Unknown: And as Reverend Ananda mentioned, I'm going to be speaking on the Holy Spirit today. But really today I just want to introduce the topic of the Holy Spirit. So I didn't come up with a fancy name, because I'm like wrestling. This is huge, the Holy Spirit. We owe everything to the Holy Spirit.
Unknown: Amen. Don't get me wrong. We owe it all to Jesus, and we owe it all to the Father. The Father sent the Son. The Son obediently came. The son went and died for us on the cross. But we know that we're living in a day and age where Jesus isn't walking around in the flesh. And Jesus said, and we'll perhaps get there this morning. He said, It's better for you that I would go away. We struggle with that because I don't know about you, I kind of like Jesus to make my bacon and eggs in the morning.
Unknown: I'm not sure he'd be comfortable cooking my bacon in the morning.
Unknown: Good Jew that he was is I is.
Unknown: But you know what I mean, we like to see him in the flesh sit down for coffee with us in the morning, but he said, and he doesn't lie, that it's better for us that he would go and send his spirits. So let's shift our thinking and realize that we are living in the better time. Amen, as much as it was amazing what Jesus came and did he walked with his apostles, you are living in the most amazing period of history. You are living in the best season of the kingdom of God. That is ever you know as God's plan has been unfolding through the ages, you are living in a better time, better covenant, better promises. And we live with a better reality. That is the Holy Spirit is available for each and every one of us. He is available. But that doesn't mean we all avail ourselves of all that he is and all he can do. So in a sense, today I just want to introduce the Holy Spirit to you, maybe for the first time, if you've never really thought about this, you know, sometimes we assume people have picked stuff up in their Christian life along the way. You know, we talk about the Holy Spirit. We we we worship Him, and we refer to the Holy Spirit. We talk about the Holy Spirit moving. And sometimes we don't talk about the basics of who he is, of what is promised about him, and what Jesus taught about him. So I want to introduce us to the Holy Spirit. And maybe for you, you need a little reintroduction to the Holy Spirit, because maybe some of you got baptized with the Holy Spirit long time ago.
Unknown: You spoke in tongues, you prophesied, you know, you saw God moving, but now you've kind of let that go. You're not pressing in for the manifestations of the Spirit of God, and you're just kind of happy to live a nice cleaned up Christian life.
Unknown: I hope we live a nice cleaned up Christian life, right?
Unknown: I'm not looking around the room this morning at anybody. We should live clean lives, good lives, you know, blessed lives, yes, but there's more than just living a clean life, a good, moral life, a good, quote, unquote, Christian life. There's a spirit filled life available for all of us. And you know this happens to us in all of our relationships, it's easy to grow familiar with the people in our lives, amen, those of us who have been married for any length of time, it's easy for that other person to just kind of become another presence in your home. And you know you're so busy and you're so used to kind of the regular rhythms of life that you know you just communicate the bare minimum to get through the day, get the shopping done, make sure there's food on the table. Somebody gets the chores done, but there we can lose that intimacy we have for one another, and that ability or that desire to really get to know this mysterious individual. I say that because we all have secret things inside of us, right there's the US that everybody out on the street knows, there's the US that our co workers know. There's the US that you know, our kids know, but you know those of us who are married, there's more to us that hopefully our spouses have gotten to know, but there's still more you can learn about that other person. Right? I was thinking about this. And don't get me wrong, this can be a struggle for all of us. My wife's not here to, you know, give me the eyes and say amen as I talk about these stories, I was up half the night with our middle child. He's in and out of the bathroom. Let's just leave it at that. And so Ceci is home with him today. And anyway, I was remembering back to a date we went on. Yes, we do go on dates, not as often as I should, but I remember this one time I can't even remember where we went, and, you know, it can be a struggle because, you know, you get there and you're looking at the menu, and then you can almost be tempted to, you know, pull out your phone or just get talking all the same regular stuff. It's like, this is another meeting that we just got to get through. You know, we're doing this date thing because we know it's the right thing to do, but I don't know. Every once in a while, it's like another door gets open and you realize there's more to this person I'm married to than I knew about.
Unknown: And I remember being surprised.
Unknown: This is a couple years ago already had probably time for more surprises, but I just remember that we were out for dinner, and I had known since before we were married that my wife had spent a year in France.
Unknown: Some of you don't know that about her. She actually knew how to speak French better than English when she first moved to Canada and and I knew a little bit about that story, but all of a sudden, all these stories and experiences and stuff, I'm like, I had no clue that you went through all of that in your year in France. You know, I kind of had the highlights before, but there was more to it. There was stuff you had to go through.
Unknown: There was stuff that God navigated you through in that season of your life, and I just walked away like, wow, this is amazing young lady that I'm in love with, you know, and and there's more to her than I knew.
Unknown: Now, I wish she was here and she could be smiling at me as I bring up these stories, but I left my phone down there, so there's no in my back pocket, but, but my point is, we can be like that with the Spirit of God, with the with God Himself, right? That we're just so used to, well, God's here. He's moved into my heart. He's moved into my life. But there's no more pursuit. There's no more Who are you really? What are your secrets? What? What do you like?
