Pentecost and the Holy Spirit

Pentecost 19th May 2024

Today is Pentecost Sunday so I am going to start with a look at why we celebrate this and what it means to our lives today. However, we will also learn today about what Arise church believes about the Holy Spirit and his essential role in change, fruitfulness and mission. This is some essential spiritual knowledge that every Christian needs to know in order to be equipped to change, be transformed and be empowered to live a spirit-filled life; these are the foundational truths to being set free from all our baggage and issues that we continually carry around with us.

So we’re going to start by reading from Acts 2

Acts 2 (ESV)

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”

But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:

“ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

and your old men shall dream dreams;

even on my male servants and female servants

in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

Explain Pentecost – Peter’s boldness – the fire and tongues – the equipping – called baptism in the spirit and equips us to live a bold and courageous life of discipleship. This is completely different to the work that the Holy Spirit does at salvation. The Spirit works in many different ways in our lives:

1. Conviction

2. Regeneration

3. Empowering

4. Equipping

5. Relationship

Arise Church has very distinct views and beliefs on the Holy Spirit and we reflect this in our statement of faith - which I was supposed to preach on a few weeks ago, but you may remember the Spirit actually took over and we had an active learning session, with people being filled with the Holy Spirit. I would like to bring you some of that today because I think it is very important to know the biblical nature of the Spirit and the theology behind the practice that we see when we pray and minister to each other. Our statement of faith says:

We believe in the deity of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. He is sent by the Father and the Son, is present in all true believers, convicts of sin, regenerates the sinner, assures the believer of salvation, brings true understanding of the scriptures, and acts as advocate and guide. We believe in the subsequent act of baptism in the Holy Spirit, and that He gives gifts to God’s people (1 Corinthians 12) to empower and edify the body of Christ.

So let’s break this down and look at what it means:

1. We believe in the deity of the Holy Spirit,

He has the attributes of God

He is Creator.

Genesis 1.2 – ‘Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit (‘ruach’) of God was hovering over the waters.’

Psalm 33.6 – ‘By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath (‘ruach’) of his mouth.’

Psalm 104.30 – ‘ When you send your Spirit they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.’

Job 33.4 – ‘The Spirit of God has made me, the breath of the Almighty gives me life.’

He is Omnipresent.

Psalm 139.7-10 – ‘Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.’

He is Transformer.

Even though it is the NT that fully develops this role of the Holy Spirit, there are pre-cursors to this in the OT.

Ezekiel 36.26-27 – ‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.’

2 Corinthians 3:18 - And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit

2. the third person of the Trinity.

Creation

Baptism

3. He is sent by the Father and the Son,

John 14:26. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

Explain this – the parakletos – John personalises the HS – the only book to explain the HS as a person

is present in all true believers,

Paul’s letter to the Galatians says Christ lives in us (Galatians 2.20) - he means the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit. He tells us that we receive the Holy Spirit by faith (Gal 3.2-3, 5) and it is this presence that gives us hope of righteousness (Gal 5.5).

Paul says that we need to walk ‘by the Spirit’ (Gal 5.16-17) so we don’t give in to the desires of the flesh/sinful nature. He teaches that there is a constant battle between the Spirit and the sinful nature. There are works of the flesh (Gal 5.16) and fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22) and we will only overcome the works of the flesh by walking in the Spirit. If we sow into our sinful nature we will reap destruction but if we sow into the Spirit we will reap eternal life.

Paul’s development of the role of the Holy Spirit continues in Romans where he says that those that are ‘in Christ’ are the ones that walk ‘by the Spirit’ so his only reference before chapter 8 is to tell us how the love of God is poured into our hearts ‘by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.’ (Romans 5.5)

He says the Law of the Spirit of life has set us free (Rom 8.2). Believers do not walk according to the ‘flesh’ (sinful nature) but according to the Spirit (Rom 8.4-6). Believers are ‘in the Spirit’ because the Spirit of God lives in us. If the Spirit of Christ does not live in us then we do not belong to him (Rom 8.9). If Christ is in us, then although our body is dead because of sin, our Spirit is alive because the Spirit of Christ is in us and one day we will be truly alive, because we will be raised just as Christ was raised (8:10-11). The Spirit living in us makes us sons of God, we are not slaves, we are not afraid, we are sons because of the Spirit in us. He enables us to put to death the desires of the sinful nature and cry out to God, even using the words that Jesus used, ‘Abba Father.’ The Spirit helps us with prayer, helps us in our weaknesses, he even intercedes on our behalf when we do not know what to pray (8.13-27).

4. convicts of sin, regenerates the sinner,

John 16:8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement:

Titus 3:5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

assures the believer of salvation,

John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

Romans 8:11 if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit who lives in you.

5. brings true understanding of the scriptures, and

1 Corinthians 2:12 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

6. acts as advocate and guide.

