Clarify the Presence - Acts 2:1-13

Well, good morning, everybody. Would you help me welcome all of our campuses that are worshiping this morning with us? So great to have all of you today. So great to be here. And I wanna let you know one thing is as Pastor John talked about it here, we're gonna start 21 days of team prayer a week from Monday, August 11th. You will get these books next week. These are to help you and prompt you, would encourage you to think about who you can be praying with, whether it's your spouse or a friend or a cadre, different group of people at your work. There are QR codes every day. Kim and I will lead you through some prayer times. We'll teach you how to get into the word. We'll teach you how to battle in prayer. We'll teach you how to bless the person that you're praying with, with your words. And there's a section that you can journal in there of everything that God wants you to become. And I promise if you journey through this 21 days, this will change you and the people that you pray with. So be thinking about how you wanna do that. And again, next week, we'll pass these out for you to have. And with that, let's continue our worship as we go before the Lord to hear His heart to us this morning, would you pray with me?

Our Father in heaven, we give you all the glory, honor and praise for who you are. And Lord, we ask in these moments that we have together that you would speak ever so clearly to us. Lord, we came here this morning to worship you. We came here this morning to praise you, to pray to you and to hear a word from you. And Lord, we as a people believe that every time your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed that you are speaking. So our prayer this morning is speak Lord, for we are ready to hear. And so now for all those who have gathered who desire to hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak directly to you, who will believe what He tells you and who will by faith put into practice what He shows you. Will you agree with me very loudly this morning by saying the word, amen. Amen. In 2013, there may have been the most memorable Super Bowl that ever took place, Super Bowl 47. And for even for those of you that don't watch sports, you probably heard about this. The San Francisco 49ers were playing the Baltimore Ravens and everything was going along just as planned until the middle of the third quarter when all the power in the New Orleans Superdome went out. And for 34 minutes, there were no passes completed, there were no rushing taking place, there were no great plays, there were no tackles.

In spite of all the preparation, in spite of all the practice, in spite of all the talent in the field, the fact that all the players were there, all the officials were there, nobody could do anything until what? Until the power got turned on in the building. The church is the same. The church is the same. You can gather, you can preach sermons, you can sing songs, you can pray prayers, but if the Holy Spirit is not the one driving the ministry, it's completely insignificant. What we read about in Acts chapter two is the dispensing of the Holy Spirit into the believers of Christ at that time and the significance of that going forward. And it's important for us to understand this because as we've been in a series called Clarify the Call, we've been clarifying what the mission is. Last week, we clarified the foundation, the most important principles that we need to be doing while we're waiting on the Lord to work. And today we're gonna talk about clarifying the presence. And the presence is His presence and His presence is the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, God of all gods, who's always been here. And so as we read in Acts chapter two, He's gonna spell out for us,

how do we clarify the presence? How do we clarify the Holy Spirit's job, the Holy Spirit's ministry, what the Holy Spirit does? So if you have your Bible this morning, I wanna encourage you, open up to Acts chapter two. We're gonna be in verses one to 13. I'll read those and then we'll unpack four truths about clarifying the presence. Understanding this changes everything in your life individually and everything in the church. Understanding who the Holy Spirit is and how He works changes everything in your life and in the church. So it's important that we pay attention this morning. Here's what He says. When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place and suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as a fire distributing themselves and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when the sound occurred, the crowd came together and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished saying,

why are not all these speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes, Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontius in Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the districts of Libya and Cyrene and the visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes. Cretans and Arabs, we hear them in our own tongues speaking the mighty deeds of God. And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity saying to one another, what does this mean? But others were mocking and saying they are full of sweet wine. And here is Acts chapter two gets spelled out, which may be one of the most important chapters in the birth of the church and the significance in the history of the church. We read in the beginning of this, how we can clarify the presence of the Lord in and through and among his people. And I'm gonna give you four truths today that you need to understand about God's presence and God's Holy Spirit. And the first is this, that God's presence is personal and fulfills his promise. God's presence is personal and fulfills his promise. It says this, when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Now this day of Pentecost was 50 days

after Jesus ascended into heaven. And so what we have here is the disciples were told to wait upon the Lord. And what happens in the Jewish calendars, they had the Feast of Weeks, which was seven weeks, so 49 days, Pentecost was the 50th day. Pentecost had been come to known as the day that they celebrated the giving of the law at Sinai. And now what they're gonna celebrate and what we still celebrate to this day is the dispensing of the Holy Spirit. But here's what I want you to see in your text. It says they were all gathered together in one place. Now, why is that important? Because Jesus told them all to go wait in Jerusalem until the promise Holy Spirit had come. And what you have in Acts chapter two is they've been doing what Jesus said and now guess what they're doing? They're all still doing it, all of them. It wasn't, we learned last week there was about 120 in the upper room. They're all still there. It wasn't that some said, we've been waiting long enough. You know, we got a ball game. You know, we got a Juana this week on Wednesday night. We got, you know, we got this vacation we gotta take. I'm not sticking around for it. This is taking too long. What you have is a group of people