Unknown: What? Would you like to do? Holy Spirit? So I want to encourage us, as we get into this, that we just open up our hearts to experiencing more of the Spirit of God. And this is too big to get done. Today, we're going to be talking about the Holy Spirit, who he is, the gifts that he has. I believe that we are going to see people filled with the Holy Spirit over the next few weeks that have never been filled with the Holy Spirit. I believe that we're going to see people begin to open up and operate in gifts of the Holy Spirit that they never thought that they could operate in, amen, because this is what it means to be the church of the living God. So let's just look at Acts chapter 19 for a moment, and this illustrates my point so well of what it can be like Paul rolls into the town of Ephesus that he's been longing to get to for a long time, all the way back on his second journey, the apostle Paul desired to go down into Asia. Now Asia, at that time, meant the region around the city of Ephesus. It was a Roman province. We're not talking about the continent, right? And he's like, I want to go down there, but the Holy Spirit didn't let him. And then fast forward to his third journey. He now has the Okay, the green light from God, that you can go down to Ephesus. But there had been some groundwork done in the city of Ephesus before Paul showed up. And we read in chapter 19, verse one of the book of Acts. It happened that while Apollos was in Corinth, so Apollos is the one who had prepared the ground, who had gone and sown some seeds in Ephesus, but he moved on to Corinth. Then it says Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus, and there he found some disciples, in other words, people that Apollos had ministered to. And he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? I love this question, because many Christians today are believers, amen like that.
Unknown: That's just baseline Christianity. Do you believe?
Unknown: Yes, I'm. Believer, right? But Paul steps onto that stage, or whatever it looked like, not a literal stage, but he steps into that place, and it's like, Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?
Unknown: And that's a question for all of us. Amen.
Unknown: It's great to believe. It's great to have our sins forgiven, although, when we really look at these individuals, I don't know how much about Jesus. They even knew. They knew about John the Baptist. They knew about some of those things, and they were believing that the Messiah was was on his way. But the Apostle Paul always wants to get people to the place where they're filled with the Holy Spirit. And I'll say that here too, we are all about salvation. We're all about people knowing who Jesus is, making him their Lord, having their sins forgiven, becoming born again, having eternal life, but it doesn't end there. It's not just thank you Jesus. I've been washed. I got my ticket to heaven. Now I attend church.
Unknown: I got my golden ticket in my pocket. I'm just waiting around until Jesus comes back, or I die, hallelujah, by and by, all fly away, right? There's more to the Christian life than that. And the Apostle Paul puts his finger right on it, did you receive the Spirit when you believed? And they said, No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. And again, maybe in our type of church, we've heard that there's a Holy Spirit, but or maybe you come from a traditional sort of church where, you know, they read a creed, and we believe in God the Father. We believe in Jesus, Christ, his only begotten Son, and we believe in the Holy Spirit. You know those, those statements, but it's more than a statement. It's something. It's someone. I should say that you receive, have you received the Holy Spirit? And I would say there, there's a difference between simply believing in the Holy Spirit and actually receiving the Holy Spirit.
Unknown: You guys are too quiet today.
Unknown: It's good to get back to some of the foundational stuff in the faith, I think, to understand where we're really coming from.
Unknown: So he says in verse three Into what then were you baptized? And they said into John's baptism.
Unknown: In other words, the Messiah is on his way. We want to be part of this kingdom breaking in.
Unknown: We're believing with you. But they hadn't yet understood the whole picture. So Paul telling the people to believe in the One was to come after him that is Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. So okay, the one you've been waiting for has come. His name's Jesus. Let's baptize you in His name. And when Paul laid his hands on them, if you've ever wondered why we're about we, don't shy away from laying on of hands.
Unknown: How many of you know, you can receive things when people lay their hands on you. And there's a precedent all the way back into the patriarchs. You know, we've got Jacob we got Moses, we got these different ones that they would lay hands on people, and that the ones that were having hands laid on them would receive something from them.
Unknown: Well, the apostle Paul understood that if I have the Spirit of God on the inside of me, I can lay my hands on you, and you can receive him too. And some of you know the story of Pentecost, and we'll maybe get there. Well, we will, at some point in the next few weeks, at least, we know that that first time that the Holy Spirit fell upon the church, and that that wall was broken down, and the new era of the Spirit began.
Unknown: There was no laying on of hands, right? It was a sovereign act of God. But pretty much every time after that, except for once that I can think of, God used somebody who was already filled with the Holy Spirit to impart the Holy Spirit to the one who is receiving. Does that make sense? In other words, God got the fire started just like we see in Old Testament times, right? That they built the altar, they followed God's instructions, and then God sent this divine fire, but then it was up to the priests to keep that fire burning. Right? In the same way, God, on the day of Pentecost, sent his whole. Holy Spirit filled the apostles filled the 120 in the upper room, and then what they kept that fire burning, and they passed it on to others, all the way down to you and me.
Unknown: Well, I hope you. I know me.
Unknown: I'm grateful that somebody who was filled with the Holy Spirit laid hands on me so that I could receive that filling with the Holy Spirit. You know my story?
Unknown: I grew up in a Christian household, although my family kind of went AWOL in church for like, a decade. Not the smartest thing to do. I'll just say that, by the way, I especially tell you parents, you know, as we maybe got filled and excited when we were young and and free and all the rest, and we're just, Oh, God is amazing. And then all the cares and concerns of life and all the little church hurts that can happen.
