ACTS 19:1-10 DID YOU RECEIVE THE SPIRIT2016 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Acts 19:1-10 Did You Receive The Spirit

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2016. Well, this evening here in the book of Acts, we're going to be starting chapter 19 and looking at verses 1 through 10 together. And so let's take a moment here and read through that passage. Acts chapter 19, verses 1 through 10. Here's what it says.

And it happened while Apollos was at Corinth that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples, he said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? So they said to him, We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. And he said to them, Into what then were you baptized? So they said, Into John's baptism.

Then Paul said, John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now the men were about twelve in all. Verse 8.

And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. And this continued for two years, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of

Here as we begin Acts chapter 19, we're jumping in with Paul at the beginning of what we would call the third missionary journey. We finished the second missionary journey two weeks ago in chapter 18. And so he had gone through and went to a variety of places. And now he's setting out again. He went home. He went to Jerusalem. He went back to his home church. He went to the church of the Lord.

at Antioch and spent some time there. But you know, Paul is, he is called to be a missionary and a church planter. He goes out again and now he is encouraging the churches once again that have been established previously by him and Barnabas and then also in the second missionary journey.

And we don't read much about the journey here, the first part of the journey. It just really quickly gets him to Ephesus. But he kind of goes through the region of Galatia where him and Barnabas ministered for some time. And then he's able to go through Asia, which he tried to do the first time. You might remember, and the Holy Spirit forbade him. But this time he's allowed. And so he cuts right through across Asia to the city of Ephesus, which is right there on the coast of the Aegean Sea.

And so he is going to be camped out there for about three years, and then he's going to continue on to the other areas that he's ministered to already as well. So it's really kind of an encouraging trip to kind of go back to the churches that have already been established, back to Philippi, back to Thessalonica, back to Corinth,

all of those regions. And he actually hits them each kind of twice as he goes. You can see the purple arrows is his way out, and then the red arrows are his way back. And so he kind of goes through the same region twice as he goes to Corinth and then makes his way back, following kind of the same path. And then he'll end up in Jerusalem.

which will then follow him from Jerusalem to Rome as he's put in prison and all of that. So we'll get into that later in the book of Acts. But here in Acts chapter 19, 20, and 21, we'll follow this missionary journey. A lot of the epistles that were written by Paul were written on this journey. And so as he's going from place to place to place, he's also writing. Many of his epistles are written from Ephesus. So his time in Ephesus, because it's extended, he's writing to the different churches and

And encouraging them in the Lord. So a lot's happening here in this third missionary journey. But as we look at this, the beginning of this missionary journey, the beginning of his ministry here in Ephesus, I've titled the message this evening, Did You Receive...

Because it says there in verse 2, as he finds this group of disciples in Ephesus, Paul asked them this question, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And so he encounters this group of disciples, and it's an interesting passage. It's an interesting discussion that can be had around this passage, because there's a lot going on. And he finds these guys, he finds this group of believers, about 12 of them, and he says,

And he notices there's something more needed in their life and in their following of the Lord. There needs to be, you know, this extra something, and it's missing. And so he asked them the question if they received the Holy Spirit. And so we're going to talk about that this evening here in verses 1 through 10 of chapter 19. And the first point is found in verse 1 and 2, and that is the absence of the Spirit is noticeable.

As Paul is there with the group, we don't know, you know, what exactly that looked like, what form that took, you know, how he encountered this group. But as he's there with them, he notices something is missing. Again, verse 1 and 2, it says, And it happened while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus, and finding some disciples, he said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?

Now, as he asked this question, verse one points out, this all took place while Apollos was at Corinth. And this is picking up from chapter 18. We finished that again a couple of weeks back where there was this guy Apollos that was there in Ephesus. And he was eloquent, he was passionate, he was fervent, and he was preaching in the synagogue. But as he was doing that,

Priscilla and Aquila, Paul's companions, they were there in the synagogue and they heard him teach and they said, wow, you know, this guy's really great. He's passionate. He could teach. He's eloquent. I mean, he's really good with the scriptures, but

But they also noticed that something was lacking. He has a limited understanding. There's some parts of the message that are missing. And so it tells us in chapter 18 that they pulled him aside and explained the gospel more accurately to him. And so he then had the full understanding of the gospel, the full understanding of the ministry of Jesus. And then he was sent out from Ephesus to

to Corinth and he was ministering there and it says he became even more effective as a minister there. But this attachment, this reference to Apollos here in verse 1 gives us the indication that this is probably a

disciples that were taught by Apollos that Paul encounters here. And so it makes sense that they had limited understanding because Apollos started out, you know, in his ministry of preaching and teaching, however that looked, he didn't have all the information. And so his message was limited to what he knew. And so later on, he learned more, but then was sent out to Corinth. And so there's this group of people that

have not been exposed to anything more than what Apollos has shared. And so Paul here encounters this group, probably from the ministry of Apollos, and he didn't meet Apollos. That was, you know, his friends Priscilla and Aquila who ministered to them. But as he meets this group, he realizes there's something missing. Now it tells us there in verse 1 that he found some disciples.

