Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Jacque: God's love is so amazing. Thank you for worshiping with us today. It's so wonderful to just take this time and just focus totally on God, his goodness, his love, his greatness. Jeff is right: worship is better together. So thank you. We are all better together. We appreciate you being here. We have some visitors. It's nice to have you with us today. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being here. Visitors, I'm sure somebody new is out there and we welcome you. We are so happy to have you watching us online and worshiping with us online. Today here in Minneapolis, we are going to have a picnic after church. Vivian even bought ice cream bars for everybody. Yep. Thanks Vivian. We'll have a good time. All that information, you can find on your phone, the app or on our website. Make sure you stop on the way to the picnic if you didn't bring your lunch. We are still kind of thinking COVID here. So everybody is bringing their own lunch. There are lots of places to stop on the way between here and the park and pick up some lunch if you forgot to pack a lunch. So come join us, please.
Brian: I forgot to do something last week. That was to wish the church of Jesus Christ a happy birthday. The day of Pentecost was the day the church was birthed roughly 2000 years ago. It’s the thing that we are really talking about here last weekend, this week. A lot of feasts and a lot of the things that we celebrate like Christmas and Easter, Good Friday, this is Memorial Day weekend, we remember what people have done for us, our military people and so forth. Your father and my father were in World War II. We have some people buried in our cemetery who were part of the Vietnam War, and we love to remember them. The interesting thing about the feast of Pentecost and the celebration of Pentecost is we are not just celebrating something that that happened, but we are also celebrating something that is still happening, that God still desires to fill us with his spirit. God still desires to saturate us with his Holy Spirit. We see some wonderful stories and incidences of that in the New Testament, particularly the Book of Acts.
I mentioned last week that the New Testament describes basically, what I'd call two baptisms. One is where we come to know the Lord. We get baptized in the name of Jesus and his spirit comes and fills us. We become the object of redemption in that baptism, but then there is a second baptism, baptism of the Holy Spirit; we'll look at some more incidences of that today in the Book of Acts where we now become the instrument of redemption, where we become endued with power from God to do the work of evangelism, to do the work of demonstrating the kingdom of God.
I'd like to begin by looking at Matthew chapter 3. This is a John, the Baptist speaking here. The Pharisees, some of the religious leaders had come to him and he kind of had this little bit of a confrontation where he called them slithering snakes, and a few things like that. I would not suggest that that's your method of evangelism: to call someone a slithering snake today. He has got this confrontation going on with the religious leaders, and this is what he says, Matthew chapter 3 verse 11. We'll read it from the Message Bible.
Jacque: I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next. The main character in this drama, compared to him, I'm a mere stagehand will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.
Brian: The rabbinical system of changing people was from the outside. The Law of Moses was given and with the coming of Christ, a lot of the old covenant was set aside for new and improved version. The old covenant was intended to bring us to Jesus. That's what Paul says, a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. The religious leaders had this propensity to keep adding more and more and more rules to get people to conform to certain types of behavior. The way that God wants to transform us is not from the outside in, but from the inside out. He wants to touch our hearts because that has everything to do with relationship. God's desire is to have a relationship with us, not just to have a bunch of robots, responding to some external course of force.
Jacque: He wants our hearts connected to it all, coming out of our hearts, not just obeying a lot of— In fact, he called the Pharisees whitewashed sepulchres. They looked good on the outside and on the inside; they were full of dead men's bones. He called them cups; the cup was clean on the outside, but it wasn't washed on the inside.
Brian: I pray that a lot for myself that Lord, I want my insight to truly represent what you are all about. The fact of the matter is relationships can't be boiled down to rules and regulations. If you have to have a rule and regulation about your relationship with your husband and wife, and you have to have a list of rules and et cetera, et cetera, there is something wrong with the love that you have in your heart for one another. When our relationships become about making a list of things that we need to do or not to do the heart becomes removed from the equation, and God always wants our hearts to be engaged with him. Everything about Jesus is about a relationship with him. He talks about hearing his voice. We sang about that today. I love your voice.
