Well, good morning again. We're going to look, this might be a shocker to some of you acts. Chapter two, you think, wow, on Pentecost Sunday, we're going to go to the story about Pentecost. Yes, we are. But hopefully, hopefully just a little bit different angle or aspect than maybe some things you've heard before.

But I got to thinking literally just a moment ago, so I hope this comes out right. This is where I always get myself in trouble. And I got to thinking about quality time with loved ones, with family, with friends, and how. When. Well, I went to my daughter's bedroom this morning when she woke up and I said, I missed you.

It was just a few hours ago. I had put her to bed, and Amy and I sat there. There was a wedding that was here last night, and we were here helping them clean up as friends of ours there, their kid that got married, and, you know, they rented the buildings and, you know, we're all cleaning it up. And we were here late, we were tired, and I was wearing a suit, and I was. I was.

I realized at this point I'd been mildly sweaty for hours. Okay. It was. It's not a Florida suit, if there is such a thing. This is like a.

This is a warm weather one. But it was the color that I felt like wearing that day, and it was just. And when I took that thing off, I'm like, ugh, this is nasty. I'm done. You know, showered that off real quick.

There's not even cold water right now. It's so warm. Even the pipes water is just. It's warm. I'm like, okay, fine.

And then it's putting our daughter to bed. Amy's in there. I sat down on the bed. We're both sitting there, and she went to sleep. And a few hours later, here I am again, and I'm telling her, I missed you.

So I was just thinking about it just now. I was up at the altar while Kendall was praying, and we're talking about the Holy Spirit, and we think, especially if you're like, if that's not normal for you to talk about the holy spirit, or if you think, why are we talking about spirits? Is that like a ghost? You know, like, if you read the king James, they called it the Holy Ghost. And we're like, what is that?

And I think, now, this isn't like, this isn't doctrine, this isn't theology. This is just practical here. And I got to realizing, I like that quality time with my family. I told my daughter, I said, someday you're going to grow up, you're going to find a guy, and you're going to marry this man. And then I started telling her.

We had just watched this old movie. It's been out a long time ago, Robert Duvall movie called Secondhand Lions. It's kind of obscure, but it was a fun movie, and I recommend it to you. If you've never watched it, it's great. But Robert Duvall has that kind of that old man farmer strength, you know, like where he can just, you know, handle a bale of hay or a bar fight.

Either one, no problem, you know, and he's just, he's just this tough guy, and he's great. And he has these young men that want to fight, and they're just sitting at his counter eating a meal, and they want to fight him. And he goes to take one man, he has this awesome speech. I fought two wars on three continents. I loved one woman my whole life.

All this stuff, it's this great speech, and he's choking this guy down. And then later they start fighting him, and he's like, no, you don't stab like this. And he's teaching him how to stab. And it's just this hilarious scene. But then later, the guys end up going to their house.

He puts some meat on their eyes where he'd given them black eyes and stuff. And then later he's like, you guys want to stay for dinner? Yeah. What are we eating? He's like, meat.

And he starts taking the steaks back and they grill it, you know, and it's just this great thing where he turns these young punks into men in the span of a day. Well, then he's out there at the car, and he's teaching, he's talking to them, and this kid says, what's he saying? And the other guy, who's Michael Caine, the actor, he says he's given him the speech about how to be a man. And so I was thinking about that. And so I'm talking to my daughter this morning, and I said, you know, you're gonna someday you're gonna want to get married.

And I started telling her the things that a man needs to be to be a man. I said, like, that guy was giving that speech in the movie. We never heard this speech, but I imagined it was like this. And I said, now, the only reason you need to know this is you need to know what kind of a man to look for. And so I'm starting that seven year old girl, but I'm teaching her these things.

But you're like, why are you telling me all this? Pastor Nick? Good question. I'm sharing this quality time with my daughter, and I'm thinking about someday. And I'm telling her someday she's going to go off and marry a man and hopefully pick a good one.

