The Holy Spirit isn't just a mysterious force or an afterthought in Christian theology—He's been actively working since before creation, empowering believers throughout history, and will continue His work into eternity. This powerful message traces the complete story of the Holy Spirit from Genesis to Revelation, revealing how understanding this divine narrative transforms our own life stories.
When we feel formless, empty, or surrounded by darkness, the Holy Spirit—who hovered over the waters at creation—wants to shape us, fill us, and illuminate our path. Throughout the Old Testament, we see glimpses of the Spirit's work as He empowered specific individuals for specific tasks, pointing toward a future where He would indwell every believer.
Jesus Himself modeled complete dependence on the Holy Spirit. Despite being fully God, Christ chose to live His ministry through the Spirit's power—casting out demons, performing miracles, and ultimately offering Himself as a sacrifice "through the eternal Spirit." This profound example challenges us to stop living by our limited human spirit and instead surrender to the unlimited Holy Spirit.
The New Testament reveals how God has "given the power to the people" through His Spirit, commissioning ordinary believers to make disciples and continue Jesus' mission. This democratization of spiritual power means you don't need special credentials or training to be used by God—you simply need to be filled with His Spirit.
Most profoundly, the Spirit's story culminates in eternity, where believers will experience His unhindered presence like a crystal-clear river flowing from God's throne. In heaven, we'll finally be fully fruitful, completely healed, and perfectly worshipful because we'll be perfectly filled with the Spirit.
Ready to experience greater things? The Holy Spirit is calling you to align your story with God's story, emptying yourself so you can be filled with Him. Your human spirit isn't enough—you were created for God's Holy Spirit to empower you for a life beyond anything you could accomplish on your own.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It is good to see everybody, all of your smiling
faces, here this morning.
What an honor it is just to getto be a part of what God is
doing here at First BaptistChurch, powder Springs.
We love to be able to be achurch where the community can
come together as one from thecommunity, come together as one
in unity and worshiping Jesustogether.
(00:22):
I just want to remind you whatwe get to do every Sunday, what
God does in you every Sunday.
We don't take any Sundaylightly.
We remember that.
We get to come here, we get toworship Jesus together, we get
to get filled with the HolySpirit, we get to get into the
Word of God as the Word of Godgets into us, and then we get to
(00:42):
go back into the community anddo more ministry and serve
people and share the gospel withothers so God can work in them
and they can come here and theycan experience him in the same
way.
Can I get an amen?
Amen.
We're just so thankful for allthat God is doing.
I just wanna remind youyesterday our women's ministry
got together and we had 80, I'msorry, 67 ladies here yesterday
(01:03):
and they were here in PriscillaShire and who's one of my
favorite Bible teachers.
She's incredible.
I don't believe in womenpreachers, but I believe in her
and man.
She does just a phenomenal job.
And so all men, can we put ourhands together just for our
ladies getting together andstudying the Word of God?
I love that man.
God is so good.
Also, yesterday there were somefootball games on yesterday.
(01:27):
So shout out to Georgia Techover Clemson.
I saw you, georgia Tech, and myTennessee wife almost preached
today because they almost beatGeorgia yesterday, but it didn't
happen.
It didn't happen.
And so shout out to theBulldogs Good job.
And.
But today is Baptism Sunday, andwe just saw some people
baptized in the first service.
There are others planning toget baptized here today, and we
just saw some people baptized inthe first service.
There are others planning toget baptized here today, and
(01:48):
we've made opportunity foranybody.
Maybe you came here and youweren't expecting to be baptized
today, and maybe your baptismwould be spontaneous, and the
Holy Spirit loves to do that.
And so I just want to encourageyou just to listen to the Lord
and whatever he wants you to dotoday, whatever decision he
wants you, to listen to the Lordand whatever he wants you to do
today, whatever decision hewants you to make today, in
whatever way he wants you tofollow him today.
(02:11):
I heard a story just about abaptism Sunday at another church
way back years ago.
The pastor was baptizing out inthe creek right.
So the town was coming to getbaptized.
And everybody's gettingbaptized.
And here comes the town, drunk,to get baptized.
And everybody's gettingbaptized.
And here comes the town, drunkto get baptized.
Here he comes, walking up tothe pastor, and the pastor said
uh, would you like to getbaptized today?
(02:32):
He said I sure would, pastor.
The pastor baptized him, puthim under the water, brought him
up and he said did you findJesus?
Yet he said nope, not yet,pastor.
And so the pastor baptized himagain, put him back under,
brought him back up, did youfind Jesus?
And the town, drunk, looked athim and said one more time.
So the pastor did it a thirdtime last time, brought him back
(02:54):
up.
He said did you find Jesus?
And the drunk said are you surehe fell in right here?
I can't find him anywhere.
So you never know.
But the whole point, the wholepoint is finding Jesus in your
life.
Can I get an amen?
Finding Jesus in your life,because our lives are all about
Jesus.
Can I just ask everyone, let'sjust pray right now.
(03:14):
Every head bowed, every eyeclosed, every head bowed, every
eye closed.
And I just want to encourageyou just to say a prayer like
this to God.
I'm not asking you to repeat me, because I can't live your
relationship with God, it'sbetween you and God.
But maybe right here, right now, you just wanna say something
to God like this God, whateveryou want me to hear, help me to
hear.
(03:34):
Whatever you want me to believe, help me to believe.
And however you want me to live, help me to live.
All in Jesus' name, in allGod's people said amen.
Well, our series this morning iscalled we're continuing in our
series called Greater Things.
Everyone say greater things,greater Things.
(03:56):
It is a series on the HolySpirit and just as a reminder,
who is the Holy Spirit?
Just to kind of give you aquick overview that I taught on
last week the Holy Spirit is thethird person of the Trinity.
You've got God the Father,you've got God the Son, you've
got God the Holy Spirit.
Three persons, one God.
(04:17):
Everybody say one God and he isthe third person of the Trinity
.
Sometimes we treat the HolySpirit like he's the third wheel
of the Trinity.
He's not the third wheel, right.
We believe in the Father, webelieve in the Son and we
believe in the Holy Spirit.
Some people think the HolySpirit is just the arm of God,
just the power of God, just thework of God.
(04:39):
No, he is a person of God.
He is the person, the God, theSpirit.
He is a person of God.
He is the person, the God, theSpirit.
Sometimes we refer to the HolySpirit as an it, but the Holy
Spirit is not an it.
Every time the Bible talksabout the Holy Spirit, the Bible
calls the Holy Spirit a hebecause he is a person.
(05:00):
Also, you hear people teachabout the Holy Spirit in the
Bible and they say how the OldTestament is all about God the
Father, the New Testament is allabout God the Son, and today
our church age is all about Godthe Spirit.
And they would say God justexisted in three different forms
throughout history.
That is not true.
That is heresy.
(05:21):
The Bible says that God is thesame yesterday, today and
forever.
God has always been Father, sonand Spirit in the past, and God
is Father, son and Spirit today, and God will be Father, son
and Spirit for eternity in thefuture.
Some people still call the HolySpirit the Holy Ghost.
It scares the kids.
Stop that, don't do thatanymore.
(05:42):
And just as a reminder, as areminder often in life we first
experience God the Fatherbecause we understand how God
created us.
And then we come to understandour salvation, god the Holy I'm
sorry, god the Son.
We understand Jesus, how Jesusbecomes our Savior, our death
and our resurrection for oursalvation, and then we often
(06:05):
come to understand the HolySpirit in our salvation and how
the Holy Spirit empowers you foryour salvation.
And that's why Jesus said youwill do.
Jesus said to you you will doeven greater things now that I
am going back to the Father.
What happened when Jesus wentback to the Father?
(06:25):
What happened when Jesus wentback to the Father, at the right
hand of God?
The Bible says in Acts 2.33 thathe poured out his Holy Spirit.
In other words, god wants to dogreater things in your life
than you could ever do foryourself.
God wants to do greater thingsin you.
God wants to do greater thingsin you.
God wants to do greater thingsthrough you.