Prakletos as explained before – the HS guides us – how do we hear his guidance?? - through the Word, through dreams, through prayer, through being in his presence, through signs or prompting or overwhelming feeling.

7. We believe in the subsequent act of baptism in the Holy Spirit,

We looked at this in details a couple of weeks ago when I taught about the gift of tongues so I won’t repeat it now, but we know from scripture that baptism in the spirit is a subsequent act to salvation. It can happen at the same time - it is not an ‘earned’ act, but it is only available once you are a Christian

8. and that He gives gifts to God’s people (1 Corinthians 12) to empower and edify the body of Christ.

and again - we have had close teaching about this is our recent series ‘Gifted’

The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin, leads us to a place where we know we need Jesus and when we make the decision to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, it is the Holy Spirit who regenerates our lives, makes us a new creation, gives us a new start and that regeneration, that new start is ours, whether we progress further with the work of the Spirit or not.

BUT in order to live that regenerated life to its full, to gain the full freedom that salvation in Jesus brings us – we MUST be baptised in the Holy Spirit in order to continue with the work of the Spirit. If we do not, we will be swayed by wordly teaching, we will be confused by conspiracy theories, we will be tempted into sin and we will slowly lose our way. I am convinced that those Christians who lose their way and fall into sin, who choose to accept the ways of the world and do not understand that we are called to love the people in the world, but not accept or live by wordly principles – we are called to bring biblical truth and living to the world, to live differently, to show who Jesus is – and we can’t do that without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and those who fail, or fall by the wayside in my opinion, probably do not know the importance and the truth of partnering with the Holy Spirit for our whole life.

Romans 8:6 says ‘for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

So in order to partner fully with the Spirit for our whole life, there are a couple of things we need to know:

1. The Holy Spirit must be received

John 20:22 - And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

Ac 8:15 Peter and John came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit,

· Ac 8:17 Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

· Ac 10:47 “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”

· Ac 19:2 And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

Λαμβάνω – to take hold of – to reach out and grasp – this cannot be a passive experience, God does not dominate us, he wants relationship not domination and he will never force himself upon us. Just like salvation, there is a decision that the Believer needs to make in order to receive the Holy Spirit. We need to be thirsty for this, we need to be ready to take hold of this AND we need to be prepared to release the outflow of this also.

John 7:37-39

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Κοιλιάς Again the English here is not sufficient – we use the word heart because it sounds better than GUT! But the Greek word is GUT or BELLY – it speaks of that innermost part of us, the seat of our emotions, the deep down space that we experience feelings – the place where fear sits and anxiety visits – the place where we feel dread and doubt and impending doom – and we feel those things there because that space is not filled with the Holy Spirit. The Greek literally means a ‘concave place’ and it is clear that God has given us a place where the Holy Spirit belongs within our physical bodies. Right from Creation we were made with a hollow space, that can only be filled with the Spirit of God. Many try and fill it with other things – money, career, partying, sex, drugs – none will suffice – only the Spirit of God – given as an exchange for your sinful nature at Salvation and then poured out upon you as an empowering supportive act from Jesus AND the Father – only that can fill that space to completion AND it is our responsibility to not only receive that infilling – but to KEEP it filled – every day – every morning – every single day of our lives – to keep in step with Him, to live the life he has called us to – to experience the freedom and abundance that life in Jesus brings!!

Because

2. The Holy Spirit empowers

Being baptised in the Spirit opens up access to the spiritual gifts that God has given us to build one another up and empower us to live a life that God has called us to.

1 Corinthians 12 is the scripture we have just been learning from in our series ‘Gifted’ so you have had good and recent teaching on that and it is enough to just give a reminder that the Holy Spirit equips us with gifts to build one another up and encourage and edify the body of Christ - tongues, interpretation of tongues, words of wisdom, knowledge, faith, acts of healings and miracles, prophecy and discernment between spirits.

You see there is a process here as the Holy Spirit becomes involved in our lives.

Conviction

Regeneration

Empowerment – speaking in tongues

Gifts

This is the outworking of the infilling of the Spirit and we should be prepared to outpour and outwork the Spirit because being filled by the Spirit is not the destination, it is not the goal – it is just the beginning of the spiritual life. There are two more things that we need to know about the Holy Spirit to truly understand how he leads us into freedom and abundance.

3. The Holy Spirit is poured out

If we go back to John 7:37-39 Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will live within our GUTS and from there he will be poured out ‘like streams of living water’ so we can see clearly that the baptism of the spirit is not a destination – it is not something to achieve for ourselves – we are supposed to pour him out – we are supposed to empower each other through the pouring out of the power that the Holy Spirit gives us – we are supposed to pour out that love and compassion and power and encouragement that God places within us with the filling of the Holy Spirit. We do not just get gifts – we are also endowed with the fruit of the Spirit (name them) and that should all be poured out on others.