that were desperate for the full measure of what the Lord wanted. Now, you need to understand something. God is not dependent upon me and you. God can do whatever he wants. The Holy Spirit can move in whatever ways he wants. He doesn't need my permission to do that. However, the Holy Spirit prefers to work among people that are dependent and surrendered among him. And that's what we're seeing here in the book of Acts. They were doing exactly what Jesus told them to do. So they're waiting on the Lord. They're all together and notice this. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them as tongues of fire distributing themselves and they rested on each of them. Now, this is violent, mighty, rushing wind. I mean, can you imagine the sound? Now, the sound is so loud it's gonna attract the whole town. Everybody in Jerusalem is gonna hear that sound and it was happening in this one room. Not only was this going on, but tongues like fire were separating and going over each of the 120 people in the room. Can you imagine had you been there what you might be thinking? I mean, this massive violent noise like a wind is whipping through so loud

that everybody in Jerusalem hears it. And while that's happening, tongues of fire are being placed over every single person in the room. Wow, right? I mean, if you're there, you're saying, okay, this is what he promised. This is what's happening. There's something different going on here. And you need to understand this about God's Holy Spirit. When he comes, his presence is personal and it fulfills his promise. All throughout the Old Testament, there was the promise of a new covenant. There was a promise of the Holy Spirit coming in Jeremiah chapter 31, in the end of verse 33, he says, I will put my law within them on their heart and I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people. There was a promise of this new covenant the night that Jesus was betrayed, when he took the cup, he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. What's this new covenant? This new covenant is the promise of Jesus' blood that cleanses us from all unrighteousness and the fulfillment that the Holy Spirit's going to come and indwell all of his people.

This was the moment where that took place. Now think about this. When the disciples had learned that Jesus had, they knew he had died, but when they had learned that he had rose, even the doubtful one like Thomas, once he had placed his fingers in the wounds and in the side, believed that Jesus was the Christ, Jesus told them, I'm going away. And it's good for you that I'm going away because if I go away, I will send you. Another one, the promised Holy Spirit, which tells me this. He said he was gonna tell his father to send the Holy Spirit, which tells us this. Everything Jesus says, he does. He's always true to his word. I'm going to heaven. I'm gonna tell my father to send the Holy Spirit to you. So what did he do? He went to heaven. He told his father to send the Holy Spirit and God sent the Holy Spirit, which means everything you read that Jesus says is true. When Jesus says, behold, I'm coming soon, do you know what that means? Behold, I'm coming soon. Everything he says is true. So the Holy Spirit is coming and here's what he told his disciples who didn't want him to go,

who said, why would you leave now? Like, we know who you are. You're the king. Is it at this time you're gonna restore the kingdom to Israel? He's like, not for you to worry about dates and times, but you'll be my witnesses in both Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And it's good that I'm going away because you'll do the works that I've been doing and greater works than even these you'll do because I'm going to the father. What was he saying? When the Holy Spirit comes in and dwells you, I'll be with you everywhere you go. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. I'll be with you always to the very end of the age. So what's happening here is the dispensing of the Holy Spirit. And as we went through in our series, the only God, when we talked about the Holy Spirit, let me just highlight five of these ministries that happen in the life of a born again believer at the moment that they believe. Five ministries of the Holy Spirit. The first is this, regeneration. Titus 3, five says you've been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Why do you need to be regenerated by the Holy Spirit?

Because you're born dead. You're spiritually dead. Everyone must be born again. You can't make yourself alive. You need God's help. You need his grace. So the Holy Spirit is dispensed to make you alive. He regenerates you. He also baptizes you. First Corinthians 12, 13 says every believer has been baptized into the family of God. We've been immersed into the family of God. Even if you, quote, didn't have a good family, you have a good family now because God is your father and we're brothers and sisters in Christ and we've been placed into that family, amen? So we've been regenerated. We've been baptized. The Bible also says that we've been sealed or marked with a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance in the saints in Ephesians 1, 13 and 14. So God puts his mark or his seal on you. Nothing can change that. He's already made a down payment for your life and he's gonna present you faultless before the father. And then he also does this. He indwells every single believer. Romans 8, 9 says that if you do not have the spirit of Christ, you are not of Christ. Every born again believer has the spirit of God

indwell them. It is Christ in us, the hope of glory. You search the world. You can read every world religion you want. Not one can make the claim. Not one makes the claim, I believe, but no one can deliver on the claim that God will come live inside of you if you believe. Christianity makes that claim. Christianity delivers on that promise. And when the Holy Spirit comes into your life, he's with you forever. He will never leave you or forsake you. He will not abandon you. You are never ever alone again. Now think about how important this is. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come on people and then leave people. Sometimes he would leave because they sinned. Sometimes he left people because he was done doing the work. That's why when David sinned with Bathsheba in Psalm 51, what does he pray? Do not take your Holy Spirit from me. New Testament, he'll never leave you. We live in the greatest dispensation in the history of the world is that Christ through his Holy Spirit comes to live in us. And everybody who's born again has the fullness of the spirit of God in them because of guess what?

