SPEAKER_03: Hello, my name is Callie, and the Old Testament reading is found in Numbers 11, 24 through 29.
SPEAKER_03: So Moses went out and told the people the Lord's words.
SPEAKER_03: He assembled seventy men from the people's elders and placed them around the tent.
SPEAKER_03: The Lord descended in a cloud, spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and placed it on the seventy elders.
SPEAKER_03: When the spirit rested on them, they prophesied.
SPEAKER_03: But only this once.
SPEAKER_03: Two men had remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them.
SPEAKER_03: They were among those registered, but they hadn't gone out to the tent, so they prophesied in the camp.
SPEAKER_03: A young man ran and told Moses, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.
SPEAKER_03: Joshua, the nun's son, and Moses' assistant since his youth responded, My master Moses, stop them.
SPEAKER_03: Moses said to him, Are you jealous for my sake?
SPEAKER_03: If only all the Lord's people were prophets, with the Lord placing his spirit on them, the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: When word reached the apostles in Jerusalem that Samaria had accepted God's word, they commissioned Peter and John to go to Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: Peter and John went down to Samaria, where they prayed that the new believers would receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: This was because the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on any of them.
SPEAKER_01: They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So Peter and John lay their hands on them and they receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And everyone wondered whether you're going to be able to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And Holy Spirit, we do ask that just as Pastor Evan prayed a second ago, that you'd speak to us.
SPEAKER_00: Speak to us through your word.
SPEAKER_00: May it be living and active in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: May it continue to transform us by the power of the Spirit into the likeness of Jesus, to your glory, our God and Father.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in your name.
SPEAKER_00: And all God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You may be seated.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Happy Pentecost Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: This is the day that we officially mark the kind of end of Eastertide.
SPEAKER_00: It's the last Sunday in Easter.
SPEAKER_00: So the feast continues through the day today.
SPEAKER_00: And then we start ordinary time tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: But today is the day we celebrate the gift of the Spirit, the birth of the church.
SPEAKER_00: It's also Memorial Day weekend, as we've been praying for earlier.
SPEAKER_00: It's also May 24th, which in church history is the day that John Wesley felt strangely warmed and kind of began to move out into a revival movement around the world.
SPEAKER_00: And it's also the day when my wife was born.
SPEAKER_00: So happy birthday, Sarah, today.
SPEAKER_00: Well, my name is Jason.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the pastors here.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're new or newer or visiting, we welcome you.
SPEAKER_00: We're so glad that you're here.
SPEAKER_00: Hello to everybody that's watching online or watching later.
SPEAKER_00: And we want to welcome all of our kids and teenagers in the room on All Generations Sunday today.
SPEAKER_00: Kids, where are you at?
SPEAKER_00: Students, hello.
SPEAKER_00: Hi, we're glad that you guys are here.
SPEAKER_00: I was a teenager when I first encountered the gospel of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I was a 16-year-old kid, kind of in the middle of uh great sort of unraveling of a lot of things uh in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And um, my neighbor and uh manager at the grocery store and ex-girlfriend's dad, uh, he was all of those things, um, introduced me to Jesus in a way that uh forever changed my life.
SPEAKER_00: Um I can still vividly recall sitting at his kitchen table as he opened uh the Bible for me to begin, talk to me about Jesus in a way that no one had ever taught to me about Jesus before.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember walking back down home and singing just the one line to the song Amazing Grace that I knew as I walked back into what was really a difficult situation going on in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And yet something began and changed that day.
SPEAKER_00: It was about a year, almost a year and a half later, uh, that the guy who led me to Christ started this Bible study uh with other high school guys.
SPEAKER_00: And I discovered that some of my friends had come to faith in Jesus or had returned to faith in Jesus, uh, and that some of them were uh now playing in the worship band at this church a couple towns away.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know there was such a thing as worship bands uh or that my friends were in this.
SPEAKER_00: It was like they asked me to come to church with them.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I remember walking into Agape Christian family church in Clear Lake, Iowa, uh, and coming in and all of a sudden, like seeing this band and instruments, people kick in to the drums, and I'm like, okay, I haven't seen this before.
SPEAKER_00: Um and then like when the singing starts, people are raising their hands, I'm like, okay, I haven't seen this before.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and the next thing I know, I'm hearing like people make other sounds um that I now know is this idea of speaking in tongues, and I'm like, oh, I definitely haven't heard uh that before.