And I could tell she's just like, no, I don't want to do that. I just want to be with mom and dad. And I get that, and that's sweet. And I want her to always think that. And yet, I know someday, at least, hopefully she decides, like, someday I want her to move out.

If she wants to never get married and live with us, that's fine, but, you know, I'd like for her to do that. And so I'm thinking just in that moment right there, I'm like, I don't want to get to church. I don't want to do any of this stuff. I don't want to see you guys. I just wanted to be with my daughter and spend that quality time with her in that moment.

Okay, what's that have to do with anything? Jesus walked this earth, and he was with a limited number of people because there was only so many people that he could be with. Sometimes there was large crowds. Sometimes there was just an intimate few. Sometimes they turned their backs and ran away from him and betrayed him and said they didn't even know him and called down curses.

But Jesus said, it's to your benefit that I go away, because if I leave, I will ascend to the Father, to the throne in heaven. I will sit at the right hand of the Father, and I will send you that which he has promised the Holy Spirit. He will be with you. I don't know if this is ever written in any book of theology, any study on the scriptures, but I'm telling you, the holy spirit of God is God's quality time with us. It's God curling up next to us wherever we're at, and saying, I just want to be with you.

Now we can turn around and kick him out and say, nah, not for me. I don't want that. And we can say, God, just, there's no space for you in my life, Holy Spirit, I really don't need you. You complicate things. Can you just go away?

And he will. He will. And he's always right there, ready to be back. Don't live that way if you don't hear any of the other stuff that I say. We're gonna open the scriptures, we're gonna explain some of that.

But if you don't hear any of that stuff, hear this. God wants that quality time with you, and he's always willing to invest more to dig deeper into that relationship with you than you can ever imagine. God has more ability to bring his presence, the presence of his holy spirit into your life, to commune with you, to fellowship with you, to get to know you intimately. He knows you, but you get to know him. Now there's practical things, like the way he can empower you in different situations in your life to go through issues, problems, struggles.

Or if you're trying to share the hope you have in Christ and say, this is what God has done in my life and I want to share that with you. He gives us that and we'll talk about all those things. But more than anything, what Jesus said, the Holy Spirit would be his presence with us. Now we can get into all kinds of doctrine and theology about what is a trinity. How is there three in one?

All these things? I'd be happy to talk about those things. That's why we have a Sunday school class. We can dig into all that stuff deeply where there's like time for you to, you know, do feedback, two way conversations. Sometimes I wish that I could just sit down in the middle of the floor and we could all talk.

It doesn't work that well because people won't hear each other and all that stuff. And so that's why we do it the way we do it. This is the one way conversation. You have the opportunity for that two way conversation after that. Right?

So let's open our scriptures to acts. Chapter two. Near the end of that chapter is verses 37 through 41 is what we're going to be looking at. And what has happened before. This is the, the group of disciples is gathered together, not just the twelve apostles that Jesus had.

Actually there was eleven. One of them kind of Judas, you know, the betrayer. He just took himself out of the equation and they replaced him with another guy after a little holy gambling thing that they called casting lots. Anyway, so they did that. They're like, Matthias is the guy to replace Judas.

And so now they've got twelve again. There's actually ten times that number of people, at least 120 people gathered in an upper room on the kind of like an outer wall or outer area around the temple courts. They had these rooms like think of a banquet room that you could sign up for or something. And they are meeting in one of these upper rooms and that's where this took place. But for ten days, from the time Jesus ascended into heaven until the day of Pentecost.

There's ten days, and they're gathered there. By my math, that's 240 hours with 120 people. I mean, some of them might have left and come back or something. I'm not sure. Like, I guess when Luke wrote this book, he didn't think we needed all the details.

But I'm a nuts and bolts kind of guy, and I kind of want to know about that, you know? So I'm like, what did they do? You know? Like, was there a bathroom in the room? Did they have to go somewhere?

