Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 You know, church, you are sounding good and you are looking good this morning. It's wonderful that there's, you know, great buzz and people are talking who's on their second cup of coffee? <laugh>? Yes. Come on. Or cup of tea? No. No. Okay, here we go. So, uh, yeah, come and take your seats this morning and, uh, thank you, um, Andrew and Leona and Elliot for leading us so well. Didn't they lead us well this morning? And um, you know, we cannot lead others to things in God unless we first received, isn't that right? Yes. You know, and that's why we honor those who lead us into God's presence and lead us well because we appreciate the time that you've had before the Lord this morning. And, uh, we honor you both this morning. So thank you. And Elliot, Elliot was brilliant. I heard he was just hiding behind dad there this morning.
Speaker 1 00:01:06 And, uh, it's really great. Well, this morning is an interesting morning because I feel that the Holy Spirit wants to do something in our lives and in this church this morning. And, um, you know, we're only four months in, which is incredible. And, um, over the last couple of weeks, well five weeks we've been looking at, we've been looking at our discipleship series and it's so important that in our own lives and in the life of this church that we build well, we build good foundations because I want us to be here in 20 years time. I want there to be a thriving church in 30 years time, should the Lord Terry in 50 years time to be strong and to be strong individually. It's important that we build well. And so we've been looking at, um, remember that sermon, I'll repeat a little bit.
Speaker 1 00:02:02 Um, if you want to catch up, you can catch up from two weeks ago on Spotify. Is that right, Reuben? Yet we have, uh, the first part of being filled with the Holy Spirit on Spotify. So I don't wanna go over too much, but you can catch up there. But we've been looking at, in our discipleship series four main things that Peter said on the day of Pentecost to the believers. Well, the, some of the non-believers said, what must we do to be saved? What must we do? And our heart here as a church is that there will be people all over this community who look on at us as a church in new and go, okay, I've seen enough evidence. I now need to know what must I do to be saved? And Peter stood up. Remember we looked at Peter before Pentecost and then after Pentecost and Peter stood up and he said, Hey, come on, I'm gonna test you now.
Speaker 1 00:02:54 What's the first thing rip He you can shout out. Go for it. Rip. He Yeah, I'm gonna turn away from my old life. I'm gonna turn away from the world and I'm gonna head in the direction of Jesus Christ. Repent. What's the second one? Believe. Believe. Have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Do you have faith in Jesus Christ this morning? Third one, baptized, be baptized. And then the fourth one is receive the Holy Spirit. And in June next week we've got, um, Dan will be coming to do a vision morning on Deo Gloria, our coffee shop, who's walked by and seen the lovely frontage. Yeah, so we were admiring it on Friday, Phil and I, lovely paint work, lovely frontage. If it's those of you who don't know, we have a nice building in Bank Street, wonderful premises.
Speaker 1 00:03:46 And the painters have been in over the last couple of weeks and painted it and it's beautiful. And so Phil and I were there on Friday evening, just seeing somebody down there admiring the beautiful paint work when a along came up pigeon and decided to poop honestly down the left hand side of the building. And this poop was not white to match the paint. This poop. Have you seen it yet? This poop. What color is it? Brown. It's like brown and red. And it's not a little bit, it is a line down <laugh>. So if you've got a jet wash in your handbags, ladies, the next time you go by, just anyway. So, um, Dan will be speaking about that next week, not about the poop, but about De o Gloria, our coffee shop. And um, and then the following week we're gonna carry on with our discipleship series on kingdom living, on how we live this kingdom life out.
Speaker 1 00:04:43 But this morning I just wanna finish off our section two. And um, before I do, can we just pray, I wanna deliver this right? I wanna land this right as God wants me to land it. And I believe God wants to minister into hearts today. I love Sundays because I, I believe it's, I believe strongly that Sundays should be days where the church is built up. The church also receives as well as us giving glory to God. And then we go out during the week filled with his spirit as he enables us to live, as we should in our communities and in our homes. So if you want to not force this way, we just hold your hands out to the front this morning.
Speaker 1 00:05:30 Father Holy Spirit, we welcome you here this morning. Will you come and do something fresh and new? Will you visit us this morning? Lord, I pray that flesh would get out the way this morning, that we would not see flesh, but we would see you help me Father, to deliver this, this morning that you will be given maximum, maximum glory in this place. In Jesus' name our amen. Our amen. Okay, continuing on from last time then we, we saw the incredible difference that the Holy Spirit made to the lives of the early church. An incredible difference. And if we look at Peter and his life, we looked at Peter, he actually made a lot of mistakes and failings while he was with Jesus for three years, Jesus had to, I think, correct Peter the most probably <laugh>. He was al always messing up. He always had a better idea.