SPEAKER_00: And then the next minute, like somebody's running around the room, um, and then people are dancing, and I'm like, what is happening?
SPEAKER_00: And it was really the first time that I was in a situation uh within faith where previously had been, I hadn't really heard a whole lot about Jesus, and now was understanding him a new way, and now I hadn't heard a whole lot about the spirit and was experiencing the spirit in a new way that really was transformational for me.
SPEAKER_00: Um, that began uh a life in with the spirit that has uh had all kinds of unique experiences to it.
SPEAKER_00: Some that have been deeply transformative for me, some that have been very confusing, some that have been, uh I wouldn't attribute them anymore to the spirit, but the spirit was being blamed for things uh that were really quite troubling.
SPEAKER_00: And going, okay, what is happening here?
SPEAKER_00: Um, and been now, you know, several decades of exploring, okay, what do the scriptures really teach us about the spirit?
SPEAKER_00: When I was a kid, I heard the Holy Spirit referred to as the Holy Ghost, uh, which I was like, I don't think that's like in the horror movies I watch.
SPEAKER_00: Um, this must be more like Casper.
SPEAKER_00: Um, like there seems to be a little bit more friendly, but there was a lot of confusion.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think even throughout some of my life, there's been some confusion and wrestling and wondering and questioning a lot of things about the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's for you too.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that you're here on Pentecost Sunday and you're here us talking about the spirit, you're hearing us sing songs, and there's either maybe a sense of like deep leaning in, like, yes, yes, yes, the spirit has been so personal and vibrant in your life and grateful for any time that we talk about the spirit, or maybe a leaning out of going, uh-oh, like what is happening?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about this, or maybe you're like, this is all brand new to me.
SPEAKER_00: So you're just kind of beginning the conversation.
SPEAKER_00: But uh, if you have a Bible, we're gonna be in Acts chapter eight today, uh, and kind of looking at some of the life of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We've been in a series through the book of Acts called Kingdom Movement, which really the book of Acts tracks the expansion of the kingdom of God by the power of the spirit through the church, uh, as outlined in Acts chapter one, verse eight.
SPEAKER_00: Verse one, verse, or chapter one, verse eight says, This is uh rather you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus talking, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all of Judea, and then Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the first seven chapters of Acts focus on the church in Jerusalem, which is part of Judea.
SPEAKER_00: And then in chapter eight, where we are today, we're gonna see the gospel proclaimed in Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: We're moving out now beyond those initial boundaries.
SPEAKER_00: This is all happening after the martyrdom of Stephen.
SPEAKER_00: After Stephen is killed, the persecution of the church really intensified, and then the church became scattered, uh, moved out beyond Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And so Philip, one of the seven, selected with Stephen to oversee the care of the widows, he goes to Samaria, to an unnamed city, to tell them about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now Samaria is just north of Jerusalem and Judea, kind of south of Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: So if you imagine Coro Springs in Denver, Samaria is like the outlets at the castle rock, uh, you know, kind of somewhere uh in there.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, this is part of the northern kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: It's the land of Ephraim and Manasseh.
SPEAKER_00: This is the area that was conquered by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC.
SPEAKER_00: And when the Assyrians did is that when they conquered an area, they would take many of the inhabitants, especially the sort of elite upper class of a civilization, the leaders, and they would export, they would exile them, they would deport them to other conquered lands, and then they would resettle other conquered people here.
SPEAKER_00: It was their way of sort of breaking a kind of sense of national identity in order to be able to better control a population.
SPEAKER_00: And so what happened was over time is that those who are part of the tribes of Israel that remained in the land began to intermarry with those who had been resettled in the land and then adopted some of their practices.
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of times when people talk about Samaria, they talk about this group of people that are that are uh following an alternative version of Judaism.
SPEAKER_00: They're still claiming to worship Yahweh, but there's some real differences in practices.
SPEAKER_00: But those differences, both in practices and in history and in heritage and all of those things generated a lot of animosity between Jews and Samaritans.
SPEAKER_00: That there was a lot of tension, there was prejudice, there was hatred.
SPEAKER_00: We see this actually throughout the Gospels, where we find like people don't even go into Samaria, uh Samaria, they go around.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the things that made Jesus' parable about the good Samaritan so radical is that he makes the hero of the story their great villain and shows the way in which the Samaritan is uh doing what it is that the Lord has commanded is deeply offensive.
SPEAKER_00: But there's all of this religious and cultural and ethnic tension that's sitting in the background of this text.