The Holy Spirit is a person, which means when he comes into your life, he's not a force. He's not coming in as a partial force. He comes in as a person, much like I would tell you, if you invited me to your house to dinner and you saw us pull up in the car and you called your spouse and said, hey, Jeff and Kim are here and say, is all of them here or is some of them here? How much of them's there? If I was coming in piecemeal, I wouldn't be a person. When the Holy Spirit comes, he comes as a person. You get all of him. The question is always, does he have all of you? If you're born again, you have all of the Holy Spirit. You don't need to go seeking all these secondary, third, fourth, fifth experiences to make sure you have more of him. You have all of him. Here's the question, does he have all of you? Which is why he has another ministry that we talk about, which starts at conversion, but is more dependent upon you. And that's called the filling of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5.18 says, do not be drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery or wastefulness, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. Meaning this, don't be controlled by substances. Don't be controlled by. side forces, but be controlled by the Spirit.

The more you're surrendered to Christ, the more you're obedient and walking in Christ, the more you'll experience the fullness of the Spirit in you but you're not getting more of the Spirit, you have all of the Spirit, He's just having more reign with you. The challenge, the reason that we grieve the Spirit or quench the Spirit is because we decide I don't wanna surrender that area of my life to Him. God, don't you dare mess up my dating life. God, you can't touch my spouse, those are my kids, this is my time, that's my vacation. We have these deals that we make with God and when we don't let Him have full reign in our life, we begin to grieve Him or quench Him, which means having the Holy Spirit's fullness is not about you hearing a message of, oh, I got an anger problem, I need to work on that, it's admitting that you're sinful, confessing that sin and asking the Holy Spirit to change you, your behaviors, your attitudes and the way that you walk it out and the more surrendered you are to Christ, the more of the Spirit you're gonna have in your life, amen? If you don't know much about the Holy Spirit and even the five ministries I'm telling you about say, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, let me tell you the number one ministry of the Holy Spirit, to make Jesus Christ look really, really good. That's what excites the Holy Spirit,

wants to make Christ look good. The word was penned by the Holy Spirit to make Christ look good. The Holy Spirit in your life is to make Christ look good. What He's trying to do when He enters and comes in, as I've said many times, is not to come in as resident, but to come in as president, He's coming to take it over and lead, you like that, don't you, Howie? Yeah, He is, that's what He's doing and so this is the promise from Jeremiah 31, Joel 2 said, I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh, both men and women. John 14, 17, Jesus said, I'll send you another one, He will abide with you and He'll be in you. In Acts 1, 5, He said, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So what we have here is this long awaited arrival of a person and everything's different. They went from grieving the fact that Jesus had left them and went to heaven knowing He was coming back to celebrating the fact that Christ was still with them in every way because He indwelled them. This long awaited arrival should feel much like if you've ever seen those YouTube videos of a soldier that's been overseas for a year or two, if you're seeing those videos where they come back but they don't tell their wives or their kids that they're coming home and all of a sudden you see a soldier standing in the school or he's standing in the house or he goes

to the business place of his spouse and all of a sudden he's just standing there, standing there, they don't recognize, they don't realize he's there until they turn around and see and all of a sudden that fourth grade kid turns around and sees their dad they haven't seen in two years and sprints and just hugs him or the spouse turns around just hugs him because they came in uninterrupted and they didn't expect that's exactly what's going on here. The Holy Spirit is coming in and changing lives and if you're born again that is exactly what happens. The Holy Spirit takes up residence and evidentially you know this because if the Holy Spirit's inside of you you're gonna think different, your thoughts are gonna be different. If you try to sin the same sins you did before the Holy Spirit was in there they're just not gonna feel as good anymore and you're gonna feel a level of conviction you didn't feel before, that's how you know because the Holy Spirit is saying no, you belong to Christ now so I'm gonna make you like Jesus and I'm changing your life to the extent that you're gonna let me because I wanna present you, I wanna give you to Jesus to be presented faultless before the Father and that's what we have going on here. We have the fact that the person of the Holy Spirit is coming in to the lives of born again believers

and taking up residence in their life and prior to this time that had never happened, amen? And now it's happening and who gets to have this? Every person who's been regenerated by the Spirit, every single one, there's 120 in the upper room that are all experiencing this at one time. So God's presence is personal, he wants you to get to know him because he knows everything about you, he wants you to get to know him and he fulfills his promise, everything promised by the Holy Spirit has taken place. Let me give you a second one. God's presence is not only personal but God's presence is transforming and fuels Christ's witness. God's presence is transforming and fuels Christ's witness. Notice verse four in Acts chapter two, it says, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. That's meant they were all controlled by the Holy Spirit and they begin to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. later that these tongues are languages because everybody's hearing the language in their own ears. There's at least 15 different languages, probably more including dialects that people are speaking, which mean this, it's not just the 12 apostles that are speaking in other languages, it's all 120 of them. So when the spirit of God comes on them, he begins to transform them. And he says that we're hearing the mighty, marvelous works of God. So what are they doing when the Holy Spirit comes into their life? They can't help but praise the Lord. They can't help but become worshipers. They can't help but to declare the glories and the mysteries of God. Why? Because the one that they love the most is now living inside of them and they can't help but speak on that. And here's the reality. If the Holy Spirit has a full hold of your life,

