Pentecost

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. Okay, so we are in a series called Holy Spirit, and I'm excited about this series because we all need the Holy Spirit. And the idea of the series is to kind of help you understand, to kind of throw out all those misconceptions or presumptions about the Holy Spirit and really dig into what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit. So last week we talked a little bit about who the Holy Spirit is, and that the Holy Spirit is a wind, a refreshing air that blows on us.

It actually is translated wind, like He is wind, right? And it kind of changes our thoughts and our ideas of the Holy Spirit, because we always think of Him as a ghost or a spirit, and it's kind of spooky. But He actually is a refreshing wind. And we went through some characteristics of the Holy Spirit. You can go back and hear that and get information.

This thing is driving me crazy here. Okay, so you can go back and get some information about that in last week's message. This week I want to talk about Pentecost. Pentecost. And when I say the word Pentecost, there's probably a lot of ideas that pop in people's head, because all of you have different ideas and thoughts about Pentecost, whether you're raised in church or not.

Some of you might be thinking of people who don't wear makeup, and women that put buns up in their hair, or somebody who wears too much makeup on TV, or wears a white suit and kind of yells at you through the TV. Maybe that's your idea of a Pentecost, or a Pentecostal preacher. Maybe you think of it as a denomination, the Pentecostal denomination that started a little over 100 years ago, and it was a movement that started, and it's here today. Maybe you think of that. Maybe you're here today, and you have no clue about any of that.

Maybe you're new to church. A lot of people here are new to church, and may have never even studied or thought about that. And that's good. I'm glad you're there, because we don't want any presuppositions about what we think about Pentecost or the Holy Spirit, because it's best for us to go to the Bible, to the Word of God, and learn for ourselves. In fact, there were people even in the New Testament that didn't know.

In fact, Paul, while Apollos, Acts 19, if you'll look at the screen, or open your Bibles to Acts 19, it says, While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took a road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. And there he found some disciples, some followers of Christ. They just called them disciples during that time, because there wasn't a term for Christian at the time, right? So they were disciples. So there he found some disciples, some new followers of Christ, and asked them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?

And they're like, No, we haven't even heard of the Holy Spirit. And sadly, there's many people today that haven't even heard of the Holy Spirit. We know about God the Father and His love for us, and we know about Jesus who came and gave His life for us. But when it gets to that Holy Spirit piece, the very thing that we need today, we tend to overlook it or brush it off, or many denominations and many movements don't even want to touch it because they're scared that they're going to handle it wrong. But the truth is, we need the Holy Spirit, and it's something that needs to be, for our life and mission in the church, it's something that we need to take hold of and walk with in our ministries.

And you just need it every day. So today I want to talk a little bit about this term Pentecost, what the meaning of Pentecost is. And we're going to look at three holidays, three Jewish holidays that are celebrated today, even among the Jewish culture, but the ancient Israelites, they particularly, God set some commandments, set some law in place in order for these people to commemorate certain days. And there was purposes behind this. So in the Old Testament, we look back in the Old Testament, we have law.

And there was very strict law for the people to follow so that they could be covered, so they could be protected by God. Ceremonial laws, there were civil laws. But the good news is, today we have Jesus Christ, and He is the fulfillment of all the laws. So we have freedom in Him, and we're no longer held to the law, although He did not abolish the law. In fact, Jesus said this in the Gospel of Matthew 5, 17.

He says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law of the prophets. I haven't. The law still stands out there, right? We need to still know that there's a law there that we need to be. But I have not come to abolish the law.

I've come to fulfill it. I didn't abolish it. I didn't do away with the law. I come to fulfill the law. And that should give us joy today to know that He came to fulfill the law through Jesus Christ.

And through His blood and through His covenant, we can actually live in freedom knowing that He has saved us. And that's what I want to talk about a little bit today. Okay, this cord is driving me crazy, guys. Y'all are going to have to give me a second here. I didn't have time to really position this today because I was in worship.

