You must stand firm against the enemy's attempts to distract you from God's power today. Ask the Father for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and be willing to step out in faith when the desire to speak bubbles up. As you do, you will receive the boldness and anointing needed to love others and witness effectively.
Well, good morning Real Church. My name is David John Phillips. As she said, I get to be the pastor here. No place I'd rather be. And I wanna start just by teaching a principle from today that we literally walked out in the hour before service happened and in the midst of the beginning of worship.
And the principle is this. Whenever God's about to do something powerful and the enemy knows it. He always does whatever he can to distract and to disqualify you from experiencing what God wants to do in your life. Always. So so first, what he'll do is when God gives a word, he doesn't want that word to be planted in your heart.
So he'll try to come and take it. He'll bring circumstances or things in the exact opposite way of the word that God gave you. So that you don't believe the word, and therefore it can't root and bear fruit in your life. Then later, when it's about time to bear fruit in your life, when it's time to go for the harvest, the enemy tries to come and do things in the exact opposite way, or just bring distractions and stuff, so that you're not able to experience the fruit of that word. Does that make sense?
Do you guys follow me? Okay. So today, as I said in the beginning, some of you many of you maybe weren't here in the beginning of worship. Man, today's Pentecost Sunday, which is a big deal for the body of Christ. Major.
And many people don't know the importance of Pentecost Sunday. And maybe have never experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And God's gonna do that today. Many of you have never had the power and the anointing to be able to walk in the purposes that God has called you for. And you don't know why.
It's going to be explained today and you're going to be able to step into that if you want to. And so, on this service, we've haven't had sound issues in a long time. Well, we decided we're gonna try to live stream again today. We haven't live streamed in about a year and a half. We've been prepping, getting ready.
And in that process, we lost all sound. About 10 minutes before our dream team service. And so, we're trying to work on it. And then about 10 minutes before service, call it, 15 minutes before service, we call an audible. Pull up a old sound board.
We're not even running through our normal sound board now. And, we had no mix. And so, the beginning of worship sounded not good. And so, the enemy wants to distract me, and distract our sound team, he also wants to distract you from what the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life today. And so, whenever you know God's about to do something in any area of your life, just know that the enemy, the liar always wants to bring to distraction to to disqualify you, or get you off of focus of what God wants to do.
"Stand through the storm". Sleep with Jesus in the bottom of the boat. Know that he's with you and he's good. And know that when you stand, resist resisting the enemy because you're submitted to God. He will flee and you'll experience the fruit of the harvest.
Amen? Does that help? Yeah? Praise the Lord. Well, I'm excited about today.
To begin, I want I feel like we've been prepared in worship. But I was led I believe I was led by the Lord to continue. I want I want us to to continue to prepare our hearts for worship. But a very specific way. Say la Rain.
Would you come here? It's my daughter. Her name is Selah. Would you mute this just for a second? Selah, a lot of theologians would say that that word means pause, rest, God has spoken.
They're not a 100% sure. But man, I like that definition. Pause, rest, God has spoken. When we The day that we found out we were pregnant, Courtney Courtney was pregnant. We were pregnant, baby.
We are 1. Yeah. With Selah, we had a friend call us who didn't know and she had a dream the night before that we were gonna have a little baby girl named Selah. And man, we took that as not a coincidence but a word from God. So she was gonna be named Lilo Reign.
We instead we named her Selah Reign. Which means pause, rest, God has spoken. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. This was an act of faith. I needed this act of faith.
When the day that she was born, and she's been marked. I believe you're all marked by God. She's been marked for a special purpose. The day that she was born, when she came out of the womb, her right lung was completely collapsed. She was a 1 out of 10 on the avgar scale or whatever you say, and it didn't look good.
She was purple and could not breathe. And they placed her in the corner of the room, the NICU use nurse NICU nurse was about to run her out of there. And I'm standing over to her watching my daughter go dying. And I placed my hand on her lung, the right side of her chest, and under my breath I said, in the name of Jesus, open. And the Holy Spirit said, really?
This is your daughter and you're gonna say it under your breath? It was fear that was holding me back. Fear of what other people think. Why would that hold me back in a situation like that? I'm so thankful for the rebuke of the Lord.
And let that be a rebuke of the Lord to you in any area of your life. The Holy Spirit is pushing you forward. Walk into it boldly. He hasn't given you the spirit of fear, but of love of power and a sound mind. And he empowers you with boldness to confidently walk out what he calls you to.
So, I received the rebuke and I said right afterwards, in the name of Jesus, out loud, confidently as a with the authority of a son of God. In the name of Jesus, lung open. And it goes, and she turned pink. And the NICU's nurse did all of her checks. She was great.