you can't stop talking about him. You can't stop talking about him. And it's not because you have to go do this. This is not a message of you better go evangelize. You better go tell people. I don't know if I feel up to it. Whatever you love the most, you talk about. The Broncos, not the Cowboys. Nobody talks about the Cowboys. They don't. The show you saw, the vacation you were on, the restaurant you ate at, whatever you enjoy, whatever's coming, that's what you talk about. Even introverts talk about those things. And so here's what's going on. They're filled with the Spirit. The living God of the universe took up residence in their life and is taking over their life. And they can't help but talk about the glories and majesty of God. It's automatic. If that's not happening in your life to the full measure you think, it's not like, well, I need to speak more to God. Or I don't know if I like this church because they're making us go out and talk. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm going back to the basics and saying, if you'll go back and say, Jesus, I really want you to take over every part of my life. And Jesus, I really want you to be Lord in every area. And Lord, would you show me any area in my life that's hindering you from having your full way with me? Is there anything that's grieving you right now? Is there any way I'm quenching you right now? Is there any area in my life that's not surrendered to you right now? If so, reveal that to me because I want to surrender it afresh to you so that you can grow and change me. And when you walk like that, step by step by step, not perfectly like we say, but what increasingly the Holy Spirit takes up a fuller reign in your life and begins to control things, including your mouth, your mind, your attitudes, your behaviors, all those things begin to change over time because the Holy Spirit is there. Amen? I mean, we even see in Acts 4, verse 31. It's interesting because these disciples, even after Jesus rose from the dead, they were scared to death. They were hiding behind doors. They didn't want to talk to anybody they feared for their lives. What we're going to see from this moment on in the book of Acts, they're no longer cowards. They're speaking up to anybody. When they're threatened of being beaten or being put in prison or being put to death, here's what they're like. You can do to us whatever you want. That's up to you, but we will not stop preaching and teaching about Jesus Christ. Why would they do that? Because they were so filled with the Holy Spirit. Because they were so surrendered to Jesus. And when the Holy Spirit takes over, that's how you begin to act. He transforms your life. He begins to fuel your witness. You change

from the inside out. It's like this, you know, think about a lump of coal that's dark, hard, and cold, but if you expose it to fire and pressure over time, it can become a diamond over time. It can heat an entire city. Why? Because it's transformed by that which is having a force on it. The Holy Spirit is the God of the universe. And if you will allow the Holy Spirit to take over your life, He will transform you into everything that He wants you to be. But I find that too often, we're the ones that get in the way. We're the ones that say, you know, I don't know if I want you to do that. And there's been so many different iterations in my own life. I remember when I was called to the ministry when I was 24. I told the Lord, I'd go anywhere and do anything. There's only one thing I really didn't want to do. And that's what He called me to do. It was at a time, doors were opening up in Russia. People were going all over the world. I'm like, I'll do that. I'm single. I can go anywhere. Put me on an adventure. And God called me to be a youth director in a church. I had applied to Campus Crusade, got accepted. Fellowship of Christian Athletes, got accepted. I'm like, that's fun. I love that. I didn't even like going to youth group when I was a youth. Like now I'm going to lead one. But it was so clear that's what God was calling me to do. So even when I was talking to my friends and they're like, what are you going to do? You're going to work in a church and do what? I'm like, well, I'm going to work with youth. I'm going to share the gospel, but don't worry. I'm not going to be one of those geeky youth pastors that sits around on the weekend and plays guitar. That's what I told everybody. And even when I went to this training to be a youth director, they taught us how to play these songs or sing these songs. They said, but you gotta learn how to delegate. There'll be people in your church, because I said, well, I don't play. They said, well, there'll be people in your church who can play guitar. You don't have to worry about that, but just make sure you're teaching people to sing praises to Jesus. I'm like, okay. So we decided we would do a youth service

on Saturday night when I got to my church. Guess how many people in my church could play the guitar? Zero. I started praying about it, and God's like, I want you to do it. Guess who had to go buy a guitar? Guess who had to learn about three to five chords? First service on the weekend. E minor and G. You remember this song, Humble Thyself in the Side of the Lord? Those of you who've been in church, humble thyself in the side of the Lord. You remember that? I'm playing that song for our youth, and all I'm thinking in my head while I'm singing that is, you are a sissy in the side of the Lord. I mean, I was doing the very thing I told the Lord I would never do, right? And that was kind of the first step, and there's been several iterations, and I would love to tell you all my pride disappeared at that time, and I've always done everything Jesus has wanted to since then. It's not true, and so there's things in our life and seasons that God takes us through so that he can break down our pride and say, are you willing to do that? I remember when I first became a Christian,

I was at a restaurant one time, and I got asked to pray, and I remember thinking like, out loud? Like at the restaurant? It was just foreign to me, and it wasn't because I didn't love Jesus, I just hadn't been there yet, so I'm praying out loud at the restaurant, and I'm thinking, man, this is really, really strange. I can't imagine not praying before a meal. I just can't. I mean, the Bible doesn't say you have to pray before meals, but we always do. As a family, no matter where we are, sometimes we'll ask the server if we can pray for them, but at the time, that was like massive faith to see people in public mention Jesus, right? And so as you grow and the Holy Spirit takes up more resonance in your life, there's a greater and greater confidence to continue to talk about him, amen? His presence transforms you. If you're the same person that you've been ever since you got saved, I would question whether the Holy Spirit is really inside of you, because how could the God of the universe come to live inside of you and nothing changed? I mean, it's impossible. It doesn't mean that everything in your life's perfect. It doesn't mean everything in your life's

