Pentecost Sunday

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And now, here's this week's message.

Before I get into the message on Pentecost Sunday, let me also say, right, there's we we do two, I think there's just two military kind of holidays in the year.

There's Veterans Day and Memorial Day.

They they they serve two actually very different capacities.

Veterans Day is an honoring of all of those who've served.

Um Memorial Day is a recognition of all of those who gave their lives, um, either partially, you know, physically, emotionally, right, or in in totality, they've given their lives uh for for our protection.

Um I never, I really don't never want us to take for granted our ability to be in this room and to worship as expressly as we do.

And listen, and to post, right, that this this is going out live and it's recorded.

Because, like when we sometimes we have one of our missionaries up here and they're speaking, we can't show that.

We we actually suspend that and we don't archive that.

The last time one of our guys were in, uh it was streamed, but it was, he said, Hey, don't put that on the archive.

And I may have forgot to tell someone that.

So whoever's in charge of that, let's make sure that's not there.

Um now, why is that?

What why are we able to do that?

Because there's been men and women over the course of time who have paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we could.

They they've they've paid the price and their families have, right?

So, no doubt, over the course of the wars of our country, that there are people in the room today that there's been a family member that has not just served, but given their life for that.

And it is it is appropriate that our country pauses.

There's so much more to this weekend than hot talks, right?

And so um, if you have been particularly touched by that, Lord, uh, on behalf of our church, I just as it's representative safe, um, to thank you uh to you and your family.

All right.

So today we're in this room 50 days, 50 days later than um we celebrate as Easter.

Um, what was known or probably still is known, is known in uh the Jewish world as Passover.

All right, Passover.

Um Passover was the first of three national feasts.

In other words, they had plenty of feasts.

Israel had plenty of feasts, but there were three in particular that God required, required every Jewish family, at least the Jewish head of the family, to make a pilgrimage for wherever they were to Israel for the celebration of these three feasts.

The first Passover.

The second was 50 days later, and it was called Pentecost.

Now, I love I love this, I love this for Pentecost because it literally means 50 days.

Now, we have a staff member named Chris Dodd.

He's the executive staff pastor, and we got a bunch of creatives on our team, and they always want to come up with really highly creative names for what we do.

And it always comes down to Chris saying, Well, I think we should just call it what it is.

So our small group ministry here is called small groups.

So I think some version or some relative of Pastor Chris Dodd was somewhere in the Jewish council that said, Well, if it's 50 days later, let's call it Pentah.

Right?

So Pentecost, 50 days later.

And the celebration carried a couple historic rings that really parallel out to today.

The first was when the first Passover was the Hebrews being rescued out of 430 years of slavery under Egypt and the Pharaohs.

And so God rescues them and pulls them out.

And on the 50th day, the 50th day, so which was a seven week, seven days, 49 days on that 50th day, they had a celebration in addition to Passover, which was a celebration of Pentecost.

It was the celebration of the giving of the law, was the first ring.

Then on that 50th day, God gives Moses the Ten Commandments.

Ten Commandments, you can consider the Ten Commandments as a precursor to how he unpacks the law.

Now, on this side of the cross, especially in my tradition, we uh faith tradition I grew up in, just generally just can always look down on the law, like look down our nose.

Well, the law, you know, it was just there as a schoolmaster, and it just you we're free from the law, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever.

And there's a whole bunch of movement of just wanting to dismiss the entire Old Testament.

Um, that would be a side trail.

I would not be able to rescue myself from if I went down there.

All right.

When you look at the giving of the law, this was God's God's covenant of chosenness.

It was him putting his mark on his people that had no identity.

They had no identity with God, they couldn't worship God.

In fact, in fact, Moses' plea to Pharaoh was let my people can let me take them out so that we can worship.

And so when God is giving the law, they are supposed to be entering a land that where they would have had no identity, and their identity was to be the identity of Yahweh.

And so he's saying, listen, so so to differentiate yourself from everybody else there, this is what's going to differentiate yourself.

This is worship.

When you align yourself with my word and my ways, this is worship, it's a sense of chosenness and your identity.

We know that the word, the law was received in the same kind of sacred manner.

Because David says that your word, I delight in your word.