(06:47):
God wants to do greater thingsaround you.
God wants to do greater thingsin you.
So this morning, what I wannatalk to you about is the whole
story of the Holy Spirit.
I wanna talk to you fromcreation all the way to
revelation, from eternity pastto eternity future, in 30
(07:07):
minutes or less.
So pray for me right now.
Okay, I wanna give you thewhole story.
What does all of the Bible sayabout the Holy Spirit?
Because here's the dealUnderstanding the Holy Spirit
story helps you understand yourstory.
See, we're all living out astory in our life, but the
problem is is that we weren'tcreated for our own story.
(07:30):
We were created that our storywould collide with the story of
God.
In fact, when your story findsits meaning and its purpose in
the story of God, the story ofthe gospel, of Jesus Christ,
that's when your life storyfinds meaning and purpose and
(07:51):
joy and you understand why Godeven created you, because God's
got a greater plan for your life.
So here we go, let's dive intogether.
Number one I want to show youthe Holy Spirit in creation.
Everyone say creation, the HolySpirit in creation.
Everybody might know.
(08:14):
Genesis 1.1, in the beginning,god created the heavens and the
earth.
Do you realize that verse two,right after that, already talks
about the Holy Spirit, thepresence of the Spirit in
creation, genesis 1-2,.
And the earth was without formand void, and darkness was over
(08:36):
the face of the deep and theSpirit of God was hovering over
the face of the waters.
To be honest, we don't evenknow what all that means.
Somehow it looks like that Godmay have just created matter at
that time, but the matter didnot have the form that it needed
to have.
It was empty and there wasdarkness at that time.
(08:57):
And so what did God do?
God had his spirit present, why?
Here's the deal?
Because God loves to be presentas father, as son and as spirit
.
Even in a life that may feellike that there's no form, that
it's not put together.
Maybe you feel like that yourlife is falling apart.
(09:18):
Maybe you feel like everythingaround you is falling apart.
Maybe your life feels void.
Maybe you came today and you,in your heart of hearts, you
feel empty.
Maybe you feel like that youneed some light in your life,
because everywhere you turn isdarkness.
I'm here to tell you thismorning that the Holy Spirit
(09:40):
loves to make your life matter.
I'm here to tell you thismorning the Holy Spirit loves to
put lives back together.
The Holy Spirit loves to filllife not just with other things
but with the presence of Godhimself.
The Holy Spirit loves to shinelight into your life so that you
(10:01):
are not any longer living indarkness.
And how does God do it?
The Bible says in Genesis 2, 7,that when God created the man,
when God created Adam from thedust of the ground, it says that
he breathed into Adam'snostrils the breath of life and
the man became a living creature.
(10:23):
It's kind of like when you'reborn the same thing is true of
all of us the doctor takes you,the doctor gives you your first
spanking.
When you're born, right and youcry and you get filled with air
and you start to breathe.
The Bible says that when Godcreated Adam, he breathed life
into his nostrils and that wordis ruach.
(10:44):
The Hebrew word is ruach.
The Hebrew word is ruach.
The Hebrew word for spirit forthe Holy Spirit is ruach.
Spirit means.
In the Hebrew it means, canmean breath, and it can mean
wind.
In other words, when you'reborn, god fills you with a human
spirit, but he did not createyou hear me to only have a human
(11:05):
spirit, but he did not createyou hear me to only have a human
spirit.
Your human spirit is not enough, because our human spirit is
also sinful.
God created us to not just havea human spirit.
God created us also to have hisHoly Spirit.
When you get saved, godbreathes in you his Holy Spirit,
(11:30):
just like you were born.
Your human spirit.
When you get reborn, it's hisHoly Spirit.
Can I get an amen?
That's how God changes yourlife.
He doesn't wanna just do thingsaround you, he wants to do
things within you.
Spirit means breath or even wind.
(11:52):
It would be like your life.
Could you imagine being on alarge lake or a sea, and let's
say a large sea, and you're in arowboat and you feel like that?
You're not even moving.
The sea is so large.
You're working as hard as youcan, you're rowing as hard as
you can.
That is living your life byyour human spirit.
(12:13):
But when you let up your sailsand you allow the wind to be
able to blow you across, to leadyou, to guide you, to
strengthen you across the sea,I've learned that sailboats go
some two to three times fasterthan rowboats.
Why and they don't even have todo the work they allow the wind
(12:35):
to do all the work for them.
That's the way that you wannalive your life.
You wanna live your life by thepower of the Holy Spirit, not
by the power of the human spirit.
The whole point is the HolySpirit is with you, he's with
you.
The Holy Spirit wants to saveyou.
The Holy Spirit, just like inthe creation of the world.
(12:57):
He was there when you were born.
The Holy Spirit is therethroughout your life.
The Holy Spirit is with you.
But here's the deal.
He doesn't want to just be withyou, he wants to be within you,
because that's why God createdyou.
So here we see in number two,the Holy Spirit in the Old
Testament.
Everyone say Old Testament.
(13:19):
Now, the Old Testament isfascinating because in the Old
Testament, very different fromthe New Testament.
Now, the Old Testament isfascinating because in the Old
Testament very different fromthe New Testament In the Old
Testament you see glimpses ofthe Holy Spirit.
It'd be like if you were takinga night walk or a night hike
and a storm comes up and maybeit's so dark outside you can't
see where you're going, and whenthe lightning flashes and it
(13:40):
lights up the sky and it lightsup your way, you can kind of see
where you're going and then fora split second.
Then it gets dark again.
The same way in the OldTestament, we see these glimpses
, we see these flashes of theHoly Spirit and we see certain
verses that tell us a little bitabout what God is planning to
do with his Holy Spirit.
Throughout the Old Testament,god is, he is filling certain
(14:04):
people in order to do specifictasks for him throughout the Old
Testament by the empowerment ofhis Holy Spirit.
But here's what's cool, what'sso awesome about this is, in the
Old Testament it also gives usa prophecy of how the Holy
Spirit one day will fill upevery single person that
(14:26):
believes in Jesus, every singleperson that gives their life to
Jesus.
Like Ezekiel, chapter 36, godsays and I will give you a new
heart.
Everybody say new heart, a newheart.
Why?
Because we don't just want ourold heart, we don't want just a
human heart, we want God to giveus a spiritual heart within us.
(14:47):
He said I'm gonna give you anew heart and a new spirit, not
just the human spirit but theHoly Spirit, and I will put
within you, and I will removethat heart of stone from your
flesh, and I will give you aheart of flesh and I will put my
spirit within you and cause youto walk in my statutes and be
(15:09):
careful to obey my rules.
What is God saying?
God is saying you know it's notenough to live on your own.
God is saying you know thatthere's a problem with your
human heart.
God's saying you know there's aproblem with your human spirit.
God's saying you know there's aproblem with your human spirit.
You know that you are notenough, that you need more,
(15:30):
because we don't have peace inour life and we don't have joy
in our life and we don't havehope in our life without the
Holy Spirit moving in us.
God's gotta do a new work andhere's what we see.
The whole point of it is isthat the Holy Spirit is pursuing
you.
Why?
Because the Holy Spirit of God,he loves you.
(15:54):
He loves you, he wants you toexperience him and the things of
God.
But he's first gotta do a workwithin you.
He has to change you from theinside out.
And so, just like the OldTestament, as the Holy Spirit is
working in the background toput everything together.
(16:15):
For when Jesus comes on thescene, in the same way, before
Jesus comes on the scene of yourlife, before you get saved, the
Holy Spirit was working in thebackground the entire time.
It's kind of like being parentsof toddlers, which is the stage
of life that Michelle and I arein right now right, a
six-year-old, a two-year-old, aone-year-old and one on the way,
(16:37):
and we just have one job, andour one job, raising these kids
right now, is just keep themalive.
That's it.
We're just keeping them alive,y'all.
That's all we're doing, right?
It's like every time we turnaround, they're just like doing
death-defying stunts all thetime, right, whether we're
(16:58):
trying to keep them alive in thebathtub, right, or maybe we're
trying to keep them alive justfrom falling off things all the
time.
