Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Yeah, let me just pray. Let's just bow our heads this morning.
[00:00:09] So, heavenly Father, Lord, as we come around your word today, Father, I just pray that you would give us ears that hear what you have to say to us this morning.
[00:00:23] I pray, Lord, that you will get rid of anything that is hindering us from our eyes, our spiritual eyes being open and our spiritual ears being open this day, Lord, if there's anything in our lives, Lord, I pray that we would put it right, right now, in this moment, that as we are bowing our heads, Father, that we would say, Lord, will you get rid of anything? Will you forgive me? Of anything, Lord, so that I can hear what you have to say, Lord, we love it when you teach us.
[00:01:04] The disciples said, Lord, teach. Teach us to pray. Teach us, Lord, will you teach us this day as we come around your word? In the name of Jesus. Amen.
[00:01:18] God comes to ordinary people and one of the significant happenings, or one of the significant events that God has done for humanity. Yes, it's in the coming of Jesus Christ. I'd say that's the top one if you want to grade them. It is that God sent his one and only son, Jesus, into the world for you and me.
[00:01:52] And then one of the other great happenings is that God sent his spirit, the Holy Spirit, one of the main events, if you like, and the Holy Spirit was given to us by the Father.
[00:02:12] The Father is lavish. He is so generous.
[00:02:17] And the coming, and we've said this over the recent series that we've done. The coming of the Holy Spirit is the coming of God himself.
[00:02:26] We're not here to elevate the Holy Spirit above Jesus or above the Father this morning. They are the godhead, God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit. And so the coming of the Holy Spirit Spirit is the coming of God himself.
[00:02:46] God doesn't want us to live without him.
[00:02:49] So he sent Jesus to proclaim the kingdom of God upon the earth. If you notice, in the Lord's prayer, he said, lord, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Matt sang something quite prophetically last week. And he said, we are not going to stop singing until we see Newton Abbott look like heaven, look like the kingdom of heaven. I don't know about you, but I want to see this town looking more like heaven.
[00:03:24] And it is on our watch.
[00:03:26] We've got one life. You know, 30 odd years ago, I surrendered my life to Christ. And let me tell you, it has been the most uncomfortable journey I have ever had.
[00:03:39] It's been great and it's been adventurous, but it has been the most uncomfortable journey of my life. Because when you surrender to Jesus Christ, you better make sure that you mean it, because if you don't, you won't last.
[00:03:58] And so the coming of the Holy Spirit is the coming of God himself, personally and intimately. We can personally walk with the Lord. We can intimately walk with the Lord. And let me give you one for free. Not just on Sundays.
[00:04:17] Tomorrow morning you can get up and walk with the Lord.
[00:04:21] Friday, when you just about made it through the week, you can walk intimately with the Lord.
[00:04:27] You know, this week I got up and I got up early, and it was ridiculously early. Actually, I am an early riser, but it was ridiculously early, about 05:00 a.m. maybe quarter to five. And I thought, I'm going to get up, have a cup of tea and just go and spend some time with the Lord. And I did that, and it was great. And I had a wonderful time with the Lord. And then the day happened and I was driving on my way to Deo, and not that I was feeling pleased with myself, but I was like, wow, I got up this morning, I spent time with the Lord. It was wonderful.
[00:05:03] And I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, Esther, you did not get up to meet me. I woke you up.
[00:05:13] I woke you up because I wanted to spend time with you.
[00:05:19] And it hit me. It hit me so hard that God wants to hang out with little old Esther.
[00:05:30] On just an average, ordinary Wednesday morning at 05:00 a.m.
[00:05:41] the Holy Spirit is a gift to the church.
[00:05:46] The Old Testament prophesied the coming of the Holy Spirit.
[00:05:51] Joel two, this is the famous one.
[00:05:55] There's lots of other passages, but Joel two particularly we do remember. It says, in the last days or the day of the Lord, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Any old men in the place, any old men.
