Amen. Well, thank you. Thank you for the testimonies.
I just want to, for those who don’t know, I went to the mission field with Jackie right after we got married. In such a dark, spiritual place, Jackie and I were not in a good place either. We went to Japan. Out of all the people, we met Ats, and I am so thankful that we stayed in touch. He came to the states, met Aiko, and they have a family.
The Holy Spirit blew in his life, and many years later, we got reconnected to my right-hand man at Easy Cloud. And so I am thankful that we can be here all together.
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, you promised to send the Holy Spirit, and we, as your children, are asking for that promise to be fulfilled. We ask for this Spirit now. We ask for the Spirit of God to be poured out into this place. We open up our hearts wide. Where two or three are gathered, Jesus, you are in our midst.
Holy Spirit, have your way in this service. Exalt the name of Jesus so that all of us can be better followers of him. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus Name we pray, Amen.
Out of the three persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the most mysterious. And I think unless you’re from the charismatic church, I think Holy Spirit generally is not talked about much. You hear a lot about God the Father, a lot about Jesus, of course, and we should be talking about those two. But the Holy Spirit is kind of forgotten.
And in some circles, you have a new trinity. It’s God the Father, God the Son, and God the Bible. And I think that’s just not right. Not right.
There’s even theologies to separate the body of Christ into campsite cessationists who say that the miraculous movement of the Holy Spirit has ceased. And there are some prominent pastors in LA who are training pastors to teach this way, which to me doesn’t make sense.
There’s the other side, which I’m a part of. It’s the continuationist.
The Holy Spirit that we read about in scripture is relevant for us. It is available for us. We could experience the same miracles that the church in the book of Acts, for example, experienced.
So I am a conservative charismatic, like the conservatives hijacked the word, and conservative usually means anything except supernatural movement of the spirit. When I read the scripture, everything is supernatural from beginning to end. The Holy Spirit is there in the Old Testament, he’s there in the New Testament. The miracles are there.
And it’s not like after the apostle died, it suddenly shut off. Like, it’s not like the valve got closed. And now we have a lesser experience of God than what we read about in scripture. I think all of what we read is available to us.
Jesus has a conversation with Nicodemus, a scholarly pharisee, and they’re talking about being born again. And this is what is said about the spirit. Verse eight of John 3.
8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8, ESV)
The wind just blows. We can’t put it into a box. We don’t know where it comes from. Every time he blows, it can look different from one person to another.
And this experience of being born again, born of the Spirit, is a miracle, and this is a work of the Holy Spirit.
The absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit is talked about in places like Romans 8:9.
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. (Romans 8:9, ESV)
So the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of Christ, if you do not have it, it says, you do not belong to him. So it is absolutely necessary for us to have the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 1:13.
13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:13-14, ESV)
So the Holy Spirit in this set of verses is described as a seal. It’s a stamp. It’s something that signifies ownership. So that’s one thing the Holy Spirit does in all believers’ lives.
The other thing he does, it’s a guarantee. It’s a deposit, a down payment.
Like you put a down payment on a house, you own it, but you don’t have it fully, in a sense, until you pay off the mortgage. Another analogy would be when you’re engaged for a wedding; you get the down payment, the engagement ring. It’s a promise. This wedding is going to happen.
And so this is what the Holy Spirit does. The stamp of ownership, the seal by the Spirit, is all over our lives. And the promise is that Jesus will come back for you, his bride.
The mode of baptism, or the manner of baptism, or the amount of the spirit. Is it a mist or is it a downpour? Are you sprinkled with the spirit, or are you drenched, immersed in the spirit?
First of all, the word baptize is immersed. So some church traditions try to kind of dance around it, but the word is the word. When it says baptize, you are drenched. The same way that Jesus was baptized. And all the people in John the Baptist’s ministry, they were baptized in a river.
They went underwater, signifying their death to their old life. They came out dripping wet in the newness of life.