completely sanctified. It doesn't mean you do everything right from here. No, but it means that you're aware of the voice of the Lord through his word, and when you hear it, you're gonna change who you are because you want to live for him, amen? I mean, the spirit of God didn't just land on the disciples. The spirit of God transformed them, and that's what the spirit of God continues to do. Let me give you a third. God's presence is empowering and prompts your proclamation. His presence is empowering and prompts your proclamation. Notice this, it says, now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven, and when the sound occurred, the crowd came together, and they're bewildered, they're totally confused because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language, and they're amazed and astounded, saying, why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? Like, aren't they from that region? How do they know this language? How can they speak in our dialect? I mean, it would be like me, if I were speaking this morning, speaking fluent Mandarin, and somebody was here whose Mandarin is their native tongue, be like, man, Pastor Jeff preaches that perfectly. How did they do that? And it was the Holy Spirit that had empowered them to do that very thing.

And here's the 15 nations, you have Parthians and Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, here's what they said. We hear them in our own tongue speaking of the mighty deeds of God. They're saying, how in the world is this happening? Now with AI today, artificial intelligence, you've seen me, I'm multilingual now. It can take my message, my mouth, change it, speak fluent German, fluent Russian, fluent Spanish, all those different things. This is before the days of AI. They're just talking this way. People are hearing them in this way. They're understanding. Tongues in Acts chapter two is languages. That's what it means. They weren't just saying gibberish, they were saying languages, right? And that's what's going on here. And so as they're speaking this, what you see is this. Here's what I want you to know. The Holy Spirit does not dispense his gifting and his power in your life just for us to huddle up as Christians and hang out together.

He dispenses his gifts to build one another up so we can have a proclamation out in the world. That's the purpose of the Holy Spirit. And I wanna say this, because I need to say this, you want the fullness of the Holy Spirit in your life. Much like you, I've been a believer for 35 years. I've been in a lot of meetings. Some have been a little bit crazy. I've seen a of what people call the Holy Spirit, but keep in mind this, you never have to turn off your mind to allow the Holy Spirit to take up full residence in your life. It's not like, well, stop thinking about it, just trust the Spirit. No, no, think about it and trust the Spirit. God gave us, we want us to love God with our mind. You don't need to turn off your mind. So when you see something and you're watching it and you got people laughing and slithering on the floor acting like a bunch of idiots, you need to read your Bible and say, does that really reflect who Jesus is? Had I ever seen Jesus roll around on the floor and giggle and laugh with his disciples? Is that what he's trying to accomplish? I don't see it. So I don't say that's of the Holy Spirit. I believe it's of a spirit, right?

I mean, you don't have to turn off your mind and you don't have to listen to some charlatan that has, you know, quote unquote authority, because none of us have authority. The word always has authority over us, tell you that was the Holy Spirit. When it's the Holy Spirit, nobody needs to tell you it's the Holy Spirit, you'll know it's the Holy Spirit. Now I'll tell you this, I have been in environments where I've seen the Holy Spirit do things that I'd never seen him do before, or speak through somebody a prophetic word for somebody. How did they know that before? Or see somebody get healed in a powerful way? I believe in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. I don't believe in a lot of the crazy chaos that I see certain people have. So when you're saying, I don't wanna become like them, you don't have to be, you wanna become like Jesus. Does that make sense? Secondly, I wanna say this, you don't need to worry about this second experience, like this baptism of the Spirit as if you're a second class Christian because you haven't had a second experience. The reality is you've been given the full measure of the Holy Spirit the day you believed. Now through different fillings over time, there may be this filling or this filling or this filling, you experience different experiences with the Lord,

you may get different gifts with the Lord, you may have an encounter with the Lord where I didn't know how to do this, now I know how to do this. I believe that, but I don't believe there's like one second experience, I believe there's constant fillings that the more the Holy Spirit controls your life, there can be more things. And I say that because sometimes I see Christians get told, have you got the baptism of the Holy Spirit yet? No, well, yeah, you did when you were converted, the Bible says that you did, you were baptized into the family of God. What they're talking about is a filling of the Holy Spirit. Here's my biggest question, are you allowing the Holy Spirit to control your life to the full? Are you surrendering every area of your life so that the Holy Spirit can have full reign in your life? That's the question you wanna answer. Don't seek experiences, seek God, amen? And so what you have here is, you see that God's presence is empowering. So God gifted every single believer. If you're born again, you've been gifted by the Holy Spirit for what purpose? To build other people up in the body of Christ so that we collectively are stronger when we go out and make proclamation for the Lord.

