The Promise

I was talking to our worship leader yesterday, and she was talking about how her youngest just started saying their names, right? Started saying “Dad.” And so she keeps trying to get him to say “Mom, Mom,” and he’s like, no. He just looks at her and doesn’t do it. And there’s just something so heartwarming — if you’re a parent, you probably know this — when you first hear your child speak your name. You’re like, “Yes.” Right?

And I think that that’s really how it is with the Lord, that He just wants us to call on His name, and that nothing pleases Him more. Because how many of you know the Lord is after our heart? Amen. And when we do that and we call out to the Lord, it’s just such a precious thing, and it’s such a wonderful invitation, and it melts His heart. It just does. You just know it does.

So can we do this this morning? We’re going to go into our message in just a moment, but can we just lift our hands to the Lord, and let’s just invite Him. Lord Jesus, we welcome You. Holy Spirit, we ask that You would just reveal Jesus to us through Your Word. Speak to us, teach us all the things that we need to know, that we would know You, that we would receive from You everything that You have for us. We welcome You, Lord Jesus, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.

Pentecost is not a date

Well, if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Isaiah 32. Isaiah chapter 32. We have been in a series for the year on the names of God, and we’ve been talking through the different names. And it’s been a powerful thing, because when the Lord gives us a name, He’s really declaring, “This is who I am. This is My nature. This is what you can rely on. This is what you can count on, and this is what you can expect from Me.” And it’s just been a powerful revelation as we go week by week into the different names and the meanings and how that applies to us.

Over the last few weeks we’ve talked specifically about some of the sacraments and the things that the Lord has given us — practical things the Lord has given the church to welcome Him and to honor Him: Communion, water baptism, things like that. And today, though, I wanted to talk about Pentecost. If you don’t know what Pentecost is, that is when we celebrate the promise, and the fulfillment of the promise, when Jesus said, “I’m going to pour out My Spirit, and I’m going to send you a Helper, and I want you to wait in Jerusalem, and you will receive power.”

Pentecost means fifty. It’s fifty days after the Passover. After Jesus had died and was raised to life, He walked with the disciples for forty days. He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, which was the Holy Spirit. Ten days later, fifty days after Passover, the Holy Spirit comes.

Now, if you’re very astute, Pentecost Sunday, fifty days after Easter, was actually last week. So, yeah, we’re a little behind. If you don’t know, I was not here last week. I was with my daughter — she plays lacrosse, and we’ve always had a dream to go to the women’s national championship, and this year it was in Chicago. So we were like, we’ve got to get this off our bucket list, we’ve got to go. And it was a wonderful time. And so I hope you had a wonderful time with Suzie bringing the Word to us last week, as she always does.

But I had it in my heart to talk about Pentecost, and really, what is the invitation, and what is the Lord providing for us? Because when we talk about Pentecost, we’re talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit coming upon believers. But how many of you know it’s okay that we’re not talking about it on Pentecost Sunday, because Pentecost is not a date? Amen.

The Holy Spirit did not fall on the disciples because the date said so. He fell because there were people who were gathered together, who were hungry, who were seeking the Lord and calling out to Him and waiting for the promise. I mean, it is a powerful thing. Do not ever underestimate the power of believers coming together in one accord. That’s when we see the power and the promises of God come to pass. That’s when revelation comes. That’s when the Lord shows us things and speaks words to us. And whether that’s through the message or during our times of worship, it is such a powerful thing when we gather together in one accord.

We see in Acts 1:14, it says, “These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication.” The disciples were listening to the words of Jesus, and they said, “We’re not going to do anything until we receive this promise that has been given to us.” And they waited for ten days, and they were praying in one accord. They did not go back to fishing. They didn’t go home. They didn’t just fill their calendars with a bunch of assignments. They were obedient to Jesus, and they said, “We’re not going anywhere until we receive the promise.”

And on Pentecost, that hungry room of believers — how many of you know Jesus fills those who are hungry? That’s why it’s so important that when we come into church, or we come into our times of receiving the Word, we don’t come saying, “Well, if He wants to say something, He’ll say it. If I feel it, I feel it.” It all starts with hunger. Are you actually desiring the Lord? Because He says, “Whoever is thirsty, I will fill.” Right? He’s the one who feeds us. He’s the one who fills us.

