Will you let the Holy Spirit warm your heart?
Do you remember what it was like to be a new Christian?
Do you still feel the same way?
Were you more excited and full of joy than you are now?
Did you spend more time reading your Bible than you do now?
Did you pray more than you do now?
Did you spend more time in church than you do now?
Did you spend more time with other Christians than you do now?
Did you want to learn more about God and how He works in you and through you then than you do now?
Do you think you loved God more when you were a new Christian than you do now?
If you answered yes to any of those questions then you are really in a place where you need some fresh fire in your life now.
If the journey that you are taking on your daily walk as a Christian is leaving you cold to the things of God - it’s time to turn back and turn let the Holy Spirit warm up your heart.
Perhaps you have reached a stage in your life where you feel like you are just going through the motions.
Sunday comes, and Sunday goes, and you have traveled through it on auto pilot.
Your routine has been the same, your attitude has been the same, you have come to church expecting nothing more than you did last week.
You are looking to receive something from God, but you don’t even think about what you could be giving to further His kingdom, or to be a blessing to others.
Maybe you are even expecting to experience less today than you did last week.
It’s time to let the Holy Spirit warm your heart
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As Christians, as believers we are supposed to be in love. We’re supposed to love God.
We are supposed to be happy with the work He has done in our life.
We are supposed to be at a stage in our life where we want to learn and know more about Jesus.
We are supposed to want to be more like Him,
we are supposed to want to do what He has called us to do.
We are supposed to tell others about Him and and what He means to us.
It’s time to let the Holy Spirit warm our hearts
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Have you ever said “I read the Bible, I go to church, why don’t I see any positive changes in my life?”
or “Why am I still struggling with a particular sin or sins even though I keep trying to repent and give it to God?”
or “Why doesn’t God work in our church like He did in the book of Acts or like other places I hear around the world?”
or “Why do I feel spiritually dry, why does my relationship with God seem stale or non-existent?”
All of these questions are symptoms pointing to the fact that it’s time to let the Holy Spirit warm our hearts
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The Holy Spirit is the one that can bring change in our lives, the Holy Spirit is present here and now.
When we say God is with us, we are referring to the presence of God through the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the one who convicts us of our sin
He speaks God’s truth to us (16:15),
He teaches us God’s word,
He changes our hearts, attitudes, and actions,
He gives us comfort and peace.
It is the Holy Spirit who produces fruitfulness of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (the hallmarks of a Christian life) (Gal. 5:22-23).
It is the Holy Spirit who brings healing
He is the source of spiritual refreshment.
He is the One to help us keep going and going and going in.
Before Jesus ascended into heaven he told his disciples, “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 1:8).”
But some Christians fear having a personal experience with the Holy Spirit.
They are worried by the change that will come if they let the Holy Spirit warm their heart
And instead of living a Spirit filled life, experiencing the power of God, spiritual fruitfulness,
a changed lifestyle,
instead of living in a dynamic and living relationship with God they choose second best.
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Today is Pentecost Sunday, it’s a significant day,
it marks the birth of the church - the day the Holy Spirit came and the church began.
While Elim as a movement will soon be celebrating 100 years of existence -
the Christian Church has been empowered by the Spirit for nearly 2000 years.
Happy Birthday Church!!!
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Pentecost is a New Testament name for an Old Testament festival.
The word comes from the root word for fifty and literally is fifty days after Passover.
Sometimes it is referred to as the feast of weeks or the week of weeks, because seven weeks is 49 days and the next day is Pentecost.
Pentecost was a day of celebration it was a holiday for everyone.
Do you ever wonder what the people were thinking about that first Pentecost?
Were they gathered together to celebrate the holidays or were they making plans for the future?
We don’t know where they were, why they were there or even how many of them there were.
But we do know that what happened on that day changed history and ultimately changed the world.
It had been seven weeks since the Jesus had been crucified and a lot of things had happened.
