string(7) "m-66998" Burnt Hickory Baptist Church

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Nov 19, 2023

Holy Spirit Led Kingdom Living

Holy Spirit Led Kingdom Living

Passage: Acts 2:1-13

Speaker: Matt Petty

Series: Stand Alone Message

Category: Sunday Sermons

Keywords: church, worship, prayer, faith, jesus, god, sermon, christian, bible, us, christ, kingdom, hope, theology, kingdom of god, sermons, holy spirit, prophecy, fire, video, inspiration, jesus christ, deliverance, christianity, teaching, holy, bible study, spiritual gifts, speaker, falling, inspirational, speaking in tongues, kingdom living, personal development, study the bible, motivational, bible teaching, tongues of fire, 2023, burnt hickory worship, burnt hickory baptist church live stream, teach me

God’s presence is no longer to be celebrated for falling on a place, because it has now fallen onto and into His people. We see in Acts what it truly means to be Spirit led as we trust and submit to God’s timing. As we study scripture, we learn that following God means standing assured in God’s promises and not in our own strength. The power of the Holy Spirit comes in the form of us as Christ followers walking in the confidence that we have in Him and His finished work in our salvation. If you’ve got questions about who Jesus is, or want to talk more about speaking in tongues, then reach out today. We’d love to connect with you and answer any questions you’ve got as well as take time to pray with you. You can also take the next step in your faith journey by visiting burnthickory.com/next.

Well. Hey, good morning, church. It is an incredible day to be worshiping today. And we wanted to pause just for a moment before the message today and give you a little bit of an update on the counseling center that you are going to begin to hear more and more and more about here at Burnt Hickory. If you've been walking in the doors here lately, you know that the construction of our new facility has started. But behind the scenes, there's also been a lot of work happening to get ready for our new community counseling center that Brian Foster is going to head and give leadership to here at Burnt Hickory. But we have great news for you today. As of this month, we are officially soft launching the facility to begin to meet the needs of the members of this church, getting ready when our facility is finished to open it up to be a community wide place of hope. Brian, tell us some of the stuff that's been going on and how even now people can begin to take advantage of what's happening.

Yes, So we've been working really hard at coming up with all the guidelines that it takes to have a counseling center. When you move into the licensed counseling world, the government has a lot of things that we have to abide by. So we've been working on getting those types of things in alignment with HIPPA, software types of things, and vetting some of our counselors who will be providing help to people. So we've just been really digging down into the deep weeds of what it takes to prepare to give quality care when we actually open up the doors to this thing.

That's right. I'm glad that we've kind of taken that slow process and to make sure that everything begins in the excellent, excellent way. Brian, right now, as a church member, what could someone do now that is looking for whether it be mental health counseling or pastoral counseling or family or marriage counseling? How could our people here at Burnt Hickory right now begin to take advantage of this to even more so get us ready to be able to handle the community load later on?

We've got three levels of counselors. We’ve got the licensed counselor, we’ve got the pastoral, and then we've got our lay people who have been trained. So we can help anybody with whatever situation. If it's an individual thing or if it's a couple thing or if it's their children, we can help them. We guess even if we can't help them. We have resources throughout our community that we can refer you to to make sure that you're getting the best help. We don't think we can help everybody, but we know that we can talk with them and then disperse them to the best help If we're not that. We're not trying to be the messiah for them, we're not trying to fix all their problems, but we know that there are resources out there. I tell people all the time, I can't help anybody, but I know the one who can, and we know Him, He can help. And then we know the people who have been gifted and skilled in other areas that we've got ways to find them the right help.

If there's a person now, that's listening to this. What specifically can they go to today to begin this process?

Yes, you can go to our Web site or you can call the church and say, hey, I'd like to speak to somebody about counseling and you can find how to make an appointment and all, and then you can either speak with me, you can speak with one of our lay people that's been trained, or we can line you up with our professional licensed person.

