Waiting for The Spirit | Breakthrough Series

Well, good morning. I'm glad that you came out and weathered the cold rainy morning and that you're here in God's house today. Today we are on week seven of our sermon series called Breakthrough and we are beginning the third and final week of our 21 days of prayer and fasting and all God's people said, amen to that, right? It's been a great and a journey and what we're after in this time is not simply just God would answer our prayers and give us breakthrough. What we're after in this season is we wanna experience more of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life. We wanna see more of his power in our life, amen? And if we get out of this 21 days together and we don't have maybe the victory in an area or God doesn't answer a prayer just like we wanted but we experienced more of him than it was worth the journey because he is what we need. And what we're gonna see today is why this is so essential that I really believe that this pursuit that we're doing of the Holy Spirit, asking for a fresh filling and outpouring, this is the key to the Christian life. This is the secret sauce. If there was a secret sauce to the Christian life,

it is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In fact, what we're gonna do this morning, grab your Bibles, gonna go to Luke 24 and Jesus is gonna show us this that we need the presence of the Holy Spirit. Without him, without that missing piece, we are powerless. I'll say this in all of the services. My mother, before I tell this story, I gotta say this because she's probably watching online or she'll be in an 11 o'clock service. My mother is an incredible cook. Let me just say that, all right? My mom is an incredible cook. I would much rather eat at mama's house than any restaurant in town, all right? But as a kid, one experience we had is that mom was always preparing for a lot of people. I had cousins living at our house and it was always just a party at the house. So mom was making dinner and one of the things she was gonna do for dessert was make her famous blackberry cobbler. Blackberry cobbler with bluebell, listen, that's gonna usher in the return of Christ, I think, sometimes. It's unbelievable, right? So mom makes this and it's hot, it's fresh out of the oven. We sit down, we all get a piece and I took my first bite and immediately when I put it in my mouth,

I knew something was wrong and something was missing. But I didn't, I'm not gonna say a word because I know better, right? And so I just kind of scanned the room and then I started seeing one by one, everybody having the same look and then mom gets a bite and she was like, oh my gosh, what is wrong? She pushes it, she starts grabbing the plates, taking it away from us and she realized that she had forgotten to add the most important ingredient of blackberry cobbler, which is not blackberries, by the way, it's sugar. Blackberry cobbler without sugar is painful. I would rather have blackberry cobbler without blackberries than without sugar. I'm talking painful and immediately, we didn't have to have someone tell us something was missing, like we knew immediately something right here and we didn't know what it was, mom knew what it was immediately, we didn't know, we just knew something was off. Now, here's why I tell that story at risk of my own life. If most Christians were honest about their journey with Christ, they would acknowledge something's missing. If we look at the landscape of the church in America today, you'd have to recognize there's something missing in the church. It's like, we've got the buildings

and we've got the resources and we've got the activities and the programs and the Bible studies and all the things that you're supposed to have and yet the church in America is in a rapid decline and even more importantly, the effect of the church in America is in rapid decline. And for many Christians, this has been my experience up until really honestly recent years that I look at my life and I look at the Bible and I'm looking at what Jesus says is gonna be this power-filled life and then I look at my own life and I'm like, and I'm underwhelmed with my Christian experience. Anybody ever feel like that? And what we wanna see this morning in the scripture is that what is missing in our lives and what is missing in many churches is the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. Not the theology necessarily, although I think there's some misunderstandings about the Holy Spirit, but an experience with Him that radically transforms the everyday life. Like if you read the Bible and you look at the lives of believers in the Bible, if we're honest, it looks radically different than our everyday life. I mean, if you look at the church in the book of Acts, which we'll look at a little bit today,

and you look at the impact, these nobodies with no resources, no buildings, not even a complete copy of God's word, no influence into government power, and yet there was something about that group of people that literally turned the world on its head. And then you look at the church today and we have everything we need to do church, but we're not making a dent in culture and society. You see believers in the early days of Christianity standing and losing their life for the sake of the gospel, but we won't even walk across a street to a neighbor and tell him about Jesus. There's something different. And what I would suggest to you today is it's the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. And let me say a couple of things about this. I think that this is something, if we looked at the church historically, in the last probably 50, 60 years in America, you're gonna see this trend. Here's what Billy Graham said years ago. Listen to this. He says, everywhere I go, I find that God's people lack something. They are hungry for something. Their Christian experience is not all that they had expected. And they often have recurring defeat in their lives. Christians today are hungry for spiritual fulfillment, the desperate need of the nation today

