Experiencing Holy Spirit Power — Michael Durham

The Promise of Holy Spirit Power in Acts

As we speak, thank you so much for that. Indeed, it's another joy to bring to you the Word of God again. The text, we pray the Lord be pleased to speak to us this afternoon. It's from the book of Acts, chapter 1, verse 8.

Very simple text, a text you know quite well, Acts chapter 1, verse 8. I want to speak this afternoon on the theme, experiencing Holy Spirit power. Experiencing Holy Spirit power, Acts chapter 1, verse 8.

But you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. There is a baptism, an infilling of the Spirit that influences the believer and gives power for service.

That's what this text is about. It is the giving of power that we want to spend this session on. And I realize that that puts me on a certain side in some people's minds. There is this imaginary divide even amongst men of like faith.

That such kind of terminology is not necessary today. What we are reading about here in Acts chapter 1 is not for us today. But it was only intended for those to whom Jesus spoke, his apostles. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

Jesus said that the result of the Holy Spirit's coming upon you would be power. And this power transformed these men. Not only them, but the other assembled with them, totaling 120. They all received an endowment from on high, endowment and empowering or another term, outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

When you study this theme of outpouring or the Holy Spirit coming upon men in the book of Acts, you will find a repeated phrase. And it is this, when the Holy Spirit came upon, upon them. This is not about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that comes at the new birth.

At regeneration, the Spirit comes and indwells you. That is an inner work of the God inside. But this is the Spirit of God coming upon you. And you see that phrase repeated throughout the book of Acts.

And it's the power of the Holy Spirit that makes the difference. His power, not ours. The late Dr. A .W. Tozer put it this way one time. If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 of what we do would continue and nobody would know the difference.

But if the Spirit of God was withdrawn from the early church, 95 of what they did would cease and everybody would know the difference. Isn't that a sad commentary in our times, when our church is on us?

We seem to be in an ever increasing rut, where we do the same things, but we do not see fresh, new, powerful results. The only resource that God has provided his church is this resource, himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit.

And the only power that a New Testament church can live by is the power of the Spirit. And the only fuel that a Christian can operate on is the fuel of the Spirit. Now, there are some who say that this text, as I said a moment ago, it's not applicable to us today.

They tell us it's only for the apostles, that we should not expect the power of the Holy Spirit as they experienced it. Now, we're not talking about the phenomenon that accompanied the coming of the Holy Spirit.

And what do I mean by phenomenon? I mean the sensational things that occurred, like the rushing sound of wind, or cloven tongues of fire sitting upon each of them, or even the speaking of tongues. Don't get hung up on the phenomenon that surrounded these outpourings of the Holy Spirit.

Or even as we heard in these great awakenings, there were things that happened that may not happen every time God pours out his Spirit. He does not want you to focus on that. And yet, sadly, that becomes the focus, isn't it not?

We get concerned about, are the gifts of the Spirit still functioning today? And we miss the very person who is the greatest gift, the Holy Spirit himself. See how clever our enemy is to get us concerned about these details of phenomenon, what will attend, what will happen.

Friends, that's not the focus, and shouldn't be, of our hearts. Our focus today is on God, knowing that we are desperately dependent. We're poor in spirit, and without God showing up, nothing happens.

Nothing happens. Now what about this, that this was not for us today? This is only for those to whom Jesus addressed. Well, let me make a few comments. Let me direct your attention and look at the apostles as audience.

Certainly they were the audience to whom Jesus was speaking. I don't dispute that the immediate audience is the apostles, and it was their mandate to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and to be the first witnesses of Jesus Christ.

Often in the Bible, a text of scripture may have more than one audience, though. There is the immediate audience who actually experienced the event. But there can be another intended audience, such as those to whom the first audience will go and tell what they heard.

And our text, I think, is one of those passages that has a much larger intended audience than those who saw it firsthand. Christ was here stressing, listen carefully, the evangelistic mission of his church.

It was to start in Jerusalem, spread to Judea, spread to Samaria, and then where? Including Portland, Maine, including Denton, Texas, including the four corners of this globe. This is God's evangelistic program.

This is his agenda. And as you read the book of Acts, you find that this is exactly the outline of the book of Acts. Why is it after chapter 10, excuse me, after chapter 10, you really see very little of the ministry of Peter.