That's the purpose of the Spirit. There are too many people in the body of Christ that think the gifts are only for the church and then we gotta go to meeting after meeting, we gotta have 17 meetings a week and what's God gonna do in our meeting to make us feel really, really good? I love when I feel good when I'm around the Lord. I don't always, but sometimes I do. And when I do, that's great, but that's not the purpose. God didn't save you so that he could give you tingles for the rest of your life. God saved you because he gifted you to help other people in the body of Christ so that we could go be more effective in our witness of Christ. And you are witnesses, men, women, boys, girls, you're witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ everywhere you go in how you live and in how you what? Speak. And let me just say this too, to give you confidence. Sometimes when I'm talking to people, they're like, I'm not sure I'm saved anymore. How do I know that I'm saved? I don't really experience the assurance of my salvation. And I could walk you to verses, but here's a better way. Trials and sufferings are the evidence that you're still saved. God takes you through trials and God takes you through sufferings

because if you're truly born again, you'll only hang on to Jesus even more. And the more you suffer and the more you go through trials, the more assurance you're gonna have that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Right? Now, none of us want trials and none of us want suffering. God says, I'm gonna give you both in the measure that I decide for you when I decide it for you. And that's why they're trials and that's why they're sufferings because we would have never chose our trials and we would have never chose our sufferings. But when you go through it, he's refining you like a diamond to present you faultless before the Father. So when you go through trials and when you go through sufferings, you're not rejoicing about the trial or about the suffering. You're rejoicing in the Lord in every circumstance that he's taking you through that. And I can tell you after walking with the Lord for 35 years, it's those seasons where you're hanging on deeper and you're trusting more and you're saying, okay, here we go again. No amount of money will soothe my heart. No person can get me out of this jam. No. Lord, you've got to show up in my life

and I'm hanging on to you until we either get through this or you take me home. And when the Lord brings you through that, then all of a sudden it's like, praise the Lord. I love him even so much more now than I ever did before. Amen? That's what it means to be empowered by the Spirit. The reason that every single person is gifted is because you're called to serve the body of Christ in some church. Reason everybody's gifted is so that you can be built up by other people in the body for the purpose of advancing the cause of Christ in the world, in your sphere of influence that nobody else has. And that's why we're all gifted. That's why serving in the church is not optional. Sharing our faith is not optional. If it feels optional, I'm not telling you start signing up today. I'm not telling you get out there and share. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, if that's not the posture of your heart, I would get before the Lord and say, Lord, is there any reason in my life that I'm not willing to serve? What's off? Lord, is there any reason in my life that I'm not willing to share my faith with other people? Lord, just show me, what's up? What's wrong with me?

Maybe you're aware of it, maybe you're not. And if there is something, the Holy Spirit is the best in the world at showing you exactly what that is. And He can do it with great conviction and great love all at the same time. And that's what He wants, because He knows that your fullness of joy and peace is gonna come from serving Him by being empowered by Him. And when the Spirit of God is doing His work, everything changes. It doesn't matter what your gifting is in the body of Christ, whether it's encouragement, administration, preaching, whatever it is, when your gifting is empowered by the Holy Spirit, everything changes. I mean, Jesus told His disciples when they were concerned about what they were gonna say in Matthew 10 in verse 20, He's like, it's not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2, when talking about the way that his messages worked, he said, my messages were not with persuasive words, but in a demonstration of the power of the Spirit. Do you know if the Lord spoke to me and said, Jeff, I'm done helping you on Sundays preach, you're on your own, just give a good speech, I would never come.

I have nothing to offer. There's nothing that I'm gonna do. The only reason I stand here is because the Word of God tells me that if I proclaim the Word faithfully, the Holy Spirit will use that Word, the Holy Spirit will convict hearts, the Holy Spirit will transform people and change them. And so when I hear feedback, hey, your message here, your message there, or you spoke on this or you spoke on that, sometimes I don't even remember saying those things. And quite frankly, sometimes I didn't say those things. The Holy Spirit said those things using His Word to your heart. That's why I preach, amen? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. So what the church is not looking for is more gifted people by the world standard. Man, if we got that guy saved, he's totally rich, he can help us. We got that guy saved, he's a great influencer. We don't need that. We need people that are gifted by the Spirit that are surrendered to the Spirit, that are allowing God to use them. And when the Spirit of God uses somebody,

when you're around somebody that has the gift of compassion and they're empowered by the Spirit and you're going through a hard time, you cling to them. When you're around somebody that's an encourager and you need a word and they're gifted by the Spirit, you take that in like rain on a desert. Like when you're with somebody that's gifted by the Spirit, you're like, that's what I needed because I heard God and that encouraged my heart. And all of you that are born again have been gifted by the Spirit just like that. And that's why the devil lies and says, you don't have any gifts, there's nothing you can offer, there's nothing you can do, nobody even likes you. Why do you think he lies to you like that? Because he doesn't wanna see your gifting unleashed. God's presence is empowering and it prompts your proclamation. They couldn't help but speak of the mighty words of God. Let me give you a final one. God's presence, this is important that you hear this. God's presence is divisive and it necessitates a decision. God's presence is divisive, it necessitates a decision. The Holy Spirit doesn't just come in a quiet little cloud and envelop you and love you and tell you, whatever you wanna do, I'm totally fine with. That's not who the Holy Spirit is. He's coming to show you that Jesus Christ is Lord and he wants you to do something with that. So notice this, the greatest move to date at this time

of the Holy Spirit in the history of the world, it says in verse 12, and they all continued in amazement and great perplexity saying to one another, what does this mean? Here's what they're saying. We've never seen anything like this. We've never experienced anything like this. What is this that's going on? Now, Peter, as we talk next week, he's gonna explain all that's going on as he preaches the gospel and tells them what this is. But they're like amazed, like this is amazing. We've never seen or experienced anything like this. I mean, this wind comes rushing through tongues of fire on our head. We're speaking in different languages. The whole town's gathered and they're all hearing us glorify God in languages that we don't know, but they're saying is perfect in the language that they're understanding. What in the world? This is amazing. God's great. Verse 13, but others were mocking and saying, they're full of sweet wine. The greatest move in the history of the church to date, there were people that were amazed, overwhelmed, awestruck, and there were others looking at the exact same experience saying, that's what it looks like when you get drunk. There's a bunch of drunk people.