It's referred to as tasting like honey, that it that it brought, it was like a tree planted by streams of living water.

When you took on the law, that's what they had, the Torah.

They took it on.

So it so this was this, this was this annual then celebration of my choosing you and your identity, of being connected to me.

It was a connecting point through the law.

The second ring it has is that this was the earliest of the harvests.

So this is the um uh the earliest kind of wheat and barley harvest.

So not only was then Pentecost a celebration of this unity with God, of pulling him to ourselves, that that there was an intimacy between Israel and the Father through keeping of the law.

There was also this provision, this physical uh provision of the harvest.

And so that's how those things rang together.

So we don't celebrate Sundays around here, around holidays.

We we try to celebrate seasons, right?

So Advent, we don't just celebrate Christmas Eve, right?

We celebrate Advent leading into that.

Same with Easter.

Easter begins in the liturgical calendar.

The Easter season begins with Lent, and so we celebrate Lent with a midweek service, and then we go through those 40 days leading up to Easter.

I preach all those 40 days, or the Sundays of that, all leading us into Easter.

That's the preseason of Easter.

Well, Pentecost's preseason, if you will, is actually what God does, or what Jesus does after resurrection, and that kind of gets lost a little bit on what does Jesus do between the resurrection and Pentecost.

Um, and and really what he does is he demonstrates to them the reality of who he is.

Right?

Jesus does not disappear at the resurrection.

Like they go to the empty tomb.

Well, I mean, it's empty.

That's why they call it the empty tomb.

All right, so so it's empty.

And you what where where do you go?

Like what happened?

Like, how do we know like this came about like we were told it was gonna come about?

Right?

Well, he shows up, he shows up to the women at the empty tomb, he shows up in locked rooms, he he shows up, so so he's demonstrating that he is who he says he is, and so he will continue to do what he said he was going to do.

And so this becomes the preseason, if you will, of Pentecost.

Um, I look at Pentecost in two different ways.

One, it's a seasonal celebration.

Um, you know, we came back to church during COVID year.

We came back to our first public service was Pentecost that year.

And and that was a group of pastors that are friends of mine that we were trying to manage.

We were trying to manage how we lead our churches through that unprecedented season.

And and if you recall, I mean, fortunately, we had a we had a we have a strong believing, like not just in word only.

I mean, we have a strong follower of Christ governor and governor Lee.

And Governor Lee did not put the kind of restrictions on churches that other states did.

And at the same time, this was serious because I had friends that died.

You probably did too.

So, how do we manage this in a way that's not fearful and yet respectful?

And to a person, we came in the room and we looked at the calendar and things were saying, we said, you know what?

We need to come back at Pentecost.

And a bunch of us did.

That was our first public service.

That was that was different, it looked different.

Seats, if you remember, if you were around, right?

We'd we tried to do everything we could, but we still came back to church because it was Pentecost.

We knew we needed the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

So I see I see Pentecost as this seasonal celebration, that when Christ resurrects and ascends, he doesn't leave us to our own devices.

That he then manifests himself.

He comes to us and stays and remains with us by his spirit.

So I always see it as a seasonal celebration.

I also see it as a seasonal challenge.

A seasonal challenge.

Because what was necessary for the birth of the church, and we sang about that, was for men and women to live with courage and confidence, to live with courage and the calling that was placed on their life, and live in confidence in who God was.

And I believe that came about.

That came about at Pentecost.

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, it wasn't random in its timing, and it wasn't a surprise in its purpose.

When you read about the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit always brings something out from somewhere that was empty.

Okay, so we we our our first introduction of the Holy Spirit is in creation.

There was chaos, it was darkness, and the Holy Spirit hovers over the waters, and then God says, Let there be light.

Um in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come on particular people at particular times for particular tasks.

And the interesting thing there, it was around warfare and artistry.

The the music, it was around um uh even the fashioning of the ornamentations for the temple.

Um, that was the Holy Spirit then um came on them for that particular work.

By the time we get to the major prophets, Isaiah prophesies that the Holy Spirit would be poured out.

Ezekiel prophesies that God would take out our heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh by the Holy Spirit.

