Holy Spirit Power, pt 1

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning, we are gonna be continuing our series on Acts, the gospel movement. We're gonna be in, for the next two weeks we're gonna do something a little different. We're gonna be in Acts 18 and 19 together. And in Acts 18 and 19 there are multiple stories about power, multiple stories about power. We actually saw one at the very end of last week, whenever Steve Beckwith was preaching, kind of at the beginning of Acts 18, we saw one with a guy named Gallio, who was a kind of a governor type, he was pro-consul. And the Jews were trying to, they were trying to kind of bring Paul up on some charges. And they didn't really have much to say other than he's saying things we don't like. And so Gallio is displaying all this power and he's like, you know what, I don't even care, you guys leave. And then the Jews actually get a guy, they get another guy, not Paul, but they get another guy

and they bring him in front of Gallio and they beat the guy. They literally just beat him. This is in Acts 18, you can read it, it's weird. And it says that Gallio paid no attention. Like, I don't even care that you're beating a guy in front of me, I'm still not gonna listen to you, okay? So you see, kind of even at the beginning of Acts 18, we're talking about power. In a lot of different kinds of forms, we're talking about power. And so today, we're gonna be talking about power and it's particularly how it relates to the Holy Spirit. We're gonna have two stories today, two stories next week and it's different people, how they're powerful, different experiences and we're gonna be talking about what does it mean to experience full Holy Spirit power, okay? That phrase has a lot of kind of meaning packed into it so what does it mean to experience full Holy Spirit power?

Okay, and so we're gonna start in Acts 18 and we're gonna jump into verse 24. We're gonna meet a man named Apollos and Apollos has a lot of power that we can see pretty quickly. It says, now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the scriptures. Okay, so immediate description of Apollos, this guy's powerful, he's eloquent, he's competent, keeps going.

It says he's come to Ephesus to preach, next verse, it says, he had been instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. Okay, so before we get to the end, still we have more power, so he's instructed in the gospel. He is teaching it accurately, okay? So this guy, Apollos, he's an accurate teacher, he knows the way of Jesus, he's teaching that accurately, and yet it says that he only knew the baptism of John. In other words, and we're gonna see this in a parallel in the second story. In other words, he is ignorant of the Holy Spirit. Apollos does not know that there is a Holy Spirit. The only knowing the baptism of John would mean that he's missed out on that baptism that Jesus told his disciples about, that his disciples experienced in Acts two,

that other people have experienced throughout Acts, and that is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, okay? So he has not dealt with that. He doesn't understand kind of the Holy Spirit. We'll get to that in a minute. Look at the next verse. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, still not knowing about the Holy Spirit, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, we're gonna stop there, Priscilla and Aquila, where we met them recently, they are the people that are working with Paul, they're tent makers with Paul, and they know a thing or two about Jesus, okay? And so it says, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately, curious. Up until this point in scripture, we haven't really seen much like this, okay? So something's happening, it's a little weird. We're gonna keep going, because Apollos is on a mission just like Paul.

He's going to synagogues, he's teaching people about the way of Jesus. And so Priscilla and Aquila, they hear him and they instruct him, it says, more accurately. In other words, you had something right, but you didn't have it all right. And again, scripture's kind of unclear, but it seems that Apollos is now familiar with the power of the Holy Spirit, where in a way that he was not before. And look at the next couple of verses. He wants to go to Achaia, and so in 2728, kind of the last half of 27, it says, when Apollos arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the scriptures that Christ was Jesus. So it seems like, seems like Apollos is now experiencing Holy Spirit power for the first time. Because before he was eloquent, he was competent, he was fervent in spirit, and he was accurate.

But now, he's greatly helping. Now he's powerfully refuting. Now he understands something more accurately. Admittedly, the evidence is slim, because it does not exactly say, now Apollos had the Holy Spirit, or now Apollos had Holy Spirit power. He was baptized in the Holy Spirit, didn't say that, didn't say that at all. However, the very next account, which is kind of meant to be a parallel account, it cements this observation. Look at Acts 19, verse one. And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. So let me just, the 19, one, what that's doing for us is that's setting up parallel accounts. It's saying at the same time this was happening, this other story's happening, okay? So we're kind of meant to see some parallel, we're meant to understand something bigger is happening.

