This Is That | “Happy Birthday Church” Sermon

SERIES: “This Is That”  — SERMON:  “Happy Birthday Church”

JOKE:     Billy Graham was returning from Charlotte where he was where he had a speaking engagement. When his plane arrived, a limo was waiting to pick him up and take him home. He stopped and spoke to the driver and he said, “You know what? I am 87 years old and I have never, ever in my life driven a limo. Will you give me a chance to drive this limo? I’ve never done this before.” The driver said, “No problem. Go ahead and get behind the wheel and we will just be on our way.”

Well Billy got into the driver seat and they headed off. A short distance down the highway, a rookie state trooper had set up his first speed trap. The block long, black limo passed them going 70 mph in a 55-mounted per hour zone. The trooper pulled out and easily caught the limo and pulled it over. When he walked up to the driver’s door, he was surprised to see who was driving. Immediately he excused himself and he called his supervisor. He said, “You know, I know we’re supposed to enforce the law, but I also know that we’re supposed to give courtesies to people that are in powerful places; important people”. Well the supervisor agreed and he said, “Is that the governor?” “No. He’s more important than that.” The supervisor responded, “Is he the president of the United States? The rookie cop said, “No, he’s even more important that”. The Super finally asked woman, “Well who is it? The young trooper replied, “I think it’s Jesus because he has Billy Graham as a chauffeur!”

Acts 2:16 “But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;”

(NLT) “No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel:”

PENTECOST:– Fifty, compound word, a combination of the #5 and, add a zero. 50

Fifty Days after the feast of Passover.

Three Major Feasts

1. Passover — Delivered From Egypt (1st Month)

2. Pentecost — The Giving Of The Law (3rd Month)

3. Tabernacles — Harvest (7 Trumpets and Atonement)

Passover — Jesus provides His righteousness.

Pentecost — Spirit enables the manifest of righteousness. 

Harvest — Jesus returns to gather the righteous.

The very day that Jews from around the world gather in Jerusalem to reaffirm their commitment to the Law of Moses, the Holy Spirit descends on them offering the Gospel, the promise of new life to all who will believe in Jesus.

The Law was skin deep but the Gospel of Grace goes right to the core.

Contrast First Pentecost with Acts 2 Pentecost:  Exodus 19-32

1. 50 Days.

2. Flames and mountain shaking.

3. Law given tablets of stone. How to live.

4. Drunken party takes place.

5. 3000 people died.

Acts 2 Pentecost:

1. 50 Days.

2. Flames and a violent wind.

3. Spirit comes – Power to live.

4. Drunken party takes place.

5. 3000 people made alive. 

Acts 1:4 “And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me;…” 

“When your baptized in the Holy Ghost, He takes over! All the preaching, counselling and Bible reading you can absorb will be dead to you unless you have the Holy Ghost living in you! He makes you to understand and know it is God speaking!”    David Wilkerson

Acts 2:39 “…and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off,(not distance but time) as many as the Lord our God will call.”

This was fulfilled and ongoing.   Acts 8, 9, 10, 19   And my experience …

The Experiences of:

D.L.Moody — R.A.Torrey — Charles Finney —  Stephen Olford  —  Billy Graham

D. L. Moody
D.L. Moody was a successful minister but by his own admission later, he lacked the power in his ministry. One day two women came up to him after a service. They said,
“We have been praying for you.”
“Why don’t you pray for the people?” he asked.
“Because you need the power of the Spirit,” they said.
“I need the power! Why,” said Mr. Moody, in relating the incident years after, “I thought I had power. I had the largest congregations in Chicago, and there were many conversions.”

Moody also said that in a sense, he was satisfied. He was in a comfort zone. But these two praying women rocked the boat. They told him that they were praying for an anointing by the Holy Spirit for D.L. to have a special service to God. He could not get this off his mind and he said, “There came a great hunger in my soul. I did not know what it was and I began to cry out to God as never before. I felt I did not want to live if I could not have this power for service”.

After the great fire of Chicago, DL was working to raise money to rebuild a tabernacle. He said his heart was not into it because he kept crying out to God to fill him. He withdrew and prayed during a visit to New York to raise money and he cried that God would fill him with His Spirit. DL describes it this way:
“Well, one day, in the city of New York — oh, what a day! — I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world — it would be as the small dust of the balance.”