Put her on her mama, and she went right to the to to nurse, which is amazing. We actually took her to the doctor, and they said that she has any previous issues. It was and we said, well, she had a collapsed lung when she was born. And they said, well, I don't see that in the files. What what surgery did you guys do?
What what operation did they do? And and Courtney said, nothing. My my husband prayed for her. And the doctor's like, that's not possible. There has to be something that's happened.
No. No. You don't understand. No. That's not possible.
Yes it is. *Jesus* is our healer. Amen? Well, ever since she was conceived we knew that she was We were pregnant. I've been speaking over her.
She is confident. Will you unmute? Confident, courageous, and?
Creative.
Yes. And so beautiful on the inside and out, then when others see you and hear you sing, they will think of?
*Jesus*.
And wouldn't you know it? She has an uncommonly good voice and a passion for worship. And my little brother painted her a prophetic picture of the dove, *Holy Spirit*. Just kinda beautiful. The anointing of God in her life.
So in preparation for the message that God has given me on the day of Pentecost, I want us to prepare our hearts by welcoming the Holy Spirit here. And so I will I will ask you to stand again. We're coming to an attention because not only is the Holy Spirit here in you and he's everywhere, but there's a deeper manifestation of his *presence* when we're together and when we worship him. So let's worship him together.
You're a living home. Your presence, Lord. Long for to be overcome by your presence, Lord. Your presence, Lord. There's nothing worth more your presence, Lord.
I've tasted and seen of the sweetest of us when my heart becomes free and my shame is undone.
*Holy Spirit*, you're welcome. You're welcome.
*Holy*
Let us become.
Let us become more aware of your presence. Let us experience the glory of your goodness. Let us become more aware are welcome here. Comfort this place and fill the atmosphere. Your glory, *God*, is what our hearts long for, to be overcome by your presence.
Lord, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for your goodness. We ask you to teach us more about the importance of your presence, the importance of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I ask you to speak today. Lord God, apart from you, we can do nothing.
We don't even wanna try to. But what an honor it is to get to move in the anointing, the power of your presence in our daily life. What an honor it is to get to be a part of multiplying that in people. In Jesus name, amen. You know, it's it's very interesting when talking about the Holy Spirit in churches.
I I read a a report that said 57% of people who call themselves Christians in America don't even believe the Holy Spirit is real. 60% of people who say that they're born again, born of the spirit, don't believe that the Holy Spirit's real. They think that he's just a metaphor for the power and presence of *God* instead of the person of the Holy Spirit. That he wants to move in and on our lives, and wants to impart to us gifts of the Holy Spirit in order to be able to accomplish our accomplish our purpose. Amen?
So today is Pentecost, which the Christian church, man we believe, and and we know that this is when the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh. As Joel prophesied in Joel-2. It's it's when, man, because of what happened there, when we're born again, and if we want to, we can reject. But if we want to, we can receive also the baptism of the Holy Spirit to be empowered for the purposes that God has called us to. We're gonna dive in.
We're gonna talk about that in detail. And I do wanna say this, today's message might be a little different than than than normal. Meaning, some of the things I say, there there there's there may be a lot of a lot of meat on the bone. Meaning, if you don't, if you're newer, a newer believer, or you don't have a strong biblical foundation, you haven't been in this thing for for a while, you don't you don't know all of the context of everything that I'm saying. That's okay.
It's okay. I would encourage you to go back to the podcast. I would encourage you to take notes. Go back to YouTube or or wherever we we are able to post it. Dive in, and then Google where the concepts are that I'm talking about are in scripture.
And then dive into scripture for yourself, and look at the feasts. Look at the timelines. Look at the the seasons in Israel, and why they did what they did. And and the more that you seek, the more that you'll find. Amen?
A lot of times I want to make sure that everything is is is detailed out and taught in such a way that that even if you don't have a background, it it makes clear sense. That might not be the case today. But I would encourage you to take notes. Okay? And receive what the Lord has for you.
Amen? So, *Pentecost* happens on a certain day because it's a feast in Israel. There are 7 different feasts in Israel that they celebrate. And I'm sure they celebrate other things too, but but 7 that they're they're commanded to celebrate. And I'm gonna talk about 3 of them in the beginning.
3 of the feasts are feasts that they were required every year to travel to Jerusalem for in order to celebrate. Mostly the men would go. But they would go and celebrate. And those 3 feasts are the Feast of First Fruits, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles. And all of this plays into what we're talking about today.
So, these feasts were set up in such a way that they they showed the start or the end of a harvest season. And those harvest seasons were very important to the life of Israel, and they're very important to us today as believers. The feast of first fruits happened in the springtime and commemorated the the barley and wheat harvest. The grains harvest. The "first fruits" of the the grains would be brought at the time of of the feast of first fruits.