You see him prop up again in chapter 15, but after that you don't hear any more about the apostle Peter. It's all about Paul the apostle and those who traveled with him. Why is that? Because it's now focused on the last stage of the evangelistic mission of God to the uttermost parts of the earth.

First it was Jerusalem, then it spread to Judea, then we have chapter 8, Samaria. And who do we have as the central figure, as the evangelist to the Samaritans? It's Philip, not Peter, it's Philip. But then now we're moving to the missions, taking the gospel to the world, and it's no longer Peter or James or John, it's the apostle Paul.

And that's the basic outline. And so as we look at Acts chapter 1 -8, we see that global evangelism is the ultimate goal here of our Lord. In other words, I want to ask you this question. If Jesus intended his first disciples to be the only ones to take the gospel to the world by the power of the Holy Spirit, then it's obvious that when the last disciple died, the Great Commission died with him, but there's not a fervent evangelical that would admit to this.

Even though the disciples took the gospel amazingly to many different parts of the world in their day, the gospel was not taken to the ultimate, uttermost parts of the earth. There were places yet undiscovered where people groups existed that never heard the gospel until even recent centuries, recent decades, in fact.

So the text must have a larger audience than the men standing there listening to Jesus that day. The same men who would say that Acts 1 -8 is not for us today, would never admit that Matthew 28, 19 and 20, known as the Great Commission, is not for us today.

They would never say that. So we know that as long as there are people who have not heard the gospel, it is our responsibility to cross seas and deserts and mountains to take the message of Christ to the lost.

It's for us to walk across our lawns and across the street to take the gospel message to those who are yet to be saved. And we're not to do it in the power of our own might. We're to do it in the power of the spirit.

Therefore, the audience must include the whole entire church of Jesus Christ. Surely, our Lord will not have us go in the power of the flesh. So let's look at the promise of this text. And let's look at its definition.

Two New Testament Meanings of Being Filled With the Spirit

What does it mean to receive the power of the Holy Spirit? What does that mean? What does it mean for the Holy Spirit to come upon you and grant you power? Well, it can mean two things in the New Testament.

First, it can mean the influence of the Holy Spirit to walk in godliness. Or number two, it can mean extraordinary empowerment for a particular act of service. Number one, let me repeat it. It can mean the influence of the Holy Spirit so that you can walk godly and have fellowship with Christ.

And number two, it can be this empowerment by God to do something he's called you to do, either one. And it's this second one that I think we are seeing here in Acts chapter 1 verse 8. It's this impartation of boldness.

Another word would be the anointing, the anointing of God that glorifies God beyond the normal walk of our faithfulness that we should be displaying. It's the kind of power that Jesus is referring to here in our text.

Now, here's where the confusion gets a foothold when discussing this subject. Often, the New Testament writers use the same word, field, to mean different kinds of empowerment. In fact, the Greek word, plerero, field, can mean many different things.

At least four different meanings. From like filling up a cup, to Mary's days were accomplished that she should bring forth her firstborn son. The word accomplished is this word, plerero. It means to complete.

And then, of course, you have Ephesians 5 .18 that we looked at at the last session. Do not be drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. There it means to be influenced, to be governed, to be led.

And that is here, that would be what we were discussing in the first definition. The influence of God to live godly, to produce fruitfulness, to have fellowship with God. But the word can also mean the power of the Spirit to come upon a man or a woman, as he did on the day of Pentecost, where the Spirit is poured out upon him or her, giving them the power to do what God calls them to do, an instantaneous strengthening.

Did you hear the word, instantaneous? It's a momentary granting of power and strengthening for a special need or crisis, such as Paul with the evil sorcerer, Elimus. In your Bibles, you might want to turn and follow along and see this.

Acts chapter 13, beginning with verse 8, Acts 13 .8. Elimus, the sorcerer, for so his name is translated, was stood, that is Paul, seeking to turn the procounsel away from the faith. Then Saul, who is also called Paul, and notice these words, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, O fool of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord?

And now, indeed, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a time. And immediately, a dark mist fell on him, and he went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand.

Now, I ask you a very simple question. It doesn't take great intelligence to answer. Why do you think it is that Luke would insert that phrase, filled with the Holy Spirit, before Paul, cursed and caused this man to go blind?