Unknown: Yes, you can get hurt in church, even in this church, even in a good church. How many of you believe this is a good church?
Unknown: Amen, this is a good church, but I'm not always that great, right?
Unknown: And if we're all being honest, we're not always all that great, and we can show the ugly side of our humanity to one another, whether we mean to or not. But I think God allows that to allow us to grow. By the way, I don't need a perfect church, because I'm not perfect and I need your imperfections to rub against my imperfections. You need my imperfections to make you look to God and not just to me, not that I think anybody's necessarily idolizing me. But you know what I mean? I mean when we see what's going on in the church world today, there's enough mud being thrown around and, you know, criticisms and this and that. Well, I will say this about all of that, I'm not passing judgment or on any ministry or whatever, but it is a good reminder get your eyes off of man and keep them on God, because it's only the Spirit of God. It's only Jesus that's perfect, not us imperfect vessels. But backing up to my story, I was saying that, you know, when we were growing up, we were out of church, and when I got back into the things of God, because I surrendered my life to him, just needing purpose, needing direction, and he pulled on my heart. And next thing you know, I'm devouring Christian books. I'm devouring, you know, Thank God my parents had a library of like, you know, this is what Faith's about, and healing is about, and salvation.
Unknown: I'm reading all of these books, and it's getting built up in my inner man, my spiritual life. So I say this because by the time I had the opportunity, by the time I was in a service where somebody said, in black and white language, we are going to pray for people who want to get filled with the Holy Spirit, I already had very clear in my mind that this is something that's in the Bible. This is something that's going to continue all through, you know, the age of the church, until Jesus returns. Finally, here's my opportunity. This is what it looks like. I know that, just like Paul did in Acts chapter 19, laying hands on those Ephesian believers, if somebody lays hands on me, I can receive the Holy Spirit. So I had faith already built up on the inside of me. This is God. This is real. This is the plan of God for my life. I didn't have to have anyone convince me. I just needed an opportunity to walk forward and have hands laid on me. So maybe some of you, you like this church, and you like you know you sense the presence of God. You like the worship.
Unknown: You like something about this place. But you haven't yet made that step, and it's maybe still not even clear to you. Is this all in the Bible? What does it look like? I hope by the time I finish preaching, or over the next few weeks that we dig into the Holy Spirit, that all of those doubts disappear, and you're just ready to walk up and be like, Whatever God's got for me. I'm here. I'm down for it.
Unknown: This is the plan I want, what God has for me. And you notice that this is not just something that was for the apostles, it's not just something that is for those who are called to leadership. The Holy Spirit is for every believer. Did you receive the Holy Spirit once you believed these. Guys, they barely knew who Jesus was, and they're getting filled with the Holy Spirit. It says again in verse five, On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them. I do want to say something, because I know some people get a little confused because and can even become offended, especially if they've been a Christian for a long time, because they can hear preaching and teaching like this, and now be like, are you telling me that I don't have the Holy Spirit at all. That is not what we're saying, because you cannot be born again without the Holy Spirit. You cannot have your inner man renewed, made alive by God, unless the Holy Spirit's involved. And we know that when we receive Jesus, we're receiving not just Jesus, like he's Father Son and Holy Spirit, like there's no really dividing. You ever tried to figure out the Trinity and, like, break it down into three equal parts or something? It's you can't do it. They are one.
Unknown: So if you've received Jesus, that means you have the Holy Spirit. You have the father, right? But there is something called the Holy Spirit coming upon you. That's what we're talking about. When we're talking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that there is the spirit that takes up residence on the inside of you when you're born again. And your spirit gives witness right with the Spirit of God, that you are a child of God, like it says in Romans, beautiful promises. But there is more. There's more. Can you say more faith alive is a church that's all about the more of God, not the bare minimum of God, not drag your sinful butt into heaven by grace, you know.
Unknown: But more of God. There's more so you can have the Spirit dwelling on the inside of you. Thank God for that. That's huge. That's important. But you can then have the Spirit of God come upon you.
Unknown: And what we're going to see is that that that is Spirit coming upon you is to empower you for all that God wants to do through you. So in other words, yes, the Spirit of God takes up residence. You become the temple of the Holy Spirit when you're born again, which to be very, very clear, that means the day that you sincerely believe in your heart that God rose Jesus from the dead, and you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord of all that that instant, there is something supernatural that happens. Your sins are forgiven and you are born again by the Spirit of God. You become the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Unknown: But you can also be filled clothed he can come upon you so that you're more than just a little born again, baby child crying out, daddy, but you are now an equipped son or daughter of God. So again, it says, Paul laid his hands on them. The Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying, there were about 12 men in all I love this because the Apostle Paul is a powerful man, and he finds this group of 12 people, and 12 is A significant number we know in the Bible, right? It's, I don't want to get into that too much, but my point is that we're sometimes looking for the big place, the big ministry, the big name, the big conference, the big worship this, and that's great. I'm grateful for big things, but I'm more concerned about real things that are happening with real people. And what you'll see, if you read through Chapter 19, is that they start with 12, but it sure doesn't stay with 12, because if you are really filled with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is upon you, equipping you, then you can't help but affect those around you. Come on. So Paul goes in. He starts with 12. But really, Ephesus, in some ways, is Paul's crowning jewel. In his ministry. What is what happens there is completely supernatural. Now I want to point out just one more thing there before we move on, and that is that just like the apostles and those in the upper room in the day of Pentecost, and you can read that in Acts chapter two, just like they began to pray in tongues, they began to pray in tongues, speak in tongues. Okay, we are a tongue talking church. If you hadn't noticed, we are not ashamed of that. We will never be ashamed of, that we will never hide that. We will never relegate that to some back room again with leaders. We will never tell our people, you know, don't pray in tongues up here, because somebody might not understand. I know there are some passages that people struggle with that make it sound like maybe we shouldn't do that, but we'll walk through all of that over the next few weeks.