And usually I have this all tucked in my back pocket here. Okay. Am I good? And forgive me if I pull something out and wipe my nose every once in a while. I am still struggling with a cold.

A little, some stuff is still happening here. In fact, I'm going to do that right now. So, look at this. This is pitiful, guys. I mean, look at me.

I got a little, I don't have a handkerchief. You know, you're supposed, you know, there's Pentecost people, right? They have handkerchiefs in their pocket, right? And they pull it out and they wipe their foreheads. And I'm here, I'm here right, yeah, I don't have a handkerchief.

But I'm having to, so, you know, when you shake my hand after service, be aware, okay? Okay? So, a lot of people are going to be passing by me after service today, right? But I want to talk about, first of all, Passover. Passover.

Passover. There's a celebration called Passover. Now, fill in the blank in a minute. I just want to talk about this for a second. And Passover was a holiday to celebrate or commemorate the deliverance of Egypt.

If you're new to church or you don't know much about it, most of you probably know this, and I don't want to insult your intelligence, but there are people here that may not know, so that's why I want to kind of skim through it real quick, is that the Hebrews, the ancient Hebrews, the ancient Israelites were enslaved to Egypt for 400 years. 400 years. And then they called, the people cried out to God, and God sent a deliverer named Moses. And many of you know who Moses is. You know, if you've ever watched the movie The Ten Commandments, you know a little bit about Moses, right?

And the story of Moses. So, Moses came into Egypt to confront Pharaoh, let my people go. You know, the famous term, let my people go. Charlton Heston, can't you hear his voice right now? Let my people go.

And there were 10 plagues that were put upon Egypt because Pharaoh was so hard-headed, he would not let the people go. They were enslaved. They were building pyramids. He was treating them terribly. And he would just not let the people go because he was afraid of them, actually.

He was afraid of what they would do, so he would not let them go. So, God sent 10 plagues on Egypt. Nothing convinced Pharaoh except the last plague, and that last plague was the passing of a death angel over the Egyptian city, the Egyptian people, and the Israelites, and the firstborn male of each family would die, would be killed through this death angel. So, God didn't want that to happen to the Israelites, so he asked him to sacrifice a lamb, to provide a sacrificial lamb. And put it on the doorposts of the home.

So the death angel would pass over. You see it? You get it? It was Passover. So there was a Passover.

And they commemorated that because God delivered them through that plague. God came in, Moses came in, and they were delivered, and they looked at the Passover. So they celebrated and commemorated the Passover in three ways. And this is really cool how it connects to this kind of sacrificial type lamb thing. The first one is a Passover lamb was sacrificed at 9 a.

m. That was kind of what the law was set in place. They sacrificed the lamb at 9 a.m. The lamb was put in the oven at 3 p.

m. And then there was a sacrifice that covered their sins. Now to show you that the law was fulfilled and not abolished but fulfilled in Jesus, get this. This is really cool. Jesus was sacrificed at 9 a.

m. Jesus was put in the tomb at 3 p.m. And his sacrifice didn't cover our sins. It removed all of our sins.

Can you give God a big amen for that? We are free. Come on now. Come on, church. All right.

God is good. God is good. He sacrificed. He removed it all. And isn't that crazy how the Old and New Testament play together?

He fulfilled the Scripture. In 1 Corinthians 5-7 it says, For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. And we can be overjoyed because of that. And so Passover represents this. If you want to fill in the blanks, if you're following your notes, Passover represents salvation.

Salvation. And this stands all on its own because God has more for you than this single experience. But he wanted to be very careful how he handled this to let you know that salvation is free. You do not have to do anything to earn salvation. It's a gift.

What does a gift suggest? That there's nothing that he wants in return. It's unconditional. It stands all alone. Now, it's important to understand that this is not the only experience you need to have.

And that's what we'll get to in a second. But I want you to understand before we go anywhere else that you do not need to work for this. You can just say, Lord Jesus, I commit. I receive you. I give my life.

