Same Spirit - New Chapter

Turn your neighbor and say the next chapter. Now you might be going, "John Michael, are you going to read a storybook to us right now?" No, I'm not. I'm not going to read a storybook to you. What am I talking about when I see the next chapter? We're talking about the birth of the church. See when Christ died and was resurrected, when he was on the cross, he said a very important phrase. He said, "It is finished." That didn't just mean that his death was done. It didn't only mean that he had offered through his shed blood the forgiveness of sin to anyone who would receive it, it also meant that the old covenant, the law, the prophets, everything that was needing to be fulfilled in the old covenant was through Christ. It was done. It was finished. He fulfilled the law and the prophets. He didn't get rid of them. He fulfilled them because every law and every prophet was pointing to Christ every single one of them. Because of that, it ended one chapter and it was starting a new chapter and God was going to start his new chapter with the first century church in Jerusalem. So the day, and over the next several weeks, we're going to look at the first century church in the book of Acts, how they operated and how today the modern day church, if you will, nearly 2,000 years later, how we can look at their example and live out our faith just like they did. It's going to challenge you, it's going to encourage you, and it's going to build your faith. If you're ready, let's dive in. The title of my message today is Same Spirit New Chapter.

Same Spirit New Chapter. I believe, as we look at the world today, that God is still riding this new chapter of the church that he started about 2,000 years ago. See, the Holy Spirit moved in the Old Testament and he also moved in the New Testament and he's still moving in us and through us today. So it's the same Holy Spirit that was present at creation, who was present whenever he gave the word of God to the prophets in the Old Testament and other writers of Scripture. And it's the same Holy Spirit who's alive and well and wants to move in and through the church of Jesus Christ. So same Spirit, just a new chapter, and we, those of us who follow Jesus, we are a part of that new chapter. God's not done with the story yet because Christ hasn't come back and made a new heaven and a new earth. And until he does that, he's still riding this chapter and he's doing it through us. So if you've got your Bibles, I want you to turn with me to Acts chapter 2 verses 1-4. I just want to remind everybody that we are a participatory church. So if something is speaking to you, when I say something, I mean like, if something I say from Scripture or as I'm preaching, if it minishes to you, shout out, "Amen!" That's good, brother. That's so good. There you go. That's, I love that. You guys are awesome. Man, that's hilarious. Okay. If you don't know about that, ask somebody after service, they'll feel you, okay? They'll feel you in. But I want you to preach back to me, like let's work together. I want you to let me know that God's speaking to you. So if you've got your Bible, I want you to turn to Acts chapter 2, we're going to start

with verses 1-4. It says, "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place, suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind, not a cute wind, not a precious wind, a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house." Everybody say the whole house. Where they were sitting, they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. Everyone say all of them. They're filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now, when I read this passage of Scripture, it reminds me of my days growing up in a charismatic church. Now, some of you didn't grow up charismatic, maybe you grew up Catholic, Baptist, church of God, church of Christ, maybe you grew up agnostic, atheist, maybe you believed in a higher power, but didn't know that there's only one in his name is Jesus and the Father in the Spirit, like maybe you didn't grow up in a super religious home. For those of you who aren't familiar with the term charismatic, what that means is these are people who really emphasize the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They get crazy a little bit. And that's how I grew up. Like I didn't know that it wasn't normal to run in church until I was 18 years old. I'm not kidding. 100% serious. I was sitting in my friend's church, Casey. That's a Casey. Why aren't people running in church right now? He goes because this isn't a five cage on Michael. It's a church service.

I didn't, I didn't know. I'm not kidding. I'm 100% serious. I thought you were supposed to run Mirathons in church. So let me give you an example. Let me give you an example of how charismatic my church was. Our church, we had the names of God on metallic green banners that hung up on the walls of the auditorium. Now you all remember back in the 90s, the two top colors were Hunter Green and Maroon. Those were the two top colors, weren't they? In the 90s, yes, you know, you painted your house green and Maroon. Don't lie about it. It's okay, we all did. It's fine. So we had the names of God in Hebrew on Hunter Green banners and his name was spelled out in gold glitter. I'm serious. And during the service, when my pastor would preach on the day of Pentecost, when he would preach about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the first century church, everybody would go buck wild. And I'm from Kentucky, y'all. Those people know how to get buck wild. Redneck, hillbilly, all of it. Backwoods, that was us. You start talking about the Holy Spirit,

it all comes out. Here's what would happen. People would lay their tambourines down, 'cause everybody had tambourines, everybody. They were, everyone in the auditorium was a part of the auxiliary worship team. No one asked them to. They just did it. So they lay down their tambourines and when our pastor would say, "And the Holy Spirit fell down." Somebody would walk up or more than one somebody. Again, without being asked, they would just walk up onto the platform, grab one of those banners and start doing a Jericho march around the auditorium. If you don't know what a Jericho march is, I'm talking about whenever the nation of Israel and the book of Joshua, they marched around the walls of Jericho seven times and the walls fell down. I'm so glad that God didn't do that every time that my church did Jericho marches because that means the walls of the church would have fallen down. We would have had to rebuild that wall 43 times. That's just what we did. People got excited about the Holy Spirit. They would do some weird stuff. They would do some crazy stuff.