Just the other day I was withEliana on the couch Eliana, 15
months old and she was on thecouch and she's kind of, you
know, walking like Frankensteinacross the couch and you know
she's about to fall off and busther head, and so I'm just right
there with her and she sitsdown.
(17:19):
I'm like, okay, god, we canjust chill for a second.
She sits down and she turns towhere her back is, towards the
opening of the couch, right, andthen she just goes backwards
and falls Just head first, triesto fall off the couch like it's
going to be fun, right, insteadof like, no, that's an ER visit
, that's calling the ambulance,so I'm right there and I catch
her.
I'm like not on my watch, yourmother would kill me.
(17:41):
And so I catch her.
And that's just what we findourselves doing is keeping them
alive.
You know what's interesting?
Eliana did not turn around andshe did not thank me.
One time she did not even thankme.
She went like oh, thank God,dad, you were there that you
saved my life.
Today Again, again.
(18:02):
That's what we do all day long,but that's what the Holy Spirit
does for us.
He's in the background of ourlife and he's protecting us and
he is using people in our lifeto come into our life and to
tell us about Jesus and toinvite us to church so that we
can hear the gospel, so that wecan learn that Jesus wants to do
greater things in our lifethrough his Holy Spirit, and his
Holy Spirit is pursuing us.
(18:24):
Number three is the Holy Spiritin the life of Jesus.
You ever noticed this before?
It's not like when Jesus came,the Holy Spirit left.
No, when Jesus came, jesus saidthat he actually lived his life
by the Holy Spirit.
You ever noticed even in hisbirth, the birth of Jesus, luke
1, 35,.
The angel said to Mary the HolySpirit will come upon you.
(18:48):
He's the power of the most highwill overshadow you and the
child Jesus to be born will becalled holy the son of God.
The Holy Spirit orchestratedthe entire birth of Jesus.
Just like the Holy Spiritorchestrated the entire birth of
Jesus.
Just like the Holy Spiritorchestrated your birth.
It says in Matthew I'm sorryMark chapter one, verse 10, in
(19:10):
the baptism of Jesus.
And when Jesus came up out ofthe water, meaning when John the
Baptist baptized Jesus, hedidn't sprinkle water on him, he
didn't just douse a littlewater, no, he put Jesus under
the water and he brought him outof the water because baptism is
a symbol of death.
Baptism is a symbol of dyingfor our sin and coming up out of
(19:32):
the water and it's a symbolcoming out as the symbol of
resurrection.
So when Jesus came up out ofthe water, immediately, what did
Jesus see?
He saw the heavens.
He literally sees the sky, andthe sky is torn open and the
Holy Spirit descended on Jesuslike a dove, like a dove right
(19:56):
there.
In other words, jesus in thatmoment is being anointed with
the Holy Spirit.
You know what's interesting is?
The Bible then does not say so.
When you get baptized is whenyou get the Holy Spirit.
The Bible doesn't say that.
The Bible says that when youget saved, you get the Holy
Spirit.
Because when you get saved,you're united in Christ and what
(20:18):
is true of Jesus becomes trueof you.
And because Jesus is anointedwith the Holy Spirit, when you
get saved, when you give inChrist and what is true of Jesus
becomes true of you, andbecause Jesus is anointed with
the Holy Spirit, when you getsaved, when you give your life
to Jesus, that's when you getthe Holy Spirit.
That you get the Holy Spiritwhen you say Jesus, I believe
that you died on the cross formy sin and, jesus, I need you to
forgive me of all my sin.
Jesus, I believe that you rosefrom the dead, I believe that
(20:39):
you're alive, I believe thatyou're real and, jesus, I want
you to be the Lord of my life.
I love the quote that says ifJesus is not Lord of all, then
Jesus isn't Lord at all.
We are calling Jesus to be theLord of all of our life, and
(21:00):
when we get saved is when we getthe Holy Spirit.
And hear me, that's not the end.
It's just the beginning of yourlife.
It's just the beginning becausehere's what the Bible says.
You ever seen this about Jesus?
Matthew 12, 28,.
But it is by the Spirit of Godthat I even cast out demons, and
(21:21):
the kingdom of God has comeupon you.
You know what Jesus is saying.
Jesus is saying that hesubmitted his life to the Holy
Spirit.
He's not even living out hisown deity, he's not even living
out his own divinity.
That Jesus submitted and hesurrendered his life to the Holy
Spirit.
(21:41):
Why?
So that he could show you andshow me what a life could do in
greater things that surrenderedand submitted to the Holy Spirit
.
In other words, I cannot liveout the power of my own life,
even once I'm saved.
I can't live out of my ownpower.
(22:01):
Every day of my salvation, I'vegot to get in the word of God
so the word of God gets in meEvery day of my salvation.
I've got to get in prayer sothat I am getting filled with
the Holy Spirit Every day ofsalvation.
I've got to make sure that I'mprioritizing the plan of God
over my own plans, the will ofGod over my own will the agenda
(22:24):
of God over my own agenda.
Why?
Because I believe that the HolySpirit is enabling me to live
my life for him, which is betterthan me living my life for me.
And the Holy Spirit wants to dothe same thing in you, no
matter who you are.
He wants to enable you.
You might have told yourselfbefore I'm not able to do this,
(22:50):
and if you've told yourself thatyou were right, you're not able
to do it and I'm not able to doit.
One of the greatest things thatyou can do spiritually to find
spiritual strength in your lifeis to pursue physical weakness.
In other words, why is it thatwe get up early and we sacrifice
(23:14):
sleep?
We get up early to get into theword of God in prayer, because
the spirit of God gives morestrength than sleep does.
Why is it that we fast, we skipa meal and we fast and we pray
over these very important thingsin our life?
Because we pursue physicalweakness in order to get
(23:35):
spiritual strength.
That's what God is saying isempty yourself of you so that
you can be filled with me.
And that's what we saw Jesusdoing throughout his life,
because he didn't live by hisown power.
He lived by the power of theHoly Spirit.
Number four the Holy Spirit inthe New Testament.
Everybody say New Testament, sohere's what we see when you
(23:57):
give your life to Jesus and whenyou become his disciple and
when you get baptized, the mostimportant decision that you can
ever make in your life is givingyour life to Jesus.
Nothing is more important, anydecision in your life other than
giving your life to Jesus,because it brings the Lord God
(24:18):
into your life and it gives youeternity with him, that your
eternity and your life aresettled right.
The most important decision isyour salvation.
And then the most importantdecision, once you get saved, is
to get baptized, because theBible talks about it as your
first step of obedience beforethe Lord.
(24:39):
Look at Matthew 28.
Jesus said go.
Everybody say go, notice that.
Jesus didn't say stay.
Jesus didn't say sit.
Jesus didn't say wait and leteverybody else come to you.
No, jesus, when you get saved,when you get full of the Holy
Spirit, when you follow him,what he's called you to do is go
(25:00):
into someone else's life.
I don't know who that is foryou, but it's probably going to
be a family member, is probablygonna be a friend, is probably
gonna be a neighbor.
It might be somebody you justrun into out in the community
somewhere.
It might be a first-timeacquaintance.
But Jesus says I want you to go, I want you to go into their
(25:21):
life, like he says I've comeinto your life, I want you to go
and I want you to makedisciples.
We're not just calling peopleto make decisions, we're calling
people to follow Jesus withtheir life.
Go and make disciples of allnations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, of the Sonand the Holy Spirit.
(25:41):
Right?
So when people get saved, whatare we called to do?
Hey, I wanna invite you to giveyour life to Jesus and what you
do Now.
I would love to help you getbaptized, because that baptism,
that's what Jesus did for themand that's what we can do for
him.
He says baptizing them in thename of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit, teachingthem to observe all that I've
(26:03):
commanded you.
And behold, jesus said I amwith you always, to the end of
the age.
I need you to see somethingvery important here so that you
don't miss it.
Did you realize how many ofy'all have ever been on
Wikipedia before you ever beenon Wikipedia?
Raise your hand if you've beenon Wikipedia.