Joel comes in at the end and says, the Spirit is going to be poured out on everybody, regardless of generation, because he says it'll be poured out on the old and the young, and it's gonna be poured out irrespective of gender.

Male, female.

Everybody, everybody's gonna be outpoured on.

I love all the language that we read in the Old Testament and the New Testament, because every reference to the Holy Spirit that talks about pouring, it's like baptized, meaning immersed.

It's never trickled out, it's never divvied out, it's it's outpoured.

It's whatever you can take, I'm gonna pour more than.

Right?

It's outpoured.

So it wasn't a surprise in its purpose, and not a he wasn't a surprise in the timing.

In Matthew 10 and Luke 10, Jesus, while present, sends out, in Matthew 10, he sends out the 12, and Luke 10, he sends out the 72.

And he tells them, in Matthew 10 specifically, he says, Don't worry about what you will say, the Holy Spirit will speak through you.

So this is the first time, like they're going somebody, somewhere without Jesus to do the ministry that Jesus was doing.

And he sends them on assignment and promises the Holy Spirit.

You read in Luke 10, tells them to cast out demons and to heal the sick.

Okay.

I'll preach to you.

But Jesus, you've been the one casting out demons.

You've been the one praying and healing.

Well, they come, they come back and they're like, they're pretty pumped.

Like they said, hey man, the demons, listen to us.

They left.

People were healed.

This is kind of fascinating because Jesus says, I I I know you need to be more excited though that your names are written and the lands book will like.

I mean, I don't know, they're just getting a little full of them.

So I, you know, I don't I don't know what's going on.

But he but he qualified.

But listen, I want what you want to see is there was this assignment, but then in Luke 11, he says the he says, God will give the Holy Spirit to whoever asks.

Whoever asks, I'll give the Holy Spirit.

And then, and what we taught, what I preached leading up to Easter this year, um was John 13 and John 14.

I didn't get to 15, 16, and 17.

Just not enough Sundays, too much content.

But but what Jesus is doing before he goes to leave them, he understands the vacuum, if you will, of what's going to take place in their life.

Like there was an emotional vacuum they were going to experience because he's been with them and he's leaving.

There was also going to be this, there was going to be a little bit of a spiritual vacuum because he, although they have experienced it on assignment, what Jesus was preparing them for is to receive the spirit for a lifestyle.

That's a big, that's a distinguishing characteristic.

In the Old Testament, he gave it as an assignment.

I'm going to give you this assignment, I'm going to give you a spirit.

In Acts chapter 2, he's giving it for a lifestyle.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

This is the way I want you to live all the time.

Alright?

So he tells them, he tells them about, you know, who he is, the Holy Spirit is, all this kind of things, um, what he's going to do, how he's going to look in terms of being someone just like himself.

Um but but even it was this week I'm reading, I'm reading John 17.

And then when you get to John 17, Jesus begins, he's praying out loud.

He's praying for, he's praying for them, he's praying for us.

It's really great to see him pray, and he's praying out loud.

Um, and then he prays this, and I connected some dots this week, I don't think I ever connected before.

Because he's been introducing us to the Spirit, and then he prays this, and it doesn't seem like it's related to the Spirit, but I'm going to connect it for you.

So he prays this in John 17, 13 through 18.

So again, he's talking to the Father.

That's why it starts out saying, I'm coming to you now.

All right, Father, I'm coming to you now.

But I say these things while I'm still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.

So let's stop.

So, what would have been the full measure of joy Christ had with the Father?

It was the intimate relationship he had with the Father.

That's his full joy.

That you and I are intimately connected.

So, what is one of the roles of the Holy Spirit?

To bring this intimate connection between us and the Father.

So the prayer he's praying, this gets fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Let's let's keep going.

He says, I've given them your word, and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.

What makes us what makes us not of the world?

The Holy Spirit inside of us makes us still live here, but different than the spirit of the world and the spirit of the age.

So the Holy Spirit brings this intimacy between us and the Father, that was his full measure of joy, and the Holy Spirit then resides in and makes us someone different than the world around us.

My prayer is that you don't take them out of the world, because in a minute he's gonna talk about, or I'm gonna talk about it, it might have been more minute than he talked about.

Witness in the world.