[00:06:13] Your young men. Young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women. I will pour out my spirit in those days, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
[00:06:27] In the new testament.
[00:06:30] In the New Testament, Jesus talks a lot about the coming of the Holy Spirit, and we'll look at that in a moment. But John puts it like this. He said, the Holy Spirit. And this is really important. This is key for us this morning where I want us to go. But John said the Holy Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified. Okay, you're going to see where I'm going to go in a minute with this.
[00:06:58] The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, sorry, in the gospels, not the New Testament, the gospels had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified. And this is such an, an important statement for us as a church because scripture points and tells us that there was a clear distinction and difference between the disciples walking with Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In acts two, there was a clear difference.
[00:07:34] Before acts, the disciples, were they followers of Jesus?
[00:07:40] Okay, did they have the Holy Spirit?
[00:07:44] Yeah. Okay. They hadn't had the infilling at that point, the Holy Spirit had been breathed upon them. The Holy Spirit was with them. The Holy Spirit was beside them. But the Holy Spirit had not, at this point been in, filled the full dwelling of God in them. And this is what I want to focus on this morning. Are you with me? Because we're going to pray. I believe God wants to do some ministry this morning.
[00:08:16] Yes, they followed Christ. Yes, the Holy Spirit was with them.
[00:08:21] But you see, at the point of acts two, for some of you who don't need your bibles, let me just tell, it's really important we understand the timeline.
[00:08:30] Jesus came, jesus had about three years on the earth, teaching and preaching about the kingdom of God and telling the disciples about the promise, the gift of the Holy Spirit. Okay?
[00:08:43] Jesus, then he dies on the cross. We know that three days later, he comes back from the dead. He comes back in the resurrected Jesus, and he shows himself to the disciples while he's on the earth for a time. And then he goes into glory to be with his father. All right? And at that point, Jesus says, I'm not going to leave you on your own. We'll look at that in a moment. I'm going to send my promised holy spirit. So that's the timeline. All right? And at the point of infilling, when the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit in acts two, they were not perfect people, but they started to understand the kingdom.
[00:09:26] They started to have a greater revelation of the things of God.
[00:09:34] Their witness, this we've been looking at, Isaiah 61. Their witness for Christ was powerful and bold. In other words, a shift took place.
[00:09:45] They followed Christ. The Holy Spirit was beside them and with them. But at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in acts two, there was a shift that happened within them, and they started to pray and walk with power and authority. These are things you cannot do without the infilling of the Holy Spirit. We can try, but you won't last without. We would not have lasted. When did I start ministry? 18.
[00:10:16] Okay, I'm now 47. I wouldn't have never lasted all these years without the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
[00:10:23] Adam in gone, dried up, shriveled up.
[00:10:31] In pentecostal terms, if you are. And I love being a pentecostal, I do.
[00:10:38] In pentecostal terms, I don't know if you've ever heard the expression, it says more.
[00:10:43] It's basically saying, there is more, there is more.
[00:10:49] And that's a good prayer to pray that says God, I simply want more. I want more because the infilling of the Holy Spirit is not just something that happens once.
[00:11:03] Scripture tells us to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit, continually filled because there is more of God's presence. Do we want more of God's presence? Do we want more of God's power? Do we want to be clothed with power from on high? Do we want to be fruitful and effective? Do we want to do the greater things that Jesus said we would do?
[00:11:32] If not, we dry up.
[00:11:37] How many of us in our lives we have dried up? We've experienced times of drying up.
[00:11:45] And I want to suggest that times we dry up are the times that we've taken our eyes off the Lord and we've shifted our gaze to worldly things. You can see it, I know in my own life, when I drift away from reading the scriptures, from being with spirit filled people and meeting with people, that I soon drift off the radar.
[00:12:14] It's then at those times we start then dipping into watching things we shouldn't watch, doing things we shouldn't do, being involved in gossipy conversations that we shouldn't be involved in.
[00:12:27] You know, somebody is full of the Holy Spirit. When they won't engage in those things, they won't go there.