Unknown: Does that sound good? I'm teaching this morning, so I don't know if that's why you guys are calm and collected out there, but these things need to be addressed, because we see more and more. We hear about it even in our own body we hear about we see it across the church spectrum out there. How many of you know that they've done surveys of the quote, unquote, spirit filled church across North America, and we find that the majority of people attending spirit filled churches have not experienced what I would consider normal spirit filled life. In other words, there's maybe a spirit filled pastor, worship team, whatever, but they never see what the Spirit moving and using people looks like. So they're drawn to it. God uses it. He honors us, but we are a church that believes. We need to model these things. We need to be open about these things. I am not ashamed of the Holy Spirit. I would rather look foolish, simple minded, and follow what I understand in the Bible and what I know through experience gives room for the Spirit of God to move than to have a nice, polished presentation up here. I i You know, we could have the best preacher in the world, the best worship team in the world.
Unknown: We have good preachers, we have an amazing worship team. We could have the best of the best, but I'm more interested in real life with the Spirit of God than the best of the best.
Unknown: And what I'm really trying to say is we believe that we can all be filled in this place. Yes, you.
Unknown: There's some people that hear that. It's like, Yeah, I've been around a while. I tried that.
Unknown: I've been Yes, you, yes, you, you can be filled with the Spirit of God. So we see there that they, when they were filled with the Holy Spirit, something happened. And again, I know some people, they're like, Ah, I don't know. I got prayed for.
Unknown: Nothing happened again. There's something you need to understand about getting filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a demon that is going to possess you and make you do things. I mean, I know the Apostle Paul talks about, we're crazy for God, we're out of our mind. But it's not like literally ranting and raving, you know, like the gathering demoniac, like ripping his clothes. The Holy Spirit is not going to do that to you. The Bible says here and in other places that we see people being filled that they spoke in tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. In other words, the Spirit fills us. He gives us that supernatural ability to speak in tongues, or to prophesy, or to move in some of the other gifts that we'll explore in the weeks to come.
Unknown: But ultimately, there needs to be a point where you open your mouth, yield to the Spirit of God, say something, do something like Do not wait for like God to arrest you and drag you against your will to go and do something, because God's not like that. Back to my story, a little bit about how I got filled with the Spirit like I say I came back to church by myself. If some of you know the story, just a moment of yielding in a time of frustration and seeking, next thing you know, I just knew the Spirit of God on the inside of me is like, get to church. I hadn't been in church other than an odd visit here and there since I was 10 years old.
Unknown: And I'm like, 17, somewhere around there, 1617, I don't know, last year of high school, and I'm in church, and I'm just as I said, I'm devouring these books that my parents had on their shelves. I'm learning and I'm seeing these things in the Bible, and I'm like, Yes, I want that. But even though I was back in church, I never had that open invitation, black and white, we're going to lay hands on people to receive the Holy Spirit. It wasn't until I went down to Tulsa, Oklahoma, or Broken Arrow, Oklahoma is where it was to a ministry called Rhema. Anybody ever heard of that place? And I Why did I go there? Because all the books I was reading were from there, right? And, you know, people that my parents knew, because they had gone there way back in the day. So I was there, and it was like just a GET TO KNOW Rhema, and I'm checking things out. And thank God that, you know, I think back to that Ananda that was their Bible college, welcome everybody weekend. But they made a point during that weekend. They showed us. They let us sit in on classes, they let us do things.
Unknown: But then they had a service that said, if you're here and you want to receive the Holy Spirit, now is your opportunity.
Unknown: I don't know that's awesome, isn't it? So I walked up there, and I remember getting hands laid on me and almost being frustrated, but again, thank God for good teaching, because they didn't leave it up to guesswork for me, like, what should I feel? How does this work? And it was kind of like this, and the one the water isn't for special effects, but it was kind of like this. They laid hands on me, and I knew that, I knew that something had just happened to me. I could feel the Spirit of God come on me, filling me up.
Unknown: It's just like this pressure rising, this presence that I hadn't felt like that before in my life. Thank God somebody had told me what I'm telling you this morning, that I have to choose to speak in tongues. You know, just like the Bible says that the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of the of Scripture, that scripture is God breathed.
