Keywords = Multiply, Acts, Holy Spirit, filing, leaders. Note: This sermon has been edited for readability

Transcription

1 Multiply (the book of Acts) Week 10 Acts 11 Darrin Patrick March 15, 2015 Keywords = Multiply, Acts, Holy Spirit, filing, leaders Note: This sermon has been edited for readability Copyright 2015 The Journey The Person of The Holy Spirit Well, some sermons are more teachy than preachy. I hope that communicates. Sometimes it's just real inspiring and the guy's talking loud and then sometimes there's a lot of teaching going on. I usually try to do a combination of those because I think both of those are Biblical and right and good. Today I want to say that this is more of a teachy sermon, because what I need to do is talk to you about the main character in the book of Acts. As we have said numerous times, we believe that Christianity is different than religion. Religion is basically advice this is how you reach God, this is how you love people with a little bit of story sprinkled in. But Christianity is really a story with a little bit of advice sprinkled in. Specifically, it's made up of a group of stories. It's one big story with a group of little stories. One of those little stories is the book of Acts. The book of Acts has a main character, a main character who's mentioned almost 60 times in the book, and in the text that we are going to read, he is mentioned about five times. And it's a little deceiving if you look in your Bible at the first page of Acts. Though it says, "The Acts of the Apostles," many think that was misnamed. That was not the inspired title. It was some guy saying, Well, this is what this is. Actually, it s the Acts of the Holy Spirit through the apostles. This book has as its main character the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is very difficult to understand. He s the least understood member of the Trinity. Father and Son, we get that. We get that relationship, some of us directly as men and certainly as women with daughters and fathers. We get all that, but how do you have a relationship with a spirit? How does that work? It just confounds our head. What does that look like? I'm a person, that's a spirit. The Bible doesn't really help us in a lot of ways. In Genesis 1 & 2, you've got the Spirit hovering over the unformed world. In John 3, Jesus doesn't help us. He said, "Oh, the Spirit's like the wind." Really? The wind? Then in Matthew 3, when Jesus was baptized, the Spirit is like a dove. Then He's called the Holy Ghost in the old King Jimmy version. You get all these, but still: What is this Holy Spirit? Who is this Holy Spirit? Multiply Week 10 (Acts 11) 1 of 10

2 It's easy to say what is the Holy Spirit and not who is the Holy Spirit. What I mean by that is, it's easy to think that the Holy Spirit is a what is a influence, is a presence, but that He's not a person. That is very easy to do. The Bible doesn't say that the Trinity is two persons and an influence, but that we have three persons. One God, three persons, one what, three whos. This Holy Spirit, this main character of the book of Acts is a person. I want to show you this. If you'll look with me in Acts chapter 13 we ll camp out at the end of Acts chapter 11 in just a minute but Acts chapter 13, I think, clearly tells us about the personage of the Holy Spirit. We'll get to this text in a couple weeks and I'm really excited about that particular sermon. I m going to talk about our vision for church planting. Look in chapter 13, verse 1, it says, "Now there were in the church at Antioch, prophets and teachers, Barnabus, Simeon who is called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul." Now verse 2: "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for Me, Barnabus and Saul, for the work to which I have called them to.' Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off." The Holy Spirit said, so an influence can't say. Something that is not a person can't say, "Set apart the work that I've called them to, for the work I've called them to, set apart for Me." See, He's a person. He's a real person and we can know Him and we can experience Him. That is the promise of God in Scripture: if we give our lives to Jesus, if we surrender and stop trying to be our own savior and stop trying to save ourselves and stop trying to be the boss of our life if we really give our lives to Jesus He in turn not only gives us His right standing before God (his righteousness), we get the Holy Spirit. That is the good news of Christianity. You do not have to live your life on your own. You have God himself dwelling within you. We re going to get into this later on. I ll tease it right now. It s not ever that we need to get more of the Spirit. I know how it is in some church circles, Oh God, give me more Spirit. That s in some of the worship song. Give me more of Your Spirit. You don t need more of the Spirit. He s a person. How do you get more of a person if the person s with you? You ve got Him! You don t need to get more of the Spirit, but the Spirit can get more of you. Now that's an important distinction, as we're going to see, because Jesus promised in Acts chapter 1 something that was fulfilled actually throughout the book of Acts, the last one in chapter 10. In Acts chapter 1, verse 5 it says, "You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." This is Jesus talking to the disciples. He is getting ready to ascend into heaven and He says, "Listen. I'm leaving, but I'm not going to leave you as orphans. I'm going to come to you and you're going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit." We see this happening three times in the book of Acts, this baptism of the Holy Spirit: Acts chapter 2 at the day of Pentecost, where all the Jews were assembled from all the nations, and God literally gives them His Spirit for the first time, not to just dwell from without, but to come from within. Now the Holy Spirit sets up residence. They speak in tongues, which was really them preaching the gospel in other languages in that context. The Jews get the Holy Spirit. Then Multiply Week 10 (Acts 11) 2 of 10

