The Holy Spirit’s role in our lives

June 18th 2023

Series: The Book of Acts

Sermon Title: The Holy Spirit’s role in our lives.

Topic: Journey through the book of Acts.

Key Passages: Acts 19: 1-6

Sermon Blurb: In today’s message you will see Paul ask an interesting question to some followers of Jesus. That will lead to learning about the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Sermon:

Hello Family Church!!!!!

Family Moment

Welcome back to our study through the book of Acts!

Today we get to jump right back into the Book of Acts.

Grab your Bible and open it up to where we left off in Acts 19

PAUSE

As you are getting there….

Let me catch up with any guests we have today.

We have been on a journey through the book of Acts for over a year….walking through it line by line and verse by verse.

Because the book of Acts is all about how the early church lived like Jesus in their culture and context.

Because there is SOOOOOO much we can learn from the early church.

We can learn how they applied the teachings of Jesus.

How they reached their friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers to Jesus.

And we are getting toward the end of the book…..but we will likely not finish it up before we get to missions month in October!

PAUSE

Last week we saw Paul investing in future church leaders.

And those future leaders were men and women who went on to do amazing things in their own right.

We also saw the importance of not just reaching lost people for Jesus but also the importance of building up believers in Jesus.

And this week we will see Paul take off and do more of that.

Investing in people that were already followers of Jesus and helping guide them into deeper their relationship with God.

PAUSE

Let’s dive in and see what God has for us today!

Acts 19….starting at verse 1…

Paul here is spending 3 years in this one town called Ephesus.

Acts 19: 1-6 While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples

Pause there for a second….

We first met Apollos last week.

A great young man that was passionate for Jesus but had some bad theology and had to learn some things.

Just like some of us…

We think we know a lot about God because we grew up in church.

Or we learned a lot from living in a Christian community.

Or we learned at a Christian college.

But sometimes we mix our knowledge of God with other things…..and think we are right…but we are not…..

But we don’t know until someone tells us….

That was Apollos.

PAUSE

The same thing happens all over the world.

I cannot tell you how many times missionaries swoop into a new area and try to lead people to Jesus….

And then they take off to the next place….

And what the people do is mix this Jesus stuff in with the original religion…

I have literally seen this….

I remember one time I was in Haiti…in a church….and they wanted to welcome in the Holy Spirit and the church leaders called for the local Witch Doctor to come into the church to call up the Holy Spirit….

He came in….

Drank motor oil….

Started doing crazy things….

And I was like WHAT IS GOING ON…..

I have seen this in the United States…..

People have heard things like “God is love”….

And since God is love…..

That means God should accept me for who I am and let me do what brings me joy….

So they call themselves Christians because they love God….

But they throw away the rest of the Bible because it does not align with their preferred world view….

It is the same thing as in Hati…..

PAUSE

And Apollos was one of those people…gone astray….

But Apollos was humble enough to learn from Priscilla, Aquilla and Paul and got on the right path……

So Paul leaves him in Corinth to teach truth now…

And Paul goes back to Ephesus…..to build up believers there and teach them…..

PAUSE

Paul begins with a very specific question…and one we will spend some time on because it is a question of much debate….

2 and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied.

4 Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

6 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. 7 There were about twelve men in all.

Ok….

Let’s stop here and spend some time unpack all of this slowly….

Because there is a LOT here…..

Go back to verse 2….Paul asks these disciples of Jesus:

“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied.

Leave that up on the screens and let’s talk about what that means…

Bear in mind the context here….

These are people who are called disciples….

They are believers in Jesus…..

But just like Apollos was…. they are missing some teaching…

They have incomplete knowledge about Jesus….

Just like we talked about earlier….

PAUSE

So, what does Paul do????

The same thing we saw last week….

He helps them…

He does not criticize them for not knowing…

He does not make them feel lesser…

He explains there is something missing that they need to know.

4 Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”

Stop there…..

Now lots of scholars believe this group of believers here were followers of John the Baptist…..

John the Baptist who was the cousin of Jesus…

And the guy who came before Jesus to point people toward Jesus….

John who baptized people in the Jordan River…

And John’s baptism was an admission of sin in their lives and being baptized by John to repent of that sin.

PAUSE

For those of you who are newer to church that would mean things like this….

John teaching you that gossiping is sin…

John teaching you that sex outside marriage is sin…

John teaching you that stealing is sin….

You learn from John that you have been doing wrong things as defined by God…

And so you want God to forgive you….

So you would go out with John into the Jordan River and you would admit you were doing wrong things…..as defined by God….

John would dunk you under the water…

And as you came up you…it would symbolize you coming back to a new life….

And repenting means….you not only admit you are wrong but you commit to changing your wrong ways and living differently….

PAUSE

That is what these people did….

A great thing…..

But when Jesus came….

Jesus changed things….

PAUSE

Paul told them that the baptism of John was merely a baptism of repentance and that’s just the first step of coming to Christ.

First, you renounce the power of sin and evil over your life.

Then you receive the promise of new life through the gift of the Holy Spirit given by the work of Jesus….