We know Paul's filled with the Holy Spirit. We know that from Acts chapter nine, when Ananias is sent to him to receive his sight, for Paul had been blinded by the glory of the person of Jesus Christ, and for three days, he either ate nor drank, and God even gave him a vision of Ananias coming to him.

And Ananias came, laid hands on him, he received his sight, and the Spirit of the living God filled him then. We know he must be filled. He was the Spirit of God that began this chapter in Acts 13, saying, separate me unto me, Saul and Barnabas, for the work whereunto I have called them.

Why would Luke take time, ink, and effort to include these few words? Because he wants you to see something. He's not wasting his time nor ink. He's making a point that at that moment, something transpired.

Something was occurring. Something extraordinary was happening to the Apostle Paul. At that moment, he was receiving an enduement of power, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to perform the miracle that you see and read here in this portion of Scripture.

We see it again in Acts chapter seven. You might wanna turn there and follow along. Acts chapter seven, near the end, as Stephen is being stoned, the first martyr of the Christian church. What does the Bible say as they are palmating him with the stones and rocks?

Well, look at verse 54. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed at him with their teeth. But he being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God and said, look, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

Why, again, I ask, why would Luke insert that word full of the Holy Ghost at that moment? Sure, he's full of the Holy Ghost. That's why he's before the Sanhedrin. This man has irresistible power. He's doing miracles.

He's preaching the gospel and many are coming to Christ. That's why he's on trial this day. But Luke, again, is wanting you to take note, to see something here, that God infuses his people with strength and power to do extraordinary things.

That these enduements, these outpourings of the Holy Spirit are not perpetual, unceasing, but come when the need arises. There is this need of this baptism, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit to do that which God calls us to do.

That's what he wants you to see. And then there's another way in which the writers, Luke and Paul, use this word filled. As it did on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out on the church universal, filling it with his presence, producing love and joy in God, making it a bold witness for Christ.

And I agree with Brother Mack. That was a historic event. You're not gonna relive the day of Pentecost, no more than you can relive the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And yet the moment a person believes upon Christ, the effects of the cross become his or hers.

The effectual results are now in that present moment, felt and experienced. And the same is true with the resurrection. We've been crucified with Christ, we've been raised with Christ. And as we are immersed by the Spirit into the body of Christ, we participate in the results of this historic day of Pentecost.

The church has been anointed by God as his instrument throughout the world to be the light and the salt of this world. And so this is the power that we need. And I want to use this baptism, this anointing, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit to deal with the second definition or the second way it's used as instantaneous strength and empowerment for service at that moment.

The Same Spirit for Ordinary Life and Extraordinary Service

Now, I don't want you to be confused. Now, listen carefully. In every instance, it's always the same power of God. God doesn't have three different kinds of power. It's still the same power of God. They're all called by the same name in the New Testament, filled with the Spirit, full of the Spirit.

The difference is this, listen, function or the purpose of the power. That's where the difference is. It's still the same power of God. It's just these different ways of using the word field show us different functioning or purposes of the power.

And I have to use an illustration that I didn't come up with, but I read many years ago from John Piper. And I think it hits the nail on the proverbial head. I think it makes good sense and helps to clear any confusion.

He says, in most homes, most homes are connected to a water main. And this supplies the house with adequate water for normal life, bathing, showering, cooking, drinking. But suppose a fire breaks out.

The firemen tap a hydrant, a fire hydrant nearby, and they secure a much greater flow of water to meet the emergency. It's the same water. It's just coming in greater function or power. And so to be filled with the Spirit, Ephesians 5 .18, to be influenced, controlled, in order to live godly in Christ Jesus, demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit, have fellowship with God, is a supply continuously available to you as you submit and believe God for it.

It's there always for you and I to experience. And it's a command. Don't be drunk with wine wearing as excess, but be ye filled. It's literally in the present tense, which means keep being filled. That's a command.

You have the responsibility to be filled with the Spirit. Don't sit on your hands and wait for God to zap you. No, no, this is a presence of God that is continually available to you as you believe God and have fellowship with Him and constant abiding.

That's like the regular supply of water, but oh, there comes moments in the Christian life with something unusual. Some ministry opportunity comes, and now you need power. You need a gushing. You need something different, a function much different than just living a godly life.