Okay, so as Priscilla and Aquila are instructing Apollos in the city of Corinth, Paul is finding disciples in Ephesus. Okay, so he's found some disciples in Ephesus. Sorry, I said Corinth. They're both in Ephesus, anyway, long story. My fault. Acts 19, two, so he meets some disciples in Ephesus, and he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? That's a strange question to start it off, isn't it? That's a strange question. These are believing disciples of Jesus Christ. These are not disciples of John. Otherwise, Paul would not have asked that question. Paul would have known that answer if they said we wouldn't follow John. Nope, these guys are disciples of Jesus Christ. They believe that Jesus is the risen Son of God. Just like Apollos believed that Jesus was the Christ, the risen Son of God. In other words, on Judgment Day, Apollos and these Ephesian disciples,

they're all standing before the Lord and they are reckoned righteous. They're Christians. They're made right before the Lord. I need you guys to understand that. We're not dealing with people that don't know the Lord. We're dealing with people that know the Lord. They are disciples of Jesus. Okay, look at the second half of two and into three. Their response.

They said no, we've not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. And he said into what then were you baptized? And they said into John's baptism. Okay, so it should start to come clear just a little bit because that's the exact same thing it said about Apollos. It said that he only knew of John's baptism. These Ephesian disciples are saying the only baptism we know about, we hadn't even heard about the Holy Spirit. The only baptism we know about is John's baptism. So it shows us that this less accurate understanding of the way of Jesus is rampant. In other words, it's not just a random guy, Apollos here, and a couple of Ephesian disciples here. What we're trying to understand here is that this is kind of all over the place. This is not just in Ephesus. This is happening often.

The reason that we know that, a couple of the clues in the text were what I said before about how they were, they said they were baptized into John's baptism. That's the same thing it said about Apollos. That's probably a common thing. You have people that are instructed in the way of Jesus, but they're baptized into John's baptism. Okay, and all John's baptism is is just a baptism of repentance, which is fine. It's not like it's a bad thing. Again, these people are Christians. The second clue we have is that the idea that this was rampant is how does Paul even know to ask into? Like in verse two, how does he know to ask, oh, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? In other words, that question's not coming out of nowhere. That question's coming out of experience that Paul has probably dealt with people that are Christians that haven't been baptized

with the Holy Spirit. Okay. FF Bruce, who is a great theologian, I believe he's dead. If 90's near death, not trying to pronounce anything FF, that's fine. Scholar, smart guy, he said, although it may seem strange to be ignorant of Holy Spirit baptism, at this point Christianity was made up of many strands. So what we kind of have to remember at this point, as the gospel's going out, there are people that believe in Jesus Christ, right? But then there's some details that are kind of missing or some things that are a little kind of, yeah, something's missing, something's added, something's not quite there. They still love the Lord Jesus Christ. They are still walking in faith. They are still preaching the gospel, right? Just like Apollos is, just like these Ephesian disciples are. But they are missing Holy Spirit baptism. Interesting. It's interesting. So you have disciples of Jesus,

they believe in an accurate gospel, no idea of the Holy Spirit. And so what Paul does is he explains the way of Jesus more accurately to these Ephesian disciples. Just like Priscilla and Aquila explains the gospel more accurately to Apollos. Look at verses four and five. And Paul said to these Ephesian disciples, Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling people to believe in the one who was to come after him. That is Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Why? Well, because that's what Jesus told his disciples to do. That's why we celebrate baptism. It's because this is what Jesus has given us to do. It's what he commanded his disciples to do, right? And so if you're gonna follow Jesus, you're gonna be baptized. If you, I always tell people, you know, whenever we're doing kind of, like a baptism course or something,

they're a candidate for baptism, I always say, you know, the question will come up, either I insert it or they ask it, do I need to be baptized to be saved, right? And I would just say, I keep it pretty simple, and I just say, Jesus wants you to follow him, right? You wanna follow Jesus, is that right? Yes, okay, yeah, you wanna follow Jesus? First thing he did was get baptized. First thing. So, maybe that's something you should do too, okay? Like, it kinda makes sense. They're getting baptized in the name of Jesus, okay.

