You Have Help

So, we are in a series called Change Your World, and the theme scripture for this, if you don't know, this church is Salt Church, right? And we get that from a teaching that Jesus gave on the mount, and it's you are the salt of the earth. You are the salt of the earth. And what does that mean? God can change lives, regions, and worlds through you, through the church.

He wants to use the church. There was no plan B, it was plan A, and He wants to use you through the church. And everything you do in Christ does something to make a difference in this, in this world, and the grander scheme. In fact, you are the light of the world, a city on a hill glowing in the night for all to see. Don't hide your light, right?

So, we're not going to hide our light. We're going to go change our worlds. That's the idea of the series. We want to change our worlds by not hiding, but let it shine for all. Let your good deeds glow for all to see, so that they will praise your heavenly Father.

So, just to kind of recap real quick, week one, we talked about changing the world, those spheres of influence that we have, that we can connect with, that we have influence over, because it starts with those spheres of influence. Week two, we talked about our people, our place, and our passion, the things that God has put in our worlds to change your world, because if we are going to change the world, it starts with what? Your world. It starts with my world. It starts with our individual worlds changing the worlds.

You can go back and listen to those. Week three, we talked about the person next to you, the person. We kind of brought it down a little more personal, and the person that you connect with every day, the person that's with me, and how do I communicate to this person? How do I share the love of Jesus with this person? And we gave you some very practical things to help you with that.

Next week, we're going to talk about what it means, a great avenue. In fact, this was going to be the end of my series, but I'm just, there's a couple more things I got to share with you the next couple of weeks, because I feel the Holy Spirit has really spoke to me about, number one, the greater way to connect with people is through community and fellowship in our small groups. And then on Labor Day weekend, and this will close our series, and I do not want you to miss this, because I know it's Labor Day. I know you got a lot of plans. Some of you got plans to be out of town and such, but here's number one.

It's my birthday that weekend. That very Sunday is my birthday day. I don't think, I don't know since we started this church, if I actually had my birthday fall on Labor Day. So I'm going to use that to leverage you coming that day, okay? So I want you to come.

I don't need a gift from you. I don't need any money from you. I don't need anything from you. Maybe some prayer, that's all. I always could use some prayer.

But I want you to be there that day, because we're going to talk about prayer. We're going to talk about the power of prayer. And I've got a guest speaker coming in. Brett Cooper is going to come in and share what prayer is all about. I mean, this man is a man of prayer.

He can pray for hours. I mean, he's one of those guys who can walk in a room and just pray, you know, three hours and not even think about it. And how little old prayers can really change the world, that it connects with something beyond ourselves, a dimension beyond ourselves, that the evil forces can't take it when we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Brett can take you back. He's going to share his testimony, how he was involved in the occult, and how before he came to Christ, there was a little old lady that was praying for him that didn't even believe in the power and spirit.

You know, she was an old Baptist woman that believed the gifts have ceased. And she was praying, and he said things were happening in the spiritual realm, and he couldn't get away from it, and eventually gave his life to Christ. I don't want to give too much of his testimony away, because I'm just excited about it. But he's going to be here on Labor Day weekend, and I would love to have you here with us. And if you can't make it on campus, please do be here online.

I realize many of our church family and members are online today. Do connect through that. Today, I want to talk about something that can be quite, you know, controversial maybe, and you've already heard it today. It's no secret that today's message is going to be about the third person, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And what I want to say is, if you're going to change your world, God's not going to leave you by yourself.

He's sending someone to be with you. He's going to walk it out with you. For some of you, you may have grown up in a tradition that the Holy Spirit wasn't talked about much, and you didn't even know it was a thing outside of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, you know. And that's all you, oh, there's a Holy Spirit there, somehow a part of the Godhead, but that's all I know about it. Or you're probably on the other side of the house.

I grew up in a Pentecostal charismatic environment where the Holy Spirit was probably overemphasized, and it got a little crazy at times. And sometimes the Holy Spirit was misrepresented, and it seemed a little misunderstood. And so we have people in different types of the scale that come into this, thinking about the way the Holy Spirit works and acts. But the Holy Spirit is probably the most misunderstood person of the Godhead, but He is God, and He is with us, and He wants to walk this out with us. In fact, when I was younger, we used the word the Holy Ghost a lot, you know.

The Holy Ghost. I'm from eastern North Carolina, and I said, Holy Ghost is the word. You know, Pentecostals like to say, Holy Ghost. You need the Holy Ghost. And I remember being in a class in college, a New Testament survey class.

It's actually a secular college. I was taking this class. It was before my call to ministry, and I was taking it as elective, and I used the term the Holy Ghost in the class, and the whole class burst out laughing. I was like, why is everybody laughing at me? And it was because they had never actually heard the term the Holy Ghost.