Maybe you've got some experience with that. It was all well-intentioned, good-hearted people. Was all of it the Holy Spirit? No, of course not. Of course not. But they were just excited. They were pumped up. And I think that the first century church we were asked to. I think they were an excited group. Now, did they pull off banners from the wall and shake camberines all the way to the wall? No, I don't think so. We don't see that in Scripture. That's not what happened. But something did happen. Something happened supernatural. And they and the world were never the same. The first thing that I want you to see about the first century church is this. They were filled. Write that down. They, the early church, were filled. Filled with what? Not filled with what? With who? They were filled with the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit.

And he filled them up with power, with his fire. I mean, we saw it right there with me. It says that tongues of fire came and rested on them. Y'all thought my church was crazy. Can you imagine if fire just showed up on everybody's head right now at every campus? Can you imagine? Like, we've got, oh my gosh, you're on fire. Bro, so are you. Everybody's like, what's going on? But it wasn't chaos. It was controlled. You remember whenever God showed it to Moses and he called Moses at the burning bush, the Bible says that the bush was on fire, but it was not consumed. That was a model of the Christian life. God wants to fill every person with his fire but he won't burn them up. He won't consume them instead. That fire will empower them to change the world. This wasn't an out of control fire. This was perfectly in order because God is not a God of disorder, but a God of peace. Everything was in order. And it was exactly how God had planned. Now, what happened on the state of Pentecost is really important. And in order to truly appreciate and understand what's taking place,

we've got to know a little bit of history. which in Greek is called Pentecost, Pentamine 50. See the celebration of, sorry, not of booths, of weeks, the festival of weeks. It happened 50 days after Passover. So this was 50 days after Jesus' last Passover on earth, the night he was betrayed, this day happened 50 days after that. Now, if you were Jewish, the reason that you celebrated the festival of weeks, Shabbos, is because of two things. Number one, you would celebrate whenever God gave Moses, the man of God, the prophet. Whenever God gave Moses the Torah, the law on Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. You go back and read Exodus, God meets Moses on Mount Sinai and consumes it with smoke and fire and the glory of God, and nobody approaches them out and they're all scared of death. And Moses is up there with God for a long time. And while he's up there, God writes with his own finger on two tablets of stone, the 10 commandments. And it's in that moment that the nation of Israel was born. They were united for the first time and they attributed to that moment when God met Moses with fire and gave him the law. That's reason number one. Reason number two is because you were celebrating the harvest. Every time you would celebrate Shaveyot, you would bring in the first fruits of your harvest and you would give it to God.

Not because he needs it, God doesn't need it. You were doing it to honor God and say, "Lord, you provide for me. You give me sustenance and fill me up with what I need. You're my provider, you're my source." So that was the festival of weeks, Shaveyot. And it was celebrated 50 days after Passover. The Holy Spirit was poured out on that day, about 2,000 years ago. And that matters for a lot of reasons. When Jesus died and said it is finished, he was talking about the old covenant. He was getting rid of the sacrificial system. We would never need to sacrifice a bull and go to ram ever again because Jesus, the Lamb of God, became our sacrifice once and for all. The Bible says that when he died, the veil tore into in the temple. What that means is the high priest, once a year could go into the Holy of Holies, which was the holiest place, one time a year to talk with God on behalf of the nation of Israel. One guy, once a year, that's it. When Christ tore the veil with his death on the cross, it represented now that anyone who believes in him now has direct access to God and does not need another high priest to go speak to God on their behalf.

They can talk to God directly because they have a new high priest and his name is Jesus. So that's what happened there. When Christ said it is finished, he meant all of that stuff. It also meant that the way that God had formally revealed himself in the old covenant was now done because God had chosen to reveal himself through the nation of Israel to make the Gentile nations, those who were non-Jewish born nations, to make them jealous because when Israel was walking in obedience with God, God would bless them every heir to their lives, their children, he would give them children, their crops, their animals, everything that they touched would be blessed. And he wanted the nations of the world to look at that blessing and go, "How can we get that?" You follow the one true God. So God used the nation of Israel. But on the day of Pentecost, everything changed. God met the man of God, Moses, and he spoke to one man on Mount Sinai. But on this day, the upper room became a new Mount Sinai. God met with his people. It was in an upper room. It was above. It was a new place where God was going to meet with his people.