The greatest thing was Jesus rising from the dead. Three days after he was placed in a borrowed tomb it was empty.
Three days after the apostles had given up hope; hope had been given back to them.
After his resurrection Jesus appeared to the apostles.
He even made them breakfast on the beach at Galilee.
Then on top of a mountain He gave them the great commission.
And Jesus promised them that the Holy Spirit would come
Then ten days after Jesus ascended into heaven in front of his followers they are in a room in Jerusalem
They are doing what Christ had told them to do - they are waiting and they are gathered together to celebrate Pentecost.
Acts 2:1 tells us On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place.
All - all the believers - is that the secret to a church succeeding for God - that all of us share a common purpose - a common goal - do we all need to move in one direction.
If a church is to go forward then everyone needs to be aimed at a common goal.
What does an airplane and a church have in common?
If either stops moving forward there is a problem.
In your notice sheets today we have shared some of the suggestions from our recent church brainstorm session.
There are 215 suggestions about things we could be doing to bless the community, to grow, to reach the lost.
The time will come when we will need to prayerfully select which suggestions we will implement.
There are some things we will agree we need to do and we may not agree on every detail, for example if we redecorate do we have green walls and purple skirting again - we may not agree every detail but we all need to work together to get the job done.
When we meet together, when we work together, when we worship together we need to have a common goal.
These men and women knew what they wanted, they wanted the Holy Spirit.
There they were, waiting and maybe even enjoying spending time with each other.
Then 50 days after the crucifixion celebrating Pentecost the incredible happened.
Acts 2:2-4 Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.
Without the filling of the Holy Spirit, Peter and the rest of the disciples wouldn’t have had the courage to testify to the Good News of Jesus.
Without the Holy Spirit they wouldn’t have been able to heal a man born crippled.
Their belief in the risen Christ, the Son of God, gave them the gift of salvation, eternal life with God, but the power of resurrection came to them through the Holy Spirit.
The wonderful truth is that Every Believer Has the Spirit in them
Peter teaches clearly on who receives the Holy Spirit, he says “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38).”
That promise is for every person.
Every person who repents (turn from their sin), and is baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (which implies a belief in Jesus as Lord and Christ),
is given the Holy Spirit as a sign of God’s promise.
Friend if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Saviour then you have the Spirit of God living within you.
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If every believer has the Spirit why don’t we see His power?
Why don’t we see changed hearts and fruitful lives?
Why don’t we see more people coming to Christ?
The Spirit works in different ways,
He can work instantly in a powerful way,
He can work slowly in a gradual way
God’s ultimate goal for us is that we are in a living relationship with Him, that we would be like him, to be Christlike, to have God’s character,
that can be a life time of work.
The Spirit does still work in powerful instantaneous ways like He did in the Bible.
He brings healing to the broken, He convicts people of their sin and brings them to repentance,
He uses people in their own weakness in amazing ways to show His strength and Power.
The Holy Spirit will work in the way He wants to work for God’s purposes and plans to be fulfilled.
We can pray that God will act, but we can’t force God to follow our agenda.
And there are times when we get in the way, there are times when do not allow the Spirit to operate in our lives - we can quench The Spirit.
Peter’s first invitation on Pentecost was “repent,” turn from your sin.
The Holy Spirit will not work in the areas of your life that are not surrendered to God.
If you continue to sin, without repenting, turning from it, leaving it behind, if you continue to cling to stuff that you know God says is wrong you quench the Spirit.
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Has God has asked you to do something for Him?
Have you quenched the Spirt by not doing it?
Is there a person God wants you to minister to?
Is your time prioritised in the right way?
Are you using your time, talents, tithe the way God has asked you to?
Have you ignored your responsibility to share your faith with others?
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Have you asked to be filled with the Spirit?
Why are you asking? The first two times the filling of the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Bible it is followed by people sharing the Good News of Jesus.
