Jeff Klein, Pastor of Outreach
Jeffrey Klein 00:00
All right, we get to look into God's word now. So if you would pray with me, let's pray together and we'll get started. Lord, we open Your Word with great anticipation. Because we know that it is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, and it will penetrate deep within us and do the work that only it can do. So we trust your Holy Spirit is here with us. And we trust that you will speak to each of your people and your name Jesus we pray. Amen.
Jeffrey Klein 00:36
So how do you know if it's a windy day outside? Can you see the wind? When you look up? Can you go there's the wind, it's going by now? The only way you know if it's a windy day is if you can actually see the effects of the wind and the things around you. So you can see the trees shaking, you can see the flags sticking straight out you can see things blowing past you. Right? The only way you know if there's actually wind in the air is because it affects the environment around you. That's the way you know, there's windy and a windy day. The same is true of the Holy Spirit. Can you see the Holy Spirit in the room? Can you know he's here right now because you can look around and you can find them somewhere, you point him out? No, you can only know the Holy Spirit's here because you can see the effects of the Holy Spirit. In the room, you can only know the spirits around because the Spirit of God leaves some sort of effect on each of us as he's in the room with us. Part of the Alpha course is a retreat weekend where we go away somewhere, for we've done it for about eight hours, somewhere in different places on the garden room upstairs at a farm out in Malkina. And part of that day is to sit quietly and invite the Holy Spirit to be part of the day. We pray the prayer Come Holy Spirit. And every time we pray that prayer, the Holy Spirit has shown up in the room. Sometimes there are some tears; sometimes people fall to their knees. Sometimes people get really quiet. Sometimes people want to be prayed for in ways and have never been prayed for before. Sometimes there's healing that happens. Whenever you invite the Holy Spirit into the room, the effects of the Holy Spirit, the person of the Spirit, cause effects to happen in the room. That when you hear Holy Spirit, I don't know what comes to your mind, what kind of images come to your mind. We've been trained to think of all these wacky things. Somehow there's this weird, wacky picture of the Holy Spirit in the world. But today is Pentecost Sunday, the day that remembers when the Holy Spirit was first given to the church. Now Pentecost is one of the pilgrimage festivals of Jews of Judaism. So everybody made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost together. It was actually originally a first fruits, gratitude for the harvest festival. And on this particular Pentecost, back and accepted to the first fruits of the Spirit are given to the church. The first time the Spirit falls in the churches at this Pentecost experience. The disciples are there. It's nine o'clock in the morning, a time of prayer in the temple. And all of a sudden, boom. Now we've already read this passage, but I'm gonna put it up there again. On the day of Pentecost, all the believers were meeting together in one place suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a muddy windstorm. So there are the effects of the Holy Spirit have filled the house where they were sitting, that will look like flames and tons of fire appeared and settling into them, and everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability. That happening changed everything. Now the Holy Spirit has been around in the Old Testament; you know this, right? At creation, the Holy Spirit is hovering over the chaos and bringing about order and Shalom to the chaos. Yeah, the Holy Spirit empowers Bezalel, this guy in the book of Exodus, to make craftsmanship out of wood and golden stones and and beautiful fabrics to create the Tabernacle. The Holy Spirit is with Gideon when he pairs his army down to 300 people and takes on the Mennonites and the Holy Spirit goes out, and power, and we see the effects of always per conquering the armies of Midian. The Holy Spirit is with Samson when he's empowered, right with superhero power to defeat the Philistines and the Holy Spirit is with Ezekial when he sees visions and dreams, and only you can be seen through the Holy Spirit. But when the Holy Spirit falls on Pentecost, there's a whole new kind of effect on our relationship with God. It goes from being in a single building in a single city on planet Earth where God sits in this building and dwells there among his people, and you've got to go to the building to relate to him. Now suddenly, the Holy Spirit is inside of each person who calls himself a follower of Jesus. So when you invited Jesus in, you got the Holy Spirit. How do I know that book in Ephesians chapter one