This whole concept, this whole thing is really not so much a doctrinal teaching, but it's an invitation for all of us to come deeper into our walk with God, to go higher, to go deeper into our relationship with God. We see John here saying that he is baptizing in the water, basically, where people having faith in the one who was going to come after him. He says it this way. Compared to that person, he says, "I'm just a mere stagehand." He is the main actor in the play.
Jacque: In other translations, John said, "I'm not even worthy to tie his sandals."
Brian: And then he goes on to say that this person who is coming, which we know to be Jesus was going to ignite life within us. We know that life begins, does it not, when we come into a relationship with Jesus Christ and our lives become new. Pastor Jeff said it earlier today; things become new. We have a whole new lease on life. We have been that object of redemption. We are the focus of redemption in that scenario, but God doesn't want to leave us there in just a place to go when we die. God has much more for us than just a place to go when we die. We see in the Book of Acts chapter 1, verses 4 and 5, and Acts chapter 2:38, a couple of wonderful portions of scripture. So let's read that. We read this last week, but I want to repeat it.
Jacque: From the NIV. On one occasion while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised.
Brian: So this is a gift from our father in heaven. This isn't, shall we say, an idea of Jesus. This is a gift from our father in heaven.
Jacque: And Jesus said, "What you have heard me speak about, for John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit.”
Brian: So Jesus, this is right near the end of his soldier and on earth. He was having dinner, was a meal with his disciples. And he said, you know, John baptized in water and even Jesus was baptized in water, not for the same reasons that necessarily we are, but it was to demonstrate his humanity and that everything is submitted to God. But then he also says, but there is going to be something else that will happen as well. This wonderful gift from our father; you will be baptized immersed in a few days in the Holy Spirit. We know that on the day of Pentecost there were about 120 people gathered together. As I said last week, I believe they were someplace in the outer court area because after this incredible experience happened where Holy Spirit fell and these 120 people started to speak in what the scriptures call tongues or other languages. We see where all of these different people from that had traveled to Jerusalem for this feast we are hearing the good news of Jesus spoken in their languages.
There is this incredible list of people there, and they were hearing the wondrous things of God in their language. This was a supernatural thing. It was as a supernatural thing. I remember studying Spanish and Latin back when I was in school, and I would've liked to have that kind of Pentecostal experience where I could just speak it like that without having to really study it. But these people were endued with power. And so then, of course, a few of the bystanders that were hearing all this, because there was a massive crowd out there that day. Because as a scripture says later on, over 3000 of the people that heard this actually repented and gave their hearts to Christ, believed in Christ and there was this massive in gathering of people into the kingdom of God. It had to be in a large area where there were a lot of people, so that's what I think was in the outer court area of the temple.
Before that in gathering happened, there was this stuff going on, like, people saying well, these people are drunk and all this sort of stuff. And then Peter stands up and preaches this incredible sermon and says, these people are not drunk, as you would suppose. If you want to talk to Randy Hanson, he has got another really cool view of what that verse actually means; it is a little bit different than what we've understood. To make the long story short, Peter stands up and preaches. He quotes the book of Joel and all these people get saved. This is part of his message right here: Acts chapter 2, verses 38 and 39.
Jacque: Peter replied, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children, and for all, whom are far off for all whom the Lord, our God will call.”
Brian: Yes. What he was really trying to declare here is that this wonderful opportunity and gift to the father, wasn't just for a handful of people in the first century church, but it was going to be for all people of all time because the gospel needed to be preached to all people at all time. And of course, the correlation of this particular feast had to do with first fruits; it had to do with harvest. So Pentecost is really about harvest. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is really about harvest that Acts 1:8 says: you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit come upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. So this whole aspect of being saturated with the spirit of God, being anointed and baptized and empowered was for the purpose of bringing this wonderful news of Jesus Christ to a world that is in great need of him.
