Have you, ever had an experience, an encounter/ with the Holy Spirit?

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1 Date: May 26-27, 2018 Speaker: Shane Simms - Pastor of Adult Discipleship Scripture: The Story New Beginnings If you ve been tracking The Story for the past 27 sessions, this is what we have seen. Humans sin against God in the Garden of Eden. God sends people to continually tell them that He loves them. He sends prophets- many people hate them, many of the prophets are killed. God, now decides to invest Himself, and sends His Son Jesus to tell humans the same thing, that He loves them. And, like the prophets, many people hate Jesus, and they kill Him. We heard last week, that through a powerful act of God, Jesus is raised from the dead. We see at the beginning of this chapter, that 40 days after his resurrection, He is taken back to heaven where he came from in the beginning. So, up to this point in The Story, people have experienced God in a few different ways: 1. Adam and Eve experienced direct companionship with God the Father in the Garden of Eden (We are told they even walked with God in the cool breeze of the garden). 2. The people of Israel encountered God the Son through the person of Jesus Christ during his short 3-year ministry on earth. But now, people are going to encounter God, in a whole new way. In chapter 28, people who are Jesus followers, are going to experience God in a way they never have before. They are going to have an encounter the likes of which humanity has never experienced, an encounter that puts the full creative power of God on display. Humanity, followers of Jesus, are about to have an encounter with God, the Holy Spirit. So, this language, of an encounter with the Holy Spirit will definitely mean many different things in a room with this many people in it, it will arouse many different thoughts in people in a multicultural, multi-denominational church setting. And that s OK- it s beautiful actually. But before I go on to explain what this encounter with the Holy Spirit looked like in chapter 28, I want to pose a very simple, yet very meaningful question. Have you, ever had an experience, an encounter/ with the Holy Spirit? I d love for you to take out your smart-phone, tablet, slate and go to Slido.com and enter event code thestory (all one word, all lower case letters) Poll- Have you ever had an encounter with the Holy Spirit? Yes- I can identify specific moments in my life where I have clearly felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. Maybe- I think I may have had an encounter with the Holy Spirit, but I am still wondering if it actually was the Holy Spirit or not. No- I have never had an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Help- This is totally new to me. I have no idea what this really means. Don t overthink the word encounter/experience. The question is simply asking if you have felt, or never felt, or maybe felt, a direct presence of the Holy Spirit in your life in a way that could only be explained as a God-thing. Just so you know, I m very excited for any of you that land in any of these categories. There s no wrong category to land in here. No matter where you respond after this poll, my prayer is that God s word today will produce in you an increased desire to have an experience/encounter with the Holy Spirit that produces Kingdom fruit in your lives. This is exciting stuff! Let s get to chapter 28. Page 1 of 5

2 The last words that people say while on this earth usually stick with the people they say them to, they usually carry, extra weight. Many of you can remember some of the last words that loved ones said to you. In chapter 28, right before Jesus is taken back into heaven, we hear his last words, his last words to a church that is going to continue to do the work, but without Jesus with them. He says this, Acts 1:8-9 or Page You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. After he said this, he was taken before their very eyes and a cloud hid him from their sight So, these last words, these weight carrying words, of Jesus instruct the followers of Jesus to wait for power, and this power will come when the Holy Spirit comes upon you This is a new thing for these Jesus followers very much unknown territory. Let me fill in some more of the blanks here. The Jesus followers are in Jerusalem during a festival called Pentecost. Pentecost simply comes from a Greek word that simply means 50, because this festival happens roughly 50 days after Passover. And in this time period, it s a BIG festival, there are people in Jerusalem from everywhere to celebrate. As a matter of fact, if you read the chapter, and this is all found in Acts 1 & 2, you will see that there were people in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews, who believed in God, but knew nothing about Jesus, from everywhere. We are told that there are people in Jerusalem, at the festival of Pentecost, who don t know about Jesus, from at least 12 different countries. And with this, there were many different languages that were being spoken in the city of Jerusalem during this festival In a city that normally occupied 40,000 people, you quite possibly had 200,000 more people, coming from everywhere, who God wants to reach with the good news of Jesus, BUT you have a group of Galilean Jesus followers who don t speak their languages. There is no way to reach them. There is a gospel transmission problem of massive proportions here. What-ever will God do to bridge this gap? Let me read from The Story, pg. 390, When the day of Pentecost came, they (Jesus followers), were all together in one place. Suddenly, a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues/languages as the Spirit enabled them So, this is the first encounter that the followers of Jesus have with the Holy Spirit. And it was a supernatural encounter that has caused much conversation, tension, debate, throughout the history of the church. There are clearly many other ways that people have had and do have encounters with the Holy Spirit that look very different than this encounter. But this one was different for a couple of reasons. Let me show you what s really going on here. Let s read a little more from The Story Now there were staying in Jerusalem Godfearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked, Aren t those people speaking all Galileans? Then how is it, that we hear them speaking in our own native language? We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own language. At the festival of Pentecost, God has a challenge to the transmission of the gospel. About 200,000 people in town, and none of them speak the language that the Jesus followers are speaking. Also, none of these people know the gospel of Jesus. And, God wants them to know. At Pentecost, God has a gospel transmission problem, that requires a creative solution. God sends the Holy Spirit, into the world, to encounter the apostles to give them power, to continue the message of Jesus to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and global. The Holy Spirit encounters the apostles, and Page 2 of 5