And for Bible scholars, this is a kind of a fun passage to go through because there's a lot of discussion that could be had about whether these disciples were saved or not.

The word disciple, it means to be a follower or a learner. You know, it means to be someone's student. And so you could be a disciple of John the Baptist. You could be a disciple of anybody. It was, you know, to commit to that teacher's way of life and their teachings. Now, we typically use it in the context of the disciple of Jesus, right? And so when it says they're finding some disciples, we assume it's disciples of Jesus, which probably is the case, but it's

Well, there's a lot of discussion about whether or not these quote-unquote disciples are actually Christians, if they're saved or not, how much of the gospel that they understood or know we don't really know. But there's a lot of discussion about, you know, people go back and forth about whether or not this group of disciples were actually saved people or just people who were students of John the Baptist and students of the Word of God. Now,

Most of that discussion, that going back and forth, centers around the idea of whether or not there is a baptism of the Holy Spirit that's different than the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

And again, it connects to verse 2 when Paul says to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Now, my personal opinion is they're disciples. In other places, Luke uses the phrase, you know, disciples of John to indicate they're disciples of John the Baptist.

Paul says in verse 2, you know, when you believed, and so I would suggest that, you know, these are believers that we're dealing with, but believers who were limited in their understanding of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

And so when Paul asked, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Notice he didn't ask, you know, have you heard about Jesus? You know, so there's, you know, the implication I see here in the passage is they are believers. They've heard of Jesus. They believe in Jesus, but they are limited in their understanding of the life and ministry of the Holy Spirit.

And we can see that in verse 2. At the end it says, we haven't even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. We didn't even know that a Holy Spirit existed. I mean, what are you talking about a Holy Spirit? And so they're not aware of the life and the ministry, the work of the Holy Spirit. Now,

Lots of great teachers can go round and round and round with all kinds of different thoughts on whether or not they are believers and the distinction between, you know, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, if it's a separate experience or not. And I think sometimes that distracts us from the main thing. And for us this evening, I would just kind of encourage us that the main thing is that we receive all that God has for us and that we rely upon God continually. And I think...

For me, that's the primary issue with someone not believing in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Doctrinally, a lot of times those discussions get down to semantics, how you define words and the way you define things. And it's all these technical details that some people love to get into. But the real issue is whether or not you are filled with the Holy Spirit, because that is commanded in the scriptures.

And if you get caught up and distracted or you don't believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, then you're not looking for the Lord to empower you in that way. And so this evening, it's a reminder for us. We've heard these things. We've taught these things many times. But this is a necessary reminder for us to be empowered by the Spirit. Now, I often refer to the baptism of the Holy Spirit as the empowering of the Spirit because it kind of sums up three different phrases that are used to

to describe the same event. In Acts chapter 1 verse 5, Jesus says to his disciples, John baptized with water, but you're going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And so that's one of the places where we get the idea of the baptism of the Spirit.

Then in verse 8, Jesus says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And so it uses another phrase, but describing the same event that is about to happen, and that is the Holy Spirit upon you. So there's the baptism, there's the Spirit upon you, same thing that Jesus is talking about. And then when the event actually happens in verse 4 of Acts chapter 2, it describes it as they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

And so you find these three phrases all used describing the same event. And so I'd like to kind of sum up all of those with the empowering of the Holy Spirit. But you can talk about being filled with the Spirit. You can talk about the Holy Spirit coming upon you. Or you can talk about being baptized with the Holy Spirit. And if you want to try to define those differently and go into all kinds of details and come up with all kinds of different theories, great. But the main thing in all of that is...

make sure you have it, whatever you want to call it, whatever you want to label it, however you want to name it. We need to make sure that we are baptized with the Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is upon us, that we are filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered to do the work that God has set before us and to live the life that God has called us to live. So there's a difference between what we would call the indwelling and the empowering of the Holy Spirit.

These are things we've talked about again many times, but good reminders for us as we look at these disciples in Ephesus who were disciples, but they were limited in their understanding. And so we want to make sure that we are not limited in our understanding of the Holy Spirit. And so the indwelling of the Holy Spirit

is something that is received by every believer at conversion. Every believer, when you believe in Jesus, you're born again. That's the...

phrase Jesus used, right? You're born again by the Holy Spirit, regenerated, given spiritual life by the Holy Spirit. And at that time, you have the Holy Spirit indwelling you. And Paul says in Romans, if you don't have the Spirit, then you're not a child of God. There's no way to be a believer in Jesus and be born again and not have the Holy Spirit. That's impossible. So every person who's born again has the Holy Spirit dwelling within. And if you don't, then you're not a

And so this is something that is received automatically. This isn't something, you know, there's some extra special step. First, you got to say the sinner's prayer, you know, and then you got to click your heels together three times, and then you have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. No, no. It's just automatic. When you believe in Jesus, you're converted, you're born again, you receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It's also a permanent condition. This doesn't change.

