Incredible Partnership Series

Americans are people full of hyperbole; do you know what that is? We are people who will amplify, enlarge, exaggerate, and overstate just about everything. We’re like fishermen with a better story about a bigger fish. We don’t want to be outdone by anyone.

I want you to understand right from the start I am not using hyperbole this morning. I’m not here to try to impress you with an exaggerated story. I’m just simply here to tell you the truth.

If I enlarge the truth; if I try to reshape the truth to impress you, then it is no longer the truth. How many of you understand what I just said?

Can we make red redder or blue bluer? Can we enlarge 2 + 2 = 4 and call it 5 just to impress someone? Can we make an inch longer, a foot bigger, or a yard stick more than three feet?

Truth is absolute and stands alone. Altered or exaggerated truth is not truth at all.

This morning we are returning to the series “Living with Power.” “Living with Power” may seem like hyperbole to some of us; we’re living from day to day just trying to get by. How can we live our life with power?

The simple truth is you can. Here’s how. The Holy Spirit is an INCREDIBLE PARTNER making us into INCREDIBLE PEOPLE. Amazing but true, the Holy Spirit will energize the mundane ordinary life with supernatural power; this is God’s INCREDIBLE PARTNERSHIP with you and me.

People try to put some spark or energy into their lives in many different ways. A God shape whole within your heart cannot be filled with the things of this world.

I watched out the windows last night as the police had a man pulled over in front of the church. It didn’t take long for me to figure out this man had been driving under the influence. Even though it was dark outside alcohol had a noticeable impact on the way this man was living his life. What this man had inside him affected his outlook on life and how he handled himself. His inability to walk a straight line made it obvious that he had been transformed by what was inside him.

We’ll look today at Acts 2. A crowd gathered on the day of Pentecost accused the Spirit-filled disciples of being drunk! “They have had too much wine!” Peter’s response to the false accusation was simply, “these men are not drunk, as you suppose.”

Think for a moment about Peter’s response to the accusation of the crowd and Paul’s admonition to the church in Ephesus. “Do not get drunk on wine . . . instead, be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18 NIV).

Alcohol is a false and destructive way to try to fill one’s life with energy and fullness. It’s one way of trying to fill the empty places in your life but it never lasts. However, what a drink is unable to do the Holy Spirit does! The Sprit will energize and fill the life of the believer.

Has anyone ever charged you with being drunk with your Christianity? How seldom men have thought us drunk. We lack the flashing eye, and the pulsating song, and the tremendous enthusiasm of an overwhelming conviction.

What our community needs to see is the life transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit impact your life to such a degree that people begin to ask, “What’s gotten into you?”

• How many believe God wants us to be an INCREDIPLE PEOPLE?

• How many believe incredible people are hard to ignore?

• How many believe the world will take notice if our lives are full of life and are compellingly different from their own?

Now don’t miss this! Every one of us in this room has been created to live an incredible life – a life filled with amazing purpose, passion and power.

But we can’t live an amazing life on our own! We can’t live an incredible life without an INCREDIBLE PARTNER. We have bee given just such an amazing partner in the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised his disciples a partner … a parakletos who would be with them and in them forever because the fullness of their lives depended on how full they were of Holy Spirit!

Let’s look for the next few moments at the INCREDIBLE PARTNERSHIP between the Holy Spirit and the people of the early church. (Advance)

1. AN INCREDIBLE PARNTERSHIP BEGINS WITH AN EXPERIENCE.

What was so compelling to the crowd on the day of Pentecost? What happened that caused them to take notice of the disciples? It was what happened in the upper room.

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