Transcription
Holy Spirit, we welcome you to come. We welcome you to come. We need a fresh encounter. We need a fresh experience. We have in our hearts, Lord, I pray you'll fall on the word, and Lord, there'll be a hunting garage in our hearts. We thank you for what you're doing among our young people. How desperately we need, and this generation needs, a move of God. We thank you for the young ones that are serving, helping, making it possible. And when we cry out that not just the young ones would receive a fresh encounter, but Lord, there'd be a fresh wave of your spirit sweep through the church and through our community. We love you, Lord. We honor you. Glory. Amen.
Gonna skip a lot of clams, shall we? And our musicians, you're just so awesome. That was just great this morning.
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Oh, please be seated.
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It was just so exciting. Hello. Well, it's great to be back. And, uh, it was just wonderfully touching to be in that atmosphere of worship. We should never take it for granted. It is, it's strong and powerful, and you feel the presence of God, and you can go a long way to find that in churches. So never take for granted what you have, or you'll soon lose it because you start to dishonor. So we always want to value what God has given us. And when God starts to move among the young people like that, you want to value that. So you value God moving, and value other things. Value God, and God moving. And, uh, and when we do that, then more happens in our lives. And, uh, so we last, uh, we've been away for ages, it seems. Longest I've ever been away. But we went, uh, to, um, uh, Hamilton and had some meetings with Chinese and saw him over God among Chinese. Then we went to, uh, Israel, and I had two weeks in Israel with a team from Awakened Church in San Diego and had heaps of fun all over Israel. Then we had time with Awakened leadership, key leadership, and, uh, in in Florence and Rome, uh, for a few days. And then we did a river trip and, uh, had the most wonderful, restful time that we could have had. And then we've been back this week. And, uh, I've been loving just getting back into prayer walking again and experiencing the presence of God. So just great to be home again.
And I encourage you with Freedom Encounter. We've got Freedom Encounter coming up. And I don't, I don't haven't been anywhere where people haven't need to be set free. Nowhere, because there is an invisible war going on for your life and your future. And just because you were free last year doesn't mean you're free now. And so Freedom Encounter is just that. It's an opportunity to get some teaching and have an encounter. And where you are in your life that you need a level of freedom to come, then this is what the encounter is about. So don't just come for teaching. Come with a heart prepared. God, I want an additional freedom. Lord, there's some things holding me back that I need to actually get a breakthrough in. And I have never run these the same. Every time they're always a bit different. We change what we do and how we do it. So I'll be thinking, ask the Lord what to do. And already got some ideas today. So that's great. Praise the Lord.
Hey, listen, I want to speak on Pentecost. I want to speak on the empowerment of the Holy Spirit because last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday. So we were in the church in Brisbane, and we had a great move of God there. And, uh, and they were just really very excited. But when we talk to to people, uh, Christians, and we ask what Pentecost is, they usually can't tell you. And when you ask what Pentecost is, they can't tell you that. Are you up Pentecostal? I suppose so. Go to Pentecostal Church. What's all that about? And if you can't answer that, then you won't value it. And if you won't value it, you won't pursue what God wants you to have.
In Acts 2 verse 1, it says, "When the day of Pentecost had fully come." And, uh, and and the Passion Translation, "On the day Pentecost was being fulfilled." So, but when we read that, it doesn't mean much to us. We're not from Israel. And so, uh, the day of Pentecost, it doesn't really mean very, very much at all until you understand what it meant to the people of that day, and then what it means for us today, and how that has outworked in our life. So I'm going to open it up a little bit. Then I want to help you understand why it is important. Why it is important.
So, uh, so there were, Pentecost was one of three feasts in Israel. Three times every year, God commanded the people, he commanded them to come together and to hold a celebration. And there were three of them every year. And he said, "This is a perpetual thing." The celebration of these feasts. Not only that, it tells us in the book of Zechariah that in the coming Millennial Kingdom, all of the nations, or the key leaders of the nations, will assemble in Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. So this is not something just ancient history. This is something you need understanding of.
