When The Spirit Comes - Pastor Sam Simoes - May 24, 2026

Pastor Sam Simoes message for Sunday May 24, 2026. 

Welcome to the Northwest Church of the Nazarene podcast, where we share the heart of our church’s mission: discovering and engaging in a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ through inspired worship and intentional ministry. Each episode brings you sermons, insights, and messages that challenge and encourage spiritual growth. Whether you are part of our diverse, multicultural church family, or listening in for the first time, you’ll find a community that loves Jesus and welcomes everyone with open arms. Join us online at nwnaz.org or in person in Columbus Ohio, as we journey together toward a deeper, more meaningful relationship with Jesus and each other. 

Transcript

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Every Sunday at Northwest Church of the Desert in Columbus, Ohio, our congregation is challenged to grow spiritually. This podcast shares the sermons, insights, and messages that encourage our congregation to mature spiritually.

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I don't know how I'm going to follow that, but today we're going to be talking not only about a Pentecost, but about a very powerful time that when the Spirit comes, everything changes. When the Spirit comes, everything is transformed. I had the opportunity when I was young to attend a soccer game on the bench. I had a neighbor who was a physical therapist for one of the teams that we have, actually my favorite team. And he invited me and his son to come with him, but with a promise that we would be quiet and will not cause a ruckus. I said, Well, we can attempt, but because of that opportunity, we did everything we could to behave ourselves. And we were standing uh there uh with there's all the players sitting on the on the they're in a row, and we were behind the players, and we were watching it from a first person. So we were with a team, and then at halftime came, and our team was losing by one goal. And we were very worried because that wasn't a very strong team, but we we were talking to each other. I said, Well, they're probably gonna come around, but that wasn't something we were expecting. So we go into the locker room with a team, and the physical therapist said, Well, you just stay here while I take care of the players. And he just went and made sure that their their joints were doing okay. He was checking on them and then trying to put some creams and whatever he did. And everyone was anticipating what the coach was going to say. You see, they were down one goal, and as they were going down one goal, they were wondering, you know, what's the plan now? What are we supposed to be doing? So the coach came in and said, Okay, so here's the deal. You have um a few players that are uh attacking from the the flanks, and we're not paying attention to them, and you need to pay attention to them, and and the and the offense or the offensive players, you know, the the forwards and so forth. You need to make sure that when you go, you watch out on this player, and he started giving a plan on how to turn the game around. And they sure enough did when they came back. Uh they came in and they implemented that plan and they won the game. I only had that opportunity one time in my life to be with um with a professional team, but what I never forgot was that the players, even though they know how to play the game, they knew how to embrace difficulties, they knew how to uh face challenges, they needed to hear from their coach on what to do next. And many times we wish we had a coach in our lives, isn't it? When we are down and we're trying to figure out, you know, what's next, you know, what should I we do next? What should we watch out for? What should we expect in this game of life? And many times we expect that to be God, and God tells us that he has a plan for us, and God tells us that he has a plan for our lives, and we know that. But we just wish he was very clear, we just wish it was something that he would tell us, you know, you do this and you do that, or you you embrace this, or or watch out for that. But often in our lives we keep waiting for God to reveal that when he already is. And what we're going to be looking at today is when the spirit comes, things will change, things will be revealed. See, the people of Israel were also feeling the same way. God told them to Abraham, their ascendant, God told to Abraham that he would bless his children. And he told the prophets, and he told the many people that he would bless them. You see, but the spirit of God is not always something that they anticipated. The spirit of God is something that always brings transformation, and when the things don't go as we expect, we wonder if we are even in the right path. Peter, after he denied Jesus three times, he felt embarrassed. And when Jesus was nailed to the cross and he died, he went back and left everything that Jesus taught him and went back doing what he knew. Fishing. He went back fishing. But then when Jesus came back and he told Peter, Peter, on you I will build my church. He didn't give him a map on how to build a church, he didn't tell him how he was going to do that. He just told him, In with you, I will build my church. And what Peter did was he prepared, he expected the Spirit. And once the Spirit came, everything changed. Joel was in a time of catastrophe, on a time of drought, and the land was bare, and the people of Israel were also barren. They were also having a difficult time in their spiritual life. So he calls for repentance. And in Joel chapter 2, 12 to 13, he tells, return to me with all your heart. Because when you do return to me, when you do return to my word, when you do return to my way, when you do return to my will, everything will change. And we will see what God promised. Because once you return to me, then, and now is the passage that we will read today in Joel chapter 2 verses 28 to 32. And if you'd stand with me as we um pay reverence to the word of God and as we consider what he has in store for us and what he will speak to us about. Joel chapter 2, verse 28. And afterward, if you'll come back, if you'll return to me, and afterward, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, even my servants, both men and women, will pour out my spirit in those days. I will sow wonders in the heavens and on the earth. Blood and fire and billows of smoke, the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray that you speak to us, that you challenge us, that you would encourage us in recognizing your spirit in our lives. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. We find in this passage that a new day is coming. And a new day is something that is here for us. But during the time of Israel, during the time of Joel, during the time of suffering, during the time of drought, the day is coming that the spirit will come and will be poured out on us. And the spirit during that time was a moment of power. And they saw the spirit being being used with power. They saw the spirit being used with the prophets. They saw the spirit being used as a divine commissioning. But every time they saw the spirit, it was temporary. It was something that was selective. Only a few would have the spirit. And we saw Saul had the spirit and then lost it. We saw Samson had the spirit of God and he was able to do amazing things, and then he lost the spirit to later receive the spirit upon his death. We saw prophets, we saw kings with the spirit of God. We saw many who came it, who came, craftsmen who had the spirit of God. But once they would die, or once the spirit would use them, the spirit would vanish. And they would be waiting for the next prophet to show the miracles of God, to show how God was working. And they were waiting and waiting. But Joel writes that on that day the Spirit of God will be poured out. So it was not going to be occasional, it's not going to be a temporary situation. The Spirit of God will pour out. On who? On the prophets, on the pastors, on the leaders? No. The word is everyone. The Spirit of God will be pour out on everyone. Not just the special people that God has anointed and appointed, but on everyone. And on that day, young men, old men, everyone will see amazing things. Even the slaves, the servants will see amazing things. And that would give Israel a new outlook. The Spirit would change everything. And we learned that on Pentecost, the Spirit changed everything because it began the church. The church began on Pentecost. And because the church began on Pentecost, everything they did, they did with the Spirit. And I read a a quote this week from A. W. Tozer that said this if the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95% of what they did would stop. And everyone would know the difference. In their work, if the Holy Spirit stopped doing the work, everything they did would stop because they did not have anything but the Holy Spirit. Hurtful statement. But true. That we try to do everything without the Holy Spirit, and then we wonder why don't we have miracles? Why don't we have amazing amazing things? Why don't we have the church growing and flourishing? Because the Holy Spirit is a is a second in a in you know it's a second person. You know, we're we're we're we're we're we're picking ourselves into the lead rather than the Holy Spirit. We try to to to rely on the organization of the church. We try to rely on the denomination of the church. We try to rely on what the church can do and how the church can be effective. And we try to use marketing skills, business skills. When the early church, the New Testament church had no skills, had no buildings, had no seminaries, had no formation, had no education, and people did not know how to speak, but the Holy Spirit spoke for them. The Holy Spirit went before them, the Holy Spirit empowered them. So when we recognize that the Holy Spirit has come for us, a new day is coming. But the Holy Spirit does something else. The Holy Spirit tells us that the promise is presence. Last Sunday we talked about waiting. We talked about how we have to wait and how in the waiting God reveals himself. And when the disciples were told to wait, they waited. But the prophecy was fulfilled by Joel, and the prophecy of Joel was fulfilled with Jesus. And then the Holy Spirit. And that's why we pray on Wednesdays. And that's why we are focusing on praying. Because we want to prepare ourselves for the Holy Spirit. We want to prepare ourselves for the people who are coming. We want to prepare ourselves to embrace those who do not know Jesus, to recognize Jesus in us. We want to prepare ourselves for what God is about to do and what God is doing and what God will do in their lives and in our lives. So we find ourselves that there is a ministry of presence. Being there makes all the difference. And then the next game did it again before the eighth inning. And again, and again and again until it became a tradition. So everyone expects Sweet Caroline to come before the eighth inning. In 2013, there was a bombing there. And I remember vividly how much the city was trying to heal. And they they finally captured the bomber. And once they captured the bomber, then they had a Red Sox game. And I read that Neil Diamond, the one who performed the song, the day before the game turned to his wife and said, You know, you know what would be special and probably would help in the healing of that city? Is if I went and sang that song. So without a plan, without without without them even knowing that he's going to be there, he got on a plane, flew to Boston from Los Angeles to Boston, and the next day went into the headquarters of the Red Sox and said, Hey, can I sing, sweet Caroline? And they're like, Yeah. But we don't have a band, we don't have anything. He goes, I don't need any of that. You can just play the song, you'll just have two Neil Diamonds singing. One much younger than the other. But he said, We'll just