Speaker 1 00:06:46 He always had an opinion of how Jesus ought to do something. Yeah, okay. And so he was con there was always these, these issues of failings and old habits and character traits, um, that kept cropping up in Peter's life. But when Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit, not that he was perfect overnight, but there was an incredible change in Peter's life. There was less carnality, there was less flesh roaming around the place. Are you hearing what I'm saying? Yeah. Less flesh Roman around the place he was filled with the Holy Spirit. You know, John the Baptist says this, he says that he must increase and I must decrease. What an incredible prayer to pray that he must increase and I must decrease. And I wanna remind us this morning that the Holy Spirit is still with the church today. While we've reminded ourselves last time of what the Holy Spirit did 2000 years ago, can I remind us that the Holy Spirit is still in his church today?
Speaker 1 00:08:07 And over the centuries there have been thousands and thousands upon thousands of people who have been hungry and thirsty to see the power and to see a visitation of the Holy Spirit in their individual lives and in the lives of their communities and the church. You can read about it, but I believe there is a day coming. I believe it's coming to Newton Abbott. We wouldn't be here if we didn't believe and have faith come on. But the Holy Spirit wanted to do his work in and through our lives. And here at Rediscover Church Newton Abbott, we have a deep, deep desire for more of the Holy Spirit for an increasing measure of his spirit. Why? And I'll tell you why we looked at last time, John 15. It says, one of the roles of the Holy Spirit was to bear witness to Jesus. So one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to reveal Jesus. So can you start seeing why we want more of the Holy Spirit? Because if we don't have the Holy Spirit and increase in measure, when people outside in our communities look on at the church, they will just see flesh. And can I tell you as glorious and as lovely as you all look this morning, you and yourselves and me and myself, we are not that great.
Speaker 1 00:09:34 We're just not. So when we say Holy Spirit, we need you increase in measure. It's so a dying world can look on at the church and see Jesus. Because the Holy Spirit's role is to reveal Jesus. And guess what? Jesus gets the glory. Yes, Jesus gets the glory. And that's why when Jesus gets the glory, the church will grow. Because I believe the Holy Spirit wants to visit places where people are hungry and thirsty for the Holy Spirit to move. That's why so many the church was, you know, it, it increased. It grew in the early days because the disciples were hungry for the Holy Spirit. They knew they couldn't do anything without him. You know, I absolutely love the local church, I love the global church. But don't you, don't you think it's amazing that we get this part of God's world fall in love with Newton Abt, fall in love with where you are from because this is our vineyard.
Speaker 1 00:10:44 This is, this is the place God has given us the garden to tend and grow. And God is saying to us, what are we going to do on our watch? That's why we come and we pray because God, this is his place. And he's saying, are we just going to have our holy cuddles and be comfortable for a time and be blessed on Sundays? Or are we going to see an end time harvest that is gonna blow our minds? Awesome. We wanna see thousands of people come to know Christ, right? And it doesn't matter if they're all here on a Sunday morning or not. I believe many of them will come and get saved and they'll go to the ends of the earth. Hallelujah. We're gonna send missionaries from this place. We're gonna send them to the ends of the earth. But we can't do it without the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1 00:11:39 You see, the local church is the hope of the world. Amen. Because the Holy Spirit is in us, the church and people need didn't Jesus promise, streams of living water, streams of living water would flow out of us. And the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off at the moment, whom the Lord will call, he's calling them. They're far off at the moment, but we see them filled with the Holy Spirit. We see it in faith this morning in Newton Abbott. And out of all the gifts that God could give us, out of all the many gifts that you may ask for, I pray that you will leave this place this morning, ask him for the best gift that he could ever bestow on us. And that's his spirit. Andrew Murray, I if you know me by now, I speak about Andrew Murray a lot.
Speaker 1 00:12:36 Okay? I love dead writers and especially dead writers who would have been dead for hundreds of years because they cannot Google anything. Okay? Some, most of what they penned was from that wonderful relationship that they had in the quiet times with the Lord. Sometimes I read a lot of stuff now online I'm thinking, did you get that from whoever, da da da da. But some of these older writers like Tok and Murray, you know that things were penned in that secret place in that time with the Lord. And Andrew Murray puts it like this. He says, God is what he is through his spirit. The Spirit is the very life of God.