They said ghost and spirit. So ghost is just a King James term for spirit, but spirit and ghost, those are things that kind of spook us out a little bit, and we don't like to talk about it. Maybe that's why churches have strayed away from it, and maybe people have leaned too much into it and are misrepresenting them. But it's really important that we understand that in John 14, it says this, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him.

Why? Because it neither sees Him or knows Him, but you know Him, and He lives with you and in you. So as believers, He lives with us, and He lives in us. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us, lives in us at the point where we give our lives to Christ, where we make a decision. You have my all.

I surrender myself to you. We are baptized in Jesus and the Holy Spirit is placed on our lives. He lives in us. He walks with us. He guides us.

He leads us. He is a counselor. He is a helper and he is our guide. That's who the Holy Spirit is. We are not alone.

Even Jesus said this, it is best that he goes away because if he doesn't go away, he can't send the Holy Spirit. He says it like this, but it's actually best for you that I go away because if you don't, the counselor won't come and you don't want that to happen. If I do go away, he will come because I will send him to you. Now, my first thought when I hear this is what is better than walking with Jesus, right? It's Jesus.

I mean, I can have complete confidence if I have Jesus beside me. If I walk out in the world with Jesus beside me, I can say, Jesus, you know, you can heal this person. Just go do it. Just go do it. He'd do it.

I can have confidence that the Son of Man, the Son of God is right beside me. I could preach and I could share. Well, he's right here. But he went away and he brought the Holy Spirit, which is actually called the Spirit of Jesus. And he could do much more, much more than he, and Jesus said that himself.

This Spirit that I'm going to send will guide you, and he will do much more than I can even do. And I'm going to send him to you to walk out, to reach this world. So I want to talk about that a little bit. In Acts 1-8, last week, I kind of shared the Great Commission with you, a piece of the Great Commission. But there's something he says right before he gets to the part where you're going to be my witnesses.

Remember last week, we talked about witnesses and what a witness meant and how in the courtroom, the witness tells the story, right? Tells the story. And we are called to tell our story. That's what we do. We're not called to be the judge.

We're not called to be the lawyer or the judicial person. We're not called to any of that. We're called to be witnesses. You will be my witness, but it says this, but you will receive what? Power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.

You will receive an unction of power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witness to Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So I want to give you five things here real quick, five things that the Holy Spirit gives us power to do, gives us power to do. We need the Holy Spirit to change our world. Amen? Let's see what the Holy Spirit can do in our lives, the power he gives us.

The number one, he gives us the power for salvation. He gives us the power for salvation. And this should give us complete confidence because here's the deal. He convicts the world. The Holy Spirit convicts the world.

See, the cool thing about what God's doing, what the Holy Spirit is doing, and I preface this by saying the Holy Spirit is God. So I use he. I don't use it. I use he. When he goes out, he's preparing the hearts of the people.

He's making ways that we can't see. He's doing things in people's hearts and people's lives. And remember last week I said, you know, there's many people who are ready. We gave you a scale of readiness, right? And there's people that are ready to hear the testimony that you have, but we're afraid to share the testimony because we're afraid that people don't want to hear it or defend somebody.

But the truth is the Holy Spirit, and this is what you can be confident in, that the Holy Spirit is preparing hearts for you to share the good news of Christ. Amen? He's doing that. He's going out. In fact, John 16 says it like this, And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning what?

Sin, righteousness, and judgment. So he's stirring questions. He's stirring curiosity in the heart. He's allowing crisis points to be set in place in people's lives. He's in consideration that there's just more to this life than what I'm currently experiencing.

There's people in places, in dark places, that are considering something more. And they're ready to hear what we have because the Holy Spirit is going with us and before us and convicting the world around us. And we can be assured as we go out to minister that we are not alone in this. I heard a story this past week from a Swedish pastor. I want to make sure I pronounce his name right.

But it's yo-welcome, yo-welcome, yo-welcome. Because he said this, he says, think of it like you say yo-welcome. It's yo-welcome. I want to say jo-welcome, but it's yo-welcome, yo-welcome. And he pastors one of the largest churches in Sweden, probably the largest church in Sweden, called Word of Life Church.

And he shared this story about how their church is ministering to Muslims, to refugees that are coming into Sweden, and how they've taken on the opportunity as Muslims have been coming from other countries and just thousands of them are coming into the area, and God has given them that opportunity. And he shared the story of this Muslim refugee. He was about 25 years old, and he ended up in a city about an hour north of where their church is. And every night, this man would have dreams, would have dreams of people in an auditorium raising their hands like this, raising their hands like this. So after many dreams and many nights, he decides he's going to figure out where this is.