Unknown: You know, they wrote these things down again. Don't imagine somebody in a trance with a pen moving across paper like that's not God. This isn't like auto writing or some other weird new agey stuff that you might hear about. No, this God begins to reveal things, and they're capturing it, and they're writing it down by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Unknown: In the same way, when somebody laid hands on me, I knew God was there. I knew he had filled me.
Unknown: And basically, somebody just as simple as this, said, Now open your mouth and speak in tongues.
Unknown: Now that's a faith step, right?
Unknown: Because I've never done this.
Unknown: I've never spoken this language.
Unknown: Like, what does this look like?
Unknown: And what if I open my mouth and nothing happens? You know, I have all this stuff going on in your brain, but for me, I opened my mouth and there was like a half second hesitation, and then it was just like somebody opened a fire hydrant on the inside of me, and all I could do was let these sounds and this language and this praise to God flow forth from me that I had never experienced before. It was just bubbling up on the inside of me.
Unknown: How many of you know that this is important? I want to tell you something that the gift of tongues is one of the most important things you can receive in your life, because we know that we don't always know how to pray, we don't always know how to respond to circumstances, but this is your opportunity to get your mind out of the way and allow the Spirit of God to declare the perfect will of God.
Unknown: And again, we'll look at passages. Paul says, I pray with the understanding, yes, pray in English. Pray in your heart language, if it's Spanish or I don't know whatever language you speak, pray in your language, but then I also pray in the Spirit, because there's a power there, there's a flow there that surpasses my ability to understand things. And you know, it. Was just something that poured out. Poured out. I could hardly stop myself for days and days and days. And now this, this is going to sound funny to some of you, but maybe some of you this will help to understand like, I know it's not about emotions, right? How many of you know that faith isn't emotions.
Unknown: The spirit and emotions are not the same thing. There's often emotions that will accompany the spirit and the movement of the spirit, but they're not the same. But I remember as I was just praying in the Spirit and so excited, and this is flowing forth from me, the only thing that I can compare it to like a natural sensation that I had experienced. It was like kissing the person you love for the first time. Come on, like that.
Unknown: Seriously, was my experience of praying in tongues. Like I don't want to get graphic or weird about it, but this is a love language to God, right? This is like the one that I most love.
Unknown: You know, it's just there's, there's this flow that is pure, that is this passionate, that is coming out of me that I couldn't understand, but it was just so beautiful. And, you know, one of the things that I found interesting is I went back to high school. This was, like the spring of my last year of high school, or something like that, and I went to public school, not in a nice Christian school like our school. I bless your children if they're in public school. God, protect them, because my public school, in a little town of 15,000 people, however, many years ago, that was 20 plus years ago, was a mess. I can't imagine what it would be like to be in public school today, but I remember going back to my public school, and one of my one of my friends, not even a very close friend, just was kind of looking at me.
Unknown: I didn't even really understand.
Unknown: I kind of noticed, and I'm just walking around, and don't get me wrong, I was not in my high school corridors praying in tongues, okay, like I was excited about God, but I wasn't that over the top, you know, like, I'm gonna go and just blurt out in tongues in the high school hallway, no, but I was digging into God at home, and I came there, and my friend just looks at me, looks at me, and finally she came over and she's Like, what happened to you?
Unknown: Literally, I had not shared any of my experience, about my trip, about what I had gone to do.
Unknown: Most of my friends just knew that I went on a trip to the States with my family and I came back, but they could see that something had happened to me when I was gone. And I'm like, Well, what do you mean? And I'm kind of glad I didn't just blurt out, well, you know, I got filled with the Spirit of God.
Unknown: They're like, I don't know, you're just so happy. Now, I don't know what that means for what Adam was like before he went. I'll be honest, I was a bit of a melancholy kind of, you know, I wasn't a real brooding teenager, but I definitely had that melancholy vibe for a lot of high school, and they're like, you're just so happy.
Unknown: You're so joyful. What happened to you? Now, I wish I had been bold enough in that moment to tell them, it's because I went and got touched by God. I got filled with the Spirit of God, and you can receive this too.
Unknown: And why am I telling you this?
Unknown: Because I want it to be a reality for you. I want to show it to you in the Word of God, but I want you to know it can happen to you too, and that when you receive the Spirit of God, yes, I believe that you will get that prayer language. You will be able to pray in the Spirit of God, but it will also bring so much more that you're not even expecting. Amen, you're going to get joy, you're going to get peace, you're going to get love, you're going to get all of these things that come from the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Lord. Let's go back just for a bit here to John chapter 14.
Unknown: And Lord help my voice. We just need to move the church to within 30 minutes of the ocean, and then our humidity issues would be dealt with.
Unknown: And some of you are like, No thank you.
Unknown: How many of you like the humidity?
Unknown: There was a hesitation. There.
Unknown: I'm like, the Saskatchewan folks are like, no, it definitely helps my voice.
Unknown: That's all I'm saying.
Unknown: So in John chapter 14, let's look a little bit at what Jesus said he prepared his disciples for what was going to come after he leaves. So John, chapter 14, verse 15, says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper.
Unknown: He will give you another Helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him or knows him.