You need God's empowerment and do-ment to help you, strengthen you, to do that which He calls you. It's an occasion to be given extra energy and power for special service. And there's no doubt in my mind that the sacred record bears the truth that God from time to time pours out His Spirit in fullness to empower a believer or a group of believers for service.

There's no doubt that the secular record of history bears this truth. Also, crucial breakthroughs of the gospel have come because of these extraordinary, periodic outpourings of the Holy Spirit. We've been hearing about them now for two days.

Brother Mack's presentations have been just exactly that. He has shown you we're in the history of man. God has punctuated time, and He's demonstrated in extraordinary ways, marvelous things. What are these things?

These are baptisms or outpourings of the Holy Spirit. We call them awakenings or revivals or even reformations, but they are not the usual. They are the extraordinary. And I would like to take just a few moments.

I don't want him to have all the fun. I'd like to share a couple of examples of what I'm talking about only on an individual basis, not on a corporate basis. I want to share with you, first of all, in the summer of 1871, two women of Dwight L. Moody's congregation began to pray for their pastor.

D. L. Moody and the Baptism of Power

They prayed for D .L. Moody. Now, I don't know if you know who I'm talking about, but D .L. Moody was probably the most famous preacher of his time, maybe second only to his contemporary, Charles Spurgeon.

And they began to pray for their pastor, quote, that the Lord would give him the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire. Now, Moody would see these two women sitting on the front pew, and he would come to them and say, ladies, I see you're praying.

What are you praying for? And they said, well, praying you will receive the Holy Spirit. Indignant, Moody would answer, I have the Holy Spirit. Thank you very much. He was quite, quite offended by it at first.

But eventually he succumbed and began to pray with them every Friday afternoon because he began to increasingly feel that his ministry was becoming like a sounding grass with little power. Well, on November the 24th, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire occurred and burned down Moody's church down to the ground.

Moody went to New York to raise funds to rebuild his church, and day after day, he became more and more burdened. For his own soul and his need for God's power, he'd walked the streets praying for God's blessing, this endowment of power, and then suddenly, yes, suddenly, just like we heard today, suddenly something happened to him.

Let me let Moody tell you in his own words. May I do so? Let me quote it to you. One day in the city of New York, oh, what a day. I cannot describe it. I seldom refer to it. It's almost too sacred an experience to name.

I can only say that God revealed himself to me, and I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand. Stop, in other words. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different.

I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not be placed back where I was before that blessed experience. If you should give me all the world, it would be small dust in the balance.

Something happened to Moody that day that remained with him most of his life until he died. He went to be with the Lord. There was an anointing. There was an unction. There was an endowment, an extraordinary amount of spirit work.

He was seeing a few people saved almost weekly. Now he was seeing a few people saved. And the crowds began to grow larger and larger, and he began an itinerant ministry soon thereafter. Now the second person you probably have never heard of, but just as anointed and just as a powerful preacher, his name was Christmas Evans.

Christmas Evans and Spiritual Renewal

He was a Welshman. He was born in the late 18th century. Actually, he was born 1766 on Christmas Day from which he got his name, Christmas, Christmas Evans. He's called the John Bunyan of Wales. Before he was ordained in 1790 by the Baptist, Evans preached for three years with little to no success.

Ordinary man, ordinary sermons, ordinary results. He often was plagued with doubts about his own salvation. He wondered not only was he called, but was he even saved? Two years later at the age of 26, Christmas Evans began to preach on the island of Anglesea off the coast of Wales.

While there, he soon became engulfed in a doctrinal controversy, which robbed him of his joy in God. You have to be careful with controversies. You may be defending the truth, but you better be careful and guard your soul because they can suck the life out of your soul if you're not careful.

He began to seek God for a reflaming of his heart. And here's what he wrote about what happened. Are you listening? I know it's afternoon. We've all eaten, it's a little warm in here. Stretch, stand up, you won't offend me.

I'd rather you do that than to fall asleep on me. I need the baptism of the Holy Spirit, don't I? Amen, I do. I certainly need it. Here's what he said, and I quote, I was weary of a cold heart towards Christ.

Can I stop and ask you, how weary are you of your cold heart towards Christ? This is a preacher. This is a man of God, and he's being honest with himself and with his audience. I knew my heart was cold and I had become so burdened and the work, my heart was cold towards Christ, his atonement and the work of his spirit.