So he goes out in the streets. He heads out in the streets, starts asking random people, excuse me, do you know a place where people, a big auditorium where people are holding their hands like this. And people are kind of weird. They think he's crazy and stuff because in Sweden, apparently they're not as friendly as us, and they don't talk to each other. This is his words.

So he's just kind of going around and asking people, and nobody's giving him any answers. So then he decides, you know what, I'll get on a train. That's a pretty big auditorium, so it's probably in Stockholm, which is the city, the capital city. It's probably there. So I'm just going to get in the train, and I'm going to ride over there and see if this is the area where these people are raising their hands like this in my dream.

So he goes there, and as soon as he gets off the train and he goes out on the platform, there's a man standing there that says, no, you're at the wrong stop. You need to go back to the last stop. You need to go back to the last stop. He never met this man. He didn't know this man.

He didn't tell him what was going on. The man just told him to get back on the train, go back to the next city. Go back over there and get off there. And as soon as he said that, he dropped back on the train, he went back to that other city, and then he ended up coming out and he started asking people, hey, do you know a place? Do you know a place where people are raising their hands like this?

Do you know a place where there's lots of people that are doing this? They're doing this. I don't know about church. I don't know about any of that. He didn't know any of these things.

Do you know a place where people are doing this? And then people there are like, it was, you know, a very popular church in that city. Yeah, that's Word of Life Church. You need to go there. So he went there that Saturday night.

He walked in the door. He looked around, and sure enough, there were hundreds of people raising their hands like this in the auditorium. He looked around. He saw colors. He saw seats.

He saw everything vivid in his dream was there. And at the end of that service, and at the end of that service, the pastor gave an invitation to Jesus Christ, and that man gave his life to Christ that day. That's something worth rejoicing about, guys. I don't know if that excites you guys, but that was the power of the Holy Spirit preparing hearts around that area, around that church, around that community. He's doing that today.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that the Spirit is actually working and moving and doing things that we can't see and we can't know? He's just asking that we participate as the witness and going in there. So he prepares the heart, and also he holds the power to save. And now that gives me a little bit of relief there, because I don't have to do the saving.

I just do the preaching. I just do the sharing. God does the saving. The Holy Spirit does the saving. The Holy Spirit changes the heart.

Jesus said, I tell you the truth. No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and of the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to the Spirit. And here's the beauty of it. In Romans 8, 16, it says the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.

He says that you're a child of God. He testifies. He is a witness for you that you are a child of God. So he holds the power to say we simply seed the gospel. We're simply spreading the seeds.

We don't have to do the saving. I'm glad I don't have to do that. I'm glad that's in God's hands. God does it. I just, I'm just obedient, and I share the gospel, and that takes a little pressure off of me.

That's what the Holy Spirit does. He has the power of salvation. He also has, number two, the power to follow God's will. He gives us the power to follow God's will. Last week I said, a lot of people ask, what is God's will?

Well, here in Scripture, it's pretty plain and simple. Go and preach the gospel to the world. They may be endowed with power and go out. I leave you to do this, church. That's your calling.

And it says this in John 14, 26, it says, But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you, what? All things and remind you of everything I have said to you. So He's your guide. He's your teacher. He's your counselor.

He enables, He empowers you to walk with God. Maybe, let me just give you some examples. Maybe you're just walking along, and God speaks to you. You just sense something in your heart. I need to say something to that person.

I need to say something to someone, or I need to help someone. Or maybe you're in a situation you don't know the answer to. You know, you're kind of in a conversation, and you just ask the Spirit to give you that answer. He gives you the power. When you're in tune, when you're empowered by Him, you can understand Him.

You can listen to Him. You can pray about it, and He gives you the answers. I've literally been in the middle of conversations from time to time where I have no clue what the answer is. Somebody's really pouring their heart out to me. They want to answer to their situation, and I'm like, God, you've got to give me the answer.

And right at the nick of time, right when it's time for me to speak, God just gives me something. Just puts it on my heart, puts it on my life, and I share it, and it's exactly what they need to hear. That's walking in the Spirit. The Spirit of God leads us step by step. He tells us when to go, when not to go.

In fact, He told Paul and his group of ministers not to go in certain areas and to go other ways. And we need to be in tune that we are to step towards this or step over this. It's just like walking into, you know, you have a mud puddle in the middle of the road. Walk around this. There's a little danger over here, you know.

You need to kind of keep away from this. That's what He does. We follow the will of God. We hear Him, and He guides us, as John 16, 13 says, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will give you all truth.

The third thing He does is He helps us and He empowers us to live a holy life, to live righteously, to live a holy life. And this is absolutely your greatest testimony, is the way you live. People see the way you live, and when they see the way you live, that's a testimony to them. But you can't testify of Christ if you're in bondage to sin. It's hard to testify to Christ if you're living in sin, if you're moping in your sin, and you're not able to break free of your sin.