3 in Acts chapter 8 we saw this a few weeks ago the Samaritans, the Jews who had compromised their faith, the Jews who true orthodox Jews said, "You're no longer a part of us," they get the Spirit. Then in Acts chapter 10 we saw last week the Gentiles get the Spirit, the people who are totally outside of God's covenant, totally antithetical to the teachings of the Old Testament. They get the Holy Spirit. Those three things are God saying, "Every ethnicity gets to play. Every person from every tongue and every tribe gets to be a part of My family. Every person gets My Spirit." That is what's called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There's one of those. You're baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ. The Spirit comes into your life, joins you to other believers. There's one of those. That happens when you become a Christian. There's one baptism, but as we're going to see, there are many fillings of the Holy Spirit. We're going to see this throughout the book, so I'm just teasing it today. You're like, "You got to give me a full theology on all this, because I've got questions." Hang with us. We're going to tease it today, but I just want to establish that. That's what we believe at The Journey. THE PURPOSE OF THE SPIRIT When the Holy Spirit fills us, there are a few things that happen. When the Holy Spirit fills us, there are a few purposes that happen in us and through us. One of those purposes that the Spirit has in filling us and being in our lives is the He will guide us into all truth. The Spirit Guides Us Into Truth The Spirit guides us into all truth. This is what John chapter 16 is talking about. In John chapter 16, verses 13 and 14, the Bible says that, "When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will glorify Me." This is Jesus talking. One of the purposes of the Spirit is to guide us into truth and to glorify Jesus. The idea is this, to glorify means to magnify. It's like a magnifying glass. You get to see something bigger with more detail than it is. That's the Spirit's job, to glorify Jesus. Another way to say it: the Spirit's job is to make Jesus famous. When the Spirit comes in your life, know what He's going to do? He's going to make Jesus famous. He's not going to make you famous. He's going to make Jesus famous. You may have some gifts that other people recognize, but at the end of the day, when you get behind that, when you get behind the personality, when you get behind the charisma, when you get behind the work, it's Jesus doing the deal. It s about the message not the messenger, because the Spirit guides us into truth. If you're a person who's increasingly filled with the Spirit, walking by the Spirit there are all these metaphors used in the Bible led by the Spirit, you are going to be guided into truth. In a practical way, the Spirit authenticates and illuminates the Scriptures. You re not going to be Multiply Week 10 (Acts 11) 3 of 10