He said, But I pray that you protect them from the evil one.

Well, who's gonna protect us from the evil one?

His spirit.

They are not of this world, even as I am not in it.

Sanctify them by the truth.

Your word is the truth.

Sanctification is a it's a big word.

Um to sanctify means to set apart and make holy.

And in fact, to be set apart is to be made holy.

Set apart for this purpose.

Right?

We we put we put this over here for a specific purpose.

We don't want it over here.

We're gonna sanctify it, we're gonna put it over here.

The Holy Spirit is who sanctifies us.

Paul talks about living by the Spirit, not living by the flesh.

Well, what does that mean?

Well, for me not to live by the flesh, and I'm flesh, I'm gonna need a different power than my flesh.

Because my flesh keeps wanting to live like the flesh, right?

My flesh keeps wanting to hear the voices of the flesh.

So the only thing that changes that is I begin I begin hearing and understanding the voice of the spirit.

Well, my flesh is pretty powerful.

Flesh kind of gets its way a lot.

How the flesh is not gonna get its way when I yield myself to something more powerful than the flesh, which is the spirit.

Alright?

Sanctify them, and then it says, as you have sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.

Alright, this is this is a flashback.

They were sent.

They were sent in Matthew 10, they were sent in Luke 10.

They understand what this means.

They were sent, and they understand they were sent under the power and authority of Christ and the Holy Spirit.

The only way that we fulfill the calling in our life is through the power of the Spirit in our life.

We're sent, and we're not just sent flippantly, we're sent with the Spirit.

All right, so basically meaning then we live here, but this is not our home.

That we have a spiritual makeup, um, we have a different spiritual makeup than the world around us, and we have a different spiritual purpose than the world around us.

Now we get to the last supper.

I've I grew up my whole life thinking the last supper was Easter.

Um and that's still called the Last Supper.

I'm not going to change anybody's minds, but Jesus ate with them after that.

So evidently it wasn't the Last Supper.

So sorry to mess with you biblically here today.

So again, I told you that Jesus stayed with them for 40 days intermittently because he's a see cementing, he's cementing who he is in their call.

Okay, he's doing both.

He's cementing in their life who he was and their call.

All right.

And then we read this, and and so so you know I'm not lying to you.

Um, here's Acts 1, 4 through 6, here's verse 4.

Uh, on one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command.

Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift.

Say gift.

But wait for the gift my Father has promised, which you have heard me speak about.

For John baptized with water, this is an immersion.

Baptize, baptizo, this is a full on immersion.

But in a few days you will be baptized, same word, with the Holy Spirit.

Now, like them, they ask him another unrelated, related question, he lets them ask their own.

Related, related question, and then he goes on with his train of thought.

Alright, verse 8.

You will receive power.

Say power.

Alright.

So you're going to receive a gift.

And that gift is going to have power.

Not about you.

When someone tells me they're going to give me a gift, I'm all in.

Right?

If they say, hey, wait here a minute, Pastor, while I go get your gift, guess what I'm doing?

I'm waiting.

Right?

I ain't going anywhere.

Alright, I'll get to that in a minute.

You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

So witness is a be and a do.

As followers of Christ, all of our doing flows out of our being.

Who I am produces what I do.

So he said, You mean by witnesses, it's a transformation of who I am by what I experience, and then it's going to be a transformation than what I do and how I do it.

And here's why I say it's the Last Supper, because verse 9 says, after he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid from their sight.

This is amazing.

He doesn't disappear.

It's like he just starts.

And I mean, who wouldn't keep watching?

Right?

I mean, you get you, it's like the balloon that gets off your three-year-old's wrist.

I mean, they're freaking out, right?

But I mean, it had to be speechless.

It's purposeful.

I'm not disappearing.

I am who I say I am.

Now we're about to enter a new era of what this is going to look like.

And I need you to trust me.

He tells them to wait, to wait in Jerusalem.

Now, now you gotta put this in perspective.

The festival of Passover was seven days.

They're still hanging around 40 days after Passover because you gotta believe they're going, well, we saw him yesterday.

Will we see him today?

Does that make sense to you?

We saw him yesterday, will we see him today?

We didn't see him today.