Let's quickly look at what happens next, and then we're gonna get into it. Verses six and seven, this word gets a little hairy. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about 12 men in all. Okay, let's go home. I can tell you all are nervous, because none of you laughed except for Daniel Oster, and he knows where I'm going with this, so. Don't be nervous. We have two episodes that are giving us a critical word here about Holy Spirit power. And they help us see, and this is really critical, they help us see it is possible to be fully Christian and partially powered. It's possible to be fully Christian and partially powered. Fully Christian meaning you know Jesus, you know the accurate gospel. You teach the way of Jesus to others. Partially powered, you miss or you deeply confuse

the power of the Holy Spirit. Fully Christian, partially powered. Jesus wants to be fully Christian and fully powered by the Holy Spirit. Jesus wants us to be fully Christian and fully powered by the Holy Spirit. And yet, whenever I say the phrase, fully powered by the Holy Spirit, and some of you get nervous whenever I say that, and I get it, because it is riddled. That phrase is riddled with confusion and outright lies, and it's easier to pretend like that discussion doesn't even exist. It's easier not to read Acts 18 and 19.

It's easier not to cover the beginning of 19, where Paul is laying his hands on people and then they get the Holy Spirit and then they start speaking and telling him to prophesy. But what Jesus came to accomplish, the reason Jesus left, was that he said it's gonna be better when the Holy Spirit comes. It's better than me being here in person. Could you imagine what's better than Jesus being in front of you in person? I can't, right? That doesn't make sense to me. But Jesus, in his wisdom, said, it's gonna make sense, it's better if I leave and the Holy Spirit comes, okay?

If Jesus is sending the Holy Spirit, if he's gonna do all that trouble, if he's calling him the helper, if we're gonna be fully Christian and fully powered by the Holy Spirit, what we have to do, we have to face and untangle some of this confusion first. Because some of you, some of us, like Apollos or the Ephesian disciples, we are fully Christian and partially powered.

We know and believe the right things, but it doesn't come out in our lives. And there's three big points of confusion. What I wanna do is I wanna give you the lie and I wanna give you the truth and I wanna give you the truth according to the scriptures that we just read, okay? So the three points of confusion. And I'll just say you just quickly what they are, the three points of confusion. Like the first is my life is too boring to experience Holy Spirit power. The second would be I need to speak in tongues to experience Holy Spirit power. And the third would be that the Holy Spirit doesn't really work like this anymore. Okay, ready, good. All right, first lie, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit power always looks magical or fantastic. So like when the Holy Spirit works, it's kinda like a Marvel movie. Like you think of like something glowing or spark flying or like a heavenly light shining down.

Don't lie, you know you do. You know you believe that. You know it's like tangled, like when her hair starts glowing or something. You know, like it's like the force, you know? We think of it in those terms because that's all the touchstones we have, right? So we think about like what the Holy Spirit looks like whenever there's something powerful going on and in our minds there's an aura, there's a halo, there's a heavenly light somewhere. It always has to look magical for lack of a better term. It has to look heavenly, right?

But the truth is that the Holy Spirit power actually looks really ordinary from the outside. Holy Spirit power looks super ordinary from the outside. Look at Apollos, right? Whenever he begins kinda walking in Holy Spirit power, we looked at it already, it's Acts 18, 27, 28. He arrived in Achaia, he greatly helped those who were, who through grace had believed, he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, show them by the scriptures that the Christ was Jesus. This doesn't really look much different than what was happening before. And yet, and yet, Apollos is now empowered in a new way by the Holy Spirit. And when you look at the previous chapters, they tell us about Holy Spirit power. We look about, we look early in Acts, right? It's not just Acts two, right? That's not the only place we see the Holy Spirit kind of working, there's plenty of places where in Acts,

the gospel, the disciples are boldly proclaiming the gospel in Holy Spirit power. They are sharing what they had, like their possessions they're having in common, and they're doing that in Holy Spirit power. Acts 13, you have the church in Antioch, this is kinda where our series began. They are worshiping, they are fasting, and they are listening to the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit, and they're asking, how do we send, who do we need to send and where do we need to send it to? And they send Paul and Barnabas on this missionary journey that we are reading about here. And they do that in Holy Spirit power. It's not just a fantastical, miraculous, or sparks flying, it's not just that, it's things that we would consider to be super ordinary. For example, we are about a year away from sending out a missionary couple into a tough part of the globe, okay?