One of the things that we're really excited about is being able just to provide people that can be trusted, people that have the same values that we possess as a church, people that see Scripture the same as that we see Scripture and want to build our lives and convictions around who Jesus is in their lives. You know, one of the stigmas for a long time about counseling is that you must really be messed up to need that. But I'm just going to tell you, I think we all, at some point in our lives, need it. And I can't think of a better place than in your local body of Christ that you can come around trusted people that want the best for you and your family and that you can absolutely lean into.

Well, amen. Amen. Amen. That is incredible. You know, you think it's awkward when you see yourself in a picture on Facebook. What if you had to watch that video three times today and you're me, right? That guy. I'm so sorry. You have to listen to that every week. But, hey, listen, we just wanted to shine a light today on what is happening and what we're leading into happening. One of the things that we're really focused on doing is as we launch this whole initiative, we wanted to launch it firstly just for the Body of Christ, for those of us that are here, well, we want to make sure that we are a well tuned machine and it is ready to go. And so from now to the point that the actual physical facility is ready, we're going to focus on taking care of the many, many needs that are inside our church. Now, that's not to say that we won't take care of other people, but specifically we want to be able to just say yes to all the needs that are here. And then once the actual plant is built, then we will begin to advertise to the community. Okay, So that's kind of the goal and where we are right now.

But we just wanted you to know today that no matter what you're walking through, it is ready for you. Like you said, like Brian said, if you just log on to the Internet, go to burnthickory.com/counseling. There's a button on there. There is a portal there where you can request an appointment. You can have the walk through process, the intake process of what all that looks like. If all that is confusing to you, I get it. Just call the office here and just say, hey, here's where I'm at and here's what I need, and they will launch you into what that looks like. All right. Well, hey, I want to do something since today is kind of an official moving forward day,

I just want us to pray for God's hand and God's spirit to be in control from this point forward in taking care of the needs of people in this. So let's do that together. Lord, we love you today. We thank you. Today we lift up your name today, Lord Jesus, and just say thank you for this vision. Thank you for the resources that you have given to be available to make this happen. And God, thank you for putting the right people in the right place at the right time to make sure that we are walking with people in their emotional, physical and spiritual needs. Lord Jesus, God bless this endeavor from this point on. Lord Jesus, it's in your name. Amen. Amen.

Can't wait to see where that goes. Well, listen, over the last month of December, we have been focusing in and spotlighting a few different ways to live for the kingdom. This whole month has been about the kingdom of God. We had Peter Abungu here two weeks ago, talking about what God is doing in Nairobi and the surrounding areas and how our goal is to be transformed and not conform so that we can live out the kingdom. Last week we spent some time with the Waymark children's people looking at the vulnerable children of our community and how we can come around them and how we can support them. And kudos to you guys. By the way, as of last week, over 50 of you said yes to Waymark last week to come alongside them in taking care of foster kids in our community, which is incredible all to have that. They were blown out of the water last week just because of your response to them. Next week. Let me give you a little foreshadowing. Next week we are actually going to look at the persecuted church and how we can pray for them, how we can lift them up, and how we are incredibly blessed in just being able to worship in a way that we're not afraid for our life. We're not scared something is going to happen in church. So next week you don't want to miss it. I know it's Grandma's house weekend. I get that. All right. But drive home early Sunday morning, drive home late on Saturday night and be here next week. But in the middle of all of this kingdom living conversation, what I wanted to do this morning is just pause and give you one of the central truths to our faith of what it looks like to walk our faith out in Kingdom Living.

This morning, we're going to look at the role of the Holy Spirit in this, because here's what I know about walking out kingdom living. If we do it on our own, if we rest in our own power, if we use our own strength or even our own knowledge, that may carry us for a little while in our talents and charisma, but without the spirit of God, you will live an incredibly frustrated spiritual life. You will eventually burn out. You will eventually get frustrated, and you will eventually give up. So today we're going to look at what it looks like to ask the Holy Spirit to rely on the Holy Spirit and to ask Him to move in us. And we're going to do it today by looking at what I would just call one of the most awkward New Testament moments of all times. We're going to look at an awkward story today where something happens and nobody really knows what to do. How many of you would say that you enjoy awkward conversations? Yeah, they're usually in my experience, there are 10% of us. I'm going to let myself up into this one right? That enjoy awkwardness. There's about 90% of you that just wish you never had another awkward conversation, right? I happen to be in the camp that I kind of like awkwardness sometimes. I like to sit in it because I love the social experiment of watching what happens when awkward stuff comes up. You know what I'm talking about. There's this conversation that's happening. There's dinner that's happening, something in your house is happening, something goes down and nobody knows what to say, right?