Speaker 1 00:13:22 God is what he is through his spirit. The Spirit is the very life of God. What a thought this morning, the Holy Spirit is with us. I'm gonna talk a little bit in a moment. Holy Spirit is with us and God is what He is through His spirit, the very breath and life of God. How much of God, how much of his life do we want in us upon us and flowing out of us? Just think about that this morning. How much do we want? How much of his life is actually flowing in us upon us and out of us? It's a good question, isn't it? Come on, I to ask two questions this morning or consider two questions and then we're gonna go into a time of ministry. The first question is this, how today can we experience the Holy Spirit? Because sometimes we can assume, we can think we know we can go to yester year. How do we experience today the Holy Spirit? The second thing, how will we know that we are a church filled with the Holy Spirit? How will we know?
Speaker 1 00:14:58 How can we tell that the Holy Spirit is amongst us? Let me tackle the first question first and we go back to the scripture that we um, looked at in a co a couple of weeks ago. Luke 11. So how to experience the difference the Holy Spirit makes in our lives. Luke 11, I'm not sure if we've got it from last time, but Luke 11 it says this, Jesus says, which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion. If you then though you are evil, know how to give good gifts cuz we know the whole spirit is a gift and a promise gifts to your children. How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him who? Ask him?
Speaker 1 00:15:47 This is not complicated. This is not complicated. So the first thing is, how will we experience the difference of the Holy Spirit in our lives? We need to ask him, how much more can I suggest that as a people we ask every day? I'll come onto that in a moment. Ask him, John seven says this, let anyone Jesus says it. Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Are you thirsty Andrew? You said something really prophetic as you were leading this morning. I'm gonna forget it now. This is not my age. <laugh> but you. No, you said, you said I I know like had it then um, you said something along the lines, repent. We repent Lord of when we've spent time on things outside. Is it something like that? Drinking. Yeah. Drinking from another. Well, yeah, drinking from something else. Get in our quickening or quenching our thirst.
Speaker 1 00:16:53 Sorry, from another source. And that really struck me. I thought, whoa. Jesus said, if anyone's thirsty, let come to me. Whoever believes in me as scripture has said, rivers, rivers. I dunno if you made up that song, but it was incredible. Did you make it up That Living Waters one, it was amazing. We must sing that at the end. It was brilliant. Yeah. <laugh> Rivers of Living Water will flow from within them. By this he meant the spirit whom those he believe who believed in him were later to receive live in water. So the first thing, ask how much more will the Holy Spirit be poured out on those who ask The second thing, thirst. Are we thirsty? And then I'm going through these really quickly cause I want us to get into ministry time. And then Ephesians five, this is, this is so interesting.
Speaker 1 00:17:44 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debor. Instead be filled with the spirit speaking to one another in Psalms. Hymn songs from the spirit instead be filled. There's three things already. We could go into so many more but we haven't got time this morning. Ask everyone, say, ask, ask thirst first be filled. So in Ephesians here, it's be filled, it's present tense. Okay? It's not a one off occasion. It's saying, Lord, I wanna be filled and I need you every, every day. You know, at the age of 15, I was so hungry for the things of God. I grew up in an incredible, incredible home. I think I'm like a fifth generation Christian. And um, just a wonderful home and a long line of, of leaders and pastors in our home. And at the age of six, I was one of those kids that didn't wanna go out and play.
Speaker 1 00:18:39 My dad would have loads of people around, loads of pastors and tea and leadership meetings. I was the little six year old who wanted to sit at my dad's feet and listen to what they were saying. I dunno what it was. I was just so hungry for the things of God. And at age 15, I was in a youth meeting, youth rally and there was the appeal to come out to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And so I came out for the appeal hands relayed on me and I was filled with the Holy Spirit at 15. Okay? But weeks, months, years after that, seven years actually, am I buzzing a bit? No. Is that okay? Seven years after that. Okay, few weeks after being filled with the Holy Spirit, I didn't realize that I needed to keep being filled. I didn't realize that I was very leaky, were leaky people.
Speaker 1 00:19:32 I didn't know that I needed to keep asking to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And for seven years I had this incredible battle. And this is gonna speak to some of you this morning. On one hand I felt so called by God, he was confirming it through the gifting that I'd had on my, on my life and prophetic words. But on the other hand, I was painfully shy, painfully insecure. I lacked so much self-worth. I lacked so much love for myself. Oh, I could love others, but I just couldn't love myself. And so there was this tension going on of being called by God, but painfully, painfully insecure. At the age of 22, I went to another, another rally, as you do in Christian circles every year. You go on yeah, pilgrimage. It's wonderful. And I sat in the back of a, a meeting with about four or 5,000 people.