is that men and women who profess Jesus be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is something Billy Graham acknowledged decades ago. And it's when we read the book of Acts, we see the Holy Spirit's work, then we have a lack of understanding about what that even means for us. And here's one of the misconceptions is that we don't understand that the Holy Spirit is a person we get to know, not a force we're trying to experience. Legionnaire Ministry did a survey back in 2014, and they were talking about the Holy Spirit. And they did ask this question, is the Holy Spirit a force that you experience or a person you know? 52% in 2014, 52% of professing believers said, the Holy Spirit was a force, not a person. 2022, they did the same survey and discovered that 60% of Christians now believe that the Holy Spirit is a force. And I wanna encourage you, and I'm not gonna do a whole theology on the Holy Spirit today. If you wanna go back and see what we believe, I did a whole series on this last year. You can go to our YouTube page or our website, and you can watch the whole series. But here's what I wanna remind you of. The Holy Spirit is not a force that we tap into.

He is a person we know. He is a third person of the Trinity, which means the Holy Spirit is God, and we are called into relationship with Him. And until we rediscover that, there's always gonna be something missing in our lives and something missing in our churches. He is a person we get to know. And here's why it's important. If you look at Him as a force that you want to encounter, then you will use that force in your will, in your way, and wield Him with your control. But when you understand that He's a person and that He's God, then what you do is you enter into a relationship with Him where you surrender to Him and let Him have control. You don't wield Him, He wields you. And this is what Jesus is gonna do with His disciples. He's gonna share with them some things about the Holy Spirit that helps us understand how essential He is. So here's what I'm gonna do. I wanna highlight two truths. The first is going to be about the necessity of the Holy Spirit. The second is gonna be how do we experience Him more in our lives? So Luke chapter 24, I'm gonna start reading in verse 46. If you're there, see the Bible is true. And He said to them, this is Jesus, this is His final words before ascending.

And He said to them, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in His name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise from my Father upon you, but stay in the city, that's Jerusalem, until you are clothed with power from on high. So this is Luke's account of the Great Commission. What I wanna do in this verse and then some verses in the book of Acts is I wanna give you two truths about the Christian life in regards to the Holy Spirit. Here's number one, write this down if you're taking notes. God's purpose for us is supernaturally empowered by the Holy Spirit in us. God's purpose for us is supernaturally empowered by the Holy Spirit in us. Now, here's what Jesus does in these last words. He gives the great commission and he gives some instructions to the disciples. And here's what he's doing. He's reminding them that the whole storyline of the Bible has been leading to this moment. That everything in the Old Testament has been pointing to the Messiah, to Christ, to Jesus himself,

that he would live a life that we couldn't live. He would die on a cross, that he would be put in a tomb and that he would resurrect from the grave and that we could have our sins forgiven by placing our faith and trust in him and repenting of our sin and surrendering to him as Lord. So Jesus is showing them that everything that they've witnessed, these disciples, in the death and resurrection of Jesus, this is what God has been pointing to. And that the response of humanity, if we want to experience salvation, is for us to repent and put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord. So what he's showing them is that this is the purpose of the Christian life. This is the mission of God for every believer and every church. To go, and he says to the disciples then, and you're witnesses of these things. In other words, you've seen it, you've experienced it, you can testify to the reality of his death and resurrection and his power to transform your life. He's telling them, you've got to go and testify to this. That's the same instructions he's giving to you and me. That those of us, this is your purpose in life. Those of us who have been transformed by the death and resurrection of Jesus, who have repented of our sin