What about food? Were they eating during this time at all? Like, it doesn't really say, and I guess we don't need to know, but I I think about those things. But they're there essentially in that room for 240 hours, 120 people, give or take, coming and going. I'm not sure, but they're in that room.

And you know what the weird thing is? They were spending time in prayer. I'm sure they were spending time combing through their scriptures, which at that point was the Old Testament. And they weren't arguing. They weren't arguing.

One mind of one spirit. They were in unity. Now what ends up happening is the Holy Spirit comes down. It says there's a loud rumbling. There's these things that look like flames, tongues of fire that land on each of them, and some great stuff begins to happen.

They begin to speak in other languages, which, if you're not used to this story, that also, I'll be honest, that seems really weird. It just does. You're like, how? I don't know. It's supernatural.

That's a God thing. Take it or leave it. If you got faith to believe that, believe that. If you don't, you'll get there. You'll get there.

I heard somebody preaching this morning I was listening to, and he said, you know, I heard a lot of times people say, well, if you. You know, you know, like, if you don't really. If your heart's not in it, don't do it. He's like, your heart will lead you wrong. Your heart will lead you astray.

Sometimes. Sometimes you need to just say, I'm gonna believe this until I believe it, until I really feel it. I don't know where you're at with that, but let's just go with me here on this one. That the spirit of God, as he anointed these believers, was able to give them the ability to speak in a different language, that people who were in this crowd of gathered worshipers outside their upper room at the temple complex were able to hear them in their native languages. Now, how God does that is his business.

But Luke is just sitting here reporting this stuff. Now, Luke wasn't an idiot. He was a doctor. He was educated. He was knowledgeable.

He went and got these facts together and wrote this account so that we could have something reliable. And so what is happening here is these people have been filled with the Holy Spirit and something supernatural begins to happen, something that they don't have the natural human ability to do to speak in these other languages. But I want to tell you that the Holy Spirit, and maybe you've never thought about this, the Holy Spirit was already active before this. In other words, the Holy Spirit was working in several ways. I can show you a couple of them.

One that you might be most familiar with is this guy Peter, who just not that many weeks before was denying that he ever knew Jesus. These other disciples who were jockeying for position, like who would be the number one right hand man to Jesus whenever he came into power. They're arguing with each other. They're not serving one another, they're not doing any of these things. And then all of a sudden, when they're locked in, not locked in, but when they're gathered in this upper room, Peter starts saying, you know what?

Here's what the scriptures say. And he starts pulling all these quotes from the psalms and other things. They told us that this was going to happen. We knew that Judas was going to betray Jesus and hang himself and that he would have to be replaced. And you're like, if you know Peter at all, you're like, what?

What are you talking about? No, you know, Peter was the guy that couldn't have put two and two together from scripture before that. And now all of a sudden, he has this knowledge. You know, Jesus, just a few days before this had been saying, you know, when he was resurrected, Easter. You know, he's like, hey, didn't you guys understand what the scriptures were saying?

That I had to die and rise again? And they're like, no, we had no idea. He's like, do you remember me telling you, hey, I'm going to die and then rise again on the third day? And you're like, uh uh. I don't think you ever said that.

It's like when a pastor or somebody is talking about something that's coming up, you know, like at the church. Like, we wrote it in the bulletin. It was on Facebook. We sent an email, a text message, you know, blah, blah, blah. We talked about it at announcements?

I never heard about that happening. Okay. I don't know what to tell you. Like, I didn't know how to be more clear about it except to like, grab your face and be like, here's what we're doing. Jesus was basically saying, I've told you all these things and you still didn't get it.

But now all of a sudden, Peter is able to start quoting the scriptures and say, it's obvious that this is what was going to be the course of events. The Holy Spirit was at work in the midst of them while they're praying. And not only that, but we see it in the unity that they had with one another. Folks, that doesn't happen in this world, and it didn't happen in their world. In their world, you had these groups of people who were, one group of them was ready to just kind of side up to, you know, kind of sidle up to get close to Rome, you know, and be like, hey, Rome's not a big deal.