So the Holy Spirit dwells within you when you wake up on the good side of the bed or the wrong side of the bed. It's the Holy Spirit dwells within you, you know, no matter how your day is going, no matter what's going on in your life, no matter how, you know, faithful you are in life,

serving the Lord or walking with the Lord, as a believer in Jesus, it's a permanent condition. The Holy Spirit dwells within you and he's at work within you. And that's one of the main aspects of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He's at work within you producing what we would call the fruit of the Spirit. And so there is that indwelling of the Spirit that you have as a believer in Jesus. Every believer has it. It happens automatically. It's a permanent condition. It doesn't change. And he's at work within you.

Then we have the empowering of the Holy Spirit. And again, indicated by the baptism of the Spirit, the Spirit coming upon you, or being filled with the Spirit. As you read through the book of Acts, you see this take place in a variety of forms and in a variety of times. And so believers sometimes receive the baptism, the empowering of the Spirit, at the moment of conversion, and sometimes it happens later. It's not always the same.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is different than the indwelling in that way. So it's not, you know, every believer has the empowering of the Holy Spirit because we see instances where there are periods of time that pass where there are believers and they've not yet been filled with the Spirit. They have the Spirit dwelling within them, but they're not empowered. And a good example of that is Acts 8.8.

where there's a bunch of people who get saved in Samaria, and then later on, the church of Jerusalem sends the disciples, and they lay hands on them, and they receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit at that time. But there was this period of time where they got saved, they're walking with Jesus, the disciples are traveling, and then later on, they receive the empowering of the Holy Spirit. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is received automatically, but the empowering of the Spirit is

again, call it whatever you want, is received by asking. And that's something that's taught throughout the scriptures that Jesus, remember Jesus said that we're to ask and the Father will give us the Holy Spirit, give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. We also see something different about the empowering and that is it's a repeated action.

So the disciples are filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2, but then in Acts chapter 4, they ask God for power to be witnesses, and they're filled with the Holy Spirit again. And you see that happen several times throughout the book of Acts. It's not just a one-time thing, but it's ongoing that they're filled with the Holy Spirit and asking God for that.

And then finally, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is primarily for reaching unbelievers. It's primarily for being a witness. Jesus said, you're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you to be witnesses to me unto Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. And so this is, you know, the difference between indwelling and empowering kind of summed up a little bit nicely. But again, the main thing is,

Not so much how you define these things, not so much how you label these things, but do you have this empowering of the Holy Spirit? And so, again, it would seem that here these disciples in Ephesus are

They're believers, they're disciples, but they are missing this empowering. There's not this, you know, filling of the Holy Spirit that is empowering them to live the life that God has called them to live. And so as Paul's hanging out with them, it's noticeable to him. He's hanging out with them and he's like, you know, these guys are good. They believe in Jesus. They read the word, you know. There's a lot of good things happening, but there's just...

it's not complete. There's things missing from their lives and their walk with the Lord. And so it was noticeable. The absence of the empowering of the Spirit was something that Paul noticed because there wasn't the work of the Spirit going on as he would have expected amongst a gathering of believers.

And so it's noticeable. Now, I would say that it's noticeable from the outside and may not always be noticeable to us, right? For these disciples, they didn't know any different. They didn't gather together and think, man, something's missing. Then when Paul asked them, they were like, we didn't even know that there was a Holy Spirit. They didn't say, oh, that's what we've been missing. We've been wondering what we've been missing. They couldn't perceive in themselves that they were missing this empowering of the Spirit. But Paul, the outsider coming in,

He's hanging out with them. He's like, hey, you know, there's something more you need to know about. You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And so it's a good thing for us to consider and for us to not just expect or assume, you know, that we're where we're at or that we are where we're supposed to be in our Christian walk and experiencing all that God has for us. But maybe it's appropriate sometimes to kind of check in with some outside people

uh, disciplers, you know, and those who are mature in the faith and can help us and, and see and recognize where things are missing. And maybe we're not, you know, living the life filled with the spirit that God has called us to live. Paul will write to the church of Ephesus later on in Ephesians chapter five, verse 18, he gives them this command, do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit.