It's the first of the the barley because that was harvested first. It was a lighter crop. Didn't take as long to to mature. And so they would bring the first fruits of the barley during the first fruits harvest. The importance of that is they wouldn't even eat any of the other grain until they had brought the first fruits offering.
It's signifying the tithe. Hey, of our increase, we don't we don't enjoy anything until we bring it to God first. He blesses the rest, and and man we're able to use the rest to enjoy and to expand his kingdom. Amen? But that was all of the feast.
They were all of these feasts, these 3 feasts I'm talking about, they were bringing the first of something, which was important. So in the springtime was the grain and the wheat. In the summer, or 50 days later was the feast of weeks where they brought the first of the the wheat, but it also commemorated the start of the next harvest, which in the summer they harvest grapes. And then at the end of that season, you had the Feast of Tabernacles, which usually happens in October time frame. And they would bring the first fruit of the first of the wine as an offering to Jesus, of that "new wine" for that harvest.
And then, it would also commemorate the start of the olive harvest. So, springtime, wheat, grain, barley. You know, all of that. Summertime, grapes. Autumn, olives, main harvest.
I mean, was other things that they harvested. Feast of first fruits, feast of weeks, feast of tabernacles, and then you had the winter, which the winter, in Israel is described as cool and wet, which is necessary. So let's explain. Let's let's dive in for a little bit. Now, when you're thinking about grains, you use those to crush and to make bread.
And Jesus said, man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. When we think of bread in scripture, we're thinking of the word of God. Who is the word of God? Jesus is the word. In the beginning, John-1 was the word.
The word was with God and the word was God. And then *John-1:13* 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is the word. And so, do you know when Jesus was crucified and Jesus was resurrected? He resurrected on the day of first fruits, on that feast.
Isn't that amazing? Romans-8:29 says that that Jesus was the firstborn among many brethren. *1 Corinthians-15 talks about Jesus being the first fruit. So it was like Jesus is God*'s tithe. Jesus was the first born so that we later who are in Christ would be blessed because because he was accepted by God.
That makes sense? You guys follow me? Now, notice that the wheat and barley harvest, the grains come first. You have to have in in your relationship with Jesus, it's always a revelation of the word that comes first. A revelation of God speaking to you, a revelation from scripture, a revelation of that.
But then came what? Then came Pentecost. Then came the feast of weeks which commemorated the beginning of the grape harvest. And we learned sorry, I I have these these props. Wheat, actually this is not wheat, but it's painted to look like wheat.
Grapes, which grapes crushed and fermented become wine. And we talked about the the message of 2 weeks ago of the new wine, which represents the Holy Spirit. When and and the Bible says, don't be drunk on wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. And remember the analogy if you were here, but somebody that's drunk, they walk a little bit differently. Right?
Because they're intoxicated. They see the world a little bit differently. Have you ever wore the the drunk goggles? No? If you've ever had the privilege of wearing the drunk goggles, it causes you to see the world completely differently.
It's everything's just a little off. And then it causes you to speak. If you're drunk, it causes you to speak differently. And if you consistently take in alcohol, then it even comes out of your pores. And when you're around people, they smell you.
It changes the atmosphere. It changes the environment. Right? So we're not supposed to be drunk with wine, but we're supposed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Why?
Because the Holy Spirit is the new wine of the new covenant. And when we receive him, when we're baptized in the Holy Spirit, when we're filled, he changes the way that we walk. He changes the way that we see. Now we're seeing through the "eyes of faith", instead of through the eyes of mental logic that we grew up growing in. We're seeing and understanding the world completely different.
By faith we see. We live by faith and not by sight. You guys follow me so far? Don't worry. We're gonna break this down into how how this is applicable.
Changes how we talk. Changes how we walk. It's important. So *Pentecost* signifying the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the grape harvest, which also the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control. A lot of times I miss 1 in there.
But that's a supernatural fruit. That's not the fruit of your effort. That's the fruit of the spirit. So when you're born again, you're changed into a new person. When you receive the word and you confess him as Lord, you become a new creation.
You become a new wineskin so to speak. Ready to be filled by the Holy Spirit. And when he pours in the new wine of the Holy Spirit now you have the supernatural ability to reflect the character and nature of God more than you ever have before. And the more mature you grow See grapes, as they mature, they they don't necessarily get a bunch more clusters on 1 vine. Maybe in the first couple of years.
But then they begin to grow bigger. They produce more juice to be enjoyed by everyone. As you mature in your walk with the Holy Spirit, living a life by the spirit, the the the character and nature of God supernaturally will come out of your life more than ever before. And other people will see his character nature and want what you have. Amen?