We don't care that they're kind of in charge over us. We're just going to let that happen and we'll just coexist with them and be buddy buddy with them. It'll be good for us. And then you've got this other group that says, we need to get rid of this roman rule over us and not be held down by them. We need to be able to have our freedom from them and they're ready to even take up arms and fight against them.

And somehow you've got both groups of those people mixed into the disciples. You've got disciples coming from both these different groups. It's like having far left and far right american politics all in the same room and not arguing about stuff. I'll do you one better. It's like having a vegan and a meat eater agreeing that we can both eat what we want and it's okay.

You know how to know who a vegan is, don't you? They'll tell you. Like, they'll always tell you, you know, like, I'm a vegan. Like, yeah, okay, we can tell because you're so weak. Nevermind, sorry.

I like eating meat. It's good stuff. If you want to be a vegan, fine, do it. I guess that's your right. But they got along.

They're sitting there getting along. And so obviously there's something going on, but there's more to it than that. Not just the knowledge that Peter had in the scriptures, not just their ability to have unity together, but the very fact that the holy spirit was already working on behalf of the people who would hear them. He's already working in their hearts and lives. He's already kind of working on them.

Let's read what Peter says at this point. Because there's this whole like this sermon that he preaches, because all these people hear these languages. They hear him speaking in their native languages and they say, what's going on? Are these guys drunk? And it's like, nah, that never made anybody smarter.

Nobody ever got wiser, you know, with alcohol, like for sure that's not what it was. Peter said, no, this is something else. Begins quoting scripture to them and says, clearly this is what scripture said would happen. And then here's what we get is their response. And this is the part I wanted to hone in on for us this morning.

In acts chapter two, starting in verse 37 through verse 41, it says this. Now, when they heard this, when they heard what Peter had been saying, specifically the thing that he said that Jesus, whom they crucified, is now Lord and Christ. When they heard this, they were acutely distressed and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, what should we do, brothers? Peter said to them, repent and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This promise is for you and your children and for all who are far away. As many as the Lord our God will call to himself. With many other words, he testified and exhorted them, saying, save yourselves from this wicked and perverse generation. So those who accepted his message were baptized. And that day about 3000 people were added.

Wow. Now they had heard them speaking in their native languages. They had heard all this going on. What's interesting to me is I used to think there's 120 believers that were anointed with the Holy Spirit and they're now all preaching some sermon or something. Only Peter preached the sermon.

The rest of them were just testifying about the things of God. In other words, their personal testimony. These are people that are sharing what God has done in their lives. These are people who are telling the crowd that's gathered about who Jesus is, why he's Lord and God, and what he does. And so everybody's amazed by this.

I think at this point the people have begun to leave that upper room and to mingle amongst those who are gathered to worship there because there's a big festival in town and everybody showed up to worship at this festival. And so these 120 believers get out amongst them only 10% of them were what we might consider commissioned. Pastors, ministers, preachers, the apostles. Twelve out of 120 are apostles. The rest of them are what we might call today laymen.

The people in the congregation, the people in the church, these are disciples of Jesus. They've been with him, they've been following him, and yet they weren't the twelve that Jesus had commissioned as apostles. These are what we might call just regular folks who have found Jesus as their savior, and they can't help but share it. And as they're doing that, the Holy Spirit gives them the ability to speak in a language that's not, you know, that's foreign to them, a language that they don't know. It's not their natural language, and they're able to speak that so that others can hear it.

Folks, there's times where you might be ready to share your faith with somebody and say, listen, this is what Jesus has done in my life. This is what he's done for me. And yet you're thinking, I'm not. I don't know what to say. I'm not ready for that.

I don't. I don't even have the courage to do that. And yet, the Holy Spirit of God will prepare you in that moment to be able to do such things. And he'll also, we believe, go ahead of you. Preparing the way.