Are we gonna see him tomorrow?

And and they're there, and then he'd he'd pop in and commune with them and then he'd leave and go, I ain't going anywhere.

I mean, because he might come back tomorrow.

So I mean they're staying putting in this last time.

He's telling them it's the last time.

But then he tells them to wait.

Dude, we we've been here 47 days.

I mean, the seven days of the festival, and then the four, like, I gotta go back to work.

You know, I mean, I mean, the fish didn't go catch themselves.

You know what I'm saying?

I mean, there's stuff to do, but there's, I mean, it's just the the intrigue of what's happening in the in this top.

I mean, they're hanging in there.

And then he says, hey, I need you, I need you, and he doesn't tell them how long to wait.

He doesn't, I mean, I can wait if you tell me, like, hang in an hour, you're gonna get in.

Right?

And then I measure, do I have an hour?

I mean, is this food worth it?

Right?

Are you gonna uh you're gonna beat me?

Are you gonna pay me?

You're gonna you'll text me when I get my time.

Will you give me updates?

I mean, that's how we wait.

He didn't say, wait three days, five days, six days, eight hours.

He just said, wait.

Now, somebody hopefully was smart enough in the group and said, Well, there's Pentecost coming up.

And he does things kind of on point, so maybe it's Pentecost.

But here's why they waited.

When Jesus promises you something, it's worth the wait.

He doesn't deliver disappointments with his promises.

He over, he over-delivers on his over-promises.

So they waited.

Jesus gives them no precondition of what this is going to look like.

Scripture in Acts 2 says it happens this way.

That there was a mighty rushing wind.

Have you ever heard this around tornadoes?

They say if you feel so if you hear a train coming and you don't live near a train, that's a tornado.

So mighty rushing, I mean, this was intense.

I mean, it was so intense it got other people's attention.

Mighty rushing.

He didn't say there was gonna be a mighty rushing wind.

Then it says the spirit hovered over each of the 120 in a cloven tongue of fire.

So like this.

And like, what's happening when I start seeing that pop up over your head?

And I'm looking, is it do I have, you know, do I have one?

What you know?

Tongues of fire, really?

And then they all 120 of them start speaking in a language they had never learned.

They never learned this language.

In fact, they were from the region called Galilee, who was always looked on as you ain't the smartest bunch of folks in Galilee.

The fact that you would speak multiple languages is so far fetched that it's inconceivable.

But in this particular occasion, the languages in which they were speaking all were proclaiming the glories and wonders of God.

And we know this because there were people that spoke those languages that heard the wonders of God in those languages.

Now, if at the Last Supper, Jesus says, I need you to wait 10 days, I need you to wait together, and here's what's gonna happen it's gonna sound like a tornado is coming through the room.

And then you're gonna see fire on everybody's head, and then you're gonna start talking in languages you've never you've never said before.

Like I'm wondering how many of the 110s that 120 goes, yeah, not me.

I'm sorry, I'm uh I'm out.

I mean, does it go down to 12?

Is it 30?

I mean, here's what I've discovered over my years.

The more I limit God in my life, the more my life is limited.

The more preconditions I put on what God does in me, through me, to me, the more I lose.

And so when we when we when we come to the Holy Spirit, there's so much negativity in our geographic area specifically, um of you know the Holy Spirit stopped all activity after the death of the last apostle.

Now look, I have friends that from a lot of different backgrounds.

Now, this is my personal persuasion, I mean this is how I studied what I've what I've learned, but I I don't want to argue with anybody theologically about this.

I just want to ask some simple questions.

If the Holy Spirit's activity in that manner was necessary for the active activity of the church in the first century, why not the second century and the third century and the fourth century and the twenty-first century?

I mean, what why why would have the Holy Spirit only been necessary for that limited period of time?

I I that's a that's the answer I can't ever get past.

And if it was a gift, I can't get past, well, why wouldn't the gift be mine too?

If the gift was necessary and the gift was power to be witnesses, and I'm still still supposed to witness them.

I mean, listen, I can't do supernatural work naturally, and I doubt you can either.

And we're called to be of not of this world, but in the world, so that means we're called not to be natural, we're called to be supernatural.