[00:12:36] John the Baptist says it's like this. He said he must increase, but I must decrease. What a great statement.
[00:12:45] He must increase.
[00:12:48] You know, we don't need to be an ordained minister.
[00:12:51] You don't need to be a great theologian, you don't need to be a great pentecostal preacher to have more of the Holy Spirit.
[00:13:01] But we have got to come and say that you must increase in my life.
[00:13:08] Increase, Lord, increase.
[00:13:11] Read the word of God every day. One of my kids said to me the other day, mum, but how do you hear the voice of the Holy Spirit? And I said, get the word of God, word and spirit. Get the word of God and keep reading the word of God. Let me tell you, you will hear.
[00:13:27] You will hear his voice coming through these pages.
[00:13:32] You will hear his voice, I promise you.
[00:13:35] Just start reading and reading. Get a pen and paper and start, you know, the Holy Spirit will kind of highlight some things to you. Start writing them down, and at the end of the week, go back to those notes and you'll be like, wow, look what the Holy Spirit is saying to me. It is that simple. But it's not going to happen overnight. We've got to start the journey. But what happens is we forget and we walk away.
[00:14:07] Phil and I have been doing something for a while and our little secrets, what we get up to.
[00:14:13] So before we go to sleep at night, Phil will say to me, will you just read scripture? I said, well, should we listen to John Suchet? Remember, Mike, last week? I love listening to John. Such a, read the scriptures. And Phil will say, Esther, just read the scriptures. And so we've been going through a couple of books in the Bible, and we just read and read and read and read. And then we stop and God's telling us stuff and showing us stuff, and we're just reading again. And then Phil goes to sleep, and then I nudge him. I say, are you still awake?
[00:14:45] But just read them. Because the Holy Spirit is speaking.
[00:14:51] We desperately need the Holy Spirit to guide us.
[00:14:55] John 15 says this. It says, remain in me and I will remain in you.
[00:15:01] Often we focus on the part that says, remain in me.
[00:15:05] But actually God says, and if I remain in you, remain in me and I will remain in. Remaining. You remaining is saying, Lord, I'm remaining every single day. I'm remaining in your word.
[00:15:20] Okay, so what I want to look at this morning really, really quick. I want to look at the difference in the disciples. I love looking at stories in the Bible, and I love seeing how people change and transform. So when I look at the difference in the disciples before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Okay, so when Jesus was with the disciples, he told them a lot about the Holy Spirit. All right? And I want you to look at it from the disciples perspective this morning because, I mean, they were, they just loved hanging out with Jesus. Can you imagine? They loved. And they would ask him lots of questions. And I think Jesus was a brilliant teacher because he was so patient.
[00:16:01] Life group leaders, are you patient?
[00:16:05] He was so, so patient with them. And in the book of John, John's gospel, Jesus, from chapters 14, 1516, Jesus was kind of preparing the way for him leaving the earth and for them to receive the Holy Spirit. Now we understand all this because we have the scriptures, okay? They did not understand this.
[00:16:30] And in John 15, Jesus says some things like this. He says, but the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said.
[00:16:45] Right? Great.
[00:16:47] And then Jesus says, when the counselor, meaning the Holy Spirit, comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the spirit of truth, who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.
[00:16:58] Can you imagine them, what they're thinking?
[00:17:03] Jesus says, it's for your good that I'm going away.
[00:17:07] Let's just say that again. It's for your good. Peter, James, John, Matthew, Bartholomew, that I'm going away. It's for your good. I'm like, what?
[00:17:18] What?
[00:17:20] No, no, it's not.
[00:17:23] He said it is. It's for your good. Unless I go away, the counselor will not come. The Holy Spirit will not come. John, chapter 14, verse 15. I want you to listen to these words. Today, Jesus promises the Holy Spirit. Okay, so this is before the outpouring. This is before Jesus goes to the cross and he says, if you love me, you will obey what I command. I and I will ask the father and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever. The spirit of truth. Isn't that lovely?