I accept you as Lord and Savior. And I'm walking with you today. And that's yours. And it's available for you through the sacrificial lamb, the Passover lamb. Ephesians 2, 8, 9 says it like this.

For it is by grace you have been saved. By grace, through faith. And this is not from yourself, so that you won't boast and you won't think good of yourself that way. But it is a gift of God, not by works, right? Not by works.

It's not by works. It's not that anyone can boast. But God doesn't want just that for you. That's a great experience. I want every one of you to have that.

That's why we exist as a church, to introduce people to Jesus Christ so that they can know Jesus and walk with him and find freedom in him. But he doesn't want to pack all of that in just that one experience, everything that he has for you in that one experience. So he introduced another holiday, another holiday. And the next holiday is Pentecost. Pentecost.

And that term Pentecost, man, what does that mean? Some people probably ask, what does that mean, man? And, you know, Pentecost, Pentecostal, Penta, you know, well, it's pretty simple. Penta means five, and costa in the original language means to the tenth power, and that's 50 days after Passover. So 50 days after Passover, they would have this holiday celebration called Pentecost.

The ancient Israelites celebrated it every year. It was kind of like Easter to them, you know, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, whatever we celebrate today. And to them, that was one of the big three. And they commemorated this day for this reason, the giving of the law of Moses. So God brought Moses up on the mountain.

Let's go back to the Ten Commandments. And we saw the fire, and we saw the power, and we saw the presence of God on top of the mountain, right? And then we saw the swirling fire, thou shalt not, you know, and thou shalt not, and they would commemorate that. And they would think about that, and they'd celebrate the law that was meant for them to protect them and to lead them closer to God. Because God put these things in place so that they could know him.

And they celebrated, commemorated this day, and they celebrated it this way. Three things, again, if you'll look at the screen. A cloud descended with a loud noise and fire. So they saw God as all-powerful, a noise and fire. And then God wrote his law on tablets of stone.

They celebrated that. And then, interestingly enough, 3,000 people died that day because down below the mountain, they began to worship a false God. A false God. And what did God do? He threw a plague on them, and they ended up, 3,000 people died that day.

And they remembered that because they wanted to understand God as a powerful, law-giving God who is a father, a sovereign, king, God that was over them. But here's what Jesus did. He fulfilled this holiday as well by this. The Holy Spirit descended in Acts 2. In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit descended with a loud sound and fire.

And then he wrote his law on the hearts. It was no longer on tablets of stone. He wrote his law on the hearts of people, of his people. And on that day, in Acts 2, when they were filled with the Holy Spirit, we call it the Pentecost, the day of Pentecost. On that very day, when a rushing, loud fire sound came in and filled the house, what happened?

They went out into the streets, proclaimed the gospel, and 3,000 people were saved that day. It went from 3,000 that died under the old law to 3,000 who live under the new law. Amen? Can we give God praise for that? That it's from death to life we see Jesus fulfilled in this scripture.

Acts 1, 3 and 5 says, After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave them convincing proof that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of 40 days. 40 days, you said it was 50 days. And he spoke about the kingdom of God. Hold on with me.

On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command. Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift that my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water. But I'm getting ready to do something completely different. I'm going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

In Acts 1 and 8, it says this, But you will receive power, power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. We call this the Great Commission, one of the Great Commission commandments in the Bible. And so 50 days, so 40 days, he walked the earth. And then he had them wait, wait for another.

And on the 50th day, on the 50th day, a great representation of what God and his, God and his power. He came on the people, and 3,000 people came to life that day. And he's still doing that. Amen. And it's not about wild church services.

It's not about goosebumps. It's not about swinging. When some people think about Pentecostals, they think about the Pentecostal people swinging from the chandeliers. Guys, I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and I've never seen anybody swing from a chandelier myself. I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and I grew up in a Pentecostal church.