Now, this is a, there's a theological term we call this called prevenient grace. It's the grace that's already going before you, going ahead of you, and working to prepare the way for God to show up in people's lives. The Holy Spirit is active in this process of prevenient grace by, you know, even before you knew you were going to be declaring your faith or sharing the gospel with someone, he's already working in their hearts and lives and preparing them to be ready to accept that. He's not forcing it on them, he's not controlling them in some way, but he's just doing things, whether it's. They've been part of different conversations here and there.

They overheard somebody in a store and they're working on it or heard something on a radio or a podcast or who knows what? Maybe just a song that played on the radio. He's opening up their eyes, their ears, and their mind to hear this and to be able to accept that. And so that when you come and share your faith, you say, listen, here's what God has done for me in my life, and the resulting thing that ends up happening is what we saw here in our scriptures where they talk and say to Peter after he preaches his sermon, and they say, what do we need to do to be saved? In other words, they understand that there's something to be saved from.

In fact, there's lots of things that we might wish to be saved from. Some of us just wish, you know, I don't even care who gets elected. I just hope, I just can't wait for the elections to be over. You know, some of us, we might be saying, you know what? I look at the things going on in the world and the wars that we're in, and I just wish that somebody would stop getting us into new wars and conflicts.

I don't even care what they're about. Just stop with that. You might be saying, you know what? I'm in a financial situation that I don't know my way out of, and I just wish that somehow I could get saved from that. Or my car is having these problems, and I just wish that I could be saved from that.

But clearly, what these people in attendance at that day understood was there was something else that they needed to be saved from. There was a whole lot worse than the everyday problems we go through, even the big level problems that we see in our nation and in our world. They realized there was a soul condition that they needed salvation from. Now, I believe they were able to respond this way because of the prevenient grace of the Holy Spirit at work. These people that were asking this question had not yet accepted Christ as their savior, nor been filled with the Holy Spirit like the other believers had at that point.

These were people who, as of now, hadn't become christians, hadn't accepted Christ as their savior, and yet they were ready to respond in faith. But they needed someone to guide them. They needed somebody who knew Christ to be able to lead them and to show them the way for that. You know, we think about prevenient grace, and there's different areas in your life. You might see this at work by the hand and power of the Holy Spirit of God.

You might be. You might have a burden on your heart for someone that you know isn't walking with Christ and you want to share that with them. You might be inviting people to things like this end of school bash that we have next Sunday. We believe not only that God has been preparing the way for you to, as you invite them, or even through our things that we do online, through social media and newspapers and all those things where we advertise it, we pray. And we believe that when people see that, that there are those that God is already leading to it, and that they will be able to kind of accept that invitation to come.

We believe that there is a prevenient grace that goes before us before we ever step out, that God is preparing the way and paving the way for us in those things we've got. This is a crusade coming up in the spring of next year, late winter, early spring. They're still working on setting the dates for sure on it, but it's called set free. And we had a prayer gathering that met here. Our church hosted this, this particular month's prayer gathering, and I'm grateful for each of you that came out and participated in that this past Tuesday.

Set free is this idea, this vision, to have a crusade here in our community for Zephyr Hills, Wesley Chapel, Dade city, the surrounding areas, to gather churches, christians, to gather them on board and say, you need to be ready to invite those that you know, that don't know Jesus Christ, that are looking for salvation in all the wrong places, and to bring them to this event. They'll participate in it. They'll hear the gospel proclaimed, a whole bunch of other stuff. A lot of people sharing their testimonies of the ways that God has saved them and the things he saved them from, and to show up to that and to invite them to that. And so we're working together, a whole bunch of churches together, to participate in this and that.

Those who are sitting in the crowd, it can't just rest on those twelve apostles, the 10%, the called ones. It's all of us who are called. It's the 120. It's the gathering of believers who are being filled with the Holy Spirit. And his prevenient grace is going before us, and we have to be about the work of inviting others in.