When God’s people come together we should not come to receive – we should come to pour out to each other, we should always come to contribute – love, compassion, kindness, prophecy, prayer for healing, prayer for miracles. The Holy Spirit is God’s great equaliser – it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a theology degree or you’re not on the preaching team – when you are filled with the Holy Spirit we all have something to contribute and pour out to each other – it’s how we can love when we don’t agree – it’s how we can encourage when we don’t understand – it’s how we can pray when we don’t know the answer – no natural ability is needed, just the supernatural power of the Spirit of God – who fills you every morning and is then poured out to others.

4. Holy Spirit opens up the spiritual realm

Lastly, I think it is vitally important to understand the spiritual status that being filled with the Holy Spirit gives us – it opens up the spiritual realm.

I’m not sure where you think heaven is, but it is not a place in the clouds. I understand why people look up when they pray or speak to God and there is no harm in imagining God as being ‘above ‘ the world – he is – he is supernatural – above the natural – but actually the spiritual realm is another dimension that is both present and far away at the same time. Those who do not know God do not have access and do not understand it – they cannot believe that God might speak to his people. But being filled with the spirit is a gateway to the spiritual realm – God communicates with his people and depending on the calling on your life and the gifts you desire and are given, will depend on how far into that realm you can be trusted. You have heard Gabriel talk openly about how he wants to see Jesus face to face and he desires that and will access it through this gateway of being filled by the spirit. Access through the gateway to the spiritual realm enables our worship, empowers our prayer life

Prophetic prayer – pulling what we see in the heavenlies into the natural world – healing, miracles, words of knowledge, wisdom etc – all direct access through the gateway of being filled by the spirit and given access to the spiritual realm.

Well perhaps you didn’t know there was a spiritual realm – I can assure you there is – the world knows there is – you hear talk of spirits and ghosts and seeing mediums and speaking to dead people – well those are gateways too but make no mistake – they are ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN.

There are spirits – there are evil spirits – oh they masquerade as our long-lost relatives but they are not agents of God, they are agents of Satan. There are witches – they call themselves white witches in some ridiculous attempt to persuade us they are good – but they are not agents of God – and all these gateways are forbidden by God because they bring evil spirits into the world. If you have ever been part of witchcraft, freemasonry, wicca, been to a medium, played a ouiji board, had your fortune told, had your tarot cards read, horoscopes, spiritualist churches – you have not only run the risk of releasing evil spirits to oppress you and make life difficult for you, but this will also stand in your way of gaining true freedom in Christ. Evil spirits can possess people, they dominate – that is Satan’s tactic – they want to dominate and oppress – God never does this – he is a God of relationship and free will, love and blessing – he will never force himself upon you, or dominate you in a way that means you cannot speak for yourself – and if you are ever part of any church that claims God does this – run – fast- the other way – it is not biblical!!

Satan works through dominance and oppression and secrecy – many don’t even know who they are serving – they have opened up the spiritual realm by the wrong gateway – giving Satan and his spirits a foothold in their lives and they are not even aware of who they are serving!

If this is you by the way – it is remedied through prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit – evil spirits know the authority of God and they will flee in his presence, so careful prayer, repentance and being filled with the Holy Spirit will put this right. There is nothing to be afraid of. You can believe that God is not only true and good but that he wants to communicate with his people and be in relationship with you.

Satan would like to keep all this a secret! He hates it when people find out his true desires and his attempts at dominance and his greatest tool is disbelief. If you do not belief that there is an enemy – if you do not believe that there are evil spirits and forbidden gateways, you are playing right into his hands and allowing him free reign in your life. He roams the earth looking for people to dominate – his life’s work is to take you to your death before you find salvation in Jesus and empowerment in the Holy Spirit. And he has a field day in the UK. There have been great moves of God on continents like Africa – God can work in miracles and saves thousands at a time because they understand the spiritual – witchdoctors and pagan worship and the prominence of evil spirits have been part of life for centuries – they understand the concept of the supernatural – immediately accept the spiritual realm and the Holy Spirit and God is free to move

Here in the UK – we live in a culture of disbelief – we cannot see what is in front of our nose, instead we concoct conspiracies and prefer to live and identify in our trauma and suffering.

The UK is a traumatised nation – and it’s not surprising – the abuse and family break-up and negative parenting and role modelling that has been part of the last few generations is bound to leave a legacy. Families that have witnessed poverty and violence and mental health issues, break-up, divorce, absent fathers, suicide, bullying, oppression from the media and the constant strive to be successful NOW – money and looks and followers and perfect lives all become the gods of our UK culture, unattainable, unreasonable, irrational and excessive – and those that make it report there is STILL no meaning!!

If we partner with our trauma, we will stay there – we must seek freedom! And the only way is through salvation in Christ – I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father except through me- being filled with the Holy Spirit and entering into a spirit fuelled, empowered relationship with God, hearing him, partnering with him and working with him on transforming ourselves, identifying in Him and moving into the freedom and meaning that eternal life in Him really means.