And I've been wanting to see it. I've actually gone to churches, where's the swingers from the chandeliers? I kind of want to see that. We don't even have chandeliers in here. And it's not anything like that, guys.

It's not just some kind of strange manifestation or experience. It's about the power to fulfill the work that God has called us to do as a church and putting us on mission. And we are to be witnesses to not only starting here in Virginia Beach. You need power to minister to people here in Virginia Beach. You need power to minister to people in Hampton Roads, and to Virginia, the U.

S., and to the world. That's our mission. Amen? Amen.

And then the third holiday I want to mention is, and let me fill in the blank there. I forgot to fill in the blank there. So Pentecost means this, the power to make a difference. The power to make a difference, if you want to put that in. He's made us.

He's built us. He's created us. And He's empowered us. And He wants our Holy Spirit to fill us so that we can make a difference in this world. So the third holiday is the Feast of Tabernacles.

We call it Tabernacles. The Jews actually celebrate something called the Feast of Trumpets today, which is very similar. And what they celebrated was to commemorate this, the wandering and living in temporary huts. Because in that time, in that day, if we go back to the Old Testament, for a long time they didn't have a land. They didn't have a home.

So they set up temporary huts, temporary teepee-type structures. Their tabernacle of God was even a temporary setup. And they traveled, and they wandered. And then they were brought to their final home. They were brought to their final destination, the land of milk and honey, right?

The place that God had promised them. The promised land is what they called it. And they finally had their home. And they celebrated during the harvest season, which we are kind of in the harvest season now, so we could celebrate, you know, this very thing. But He found them a final home.

But Jesus fulfilled this in this. We are living on a temporary earth. Our earth is—we are temporarily here. We are kind of like wanderers. But we can be hopeful that we will be brought to our final home in heaven.

So we're excited about that. And there will be a great final harvest in the end. And there's a harvest taking place now. In fact, one statistic says this. More people have come to know the Lord, have been saved in the last 18 years than in the previous 2,000, if you're looking at it from a year-to-year basis.

Why is that happening? Because there is a great harvest happening and taking place. What does that mean? Pastor, you think that the Lord's coming back? Is God coming back soon?

You know, I don't know. I don't know. But there's a great harvest happening. Even in this church, we've seen a lot of people come to Jesus just by starting this church. Because those people are hungry, and God is working, and God is harvesting, and it's a great harvest time for us as a church, and us as a city, as us of a corporate church in general.

The harvest time is near, and we can celebrate that. And we are living in a harvest generation. I truly believe that. Amen? I believe we are living in a harvest generation, and many people need to know the goodness of Jesus.

That's why we do what we do as a church. 1 Thessalonians 4, 16 and 17 says this. If you're not familiar with God's ultimate plan, it says, for the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. And after that, after that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. This is what is happening.

This is what prophetically is given to us. And so we will be with the Lord forever. So though we are in temporary bodies, in temporary state, and just to give you a little bit of a theological lesson without, and if you need more later, small groups are available for you to kind of learn the theology of Jesus' second coming and things like that. When we pass from this earth, if the Lord should tarry and He not come back before we pass, our bodies are with the Lord, or our souls are with the Lord, and our bodies are buried. But there will be a time where the dead in Christ will rise, and our bodies and our souls will meet each other one day in the air with the Lord.

And those who are still living at that point will be caught up with God as well, caught up with Him. And I don't know exactly how that looks or what that looks like. I wish I could give you a specific picture of it, but it's going to be wonderful. It's going to be great, because God's going to restore all things. He's going to restore earth.

And we look forward to that. That's something the church is excited about, because we know that all the sin and all the hurt and all the pain and all the shame that's going on here in this world, the things that we're feeling now, that there's an end to this one day. Amen? It is over at some point. We know who has the ultimate victory, who has already won the war.

Although there's battles that we're facing every day, there is a God that's going to restore everything to new. And that's why we are excited to know that the tabernacle, we can celebrate tabernacle in Jesus Christ, the second coming of Christ, if you want to fill in that blank, the second coming of Christ. And we celebrate that today. Isn't that great? Isn't that awesome?