And he wasn't just meeting one person. He was meeting about 120. And he said, "I'm not just gonna give one of you my spirit. I'm going to give all of you my spirit." So the first thing that I want you to see during church, about this first century church is that they were filled. It's so important. They were filled. We have to understand why that matters that they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Because remember, whenever you would celebrate the festival of weeks, the Shabbat Yod, you would bring a first fruit offering. But here at the early church, they didn't bring an offering. They were the offering. "Are y'all with me?" It's real quiet in here. I'm just making sure. Give me a thumbs up, shout amen. John Michael, that's good. Keep going, brother. Like, this is amazing. Did you see who got consumed? Who was set on fire? They were. God was setting them on fire. The upper room was now the altar. It wasn't Mount Sinai. No longer would they go to this one place and works,

but this one place and look to this mountain go, well, that's where God met us one time. No, no, no, no. When they met in the upper room, God was saying, I will meet you wherever you are because the veil is torn. And now you have direct access to me. And it gets better. It doesn't end there. When you would celebrate the Festival of Weeks, you would go up to Jerusalem. It was one of three pilgrimage festivals where you would travel to Jerusalem. It was Passover, the Festival of Weeks, and then the Festival of Booth. So those are the three festivals where you would go to Jerusalem to worship at the temple and celebrate. So on this particular Pentecost Sunday, there were thousands of Jews from all over the world. They were there celebrating in Jerusalem. They started, they got there at Passover, and they stayed through Passover. Most of them into Pentecost Sunday because it was an expensive trip. And so they would just take two months and a lot of them would just stay over. And they were there. But the disciples, they weren't celebrating at the temple. In that moment, when God filled them with His Spirit,

He said, "You are now the temple. "You are the carrier of my presence, "and I'm going to send you out into the world, "filled with my Spirit because I'm starting a new chapter, "and I'm starting it with you." Now, we also have to understand that Christ prophesied about this in Acts 1-8. I want you to take a look at what Jesus said in Acts 1-8. Jesus said, "Let you receive power "when the Holy Spirit comes on you "or when the Holy Spirit fills you, "and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem "and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth." So God said, "I'm going to fill you with my Spirit." Why? So that you can have power and change the world around you. That's why He filled them. It wasn't so that they could be super Christians and feel good about themselves and be spiritually fat and braggadocious and talk about how much better they were than the church down the street because they believe in the gifts of the Spirit. No, they were filled with the Spirit, His fire and His power so that they could go preach the gospel to a lost and dying world. That's why. And it happened on the day of Pentecost

that God could say, "I'm starting a new chapter, "and it's going to start with you being filled." The second thing that we have to see is this. Actually, before I get there, I'm so sorry. Gotcha on the cliff thing now. John Michael, what are you going to say? I saw you had your pin ready. I was about to say it. And then I forgot one verse I wanted to say very quickly. I want you to look at Joel, chapter two, verse 28. The prophet Joel prophesied this hundreds of years before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. God said through Joel, "And afterward I will pour out "my Spirit on all my people, "your sons and daughters will prophesy, "your old nimble dream dreams, "your young men will see visions." And Acts two, Peter gets up later on in this chapter, and he goes, "Guys, what's happening today "is a fulfillment of Joel, chapter two." He talked about it years ago. Jesus said it in Acts one, eight, and it's happening right now. The first century church, they were filled with the Spirit of God. The second thing they did was they received gifts. I like getting gifts. Christmas is fun. Birthdays are fun. This was a really special day,

and they got some really cool gifts. The first century church, they received gifts. Now what you'll see here is that in this particular story, in the book of Acts, they spoke in other tongues. That doesn't happen every time the Holy Spirit is poured out or someone receives the infill and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But it does happen often. Sometimes you'll see it says in the book of Acts, they spoke in tongues and they prophesied, or they prophesied, or they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Many different things can happen when you're filled with the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul says in the book of 1 Corinthians that the Holy Spirit gives gifts to people, followers of Jesus, as he wants to. So it's the gift that he knows that you need that's gonna make a difference in your life and that he's gonna be able to use through you to make a difference in somebody else's life. It makes me think about being a dad and having to give gifts for my daughters, for birthdays, for Christmas, for Valentine's Day. Like, I've gotta be very particular about which gifts I get for them. They're not three years old anymore, why I'm just gonna be coloring. But they're like, "Yeah, Daddy, you're the best dad in the whole world." They don't do that anymore.