4 Spirit- filled without the Scriptures. You re not going to be guided into truth apart from the Scriptures. One of the early Protestant reformers, John Calvin, says that the Spirit gives us this inner witness in our hearts. I don't know if this happened to you, it happened to me. I was a guy, didn't know the Bible, didn't understand anything about Christianity. I become a Christian through the influence of some friends and reading the Bible, and it was clear. I'm not saying I understood everything. Sometimes you read the Bible and it's just like, "What? I don't get it." That just means you're reading the Bible. There s some stuff in there that s hard to understand. I don t care how many times you read it. I ve got a lot of degrees. I still struggle. But there s something that happened in me that led me to say, This is true. I can t explain it fully. There are some things that I m still working through, trying to understand. But there was this inner witness. I get it. There s this authentication that God s truth is real. That s the Spirit. That s the Spirit. As God's Spirit fills you, you become more and more trusting of His Word. It's just the way it works. Don't do like most Christians do. Most Christians do Bible roulette. You ever do that? Like you need a verse, you need a word and you're like {flipping pages}. You're like, "Okay, no, that's not good. Let's try that again. Glad that wasn't a real bullet." Actually, that's pretty close in the sense that there's a cluelessness that happens when you do Bible roulette. You just don't know what to do. In a similar way, every time you read the Bible, every time you read the Bible, you should pretend like you're in the dark. You should pretend like you're in the dark. You should ask the Holy Spirit to shine light on what He has inspired and written through men. That's part of this guiding into all truth. If you're struggling with that, pray like the psalmist said, open your eyes. "Open my eyes, O Lord, that I might see wonderful things in Your law." This is the privilege of being a Christian. The Spirit can lead you. The Bible is boring and you're burned out. The reason why and I've been there is we're not letting the Holy Spirit lead. We're not letting the Holy Spirit fill us. When you read the Bible, the Holy Spirit's at work in your life. If you invite Him, He will guide you into all truth. He will make Jesus famous. The Spirit Convicts Us When We Sin The Spirit also convicts us when we sin. The Spirit convicts us when we sin. Convict is a word from jurisprudence, isn't it, like you go to jail. You're convicted. You're a convict, but I think it's a good word. Another way to say it: you're arrested. You're arrested and you did it. You're not just falsely accused, you did it. That's what the Holy Spirit does with sin in our lives. When you become a follower of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit enters your life, you begin to have this sense: "Man, I'm not where I ought to be." One of the reasons you know you're a Christian is you're really not that impressed with yourself. You're just like, "Oh, man. God's done a lot of Multiply Week 10 (Acts 11) 4 of 10

5 good stuff, but boy, there's a long way to go." That's part of the work of the Holy Spirit. He's bringing holiness into your life. He's bringing conviction over things that displease Him. That occurs in a ton of different ways, but there's a verse that I think is very helpful. It's actually only understood in this context. This is can be radically misunderstood. This is 1 John, chapter 3. The apostle John says, "No one born of God" nobody's a Christian "makes" very important language here "a practice of sinning. For God's seed" another word for the Holy Spirit "abides in him. He cannot keep on sinning because he's been born of God." This one can mess you up because you're like, "Wait a minute. Uh- oh, I sin all the time." This is balanced with another verse. And this is one of the main principles of interpreting Scripture: you compare Scripture with Scripture. The idea is this verse along with another verse, Hebrews 12, says, "There cannot be a son that does not have discipline." In other words, what father would not discipline his son? Those things together are key. This is not saying if you sin, even habitually in an area, you're not a Christian. What it's saying is if you sin habitually in an area, and you don't have discipline from your father, conviction from your father, if the seed in you is not growing, sprouting holiness going, "Don't do that," then you're not a Christian. Christians, when they sin, they get miserable. Can I get a witness? Yeah, it's not fun. You can't sleep. You're agitated. You're defensive. You can't enjoy your sin. That's the worst part of it. It's horrible. I remember after I became a Christian, I was a mess, man. Drugs, alcohol, just crazy sexual immorality. The drugs and the alcohol were gone. That was easy, real easy. The sex part, not so much. Took a long time. I remember one time after sinning in that area, it wasn t audible we ve seen and are going to see some prophetic, cool, audible stuff in the book of Acts but it was internally audible. Had God ever talked to you like that? You didn t hear it, but it was so good. This is not who you are anymore. This is not who you are. That conviction was so loud, so strong, so powerful, so clear. I m like, Okay, all right. I get it. I get it. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. It's progressive. It doesn't happen overnight, but it's very powerful. This is God's work in our life. This is what the Holy Spirit does. He's bringing about conviction. Sometimes conviction can sound a lot like some other things that are not good, like guilt. Guilt is pressure from people to conform or change to something they want you to do. Guilt's not necessarily conviction. Condemnation is not conviction. Condemnation is when Satan says, Ah, look. You screwed up. You re a loser. You re always going to struggle. That s not God. That s not conviction. That s the counterfeit of conviction. When God convicts you, it s very specific and it s very inviting. This is wrong, right here. Now, come to Me. Condemnation, which is from Satan, says, You are wrong. Stay there. You re never going to change. There is no hope. Discern the voices because they're there. Every time you sin, you're going to have at least two voices, maybe three. You will have condemnation, that's from Satan. You will have conviction, that's from God. You might have guilt from your religious friends, who are around you, or your Multiply Week 10 (Acts 11) 5 of 10

