Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Amen. Well, we're going to turn in our Bibles today to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24. I'll come back to Second Corinthians, but today is Pentecost Sunday, so I want to talk a little bit about that element in the life of the church and believers. So we're going to stand, we're going to pray. I'm going to ask God to do a mighty work. We had a great prayer time this morning, had a great first service. I believe we're going to have a great second service. So, Lord, would you awaken us this morning? This morning, would you open our hearts to hear your voice speaking into our innermost being? May the word of God become a living word alive in our souls. This morning I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would come and empower us and touch our hearts and transform our thinking and our lives, help us to leave this place with an impassioned will to do your divine will and purposes in our lives. And we thank you for that, Father. We thank you for your presence among us. And Lord, I pray that we will not just come to another service, but that today would be a defining moment in our souls. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name and God's people said, amen. You may be seated.
[00:01:14] John Ortberg, in his book God Is Closer Than youn Think, shares the story of one of his friends. Kim. As a young girl, her dad actually pulled the car off the side of the road to help a woman change a flat tire.
[00:01:30] And while he was lying under the car changing the tire, another vehicle accidentally swerved to the shoulder. And the collision. The car was shoved onto his chest. It severed his thumb.
[00:01:42] Five of his ribs were broken, and his left lung was pierced and began filling up with blood. How many know that's not a good scenario to be in?
[00:01:50] His wife, who is barely 5ft tall, placed her hands on the bumper of the car and prayed in Jesus name, she said, and began to lift the car off his chest so he could be dragged out.
[00:02:04] Some weeks later, she discovered that she had broken a vertebrae in her effort. Kim's father is in a state of shock as he was taken to the hospital.
[00:02:14] Doctors prepared him for emergency surgery. They knew his thumb was probably gone and they didn't know if he'd even make it. They were thinking his life was, you know, iffy, his survival.
[00:02:26] Suddenly, Father Kim's father's skin changed from ashen to pink. He experienced a miraculous healing. He invited the surprise surgical team to join him in singing Ferris. Lord Jesus.
[00:02:41] They didn't even bother to hook him up to the oxygen. I don't know about you, if you're a surgeon team going in to try to save a man's life and he moves from death to life and all of a sudden he's awakened and he's out of shock and he's telling you, let's sing a song, that would be a pretty interesting experience to say the least.
[00:03:00] Now, he did not find out until later that at that precise moment when he went from ashen to pink, his father in law, who was a pastor, had his congregation interceding in prayer.
[00:03:15] Sometimes these stories come from not very credible sources, but in this case the subject was a man by the name of James Loder, who was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. His life was not only spared that day, but it was transformed. Until then, although he taught at a seminary, God had been mostly an abstract idea to him. Now Jesus became a living presence. Kim writes that her father's heart grew so tender that he became known as, at Princeton as the weeping professor. He began to live from one moment to the next in a God bathed, God soaked, God intoxicated, world transformed by the presence of Jesus.
[00:04:02] You can see all the arguments in the world cannot explain away the power of an experience with the living Jesus. It changes your life.
[00:04:13] Christianity is more than just a series of ideas, you know, doctrinal statements, historical elements.
[00:04:22] Christianity in its reality is a powerful encounter with the living Jesus.
[00:04:29] Biblical faith should affect the entirety of our personality, our minds, our emotions, our wills. It's a life changing experience. Anything less is not the real thing.
[00:04:43] Genuine spirituality, genuine biblical Christianity is not only believing the right things, but also being and becoming the right kind of person because of what God has and is doing for you and through you. So it doesn't stop, it flows. It's like a channel. And so what I'm praying today is that you and I would be so attached to God that we would become a living expression of the life of Christ, of the people around us.
[00:05:18] Maybe we wonder, after surrendering our lives to Jesus, where do we go from this point? You know, I can just imagine the early disciples. You know, Jesus had been crucified, they knew that, they had wept, they went to an empty tomb. Eventually Jesus appears to them. And how many know that was a pretty shocking experience for these guys and gals. I mean, that was like, you know, he told them he was going to come back from the dead, but it just did not register. And when it happened, they were in a state of shock. You know, they were, like, overjoyed. They were overwhelmed. And the Bible says that Jesus appeared to the disciples for 40 days after his death and resurrection. And then it Sundays on the 50th day, which was now another feast in the Jewish calendar, God's spirit came upon the church and literally changed these people's lives. So I want to talk about transformation today. I believe that's what Pentecost is all about. It's about a transformation that comes into our lives.
[00:06:16] So how does the resurrection of Jesus impact my daily life or my life daily? If you turn to the epilogue or the conclusion of Luke's gospel, you're going to discover some powerful truths that I think are transformative, and it will change us if we respond to them. It can guide our lives, and it can move from, you know, basically grinding through life or experiencing this transformative life that Jesus wants to bring into all of our lives.
[00:06:47] So how did this impact their lives, these early believers? And how should it affect our lives? And what are some of the things we should expect from Almighty God? I think far too often as believers, we kind of struggle beneath the pressures of daily life. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Pressure, stress, anxiety, challenge, busyness, all the things that come our way. So how. How can we move beyond that? How do we ascend beyond that? How do we not allow these things to begin to define our lives? Because I'm sure if we went through this room right now, we said, hey, what's the big challenge in your life right now? Every one of us could name something. Everyone in this room could tell you a challenge, a situation, a pressure, you know, what they're encountering. And for many people, those things begin to define us.