Which is beautiful. Changes the way we begin to live by the spirit more than ever before. And then you have the Feast of Tabernacles, which signifies God being with us. But also started the harvest of olives. And when olives are crushed, what do you get?
Olive oil, which was a staple in Israel back in the day. And and still is, I'm sure. Oil represents the anointing, which the anointing is the product of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as well. Word first, receive the word, become a new creation, new wine skin, ready to be filled by the wine and the oil. The oil is, which which I said represents the anointing, is the power of God coming on you to empower you to fulfill the purposes he created you for.
And that's something that you grow in. Now in Ephesians, in Ephesians, we know that you were created. You are God's workmanship, created by God in Christ Jesus to do good works. Good works that you should walk in. It doesn't say good works that you will walk in, it says that you should.
Why? Because God doesn't force us to do anything. He invites us into the purposes that he has for us. He's a loving God and love doesn't force. Love invites.
Leads, encourages, pushes, but it doesn't never forces. And so God will never force you to walk out your purpose. But he will invite you. And there's good works that you should walk in. And if you don't walk in them, he will give those good works to something someone else because his plan and his purpose will happen.
You're invited to be a part. And that that depends on your level of surrender. Your consistency in walking out the purposes that he has for you. Now, those purposes, those good works are not necessarily natural things. Maybe to some extent, but a good work I'm talking about is a God work.
Something that only he can do in you and through your weakness. It's something that takes the supernatural *power of God where you go, man there's no way that I can accomplish this in and of myself. And as you take steps of faith, his supernatural power comes on you and empowers you to do that. That's the anointing*. And that's something that you grow in.
What's the first good work he's called every single 1 of you to do? When you get born again you're commissioned by God to make disciples. To go win people to Jesus, and to make them into a disciple, teaching them everything that you know to do. That is a supernatural work of God that takes the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. That's why Jesus, after the disciples were born again, he said wait.
I want you to wait until you're endued with power from on high. Because the commission takes his power. It takes his anointing. Without it, you're just not gonna be near as effective. The disciples accomplish healing and miracles and stuff in just the authority in the name of Jesus before the the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
And there's a lot of people and a of Christians that accomplish some works in just the authority in the name of Jesus because his name is powerful. But it's not the best way. It's his name with his power. His his name with his anointing. I'm a son of God because of the name of Jesus and me confessing him as Lord.
Now, I also want his power. Let me explain. In the Old Testament, we see people being anointed by the Holy Spirit to accomplish the purposes that he has for them. You see Moses being anointed by God, and because of the anointing that came on Moses, he he performed miracles in front of Pharaoh. And and God let I mean, Pharaoh let God's people go.
It was God performing the miracles on and through Moses because he always chooses a person. And he's chose you for things that he wants to do, and he's waiting on you to say yes. And to grow in maturity in the anointing he wants to pour out on you. Moses split the Red Sea. How?
By raising the staff in obedience to the word of God. It was the anointing of God through Moses that split the Red Sea. The power of God on a man. According to his word, submitting to the word of the Lord. Moses was commissioned to lead these 2,000,000 people ish.
And he's leading these 2,000,000 people and it becomes too much for them. Why? Because 1 man is never meant to carry all of the anointing. The anointing is on you to give out his word and to multiply into others. So what is the What what do they say to do?
They say, hey, bring 70 leaders. So they brought 70 leaders to Moses, and Moses prayed, and God took the anointing that was on Moses and multiplied it into the 70 others. When they saw like when the anointing comes on in someone in power, there is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. They began to prophesy. When people saw a couple of them prophesying, they came to Moses said, hey, do we need to stop them?
They're prophesying. It's not you Moses. Moses said, what are you talking about? I wish that all people would receive this gift. I wish that all people would receive this.
He's prophesying towards today, towards Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on all people so all people could receive the power of God to be able to walk out the fullness of the purposes he has for them. You are all people. It's interesting. An olive tree, when it starts to produce fruit, it's producing a little. And every year, every season, it grows new growth if it's healthy.
And that new growth produces new olive. So the the amount of olives is growing year after year, season by season, which means the amount of oil the olive tree produce is producing is growing, which means season by season, the anointing is getting stronger. You know it takes about 15 years for an olive tree to grow to the maturity that it's supposed to grow to produce the the the amount of of oil that it's you know, that that's really where it's it's called mature. About 15 years. And we we get sad and tired that I'm not walking in my purpose in 2.