So Wikipedia, how many of y'allhave ever heard of Wikipedia?
(26:23):
Raise your hand.
It should be everybody in theroom, okay, unless you live in a
cave.
All right, good, all right.
So Wikipedia did you realizethat it started as a website
called Newpedia?
And Newpedia was a website thatwere articles written by
doctors, experts, professors andPhDs, and they were writing all
(26:43):
of these very technicalarticles for people to read?
The only problem is, afterabout three years, only a
handful of articles were written.
Why?
Because the doctors, theexperts, the professionals
didn't have the time, and thearticles they did write, nobody
could read them because theywere so deep.
So they tried a brand newwebsite called Wikipedia and
they said anybody can write anyof these articles.
(27:06):
And they said it went viral.
And today, over seven millionWikipedia articles are written
and over 100 million peoplevisit Wikipedia every day.
What did they do?
They gave the power to thepeople.
What is the Holy Spirit doingin your life?
He's given the power of thegospel to you.
(27:27):
The Bible is saying that.
He's given you the keys of thekingdom.
The Bible is saying that it'snot just up to the pastors and
to the professionals and theprofessors.
Jesus is saying no, if you'remy disciple, you're called to go
.
It's the beauty of the gospelthat you're called to go and
that you are called to makedisciples.
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What is the Holy Spirit doing?
He is empowering you.
He's empowering you to go tothat person that you most
desperately want to be saved andyou share the gospel of Jesus
with them.
He's wanting you.
He's empowering you to go tothat person that you're praying
for.
He's empowering you to talk tothe person that you know that is
(28:13):
the furthest from God, thehardest heart toward God, and
that's been my prayer today thatthe hardest heart in the room,
the furthest person from him inthe room, would give their life
to God.
Today and then last, we see theHoly Spirit in eternity.
(28:39):
The Holy Spirit in eternity.
Hebrews 9, 14 says calls theHoly Spirit, the eternal spirit.
John 14,.
Jesus said the Holy Spirit isyour helper and he's going to be
with you forever.
Revelation 22 talks about waterand that water is a symbol of
the Holy Spirit and this is apicture of heaven.
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Then the angel showed me theriver of water of life.
Again, I believe it's physicalwater in heaven, but it is also
a picture of the Holy Spirit,bright, clear as crystal,
flowing from the throne of Godand from the Lamb.
If you can imagine, god isgiving the Apostle John a vision
(29:22):
of what this new Jerusalem cityis gonna look like and he sees
this beautiful, crystal clearriver running through the city,
coming from the throne of Godand from Jesus, the Lamb.
It says.
Through the middle of thestreet of the city is this river
, and on either side of theriver, the tree of life with its
(29:42):
12 kinds of fruit.
What is John saying inRevelation?
John is saying in heaven wewill finally be fully fruitful.
We're gonna be perfect, becausethe Bible says that when we see
Jesus, we're gonna be made justlike him.
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You're never gonna be perfectin this life.
This life is not aboutperfection.
This life is about direction,just following Jesus with your
life.
But we're looking forward tothe day that we get to
experience the perfection ofJesus Christ yielding its fruit
each month the leaves of thetrees for the healing of the
nations.
No more sickness, no more pain,no more death, no more sin.
(30:27):
No longer will there beanything accursed, but the
throne of God and of the Lambwill be in it and his servants
will worship him.
Why?
Because you and I, we will befull of the Holy Spirit.
When you're full of the HolySpirit, you can't help but
(30:48):
worship God.
When you're full of the HolySpirit, you can't help but obey
God.
When you're full of the HolySpirit, you can't help but
worship God.
When you're full of the HolySpirit, you can't help but obey
God.
When you're full of the HolySpirit, you can't help but bear
the fruit of God.
So what is the Holy Spiritdoing today?
Revelation 22, the last chapterof the entire Bible, from
Genesis 1 to Revelation 22,.
The Spirit and the bride saycome.
(31:10):
If you're here this morning andyou haven't given your life to
Jesus, no matter if you've beenin church all your life it's
your first time back in a longtime or you've never been here
before.
The Holy Spirit is personallyspeaking to you and calling your
(31:34):
name and the Holy Spirit istelling you come to Jesus, give
your life to him, understand howyour life can matter.
The spirit and the bride saycome.
Let the one who hears say come.
Let the one who is thirsty come.
Let the one who desires to takethe water of life without price
(31:55):
, let them come.
The question this morning, asthe Holy Spirit is calling you.
The question is do you need tobe biblically saved?
Do you need to really give yourlife to Jesus?
Do you have the real thing?
Do you have a real relationshipwith Jesus?
What is that?
Very simply, have you come toJesus and said Jesus, I believe
(32:19):
that you are God, that you havedied on the cross for my sin.
Jesus, I'm asking you toforgive me of my sin.
Jesus, I believe that you rosefrom the dead.
I believe that you're real.
I believe that you're alive.
Jesus, I believe that you rosefrom the dead.
I believe that you're real.
I believe that you're alive.
And Jesus, I don't wanna justknow about you.
I wanna follow you.
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I wanna place my faith and mytrust in you.
I call on you to be the Lord ofmy life so I can follow you the
rest of my life With every headbowed and every eye closed.
There is no more importantdecision in your life.
If this is you right here,right now.
I wanna encourage you.
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The Holy Spirit is telling youto come, and if you wanna give
your life to Jesus, I can't praythis for you.
I can't save you.
I'm not even asking you torepeat after me I just wanna
help lead you to him.
In your own words, in your ownheart, you can just tell him
something like this right now,you can say dear Jesus, I
believe in you and I need you.
(33:28):
You can tell him Jesus, Ibelieve that you died on the
cross for my sin and, jesus, Iask you to forgive me of all my
sin.
And you can tell him, jesus, Ibelieve that you rose from the
dead, you're alive, you're real.
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From the dead.
You're alive, you're real.
And the Bible says that if youconfess with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord and believe withyour heart that God raised him
from the dead, you will be saved.
So call on him right now.
Jesus, be my Lord, be my God,be my Savior.
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In Jesus' name.
In all God's people said Putyour hands together for anybody
that gave their life to Jesusthis morning.
No greater decision in lifethan you could ever make.
So I wanna encourage you rightnow.
We're about to have a few peopleget baptized here at the end of
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this next song.
But here's what I want you toknow Maybe you came here today
and God's working in your lifeand God is speaking to your
heart, and maybe you just gotsaved and you just gave your
life to him, and maybe you'vebeen saved for a while and maybe
you haven't been baptized sinceyou have been saved.
There's a next step card infront of you that you can fill
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it out and place on there anydecisions that maybe you need to
make.
That we're not.
We don't want to hound you.
We just want to help you inyour life with Jesus.
Do you need to be biblicallybaptized?
That's, being baptized to theFather, the Son and the Holy
Spirit.
Why?
Not for your salvation, butfrom your salvation.
Not to be saved, but becauseyou are saved.
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When do you get baptized Afteryour salvation?
How the Bible says, byimmersion and submersion, is
biblical baptism.
I said last week just commonexcuses that people have to not
get baptized.
You might think I'm scared ofwater.
We've been in church for 183years.
We've not drowned one personyet.
We're going to keep that rate,going that streak.
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Maybe you think I don't have anyfamily here.
They can watch online.
We can record it for you.
Maybe you think I don't have achange of clothes.
We've got baptism t-shirts, afree t-shirt for everyone
getting baptized.
We've got hair caps for all youladies, I don't need one, but
maybe you need one, and we'vegot underwear and all that,
everything you need for a changeof clothes that you can put
your stuff back on and you cango back home dry.
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Maybe you're thinking, well, Irode with somebody, well,
they'll wait for you, and ifthey won't, they need to get
saved and baptized too.
Or maybe you think, man, I wantsomeone to come with me, I
don't want to go alone.
If I can just ask the room, ifsomeone asked you today if you
would go with them to help themget baptized, how many of y'all
would say I'd go with them rightnow?
Raise your hand.