I've gotta be very sure. different. Oh, my girl, dad, you know, I'm talking about. So like my oldest daughter had this, she just turned 15. Yesterday, y'all pray for me. I got a year before I go broke. And like, because my car insurance is going to be through the dad gum roof. Going to be crazy. It's a pray for me place. You just turn 15. And when our family asked what presence does Hadley wants? It's just two things. Cash and gift cards. That's it. I know what she wants. Don't get here some weird sweater that you knit by yourself that smells like formaldehyde. Don't do it. She's going to throw it away because we're not going to give that to good. Well, that thing's going to smell bad. Nobody wants that. Don't be weird. And don't buy her a gift card to your favorite store. You don't shop at the same places. Don't give her a gift card to your favorite restaurant. She does it like what you like to just give her a cash or a gift card to these specific stores. If you do anything else, you've missed it and we're going to return the gift. I'm totally kidding. I wouldn't return the gift. We just wouldn't use it. So, and don't you judge because you know you do the same thing or you re-gift it. You re-gift it. You did it last week. You know what I'm talking about. When it comes to gifts to God's church, the Holy Spirit knows exactly what gifts we need. Not even just the ones that we want. Although Paul says it's okay to desire a greater gift. The Holy Spirit knows what to give, who to give it to, how to give it and when to give it. And when he gave the gift of speaking in tongues to the 120 in the upper of that day, it was for a very specific reason. I told you earlier that many Jews had traveled from all over the world, different regions, different nations from all over the world

to celebrate Passover and many of them to stay over and celebrate Pentecost or the festival of weeks. They had been dispersed because of the diaspora through the Greco-Roman time that they lived in and many of them grew up speaking Greek because of Hellenism. But they also stayed true to their Jewish root and they spoke Hebrew. What's incredible is that these people that in the upper room, they spoke in other languages that they could not know because every one of them, they were from Israel. They had grown up in Israel. Many of them lived in or around Jerusalem. They could not know these other languages. And so when all of these thousands of Jews that were shopping at 9 o'clock in the morning in the marketplace on the day of Pentecost, they heard these other Jewish brothers and sisters speaking in languages they shouldn't know. And they were going, "How did you do this? How are you doing this? Why are you doing this?" In fact, some people said they're drunk. They're just mumbling gibberish. There's no way they're doing that. Listen, if 120 people are getting hammered at 9 a.m. we got a problem, especially if they're talking about that their followers of Jesus. We got a real issue there, okay? That's what was happening because if they were drunk then what they would be saying wouldn't make sense let alone in multiple languages. How could they do that? Because they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they received the gift he wanted to give to them and used through them in that moment. See when the Holy Spirit fills people he wants to give them gifts. In fact, I want you to take a look with me right now at what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 4 through 7. He says this, "There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all." So God might give you the gift of

tongues and he might give me the gift of prophecy. He might give sister Sue the gift of miracles and he might give brother Dave the gift of generosity or the gift of faith. But no matter what gift we get or what gifts we get, it's the same Holy Spirit giving them all away. There are different kinds of service but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways but it is the same God who does the work in them, all of us. A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. When the church was given gifts, it was us so that they could say we're the first church of Jerusalem, y'all should be impressed with how awesome we are and how great we are and we believe in the gifts of nobody else does. No, it wasn't about that. It wasn't about whose name was on the billboard. There was only one name they were concerned about and it was the name of Jesus and the reason the Holy Spirit gave them his power and his gifts was that they could preach the gospel to those who were lost in the city of Jerusalem fulfilling again multiple prophecies that could only happen after Jesus had died, had been buried, was resurrected and had ascended to the Father. This could only happen after that and they They preached in these languages through the power of the Holy Spirit. And thousands of people heard them and they went, what's going on? It was a new chapter. No longer was God making people jealous of his people because of the material blessings he put out on them. Now people were going, what do you have? And it's because they had been filled with his spirit. It was a new day.