6 mom. The voice you ve got to hear first and respond to first is conviction. Why? Because that's what the Holy Spirit does. He convicts us of our sin. The Spirit Marks Us As Belonging to God The Holy Spirit also marks us as belonging to God. I love this. The Holy Spirit literally marks us. I love this verse in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians says, chapter 1, "God has put His seal on us and has given us His Spirit in our hearts as a down payment." The Spirit is a down payment. The Spirit is a seal. This is talked about throughout Scripture. The idea is that the Spirit does something in us on the inside. It's very interesting. It's experiential. We've talked about it in the past that Christianity is objective. It's historical. It exists apart from our experience. It's outside. It doesn't matter if we experience it. It doesn't matter if we believe. It exists. It's objective, but it's also subjective. Why? Because of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. It's a down payment. Some of you are buying houses. A few of you own your house. But very few people actually own their house. "What do you mean? Well, I own my..." No, no, you're buying your house. The bank owns your house. What gave you the ability to start buying your house or own your house? Your down payment. Now, after all the subprime stuff, you actually have to have a down payment to buy a house. It's a novel idea. You have to put money down and it's saying, "One day, I will own this, and here's my guarantee." That's what God has done with His Spirit in our lives. He's like, "I own you, but one day I will fully own you. That will be in heaven, but on the way to heaven, more and more and more will My ownership, My leadership, My influence be in control of your life." That's the privilege of being in the Spirit. He's put His seal on us. There's a, "You're mine." A seal has to do with "you're mine." Kings would have these rings and they would punch them into wax. "Oh, the king. That's the king's seal. He owns this. He endorses this. He authorizes this." This is what God does with us. That's why when Jesus was baptized, the Father didn't say, "This is My beloved Son in whom I can't wait to see how He does and performs and then I'm pleased with Him." No, He says before He lifted a finger to do one act of ministry, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." This is why in the book of Galatians it says that we've been given the Spirit and it cries out, "Abba" or Father. There's this thing in us because of the Holy Spirit that is beautiful. God just says... It's like your kids. Do you love your kids more when you hug them? Well, I mean, we could argue parenting theory or whatever but, no but, when I hug them... In other words, do I love them whether I hug them at this moment or not? No, I love them. They're my kids. But when I hug them, they feel it. That's what the Holy Spirit wants that emotional connection to us, not just our heads, but our hearts. He marks us. He seals us. We are His. The Spirit Empowers Us To Overcome Sin Multiply Week 10 (Acts 11) 6 of 10

7 Lastly, here's what the Holy Spirit does. He empowers us to overcome sin. It's not just that He convicts us of sin. That's important. He convicts us of sin, but He empowers us to overcome sin. You have power to not sin. You don't have to sin. "Well, I just couldn t help myself." Yes, you could if you're a Christian. There may be some strongholds, there may be some stuff you need to work through with prayer, there may be some counseling, but you can overcome sin. You can. You just can. It's possible because of the Spirit. The key's not willpower. "I don't want to lust. I don't want to lust. I don't want to lust." No, no. The key is being filled with the Spirit, letting Him influence your life, letting Him be in control. Then you're fighting not with your strength, but His. That's the privilege of the Holy Spirit in our lives. There's this crazy verse in the book of James, who we're going to get to talk about a couple chapters from now. James says He yearns jealously. "God yearns jealously over the Spirit that He has made to dwell in us." In the Old Testament, God is called a jealous God. You're like, "Jealous? I thought the Bible says not to be jealous." Well, it's okay for God to be jealous because He made us, He wants all of us. There s something about the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has these lusts, if you will, these jealous lusts over us. He wants all of us. The key is to let the Spirit's lusts overcome our lusts. When that happens, His lust throws out all of our lusts. The key to sexual purity, the key to not being angry, the key to not being insecure is not you powering up and reading a self- help book and figuring it out on your own, it's the Spirit working in your life as He fills your life. SPIRIT- FILLED LEADERS What does this have to do with Acts, chapter 11? Everything! Because at the end of Acts, chapter 11, this zoom in on the Holy Spirit happens. We get to see what happens practically when the Holy Spirit fills the life of a leader. Here's what you need to know. I could say all kinds of things about the Holy Spirit. We could draw all kinds of implications about the text, but we're just going to go real quick and we're going to see what happened to these leaders at the end of Acts, chapter 11 when the Holy Spirit filled their life. What happened to them? Deal with Conflict Directly Here's a couple things. One, when the Holy Spirit filled these leaders, they dealt with conflict directly. Look actually in the beginning of Acts, chapter 11. We're in the whole chapter, but focusing here on the end. In the beginning of Acts 11, we're going to see how the Spirit helped them deal with conflict directly. Peter had just seen this vision. We saw this last week. God says, "I don't care who people are, I want them to know Me." Peter's trying to wrestle through that. He comes to the apostles and brothers who were throughout Judea and the Gentiles that heard that the Gentiles had also received the Word of God, verse 2, so Peter went to Jerusalem. The circumcision party criticized him. "You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them." In other words, "You've Multiply Week 10 (Acts 11) 7 of 10