Simmer down. You've been baptized by the Holy Spirit, you have the anointing on you, now it's time to sit, to to anchor, to root deep, and to grow season after season. And trust his process. You see that outflow in in the life of Joseph. Joseph has a dream that's calling him into his purpose, and it took him what?
12 years before he's stepping into the anointing that God put on him? You see it in the life of David. God anointed David through Samuel. The anointing a lot of times is multiplied through a man. Go figure.
Impartation. Anyway. *God* anointed David through Samuel to be king. And as soon as he anointed, he's anointed. David doesn't step up into the kingship.
I'm king. No. He goes back to the field as a shepherd boy and continues worshiping the Lord. And God came on him in power but was training David how to walk in that power day after day. And so first, he killed a bear.
Then he killed a lion. He's growing in the anointing. Then he killed a giant. And after being obedient, faithful with the anointing that God had given him already, and growing in that thing, guess what? He's promoted.
And now he's over you know, he's a captain over sections of the army and he's in the palace. But he's still not walking out his purpose because God's still developing the anointing. It's not that 15 years yet. It's okay for you 2 guys to be in process. It's okay for me to be in process, and I wanna be thankful for the process I'm in knowing that I have his power with me and he'll develop me in his time.
It's okay. And so then David goes to the cave, which looks like the opposite direction, still part of the process of God. And then he's anointed to the kingship. And he begins to walk in the fullness, the maturity of what God had originally anointed him for. But are you willing to go through the "fullness of the process"?
Now, Jesus rebuked the fig tree because it wasn't producing fruit. But it's weird because it wasn't the season for the fig tree to "produce fruit". And in in in some way, it signifies as a new covenant believer in the new covenant. All of the seasons overlap for us. And we should be producing fruit in season and out of season.
So in a in a good year in Israel, the seasons overlap where the the you start harvesting grapes before the grain season's completely done, before you even have the feast of weeks. And then you start harvesting olives even before the grape season's done because things are overlapping. As a believer, our seasons should be overlapping. We should be receiving the word, deep revelations of the word every day. And then receiving the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in power for us to apply that word in our daily life and to see life through faith by the understanding of the word that we just received.
And then to begin to change the way that we walk because we're filled with the spirit to live out the word that that we just understood that morning in our devotion. And then as we do that in time, all of a sudden, the *Holy Spirit anoints us with even more power* to not only live out the word, but to impart the word to others. So we give out the word. Isn't it crazy? Do you know when the wheat and the barley are planted in Israel?
They're planted in the autumn. They're planted in the season of the anointing. The word is planted by the anointing, is what I'm saying. And then there's a season of winter where you don't see any fruit from it. Cool.
You just need It's it's a cool and wet winter where you need to stay in his presence and let it grow until it begins to bear fruit in your life. And in every aspect of your life, you should be Oh, 1 more thing before I say this. You don't replant grapes, and you don't replant olive trees, but every season you replant the word or the wheat. Meaning, day after day, you need to be planting the word even deeper and deeper in your life so you can bear fruit from the word in every season. Amen?
Okay. So that all kind of being a backdrop for what I wanna say and do here. You understand the importance of the *anointing* The importance of the baptism of the Holy Spirit which comes at Pentecost and and how it applies and is connected to the word? There's a difference in being born again and being baptized in the Holy Spirit. There's a difference in the *indwelling Holy Spirit* living in you and the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
I'm gonna show you in scripture. And maybe that that's like, what are you saying? I've been taught otherwise. I'll just show you real briefly. In John-20.
What does it what does it take to be born again? To be born again, you have to believe that Jesus not only died on a cross, but Jesus rose from the dead. And then you need to confess him as Lord. You need to say, I'm gonna follow you instead of myself. In that moment, something supernatural happens.
Watch this. In John-20, Jesus had just been crucified. Now, it's the day of the feast of weeks. The I mean, the feast of first fruits. So, it's the day that he resurrects.
*John-20* verse 19, on the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews. Verse 5. Or sorry. Verse, yeah, verse 19. Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, peace be with you.
Verse 20. When he said this, he showed them his hands and his sides. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. So they were glad because they believed he was the risen Lord. And now it says they saw the Lord, so they acknowledged him as Lord.
You understand? Watch what happens. Peace be with you as the Father has sent me even so I am sending you. And when he said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. Now, Jesus breathed on them, do you think they received the Holy Spirit?
If *Jesus said receive the Holy Spirit*, do you think they received it? Yes or no? Okay. So then put away your stuff that said, oh, they were only born again at Acts-2. No.
No. They were born again right there. Jesus said receive the Holy Spirit. What was happening there is in the beginning when God created Adam out of the dust of the earth and he leaned over to them, to Adam, and he breathed in him, and Adam became a living being. God breathed him in that moment.