And the Holy Spirit supernaturally gives us the ability to walk in righteousness and holiness and guide us in that way. And a lot of you, let me just be honest, have superpowers. You have superpowers right in this place that God has given you, that God has blessed you with, but you can't use them because you have not broken free or broken free of those chains that hold you down by sin. You can be a Christian. You can be a believer and walk in sin all the time and be locked down to sin.

And God wants to use you for so much more. He's got plans for your life. He wants to use you to change your world, but you cannot do it because you're still held down by bondage. This is what the Holy Spirit does. He empowers us.

He gives us the power to conquer sin. Romans 8, 5, and 6 says it like this. Those who are dominated by sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. If your sinful nature controls your mind, right? If it controls your mind, then there is death.

But if the Spirit controls, if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace. You know, sin is fun for the person who doesn't have the Holy Spirit. We know when we hear the Holy Spirit. First season, obviously. But it's definitely fun and it's exciting and it's enjoyable.

It's enjoyable. Sin can be really enjoyable. But for the believer, it's not very peaceful. It's not very restful. But when we have Christ, the sin is unresting in us.

And Galatians 5, 16, 17 says, so I advise you to live according to the new life. You've been given new life in the Holy Spirit. When you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves, this whole sinful nature loves to do evil, which is the opposite of what the Holy Spirit wants. So the Holy Spirit wants you to do good and live according to this new life. These two forces, and here's the deal, these two forces are constantly fighting each other.

And your choices are never free from this conflict. So there's evil forces that are battling all the time for your attention. They're trying to pull you towards that. There's an evil reality going on. But the Holy Spirit is more powerful.

God is more powerful. Jesus is more powerful. The devil is powerful, but Jesus is way more powerful than the devil. And calling on the name of Jesus. Jesus, calling on his name.

Right now, you can call on his name. If you're in bondage to sin, you can call on his name. And Satan has to flee. Satan cannot stand against the powers of the evil forces that are at work trying to take you away from what God has for you. You can say we can overcome, what does Revelation say, by the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony.

That's your story. And you can have that story today. Just think about the person that led you to Christ. The fruits that came from their relationship with him. When you saw that person, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, fruitfulness, gentleness, self-control.

All the fruits of the Spirit that lead people to who he is. Fourthly, the Holy Spirit empowers us to make a difference with our spiritual gifts. We have spiritual gifts. God endows us with spiritual gifts through the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 2.

4, God has testified, there's that word, testified to it by signs, wonders, and various miracles. And I love how they put signs, wonders, and various miracles in the same sentence as the gifts of the Spirit, which is distributed according to his will. So God is empowering you to use your spiritual gifts to make a difference. As a church, we're all distributed spiritual gifts through the power of the Holy Spirit. He enables us to do certain things.

You might, for instance, 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, you can get letters of these spiritual gifts, the different types of spiritual gifts there are. Some of you might have the spiritual gift of wisdom. You feel like that God empowers you to give advice when nobody else has advice towards a certain thing. Some type of supernatural wisdom, and you'll have instruction for that person. Some of you might have this gift of discernment where you can sense that something's going on, that something's going on in someone's life or in another area of the church or whatever it might be.

You might be very, very sensitive to the nature of what's going on in the spiritual. Some of you might be prophetic. You might have a gift of prophecy. The Bible talks about gifts of prophecy where you encourage the church or you help the church line up to what is to come because you have a sense of what's coming in the future. Some of you might have the gift of giving.

You're just enabled to give. You just want to give like the love of God pours out of you to give. Some of you might have the gift of tongues, the gift of tongues or the interpretation of tongues where you're given a word for the church or word in tongues. Or maybe you have the gift of mercy. Maybe you just have this mercy gift where you're just really concerned about others and you see that person in that seat sitting by themselves and you just feel led to go over there and sit with them and share Jesus' love with them.

Maybe you have that gift. Maybe you have the gift of evangelism where you just have this ability to just lead people to Christ and you're concerned for the lost and God's given and enabled that gift for you or encouragement. Maybe you just got the gift of encouragement. There's so many different gifts here that we have, both practical and supernatural gifts. And the Spirit enables us and empowers us to be able to use these gifts.

Look at 1 Corinthians 12. It says, For a spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping what? The entire church. Church. It builds us up as a body in Christ to change our worlds and therefore change the world.

God uses our spiritual gift. And then number five, God uses or the Holy Spirit empowers us to be able to share Christ boldly. To share Christ boldly. This is where it gets down to. Sharing Christ boldly.

Boldly and firmly. This unction of the Holy Spirit that gives us the power and the wisdom and the words to say. You might be intimidated. You might be nervous. You might be anxious.