They've been drinking in that upper room. That's all it is. We can explain that away. And that's what you have every time there's a genuine move of the Spirit of God. You will have some that will say, thank you, Jesus, for your move and all that you're doing. And you'll have others that mock and say, that's nothing more than just emotionalism. That's all it is. And here's why. First Corinthians 1.18 says that the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. The gospel's utter foolishness, which means those of us that preach it like me are fools according to the world. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 10, verse 34, Jesus said, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. He said, I came to divide families, came to divide households, mothers against kids and kids against their parents. I came to divide. I didn't come to unite. Why? Because I wanted people to know that I need their full allegiance. And if they're not gonna give their full allegiance to me, it's gonna divide whatever you're trying to build on the earth. That's why I came.

So the Holy Spirit's job is to make a lot of Jesus. So the Holy Spirit's job is to say, Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. The Holy Spirit's job is to show that Jesus Christ died on the cross, shed his blood for all the sins of the world and rose from the dead. And he and only he has the ability to forgive sins. He and only he is the only true God that can save people. And if you're unrepentant and you die in unrepentance, you will go to hell where you'll experience the wrath of God for all eternity, because you deserve it. Now, when you share that message, you become the aroma of life or the aroma of death, depending on who you share it with. Some people you share it with will be like, praise God, I never knew this, I never heard this, I didn't know this, I needed this. And other people will say, if you believe that, you're a fool, you're a bigot, you're narrow-minded. If that's the only way, that's wrong, and I can't hang out with someone like you. And here's the reality, you don't know how they're gonna respond. You don't know how they're gonna respond. You don't know how they're gonna respond. I've had times with friends where I was sharing the gospel, I'm like, I'm sure they're gonna get this, I know God's got a plan for them, and they were hostile towards me as a result of that. And there's other times where I've thought,

these people are gonna be totally hostile towards the gospel, and they've opened their heart to it, and God's changed their lives. See, when you're born again, you're totally different. Now, I grew up in the church, went to a Methodist church, went to a Lutheran grade school, like I told you, so I thought I was doubly protected because I did two confirmation classes, and I thought my good outweighed my bad. When I got saved at the age of 18 and came home, I told my dad, I said, I'm never going to church ever again because they lied to me. Our church has never told me this. And my dad's response at the time was, no, you've always believed this, you've always had a faith, you've always gone to church, it's just becoming more real to you now. No, I was saved and I was in a church that didn't preach the gospel and I needed to leave, I was right. I knew I was saved because my thoughts about people that I would have never hung around with, that I would have never wanted in my clique, I was caring about and I was friends with and I was wanting to help them. I read through the Bible, I remember James was the first book I ever read in the Bible and I read it and I'm like, I understand everything this is talking about. I've never understood the Bible in my entire life.

Why? Because the spirit of God was revealing that to me. I'd memorized scriptures my whole life, I had to, I went to a Lutheran grade school. All those scriptures I memorized finally made sense, immediately, because I had the spirit of God in my life. And this is what's going on here. You need to realize, you don't need to be scared, you don't need to be harsh with people, you don't need to be rude, you just be kind, be yourself, but don't be afraid to share the gospel and understand when you do, it's divisive because it draws a line down the middle, either you believe this or you don't. I mean, the gospel is like pregnancy, you're either pregnant or you're not. You're not kinda pregnant, you understand? You're either in with Jesus or you're out, you're not kinda with him and kinda not. We have too many people that will say, well, I think I'm a Christian or I prayed this prayer. Here's the reality, yes, once you're born again, you're his, you're his, he can't, he'll never leave you, he'll never forsake you, he'll, no one will let you, he'll never let anyone snatch you out of his hand, you're his. But too often when we're trying to give people assurance, we look backwards. You know you were saved, you know you did that. The Bible always looks forward.

Here's how you know you're saved, because if you keep persevering all the way to the end, that's how you know. So keep taking steps of faith. Here's how you know you're saved, you still wanna walk with Jesus. Well, I don't know that I wanna walk with Jesus, but I think I'm saved. I question that, and if that's really how you think, I'd pause and say, God, why is it I don't wanna walk with you, but I call myself a believer in Christ? Because the evidence. that you're a believer is that you wanna walk with Christ. Jesus said, if you love me, you'll keep my word. He doesn't say keep my word so it'll prove that you love me. It's like, if you really love Jesus, you're gonna wanna do what Jesus wants. It's evident. If you don't love Jesus, you're not gonna keep his word. That's the evidence in your life. So you're like, well, you know, I went to Youth Rally and I've trusted Christ and I'm this, I'm in college and I'm this and I'm... If you're not walking with Christ, that should scare the tar out of you. Scare the tar out of you. Because you don't realize that the wrath of God has been on you from the moment that you're born and that you need a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you really have that savior