I want you to know that that is empowered fully by the Holy Spirit, that that is some Holy Spirit power. Now that's weird to think about, because there's no sparks flying, and there's no heavenly light, and there's nobody wanting to document it. It's super ordinary, okay? But the Holy Spirit is working through us, through them, through us together, to get the gospel out to a hard part of the world that most of us in here could not live in, even if we wanted to. That's Holy Spirit power at work, and it looks ordinary, it looks like small things. And some of you out there are waiting for a sign in the sky, you're waiting for the crossword puzzle, you know, like eight across to be the city that you need to move to, or something, I don't know. You're waiting for something crazy and magical to happen, but the Lord is talking to you through his scriptures, the Lord is talking you through a sermon,

the Lord is talking to you through people giving their testimony to you. He's talking to you as you're doing your Bible study in Home Group, he's talking to you as you're reading the Word, as you're just sitting down and your PJ's looking terrible, and just reading the Bible, because you're faithful at it, and the Lord's speaking in the midst of that. And that's Holy Spirit power, it just doesn't look like it to you and I. And for some of you, you're waiting for that, but what you're not doing is you're not putting yourself in a spot to minister to other people and watching the Holy Spirit deliver. You're too afraid of that, you're like, well, I don't know, I don't know what I'd do, I don't know what I'd say, I don't know, well, you never know, because you're never gonna get there. You wanna see the Holy Spirit move in power? Put yourself in a spot to minister to somebody.

I guarantee you're gonna see it, and if you wanna miss it, stay safe. That's the first lie. My life's too boring. It's called magical. Here's the second lie. This is a little more technical, I need to handle this pretty specifically. Tongues, speaking in tongues is a requirement for Holy Spirit power, okay. This is a pretty pervasive lie. There's a lot of people who believe this, and it's helpful for you to understand what's true, okay. Because what we have here in Ephesians 19, we have the Ephesians, they miss the Holy Spirit, Paul baptizes them into the name of Jesus, then he lays hands on them, and then they come up speaking in tongues immediately and prophesying, and here, this instance, okay, Acts 19, one and following, and a place in Acts 8 that we've already read, we've already kinda gone through a couple months ago, where Peter and John do the same thing in Samaria, okay.

So Peter and John in Acts 8, they go down to Samaria, and the Samaritans believe, you know, Philip the Evangelist has shared the gospel with them, they're like, yeah, we believe the gospel. Peter and John come, lay their hands on, immediately they begin speaking in tongues and prophesying. Okay, these two verses, these two kind of sections right here are what many Pentecostals or Charismatics build the idea that people need to be baptized into the Holy Spirit in this way, and then when they come up out of that baptism, they need to come up with the Holy Spirit on display. So they need to come up speaking in tongues, they need to come up something, right, something fantastical, something kind of marvelous, maybe like, maybe shaking, maybe, like I'm not kidding, I mean, this is not a joke, that they need to do something, right, they need to like look weird or different or whatever,

I don't know, like it's a thing, okay. Those two instances in Scripture, which are in Scripture right there for us to read, are what Pentecostals and Charismatics are gonna build that idea on, and they're gonna say like, when you are baptized, you need to be baptized in the name of Jesus only, and this is particularly like apostolic Pentecostals or like oneness Pentecostals, that's definitely gonna be there, you need to be baptized in the name of Jesus only, and when you are baptized, you need to come up and you need to be speaking in tongues immediately, okay. However, there are many other instances that do not show this as a requirement, in fact, there's many instances in Acts that don't show this to be a requirement, for example, Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit, didn't speak in tongues in Acts 9. Acts 10, you actually have some believers who spoke in tongues first,

and then they were baptized, okay, which is like a, it's just a different order, right, you have the church in Antioch, which is similar to the church in Samaria, right, it's the gospel going where all these Gentiles are, right, and the people are gonna need to see, but you never hear of them speaking in tongues as any kind of anything, you have Lydia, you have the Philippian jailer, you have the Thessalonians, you have the Bereans, none of these guys, we don't hear about them speaking in tongues, and if it's such an important thing, if it's such a mark in the entire New Testament, then surely, surely we would have read, in some of those, in any of those, besides just Acts 19, one through six, and then Acts 8. It doesn't show it as a requirement, but here's why it's pushed, and here's why it's held onto very passionately, because it is tempting, it is tempting in that it can prove