SPEAKER_00: And so remember that as we go on.
SPEAKER_00: So what we read is that Philip goes to Samaria and he preached the gospel to the Samaritans.
SPEAKER_00: And this proclamation was accompanied by healing and by deliverance and by great joy.
SPEAKER_00: We read in Acts 8:12 this after they came to believe Philip, who preached the good news about God's kingdom and the name of Jesus, both men and women were baptized.
SPEAKER_00: So they heard the gospel, they said yes to Jesus, and then they were baptized.
SPEAKER_00: This is a reference to water baptism, that early practice of the church where new believers are immersed in water as a sign of their new life in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We celebrated that just a couple of weeks ago here down in the orchestra pit, which are now filled with violins and cellos.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so we'll have an orchestra playing a little bit later on.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we celebrate this, we continue to do this, but then we read a couple verses later in Acts 8, 14.
SPEAKER_00: This says, when the word reached the apostles in Jerusalem, so word gets back to them.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, the gospel's been preached to in Samaria, and the Samaritans have accepted God's word, then they commissioned Peter and John to go check this out.
SPEAKER_00: And so Peter and John went down to Samaria where they uh where they uh down to Samaria where they prayed that the new believers would receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And then we get this parenthetical statement.
SPEAKER_00: This was because the Holy Spirit had not fallen on any of them.
SPEAKER_00: They had only been baptized in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so Peter and John laid their hands on them and then they received the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is one of the most perplexing and debated passages in the whole New Testament, but especially in the book of Acts, because it raises all of these questions.
SPEAKER_00: Like, wait, what do you you mean this happened?
SPEAKER_00: And asks major questions about the relationship between baptism and faith and the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Questions about, well, when do Christians receive the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: And what happens when Christians receive the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: And and how is maybe what some people have called spirit baptism, how is that different than water baptism?
SPEAKER_00: What are those things and what's their relationship between them?
SPEAKER_00: And then what's the evidence?
SPEAKER_00: So what's the sign that somebody has been spirit baptized, if we use that language?
SPEAKER_00: We know what water baptism looks like.
SPEAKER_00: What does spirit baptism look like?
SPEAKER_00: And why in the world did Peter and John have to come down from Jerusalem?
SPEAKER_00: What was wrong with Philip?
SPEAKER_00: Like he just didn't have this like all figured out yet.
SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, we just we could just keep asking questions around all of that.
SPEAKER_00: And you may, you know, have been exposed to some of those conversations, depending upon your theological or denominational background, as different traditions tend to answer these questions kind of some in some different ways.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that is because the that variety is because there's so many nuances to consider.
SPEAKER_00: Um, there's nuances uh between the ways that Luke talks about the spirit versus the way that Paul talks about the spirit versus the way that Mark and Matthew talk about the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so we find that different New Testament writers are emphasizing different things.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and Luke in Luke and Acts uses all of these different terms to talk about the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He'll talk about being baptized with the Holy Spirit, talking about the Holy Spirit coming upon people, we'll talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit, talk about the Holy Spirit being poured out, talk about people receiving the Holy Spirit, talk about the Spirit being given, talking about the Spirit as a gift, or the Spirit falling upon.
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, well, are those all the same thing?
SPEAKER_00: Or is he just flexing language?
SPEAKER_00: And we're kind of wrestling a little bit with how do we understand those things.
SPEAKER_00: What we're gonna do today is we're gonna kind of look at Acts, uh, primarily Luke Acts, and use the language of spirit baptism um to kind of talk about all of those activities that Paul that Luke's talking about, about being filled with the Spirit, about the Spirit being poured out, about people receiving the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We'll use that language because I think it's helpful for this conversation.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna ask a couple of questions and try to answer them the best we can.
SPEAKER_00: And the first one is this is when does spirit baptism happen in the life of a believer?
SPEAKER_00: What we see in Acts chapter eight is it seems to happen after they've believed and after they have been water baptized.
SPEAKER_00: Then later on, there is what is called the spirit baptism.
SPEAKER_00: This seems to be the same pattern that we see in Acts chapter two, where we can assume that the disciples of Jesus have believed in him and at some point have been water baptized, and then they received the spirit on the day of Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: This is somewhat maybe similar in, or we see something really similar actually in Acts chapter 19, where Paul is in Ephesus and he finds disciples there, followers of Jesus, and they have been baptized according to John's baptism, water baptism, but they haven't received the spirit yet.