So instead of indulging in alcohol, and instead of trying to, you know, accomplish things in your heart, in your mind, emotionally, whatever, with substances like that, instead of that, he says, replace that and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And so here's the command, be filled with the Spirit. And

You've heard me share this many times. It's not a command that indicates a one-time thing, but it's a command that says, keep on being filled with the Spirit. And so this evening, I just want to give you the opportunity to reflect and consider, are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Did you receive the Spirit when you believed? And maybe, hopefully, you probably say, yeah, I received the Holy Spirit when I believed, but did

Did you receive the Holy Spirit today? You know, are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Are you empowered with the Holy Spirit right now? As you came into service today, was it in the power of the Holy Spirit, filled, baptized? The Holy Spirit has come upon you. Are you walking in the Spirit in that way? Because you and I can easily kind of revert back to be disciples of John. Now, John is

the baptists were talking about john taught repentance and that the messiah was coming right it was an incomplete message it was just the preparation for the final message but there was that part of repentance and so you know that was that's an important part also of the message of jesus but that wasn't the whole message of jesus the whole message of jesus included repentance but then also went on to talk about salvation and forgiveness and then the mission to go make disciples

And here's the thing, you cannot fulfill a walk with God. You cannot fulfill being a disciple of Jesus without the empowering of the Holy Spirit. You're not going to be able to reach your potential in your walk with God if you're not filled with the Holy Spirit. And there's a tendency for us to kind of revert back to disciples of John.

And where we kind of get, you know, back into laws and rules and regulations and do not and do this. And we get caught up in the religion and the ritual and make sure that people repent and, you know, that kind of stuff. But we don't go further on into the ministry of Jesus and what he has for us. Again, that comes along with the empowering of the Holy Spirit. And so I would ask you to consider that.

Did you receive the Holy Spirit? And right now, do you have the Holy Spirit? In light of this command here in Ephesians 5, verse 18, I like this quote from Dave Guzik. He says this about that verse. He says, we should perhaps ask, are you baptized in the Holy Spirit? Instead of asking, have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit? So again, it's not just so much, did that happen one time in your life? But are you right now filled with the Holy Spirit?

And again, I would suggest it's noticeable when you're not. And it may not be noticeable to you.

And so maybe it's worth asking someone around you, you know, if they can see the Holy Spirit at work in your life, are you filled with the Holy Spirit in this way and empowered by him to live the life that God has called you to live? Well, moving on to point number two, we're going to look at verses three through five. Here's point number two. The spirit is needed to follow Jesus. I already touched on this a little bit, but it's kind of reiterated here in these verses. Verse three says,

So Paul asked them about the Holy Spirit. They said, we never heard about the Holy Spirit.

And so it brings a question to Paul's mind. Well, then how were you baptized? Because, you know, Jesus gave the command in Matthew chapter 28, go make disciples and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So if you were baptized by someone following what Jesus said in Matthew 28, you would have heard about the Holy Spirit because that's in the baptism formula, right?

so you weren't, you didn't hear about the, okay, so well then how were you baptized? Well, John the Baptist, we heard about him. Perhaps they were baptized by John the Baptist. We, again, we don't know a lot of details about these guys, but they were products of the ministry of John the Baptist. And so Paul says, oh, okay, now it's all making sense. It's starting to come together now. Okay, so you understand about repentance because that's what John the Baptist taught.

And that's what the baptism was. The baptism was I'm going to be turning from sin to walk with God. That was the baptism of John the Baptist. I'm going to let go of the things that are not of God. But he says John's message also was that they should believe on the one who would come after him. That is Christ Jesus. And so he, at that point, you know, shares with them about the ministry of Jesus and the work of Jesus. So they had kind of part of the message there.

but they didn't have the whole picture. And so it says in verse 5, when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Now again, there's many similarities between John's message and Jesus's message. Both of them started with repentance. Both of them centered around the kingdom of God. But John's message stopped there. You know, it's coming. It's not here yet. But Jesus's

said the kingdom of God is here now in the presence of the king, he being the king. And then of course, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, all of those things were part of the ministry of Jesus, along with the mission to go and make disciples. And so this was the complete message now in Christ. And when they had this complete message, they said, okay, yeah, we're ready. We want to follow that. So we want to move beyond just repentance and

And we want to live a life in the ministry of Jesus Christ, in the life of Jesus Christ. And so it says when they heard this, they're baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Now, baptism, again, we often talk about that. It's a representation. The actual getting wet part doesn't save you.

And the right formula, well, you got to say in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And that's not what saves you. The salvation is brought by faith. It's that decision and response to Jesus Christ and what he has done. But baptism is about identification. And so they're baptized again, not because otherwise they wouldn't be saved, but they're baptized again because they want to make that declaration and say, yes, I'm committing to follow Jesus. I want to not just live the life of repentance.

But I want to live the life of making disciples. And I want to live the life that Christ has established for me. And so as they're going to do this, they're going to need to be empowered by the Holy Spirit.

There is the indwelling of the Spirit, which produces fruit. We refer back to Galatians chapter 5, right? The fruit of the Spirit. And what is that? It's joy. Sorry, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and

and self-control. And there's no law against these things because these are good things that the Holy Spirit produces in you. And you need the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. There is no way in this world for you to produce these kinds of fruits in your life by rituals, by rules, by regulations, by discipline, by determination. You cannot, no matter how hard you try, produce these things in your life.