[00:07:34] Those challenges begin to define our lives. We start living beneath that definitive level of pressure and anxiety and challenge in our life. But how many would say, I want my life to move above that. I'd like to move that. Even though these things are happening in my life, it's no longer defining my life. I want to live such a life that I'm feeling fulfilling and living this abundant life that Jesus promised us. He said, I'm going to give you life in that more abundantly. I want to live life to its fullest. I don't want to allow the trials, the challenges, the pressures to define me as a person. I want to be defined by who God says I am and by what God's calling me to be and what God's calling me to do. I'm going to rise above these things. And I think we can and I think we're going to discuss that today. And I believe that if you take to heart what I'm going to share today, this could change your life. So I pay close attention. I know it's changed my life. So I think we're living below this, below the line that God wants for us. I think there's more to life than just living to make a living. We're living beyond the daily grind. So Luke is going to give us a glimpse into how Christ returned from the dead. Should help us live above the mundane, the daily grind of life. And I'm going to look at three powerful realities that Jesus communicated with the first believers that totally changed them. It affected their lives. And I think these realities, if we embrace them, will affect us too. It'll change us. And I'm going to look at the first one, and it's simply being awakened by the word of God.
[00:09:10] How many know that a lot of people are asleep?
[00:09:13] You know, actually, the Bible says that. It says, wake up, you sleeper. You know, there's a call, a challenge in our life as believers not to be spiritually sleeping. And as I look at the church, you know, today I'm saying to myself, you know, I look at our country, how many know we need an awakening? You know, I like that word. The nation needs an awakening. But how many here say, I need to be awakened? And I believe if we're going to awaken a nation, we have to have awakened people.
[00:09:41] And you're it. You're the target.
[00:09:44] You're the people that are the catalyst, that when you're awake, you're going to impact the lives of other people. Awakened people, awake people. That's what's going to happen. And so that's why I think this is so critical.
[00:09:58] We are to be the people of the book, people that not only hold the Scriptures in high regard, but people who are devoted to living out its precepts and principles as far as found in the pages of Scripture. You know, there was a survey done a few years ago by the Institute for Biblical Research concerning the effects of reading the Bible on a person's life, depending on how many days a week that they were actually reading Scripture. And this is what they found. If a person just reads the Bible one day per week, it has almost no effect on their lives. So just pause here for a second. Let's ask the question. If I'm only getting Bible intake on Sunday from a sermon, you know, and even though I'm an expositor, I'm trying to give you a lot of scripture, that's not going to have a.
[00:10:47] It's not going to have a major effect in your life. That's kind of startling. Wow.
[00:10:52] I'm not saying it's not good to go to church. I would argue it's very important to go to church.
[00:10:57] But I'm just telling you. How much biblical intake are you taking in? Okay, now the people who read the Bible two to three days per week, the Bible, the survey found out it was a negligible effect.
[00:11:10] So obviously they continued on and they discovered, however, when people are reading the Bible at least four days a week. So that already tells me something. They've developed some sort of a habit.
[00:11:22] They know the scriptures are important to their life. They're spending time in it.
[00:11:26] I would say, you know, just become a daily Bible reader. Don't worry about four days a week. You know, just go for it. You know, we'll talk about how important that is. They found out that this person. And don't ask me how they come up with the statistics. I'm going to actually ask our middle school youth pastor because he's the statistician on staff. He got his stats degree. So I say, how do you come up with these percentages anyways? But they said 228% they are more likely to share their faith.
[00:11:53] 407% more likely to memorize scripture. Already we can see that something's happening inside of these people who are spending time in scripture.
[00:12:02] 59% less likely to view pornography. So now we have things that are happening. You know, people are embracing something and then they're displacing some things. Do you know, if you have a certain pattern of life, it changes you. This is what they're talking about here. 30% less likely to struggle with loneliness, depression or anxiety. Now they're not saying that these things are totally eradicated. They're just saying this diminishes these kinds of things in our lives. So I'll say it to you this way. If you're not reading the Bible, you're at a huge disadvantage. You're just at a huge disadvantage. I'll tell you that. Now we're going to talk about how to read the Bible because there's a people that read the Bible, but it doesn't totally changed them. And I'm going to talk about we need to have something occur beyond even that. But what happens when we begin to act on what the Bible says? Then amazing things start happening. That's when change starts happening, when we start becoming doers of the Word James talks about that. You can't just hear it. You got to do it. And, you know, I was just thinking about this. Think about the Israelites. You know, God delivers them out of slavery and they crossed the Red Sea. They've seen all these miracles. You know, they're in the wilderness. God provides for 40 years now, a new generation arises. And here's my argument. Every generation has to have their own encounter with God. Every generation has to experience their own miracles in their lives.
[00:13:29] It's not enough to hear, you know, Grandpa talk about it or mom and dad to talk about it. Every generation has to have their own experience. And you think about it. You know, Joshua comes up to the little Jordan river, but it's not little at this moment. It's in a flood stage. And God tells him, oh, just take the priest and walk the ark into it. And what happens?
[00:13:52] The waters part, just like Moses had with the Israelites coming out of Egypt. How many know that that was important for that generation? And then they're about to conquer the land, you know, God tells them. And how many know. When you start thinking about how God says to do things, sometimes it's not always, you know, rational in our thinking. I'll give you an example. Okay, we're going to take over this fortified city called Jericho. I want you to walk around the city once today, and nobody talk.