You might be afraid. You're holding back because you're afraid. But the Holy Spirit actually can enable us to share the gospel boldly and purely. And no matter what you say, the Holy Spirit is just working through you and working in the lives of that other person. Here, you know, Paul was really concerned about his speaking and about his delivering of the message.

He even said this in 1 Corinthians 2, 4, and 5. He says, My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with the demonstration of the Spirit's power. Demonstration of the Spirit's power. So these words, these letters that you hear from Paul, they're under the unction and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Not just him, but the power of the Holy Spirit.

So that your faith might not rest on man's wisdom. It does not rest on man's wisdom. Do not run after man's wisdom. We can have, you know, these inspirational, motivational speakers here in the world. What's his name?

Tony, Tony Evans or somebody. Yeah, Tony Robbins. Yeah, there he is. We can have the Tony Robbins of the world. I drew a blank right there.

The Tony Robbins of the world out there. You know, whoa, that's amazing. That's a good one. But it's men's wisdom. Men's wisdom.

But he says, So that your faith might not rest on man's wisdom. The inspiration of, or the powerful message of Paul, but of God's power. Of God's power. Paul said, my abilities aren't that great. In fact, Paul says, I don't really speak that well.

But under the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I have the words to say, and I know what to say to you, and I know how to preach the gospel, and I know how to share the gospel. that The Spirit says things to people you are speaking to already, and even by saying, you know, by your, the personality of the Holy Spirit is working through you. He's already connecting you. You know, I'm not a great speaker. I'm not.

Some of you are like, I know. That's okay. I don't, I mean, yeah, Miranda said in faults. My wife's got my back here. But, but listen, you know, it's amazing when you have some, some people come to you after church and, and say, that was the best sermon I've ever heard, pastor.

It's exactly what I needed to hear. And some of the worst weeks where I feel like I'm beating myself up. I said that word wrong. I mispronounced that word. I didn't run that grammatically that was wrong.

And I do that a lot, you know, and you, and you think about that, but, but then you get at the end of that service and then you, you share the gospel and you see somebody repent of their sins. And then you, and then afterwards you, somebody comes and says, pastor, that was the best. Message message I've ever heard. That was the best experience I've ever, but not, it's not because of me. It's because the power of the Holy Spirit is working through what I'm saying and what I'm communicating.

This is not me. This is God doing something in our midst in this place. He's given me the power. That's why I'm up until 11, 12 o'clock the night before praying and on my knees. And I'm walking around the room.

Just last night I was in my office and I was just looking out the window and I was looking over our neighborhood and I was just praying for the people in that neighborhood. And I was praying that God would use me to reach these people in the neighborhood. I prayed that God would use me to reach people here in Virginia beach. I pray that God would use me to pastor you and teach you and equip you well so that you can go out and change your world. Because I believe that God is going to do that.

And he wants to do that through the power of the Holy Spirit. I ask the Holy Spirit to fill my life, to fill my heart so that when I get here on Sunday morning, it doesn't matter what I'm thinking, what I'm saying, whatever is thrown in the way, the Holy Spirit has full control over this. He's speaking and he empowers us to speak the word of God. God, after they prayed, the place in Acts 4, after they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. It's a perfect example of when the Holy Spirit comes on people.

We see it clearly in Scripture. It wasn't by their own knowledge. And it's not just for pastors. It's not just for people who are called in five-fold ministries, pastors, teachers, apostles, prophets, evangelists that are called to those named offices where they're doing full-time or part-time work. It's for you.

It's for you. It's for you. He said, I leave you with this person. He is the Spirit of Jesus and he enables and empowers you to be filled with the Spirit. So let me give you some Spirit-filled advice here because we are a Spirit-filled church.

We believe in being Spirit-filled. We cannot do this unless we are Spirit-filled. And there's a lot of different interpretations of what Spirit-filled means. But let me just give you Spirit-filled advice. First of all, don't resist the Holy Spirit.

Don't resist him. If he's speaking to you, if he's calling you to do something, you need to honor it because if you don't, he will leave you. He will not bother you anymore and you will be unutilized. He wants to utilize you. In fact, Stephen, the first martyr in the Bible who looked up to heaven as they were stoning him and forgave the people that were killing him, he said this, you stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears.

You are just like your fathers. You always resist the Holy Spirit. God was right in front of them and they resisted him. The church, miraculous things were happening and God was doing amazing things and they were stiff-necked because they didn't respond. They weren't seeking the Holy Spirit.

I believe God wants to do something big in you, but don't resist him. Secondly, be filled with the Holy Spirit. You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is a subsequent act from salvation. There's three baptisms that I don't have time to talk about today.

But we as a church believe this. And I know there's different interpretations and how it's done and what the exact formula is. And I don't like to use formulas. I try to stray away from formulas because the Holy Spirit does what he does regardless. The way he feels people is in different ways.