It was a new chapter. And now instead of revealing himself through United Nation of Israel, now he was revealing himself through his church. And instead of having everyone meet in one temple, he said, no, you are not my temple. And instead of people coming to you, I want you to go to them and use my spirit and use the gifts that I've given you to change the world. And that's the last thing I want you to see about the first century church, journey church. That's this. When they were filled and when they received the gifts of the Holy Spirit, they changed the world. Plain and simple. They, through the power of the Spirit, not their own power, changed the world. Peter gets up as this is happening. People are going, are they drunk? What in the world's happening? We hear people praying in our languages. How are they doing this? They're praising and worshiping God. And they don't know my language. How are they doing that? And Peter gets up and he preaches the gospel to thousands of people and said, guys, Christ Jesus, the one that you helped crucify just a few weeks ago, he died on a cross for you. He rose again from the dead.

He is alive and well. He seated at the right hand of the Father. And what you're hearing right now is a fulfillment of Joel 2 28. They're not drunk. They are filled with the Spirit. And if you want what they've got, all you gotta do is give your life to Christ and take a look at what happened. Acts chapter two, verse 41 says, those who accepted his message were baptized and about 3000 were added to their number that day. The early church went from 120 to a mega church. It's just a few minutes like that. And the world wasn't turned upside down. The world was turned right side up because of the power of the gospel. Here's what happened. Not only were these people filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts two in the upper room, the 3000 plus who got saved, they didn't say in Jerusalem, they went back home. And you better believe they took the gospel with them. What did Jesus say in Acts one eight? You'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem. Then Judea, which is the region. Then Samaria, which is the outcast, the people on the fringes of society. And then the whole world. He fulfilled that literally.

He started to fulfill that right there. That's how good Jesus is. That's how smart he is. It's almost like he knows what he's doing. It's like he's the creator of the universe or something. I don't know. But I know you're asking me right now, John Michael, what does this have to do with me? How does this apply to me to me? This was about 2000 years ago. How does this apply to the global capital of sea church today? And even specifically here at journey church, I'm going to tell you right now, my friend. The last thing I want you to see is this, the Holy Spirit, yes, the same Holy Spirit who filled the early church, wants to fill us, wants to give us gifts, and he wants to use us to change the world. Me? Oh, yeah, I'm talking to you right now. I'm talking to you. The Holy Spirit wants to fill you, and he wants to give you a gift or multiple gifts. And he wants to use you with that power from him to turn around and change the world around you. (gentle music) Really? Yes, how do I know that? Because Jesus said so.

Look at John chapter seven, verse 38 and 39 right now with me. John chapter seven, this is Jesus speaking. He says, "Whoever believes in me." Everybody say whoever. He didn't say most of them. He didn't say some of them. He didn't say the ones with the word, the title pastor in front of the name, which by the way, the word pastor, you know what it means? It means you take care of sheep. You smell like sheep. It's not a pretty title. It's not my first name. It's an office. It's a role. That's all it is. As scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. Whoever believes in Jesus and puts their faith in him. By this, he meant the spirit, whom those who believe in him were later to receive. If you're a follower of Christ today, nearly 2,000 years later, you're part of those people who are the later ones. Jesus was prophesying about you. You may not have known that, but he was. He knew you were going to put your faith in him and he said, I cannot wait. Oh, I can't wait for Kyle to put his faith in me because I'm a film with my spirit.

I can't wait for Liam to put his faith in me because I'm a film with my spirit. I can't wait for Cynthia to put her faith in me. I can't wait for Luce and Yvette to put their faith in me because I'm going to fill those with my spirit. I can't wait for Journey Kids to happen because I'm going to fill those eight, nine, and 10 and 11 year olds, those four year olds with my spirit and I'm going to change the world through them because I'm going to fill them with my spirit. I'm going to give them gifts and that's going to give them boldness. That's going to give them power to do things they would have never been able to do on their own and the world's going to see what I'm doing in their lives and the world's going to go, how are you doing that? Why is, why is this happening in your life? And they're going to point to me and say, it's not me, it's Jesus. And if you want what I've got, all you've got to do is put your faith in him and he'll save you and fill you just like he did for me. That's what the early church did. That's how the church was birthed. That's how the church was founded. That's how it started. It wasn't an accident. Jesus said, you cannot be who I've called you to be and you cannot do what I've called you to do unless you are filled with my spirit. Don't move out a step with him. When he says to say something, say it when he says to do something, do it when he says to be silent and stay still, don't move and don't speak. That's what Jesus did. Before Jesus started his public ministry, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Before he did one miracle, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and of Jesus. And the first and three church, those who followed Jesus, the 120 who went in the up room, those were people who would follow Jesus' public ministry.

For three years, some of them were his own disciples. And if those people needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit, how much more do you and me? They're the church. They were filled. They received gifts because of that. They changed the world and journey today. The Holy Spirit wants to fill us. He wants to give us gifts and he wants to use us to change the world. [MUSIC PLAYING]