1-2-15Accessing God's Power - The Power of The Holy Spirit
Accessing God's Power - The Power of The Holy Spirit
Date 01,February 2015
Scripture Reading Acts 1:4-8; 2:1-4
from series Accessing God's Power
Scripture Reading
Let us rise to our feet and together readActs 1:4-8
4 And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.5 For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
Acts 2:1-4
2 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
This is the word of God. Thanks be to the LORD. May the sweet Holy Spirit add His manifold blessings to our text this morning .... Amen! You may be seated in God's Presence.
About The Power of The Holy Spirit
One of the distinctives of the New Testament is that God's power
would be made available to every believer through the baptism with the
Holy Spirit. What exactly is that power for? How can we access it?
What does it mean to be baptized in the Holy Spirit?
This sermon is on The Power of the Holy Spirit encourages
Christians to live Spirit-filled lives so that they can be witnesses to
their faith in Christ. Acts 1:4-8; 2:1-4
This is now our fifth and final message in our series Accessing God's Power.
So far we've looked at the power of the name of Jesus, the power of praise and worship, the power of the blood of Jesus, and the power of God's Word. The passage we just read describes the day of Pentecost when God made available to all believers the most powerful force in the universe, more powerful than a nuclear bomb.
Today, we're looking at the power of the Holy Spirit. Every believer should be filled with, and utilizing the power of, the Holy Spirit. So today we're asking: What does Holy Spirit have the power to do, and how do we access that power?
Pastor Trevor Chandler, taught in the Dunamis
Bible College on the subject of the Holy Spirit. He asked the students
to examine all the Scriptures they could find that were linked to the
Holy Spirit and put their findings in alphabetical order. Here's what
they came up with:
Acceptance, ability, adoption, anointing, appointments, Boldness, blessing, Cleansing, character, comfort, commands, conviction, confidence, confirmation, counselling, conscience, Deliverance, discernment, discipling, disciplining, deposit, Empowering, enabling, encouraging, Faith, fellowship, freedom, fruit, Gifts, glory, Godhead, goodness, grace, grieving, guidance, guarantee, Healing, hope, helping, holiness, Impartation, inspiration, inner witness, interpretation, Joy, judgment, Knowledge, Life, liberty, love, Miracles, New birth, Obedience, oneness, Peace, perseverance, power, prayer, prophecy, preaching, persuasion, Quickening, Release, revival, revelation, righteousness, Sanctification, the sword, sealing, sonship, strength, Teaching, truth, tongues, Trinity, transformation, Unity, utterances, understanding, Vitality, vindication, victory, Warning, wisdom, witness, X-ray vision, Youthfulness, Zeal
I added a couple of my own, and that makes a total of 88, and 8 being
the number of resurrection, there can't possibly any more to add… just
kidding.
88 is a lot, and we're only going to look at a few.
1. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to be witnesses
Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Being a witness means two things: Being the kind of person. If we're not the kind of people God wants us to be, then we should keep our mouths shut. But at the same time, there's no such thing as a silent witness.
2. The Holy Spirit has the power to transform us
2 Cor 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror
the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from
glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
In the process of this transformation, He releases us from bondage, the power of sin, and addictions.
Ill. I have a friend, who's a pastor, and for years he was a
chronic stutterer. It was an ordeal for him to get through one
sentence. Until the day he was filled with the Holy Spirit. God
completely set him free. Except in one small way - he can't say his
surname without stuttering. Pastors might be standing around
introducing themselves with their full names. But all he can say is,
"Hi, I'm Dr. Siraj." God's left him a little reminder of what he was like
before God's power touched his life.
Isn't it interesting that when Jacob wrestled with God, God left him with a limp, a reminder of his encounter with the Lord?
Being under Holy Spirit control is like a business hanging a sign out front: Under New Management.
3. The Holy Spirit empowers us against the enemy
Ill. A number of years ago, a movie came out called The Bear, and
it went something like this: Once upon a time, there was a mummy bear
and a baby bear, and they were sooo happy together. Then one day, an
accident happened and the mummy bear died, leaving the little baby bear
all alone in the world. One day the poor defenceless baby bear was out
minding his own business, when he was spotted by a big, mean, hungry
mountain lion. The baby bear started to run; he was trapped next to the
river, and jumped in. The mean and nasty mountain lion followed him
downstream to where the baby bear came ashore at a crossing. The baby
bear was trapped again, and made a puny, squeaky sound as the mountain
lion closed in for the kill. Then suddenly, the baby bear stood to his
feet, opened his mouth, and there was a massive great roar. The
mountain lion suddenly remembered that he had another pressing
engagement, and ran for his life, terrified. How did the little baby
bear do that? The cameras panned round, and there standing behind the
baby bear was the hugest, most ferocious daddy bear.