[00:14:23] That makes a lot of sense, right? No talking once around the city, come back, say nothing.
[00:14:30] Okay? Next day we're gonna conquer the city. Walk around the city. Let's do it again. Say nothing. That's it. They do this six times on the seventh day. Oh, we're gonna change the routine here. Walk around it seven times, and at the end, shout, and the walls are gonna come down.
[00:14:47] That's exactly what happened. I mean, I don't even know if they anticipated what was gonna happen. They just were shouting, and the wall started crumbling and they fell, and then they just invaded the city and they won the battle. And I mean, you know, when I start looking at, you know, how God works, it doesn't always make sense.
[00:15:04] Has anybody figured this out yet? God does things. At times I go, this isn't computing with me. It's making no sense. It's not adding up. And I still remember in seminary, I was asked to write a paper from the Book of Judges and Joshua on all of the weapons found in those books, you know, especially in the Book of Judges, you know what I discovered?
[00:15:25] You know, they didn't win battles because of their weaponry. I'm going to tell you right now, they were at a disadvantage all the way through. Read those books. You know, what struck me was the power of God.
[00:15:37] And God wants us to understand stuff. He's doing things even when you don't know he's doing things.
[00:15:45] You know, I shared a devotional with our staff here last Tuesday, and I said to them, sometimes in the darkest hours, when we think God's not working, he's actually working. I gave him a whole bunch of illustrations of it. I'm not going to do that right now. But I'm just telling you that a lot of times when you and I don't think God's doing anything, he's doing stuff and he's preparing things ahead of time. That you and I are unknown to us because we have a very limited capacity to understand what's going on. But what we're going to learn from our text today is that we need to understand that the Scriptures point to Jesus and they find their fulfillment in him. And after the resurrection, Jesus explains how his death and resurrection was fulfilled in his life. And let's look at these verses here. Chapter 24, verse 44, it says, he said to them, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that was written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms. And then he opened their minds that they could understand the Scripture.
[00:16:52] I want to just pause here for a minute and just say simply this.
[00:16:58] If we don't find Jesus in the Scriptures, we don't understand the Scripture.
[00:17:04] And the only way to understand scripture properly is through a lens.
[00:17:11] Everybody says, you know, it just depends how you interpret. I go, yeah, you're right. Interpretation is everything.
[00:17:16] But I'm going to give you an interpretive key to the Bible. Here it comes.
[00:17:21] You have to look at the Bible through the lens of Jesus.
[00:17:24] And the moment you do that, you'll see Jesus all the way through the Bible.
[00:17:30] It's what you call a christological lens.
[00:17:33] And Jesus now is talking to his disciples. They don't have the New Testament, they just have the Old Testament. And he begins to unpack, and he shows them that all of these scriptures are actually pointing to himself.
[00:17:46] Isn't that beautiful? That's what I mean by a christological lens. Jesus is actually teaching us the model to understand it. So here's people studying in seminary, and if they don't know Jesus, they don't get anything out of it because they come up with all kinds of other ideas. But they have the wrong interpretation. You have to have a Christological lens to get it. And Jesus had to, it says here. And he opened their minds so they could understand.
[00:18:11] Here's lesson number one about becoming a daily Bible reader.
[00:18:15] You should be praying this prayer as you start.
[00:18:18] Lord, open my mind.
[00:18:21] Speak to me today through your word.
[00:18:25] That's how you should begin your devotional time. Lord, I want to see you in the text today. I want to see. I want to get to know you. It's not about me getting information, historical information, background information, sermon preparation information. I don't even do that.
[00:18:41] I have a totally different time to work on sermons. You may not know that. I have a devotional time that's totally divorced from working on sermons. How's that? And I spend time with God and I'm praying this prayer, open my mind, speaking to my life. I want to hear from you. And I'm going to give you another little pointer to help you with your devotional life. Because some of you go, I don't know what to do, Pastor. Get a little notebook. Get a pen. It's really powerful, you know? And when you're reading the scripture, what you're reading, make it your prayer.
[00:19:12] Make what you're reading a prayer applicable to you and to those you know and love.
[00:19:18] And I'm going to tell you what's going to happen when you start praying the scripture for yourself and others. You are now praying the will of God, because that's what God wants for you and for others. So now you're in accordance with God, and. And if we pray according to his will, we know that God will hear our prayer and God will answer that prayer. How's that? You can have an assurance that as you're praying, as you're writing it out, and that's your prayer, God's going to answer that. Is that a beautiful thing or not? And you can go to my house. I've got journal after journal after journal written out, and it's all these prayers from the scriptures. I do it year after year. It's just full of the stuff I start out, Lord, open my mind, open my understanding. It's amazing. God's word just starts coming alive.
[00:20:07] Your thinking is shaped by what you're being influenced by. Some of you in this room, you spend more time on social media and more time on your screen than you do in the scripture.
[00:20:18] And I'm gonna tell you something. You are being shaped by the culture and not by God's word. And so you're not really getting to know God. You're getting to Know the world. And then you're going to develop attitudes and understandings that are shaped by the culture and not by God.
[00:20:33] And so what happens is then we have a mindset that's totally affected by what the culture is saying continuously. And most people today are living in abject fear.