Do you want to be filled for personal blessing or so that you can bless others?
If you look at our world today
the places where there is the greatest evidence of the Holy Spirit moving in power
is in the places where people are actually making sacrificial efforts to reach the lost with the message of Jesus.
Will you allow the Holy Spirit to warm your heart so that you can serve Him?
Will you allow the Holy Spirit to fill you afresh so that you can do what God has saved you to do?
Do you believe in the power of God through the Holy Spirit or are saying one thing but believing another?
Churches do it all the time, they say “with God all things are possible,” then they never do anything big enough that it requires God’s help to succeed.
We do safe things,
things which we think we can accomplish with our own abilities because we don’t want to be disappointed,
so we don’t see the power of God at work.
We only see the results of what we can do instead of what God can do in His power through us.
Are we too self-reliant?
Do we think we are capable of taking care of ourselves?
Do we put God aside and only seek Him when something goes seriously wrong?
Or maybe we are too proud to even ask Him then.
Will you let the Holy Spirit warm your heart?
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What do we need to do for the Holy Spirit to move in our lives, in our families, in our community, in our nation?
Maybe we need to do what God said to Solomon:
in 2 Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Are we really willing to humble ourselves, to set aside our self-reliance, our agendas, to seek God and pray?
Are we willing to seek God ahead of anything else?
Are we willing to serve God before everything else?
Is the reason we don’t see the power of the Holy Spirit because we do not really pray and seek God?
Are we worried more worried about looking foolish in the eyes world?
Are we desperate for more of God?
Or do we just do what we think is the bare minimum to do so that God won’t be mad at us?
Are you desperate for more of God?
Will you let the Holy Spirit warm your heart?
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God has a two fold purpose for your life.
The first is that God has a ministry or has placed a calling on your life to impact the kingdom of God.
The second is that God wants to work a change inside of you, that’s going to make you more like Jesus Christ.
You must never underestimate God’s power to work out these purposes in your life.
God honours the prayers of his people.
In Acts 4 the disciples pray, they ask God for boldness in proclaiming the word of God, they ask for God’s power, that he would heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders in Jesus’ name.
In response to their collective prayer, verse 31 says, “the place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Earth shattering, Spirit filling prayer.
God poured out his Spirit once again.
They were already filled with the Spirit but they needed a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit to accomplish God’s work.
The word “filled” isn’t a one-time action, it is an ongoing action, “be continually filled with the Spirit.”
We should be continually drinking at the well of God’s Spirit to be filled with more of him.
One filling is not enough we need to be topped off, even bubbling over.
We need ongoing fresh fillings of the Holy Spirit if we are going to continue to do his work with power.
We need to allow the Holy Spirit to continually warm our hearts.
We need to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit, not just a few drops, or a mouthful, filled.
Let me draw the message to a close by reminding us How we get refilled?
In the book of Acts the (re)filling of the Holy Spirit usually followed after one or more of 4 things.......
1) Repentance (turning from our sin) and a humbling before God, admitting a need for Him.
2) Obedience - Choosing to obey God’s direction (Acts 5:32).
3) Prayer. Every time the Spirit came, the Christian community was praying together.
4) Laying on of hands, the Apostles would lay hands on people and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Later that ministry was assigned to elders in the church.
I believe God is calling our church to prayer.
To see God’s Spirit work powerfully in our families, in our community, we must pray.
To have our hearts warmed we must pray.
To be filled afresh we must pray.
I think it would be appropriate that if you would like prayer for us to pray with you.
If you want to receive a fresh filling of God’s Spirit,
If you need His power to live a holy life,
to overcome a recurring temptation or sin,
to receive inner peace and healing in your life.
We will pray with you.
Perhaps you want to have more of God, a bigger passion for Him.
Perhaps you feel spiritually dry or your relationship with God seems distant.
Whatever it is let us pray for a fresh filling and ask the Holy Spirit to warm your heart again.