I think it is a downpour. I think it is an immersion, a drenching of the spirit.
In John 1:26, John the Baptist says,
26 John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, (John 1:26, NKJV)
And then jumping to verse 32,
32 And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ (John 1:32-33, ESV)
And I think we’re supposed to marry these two images of John the Baptist doing a baptism of repentance through this act of dunking people in a river, and they are immersed in this river.
It is a baptism. And then later he says, Jesus will come, and Jesus will do the same thing in a spiritual sense. Not a mist, not a sprinkling, not this type of thing that infants can be baptized? No, it’s nothing like that. It is a drenching of the Holy Spirit which is promised when Jesus comes.
So what is the timing of when we receive the Holy Spirit? Is it one time at conversion and that’s all you get?
Or is it two times, like conversion is one, there’s a second, larger, drenching baptism of the Holy Spirit which comes later? Or is it maybe like one time at conversion, maybe a baptism of the Holy Spirit, but a countless filling of the Holy Spirit?
I think I take the last one. It is a one-time seal. There’s a one-time guarantee. There’s a subsequent event, which is a baptism and a drenching of the Holy Spirit which may come or may not come in a believer’s life.
I pray it may come in every believer’s life. And then regardless of whether you had that or not, there is a command to ask for the filling of the Holy Spirit, that we all should be praying on a regular basis.
And just to show this historically in scripture, John chapter 20. This is post resurrection.
Jesus appears to the disciples and they are afraid because they witnessed Jesus being crucified. And now he’s appearing. They don’t know what’s happening. And Jesus shows up and he says, peace be with you, in John 20:21.
21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. (John 20:21-22, ESV)
And I want to ask, is that the first time they had the Spirit? Meaning before that breath, they were not saved? I don’t think so. I think to follow Jesus for the past three and a half years, to say things like Peter in a certain moment, saying that you are the Son of God, to whom shall we go?
These are evidences of the Holy Spirit.
I mean, to leave your job and to leave your family, you can’t do this without the blowing of the Holy Spirit. So their eyes open, maybe not fully. They didn’t fully embrace who Jesus was, but they had some evidence that the spirit was there.
And then Jesus gives another deposit in John 20.
But even before that, I mean, the Holy Spirit, it’s not like he didn’t exist before that breath. He was there in the gospels. He’s there in the Old Testament. In 1 Samuel 19, Saul is trying to kill David.
So you would say, look, Saul doesn’t seem like he has a spirit. Like, what’s wrong with Saul? Saul hears that David is hiding out with Samuel in Naioth in Ramah. So he sends troops to capture David, the runaway. The first troops that are sent out by Saul encounter Samuel and a bunch of prophets together. They’re prophesying, and the spirit of God falls upon the troops who are trying to capture David, and they all begin prophesying. So what does Saul do? He sends another group of troops.
The same thing happens. The spirit of God comes. They all begin prophesying. So Saul himself goes. You say, Saul, he doesn’t seem to have the spirit at all. And yet when Saul goes, the spirit of God again descends upon Saul.
Saul is on the ground. He’s torn off his clothes all day, all night. He is prophesying that Saul, who is trying to kill David, is baptized in the Holy Spirit and has a spirit in that moment.
Historically, there is Jesus breathing in John 20 upon the disciples.
And then he says, wait after the 40 days. He says, wait in Jerusalem until the promise arrives in full.
And then we get this second event in Acts 2, where there was a sound of a mighty rushing wind. It filled the whole house, and divided tongues as of fire rested upon each of the disciples. The Spirit fills them, and they speak in foreign tongues. All these people experience these miracles and say, these fishermen from Galilee could not know my language, and yet I’m hearing the praises of God in my language.
And so it is a miracle. And this is why we celebrate Pentecost.
It is 40 days after the resurrection. Jesus tells them to wait in Jerusalem. Ten days later, the spirit is poured out. And the disciples, the 120 gathered, the spirit is poured out. They are baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Luke 11:5. Oh, the 40 plus ten equals 50, which is why it’s called Pentecost, in case you’re wondering. Luke 11:5.