and been made alive in him by the Spirit, our calling is now to go and to witness, to testify, to tell the world about Jesus's death and resurrection and the salvation he came to offer, amen? That's our mission. That's our purpose. But what Jesus wants us to see is that his purpose for us is empowered by the Holy Spirit in us. I want you to see something very interesting here in verse 49. He tells them, this is what the Bible is pointing to, this is your purpose, go and testify to this. Verse 49, these are the final words. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. Now, what is the promise of the Father upon him? It's the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us that he's gonna send the Holy Spirit. That's the promise from the Father. Now, listen to this. But stay in the city until you were clothed with power from on high. So here is what Jesus is saying to the disciples. This purpose I have for you to go and testify about who I am and take salvation to the world, there is this need for you to wait until you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, because the gift of the Holy Spirit is gonna give you supernatural power. This is what he's talking about

when he says you'll be clothed with power from on high. This is a reference that we'll talk about the rest of our morning together as being filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus is telling them, watch this, before you go and live on the mission, before you go and fulfill your purpose, you need to wait until you receive the power that I'm gonna give you to actually go and do this. Now, I want you to pause for a minute and I want you to think about who it is that Jesus is talking to here. These are disciples who have been with Jesus for three years. If anyone was ready to go live on mission for Jesus, it would be these disciples, amen? I mean, these disciples have been sitting at the feet. Every sermon that Jesus ever preached, they were at his feet as he preached those sermons. And there were even moments after the sermon or after the teaching, they would go, hey, tell us more about it. Then they got personal commentary from Jesus about the sermons he preached. You talk about like being spiritually built up, these disciples were taught theology by God himself. What is theology? It's the study of God. God in the flesh is who taught them their theology. If anyone was theologically ready to go

and accomplish the great commission, these men were. Think about this. They learned the Bible from the author of the Bible. You talk about like being a student of the word. If they were in seminary, they were trained by the greatest seminary professor of all times. Like they watched as Jesus went through the crowds and he preached and called people to repentance and to trust him by faith. So when it comes to evangelism, they were equipped by the greatest evangelist. that's ever walked the planet. Now, with all of that being said, Jesus looks at his disciples and says, all of your training, all of your Bible study, all of your equipping that I've done for you, you're still not ready for the task. Something's missing. And then Jesus says, so don't even dare think about leaving the city until you receive the final thing you need to go fulfill your purpose. And what is that? Being closed with power from on high, being filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus is saying, this purpose is so big that your theological training and your Bible study and all of the things that you think are essential for preparing you for the mission,

don't you dare with all of that think about going and doing this until you have the final piece, which is the filling of the Holy Spirit. And this is one of the reasons the church in America is failing. It's because we've built our Christian life around more knowledge and more equipping and more Bible study and all of those things are good. It is needed, it is necessary, but watch this, it's not enough. What we need is the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. So this is what Jesus says. I love this, his last words were go, but wait before you go. Because the Holy Spirit is what empowers us. He is the person that empowers us for this mission. Now, I want you to flip over to the book of Acts. Flip over to the book of Acts. Now, I wanna remind you of something if you weren't here for week one. The gospel of Luke and the book of Acts are both written by the same author, Luke. Luke is a highly educated man who's a believer and the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts were actually written to a man by the name of Theophilus. Theophilus is a disciple of Luke. And what he does in the gospel of Luke is he is describing and he is telling the story of the life

and ministry of Jesus. And what he emphasizes is the prayer life, the Holy Spirit's power in the life of Jesus. And he's telling the gospel story, the narrative showing us that Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit accomplished the things that God had, the Father had put in front of him. So it's the life and ministry of Jesus. In the book of Acts, he is telling the life and the ministry of the body of Christ. This is what the early church did and what does he emphasize the life of prayer and the filling of the Holy Spirit that the early church walked in. So in many scholars believe that Luke and Acts would have been in one scroll, part one and part two. And so what you find is, is that Acts one picks up where Luke 24 ends. If you're with me, say, uh-huh. I want you to look what he says here. I could point to a lot of overlap, but I'm gonna point to one in particular. Acts chapter one, verse eight, he says this, but you will receive, what? Power. Now, how does that connect to Luke 24? What does he tell them? Don't leave Jerusalem until you're clothed with what? Power from on high. So you'll receive power when?