So if we're called to be supernatural and do supernatural things, I can't do that without the supernatural.

Okay?

So um here are here are two specific things.

Now, I preached one summer, and I don't remember which summer it was, but we archive like everything.

I mean, I sneeze, it's archived, okay?

So it's archived with notes.

There's one summer that I preached all summer long on the Holy Spirit.

There's so much in terms of the role and activity of the Holy Spirit that I obviously can't unpack right in in this time.

So I want to talk about two things that happen where you can read them in Acts 2 and you read them in Acts 3.

When the Holy Spirit comes like this and they've been speaking, speaking in other languages, it stirs up a strong segment of people that show up.

And and they they had to um they assumed that everyone was drinking.

And I say that because this is what Peter addresses at first.

So that means if he addresses it, somebody had to be talking about it and causing people to ask about it.

Like these people have been, they already been hitting the bottle.

And so Peter addresses it and says, it's nine o'clock in the morning.

Who do you think we are?

No, they haven't been drinking.

This is what's been prophesied, and he specifically points back to Joel.

This is what prophesying Joel.

They would, everyone there would have known the prophecy of Joel.

They wouldn't have known how it would have manifest, because it was just manifesting in front of them.

But that they would have known that prophecy.

But then but get this.

Just 40 two days maybe prior, a teenage girl scares Peter to reject the fact that he knows Jesus.

A teenage girl did that, to a grown man.

Oh, you know Jesus.

No, I don't know Jesus.

No, no, I'm pretty sure I saw you with Jesus.

No, no, no, that wasn't me.

No, no, yeah, I think it was you.

John is the only one.

John is close, John is close to the cross enough to hear Jesus say, Mary, this is your son.

John, this is your mom.

As far as that goes, ain't nobody close enough.

Sure as heck, not Peter.

They were all afraid.

In fact, the first time that Jesus comes in, they're in a locked room.

They're in a locked room because they're afraid.

He comes back in another locked room because one of them was missing the first time.

Thomas, I heard.

You don't think I'm real?

Come on over here.

Touch me.

And so this guy who was afraid stands up.

What's interesting, he's not the only one standing up, because you read next to it, it says, the eleven stood with Peter.

They all stand.

And Peter preaches the first post-resurrection, post-Holy Spirit message.

And he does so to a crowd that no doubt some in that crowd would have been in the crowd yelling, crucify him, crucify him to Jesus.

So the setting hasn't changed.

Forty days or so earlier, Peter's afraid of the setting.

In this setting, he stands up and he preaches the gospel, what we would call the gospel.

This man who you crucified, this is who he is.

Scripture says that they were cut to the heart and asked, What do we do now?

I don't know how that takes place in a large crowd of thousands of people.

But what Peter responds is, you need to repent and be baptized.

And 3,000, scripture says, 3,000.

I mean, someone's keeping track.

3,000 repent and baptized.

Now, years prior, Jesus is leaving some ministry moment, he decides to have a conversation with his disciples, and he says, Hey, who are people?

What are people saying about me?

What what do you hear them?

Who do they think I am?

And so there's a variety of answers thrown out.

Some think you're Elijah or something.

Well, who do you who do you guys think I am?

And Peter says, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

And Jesus responds, he says, and Peter, flesh and blood has not revealed that to you.

And he says, I on this rock I will build my church.

Now there's always kind of some debate around this.

What was he talking about?

Was he talking about him, the rock, or was he talking about Peter the Rock?

And my answer has always been yes.

Because you're Cephas, you're a little rock.

I'm the big rock.

You the little rock.

But we're gonna build this church with the big rock and a whole bunch of little rocks.

And all the satanic forces trying to keep people away from me will not be able to triumph over this big rock and all you little rocks.

And he knows that Peter's gonna be scared away from a 13-year-old.

But he knows he put that in him.

And when the spirit falls, it explodes in Peter.

We carry the same ministry call as those 120 preparing to watch, they don't even know, Jesus ascend to heaven with the promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit when he says, You will be my witnesses.

It's a gift.

I'm gonna give it to you.

It's gonna be powerful.

This power is gonna transform who you are.

I, you and I share different arenas.