5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:5-13, ESV)
And I want to ask a very simple question, but maybe you glossed over this just obvious truth. Who is asking for the Holy Spirit? And he answers. If we’re a small enough church, we can grab some answers. So who would ask for the Holy Spirit? Anybody? Would a non Christian ask for the Holy Spirit?
I’ve never met a non-Christian asking for the Holy Spirit. So who would ask for the Holy Spirit? A Christian. A Christian. Only a believer. Only a believer.
And among the believers, who would ask for the Holy Spirit? The answer is in John 7:37.
37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:37-39, ESV)
So who asked for the spirit? Believers. Christians, right? And maybe before today, you did not know you needed to ask. Now you know you need to ask.
Depending on your theology, you might say, why do I have to ask? I got all that I needed at conversion, and so I just want to show just through scripture, that’s just flat out wrong.
We are supposed to ask, who is going to ask except the Christian who already has the Holy Spirit? We’re supposed to ask for more. And among the believers, who really actually would ask? Only the thirsty. You have to be thirsty. Are you thirsty for more, the Spirit? Or are you satisfied with what you have?
If that’s you, then I have nothing to say. Then God says, okay, that’s all you get. But if you’re thirsty for more, if you know there’s more, then you ask, and you ask, and you keep asking.
You ask for the filling of the Holy Spirit. You ask for the gifting of the Holy Spirit. You ask for the presence of the Holy Spirit.
You ask all the time, only believers. And among the believers, only truly the thirsty among us will ask for the Holy Spirit, the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
I just will go through this really briefly. John 14:26. The Holy Spirit brings to remembrance the teachings of Christ.
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (John 14:26, ESV)
I encourage you, especially if you have young kids, just read as much of the Bible as you can.
I think our family needs to get back to this because they don’t have to understand. Your kids don’t have to understand everything. You’re just sowing seeds.
And if you’re going to, you know, I encourage you to do the Bible reading plan through NLT. But also I encourage you to study the life and the teachings of Jesus as much as you can, because he is the center of it all. He is the word of God. That is his name.
And so, unless you understand Jesus and his life and what he came to do, the other parts of scripture, you’re going to derive the wrong lesson. You’re going to derive, like David, oh, he’s courageous against Goliath. I should be courageous. No, that’s not the takeaway from that passage. He is the son of David. There is a different Messiah who is coming, who will conquer on our behalf. And we look to Jesus.
So we need to really know the life and the teaching of Jesus. How can the Holy Spirit bring to remembrance things that are not in there? It’s the teachings of Christ he brings to remembrance. If your brain is devoid of that, he has nothing to bring to remembrance.
But if you have the teachings of Christ down pat, you have it memorized. You know chapter and verse, the teachings of Jesus, especially the red letters. Then when it’s needed, the Holy Spirit will bring that very verse to life, to remembrance.
That’s one ministry of the Holy Spirit, bringing to remembrance the teachings of Christ. And then John 16, he convicts the world concerning sin, especially the sin of not believing in Jesus.
When a non-believer gets to judgment day, the Holy Spirit will have actively pursued that person to put their trust in Jesus for their duration of their life. And on that day, they will see all the missed opportunities. I believe they had a chance to believe in Jesus on this day. There was a trial and a difficulty. They were brought to their knees.
They had a chance to believe in Jesus this day. The Holy Spirit was there convicting that person. You need to believe in Jesus today. But sadly, they will. Many will miss out, and they will realize, I had a chance, and my main sin is I did not believe in Jesus.
The same goes for the believers. Our main sin, when it comes down to it, is we don’t believe in Jesus the way we should. We should trust him no matter what. He is our shield. He is our protector. He is our shepherd.
He’s going to fight for us. He’s overcome the world for us. He’s overcome sin and death for us. The victory is guaranteed in Christ.