Jeffrey Klein 05:01
And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God's guarantee that he will give us the inheritance. He promised that he has purchased us to be His own people, he did this. So we would praise and glorify Him. So because you're a follower of Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit, who is a priority inside you, doing his work inside you. Now the question is, what effect does that have on us? Believers, as the Bible tells him about the effects, I'm always here because we can't see him. Like, we can't see the wind, but other effects in our lives happening because of the Holy Spirit? Well, there are lots of them, the Bible goes through them, we could actually preach a whole series on the Holy Spirit, you know, we can spend tons of Sundays on each of these things I'm going to talk about so we're gonna spend like 30 seconds in each one, are you ready? This is gonna be like a smorgasbord, the Holy Spirit. Next, twenty minutes, here we go. First one, the Holy Spirit makes us like Jesus. In II Corinthians 3:18, Paul writes this. "So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord, who is the Spirit, makes us more and more like him as we are changed into His glorious image." The veil referred to is the veil, Moses wore. Moses wanted to go on the mountain in the presence of God, when He came down, he was glowing. And so he put a veil over his face because the Israelites were kind of freaked out by the glow. Then we went back into the presence of God, who would take the veil off again to be in the presence of God. Well, this verse says, because of the Holy Spirit, we all need a veil. The spirit's glory shines through us, and we can be in the presence of God directly. Because he's changing us in the image of Christ, each one of us, because the Spirit of God is at work in us. Now, Paul talks about another place. He talks about the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians, you know, this verse, But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives— Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things. So Holy Spirit is actually making us like Jesus producing this fruit in us, making us people that look like Jesus, and Ezekiel foresaw this hundreds of years ago. Check this out Ezekiel 36, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you, oh, take out your heart, your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. I will put my spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws and other translation says, I will move you to follow my laws." So it's amazing. When you actually get the Holy Spirit in, you don't have to like work at being a good person doesn't make a lot of effort. You don't have to, like be just training to be good. Because deep inside the Holy Spirit begins to change your desires and motivates you to do Jesus things to become like Jesus. I'll give you an example. When I was in college, I had my eye early in college, and this girl Eileen? Yeah, she was blonde. And I was thinking, How do I get Eileen's attention? So one day, Eileen asked me if I could give her a ride to work. I'm thinking this is my chance. I got like, 10 minutes right in the work to get this girl's attention. So I'm thinking I gotta drive. Like only I can drive like a Klein. Like a wild man. I gotta show her how cool I am. Oh, by the way, I drive so we get in the car once you know it. We're on this two-lane road. And there's some guy in front of me that decides to go the speed limit on this day. Are you kidding me? I'm trying to impress Eileen, this guy is putting along on the speed limit. So I'm waiting on the road. I'm looking at the double yellow lines, and I see that I can see a passing moment. I can see there's clear on the other side. I'm about to pull out and go around, and Eileen says, she says, "Jeff, you know, most guys drive like crazy people. I'm just so glad to be in a car with somebody who drives normally." So I say, "Eileen, I totally understand because I believe totally driving the speed limit. And obeying the rules. It's my it's my credo in life." And I drove Eileen as slowly as possible to work that day. And every time Eileen was in my car, I totally drove like a good citizen. Now, my motivation was a little off true.