have two Neil Diamonds singing. But what I want is to be a presence to let the people of Boston know they're not alone. So the 18 started, and before the 18, the music started, and the cameras were on Neil Diamond walking out and singing. Everyone sang along. The power of presence is what the Holy Spirit is promising us. The Holy Spirit is promising that we're not going to be alone. We're not going to do the healing alone. He's going to be there alongside. And even though we may not expect it, even though we may not even count on it, he's already there wanting to be present in our lives with the healing, with the ability to say, you are not alone. But so often we look at the spirit and thinking, oh, that is for someone else. That is for people who are much stronger spiritually than me. That is for people who know Jesus better than me. That is for people who are very well equipped, who know, who have seminary degrees. This is for someone else. When the Holy Spirit is saying, No, the Spirit is for everyone until the day of Pentecost came. The day of Pentecost is the name that it was the Greek name Pentecostis, which means 50 days. But the Jewish celebrated the feast of the weeks, also known as the Shavut, which is when they celebrate God giving the word of God, the Torah, to Moses. So they celebrate every year on this particular day, 50 days after the Passover. The Shavut. And Thursday I had some time with my uh rabbi friend from from from up here in the road, and he was telling me how he was getting ready for tomorrow a Shavut, and it's a holiday, and they're celebrating the gift of the Torah. I said, Yeah, we're gonna be celebrating a different gift. And the gift of the Holy Spirit was on the day that they were celebrating the gift of the Torah. The gift of the Holy Spirit was on the day that they were celebrating the gift of God's word. In other words, God's word is a gift, but so is the Holy Spirit. So let's read the story. Is on the book of Acts, chapter 2, as we read the story from verse 1 to 21, he says, When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly, a sound like the blowing of violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each one of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now they were saying in Jerusalem, God fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one of them heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked, Aren't all of these guys speaking Galileans? I paraphrased that a little bit. Then how is it each one of us hears them in our native language? Berthishians and Medis and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia. Judea and Cappadocia, Pontius and Asia, Firia and Pamphlia, Egypt, and parts of Libya near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs. We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. Amazed and perplexed, they ask one another, What does this mean? Some, however, made fun of them, saying, They just had too much wine. Then Peter stood up with eleven, raised his voice, and addressed the crowd. Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you. Listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning. No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on the servants, both men and women, will pour out my spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will sow show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and pillows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. The prophecy was just fulfilled. The sun will turn into darkness. We do know that the place of Jerusalem, that area, on April 3rd of 33, there was a full solar eclipse and a blood moon. The moon was red. We know that happened. And what day was that? Well, it was the day according to scripture when Jesus died. In other words, the world that was created by God already knew the day and the hour that Jesus was going to die. This is the creator who knew, and the and the universe is a clock. We know when a star is going to be where. We can look at the planets, we can look at the stars from centuries, a millennium ago to the day and know where the stars were on that day. It's a clock. Everything works. And God knew. God knew what was about to happen. And this is a prophecy that was fulfilled. But because we now know that this prophecy was fulfilled, we have a responsibility. And their responsibility is to do what the word of God says, to receive. 120 were praying, we're expecting, we're anticipating, we're preparing to receive the Holy Spirit. Why? Because Jesus told them, now go and wait for the Spirit. For I am sending you a comforter, for I am sending you a spirit. You will not be alone, for I am sending you spirit. So how do we receive the spirit? How do we receive the spirit of God by doing the same thing that the disciples did after Jesus told them to? They prayed and they prayed and they anticipated and they waited, they expected, they prepare their hearts, they prepare their souls for the spirit. They didn't just say, all right, Spirit, come. No, they were in prayer, all of them together. Why is prayer so important? Because prayer prepares us, prayer sets us up for the spirit. And when the spirit of God comes, it renews us, he strengthens us. Lorenzo Medici, also very well known for being a patron to Botticelli and Michelangel and many others, he loved a good display. And one day for Pentecost, he attempted to do this big display in the city of Florence where everyone came and saw. And he decided that day that would be wonderful to use real fire. Now, in the 1400s, using real fire is a little bit of a risk. You know, they didn't have 911 and all the fire, uh, the fire rules that we have today, but he decided to use in this church real fire. Well, things didn't go as planned, and the fire that represented Pentecost ended up burning the church down. Not what they expected, not what they wanted. But what Lorenzo Medici was trying to do was manufacture the power of the Holy Spirit with real fire. But the problem is every time we try to