And then he had the capacity to have a relationship with God. And he walked with God in the cool of the day. Problem is, Adam sinned. Adam chose his self instead of God. And what happened?
Adam was separated from God. And now there's the nature of sin that had to be dealt with. God loved the world so much that he wanted to deal with the nature of sin, and restore Adam, mankind's original created value. And so he sent Jesus, who died on a cross and rose again, Died to as Adam. Died as our sin.
Crucifying it to a cross and rose again so that we could receive his life. And now what does he do? He goes back to mankind, to his disciples, those who confessed him as Lord and he breathes in them again. Reviving them back to spiritual life. Where they're receiving eternal life right there.
So it's it's it's the the water of life welling up to eternal life is what Jesus said in another thing. John-17:3 it says, it says that eternal life is knowing God. In that moment they have the capacity to have a relationship with God again and walk with him. Why? Because their sin, the thing that separated them from God was forgiven and washed away completely and totally.
Never to be put back. Never. Why? Because his blood was that good. It's not like the first time where Adam sinned and now he's separated.
No. The sin's been dealt with. Jesus' blood has been has been poured out on him forever paying for it. So now when he breathes into the mankind, he receives the life of the Holy Spirit, never to go away again. *Romans-4:8*, blessed is the man whose sin is never counted against them.
Why? Because it was forever counted against Jesus. All you have to do is receive it, and you'll receive the indwelling *Holy Spirit*. A relationship with the God of the universe. Before I go on to the whole purpose of this service, there are people in here who have never been born again.
You've never been born of the Holy Spirit. And as I'm saying this, you know it. And I'm not talking about like there's a lot of people that were water baptized as a baby or as a kid, and they they they they didn't really confess and say, I'm giving my life to you, Jesus. They just did it because. You you you Water baptism is not being born again.
Being born again is being born of the spirit, where you've confessed Jesus as the Lord of your life. You're saying, not only do I believe that you were resurrected, even demons believe that. You're saying, no. I'm giving you my life. I'm surrendering to you.
I'm going to live by what you say instead of what I feel. In that moment, your sins are forgiven. You're going to sense the guilt and shame of the past fall off of your shoulders. And you're going to sense the Holy *Spirit* coming to live inside of you. Is there anybody in here?
And I know there is. Is there anybody in here willing to say, I've never experienced that before. And I'm ready to experience it. I see your hand. I see your hand.
Who else? I'm not gonna call you up here at this time. I see your hand. That's 3. Come on.
There's a there's a confession. This is con anybody else? Okay. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to just where you are, I want everybody to close your eyes and bow your heads.
Because I want you praying for them. Okay. If you wanna receive Jesus as the Lord of your life, right now. Those of you that raise your hands, I want you to look up at me in my eyes. I see you.
I see you. Look up at me in my eyes so I can see you and talk to you. Do you wanna receive Jesus? Is that you? I'm looking at you in the eyes.
Do you wanna receive Jesus? No. Not you, Ashlyn. Yes? No?
Yes? You do? Okay. I see you. There's others.
Is there anybody else? I see you, sir. Praise the Lord. I see you. Yes, ma'am.
Okay. I want you to pray this with me. First, I wanna know, do you believe Jesus rose from the dead? Yes or no? Yes?
Yes? Okay. Yes? Okay. Praise the Lord.
Yes? Alright. Are you ready to say I'm gonna live for you Jesus instead of myself? Yes or no? Yes?
Yes? Yes? Yes? Yes? Okay.
Praise the Lord. So I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to say this, but only say it if you believe it. Because it's not just a saying a word like an incantation or something like that. It's out of the abundance of the heart. So you really, you believe this and say it out of your mouth.
And you're gonna sense the presence of the Lord. So just say this. Say, Jesus, I've been "living for me". Say it out loud. Like when I prayed for my daughter, Selah.
I've been living for me. I ask you to forgive me of my sin. I ask you to come into my life and make me new. I believe you died for my sin And I believe you rose again. And right now, I choose to follow you instead of myself.
I give you my life and I receive your life. Let me pray for you. Thank you Lord Jesus for your goodness. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for the people.
Lord God, I just pray that with sincere hearts. Holy Spirit come into their life. Let them sense your goodness. Let them sense the weight of shame and guilt falling off. Lord, I thank you for what you've done.
And I thank you for who you are. In Jesus name. Amen. You guys. There's a lot there's a lot of people, a large percentage of people when I pray, they sense something different.
Now if you didn't sense something different in that moment, that doesn't mean nothing happened. We live by faith. A lot of times faith precedes, right, a physical change. Now, you will. You will notice a difference.