Jeffrey Klein 09:32
Yeah, there are a lot of things that motivate us to be good. It's when we want to look good for the rest of the people in church, make sure they all know we're good purpose, or we don't want to get punished, or we want to make sure we don't get shamed in the community when people don't really like. But the real motivation to follow Jesus to be like him is because the Holy Spirit begins to change your heart, your insights, to actually want to be like Jesus, you actually start to desire this. This is the Holy Spirit's effect. And each one of us will invite Him in. Let's keep going. There's a third one. John 16. Jesus says this about the Holy Spirit. "But in fact, it is best for you that I go away." This is Jesus speaking "Because if I don't, the Advocate, the Counselor, the Alongsider won't come, if I do go away, then I will send them to you. And when He comes, He will convict the world of its sin and God's righteousness." When you get to with the Holy Spirit, He convicts you of what's wrong with your life. It's a crazy thing that the church thinks our job is to go around and tell people hey, you're messed up. Hey, you gotta get together. Hey, you gotta fix yourself. The Holy Spirit will take care of this. If we just give people Jesus, the Holy Spirit will take care all the rest. My friend, John Crilley, who wrote the Nine Arts of Spiritual Conversations book, he was a pretty wild pig and guy. He was living with his girlfriend. He was smoking dope. Actually, one night went to bed, his girlfriend, turned to him and said, "Do you believe in God? "He said, "Hey, I'm a good Catholic." What do you do? I believe in God; who cares. Look at Catholic, and he said that question haunting him all through the night. He woke up the next morning, and he turned on the TV. Some of you are gonna get this. This guy, Jimmy Swaggart, this TV evangelist. Seriously. Now, we always make fun of Jimmy Swaggart, right Crilley and his girlfriend set and watched him his Swaggart that morning, and they found Jesus during the telecast. And they invited Jesus in their lives and the Holy Spirit came with them. And you know what happened next? He said, within a week, he was thinking, I wonder if you can follow Jesus and smoke dope? Probably not; I should probably stop. And he stopped smoking. And then he said," I wonder if you can follow Jesus and live with your girlfriend?" So we went to Danielle, who's now his wife, and said, "We should probably change this up, maybe get married." They said what are you getting? Follow Jesus, and that go to church. And he found the nearest church was Willow Creek. He thought it looked like an airport hangar. But he went anyway. And he's been going ever since the Holy Spirit totally convicted him and change him and moved him a whole different direction. He didn't have to anyone that he didn't need someone to point out for him; hey, you need to fix that, you know, our job is to invite people to Jesus to give them the Holy Spirit that wants the Holy Spirit to his work. It's pretty amazing. When he affects the holy spirit force, here's another one. The Spirit speaks and guides and empowers the church. When you read the book of Acts, look at these passages. I got a bunch of here for you. So he started out and met the treasurer of Ethiopia. This is Phillip, a eunuch of great authority of the candidate, the queen of Ethiopia, the eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and he was now returning seated in his carriage. He was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah; the Holy Spirit said to Philip, go over and walk beside the carriage. Ever heard a message like that? Go to your neighbor's yard and stand there until they come outside. That'd be a little weird when you look at this next one. While Peter was still thinking about the vision, he had a vision during prayer from the Holy Spirit. The Spirit said to him, "Simon, three men are looking for you; get up, go downstairs, do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them." Peter goes with them and leads Cornelius to Jesus, the first Gentile ever to find Jesus. Look at this one. "While they were worshipping and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I've called them. So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off." The early church was saturated with the Spirit of God, saturated. They made all their moves in the direction of the Spirit of God. They weren't in tune with the Spirit of God, they were listening, all of them, catching the Spirit of God's instructions in the moving out in his power. That's what sets us apart as the church. We also need to be saturated with the Spirit of God to do ministry, supernatural ministry in a way that only the Holy Spirit can do through us. Because we're not capable of doing ourselves through the church of Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is dying. He's longing to direct our steps and send us out on his behalf.
