Our Lord, we thank you for this scripture, which is a prayer. And we pray, Lord, that you would fulfill it in we, your people, by the power and might of your Holy Spirit. To the glory of Jesus' name and to the glory of the Father, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Sermon title today is Strengthened with Power. Strengthened with Power. And we're preaching this sermon this Sunday because, as I mentioned earlier, this is Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost comes 50 days after Passover, and Pentecost means 50. or you can count seven weeks after Easter. And Pentecost is a reminder that we must pray, even though the historical event of Pentecost has already happened, Pentecost is a reminder that we must pray for the present experience of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the church in our generation. Amen? The saintly John Fletcher of Madley in the 16th century put it like this, every Christian should have his Pentecost. Amen? Every Christian should have his Pentecost or what I like to say is For the Christian, every day is Christmas, every day is Easter, and every day is Pentecost. Amen? Because we live out the incarnation, we live out the word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. We live out the resurrection that when Christ died, we died with him. But when he was raised to new life, we were raised to new life with him. Amen? And now Christ has ascended into heaven and has sent forth his Holy Spirit so that we would have power to be his witnesses in the world. Amen? Pentecostals aren't the only ones who speak about Pentecost and baptism in the Holy Spirit. As biblical Christians, we are Trinitarians. That is, we believe in one God who has revealed himself in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And we believe in the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Why? Because it's taught in the Bible. Amen. We can't throw out Bible terms and doctrines because they have been misused or misunderstood. We can't. If it's in the Bible, baptism of the Holy Spirit, we need to understand what the Bible says about it and how it applies to us, his people, and to his church. Amen? We must teach and understand the whole counsel of God according to the scriptures. Now John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, came baptizing in water, preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins. And he said in Luke 3, 15 and 16, I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than I is coming. whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Amen? And then Jesus himself promised he would do just what John said he would do. As he was about to ascend bodily into heaven in Acts 1-4, he assembled the disciples together and 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 shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Not many days from now. And then. Ten days later, they were baptized with the Holy Spirit. That's the event. we know as Pentecost, Pentecost. And so what happened? There were 120 women, men and women, excuse me, who prayed for 10 days in the upper room. It says in Acts 1, 14, these all with one mind or in one accord were continually devoting themselves to prayer, Acts 114. And that's very instructive for us as a church. What should the church strive for? Well, we should strive for unity. We should strive to be in one accord and and to make sure that we're living at peace with one another. And then we should be devoted to prayer, and we should pray together. Now, why did the disciples gather to pray for 10 days? Well, they knew that if they were to fulfill the grand command, what is the grand command? All authority in heaven and earth is given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And teach them to observe all that I commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. That's in Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20. So that's the grand command. Now, how easy is it to fulfill the grand command? Not easy. They knew they needed power, and so that's why they prayed. Amen? They knew that their own plans, their own personalities, their own programs, their own powers were not going to get it done. Even though they spent three years with Jesus, 24-7, still was not enough. They needed His Spirit to be with them and in them. And that's why they prayed. Amen? They needed the baptism of the Holy Spirit. What is it? Now this is a definition that from my study I've come up with. If you can tweak the definition from the scriptures, go for it. But this is a start. Baptism of the Holy Spirit is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit from Jesus to enable believers to be mighty witnesses to Jesus Christ. Amen? Amen. An outpouring of the Holy Spirit from Jesus to enable believers to be mighty witnesses to Jesus Christ. And then I add, ask for it. Ask for it. Because Jesus says in Luke 11, 13, if you who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more shall your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? Amen? So ask for it. And they did ask. And then what happened? Well, Pentecost happened. Let's turn to Acts chapter two and be reminded of what the Lord did in his church. Acts 2, and when the day of Pentecost came, Acts 2, 1, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were staying. They were staying in the upper room. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, Thankfully, it wasn't actual fire. Their heads would have been burnt. Tongues, as the fire, distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Just another definition of baptism of the Holy Spirit is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. They began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. And now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when the sound occurred, the multitude came together, were bewildered because they were each one hearing them speak in their own language. And so they, as they spoke in tongues, they spoke in languages that the people from all the different nations could hear and understand the truth of God. They said, why are not all these Galileans? How is it we hear them in our language to which we were born? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, visitors from Rome, Jews and proselytes. Cretans and Arabs, and here's the key, verse 11, we hear them in our own tongues. They were speaking actual languages, understood languages. We hear them in our own tongues speaking the mighty deeds of God. Baptism of the Holy Spirit is for witness, for powerful witnesses. of the Lord Jesus Christ. Fulfilling Jesus' promise in Acts chapter 1 verse 8, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be witnesses to me. Where? In Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria We have to go to our Samaria, those people who are different from us. Maybe we have a difficult time with them. Maybe we have a bad history with them. That's our Samaria. We have to go to them too, amen? And God will redeem a new future between us and our Samaria, amen? And we go even to the remotest part of the Earth. And that's because we've been filled with the Spirit of God. Now, if you are already a mighty and consistent Christ-like, Holy Spirit-filled, loving, humble, and sacrificial witness for Jesus, and you see many sound conversions when you witness to people, like 3,000 at a time, if that happens to you regularly, then you don't need to pray for this. But if it is your experience that there's a tragic discrepancy between what you see in Acts chapter 2 and your life, and I see it in my life, and that's why I'm praying for change and for becoming more like Jesus and more like his spirit-filled disciples, that's why I'm praying for power. And that's why we all need to pray for power, amen? And even if you are excelling in evangelism, you can always pray that you can excel still more, amen? Now why does Paul pray in Ephesians 3.16 the way he does? Do you notice how he prays? He prays that the Lord would grant according to the riches of his glory, that the Ephesians would be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man." If he prayed that way for them, that's something we can pray for ourselves as well. And so, we must pray to be strengthened in our spirit by the Holy Spirit. We must pray for our part in Pentecost today. Amen? And so our proposition this morning is this, pray for the mighty Holy Spirit power of knowing Jesus. It's all about knowing Jesus. If you know Jesus, you will know power. But if you don't know him, or if you're somewhat at arm's length distance from him, you won't have power, amen? We must pray for the mighty Holy Spirit power of knowing Jesus. First, we must pray for the mighty power of Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith. Verse 17 says, So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Now, why? Would Paul pray for the Ephesians, the church at Ephesus? Why would he pray for this, that Christ would dwell in their hearts by faith? Were not the Ephesians already Christians? Yes, they were. Christ was in them. But he's still praying that Christ would dwell in their hearts by faith. Why is he praying that? Well, he's praying that the reality of Christ indwelling them would be evident, very evident. Amen? And so the question is, how evident Is it that Christ dwells richly in your heart by faith? Is there evidence? Can people tell that Christ is in you? Christ in you, the hope of glory? Is there a hope about you because Christ is in you? Is there a glory about you because Christ is in you? We need to look for evidence of Christ being there. One evidence is the fruit of the Spirit. When we see your life, can we see the fruit of the Spirit? What are the fruit of the Spirit? Well, in Galatians chapter 5, we have a list of what kind of fruit we can expect when Christ is dwelling in us by His Holy Spirit. Galatians 5, 22, but the fruit of the Spirit is, as our brother elder mentioned before, love. We should expect love. Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, joy unspeakable, full of glory. Peace, peace that surpasses all understanding. Patience, because love is patient. Kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness. How gentle are we? Are we gentle with the meekness of Christ or are we sometimes like bulls in China cabinets? Sometimes I'm like a bull in a china cabinet. Lord, forgive me and enable me to learn gentleness through your Spirit. Amen. Self-control, oh boy. We are indwelt with the Holy Spirit, so we should be holy. Amen? Against such things there is no law. Now I have a friend named Woody. And Woody is a nurseryman and has many fruit trees, many apple trees. And his job is to be a fruit inspector. And so when the apple harvest comes in, the apples come down the conveyor belt and he's grading apples. Most of them are good and they go into A. But there are bad ones, and he's gotta pull them out and put them into B. And so he needs to inspect the fruits and make sure that the ones that go to the stand are the best. And then the seconds, people can buy at a discount. Those are the ones that I would buy. And we would make lots of good pies and things like that. But we need to inspect the fruit. And if it's of Jesus, that needs to be the best. And that's what the fruit of the Spirit is. It's the fruit of Jesus in our lives because Christ dwells in our hearts by faith. Pray for the mighty power of Christ dwelling your hearts by faith. Also pray for the mighty power of the four-dimensional love of Christ. Pray for the mighty power of the four-dimensional love of Christ. Why do I say four-dimensional? Because the prayer is that we would be rooted and grounded in love and may be able to comprehend or grasp or lay hold of with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that we may be filled up with all the fullness of God. There is this love of Christ that has a breadth and length and height and depth that we are not able to plumb the depths of. It's beyond us. It's greater than us. And dare we say it is infinite. Infinite. Because God in his attributes is infinite. You think