Nobody knows how to deal with it. These personalities come up. The first personality is the person that just wants to pretend like nothing happens. That might be you in awkward conversations where you just want to pretend like it's not happening. Praying to God to let it go. Right? The second person is the goal. The goal of the second person is that they just want to make it worse. Right? This is usually your first born right? They want to make the whole situation awkward. I play this role sometimes, right? I just love to just bask in the awkwardness. Right? Some of you, that's where you are. The third person in awkward conversations is what I just call the peacekeeper. They just want peace at all levels. They will take the brunt of the whole conversation if they can just make it go away. Right? And then the fourth person, usually the fourth person is the one that just speaks out. They just want to get through the conversation. Well, this morning, we're going to see an incredibly awkward moment in the life of the church. It has to be an awkward moment, but it's not just an awkward moment. It's a moment that changed history. It's a moment that changed the church and it's quite possibly one of the most important moments of the big C church and can be one of the most important moments of our lives. It's a day that changed everything.

If you've got a copy of Scripture, would you turn with me to the Book of Acts. To the Book of Acts in chapter two, The Book of Acts and Chapter two. Let me kind of catch you up on what is happening at this moment. Jesus has risen from the grave, and for 40 days He has walked on the earth and he does this incredible work. He has these incredible things that are happening. The disciples at this moment are just kind of along for the ride. And then Jesus looks at those that were closest to him, His disciples. He looks at them in Acts one and he says, Hey, I want you to wait. I want you to wait because the Holy Spirit is coming and the Holy Spirit is going to change everything. So the disciples, I'm sure when they heard that, they thought that it was going to happen instantaneously. Right. But the moments became minutes. The minutes became hours. The hours became days because after all, Jesus said this and ascended to heaven. Right? If you go back to Acts chapter one, verse eight, Jesus' last message to the disciples was this: Let me read it to you. He says, But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

Now, this is the thesis statement of the whole book of Acts. But when the disciples heard this from Jesus, they watched Jesus ascend back to God. But now they're wondering, okay, how long, how long is this going to take? Right. Like any good motivated person, they're wondering, how long is this? Well, today we're going to pick up the text of the disciples in the upper room waiting on God. And before we do that, though, let me ask you a question. Have you ever had to wait? Have you ever been in a season of waiting? Listen, waiting is terrible. It's terrible. And that's where we find the disciples. The disciples have been waiting for ten days, and they're there at the third largest Jewish festival at the time, which is Pentecost. They're held up in this room. They're coming together to worship. But now we're at Pentecost, the celebration of harvest and the celebration of the law. And at this moment we're about to join Jews from all over the world who came into Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost, which is a harvest celebration of God, giving them harvest physically and spiritually. And it was a celebration of God giving them the law, the celebration that they're entering into. And this is going to matter in a minute. It's a celebration of what God did in Moses's life through the burning bush, what God did in Moses's life through God, leading Moses through the wilderness, through the fire at night, and the pillar during the day. This was a celebration of God raining down on the mountain of God and engulfing it in fire.