This is the work or the fruit of the Holy Spirit. This is the Holy Spirit at work in you, which produces love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It's the work of the Holy Spirit. And so you need the Holy Spirit in order to follow Jesus. Because if you look at all of these elements, these are all characteristics of Christ, right? And so as you endeavor to become more like Christ, you can't do that

In your own strength, with your own discipline, with your own mindsets, with your own attempts or determinations. You can't. It just does not work. We're sinful people. But the Holy Spirit can produce these things in your life as you walk with God and as you walk in the Spirit, which is what Paul tells us to do there in Galatians chapter 5. Walk in the Spirit and then this is the produce that the Holy Spirit will create in you.

But then also, going beyond just, you know, Christian character and Christ-likeness, the life that God has called you to is not just about being religious or going through rituals, but it's about also making disciples. That's the mission. That's the great commission. And as Jesus gave this great commission, again, in Acts chapter 1, he said, all right, you need to go make disciples in all the worlds, but wait, don't go yet.

And of course, Acts chapter 1 verse 8, he says, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem. And so this empowering of the Holy Spirit is necessary to fulfill the life of ministry that the Lord has for you. You cannot fulfill the life that God has for you without this empowering of the Holy Spirit. And so you have to wait for that. Wait for that because you can't do it in your own strength.

And so as Paul is explaining to them more fully, much like Apollos heard, you know, the full message, they're receiving now the full message. And when they hear this, oh, okay, yes, we want to be baptized in the name of Jesus. We want to be fully immersed in

as a picture, symbolic of our commitment to the cause of Christ. I'm going to be fully committed, immersed completely, just overwhelmed in the mission of Jesus Christ, in the worship of Jesus Christ, in following Jesus Christ. I'm going to be fully committed. And so they're baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And that's where we need to be.

baptism is, you know, that kind of one-time thing. You are baptized as you make that commitment, as you make that covenant. But it needs to be the ongoing, continual thing of our life that we are relying upon the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus, to produce the fruit in us to be more like Christ, but also to empower us to fulfill the mission of Christ, the calling that he has given to each one of us.

And so did you receive the Holy Spirit? And do you have the Holy Spirit right now enabling you to follow Jesus? Again, a quote from Dave Guzik. He always has good nuggets for us. He says, God always wants us to go deeper. We have sipped where we might have drunk deeply. We have drunk deeply where we might have waited. And we have waited where we might have gone full out and plunged in. And that's where that picture of baptism is so great. That

It's not that we need to go get in the water again, but we do need to just continually immerse ourselves into the things of God, into following Jesus, into walking with the Lord so that we are empowered by the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit is producing fruit in us to follow Jesus in the way that he has called us to. And it's a great picture for us of what that looks like.

Well, moving on to verse six and seven, here's point number three, the spirit empowers and gifts. In verse six, it says, and when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now the men were about 12 in all. So Paul lays hands on them now. After they've been baptized in the name of Jesus, he lays hands on them and the Holy Spirit comes upon them. And the result is they speak with tongues and

and they prophesy. Now notice the phrasing there. The Holy Spirit came upon them. That's one of the three that we talked about at the beginning, all describing that same event. The baptism of the Holy Spirit, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit coming upon you, all summed up in the idea of the empowering of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus told his disciples, the Holy Spirit is with you while he was walking with them. And then he said, the Holy Spirit will be in you. That's the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And then later he said, you'll have power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. So again, there's this distinct relationships that we have with the Holy Spirit as we're walking with God. And so they have the Holy Spirit come upon them. Now, when did this happen? How did this happen? Well, it tells us that Paul laid hands on them.

Now, like we've...

looked at many times, this is not the only method whereby people have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But we do see it as a pattern throughout the book of Acts. We see people have hands laid on them and there's prayer that takes place. And as they pray and hands are laid on them, they receive this empowering of the Holy Spirit. And that's one of the ways that the Holy Spirit has come upon many people throughout the book of Acts. But it's also...

different in different contexts. And so there's a variety of ways. Sometimes, you know, while Peter was just talking and the Cornelius household believed, they were baptized with the Holy Spirit right then and there while he was talking. Nobody was laying hands on them. They hadn't even really heard, you know, the full message of Jesus yet. They just believed in Jesus as Peter was preaching and they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit there. And so again, the main thing is not the method, the form, or the formula. It's

I would suggest the main thing regarding the empowering of the Holy Spirit is that you ask. And again, this is why this is so important for us to dive kind of deep into Ephesians chapter 19 here this evening. Even though we've heard these things, we've known these things, but we need to be reminded there is a necessity for us to ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And again, I would share with you Luke chapter 11 verse 3.

where, or verse 13 rather, where Jesus says, if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, because this is coming up, right? And you guys have, you know, all kinds of coal and, you know, spikes and, you know, harmful things for your kids under the tree, right? No, no, no. You have, you know how to give good gifts to your children. You're getting ready for that. He says, if you know how to do that, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

Because he wants you to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It's what's best for you. And so, of course, if you ask, you will be filled with the Holy Spirit. That's a promise. That is a guarantee. He will do that as we ask, he gives the Holy Spirit.