And I've experienced different forms of his infilling of the Holy Spirit. But we believe that the first baptism is when you're saved. The Holy Spirit comes and lives and dwells in you and he walks with you and he's your guide. The second baptism is a water baptism where we do an outward expression of our inward faith. We're going to have a baptism service next month and we'll have more details about that.

And you can be baptized physically in water as an open representation of what God's done in your life. That you are a child of God and you're welcomed as a member of the body of Jesus Christ. But then there's this third one that we see clearly in Scripture. That there's something that happens in the life of the believer that empowers them. Then in feeling of the Holy Spirit where we ask the Holy Spirit to fill our lives.

And he comes in and he gives us the power. We see it in Acts 8, 14 and 17. When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God. They sent Peter and John to them. And when they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit.

Because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon them. They had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Meaning they had been saved. They had come to the knowledge of the Lord. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them.

And they received the Holy Spirit. Something happened to them at that point. Something powerful. Something that people could see. Something that immersed them in that.

I'm a big fan of Moody. Of Dwight L. Moody. If you don't know, my first name is Dwight. Okay?

I don't tell a lot of people that. I go by Leon. Dwight Leon Dunning Jr. I am a junior. And my grandfather hails from Chicago area.

And that's where he gave his life to Christ under Dwight L. Moody's ministries there. Much after Dwight L. Moody's ministries were there, but the fruit of his ministry, and he was miraculously healed of tuberculosis, even in a service that was connected to Moody, he had tuberculosis back in the early 1900s, that was a death sentence for many people, and God healed him in a prayer meeting, and he never forgot that, and he gave his life to God, and children, and ministry, and and he raised a family, and we've had generations and generations of, I'm a second generation minister, third generation in fact, minister because of my grandfather and his heart for Christ, but all that to say, Dwight L. Moody, a lot of people don't know this about Dwight, but he had a baptism experience, and I use him as an example because when you think of Moody Bible Institute and different things, you don't you don't think of like spirit-filled baptism type, you know, charismatic Pentecostal type stuff, you know, but here's what Moody said in his book, and there was a book that was written by him, by Richard Curtis, the call, they call him Mr.

Moody, and says, well, one day, and he was seeking, let me just give you some context here, he preached, you know, Dwight L. Moody was one of the most famous evangelists in his century, he was basically the Billy Graham of his century, had a huge church, hundreds of people came to Christ through his ministry, thousands of people actually came to Christ through his ministry, and he's preaching on the front row, I mean, he's preaching to the front row, and there's these two ladies over there on the side, two or three ladies on the side, they're praying, they're praying, they're praying, he goes up after church, he says, what do y'all keep praying for? He says, we pray that you receive the Holy Spirit. She said, what are you, he said, what are you talking about, receive the Holy Spirit, like, I have the Holy Spirit, look, I got a largest church in Chicago, and people are coming to Christ every week, I mean, what do you mean by the Holy Spirit, we're just gonna pray, so he just began to have conversations with him about that, because he was intrigued, because Dwight was a very, a guy who sought after God, and wanted more of God, and he, and God started filling his heart with this, he started praying about it, he says, look, I want this, whatever they're talking about, whatever, this thing, you're stirring my heart, heart for this, and then he says this, and this is a quote from him from one of his letters, well, one day in the city of New York, oh, what a day, I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it, it is almost too sacred an experience to name, Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for 14 years, I can say that God revealed himself to me, and I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand, and I went to preaching again, the sermons, the sermons, the sermons were not different, I did not present any truth, any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted, I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience, if you should give me the world, it would be as the small dust of the balance, and he testifies, and he testifies, and he testifies that he dropped to the floor, and laid bathed in his soul, in the divine, in that room, that day, he said like this, it seemed ablaze with God, and I could not even handle it, Charles Finney, one of the most famous evangelists of our time, said this, the Holy Spirit ascended on me, in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul, and I could not, I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity going through and through me, indeed it seemed to come in waves of liquid love, for I could not express it in any other way, it seemed like the very breath of God, the context of that he talks about, he didn't even know it was for him, he didn't know what it was, but in that room that night, he experienced something, that God showed up, and did something to him, he said, no words can express the wonderful love, that was shed abroad in my heart, he said he almost asked God, to take him out of this world, he was experiencing so much love in his heart, it was pouring out, it was like laughter, and joy, and peace, and he was not even afraid of death at that moment, but God had empowered him, for service that night, and he walked out of there, preaching the same messages, but with power, but with power, see God wants to give us more, God wants to take us on a journey, Acts 19, it says, they even said in Acts 19, as they were, Paul and some guys were walking along the road, and they asked him, have you received the Holy Spirit, they said, we didn't even know about the Holy Spirit, and they ended up laying hands on him, and they received the Holy Spirit, so so many people don't even know that this is a possibility, that God wants to do more, and it's not that anybody's better than anybody else, because they've been infilled, but there's this ongoing infillment that we can tap into, there's more for you than just being simply a Christian, he wants to do more in your life, he wants to empower you to do more for his service, he wants to walk out with you, so that you can change your world, you can be the same person doing the same things, with the same intelligent level, working in the same places, but with the empowerment of the Spirit, you can do above, beyond, more than you can ever think, is that what Paul said, that you ever think, or imagine, right, because God wants to do more in your life, I don't know about you, but I'm excited about that, are you excited about that church, that you can have that power, that God has that power available for you, so some of you say real quick in closing, I know I'm going a little late here, but we only have one service anyway, so y'all are good, and we'll be out here by lunch, right, so only, only 45, 50 more minutes, okay, no, I'm just playing, okay, I'll let you out of here, no, so how do we do this, how do we receive this, how do we receive this, how do we, I just hope that I can take the spookiness out of this, and just make this real, because God wants to use you, he doesn't want to make you convulse, and shake on stage, he doesn't want you to slide across, you know, you've seen a lot, right, we've seen a lot in church, that's not the Holy Spirit, that's emotionalism, but there is a power, there's a power that we can tap into, and there's going to be a supernatural unction, and you're going to know it, and you're going to feel it, you're going to, you're going to know it, and it's available for you, but first of all, you got to remove all barriers, you got to make sure your heart is right, to receive this, that it's not about you, it's about God, and what you want God to do in you, in Acts 2, 38, 39, Peter replied, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, you will receive the gift of the Son Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins, and I feel like you're 這樣子, and you will receive the gift of the Son Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins, and You This promise is for you, your children, and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call. So this is not only for you, this is for your children, it's for your children's children.