Speaker 1 00:20:28 I sat on my own and I wept all the way through saying, Lord, you've got to set me free. Set me free, come on, I've got, I've got this tension going on. I need to be set free. And I felt the Holy Spirit whisper because that's what he does. He doesn't force himself on us. And he whispered to me, he said, Esther, you are free. You just need more of my Holy Spirit. And it completely changed my life because from that moment I went out to live my life. And the more I was filled with the spirit, the more boldness and confidence and courage came upon my life to minister. If you saw me 25 years ago, I was painfully, painfully shy. And the reason I'm saying this is because sometimes we're saying, Lord, set me free from things, but actually we need to just say, Lord, I wanna decrease. Get the flesh out the way. And Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit because what happened to Peter can happen to you and me too. And we need an army full of Peters who lack courage, who say, Lord, in my own strength I cannot do this. But wait till we are filled with the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 0 00:22:00 There's
Speaker 1 00:22:00 Not gonna be any stop in the church. Ask thirst, keep being filled. The second thing, we're gonna move quite quickly with this one. How will I know, sorry. How will we know we've been baptized in the Holy Spirit? It's a good question, isn't it? We've heard a lot over decades about evidences of being filled with the Holy Spirit. And I touched on a little bit about that in part one a couple of weeks ago. Okay, how will we know we've been baptized in the Holy Spirit? We've had that in Fillin of the Holy Spirit. Wanna point to si Galatians five. And we are looking at this in, uh, life groups this week. You're probably familiar with them. The fruits of the Holy Spirit. And I think we often teach them in Sunday school in discovery land kids. And then I think we park them up and we forget actually we need to be a church that is full of the evidences and the fruits of the Holy Spirit. They're behind me. Okay, do you wanna put that chart up? Thank you. Okay. Love caring for others without looking for personal gain. Joy, peace, a feeling I've put there. Let's put there a feeling that all is well between the believer in God. Doesn't matter what you are going through, there is a peace. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. As we were singing this morning, I wanted to shout out, I am living proof that through the storms he is Lord of all, I am living proof. Because five years ago I went through an incredible storm where the enemy nearly took me out. He wanted to, he wanted to silence my voice. But I am living proof.
Speaker 1 00:23:50 And if the Holy Spirit was not at work in my life, I don't know where I would be today. Peace, patience, kindness. Are we considerate? Let's not look over that. I really wanna say, let's not look over these this morning as these are a nice little list. Good morning. Because I've been, we are in the world during the week, right? Not of it, but we're in the world. And let me tell you, where do you see consideration? Where do you see selflessness? Where do you see people going above and beyond? We might see that because they earn something, because they get credit, because they get recognition. But the church I love that well-behaved, the more you have the Holy Spirit, you sin less. You do.
Speaker 1 00:24:44 He challenges us. He helps us. He stops us just in time. Loyal, true, kind, quiet, but with strength being in control of our desires. Young men. Well, yeah, yeah, that noted. Yeah. Okay. Being in control of our desires. All of those things say when the fruits are evidence, people will see Jesus. People will see Jesus. The second thing, so how do we know we've been baptized with the Holy Spirit? We'll know by the fruits, the fruits in us, in our, in our lives and evidence in our lives. Second thing is gifts of the Holy Spirit. One Corinthians 12. We haven't got time to go through this morning, but God is a generous God. Okay? They're not up there. That's fine. God is a generous God and he wants to give us the gifts of His Holy Spirit in one Corinthians 12. We'll look at it in life groups here are, here are, how are the gifts? The nine gifts, message of wisdom. Do you want some wisdom? Yeah. Message of knowledge, gift of faith. Yeah. And I love this. This is, this is just slightly different from asking for faith in salvation when you come to Christ. This is faith. People having such faith that they are believing for the miraculous before it even happens.
Speaker 1 00:26:05 I think it's a good thing to pray. <laugh>,
Speaker 2 00:26:07 Come
Speaker 1 00:26:07 On. Gift of faith. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:26:11 Do we have faith to go above and beyond to believe in the miraculous? Come on. Gift of healing. This is one thing I've been asking God for the gift of healing. So when I lay hands on people that they will be healed. That is, I'm, I'm earnestly seeking that one at the moment. The gift of healing. Miraculous powers distinguish you between the spirits, huh? We need that one <laugh> distinguish in between what is really of God and what isn't. Prophecy speaking in different tongues. I love this one, right? So in my last church, we are quite a large church up north and we, one of the guys leading the meeting, um, he was just anchoring the service and on one occasion he just started speaking in tongues and it was incredible. And we're all listening to him. The team were over on one side, we're going, that's a fu that's funny. Like wow. And he was just speaking in tongues. And normally after you have speaking in tongues, you, somebody would come forward and do an interpretation. Alright? You'll be looking at this in life group and no one came forward. So we had to move the meeting on very quickly. Anyway, after the service, a couple, a visiting couple from Africa, you know what's coming? Came to the guy on the team and he said, you speak fluent Swahili.