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You've got all kinds of friends, all kinds of family in here
that'd be willing to help youout right here.
So here's what we're going todo.
We're going to sing a song andI'm going to ask anybody that
wants to get baptized that youcan go right out to the lobby.
They're gonna ask you threequestions you believe Jesus died
for your sin?
You believe he rose from thedead?
Have you asked to be the Lordof your life?
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And you too can get baptized,and we'll be here to help you
every step along the way.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we love youand God, we just pray that you
would have your way in everylife, and God, for that life
right here, right now.
That may just be holding back,god, I pray that you would just
empower them to step forward inobedience, not even planning on
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this today, but, god, you havegreater plans for them and so,
lord, we just ask that your HolySpirit will continue to fill us
and that we would worship youin all that we say and all that
we do in Jesus' name.
And all God's people said let'sstand together, let's worship
him.
It is good to see everybody, all of your smiling
faces, here this morning.
What an honor it is just to getto be a part of what God is
doing here at First BaptistChurch, powder Springs.
We love to be able to be achurch where the community can
come together as one from thecommunity, come together as one
in unity and worshiping Jesustogether.
(00:22):
I just want to remind you whatwe get to do every Sunday, what
God does in you every Sunday.
We don't take any Sundaylightly.
We remember that.
We get to come here, we get toworship Jesus together, we get
to get filled with the HolySpirit, we get to get into the
Word of God as the Word of Godgets into us, and then we get to
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go back into the community anddo more ministry and serve
people and share the gospel withothers so God can work in them
and they can come here and theycan experience him in the same
way.
Can I get an amen?
Amen.
We're just so thankful for allthat God is doing.
I just wanna remind youyesterday our women's ministry
got together and we had 80, I'msorry, 67 ladies here yesterday
(01:03):
and they were here in PriscillaShire and who's one of my
favorite Bible teachers.
She's incredible.
I don't believe in womenpreachers, but I believe in her
and man.
She does just a phenomenal job.
And so all men, can we put ourhands together just for our
ladies getting together andstudying the Word of God?
I love that man.
God is so good.
Also, yesterday there were somefootball games on yesterday.
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So shout out to Georgia Techover Clemson.
I saw you, georgia Tech, and myTennessee wife almost preached
today because they almost beatGeorgia yesterday, but it didn't
happen.
It didn't happen.
And so shout out to theBulldogs Good job.
And.
But today is Baptism Sunday, andwe just saw some people
baptized in the first service.
There are others planning toget baptized here today, and we
just saw some people baptized inthe first service.
There are others planning toget baptized here today, and
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we've made opportunity foranybody.
Maybe you came here and youweren't expecting to be baptized
today, and maybe your baptismwould be spontaneous, and the
Holy Spirit loves to do that.
And so I just want to encourageyou just to listen to the Lord
and whatever he wants you to dotoday, whatever decision he
wants you, to listen to the Lordand whatever he wants you to do
today, whatever decision hewants you to make today, in
whatever way he wants you tofollow him today.
(02:11):
I heard a story just about abaptism Sunday at another church
way back years ago.
The pastor was baptizing out inthe creek right.
So the town was coming to getbaptized.
And everybody's gettingbaptized.
And here comes the town, drunk,to get baptized.
And everybody's gettingbaptized.
And here comes the town, drunkto get baptized.
Here he comes, walking up tothe pastor, and the pastor said
uh, would you like to getbaptized today?
(02:32):
He said I sure would, pastor.
The pastor baptized him, puthim under the water, brought him
up and he said did you findJesus?
Yet he said nope, not yet,pastor.
And so the pastor baptized himagain, put him back under,
brought him back up, did youfind Jesus?
And the town, drunk, looked athim and said one more time.
So the pastor did it a thirdtime last time, brought him back
(02:54):
up.
He said did you find Jesus?
And the drunk said are you surehe fell in right here?
I can't find him anywhere.
So you never know.
But the whole point, the wholepoint is finding Jesus in your
life.
Can I get an amen?
Finding Jesus in your life,because our lives are all about
Jesus.
Can I just ask everyone, let'sjust pray right now.
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Every head bowed, every eyeclosed, every head bowed, every
eye closed.
And I just want to encourageyou just to say a prayer like
this to God.
I'm not asking you to repeat me, because I can't live your
relationship with God, it'sbetween you and God.
But maybe right here, right now, you just wanna say something
to God like this God, whateveryou want me to hear, help me to
hear.
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Whatever you want me to believe, help me to believe.
And however you want me to live, help me to live.
All in Jesus' name, in allGod's people said amen.
Well, our series this morning iscalled we're continuing in our
series called Greater Things.
Everyone say greater things,greater Things.
(03:56):
It is a series on the HolySpirit and just as a reminder,
who is the Holy Spirit?
Just to kind of give you aquick overview that I taught on
last week the Holy Spirit is thethird person of the Trinity.
You've got God the Father,you've got God the Son, you've
got God the Holy Spirit.
Three persons, one God.
(04:17):
Everybody say one God and he isthe third person of the Trinity
.
Sometimes we treat the HolySpirit like he's the third wheel
of the Trinity.
He's not the third wheel, right.
We believe in the Father, webelieve in the Son and we
believe in the Holy Spirit.
Some people think the HolySpirit is just the arm of God,
just the power of God, just thework of God.
(04:39):
No, he is a person of God.
He is the person, the God, theSpirit.
He is a person of God.
He is the person, the God, theSpirit.
Sometimes we refer to the HolySpirit as an it, but the Holy
Spirit is not an it.
Every time the Bible talksabout the Holy Spirit, the Bible
calls the Holy Spirit a hebecause he is a person.
(05:00):
Also, you hear people teachabout the Holy Spirit in the
Bible and they say how the OldTestament is all about God the
Father, the New Testament is allabout God the Son, and today
our church age is all about Godthe Spirit.
And they would say God justexisted in three different forms
throughout history.
That is not true.
That is heresy.
(05:21):
The Bible says that God is thesame yesterday, today and
forever.
God has always been Father, sonand Spirit in the past, and God
is Father, son and Spirit today, and God will be Father, son
and Spirit for eternity in thefuture.
Some people still call the HolySpirit the Holy Ghost.
It scares the kids.
Stop that, don't do thatanymore.
(05:42):
And just as a reminder, as areminder often in life we first
experience God the Fatherbecause we understand how God
created us.
And then we come to understandour salvation, god the Holy I'm
sorry, god the Son.
We understand Jesus, how Jesusbecomes our Savior, our death
and our resurrection for oursalvation, and then we often
(06:05):
come to understand the HolySpirit in our salvation and how
the Holy Spirit empowers you foryour salvation.
And that's why Jesus said youwill do.
Jesus said to you you will doeven greater things now that I
am going back to the Father.
What happened when Jesus wentback to the Father?
(06:25):
What happened when Jesus wentback to the Father, at the right
hand of God?
The Bible says in Acts 2.33 thathe poured out his Holy Spirit.
In other words, god wants to dogreater things in your life
than you could ever do foryourself.
God wants to do greater thingsin you.
God wants to do greater thingsin you.
God wants to do greater thingsthrough you.
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God wants to do greater thingsaround you.
God wants to do greater thingsin you.
So this morning, what I wannatalk to you about is the whole
story of the Holy Spirit.
I wanna talk to you fromcreation all the way to
revelation, from eternity pastto eternity future, in 30
(07:07):
minutes or less.
So pray for me right now.
Okay, I wanna give you thewhole story.
What does all of the Bible sayabout the Holy Spirit?
Because here's the dealUnderstanding the Holy Spirit
story helps you understand yourstory.
See, we're all living out astory in our life, but the
problem is is that we weren'tcreated for our own story.
(07:30):
We were created that our storywould collide with the story of
God.
In fact, when your story findsits meaning and its purpose in
the story of God, the story ofthe gospel, of Jesus Christ,
that's when your life storyfinds meaning and purpose and
(07:51):
joy and you understand why Godeven created you, because God's
got a greater plan for your life.
So here we go, let's dive intogether.
Number one I want to show youthe Holy Spirit in creation.
