Raise Your Voice
Notes
Transcript
Biblical Text: Acts 2:4 and Numbers 11:25
Acts 2:4
“And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
Numbers 11:25 (KJV 1900)
And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders: and it came to pass, that, when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease.
RAISE YOUR VOICE
Today and everyday we celebrate
Jesus.(or we should celebrate him
everyday). For the believer we
celebrate Christ for his death, burial
and the resurrection. For when the
LORD sent us the Comforter, the Holy
Ghost. You know the story. The
disciples replaced Judas with
Matthias, and the twelve gathered
together “in one place” (Acts
2:1) on the Day of Pentecost, fifty days
after Passover. A very great number of
Jews were in Jerusalem for the
celebration… “devout men out of every
nation under heaven.” (Acts 2:5)
The twelve disciples were all together
in one place, and the Word says: “And
suddenly there came a sound from
heaven as of a rushing mighty wind,
and it filled all the house where they
were sitting. And there appeared unto
them cloven tongues like as of fire, and
it sat upon each of them. And they were
all filled with the Holy Ghost, and
began to speak with other tongues, as
the Spirit gave them utterance.”
When the devout men in Jerusalem
heard the disciples were speaking in
their own language, they ran to check
it out. And sure enough, they were
amazed. Some even tried to explain it
away as the jibberish of drunken men.
But Peter set them straight with one of
the most powerful sermons ever
preached. You can read it in its entirety
in Acts 2:14 through 36. The Word says
that when the people heard Peter’s
sermon…people from Parthenia, and
Medes, and Mesopotamia, and Judea,
and Asia, and Egypt, and Libya, and
even strangers from Rome…the Word
says “it pricked their hearts”. When
you read it, it should prick yours too.
But did you know there was another
“Pentecost”…one in the Old
Testament? Let me read the account to
you. Numbers 11:16 - 17
“And the LORD said unto Moses, ‘Gather unto Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and offices over them: and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee.’ And I will come down and talk with thee there: and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone.”
Numbers 11: 24 - 25 “And Moses went out, and told the people the words of the LORD, and gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the tabernacle. And the LORD came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders: and it came to pass that when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease.”
In both accounts…both the Old and
the New Testament…the Holy Ghost
changed the lives of those who
received it. You can’t receive the Holy
Ghost and NOT be changed. Why?
Because it’s GOD IN US! Jesus
explained this to the disciples in
John 14: 16 - 17. Jesus said, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knowth him. But YOU KNOW HIM; for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you”. .
Once the Holy Ghost gets IN YOU, you
don’t want Him to get out. Jesus
certainly knew what He was talking
about when He promised to give us
the Holy Ghost as our Comforter.
The Comforter is heavenly air for our
spiritual lungs.
He is strength for our spiritual
weakness.
He is assurance for our spiritual
anxieties.
He is healing for our spiritual hurts.
He is inspiration for our spiritual
exhaustion.
And He’s a blessing for our spiritual
burdens.
If you’re still asking, ‘Why do we need
God’s Spirit within us?’, give me a
chance to explain.
First, we need the Spirit to convict us.
John 16:8 (NASB) “And He, when He
comes, will convict the world regarding
sin, and righteousness, and judgment:
It may seem like you got saved all by
yourself, but of course, that’s not true.
The WORD drew you to Christ. And at
that moment, when you invited Christ
into your heart, you were convicted of
the need to confess your sin nature
and be “filled with the Spirit.”
(Ephesians 5:18). At that moment, the
Holy Ghost became that heavenly air
for your spiritual lungs. He became the
strength for our spiritual weakness,
and the fulfillment for our spiritual
desires.
What would life be like without God’s
Holy Ghost? Without the in-dwelling of
the Holy Ghost we would all be
spiritually empty, powerless, anxious,
and unfruitful. God’s Spirit is the very
reason we have confidence in His
power to meet our every need and to
fill us with His Wisdom. His Spirit is the
rain that refreshes…
The fire that warns.