When the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And I watch this, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. What is Jesus giving the disciples in Luke 24? This mission to go and make disciples of all nations, to go and be witnesses, to testify to this. Now, but he says to them in Luke, don't leave until you receive power. And then in Acts chapter one, he says, but when you do receive power, this mission, this purpose, it's going to naturally be an extension of your life. In other words, watch this. The Holy Spirit's filling, which is what he's referring to here when he says the Holy Spirit will come upon you, precedes you living out the purpose that God has for you. But when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, he will propel you to live out your purpose. So the Holy Spirit precedes purpose. And when you receive the filling of the Holy Spirit and walk in it, it will propel you into the mission of God to live out the calling that he has, because you'll actually have the supernatural power to do it. And this is what he's describing. So I want to give you just a little bit of insight, just theologically and understanding what's happening in Acts chapter one and two. So whenever we are saved, believers today are saved, we are given at salvation, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Amen? We are made alive by the Holy Spirit. He opens our eyes to see, he makes us alive in Christ. This is what the believers in the book of Acts received on the day of Pentecost. The same Holy Spirit that we receive. salvation they received on the day of Pentecost. But they also received something that then we, on an ongoing basis, are to receive in the Christian life. And that is, at Pentecost, two things were happening. One was the initial receiving of the Holy Spirit and an initial filling of the Holy Spirit. So there's a difference between receiving the Holy Spirit and having the Holy Spirit and being filled with the Holy Spirit. Here's what I mean. The Bible says that when we receive the Holy Spirit at salvation, in Ephesians he tells us, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit. Here's what that means. The Holy Spirit is the deposit into your life that makes you alive in Christ and that is what holds your salvation. So every believer has the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit makes us alive and we can never lose the Holy Spirit. Amen? But there's more to the Holy Spirit than the sealing of the Holy Spirit. There's what the Bible calls

the ongoing filling of the Holy Spirit. So watch this. The sealing of the Holy Spirit is when you possess the Holy Spirit. The filling of the Holy Spirit is when he possesses you. And what Jesus is saying, what we need is the filling of the Holy Spirit to fulfill the mission of God in our life. And when we receive the filling of the Holy Spirit, he empowers everything else. Now, fast forward to Acts chapter two. The disciples are praying together. We're gonna come back to that in a little bit. They're praying together. So Jesus says, wait, they go to start praying. They're praying. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit shows up. He blows through the room. They received the initial giving of the Holy Spirit and initial filling of the Holy Spirit. How do we know? Look at verse four, Acts chapter two, verse four. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterances. I wanna say something just about this. I'm not gonna go into great detail. You wanna go and learn more about this, go and watch our sermon series on the Holy Spirit. I don't believe this is the same speaking in tongues

that you see in Corinthians because this is actual dialect and language that's being referred to here. It was more of a gift of hearing than a gift of speaking. They were speaking in their native language and everyone else was hearing in their native language. The point is this, the phrase here, filled with the Holy Spirit is followed by a proclamation of the gospel. They begin to speak. Now, here's what I wanna do. This was significant because Luke is using this phrase, being filled with the Holy Spirit to emphasize the effect of the Holy Spirit in the life of believers. And here's what I mean. He uses this same phrase, go back to Acts 2.4. He uses the same phrase, filled with the Holy Spirit, the same Greek word, same sentence structure, filled with the Holy Spirit. He uses it eight times between the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. And every single time, everybody say every. Every single time you see the phrase, filled with the Holy Spirit, what follows immediately is a proclamation or a witness or a testimony of the gospel of Jesus. Every time. Filled with the Holy Spirit and they begin to speak. Let me give you all eight of them.