[00:20:44] Fear is just prevalent in this society. And I'm going to say this. I was reading this morning, my own quiet time. I'll share what I got there. The reason why Saul failed as a king was he was more concerned about what people thought than what God thought. He was more afraid of what was happening in his life than believing what God was saying. And I'm going to say this. If you believe what God says, it's going to help you overcome the fear and the pressure that society is being placed upon your heart and mind. You're going to rise above this anxiety and fear that's so dominant in people's lives. And you're going to hear the voice of God and he's going to give you a quiet confidence and your mind is going to day with perfect peace. Because Isaiah promises that I will give you perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me. So here already we can see why anxiety, depression and all these difficulties are going to be diminished to some degree is because you are now communing with the God of the universe who has power over all of these things. And you're going to shift your whole way of thinking.
[00:21:46] It's very, very powerful.
[00:21:49] Well, I just wrote it's not just enough to know the scripture. You know, the devil knows the scripture.
[00:21:56] Seminarians know the scripture. A lot of them are lost. I hate to say that, but it's true. We have to be awakened by God to understand His Word. Notice how Jesus opened their minds so they could understand the Scripture. That's the work of the Spirit. God's Spirit is going to open your mind. That's what we need to pray for.
[00:22:16] And it's not till that happens.
[00:22:18] And then when we understand these things, then we move from just hearing them to now acting on them, doing them, embracing them.
[00:22:27] Go on. Here he says he told them this is what is written.
[00:22:31] The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. And repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. When we engage in experiencing and then communicating this message, we're actually extending Jesus in our lifetime. Do you know what God's looking for? He's looking for conduits. He's looking for channels. He's Looking for people whose lives are so open to him that, you know, I'll just say, I'm going to step back and say it this way.
[00:23:04] Before the foundation of the world, God decided to design you and create you at this time for a purpose.
[00:23:15] You have an assignment from God, and every one of us needs to get to know God so that we get to know, because of the gifts that he's put into our lives, what that assignment is so that you and I can be faithful to do our assignment.
[00:23:32] We don't have to worry about, you know, is somebody else not doing their assignment or if that person shouldn't do this. No. If every one of us just stays in the lane and does our assignment, we're going to get into eternity. God's going, high five. Well done, good and faithful servant. You did exactly what I wanted you to do.
[00:23:49] God is the orchestra conductor of the great symphony. You and I each have a part to play, a role to play. Let's just stay in that role and be satisfied that what God's wired us to do and God's assigned us to do, that we are actually doing what, what he's asking us to do.
[00:24:09] So.
[00:24:14] I think there is a need for repentance. It's part of receiving the good news. Now, I know a lot of people think repentance is negative.
[00:24:23] I want to dispel that for a minute.
[00:24:25] Okay? Repentance is something we should be practicing at all times. You go, what is repentance? Really, Pastor?
[00:24:33] It's changing our mind. Literally. The Greek word means a change of mind.
[00:24:37] And what are you changing your mind? You're now coming into a new agreement. You're saying, the way I once saw things, I'm changing my mind and I'm going to embrace God's viewpoint.
[00:24:48] Now, how many know God's pretty smart and we got a lot to learn and I still feel that way. God's really smart and I've still got a lot to learn.
[00:24:58] I want to sit at his feet and I want to learn as much as I can. And when I've got it wrong and Jesus is explaining to me, then I want to change my mind and I want to get it right.
[00:25:07] That's what repentance is. It's coming in alignment with what God is and we all need to do that. It's not a one time experience. Well, I repented a long time ago. I think I have to keep repenting. It's a way of life.
[00:25:21] We need to understand that.
[00:25:24] Okay. You know, for the most part, you know, I think God is neglected as much as he's rejected. How many say that's probably true? That's probably true in even believers lives. But I would say it's certainly true in non believers lives. God's just being neglected. But isn't it true that if we're neglecting God, aren't we kind of rejecting him?
[00:25:43] Aren't we kind of substituting God with other things? And isn't that what idolatry is, just substituting something for, for God? God desires to be the central part, the essence of our very being and lives.
[00:25:56] That's his longing for us, you know.
[00:25:59] So we need to begin to understand that God wants to make himself known to us.
[00:26:06] We're going to talk in a moment about how significant that really is. God is always with us. He never leaves us.
[00:26:13] So what is God looking for?
[00:26:15] For us to do? In other words, what is it God looking for? What does Jesus say being a follower of him all about? And I think it's real simple. Loving God and loving people. Okay, how simple is that? And by the way, to love God, you have to love people.
[00:26:31] So now I've even distilled it further. We need to be lovers of people. And I mean true lovers of people. Really concerned for their well being, concerned about people.
[00:26:41] That's what real love is. And it doesn't mean that I go along with every, you know, some people think, well you love me if you agree with me at all times. I go, no, that's not love.
[00:26:49] You know, I don't know what that is, but that's not love.
[00:26:52] Sometimes you have to say to somebody, this isn't healthy for you. If you're a good parent, you don't say to your kid, oh yeah, just keep eating. You know, whatever you're eating there, that's going to kill you. You know, you don't go, you know, you can't keep doing that, that's going to kill you. You know, loving people warn people. So, so warning's a part of loving, but we need to do it in a loving manner. That's what we need to understand.
[00:27:13] So let me just ask the question, are we spending time with God daily?