You today can start a generational legacy of spirit-filled people, world changers, and it starts with you, receiving the power of the Holy Spirit. So remove all barriers, get rid of all barriers, remove all the misconceptions about what you have about the Holy Spirit. Take away all those weird things you saw on TV and the evangelism service on TBN. Take all that out of your head, where people are waving white coats over people and falling out in the Spirit. Take all that away, guys.

Take all of that away, and I just want you to remove all barriers and consider that the Holy Spirit is fully available for you, too. You have to request to receive the Holy Spirit. You request. You ask God. You search it, as Moody did.

He said he searched, and he thought, and he was seeking. And it was weeks and months later, but he received it. Luke 11, 13 says, If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? He wants to give you an infilling of the Holy Spirit. And then receive Him.

Receive Him by faith. Receive the Spirit by faith. See, this is the spiritual journey we're all taking. Because God's going to ask you to do some things. God asks us to do things that are against the norm.

He asks us to take leaps of faith. To enter in places that we've never gone before. Everything that God offers is kind of an unknown. It's unknown stuff that we need to step into. And it's going to be a little uncomfortable for us, but He's going to step into this.

And Ezekiel 47 says it like this in verse 3. As a man went eastward with the measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle deep. He measured off another thousand cubits. And then he led me through water that was what? Knee deep.

So he's taking them from ankle. Some of you are an ankle. And then you're ready to go off to the next thousand and go a little knee deep. And then he measured off another thousand and led me through water that was waist deep. And then he measured off another thousand.

And now it was a river that I could not cross because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in. A river that no one could cross. And the scripture goes on to talk how the river was flourishing with life. It was teeming with life. There was fruit.

There was trees. There was soil. There was stock. And everything was coming from the river because of that flowing river. That's what God has for you.

That's what God has for me. I don't know if you guys are excited about that, but I am. I want it all. I want everything that God has. I want to be fruitful in my ministry.

I want to be fruitful in my life. I want to live like God wants me to live. I want to live how God wants me to live. I want to make a difference in this world to glorify God, the one who loved me so much. I want to do it.

And I ask God that you take everything. As Miranda was sharing earlier, you've got to give it all. You've got to give it all. Just go all in. Who's ready to go all in with the Spirit today?

Do you want to be filled with the Spirit? Do you want to be filled with the Spirit today? Amen. Amen. And then finally, commit to Him daily.

In closing, commit to Him daily. Commit to Him daily. In fact, I want to pray the scripture over you as we close today. Because 2 Corinthians 13, 14 message. And I'm going to just pray with my eyes open.

Pray with my, and I just want everybody just, this is my heart for you. And this is what I want for you. It says, the amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ. See, some of you are there. You need the amazing grace of the Master of Jesus Christ.

You haven't experienced the grace and love of Jesus. I love how it starts with Jesus and His grace. And some of you are far from Him, and you have not experienced His grace and His mercy. And His prayer is that the amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ. And then the extravagant love of God.