SPEAKER_00: So something very similar happens there.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's some that's like, okay, this is the normal pattern.
SPEAKER_00: We believe, we're water baptized, and at some point we have maybe a second experience with the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But in Acts chapter 10 with the Gentiles, it's the opposite order.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit falls on them and then they're baptized.
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, okay, great.
SPEAKER_00: And that seems to be also maybe what happens with Paul in Acts chapter 9, where he experiences this dramatic healing from the spirit, his eyes are opened, and then he's later baptized.
SPEAKER_00: A little less clear there.
SPEAKER_00: There are other passages which seem to clearly indicate that we receive the spirit of God at conversion when we come to believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, there are other texts that talk about subsequent spirit fillings.
SPEAKER_00: Peter and John are filled with the spirit in Acts chapter 2, but in a sense, they're filled again in Acts chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Did they lose it and like end up empty somehow?
SPEAKER_00: Stephen is described as full of the spirit, and then he's filled with the spirit again right before he was killed.
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, how can you be filled with something that you're full of?
SPEAKER_00: Um, some of you are elbowing somebody next to you around.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going, okay, what do we do with this?
SPEAKER_00: And then we find in other places like Ephesians chapter 5, where Paul tells us to continually be being filled with the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So what we see is that there's not one clear set order or time.
SPEAKER_00: There's a little bit of nuance here.
SPEAKER_00: Well, then we have to say, okay, if there's not like one set order of time, maybe there's one set order or way that spirit baptism happens.
SPEAKER_00: How does this actually happen in someone's life?
SPEAKER_00: We know how water baptism happens.
SPEAKER_00: How does spirit baptism happen?
SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, the two of those things are most oftentimes talked about with one another, uh, often in a comparative way.
SPEAKER_00: In our New Testament reading, we heard about John the Baptist saying, I baptize with water, but one is coming after me, he will baptize with the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But at other times they're much more connective, especially at Jesus' baptism, where Jesus is baptized and then the spirit descends.
SPEAKER_00: We see this also probably later in the book of Pentecost or uh in Acts 2 in Pentecost, where after Peter preaches, he tells the crowds to change your hearts and lives, and each of you be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: This is water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin, and then you'll receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So it seems like the two are really connected at that point.
SPEAKER_00: But then there's other times that this idea of spirit baptism or being filled with the spirit is happening when people pray, or happens when somebody's preaching, or happens like here in uh in the context of Acts 8, where someone's laying hands on somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't seem like there's one set time or order, nor does it seem like there's one set way.
SPEAKER_00: We're like, well, this isn't helpful, Jason, at all.
SPEAKER_00: Um get somebody else up here preaching already.
SPEAKER_00: Uh what these do all have in common, though, is that they're all communal events, they're all tied to the presence of the church.
SPEAKER_00: That somehow the spirit and the church are always connected together.
SPEAKER_00: They are in the Bible, they are in the creed, they are in church history, they are in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Our founding pastor, Pastor Glenn, and his uh Instagram post this week talked about that there is no church without the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And if we really want the life of the spirit, we should start by looking in the church.
SPEAKER_00: We should start by looking where the spirit has given birth and is building, that the church is the epicenter of the kingdom, and the church is the epicenter of the life of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we kind of continue on, like, well, maybe we can find like real clarity about what happens in spirit baptism.
SPEAKER_00: That if we there's not like a set order or uh a set way, maybe there's like a set Sign, a set evidence.
SPEAKER_00: This is perhaps the most controversial aspect of spirit baptism is what are the evidences or the signs?
SPEAKER_00: Because it seems like that they were able to say, oh yeah, they did receive the spirit, that it was clear to the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter 10, Acts chapter 19, the evidence is that they're speaking in tongues.
SPEAKER_00: They're speaking in other languages.
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of Acts chapter 2, in Acts chapter 4 and 7, uh here and 8, and then in Acts 9, tongues are not mentioned.
SPEAKER_00: Seems like it's mentioned sometimes, but not all of the time.
SPEAKER_00: Other times we're we're told that the Spirit comes and there's bold preaching, or there's supernatural visions, or there's power, or there's healing, or there's prophecy, or there's abundant joy.
SPEAKER_00: We get all these different signs.
SPEAKER_00: We see that tongues are normal, but they're not necessarily normative, that they're always sort of present.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they're one way that the spirit appears, but not the only way.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit may manifest in all kinds of ways.