[00:27:19] It's a great question. And if you're not, don't feel guilty, do something about it, repent, change your mind. My prayer today, I had these guys praying with me this morning. I said, listen, I am praying.
[00:27:32] Not that I'm so motivational or inspiring. I'm praying that God's spirit is motivational and inspiring you to say, you know what I gotta change my behavior. And don't tell me you don't have enough time.
[00:27:43] It doesn't work. We all have the same amount of time. When you tell me things like I don't have enough time, you're telling me that's not my priority?
[00:27:52] That's all you're telling me?
[00:27:54] Make time.
[00:27:56] Whatever is important to you, you'll do.
[00:27:59] If I told you that the most important person in the world was God himself, how many would say, yeah, I believe that, Pastor? How many believe that God is the most important person? You believe that? Well, then we need to spend time with him, get to know him.
[00:28:12] He's the one that's going to help you more than any other person.
[00:28:16] So spend time with him. Okay, let me move on to the second transforming reality. We're awakened by God's word number two, we're going to be empowered by the spirit. You know, it's really interesting to me. There's two extremes in the Christian life.
[00:28:30] Here's extreme number one, it's the Spirit and we're spirit led, but we're biblically underdeveloped. And usually what happens when we go into the spirit realm like that, if we're not anchored to the word of God, we just go off on a tangent and we end up getting into all kinds of crazy stuff and crazy ideas and it's all, you know, after a while it just becomes emotionally driven. I'm just being really honest with you. Okay, so now here's the next, the other group. It's all biblical and all the biblical guys, it can become so dry and they get rigid, legalistic, judgmental, critical. They become Pharisees and they're telling you everything that's wrong, but there's no life in them, there's no spirit. So there's a little adage, you know, if you have the Word and no Spirit, you dry up.
[00:29:22] If you have the Spirit and no Word, you're going to blow up.
[00:29:26] But if you have the Word and the Spirit, you're going to grow up. You need them both.
[00:29:31] You need to be anchored to the Word of God. As a matter of fact, I was reading here the other day and it said God was revealing himself to the prophet Samuel through his Word. The primary way God's going to reveal himself to you is through the Word of God.
[00:29:46] But then the Holy Spirit, we have to be open to him who's living inside of us. And this is what happened on the day of Pentecost. Jesus said, it's important that I leave. And he says, here in verse 49, I'm going to send you what my Father has promised. But stay in the city until you've been clothed with power from on high. So who's he talking about? He's talking about the Holy Spirit.
[00:30:09] And Jesus himself said, you know, Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us.
[00:30:16] But Jesus said, it's important that I leave. It's necessary that I leave so that another comforter, the Holy Spirit, will come.
[00:30:26] Why? Because now God is not going to be with you. He's going to be in you. How many like that? So that's why Jesus makes the promise. I'm going to send you into all the world to preach the gospel. And lo, I am with you even until the end of the age. How in the world can God always be with us? He's in us.
[00:30:44] Isn't that great? That's why Jesus, you know, the writer to Hebrews says, you know, God says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Why? Because he's in you.
[00:30:54] But here's what we need to understand. Just like the early disciples, they were on there on the day of Pentecost. What happened on the day of Pentecost is he said, the Holy Spirit now is going to come in you and fill. Fill you. And so now they're filled with the Spirit. Isn't that a wonderful thing? So Luke describes the Holy Spirit as a dynamic power that's going to enable them to be witnesses. Now, when we think of witnesses, we always talk about people talking to somebody.
[00:31:19] No, he means more than that. He means that you as a person will be light in a world of darkness. Your behavior, your activities, your understanding will. Will reveal who God is just because of the way you live, think, talk, and the things that you're doing. We're living witnesses. We're always witnessing. You know, you're witnessing 24, seven. Seven. You know, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Sometimes we're bad witnesses, but we're always a witness.
[00:31:49] Now, when we're full of the Holy Spirit, we can be effective witnesses. And also, if we're full of the Word, we can actually communicate with. With intelligence to people around us and have the wisdom to know what to say, when to say it. Because the Holy Spirit's living inside of us. He can only use what you and I put inside of ourselves.
[00:32:09] So the more I have the Word of God in me, the more God's Holy Spirit can take what I need at that particular moment and use it to help other people in their journey.
[00:32:19] So Luke here is describing in Acts 1:8, you're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. And how many know a witness's credibility is determined by their life?
[00:32:36] So, you know, if you went to a court and you were a witness and your life was not credible, you know what an attorney would do? He would attack your character. Because what he would try to do is diminish the power of you as a witness.
[00:32:54] And that's what the devil wants to do.
[00:32:56] He wants to tempt you so that you sin, so that you diminish your power as a witness. But when you obey God and are walking with God, you are now a more powerful and credible witness. And it will affect people's lives. So it's determined also by our lives. It's equally true of each of us as a witness as we share the good news of Jesus. To the degree that Jesus is real in you, it will be real to others. And what do I mean by that? You know, so often we tell people.
[00:33:27] I think we try to put the cart before the horse. And what I mean by that is we tell people, go, share your faith.
[00:33:33] I'm going, no, that's not the right approach. Here's a better approach.
[00:33:39] We need to emphasize the relationship with Christ, get a strong relationship with Jesus, be full of the Holy Ghost. Let your life, you know, be a strong, strong witness and become a transformed person. And then when you share, you've got credibility and power to speak into people's lives.