Whoever it is that you know, even if you don't know him that well, say, you know what? On this date, I would love for you to come with me. It's really important. And look, if you were going to cut your grass that day, and actually grass isn't growing at that point, don't worry about it. If you were going to clean your house a little bit and you needed help cleaning it, you know, like, I'll help you clean it on Friday, if you come to this thing on Saturday, whatever it is that you've got to do to get people there, get them there.

But the idea is that there's things that people need to be saved from. Much like when Paul and Silas have been beaten and locked up in a prison just for sharing their faith about Jesus Christ. And they were. Instead of moping around about the condition they were in and wishing that somebody would save them from that jail cell, they were singing their praises to God in the midst of that suffering that they were in. And when God sent an earthquake that not just shook it, but shook the doors open and the shackles off of their arms and legs.

An earthquake doesn't do that. I've never heard of an earthquake opening up all the jail doors and loosening up handcuffs and all the prisoners escaping. But you know what? None of the prisoners escaped from that. Because as they've been hearing these two men singing their praises to God in the midst of their circumstances, they realized there was something they needed to be set free from.

That was a whole lot worse than any shackles of wood or iron or iron bars could ever do. And to be set free from that thing was the most important thing. See, there's people in our community, our neighbors, our friends, those that live around us, some of them that live in our own households, perhaps, that need to be set free from those spiritual bondage that they're in, the spiritual shackles that are holding them down, and they need to be set free from that. And so what we're working on, a community of churches, of christians are saying we have something to offer them. We have something that we have.

We have experienced that freedom ourselves that comes from the salvation of Jesus Christ. And we know there's others that need that as well. We believe that our efforts are not just our own, they're not efforts in vain, but that the prevenient grace of God, the power of the Holy Spirit is going before us to prepare the way. Already this is his event. We're just along for the ride.

You see, when Peter preached this message, it was fairly simple and they were cut to the heart. It says, in other words, this one, they felt it. It cut deep. It was a message that hit him right here. And they said, oh, brothers, what do we need to do to be saved?

You see, when you're confronted with the idea, not just, well, I've done some bad things. Ah, you know, I haven't always done the right thing. I haven't always been good. No, no, no. When we're confronted with the very idea that Jesus Christ died for sinners such as me and that I want to be set free from that, not just the guilt and shame of that, but I need to be set free from all the shackles that sin is bound me up with.

And when we, when we understand that, when we believe that. We say, what must I do to be saved? Peter says it's real easy. Repent, be baptized. And so that's what they did.

Do you know, it says that 3000 people were baptized that day. Their little church of 120 grew to a church of 3120 just in one day from one. That was his first message that Peter really preached. I remember the first time I, I can't even call it preaching. My youth pastor when I was a teenager myself said, hey, I'm going to be gone on this Wednesday.

Do you want to give the message? I'm like, sure. And it was one sheet probably at like a 15 font, you know, just to make the sheet look full. But it wasn't that many words. And I just kind of read it and like two minutes later like, well that's all I've got, guys.

You know, I don't know what to say. Like the youth pastor usually takes about 20 minutes and this was two, I don't know what now. And so that was just kind of it. It was like, okay, I don't think they learned a single thing from that. Maybe they did, I don't know.

But I learned a lot from it. One, I didn't know as much as I thought I knew. Two, I got a long way to go.

Peter preached his first message and I didn't even do the percentage. I don't know what the number is. But like they grew a lot that day, percentage wise, huge percent growth and they were baptized. Okay, here's the logistical part of my brain. Where in the world, like how did they baptize 3000 people that day?

Did they even plan for that? Did they wake up that morning saying, you know what, this is the day that the Holy Spirit's coming and Peter's gonna preach and there's gonna be all these people to baptize. So we might need some towels and new cloaks and all these things. They didn't plan for all that. It didn't matter, did it?