And so that's the main thing is that we ask. That's the main thing that we're seeking God. And again, that's where sometimes the debate about whether or not there is a second filling of the Holy Spirit and all that kind of stuff, I think just distracts from the whole point of,

Just ask and be seeking and relying upon God to empower you to live the life that he's called you to live. Don't try to do it in your own strength. And way too many times as Christians, we try to do this life in our own strength. And we try to do, you know, everything. We try to do our work. We try to do our parenting. We try to do our church serving. We try to do our driving. We try to do everything in our own power to

And we need to be looking to God and asking for the Holy Spirit to be poured out upon us that we would be empowered to be like Christ and to live the life that God has called us to live. Well, one of the works of the Holy Spirit in our life, we talked about the fruit of the Spirit, but there's also the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which we see happening here in verse six. It says, they spoke with tongues and prophesied. And so as the Holy Spirit comes upon them,

there's this produce that comes out. There's this gifting that is given and they are speaking with tongues and they are prophesying. These are real spiritual gifts. And again, this is another controversial thing. You know, a lot of discussion goes around whether or not these continue today.

They continue today. I don't want to get into that whole discussion and debate, but these are real spiritual gifts that are available today that the Holy Spirit still gives today that we would be empowered by Him and gifted by Him to do the things that God has called us to do. Now, one of the key elements of spiritual gifts is that they are given according to the will of the Holy Spirit. We find this in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 11 says,

He says, And so this is important to understand that

That the gifts of the Spirit are given according to the will of the Holy Spirit. They're given as He wills, not as we demand. So none of us can demand to speak in tongues. None of us can demand to prophesy. And some would suggest, well, it's not so much a demand, but you just got to command and just, you know, tell Him, you know, to give you these gifts. And it's not, it doesn't say as, you know, He distributes to each one individually as you command Him. It's His will.

But, so we can't demand it. We can't command it. It's given to us in his timing, according to his will. But also, we're told to ask, to be gifted by the Spirit, to do the work that God has set before us. In 1 Corinthians 14, verse 1, Paul tells us, pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.

desire spiritual gifts, he says. And it indicates here a fervent desire, not just kind of a casual like, hey, yeah, you know, if it drops in my lap, I'd be cool with that. But a request, a zeal, a passion. Later on in verse 39 of 1 Corinthians 14, he adds on to it and says, earnestly desire to prophesy. That there should be this burning passion in our hearts to be gifted by the Holy Spirit to do the work of God.

And he's writing that not to Timothy, the pastor, not to Titus, you know, the pastor. He's writing that to the church of Corinth, the carnal church that, you know, was going crazy with, you know, spiritual gifts. He's writing that to every Christian that we're to desire earnestly to prophesy, to be used by the Lord supernaturally, gifted by the Holy Spirit to do the work of God. This is part of the Holy Spirit's work in your life to empower you and to gift you.

for the work of God. And so again, I would ask you to consider, did you receive the Spirit? And more than just that one time a long time ago, but today, did you walk in here today

Having received the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, and earnestly desiring, like, Lord, I can't wait, and I'm just really looking forward to, and I just really want you. I'm open, I'm available. Lord, would you use me to prophesy and encourage somebody and build somebody up and minister to them and help them overcome their, you know, difficulties and troubles and sins? Would you use me to pray for somebody and comfort them and encourage them? Would you use me to impact somebody's life? I mean, that's the kind of zeal and passion that God has for us.

that we're told to have as we ask, as we desire spiritual gifts. And so the Holy Spirit empowers you and he gives you. And the empowering, well, it requires an asking. You need to ask and God will give you the Holy Spirit when you ask. But you also need to then ask for spiritual gifts and desire spiritual gifts and seek to be used by God.

That's what God has called us to do. That's part of the life that God has called us to live. And again, so many times we can kind of revert back to disciples of John where if Paul walked in here tonight, would he be saying, I have a question. Did you guys receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Are you living out the full life that God has for you? Do you know the full message? Do you know the whole thing? Or do you need to be taught a little bit more about what God has for you and the full life that he has for you in Christ Jesus?

