And this morning I’d just like to say a few words about the Holy Spirit and Pentecost and why we also need to be filled with God’s power and his love - just as those first disciples were two thousand years ago.
The first thing to make clear is that the Holy Spirit is a person. He is the third person of the Trinity. He is referred to in scripture as the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Jesus and he has an absolutely vital role to play in our Christian lives.
The Holy Spirit is the one who initially brings us to faith in Jesus. He is the one who convicts us of our sin and makes us realise our need for forgiveness and to be put right with God.
The Holy Spirit is the one who comes to live in our hearts and lives, who fills us with God’s love and imparts eternal life to us.
He is the one who opens our spiritual eyes to recognise Jesus as Lord and God, who enables us to understand the bible and who empowers us to serve God.
Now in order to understand what happened at Pentecost we need to appreciate that the disciples had already received the Holy Spirit beforehand.
As we can see in today’s gospel reading from John, the risen Lord Jesus appears to his disciples, and he breathes on them and says “receive the Holy Spirit.”
He breathes his own spirit and the life that is in him - into them And as he does this, the Holy Spirit comes to reside in them and they become spiritually alive.
But before he sends them out into the world, Jesus has more to give them. So as Luke records at the end of his gospel, Jesus tells his disciples – to stay in the city until they have been clothed with power from on high.
The Holy Spirit is already living in them - but God wants to clothe them with His power. He wants to pour out His Spirit upon them abundantly and to pour spiritual gifts into their lives to equip them to serve Him.
And the same applies to us. We may be born again and the Holy Spirit may be living in us - but God has more to give us. He wants to fill us with his spirt – with his life and his love, in order to empower us to serve him.
Let me try and illustrate what I mean using this glass of water. The glass symbolises a Christian and the water the Holy Spirit.
When we become Christians, we receive the Holy Spirit – so the glass has water in - but God wants to fill us with his Spirit – to clothe us with power.
Imagine taking a big jug of water and filling the glass completely so it overflows.
As Peter explains in verse 17 of today’s reading from Acts – God wants to pour out his spirit abundantly upon all flesh – men and women, young and old, whatever their position in society.
And this is what we see happening for the first time at Pentecost in order to empower those first disciples to continue Jesus’ work and to build his church.
God fills them with his Spirit and pours new spiritual gifts into their lives and they start speaking in tongues.
And then as we read through Acts, we see these disciples doing just what Jesus did – preaching the gospel, healing the sick and casting out demons through the power of the spirit of Jesus who is living in them.
And this is what God wants his church to be doing today - but if we are to do this – like these first disciples we need to filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Of course we can serve God and bear fruit when we are born again, but we can serve him more effectively when are filled with or baptised with the Holy Spirit. And this is the experience of millions of Spirit-filled
Christians around the world.
I didn’t know anything about being filled with the Holy Spirit until a few years after I’d become a Christian.
But then at the Anglican church I was going to in Tunbridge Wells I came across some Christians who seemed to have a certain power – which was evident when they prayed or spoke about God.
I asked about this and they told me that God had filled them with his Holy Spirit and that he’d do the same for me if I asked Him.
So, I went along to a Christian meeting and asked someone to pray for me and God filled me with His Spirit.
I didn’t feel a huge amount when I was prayed for but over the coming days and weeks I noticed that there was a new power and vitality in my Christian life.
I also found that God started to communicate with me with little pictures in my mind’s eye – especially when I was praying with people or sometimes to clarify the meaning of scripture.
These weren’t amazing 3D visions but just little pictures in my mind’s eye. If I asked you now to picture a bowl of strawberries and cream – this is the type of picture I’m talking about.
I remember for instance praying with a guy who was a lorry driver who was convinced God was calling him to full time ministry - but he didn’t know where or when, and he was becoming increasingly frustrated.
As I prayed with him a picture came into my mind’s eye of a huge wheel which was slowly turning. And then I saw that this guy had his shoulder to the wheel and he was pushing it with all his might to try and make it go faster. But the wheel was going at its own steady pace – and his efforts were in vain.
I shared the picture with him – and explained to him that the wheel symbolised God’s plan for his life – which was slowly unfolding.
He needed to stop wearing himself out and to trust God. All would be revealed in good time. Sometime later he joined the Church Army and he’s now a vicar in Scotland.