Unknown: You know Him for He dwells with you and will be in you. So again, we see this language, that the Holy Spirit, of course, as Jesus is walking, talking, ministering to him. He's completely full of the Spirit of God. He's been anointed, you know, at His baptism and all of the rest. It's like you know the Spirit of God because you've been walking with me, but you're going to receive him. He'll be in you. And as we saw in the book of Acts, not only will he be in us, he can come upon us, he can fill us. But just look at the language that Jesus is using here. He refers to the Holy Spirit number one as another helper. Another helper. Now another doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but when you really study this out, that's a very important word in the original language, because it helps us to understand that, just like Jesus was with them, this is another one who would be with them of the exact same kind, because in the Greek language, they had words for another, and there's Another that's kind of like, you know, like, men and women are kind of alike, because they're both humans, but they have their differences. This is using a word that means another of the same kind. So he's like Jesus.
Unknown: He's going to operate like Jesus does. And, I mean, here's another thing that hopefully you've been around this long enough, you need to understand that the Holy Spirit will never contradict Jesus. And as much as you know, always in this place, we want to give freedom to the Spirit of God, and especially in the next few weeks, as we dig into this, we're believing for people to step into the gifts of the Spirit, the realities of the Spirit, in ways that they maybe haven't or haven't for a long time. How many of you know that some people can just get weird?
Unknown: Jesus was not weird.
Unknown: The Holy Spirit isn't weird.
Unknown: And don't get me wrong, he can definitely put us in uncomfortable places and require us to do uncomfortable things. I mean, I guess I said he's not weird. He did spit on some people's eyes.
Unknown: You know, there's some stuff.
Unknown: Definitely, I get that that is not your license to go walk up to somebody now, another just like Jesus.
Unknown: You know what I'm saying, though, that some people, they get into the spirit of God, and they're so zealous to see, you know, the spirit move, and to be used of God that if something abnormal doesn't happen, they think God didn't show up. And they're more they're more interested in what they see before them with their eyes, than trusting that what God said, according to his Word, is really happening here. So the Holy Spirit, He will never contradict the Word of God. In Thessalonians, For example, we get a two edged warning when you read in Thessalonians, I believe it's chapter five, the apostle Paul is giving some final instructions in that letter, and he says two things there about the Spirit of God. He says, number one, don't grieve the Spirit of God. And that's actually one of the ways we know that the Spirit of God is a person. And I want to get that to you right off the bat. The Holy Spirit is not just the force or energy, or some non personal thing that comes and emanates out of God.
Unknown: There's all sorts of weird stuff that happens out there. People trying to channel and emanate this and that and manifest this and whatever the Holy Spirit is, not a fool. Force. He's not for the gamers out there. He's not manna that you charge up on or something like that. The Holy Spirit is the very person of God. He's another helper, just like Jesus, not in the flesh, but full, fully present. He's that spirit. He's with you.
Unknown: He's with you. And like I said, that two edged warning in Thessalonians is that we don't want to grieve the Spirit of God, because, again, you can't grieve lightning, you can't grieve electricity, you can't grieve a non personal force, but you can grieve a person. The Holy Spirit is a person. But on the other side of that, the apostle Paul also knows just read Corinthians, and we'll read lots of Corinthians in the next few weeks, that people can get weird, and you need to bring some discernment and judgment to what's happening when the Spirit of God is supposedly moving, okay, better keep moving on.
Unknown: We're just laying some foundations today. Amen. Can you say foundations?
Unknown: Another helper?
Unknown: The next word there that we need to look at is the word helper.
Unknown: And I always think of the comedian Tim Hawkins when I hear the word helper. Some of you already know that skit, right? A little helper, you know, little GPS in the car, little helper trying to make sure we drive, right? No, not that kind of helper, although we could use some Holy Spirit GPS, right?
Unknown: But the word helper, you'll notice, if you've read the Bible in a few different translations here, that every other translation of the Bible uses a different word here, which should indicate something to you that there's more going on in the original language than we have a sufficient English word to capture. All right, so in my ESV Bible, it says helper. Other translations say comforter, counselor, advocate. These are all words that carry a connotation, a certain truth about this. But you know, it's true, the Holy Spirit is our comforter. And for example, you know, as I mentioned when I got up here earlier, many of you know there's been families in our church that have gone through loss. They've lost some people. We've lost a member of our church. We lost the mother of a member of our church. And actually, suppose I should mention that the Hamiltons aren't here today because Kelly Hamilton's mother went to be with the Lord. Was it Friday?
Unknown: Friday at the young, old age of 100 i So. So you know when, when we go through times of grief, and definitely, yes, pray, pray for them right when we go through times of grief. I often think about those translations of this word, that he is a comforter, you know? And First Corinthians uses a different word. It makes it clear that that is one of the things. God is, the God of all comfort.
Unknown: That's part of who he is, is the Holy Spirit. But this word, it kind of eludes us, like, what's really going on here? And that other word that I mentioned, a advocate. Well, that that almost makes it sound like the Holy Spirit is our lawyer, right?
Unknown: Somebody who stands up and defends us? Well, he is that as well. But if we just understand him as an advocate, it can kind of seem very formal. I don't know about you, but I don't usually think about lawyers as like my shoulder to cry on comforter type person, you know, yeah, the person I want to have in my corner when a very serious situation comes up, somebody smarter than me, somebody who knows the law better than me, somebody who can defend me when I'm going to put my foot in my mouth, you know, you know, it's great to have that, but I don't have that picture of comforter.