These two baptisms, in one sense of the word, I think at times are separate experiences. They don't happen simultaneously. The first, of course, is conversion, a sinner's acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. We know that Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the father, but by me. So these are the words of Jesus. We believe that Jesus is the way; we don't believe that there are many, many ways to redemption. I believe there are many ways that people can come to Jesus. The way that you came to Jesus might be a little bit different way than I came, a different road. Bill and Sally came on a different road and other people came on a different road than maybe I came, but we all came to Jesus, and Jesus made that way. That's what really salvation is. And then of course, when a person gives her heart to the Lord, this person gives a testimony of their life in Christ by being baptized in water as a symbolism of what has taken place inwardly. It's also a way of being, in a sense, grafted into the body of Christ. This is why baptism really should be done with other believers as a welcoming into the body of Christ.
But the Lord is not satisfied with us just being saved or converted. The Lord has a purpose for all of us. The Lord has things for us to do. I remember our former pastor Gordon Peterson, who passed away in 1984 and he would get a little frustrated at times and people who would get saved and then they would cause all sorts of problems. He said, "Sometimes I just would like to shoot people after they get saved, and then they could just go to heaven." I'm glad I've never thought that of any of you. I want to tell you that. The fact of the matter is if the only goal God had for us was to go to heaven, then after we got saved, that's what he would do. That's what he would do. But he has great purposes for us in this life, purposes that he has created all of us uniquely to do different from one another, all to glorify God, all to bring the kingdom of God here on the earth.
Probably some point in time in the future, I'm going to do a little bit of teaching on just the fact that our kingdom life doesn't start when we go to heaven. Our kingdom life is to start when we receive Christ here. And then he gives us the opportunity to be filled and baptized with his spirit so that the prayer that Jesus prayed, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, so his will is that we bring heaven to earth. Even in the first chapter of Mark when Jesus was just kind of starting his ministry, he said the kingdom of God is that hand. It's here. It's among you. This is our purpose to, in a sense, in essence, bring heaven to earth. How many know that's hard to do in our, in and of ourselves.
He gives us this wonderful gift of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, this saturation of God, and he has promised his power to do this. This second encounter, in a sense, sometimes happens really close to when a person gives their heart to the Lord. But at other times it happens later. We'll see this in a couple of portions.
Jacque: It is such a wonder to think the spirit of God lives in me. Being saturated with God's spirit, that's something to just— sometimes it's just words we say; it's such a wonder. Out of that, we need to be seeing the fruit of the spirit.
Brian: The fruit of the spirit is one of the evidences of this spirit of God in our lives. When you look at the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, long suffering, and when we find ourselves lacking in some of those fruits of the spirit, maybe we need to do an assessment as to the fact that maybe there is too much of us and not enough of the spirit.
Jacque: We need to be re-saturated.
Brian: That's right. There was too much leakage; too much leakage.
Jacque: Refill
Brian: Yeah. We need to be refilled. We need to refill. This is not intended to be a theological sermon, doctrinal sermon. This is really intended to be an opportunity for us to receive more that God has for us although there are oftentimes questions that come out of this. One of the questions that sometimes people ask is the baptism of Holy Spirit essential for salvation? I would simply answer that by saying no, because the thief on the cross was saved and he never experienced this opportunity that came at the day of Pentecost and so forth, but it's an opportunity. It's like, let's say at Christmas time and their gifts under the tree, and you've opened up a couple of your gifts, and then someone says, oh, there is one more here for you. Well, nobody ever says, I don't want it. Nobody would say I've gotten enough. I don't need anymore. Especially just think for a moment; if that gift under the tree really was coming from your father in heaven, would you say I don't need it? No, we wouldn't say that. We would take that wrapping paper off as quickly as we could to see what was inside, because we know that what God does for us is good all the time.
Jacque: And he was so wanting us to have it.
