holy tabernacle,
as a holy temple of the holy God.
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.
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.
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.
And the Holy Spirit affects several major changes
on the speech of the disciples
which are described here as
quote-unquote utterly amazing.
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.
And down in verse 11,
it says,
You remember before Pentecost,
these disciples were weak
and quite helpless and afraid.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We hear them declaring the megaworks of God.
We hear them declaring the mighty acts
of salvation by God in history.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
No, Peter says,
we are not intoxicated
with alcoholic spirits.
We are, in fact,
experiencing God's
ancient promises
of the Holy Spirit.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
He has
certain spiritual conditions
by which
we are to receive
the Holy Spirit.
That is a
repentant heart
and a believing heart.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Pray for the
fullness of
the Spirit.
Friends,
let's do this
in the name of
the Father,
Son,
and Holy
Spirit.
Amen.