Everyone say creation, the HolySpirit in creation.
Everybody might know.
(08:14):
Genesis 1.1, in the beginning,god created the heavens and the
earth.
Do you realize that verse two,right after that, already talks
about the Holy Spirit, thepresence of the Spirit in
creation, genesis 1-2,.
And the earth was without formand void, and darkness was over
(08:36):
the face of the deep and theSpirit of God was hovering over
the face of the waters.
To be honest, we don't evenknow what all that means.
Somehow it looks like that Godmay have just created matter at
that time, but the matter didnot have the form that it needed
to have.
It was empty and there wasdarkness at that time.
(08:57):
And so what did God do?
God had his spirit present, why?
Here's the deal?
Because God loves to be presentas father, as son and as spirit
.
Even in a life that may feellike that there's no form, that
it's not put together.
Maybe you feel like that yourlife is falling apart.
(09:18):
Maybe you feel like everythingaround you is falling apart.
Maybe your life feels void.
Maybe you came today and you,in your heart of hearts, you
feel empty.
Maybe you feel like that youneed some light in your life,
because everywhere you turn isdarkness.
I'm here to tell you thismorning that the Holy Spirit
(09:40):
loves to make your life matter.
I'm here to tell you thismorning the Holy Spirit loves to
put lives back together.
The Holy Spirit loves to filllife not just with other things
but with the presence of Godhimself.
The Holy Spirit loves to shinelight into your life so that you
(10:01):
are not any longer living indarkness.
And how does God do it?
The Bible says in Genesis 2, 7,that when God created the man,
when God created Adam from thedust of the ground, it says that
he breathed into Adam'snostrils the breath of life and
the man became a living creature.
(10:23):
It's kind of like when you'reborn the same thing is true of
all of us the doctor takes you,the doctor gives you your first
spanking.
When you're born, right and youcry and you get filled with air
and you start to breathe.
The Bible says that when Godcreated Adam, he breathed life
into his nostrils and that wordis ruach.
(10:44):
The Hebrew word is ruach.
The Hebrew word is ruach.
The Hebrew word for spirit forthe Holy Spirit is ruach.
Spirit means.
In the Hebrew it means, canmean breath, and it can mean
wind.
In other words, when you'reborn, god fills you with a human
spirit, but he did not createyou hear me to only have a human
(11:05):
spirit, but he did not createyou hear me to only have a human
spirit.
Your human spirit is not enough, because our human spirit is
also sinful.
God created us to not just havea human spirit.
God created us also to have hisHoly Spirit.
When you get saved, godbreathes in you his Holy Spirit,
(11:30):
just like you were born.
Your human spirit.
When you get reborn, it's hisHoly Spirit.
Can I get an amen?
That's how God changes yourlife.
He doesn't wanna just do thingsaround you, he wants to do
things within you.
Spirit means breath or even wind.
(11:52):
It would be like your life.
Could you imagine being on alarge lake or a sea, and let's
say a large sea, and you're in arowboat and you feel like that?
You're not even moving.
The sea is so large.
You're working as hard as youcan, you're rowing as hard as
you can.
That is living your life byyour human spirit.
(12:13):
But when you let up your sailsand you allow the wind to be
able to blow you across, to leadyou, to guide you, to
strengthen you across the sea,I've learned that sailboats go
some two to three times fasterthan rowboats.
Why and they don't even have todo the work they allow the wind
(12:35):
to do all the work for them.
That's the way that you wannalive your life.
You wanna live your life by thepower of the Holy Spirit, not
by the power of the human spirit.
The whole point is the HolySpirit is with you, he's with
you.
The Holy Spirit wants to saveyou.
The Holy Spirit, just like inthe creation of the world.
(12:57):
He was there when you were born.
The Holy Spirit is therethroughout your life.
The Holy Spirit is with you.
But here's the deal.
He doesn't want to just be withyou, he wants to be within you,
because that's why God createdyou.
So here we see in number two,the Holy Spirit in the Old
Testament.
Everyone say Old Testament.
(13:19):
Now, the Old Testament isfascinating because in the Old
Testament, very different fromthe New Testament.
Now, the Old Testament isfascinating because in the Old
Testament very different fromthe New Testament In the Old
Testament you see glimpses ofthe Holy Spirit.
It'd be like if you were takinga night walk or a night hike
and a storm comes up and maybeit's so dark outside you can't
see where you're going, and whenthe lightning flashes and it
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lights up the sky and it lightsup your way, you can kind of see
where you're going and then fora split second.
Then it gets dark again.
The same way in the OldTestament, we see these glimpses
, we see these flashes of theHoly Spirit and we see certain
verses that tell us a little bitabout what God is planning to
do with his Holy Spirit.
Throughout the Old Testament,god is, he is filling certain
(14:04):
people in order to do specifictasks for him throughout the Old
Testament by the empowerment ofhis Holy Spirit.
But here's what's cool, what'sso awesome about this is, in the
Old Testament it also gives usa prophecy of how the Holy
Spirit one day will fill upevery single person that
(14:26):
believes in Jesus, every singleperson that gives their life to
Jesus.
Like Ezekiel, chapter 36, godsays and I will give you a new
heart.
Everybody say new heart, a newheart.
Why?
Because we don't just want ourold heart, we don't want just a
human heart, we want God to giveus a spiritual heart within us.
(14:47):
He said I'm gonna give you anew heart and a new spirit, not
just the human spirit but theHoly Spirit, and I will put
within you, and I will removethat heart of stone from your
flesh, and I will give you aheart of flesh and I will put my
spirit within you and cause youto walk in my statutes and be
(15:09):
careful to obey my rules.
What is God saying?
God is saying you know it's notenough to live on your own.
God is saying you know thatthere's a problem with your
human heart.
God's saying you know there's aproblem with your human spirit.
God's saying you know there's aproblem with your human spirit.
You know that you are notenough, that you need more,
(15:30):
because we don't have peace inour life and we don't have joy
in our life and we don't havehope in our life without the
Holy Spirit moving in us.
God's gotta do a new work andhere's what we see.
The whole point of it is isthat the Holy Spirit is pursuing
you.
Why?
Because the Holy Spirit of God,he loves you.
(15:54):
He loves you, he wants you toexperience him and the things of
God.
But he's first gotta do a workwithin you.
He has to change you from theinside out.
And so, just like the OldTestament, as the Holy Spirit is
working in the background toput everything together.
(16:15):
For when Jesus comes on thescene, in the same way, before
Jesus comes on the scene of yourlife, before you get saved, the
Holy Spirit was working in thebackground the entire time.
It's kind of like being parentsof toddlers, which is the stage
of life that Michelle and I arein right now right, a
six-year-old, a two-year-old, aone-year-old and one on the way,
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and we just have one job, andour one job, raising these kids
right now, is just keep themalive.
That's it.
We're just keeping them alive,y'all.
That's all we're doing, right?
It's like every time we turnaround, they're just like doing
death-defying stunts all thetime, right, whether we're
(16:58):
trying to keep them alive in thebathtub, right, or maybe we're
trying to keep them alive justfrom falling off things all the
time.
Just the other day I was withEliana on the couch Eliana, 15
months old and she was on thecouch and she's kind of, you
know, walking like Frankensteinacross the couch and you know
she's about to fall off and busther head, and so I'm just right
there with her and she sitsdown.
(17:19):
I'm like, okay, god, we canjust chill for a second.
She sits down and she turns towhere her back is, towards the
opening of the couch, right, andthen she just goes backwards
and falls Just head first, triesto fall off the couch like it's
going to be fun, right, insteadof like, no, that's an ER visit
, that's calling the ambulance,so I'm right there and I catch
her.
I'm like not on my watch, yourmother would kill me.
(17:41):
And so I catch her.
And that's just what we findourselves doing is keeping them
alive.
You know what's interesting?
Eliana did not turn around andshe did not thank me.
One time she did not even thankme.
She went like oh, thank God,dad, you were there that you
saved my life.
Today Again, again.