And so when we talk about the Holy Spirit, we might have some different connotations, and we might have some different things going through our minds. If you grew up in a more traditional church, perhaps the Holy Spirit was nothing more than a line in the creed, right? “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and the giver of life.” Maybe the Holy Spirit showed up at confirmation, and it’s like some mysterious aura thing. Maybe He got mentioned at a baptism that you attended, but you never actually expected Him to do anything on a Tuesday afternoon in your life.

Maybe your background is growing up in a Pentecostal church, and you kind of view the Holy Spirit more as a list of gifts, right? Things that the Holy Spirit will do in your life, a powerful thing, something that we can conjure up. But how many of you know the Holy Spirit is more than a gift list? He’s more than tongues. He’s more than prophecy. He’s more than healing. He is a person.

The Holy Spirit is God, the third person of the Trinity, just as much God as the Father, just as much God as the Son. The same Holy Spirit who hovered over the waters in Genesis, who spoke through the prophets, who descended on Jesus when He was baptized in the River Jordan. This is who we’re talking about. And this was the promise. Jesus said, “I will pour out My Spirit, and you will receive power.”

What the prophets saw coming

Now, before we get to the upper room in Jerusalem, I want to look really quick in Isaiah 32. This is where I had you turn. The prophets of Israel saw a day coming. They knew that there would come a day when God would pour out His Spirit on regular people. And we come to Isaiah 32, starting at verse 15. It says, “Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is counted as a forest.” Everybody say, “Then.” “Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever.”

The prophet Isaiah was speaking to the nation of Israel, and it was a barren nation at the time. It was a people who were in a time of wilderness. Things were dry. Things were desperate. Things weren’t working out the way that they thought. It was a nation that he described as having forsaken palaces, as deserted cities. And notice what the prophet Isaiah says. He says, “One day the Spirit will be poured out from on high, and the wilderness will become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field will become a forest.”

I want us to notice the order that is being brought here. The wilderness becomes a garden, how many of you know? And then the garden becomes a forest. I want us to notice that whatever the Spirit touches doesn’t just survive; it thrives. Whatever the Spirit touches doesn’t just exist; it multiplies. What was empty becomes fruitful, and what’s fruitful becomes overflowing.

And listen to the fruit that the prophet Isaiah brings here. He says justice, righteousness, peace, quietness, assurance forever. This is what is inside the life of the believer. This is the fruit of the Spirit. And so if you’re here and you’re like, “Man, I just come in and my mind is all over the place, and I have no peace, and I come in and I have this fear and constant wondering” — how many of you know when we receive the Spirit, this is the fruit that comes? Assurance, peace, quietness — that sounds wonderful. Righteousness, justice — that is what He produces in you.

I want to look just a couple chapters later, in Isaiah 44, starting at verse 2. It says, “Thus says the Lord who made you and formed you from the womb, who will help you: ‘Fear not, O Jacob My servant, for I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring; they will spring up among the grass like willows by the watercourses.’”

I mean, we can hear the words of Jesus in this statement, right? Hundreds of years later, Jesus is going to stand up in the temple on the last day of the feast, and He’s going to cry out, “If anyone thirsts, let him” — what? — “come to Me and drink.” And Jesus continues, and He says, “He who believes in Me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” If you are thirsty, if you are dry, if you feel empty, come to Jesus, and He will give you a drink. That’s how good He is.

John adds to the commentary. He says this: “But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive.” Let me ask you this. Who are the ones that receive the Holy Spirit? Those who believe in Him. We have the opportunity as believers in Christ Jesus to experience what the prophets dreamed about: water for the thirsty, floods on dry ground, the Spirit on your children and their children’s children. That is the fruit and the life that is available to believers. And that’s why we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. That is why we celebrate Pentecost.