The reason I found that God started to communicate through these little pictures was because God had imparted a new spiritual gift to me.
As God fills us with his spirit – as those first disciples found out he imparts new spiritual gifts to us.
What sort of spiritual gifts might we receive?
Well Paul deals with some of these in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and judging by the book of Acts - two of the most common gifts seem to be the ability to speak in tongues and to prophesy.
A lot of people have weird ideas about tongues but it’s simply the God given ability to speak an unlearned human or angelic language.
And the thing to stress about tongues is that it is a gift that we can choose to exercise or not. It’s a gift that is subject to our own free will.
Just as we can choose when to speak in a foreign language – so we can choose when we want to speak in tongues.
The difference is that when we speak in tongues – we don’t understand the meaning of the words we’re saying, although of course God does.
Personally, I find that tongues is particularly useful when you’re unsure how to pray about something. If you pray in tongues first, I find that God will often give you an insight into how to pray for a particular person or situation.
Prophesy is simply the ability to deliver a message from God. This can be a message of encouragement for an individual or sometimes it may be a message for a church.
Other gifts include healing, messages of wisdom and knowledge, the ability to interpret a message given in tongues, and the ability to discern when evil spirits are at work – which is a gift my wife has.
This isn’t an exhaustive list. There are all sorts of gifts which God can impart to an individual – and the purpose of these gifts is to strengthen and encourage others and to build up the church.
I think that many Christians can be a bit wary and fearful of receiving spiritual gifts because they fear being overtaken by them. But God’s spirit is very gentle. He never forces us to do anything. He works with us as we are willing to co-operate with him. He doesn’t over-ride our free will.
Also, it’s immensely encouraging when God helps or encourages others through you.
I have no idea what gifts God might choose to impart to you – but God knows you perfectly and He knows exactly which gifts will be right for you – as you seek to serve Him. Whatever gifts he imparts to you will be exactly what you need.
God calls every Christian to be as fruitful as possible and in order to do this we need as much help as we can get. We each therefore need to be open to offering ourselves to God to fill and empower as He sees fit.
Our prayer should be - Lord I want to be as effective as I can in reaching others with your love. Please fill me with your Spirit and your love and pour into my life those gifts that you want me to have.
It’s important to stress that being filled with the Holy Spirit and receiving spiritual gifts isn’t a badge of honour – it’s for service, and our motivation for seeking to be empowered should be because we want to be as fruitful and effective Christians as we possibly can.
And once we have been filled with the Holy Spirit, we still need to put time and effort into our relationship with God. In order to experience
God’s spirit working through us we need to walk with God through life each day.
And of course, we need to go on being filled with the Holy Spirit because we will find that a bit like batteries we need to be continually re-charged.
So how can we be filled with the Holy Spirit? Well sometimes the Holy Spirit will come upon groups of Christians and empower them as He did at Pentecost – or we can simply ask a mature Christian that we know and trust to lay hands on us and pray for us.
We see both of these happening in the book of Acts as God continues to pour out his spirit on the early church.
So, as I tie up what I want to say this morning I’d like to ask you – if you’re a Christian - have you come to Jesus and invited Him to fill you with his spirit – and to pour new spiritual gifts into your life?
If you haven’t - I’d encourage you to do so. There are people all around you who desperately need to hear the gospel and to know God’s love – and you need to be open to everything God wants to give you in order to reach out to them.
Or perhaps you’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit in the past but you feel spiritually dry - like a lawn that needs rain. If that’s the case why not ask God to fill you again – to refresh and revive you.
Or perhaps you haven’t yet received the Holy Spirit into your life and you’d like to.
I’m going to close now with a time of quiet and the opportunity for you to share what is on your heart with God.
I’m going to introduce this quiet time with a brief prayer inviting God to come by his spirit to those of you who want to receive him.
If you would like Jesus to fill you with the Holy Spirit, I suggest you just say your own quiet prayer – Lord Jesus please come now and fill me to overflowing with your spirit.
And can I also gently suggest that if feel comfortable with it, why not open your hands slightly as a sign that you want to receive.
So, let’s pray. Lord Jesus thank you for your great love for each one of us. Thank you that you know us intimately and that you want to fill us to overflowing with your Holy Spirit and to impart new spiritual gifts to us.