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That's what we do all day long,but that's what the Holy Spirit
does for us.
He's in the background of ourlife and he's protecting us and
he is using people in our lifeto come into our life and to
tell us about Jesus and toinvite us to church so that we
can hear the gospel, so that wecan learn that Jesus wants to do
greater things in our lifethrough his Holy Spirit, and his
Holy Spirit is pursuing us.
(18:24):
Number three is the Holy Spiritin the life of Jesus.
You ever noticed this before?
It's not like when Jesus came,the Holy Spirit left.
No, when Jesus came, jesus saidthat he actually lived his life
by the Holy Spirit.
You ever noticed even in hisbirth, the birth of Jesus, luke
1, 35,.
The angel said to Mary the HolySpirit will come upon you.
(18:48):
He's the power of the most highwill overshadow you and the
child Jesus to be born will becalled holy the son of God.
The Holy Spirit orchestratedthe entire birth of Jesus.
Just like the Holy Spiritorchestrated the entire birth of
Jesus.
Just like the Holy Spiritorchestrated your birth.
It says in Matthew I'm sorryMark chapter one, verse 10, in
(19:10):
the baptism of Jesus.
And when Jesus came up out ofthe water, meaning when John the
Baptist baptized Jesus, hedidn't sprinkle water on him, he
didn't just douse a littlewater, no, he put Jesus under
the water and he brought him outof the water because baptism is
a symbol of death.
Baptism is a symbol of dyingfor our sin and coming up out of
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the water and it's a symbolcoming out as the symbol of
resurrection.
So when Jesus came up out ofthe water, immediately, what did
Jesus see?
He saw the heavens.
He literally sees the sky, andthe sky is torn open and the
Holy Spirit descended on Jesuslike a dove, like a dove right
(19:56):
there.
In other words, jesus in thatmoment is being anointed with
the Holy Spirit.
You know what's interesting is?
The Bible then does not say so.
When you get baptized is whenyou get the Holy Spirit.
The Bible doesn't say that.
The Bible says that when youget saved, you get the Holy
Spirit.
Because when you get saved,you're united in Christ and what
(20:18):
is true of Jesus becomes trueof you.
And because Jesus is anointedwith the Holy Spirit, when you
get saved, when you give inChrist and what is true of Jesus
becomes true of you, andbecause Jesus is anointed with
the Holy Spirit, when you getsaved, when you give your life
to Jesus, that's when you getthe Holy Spirit.
That you get the Holy Spiritwhen you say Jesus, I believe
that you died on the cross formy sin and, jesus, I need you to
forgive me of all my sin.
Jesus, I believe that you rosefrom the dead, I believe that
(20:39):
you're alive, I believe thatyou're real and, jesus, I want
you to be the Lord of my life.
I love the quote that says ifJesus is not Lord of all, then
Jesus isn't Lord at all.
We are calling Jesus to be theLord of all of our life, and
(21:00):
when we get saved is when we getthe Holy Spirit.
And hear me, that's not the end.
It's just the beginning of yourlife.
It's just the beginning becausehere's what the Bible says.
You ever seen this about Jesus?
Matthew 12, 28,.
But it is by the Spirit of Godthat I even cast out demons, and
(21:21):
the kingdom of God has comeupon you.
You know what Jesus is saying.
Jesus is saying that hesubmitted his life to the Holy
Spirit.
He's not even living out hisown deity, he's not even living
out his own divinity.
That Jesus submitted and hesurrendered his life to the Holy
Spirit.
(21:41):
Why?
So that he could show you andshow me what a life could do in
greater things that surrenderedand submitted to the Holy Spirit
.
In other words, I cannot liveout the power of my own life,
even once I'm saved.
I can't live out of my ownpower.
(22:01):
Every day of my salvation, I'vegot to get in the word of God
so the word of God gets in meEvery day of my salvation.
I've got to get in prayer sothat I am getting filled with
the Holy Spirit Every day ofsalvation.
I've got to make sure that I'mprioritizing the plan of God
over my own plans, the will ofGod over my own will the agenda
(22:24):
of God over my own agenda.
Why?
Because I believe that the HolySpirit is enabling me to live
my life for him, which is betterthan me living my life for me.
And the Holy Spirit wants to dothe same thing in you, no
matter who you are.
He wants to enable you.
You might have told yourselfbefore I'm not able to do this,
(22:50):
and if you've told yourself thatyou were right, you're not able
to do it and I'm not able to doit.
One of the greatest things thatyou can do spiritually to find
spiritual strength in your lifeis to pursue physical weakness.
In other words, why is it thatwe get up early and we sacrifice
(23:14):
sleep?
We get up early to get into theword of God in prayer, because
the spirit of God gives morestrength than sleep does.
Why is it that we fast, we skipa meal and we fast and we pray
over these very important thingsin our life?
Because we pursue physicalweakness in order to get
(23:35):
spiritual strength.
That's what God is saying isempty yourself of you so that
you can be filled with me.
And that's what we saw Jesusdoing throughout his life,
because he didn't live by hisown power.
He lived by the power of theHoly Spirit.
Number four the Holy Spirit inthe New Testament.
Everybody say New Testament, sohere's what we see when you
(23:57):
give your life to Jesus and whenyou become his disciple and
when you get baptized, the mostimportant decision that you can
ever make in your life is givingyour life to Jesus.
Nothing is more important, anydecision in your life other than
giving your life to Jesus,because it brings the Lord God
(24:18):
into your life and it gives youeternity with him, that your
eternity and your life aresettled right.
The most important decision isyour salvation.
And then the most importantdecision, once you get saved, is
to get baptized, because theBible talks about it as your
first step of obedience beforethe Lord.
(24:39):
Look at Matthew 28.
Jesus said go.
Everybody say go, notice that.
Jesus didn't say stay.
Jesus didn't say sit.
Jesus didn't say wait and leteverybody else come to you.
No, jesus, when you get saved,when you get full of the Holy
Spirit, when you follow him,what he's called you to do is go
(25:00):
into someone else's life.
I don't know who that is foryou, but it's probably going to
be a family member, is probablygonna be a friend, is probably
gonna be a neighbor.
It might be somebody you justrun into out in the community
somewhere.
It might be a first-timeacquaintance.
But Jesus says I want you to go, I want you to go into their
(25:21):
life, like he says I've comeinto your life, I want you to go
and I want you to makedisciples.
We're not just calling peopleto make decisions, we're calling
people to follow Jesus withtheir life.
Go and make disciples of allnations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, of the Sonand the Holy Spirit.
(25:41):
Right?
So when people get saved, whatare we called to do?
Hey, I wanna invite you to giveyour life to Jesus and what you
do Now.
I would love to help you getbaptized, because that baptism,
that's what Jesus did for themand that's what we can do for
him.
He says baptizing them in thename of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit, teachingthem to observe all that I've
(26:03):
commanded you.
And behold, jesus said I amwith you always, to the end of
the age.
I need you to see somethingvery important here so that you
don't miss it.
Did you realize how many ofy'all have ever been on
Wikipedia before you ever beenon Wikipedia?
Raise your hand if you've beenon Wikipedia.
So Wikipedia, how many of y'allhave ever heard of Wikipedia?
(26:23):
Raise your hand.
It should be everybody in theroom, okay, unless you live in a
cave.
All right, good, all right.
So Wikipedia did you realizethat it started as a website
called Newpedia?
And Newpedia was a website thatwere articles written by
doctors, experts, professors andPhDs, and they were writing all
(26:43):
of these very technicalarticles for people to read?
The only problem is, afterabout three years, only a
handful of articles were written.
Why?
Because the doctors, theexperts, the professionals
didn't have the time, and thearticles they did write, nobody
could read them because theywere so deep.
So they tried a brand newwebsite called Wikipedia and
they said anybody can write anyof these articles.
(27:06):
And they said it went viral.
And today, over seven millionWikipedia articles are written
and over 100 million peoplevisit Wikipedia every day.
What did they do?
They gave the power to thepeople.
What is the Holy Spirit doingin your life?
He's given the power of thegospel to you.