Brian: That's right. So we see something really, really cool happening. I want just give you a little backdrop of the region of Samaria. Samaria was a geographical area that was kind of between Judah and where Jerusalem was in Judah, in the upper part of Israel, which was where Galilee is. Samaria was kind of between the two. Samaria is obviously called Samaria because Samaritans lived there. Samaritans were basically a people group that arose during the last 400 years of the Old Testament. They were basically the result of mixed marriages between Jewish people and Gentiles. During this time of falling away for Israel, between the testaments, there was a lot of intermarriage of Jewish people with Gentiles. The result of that was the Samaritan people group.
If you were Jewish, there were all sorts of rules and regulations. Do you remember the story of the Good Samaritan? There was a priest and a Levite that saw this guy on the side of the road. They thought he was dead, so they didn't want to go and touch him because they would be defiled. You also didn't want to be around someone else who was a Gentile, because that could defile you.
Jacque: You had to go through a whole lot of stuff. If you got defiled.
Brian: Yes, the ritual cleansing and all this sort of stuff. This was certainly not the heart of God. This didn't represent what God had. Obviously, God said to Abraham, “through you, Abraham, all the nations of the world will be blessed, all the nations of the earth.” There was this prejudice, huge prejudice between Jewish people and Samaritans. So when you think of the story of the woman at the well, where Jesus went and talked to this woman, this was like tilt. It would cause everybody to just go tilt, because there was also a teaching that men were not supposed to talk to women. It was okay if they talked a little bit to their wives, but they weren't supposed to talk to any other women whatsoever because they would become tainted, in a sense. Women have come a long way, by the way.
Jacque: Jesus helped that.
Brian: Jesus helped that a lot. He did help that a lot.
Jacque: Jesus really blew their minds because he went and talked to a woman and she happened be a Samaritan too.
Brian: Yes, so it was a double whammy that Jesus did. But getting back to what I want to talk about here now. So the gospel goes through Samaria now. The woman at the well believed in Jesus; her two sons became some of the greatest evangelists in that whole region. In fact, they were executed by the Roman government later and she herself was executed. Church history tells us this. We see in Acts chapter 8 where Philip has this heart to go to some area and do a follow-up on the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. We read this in Acts chapter 8; we'll read verses 4 through 8, and then verse 12 and then 14 through 17.
Jacque: So those who had been scattered and they had been persecuted, preach the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said, for with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was great joy in that city.
Brian: And then verse 12 says:
Jacque: But when they believed Philip, as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized both men and women.
Brian: Yes. So we see this influx now of people coming into the kingdom through what he is praying, what he is demonstrating, what he is proclaiming. We will see, later on where part of the reason that Philip went there was a concern among the, shall we say, the rank and file of the church in Jerusalem to go send people there to Samaria to make sure that they had experienced this wonderful gift of Holy Spirit.
Jacque: So then verse 14, when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit.
Brian: So here we back up the train a little bit. Philip goes down here; he begins to preach the good news of Jesus. He overcomes his internal prejudice as a Jewish person to go to Samaria to do this. Even Peter later on, we'll see how Peter later on, struggled with this a little bit. This was really, really embedded into the Jewish people, this anti-Samaritan attitude, but Phillip has a heart for the Samaritan people, so he goes down there and he preaches the gospel and he demonstrates the power of Christ so that they would believe in who Jesus is. He does this by operating in the power of Holy Spirit. Then the news comes back to Jerusalem that all these people were getting saved. So they sent Peter and John to Samaria for one reason only: that they might receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them. So they had believed in Jesus, but Holy Spirit hadn't come upon them yet. So let's read rest of it.
Jacque: So when they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them. They had simply been baptized in water in the name of Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
Brian: It's important for me to simply say this: My heart in this message is not to teach against anything, but rather to teach for everything that God has for us. God has so much more for us at times than our rules, our traditions, our cultural habits have allowed us to be open to. I remember as a child hearing my parents say you can't out-give God. You can't out-give God. But sometimes we think of that only in terms of like ties and offerings and if I pay tithes and offering God will reward me somehow, financially, or blessings in my life. But the giving that God has for us is still beyond what we could ever ask, imagine or think. One of the things is this wonderful gift of Holy Spirit. Peter and John go down to Samaria after Phillip has been there to pray and lay hands on all of these people that have been believed and they've come to know the Lord.