So there are three feasts. Three times the people came together to hold a celebration. And each of the feasts were different. I won't go into details. I want to move on to what they mean more than anything. But the feast, the first feasts are over. In each of these feasts, God showed them how they kept the feast. But that's the Old Covenant. We keep it differently. So just because it's in the Old Testament doesn't mean it's not relevant. So in the Old Testament, God spoke to them in Leviticus 23, how you keep the feasts, gave exact details what to do. But all of that, we're in a New Covenant now, and we keep those feasts differently. But we still are meant to keep them. And when you replace them with Christmas and Easter, and you lose all track of the feasts, then the church loses understanding of the significance of what they were. And I want to get sidetracked on that. I want to just help you understand Pentecost.
So there were three feasts. The first is Passover, the Feast of Passover. Now, we pass over for us is an experience. For them, it reminded them of the time they were set free from Egypt, from slavery. But for us, we experience the Feast of Passover when we receive Christ, who is our Passover Lamb, who shared his blood for our sins. So you, if you have received Jesus Christ, you have received the Spirit of God into your life. You have now experienced the meaning of Passover. But it's not just something you experience. We keep the feast. The Bible tells we, when we keep the feast, it says in 1 Corinthians 5:8, "Let us keep the feast." So we're to keep the Feast of Passover, but not doing what they did, and not holding some kind of memorial service or anything like that. It says, he says, "Keep the feast not with the old leaven or sin, not with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." I won't go into all of that. But what he's saying is, we are still to keep the feast, but the way it's kept now is by living a life where we surrender to the Holy Spirit and let him lead us and transform us. That's how you keep the feast. It's not that you hold a meal at home, that's all nice and wonderful. But you keep the feast by walking with God. You keep the feast by surrendering and letting the Holy Spirit lead you and change you. That's how you keep the feast today. You let the Holy Spirit change you, show you the areas in your life and character that are lacking, and help transform you on the inside. The keeping of the Feast of Passover now is about our daily walk with God and letting the Holy Spirit lead us and change us. How about that? I know you're going to think about this as I share it. So I'm going to open up and explain a little bit more. If that's the Feast of Passover.
Now, there's another feast. There was a feast that happened, and that was the first month. There's a feast happened in the third month. In the third month, they had what's called the Feast of Pentecost. Pentecost just refers to 50 days. 50 days after Passover was Pentecost. So we experience, remember when the day of Pentecost had fully come. In other words, when Jesus died, he died at the exact moment they were doing the natural Passover. And God has now started something different. Now, 50 days later, Jesus had told them to wait for the Holy Spirit to come. And now, when the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled, in other words, what it's saying is, what happened in the Old Testament that they were doing every year for 1500 years, now, now it is now being fulfilled. That was the old. This is the new. The new is about the fire of God coming upon people to empower them to to serve. So the Feast of Passover, the Spirit of God enters the person to transform us and lead us. The Feast of Pentecost, the power of God comes upon us. It's an experience we have, and then we walk in it or continue in it by being filled with the Spirit every day. Notice that the feasts have an experience which is initial, and then you have an ongoing thing you're walking in. So we experience the Feast of Passover, we receive Christ, the Spirit of God enters your life, you now become a child of God, and we walk in that, or we keep the feast by surrendering to the Holy Spirit and letting them work in our life. The Feast of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes upon us, we get baptized in the Spirit and start to speak in tongues. It's a one-off experience. However, we keep the feast by living the Holy Spirit fill us every day. You want to be filled with the Spirit day by day by day. That takes place by prayer and intentionally surrendering your life to the Holy Spirit to fill you.