[00:17:57] It's giving us some of the titles of the Holy Spirit that the world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him. For he lives with you and will be in you. So at this point in time, was the Holy Spirit in them?
[00:18:18] He was with them. And I know this is going to confuse some people, but hang on. He was with them. And then Jesus says, and then he's going to be in you forever.
[00:18:31] He's going to be in you. I will not leave you as orphans if you feel alone this morning, but you love Jesus. You are nothing alone on the face of the earth. He is with you. You are not an orphan. You're a son. You're a daughter. You belong. You're in the household of faith. I will come to you before long. The world will not see me anymore. But you will see me.
[00:18:58] Do we see him this morning? Church? Do we see him through his word and through his church?
[00:19:05] But you will see me because I live. You also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my father and you are in me. And I am in you.
[00:19:22] We are carriers not only of the glory and presence of God. We are carriers of God himself.
[00:19:32] He's in his people.
[00:19:37] He dwells in us. If your sins have been forgiven, if you have acknowledged that Jesus is Christ, whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.
[00:19:53] He who loves me will be loved by my father. And I, too will love him and show myself to him.
[00:20:02] Incredible, incredible words.
[00:20:08] But can you imagine the disciples thinking at this stage, we don't want somebody else, lord, we don't like, you're brilliant.
[00:20:20] Look at everything you're doing.
[00:20:22] Like, how can it get better than this?
[00:20:26] We want you. How many of us do you think would say those kind of things?
[00:20:30] You know, you've got even Peter going, they're not going to get you, Jesus. I'll stand in the way. I'll get the sword, and I'm going to fight them.
[00:20:40] They hadn't understood the things of the spirit yet. They hadn't understood the kingdom.
[00:20:46] And so they're like, no, Jesus, no.
[00:20:51] If you turn to chapter 16, it goes on. And it says, actually, their joy starts turning to grief.
[00:20:57] They're grieving. They've gone from, oh, Jesus, this is brilliant. You know, we're with you. We're going to protect you. To suddenly now I'm grieving.
[00:21:07] Like, Jesus is going, what do you mean? Like, why is he going? What is the point of him going? And it says, their joy turns to grief.
[00:21:17] It's really clear to understand at this point, they are not led by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit hasn't been poured into their hearts yet.
[00:21:28] Okay. They had very little understanding of what was going on. There's another occasion in John 20, if you want to flick to it.
[00:21:37] John 20, when now Jesus has died at this point, and he's risen from the dead, and he starts to appear to his disciples.
[00:21:48] It's the time before the ascension, before he goes back into heaven, and he starts appearing to his disciples.
[00:21:57] And so the disciples are in a locked room.
[00:22:03] They are scared. They are fearful. They have the fear of man on them. They're so scared.
[00:22:12] I know what it's like to walk in the fear of Mandev.
[00:22:17] And they were so fearful.
[00:22:20] And it says that Jesus goes, let's just read it quickly. In John 2021, it says the doors were locked. They were fearful of the Jews, and Jesus came to stand among them. Bear in mind, this is after the resurrection, okay? And Jesus said, peace be with you. As the father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit.
[00:22:51] Okay? So he appeared to them. They're fearful. I want you to get the picture. This morning. They're fearful.
[00:22:59] Are they following Christ?
[00:23:01] Yeah, the Holy Spirit's with them, but they're fearful. They're locked in a room. But Jesus comes. I mean, I love that, don't you? Jesus just appears.
[00:23:13] Jesus comes and this is what he does. Jesus says, receive the Holy Spirit. This is not the infilling. At this point in time, I believe Jesus is actually starting to get them ready. It's another pointer for them to be ready for him to go and for the Holy Spirit to come and take charge.
[00:23:33] And not only that, but he puts a divine mission on their lives.
[00:23:40] Do you know, can I say gently, God has put divine missions on your lives.
[00:23:49] But for some of us in this room, they're not being activated because we're not hearing what the spirit is saying to us.