1 John 4:4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them,
because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
The Holy Spirit within us is far more powerful than the devil.
4. The Holy Spirit gives us guidance
Ill. A number of years ago, a man in my previous church (let's call him
George), was one of those responsible for taking an offering bag into a
back room to be counted. There were a number of them, and they all went
through a corridor behind the stage, left the bags with the
offering-counters, and returned to the service. One day, a lady went to
the pastor and said, "God has given me a word of knowledge. George is
stealing from the offering." They worked out a way they could verify
this, and it turned out to be true. They caught him in the act.
Ill. When my friend's wife, Anny, worked for the Health Department in a
facility, it was suspected that one of the inmates was being sexually
molested, but no one knew who the perpetrator was - till the Lord showed
Allison who it was. At the time, she was in a training role and
whenever she was in class, every time she looked at him, she saw the
little girl's face superimposed on his face. She arrived at his work
section unannounced and caught him in the act. As a result, that man
went to jail.
John 16:13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will
guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority,
but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to
come.
5. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin
John 16:7-8 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your
advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not
come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. (8) And when He
has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment:
Part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to let us know when we're doing the wrong thing. Why does He do that? To make us feel bad? To keep us from getting too close to God?
No, He convicts us of sin so that we will draw nearer to the Saviour. But conviction often hurts. It's like being in a dark room for some time and having someone suddenly turn on the light. It hurts your eyes.
How Can We Access The Power Of The Holy Spirit?
1. Be Baptized with the Holy Spirit
The beginning of a full relationship with the Holy Spirit is an event known in the Bible as the baptism with the Holy Spirit. There are five separate times in the book of Acts when it talks about this special event in the life of a believer.
Acts 2 - 120-odd disciples were filled with Holy Spirit and speak in tongues.
Acts 8 - The Samaritans become Christians through the ministry of
Phillip, are baptized in water, and Peter and John hear about it and go
and pray for them to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Something visible occurred because Simon the magician was so
impressed that he offered to by the ability to impart the Holy Spirit.
Acts 9 - Saul, persecutor of the church, becomes a Christian, is
filled with the Holy Spirit, and speaks in tongues. (1 Cor. 14:18)
Acts 10 - Cornelius and his household receive Christ, are filled with the Holy Spirit, and speak in tongues.
Acts 19 - Some disciples - about twelve men - are prayed for by Paul
to be filled with the Holy Spirit and they speak in tongues and
prophesy.
When we put all these passages together, we learn some important facts about the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
1. It is a separate and subsequent experience to being born again.
2. You can be born again and not filled with the Holy Spirit.
3. You may or may not automatically be baptized with the Holy Spirit when you receive Christ.
4. There is a supernatural manifestation when a person is baptized with the Holy Spirit.
5. Every time it mentions what that supernatural manifestation is, it's speaking in tongues.
How to Receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit
Let us now consider how we receive the Holy Spirit. In his sermon on the day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter tells us the three things we must do to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He said in Acts 2:38, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
In order for people to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, they must first repent and have a genuine new birth experience whereby they know they are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God who died for them upon the cross. Repentance literally means “to have a change of mind, and to turn around and walk in the opposite direction.” Therefore, people must forsake their old lifestyle and begin to walk in the ways of God.
The next requirement is that they must be water baptized, or in some cases, be willing to be water baptized. For example, the house of Cornelius repented at the preaching of Peter, gave their lives to
the Lord, and were filled with the Holy Spirit while Peter was still preaching. Afterwards, they were water baptized. The Apostle Paul himself was filled with the Spirit before he was water baptized. I, too, was baptized in the Holy Spirit before I was water baptized, but I was willing to be baptized in water and had already put my name down on a list to be water baptized. Peter tells us that if we repent and become born-again, and we are water baptized, then we are candidates to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
It is the Lord Jesus Himself who is the Baptizer. It is He who baptizes us with the Holy Ghost. John the Baptist made this point very clear in Matthew 3:11. A man cannot baptize himself or anyone else with the Holy Ghost. Men and women can certainly be the instruments used to lay hands upon people and pray for them to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. However, they will not receive the Holy Spirit until the Lord sovereignly baptizes them. Neither does one receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit by repeating certain words or phrases spoken by another person, or by following a formula. It is only the Lord who can baptize with the Holy Spirit. The Lord must be present for someone to receive the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we want to be in an atmosphere of prayer and worship so that the presence of the Lord will come and people will be baptized with the Holy Ghost.