The Spirit who remained on Jesus

Now, before the Spirit was poured out on the upper room, how many of you know He was poured out on one man, Jesus, in the Jordan? Mark chapter 1, starting at verse 9, says this. I was just talking to my son about this — or he was talking to me, actually. That’s the way it was. Yeah, that’s a good reminder. Mark chapter 1, starting at verse 9. It says, “It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. Then a voice came from heaven, ‘You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’”

Now, John actually gives us another detail that Mark leaves out here, and it really changes everything. John the Baptist is testifying about what happened that day, in John 1:33. It says this: “I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him …’” Everybody say this: “Remaining on Him.” Let’s say that together: “Remaining on Him.”

Let me ask you this now. On whom did the Holy Spirit descend and remain? Jesus. We’ve got to know that. This is key. As Jesus was coming out of the water from being baptized, it says that the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove, and it says “and remaining on Him.” “This is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” So notice, Jesus was baptized and the Holy Spirit came and remained on Him. But also, Jesus is the one that baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

So up until this moment in time, the Holy Spirit had had a long history throughout Scripture of descending and coming upon people. He came upon Moses. He came upon the elders. He came upon Samson. He came upon Saul. And then He came upon David. He came upon the prophets. And you would hear something along the lines of “the word of the Lord came to me, saying,” or “the Holy Spirit was upon him.” But then the Holy Spirit would move on. He was a visitor in the Old Testament. He would come, He would act, but then He would go.

But the Lord told John the Baptist, “When you see the Spirit descend and remain, that is the one.” That is the Son of God. He is the one who comes to baptize us with the Holy Spirit. And so when the Spirit descended on Jesus and He remained, it tells you everything about Jesus. What does that actually say about Jesus?

It tells us that Jesus is the perfect one, that there was no part of Jesus that the Spirit needed to back away from. It tells us that Jesus is God, that the Spirit dwelt with Him eternally, before the river and after the river. And it tells us about Jesus’ humanity, that He stepped into our category. God became man, and He took on a body. He took a water baptism that, honestly, He didn’t really need, did He? But He was being obedient to the Father, and He gave the Spirit a person to settle in: Jesus.

In other words, Jesus was the prototype. He was the beginning. He was the first. He goes under the water, the Holy Spirit comes upon Him, and the Spirit remained on Jesus. And so afterwards, Jesus walks into Nazareth. He goes into the synagogue. He opens the scroll of Isaiah, Isaiah 61, and He announced what He came to do. He said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me” — to what? — “to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” I want us to notice that after the Holy Spirit descended and came upon Jesus and remained on Him, Jesus opens up His public ministry by saying this: “The Holy Spirit is upon Me.”

Luke writes a prologue to the book of Acts, and he says this in Acts chapter 1, starting at verse 1. It says, “The former account I made, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen.” Listen, even the resurrected Jesus, on the way back up to the Father, would not teach the apostles without the Holy Spirit. How many of you know, if the resurrected Son refused to teach without the Spirit’s power, how much more do we need the Holy Spirit? Amen.

And so Jesus walked the pattern that He wanted us to walk. He lived the life that He wanted us to live. He was baptized in water. He was filled with the Holy Spirit. He was sent into ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit. He was resurrected by the Holy Spirit. Jesus showed us the way, and then He turns around and He says, “I am now going to offer the same thing to you. Do not depart from Jerusalem, but” — what? — “wait for the promise. I am going to send My Spirit to come upon you. And when you do, you will receive power to be witnesses of Me in Jerusalem and Judea and all over the world.” In other words, Jesus was showing us the model of how we are to live our lives as believers.

And so look at what Jesus says to His disciples right before going back to the Father. It says, “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; for John truly baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’”

I want us to notice, number one, Jesus commanded the disciples. How many of you know this was not a recommendation? Jesus didn’t want the disciples to just get busy doing ministry once He went into heaven. He didn’t just want them to start filling their calendars with ministry appointments. Could they have gone and prayed for people? Could they have gone and told the gospel and shared the good news? Yes. But Jesus knew: no. Before you do that, there’s something that you need first. You need to be filled and baptized with the Holy Spirit.

The Promise is a person

Notice Jesus says it’s the Promise of the Father. That word “Promise” is actually capitalized in the English Bible, because the Promise is not a thing. The Promise is a person. It’s the Holy Spirit.