But there's the third phase. Now, how many, how many are saved, experienced the Feast of Passover already? They, how many have experienced the Feast of Pentecost? You've actually had the baptism of the Spirit, speak in tongues. And if you don't know about it, you won't prepare for it, and you won't experience it. You understand that the things that we come into, we come into because we hear the word of God and believe and respond. Feast of Tabernacles was the great feast of the year. It was in the seventh month. They won't go into all the meetings of all of this kind of thing. It was held in the seventh month. It was the Feast of Harvest. It was the great time of the year. It was the great time of celebration. So we have not yet experienced the Feast of Tabernacles. It is an experience yet to come. It is an experience to hope for. So when we got baptized, when we received Christ, His Spirit of God came into us, and it was power to become a child of God. When the Spirit of God came upon us and baptism in the Spirit, it was power to be able to serve and to do the assignment God has given us. But what is coming is quite different. And so the feast, the Tabernacles has yet to come. And we will experience the Feast of Tabernacles when, when, when Christ returns as a warrior king, and we receive or enter into the first resurrection. First resurrection means your body is totally changed. God's plan is not to get you to heaven. It's to change you so you rule and share with him in the reformation of the Earth. And so this is an experience that has never been seen in history except in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus rose from the dead, put on a glorified resurrected body, appeared to people over a period of time, and had the capacity to enter into the realm of heaven and then enter into the realm of Earth. He took on an earthly form. He took on a heavenly form. He was transformed in his body. The Bible says this is a great hope for us as believers. We have not, we will yet experience it when he returns. But we can still keep the feast. How do we keep the feast? That's the thing. We keep the feast. How we keep the Feast of Tabernacles when you live a committed, faithful, fruitful life in anticipation of the coming of Christ. You see, you see the Feast of of Passover was to bring about a change in us. The Feast of Pentecost is to empower us to serve. The Feast of Tabernacles, then we will keep that if we commit our lives to a dedicated life of serving God and fulfilling our assignment. In other words, it's about your faithful service. And entering into that Feast of the coming of the Lord is totally dependent upon the life you live now being fruitful. We will reward it according to the works that we do. Okay.
It's getting all quiet now. So I want to just move back and keep and get the focus back on Pentecost because all of these are things we could share on, but we need to, I want to get you to understand Pentecost. So first of all, let's just look at the promise that Jesus made. Now, when Jesus makes promises, he keeps his promises. So I want to show you two promises. He's got many promises. I want to show you two promises concerning the Holy Spirit that Jesus made, and how each of them are fulfilled is quite different. They are two different aspects of the Holy Spirit's work. They are really different, and you have to understand what they are.
So first of all, let's look in John 14 verse 16. And here's Jesus made a promise to, uh, to his disciples. He said, "I'm about to go. I'm about to die on the cross and rise from the dead and leave you. But he said, I will pray the Father, he will give you another helper who may abide with you forever, the Spirit of Truth. The world can't receive him because it doesn't see him or know him. You know him. He dwells with you, but he will be in you. I will not leave you orphaned." And orphan is a person who has no father, no one to protect, no one to provide, no one to promote them, no one to shake their identity, no one to give them discipline and correction, no one to empower them. They have to do it all themselves. So the problem in the world are spiritual orphans. Spiritual orphan means you do not have God as your father, so you're on your own in life. And so Jesus said, "Now, I'm not going to leave you an orphan. I'm going to send to you a helper." A helper is one who comes alongside you and mentors and coaches and assists you in life. So the first thing he talks about, the Holy Spirit, he's the Spirit of Truth. So what he's going to do is he's going to come to you and be your helper, so you'll never be alone. Some people are all caught up and hung up on having no friends. The one friend you need is the Holy Spirit. When you make the Holy Spirit your friend, other people will come and go in your life, but you'll always be anchored to your destiny and to someone who can strengthen you. And it's absolutely certain if you're following Jesus, you'll have periods where you are rejected. You need to go deeper into knowing God is with you. So we're born as a spiritual orphan, but Jesus has promised another helper, just like him, the Holy Spirit, who will come and dwell within you. Notice here, he will be within you. Now, you can't get closer than that. I mean, how, how much closer can you get? I mean, you get near to a person's skin to skin, that's pretty close. But someone inside you, that's really the Holy Spirit within you. That is really a deep personal connection. Now, you may not be conscious of that, but that doesn't mean it's not true. You may not be aware that the Holy Spirit is that close to you, but that doesn't make it not true. It's the turmoil in your soul and the lack of focus in your heart that causes you to not be aware the Holy Spirit is within you. He indwells you. He is the Spirit of your Father. He has come to do some things. So when you receive Christ as your savior, you receive the Holy Spirit to come within you and dwell within you, to be a helper, to be a teacher, to be your coach, to be your guy to help you make decisions in life. So you want to listen to him and don't go run around listening to silly people. A lot of people run around, they look for their advice online, they look for their advice among people who are not wise, and they make stupid decisions. God has given you his word and his Spirit to lead you and guide you. See? So, so the Holy Spirit is a gift from the Father to dwell within you.
