WEBVTT

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 What is the deepest human need?

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 Our colleagues from Alpha went out around the world

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 and they asked people, and this is what they said.

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 Deepest human need?

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 Oh gosh, trying to narrow that down.

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 I don't know.

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 Being happy with what you have.

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 It's family, man.

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 That's all you got.

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 Money, career, TV.

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 I think no TV.

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 I can't leave.

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 Love.

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 Love.

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 TV love.

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 Food.

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 Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

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 That was the bottom.

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 Sex, food.

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 Love, affection.

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 I'll still stick with food.

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 The vaccine is like...

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 Love.

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 Love.

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 To feel loved.

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 I think it would be love.

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 When I do find out, I'll let you know.

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 It's on this weekend, if like me, with millions of others across the world,

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 we watched love being played out in an amazing setting.

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 And that amazing preach by Bishop Michael.

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 And I promise you, I did write my sermon on Tuesday,

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 so I just didn't do a straight lift, which would have been really handy.

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 It's about love.

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 It's about love.

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 It's not about possessions.

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 It's not about money.

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 It's about this essence of love.

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 And on this Pentecost Sunday, we experience,

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 and the disciples had experienced,

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 what love really meant.

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 That redemptive power that had been promised.

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 The disciples had been gathered.

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 They'd been waiting.

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 They were disciples.

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 They were disciplined.

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 They were told to wait.

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 And they did.

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 And they were expectant of something that was going to come.

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 This great thing that Jesus had promised.

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 And when it came, life was transformed.

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 They were not disappointed.

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 And it spoke of tongues of fire resting on their heads.

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 And this sense of tongues,

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 this sort of visual interpretation of what they were actually going to do,

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 because they spoke and enabled all these people that had gathered.

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 God's timing was absolutely amazing.

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 These people had been gathered from all over,

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 expecting, just coming along, maybe.

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 I don't know what they came for.

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 But they certainly didn't expect what they were going to hear

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 because they heard in their own language the saving power of Jesus.

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 And then there was this thing about fire.

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 And I don't know whether anybody's witnessed the wildfire.

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 But, you know, it sort of starts with nothing.

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 And then it just grows and consumes everything in its path.

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 And that was the day of Pentecost.

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 This wildfire that suddenly went from these small beginnings out across.

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 And 2,000 years later, I've got to ask us,

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 do you feel the fire?

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 Do you feel the fire?

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 Because it hasn't stopped.

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 I was invited to a conference sometime back.

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 It's nice to be invited to go in weeks teaching.

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 And they had this idea that you come at the beginning,

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 and I think they're sort of trying you out to see what you're like for the week.

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 But they do this thing where they sit you down in front of everybody,

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 introduce you, and then they give you a theme.

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 And then they give you an item to talk about.

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 And it was great.

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 I sat on this chair, done my introductions,

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 and he said, the theme we're going to give you is the Holy Spirit.

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 I thought, that's a bit of a gift, as it is.

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 And then the next thing they handed me was a hand grenade.

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 I thought, how does this work?

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 It must have been the Holy Spirit.

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 And I sat there just thinking for a minute,

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 praying, how's this going to work?

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 And they said, they set this timer, and you get two minutes.

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 And off we went.

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 And it was great.

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 And I thought, actually, on the day of Pentecost,

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 there was this explosive power.

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 But the difference with this power was it wasn't destructive.

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 It was empowering by the fact that instead of sending shrapnel into people to Maine,

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 actually, what if this was like the Holy Spirit?

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 And actually, it sent the gift of love out into people's lives.

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 And so this explosive power for all of us would actually spread out and embed itself into people.

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 And that's exactly what it did on the day of Pentecost.

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 They went out, and people were changed and transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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 And I was sensing then that, you know, the Lord gives you verses like we've heard this morning.

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 And this thing from Isaiah about, you know,

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 they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

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 Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.

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 It is about love.

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 You see, we can celebrate a festival of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit,

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 and we can think, what does that mean to us?

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 And it has to mean something.

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 It has to mean something that embeds itself in us, because and through us,

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 in order to reach the people that God is calling us to do.

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 And Jesus promised, and it was delivered.

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 The gift was given.

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 Do you know, I've been a Christian for years.

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 I'd been, I did all the right things.

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 I went to church.

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 I sat in the pew.

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 I knew my liturgy.

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 Do you know what?

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 It took a moment for me to actually ask and receive the Holy Spirit,

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 for me to fulfill that which I felt God was doing.

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 And I suddenly realized there had been something missing.

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 Jesus knew about the coming of the Holy Spirit.

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 And I don't know what you're like at giving gifts.

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 I don't know.

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 I like to think a lot of thought goes into my gifts.