All of this, we should put our full and absolute trust in Jesus. But the spirit is always convicting us. You need to trust in Jesus more. That’s another ministry of the Holy Spirit also.
Same chapter, John 16. The Holy Spirit performed a spotlight ministry, bringing attention to Jesus. Look, to Jesus, there is righteousness. Jesus is utterly righteous. He is so pleasing to the Father.
And the Father thunders from heaven, here is my beloved son. Listen to him. Listen to him. There is righteousness. And so the Holy Spirit does not bring attention to himself. I don’t believe he is a support. He’s bringing attention to Jesus Christ and saying, there is a righteous man. Why don’t you follow him? Why don’t you listen to him? Why don’t you become like him? If you become like Jesus, then you too will become a righteous son and daughter. There is righteousness. The Holy Spirit puts a spotlight on the person of Jesus also.
Number four, Holy Spirit warns us of the coming judgment against Satan. Also in John 16, that we may avoid this judgment at all costs. Hell is only for Satan. It should be only for Satan because it is God’s heart.
In 1 Timothy 2:3, God is our Savior.
3 This is good and pleases God our Savior, (1 Timothy 2:3, NLT)
He wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. Hell is supposed to be just for one person, Satan, and all of his unclean spirits and demons. Not one human is supposed to go there.
The Holy Spirit is warning us of the coming judgment. Do not, do not go there. Believe in Jesus today. Put your faith in Jesus today and avoid the coming judgment.
Number five. Also John 16. The Holy Spirit guides us into all the truth. This is not just biblical truth. I think we need the Holy Spirit to navigate current events. We need the Holy Spirit to navigate just everything we’re seeing in our world, like the mark of the beast. When that comes, society will say, oh, this is good for you.
This is going to be helpful. It’s so convenient. You can have this thing in your body and you can buy and sell. And look how great this technology is.
You need the spirit to evaluate current events, to guide us into truth, so we know which way to go to avoid danger, to avoid hardening ourselves. We need the spirit to guide us into all the truth, not just biblical truth.
Holy Spirit declares to us also John 16: the things that are to come the same way.
In the Old Testament, you had prophets saying, repent, Babylon is being raised up against the people of God. There is a coming judgment. God spoke to the prophets before things happen in the future, and there was an advance warning, and the people had a chance to hear that.
In the same way, before things get worse and worse in our daily life, if we are the final generation before the coming of the Son of man, believe me, we will get advance warning from prophets among us who will give us warning of what we’re about to face.
The universal effects of the Holy Spirit. We read about that in Ephesians 5:18.
18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:18-21, ESV)
There’s a way that we speak to one another when we’re filled with the Spirit. It is not rude, it is not harsh.
There’s a kindness, there’s a gentleness. There’s almost like a song that we’re singing to one another. It’s flowing out of this melody that the spirit is putting in our heart unto the Lord. We’re just overflowing with thanksgiving to God the Father. These are all evidences of fulfilling of the Holy Spirit. And regardless of your rank and your title, there is a submission out of reverence for Christ.
And I bet my family can attest that I am the most pleasant person on any given day of the week, on a Sunday, because especially on a Sunday, I’m very mindful to ask for the filling of the Holy Spirit.
And so is it an accident that I’m the best version of myself on every Sunday? No, it’s not an accident. If I prayed that same way every day, I would be consistently a better person.
And that is my challenge to myself, challenge to all of us. Let’s pray for the filling of the Holy Spirit.
This is universal. It’s universal. The effects. And then there’s a diversity of the spirit or the spirit, specific manifestations of the spirit, which are different. There’s universal, it’s all the same.
And then there’s the distinct, specific manifestations.
1 Corinthians 12:4-11, there are nine spiritual gifts. And then in verse 28, along with some of the offices, it mentions three more. I don’t think this is an exhaustive list, but I’ll read them.
Number one, word of wisdom. Number two, word of knowledge. Number three, faith. Number four, healing. Number five, working of miracles.