See, some of you might be saved. You might be rescued. But you haven't really experienced God's love. You haven't experienced a healing in your life. You haven't experienced a healing in your heart.

You don't know the love of a Father, a Father who loves you. And then the intimate, and this is it, the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. The amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ. The extravagant love of God and the intimate relationship or friendship with the Holy Spirit. And this is my prayer for you.

That you would take the next step. That you would take the next part of the journey. That you would walk from grace to love to empowerment and friendship with God at a whole new level. It's for you. It's available for you.

Today. If all heads bowed and all eyes closed. If we could just pray together today. And I want everybody here to seek their own heart. Because God knows where you are.

God knows what you need. God knows where you want to go. God knows what next step is going to lead you into a river that is teeming with life. As our hearts are seeking you. As our hearts are reaching for you today.

Whatever that next step is, Lord. For some, it's time to make a decision for Jesus. For some, it's time to rededicate your life to Jesus. It's time to make a decision that I've, you know, I've walked away from Jesus. And it's time for me to come back to Him.

It's time for me to come back to Him. Today, make that decision. Today. This is Today. For others of you, it's, it's, I just need to be healed.

I need, I need God to really just, I need to take the next step. I got to break out of my chains because I can't be a world changer. Listen, for others of you, it's, God, I just need to be empowered by you. Lord, I want to be filled by you. Just pray that.

Pray that. Fill me with your spirit, Lord. Change me, Lord. So today, God, all over this place, if you're here today, just, just pray this. If you need to make a decision for Jesus, do it today.

I pray this with me, God, in the name of Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God as you died on the cross. I pray that you come into my life, that you rescue me from my sin, that you make me new. Let me, give me a new life, Lord. Change me. I'm a Christian today.

And, but Lord, I haven't, I haven't reached the next level, God. I haven't, I haven't broke from my sin, but I know that you can break that chain. You can deliver me from it. And I pray that the power, by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would break me from that sin today, Lord, that you'd break me and bring me to a whole new level. And Lord, I, I'm, I'm a believer today, but I want to know more.

I want to feel more. I want to experience more than just simply going through life. I, I, I want to be all in Lord Jesus with you. So today I surrender my life. I ask you, God, fill me with the praise, God.

We give you the glory. We give you the honor because it's through you. You are the reason we do this. We're, we're, you're the reason we ask for these things, Lord. Can y'all give God a hand clap of praise.

Let me hear you shout church. Hallelujah. Sorry. I went a little long today, but hopefully you were blessed. If you gave your life to Christ today, that first part of that prayer, if you gave your life to Christ today, I'd ask you to do this.

Fill out that online connection card, saltchurch.org slash card. Please let us know that you gave your life to Christ. It's not about counting numbers. Although we want to know if, if, if God is changing people's lives, but it's about helping you take the next step in Christ and, and moving forward in your life in Jesus.

And we want to offer you everything that you need to do that. We love you so much, guys. I can't wait till next week as we enter part five of our series. God bless you guys. Justin's going to come up and end us off real quick.

And, uh, but have a great, great Sunday. Is there anybody out here that's excited about the possibility of evangelism today? Is there anybody out here that knows that God has people out there that he has specifically called you to reach? Is there anybody that's excited about that? If you're not, you better get ready because we're about to pray for that today.

And God has some people out there that he specifically wants you to reach. And we're going to pray that their hearts get prepared for you today. And we're going to pray that you get filled with some Holy Spirit power in order to do it so that you have the power and the strength to go out there and witness to those people for Jesus Christ. So Father, right now in the name of Jesus, I ask that you would just prepare the hearts of everyone that you have called us to go out there and reach. I ask that you would fill us with excitement and joy at the possibility of going out there and reaching people for your kingdom in the name of Jesus.

Fill us with excitement, fill us with joy and Holy Spirit, prepare the hearts of those people that you have for us. Go down inside them and begin to do the work for us so that when we share the message, their hearts are prepared to receive it. And I ask that every single person in this place, God, right now, if they have never known what it feels like to be cloaked in Holy Spirit power, I ask that you would do that right now in Jesus name. Fill everyone in this entire place with Holy Spirit power so that when they go out there and they witness to people in your name, Jesus, for your kingdom, that those people would not see them, but would see the power and the love of Jesus Christ flowing through them. And it's all for your name, your glory.

Thank you, Father, in Jesus name. Amen. You guys better be getting excited. You better be ready because if you're not excited now, it's about to start because we just prayed that. So come back next week for part four of Change Your World.

Pastor Leon will be preaching that. And after that, we're going to have week five, the guest speaker that he talked about. It's going to be amazing. Can't wait to see you back here for that. Go out there and evangelize and share the message of God in this world today.

Thank you.