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 And I excelled myself this year, I have to say, on Mandy's birthday.

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 She didn't have a clue what was coming.

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 It was great.

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 But I want you to imagine if you'd put a lot of thought into a gift that you were going to give to somebody,

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 and you gave them the gift.

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 And worse still, they rejected it.

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 You'd put all that love, all that thought, all that hope,

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 in that you would see the beauty on people's face when they opened it and they rejected it.

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 But maybe worse still, there's somebody opened the gift and they never used it.

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 You see, on this day of Pentecost, we have to actually acknowledge that this gift is here for each and every one of us if we choose to accept it.

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 In America, every year at this small town, the revival tent used to arrive with evangelists.

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 They'd come into town.

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 They'd set up the evangelistic tent.

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 People would flock in and they would hear this amazing preaching.

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 And there would be this call to respond to the Holy Spirit.

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 And there was a guy in the town called Jake.

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 Everybody knew Jake.

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 He was the town drunk.

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 He was, as they would say in America, a bum.

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 And as they did the call, Jake would run down to the front.

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 He would kneel and he would scream,

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 Fill me, Lord.

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 Fill me.

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 Jake would be dry for a few months.

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 He'd get a job.

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 He'd even go to the tin church, the Baptist chapel on the corner.

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 But then, a few months later, he'd go back to drinking.

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 And Jake would become the same old Jake.

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 Next year, the revival tent would come.

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 There would be a call from the front.

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 Jake would be the first one down the front.

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 Fill me, Lord.

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 Fill me to overflowing.

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 He would be filled with the Holy Spirit.

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 A few months later, he would be back where he was.

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 This went on year after year.

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 And Jake would run down the front.

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 And on this particular year, he ran down the front.

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 He shouted out, Fill me, Lord.

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 And a lady from the back stood up and said,

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 Don't do it, Lord.

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 He leaks.

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 And I thought, That is so much our journey, isn't it?

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 You see, there may be people here who said,

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 I went to Spring Harvest in 1975,

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 and I got filled with the Holy Spirit.

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 I had an amazing service last Sunday.

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 I came for prayer, and I was filled with the Holy Spirit.

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 Do you know what?

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 I went home, and I knelt down in my room,

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 and I asked the Lord to fill me with the Holy Spirit.

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 But on Monday morning, I went to work,

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 and I found that one of my colleagues

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 hasn't done what they were supposed to do.

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 And I leaped.

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 I drove out down the motorway,

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 and somebody cut me up.

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 I leaped really badly.

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 I had a word, maybe a thought,

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 that came into my mind about somebody

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 who maybe I just hadn't got on with.

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 And I leaped.

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 You see, Paul,

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 when he had this amazing transformation experience

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 on the road to Damascus,

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 where he had persecuted Christians

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 again and again and again,

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 and suddenly had this inbreaking of meeting with Jesus

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 and this empowering of the Holy Spirit,

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 suddenly,

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 he was filled.

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 And filled.

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 And filled.

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 But he knew that he would leak.

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 And so Paul says quite clearly in Scripture

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 that it isn't just the filling.

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 The actual description is being filled

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 again and again and again.

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 We need to ask again and again and again

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 to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

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 And again,

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 we are in God's loving

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 and redemptive power

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 that fills us to be the people

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 who God has called us to be.

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 You see,

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 there is this sense

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 that none of us want to be

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 this floppy Christian

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 because so often

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 that's what we can become.

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 Unfilled,

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 unproductive with what the Holy Spirit

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 wants to do in us and through us.

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 And it says that you can notice people

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 by the Holy Spirit in them.

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 And I want to see more of this in me

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 as you want to see it more in you.

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 This sense of love.

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 This sense of joy.

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 Of patience.

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 Of kindness.

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 Of goodness.

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 Faithfulness.

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 Gentleness.

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 And perhaps most important

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 amongst Christians.

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 Self-control.

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 That goes with love.

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 You see,

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 because when you've got those things,

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 people tend to notice.

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 They notice the love.

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 They notice the love that's in us

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 because we are filled

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 to overflowing

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 with the love of God.

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 And that is what's going to change

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 our world.

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 As the bishop said

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 very helpfully,

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 you know,

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 what would change our world?

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 The changing is because

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 Jesus called us to do this

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 and the Holy Spirit comes

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 and helps us to do that

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 which Jesus asks us to do.

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 When did you last ask

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 for the Holy Spirit

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 to come into your life?

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 The thing is,

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 there's lots of things

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 that will,

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 as we've heard,

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 you know,

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 fear of the future,

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 fear of what happens.

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 We just ask

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 the Holy Spirit to come.

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 We just ask

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 the Holy Spirit to come.