Number six, prophecy. Number seven, ability to distinguish between spirits. Number eight, various kinds of tongues.
Number nine, interpretation of tongues. Number ten, teaching. Number eleven, helping. Number twelve, administration. And that, again, I think is not an exhaustive list.
I preached on Acts 2 some time ago when we were worshiping in Old Town Pasadena, and there was a visitor who was charismatic leaning. I was preaching about Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
And she came after me and said, why didn’t you pray for everyone in the congregation to receive tongues as part of the service? And we just started talking, and it turned into a debate. I said, I understand the book of Acts. A lot of times when the Spirit came, tongues were there accompanying the coming of the Spirit of God. But when I read scripture, I don’t see it every single time. If it was that important, Jesus would have mentioned it. He would have said, believe, be baptized, and speak in tongues.
Then you will be saved. He doesn’t say that. He says, believe, be baptized, and you will be saved. Anybody who calls on the Lord will be saved.
So she tried to make it a salvation issue, like if you don’t have this evidence of the spirit, which is in the form of tongues, then you must not be saved. And your congregation, they must not be saved. So you should be praying for this gift of tongues.
If you read 1 Corinthians 12, tongue is just one of the gifts. So would it be nice to have.
Yes, I’ve asked for it. I have not received it.
I take it to mean that some people need tongues to be set free, maybe from whatever binds them, or maybe they need encouragement in their prayers.
The fact that I haven’t received it, I take it to be positive that God is okay with my prayer life. And so if I need help, he’s going to give me help. But for now, I’m okay.
There are other gifts that I ask for. Some I have, maybe, some I don’t, obviously, but we ask for it.
Pastor Brian, he is my pastor. He is very spiritually gifted. And so I’ve witnessed this firsthand. When I had a herniated disc, I went to his revival service. I did not get healed in that moment, but later that night, I thanked the Lord for meeting me. And then He met me in my bedroom. That herniated disc was healed, and I woke up the next morning with a new back. I attribute that to his gifting. He was praying for healing, and somehow it lingered. That gift lingered, the effects lingered.
And Jesus met me in my bedroom. There were other times I had a fever. I called him up in the middle of a fever. He prayed over me. During the call, the fever broke.
So I’ve witnessed this healing gift. It is legitimate. I’ve seen too many times like this gift being exercised. And seeing the effects, I went to him.
There was this one guy who was a part of our church. I think this is before any of your time, so I can talk about this.
He wanted to become baptized and become a member of our church. And so I did my due diligence and I was asking for his testimony. During the course of him sharing his testimony, he was confessing to some crimes. These are rather heinous crimes of rape and murder. I think he grew up in a Catholic church, and I think he thought that I’m like a Catholic priest, so whatever he says to me is confidential. I told him I am not a Catholic priest.
If you’ve committed a crime, I’m going to have to call the police. So it was escalating. It was getting very serious very quickly. So I asked Pastor Brian, can you pray for this situation? I don’t know what to do. The police are getting involved. He’s getting hostile. He hasn’t quite left the church. He’s threatened a lawsuit. So it’s getting strange. And then he, using his gift of the word of knowledge, says, why don’t you ask him, are you lying?
I said, that’s such a weird thing to ask a person who’s confessing to these crimes. But sure enough, he was lying. These are spiritual gifts. Never would have thought to ask him that question. But that is a gift. That the word of knowledge and healing that I’ve witnessed firsthand.
But that chapter of spiritual gifts, if we think it’s so important that you have tongues and prophecy and all these things, it ends with a curious verse. In 1 Corinthians 12:31, it says,
31But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.(1 Corinthians 12:31, ESV)
So there’s a more excellent way than to be a spirit-filled church, exercising these gifts. If something is missing, as covered in the next chapter, then all of that will be terrible. To be a spiritually gifted church, Chapter 12, without Chapter 13, which is all about love, we would have missed the mark entirely.