I'm not gonna read every verse, they'll be on the screen, but I'm just gonna summarize them for you. Go back to Luke, you don't turn there. Luke 1, verse 15. This is whenever Zechariah is being prophesied. This is the uncle of Jesus, John the Baptist being the cousin of Jesus. So whenever Zechariah receives the message that his wife Elizabeth, who's old, is gonna be pregnant with a child and that he was gonna be a prophet, here's what it says. And John would be filled with the Holy Spirit. And because of his preaching, many will come to faith. And so you see John being described as filled with the Holy Spirit, and then God is gonna use his preaching to bring people to him. See it? Filled with the Holy Spirit leads to proclamation. Go to the next one. Luke 1, verse 41. It says this. And when Elizabeth, this was the cousin of Mary, the mother of Jesus. So she's pregnant, Zechariah's wife. She's now pregnant with John the Baptist. Mary is pregnant with Jesus. Mary shows up to her house and something amazing happens.

John, being near Jesus, begins to just stir around in the womb. And Elizabeth feels this, and here's what it says. and she was filled with the Holy Spirit and begins to exclaim or to declare some things about Jesus to Mary. So what do you see? The second time, filled with the Holy Spirit leads to proclamation. The next one is in chapter one, verse 67, I believe, 67. This is when Zachariah, it says this, he's filled with the Holy Spirit and what does he begin to do? He begins to prophesy. Prophesy is a way to proclaim. So do you see what's happening here? Filled with the Holy Spirit leads to what? Proclamation, witness, testify. Jump in the book of Acts, Acts chapter one, verse four, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to what? They began to speak. Later on in chapter four, here's what you learn. They run out in the streets and they were proclaiming what is called the mighty works of God. Now here's the question. What is the mightiest work of God that has happened in recent days leading up to Acts chapter two?

The death and resurrection of Jesus. So what happens immediately when the believers are filled with the Holy Spirit? They go and begin to proclaim the gospel to the world around them. You see this again in Acts chapter four, verses eight and nine watch this, Peter filled with the Holy Spirit said to them, rulers and the elders. So here's what's happening. Peter is standing before the Sanhedrin asking to give an account of what this miracle that he just performed was about. And what happens? Filled with the Holy Spirit, he begins to preach to the Sanhedrin. By the way, the same group of people that condemned Jesus to die. Acts chapter four, verse 31, there's persecution. And when they prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken and they were, what's the phrase? Filled with the Holy Spirit. And what do they do? And continue to speak the word of God with boldness. Acts chapter nine, verse 17. And Ananias departed and entered the house, laying his hands on him said, brother Saul, by the way, this is Paul, Saul and Paul. The Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road to Damascus, a road by which you came has sent me also

that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Verse 20, the very next thing that happens in Paul's life. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue saying, he is the son of man. What do you see? Filled with the Holy Spirit, proclamation of the gospel. Acts chapter 13, verse eight says this, and Elamus the magician, for that is the meaning of his name, opposed them seeking to turn the procounsel away from them. So he's interrupting the ministry of Paul. Verse nine, it says, but Saul or Paul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him. And then immediately Paul begins to preach and to correct Elamus as he begins to preach the gospel. So eyes right here for a second. Here's what the scripture is showing us. The filling of the Holy Spirit leads to proclamation of the gospel. If our mission and our purpose individually and together as the bride of Christ is to witness of Christ, it is for Christ's life to be infused into our life. Watch this. The life of Christ is to be lived out through the body of Christ. So his purpose and his mission, you exist to testify to Christ, to witness to Christ,

to your family, to your children, to your coworkers, to your neighbors. This is the mission of God in your life. But it is impossible without the filling of the Holy Spirit. But when you walk in the filling of the Holy Spirit, testifying to Christ will flow out of you because here's why, the Holy Spirit's number one job is to testify to Jesus. So why is it that we read the book of Acts and we see a different Christian life than our normal everyday Christian life? It's because they were walking in the filling of the Holy Spirit and we're not. Can I just tell you, listen, the reason we don't share our faith is not because we don't know enough, because we don't walk in the filling of the Holy Spirit. This is why he says, and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth. You will be, you won't be able to help to be, why? Because wherever the Holy Spirit is in control, he's always going to point to Jesus. And here's what I've learned through the years, God can do more with an ill-equipped. person who's full of the Holy Spirit than someone who is fully equipped