But he also promised a second thing. In Acts chapter 1, it tells us there in verse 8, it says, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me." So you notice now, two promises of Jesus: the promise of the Holy Spirit to come within us, the promise of the Holy Spirit to come upon us. Now, if I have a glass of water, there's a bottle of water there. How about that? Now, if I give you the water to drink, so suppose I say, "Well, here you are. You know, more than you have a drink." See, that'd be one thing. She said, "Well, I'm a bit thirsty. I'll have a bit of a drink." I say, "Now, I say, now more, I want you to have the water upon you." Now, that's a different thing, isn't it? That's really very, very different. Water in, that's nice. Water upon, now I'm wet. The answer is, it is quite a different experience. The indwelling Spirit is given to you for a purpose. I'll explain that in a moment. The Spirit coming upon you is given you for a different purpose. The Spirit within you is the fulfillment of Pentecost, of of Passover. The Spirit coming upon you is the fulfilling of Pentecost. They are two different things. Now, of course, you find among various church denominations, they disagree with that. They argue with that. They minimize the importance of Pentecost because they don't understand the three feasts, and because there's a difficulty and a struggle they have with the supernatural. Passover brings you into a relationship with God. Pentecost impels you for supernatural service. They are really quite different things. One is about you. The other is about others. Hello. One is about you. The other is about others. That's really different, isn't it?
So the anointing. So let's just talk about that. I'm going to explain that and just show you that in just a moment. And, uh, there is an anointing that is within you, an anointing that comes upon you. So what do we mean by anointing? Anointing just means empowerment. So the anointing within is the power to become. The anointing within is the power to become something. You want to become something. Lean on the Holy Spirit. Say. So in John 20 and verse 22, he said, "When Jesus had spoken to his disciples, he breathed on them, received the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of God came into them." Then, now, here's what the anointing is within you. The anointing within you is to, is to do three specific things. The first one is to bring you into new birth, into relationship with God as a Father. It's for you to become a child of God. Or putting it this way, if you have the Spirit within you, you're a child of God. If you don't have the Spirit within you, you're not a child of God. It's really that simple. The Spirit is given within you when you receive Christ as your savior, and the Holy Spirit enters you, you now are different to people who haven't done that. You are called a new creation where God is joined to man. You are one spirit with the Lord. You are joined to the Lord in your spirit. You're now different. You say, "Well, I don't look different. I don't feel different." It doesn't mean anything. I mean, you are different because you have the Spirit of God within you. You are marked out. You are a child of God. Romans 8:15, "You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear. You received the spirit that places you into sonship and causes you to cry out, Abba, Father." The Spirit bears witness with our spirit, I'm a child of God. So you have a natural father who may or may not have been a good person, may have treated you well and been a great father representative of God. He may not. Regardless of that, when you're born again, you now have a new Father called God. God is our Father. And the Holy Spirit's role is to reveal who you are. Your identity is given to you by God. It's not a social construct. It is, I am a child of God. I am born again. I belong to Jesus Christ. I am a child of God. I have an eternity with my Father, a destiny with my Father. So it's the role of the Holy Spirit to give you access to God as your Father.
It's a second role is for personal transformation. In 2 Corinthians 3:18, "The Spirit of God transforms us." Now, God wants to change you. So we say, "Well, Jesus loves me as I am." Yeah, but he's got no intention of leaving you like you are. It's that's as silly as saying, "Well, it's okay to remain a baby and have someone change your nappies all your life." That is ridiculous. Grow up, you know. Growth is normal, and you change. That's normal if you're growing. So the Spirit of God is given to change you, to change you from being carnal and self-centered to become loving and kind and patient and generous and more like Christ. Don't tell me you don't need changing. You need changing. You need, some of you need really big changes. We all need changing. It's an ongoing process in life. Get married. Oh, my. You'll need to change a huge amount of change will take place in a short period of time. Everyone needs to change. Why? Because God's plan of putting a Spirit in you is to conform you and shape you to become like his Son, Jesus Christ. He wants you to grow up and mature. And that'll require healing and deliverance and transformation. It is a lifelong journey. So every day, Holy Spirit will flag or put a red flag up in your heart when something is going wrong. He didn't like the way you spoke. Now you were too, uh, you were hot, you were angry, you were impatient. He pointed all out. It's his job to change you. So you don't have to figure out how you're going to change. You just need to be surrendered to the Holy Spirit and sensitive when he's telling you, "You're being very selfish," or "That was very unkind," or "That was very mean." "I want you to do this. I want you to change." God wants to transform us. So the first is to establish our identity and relationship with God as a Father. Second is to change us.