[00:34:00] So you know what? We need to be full of the Spirit. Now, I noticed one thing about these early disciples. They weren't just filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. How many know they got filled over and over again? Read through the Book of Acts, they were constantly being filled.
[00:34:17] You know, it just kind of reminds me of this little old lady at a prayer meeting, and people were praying for people to be filled with the Spirit. She finally got so excited, she cried out, lord, don't fill them. They leak. You know, but the reality is you and I need constantly being filled with the Spirit. You know, we should be getting filled every day.
[00:34:36] I mean, how many here you fueled up your car in the last week or two? Anybody here? Anybody charged up your car, fueled up your car in the last week or two? Why'd you do that?
[00:34:45] Because you knew it wouldn't go anywhere unless it got filled?
[00:34:48] Why is it, as Christians, we never get filled up and then we walk around going, I can't understand why nothing's happening in my life. You need to be full. You need to be empowered by the spirit of God. I like what Oswald Sanders says about the spirit filled life. He says to be filled with the spirit means simply that the Christian voluntarily surrenders his life and will to the spirit through faith. The believer's personality is filled with filled, mastered and controlled by the spirit.
[00:35:16] It goes on to say, the meaning of filled is not to pour into a passive container, but to take possession of the mind. And when we invite the spirit to fill us, the spirit's power grips our lives with this kind of strength and passion. You know, God wants us to be impassioned by his spirit. He wants us to be full of him.
[00:35:37] To be filled with the spirit is to be controlled by the spirit. The Christian's mind, emotions, will, physical strength, all become available for the spirit to guide and use. Under the spirit's control, natural gifts are lifted to their highest power and set apart for holy purposes. I love that. Listen, every human being that God created, which I believe is every person, has gifts.
[00:36:00] But when you're full of the Holy Spirit, it goes to a new level. How do you like that? So what you naturally could do now becomes empowered by God. And here's the good news. If you read the Old Testament, these people only did tasks under the influence and power of the Holy Spirit. So they were able to do supernatural things. You know, you think of Samson, you know, takes the jawbone of a donkey and he kills a thousand people. How many know that's not a human being doing that? That's a person filled with the spirit that did that.
[00:36:29] But then the spirit would leave them. You know, the spirit finally left Samson. Reread that. But in the New Testament believers, we have this. Every believer has the same spirit that helped all these Old Testament people do those specific tasks. We live in the presence of the spirit. This is the age of the spirit.
[00:36:48] So we should be seeing these things happening in our lives. And then through the work of the now not grieved and unhindered spirit, all the fruits of the spirit start to grow in the believer's life. His witness is more winsome, his service more steady, his testimony more powerful. All real Christian service is but the expression of the spirit's power through the believer that's yielded to him. Well, that's pretty powerful.
[00:37:11] So I want to move on to the final point. What am I trying to say here? We need to be full of the Spirit and we should be asking for it. I don't know if you know this. I pray every, almost every day. I ask, holy Spirit, fill me. I'm praying for God's fullness. I don't want to be walking around trying to do this in my own strength. Ask the Holy Spirit to come and fill you every day.
[00:37:34] That's a great prayer. Lord, would you come today and fill me with your spirit? See, I understand. Ephesians 5:18, it says, Be filled, be continuously filled with the spirit.
[00:37:44] And then you read the next part of that verse. You know what it says. And do not be drunk with wine. In other words, don't be intoxicated.
[00:37:51] Don't be addicted to, you know, chemicals. Don't be addicted to these things that are stimulating you. How many know if you're intoxicated, you're inebriated, you're affected, your speech is affected, your behavior is affected, your actions are affected, your thinking is affected. How many know? That's true.
[00:38:08] But that's the opposite of being filled with the spirit. So if you're full of the spirit, you're being affected. You're being influenced by God. You're being affected by God. You're spiritual speech is being affected by God. Your behavior is being affected by God. How many can see what I'm trying to do? It's a comparison, it's a contrast between the two things. God says, be filled with the spirit. The Greek tense there is be continuously filled with the spirit. So we need to be praying. God, fill me, fill me, fill me. You know, you think I want to come up here and preach without being full of the spirit? Forget it. I don't want to do that. I'm asking God, fill me with your Holy Spirit.
[00:38:43] I want to be full of the Spirit.
[00:38:45] Final point is simply this, that we're impassioned by the will of God.
[00:38:51] God has a purpose. I've already said that. For your life. Though we ascended into heaven, he left us to continue the work here on earth in partnership with him. Isn't this amazing? God wants to be your partner.
[00:39:04] God wants to partner with you.
[00:39:06] I can't think of anybody I'd rather partner with than God.
[00:39:09] He's an amazing partner. He's always bailing me out.
[00:39:14] Isn't that a great thought? Hey, God, I need a little help today. Yeah, no problem.
[00:39:18] He's the amazing partner. But the fact that he wants us to be his partner is amazing.
[00:39:25] He's looking to us to work with him then you know. Yeah, we read these verses. I'm going to skip over to this first he gathers us into a community of believers. Why does he do that? To encourage us, to encourage one another so that we can worship him. And then in the power and encouragement and strength of the Spirit, we can go out and serve individually in many different areas in our community.
[00:39:51] How many know you can't make it on your own? Anybody figured that out yet? I've been a Christian a long time now. I've discovered something. If you try to live the Christian life apart from other believers, you'll find, remember I said earlier, you know, church is not enough, but church is a must.