but does not have the filling of the Holy Spirit. This is why the power is missing in many of our lives. You see, here's what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit infuses the life of Christ into our life, which means that the life that Jesus lived on the earth was being fueled by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, and when we are filled with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, we then can live the life of Christ. This is what Tyler Statton, I'm reading a book right now by him, and here's what he says about this. He says, the Holy Spirit makes the impractical practicable. The Holy Spirit makes the impractical practicable. This is what the gifts of the Holy Spirit are all about, making the totally impractical, the supernatural, the miraculous, the gospel ministry of Jesus not only possible in extreme circumstances or situations by super spiritual people, because here's, I think he put this in here because there's a lot of people in the room right now and you're thinking, okay, this whole spirit-filled life, that's for super spiritual Christians. I'm just an ordinary Christian. So the filling of the Holy Spirit does this work not just in the super spiritual people, but watch this, listen to what he says, but practicable by ordinary people, tabernacled by an extraordinary God. If you are a believer, you possess the Holy Spirit, which means when you submit to him in your life

and are filled with him, the impractical becomes practicable in your life. You can become a bold witness. You can see God use you in miraculous ways. God will give you gifts that go beyond your talents and abilities, and you'll begin to watch the life and ministry of Jesus be lived out through your life, but it does not happen apart from the Holy Spirit. Every ordinary disciple can experience this. So here's the question. Keep talking about the filling of the Holy Spirit. By the way, just so you'll know, as inedible as blackberry cobbler is without sugar, the Christian life is impossible without the Holy Spirit. So how do we experience the filling of the Holy Spirit? Let me answer this question first. What is being filled with the Holy Spirit? It's simply this, being filled with the Spirit simply means being under the influence or control of the Holy Spirit. It means you've emptied yourself out where now he is the one that's in control of your life, not you. He leads and he guides as he desires. It's Christ in you through the work of the Holy Spirit. He's in control. So how do we experience this? I'm glad you asked. Let me show you. Second truth I want you to write down. The filling of the Spirit is primarily experienced

by pursuing him in prayer. The filling of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit being control and influencing your life is primarily experienced by pursuing him in prayer. Let me show you what I mean. Acts chapter one, verse 14. Now remember the context. Jesus tells the disciples in Luke 24, don't leave Jerusalem. Wait until you've received the Spirit and have been clothed with power. So what do the disciples do? Verse 14, and all these who are all these, those who were told by Jesus to wait, and all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers. So when Jesus says, wait on the Holy Spirit till you're clothed with power, what we learn here is that waiting is not passive, waiting is active. So what do the disciples do when they're waiting? They called a corporate prayer meeting. They got together in a room and they sought the face of God. In verse 14, it says they're together and they're praying. They're united in one accord, praying in unison, calling on the name of the Lord. You know what I love about this?

Is that this takes place. So the Bible tells us that Jesus stayed with the disciples 40 days after his resurrection, teaching, preaching, revealing himself. For 40 days, the resurrected Jesus was just showing himself and giving final instructions. His final instructions as he ascends is go and wait on the Holy Spirit. So the disciples immediately, verse 14, they do this. They go and they begin to pray. Here's what I love about this. If you skip over to chapter two, it's the day of Pentecost. Why is that? and important, it's been 10 days since Jesus ascended. So these disciples, when Jesus told them to wait, they go to a prayer meeting and they don't leave the prayer meeting for 10 straight days. Why? Because they understood that Jesus told them there is nothing they can accomplish without the Holy Spirit. You know why they waited 10 days? Because the Holy Spirit didn't show up for 10 days. They would have waited 20 if He would have waited 20. There's some things in life just worth waiting for, amen? And these disciples understood, we'll wait as long as it takes because Jesus has made it very clear that we cannot do this life without the Holy Spirit.