One of the most precious things about the baptism of the Holy Spirit is that everyone’s experience is unique and different. There is no set pattern for receiving the baptism. Many people in the Scriptures received the Holy Spirit when someone prayed for them and laid hands on them (see Acts 8:17, 9:17, 19:6). However, on the day of the original outpouring of the Spirit of God the disciples were filled with the Spirit as they were sitting down waiting for the Lord to move in their midst (Acts 2:2-4). The household of Cornelius received the Holy Spirit as Peter was preaching (Acts 10:44). We can also receive the Holy Spirit all by ourselves. We do not necessarily have to be in a church building or in a
service. I received the Holy Spirit while I was all alone in my Home at Ganganagar.
Nonetheless, it is a good idea to have someone who is baptized with the Holy Spirit pray for you to help you and guide you through it. This is very helpful, because most people don’t know what to do and they have doubts and questions. Therefore, if someone is there to explain to you how to receive, it is much easier for you.
If you have never been baptized with the Holy Spirit, we'll give you opportunity to be prayed for later. But the first step to accessing the power of the Holy Spirit is to be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
2. Live a life yielded to the Holy Spirit
Eph 5:18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit
The Greek language has a verbal tense that doesn't exist in English, and it indicates an ongoing action. That's the tense that's used in this verse, and literally it means, "keep on being filled with Holy Spirit". That's because as we live life, the power drains out of us, just as it did with Jesus. (Mk 5:30). That means we need to keep being filled.
The Apostle Paul explains in Ephesians 5:19 how to achieve this continuous infilling: “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” We have a ministry to ourselves. Christians are instructed to speak to themselves in the Holy Ghost. I would now like to illustrate this from several scriptures.
Psalm 43 was written while King David was fleeing from his son Absalom. David was greatly outnumbered; yet his greatest problem was not from outside, but from within. His soul was in a deep pit of depression. In verse 5, he addressed his soul and said: “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”
David spoke to his discouraged soul and commanded it to hope in God; he took the ascendancy over his soul and emotions, which were running wild. We do not have to be soulish and allow our emotions to rule us, nor should we. This only leads to turmoil and disaster. We can overcome our soulish nature through the continual infilling of the Holy Spirit.
King David spoke to his soul because his soul was cast down. Do you know what the phrase “cast down” means? It is an old English expression used of a sheep who has rolled over on its back. When a sheep is rolled over on its back, it will normally stay there until it dies because it cannot lift itself up, and it gives up trying. This was how David’s soul was feeling. He was thinking to himself, “I am lost. There is no hope. Absalom is going to take my life.” But then David rose up and said to his soul, “Why have you given up?” He was a very spiritual man. The decision to be soulish or spiritual is ours. Are we going to be emotional or spiritual? The key to being spiritual is to take the ascendancy over our emotions by speaking to our soul and allowing the life of the Spirit to flow through us.
In John 4:14, the Lord Jesus said to the woman at the well, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” This is what God does for us when we come to Him and receive Him as our Savior. He puts within us a well of bubbling water, which is the Holy Spirit.
This work of the Holy Spirit in our lives can be seen symbolically in the Old Testament when God promised the children of Israel that He would give them water in the wilderness (Num. 21:16). “Then Israel sang this song, Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it” (Num. 21:17). In other words, we have to sing unto the well that is within us, and as we sing our well bubbles up.
It is one thing to have this well of the Holy Spirit within our hearts; however, it is another thing to keep this well from becoming blocked. Isaac cleared out the wells which his father Abraham had dug, because the Philistines had stopped them up with earth (Gen. 26:15). The Philistines are representative of envy. We must be very careful that envy does not take root within us because it can
be a boulder that stops up the well in our lives. Later on there were other problems that he had, and we find that strife and hatred also stopped up his wells (see Gen. 26:20-21). These enemies of the Spirit in our lives, and any other of the works of the flesh can block the well within us (Gal. 5:19-21).
How do we get our spiritual wells free if they have been stopped up by one of the sins mentioned above?
We are given the key in Numbers 21:18. “The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves.” This is not recorded in Holy Scripture just for a historical fact. It was included for the purpose of instructing us. You will notice that it was the princes that digged these wells.
In actuality, it is to show us that if the wells of our heart get stopped up, we must go to the princes (our pastors and leaders) to receive the remedy to our problem. God-appointed leaders have the Spirit of counsel upon them to discern what is blocking our well. The princes or leaders built these wells under the direction of Moses, the one in Supreme authority. Therefore, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the ministers of God should have the ability to show people how to get freedom in their lives.
So how do we do that?
It goes on to tell us in the following verses that a key to that is worship. But really, being filled with the Holy Spirit means being under the control of the Holy Spirit. You can sing and worship all you want, but if you have areas of
unyieldedness to the Lord, you can't really be filled with the Spirit. It is essential that we keep our hearts soft, pliable and open to the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to do whatever He wants to do.
3. Pray in tongues every day
Praying in tongues is an essential part of our spiritual growth.
Because the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, speaking in tongues has been termed the “Pentecostal experience.”