They just were obedient to what God was doing. When the gospel is preached, the Holy Spirit is in our midst. He doesn't allow that to just hit the ground and not sprout up in growth. He doesn't allow those gospel seeds to just falter and fail. Even if it seems like you've been planting those seeds for a long time, even if it seems like you've been sharing that gospel with somebody for a long time and they just haven't quite, you know, received that yet.

Don't stop. Don't be annoying. Don't pester them, don't bug them, don't be cheesy and corny, but let them see what God is doing in your life. Share that with them. Use words.

Words are a good thing, but let them see it in the way you live your life. And for sure, don't be a hypocrite. For sure, let people see a godly character that's real and genuine in your life.

When that message was preached and people said, what must we do to be saved? Peter said, what it is, but the Holy Spirit is the one that brought the results. The Holy Spirit is the one that spoke directly to people's hearts. They confessed their sins. They were obedience and baptism.

And now you've got a big church, what we might call a mega church. And they gathered regularly. For sure. Some of these people were travelers that had come in, as we noticed. They'd come in from all over the area.

They spoke these different languages and for sure they went home. So what did they do? They continue this work. The churches now meeting in different people's homes, in different cities and different countries even begins to grow. And so it says, they honed in on four things.

Four things was all. It was doctrine, which is the teaching of the apostles. In other words, what did the apostles, what was the message they proclaimed about Jesus? They continued teaching, that they continued in fellowship with one another. That unity that they saw in the upper room took root in these congregations as they spread across the area and they continued in that fellowship.

They partook of communion, the remembrance of the Lord's supper, the presence of Christ in our midst and in our body. And then they spent time in prayer. The whole thing started from a prayer meeting, a ten day long prayer meeting, and they continued on those things. And as they gathered, they gathered in view of the public. People saw them.

They would meet out in the temple courts as kind of an open air church meeting and they would continue to meet there. And the rest of their jewish brothers and sisters saw this. But it says they were in awe of them. They were even a little bit maybe fearful of them because they could see miracles happening by the hands of the apostles and other believers. I mean, there's this one day, Peter and John, they're walking up to the temple to go to prayer service.

It's like, you know, it's the jewish prayer service. They're still attending that and they go up and there's this beggar laying there and he's asking for alms, which was their little coins they would give to beggars. And and they said to this guy, he says, hey, can you give me something? And Peter's like, I don't have anything. Just in the name of Jesus walk.

I don't know if he said it frustrated, you know, or if he was just like, said it like, I sure hope this works. I've never done this before. Have you ever been there? I don't mean like, telling a guy that can't walk to walk. I mean, like, have you ever been, like, where you're like, I don't know.

Like Jesus said, we've got the authority to do this. I'm not sure about it, but I'm just gonna go ahead and be obedient to what he said to do. And then all of a sudden it works. And you're like, wow, it really worked. Jesus had sent the disciples out two by two before that to proclaim the message and to heal people and to cast out unclean spirits and demonstrate, and they did it.

And when they came back, they said, wow, it's working. He says, yeah, I told you it would work. You know, why are you so amazed? I've never done it before. By the power of Jesus Christ, they were doing these things.

And so now the believers are doing this. There's even Peter, because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in his life, as he would walk past people if they were ill, if his shadow went over them, God was healing them. Later on, he's anointing handkerchiefs, and they're taking them to sick people, and God is healing them. It's not because of any greatness that Peter had. It's because of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the believers.

People were respectful of them, and yet some of them were scared to even join it. But eventually, many of them did. Even many of the jewish priests and other teachers did. And not only that, but the new believers shared. Those who had extra would share with those who were in need, and they would live together, not just as a commune, but they would live together communally in the sense of, we take care of one another.

If we know of a need that I can meet, we're meeting it. This was how they lived. And this was all because they knew Jesus Christ, but because the Holy Spirit was in their midst. We could talk about acts, chapter five. What happens when people started getting selfish and living for their own sake and lying to God?