that you are an authentic Christian, okay. Let me just speak for a minute. Everybody worth their salt who follows the Lord goes through a period of doubt, okay, all right, amen? Yeah, okay, yeah, you've been there, and if you haven't, you're gonna be, and it's all right, we love you, okay, it's okay, it happens. For you, for any church, for any minister to want to place a band-aid on that and say, oh no, remember you're totally a Christian, you were baptized and you came up speaking in tongues, remember that, it's really tempting, it's really tempting to have this marker that proves that you are an authentic Christian. It's really tempting to have something that you can point to and say, that is objectively like when I became a Christian, that's when it happened, and I have that feeling, and I have that emotion, and I have that thing that happened to me right then, man,

it is so tempting, because it feels really good, and it can be a great band-aid, okay, it really, really can. I'm not even trying to throw shade on it, I'm just saying that's what happens. However, the dark side of that, the reason it is particularly dangerous is because it becomes a measuring stick, it becomes a measuring stick. Nathan Harrod, who is a pastor of the Pentecostals of Barcelona, says that every believer that received the Holy Spirit in the Bible spoke with tongues. The reason he says that, the reason that that has to be true is because that's how he and many other people authenticate their Christianity, period, okay? That's how they authenticate their Christianity, and so what's the reverse side? If you haven't had that experience, then you're not an authentic Christian, right? When you make the experience, when you put the experience at the crux,

and you say, are you a Christian or not? Well, did you, were you baptized in the name of Jesus, and did you come up speaking in tongues? Yes or no, yes or no. That's the measuring line, that's the dividing line. Whenever you kind of swallow this lie that tongues is a requirement, that tongues is a requirement for salvation. It's a requirement for authentic Christianity. When you believe that lie,

it is something that, we aren't meant to have that kind of measuring stick, we don't wield it very well. We tend to get super judgy. We tend to pronounce damnation or salvation on people, and we should not, it's not really our place to do that. I don't know if I need to illustrate this more, but it gets super messy. It's something that we can't handle even as people, that whenever we are talking about assurance of salvation, it's not something that,

it's not something that you can say, okay, I did A, B, and C, so I'm definitely a Christian. That's not how, it's not how a relationship works. That's not how it works. Here's the truth. Because if that didn't happen, then what did happen? If that's not the explanation, then what is the explanation for Acts 19? And for that matter, for Acts 8. Here's the truth. Tongues are a witness of Holy Spirit power. They are not a requirement of Holy Spirit power. They are a witness, meaning that God uses speaking in tongues to confirm His presence in something or in someone. You see that all over the place. You actually see it in the Old Testament too. In fact, the spiritual gifts that are listed in 1 Corinthians 12 and six and following, that list is, it's not a spiritual gift like I had. It's not like leadership or teaching. It's not like that. It's way more of like a green light.

Like if this is happening, then the Spirit can be there. Right? So when you look at that, it's like a green light indicator. So like a word of knowledge or tongue or an interpretation of tongue or something like that, you're gonna see that happen as a witness to God being in something. You say, well, can it be faked? Sure, it can all be faked. I mean, that doesn't make it different. If somebody wants to fake Christianity, they're more than welcome. And many have done it, okay? I'm not saying, I'm not looking for some foolproof method. I don't have to. However, it is listed in 1 Corinthians 12 as a sign, as a witness. And this is Peter's argument actually that the Gentiles were Christian back in Acts 15 whenever we were having the big Jerusalem Council. Peter's argument is, I'll read verse eight, and God who knows the heart bore witness to them, the Gentiles, by giving them the Holy Spirit

just as he did to us. It's a witness. It's a witness for Peter to see, oh, these Gentiles are Christians just like me. It's a witness to the Gentiles to say, oh, we're Christians just like these Jews are. And the same thing is happening in Ephesus. I will say that God still uses tongues today. I have never spoken in tongues. I actually try to pray for two years to speak in tongues never happened, okay? It's fine, I had a lot of friends who did and I thought it was cool.

But it never happened for me, which is fine. I have heard of this and seen this usually as a witness. Typically, you're gonna have tongues that are gonna happen in a hard to reach area. You're gonna have tongues that are gonna happen in a cross-cultural context. You got a couple different cultures there speaking in tongues will happen. Additionally, and this is just a strange thing, it's just what it is. I cannot explain it, but I do see it very, very often. And I know with people that work among former addicts, a lot of ministries among people that used to be heavy, heavy into drugs, like Christian biker gangs and things like that. Tongues is a big deal and it's just a, I don't know, man, it just flows. God just turns the faucet on real big for that. I don't know why, I don't know how, but I've seen it.