3 equips them with a temporary supernatural ability to speak the languages of the 200,000 foreigners present, so these foreigners could hear the good news of Jesus- the wonders of God. The Holy Spirit s encounter with these apostles, in this instance, was the first time the followers of Jesus encountered the Holy Spirit, and it was very unique because it was for the express purpose of ensuring that the gospel didn t stall out in Jerusalem, but that it actually continued to move. God s express purpose in this chapter, for the apostles encounter with the Holy Spirit to result in supernatural tongues speech, was so that foreigners could hear the gospel, and respond to it, and carry it home. Did God s plan work? The apostle Peter, in response to all this chaos, gets the chance to explain this to the people around him, and preaches to them about Jesus. God has raised this Jesus to life. We are all witnesses of it. Let everyone be assured of this. God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said What shall we do? Peter replies, repent and be baptized, every one of you. Those who accepted this message were baptized, about 3000 were added to their number that day.. Wow. What a story! What an experience with the Holy Spirit! If I could capture this story in one sentence, this is what I would say. In this chapter, the Holy Spirit encounters the Jesus followers to empower them to overcome a boundary/barrier, that was standing in the way of the good news of Jesus from going forward into the world. Let me take a moment to remind you how the Holy Spirit encountered people on the day of Pentecost, and why it has caused some confusion in parts of the Christian church. God had a bunch of preachers, who had a mass audience that they were linguistically incapable of sharing the gospel with- the challenge. The creativity of God comes through the person of the Holy Spirit who gives them, the Jesus followers, the tongues/languages to share the gospel with the masses- the solution. Through the apostle s ministry, the culmination of this Holy Spirit encounter is that 3000 people come to Christ on the day of Pentecost and the church begins its rapid growth throughout the empire and the world- the result. The first encounter with the Holy Spirit that Jesus followers ever had, was an encounter that specifically enabled the Jesus followers to overcome barriers in sharing the gospel with others. It is my prayer that based on this, that we all would have, that we would most earnestly seek, an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Because, it is God s intense desire, that we would have an encounter with the Holy Spirit, because it is in those encounters that God will propel us into the mission of sharing the gospel with others, regardless of the barriers that may be present. With as much sensitivity as I can, I would like to express that as a minister in the Pentecostal tradition for 15 years and for many years as an adjunct professor of Pentecostal theology through one of Canada s leading seminaries, that it is my theological conviction that the focus of an experience with the Holy Spirit in this text is not the primarily the event of tongues. The focus of the experience with the Holy Spirit in this text is the Holy Spirit breaking down any barriers that humanity can present to the sharing/spreading of the gospel. The barrier on the day of Pentecost was languages, so God through the Holy Spirit gave them languages to share the gospel. In the entire book of Acts, the Holy Spirit is breaking down different barriers that stop the spreading of the good news of Jesus. Boundaries of language- the Holy Spirit breaks them down. Boundaries of fear- the Holy Spirit breaks them down. Boundaries of persecution- the Holy Spirit breaks them down. Boundaries of culture- the Holy Spirit breaks them down. Boundaries of religious tradition- the Holy Spirit breaks them down. Every time a Jesus follower seeks an experience with the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, and there s a boundary that threatens the gospel from going Page 3 of 5