It was a celebration of a new covenant in Moses and God's people. So for 1600 years, people have been coming to Jerusalem to celebrate this Harvest and Law festival. It was a good time of year to do it. It was in the spring. The barley harvest had just happened and we're waiting on the wheat harvest. The money was good. They came from all over the world to celebrate what God had done, and in that moment we join Acts Chapter two, verse one. Let's jump in and watch what happens when the Holy Spirit shows up. It says this, when the Day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. In other words, they were gathered together. They were in this upper room. The disciples were there, Mary and Mary and Martha and the many others. There was about 120 of them. They were gathered in this place. What were they doing? They were worshiping and they were praying for ten days. That's what they were doing verse two. And suddenly, like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. So suddenly this sound like a blowing of this violent wind happened after waiting for ten days, watching the time pass when no one expected it. Suddenly, out of nowhere, God shows up. Let me ask you this, Isn't that kind of how God works most of the time? Isn't that how God worked when He saved you? Isn't that how God works when he does big things in your life? Right? It seems like it comes after a season that we're really just not even looking for it. When you go back to your faith story, most of your faith stories go something like this. I got invited to this deal. I wanted the pizza and the girl, but I got God right. I got invited to this service and God did something in me.

It's exactly what's happening to these people in this upper room. They weren't expecting it, but God shows up and he pressed into their lives and he changed them. Look what happened/ It says suddenly, a sound like a violent wind. In other words, like a freight train, like a tornado. When I was in the third grade, my dreams came true. Literally. You know, many times you do that fire drill in third grade, you know, many times you do the tornado drill in third grade. In the third grade, a tornado ripped the roof off of my elementary school. It was the coolest thing ever. Right? Coolest thing ever. But when it happened, I still remember the sound of that tornado coming over our roof. Nobody got hurt. It was cool. All right. I'm not that kind of guy. Right? But we did get a couple of days in school. It was awesome. Right? That's what it's describing here. The sound roared. It was a booming moment. Don't picture wind blowing through the upper room. When I was a kid, I thought that's what it was. This wind blew through. Now it's a boom. I want you to notice what it doesn't say in the text. It doesn't say that in the middle of their worship, in prayer, that God was hiding in the corner going, Hey, remember me? Remember me, right? No. God showed up with a booming presence. Let me just have an honest moment with you for a minute. I'm so sick of a wimpy view of God that many people have. I'm so sick of many people's view of God as this little thin arm flowing haired little figure that's just walking the streets. No, God is powerful and God is mighty to save. That's what we're seeing. He shows up in power and so much power that not only the people in this room heard what was happening, people around them. Look at verse three.

It says they saw now notice that they'd already heard. But now they're seeing. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came down to rest on each of them. And all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. And they began to speak to each other in tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now, in your minds, don't think of it like a big human tongue that is hanging out over the room. All right. When I was a kid, once again, I said I thought, I don't know why this kind of what came in my mind. Well, it says tongues here. Think of little flickering flames. They're almost in the shape of a tongue. Think of a candle flame, maybe a little bit bigger that they just came into the room that sat above them in the room. And remember, why are they in Jerusalem? They're in Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost. They're in Jerusalem to celebrate this moment of God's presence and God's law and God's guidance and God falling on fire on His people and on the mountain of God. And what is God doing? God at this moment of this week is coming to this sacred place. And in this moment when they are there to celebrate what God has done in the past, God, watch this. Put the pieces together, He gives them a new covenant. He gives them a new message. Don't miss this, because the fire from this point backwards had rested on a place. But now God's presence was given to the people. It's given to the people. In fact, write this principle down. I think it will help you. Write this one down.

God's presence was no longer to be celebrated for falling on a place, because It is now falling onto and into his people. See church, this is an incredible, incredible, incredible story. Why? Because now God has moved from being here to being in. That's the difference. This is what Jesus had promised. This has happened and this is what Acts one eight Jesus on his last day on this earth that promised them. This is what John 14 and John 15 and John 16 says, When the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, is what cleanses us and purifies us and gives us power, God is now in us. And this is such an incredible gift. Incredible blessing. So what happened to them? What happened is, they all began to speak languages that they didn't know. They all begin to speak as the spirit enables them. Seems a little weird, right, until you really know the story. I want to point something out about the Bible. As you study the Bible in acts especially, there is what is called prescriptive language and descriptive language. And this is for your nerdy people right here it is Prescriptive language tells us what we should do. Descriptive language just describes the character and the power of God. This is descriptive language, which means this. This is not something that we're supposed to mimic. This is not something that we're even supposed to chase after. This is not something that's even normative for the church.