Speaker 1 00:27:29 And this guy on the team is like, whoa. And he said, you, you just declared the kingdom of God to come over the African nations. See why we need the gifts. See why we need the Holy Spirit interpretation of tongs <laugh>. We haven't got time to go in that. That'll be a, a different preach one day. So the fruits of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, um, in our lives,
Speaker 1 00:28:05 We're gonna move into a time of ministry. Um, and Juliana, if you wanna come up this morning just to help us, just to welcome the Holy Spirit. I wanna make it really clear this morning, if we are in Christ, cause we have, we have new believers. It's been an absolute privilege of mine on Monday nights to take through a group of new believers, um, just through, just through the foundations of the Christian faith. If we are in Christ today, alright, first of all, I wanna say particularly you're a new Christian. Do you know the Holy Spirit? Cuz remember how we looked last time Paul had met some disciples and they said, we've not even heard there is a Holy Spirit. Do you know there is a Holy Spirit? The second thing, if we are in Christ this morning, do you know you already have the Holy Spirit. He is living on the inside of you. So when we go into time of ministry this morning, we are asking him to come in greater measure. In greater fullness in our lives. Yeah. Is everybody with me on that? We're saying thank you for the Holy Spirit that's been deposited in my life. That moment I got saved. Moments of conversion.
Speaker 1 00:29:31 But just like the early church, we need to ask and keep on asking. We need to thirst and keep, keep being thirsty. So we are asking for the Holy Spirit to come in greater measure. See when we are filled with the Holy Spirit and when we keep ourselves topped up because we leak, because we're in the world, the world rubs off on us. It does. How many of us can really stay this week? Some part of the world rubbed off on me. Yeah, me too. Might have been that stupid Netflix program that you know you shouldn't have watched and you allowed all sorts. You listen to all sorts. You know, the wonderful thing is this morning, the Holy Spirit. He wants to pour out his life upon us. How good is he? He's so good. And he's got good gifts for us because he wants us as individuals and as a church and as a community to be filled with him. Can I just say as well the gifts of the Holy Spirit? They offer the glory of Jesus alone. They're not for our glory.
Speaker 0 00:31:02 They
Speaker 1 00:31:02 Are for his glory. Everything the Holy Spirit wants to do. And Peter stood up on that day of Pentecost. I don't think people were really listening to Peter. They were listening to the Spirit of God. Because if they were listening to Peter, I don't think thousands would've been saved that day. If people just listen to us, yeah, we might have a good conversation with people.
Speaker 0 00:31:33 But
Speaker 1 00:31:33 If people are listening to the Holy Spirit who's flowing out of us, things are going to change. When people come in this place, I want us to be a church that is full of the Holy Spirit that says, I've got a, I've got a seat for you. I've, I wanna bring you a coffee. I wanna listen to your story. Can I pray for you? Can I help you? Can I show you love? I'm gonna ring you up this week and check in to see if you are okay. I'm gonna pray for you, even though you don't know, I'm gonna be praying for you. I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna know when the Holy Spirit's going to know.
Speaker 0 00:32:23 So
Speaker 1 00:32:24 This is how we're gonna do it this morning. And we're not going to rush this. I'm not gonna rush this at all. I just wanna say this morning that um, if you do have a prophetic word of any nature, it can we just wait till the end, end, just wait till the end. Um, cuz in this first part, we just bow your heads this morning. Let's bow our heads. First thing we're gonna do this morning is we are just gonna wait on the Holy Spirit. You may choose to kneel by your seat. You may choose to put your hands out. It's just, it's just posturing yourself. It's just, just being open. I remember this morning that this is not about our feelings, although sometimes you, you know, things may manifest. Holy Spirit may manifest himself. But this is not about feelings. This is about faith. By faith, by faith. This morning, just quietly this morning, we're gonna do it for individuals and then we're actually gonna pray for one another. And this is what you're going to do. You're gonna simply ask, ask the Holy Spirit to come. Ask the breath of God to come and breathe upon your life.
Speaker 1 00:33:52 Come Holy Spirit, breathe upon moms and dads. Breathe upon grandmas and granddads. Breathe upon single people. Breathe upon sons and daughters. John and Margaret, will you just come to the front? Just keep receiving. Just keeping that. Just keep receiving. Calm, holy Spirit. Calm Holy Spirit. You may ask today, <laugh> and you may get filled Wednesday, Thursday, but we've gotta keep on asking. Just keep asking. Fill me a fresh Holy Spirit. Be the difference in my life. Empower me and bold me.