Now, God the Father has many promises. He promised not to flood the earth again. He promised Abraham a son. He promised David a throne. And He promised Israel a promised land. But here in Acts chapter 1 is the Promise, the one promise with His name on it, the promise that does not lead anywhere except into the very heart of God Himself. The Holy Spirit is the Promise. And the Father gives His Spirit to the believer, and that is the gift behind every other gift.

And so Jesus says, “Don’t move on without Him.” Don’t move on. You can have the Bible memorized. You can be in church every Sunday. You can give your tithe. You can serve. You can love your neighbor. But without the Promise, you’ll be a believer trying to walk an impossible road in the strength of your own two legs. So Jesus said, “Wait. Wait.”

Then just a few verses later, in Acts chapter 1, verse 8, Jesus said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be witnesses” — I’ve already quoted this — in Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. This is what Pentecost initiated. This was not a denomination. This was not the birth of a gift list. This was power. This was witnesses. This was to the ends of the earth. This was a church reaching into every corner of the world in the power of the Holy Spirit, taking the name of Jesus to people who had never heard it. And it all started with one thing: you will receive Him.

What a precious gift. The one who hovered over the waters of Genesis — we talked about this a couple of weeks ago — like a brooding mother. The one who was a part of the creation. The one in whom all things are held together. That is the one that we can receive. We receive Him.

The age when the Spirit moves in

Now I want us to look at Pentecost in Acts 2, starting at verse 1. It says, “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

I want us to notice the power. There was wind, there was fire, there were tongues. A hundred and twenty believers were in the upper room, and Scripture says every single one of them was filled. Every single one of them began speaking in new tongues. And Scripture says that that day three thousand people were added to the church. It sounds like power. Amen.

But Pentecost initiated a new age. It was this new age of the Spirit, the age where the Holy Spirit doesn’t just visit people, where He doesn’t just come and give a little bit of a boost and then leave. No, this was an age where He moves in. He doesn’t just lift His people in moments. He lifts them and moves in them every day. He doesn’t just empower for a moment. His presence becomes our world and our reality.

Listen to how Ezekiel the prophet saw it, in Ezekiel 36:26. It says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.” How many of you know that is an amazing work of God in itself? You can have the hardest heart. You can have experienced all that the world has to offer and be critical and hard and shut off. But how many of you know the Lord will give you a new heart? In fact, that is something that you can be praying over your families: “Lord, You promised that You would give us a new heart. Lord, would You give them a new heart, a heart for You?”

He says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” Notice the heart of stone goes away and the heart of flesh comes. But then Scripture says, “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes.” Aren’t you thankful that God doesn’t just give us commandments, but that He actually gives us capacity to walk it out? And that capacity comes in the form of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

He doesn’t just tell us what to do. He actually puts the will to do it inside of you. That’s why, when you receive Jesus and His Spirit comes inside of you, it changes everything. You don’t want to talk the way that you used to talk. It doesn’t mean that you walk out with every habit and everything that you’ve picked up from the world just dead and gone. That can happen. But typically, over time, you start walking with the Lord, and you start hearing the gospel preached, and you hear the good news, and all of a sudden you’re like, “I don’t want to talk like that.” Or those things that I used to struggle with that were holding me down, those ways of thinking, those addictions or whatever it is — all of a sudden He begins to break those things off of your life, and He gives you the capacity to follow Him.

That’s why Paul says it this way. Paul says, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” How many of you know we live in Him? He’s the air that the Christian breathes. If you were to take Him out of the room, the believer does not survive for very long. His presence is our oxygen. His presence is everything that we need. It’s what fuels us. It’s what gives us the capacity to walk with Him.

We move in Him. In other words, every step we take, every decision we make that honors Jesus, every word of grace that we speak — how many of you know that is beyond your natural capacity? That is the Holy Spirit moving through us. And in Him we have our being. The meaning of your life is found in the person of the Holy Spirit. Outside of Him there is biology, but there is no being. Inside of Him, even an ordinary life starts to mean something.