Could it happen? Yes, but it's not like a command from God to happen. It's caused a lot of church disputes for a lot of years. Right. What God is showing after this is he saying this in my spirit, has moved from the temple to now rest over and in my people. And because of that, you can rest assured that you can walk in my power. Look what happened in the story. Verse four. It says all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now they were staying in Jerusalem, God fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. So think of it like this thing of everybody that could be there from every nation that was there that time. Now think about it, though. How amazing is it that the first time after Jesus left this earth that the gospel was preached, it was now preached not under the power of some guy standing at a temple. It was preached in the power of the Holy Spirit at a place that all the nations were gathered. You know what it says to us? This tells us that God is the guy that wants every nation to come to him. That God is a God that wants all to know him.

The Gospel of Jesus is not some Anglo American gift to the world. It's for everybody. There's no room in the gospel for favoritism. God is looking at his people. He's saying, You need to love people and God is in the business of unifying people. Watch what happened in verse six. It says, When they heard the sound, the crowd came together in bewilderment, and because each one of them heard their own language being spoken, utterly amazed, they asked, Aren't these who are speaking this, aren't they just Galileans? They're like, Wait a minute, These are like uneducated people from the top side. That's a little fishing village. What are they doing right? How did these guys learn all these languages? Scholars tell us this would have been somewhere between 19 and 21 languages to people all over the world. In fact, look, it was eight tells you who you spoke to then. How is it, verse eight, that each of us hears them in their own language: Parthians, Medes and Elamites and the residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia Pontus in Asia. Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts from the Cretans and the Arabs. We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. Amazed and perplexed, they ask one another, What does this mean? What's happening here?

The crowd doesn't understand. They heard this booming noise, they came, and all of a sudden they weren't hearing Greek being spoken anymore. Aramaic. They were now hearing their language. Everyone that is in the crowd is now hearing the gospel being preached in their heart language. And they were praising God. But there's always those people who don't believe. Look at verse 13. Some, however, made fun of them and said they have had too much wine right. These Galileans, they must have got started early. Right. There it is. But what do we see here? Obviously, I want you to read the rest of the story this week. What we're seeing here is the disciples now move from waiting. They now move from relying on the person of Jesus to tell them every move. And they now move to walk Kingdom living out in the power of the Holy Spirit. They move and at this moment they proclaim the love of God. Peter preached the first Christian message many trust the church starts. It goes from 120 to 3000 people. Why? Because the Holy Spirit fell. Church. I just tell you this: This has now given us access to the Spirit of God. This is now giving us access to no longer has to depend on a place, no longer having to depend on a temple, no longer having to just look backwards. We can now look at the fact that King Jesus has given us his spirit to live in power and to live in his presence.

Now, that is what happened. Now, that could be enough for us to just close our bibles and go that's a great story Matt, see you next week. But we're not because part of studying the Bible is not to just look at the events, but is to look at what God is pointing to in our lives. Right? How is God moving in our lives? Is God asking us to pray for a Pentecost moment? Not necessarily, but it does give us a couple of principles, a couple of walkways that I want to give you for kingdom living. Number one in the story, God has shown us that we need to submit in trust in God's timing and not our timing. Why? Because God's timing, it's always perfect. It's always perfect. When you think about these disciples, they had seen God's power through Jesus. I mean, we can't even imagine all they've seen, right? They've experienced the resurrection. They saw the acts of God. They've been used by God. They, in fact, on their own, had performed many miracles. They wanted more than anything to see God move through them. But for ten days, Jesus told them to pause.

In fact, Acts 1:4, look what it says, Jesus told them, do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you've heard me speak about. For ten days, they met and they waited. They met and they waited. Church Listen to me closely. God's timing is always perfect. It's always perfect. But sometimes we have to wait. Sometimes we have to wait and listen. Waiting is hard. Waiting is so hard for them. But it's particularly hard for us, right? I mean, we're an instant society. When I got this little throat deal going on and I feel like junk today, so I was back in the offices just a minute ago, heating up the little tea kettle to get some tea in this thing. I was like, Lord, give me one more service. And I'm standing there for like 4 minutes and I'm mad at the tea kettle right? Because it won't boil the water. That's how instant we are. But I think sometimes that's what translates into our spiritual life sometimes. We think that God should operate on my timing. We think that God should operate in my world under my rules. And we try to force the Spirit to work on our schedule. Hey listen, that never works. In fact, King David said it like this in Psalm 40. He said I waited patiently for the Lord. He turned to me and he heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on a rock. And he gave me a firm place to stand.