Tongues is not a requirement for Holy Spirit power. It's a witness of Holy Spirit power, a witness, not the only witness and definitely not a requirement. And this kind of takes us to the third lie. So my life is too boring, I need to speak in tongues. What's the third one? The third one is that the Holy Spirit does not work like this anymore. Let me just say, I understand the temptation here. I understand why this makes sense to people. And just so you know the technical terms, we have what's called a cessationist, which means they believe the Holy Spirit does not use His power the same way. Today they use it in Acts that it's called a cessationist, meaning it has ceased, that's the cessationist. And then you have continuationists, right? People believe that it has continued the same way it was in Acts. Okay, so, and let me just say, if you are either side of that,

man, God bless you, you're more than welcome here in this church, right? That's definitely not an issue that we're going to divide over, okay? It is something that we can freely talk about. It's good. I wanna unpack some of this so that we can kinda see it, but man, if you feel like attacked, that's not really what I want. I just wanna, I maybe wanna pick the scab a little bit, though.

Okay, I want you to imagine that you have a cousin. Okay, and a cousin who is a charismatic Pentecostal, you know, just, they're in that camp, right? They love the Lord Jesus Christ with all their heart, but they're definitely like, they're into, like, speaking of tongues and healing and miracles and the whole bit, okay. Now, you and your cousin are tight, and your cousin sells you, yeah, my son, you know, they broke their arm. Broke their arm. Fell off a swing, broke his arm, looked really terrible, but you know what, we prayed over it. We got him in the house, we prayed over it, we spoke in tongues over it, and then we cried out to Jesus for healing for about 45 minutes, and at the end of that, we heard three pops, pop, pop, pop, and then the arm was fine, be honest.

Be honest with yourself, you don't need to raise your hand or anything, be honest, are you believing that story? Are you really believing it? I would guess maybe half of you wouldn't. The other half wouldn't know what to do, but half of you'd be like, stop it, that did not happen. We have what we should call an anti-supernatural bias, okay, because if we heard that same story, but instead of praying in three pops that brought him into surgery, gave him some medicine, and maybe the surgeon heard three pops, I don't know, we're much less skeptical of that, right? Much less skeptical, but here we're like, whoa.

Did that really happen? And many of you, your question probably is, was the arm broken in the first place? Did it really happen? If we're gonna say that, we're gonna say that this kind of power, this kind of healing only happens in the New Testament, this kind of tongue thing only happens in the New Testament, then man, we have to be willing to discount millions, hundreds of millions of people

who will testify to this kind of thing. You can say they're all delusional, okay, all right, you're discounting hundreds of millions of people who will swear to you that they spoke in tongues and they never, I had a good buddy, he was raised Baptist, he was just real kind of, and he was kind of back row Baptist, no offense to those in the back row, that's a term that I'm not trying to be digging too hard on, but he was not really in, right? He didn't really buy in, he didn't really know the Lord, he didn't really, he was kind of whatever, and so he's 19 years old, he is a basketball player, he has a D1 scholarship, he injures his back and he's laid up for a year, a year, and he has to sit at home on his couch for a year, and he's sunk into huge depression, and at some point in that depression, he was like, God, I don't even know if you're real, and he didn't even finish the prayer,

and he just started speaking in tongues, like all on his own, on his couch, nobody there, nobody there to interpret, right? Like, it freaked him out, see, it's Andy Beams, good dude, he's actually a church planter in Denver, Colorado, he's been there for like 15 years, a Mass Road church, good dude, loves the Lord, believes the gospel, will be reckoned righteous on the day of judgment, doesn't push speaking in tongues with other people, but definitely speaks in tongues himself. I've met too many people, that's one of many, I've met too many people like that, man. They're not delusion, they weren't taught it, they weren't, it's just something that happens. Do I believe that some people are delusion? Oh, sure, yeah, some people fake it, oh yeah, I mean, for sure, you know, like,

I could tell you many, many other really funny stories of people that fake speaking in tongues, and, you know, because I was skeptical for a little bit, and, you know, it happens, man, it happens. So I'm not here to just say like, no, it's perfect, every time, you know, every time you see somebody speaking in tongues, you better, you know, that's the power of God, it's not, it's not, that's okay, but it doesn't mean we need to discount the whole thing, right, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Here's the harm, here's the harm in that lie, right, before we get to the truth, the harm in that lie is that it makes us practically ignore the Holy Spirit. The harm in that lie is that it makes us practically, I say harm, I mean, it's pretty killer, right, it makes us practically ignore the Holy Spirit, it makes us suspicious of any kind of religious feeling that we may have.