So we will wait on Him until He shows up, no matter how long we have to wait. Some things are just worth waiting for. Like, think about this for a second. Can we get so restless? Like, you know, like prayer meetings at New Beginnings, let me just tell you the heartbeat of prayer meetings at New Beginnings. One of the things that we do on Wednesday night is we gather together and we wait for the Holy Spirit. This is one of the ways the church gathering together is learning how to seek and find and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And there's some that just, I'm not coming because man, it just seems like we're in there an hour and a half and I'm just, like, that's just a lot of time to be devoted. But listen, some things are worth waiting for. So if you were to get a call this afternoon and someone was to say to you, hey, I'm an attorney. You have an uncle you didn't know about. There's a million dollars that's gonna be deposited. I need you to meet me at your bank tomorrow. What time are you gonna be there? I really don't know. I just need you to be there when I show up. Y'all gonna be there before the doors open, I promise. And if he didn't show up by the time they closed, you're gonna be like, I'm gonna come tomorrow because he might've meant Tuesday.

You know why? Some things are worth waiting for. These disciples understood the Holy Spirit's worth waiting for. It's worth tearing for. Now, here's what I love about this. These disciples, what do they do when they wait? They prayed, they prayed. You see this again in Acts chapter four, verse 31. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they continue to speak the word of God with boldness. So what do you find? Acts chapter four, the pattern, they waited. So watch this. The filling of the Holy Spirit is not a one-time experience. It's the ongoing experience for the life of a believer. And what you find in the New Testament is every great work that the Holy Spirit does through his people is on the heels of them seeking him in prayer. The filling of the Holy Spirit is primarily experienced by pursuing him in prayer. So here's the question. Now, just think for a second, why would the disciples know? How would they know that when Jesus told them to wait, he meant pray? He tells them the Spirit's coming, but you got to wait. And what they do is they go get in a prayer meeting. Why in the world would they do that?

Because they know that when Jesus told them to wait, he meant pray. They go get in a prayer meeting. Why in the world would they do that? How would they know to pray? It's because they've walked with Jesus for three years. And they watched and they connected the dots between Jesus's prayer life and the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in his life. Let me remind you of a couple of verses again. If you go back in Luke chapter three, verse 21, it says, when all the people were being baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was what? Praying. The heavens were opened. Verse 22, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. Jesus was praying in Luke three and the Holy Spirit filled him. How do we know the Holy Spirit filled him? It's because of what he says, very next scene in Jesus's life, and Jesus full of the Holy Spirit. How was he filled with the Holy Spirit? As he was praying, the Holy Spirit fell. It says he returned to the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. What does Jesus do? He goes on a 21 day fast. No, he goes on a 40 day fast, 40 day fast.

Now watch the very next scene in the life and ministry of Jesus. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee and report about him, went out through all the surrounding country. Jesus filled with the Holy Spirit is led to seek the Holy Spirit more in prayer and fasting. And now the power of the Spirit is on him and he starts his earthly ministry. Filling of the Spirit leads to proclamation of the gospel. Jesus was filled by praying. We see this again in Luke chapter 11. In the context, Jesus is calling us to pray and He's saying, ask and you'll receive, seek and you'll find, knock and the door will be opened. What are we seeking? What are we asking? What are we knocking for? Look what He says in verse 13. He says, if you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? How will we fill with the Holy Spirit? You ask for it. So what does that even look like? I want you to lock in because we're gonna respond and spend some time in prayer. In prayer, the goal of prayer is to surrender and relinquish everything

to the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. It's to wait on Him until He fills you. The aim of prayer is not bringing your petitions. Do we bring petitions? Yes, but we do so in surrender to Him. The aim of prayer is waiting on the Holy Spirit. People ask this question all the time and I've wrestled with this myself, but here's the question. Man, how long should I pray in the morning? How long should I pray? Here's my answer. You ready for it? However long it takes for you to be filled with the Holy Spirit. For you to empty yourself out and surrender everything. You see, if filling of the Holy Spirit is under the control, then what prayer is about is the Holy Spirit prying your hands off of those things that you're in control of. Both the confession of sin, repentance, letting things that you're trying to manage that are good things in your life, but you don't want the Spirit to work. Listening to what He tells you to do and He's calling you to things that you don't wanna do. See, a lot of times what we do is we'll deal with sin, but our biggest issues at times is not necessarily sin, it's just the disobedience of the little things that Jesus is prompting us to do