Look at this. In verse three, he put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Therefore, watch this last part of the verse. You can write “therefore” in the margin, it's cool. Many will see and fear the Lord and will put their trust in Him. You see, God could have acted faster. He could have acted right. He could have sent the Spirit on day one through 30. He could have been the spirit when Jesus was here, He wouldn't have mattered. He could have sent the Spirit on day 49, but he didn't. Why? Well ultimately we see through history that He didn't because he wanted to send the Spirit on the day that they were already celebrating the Covenant, they were already celebrating the law. They were already celebrating a harvest from God. And he wanted to celebrate a day that a new covenant could be given that from that point forward, we all have access to the Holy Spirit. That's why He did it right here. He said, Go, now go, on his timing. Let me give you a few caveats for God's timing, though, because we're pretty process oriented people. When it comes to God's timing. Yes, we do wait on God. But let me just give you this warning, when God says move, we need to move. When God says go, we need to go. But also on the other side of that, when it comes to making a move for God, for serving him and for living in his kingdom, there are some things in our life that we don't need to ask him when we need to do it.

He's already told us to do it. He's already told us to move. He's already told us to walk. He's already told us to move forward. So listen to those things, when it comes to serving God, God has already given us the commands to do it. Assume that the answer is yes and then allow God what He did in the disciples' lives to say, wait. So you don't have to pray whether you need to talk to your neighbor about who Jesus is. We've got to command already. You don't need to pray whether you need to get up and read your Bible in the morning. We've already been given that command. You don't need to pray whether you need to be a part of a local body of Christ or whether you need to be a giving tithing person. We know that's what God has told us. Assume yes. Let God say wait. The problem with most of us is we're stuck waiting and we're asking God, he's going to knock the door down for me to move. Number two, Kingdom walk away is we should stand assured in God's promises and not assured in our strengths. And there's one thing you can hear this morning, hear this. It's only through God's power and God's spirit that we will continually be able to make a difference. For 40 days, they had watched Jesus. They had heard all of this, but they're not in the streets yet. Why? Because they heard Jesus say, Not yet. It's because of my power you're going to be able to do this. Church, listen to me. It is so tiring to try to walk this faith, walk out on our own. We can't do it. We will always fail. We will always pull up short. We will always be frustrated. We have to rely on the spirit in our lives so that we can move. It's so tiring. The best thing that some of us in here could do in our relationship with God is just come to him just like this and go, God, I can't do it. I can not do it. You're going to have to. You know, it's at that moment, that posture of submission, that God says, I will move, I'll move. I love Amos 4:13. Listen to this describing God, He says, for who forms the mountains, who creates the wind? Who reveals his thoughts to mankind? Who turns the dawn to darkness, who treads on the heights of the earth?

Watch what he says. The Lord Almighty is his name. You see, in most of our lives, the problem is we want to put our name on the backside of that conversation. And God says, No, that's not how it works. We stand in his promises, not our promises, and we wait. But their waiting wasn't passive. Their waiting was in the word, their waiting was in worship. Their waiting was walking out the principles of God. Number one, trust in God's timing, not ours. Number two, stand assured in God's promises, not our promises. Here's a third one. This is pretty quick. Number three, walk in confidence that you have the Spirit. If you haven't heard anything else in this, those of you that are believers in Jesus today, listen to me closely. The Holy Spirit is a gift. It's a gift that has been given to you that now enables you not because of your abilities, not because of your power, not because of your social status, to walk in Him.