It makes us suspicious of like, any time I'm kinda getting caught up, like, if I'm in like a, if I'm in my car, and like, this really cool worship song comes on, and I like, crank that thing to 10, and I'm like, screaming bad notes at the top of my lungs, because nobody else is in the car with me, and if anybody were next to me, they would know that I would look like a crazy person. When I'm in the middle of that, and I am feeling like, I have an ecstatic feeling inside, like, it's not just like I'm feeling good, it's not just, but like, I am, I am in it, man, I have lost, you know, like, any inhibition before the Lord, I am praying, I am, I mean, it is a good feeling, right?

That's not a bad thing, that's not something I need to be suspicious of, it's not something that you need to be suspicious of. You don't need to base everything on that feeling, but that feeling is still from the Lord. And when we practically ignore the Holy Spirit, what we end up doing is we say like, we believe the right things, and we teach the right things, but we go through life without any power inside.

We're kind of partially powered, and every once in a while, like, in the car that happens, like, once every other month or something, you're, you know, like, getting a fresh experience with the Lord, but look, let me just encourage you, the Lord wants you to sing, where's Zane? Oh, Zane's not here, dang it. Look, Zane Rickard, I'm gonna just talk about, his parents are right there, hopefully they're not too embarrassed, God bless, I love Zane Rickard, Zane Rickard's one of my favorite people, and I know when Zane Rickard is here in worship, and so do you, although you might not know why, but you can hear that brother sing from six blocks away. I love it, every time, because you know what, like, when I'm on the front row, and I'm not feeling it, I hear Zane, man, and it just touches me, it's so good, man, it's so good, because he just doesn't care, he's just singing loud.

Man, look, let me just encourage you, sing like Zane, would you? Don't tell him I said that, it's gonna go to his head, but sing like Zane, okay? Just sing without, just sing, I don't care if you sing bad, man, just sing like Zane. Experience it, right? Grab hold of the feeling, the feelings aren't bad, you don't need to be suspicious all the time of them. Like I said, don't base your life on them, don't base your life on them, but don't pretend like the Holy Spirit doesn't work like this anymore, don't do that. It's detrimental to your soul, it will kill your prayer life, it will make you read the Bible with suspicion, whenever you read the book, a ax. My son, Cash, he's right there,

he, every once in a while, we live really close to our kids' school, like 10 minutes running distance, and every once in a while, Cash just wants to run to school. He doesn't wanna drive to school, he wants to run to school, and he does it for really good reasons, it's not bad. It's great reasons, it's exercise, clears his head, healthy habit, right? All good things, he's not doing anything weird on the side. However, if he's running late on a school day,

and he needs to be in school in two minutes, he's going by car, right? He's not running to school, I don't care what the health benefits are, he's getting in the car and he's going to school. Okay, many of you, you would rather limit yourself from Holy Spirit power because you're nervous about using it, you're nervous about what it would bring, and you justify it when you say, well, you know, people abuse it, you can't trust the feeling, everybody just wants to shortcut hard work with a miracle, look, fine, yes, that is all true. People do want to shortcut hard work with a miracle, okay? Yes, amen, they do, it's terrible, it's an epidemic, but let's not throw out the Holy Spirit just because of that.

When you actually need the Holy Spirit, you're praying for a miracle. Your baby's on the table, you're praying for a miracle. Every time, right, just like there's no atheists in foxholes, right, we're all Charismatics, whenever our family's in a life or death situation, okay? We're all believing Acts 18 and 19, whenever it's our family on the line, okay? Here's the truth.

The truth is that the Holy Spirit power is still miraculous. I could tell so many stories, I've told many stories, I'll just tell it very, very quick when my wife and I were young, married, in need of money, but didn't even know we needed the money that we needed. We needed $1,500 to pay for something and then we actually got like hit, double hit with another $1,500 deal.