(27:27):
The Bible is saying that.
He's given you the keys of thekingdom.
The Bible is saying that it'snot just up to the pastors and
to the professionals and theprofessors.
Jesus is saying no, if you'remy disciple, you're called to go
.
It's the beauty of the gospelthat you're called to go and
that you are called to makedisciples.
(27:49):
What is the Holy Spirit doing?
He is empowering you.
He's empowering you to go tothat person that you most
desperately want to be saved andyou share the gospel of Jesus
with them.
He's wanting you.
He's empowering you to go tothat person that you're praying
for.
He's empowering you to talk tothe person that you know that is
(28:13):
the furthest from God, thehardest heart toward God, and
that's been my prayer today thatthe hardest heart in the room,
the furthest person from him inthe room, would give their life
to God.
Today and then last, we see theHoly Spirit in eternity.
(28:39):
The Holy Spirit in eternity.
Hebrews 9, 14 says calls theHoly Spirit, the eternal spirit.
John 14,.
Jesus said the Holy Spirit isyour helper and he's going to be
with you forever.
Revelation 22 talks about waterand that water is a symbol of
the Holy Spirit and this is apicture of heaven.
(29:01):
Then the angel showed me theriver of water of life.
Again, I believe it's physicalwater in heaven, but it is also
a picture of the Holy Spirit,bright, clear as crystal,
flowing from the throne of Godand from the Lamb.
If you can imagine, god isgiving the Apostle John a vision
(29:22):
of what this new Jerusalem cityis gonna look like and he sees
this beautiful, crystal clearriver running through the city,
coming from the throne of Godand from Jesus, the Lamb.
It says.
Through the middle of thestreet of the city is this river
, and on either side of theriver, the tree of life with its
(29:42):
12 kinds of fruit.
What is John saying inRevelation?
John is saying in heaven wewill finally be fully fruitful.
We're gonna be perfect, becausethe Bible says that when we see
Jesus, we're gonna be made justlike him.
(30:03):
You're never gonna be perfectin this life.
This life is not aboutperfection.
This life is about direction,just following Jesus with your
life.
But we're looking forward tothe day that we get to
experience the perfection ofJesus Christ yielding its fruit
each month the leaves of thetrees for the healing of the
nations.
No more sickness, no more pain,no more death, no more sin.
(30:27):
No longer will there beanything accursed, but the
throne of God and of the Lambwill be in it and his servants
will worship him.
Why?
Because you and I, we will befull of the Holy Spirit.
When you're full of the HolySpirit, you can't help but
(30:48):
worship God.
When you're full of the HolySpirit, you can't help but obey
God.
When you're full of the HolySpirit, you can't help but
worship God.
When you're full of the HolySpirit, you can't help but obey
God.
When you're full of the HolySpirit, you can't help but bear
the fruit of God.
So what is the Holy Spiritdoing today?
Revelation 22, the last chapterof the entire Bible, from
Genesis 1 to Revelation 22,.
The Spirit and the bride saycome.
(31:10):
If you're here this morning andyou haven't given your life to
Jesus, no matter if you've beenin church all your life it's
your first time back in a longtime or you've never been here
before.
The Holy Spirit is personallyspeaking to you and calling your
(31:34):
name and the Holy Spirit istelling you come to Jesus, give
your life to him, understand howyour life can matter.
The spirit and the bride saycome.
Let the one who hears say come.
Let the one who is thirsty come.
Let the one who desires to takethe water of life without price
(31:55):
, let them come.
The question this morning, asthe Holy Spirit is calling you.
The question is do you need tobe biblically saved?
Do you need to really give yourlife to Jesus?
Do you have the real thing?
Do you have a real relationshipwith Jesus?
What is that?
Very simply, have you come toJesus and said Jesus, I believe
(32:19):
that you are God, that you havedied on the cross for my sin.
Jesus, I'm asking you toforgive me of my sin.
Jesus, I believe that you rosefrom the dead.
I believe that you're real.
I believe that you're alive.
Jesus, I believe that you rosefrom the dead.
I believe that you're real.
I believe that you're alive.
And Jesus, I don't wanna justknow about you.
I wanna follow you.
(32:41):
I wanna place my faith and mytrust in you.
I call on you to be the Lord ofmy life so I can follow you the
rest of my life With every headbowed and every eye closed.
There is no more importantdecision in your life.
If this is you right here,right now.
I wanna encourage you.
(33:05):
The Holy Spirit is telling youto come, and if you wanna give
your life to Jesus, I can't praythis for you.
I can't save you.
I'm not even asking you torepeat after me I just wanna
help lead you to him.
In your own words, in your ownheart, you can just tell him
something like this right now,you can say dear Jesus, I
believe in you and I need you.
(33:28):
You can tell him Jesus, Ibelieve that you died on the
cross for my sin and, jesus, Iask you to forgive me of all my
sin.
And you can tell him, jesus, Ibelieve that you rose from the
dead, you're alive, you're real.
(33:49):
From the dead.
You're alive, you're real.
And the Bible says that if youconfess with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord and believe withyour heart that God raised him
from the dead, you will be saved.
So call on him right now.
Jesus, be my Lord, be my God,be my Savior.
(34:11):
In Jesus' name.
In all God's people said Putyour hands together for anybody
that gave their life to Jesusthis morning.
No greater decision in lifethan you could ever make.
So I wanna encourage you rightnow.
We're about to have a few peopleget baptized here at the end of
(34:33):
this next song.
But here's what I want you toknow Maybe you came here today
and God's working in your lifeand God is speaking to your
heart, and maybe you just gotsaved and you just gave your
life to him, and maybe you'vebeen saved for a while and maybe
you haven't been baptized sinceyou have been saved.
There's a next step card infront of you that you can fill
(34:53):
it out and place on there anydecisions that maybe you need to
make.
That we're not.
We don't want to hound you.
We just want to help you inyour life with Jesus.
Do you need to be biblicallybaptized?
That's, being baptized to theFather, the Son and the Holy
Spirit.
Why?
Not for your salvation, butfrom your salvation.
Not to be saved, but becauseyou are saved.
(35:15):
When do you get baptized Afteryour salvation?
How the Bible says, byimmersion and submersion, is
biblical baptism.
I said last week just commonexcuses that people have to not
get baptized.
You might think I'm scared ofwater.
We've been in church for 183years.
We've not drowned one personyet.
We're going to keep that rate,going that streak.
(35:37):
Maybe you think I don't have anyfamily here.
They can watch online.
We can record it for you.
Maybe you think I don't have achange of clothes.
We've got baptism t-shirts, afree t-shirt for everyone
getting baptized.
We've got hair caps for all youladies, I don't need one, but
maybe you need one, and we'vegot underwear and all that,
everything you need for a changeof clothes that you can put
your stuff back on and you cango back home dry.
(35:58):
Maybe you're thinking, well, Irode with somebody, well,
they'll wait for you, and ifthey won't, they need to get
saved and baptized too.
Or maybe you think, man, I wantsomeone to come with me, I
don't want to go alone.
If I can just ask the room, ifsomeone asked you today if you
would go with them to help themget baptized, how many of y'all
would say I'd go with them rightnow?
Raise your hand.
(36:19):
You've got all kinds of friends, all kinds of family in here
that'd be willing to help youout right here.
So here's what we're going todo.
We're going to sing a song andI'm going to ask anybody that
wants to get baptized that youcan go right out to the lobby.
They're gonna ask you threequestions you believe Jesus died
for your sin?
You believe he rose from thedead?
Have you asked to be the Lordof your life?
(36:42):
And you too can get baptized,and we'll be here to help you
every step along the way.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we love youand God, we just pray that you
would have your way in everylife, and God, for that life
right here, right now.
That may just be holding back,god, I pray that you would just
empower them to step forward inobedience, not even planning on
(37:04):
this today, but, god, you havegreater plans for them and so,
lord, we just ask that your HolySpirit will continue to fill us
and that we would worship youin all that we say and all that
we do in Jesus' name.
And all God's people said let'sstand together, let's worship
him.
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