R.A. Torrey gives his testimony:
The address of this afternoon, and the addresses of the days immediately to follow, are the outcome of an experience, and that experience was the outcome of a study of the Word of God. After I had been a Christian for some years, and after I had been in the ministry for some years, my attention was strongly attracted to certain phrases found in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Epistles, such as “baptized with the Holy Spirit,” “filled with the Spirit,” “the Holy Spirit fell upon them,” “the gift of the Holy Spirit,” “endued with power from on high,” and other closely allied phrases. As I studied these various phrases in their context, it became clear to me that they all stood for essentially the same experience; and it also became clear to me that God has provided for each child of His in this present dispensation that they should be thus “baptized with the Spirit,” or, “filled with the Spirit.”

As I studied the subject still further, I became convinced that they described an experience which I did not myself possess, and I went to work to secure for myself the experience thus described. I sought earnestly that I might “be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” I went at it very ignorantly. I have often wondered if anyone ever went at it any more ignorantly than I did. But while I was ignorant, I was thoroughly sincere and in earnest, and God met me, as He always meets the sincere and earnest soul, no matter how ignorant he may be; and God gave me what I sought, I was “baptized with the Holy Spirit.” And the result was a transformed Christian life and a transformed ministry.

Charles G. Finney
I was powerfully converted on the morning of the month of October, 1822. In the evening of the same day I received overwhelming baptisms of the Holy Ghost, that went through me, as it seemed to me, body and soul. I immediately found myself endued with such power from on high that a few words dropped here and there to individuals were the means of their immediate conversion. My words seemed to fasten like barbed arrows in the souls of men. They cut like a sword. They broke the heart like a hammer. Multitudes can attest to this. Oftentimes a word dropped without my remembering it would fasten conviction, and often result in almost immediate conversion. Sometimes I would find myself, in a great measure, empty of this power. I would go and visit, and find that I made no saving impression. I would exhort and pray, with the same result. I would then set apart a day for private fasting and prayer, fearing that this power had departed from me, and would inquire anxiously after the reason of this apparent emptiness. After humbling myself, and crying out for help, the power would return upon me with all its freshness. This has been the experience of my life.
—
Stephen Olford gives a similar testimony as he checked into a motel and committed to stay and pray until he was baptized by the Holy Spirit so God could empower him for service. God answered and gave him a powerful ministry reaching the world through radio during the golden radio years and he continues his ministry by teaching ministers. 

Billy Graham said that Stephen Olford had a powerful influence over his life. Stephen prayed with Billy until he was baptized and then God exploded Billy Graham’s evangelistic ministry.

7 Observations From Pentecost

1. They Were Invited

Acts 1;4 “He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise…” 

Pentecost is a command for every believer to enter into.  This is not to be an optional experience.

2. They Were United

Acts 2:1“When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.”

Wait — Test — 10 days from ascension. United in obedience to “WAIT”

3. They Were Excited

Acts 2:2 “…suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.”   This was a miracle from heaven.

4. They Were Ignited

Acts 2:3 “And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.”  

Whenever God identifies a new place of His fixed habitation He sends His fire.

Inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature, or which a person or thing exerts and puts forth power for performing miracles,  moral power and excellence of soul  the power and influence which belong to riches and wealth, power and resources arising from numbers,  power consisting in or resting upon armies, forces, hosts

Power:– {dunamis} inherent power, explosive.
Power to produce 5 things:  

1. Miracles        2. Morality    3. Money           4. Multiplication    5. Movement 

5. They Were Empowered

Acts 2:4 “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost,…”    You are nothing without the Holy Spirit. 

filled (pimplēmi):– to furnish, to fill, to accomplish, to be fulfilled.

6. They Were Gifted

Acts 2:4 “…and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” 

Holy Spirit wants to testify of the presence of Jesus through you. You are gifted to manifest the Kingdom.

Acts 2:18-19 “I will pour out of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy [telling forth the divine counsels and predicting future events pertaining especially to God’s kingdom]. And I will show…” 

7. They Were Ejected

Acts 2:6,14 “Now when this was noised abroad, …But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice,…” 

True Pentecost will always lead to a strong witness to the lost.   Must leave the upper room!!!

The church is born! A body of believers, filled with the Spirit, with Christ as their head.

The only normal Christian life is Pentecostal. Being Pentecostal is not a denomination or an experience – it’s a lifestyle – it’s a destiny – it’s a command from God

1. Accept the promise of Holy Spirit.

2. Ask For Baptism Of Holy Spirit.

3. Confess You Have Received  Holy Spirit

4. Act On Your Confession Of Faith.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download