about that for a second. Wrap your minds around that. The infinite love of God for us in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah. Pray for the mighty power of the 4G love of Christ to be experienced by His saints together. It's something we experience together with all the saints. And that's an awesome thing, when the love of God is shared and enjoyed with the saints. This is our family. These are our brothers and sisters, our blood brothers and sisters, blood brothers and sisters through the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen? And so, beloved, be rooted in love, rooted and grounded. Where are we drawing our life from? Are we drawing life from this world and its things which are passing away? Or are we drawing our life and power from the love of Jesus Christ? That's where there's life. That's where there's power. That's where there's hope. Be rooted in the love of Jesus. Also be grounded. Be grounded in the love of Jesus. Be established and built up in that love. Are you becoming mature in the love of Jesus? We have a misconception about maturity, what it means to be a mature Christian. A mature Christian is not just an older Christian. A mature Christian is one who is growing in love, increasing in Christ-likeness, increasing in godliness, increasing in sacrificial love, when we have to give sometimes more than we want to. A mature Christian is growing in kindness and humility and compassion and caring, becoming more and more like Jesus. That's what it means to be grounded or established in love. And then also we are to lay hold of or take possession of the love of Jesus or let it take possession of us. We need to be possessed by the love of Jesus Christ. Amen. And we do that with all the saints. It's together. with the Saints. We experience it together. We get to experience it together. And then lastly, it is an experiential knowledge beyond knowledge. It's beyond knowledge. It says to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. Just when you think you know there is, think you know there's everything you can know about the love of Christ, there's more. There's more. There's more. Hallelujah. Pray for the mighty power of the 4D love of Christ experienced together with all the saints. And lastly, pray for the mighty power of being filled up, filled up with all the fullness of God. And so I ask you, are you full or are you empty? Now, if you don't yet know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I dare say you're empty and you need to be filled. And so I urge you to call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and say, Lord, I want you, Jesus, to come into my heart, to forgive my sins, to make me the person you want me to be, to save me. If you pray that prayer. And you believe it and you cry out to the Lord, he will be gracious, he promises all who call on the name of the Lord. shall be saved. That's a promise. Amen? Pray for the mighty power of being filled up with the fullness of God. Go to the source. Go to the source of fullness. Go to Jesus. Don't go to other people. Because no one, no mere human being, man or woman, can fill you and fulfill you like Jesus. we will fail each other, but Jesus will never fail us. Amen? And that's why a Christian marriage has a distinct advantage over marriage in the world, because in the world we're trying to get what we can from our spouse, from our husband or wife, and that puts too much stress on that relationship. And so when a husband and wife go together to the Lord to receive love and strength and fullness for him, that strengthens the marriage. And that is what we would call a three-strand cord. You have the husband, the wife, and the Lord, and they're twisted together into a strong cord, and it's very hard to tear that asunder. People try, and people do, but God doesn't want that. He wants us as husband and wives to work through difficulties and stay together and to trust in his spirit to enable that. Pray for the mighty power. of being filled up with the fullness of God. Come to Jesus, the fountain of living waters. Come to Jesus who is the bread of life and he will feed you with the hidden manna. Go to that word daily, read your Bible daily and pray daily. You need that. You need that food. Just like you need physical food, you need spiritual food on a day-by-day basis. We need that Word. We need that prayer. We need fellowship. We need encouragement. And the gathering of God's people and encouragement is a good thing. We're grateful for it. But it's not just for Sunday. It's a daily thing. Amen? Encourage one another daily. while it is still called today. And so I want to urge you to pray, pray, pray for the mighty Holy Spirit power of knowing Jesus. Pray that the mighty power of Christ would dwell in your hearts by faith. Pray that his love would be experienced, that you would experience it together with all his saints, rooted and grounded in that love. And then also pray for the mighty power of being filled up with all the fullness of God. And so we go as those who are empty, but who can be filled, filled up with God. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we're grateful, thankful that you have given so much to us. You have given your only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish, should not die. should not go to hell, but instead, by faith in Him, have eternal life. And so we pray, Lord, if there is anyone here who has not yet trusted Christ as Lord and Savior, we pray that you would give them grace, enable them to cry out to you, to forgive their sins, and to receive you as Lord and Savior and please come to them and change them from the inside out. You promised that if we repent, you would send times of refreshing and you would send Jesus into our hearts. Send Jesus into our hearts. Send his love, send his power, fill us up with the fullness of God. for your namesake and for your honor. You said it in your word, Lord, and now we pray that you would bring it to pass in we, your people. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.