Jeffrey Klein 14:28
There's a moment in the world called the 24/7 prayer rooms. I met the guy at the Alpha conference, Peter Green who started these. It was started because of a vision from the Holy Spirit that He had started these prayer rooms all over the world. So there's a story about one in Uganda. per room in Uganda, they pray 24/7 of these prayer rooms, and they were praying, they heard this word, "Changuu," and no one in the prayer knew what it meant. . They were like What in the world is "Changuu?". So they started to research, and they read They found out there was one of 3000 islands. In a lake Lake Victoria, a large body of water connecting Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya is one of those islands there. They located the island and the prayer warriors set out by boat and land to go to the island. Because they believe God was sending them thereby giving them this word altogether. After a long journey, they arrived in Changuu. And they found a group of people, fishermen, indigenous fishermen, eking out a living with no electricity, no hospital, no school, no church, a 90% HIV infection rate, and a 98% belief in witchcraft. When they told these islanders that the Holy Spirit had sent them there, the people were receptive and amazed. And within a couple of weeks, there were 50 of them following Jesus in a church that was born on the island of Changuu because this person was praying, and the Holy Spirit sent them there. Where do you think Jesus might send us? If we got serious about asking him to send us? What do you think he might send you? It might be surprising, be wild. I think we need to tune into this more. When he's there dance the Spirit of God; hey, Spirit, what do you want us to do? What do you have for us as a church? How do you want us to move in the world when he wants to be up to there's a fifth one that I think I need to talk about. There's a bunch more, but we're going to just want this last one. The Holy Spirit gives us His word for our battles. So you know the passage Ephesians six, put on the full armor of God, right? The breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the gospel of the peace of food, the Gospel feet, and then it says, "The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." This particular word in Greek is not the logos of God. It's the Rhema of God. Rhema is the exact word for the exact moment you find yourself in a battle. When you're in this difficult situation, God gives you the word to speak in that situation. Jesus modeled this many times. Remember, when the woman caught in sin is brought before him. She's thrown at his feet. And they say to her, they say to Jesus, what do we do with this woman like this? Now, of course, they left the guy in bed that they caught her in the act of adultery, they didn't bring the guy out. They just brought the woman out. They were clearly trying to trap Jesus. If he says, let her go. They say, Oh, see, you don't, you know, under the law, because this killer they say, Oh, you see, you're not really loving like you say. So he's in a battle. He's, he's caught. He's in a trap. What does he do? He speaks of the rainbow of God. He says, Whoever is without sin, you can throw the first stone. It says they all walked away; the oldest started first all the way down to the youngest ever gone. Now, guys, we live in a time of deep battle. We as a people, Christians in America and 2022. We need to pray for the Rhema of God. I'm sure you find yourself in difficult conversations every week, at work in different places. You think I don't know what to say, I'm just better to be quiet. True, you could be quiet. Or you could ask God for His Rhema because we follow a Jesus who's full of love and grace and full of truth, both not one or the other, both. And we can speak the truth in love. We can stand in love if we ask for God's rainbow in these situations.
Jeffrey Klein 18:56
All right. I guess I have one last thing to say. The spirit is a gentleman. So he won't come in and force himself on you. You have to surrender to Him. You have to open your hands and welcome in. You can actually fight the Spirit of God. He can be talking to you, and you can be like, yeah, not listening, not listening. You can it says in the Bible, you can grieve the Spirit of God, you can quench the Spirit of God. You can literally stop the Spirit of God from actually taking control and working in your life. I believe the Lord has more for all of us. Don't we presently know? He wants to give us more, but it requires us to open our hands and surrender to ask him for more. So I invite you today. Whenever open your hands and pray the prayer. Holy Spirit come into my heart and Life helped me to get in tune with you, in touch with you. There's nothing to be afraid of, is if the trust that the Lord wants to do amazing things in your life. That's what Pentecost is all about. This is like the time when the church was empowered; each one of you carries the Holy Spirit. You know, the problem is a lot of Christians. It's like, Nicky Gumbel says, "it's like a hot water heater, it has a pilot in it." So all of us are the hot water heater with the pilot led, right? And the pilots lit and it's going because the Holy Spirit's there. But when your hot water heater is really effective, what happens? It ignites, and there are all these flames that make the hot water go fast, right? A lot of us as Christians, we got the pipe lit. But there are no flames ignited. Because we haven't invited the Holy Spirit to ignite the flames. We haven't given him permission. We haven't surrendered. I believe Jesus has more for us. You have to access it; you have to ask him for it. You have to ask him to ignite the flame of the Holy Spirit in your life. We didn't do that today. All right.
Jeffrey Klein 21:08
Let's pray together. Jesus, thank you for the gift of your spirit. It's crazy, Lord, that you had to leave the earth. So you could send us really something even more powerful than your presence, your physical presence on Earth. Because you planted yourself and each one of us and send us all over the place, the presence and the power of God spread throughout the world. Jesus, I pray today that you would ignite in us the power the presence of your Holy Spirit. Unite that in our church, you name we pray. Amen.