[00:24:00] We don't really know who we are in Christ.
[00:24:04] We're like the disciples, fearful in this room, not realizing the great gift of the Holy Spirit that God has given us. I wish you'd have seen me at 20.
[00:24:13] I wish you would have known me when I was 20. I was fearful.
[00:24:18] I was nothing like I am now. If somebody has said, like the young people are taking the service next Sunday, somebody has said to me, will you open up? Honestly, look up. I can't open up.
[00:24:32] There's no way.
[00:24:35] But you see, the enemy is robbing his church and thinking that they have no authority and they have to lock themselves away until something one day may just happen. Let me tell you that one thing that may just happen has already happened. It's the outpouring of the Holy Spirit for you and for me to give us boldness.
[00:24:56] We don't have to lock ourselves away in a room. And so Jesus given the divine calling. But you see the disciples, they're like, well, 1 minute Jesus is here, the next minute Jesus is gone. It's a bit like Aslan if you love the Narnia series. He's like, 1 minute he's here, the next minute he's gone. And you can imagine the disciples going, is this how it's going to be as we go forward?
[00:25:22] Is Jesus going to be here? 1 minute and we're going to be okay? And then when Jesus isn't here, oh, we better lock ourselves in a room again.
[00:25:32] And I feel sometimes this is how the church has treated the presence of God. Oh, I felt him this week, but I didn't feel him the following week. Does that mean that God was there with us and then he's suddenly nothing? No way.
[00:25:50] God is with us by his spirit. Every single day of our lives. Because when he poured out his spirit, he didn't say, I'm going to give it you, and then I'm not.
[00:26:04] He said, it's for you forever, and I'm going to be with you forever.
[00:26:09] He's never going to leave us.
[00:26:14] And then, John 21, we're getting there. We're getting ready to land. And then, John 21, there's another appearance, and this is really sad, actually. It's exciting, but it's sad. So Jesus appears to them and he says, I've got this divine mission.
[00:26:33] I'm sending you as my father sent me, so as what I've done, you're going to do, I'm sending you.
[00:26:41] But they hadn't got the message because they were not led by the Holy Spirit.
[00:26:48] John 21, this is what happens. The disciples are in a sorry state. Do you know what they've done?
[00:26:55] Jesus has gone. We don't know when he's going to appear again. Do you know what they did? They went back to their nets. They went back to the fishing boat. In fact, they went back to the life they had before Jesus called them.
[00:27:12] How many of us do that?
[00:27:15] Maybe you gave your life to Christ many, many years ago, and you find in the fire the calling that you once had just isn't there anymore.
[00:27:28] Well, I believe you're here for such a time as this. I believe the Lord says, I want to resurrect and call out the assignment and the calling over your life again. It is not over. It is not finished. There is more.
[00:27:43] And so they are in this sorry state in the boat.
[00:27:48] They go back to doing what they did before, and they are not fishing for men, they are fishing for smelly fish.
[00:27:59] There's a great.
[00:28:01] I'm just going to mention this. It's got nothing to do with my preach. But if you look at that passage, John turns around, they're all in the boat and they're fishing. And John turns around, he says, ah, there's the Lord on the shore. And it says, this is what Peter does. It says, peter, he's in the boat, puts on his outer garment. You can read it in John 21. And he dives into in the water to get to Jesus.
[00:28:28] Why do you suppose Peter puts on his outer garment to dive in the water?
[00:28:38] He puts on his outer garment as a sign of respect that the king of glory is on the shore.
[00:28:47] This wonderful love and honour for Jesus. It says, he dives in the water with his outer garment on and he goes to Jesus on the shore and there's this wonderful scene where Jesus says, peter, feed my sheep. Here's the assignment again. Feed my sheep.
[00:29:07] Care for my flock.
[00:29:11] Go. Peter, I'm sending you.
[00:29:15] And it's great having an assignment. Maybe God has put an assignment over your lives.