The oil that lubricates.
The seal that secures.
The wind that motivates…
And the river that satisfies.
I can’t even imagine going through
one day without God’s Spirit within
me…Can you? *
But here’s another reason we need the Holy Ghost.
We need Him to stay connected to Christ.
The only way to stay connected is
through the Spirit. We would not keep
Christ the center of our lives without
the aid of the Holy Ghost. We would
drift…like a ship without a sail.
We’d find ourselves harassed by our
failures, oppressed by our burdens,
plagued by our doubts, and troubled
over seemingly nothing. Without the
Spirit of Christ in us…the Holy Ghost…
life would be unbearable and
unrewarding.
But there is another good reason why
we need the Holy Ghost to connect us
to Christ. It’s because it frees us from
life’s death sentence. On this sea of
trials and tribulations, our connection
to Christ is our lifeline. The Apostle
Paul says in Romans 8:2, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death”.
The Holy Ghost is a Burden Bearer,
who carries us when we can’t take
another step. Without the Spirit of
Christ in us, we would be defenseless,
discouraged, and worst of all…
deceived and defeated. But with
Christ’s Spirit in us, we are able to “do
all things!”
There’s a third reason we need the
Holy Ghost.
We need it to grow God’s kingdom.
Act 1:8 But you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and
you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
and in all Judea and Samaria, and to
the ends of the earth."
His Spirit is what moves us to share
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We won’t
do it on our own. Without the Holy
Ghost, Jesus is just a great story that
we’d soon forget. We would not be
motivated to move, to reach out to the
lost souls all around us, and to share
our love of Christ with them.
When the LORD put His spirit in the
seventy elders, the WORD says that a
strange thing happened. They began
to prophesy, and they could not stop! *
In fact, two of the men left the
tabernacle and took their message to
the people in the camp. When Eldad
and Medad, the tattletales, ran to tell
Joshua what these men were up to,
Joshua ran to tell Moses. All three men
were thinking it was wrong for those
other men to act like they were just as
spiritual as Moses. They must have
thought, “The nerve of them! God
didn’t choose them to lead. He chose
Moses!” Joshua thought the men
prophesying in the camp were
upstaging Moses. But you know what
Moses reaction was? Moses said, “I
wish all of God’s people were prophets,
and the LORD would put His Spirit in all
of them!” (Numbers 11:29).
If the church is going to be at its best,
we need the Holy Ghost in all of us. It’s
the only way to get the Satan out and
put holiness in! The Holy Ghost will
run the sin right out of your life, if you
submit to its power. It fills us with
everything that opposes sinful flesh. It
fills us with joy. It fills us with light. It
fills us with peace. And it empowers us
to share the message of salvation!
What good is the Good News if we
won’t show it and tell it!
If you find that you don’t have much to
say about Jesus, maybe it’s because
you aren’t allowing God’s Spirit to fill
your ‘tank’ all the way up. When God
fills you, you can’t help but tell the
Good News of Christ’s gift of salvation.
You just can’t help yourself. And what
comes out of you will not sound like
jibberish. It will be in a language that
everyone can understand. Then it will
be up to the hearer to accept it. “He
that hath ears, let him hear…!”.
God is calling for a Church without
spot or wrinkle…a fearless Church…a
mighty Church. You are His trumpet…
Raise your voice!
Raise your voice and spread the Good
News!
Raise your voice and give God the
Glory!
Raise your voice and tell your family
you love Jesus!
Raise your voice and tell them He died
for you…and for them too!
You can do it! “Know ye not that ye are
the temple of God, and that the Spirit of
God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians
3:16).
And it’s “not by might, nor by power,
but by my spirit, saith the Lord of
Hosts!” (Zechariah 4:6)
Raise your voices!
Raise your voices!
Tell the story of Jesus and His Glory.
Psalms 66:8 (NIV) Praise our God, all peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard;
- First, we need the Spirit to convict us.
- We need Him to stay connected to Christ.
- We need it to grow God’s kingdom.