8 contaminated yourself. You know what the Old Testament teaches. We know Jesus came and dealt with a lot of those laws, but He didn't deal with that one and salvation is for us and not for anybody..." Peter says, "Uh- uh, guys. I got to talk to you. I got to deal directly." These are the power brokers. These are the men. Maybe Jesus' half- brother is part of this. We're not quite sure. It gets cleared up in chapter 15. "Listen. We got to gather together. This is wrong. We got to deal..." If you're filled with the Spirit, you're going to do the same thing. You really are. People who claim to be all spiritual and won't confront anybody, what is that about? That's not the Holy Spirit. That's you having niceness issues. That's not, "Well, I'm just being kind. I don't want to hurt people's feelings." No, you're being a coward. You're being a coward. Spirit- filled people confront. They do it in love. They're not jerks about it. They're not trying to prove a point, but they tell the truth. This is what Spirit- filled people do. Apply God s Truth Specifically Spirit filled leaders also apply God's truth specifically. If you read and we won't take time right now but if you read in chapter 11, Peter takes this great experience that he has, this vision that God showed him and he applied it directly to the situation. There's a humble way to share. "Hey, this is what God's doing in my life." But Peter didn't just ground his teaching, his confrontation on his own experience, he grounded it in God's Word. In chapter 11, verse if you'll look at it, chapter 11, verse he says... I'm sorry, not chapter... I'm in chapter 10. That's why Darrin's having a hard time today. Chapter 11, verse 16, he says, "I remember the Word of the Lord and how He said, 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.'" In other words, he doesn't just take it back to this subjective vision experience, he took it back to God's Word. This is what Spirit filled people do. I remember when we started the church, and even in the history of the church, people come in and say, "Hey, I'm a Spirit filled person." I'm like, "That's an interesting way to announce yourself, but okay. Hi, I'm Darrin." "Well, what does the church believe about the Holy Spirit?" I said, "Well, we believe that the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus." "What do you think about the gifts of the Holy Spirit?" "We think He gives great gifts and we think all of them are real." You get in these conversations and I would always go, "Tell me about how you read the Bible?" Spirit- filled people tend to use categories about the Bible, but don't use the Bible. Not all, but some. I'm just going to say, if you're Spirit filled, you're going to love the Bible. You're going to use the categories that the Bible gives you. Peter says, "I'm not relying on my own experience." Are we more Spirit- filled than Peter? Were we closer? No, no, no. Peter's like, "I don't want to ground what I'm going to tell you in my experience, but in what the Bible says. My authority doesn t come from my experience, my authority comes from God thorugh Scripture." Any experience we have must be submitted to Scripture. There are some crazy experiences. We're going to get into it, but I'm just telling you. We've got to be careful not to go farther in our experience than the Scripture goes. Multiply Week 10 (Acts 11) 8 of 10