You will notice. How many of you would say that prayed that prayer sincerely? You would say, I I sensed something different. Praise the Lord. I see you.
I see you. That's amazing. That's that's a big deal. Now, they were born again, *eternal life*. And then Jesus says to them, he gives them the great commission and he says in John I mean, Acts-1, he says, verse 4, and while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father which he said you heard from me.
For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days from now. Verse 8, but you will receive *power* when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria to the ends of the earth. So the first thing the Holy Spirit empowers you to do is to be a witness. You have the power to "share your testimony", or to share what you understand of the gospel with others.
And it will impact the lives of others because of the power of the Holy Spirit on you. And that happens. Jesus told them to wait. Wait for this to happen. Now, isn't it interesting?
In Acts-2 on Pentecost Sunday, there was a "120 people" in the upper room waiting for this to happen. 120. In 1 Corinthians-15 we see that *Jesus* met with, appeared to as the resurrected Lord before he ascended to heaven. He appeared to at least 500 in 1 sitting. They were all together.
He appeared to all of them. And so at least he appeared as the resurrected Lord to 500, and yet there were only a 120 in the upper room. It wasn't just the 12 disciples that he told to stay in the upper room. It was the 120. I would just guess, it's my thought, that he probably told everybody he resurrected to.
Like he appeared to before he ascended. And there were only a 120 waiting. Many people receive Jesus as the risen Lord, and don't go after the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They're like, I'm good. I'm good with eternity.
I'm good. I got a a relationship with God right now. But Jesus himself commissioned us to go and make disciples, and he said, it's wait to receive power. Why? Because he wants to empower us to do a work that only he can do through us.
And to try to do it without us is dumb. Or without him is dumb. Amen? You will receive power. What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit or the infilling of the Holy Spirit if we're talking about in the context of wine?
Infilling. Or baptism would be more of the context of oil. Why do I say that? Because when you go under the water being water baptized, all of your it shows all of your sin being washed away. It's the the reflection or the the metaphor used in the Bible is is the Israelites going through the Red Sea.
And the Egyptians, captors, their the people that held them in bondage were washed away by the Red Sea. So that when you get water baptized, all of those things that held you in bondage are washed away by the water baptism. So it's like you're taking all of that off, raising up a new man in Christ Jesus. It's pretty cool, Now that's water baptism. Baptism in the Holy Spirit is different.
Because it's almost like you're being immersed in his oil, if you will, and putting on his power. Where you took off all of the bondage of the junk with water baptism. Baptism in the Holy Spirit, you're putting on his power to be empowered for your purpose. What does that look like? Well, the manifestations of the Holy Spirit when we see them being baptized in Acts.
For the most part, they started speaking in tongues. They did start prophesying. Paul did, like, "scales did fall" off his eyes. Like, if you if you if you have problems reading the word because you, like, you understand what it's saying, but you don't hear God reading the word, you probably need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit or need a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit. Because it will help you see through faith.
Paul knew scripture better than anybody or most people. He was 1 of the best students of 1 of the highest respected teachers of the law. And yet, he was crucifying and trying to kill Christians who the old testament was talking about. But when he was baptized in the Holy Spirit and the scales fell off his eyes, he began to see everything that he had learned through faith. And became 1 of the greatest teachers.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit will help you to see the word more clearly than ever before. But also, there will be manifestations of the spirit. There was prophecy. They they they started broke out in prophesying, which is great. And a lot of the times they spoke in tongues, which is taboo for some people in in the Christian world because of lies.
And just let me explain what tongues are. Hopefully this makes sense. At the "Tower Of Babel", this is another 1 of those things you need to look up so you can have some foundation for what I'm saying. But at the Tower Of Babel, they were trying to make their own way to God by by coming together in their flesh. And it was pride.
And God broke them up and then he gave them That's where we got all of the different languages around the world. And there was confusion, babble. It was crazy. You know, 1 dude speaking English. The other dude's like, you know, I mean All of sudden all of sudden 1 dude's like, hey, will you hand me the hammer?
And he's like, you know. And then they split up and went to the different sections. You know? So there was division because of their divided tongue. Now, when we're born again of the Holy Spirit, we have the Holy Spirit in us, and we're united by that same spirit.
When we're baptized in the Holy Spirit, he gives us a united language. It's like a reverse tower of Babel. We're unified by the Holy Spirit and the language of the spirit. Ain't that cool? That can only be understood by the spirit.
So that's that's basically tongues. Now, the question would be, why would, you know, why would I need to speak in tongues? Well, you don't necessarily have to. He's a loving God. He doesn't He's not gonna force you to do anything.
You can you can step out in in in freedom and receive his love in that area if you'd like to. There's a lot of people that don't because of fear and fears of the devil. So get rid of that. There's no fear in love. "perfect love" casts out all fear.