[00:40:07] It's not an option. Matter of fact, we're warned against not attending church. Read the Book of Hebrews and all the more. It says people are going to disappear. They just drop out.
[00:40:16] Don't do that. You need the believers. You need other people in your life, whether you know it or not. Then you were sent out. People. I like this. He commissions us to go into the world with the good news.
[00:40:27] We have a task to do. You know, one of the most powerful things in life is to have purpose.
[00:40:32] There's a lot of people today, they don't have purpose to their life. They have no meaning to their life. This is what the gospel brings to us. We have a purpose. You say, what's your highest purpose? To bring glory to God. Why are you living to bring glory to God? How are you going about doing it? I'm going to do what God's asking me to do. And he asks us to go and make disciples. So I'm going to go out and make disciples. That's what God's asking us to do.
[00:40:55] And it's not just pastors that are asked to make disciples. It's every believer. Who are you discipling? Who are you taking alongside of you? Who are you mentoring? Who are you pouring your life into? If you're a parent, obviously it's your children. That's step one. But even beyond them, what about others around you? Who can you help? Who can you inspire? Who can you instruct? Who can you bring along on the journey? You know Marty Kaplan, he was a former speechwriter for Earth. One of the vice presidents of the United States said religion may offer a source of nostalgia, a sense of community, consoling mythology, but without faith, without the experience of God, it is no protection from the crisis of spirit. In other words, he's saying formal dead religion isn't going to do anything. You need to have the real thing. That's what he's saying here. He goes on to say, this is the sadness at the heart of our secular lives no one wants to live in in a pointless, chaotic cosmos. But that is the one that science has given us and that our culture has largely championed. We may yearn for the divine, but our feet are stuck in moral relativism or nihilism, which means emptiness, nothing.
[00:42:06] That's what our culture is breeding today. That's what we're feeding our young people today in schools. How many go? That's tragic.
[00:42:14] It's painful to watch it.
[00:42:16] Listen. We have the most vibrant, vital message this world has ever heard. They need this message. It's desperate. This is life and death stuff, folks. This is the difference between living and dying, the difference between experiencing eternal life and experiencing eternal separation from God. People are seeking for authentic spirituality. But I'm going to close with this illustration, and I actually like this story. William Wilmot tells the story of a person, a man, who was sent into Russia in the 1970s at the height of the Cold War.
[00:42:53] And he was sent as a part of the delegation of the World Council of Churches to investigate and report on the state of the Christian church in an atheistic regime. The man was not impressed. He came back, he said, the church, he says, it's just a bunch of little old ladies praying.
[00:43:08] That's it.
[00:43:10] It's dismal.
[00:43:11] But Wilmot then told the story in the early 90s when the statues of Stalin and Lenin fell to the ground in atheist Russia, laid, toppled, ready to be crated for storage or quarried for stones. In other words, listen to me, be careful of the little old ladies who pray, because it wasn't the little old ladies that took down Russia's atheistic, communistic regime. You know what it was?
[00:43:38] It was the prayers to Almighty God.
[00:43:42] And, you know, we have minimized in our minds the power of prayer. I'm going to tell you that right now. I want to just bring you to this scripture. This is so beautiful. I love revelation and the imagery of it.
[00:43:53] You know, Eugene Peterson, I remember reading his book on, you know, revelation, and he really talks about the language is designed to inspire imagination.
[00:44:04] It's apocalyptic literature.
[00:44:06] And listen to these two verses, and they're so powerful to me. It says the smoke of the incense together with the prayers of the saint, went up before God, before the angel's hand.
[00:44:15] And the angel took the censer and he filled it with fire from the altar, which was, you know, the prayers and worship of the saints, right?
[00:44:23] And he hurled it on the earth, and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flooded Flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
[00:44:29] Now, we know that this is imagery, but let me give you what he's really saying.
[00:44:34] When you and I really pray and we're crying out to God, when we're crying out to God, we're praying, we're asking God, he said, what's really going to happen is when these prayers are finally coming back down to earth.
[00:44:46] Have you ever been in an amazing storm? You know, we were doing a wedding.
[00:44:51] I was at a rehearsal Friday night, and I could see the rain coming. And I was looking, and I was nervous because we gotta get through this rehearsal. We're gonna get drenched. Cause it was an outdoor wedding, and there was the clouds rolling in and lightning was flashing. And then it reminded me of a time I was in Saskatchewan. The earth was shaking. It was like the lightning bolts were hitting the ground.
[00:45:11] It was like pouring. It was dark. It was like, you know, the whole world was just vibrating before us. Or like the time we drove into Mount St. Helens ash.
[00:45:20] I actually experienced that.
[00:45:22] And the whole world changed in front of our eyes. It's powerful.
[00:45:27] Let me tell you something. Prayer is so powerful.
[00:45:29] They're giving us an image. It's like an earthquake. It's like lightning and thunder. It's powerful.
[00:45:36] But you see, we're so caught up in the material. You know, we think this is the real world. Can I tell you? The world you see is passing away. The world you see is temporal.
[00:45:45] The world that is eternal is invisible and spiritual. And when you and I exercise what God is calling us to do, something powerful begins to happen.