9 Share Leaders Generously Another thing happens in this text, and this is what Spirit filled leaders do. They share leaders generously. This sounds kind of weird, but you say, "What do you mean you share leaders?" If you're a Spirit- filled Christian, what you're going to do is you're going to influence people. You're going to connect with people. One of the thing you have as a leader and I use the word leader because every follower of Christ in that sense is a leader because the Spirit lives in you you're going to attract followers. People are going to come and want to learn from you, grow from you. That's going to happen. One day, one day, they're going to need to leave. They're going to need to go somewhere else. They're going to either move or someone else is going to need them to serve in the ministry or do something like that. It's very difficult. I'm going to be honest with you. I've read the Bible straight through and doing it again this year, I don't know, dozens of times. I ve read the book of Acts hundreds of times. I've never seen this like this: For instance, in Romans, chapter 16, verse 1, Phoebe, Paul says, "I'm sending Phoebe to the church in Rome. I commend our sister. She's a servant. Please welcome her." Titus he sends to the church for a collection with the Jewish believers. He says, "He accepted our appeal and he's earnest and he wants to go of his own accord, and we're sending with him a brother who is famous for among all the churches for preaching the Gospel." Paul sent his best preacher out of his church. Timothy. He says, "I have no one like Timothy who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare, so I'm sending him." Epaphroditus. "He's my dear brother. He's my fellow soldier. I'm sending him to you." Over and over again, I could just keep reading them. In the New Testament, leaders are moved all over the place. "We love our community group." "I know, but that guy can lead 15 more people." "We love our pastor." "I know, but if he goes over here, fruit will be multiplied more." This is what happened in our West County church. We had a pastoral vacancy in our new church in Southern Illinois and our lead pastor in West County said, "You know what? Let's send Rusty, Rusty Maple. He's one of our shepherding pastors. We love him. We don't want to lose him, but he's needed." And they released him for that work. That's what Spirit- filled leaders do. Spirit filled leaders do not hang on and control. They're generous. That goes for your children and that goes for your friends in your community group, and that goes for your pastors. You realize, "You know what? This is bigger than my comfort. This is bigger than us having a good, little deal." God wants us to be generous. Respond to God s Voice Promptly Last thing and I'll read these verses at the end of chapter 11 they respond to God's voice promptly. At the end of chapter 11, it says, "Now in the days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch and one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there will be a great famine over all the world." This took place in the days of Claudius. This Multiply Week 10 (Acts 11) 9 of 10

10 happened. He predicted it beforehand. Verse 29: "The disciples determined everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea and they did so, sending it to the elders by the hands of Barnabus and Saul." Earlier, Barnabus is the guy who'd been sent around and now he's taking this money to help these people who are going to be starving. I love this because I've said, "Bible, Bible, Bible." You know what? God has people who speak prophetically too. It's happened over and over in our church. Some of you, God speaks to you that way. Here's the thing. Agabus had to have the courage to actually bring that forth. It takes a lot of courage. It takes you responding to God's voice promptly. You've got a response. God says, "Hey, you had this impression. You had this leading. You had this..." We call it all kinds of things. "You had this guidance, you had this thought, you had this sense." You've got to be able to speak it, and he did it. He had the courage to do it. He didn't come up and say, "Thus sayeth the Lord..." like in the Old Testament where it was God's Word. No, he just said, "Hey, I think this... " and we see how he did it later on in the book of Acts. There's a humility saying, "Listen, this is a sense that I have." God had used him before. That's why they called him a prophet in this way. Then the church had to hear it and respond to it. This is what happens in the lives of Spirit- filled people. Supernatural things happen. Spirit- filled people respond. They don't go, "Well, that guy's not on our team. Where'd he come from? Why is he dressed so weird?" Didn't do that. They responded. They sensed God's voice in his voice. We'll get into, "If guys can speak... how does that work with the Bible?" We're going to get into all that, but the point is, it's real. God uses it. We always have to submit anything that any human being says under what God has already said, but that doesn't mean that God can't speak through people, but it takes courage. It takes humility to respond to God's voice. This is what these leaders did. I'll leave you with this. Are you one of these leaders? Are you one of these Spirit filled leaders? "Well, I had this great experience with the Holy Spirit back in the '80s." That's not what I'm talking about. "Well, I read this book and had this spiritual gift thing happen and spoke in tongues." Great. What's going on right now? The Spirit didn't want to just fill you in the '80s or at church last week, but right now, every moment. This is the beauty of the Holy Spirit, every moment He wants to fill us, and enables us to confront. He enables us to be generous with the people around us. He enables us to respond to God. When I'm filled with the Spirit, God didn't have to beat me on the head. He could just whisper. I'm like, "Okay." You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm talking about? This is the opportunity. When His influence is greater than ours, when He is increasing and we are decreasing. It's our prayer that that would happen, so pray with me. Lord, help us to submit, surrender to Your Spirit. Help us to trust You and to let You lead us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Multiply Week 10 (Acts 11) 10 of 10