Now, just my logical brain thinking here in 1 Corinthians-14, it says that tongues is to edify self. Which is the least of the gifts. But we're still supposed to love others as we love our self. Why would he give me the ability to edify myself and not give you the ability to edify yourself? He wouldn't.
That's right. So when I when I'm praying in tongues, and I do it often, more than all of you. That's what Paul said. I'm I'm just quoting scripture. I'm just quoting scripture.
When I pray in tongues, I I usually pray in tongues when I'm frustrated. I don't know what to pray for. You know, I know I need to be doing something holy and and I'm I I I just don't feel like it. I'm edifying my spirit. Or when I don't know what to pray for somebody else, I'll start praying in tongues.
And then and then all of a sudden, I'll be strong in spirit so I can love them with the things that will edify them. Healing, miracles, prophecy, other All the other gifts are to love people. Does that make sense? Which is powerful. Now.
Most of the times when people were baptized in the Holy Spirit, they started speaking in tongues and acts. Some some parse out 3 of the 5 times. Some say 3 of the 6 times. Some say 4 of the 5. I I looking and growing and understanding, I'm I'm thinking it's more like 3 of the 5 or 3 of the 6.
Either way, it happened most of the time. So if you're baptized in the Holy Spirit today, it's likely that will happen. And what that looks like is, especially for the first time, because when the first time it happened in Acts, everybody's like, what's going on? This is crazy. And it drew a lot of people to know Jesus.
So if you're prayed for today and you want the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you're seeking after it, you're willing to wait. You notice we talked about waiting and we're having a longer service today. Not everybody's gonna wait. But if you're willing to wait and seek and ask, what is what is the requirement for the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Well Jesus already paid the price and Jesus already ascended to the Father.
He's the 1 that did the requirement to pour it out. What what is required of us is to ask the Father. And he's not gonna give you a snake. He's not gonna give you a rock. He's gonna give you the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Look it up. It's a verse. Amen? So we need to ask. Wait.
Seek after him. That's it. When we pray for you, if you would like. Because we're not gonna just force force on anybody. The Holy Spirit will give you, not only the baptism of Holy Spirit, but the gift of tongues.
To begin to pray in tongues. And, he's a big God so he can do what he wants. He could probably make you move your mouth. But usually in my experience he doesn't do that. Usually, it's like a desire that bubbles up in your gut.
And you actually have to open your mouth and say what the Holy Spirit is speaking to say, moved by his presence. And if you don't, you hold it back. You probably won't speak in tongues until you're ready to get outside of yourself and into him. You understand? So fear and timidity hold people back from walking in obedience to the Holy Spirit.
The example, a gift of the Holy Spirit is healing. I like to pray for people for healing. I do. I've never once had the Holy Spirit make me go pray for somebody for healing. But what he does do is he gives me a desire to go pray for them for healing.
And then I have to either explain it away. Oh, is that just me and just a thought? Or I have to step outside of myself, move my body, ask them if I can pray for them, lay hands on them, and then the gift moves. The supernatural occurs on the other side of obedience. Same with tongues, mostly.
You understand? Okay. So that's that's usually when people are baptized in the Holy Spirit, they start prophesying or start speaking in tongues in Acts. I'll say it like that. They're also filled with boldness.
Why? So they can go preach the word of God boldly and be a witness, which is the the the anointing oil is coming on you to empower you to do that. And as you are consistent and faithful with the purposes he gave you, he will also empower you towards the other purpose, which are many. Some of you are writers. Some of you are preachers.
Some of you are businessmen. Some of you are mothers. Some of whatever it is. He wants to empower you in all of that to be a witness and supernaturally do your calling in a way that causes the world to go, wow, And want Jesus. You understand?
Okay. Let's do this. Robert, would you come play the guitar? Just real nice picking. Or like, you know, soft stuff.
Saul King Saul called David to come play because he felt the presence of the Holy Spirit when he played. It's biblical. Okay? I want to first invite you all to stand. The purpose of that is to get you moving.
So you don't have an excuse, another excuse. Well, I'm sitting here. I'm comfortable. Alright. We've already done people being able to be born again.
And if you wanted that, you receive it. Praise the Lord. So this means this is a believers meeting. So first, *father*, I thank you for your goodness. And I thank you for Pentecost Sunday.
And I thank you for the presence of the Holy Spirit. And I thank you that you want to give us more of a fresh and filling than we've ever had before. You want us to grow in our anointing as individuals and as a church. You want us to grow in power for the season that you have us walking into, not just as a church, but every individual too. So thank you, Lord Jesus.