Many of you and I share different arenas for where that calling comes out.

But we all share the same calling.

I mean, we say fresh starts great great friends and real purpose.

And then I got a real purpose and you got a semi-real purpose.

We all share that purpose.

We can't do that.

We can the power he's given in which to do that is a power that I want to have.

And I want to be the fullest, most powerful person that I can be.

And you should want to be the most powerful person that you can be, and the most effective person you can be in the ministry call God's placed on you.

And so to me, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the manner by which that I can then courageously fulfill my calling.

The second thing that happens, and you you flip the page in Acts 3, and in Acts 3, Peter and John are going about their normal day.

Now they're going up to the temple to pray, but every Jew went up to the temple and prayed at 9, noon, and 3.

Okay?

So I just want you, I want you to hear this more like they were on the way to Kroger.

Because you're just gonna think, oh, they're on the way to church.

But this is part of their normal day, okay, but it's after it's after the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

And um, read this in Acts chapter 3, verses 1 through 10.

Acts 3:1–10

Because what I'll draw your attention to is that there's courage for the call, but there needs to be confidence in who God is and what he promises.

And I believe the Holy Spirit does that.

All right, so here he says one day Peter and John were going to the temple at the time of prayer at three in the afternoon.

Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts.

Other historical sources have that this man was born, he was born lame.

So when someone was born lame, the Hebrews did not believe there was any healing possible for you.

That this is actually some, this was some punishment on you or your parents from God.

So it could not, there was anything that could be done reversed.

And this guy would have been there.

Who knows how many years this guy would have been there, which means who knows how many different festivals Peter would have and John would have walked past this guy.

Okay?

So this is a normal day, passing a normal guy that was doing a normal thing outside of a temple gate, asking for help.

Okay.

When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money.

Peter looked straight at him, as did John.

Then Peter said, look at us.

So the man gave, I mean, it's like, hey, look at us.

I mean, it wasn't like, hey, look at us.

Right?

You know what I'm saying?

It's look at us.

I mean, he's so the man gave him his attention, expecting to get something from them.

Then Peter said, Silver or gold, I don't have, but what I do have, I give you.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.

And taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong.

He jumped to his feet and began to walk.

Then he went with them into the temple courts, because he would have been restricted from the temple.

He never went into the temple.

He was always outside of the temple until this day.

When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate, called beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

What was the difference this day than any other day Peter and John would have walked past him?

They still didn't have any money.

Their confidence in who Christ was and what Christ can do superseded their lack in front of a great need.

Do you and I pass people every single day with a need that completely outstrips what we have all the time?

All the time.

But in this case, Peter and John are not, they're not dismayed by the fact that they don't have what this person is looking for.

Can I tell you, before you knew Christ, you did not know what you were looking for?

Isn't that a pretty accurate statement?

That you didn't, you knew, you might have known what you didn't want anymore, but you did not fully know what you wanted and what he was able to give you.

And that's the people, if you're a follower of Christ, we encounter all the time.

Some don't even know what they what they don't have.

But the fact of the matter, it's easy to walk past people when you don't believe you have what they need.

And this story tells me that we walk past people all the time that have what we need in Christ.

Do we have the confidence of a Peter and John that would say, Brian, I don't have what you're looking for, but there can I tell you about something that you don't know to look for?

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and grabs the dude's arm.

Right?

I mean, the man reaches up.

I mean, I can just see this synergy happening, this like simultaneous reach.

Like, I believe what I'm telling you.

Boom! And it says, as he rose, his ankles gained strength.

And look, if you've been kept outside the temple all your life and now you get you get access, you going.

You going.

I think just from the textual thing of Acts 1, 2, and 3, this is this is what I see.

That being that the Holy Spirit baptism.

Now look, I get it.

Some do not believe that it's a second, a secondary work of grace.

Pentecostal charismatic tradition, that's what we hold to.

And here's why.

I'm telling you that's what I believe.

All the disciples were baptized with John's baptism.

What was that baptism?

It was a baptism of repentance.

Okay?

So they're saved.

Jesus, his first encounter with them in the locked room, scripture says that he breathed on them the Holy Spirit.

He breathed on them the Holy Spirit.