Isn't that exciting? That we can look to the old holidays that they celebrated, and we can see that the prophecies have been fulfilled in Jesus. So there are these three major holidays, and you need all of them. You need all of them. You need the Passover lamb.

So God first wants us to know him, and there's no strings attached. But he doesn't want you to stop there. Stop there, because it goes from just knowing him and receiving him as your Savior, Jesus Christ, the sacrificial lamb, to this next level. And this is what I really want you to get. There's a next level.

There's an experience that God wants you to have. There's something more. There's something more powerful that God wants to work inside of you. And you need to be hungry and thirsty for this power that we're talking about, because you will not be able, and I'm getting ahead of myself, but you will not be able to do what God has called you to do. You will not be able to survive if you do not have what God has wanted you.

And he wants you to have Pentecost. He wants you to have power. He has an assignment for you. And you need the power to live on mission, or you won't make it. And then, the tabernacle, so that we ultimately experience tabernacle.

We ultimately experience a day where God's going to set everything straight, and we're going to be with him. So, with all of this, in Acts 2, 12, it says, amazed and perplexed. Thank you so much. Thank you. Oh, man.

It's like one of, yeah, they can make a commercial out of this, couldn't they? You know, Puffs or somebody. You know, look, here's a pastor up on stage. And look, look, look at that. I thought I was done with this cold, but it just, you know, I walked into the building today, and here it comes again.

It kind of fools you. It does a sneak attack. So, they said, perplexed and amazed, they asked one another, what does this mean? What does, what does all this mean? In Acts 2, when, when the people were, when that, that 100 up in the upper room in Acts 2 were filled with the Holy Spirit, and, and they went out, and the start of the church happened that day in Acts 2.

What, what did that mean? Perplexed and amazed, people asked, what is going on here? What does that mean? It means he wants you to have power. It's pretty simple.

He wants, he wants to be with you. He wants you to have power. And if last week was about a breath of fresh air, that, that God is the wind, and the Holy Spirit is, is a breath of fresh air, when God blows his wind upon you, this week, it's all about having. wanted to show up your life. But again, I know the greenery richît falar about being his condemnation, and I won, and it is absolutely Power.

Why do we need this power? Well, there's three reasons why we need this power. There's three reasons. There's probably a lot more, but I think these are three main reasons we need this power. First of all, the Holy Spirit empowers me to live righteously.

The Holy Spirit empowers us to live right. Because some of you have walked in here today and you're struggling. You love God, you love Jesus, you know Jesus saved you, but you keep falling back into your old sin. And it's a secular effect and you can't figure it out and you're miserable. And you're locked.

And you can't get out of it. But what the Holy Spirit does is it empowers us to be able to live righteous lives. Because no longer is the law of God written on stone. See, that's what you're doing. You're trying to abide by God's law and you're trying to work it out.

Work out your own thing, you know. Like, I've got to live like this. I've got to do like this. So you're using outward law and outward ideas and you haven't really worked on the inward. You haven't focused on the inward.

You haven't allowed the Holy Spirit to empower you on the inward. And you're just miserable and you're trying to figure it out. And you can't figure out, why am I not experiencing the joy these other crazy Christians are experiencing? Why am I not experiencing the life that others are experiencing? I'm saved.

I've got the Lord. I know that. But something's wrong here. It's because you haven't been empowered by the Holy Spirit to live righteously. And you know what He does when He empowers you?

He gives you good desires. And He takes away the bad desires. I remember when that first happened to me. I was just struggling with a lot of sin in my life when I first came to the Lord. And as I was praying for the infilling of the Holy Spirit, which we, you know, and the power of God to come over me and just fill me, Lord.

Fill me with Your Spirit. Empower me with Your Spirit. I remember that experience. And from that day forth, it was like certain things in my life were just the desires that I once had. They almost became disgusting to me.