[00:45:55] And that's why you and I need to understand that the enemy is going to fight us tooth and nail. He does not want praying saints. He does not want people who are seeking the face of God and asking God to open the minds of their understanding and be awakened. He does not want to see people who are empowered by the spirit and are willing to do his will regardless of the cost. He does not want to see that on this planet because he knows that they're dangerous.
[00:46:23] They're the dangerous people.
[00:46:25] They're the people that have the power because they're touching base with Almighty God who has the power to change this world. And this world will change.
[00:46:34] This world will change. And God's kingdom will will come.
[00:46:38] And you and I are not just standing in hope for a little pipe dream. No, this is the coming reality.
[00:46:45] And Jesus said before he came back there would be all of these signs begin to happen. We get so fixated on the signs. Look beyond the signs. He Says, lift up your head. Your redemption is drawing near.
[00:46:57] We need to have the right vision.
[00:46:59] So I'm going to have a stand as we close the service in prayer this morning. Morning.
[00:47:05] How many here today? I'm praying for you.
[00:47:08] I'm praying for a change of lifestyle.
[00:47:11] I'm praying that you're going to make one big tremendous shift in your life that's going to affect everything else.
[00:47:20] Sometimes if you do the right little thing, it changes everything.
[00:47:27] The right little thing is to spend time with God, is to ask God to open up your heart and awaken your soul.
[00:47:36] Spend time with him in the morning every day.
[00:47:40] You're going to be amazed. You know, at first you'll probably think, well, nothing's really changing.
[00:47:45] You'll see.
[00:47:46] Hang in there.
[00:47:48] Over time, your desires will change.
[00:47:52] Over time, your understanding will will change.
[00:47:55] Over time, your relationships will change. Over time, your faith will change. Over time, you're going to see things begin to happen you never thought possible.
[00:48:05] I get to witness this because I've been doing this for a long time now.
[00:48:10] You know, I know God is a miracle working God. I've experienced it over and over again.
[00:48:17] And then to be praying, Lord, every day, fill me with your presence.
[00:48:21] Fill me with the Holy Spirit. Empower me by your spirit. Fill me, Lord, so I can be intoxicated with you.
[00:48:31] That it'll affect my speech, my attitudes, my desires, my direction.
[00:48:39] And then to have an impassioned will to do the will of God. Can I say something to us?
[00:48:46] Do you think your will is superior than God's will for you? I don't think so.
[00:48:51] I think most of us in this room, you're dreaming way too small.
[00:48:55] Your thinking is way too small.
[00:48:59] You say, well, what do you mean, Pastor?
[00:49:02] Well, I have my plan for my life. Yeah, but God has a plan for your life.
[00:49:06] And I'm going to argue God's plan for your life is greater and bigger than your plan for your life. How's that?
[00:49:12] How do you know that?
[00:49:13] He got a hold of me. I had ideas, maybe I could do this, maybe I could do that, maybe I could do this. God goes, no, none of those things I want you to do.
[00:49:22] This is what I want you to do.
[00:49:25] You know, you start out, you know, I'm a Bible school student, have no money, don't know where I'm going.
[00:49:33] But over time, things start changing.
[00:49:37] God starts working. God keeps using our lives.
[00:49:40] And you know what happens when you do the right thing for a long period of time? A lot of good things happen.
[00:49:46] A lot of lives are changed and it's for the good. Our lives changed.
[00:49:52] My life changed, Patty's life changed. Our kids lives are been affected by this.
[00:49:58] You know what you've been affected by us. Whether you like to believe it or not, you have been. That's reality.
[00:50:05] See what happens. How did that all start?
[00:50:09] Started with surrender. So I'm going to pray right now. Lord, we want to begin a new day with you.
[00:50:16] We're going to change our mind. We haven't been using our time wisely. We're going to become better stewards of it. We're going to spend time with you every day. We're going to ask you to open the eyes of our understanding. We're going to ask you to open our minds to understand your word. We're going to spend time in your word, Father, and we're going to actually prayer the prayers that scriptures teach. And we're going to start learning about who you are. And we're going to discover, as we discover who you are, we're going to discover who we are and we're going to discover what you have in mind.
[00:50:46] And Lord, I pray that every day as we are asking you to be full of your living presence, empowered by your spirit, Lord, you're going to use our lives and we ways that we could not imagine. Miracles will begin to happen around our lives. Oh God. And we'll marvel that you could do that.
[00:51:04] But it's because you're moving us by your spirit into places that we had never considered.
[00:51:10] Lord, I look back now to the day when all of a sudden I was asked to go to India and I started going to India.
[00:51:18] I had no idea I was ever going to go to India. I didn't choose India. I just thought it's the last place I even thought about India.
[00:51:25] But all of a sudden you moved me there.
[00:51:28] There's things you want us to do, Father, but we have to be willing.
[00:51:34] We have to be full of your spirit.
[00:51:37] Father, I pray today that you will give us an impassioned will. I cannot motivate these people, Father, but you can.
[00:51:47] And I pray, Holy Spirit, that today will be a defining moment in hearts. I pray today that there will be a change in the pattern of life. I pray today it'll be less about us and more about you. And that you will begin to speak into our lives in powerful, life changing ways. I pray for young and for old. I pray for people in this room that are listening right now, young people.
[00:52:12] I pray that they'll begin to build this lifelong habit of seeking your face. I pray for the older people. Maybe they felt like, well, I've wasted my life. Lord, you can actually speed things up if they begin to obey you. I pray that you'll do that. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave.