Since the beginning of the twentieth century there has been a renewal of speaking in other tongues called the “Pentecostal movement.”
1 Cor. 14:5 I wish you all spoke with tongues…
1 Cor. 14:18 I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all;
1 Cor. 14:4 He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself…
1 Cor. 14:14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays…
Speaking in other tongues is a tremendous sign. It is the out rushing of the Spirit of God through the believer. All the manifestations of the Spirit such as prophecy, healing, and miracles) were demonstrated in the Old Testament in one form or another, except speaking in other tongues. The Lord reserved this phenomena for the outpouring of the Spirit of God on the day of Pentecost to serve as an unmistakable sign that confirms that a person has received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. What happened on the day of Pentecost had never happened before; God was doing a new thing.
There are basically three aspects of the manifestation of tongues:
(1) Speaking in other tongues as the initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit;
(2) Speaking in tongues in our prayer life and worship;
(3) The gift of tongues for the edification of the Church.
When we speak in tongues, we are:
(1) Speaking unto God and speaking the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 14:2);
(2) Declaring the wonderful works of God (Acts 2:11);
(3) Magnifying the Lord (Acts 10:46);
(4) Edifying our spirits and strengthening our inner man (1 Cor. 14:4, Rom. 8:26-27).
Speaking in other tongues is the initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You can be anointed by the Holy Spirit, but that does not necessarily mean that you have the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Spirit and the seven Spirits of the Lord are different. As we have said in earlier sermons, the first Spirit of the Lord is the anointing to preach. A person can be anointed to preach the gospel without being baptized in the Holy Spirit. Several well known evangelists speak under an anointing. You can feel the anointing when they preach, but they state publicly that they are not baptized in the Holy Ghost. Therefore, you can be anointed with the seven Spirits of the Lord and not be filled with the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist was anointed by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit came upon him when he was in his mother’s womb. However, he did not have the baptism of the Holy Spirit, nor did he speak in other tongues, because the Holy Spirit was not given until the day of Pentecost.
I pray in tongues every day. Is that because I'm such a spiritual giant? No, it's because I recognize my great need, and that God has given us
this great ability that we can use any time we want, and it builds us
up. When you pray in tongues, you build yourself up in the Spirit.
Speaking in tongues is a gift of the Holy Spirit, but there is also the human element involved. We have to do the speaking with our vocal chords. This is our part. However, the words are given by the Spirit. Acts 2:4 says, “They began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
The Holy Spirit wants to come into us and flow out through us. It is a good idea to start by praising the Lord and worshiping Him in our native language. Then by faith we yield our vocal chords unto the Lord and begin speaking in a new language. We do not have to think about what we say, or formulate the words in our minds because it is a language that we cannot understand. The Holy Spirit bypasses our minds and intellect and speaks through us. We should not try to make up the words or copy someone else’s tongues. It is as we speak by faith, that the Holy Spirit will give us the words.
Invitation And The Final Challenge
With all of this said, we should understand that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not necessarily a sign that someone is mature. As a matter of fact, it is given to those who are babes in Christ. This thought provoking fact is clearly seen in Hebrews 6:2, which speaks of the doctrine of baptisms as being one of the elementary principles of Christ. Sometimes the Lord will save and baptize believers with the Holy Ghost all in one day. Nevertheless, it is important to constantly be filled with His Spirit, irrespective of our level of maturity.
Flowing out from the Spirit-filled life is the truth of being led by the Spirit. Those who are continuously seeking the Lord for more of His Spirit, and are following the steps mentioned earlier, become eligible to experience the Spirit-led life. While it is true that we do not have to be filled with the Spirit to experience His leading on an elementary level, if we are going to experience the fullness of being sovereignly guided by the Spirit, we must be baptized in the Holy Spirit.
In contrast to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit-led life is something quite different. It is experienced by those who are mature in Christ. Paul makes this clear in Romans 8:14, where he said, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the [mature] sons of God.” The term “sons of God” refers to mature sons of God in the original Greek, not babes in Christ.
Paul says in Galatians 5:25, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” In other words, the Lord wants all of our steps to be directed by Him because He has a plan for our lives. He has preplanned our lives before the foundation of the world for His divine purposes. Jeremiah said, “O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jer. 10:23). We cannot direct our lives by our own mind because our lives have been preordained. Therefore, we need to be led by the Holy Spirit so that we fulfill God’s plan for our lives.
One of the promises for the Church Age (and for Israel in the Millennium) is seen in Ezekiel 36:27: “And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” In this verse, the Lord is saying to us, “I am going to ensure that you fulfill My purposes through the Holy Spirit who will cause you to walk in My ways.”
Have your life filled with the Holy Spirit? or Have you living yielded life to the Holy Spirit? or You practicing the Praying in tongues experience. If not come forward we will minister to you...
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