Think about these words from A.W. Tozer. It's interesting to consider. He says, if the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95% of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95% of what they did would stop and everybody would know the difference. Now, you know, I don't know where he got those statistics, but, you know, he's observing the

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I would suggest that there's a lot of, you know, what we do here that definitely is the work of the Holy Spirit, but at the same time, the point is a good one for us to consider that how much of what we do as a church is really by the leading of the Holy Spirit, by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, us jumping on board with what the Holy Spirit is doing, and how much of it is us, you know, trying to

Think of a good idea or, you know, we saw something else that we really liked or doing something that we just enjoy or something that we think is important. And it's not based upon the Holy Spirit moving and working. And so we might be missing out on what God wants to do because we're doing stuff in our own strength, with our own ideas, with our own thoughts, with our own wisdom, and not working

the leading, the working, the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Now, I would take this beyond the church and just apply it to yourself personally. If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from your life, how much of your life would just go on like the next, you know, the day before? Like, well, I just go to work. Like, I always go to work, you know, and I just, you know, teach the kids. Like, I always teach the kids, and I just drive here. I just drive there. You know what I mean? Like, how much of your life is really impacted by the life and ministry of the Holy Spirit? And

I think that's, again, something important to evaluate. Did you receive the Holy Spirit? Do you have the Holy Spirit right now? Because the Holy Spirit empowers and gives. And he empowers you to live the life. He produces fruit in you. He gives you the gifts that you need to live the life and do the work that he's called you to do. Now, it's not so much about all the doctrine, but here's the main thing. Are you asking? Are you asking God to fill you with the Spirit?

And are you desiring spiritual gifts? That's kind of the application part. There is the doctrine and those are important and we can debate all those fine details. But when it comes down to the bottom line, are you asking, are you looking to God to empower you, to fill you, and to gift you, to minister to your family, to minister to one another, to minister to the church, to your neighbor, to whoever the Lord might bring across your path? Are you desiring

passionately, zealously desiring spiritual gifts in that way. That's the condition. That's the state where God wants us to be. And that's what they experienced. They believed in Jesus. They're baptized.

They're filled with the Holy Spirit, and now they're gifted. They speak with tongues, and when they prophesy, and again, this is it. Now it's on command. They can do anything they want, whenever they want with these gifts, but the Holy Spirit gives these gifts to each one as he wills in our lives, the way that he wants to, and we've talked about the gifts many times. It's not just those two gifts. There's many other gifts, and the Holy Spirit can give any of them to you at any time, and so you can prophesy.

And that might be a public thing, declaration, you know, here with the congregation, or it might be an individual thing. You're just praying with someone, encouraging somebody, and the Lord gives you a word of prophecy for them, or, you know, so on and so forth. You guys know I've taught this many times, so I'm going to move on now, finish up point number four, verses eight through ten. Point number four is the Spirit produces consistent faithfulness. Check out verse eight.

And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. So Paul goes from there and he goes into the synagogue and he speaks boldly for three months. I think this is interesting for us to consider because so there's this awesome work. He lays hands, they receive the Holy Spirit, they speak in tongues, they prophesy and

And then it goes on from there into this three-month period of Paul just going to the synagogue, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. And then there's a change, but the only reason why there's a change is because there's a rejection. In verse 9, it says, "...but when some of them were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus."

So as he's ministering at the synagogue for three months, he comes to the point, like he has in all the other synagogues, where there's just a rejection. The Jews say, no, that's it. We're not putting up with that anymore. You can't speak here anymore. You've worn out your welcome. And so, you know, you're gone. You can't do this anymore. And so now he goes to the school of Tyrannus. And so at the school of Tyrannus, now the way that the school would work probably, according to the customs of those days, is

is the school would be on break during the heat of the day. And so there would be the teaching in the morning and the teaching in the evening. And so it's likely that Paul taught in that middle time period as he was working as a tent maker in the morning and then in the evening. And then in the middle time period, he would teach there at the school of Tyrannus. And that's not like a professor position. It was just a place for people to gather. And so anybody could come and hear Paul teaching about the kingdom of God. Verse 10, and this continued for two years.

so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. Now, sometimes we get the idea that when the Holy Spirit is at work, there's going to be this leading of the Spirit that is random and crazy and exciting and sensational. And there's going to be just all this, you know, things that you would never expect taking place.

But here's the Apostle Paul, led by the Holy Spirit, empowered by the Holy Spirit, gifted by the Holy Spirit. And what does he do? For two years and three months, he does the same thing every day. He works, and then he goes and he teaches. And then he goes back to work, and then he goes and teaches. And then he goes back to work, and then he goes and teaches. And he goes back to work, and he goes and teaches. And every day he's doing this. Every day he's going back. Every day he's going back to work. Every day he's going back to teach. It's a consistent faithfulness.

That is demonstrated here by the Apostle Paul. And I would suggest to you, this is a part of the fruit of the Spirit. This is part of the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. The Holy Spirit will produce consistent faithfulness. Now, consistent faithfulness, I would suggest, is what allows for the radical works of

of the Holy Spirit. It's not that the Holy Spirit doesn't do random things. Now they're not, they're random to us, but not to him. But you know what I mean? Like he doesn't do, it's not that he doesn't do radical things or unexpected things, but that he does those in the midst of consistent faithfulness. Think about it this way.