Like I wanted, I didn't want, I was just so excited. And I was so filled with joy for God. I wanted more of God. And those things, God wants to lift us, not necessarily take us away from the sinful things, but empower us to overcome those sinful things. He wants us to live righteously.

Romans 8, 9 says this, You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit. You're no longer controlled by the old man. You shouldn't be, but by the Spirit. And if the Spirit is infilling you and empowering you, you can walk and live by the Spirit. If the Spirit of God lives in you.

He was very straightforward about that. And Jesus said, I will guide you into all truth. I will help you make decisions. You know that? God can lead us and help us make decisions.

And Isaiah 30, 21 says, Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, This is the way. Walk in it. You can actually, when you're empowered by the Holy Spirit, when you can sense and discern when God is leading you a certain way. Because everything in your body and everything in your flesh is going to tell you, go this way, you know? And God's like, no, no, go this way.

Trust me. Trust me. It just doesn't feel right, God. It doesn't feel right. There's everything over here.

I've got so much life over here. Well, no, just trust me. And you're going to know it. You're going to know it because He guides us which way we should go. I think a perfect example for me is before we started Salt Church.

It was a real struggle there for a season. And I was, as we felt led and God was calling us to do this work, a lot of things happened. First of all, we were supposed to be financially taken care of, and that fell apart after I had left my job. Miranda had just lost her job. We had a kid diagnosed with autism, a two-year-old diagnosed with autism.

We had a newborn that just arrived. And then I got really sick. And there was a cancer scare. And I was in the hospital, septic. And I was laying in bed.

And I was looking at the ceiling. And I was just thinking, okay, I don't have any financial support here, Lord. I don't have, I hardly have any people. I don't even know, like, neither one of us have jobs. Our kids, we got special needs issues that are getting ready to arise.

Everything was telling me in the flesh, this is not God. I've got to turn. Is this God just putting stuff in my life to tell me, like, go this direction? And on top of that, I got offered a church, a pretty healthy church of 300-plus people I could have taken easily. And there was another job that was offered to me that seemed like it was a really good opportunity for me.

So it was like, God, you know, what are you doing? So I took some time to pray and fast and seek God. And I could hear that voice. I could hear that voice saying, Leon, it's Virginia Beach needs you. Virginia Beach needs you.

Because I could hear that still, small voice because he empowers us to do the right thing, to live righteously and to follow him and hear his voice. And sheep know their shepherd. And you need to know your shepherd when your shepherd's speaking to you through being empowered by the Spirit. That's what the Spirit does. The Spirit is the voice of God.

It is the wind of God that is guiding you and seeking you out to make the right decisions. So leave the flesh, follow Jesus. He has the right way. He helps us and empowers us to do that. Number two, the Holy Spirit not only does that, he empowers us to live supernaturally.

Supernaturally. It's Halloween time, so we're thinking supernatural and a lot of things. But this is a good supernatural, guys. This is nothing spooky. This is nothing weird.

God always intended for us to be supernatural beings. Did you know that? The Spirit, he is Spirit, and he wanted us to be, we are spiritual beings. We are spiritual beings. He wants us to live supernaturally.

He never intended you to do life naturally. And when you try to do life naturally, it just doesn't work because you need supernatural empowerment. God wants to empower you beyond even your natural abilities. Did you know that? He gives us each natural abilities and gifts and things like that.

But he also has, he wants to intensify or power up or plug in those natural abilities. And he wants to give us supernatural abilities. And we're going to talk a little bit about the gifts of the Spirit next week. So you can't mess next week because I want to talk about those things that I'm talking about today. I'm kind of building on this.

And I can't give everything to you in one week. But be back next week and we can talk about these things that God wants to empower you and the church to do, his body. He wants to empower his body to do these things. See, Jesus lived a supernatural life, didn't he? He was half God, but he was half human.

And he was seeking the Father and the Holy Spirit to be able to do that. He healed people. He saw signs and wonders and miracles through him. We saw that. And he said this.

