In this sermon, the speaker focuses on Acts 1:4-8 and emphasizes the importance of waiting for the gift of the Holy Spirit. He mentions that although some may already feel they have the Spirit, they can still pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The speaker shares personal experiences of people encountering the Holy Spirit during worship, including seeing Jesus on the cross and experiencing a revelation through the breaking of bread. He also highlights the significance of performing acts of kindness as a way to gain permission to pray for others and share the Gospel.

In God's mercy this even may be happening now, that despite this foolishness that I am sharing, God is doing something else because it's how it works. And once we understand how this works, you can't be proud, because you actually know it's despite you. But the great thing is, God does the whole job. He leads you to people He's got ready, but He lets you say the words. Or He leads you to people that He wants to heal, but He lets you put your hand on. So suddenly we understand what ministry it is. It isn't us having a great power to do things, it's God doing it all and letting us do it in His name. This is good fun to be in. Look at 1 Corinthians 2. This is a very good chapter on what is called God's secret wisdom. And this is mysteries or the Spirit of God touching men in their spirit. It speaks in verse 7, and I would recommend the whole chapter to you if you want to investigate this further, but try to investigate it with the Spirit of God rather than with your mind. We speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that's been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. The whole chapter is about something mysterious and secret. But it says in verse 10, God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Verse 13, this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. Let me give you an example of spiritual truths in spiritual words. Once my kind friends had made me pray in tongues, I met with them regularly, and I learned that we can all prophesy, and I learned how to get what some people call words of knowledge or words of wisdom, and how to cooperate with the holiest person praying for the sick. And words of knowledge or words of wisdom are when God reveals to us secret things that will help the other person to be healed, or to get free, or to know what's going on in their lives so that they can know, He cares about me. And I was asked by an old street sleeper once, his name was Lambat, to visit his aunt. Now Lambat was a great friend of mine. He was the most awful, awful, awful looking man. He slept on the street, and in order to get money, he used to kneel and bang his head on the concrete pavement and wail. He'd go, ahhh, until he got blood all over his foot because he thought he might get more money that way. And by the way, don't despise beggars. They work hard. Anyway, he was a bit funny in the head, and it's a long story, but over the years I've spent a lot of time with him. And one day in a typhoon, he went into a subway, that's a road under the road. And he holed himself up, and he got himself off heroin. He said, well you told me to call on Jesus' name and I did that, I mean all by himself. Anyway, he was very grateful to me, still funny in the head, but very grateful to me and very grateful to Jesus. And he said, I want you to come and pray for my aunt. She was in hospital. Now she was very old, she was 80 something, and she had a stroke. And I looked at her, and I, she can't talk, she can't move. And I said, how am I going to share Jesus with her? So I looked at her and I said, you know, God would you please help. And I got one word. This is a spiritual truth in spiritual words. Vegetables. Now you see, spiritual truths and spiritual words don't sound very spiritual. So I looked at Lombok and I said, vegetables? And he said, yes, yes she's been a Buddhist all her life, she's only ever eaten vegetables. So this is how I prayed for her. I put my hand on her and I said, the maker of heaven and earth is so pleased with you. Because you've tried your whole life to please him by eating vegetables. And he says that he loves you and he's going to accept you. Not because of the vegetables, but because he sent his son to fetch you. And his name's Jesus, will you believe in him? And she squeezed my hand. Pretty good that. Vegetables. You see, when you pray for the power of the spirit to share Jesus, these are the kind of things that he will give you, revelations, to help you share Jesus. So that he can make himself known to those that he came to fetch. Who have a longing somewhere in their heart for one whose name they know not yet of. Another time I went on a walk with a young man, actually he was an American sailor. And he said, you know, Jackie you just go on about this tongues a bit much. And I said, well, you know, it's pretty useful to be able to pray this way. It's not better than praying in your own language, by the way. It's as well as. You can pray in your own language when you know what you want to pray. And when you don't know how to pray, you pray in the other one. So it's complementary. So I said to him, we'll do an experiment. We'll walk around for the whole day, praying in tongues nonstop. Now he was not very keen. But anyway, he came with me. And, you know, you can nearly do it without anyone knowing, nearly. And it was just wonderful. Everywhere we went, it was just as if God had set people up. Well, he had actually. And met two drug addicts on a staircase. And one of them was suffering terribly. And I said, I'm so sorry, I won't tell you about Jesus, but can I pray for you? And I prayed for him, and all his pain went away. And then he said he wouldn't believe in Jesus. And then he ran away. And I was very disappointed. But he came