I was weary of a cold heart in the pulpit. I was weary of a cold heart in secret prayer and in study, especially when I remembered that for 15 years before my heart had been burning within me as if I were on the way toward Emmaus with Jesus.

My friend, can you also like Christmas Evans remember a better time when your heart was more inflamed for Jesus than it is right now? Aren't you weary? The difference will be if you are or not weary. If you're not weary yet, you'll continue until I pray you become so weary that it becomes a loathsome thing.

And you become so desperate that you will once again go back to the basics. You'll go right back to God in poverty of spirit and receive what he has for you. This is what happened to Christmas Evans. Then he said, a day came at last, a day ever to be remembered by me.

After I had commenced praying in the name of Jesus, I soon felt as if the shackles were falling off and as if the mountains of snow and ice were melting within me. My tears flowed copiously. And I was constrained to cry aloud and pray for the gracious visits of God, for the joy of his salvation, that he would again visit the churches in Anglesey that were under my care.

The struggle lasted for three hours. Can you imagine being alone? A struggle with God like Jacob of old wrestling with God, saying, I'll not turn you loose until you bless me. There he was in this kind of desperation, the kind we need today.

Oh, may God visit again, us again with a spirit of desperation. Struggle lasted for three hours. It would come over me again and again, like one wave after another, like a tidal driven by a strong wind until my physical power was greatly weakened by weeping and crying.

Thus I gave myself up wholly to Christ, body, soul, talents, labors, all my life, every day and every hour that remained to me and all my cares. I entrusted into the hands of Christ. In the first service I held after this event, I felt as if I had been removed from the cold and sterile region of spiritual ice into the pleasant lands of the promises of God.

When I returned home, the first thing that I attracted my notice was that the spirit was working in the believers in Anglesey, inducing in them a spirit of prayer, especially in two of the deacons who were particularly praying that God would visit us in mercy and would render the word of his grace effective among us in the conversion of sinners.

And do you know what happened? After this fresh anointing or baptism of the spirit, Evans began to experience the power of God and a great revival and an awakening came upon the whole island and eventually all over Wales because of this fresh endowment of power.

Seeking God Rather Than Sensational Experiences

Now, it's easy, please pay attention. This is too important to miss. It's easy when you hear these accounts of great awakenings, revivals, when you hear testimonies like Moody and Evans to think in the context of stupendous, sensational, remarkable crises and experiences with God.

And I wanna warn you, God doesn't always do it this way. Some he leads through pressure and very traumatic crises until he comes in glory and power. Others, he doesn't do it that way. The way Christ does it is not of any concern today.

It shouldn't be at least. The fact that he does it should be our concern. That we place ourselves at his availability and say, Lord, I'm an empty vessel, come and fill it. And to desperately depend that he will do what he said he would do.

Are you hearing what I'm saying? This is important. Again, we, because we love the material, we love the natural, we get hung up on how God does it. Again, the phenomenon. We wanna be like D .L. Moody.

Oh, God, stay your hand. I can't take any more of this. Men have experienced this in baptism, this empowerment as liquid love flowing over them wave after wave. And we think that's the way we've got to experience it.

No, that's not the point. The point is not how these men experienced it or the crisis they went through. The point is, are you desperately depending upon God to empower you as he promised by the Holy Spirit?

Do you really believe that without God aiding you, you can not do it? Do you believe Jesus? Do you believe him? When he said to you, without me, you can do nothing. That's what the issue is. Not how he fulfills his promise, but that you grip God and God grips you in an embrace that fulfills his promise by faith.

So there are varying degrees of this promise fulfilled. Different measures or degrees of the Holy Spirit's power upon a man or a woman. For example, when you examine Acts chapter six, when the apostles called for the church to choose among them seven men, full of wisdom and the Holy Ghost, as the old King James says, the Holy Spirit.

You should not interpret those words to mean that there were only seven men in the church who were filled with the Holy Spirit. Most, if not all the members of that church were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Obviously what the apostles were asking for is that they were looking for men who had extraordinary influence or amounts or measures of the fullness of the Spirit, thus proving there are different degrees of this empowerment.

Does that make sense? If it doesn't, I can repeat it word for word. There are different degrees of this empowerment. Not all are gonna have the same degree. I get asked all the time, how can I have the anointing of the Holy Spirit?