And the third is to guide you. Romans 8:14, "Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God." So maturity has to do not with whether you've been in lots of meetings, although a lot of the Bible, it has to do whether you are led or surrendered to the Holy Spirit. Now, a lot of decisions, you don't know what to do. Where am I going to live? I need God to help me with that. Where does he want me to live? What am I going to do as a job? Well, I need the Lord to help me with that. And I've got this good thing and that good thing. Which one should I choose? I need the Holy Spirit to lead me with that. In fact, there's so many decisions you can't find an answer easily in the Bible. You just need the Holy Spirit to lead you and show you what to do. Got a difficulty in a relationship with someone. What are your natural reactions? To lash back out. But the Holy Spirit, if you, if you listen to him, will lead you to do something better and help you change on the way. We all need the Holy Spirit to lead us. So don't go complaining, you're alone, you've got no friends, no mates, whatever. You need transformation. You need to actually start to get a relationship with the Holy Spirit, then work on your inside. So the work of the Holy Spirit within you, Passover, is about you becoming a mature child of God, growing up. Okay. How about that?
Now, but the thing is that as sons and daughters of the Living God, you're called to be a builder. You're called to build with him. Now, if you're going to build with him, you're going to need help. So I need help in my identity. I need help to grow and change. I need help to become who God called me to come. So the Spirit comes within me, power to become a child of God and represent my Father well. However, I need help to serve people. So the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost, is about the fire of God coming on you to empower you to serve and minister to the needs of people. It's not about you having a buzz, having a great experience. That's all wonderful, but its primary purpose is power. "You shall receive, shall receive," of Jesus Christ. You just should testimonies of it from the young ones. The power of God came on. Next thing they're witnessing. Did someone tell them? Well, now you've been crying, now you need to go out and tell someone. No one told them. It's the encounter with the Holy Spirit that causes us to overflow with desire to let others know what we've experienced. So the power of God, or the, he said, "You shall receive the power of the Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me." So it's power to witness. Power to witness. Some of the needs of people can only be met by the power of God. If someone needs deliverance, only the power of God can solve it. If someone needs healing, only the power of God can solve it. Some problems are too complex. They need the power of God. And Jesus knew when he was sending his disciples out, he would send them to places where sorcerers, powerful sorcerers operating in the occult, oppressed the whole village. They needed the power of God. And don't think that isn't happening now. It's happening right through our culture. It's infested with abuse. It's infested with sexual sin and perversion. Invested with the occult. It needs the power of God. You can't remain powerless and expect to have any influence. It needs desperately the power of the Holy Spirit. We must have the power of God, not just once, but over and over and over again. Our New Zealand culture is under attack. Our Western culture is under attack. The the identity of young children is under attack. This, this forces of work to abuse and destroy children. Prior to the coming of the Lord, the church needs the power of God. Absolutely needs the power of God. It leads the Holy Spirit. You can't stand up to this stuff because it is demonically empowered. Every believer is called to minister the gifts of the Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 12:7, "The manifestation of the Spirit is given to everyone to profit or build up others." So every, it's God's desire that all of you flow in words of knowledge, prophetic, and you pray for people, and you minister to people. Why is this not happening? Oh, well, maybe it's God. No, it isn't, because God's made us will clear. Think about it. The problem is substitutes. Substitutes. When the church fails to pray and pursue the presence and power of God, it becomes empty and powerless. When the church seeks to control and have everything predictable, it becomes empty, religious, and powerless. When churches focus on image and appearance, they become empty and powerless. When the church focuses on people looking right and behaving right instead of the presence and power of God, it becomes empty. When the church substitutes busyness, activities, and charisma, people talented and looking good, for the presence and power of God, it becomes empty and powerless. It can change. When the church substitutes meetings for encounters with God, it becomes powerless. See, without the tangible presence and power of God, we haven't got what it takes to hold back and overcome the power of evil in the nation, to overcome what's happening in the community. The church needs again visitations of God. This church was birthed in a movement of the Spirit of God where God moved and people came. He didn't have them tell people to invite people. They wanted them to come. God was at work. We need the power of God. Until