SPEAKER_00: Tongues are one of many gifts of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But the presence and work of the spirit is seemingly visible.
SPEAKER_00: It's evident to others in community in some way.
SPEAKER_00: And so then we have to ask, well, what's the purpose of all of this?
SPEAKER_00: If we can't quite figure out all of these things, maybe we can find something in the purpose.
SPEAKER_00: What's the purpose of spirit baptism?
SPEAKER_00: What's the purpose of kind of visible evidence?
SPEAKER_00: And then get to the question of why was it delayed in Acts chapter 8?
SPEAKER_00: And here's where I think we find really unique emphasis in Luke Acts.
SPEAKER_00: That if we look at other passages, they will, other writers will really emphasize the work of the spirit as being what transforms us, the work of the spirit being about sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: There were some that will talk about the spirit being about comfort or about assurance of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: There'll be some that will talk about the spirit in terms of uh of knowledge or interpretation of being able to understand the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: There's some that will talk about spirit in terms of gifts.
SPEAKER_00: And so before we go into this, I want to say, yes.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna find is that there is a broad spectrum of the work of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And we always want to be careful just to focus on one.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit is the one who enables us to say yes, Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit is the one that produces the fruits of the spirit in us and makes us more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit is the one that comforts us in the midst of our trials.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit is the one that gives us the strength to continue to move forward.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit is the one that does so many different things.
SPEAKER_00: But for Luke, what he really wants to emphasize is that the Spirit is the one who empowers us for ministry.
SPEAKER_00: That's Luke's big emphasis, which is what we're gonna see in the middle of this.
SPEAKER_00: So earlier we read Acts chapter 1, where Luke says, in G Jesus says in Luke's writing, the Spirit will be sent to enable the church to witness to the resurrection, to witness all the way to the ends of the world.
SPEAKER_00: So this the kingdom moves through the church by the spirit to the ends of the world.
SPEAKER_00: When the spirit comes in Acts chapter 2, the crowd hears the disciples speaking in other native tongues, and the spirit enables Peter to preach, and 3,000 people are added to their numbers.
SPEAKER_00: So the spirit emphasis here is that spirit baptism empowers the church's mission.
SPEAKER_00: It pushes the spirit out and witness to the resurrection in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now that doesn't quite fully explain, though, the delay in Acts chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: Why the wait until uh Peter and John come?
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple ways people kind of commonly think about this.
SPEAKER_00: One is the arena of second blessing, that they needed uh someone else to come to deliver a second blessing to them.
SPEAKER_00: The other one sometimes is around apostolic succession and being able to trace things back to the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: But I think the most compelling reason for this delay harkens back to the history of Jews and Samaritans.
SPEAKER_00: Samaritans were looked down upon, they were despised, they were considered enemies, and yet now they had become followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And this could be a problem.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the church was already dealing with divisions in its midst amongst Aramaic and Greek-speaking Jews.
SPEAKER_00: That just a few chapters before there was a division that was coming that they had to address, and that division between those who spoke Aramaic and those who spoke Greek was relatively minor compared to the division, the animosity, the tension between Jews and Samaritans.
SPEAKER_00: It's likely that the Samaritans were viewed with intense suspicion and even viewed as second class, as less than.
SPEAKER_00: And so here, the two most prominent leaders in the early church, Peter and John, two of the apostles, the original followers of Jesus, and two of Jesus' inner circle of three, Peter, James, and John, they send these two to go and witness to the work of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And it's their involvement of that, in that, and their approval that guarantees the full incorporation of the Samaritan church into the Jewish church.
SPEAKER_00: It ensured that this would be one united church and not two alternative versions of Christianity as it had been with Judaism between the two of them.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, one of the things that the Spirit baptism also does is that Spirit Baptism ensures the church's unity.
SPEAKER_00: It sets the stage, I think this passage for the inclusion of Gentiles later in Acts, which was even a greater movement out.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what uh Peter says in Acts chapter 11, and I think these words help us understand Acts chapter 8 a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Peter says, When I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as the Spirit fell on us in the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: And then I remembered the Lord's words.
SPEAKER_00: John baptized you with water, but ye will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And he says this if God gave them the same gift he gave to us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then who am I?
SPEAKER_00: Can I stand in God's way?
SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, this is becoming a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multinational, multi-gender, this is expanding all around, and they're saying, Oh, wait, the gospel is actually for everybody.