I think it's not good to try and put God in a box. It's not good to try and put God in a box. Sometimes baptism with the Holy Spirit comes right away. Sometimes it comes later, but interestingly, this will really mess with our theology a little bit. But if we look at the story of Peter at Cornelius' house, God just did it all backwards there. God just did it all backwards there. Let's look at Acts chapter 10, verses 42 to 48. Let me set the stage here. Cornelius is a devout man. He prayed every day. He is a Roman soldier. He prayed according to whatever awareness he had in his heart. Peter is at another place, I think in Joppa and he has this vision that he is eating all these different foods that aren't kosher. And he says, “I can't eat this stuff. This is defiled.” And God says to him in this vision, “What I have cleansed don't call unclean.” And so he wakes up from this vision; there is a knock on the door. Cornelius has sent two guys to find Peter. This is kind of like the supernatural set-up. So Peter goes to Cornelius' house and he basically tells him about the gospel, tells him about Jesus tells him about the story of the crucifixion and the resurrection. And we see this where in verse 42 he says this.
Jacque: He commanded us to preach to the people.
Brian: By the way, and he is saying this to Cornelius. He is that Cornelius' house. There was a whole bunch of other people there as well. There were converts there. There were a bunch of Gentiles there. Obviously, Cornelius is a Gentile because he is a Roman soldier. There were a lot of people there. He was a high ranking official, so he had a nice place to live and it was probably a larger home. There were a lot of people there. Peter is explaining to Cornelius that he was commanded to preach.
Jacque: By Jesus.
Brian: By Jesus.
Jacque: So Jesus commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom got appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
Brian: That was one of the reasons why Jesus would even say to the religious leaders, go back and see what this means. Go back into the Old Testament because the prophets and the law all testified about Jesus. In fact, on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection, Jesus taught the disciples, the two disciples that day from the law and the prophets, all those things concerning Jesus. So the whole Old Testament was actually given as a way to introduce Jesus to the world. Unfortunately, the religious leaders didn't see it that way. They looked at it as a bunch of rules, regulations and of which were incomplete, and so they felt they needed to add to it. So the rev rabbinical law added an additional 613 laws to the Law of Moses. Can you imagine the weights and the burdens that, that put on people? Finally, God gets frustrated with it all. Even in the book of Hosea, he says, I'm tired of all your feasts. I'm tired of all of this. I'm tired of all your rules, your regulations. I would much rather have mercy than any of your sacrifices.
And then Jesus later on says to the religious leaders, go see what this means. Go figure out what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Well, where do you need mercy in relationships, don't you? There has never been a relationship that any of us have ever been in that didn't actually require some mercy, especially in marriages and especially with family, but then you have your extended family, like a church family. There needs to be mercy and grace in our relationships with our church family, doesn't there? We will disappoint each other. We will fail each other. God is saying this is what I desire: this essence of mercy and love and grace, that that is the underpinnings of relationship. It's not about trying to change the external part of me. It's to have my heart fall in love with God, my heart fall in love with Christ. That's why he wants to show me his face. That's why he wants to show me his glory. That's why he wants to show me what he has done for me, so that I would fall in love with him.
Jacque: And the more that we allow his spirit, his presence into our lives, the more we are one with him. And we do share such a real love for God.
Brian: Yes, yes. So Peter is now preaching here at Cornelius's house. He talks about Jesus because obviously, the New Testament hadn't been written yet. And in fact, when Paul said all scripture is given by inspiration of God is profitable for all these different things, he actually wasn't talking about the New Testament. He was talking about the Old Testament because the New Testament, most of it hadn't even been written yet. And so Peter is preaching about Jesus, this life-giving person from the prophets, from the law, because he had the blinders lifted up. He had the blinders lifted up. He goes on to say all the prophets testify about him, that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. So go on now.
Jacque: Peter is still in Cornelius' house.
Brian: He is still in Cornelius' house
Jacque: While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.