Lord Jesus as we rest for a few moments in your presence - please come now to everyone here this morning who wants more of your love and your power in their lives. Pour out your spirit on us. Fill us with your love and empower us; refresh and revive us we pray.
QUIET>>>
Amen.
If there are some of you here who would prefer personal prayer after the service, Campbell or I will be very pleased to pray for you.
Now in order to understand what happened at Pentecost we need to appreciate that the disciples had already received the Holy Spirit beforehand.
As we can see in today’s gospel reading from John, the risen Lord Jesus appears to his disciples, and he breathes on them and says “receive the Holy Spirit.”
He breathes his own spirit and the life that is in him - into them And as he does this, the Holy Spirit comes to reside in them and they become spiritually alive.
But before he sends them out into the world, Jesus has more to give them. So as Luke records at the end of his gospel, Jesus tells his disciples – to stay in the city until they have been clothed with power from on high.
The Holy Spirit is already living in them - but God wants to clothe them with His power. He wants to pour out His Spirit upon them abundantly and to pour spiritual gifts into their lives to equip them to serve Him.
And the same applies to us. We may be born again and the Holy Spirit may be living in us - but God has more to give us. He wants to fill us with his spirt – with his life and his love, in order to empower us to serve him.
Let me try and illustrate what I mean using this glass of water. The glass symbolises a Christian and the water the Holy Spirit.
When we become Christians, we receive the Holy Spirit – so the glass has water in - but God wants to fill us with his Spirit – to clothe us with power.
Imagine taking a big jug of water and filling the glass completely so it overflows.
As Peter explains in verse 17 of today’s reading from Acts – God wants to pour out his spirit abundantly upon all flesh – men and women, young and old, whatever their position in society.
And this is what we see happening for the first time at Pentecost in order to empower those first disciples to continue Jesus’ work and to build his church.
God fills them with his Spirit and pours new spiritual gifts into their lives and they start speaking in tongues.
And then as we read through Acts, we see these disciples doing just what Jesus did – preaching the gospel, healing the sick and casting out demons through the power of the spirit of Jesus who is living in them.
And this is what God wants his church to be doing today - but if we are to do this – like these first disciples we need to filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Of course we can serve God and bear fruit when we are born again, but we can serve him more effectively when are filled with or baptised with the Holy Spirit. And this is the experience of millions of Spirit-filled
Christians around the world.
I didn’t know anything about being filled with the Holy Spirit until a few years after I’d become a Christian.
But then at the Anglican church I was going to in Tunbridge Wells I came across some Christians who seemed to have a certain power – which was evident when they prayed or spoke about God.
I asked about this and they told me that God had filled them with his Holy Spirit and that he’d do the same for me if I asked Him.
So, I went along to a Christian meeting and asked someone to pray for me and God filled me with His Spirit.
I didn’t feel a huge amount when I was prayed for but over the coming days and weeks I noticed that there was a new power and vitality in my Christian life.
I also found that God started to communicate with me with little pictures in my mind’s eye – especially when I was praying with people or sometimes to clarify the meaning of scripture.
These weren’t amazing 3D visions but just little pictures in my mind’s eye. If I asked you now to picture a bowl of strawberries and cream – this is the type of picture I’m talking about.
I remember for instance praying with a guy who was a lorry driver who was convinced God was calling him to full time ministry - but he didn’t know where or when, and he was becoming increasingly frustrated.
As I prayed with him a picture came into my mind’s eye of a huge wheel which was slowly turning. And then I saw that this guy had his shoulder to the wheel and he was pushing it with all his might to try and make it go faster. But the wheel was going at its own steady pace – and his efforts were in vain.
I shared the picture with him – and explained to him that the wheel symbolised God’s plan for his life – which was slowly unfolding.
He needed to stop wearing himself out and to trust God. All would be revealed in good time. Sometime later he joined the Church Army and he’s now a vicar in Scotland.
The reason I found that God started to communicate through these little pictures was because God had imparted a new spiritual gift to me.
As God fills us with his spirit – as those first disciples found out he imparts new spiritual gifts to us.
What sort of spiritual gifts might we receive?
Well Paul deals with some of these in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and judging by the book of Acts - two of the most common gifts seem to be the ability to speak in tongues and to prophesy.