back five minutes later and he said, here's my friend, he's got toothache. Can you pray for him? I mean, the whole day was like that. Completely unfair set up. I mean, these weren't even people I'd been kind to. These were just one-offs, you know. I mean, so wonderful. And went to a drug den. And by this time, a lot of people all over the place had come to know Jesus. And we found that when the power of the Spirit came upon them and they prayed in tongues, they could all get off heroin without pain. We don't take our people off with medication. They all come off without pain. We sit with them. I mean, we work hard too. And we pray in tongues and they pray in tongues and they don't have withdrawal symptoms. And so lots of people came out from this drug den. And one of them said, oh, can I come and live in your house and can I believe in Jesus? And da-da-da-da. I mean, people I'd never met before. And one of these young men came up and he followed us. And I thought, he just wants food. But he didn't want to know about Jesus. And so I said to him, well, would you like some noodles? And we sat down at a street stall. And we ordered the noodles. And I tried to tell him about Jesus. And he didn't really want to hear about Jesus at all. He did want the noodles. So I said, okay, I challenge you. Just ask Jesus if he's real to reveal himself to you while we wait for the noodles. So he shut his eyes. And after a few minutes he began to smile. And then he began to pray quietly in another language. And I knew he'd seen something. And he prayed for a long time. The noodles came and got cold and he went on praying. And after about half an hour I said to him, what did you see? And he said, well, he said I was asking Jesus if he was real. And he said I saw a picture. And he said there were, he said I think there were about a dozen men. Sitting around a table. And there was one in the middle and they were passing around a cup and some bread. And he said I knew that was the Jesus who died for me. I don't know how he understood that. But it was that Jesus revealed himself to that man in the breaking of bread. And Gautam, who's with me, helps us take care of a great number of people who are, who've been in what we call our new boy houses. And then they're on their way to the next bit, whatever that is. And they go out into the streets several times a week. And they always pray before they go. Dear Lord, will you please lead us to people you've got ready. That doesn't mean to say we don't do the other bit. Okay? Because if Paul preached the gospel by what he said and did and by the power of signs and wonders, very often it's the little things, by what we do, that gives us permission to do the miracles, if you understand. It was because I went to Mrs. Chan's house when she was lonely and her son was in prison. It was because we boiled bones to make soup for her. That we had permission to pray for her and God revealed himself to her and healed her. So it would not at all be fair to say that God didn't work through me until I had the power of the Holy Spirit. That wouldn't be true. You see, the ordinary gospel, the little acts of kindness, are very important. And it's those little acts of kindness that very often give us permission to pray for those that we love. They may trust us at that point. In our addicts' meeting, once, we had a couple and some found them the day before. They were both sleeping in the streets, a little boy. And they came to our addicts' meeting and we worshipped a lot. And their eyes were sort of popping out like on stalks because there were a couple of people who were laughing and laughing and laughing. And I mean it was Holy Spirit laughter. And they were looking and I said, yeah, enjoy that. Just enjoy that because it's Jesus and in a minute he'll come to you. And the next minute, the lady was flat on the ground on her face. And I knew she'd seen something. I keep saying this, right? You see, I really expect God to do the job. We read this morning that he promised to reveal. And the Holy Spirit is sent to reveal, to take that veil away. So after she got up from the ground, I said, what did you see? And she said, we were singing. And she said, suddenly I saw Jesus on the cross. And I knew I put him there. And I could not stand any longer. I had to prostrate myself. Sweet Lord, he's so good at that job. And sweet Lord, he lets me be in it. Matthew 11.25 says, the divine truth is hidden from the clever and the sophisticated, but revealed to babes. We don't need to make the mystery of evangelization into a problem of communication. We need to trust that as God yearns so much to make himself known to those who so much want to know him, we trust him to do this job. Deuteronomy 29.29, and then I'm going to just do a little study on, it's only a little one, on what we might pray for when we invite the Holy Spirit in a minute. Deuteronomy 29.29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to our children forever, that we might follow all the words of the Lord. There are many things that have been revealed. Many things that have been revealed. They're not that hard in scripture. Like, forgive your enemy, love your enemy, bless him who curses you. I mean, those are fairly plain, right? And if somebody asks you for your coat, give him your coat too. I mean, those are not very difficult things. They're fairly, are they? Okay, okay. I mean, we're supposed to do those things. And give to him who asks you, you know. I know nobody believes in that, but it does say it. All of those things are revealed. So, when we want to make Jesus known to people, I think, was it St. Francis who said we must always be preaching the gospel and sometimes we must even use words? I believe so. There are many things that we can do which are kind and good and basic gospel. Of course we're going