Brian: Wow. While he is speaking, it's kind of like Holy Spirit just interrupted his message and all of a sudden—
Jacque: Just show them. You can stop talking.
Brian: Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, Holy Spirit came and fell upon all the people who were there who had heard. The Jewish people that were there called the circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished.
Jacque: Let me read it. The circumcised believers, the Jews who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues with other languages and praising God.
Brian: Yeah. Peter is preaching about Jesus; Cornelius, nor any of his family or any of the other Gentiles who were there have yet to make a public confession of their faith and Holy Spirit falls on them and they begin to speak in other tongues and other languages: one of the evidences of this wonderful gift. So Peter, it's kind of like my water baptisms experience in Haiti; it changed my theology. I'll tell you about that another time, but how many of you know that sometimes our experiences will change our theology. Our experiences will change our theology at times.
Peter is saying, wait, wait. What's going on here? Well, God was saying, you are not going to keep me in a box. I'm going to do what I'm going to do. He pours out his spirit on Cornelius and these Gentile believers. I don't know if they are, if this was a similar thing that happened on the day of Pentecost in that they began to speak languages that other people in Cornelius’ house heard, or if it was a prayer language, like Paul later describes as part of one of the gifts of the spirit. But certainly Peter goes on to say this.
Jacque: Then Peter said, “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.”
Brian: We are not going to say they can't be baptized in water because they've already been filled with the Holy Spirit.
Jacque: So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days. They had a lot of questions.
Brian: So here it's like God is a trickster, in a sense because we always think it has to go this way. And then all of a sudden God comes in and does something that doesn't agree with our patterns and our way of thinking and our theology. Sometimes I just think God wants us to say, let me be in charge. Don't you be in charge? Let me be in charge.
Jacque: I think he thinks that a lot.
Brian: I hope so. Yeah. I think so. I think so. We see where Cornelius had a heart; he had such a good heart that God brought Peter supernaturally him. But Peter had to be prepared ahead of time because Peter was not going to go preach to some Gentile. He would become defiled. That was the thinking of the Jewish people. And so God set up this whole thing changed Peter's understanding of what would actually defile him, even though he had heard Jesus talk about what goes into a man doesn't really defile him in the stomach.
Peter goes and preaches this wonderful message of who Jesus is. Holy Spirit falls, Cornelius, and his family, and the other Gentiles who were there, get baptized in the Holy Spirit. Peter looks around and says, gee, maybe we should baptize them in water now and then they can tell about Jesus. So they did a little bit backwards. And that's okay. That's okay because with God, the sequence isn't always nearly as important as the experience. So we see that there was this incredible gift that happened. I want to talk about one more story here real quick. It's getting late, but I want to talk about one more story. We find it in Acts chapter 19. Paul is going through the region of Ephesus, and we see this very interesting story.
Jacque: While Apollos was at Corinth—
Brian: By the way, Apollos was like a really gifted speaker, orator, charismatic kind of guy. He really could preach. He could preach a lot better than Paul. There wasn't a competition between the two of them, but Apollos went to Corinth. Paul was not going to go to Ephesus. And this is where this story arrived.
Jacque: Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There, he found some disciples and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit."
Brian: He is going into Ephesus on the way there he comes across some people who are believers and then he asked them this question.
Jacque: So Paul asked, "Then what baptism did you receive?"
Brian: Let me back up here a second. He says, "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?" And their response was, "We didn't even know there was such a thing as the Holy Spirit." And so Paul says, well then—
Jacque: Then what baptism did you receive?
Brian: Yeah, what baptism then did you receive?
Jacque: "John's baptism," they replied. And Paul said, "John's baptism was a baptism of repentance." He told the people to believe in the one coming after him; that is, in Jesus.
Brian: So here is the scenario: these people had probably gone to Jerusalem or at least into the Israel area for maybe one of the feast. While they were there, they heard John preaching in the wilderness. They heard about this guy and went out to hear and they believed. They believed. They had not yet met Jesus because John was baptizing in the one who was going to follow him. So they got baptized John's baptism, who was talking about Jesus. Then they went back to their region. Now 10, 15 years go by and Holy Spirit has come, but they didn't know about it.