A lot of people have weird ideas about tongues but it’s simply the God given ability to speak an unlearned human or angelic language.
And the thing to stress about tongues is that it is a gift that we can choose to exercise or not. It’s a gift that is subject to our own free will.
Just as we can choose when to speak in a foreign language – so we can choose when we want to speak in tongues.
The difference is that when we speak in tongues – we don’t understand the meaning of the words we’re saying, although of course God does.
Personally, I find that tongues is particularly useful when you’re unsure how to pray about something. If you pray in tongues first, I find that God will often give you an insight into how to pray for a particular person or situation.
Prophesy is simply the ability to deliver a message from God. This can be a message of encouragement for an individual or sometimes it may be a message for a church.
Other gifts include healing, messages of wisdom and knowledge, the ability to interpret a message given in tongues, and the ability to discern when evil spirits are at work – which is a gift my wife has.
This isn’t an exhaustive list. There are all sorts of gifts which God can impart to an individual – and the purpose of these gifts is to strengthen and encourage others and to build up the church.
I think that many Christians can be a bit wary and fearful of receiving spiritual gifts because they fear being overtaken by them. But God’s spirit is very gentle. He never forces us to do anything. He works with us as we are willing to co-operate with him. He doesn’t over-ride our free will.
Also, it’s immensely encouraging when God helps or encourages others through you.
I have no idea what gifts God might choose to impart to you – but God knows you perfectly and He knows exactly which gifts will be right for you – as you seek to serve Him. Whatever gifts he imparts to you will be exactly what you need.
God calls every Christian to be as fruitful as possible and in order to do this we need as much help as we can get. We each therefore need to be open to offering ourselves to God to fill and empower as He sees fit.
Our prayer should be - Lord I want to be as effective as I can in reaching others with your love. Please fill me with your Spirit and your love and pour into my life those gifts that you want me to have.
It’s important to stress that being filled with the Holy Spirit and receiving spiritual gifts isn’t a badge of honour – it’s for service, and our motivation for seeking to be empowered should be because we want to be as fruitful and effective Christians as we possibly can.
And once we have been filled with the Holy Spirit, we still need to put time and effort into our relationship with God. In order to experience
God’s spirit working through us we need to walk with God through life each day.
And of course, we need to go on being filled with the Holy Spirit because we will find that a bit like batteries we need to be continually re-charged.
So how can we be filled with the Holy Spirit? Well sometimes the Holy Spirit will come upon groups of Christians and empower them as He did at Pentecost – or we can simply ask a mature Christian that we know and trust to lay hands on us and pray for us.
We see both of these happening in the book of Acts as God continues to pour out his spirit on the early church.
So, as I tie up what I want to say this morning I’d like to ask you – if you’re a Christian - have you come to Jesus and invited Him to fill you with his spirit – and to pour new spiritual gifts into your life?
If you haven’t - I’d encourage you to do so. There are people all around you who desperately need to hear the gospel and to know God’s love – and you need to be open to everything God wants to give you in order to reach out to them.
Or perhaps you’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit in the past but you feel spiritually dry - like a lawn that needs rain. If that’s the case why not ask God to fill you again – to refresh and revive you.
Or perhaps you haven’t yet received the Holy Spirit into your life and you’d like to.
I’m going to close now with a time of quiet and the opportunity for you to share what is on your heart with God.
I’m going to introduce this quiet time with a brief prayer inviting God to come by his spirit to those of you who want to receive him.
If you would like Jesus to fill you with the Holy Spirit, I suggest you just say your own quiet prayer – Lord Jesus please come now and fill me to overflowing with your spirit.
And can I also gently suggest that if feel comfortable with it, why not open your hands slightly as a sign that you want to receive.
So, let’s pray. Lord Jesus thank you for your great love for each one of us. Thank you that you know us intimately and that you want to fill us to overflowing with your Holy Spirit and to impart new spiritual gifts to us.
Lord Jesus as we rest for a few moments in your presence - please come now to everyone here this morning who wants more of your love and your power in their lives. Pour out your spirit on us. Fill us with your love and empower us; refresh and revive us we pray.
QUIET>>>
Amen.
If there are some of you here who would prefer personal prayer after the service, Campbell or I will be very pleased to pray for you.
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