Unknown: That's what I mean. This word, Paraclete, paratos, in Greek, it means all of these things, because the Holy Spirit for us, and you need to understand even how the the legal system worked in Jesus day that there were, weren't always like professional lawyers that we think of that you, you know, give them a retainer, and you contract them, and they go to court to represent you. But again, it's basically you can imagine, especially as a person who. Who you know maybe just grew up and you have some sort of dispute between you and your neighbor, but you don't have the money to hire somebody like that. What are you going to do? You're going to find your smartest friend who is your most loyal friend, who can come to your defense. Does that make sense?
Unknown: So the Holy Spirit is like that best friend, that one who sees beyond what we can see, who understands things but, but he's not just, you know, a lawyer.
Unknown: He's not just an advocate. He is the shoulder to cry on. He is the one that cares deeply for us. He's not just happy to get you off the hook in court. He's the one walking you through now, this is, this is how we can rebuild your life. I'm here for you. I've got your back. That's the Holy Spirit. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, comforter, counselor, advocate, to be with you forever, even the spirit of truth. Truth.
Unknown: How many of you know that there is something absolutely true?
Unknown: How many of you know that we what we believe, is not just something that makes us feel better and helps us to get through life, but we have truth.
Unknown: Amen, like the Holy Spirit, as much as he is your comforter and he is your friend, he is also going to speak the truth to you, and he is going to remind you of the truth. The Holy Spirit is not just interested in making you feel better about yourself.
Unknown: He loves you, yes, but this is God.
Unknown: God will not build up your feelings at the expense of the truth, the reality. And look at some of the things that it says here. We're not going to have time. Have time to get into all of this today, but even the Spirit of truth, who the world cannot receive because it neither sees him or knows him.
Unknown: You know Him for He dwells with you and He will be with you.
Unknown: Verse 18, I will not leave you as orphans. And again, in Romans, chapter eight, it talks about the Spirit of God. Cries out, Abba Father, it's a spirit of adoption. And I mean, we sometimes feel alone. We are never alone. I will never leave you. I will not forsake you even till the end of the age. Jesus promised I will be with you Amen. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live. You will also live the spirit is who gives life, life Come on, life, all the way back to the beginning of time, we see that when God creates the heavens and the earth, it says that the Spirit of God hovered on the waters. The Spirit is like that comforting, blanketing, hovering presence that's there to gather things, to order things, to structure things. And then we move ahead into the Genesis story, and what do we see? God breathes his breath. That's the same language that this, this breath of God, the Spirit of God.
Unknown: He is the Spirit of life.
Unknown: And if we don't have the Holy Spirit in his fullness, we're missing out on life. We're missing out on what it means to be fully human. Fully human. How many of you know that being filled with the Holy Spirit was always God's plan when God created Adam and Eve in the garden, I've got to believe that they who they could literally walk up and see God face to face and talk with him. They must have been filled with the Spirit of God, but they lost something when they sinned right. The Bible calls it death. When you eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you will surely die. God didn't lie. I know they're still walking, they're still breathing, they still live for hundreds of years more, but something died in them, and so that something is what we get back when we're born again, and the fullness of it is what we get to experience and walk in when we invite the Holy Spirit to fill us, to baptize us.
Unknown: He is the Spirit of life.
Unknown: In that day, you will know that I am of the fall. Father and you in Me and I in you, the Holy Spirit creates a supernatural intimacy and unity between you and your father. Sometimes God can feel distant. Sometimes we struggle in our relationship with God. We need the Holy Spirit to bring that everything back to center, to break down the walls that we build up on the inside of us. We need him to flood every part of us that we will be one.
Unknown: Look. There's so many things that we can talk about here.
Unknown: Let's skip ahead, and we'll have to wrap up here for today in verse 25 and these things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things. The Holy Spirit is a teacher. Some of us don't like that. It reminds us of school, right?
Unknown: How many of you were glad the day school was over?
Unknown: No looking back, you know, no more school for me. Burn my books.
Unknown: I heard an amen back there.
Unknown: That was actually my yearly ritual with my friends. We would take a garbage bag full of all our notes to the bush and do things like play with aviation fuel. I'm not recommending that.
Unknown: If you think gasoline burns. You haven't seen that aviation fuel?
Unknown: Oh no. I shouldn't say this stuff. The young men in the audience are like, how do I get my hands on some aviation I better stop while I'm ahead.
Unknown: I will just say.
Unknown: I won't tell you how we got our hands on it, but we we took a gallon jug, or No, a two liter pop bottle, and just filled the cap of the pop bottle with aviation fuel and put it in that bottle and shook it up, and then put that on like a picnic table or whatever. So it kind of was like a vapor inside that bottle, and then risking our lives lighter just below the opening of that pop bottle, it was like a 10 foot flame out of the back of that and it was shooting across, like, Okay, we stopped when splatters of fuel started to burn on the side of somebody's car. We knew we probably were getting a little out of hand at that point. Didn't mind losing some eyebrows and things like that. Better not burn anybody's car.
Unknown: Why am I saying this?