He said, greater works will you do than even these. Because I'm going to send somebody to help you do those things, right? And that's the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, today, we still live under that. Healing still takes place.

Miracles still take place. The power of God still works today. It's as good a day as it was back in the New Testament. Amen? Can y'all give a good amen for that?

Do y'all believe that? Amen. We believe that as a church and we hold on to that as a church. We believe that God does those miracles even today. And we'll talk more about that next week.

Jesus was anointed in the same way. And we can be anointed. Here's what it says. Acts 2.38, in the New Living Translation, I love how it says this, and you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.

You know that, because that's what happened. He was baptized, the Holy Spirit came on him as a dove. The father said, well done, this is my son who I am well pleased. And from that day forward, he began to do supernatural things. And he says, you know that Jesus of Nazareth was filled with power and the Holy Spirit.

And Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by devils, for God was with him. And God is with us. The same way God was with Jesus through the Holy Spirit, God is with us through the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2.4 and 5 says, my message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words.

That's what Paul was telling the people. It's not through my wisdom and my knowledge and my degrees and all these things, but with the demonstration of the Spirit's power. The things that I'm speaking, Paul says, the things that I'm sharing with you, this is all Holy Spirit stuff. It's not stuff that I'm just kind of coming up with or having, or I just have some kind of smart concept I'm putting together. This is stuff that comes straight from the Holy Spirit so that your faith might not rest on man's wisdom, but on God's power.

We need to rest our wisdom on God's power, not on any man's power. And we need to seek him and he needs to, we need to ask him to empower us supernaturally. Why? Number three, the Holy Spirit empowers me to live on mission. Why does God want me to live righteously?

Well, number one is good for you because the Lord loves you and he wants to see you prosper in this life. But number two, he wants you to live supernaturally. But ultimately, he wants to do all those things so that you can, you can live on mission, on mission. We are on mission. What does that mean on mission in your everyday life?

Everything you do, the people you interact with daily, your friends, your family, your neighbors, the person you see in the gas station, at the gas station or in the grocery store, the people that you interact with daily, that is your ministry, that is your calling on mission. I'm walking in the great commission of Jesus every day, at every moment. When you're out at the beach with your surfboard, that's your mission, ground. Get people to know Jesus. The Holy Spirit wants to empower you so that they can know Jesus through you.

Amen? He wants to use you. Whether you're a business person and you're involved in, or you run a business and you're interacting with customers all the time, if you're in the building business and you're connecting with people, with other construction workers or other people who, contractors or whatever it is, guess what? That's your mission ground. You're on mission.

The righteousness and the supernatural empowerment of the Holy Spirit puts you on mission because He wants to empower you to be on mission in your world. Whatever your background is, I could go through a number of different things here that represent so many different people here, but you are on mission. You need to go out of this church empowered to be on mission. The church should be out, outward focused, not inward focused. Gather and scatter on mission with the power of the Holy Spirit.

We need the power of the Holy Spirit. And if you are looking for a church just for your issues and your problems, then you probably picked the wrong church today, just to be honest. Although we love you, and we're going to love you to death, we're going to help you through your problems, we're going to pray for you, we're going to do everything we can in our power to help you overcome some of those things in your life, ultimately we don't want that to be the end. We want you to go out on mission reaching others for Jesus. That's your mission.

And you are called to do something. Something. You are not, you are qualified, everybody is qualified to do something in the power of Jesus Christ. Did you know that? Now we're not, none of us are really qualified.

I'm not qualified to be standing up here. I'm, you're, we're not qualified, but through the Passover lamb we are. He has made us and he empowered us. That's why we need the spirit because we can't do it alone. The spirit qualifies us for it.

The spirit, Pentecost puts a power in us to be able to do the things that God has called us to do. First Thessalonians 1 5 says, our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power and the Holy Spirit and with conviction. What is that conviction? It's the Holy Spirit. One, uh, and, and it's, it's just important.