Ananias and Sapphira. That's quite the interesting story. Maybe we'll get to that another time. Some ripples of bad things begin to creep in when we allow self to get in the way. But as long as they were spending their time in prayer, focusing on the teaching of the apostles, enjoying genuine fellowship with one another and sharing in communion, the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

This was all because of the Holy Spirit. And this is exactly what Jesus said would happen. He said, it's to your benefit that I go away because I will send the spirit and he will come and he will live among you. So where does that leave us today? You know, I know of a time, I think it was before my time.

I'm still pretty young, right? Okay. And so I know of a time, though, that people said, my life isn't complete unless I'm filled with the spirit of God. And they would come to an altar and they would pray through until the spirit of God filled them. And you say, how do you know?

You know when you know, you know when the spirit of God has filled you? And if you've never received that, if you've never had that experience, I'll be honest. Some of you all have been to those services where you've seen it happen, where you've witnessed it. For some reason, it seems like we lost our fervor in that. By the time I was old enough to know what's going on, I haven't seen that.

I haven't seen anybody just say, I'm staying at that altar until the spirit of God fills me. I haven't seen it. I've only read about it. I've only heard testimony about it. I believe that God still wants to fill us with his holy spirit.

And yet so many times we're content to just live as if we've got this on our own. Ooh, we're missing out on so much, aren't we? He has so much more for us than we could ever imagine.

You're missing out. So where does that leave us today? I can't tell you. I can tell you that God has so much more for you than you've ever imagined. I can't tell you what you've got to do, but if you're saying there's something missing in my life, there's something missing in my.

We could call it our christian experience or the way we live our lives as christians. If you say, I read the scriptures and I see what they were doing, but I don't see that power active in the world today. Or if you think, well, to be filled with the Holy Spirit means, you know, you'll start speaking in tongues because that's what it says happened to them. And that's what it says happened a couple other times where there's other groups that got filled with the Holy Spirit and they started speaking in other languages. I'll say, sure, that is the first evidence that many of them showed that the Holy Spirit had fallen on them.

But it never stops there. What a childish thing it would be to stop there and say, you know what? I don't want to grow beyond that. I don't want anything more than that. I'm just content with that.

And that's it. No, you see, the spirit of God does so much more than just give them the ability to share the things of God in a different language. He gives them the ability to live life every day with that quality time with God. And if you don't seek that, you're missing out. God wants to spend that quality time with you.

And he may give you a gift of speaking in a different language, in a tongue, as we call it. And he may give you a gift of healing people. He may just give you the ability to sit there and see someone that looks like they're holding it all together, but inside, you know they're falling apart. And he just gives you that gift of discernment to say, go up and talk with them and just share the love of God with them. Just be a shoulder for them to cry on if they need it.

Just listen. See, the holy spirit of God has many different ways that he will empower you to live the life that he has for you. But if we don't seek that, if we don't ask God for that fullness of his spirit, we're missing out. Today. We're ending our service in communion.

That's not the end of your journey. That's not the end of seeking more of God. Maybe this isn't the right week to do communion, but we are. Perhaps what we should be looking at is saying we need an altar service where we go and we pray for more of the Holy Spirit. I'm not going to stop you from coming up here and praying for that.

Maybe you say, you know what? Today, Sunday school isn't the day for me. I need to go as quickly as I can to a quiet room in the house and spend some time with the word of God and the spirit of God and ask him what he has for me, because I've never met anyone, I've never talked with anyone who said, you know what? I want more of God. And he says, nah, you've got enough.

God never shuts us down on that. If you come with a genuine heart saying, lord, I just want more of you, he always answers that. And by all means, if you're at this point in your life where I say, what do I need to do to be saved? I don't understand. What?

I'm not Roman Catholic. I don't. You don't have a confession, Booth. How do I confess my sin? How do I repent?

It's not about that. It's about being real in your heart and saying, okay, God, I recognize who I am. And I recognize now why you died for me. You took my sin upon you, and you took it to hell and to the grave so that it can't be part of me any longer.