someone needs the power of God, needs the presence of the Holy Spirit, we absolutely be the power of God. Now, the early church sought the power of God. It didn't just sort of, it just didn't sort of suddenly happen. Ten days before Pentecost, they were all out there crying out to God. And then afterwards, when they got threatened, let me just read something. It says in Acts chapter 4. Acts chapter 4. And, uh, the early church was threatened. So the authorities threatened them and said, "You preach this Jesus, we're going to throw you in jail. You talk about Jesus and about men and women and made in the image of God, we're going to put you in jail of some kind." In other words, they were being threatened for talking about Jesus. Nothing has changed. We're, we're sort of entering a season in Western history where the church is about to enter all of that same thing, where you'll be threatened for talking about Jesus. Like when a woman in in England is arrested for standing and praying in her mind, not even out loud, but she's praying in her mind for unborn children, and she's arrested. We've got problems. Big problems. Say, when people are promoting this transgender agenda, this is a problem. This is a serious problem. There are two genders that God has made, male and female. He made man and woman together in the image of God. You understand? There are demonic forces at work. The church needs the power of God. Why do you need the power of God? So you'll become bold. Look what it says here. They were threatened. They were threatened with imprisonment and jail and beating up. And this is what they prayed in Acts 4:29, "Lord, look on their threats. The threats were real. Grant your servants with all boldness to speak your word." The church needs boldness to stand up in the midst of all of this PC stuff, this stuff that's coming that undermines the culture. There's no culture in history that survived when they began to embrace homosexuality and transgenderism. That was the end of the culture. It went into steep decline and then was replaced by different people in different culture. You have to understand history. If you don't understand history, you'll just, it'll happen around you. You won't see the significance. Our Western cultures are in serious decline. Demonic forces working through people to undermine the kingdom principles that bring success and health and good marriages and families. If you don't build healthy marriages and families, your society is weak. Think about it. So they were being threatened by declaring about Jesus Christ. And so this is what happened. They prayed. They prayed. They prayed. They prayed. They prayed for the power of God to come and give them boldness. It said, "Stretch, Lord, we pray, with all boldness to speak." And the boldness will come. "Stretch your hand out to heal and do signs and wonders." And it says, "When they prayed, the place where they assembled together was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness." For there's 33 great powers upon the apostles. Notice they prayed for boldness. Why? Boldness has to do with your assignment. Boldness has to do with being able to stand up to opposition and resistance. Boldness has to do with courage to stand and hold biblical convictions in the face of rejection and public shaming and opposition. Boldness is the ability to stand up confident that even if every God is with you. They prayed for boldness, and the Holy Ghost had a God-given boldness. He filled them with the Holy Ghost and began to work miracles. That's why if the church is going to be bold, it needs fresh feeling, fresh encounters with the Holy Spirit. I am into that. Amen. We need the Holy Ghost. See, all these young ones just going out and they're just boldly declaring what God is doing. That's how it works. That's how it works.
So the promise of Pentecost was fulfilled in Acts 2 when the day of Pentecost had arrived. In other words, all these years they've been practicing and doing this stuff, but it was all, and now the day came when it's fulfilled. So what happened? The day came when it was fulfilled. It was not unlike what happened in the Old Testament. Acts 19, when the first Pentecost happened, God came down from heaven with fire. And now they're all waiting on what happens. Fire comes. Now you can read it and see what happened. They had no clue what was going to happen. The Holy Ghost came on them, tons of fire. They were filled with the Spirit, and they began to speak in tongues. They began to praise and magnify God. They were given access to the supernatural. They were birthed or given an entry into the supernatural realm, which once you've had it, you have to cultivate it and grow in it. Many, many people come and they get baptized in the Spirit, get the gift of tongues, but they never learned to develop how to pray strongly, how to access and live in that realm of the Spirit. And if you don't live in the realm of the Spirit, led by the Spirit, you will just fulfill your fleshy will and do what you want and think you're okay. We need the Holy Spirit to keep us fresh, keep us alive, keep us enthusiastic about Jesus, keep us passionate for the Lord. We live in a culture in New Zealand which is half-hearted. It's a dishonoring culture. It's a weathering culture. It's a culture where there's rejection and shame. You've got to step up and not be passive and not give in to the culture. You've got to be a different kind of person, filled with the Holy Ghost.