manufacture the power of the Holy Spirit, we will fall short. Because the power of the Holy Spirit is not something we can manufacture, it's not something we can do, it's not something we can embrace, it's something that we receive, it's something that we expect, that we pray for, that we welcome. But every time we try to pretend to do anything with the Holy Spirit, we will not be able to replicate the Holy Spirit. And after we receive, then we respond. Martin Luther King Jr. was a community organizer and a pastor and a man of God, and he um prepared and organized this um march in Washington. And on August 28th, 1963, he was um a keynote speaker for the thousands who were there to hear, and he spoke a speech named I Have a Dream. And that speech was not only spoken on that day, but it was a recorded and it was broadcasted everywhere. The transcripts were in newspapers, and he became the first African American and the youngest African American to be named Man of the Year on Time magazine. He eventually even got the Nobel Peace Prize and all that for one speech now was that he did not stand back, he responded to the needs of the country at that moment and spoke words that were true, words that the country needed to hear. And he became began the healing of the brokenness that was going on with our country. Unfortunately, we're very good at continuing to hurt. But the response can change the world, and if we respond with the Holy Spirit, if we respond, allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us, to speak to us, to allow the Spirit to be in us collectively and as individuals, together we will be able to see the power of God. So our response to the Holy Spirit can change the world. But we think, but it was just a few of us, and and we and we and we we don't have enough resources, we don't have enough to to go around the world. Let me tell you about the resources that the disciples had. They had no ability to speak any other language except the Hebrew that they spoke with each other, and possibly Latin or possibly Greek. They didn't have the ability to speak to people of different countries and different nations. They didn't have a four-year seminary degree. They had a three-year time with Jesus that most of the time they were messing up and trying to learn with Jesus without writing notes. They did not have the ability to speak with other very well-formed, very intelligent, and very articulate leaders. But yet they did all that not because of their abilities, but because of the power of the Holy Spirit. And when we have the power of the Holy Spirit, it doesn't matter how much education we have, because what transforms the world is not our education, it's not our formation, it's not is not how much we know or what we know. What transforms the world is the Holy Spirit in us, and that was God's plan all along. The mid plan that he told the people during the time of Joel was there's gonna be a plan, and the plan is the Holy Spirit, it's gonna come, it's gonna renew, it's gonna restore, and the spirit will come. Not on the chosen few, but on everyone. And the plan all along is that God's Spirit is going to be in us through us. The plan was the Spirit all along. So, what are we to do? Well, we ask for one opportunity to speak. What do I mean by that? When we ask the Lord, I say, Lord, I want to be faithful. I want I want to do what the Spirit does. Give me one opportunity this week to speak to someone about Jesus. One opportunity. I I don't I don't want one a day, I don't want one uh one one an hour. I just want one person that you give me enough courage and enough of the spirit that I can share about Jesus. Maybe someone I already know, maybe a cashier at a grocery store, maybe, but I can just speak the word and just about Jesus to someone. To share about Jesus. Ask for one opportunity because what I'm gonna tell you is once you share about Jesus with someone, you're gonna feel so filled with the Holy Spirit that you are going to really see that it's not you speaking, it's the Holy Spirit. But before you speak to them, say, Spirit, speak for me. And when the Spirit does, lives will be transformed because that's why the Spirit came. The world was changed because of the Spirit. So that is my challenge for you this week. I don't know. I would like to ask the worship team to come forward as we conclude our service today. But I don't know where you are in your journey with Jesus. But the call of Joel to the people of Israel was to repent and return to God. And the call of John the Baptist was to repent and return to God. And the call of Jesus was to repent and return to God, and the call to the church is to repent and return to God. So if we repent and if we return to God, then the Holy Spirit will come and will sit on us, and the Holy Spirit will transform us individually and collectively, because this word wasn't written for us individually, was written for us as a people together. Let us pray. Father, I thank you for the joy we have in the Holy Spirit. We thank you for the power that was entrusted for us, not for us to use, but to be moved, to be changed. So, spirit, come afresh on me. Spirit, come and move me. Spirit, come and change me. Spirit, come and transform me, that I may be faithful before you. And if there's someone here that does not have the spirit or seeking to know more, I pray that you would open the heart and allow your love, your grace, and your forgiveness to fill our hearts. And we pray this in your Son Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

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As it is known in our community, Northwest Church is committed to discovering and engaging in a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ, with inspired worship and intentional ministry. People from all walks of life are welcome and received as family members. Our family is diverse, multicultural, and although not perfect in love with Jesus. Join us online at nwnat.org by visiting us at Campus Ohio. God bless you.