Pastors and preachers ask you all the time. You know, it's a hard question to answer because there's no formula. It is not a methodology that I can write and put in the book and make a bunch of money selling because I guarantee you, if it was, it would happen.

We want the formula. There is no formula. There is simply a utter poverty of spirit that you must be convinced of and a faith in God that believes He's faithful to keep His promises. And when those two come together, your emptiness and His sufficiency, God will do what He's promised.

But there are different degrees. Let me assure you, God doesn't anoint us all the same. The extraordinary power for service depends on the service that He calls you to. If God baptizes you or endues you or pours out the Spirit upon you, you're all not gonna start preaching like Paul Washer.

God has a calling specifically for your life and the degree of that calling is the degree of the power necessary and needed. But brother, sister, listen, we all need the power and we have a promise and a provider thereof who will keep that promise.

Human Weakness and the Need for Divine Power

So the point that we must come to is this, that without the giving of the power of God, you're going to remain powerless and you're going to be unfruitful. Left to yourselves, we're just simply powerless.

And this is demonstrated plainly by the apostles themselves, the very men Jesus said in Acts chapter one, verse eight, look at those 11 men before the day of Pentecost. What do you see? You see some smelly fishermen who seem to be very poor at their trade because every time they've been fishing, they catch nothing.

One was a tax collector, in other words, a legalized thief. A Benedict Arnold to his own people. You know who Benedict Arnold was, don't you? He was a trader during the American revolution. These were traders.

They worked, sold themselves to Rome. And they could not only charge the people the tax of Rome, but make a surcharge and pocket it for themselves. So they took advantage of their own people. One was forever linked with treachery and treason who denied the Lord Jesus Christ, or excuse me, betrayed the Lord Jesus.

One would even deny him. It's not unfair to say in one way or another, they were all failures. How many of you feel like your whole life has been nothing more than your Christian life, but one failure after another.

And when Jesus needed them, they failed him and deserted him. They were proud men who were always fighting each other for supremacy. Even the night, hours before the arrest, after he has washed their feet, the greatest example of humility, what did they begin to argue among themselves about?

Who's gonna be the greatest of the kingdom? I can tell you this, as far as students, they were lousy students because the teacher had to repeat the lessons over and over and over, and they still failed.

This is the kind of men we're talking about. These men would have been buried in unmarked graves, forgotten for all time. There's nothing extraordinary about them, but after they received the Spirit's power, they were completely different.

And today, today we wish we had half the power of God on our lives as they did. Baptism, this endowment of power, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Oh yes, we need this. Our lives will be useless unless we are experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit.

It's not by my, not by power, but by my Spirit, say of the Lord of hosts. It should be our conviction. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain. Who built? Amen. Beloved, we have some serious thinking and soul-searching to do today.

Prayer, Obedience, and Dependence on God

First, why do we think we can receive the Spirit's power without prayer? If the apostles had to ask and wait for the Holy Spirit, why do we assume He will automatically be with us in power? That's why we must be doing what our brother has exhorted us these last two days, giving us concrete examples.

Meet together, pray, and seek the Holy Spirit's power that we might be a fruitful and abounding church. I'm not advocating sitting on our hands praying for God to do all the work and leave us free to pursue our own priorities.

Absolutely not. Neither am I suggesting that God will empower you and give you this kind of grace if you're not willing to obey Him. You see, those who are willing to be serious about obeying the commandments of God are the ones He empowers.

If you're not gonna obey God, why should He empower you? We want a dynamic church. At the same time, we wanna keep our schedules and other pursuits intact. We wanna keep our Monday night events, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday.

We wanna do all that we normally do, but we still want the power of God. That's working nothing but mischief, friend. What I'm trying to say with the greatest sense of gravity is that you can invent and implement change and innovations, but if you do so without first receiving the power of the Spirit, all you have done is create another lifeless method, and we've got enough of that.

But if we seek to be obedient to Christ, making disciples, opening our hearts to the power and the influence of the Spirit, then we will experience His life. God will be in what we do because God will be in us and upon us.

Supernatural Power for the Church's Mission

So what's the conclusion of the matter? We need God. When are we going to be honest with ourselves and say, is this what He died for? Is this what He died for and bled His life out, what I'm experiencing now?