A glove on the hand of God

I heard a story that stuck with me, of Corrie ten Boom. She was a woman who survived a Nazi concentration camp, and she walked with the Spirit for decades after. But she used to say this. She used to say, “The Lord has put me on like a glove. I am no more than a glove in the hand of God.”

How many of you know a glove has no power on its own? A glove has no movement of its own. A glove is just a shape until someone puts it on. And when you do, right — we have a cold climate, right? And if you have your gloves in your car and your car is outside, you put that glove on, it’s pretty cold. But how many of you know that your hand begins to warm the fibers of the glove? And as you move the fingers, the glove begins to operate, and it begins to do things and accomplish things. How many of you know that is what the life of being filled with the Holy Spirit is like? It’s where God is putting you on like a glove, and He begins to use you for the things that He has created and purposed you to do.

And so some of us come to church and we say the salvation prayer, and we say, “Yep, I’m following Jesus. I’m a Christian.” But then we try to live the Christian life like we’re an empty glove. And let me tell you what keeps the glove empty. It’s resistance, and not yielding fully to Him.

I don’t know about you, but the only way to do life with Jesus is to give Him all of you. When we hold back, what we’re really saying is, “Lord, I’m going to give You this piece of my life, but everything else I’m just going to do on my own.” But that is a dangerous place to live, because we’re not actually functioning. There’s nothing inside of us that is actually giving us the capacity to be moved and to be warmed and to be filled. We need to be fully surrendered. And so many times believers try to live the Christian life as an empty glove flapping in the wind. But I want to encourage you today: let the Lord put you on His hand. Amen.

Jesus prayed for you to have the Spirit

I’m going to close with this. This is the night before the cross, the night before Jesus died. Jesus was saying, “I’m going to go away,” and the disciples were anxious. They were about to lose the one they loved. This was Jesus. This was the teacher. This was their rabbi. This was the one that they followed, the one who did signs, wonders, and miracles. And they know He’s about to go away.

In John 14:16, Jesus says this: “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever — the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” Notice what Jesus says here. He says, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

I want us to consider that this is one of the last conversations that Jesus was having with the disciples, and Jesus began to pray that you would receive the Holy Spirit. This was a big deal to Jesus. He’s saying, listen, they can’t live the way that they need to live. They can’t function the way that they need to function unless they receive the Promise.

Jesus prayed for you to have the Holy Spirit. The Son of God asked the Father, “Father, would You give them another Helper? Would You give them one who will stay with them? Because I’m going to go.” How many of you know, when Jesus ascended into heaven — that’s where He is right now. He ascended into heaven, not as spirit, but in bodily form. And He is in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father, in His body, in the flesh, and He’s making intercession for you. And His prayer was this: “Would You send the Holy Spirit to go with them and to be on them and to stay with them, to remain on them?”

How many of you are thankful that we don’t have to live another day without the Holy Spirit? Amen. That we don’t have to go another day. The Holy Spirit is not just a moment in our past. He’s not a one-time occurrence. Maybe you’ve been in a church service and you felt the power of God, or maybe you were filled with the Holy Spirit and you began to speak in your spiritual language. Whatever it looked like, whatever it is, that’s not just a one-time deal.

Paul says it this way. He says, “Be filled with the Spirit.” And that “be filled” is a continual thing. We’re to be filled with the Holy Spirit every day, always. There are unlimited refills when it comes to being filled with the Holy Spirit, right? I don’t drink as much soda as I used to, but I used to love free refills. I would go to the fountain, I would go all the way to the top, and I’d drink it before I even sat down, and I’d fill it up again, right? I always wanted to make sure that my cup was full.

But so many times as believers, we allow that cup to go empty, and we’re like, “Well, where is God? I just can’t do the things that He’s asked me to do.” You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Because not only will He show you what you need to do; He’ll give you the capacity to do it. Amen.

And so the Holy Spirit — He is our teacher. He lives inside of us. He’s the one who reminds you, in the middle of a meeting, of the verse that you read three weeks ago. We were just talking to our kids about this at the dinner table. The reason we need to be in the Word is because it’s truth, and it keeps us grounded, and we can rely on it, and it’s forever true. It’s unchanging.