Now, notice what it says. Notice what it says. And, and who is the promise of the baptism and the Holy Spirit, the power of the Spirit? For now, I want to show you who it's for. And Peter says it in in Acts 2:39, "The promise is to you, that's the people right in front of them, and to your children, and to all who are afar off." Notice who is the promise of being baptized in the Spirit too? It's to the people immediately present, to their children, the next generation, doesn't specify their age, and to all who are far off, who God may call. So we are about as far away from Israel as you can get. So that applies to us. If you're afar off from Israel, then this promise is for you. Why? So you can be filled with the Spirit and do the works of God, fulfill the assignment God gave you. Now, God may have some assignments in business, some assignments in teaching, some assignments in music, some assignments in technical areas, but all of us are called to be a witness to the reality of Jesus Christ. We all need the Holy Spirit. We all need the Holy Spirit. So unless this promise is to you. So every person who receives Christ as their savior becomes a child of God. Now he has an assignment. You need power to fulfill it. You need the encounter with the Holy Spirit. See, the promise is for you. Notice it says also the promise is for your children. "Your sons and daughters shall prophesy." So what is this promise? This promise of receiving the power of God is to your children. It's for your children. Now, how are your children going to get it, by the way? Well, if you don't come to church, they certainly won't get it, right? Come on. You don't bring. This is the problem. See, people don't understand that if, if they don't faithfully cultivate honoring God and honoring being in the presence of God and build a family altar at home, their children won't love God. Their children will see the hypocrisy very clearly, and they'll just turn away because everything is pulling them away in another direction. So if you want the next generation to walk in God, you've got to model in your home prayer and a love for the word of God. You build a family altar. You pray. You read the word of God. You interact. And you lay hands on the children and you encourage them. And, and while they're in your home and under your leadership, they come to church. That's as simple as that. I don't want to go to church. I don't care. You're coming. Well, we provide. And you're in our home, you're coming to church. I don't really care. You're coming into the house of God. You're coming to where God is. Now, of course, you want to come to a place which is alive and vibrant. Even if they're sitting like that, like I can remember David sitting back over there, and he'd brought his friend. His friend had said, "I want to go to your church. Can I? Will you take me?" Now, David wasn't doing too good at that point, but his friend is awesome. We go to church. So he brought his friend to church. So they were sitting back over there, and, and Dave is not in a good place. And then at the end, there's an altar call. And his friend says, "I want to come up. Will you come up with me?" So Dave's up the front here with his friend. God has his own way. He's got a great sense of humor. He's got a great way. And then now he's ended up hustling the church. You think, "What?" But I remember when he wasn't in a good place, but we said, "You come to church, no matter what. You come." And we kept praying for him, no matter what. I still pray for him. I pray for him every day. I pray for all of my children, all seven of them, all of their spouses, all by name, and all the grandchildren. Because the grandchildren living in a generation under attack, they need the power of God. I'm praying for the power of God to touch them. Jesus said, you know, they brought the children to Jesus, saying, "Would you pray for them and bless them?" And these stupid adults told them, "Hey, listen, he's a busy man. He's an important man. Let's get the kids out of the back. Get them out doing something out the back." Jesus rebuked them all and said, "Bring them to me, and don't stop them coming." Jesus wants children to experience encounters with the power of God. When you've had an experience of God, you can never forget it. You never forget it. And even if you fall away, whatever, you can never forget it. Every now and then, God reminds you of what you're missing, and you come back, even better if you don't fall away. Because your experience is so powerful, you say, "God, I am in love with you. I cannot deny what happened to me." I remember when I was empty and and searching for something, a lot of searching for. Went to a meeting and I said, "I don't know what there's baptism in the Spirit is. I don't know what's speaking in tongues." Says, "I just want more of you. I want you to give me these." And suddenly, whoosh, and the power of God has come on me, and my life began to change from then on. I wasn't doing everything right, and nothing was still a mess, but it's okay. There's anointing within, anointing upon. I just received the anointing upon. I needed to get anchored into the church and set in with people that could help me walk with God and grow and help me start to transform and help me and give me a place to serve. And I went to church. They said, "What can you say? What play?" "I play." "Be an accordion." "Play something that'll do." "You can be the worst. You are our worship." So I was the worship. That was it, you know. And I'm thinking, "Jesus, how did this happen?" I was in a school teaching, and I was left with a