And we had just gotten the 1,500 to secure that first thing, we didn't know the second thing was coming. In between those two times, we were furniture shopping. That's what you do when you need money. And so we're furniture shopping and we're in the middle of this huge furniture store and I swear to you, the middle aisle of this furniture store, it was as wide as this room. It was massive. The whole thing was like this huge warehouse. And so I only say that to say, my wife and I are walking down the middle aisle which is as big as this and it's just all floor space. As big as this and there's stuff kinda on either side. And we walk and I will tell you, and I don't remember the amount anymore but I'm sure it was north of $800. It was all $100 bills laid out on the floor right in front of us. And so we're just walking and we knew we needed money and bam, there it is right in front of us.

And that's never happened before or since. I'm not gonna write a book on how to find $800 in a furniture store, okay, I'm not doing that. But it was right there, man. And that was the Holy Spirit miraculously providing for something that we didn't even know we needed yet. But the Holy Spirit gave us $800. Now, I don't know how. I don't know if that 800 fell out of some dude's pocket. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, they might've been part of his story about how the Holy Spirit took $800 from him whenever he really needed money taken from him. I don't know.

So many stories, I have so many stories like that that are still miraculous. The Holy Spirit, it's still extraordinary. There's still healing happening. There's still broken marriages being restored. There's still exorcism that's happening. We'll look at that next week. Oh, you thought this week was fun. Man, we're gonna talk about exorcism next week. It's gonna be great. Still talking about Holy Spirit power. Y'all should just, every once in a while, when I say stuff like that, the look on Daniel Osher's face is just worth $10,000. It's so good.

Really, are we? Okay. Yes, but it's the Bible, so it's always good. Okay, we're gonna be talking about exorcism next week, so, you know, stay tuned. And it's things, honestly, it's things that you and I would find very difficult to believe because we have an anti-supernatural bias. We find that hard to believe. We want a medical explanation for it. We want a systematic explanation. We want a non-supernatural explanation for these things because of our bias. And these verses are trying to show us. What they're trying to show us is the Holy Spirit is at work using his power in real time, and there were a whole bunch of Christians, a whole bunch of Christians that were missing out on the power of the Holy Spirit because of confusion and misinformation. The Holy Spirit, power, the effect of the Holy Spirit, power, just so we're clear. What the Holy Spirit uses his power to do

is not just to make people feel good or something. The Holy Spirit uses his power to send the gospel out and to make Jesus famous, to send the gospel out, to make Jesus famous. Look at Acts 19, verse 10. It said, this continued for two years so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. Asia, that's Asia Minor, so that'd be modern day. Turkey, they just called it Asia in the New Testament.

This continued for two years. Not the speaking in tongues part, but like the verses that we skipped over. Seven, eight, nine were Paul ministering to people in the city of Ephesus, making disciples, preaching the word, right? This is all happening. Paul has a two year stay in Ephesus, and it radiates outward, right? People are being saved. Look, here's my encouragement today. Don't miss out on Holy Spirit power. I wanna challenge you to pray. In fact, I'm gonna ask David to come up and we're gonna pray. We're gonna pray together.

And as we do, and then we'll sing just a little bit, I'm gonna be up here. I'm gonna be up here this week. I'm just gonna be hanging out. If you wanna come, if you wanna talk during the song, after the song, I'm just gonna be kinda hanging out right here. I'd love to talk to you, love to pray with you. And I just wanna pray with you guys right now. Let's bow our heads. I want you to begin to pray for the Holy Spirit to show you His power. And that might make you nervous, and that's okay.

I guarantee you that the Holy Spirit wants to show you more of His power in your life. I guarantee you that. And I also guarantee it probably won't look like what you think. It might look more ordinary than you think, or more ordinary from the outside. It might feel extraordinary to you, not just look very different. I just want you to ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you now. I want you to ask the Holy Spirit to empower you now. Lord, we thank you for today. We ask for power. We ask for your Holy Spirit to come in power. Lord, do what you wanna do. Help us to follow you no matter what. Lord, I pray that you would send your Holy Spirit power on National Night Out right here in our lawn. We're talking to people, people that are hurting, people that don't know you. Pray that you would give us power to speak to these people in all of the tenderness and all the welcome that you give us.

Give us a supernatural love and care and tenderness toward the people that are in our neighborhood. It's your name that we pray.