The Ephesians wasted no time. Luke says,

5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. 7 There were about twelve men in all.

Ok….let’s stop here…

And let me pose you all a question….

Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you were baptized?

Repeat….

Now let’s talk about this in our culture…

There are tons of people in our community that were baptized as babies…

Pastor Adam was baptized as a baby….

Was Pastor Adam filled with the Holy Spirit when he was baptized by his parents as a baby?

Some of you were baptized as kids, teens, or adults when you came to faith in Jesus….

Pastor Adam was baptized when he was in high school when he came to Jesus…..

Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you were baptized???

Some of you were baptized when you went to Israel in the area where Jesus was baptized…

Pastor Adam has done that as well…..

As you can see….Pastor Adam really wanted to make sure he was good with God!!!!

LAUGH

PAUSE

But really….

Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you were baptized?

PAUSE

That’s what I’d like for us to think about this morning.

To give you a heads up, I want to highlight what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit, and then I want you to ask yourself the extent to which you’re filled with the Holy Spirit.

My hope is the more we know about the Holy Spirit, the more we’ll recognize the work of the Spirit in our lives as we seek to live out our lives in faith.

Actually when we are done with this series in the book of Acts I am pretty sure we will go into a series just studying the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives….

Because one of the things our pastors have come to realize is that in our area people really need to learn more about the Holy Spirit….

And if you are here today….and your like…..ummmm….who is the Holy Spirit…..

GREAT QUESTION!!!!

The Holy Spirit is God’s Spirit….

God’s Spirit that Jesus sent to live inside believers after Jesus returned to heaven….

And sadly…..

I think the church has done a pretty bad job of teaching us about the role of the Holy Spirit in a well-rounded way….

PAUSE

In my opinion……

Today in most churches….

The Holy Spirit is treated one of three ways….

1. Some churches today believe the Holy Spirit is not active or alive. That he only was active during the life of Jesus’ best friends.

OR

2. Like the weird step-uncle who does weird stuff when he shows up so you avoid talking about him or asking him to be a part of your life.

OR

3. The Holy Spirit is EVERYTHING….and the church does all kinds of CRAZY stuff that they call the movement of the Holy Spirit…

And it is our hope here at Family Church….

To be none of those…

To be a church…..

That teaches what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit and not add or take away from it….

To be a church that helps us ALL operate under the Holy Spirits leading as demonstrated in the Bible….

PAUSE

And today….

We are going to talk a lot about the Holy Spirit….

But we will not even skim the top of what we need to know….

But know…that once we are done walking through Acts we will spend a LONG time learning about the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives….

So just keep coming back!!!!!

PAUSE

So with the rest of our time today…..

Let’s look at some important things to consider….about the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives….

The Role of the Holy Spirit in my life: 1. The Holy Spirit brings us to life.

Repeat

This goes all the way back to the story of creation.

Literally the FIRST verses in our Bible!

Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Then God took a lifeless lump of clay and fashioned it into the form of a man…

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image,

Note the “Us” in that verse….

Because God is three persons in one…

God the Father….

God the Son…

God the Holy Spirit….

All there at this time…..

But man was not alive until the breath of God….came into mankind….

Genesis 2:7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

The Spirit brings us to life…

To be ALIVE truly alive ONLY comes when we are filled with the Holy Spirit!!!!

God didn’t create us simply to simply be robots….

God created us “LIKE HIM” and filled us with His Spirit to be “LIKE HIM!”

God created us to live life to the fullest.

PAUSE

Jesus said,

John 10:10 “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.”

God breathes His Spirit into us so that we might come ALIVE to the knowledge of His presence!

That we will come to understand our place in His wonderful creation.

The Holy Spirit brings us to life…

Then we get to the second thing the Holy Spirit does for us….

The Role of the Holy Spirit in my life: 2. The Holy Spirit guides us.

Repeat

Paul talked a LOT about this in his other books….all of which we will get to some day!!!

But Paul said in Romans 8 exactly what you just wrote down!

Romans 8:14 “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God.”

What does it mean to be led by the Spirit?

It’s looking and listening for the Holy Spirit’s movement around us.

Sometimes that comes as the voice of your conscience….

Sometimes it comes as a gut-level feeling that you ought to take a left instead of a right at the next fork in the road.

If you’re married it often sounds like the voice of your wife!

Let me give you two examples from Jenny’s life and then mine….(Add some short stories like this)

When we lived in Tennessee….

WAY before I was in ministry...

When I was working in construction….

We were building our dream house and we were a few months away from completion and Jenny came to me one day and said, “During my prayer time I felt like God was telling me that we are never going to live in this house.”

Anyone want to guess what came true?

WE NEVER lived in that house!!!!

My company came to me 2 weeks later requesting me to move to another state and turn around our company unit in that state!

The Holy Spirit was guiding and preparing Jenny and me….

PAUSE

Another easy one for me to look at it how I resisted the Holy Spirit speaking to me for years.

For those of you who do not know my story….

The first time I was told I would one day be a pastor was in High School by my mom after another man of God told her that and I said…that is never going to happen….