And we still have in Acts 2, we have an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

I mean, how do you know when you've been water baptized?

You dripping.

You come out out of the water, and it's you're wet.

Like all of you.

You're wet.

See, I think that the baptism of the Holy Spirit happens in a perceptible manner.

There is a perceptive change about who you are.

Something that you can't miss.

There's been something changed.

Now, my tradition says it's it's languages, that it's tongues, known, unknown.

It's hard to deny when you read the book of Acts that languages accompany the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

I I've just landed that maybe the first, maybe the first indicator of baptism of the Holy Spirit may be tears.

This just overwhelming sense of change.

I remember praying for an older woman years and years and years ago, prayed for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and she starts laughing.

That kind of unnerved me a little bit.

And so, finished up the ministry time, and I said, Help me understand why you laughed.

She said, Pastor, I've been under such heavy burden.

So long with my health and the health of my kids.

I haven't laughed in years.

I haven't laughed.

I haven't felt enough peace to laugh in years.

And so it made sense to me.

Then this here's this perceptible change in her.

I have yet to hear mighty rushing wind.

I have yet to see fire on somebody's head.

I just don't really care what God does and how he does it as long as he does it.

So we're going to pray in two different veins today.

One, we're going to pray that if you feel dry, I mean, Paul said to be continually filled in the Spirit.

Okay?

So there might be a spiritual dryness to you, and you're a follower of Christ, and you know the Holy Spirit dwells in you, today I'm going to ask you if you if you want to be filled and immersed in the Spirit.

Like it's not sprinkled to stand.

All I'm going to do is ask you to stand.

If you've never heard of this before, if this is brand spanking new to you, yes, there can be more conversations.

Yes, you can study more.

But I just read you the Bible today.

I didn't read you Charlie, I read you the Bible.

And I believe there's enough there.

But if you want more, here's here's Dean and I, we've we've gone over this for years and years.

So I even when I, he's walking in and said, Dean, I'm gonna give you your favorite line today.

I don't know how many years ago I preached on the Holy Spirit, and here's what my conclusion: if God has more, I don't want less.

So there's plenty of things God's done in my life I do not understand and cannot explain to you.

What I can is when I limit him, I'm limited.

That's the new one, Dean.

That's the new one.

When I limit God, I'm limited.

So whatever this is and you want this, I'm gonna also ask you to stand at the same time.

And I'm just gonna ask you to stand where you are and ask Luke 11.

Whoever wants to be filled with the Spirit, whoever wants the Spirit, ask.

Just ask.

The second vein we're gonna walk in is the confidence in the Holy Spirit for healing.

Okay?

So it's complicated.

We're gonna have to chew gum and walk at the same time in the next 15 minutes.

And each time we've ever had special time of prayer for if you're emotionally, spiritually, or physically not whole, I mean, there, I mean, there's just lines.

So it's not gonna be easy.

This is not gonna be easy.

And I've tried to figure out how to do it smoothly, and I gave up.

Okay?

So look, we've pushed the stairs in.

There will be elders here in front for prayer.

You can line up in the center, you can line up in here.

I'm gonna pray with people.

But the gift of healing doesn't rest in Charlie's hands.

It rests in the believers that believe that God can hear it answer.

Why does God heal some and not others?

I've had that wrestle.

My mom was not healed.

And I've also prayed with people that's been healed.

I heard one person tell me they lost their son just two weeks ago.

And they said, I'm disappointed in the outcome, but I'm not disappointed in God.

And I thought, wow.

Wow.

So in that case, I would encourage you, I don't care how many times you're asked, are you still walking through it?

I'd keep asking if I were you.

I'd keep asking.

And we'll keep anointing and continue to pray with full confidence in the spirit, trusting that God will do and that God has all of us in his hands.

You with me?

Everybody clear what we're gonna do?

Because sometimes I'm not clear.

All right.

So if you if you are experiencing that dry seas that I'm talking about and you want to be immersed in the spirit today, or you want to be immersed for the first time in the spirit today and receive God's promise for you with power, I want you to stand up where you are.

We hope you were encouraged and challenged by today's message.

Again, to learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, find us online at gatewayfranklin.com.

Thanks for joining us today.