Jacque: They believed all they knew.
Brian: They believed all that they knew. And so Paul now comes across them and he says, "Have you received the Holy Spirit?" And they say, "We didn't even know there was such a thing as Holy Spirit." So then Paul goes on.
Jacque: On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord, Jesus. So they were baptized in water. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.
Brian: So now here is another little addition: they not only spoken other languages, but they also began to prophesy to probably one another like a personal prophetic word type of thing. Again, there seemed to be this passion in the hearts of the disciples and the early church and the recognition that in order for God's power to really be demonstrated through our lives, we really do need to be saturated and baptized in the Holy Spirit.
There are gifts available for us to do the work of the ministry. There are demonic powers that need to be broken in people's lives. They can't be reasoned out. They can only be cast out by having the power to do so. I think Phillip's preaching in Samaria in Acts chapter 8, the leaders of the church felt the need to follow up there. I think that today it feels to me at times that there are a lot of people that believe in Jesus, but have not come into an awareness of this wonderful gift that God has for us to truly do the work of the ministry. I don't believe it's to help us love God more. I believe our love for God comes out of our hearts, but there is a work for us to do.
We look on the fields that are white into harvest. There is a purpose for which you and I have been created, and to follow that and to bring the kingdom of God in power needs the power of Holy Spirit in our lives. This is something I think that he has given to us. So, as I said before, with salvation, you and I are the object of redemption, but with this second opportunity to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, we become instruments of redemption to bring redemption to Jesus crazy. So I would just say to all of us here today, and those of you who are watching by live stream, maybe you've made it commitment to Jesus Christ, but you've never really had an awareness that there is a power that God has available for you as well to do the work of the ministry, to do the work of the kingdom of God.
He offers it to all of us today. He offers it. I would simply invite you to ask him to give it to you. Ask him to baptize you in his spirit; ask him to pour out his spirit upon you in such a way that you've never experienced before and to endue you with this incredible power from on high that we can break the back of the enemies encampment in our lives. This is a wonderful opportunity that God gives to us. It's a wonderful gift that he makes available to us. It's not something I believe that it should be disagreed on doctrinally or theologically. It's simply just a gift from God that he has for us. I believe that as we come before God in humility, and we just ask him, would you give me this gift of Holy Spirit, he will pour out his spirit upon us in such a marvelous way and endue us with incredible power and we will be effective witnesses for him.
If you would like for today, I'll pray for you today after our service. If you would like prayer, if you are watching on live stream, just contact us and we will reach out to you. Give us your phone number and we will call you. We will pray with you. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to come into possession in a sense of just wonderful gifts that God has for us. So let's pray together.
Father, I thank you for your gifts, your gifts and calling Lord are without repentance. The stories that we read from your gospels and the epistles and the book of Acts, they are so encouraging to us, Lord and about what you want to do on the earth. We pray in the name of Jesus that our lives would be saturated, filled with your presence, filled with your spirit. Fill us up; baptize us Lord in your presence. Baptize us in your presence, in your spirit. Endue us your spirit and do us Lord with power from on high so that we can truly one who would declare with signs and wonders so that those who have yet to believe will believe. We thank you, Lord that you don't leave us on our own, but you empower us with all that you have for us, God, to do this great. We just bless your name. Bless your name. Bless your name. Thank you, Lord.
Let's raise our hands together here, shall we? Now may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you may the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace. And may you receive the full measure of the Holy Spirit. This we pray in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. God bless you. Have a wonderful day.
Hopefully you can join us at our picnic. If you are watching by live stream and you are in Metro area, put on a parka, come on out to the park and we'll have a picnic. God bless you. We are going to have communion for those of you who want to have communion today. Jim and Brenda will be over here serving communion after the service if you would like to receive communion and prayer after the service. God bless you. Have a wonderful day. Thanks for being here.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 5-30-21. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.