and you really believe you are dead and the spirit comes to live in your life, you can't help but grow. It's automatic in some ways. You can't help but wanna hear the word and do what the word says. You can't help but come to church saying, what do I need to change today? What do you wanna encourage me? And what am I doing well, Lord? How am I doing this right? You want to know what Jesus says in your life, amen? And this is what we see here. We see God's presence is divisive, right? And it necessitates a decision. It's kind of like this in life, you know this. I mean, think about tornado sirens. The tornado siren goes off and there's two different responses. Some run for cover and some go chase the storm. They go in two different directions, same signal. Or what about rain at a wedding? I've seen this. Rain at a wedding, there's one group at the wedding, they start crying. Oh my gosh, my hair, my this, my dress, my that. And then there's others like, rain. Hey, let's party. We're here for a celebration today, let's dance in the rain. Or an engine light on the car.

Some people call their auto mechanic and say, what do I do? And they say, pull over right away and get a parking space. And you do it. And others don't. And 20 minutes later, they got a parking space on the side of the road. Same warning light, same thing, different response. This is what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit comes to convict you of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Then you get to choose how you're gonna respond and what you're gonna do. It's kind of like this, and in Colorado, you'll be aware when we have these big fires on the side of a mountain and all this stuff. When firefighters come in, they create what's called a fire line. So they try to get ahead of the fire and then they draw a trench and then they collectively, safely burn all the thing that's in the way of the fire so that by the time that the fire gets there, it doesn't have any more trees or shrubbery to catch fire. And then they can more easily extinguish it. Here's what I would say. Don't be that trench for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit started a fire in Acts chapter two that's been willing to ignite every believer in the history of the world to be an inferno for the world

to know that Jesus Christ is alive. Don't dig your ditch. Don't burn the shrubbery around you saying I don't want a part of that. I just keep that away from me. Allow the Holy Spirit to have his work with you. Don't have an area in your life where you're unwilling to let God touch. It's the biggest lie, one of the biggest lies of the enemy. He'll tell you, well, you know what? If God takes over that area of your life, you're never gonna have fun anymore. If God takes over that area, you'll never marry anybody that's attractive. You're gonna marry somebody that's really ugly because you're a Christian. All these sort of lies. Come on, you know what I'm talking about. He's a liar. He's a liar. I'm telling you, young people, don't be a virgin. You'll never meet another virgin. Lie. They're all lies. The devil has no control over your future. He lies to you to make you think if you go all in with Jesus, your future will be bad. The reality is if you go all in with Jesus, that's the only hope you have. Amen?

So the question I would ask you today is how are you doing? Again, as I say from this pulpit a lot, Jesus is not asking, okay, I'm gonna try harder this week. I'm gonna be more obedient. I'm gonna get really serious about the Holy Spirit. Mm-mm. Lord, is there anything in my life that's hindering you from me being the fullest potential of what you want me to be? Perhaps there's not. There's times I pray that prayer and the Lord's like, no, I'm proud of you. You're doing good stuff. There's other times I don't even have to get the prayer out and the Lord starts pointing at an area. Like it's that, and you know it's that, right? I mean, that's how the Holy Spirit works in our life. And here's the thing. I love you so much as your pastor. I want you to live the full measure of who Jesus is until you see him. Is there anybody you need to forgive? You're like, I'm not forgiving them. Is there any reconciliation that needs to happen? You're like, I'm not doing that. Is there a behavior, an attitude that God's been trying to change? You're like, I'm not doing that. Is there a family member you can't get along with?

I don't know what it would be. The Holy Spirit knows exactly what it is. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about even before I do it, but I'm gonna pray for you here in a moment. And we're just gonna ask the Lord to do a great work because here's the. When we confess our sin, He's faithful and just to cleanse our sin and forgive our sin, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He's also able to let us start afresh today. Wherever you're at, you can start afresh today. If you don't have a relationship with Jesus, you can start that fresh today. If you have a relationship with Jesus, you can start afresh in that relationship with Jesus. He is so gracious and so merciful. And through the shed blood of Jesus and the covenant of His promise, you can continue to walk in the fullness of Him no matter how far you think you've drifted, amen? So would you stand with me as we pray today? Our Father in heaven, we give you so much honor and praise for who you are. And Lord, we just share the gospel again. Perhaps today you've never been born again. You're just religious. Maybe you see yourself as a good person, but there's never been a time the Holy Spirit's come and take up residence in your life.

If that's the case and you want Christ in your life, here's how you can pray. Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. I know I deserve all your wrath, but I believe Jesus died for me and rose. I believe He's the living Savior. I confess that I'm a sinner and I wanna surrender my entire life to you, not with my mouth, but with my actions. Come into my life and take over. And for those of you who are born again, we're just praying collectively. Lord, show us any area in our life that doesn't fully reflect the full measure of you. Lord, just show us an area or two that we need to confess and surrender. And Lord, you take over. We trust you to do a great work in and through us. Lord, we love you so much and we bless you. We praise you for each and every person that you brought here today. Do a great work in our lives. We give you all the honor and glory in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Can we give God praise for his word today? Amen.