But how many of you know that there are times when you’ll be reading the Word and you’re like, “I don’t even know if I got this,” or, “I don’t even know if I fully understand this”? But then a couple of weeks later you’re going to be going through some things, and all of a sudden what you read a few weeks ago is like, wait, God was talking to me about this. He was showing me something about this. How many of you know that’s when it becomes real, right? That’s when it goes beyond theory or theology, and it actually goes into everyday life.

We need to be built up. We need to be equipped. We need to know what the Word says. Why? Because there will come a time in your life when you need to know what God has said. How many of you know the Holy Spirit helps us with that? He will teach you all things. He will guide you into all truth. Listen, if you are reading the Word and you’re like, “Man, I try, and it’s just not making sense” — well, did you invite the Holy Spirit to show you? Because He will guide you into all truth.

And so something that I like to do when I open the Word is say, “Holy Spirit, would You teach me and show me the things that You need me to know? Would You teach me and show me the things that You’ve prepared for me?” How many of you know the Lord knows the things that you’re going to face in the coming days and in the coming weeks? He knows how to equip you. I don’t know about you, but every time I go into the Word, I go in with the expectation that God is going to speak to me, because that’s what He does. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and they know Me.”

I’ve heard believers say, “It scares me when people say that they can hear God speak to them.” I’m going to tell you, it scares me when believers say they cannot, because Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice.” We should be able to hear. Is it an audible thing? No. But when you’re in the Word, all of a sudden you’ll be reading and something jumps out at you, and you know that you know that’s for me.

When that was written two thousand years ago, God, in His infinite wisdom and His power and His ability, knew where you would be today, on May 30th or 31st, whatever day it is, right? That you would be sitting here, and that we would be talking about the Promise of the Father, and all of a sudden something clicks in you, and you’re like, “I think I need the Holy Spirit. I think I need to call on Him.” Right? That something unlocks. That is what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives us peace when the world has no peace to give. He’s the answer to every anxious heart in the room. And He’s been offered to us freely. Freely.

Ask and receive

Can we do this? Can we stand together? We’re going to close, but I want us to just bow our heads, and can we just become aware of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the room right now? I’m going to invite us just to bow our heads. And then something that we like to do is we like to lift our hands to the Lord, because this is a posture of receiving, but it’s also a physical posture of surrender.

And I’m just going to invite you right now, in your own words, just begin to talk to the Lord and just say, “Jesus, I want to receive all that You have for me. Holy Spirit, would You come right now?” And with your hands lifted, I just want to encourage you to know that the Lord is here. He’s in the room. He is closer to you than the air that you’re breathing. And the same Spirit that came into that upper room two thousand years ago has not moved his address. He has come, and He will keep coming.

And so right now I’m just going to ask that you just begin to ask. Say, “Holy Spirit, I want to know You. I want to meet You. I want to be filled with You today. I’m asking. I am asking. All that I am is Yours.” And how many of you know that’s the whole prayer?

If you’re here today and you’ve never been baptized with the Holy Spirit — maybe you’ve never had a moment where the Spirit has come upon you with power and evidence — the Father is here, and He has the gift in His hand. And our part is just to simply ask. Jesus said Himself, “How much more will your heavenly Father give you the Holy Spirit, to those who ask Him?” So what is our job, to receive? We believe and we ask. “Holy Spirit, come fill me now.” Come on, just pray it. “Fill me now. I receive Your Spirit. You are wonderful. We give You praise.”

I’m going to pray. Wonderful Lord, fill us now. I ask that You would fill this room, this house, this city. Holy Spirit, come upon us. Reveal Jesus to us, Lord. Let every bondage die in Your presence today, Lord. Let every sickness die in this room in the name of Jesus. Lord, let every dull heart come alive in the fire of the Holy Spirit today, in Jesus’ name. We open ourselves up to You, Lord, and we receive all that You have. Lord, we receive You today in faith, believing. In the name of Jesus, we receive. Amen.

Amen. Can we thank the Lord this morning? Thank You, Lord.

Transcribed from the message recording and lightly edited for reading.