Unknown: Happy I'm alive? Oh, I'm so happy I'm alive. Like the volcano I climbed, and now I look up there and there's lava coming out of that volcano like that was God's grace.
Unknown: We got to the bottom of the volcano, and there's a big sign, like, danger then, you know, poisonous fumes, gasses, blah, blah, blah, young and dumb, right? It's just like there's a mountain to climb, I'm going and it's like hands and feet climbing up the cone of the volcano, because it's just Rubble, like not an old volcano that's settled like this is an active volcano, because that's what you do, right, climb up to the top. Finally get there. I'm literally like, I'm standing here, that's the hole into the abyss. And I'm like, I don't know what they're talking about. All this poison gas stuff. Then the wind shifted.
Unknown: There's no air to breathe in that air. It's like, I think it's time to go down the mountain again.
Unknown: Thank God I'm alive.
Unknown: Oh, thank God, any of us men made it to adulthood, right?
Unknown: Like, seriously, oh, the fires and the knives and the dumb Yeah, the cars and Lord help us to get back into your Word.
Unknown: John, chapter 15, verse 25 and these things I have spoken to while I'm still with you, but the Holy Spirit, the Helper, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you things.
Unknown: That's what we were talking about, learning something. Don't learn the dumb way. Learn the smart way, right? Don't learn that I almost died and I found out you shouldn't play with aviation fuel, and, Oh, I almost got sulfuric poisonous gas, you know, burning my lungs out. I learned that wasn't smart. That's the dumb way to learn.
Unknown: The Holy Spirit can teach you things. He can help you to avoid things that would cost you dearly. How many of you are have lived long enough to look back and realize that's why you told me not to go that way. God, that's why I didn't say yes to that opportunity that everything inside of me thought that that was your you know, it was going to be great, and then you saw that it turned into a train wreck, and you just avoided something. Thank God for the leading of the Holy Spirit. He will teach you things, and he will bring to your remembrance all the things that I have said to you, you need the Holy Spirit to truly understand this book.
Unknown: You need the Holy Spirit to get inside you understand that the very person who inspired those people 1000s of years ago to write these words. He can speak to you about what he was thinking. Isn't that amazing?
Unknown: Like, there's some amazing books out there that I love, and I would love the opportunity to be able to meet the author, and it's just like, what were you really thinking? You know, like I catch what you're going for and it's beautiful, or it's, you know, it sounds deep, but I feel like I'm missing something there. But you usually can't do that, right? We have the one who authored this that lives on the inside of us, that fills us, that can teach us these things.
Unknown: And verse 27 I peace. I live with leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give it to you. Let your hearts not be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
Unknown: Let's stand to our feet. Band you can come on up. You.
Unknown: I hope you've learned something, and we barely scratched the surface.
Unknown: I hope you learnt more than how dumb I was, I know that's probably what's going to stick with everybody the most. We all need the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth to us. The point of today's sermon was not whether or not to play with fire or climb a live volcano. The point of this morning's sermon is that there's more of the Spirit of God, and that we were never meant to live without the Spirit of God, that we are supposed to enjoy something more, that all the amazing stories of the Old Testament, we have something that they didn't have, and you can experience it too. So let's pray together, and I'm going to invite those who want to receive prayer today. You know we're going to talk even more about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but maybe your heart's already stirred today, and you say, that makes sense to me, that's what Paul did. If Paul prayed for those 12 people and they could receive the Holy Spirit. You can receive the Holy Spirit today.
Unknown: Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?
Unknown: And maybe you did receive the Holy Spirit, but you've grown estranged to the Holy Spirit, just like we can grow distant from somebody living on our under our own roof. And maybe this morning is your opportunity to come up and say, I'm here to renew my relationship with the Holy Spirit. And again, just allow somebody to lay hands on you stir up the gift of the Spirit of God that is in you by the laying on of hands Amen Father in the name of Jesus. We stand here today believing, convicted, knowing that the holy spirit is alive and well. We invite you. We invite you, Lord God, to fill each and every life. There are no except.
Unknown: Exceptions. There's nobody that you don't want to fill. Lord God. I, thank you, Lord that our sins are forgiven. I, thank you, Lord God, that you've made a way for us to go to heaven. I, thank you, Lord God, that we've been washed and cleansed and your Spirit dwells in us. But Lord God. We want more Lord. We want to see what the apostles saw. We want to experience what they experienced. We want to be clothed with power. We want to be filled Lord God. We want Lord, that helper, that comforter, that counselor, that teacher to be so present with us that we can navigate every turn, every situation, with supernatural wisdom and peace and joy and life. Lord, you are the spirit of life. You are the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead. You are the spirit that is healed, Lord God countless bodies. Who has raised dead bodies, Lord God and that same spirit that raised Christ from the dead, oh, Lord, we invite you come and fill us up.
Unknown: Come and fill us up. Come and fill us up. Lord God, for those who have never spoken in tongues, who have never seen the evidence of that spirit on the inside of them, Lord God, may they be filled today, open, open your mouth as they lay hands on you today, and allow the Spirit of God to bubble up on the inside, to flow forth from you, to have that intimate, beautiful love language of God flowing forth from the overflow of the Spirit Jesus.
Unknown: Now listen, let's, let's just worship in the Spirit Amen.