Just pause for a second. Think about this. If you've given your life to Jesus, the Spirit of God is in you. You're no longer visiting it at a place. You're no longer celebrating it as part of a festival. It's in you and you can do incredible things when you begin to rely and have confidence in the spirit. The maker of the universe is in you. In fact, in Acts 2:4, it says all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. And that's the prayer. Every day it's God, Don't fool me with myself, Fill me with you. God don't fill me with my desires. Fill me with your desires. God, don't fill me with me first. Fill me with your Spirit first. Fill me with you. In fact, if you move through Acts chapter two. You will see Peter do this very thing when he stands up as an ordinary guy to preach the Gospel, and 3000 people come to know Jesus. If you read the rest of the Book of Acts over 45 times, you will see the Spirit move, and the disciples follow. Why? Because they realize what it's worth, what it looks like to walk in the Spirit. Why? Because God was in them. He was in them, and God is in every single believer's life. So as we're focusing on this kingdom living thing, listen, I love looking back at what God's doing in Kenya. I love looking back at what God is doing in vulnerable children. I love looking next week at what God's going to do in the persecuted church. But listen, first and foremost, I love it when we can look at the idea that our role in life is to link up with the Spirit of God that's been given to us and to walk in His power. Can I tell you of the biggest worries I have for us as a church?

One of the biggest worries is that, generally speaking, this church has everything it needs. It has incredibly talented people that lead up here on Sundays, that lead LifeGroups, that walk out discipling, and mentoring. Our whole team here is incredible. We've been given a lifestyle that there's not a lot of dependency on and in a lot of ways we can make it very far, all of us, on charisma and talent. Let me just beg you today to pray, God, that Your Spirit that needs to lead us. It's Your Spirit that needs to guide us. It's Your Spirit that's going to show us the way. Can we just live a life that celebrates Kingdom living that points to the fact that God seals us eternity and gives us His Spirit to guide us. Lord, today as we come to the next couple of minutes of prayer, Lord Jesus. God, my prayer is that we can move from becoming a people that just attend an event, to celebrate a festival, to a people that are filled with your spirit in such a way that God, you enable us to see mighty things happen for Your kingdom. But God in that I realize that that's going to have us laying down ourselves.

That's going to have me coming to you in a posture of submission saying, God, I don't know how to do this. I don't know where the power is going to come from. I don't know how to walk this out in my life. And God, I know well enough that that is not a position that many of us like to be in. But God today show us how we can walk in love, and enjoy your Spirit. Lord Jesus, God. There's a whole other part of this story talking about the Holy Spirit. And that's just realizing that there's people here that don't know the Holy Spirit that have never given their life to Jesus and never had the Spirit placed in them.

God today, I just pray that around this whole room today, You are showing people what could be given to them. What gift they could have bestowed on their lives. And that Lord Jesus, you can forgive them and radically save them and set them apart and give them your Spirit to live inside of them. Lord, in this moment of invitation, God, if somebody needs to give their life to Jesus today and invite the Spirit in their life, God let it be. God, if somebody needs prayer today and somebody needs ministry over them today, somebody to walk with them today, God, we have people available for that. God, I just pray that we all walk from this place today with a posture of saying, Yes, Lord Jesus, let your Spirit fill me. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

Let's stand and sing together. I'll be right over here.

Follow Along with the Message

Holy Spirit-Led Kingdom Living

November 19, 2023

Acts 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.
Acts 2:1
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
Acts 2:2
Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
Acts 2:3–4
3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

PRINCIPLE: God’s presence was no longer to be celebrated for falling on a place because it is now fallen onto (and into) His .

Acts 2:4–5
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.
Acts 2:6–7
6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans?
Acts 2:8–12
8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs — we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
Acts 2:13
Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”
3 Kingdom Living Walkaways

1. Submit and trust in God’s , not our timing, because God’s timing is always perfect.

Acts 1:4
Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.
Psalm 40:1–3
1 I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. 2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. 3 He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.

2. Stand assured in God’s promises and not our .

Amos 4:13
He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and who reveals His thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth — the Lord God Almighty is His name.
2 Corinthians 1:20
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.

3. Walk in the that you have the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:4
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
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