SPEAKER_00: And so's the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: This echoes really our Old Testament reading where Joshua asked Moses to stop Eldad and Maedad from prophesying in the camp, and Moses refused.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, no.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he's like, I want all God's people to prophesy.
SPEAKER_00: I want the spirit of God to fall on everyone, not just a select few.
SPEAKER_00: And I think this becomes a little bit clearer here in this next little part.
SPEAKER_00: That interspersed in this story about the spirit coming to the Samaritans, we find the story of Simon the magician.
SPEAKER_00: Simon Magus, as he's often referred to.
SPEAKER_00: He appears in Dante's Inferno, and he's also the name of a villain in the Justice League comics from uh from DC.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Simon the Sorcerer shows up.
SPEAKER_00: And what we hear about this guy is that the Samaritans are captivated by him.
SPEAKER_00: He has used magic in such a way that he kind of has all of their attention.
SPEAKER_00: And Simon is one of those who heard Philip preach.
SPEAKER_00: And he believed the gospel and he was baptized.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, his life is starting change.
SPEAKER_00: And then he sees Peter and John come and this movement of the Holy Spirit, and this is what he says: when Simon perceived that the spirit was given through the laying out of the hands of the apostles, he's like, I've got an idea.
SPEAKER_00: He offered them money.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Give me this power too.
SPEAKER_00: Give me this power, give me this authority, so that anyone whom I lay hands on will receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, then I can collect money, and then I will lay my hands on people and give them that same power.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Simon, as a new believer, is still holding on to a lot of old ideas, right?
SPEAKER_00: All of us have been there at some point, maybe in our journey with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So he was viewing the spirit the same way he viewed magic.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, oh, this is a power to obtain.
SPEAKER_00: This is a power to control.
SPEAKER_00: This is a power to use for my own gain.
SPEAKER_00: This is a power that can wow.
SPEAKER_00: This is a power that can captivate.
SPEAKER_00: This is a power that can make me popular, can hold on to my influence and my sway amongst these people.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's even seen that start to dissipate a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And so Simon attempts to control and therefore limit the spirit, which of course never happens today, uh, that we have any of those same kind of temptations.
SPEAKER_00: Then Peter harshly rebuked him and called him to repent.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we put all of this together, I think we can sort of say a few things.
SPEAKER_00: That first, it's clear throughout the New Testament that all of us receive the Holy Spirit when we believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So if you are a follower of Jesus, the Spirit of the Living God is taking up residence in you.
SPEAKER_00: That you are a tabernacle, a portable tent of the Spirit of God walking around wherever he sends you.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit of the living God, the third person of the Trinity, lives inside of you in some way.
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, I don't know how he fits, but he's there, he's alive.
SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit of a mystery.
SPEAKER_00: We're like, okay, he's filling our lives the same way the oxygen is filling our bodies.
SPEAKER_00: Some connections, like metaphors that might help us.
SPEAKER_00: So the spirit is living in us, and the spirit wants to empower every single one of us to participate in the movement of God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: This is Luke's great emphasis.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit is living in us, and he wants to empower us to contribute to God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: That means every single one of us who's a follower of Jesus has the Spirit, and the Lord wants to work with and through and in, and mainly with all of us to see his kingdom come and his will to be done on earth as in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, this isn't just the pastoral stuff.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't just elders, this isn't just like super spiritual people, this is for all of us, and some experience a realization of that, a realization of the empowerment of the spirit immediately upon believing.
SPEAKER_00: Some experience a realization of that empowerment of the spirit later on, sometimes before water baptism, sometimes after water baptism, sometimes during water baptism.
SPEAKER_00: But it is for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit is already living in us and inviting us into a greater realization of the ways that He has graced us, the ways that He has gifted us to contribute and participate in His kingdom movement.
SPEAKER_00: That increasing realization, we might call that a baptism of the Holy Spirit, and it's accompanied by some sign, a recognition of, oh, this is a gift, this is a grace, this is something that God is doing in me for the sake of others, and it can be clearly seen by the community.
SPEAKER_00: That gift of the spirit may be tongues, it may be prophecy, it may be healing, it may be something else, but there is no singular or predictable pattern.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: I think the pastor and theologian Will Wilman says it best.
SPEAKER_00: He says, there's no predictable pattern because every manifestation of the spirit is a gift from God, which means it's surprising.
SPEAKER_00: God loves to surprise us.