In college, I clearly felt God telling me to get a ministry degree…to which I said…nope not going to happen….

As my career advanced and I was moved around the country by my company…. literally in every state the pastor of the church we got plugged into told me I had a call on my life and I said not interested in a call by God to ministry…

The Holy Spirit was trying to speak to me and I had NO desire to listen!

The Holy Spirit most often will speak to us through other people….

But if you are hard-headed like me….

You will ignore God speaking through others if it does not align with your preferred direction….

PAUSE

I will be honest…..

Following the Holy Spirit’s leading is not easy.

It is not always clear at first if it is God’s leading and not your own personal desires….

It is not always clear if what others are saying is God’s leading….or their preference for your life….

To walk by the Spirit is to walk by faith, not by sight.

It’s seeking God’s will for your life and trusting God to lead the way.

PAUSE

It reminds me a prompter at the opera.

They have a prompter….

A person who stands in a little recessed compartment at the front of the stage.

Only his head and shoulders are visible from where the actors stand.

There’s a little hood behind him to conceal him from the audience.

He has the complete score in front of him so that, as the drama unfolds, he can prompt the actors if they forget a line or miss their pitch.

All they have to do is glance down at the prompter, and he’ll give them the help they need to play their part.

PAUSE

The Holy Spirit is our Prompter.

The Holy Spirit gives us directions.

The Holy Spirit gives us support to live out our lives as children of God.

The Holy Spirit leads us.

The Holy Spirit anticipates our needs….

Actually, that is our next point….point three.

The Role of the Holy Spirit in my life: 3. The Holy Spirit anticipates our needs.

Repeat

Have you been at a loss or down in the dumps, and a friend asked you,

“What can I do to help?” and you honestly didn’t know what to say?

Jesus told his disciples,

John 14:13-14 “Whatever you will ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it.”

The problem is we don’t always know what to ask for.

Sometimes the things we want the most are the things we need the least!

Sometimes the things we need the most are the things we never thought about asking for.

The Good News is that the Holy Spirit steps in that gap!

Paul told the Romans,

Romans 8:26 “The Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered.”

Church this is GREAT NEWS!

It’s not up to you to name every problem!

When the Holy Spirit lives inside us He will take care of us!

The Holy Spirit prays for us!

The Holy Spirit will brings us into unity with God!

PAUSE

The Bible has so much more to say about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and world…..

But let me pause here and ask again…what Paul asked….

Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you were baptized?

PAUSE

And I know some of you are thinking….

I have no idea….

And the honest answer is this….

If you have been baptized….

You can spend a lifetime calling on the Holy Spirit and still not recognize His full potential in your life.

So, if someone were to ask you right now, “Are you filled with the Spirit?”

A good way to answer is, yes but…...

Yes, I received the Spirit when I was baptized…

But…..I am still discovering how the Holy Spirit fully operates in my life.

PAUSE

Here is how Paul phrased it to the Thessalonian church…

1Thessalonians 5:16-22 “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks… Don’t quench the Spirit.”

We quench the Spirit when we rebel against God’s will for our lives and insist on doing things our way.

Contrary to Jesus, our prayer is, “Not Thy will, mine be done.”

When our humanness gets in the way…

We stifle the Spirit and short-circuit His power to transform our lives.

To experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit you have to get yourself out of the center and admit life is not about you.

We have to get to the place where we admit is about God.

Once we get our egotistical nature out of the way….

Transformation occurs.

The Spirit takes over and becomes evident in every aspect of our lives.

PAUSE

ADD an example of this from your life….

Just like I talked about earlier for me…

I had to get Adam’s plan for Adam’s life out of the way….

I choose to run from God’s call on my life for years….

But look at me as an example….

God won….

God is always right….

And I loved my old career….

But I honestly love being with all of you more…

When we step into God’s calling on our life….there is nothing better!

That is our final point…..

The Role of the Holy Spirit in my life: 4. The Holy Spirit brings us into unity with God’s plan for our life.

Repeat

PAUSE

Let’s wrap this up.

Here’s what I hope you’ll take home with you today….

The Holy Spirit brings us to life.

The Holy Spirit leads the way.

The Holy Spirit anticipates our needs.

The Holy Spirit brings us into unity with God’s plan for our life!

We receive the Holy Spirit at baptism!!!

But living under the full power of the Holy Spirit takes time to learn…

So, where do you start?

You start by recognizing the work of the Holy Spirit around you.

Then you pray for the Spirit to increase within you.

PAUSE

Let’s wrap this up with a life application today…..

And for those of you who are new, or newer, to Family Church.

We love to end our messages with an application point to your life.

Something that you can take away from the message and apply to your life this week.

This week’s life application says this……

Life Application: What is your next step with the Holy Spirit? Is it baptism? Is it starting to listen to Him? Is it stopping leading and start following? As a result of today’s message I will ____________________________.

Let me encourage you to write down one simple thing you WILL do as a result of what you learned this week….

And watch what God does!!!!

Let’s Pray…..

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