We, we need the Holy Spirit. We need it like we need air to breathe as believers. And it saddens me. And my fear is that people will walk through their entire Christian life and never experience the empowerment of the Holy Spirit that can take them to new levels and do things that they never thought they could do. And, and it's not only good for, for the kingdom of God, it's good for you as a Christian and as a believer.

That's why you need a breath of fresh air. You need the power of the Holy Spirit. And there's one more thing I'd like to say, uh, as, as we're closing and, uh, and, and certain Christian circles and certain, uh, biblical, you know, church circles and things like that. There's this attitude about those who are spirit filled as opposed to those who are not. And it's kind of like, well, I'm spirit filled.

I'm better than you. I'm better than you. You know, look, you need to be spirit filled. I've even heard it said, you need to be spirit filled so you can walk like me and be like me because you aren't there yet. You know, it's, it's nothing about that.

It doesn't have anything to do whether somebody's better than you or not. But being filled with the Holy Spirit doesn't make me better than you. It makes me better than me. It makes me better than me. It's about you and your mission.

It's not about anybody else's mission. It's about you and your mission and what you can contribute to the church. And imagine a spirit filled church that's fully empowered and operating in their spiritual gifts. And just imagine a church like that, what we could do as a church, because there was only 100 people in that upper room that day. We have approximately 100 people in this church service today.

And, and, and what God could do if all of us were empowered by the spirit on mission to do the works of God. 3,000, 3,000 would just be the tip of the iceberg of people finding life, finding hope, finding Jesus. And you're going to be so empowered and so rich and so full of love. And so it's, it's just going to, that's what we need. And that's my heart for our church, for our church.

It doesn't make us better than anybody else. It makes us better than we are. And God wants to do that. He wants to empower. So you need the Holy Spirit.

No ifs, ands, or buts about it. There is nothing in scripture to even suggest remotely that it's not for today. It is fully for today. And next week we'll talk more about handling that and, and how we, how we work through that, you know, with each spiritual gift and, and, uh, how to be empowered and what that means. But in conclusion, I would just like to say, it all starts, it all starts with a relationship with Jesus.

It all starts with a relationship with Jesus. And maybe there is someone here today that hasn't made a decision for Jesus. And I'm ready for you to receive everything that God has for you. And God's ready for you. He's just been waiting for a long time.

And maybe you've walked in here. When the Lord and He must and of the Lord and He must be shouted, and why is he more like, Stumbled in here today, just to check it out. You saw a church meeting in a school, and you wanted to see what that was all about. What kind of church is this? A cool name, Salt Church.

What does that even mean, you know? You're just in here today. But it was no mistake. You may think it was by your own thinking or your own ability you're in here, but it was no mistake you're in here. Receive Jesus, the Passover sacrificial lamb.

Amen. Let's pray together. Let's all heads bowed and all eyes closed. That's you today. I just want to give you an opportunity, an opportunity to know Him.

And I don't want to embarrass anybody. I'm not going to call you up to the front. I mean, if you want to come up to the front and rejoice, that's amazing. We'll just celebrate with you. Amen.

But I just want to, if that's you today, I just want to pray for you. If you want to receive Jesus as your Savior, just lift your hand, because I want to just pray with you. I want to pray with you. If that's you today, come on. Come on.

We aren't guaranteed tomorrow. And the sacrificial lamb, the Passover lamb has been shed for you. And it stands all along, before we even enter into this other stuff. That's for you today. Just pray this with me.

Pray this prayer with me, if that's you. Father, I believe that you are the Son of God. And I know you've got so much for me. I've tried to do it on my own for too long. But today, I realize that I need to be with you.

Forgive me of my sins. Forgive me of my shortcomings. I receive your blood on my life. And I'm ready to receive all that you have for me, Lord, today. So come into my heart.

Come into life. Transform me from the inside out. And we ask this in your heavenly, holy name. And can we all say a good amen. Praise Jesus.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah.