ILLUSTRATION: My grandfather Ken is sitting with us in the church today. For years, he’s been involved in one form of ministry or another at several churches. One day, he waited at the altar in a church to pray with anyone who needed prayer when a little boy came forward. The young man asked for prayer, and after they were finished, the boy had another question.
He looked up at my grandfather and asked, “Isn’t there something more?”
Isn’t there something more than this? Isn’t there something more than just status-quos religion?
DOES IT GET ANY MORE EXCITING THAN THIS?
? Why are you in church today?
When you ask people, “Why do you come to church,” you get some interesting answers…
Some people say, “I was raised in church. I’ve gone to church since I was a little kid…”
But their faith is a stale as a loaf of dry bread… Why do they go to church if religion is so boring?
Some people go because their parents make them go. Some because they think it’s the right thing to do… They feel guilty for not coming, or their spouse insists that they come, so they suffer through to keep the peace in their family…
But, if the church is really a place where people can meet God and discover new things, and experience Him in new and exciting ways, shouldn’t we be coming to church for better reasons than those?
This morning, I want you to know, the primary reason we meet here at Valley Community church is because we’ve encountered God in a unique and powerful way here. We know when people come together to worship God wholeheartedly, that He reveals Himself in powerful ways.
His presence manifests itself here in a special way when we gather together, so we come to meet Him, to spend time with Him, and to experience Him in ways like we have before…
Most of all, we’re here because we want more of the power of God, more of the grace of Jesus Christ at work in our lives. We want a life changing experience with the Almighty.
People come to church for a lot of reasons today, but I’ll bet if people came to church for a life changing encounter with God, to seek Him wholeheartedly, then we would see Him move among us in ways unlike we’ve ever seen before.
Are you tired of the status-quos religious life?
Are you thirsty for a real experience with God?
If so, then today is your day… Today is all about experiencing the rest of what God has for your life.
GOD HAS MORE FOR YOUR LIFE. THE KEY TO EXPERIENCING THE REST IS FOUND IN PENTECOST.
It’s Pentecost Sunday: a day of new revelations of God, a day when ordinary believers became extraordinary history makers for the Kingdom of Heaven… A day when people came together to experience the rest of what God had for their life, and the result was a life-changing encounter with God that literally transformed their way of living from that day forward.
At least 120 of believers in Jesus Christ gathered together to wait for the fulfillment of a promise: the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you;” Acts 1:8
120 of them were there in this room, waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit. They were gathered there for one reason: to experience the rest of what God had for them. To encounter God in a whole new, exciting way… They didn’t know what to expect. All they knew was that this gift was important to Jesus. He said, "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." Acts 1:4-5
Don’t leave Jerusalem till you’ve received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Don’t continue to carry out the ministry I’ve laid out for you until you’ve received this important gift. He’s going to equip you with the tools: tools to become my apostles, to work for me in the highways and the byways and the places I’m going to send you.
Where you’re going, you’re going to need special tools: boldness to proclaim the Gospel, authority to speak God’s word, empowerment for signs and miracles, and the Holy Spirit is going to equip you with those things… Don’t leave home without Him.
Jesus insisted on more than one occasion that this new baptism was important to every believer, that it should be sought after, that we should wait for it and prayed about. So there they were, gathered together in a room, praying and worshipping, much like we’ve done today, when they begin to feel the presence of the Spirit of God in their midst.
It was thick and heavy in the room. They were overwhelmed with His presence. The hair on their arms and neck stood on end. They were basking in the glory of His presence when they heard the sound of a rushing wind blow through the room… It wasn’t the air conditioner, friends… It was the power of the Holy Spirit.
Here’s where the gifts: the rest comes in…
Flames of fire separated and came to rest over their heads and they began to speak out loud in tongues none of them had ever heard before. What was the meaning of this? They were too immersed in the spirit of God to care. All they knew was that they were having a powerful experience with God. They were receiving the promise they had come for and it was very good.
120 men and women in the same room spoke in new tongues, raising their voices in worship to God.
Outside a crowd of people heard the commotion and they congregated at the entrance of the building to see what was going on. Imagine the sound of 120 or more people singing and praising in tongues, all at the same time… It had to have been confusing.
And yet the Bible says, Acts 2:6, “When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, [why?] because each one heard them speaking in his own language.”
They said, “…how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?”
How could it be that in the center of all the commotion, each man outside could hear the disciples speaking his own native language?
The Bible says there were people there from every nation: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome; Cretans and Arabs—
“How is it that each one of us hears them in his own native language?”
Acts 2:12-13, “Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"
WE STILL ASK THAT, DON’T WE? Pastors, churches, Christians… What does this mean?
It means THERE’S MORE.
So Peter went out to explain what was happening. He said, “We’ve received the promise of God. We’ve experience God in a whole new way today, and the promise is for everyone who believes. There’s more to be had. It’s a baptism of fire: the baptism of the Holy Spirit.”
This is what Joel, the Old Testament prophet was talking about when he said,
"’In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”
WHO IS THE GIFT FOR?
On the day of Pentecost, ordinary men and women of God walked into that building as disciples: disciples that lacked faith sometimes… People who lacked the boldness and understanding they always wanted.
TRANSFORMED: Disciple to Apostle!
But they came out of that building as apostles: people empowered tp proclaim the Gospel with authority and power.
Before, they were the people to whom Jesus said, “You of little faith!” … but now they would walk past people who were healed by the shade of their shadow or the hem of their garments… Why?