[00:29:22] Well, I know he has, because he's done it with all of us. We've just got to recognize his voice.
[00:29:29] But the assignment has been given. But the assignment won't be fruitful. It won't be activated until we wait and we ask the Holy Spirit to come in and fill us.
[00:29:45] As far as the disciples were concerned, when Jesus wasn't there, this is before the day of Pentecost, when Jesus wasn't there, they didn't know what to do.
[00:29:58] They forgot. They were forgetting the assignments. Jesus kept telling them, I'm sending you. Go, go. I'm giving you authority.
[00:30:05] They couldn't remember what God was telling, what Jesus was telling them to do. You know, one of the roles of the Holy Spirit, I love this series because one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is that he reminds us what Jesus has said.
[00:30:19] You can be reading scripture for months and months and months and months, right? And then suddenly you'll be out and about without the Bible with you, and you'll need an answer to give. You will need something, and the Holy Spirit will drop into your spirit. The answer.
[00:30:39] The answer. See, he reminds us, you might be struggling and in pain and suffering. And then suddenly the Holy Spirit drops this scripture.
[00:30:51] The word of God, remember, is living and active, and it changes everything. It changes a perspective.
[00:30:57] There's a shift that happens in your spirit.
[00:31:01] Sadness is suddenly turned to joy.
[00:31:05] Yes, you might be in pain, but there is a joy. Because Jesus said, in this world, you may have many troubles, but take heart. I have overcome the world. And the Holy Spirit is going to remind some of you of that verse this week as you are going through trials.
[00:31:20] He is going to say, but take heart, daughter. Take heart, son, because I have overcome the world.
[00:31:28] And then this uncertainty played out, right? Until acts two, they're uncertain.
[00:31:36] Jesus tells them, he said, right before I go. And you can imagine them going, please don't. Where are you going again?
[00:31:44] He says, I want you to go to Jerusalem.
[00:31:47] Go and wait.
[00:31:50] Sometimes we've got to wait, and we've got to keep waiting. And waiting doesn't mean you just stand there in a room for hours on end. You pray. You pray, you seek God. You say, God, I'm waiting. I'm waiting for a word. I'm waiting on you.
[00:32:05] And Jesus said, wait in Jerusalem. In other words, he was saying, don't go back to your nets. Don't go back to your old life. Otherwise you're going to miss the day of visitation.
[00:32:15] For some of us here today resist going back to what you know. And some of us have been in church for a long time.
[00:32:25] And we know how stale religion can get.
[00:32:29] We know how boring, dare I say it, church can get. I said it.
[00:32:36] But it isn't boring when the Holy Spirit is amongst his people, when God dwells in fullness amongst his people. But the disciples here, they had no understanding of what was going on. In fact, one of them said, okay, this is it. Come on, we're going to Jerusalem because Jesus is going to restore the kingdom to Israel. Now.
[00:32:59] He still hadn't got it.
[00:33:01] You can imagine Jesus going, I just need to get out of here quick.
[00:33:06] And in the next bit it says, jesus went, he was taken up. Can I just read these words to you? Only because they're so encouraging. Are you still with me? I know we're slightly going over, but I feel God wants to speak to us. Morning. It says this, Jesus said, do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. They're probably going, oh, yeah, I think he did say something. Oh, yeah.
[00:33:34] They were so fixed on Jesus. And you would be, wouldn't you? He said, john baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
[00:33:43] And it said, after he said this, he said some other things.
[00:33:47] He was taken up before their very eyes and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside the men of Galilee. They said, why do you stand here looking into the sky?
[00:34:06] Hop along to Jerusalem. That's my words. This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.
[00:34:21] And it said, they went to Jerusalem to wait.
[00:34:31] But here's the deal.
[00:34:34] Were they going to be obedient and do what Jesus said? Jesus had gone because so many times before they had decided to actually lock themselves in a room and hide away because they were fearful.
[00:34:47] But this time something was different.