4 forward, the Holy Spirit..breaks it down. He is a boundary breaking Spirit! As we look at the results of our poll again, I want to encourage us all, that we need to be seeking an experience with the Holy Spirit, because it is those experiences where God will break down barriers in our lives and in the lives of others to reach people for Christ. We need not be afraid of spending time praying that we would encounter the Holy Spirit so that he would break down the barriers that are preventing us from sharing the gospel the way we ought to be. I spent many years as part of a church culture that sometimes focused on experiences with the Holy Spirit, but not necessarily praying that such experiences had much to do with God s mission. I recall as a much younger man, in a church service something like this one, I responded to a call for prayer for people who just wanted to encounter the Holy Spirit. The call for prayer had nothing really to do with the power of the Holy Spirit to help me be a more effective witness for Christ, it was just to pray for an encounter, to experience something unknown. So, I responded, and I prayed. And as I was praying, I was simply praying, Holy Spirit, I want to meet you, I want to know you, I want to experience you. I have no idea what you want to do, but I m open. Please meet me in this space. I prayed that way, standing in front of the church, for minutes. And, there was no miraculous outpouring on me like happened in chapter 28, nothing supernatural or weird. So I just kept praying, not even praying out loud, just praying to myself, in my head. As I prayed, I felt this nudge, not an audible voice, not a mighty rushing wind, not tongues of fire, but a nudge, a strong sense, to leave the place where I was standing in front of the church praying and to go outside. And not outside the auditorium, but outside the church building. This was not what I expected as I was praying for an experience with the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit I want to encounter you, and I don t think me leaving this space and leaving this church is going to help me do that. But being discouraged, but still trying to be obedient, I left the church building. As I did, I saw a friend of mine, who was not a follower of Jesus, in the church parking lot, sitting on the bumper of his car, and he kept saying, I need to do this, but I can t! I had no idea what he was talking about, and he just said again, I need to do this, but I can t! I simply responded, what is it you can t do? He replied, I want to serve Jesus, but I don t have the courage to take that step? Will you walk with me and help me take those first few steps? And we did, together, and in that moment, he crossed into faith into the Kingdom of Jesus I want those kinds of Holy Spirit encounters for you. I want more of those kinds of Holy Spirit experiences for me. Those moments, where we honestly, with no personal agenda, but knowing, and praying, and believing, that in those encounters, he is going to lead us into mission. British Pentecostal scholar, Colin Dye once said, An encounter with the Holy Spirit is not ever about us, it s about the world. As we look at the world we live in today, there are no less barriers to sharing the gospel with others than there were in this chapter of The Story, there may be more. As you think about your own life, your own work-place, your own neighbourhood, your own family, your own spouse, your own sondaughter, your own sibling, your own best friend, what are the obstacles, what are the barriers that stop you from being a witness to them for Christ? Some of you would say, Shane, my friends didn t grow up in church and there s a massive disconnect. I just don t know how to explain this whole God-thing. So for you, there s a barrier of language- you just don t know what to say. Some of you would say, Shane, my friends at work just grew up totally different than I did. I don t even understand the faith they grew up in. It s different than mine. So for you, there s a barrier of religion. Shane, my neighbors immigrated here from another country, and I really don t understand their life story and the way they think about the world. I don t think they d get me. For you, there s a barrier of culture. Shane, The last time I tried to share my faith with my spouse, it didn t go so well. I really don t think it s a good idea to try again. I think I should probably just do my own thing For you, there s a common barrier that many of us face, the barrier of fear. Page 4 of 5

5 An experience with the Holy Spirit, will destroy barriers, and point people to Jesus, and we need to be people who have these Holy Spirit experiences for the sake of others. We will never grow churches, plant churches, minister in our neighbourhoods, be gospel people, simply with slick PowerPoints and social media campaigns. They are tools, and we will use those tools, but they are not how God grows disciples or how God reaches people. That s the Holy Spirit s work, through us as we seek His power for our lives. The call of the book of Acts, and the Day of Pentecost, is clear. We need to be people who experience the Holy Spirit to clear barriers out of the way of others, so they can come to Christ. Maybe you are here today and you are just checking this whole church thing out. And something has stirred in you. You are like the people in the story today who were just moved so deeply by the Holy Spirit that you were cut to the heart. That is the Holy Spirit drawing you to Jesus. This is your moment. God is calling you into the Kingdom. We all need to encounter the Holy Spirit. Today, maybe this your first encounter. Take the step today. We ll be here to take it with you. Points to Ponder THE STORY New Beginnings With a friend, your family or in your small group, discuss the following questions. 1. Can you recall a time in your life where you felt the Holy Spirit was present in a way that could only be explained as a God-thing? Looking back, what do you sense God was up to on that moment? 2. Many faiths/traditions have different interpretations regarding encounters with the Holy Spirit. What does it mean to you? 3. As you journey in your faith, do you consider yourself to be in a place where you are open to an encounter with the Holy Spirit? 4. Have you ever found yourself in a place where you asked the Holy Spirit to give you boldness and courage to share the message of Jesus with someone? Page 5 of 5