And this chapter is all about love. Verse 1.
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-13, ESV)
This chapter is quoted a lot at weddings. I don’t think it’s fitting necessarily for a wedding. This is about a spirit-filled church. And the Corinthian church is an example of a spirit-filled, gifted church exercising all the gifts. But they miss the most important ingredient, which is love, which is why the whole church fractured and started falling apart.
And you might know some leaders in God’s church. They might have gifts, they might be charismatic, they might have a big personality, they might be impressive teachers and leaders, and they have all of these things and qualities going for them.
But you look at them, do they love me? Are they a loving person? Or are they the opposite? Are they impatient? Are they rude? Do they insist on their way? Do they get easily irritable? And that’s somehow excused?
It’s not love at our church.
May we be the least spiritually gifted church in America or in the world, but may we be very loving? To me, that would be a win at this church.
If we are a loving church with just minimal or zero spiritual gifts, that would be way better than all the gifts and no love.
Let me just end with Galatians 5:16. The fruit of the spirit, verse 16.
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. (Galatians 5:16-26, ESV)
If God has his way, may we have the least gifts. That’s okay. But we cannot be the least in love. We must bear the fruit of the spirit. It’s not fruits, it’s a single fruit. It’s like a cluster of grapes. Every one of these characteristics should grow simultaneously, starting with the first one. Love.
So as you look back on 2024 so far, it’s kind of like a midterm self-examination. Have you grown in love? Have I grown in love? When people gather here, is there more love being shared amongst us?
The gifts aside, it’d be great if we’re gifted spiritually, but I trust that we will have every gift we need to finish our race effectively and efficiently.
So it’s like we don’t know our course. Our course is different from Paul. Paul needed everything that he wrote about in 1 Corinthians 12 to accomplish his task and finish his race.
But for our unique race, I trust that the spirit will gift us appropriately so that we can be effective in our race.
But this one, the fruit of the Spirit, is something we all must have in greater and greater proportion. And as we ask for the filling of the Holy Spirit, yes, it’s for power, it’s for ministry, it’s for impact, yes. But more fundamental than the external things is what’s growing on the inside. It is the spirit of Christ, Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit in us bearing this type of fruit, especially love.
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, thank you for teaching us that among every person living on earth, we are those who are expected to ask for the Holy Spirit because we already have him. We already have a seal. We already have a deposit. We already have a portion. But, Lord, you’ve taught us now that we should be thirsty for more. Increase our thirst.
May we not be quenched by anything else as we live out our day. May we become more and more thirsty as a reminder for us to ask for the Holy Spirit every time we grab for a glass of water because we’re physically thirsty. May that be a reminder spiritually. We should be asking for more of the filling of the Holy Spirit because we’re spiritually thirsty.
Holy Spirit, we pray that you fill us so that we can have a song as we relate with one another, a melody in our heart unto the Lord, a thanksgiving that overflows to God our Father. A spirit-generated humility, a reverence out of reverence for Christ. We pray that you give all the spiritual gifts, the twelve that we read about in 1 Corinthians 12, and more. We pray that you pour out the gifts as you see fit.
If his tongues may be tongues, if his teaching may be teaching, if it’s helping, may we be the best helper. If it’s administration, may we help organize.
Lord, please, whatever gifts that we need to finish our race up effectively, may you pour it out to us now in this time, Lord. But more than the ministry and the impact, we ask for the fruit. If we’re not becoming more like Christ in terms of our love and our joy, our peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, then we have nothing.
So, Lord, we ask that we would bear this kind of fruit. That when you see fit, you would send us out as your hands and feet, as your workers for the harvest field. For now, Lord, you’re concentrating and focusing our attention on the fruit. Are we growing in this most critical way? Especially love.
We thank you for your body that was broken for us and your blood that was shed. You did this to birth the church at Pentecost. We thank you for your Spirit.
We pray that you come baptize us now as we fellowship with you. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