to use the words about Jesus at some time. It may not be how we start. But we may preach the gospel through words, through deeds, and through the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Holy Spirit. And who knows whether it's the deeds or the miracles or the words. We just know that in Paul's case he used all these ways. And all these ways are on offer for you. If you want that he makes himself known to the lost. And if you desire too that you personally have revelation of his love in your own life. This is what's on offer. It's so much on offer it was a promise. So, let me just... I hope to make this simple. This isn't a theological thing at all I'm doing. Because everybody else has written the books. And as all the books say completely different things about what the baptism of the Spirit and the power of the Spirit and everything is. I prefer not to do that. But as Doug said this morning, nobody's got a handle on theology or even what the Bible teaches. So I want to share with you what's been helpful to me in understanding a little bit how the Holy Spirit works and what's on offer. So that we can pray for you and invite the Holy Spirit to come. And you may receive what you're asking for and what you desire so much to give. I'm going to slightly separate what I call two complementary works of the Holy Spirit. Now they're not that clear that one is one and one is the other. Just for today's purposes I want to do this. I'm going to talk about the inner work of the Holy Spirit. And the outer work of the Holy Spirit or the outpouring on. Just for the purposes of tonight. Now, did Jesus Christ have the Holy Spirit when he was growing up? Clearly yes. His mother couldn't have got pregnant without the Spirit. That's how she got pregnant. And every Christmas, I know this shocks you, but I have to tell our brothers, it only happened once. We get pregnant by the Spirit a different way, but we don't have babies. It was the only begotten son. When the Spirit came to Mary, she got pregnant with the Son of God. But he only did it once. So you can feel quite free to ask for the Holy Spirit. I said that just to make us think. That's how she got pregnant, was the Holy Spirit. So he was born of the Spirit. And you could say he was a Christian at birth. The only one who was a Christian at birth, right? So he grew up, and it says in John 3.33, that he had the Holy Spirit without measure. So here is Jesus growing up with the Holy Spirit, born of the Holy Spirit. He's a Christian, if you like. And he listens to his father. He has a good relationship with his father. And his father is pleased with him. And then at the age of 30, in Luke 3, it says he went into the water for baptism, and the Holy Spirit came upon him like a dove in bodily form. And I'm very curious as to whether it really was a dove, or how the people writing the Gospels knew that was the Holy Spirit. Anyway, that's one of the things I want to ask when I get there. But all four Gospels say the Holy Spirit came upon him like a dove in bodily form. Now, had he not had the Spirit, where he was, he was a Christian. He was born of the Spirit, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit without measure. He had a good relationship with his father. And now the Holy Spirit comes upon him. And in Luke 4, verse 1, it says, full of the Holy Spirit, he was led into the desert where he was tempted. Verse 14, it says, he returned in the power of the Spirit. And in verse 18, the famous announcement of what he's come to do, when he says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me. By the way, not, I feel anointed tonight. He has anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor, to open the eyes of the blind, to free the prisoners, to set free the downtrodden, and to say, it's the year. It's the jubilee year. It's the good year. It's the year when everything comes right. And having announced this, he then did it. Now before that, he hasn't done anything except go up, talking to his father. And his father has already said, I'm very pleased with my son. He hasn't done anything. But when the Holy Spirit comes upon him, he begins to do the things that he's just announced. And he does open the eyes of the blind. He casts out demons. He cleanses lepers. He heals multitudes. He does miracles. His ministry has begun, three years. So I've looked at him first. Now, if I could describe what I think. This is not I read in a book, it just helps me. What I would describe as the inner working of the Holy Spirit is what brings us to life in Jesus. Now most of us would say, on this day of this month and this year, I came to believe in Jesus, or I accepted him. But the longer we've been Christians, we would then look back and say, actually, before that day, he was drawing me. Wouldn't you say that? So in some sense, the Holy Spirit's been worrying us before we've believed. And we couldn't believe unless the Holy Spirit enabled us to believe. So the Holy Spirit works in us to bring us to birth. So if you've ever heard anybody say you don't have the Holy Spirit, and you really do know Jesus as your friend and saviour, you do have the Holy Spirit. Of course you do. You couldn't believe. Nobody can say he's Lord, except by the Spirit. Now, some of the verses that, so, I beg your pardon, Rose read just now, was about the Holy Spirit who would come. And she read from John 14, the friend, the comforter, the counsellor, the one that would lead us into truth. In John 16, he says in verse 8, that he will convict us of sin, righteousness and judgement. So we have the Holy Spirit who's going to teach us all things, who's going to lead us into truth, who's going to remind us of what Jesus has said, who's going to go with us. Now I call this, for tonight's purposes, still the inner work of the Holy Spirit, which builds character and grows fruit. You've got the fruit of the Holy Spirit, there are nine, I'm sure you know them, love, peace, joy, patience, etc. And the closer we keep to Jesus, the more fruit we grow. And that's why people who are close to Jesus and grow fruit are much more attractive than people who have the power of the Holy Spirit and haven't grown fruit. Okay? Now which one am I going to pick? I'm not going to pick the powerful man who can do miracles, I'm going to pick the one that looks like Jesus, who's grown fruit. But we're living in a time where we actually do not have to choose between growing fruit and demonstrating sweetness and love and patience and long suffering and the fruit of the Spirit, which will grow as we love Jesus and stay close to Him. We're living in a time where we can grow the fruit of the Holy Spirit and pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to share Jesus. Now it's useless having the power without the fruit, that's what 1 Corinthians 13 says. But we don't have to choose. We're actually living in a time now where with the Holy Spirit who brings us to conviction of who Jesus is and as we stay close to Jesus we start to grow fruit and character which is very attractive. We can also say, Father I would like the power that you have on offer to help me share you with the lost because I want to go. And I liked what you said when we were worshipping. You said that we would pray for power to lay down our lives. Actually the promise in Scripture was you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you'll be witnesses. And the word for witness actually is martyr. Actually the possibility is of laying down our lives. Not that anybody is to feel thrilled about that. Jesus wasn't the night before he died. This does not mean to say you're going to be absolutely delighted about the possibility of dying. No, do let's be real. Jesus could endure the cross and scorn its shame because he was looking beyond to that wonderful time he would be married to us because he trusted. I don't know how he did but he did trust that after he died the Father would bring him to life. In John 20 verse 22 Jesus breathed upon his disciples and he said receive the Holy Spirit Now this is confusing because this afternoon David read some words and earlier, a couple of days ago we had some words which came from Luke 24 when Jesus says I'm going to give you power when the Holy Spirit comes you're going to be my witnesses. But what? Now what's this? In John 22 he's breathed upon them and says receive the Holy Spirit In Luke 24 he says hang on, hang on I've got a job for you to do but wait. Now what is this? I actually believe that this is a demonstration of both works of the Holy Spirit. Now are the disciples Christians? Yes. I think they are. They are born of the Spirit. Receive the Holy Spirit. He's breathed upon them. But he says wait till you're clothed with power on high before you go and do the job that is going to enable my name to go to the ends of the earth. Hopefully this will satisfy everyone here. For if you do know Jesus you do have the Holy Spirit but he has on offer power and by the way you might not feel powerful. Paul, the greatest evangelist of all time did not feel powerful. He said I come amongst you with fear and trembling. He didn't feel he looked good or spoke good. All the way through Corinthians he keeps saying I feel weak. I feel weak. But it's the weakness of God that is stronger than the strength of man. You see we won't feel necessarily powerful at all. We're not talking about feelings. No, you will have them from time to time. I'm just talking about my experience which may not be yours. So it's alright to have what experience you like. Just don't insist on having mine and I won't insist on having yours. God's very unique. When I prayed in tongues every day for six weeks I felt not an inch closer to the Lord. But when I saw people believing in Jesus then I was filled with emotion. Then I was filled with joy. You see praying in tongues does not make me feel any closer to God at all. I always accept in faith that I am close to Him. I walk by faith. I'm not a very feely person. Well maybe I am, but maybe. But I don't go by them. They're not the test of truth. But when I see people believing in Jesus and confessing their sins and being born again I'm so excited! Much more excited than praying in tongues makes me feel. And both are wonderful. One is a gift that seems to help me pray for those that God already wants to reach. And makes ways to reveal Himself to those who are longing for a revelation of a God who saves and loves and frees and heals. Isn't that what He would like to be part of? Wouldn't He like to be in it somewhere? You want what He wants. So when we pray tonight I don't know what we're going to call it. Now you go back to your church and you can say I received the Holy Spirit tonight. Or you can say I was baptized in the Spirit for the tenth time. Or I spoke in tongues. Whatever you like. It doesn't matter the label that we're going to put upon it. But we do know that there's a promise. And we'll just take a quick look at this promise. Which will help some of you who want to pray for powerful gifts for the first time. Even if you're already fully in love with Jesus. We'll just take a quick look at Acts 1. Just bear with me. Sorry to make this a long explanation. But I find it really helps to know what we're praying for. Verse 4. This is the same as the Luke 24. Do not leave Jerusalem but wait for the gift my Father promised which you have heard me speak again about. For John baptized with water. But in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit immersed. And some of you when you pray in a minute may choose to make that the way you want to pray. But remember in John 20 he's already breathed the Spirit upon them. So if you feel I already have the Spirit. That's fine. You can pray the verse 8. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Now our brothers when they come to know Jesus they understand very little. I've told you stories this week. They really don't understand much. We pray with them to receive powerful gifts at birth. I have to tell you they've not grown any character at this point. They have not demonstrated any fruit. We just say the power of the Holy Spirit to share Jesus is on offer even when they've got hardly anything to share. Because they all receive the gift of tongues and then we'll teach them how to prophesy 5 minutes later and then how to pray for the sick 10 minutes later. They're still on heroin at this point. Because we do this with every single one and every single person receives where we are we have no problem about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. You see they know they haven't deserved them. So they really are gifts of grace. They know they haven't achieved anything. They're not clean enough for the Holy Spirit. They're not ready. They're just desperate people and God is so kind. Because that's our starting point. From then onwards we lay all the emphasis on character and growing the fruit of the Holy Spirit and growing close to Jesus. And we hope that our people will grow up learning how to use the gifts the powerful gifts that they've received with love and maturity. It wouldn't do to have power without the working of the Holy Spirit without allowing intimacy with Jesus to grow and the knowledge of him to grow and a filling and another filling and another filling and another filling and the character that so draws men. It was how Jesus prayed for his disciples before he died. That they loved one another and that the love he had for them would be in them and the love the Father had for Jesus would be in them. This would be so attractive. It would be like the Micah 4.2. People would be drawn, would believe because of the way they loved one another. They would believe because of the fruit. And if that's what you want to pray tonight you can pray for that. I want to be so filled with fruit and you and the knowledge of you that people will be attracted. That's what I call the inner work of the Holy Spirit which draws men because it's a demonstration of Jesus' love and life in us. And then the other one, most good the one that says go out to the ends of the earth because if you don't it won't get there. And as you go, I'll go with you and I'll give you miracles, signs and wonders and healing to help you as you go. Now hopefully you want both. Hopefully tonight you would like to pray for both. You can pray however you like and he will give what he loves to give. He says this is a promise that he will pour out his spirit and when on the day of Pentecost when the disciples, the hundred and twenty began to pray in tongues in languages they hadn't learned there were tongues of fire upon their heads and a mighty wind a crowd gathered. Now the reaction to powerful gifts or manifestations will always be the same and if you tonight receive powerful gifts if you speak in tongues or if you prophesy and you've never done this before I must tell you that there will be reactions. If it happens then it will happen for you. It's always the same. Half the crowd say wonderful. We heard them praising God in our own language. The other half said drunk, crazy. So it is. Just so it is. Jesus and Peter said we can't be drunk. The bars are not yet open. This he said is what was promised. So we have the words this is the promise and he says what you see and hear in verse 33 He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. What did they see and hear? They saw tongues of fire they heard a wind and the 120 speaking in languages they didn't learn. They saw evidence. Now I did a study and looked all the way to the Old Testament in the places where it said the Spirit of the Lord came upon someone this is what I call the outer work of the Spirit. Not the verses where it's talking about the other ways of working. Those are valid but I'm just talking about one study. Every time it says the Spirit came upon someone there was a visible, audible or measurable manifestation of power. Not an emotion. Not he felt full of God. But let me give you some examples. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Moses and he prophesied. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul and he prophesied. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. These are the words. And when it come upon is a very strong word. It's like being under a shower with a decent jet. Not a thick one. A good one. And our brothers where we used to live we had great showers in Hancock Camp. They'd just go... for hours. So the girls never got warm water. And they got lots of spiritual songs in the shower because they stayed in there so long. And poured out is a very strong word. The Spirit of the Lord was poured out upon Gideon. One minute he'd been an ordinary farmer's son. The next minute he blows a trumpet. An army appears. He sends half of them away and he wins the battle without fighting. And you'll find every single time the Spirit of the Lord came upon an Old Testament man it was for the sake of saving a nation. Israel. Always. And you could measure it. It doesn't say he felt good. Or he floated on a cloud or wafted on a mountain or any of that. Maybe he did but it just doesn't say he felt like that. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and he had lifted up the pillars of the building and saved Israel. But we need few men. Judges, prophets, kings or leaders. Until we get to Joel and he says in the last days I'm going to pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Not just one king for a whole nation. Or one prophet for a whole nation.