[00:34:52] They obeyed Jesus.
[00:34:54] They obeyed him.
[00:34:57] They went to Jerusalem. They waited.
[00:35:05] You know, Jesus left them.
[00:35:08] I can imagine there was a bit of grief and heartbreak, Jesus leaving them. Suddenly they're there. Oh, dear.
[00:35:17] You know, if we want more of God, we have got to be on our own.
[00:35:24] We're not used to being on our own with God.
[00:35:27] I think, Cindy, you might have picked up on this a few weeks ago.
[00:35:30] We've got to be on our own.
[00:35:33] We've got to lock ourselves away and be on our own. We've got to stop relying as the church of being spoon fed with podcasts, with YouTube preachers.
[00:35:48] And there is a time for those. I'm not throwing them out, but we've got to stop being so reliant on the, on the preachers out there on the podcasts and what they're saying on the little Instagram reels.
[00:36:06] Oh, it must be true, because Instagram and TikTok tell us we've got to get before God and say, lord, holy Spirit, what are you saying to me? What are you saying? What are you doing in my life? What are you doing in Newton Abbott? We don't want to look to the left or the right of what else is happening but God, what are you doing in Newton Abbot?
[00:36:33] The day of Pentecost came. I'm not going to talk now. But the gift of the Holy Spirit came and the Holy Spirit set the church on fire.
[00:36:43] It radically changed them. You only have to read Peter's speech.
[00:36:49] Stephen's speech. I love Stephen's speech. If you want to learn about the Old Testament, go to Stephen's speech. He goes right the way through the history of the church, the history of God's people.
[00:37:00] As he's been stoned to death. Can I just add that one?
[00:37:05] As he's been persecuted, as he's been martyred, after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the disciples lives were dramatically different. Dramatically.
[00:37:20] They were bold.
[00:37:23] They didn't ask the stupid questions anymore about restoring Israel by force.
[00:37:32] They suddenly understood. Their eyes were opened. God was with them.
[00:37:38] Now they understood why Jesus had to go back, so that they could be filled with the fullness of God.
[00:37:50] Fearful, scared, lonely, timid, self centered, embarrassed about sharing your faith type life was gone, and they were now bold for Christ.
[00:38:02] In acts five, I'm going to finish up in acts five, said the disciples, they were persecuted for their witness. Okay? They were flogged, they were thrown in jail. Has that happened to anybody yet?
[00:38:16] They were persecuted, flogged. And it says this, it says, they considered it joy. In fact, let me just read it to finish off in acts five.
[00:38:36] Acts five, it says, here's Peter. Are you ready for the boldness? He says, so they've been taken.
[00:38:46] And he said, we must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead, whom you had killed by hanging him on the tree. God exalted him to his own right hand as prince and savior, that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him. And it said, after this they were flogged. And then further down in acts 541, it says this, the apostles left the Sanhedrin. Are you ready for this rejoicing? Because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for his name. Day after day, day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ. They considered it joy.
[00:39:41] Were they skipping because they were happy that they'd been flogged and the flogging would have been harsh. Were they in pain? Yes, they were in pain.
[00:39:52] A lot of pain, actually.
[00:39:55] They would have come back to the other christians, and I imagine the women probably would have been so shocked looking at them, the bruises, the cuts, and going, come on, let's feed you. Come on. Let's just, let's sort these wounds out for you. Would there have been tears of pain? Yeah, but they considered it joy.
[00:40:14] They considered it joy. One of the great marks of the outpouring of the spirit in a church is rejoicing and joy when you're going through storms.
[00:40:27] How is that possible, Lord? Well, it's not without the Holy Spirit.
[00:40:37] We will go through pain. We will. We will go through loss. We will go through death.
[00:40:45] And experienced loved ones that go. All of those things will happen to us.
[00:40:54] And you know what? The Lord knows? He's a God of compassion.
[00:40:58] He will comfort us. The Holy Spirit is the comforter. He will comfort us in those moments. He will.