that we're just not willing to do, which is sin, but it's not the sin that we acknowledge. So let me show you what this looks like practically in prayer. This is from a friend of mine, Bill Eliff. So this circle right here represents the Spirit-filled life abiding or being filled with the Holy Spirit is living in the manifest presence of Christ. That's what being filled with the Holy Spirit is about. So how do we enter right here? We enter through personal consecration. What is that? It's surrender and just staying in that moment until the Holy Spirit is in control. And you'll know when that happens because then you'll begin to pray with more freedom. You'll begin to talk to Him and listen to Him. You'll experience as you just stay long enough for Him to, and He'll remind you of things like, hey, you know that thing with your kid that you're so overwhelmed with? Why don't you give that to me? You're like, I don't wanna give that to you because then I gotta actually listen to what you have to say about it. And He's like, I know, I can be tried. And you're working through until there's that consecration of surrender. Then once that time where you're filled with the Holy Spirit, now throughout the day,

what do you do? You just commune with Him. You're listening for His leadership and you're dialoguing with Him as you go through your day. It's that internal conversation. So you don't stop praying, you start and you just stay praying just in a different location. Then as you go through your day, unless I'm the only sinner in here, temptation's gonna creep in. People are gonna rub you the wrong way. Thoughts are gonna enter in your mind that if you're not careful, that they're going to run and lead you maybe even into some sinful thoughts or behavior. So what do you do? If you wanna stay in this, you immediately repent. Jesus, sorry. God, I pray that that thought is not from you. You're learning to catch sin early so that you don't stop abiding. Then you move into, and it's just all together simultaneously, but now it's submitting. Immediate obedience to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Hey, go say this word of encouragement to that coworker. Hey, I want you to respond to your wife this way. Hey, you need to pray over your kid right now. Whatever it is, you're just gonna,

I'm gonna do what you say. Why? Because He's in control, not me. And then you just join whatever work Christ is doing. You start seeing, you'll start seeing. Listen, when you start living the Spirit-filled life, you'll begin to recognize where God is working. And you just join Him in that. Why? Because the Father and the Son and the Spirit are always working. is working in unison together. And when we're in step with the Spirit, you are in step with the Father. Where is the Father working? This is the Spirit-filled life. And so then it's learning how to live in this space. So here's the question, we're gonna go into a time of prayer and response. Here's the question I want you to wrestle with. In this journey you've been on, what's the area in your life that you have yet to surrender full control to the Holy Spirit? Is He in control of your calendar, your family schedule? Is He you consult with before you enter into activities in your life? Are there things in your life He's telling you to do that you've refused to do? Conversations you need to have

that you're not willing to have? Forgiveness that He's telling you to offer that you've been just, man, I'm not doing that. What's in your control that needs to be under His control? What areas of sin in your life that you just right now you're refusing because you know there's gonna be cost involved if you obey Him in dealing with this sin? And because of that, listen, you can't be in control of your life and the Holy Spirit being in control simultaneously. Someone's gonna have the reins. So what are you trying to hang on to that's forfeiting? See what this is, is emptying so you can be filled. I want you to take a moment and I'm gonna pray over you. I want you to ask the Holy Spirit to show me what are the things in my life that I'm keeping the reins in my own hands? What is a sin I'm not willing to deal with? Where's the places I'm not willing to go? The conversations I'm refusing to have. So how do I get there? Surrender, I give it to you and I'm gonna do whatever you say. Well, man, that's scary. Yeah, He's gonna give you power though. It's not gonna be your power, it's gonna be His. So I want you to bow your heads. I'm gonna pray over you. When I say amen, our decision encouragers

go ahead and make their way forward. They're gonna be here waiting. This altar is gonna be open. Are you gonna be willing to submit to Him, to act upon this? I believe God is speaking to some of you right now and your first obedience is gonna be getting on your knees, coming to me and pray for whatever that looks like. Jesus, I'm gonna submit this to you and ask that you would do in this room what only you can do. God, would you break the control that we hang on to? Would you let us yield fully to you? Holy Spirit, come now. We need to be filled with your spirit, but we can't do it. Lord, the feeling of letting go and surrender, it still requires your power. Would you bring it in Jesus' name?