group to look after. So I played some music and gathered them up and worked with them. I needed the power of God, and the power of God came. You need the power of God. We need encounters with the Holy Ghost. Fell on them. They began to speak in tongues. Now, a lot of Christians don't understand, first, the importance of the experience of Pentecost, and second, keeping it alive by activating your prayer life. The gift of tongues, above says 1 Corinthians 40, "When I pray in tongues, my spirit is alive and praying, not just praying out of your head." Oh dear, Jesus, that's sort of out of your head. If you want powerful prayers from your spirit, pray in tongues. When you pray in the Spirit, not only is your spirit praying, the Holy Ghost is giving you language. You're the Holy Ghost is starting to flow through you. When you pray in tongues, not only is the Holy Spirit flowing through you, your spirit starts to become alive and energized. The atmosphere around you changes. You start to experience the flow of the thoughts of God. He said, "Well, I never had that happen." Yeah, we'll probably haven't prayed much either. See, your flesh will resist prayer. Your body doesn't want to pray. Your soul doesn't want to pray. You don't even want to get out of bed. But when you get out and you start to pray and allow the Spirit to arise within you, there is a flow. You get filled with the Holy Ghost, filled with the Spirit of God. There's a joy inside you. There's a life inside you. Oh, I love to spend more time on that. But however, you need to be fired up again by the Holy Ghost. Jesse, some of you need firing. How many you know you need firing up again? See, if your prayer life has dropped off, you need fresh fire. You need to commit again to prayer and start to build your prayer. Young people, don't wait for God to do something. It's pressing. And start to pray. Get two or three together. Start to pray for a move among the church, among your school. Believe God for a move among your school. Believe God for a move. We need a move of God. You've got, you got schools filled with people promoting an agenda. Well, get prayerful and promote God's agenda. It'll really make great people, clean young kids who love God, want to serve God, have got an upright heart. Oh, that's nothing like it. How we need the Holy Spirit. I, I believe the church in this coming season needs to press in to encounter God. Prison for experiences of God. Present to the word of God. Start to build your, your prayer life at home. Start to build a family prayer life and encourage your children to come and be involved. Don't make excuses. Don't make excuses. The flesh will always make excuses. Get them serving. Get them engaged. And when there's an older course, say, "Come on up. Come and let God's Spirit touch you. You need a touch of God." I was walking this morning. I was just so good to just get back into strong praying and to feel the Spirit of God comes. I believe he's here right now. Going to come and touch many people. If you need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, would you make your way to the front? If you need to have a fresh touch of God on your life, when you make the way to the front, and, and here's what you do. You build an altar to the Lord from your heart. You, you surrender and start to cry out. The things that draws God is hunger. Hunger and surrender. Surrender is where you let go doing things that your way. The God, I surrender to you. I'd love to share with you sometimes how you do that intentionally and systematically. Surrender. And then you feel the Spirit of God come around your life. He loves the surrendered person. He can work through that person. But even if you're not, he can still work for you. Why don't we just stand together? Let's just reach out for God to come. The Holy Spirit to come. If you need healing, they'll come and heal you. If you need something else, you come and do that. Why don't you make your way to the front? That's you. You say, "God, you're speaking to me today. I need to get baptized from the Spirit." Remember, the Holy Spirit coming within you when you receive Jesus is power to become a child of God, how to grow and change, ability to be led. The Spirit of coming upon you is so you will serve people, so you will help people, so you will advance the cause of Christ, so you will represent God as the son. Fear it within to become a son. Spirit upon to represent him as a son. Spirit within to empower you to grow and change. Spirit upon to empower others to be free. Spirit within to establish, "I'm a child of God." I'd love to have a destiny. Spirit upon to minister to the needs of the many. Come on, let's lift our hands to the Lord and begin to worship Him. I believe His Spirit is going to come upon people.
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Come and worship Him. Worship Him.
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Oh, we worship you alone. We worship you, Lord. We lift our hands and surrender. I wonder if we can have our ministry team come up. We're going to lay hands on people in a few minutes. I believe that the power of God to come upon you. Don't hurry to pray for people. Bless people. Reach out to experience God.
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We hung around for you. We search stuff to you. The fresh encounter will be the boldness. Crushes servants. Boldness by working through us in signs and miracles. God pour out your spirits. We are a thirsty ground. Yes, Lord. It's the power. You're the glory forever.
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