Why so much passion? Because something happened when they came together to encounter God on the day of Pentecost, when they actively prayed for and sought after the promises of God: the gift Jesus was so adamant about: the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Friends, how many people are missing out on the gift of God because we’re afraid of the unknown?
Don’t we trust God? Is there any gift of God that we should afraid of?
Is there any revelation of God we shouldn’t want to be a part of?
Shouldn’t we want to experience everything God has for us?
That day, the same Peter who denied Christ 3 times boldly proclaimed the Gospel to a crowd of onlookers… Acts 2:41-42, “Those who accepted [Peter’s]… message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
That’s church growth, friends… It all began with the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gift of speaking in tongues.
So tell me, if the gift of tongues and the interpretation of tongues are such powerful gifts, then why be so ashamed of them?
ILLUSTRATION: The story of Kevin going to the church with the Holy Spirit Room and the “Hollay-Babba’s”…
I’ve got a friend named Kevin who’s not saved yet, but he’s close. He approached me a few weeks ago with a new question… “Pastor Brad, I went to church with my girlfriend but I need to ask you a question: What does “Halleh-Babba” mean?”
I said, “Halleh-Babba?” I’m thinking, “Well, it doesn’t sound Greek and it doesn’t sound Hebrew… What in the world is Halleh-Babba?” I said, “Why are you asking what Halleh-Babba means?”
He said, “Well I went to church with my girlfriend and she takes me to this Holy Spirit room…
It said, “Holy Spirit Room” on the door. We walk inside and all the sudden people start praying and worshipping and everyone starts speaking in tongues. Poor Kevin’s in the middle of the room scared to death. He’s terrified. He said, “Everyone started saying, “Halleh-Babba, Halleh-Babba, Halleh-Babba, Halleh-Babba” and he couldn’t understand what was going on. He said, “I wanted to bolt but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to embarrass my girlfriend, but I was freaking out.”
All the sudden, someone walks up to the front of the room and says, “If you’re not being baptized in the Holy Spirit and you want to, come on forward. We’ll lay hands on you and you’ll be baptized.”
He was terrified. There was no way anyone was going to pry him out of his seat. So he left that day confused about the gift of tongues because there was no interpretation: no meaning to the language they were speaking.
WHAT ARE THE TONGUES? WHY ARE THEY NECESSARY?
Private: 1 Cor 14:14-15, “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.”
Corporate:
The gift of speaking in tongues is a wonderful gift, but when spoken in public places, it’s intended to be interpreted so that it can build up and edify, so that it can become a word of prophecy, or a word of knowledge: something word of encouragement that the Lord’s giving to His people to understand.
That’s why Paul says, 1 Cor 14:9-19, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.”
If you’ve ever been in an airport bus, you’ll realize when the Japanese or the Chinese come in, they have a strange language… It’s more syllables and inflections than it is words, and to tell you the truth, it’s a little scary to me sometimes.
They say a lot of unidentifiable words and it’s frustrating to be the only English speaking person in a group of people that don’t speak a language you can understand. It’s frustrating. You want to be privy to what they’re saying. Are they talking about me? Do they have a message for me? What are they saying? You want to understand what’s being said so you don’t feel like an outsider.
1 Cor 14:9-13, “…Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air. Undoubtedly there are all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning. If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and he is a foreigner to me. So it is with you. Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church. For this reason anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret what he says.”
When someone comes into a church and they hear a bunch of people speaking in tongues and there’s no interpretation, they feel like outsiders… It shouldn’t be this way, friends.
The whole idea of speaking in tongues is that it might be a sign of the presence of God, and that the message should be interpreted for everyone to hear and understand so they can be encouraged and built up in the faith.
So people can come home from church and say, “I had an encounter with God today. He delivered a message in a language I’ve never heard before in my life. It was so beautiful. Then the translation came and God spoke directly to my heart, and I was changed. I met God. God experienced Him in a unique and powerful way today and I can’t wait to go back and meet Him again next week.
That’s what the gift of the Spirit is all about, friends… Experiencing the rest!
THERE’S MORE TO BE HAD.
You never reach the end of God and you never reach the next revelation unless you search for it.
Some of you are wondering, “If I’ve never been baptized in the Holy Spirit, does that make me any less Christian than someone who has?”
The answer is absolutely not… The salvation experience is what takes you to Heaven…
But if God were to tell you He had something He wanted to give you, would you accept it?
You know, God has more for every one of us here today. He wants you to experience more of Him than you ever have before. He wants to equip you with the tools of apostleship. But we have to be willing to accept the gifts…
HOW DO I GO ABOUT RECEIVING THE GIFT?
God always responds to a willing heart. He always responds to a worshipful heart.
There are some common attributes in the heart of every believer who’s received the baptism in the Holy Spirit…
They have a passion to experience God in a new and powerful way. Religion isn’t enough.
They express their passion and desire to God in their prayer and with their worship.
…
The believers’ prayer:
In Acts 4:29-31, the disciples had a new passion. They prayed a new prayer: a Pentecostal prayer: “Now, Lord… enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.
Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus."
? What happened after they prayed that prayer?
“After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”
CONCLUDE: A call to prayer, to seek all God has to offer, to refuse to be afraid of what we don’t understand because we trust God, a plea for the infilling of God’s Holy Spirit.
“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”
Luke 3:16, “John the Baptist said, "I baptize you with water. But … He [Jesus] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