SPEAKER_00: It's undeserved.
SPEAKER_00: It's not something that we sort of earn and sort of, you know, like level up to.
SPEAKER_00: If we get this badge, then we get this badge, then we get this badge, and we get this badge.
SPEAKER_00: It can't be manipulated.
SPEAKER_00: There is no formula that if we just follow all of the right steps, then we can make something happen.
SPEAKER_00: This is un not something that is in our control, but instead, the spirit is the gracious presence of a person, not a magic power.
SPEAKER_00: It's a grace, gracious presence of the person of the spirit and all that he offers to us.
SPEAKER_00: And those gifts are meant to serve the church, to participate in the kingdom, and to preserve the church's unity.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the gifts are not for us.
SPEAKER_00: Anytime the Spirit gifts and graces us, it's not for us, it's for somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: And so that others might be able to hear the gospel and that the church might be built up.
SPEAKER_00: So as we get ready to come to the table this morning, where does that sort of leave us in the middle of these conversations?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think sometimes what we try to do is maybe that there's a little bit of a Simon-like tendency in us where we want to know, like, what's this and it's this and it's this and it's this, and you do it this way, and then that way, and this way, and the other, and then this is the always the result.
SPEAKER_00: We really like formulas.
SPEAKER_00: We like things that are predictive.
SPEAKER_00: We like things that we can sort of wrap our minds around and control.
SPEAKER_00: That is not a life with our God.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we're invited into a mystery.
SPEAKER_00: That there are some things that we can understand and wrap our mind around and see and and pattern and discern and be like, okay.
SPEAKER_00: We know that the spirit never acts in a way that's contrary to the character of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We know that.
SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, we can we can hold on to that.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that the spirit does all of these things in us.
SPEAKER_00: Spirit's the one who uh testifies to our spirit that we are children of God, the spirit is the one who sanctifies us, makes us more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit is the one who comforts us in our grief and our trouble, spirit is the one that strengthens us to live in obedience, helps us to obey the teachings of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit is the one that gifts us and graces us for ministry and participation.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit does all of those things, and we know the spirit is a person, a third person of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: So we know for our parts is that we can live in a posture of openness, to constantly be saying, Okay, Spirit of the Living God, you live in me.
SPEAKER_00: And I would love to experience a greater realization of your presence, of your power, of your grace, of your work in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And so we get to pray those kind of prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Paul tells us to eagerly desire, to seek.
SPEAKER_00: Other places tell us to welcome or to be open or to invite or to receive.
SPEAKER_00: And so today, as we come to the table, I want to lead us just in a moment of silence where we can all just say, Okay, Spirit of the Living God, I'm open to receive whatever it is that you might have for me today.
SPEAKER_00: And as we come to the table, oftentimes in church history, people encounter the Spirit of God through the sacraments.
SPEAKER_00: And there might be a place where we just say, Okay, Spirit, reveal yourself to me, bringing me into a greater awareness today.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you're like, I'm not sure, but I feel led to have some people pray for me and lay hands on me, like they did in that passage.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to experience more of the spirit in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And so after service, when we have our prayer teams, be invited to come and pray.
SPEAKER_00: Have someone lay hands on you and pray.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you're like, I just I want to spend some more time kind of like having these conversations and hanging out in spirit places.
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome to come to our first Sunday prayer gathering on Sunday nights that David and Carmen Pacquiao lead our prayer team and intercessory team, and uh Pastor Evan lead in his opportunity just to say, okay, Spirit of God, speak.
SPEAKER_00: What are you saying?
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: And uh and teach us to have these open postures.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's take a moment, maybe just open your hands wherever you are.
SPEAKER_00: As we say, Spirit of the Living God, you are welcome here.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, you're not just welcome here, you are here.
SPEAKER_00: And when you say that you're welcome here, what we're asking is for a greater awareness of your presence.
SPEAKER_00: We know you're here, we know you're in us, we know you're moving among us, we know we wouldn't be here, the church wouldn't be here without you, the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So we're grateful for you.
SPEAKER_00: And we want to just be more aware of you.
SPEAKER_00: We want our lives to be filled with an awareness of your grace.
SPEAKER_00: And particularly like Luke, we want to be aware of how you've gifted and graced us in order to participate in the kingdom and build up the church, to serve and love others and the power of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So would you come?
SPEAKER_00: Just as we're gonna sing in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Come, Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Meet us, make us more aware of your presence.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.