For those of you who like testing the RPM on your vehicle, right? If you're maxed out on your RPM, you know, you're in fifth gear, you're pegged out at 7,000 RPM or 5,000 RPM, whatever, depending on what kind of capacity you have, you got nowhere to go.

right? So if you're in third gear and you're maxed out on your RPM and you need to like get up and go, there's nowhere to go. But you can downshift or you can upshift, right? You can whatever. You get the point, right? You have somewhere to go. You have some extra power. There's like a little bit extra. As you're cruising at middle RPM, 2,000, 3,000, whatever that is, now all the

auto guys are all like, oh man, he's used all the wrong words in all the wrong places. So yes, I expose myself. I know what RPM is. I see the tachometer. That's about all I know about it. But you get the point though, right? So when you're in the middle, you have room to go. You can drop down, you can go up. But when you're at max speed all the time, there's nowhere to go. And so if you need additional speed, you don't got it. If you're cruising, then you can drop your speed. Then you can hit the gas and you have the extra speed to get around the car that's bugging you.

In a similar way, sometimes I think our lives are so chaotic and so crazy. We're always at max speed. We have nowhere to go. And there's not the consistent faithfulness. And I would suggest that the consistent faithfulness is what allows for you to stomp on the gas, feel that turbo kick in, and then boom, there's the work of God that God does because you are consistently faithful and you have room then to be able to do the work that God has set before you.

Let me throw it out a different way. Here's another example. Many years ago, I would not, on purpose, I would not pay attention to how much money was in my bank account. Now, that wasn't, this was not in rebellion. I had those years too, of rebellion in my bank account. But this was my attempt to have faith and trust God. And in my thinking, not smart, okay, I'm not suggesting that you try this, but

This was allowing God to work miraculously. If I didn't know how much money was in my bank account, then, well, God had opportunity then to put more in there without making a big deal about it. And so I wouldn't budget. I didn't really plan. I didn't pay attention to what was in my bank account. And just thinking that, well, you know, that way God just kind of, you know, he just fills in the gaps. And where I'm missing money, he just deposits more money without me knowing about it. And then, you know, makes my bills pay. And so I was like, well,

And in my thinking, if I knew where every penny went, then I would limit God. God wouldn't be able to, because he could only, you know, if I knew where every penny was coming from, well, then, you know, he would have to explain it. It would have to be a big deal. It would have to be a miracle. And so in my mind, I was like, you know, I just not pay attention and let God bless me. Now, it doesn't work that well when you do that.

But listen, here's the thing. God is able to bless and work much more freely when I'm consistent and diligent with my budget. Again, this is the consistent faithfulness. Here's Paul doing the same thing every day, being faithful to do his work, to do his ministry, to do what God has set before him.

And you know, sometimes we can get distracted from our consistent faithfulness and we're caught up with this commitment. We get excited about that thing. We get caught up in this. We're all over the place because there's something exciting here. There's something exciting there. And we're faithful nowhere. And that leaves us in a place where I would suggest we limit the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Holy Spirit produces consistent faithfulness. Again, sometimes we get the idea that the Holy Spirit doesn't

working will always be radical gifts. And there is the radical gifts, the exciting, awesome parts. But notice what Paul is doing this whole time. He's speaking boldly. I mean, boldly, that can be exciting, but Paul's speaking boldly. That's what he always does. We'll read on in a couple of verses next week about some unusual miracles, but they're called unusual miracles. Every once in a while, God does an unusual thing. There's a radical work, but

For the most part, he's reasoning and persuading every day. He's sitting down with people, sharing the gospel, talking through doctrine, teaching. In verse 9, it says he's reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. And then this continued for another two years. So it's just this ongoing, consistent faithfulness, day-to-day humdrum, but filled with the Holy Spirit, empowered by the Holy Spirit, gifted by the Holy Spirit. He's faithful to live the life that God has set before him.

and able to do what God has called them to do. The Holy Spirit produces consistent faithfulness. If you would tell me I'm filled with the Holy Spirit but not faithful, I would tell you you're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. You need to be faithful to the life that God has called you to. There's that saying, it's not how high you jump, but how straight you walk when you hit the ground. You can get up all caught up in excited and exciting things,

But how well do you do in the day-to-day living your life with God, walking with God, being filled with the Holy Spirit, being empowered and being gifted by Him to live the life that is set before you today and being faithful in your walk with Him? Again, did you receive the Spirit? Are you walking in the Spirit right now? Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? It's important to consider because we can revert back

to being the disciples of John. Just going through the Christian life and trying to do it in our efforts, focusing on the repentance, focusing on, you know, the do's and the don'ts, but missing out on the connection that we have to God through the Holy Spirit in our lives, the empowering of the Holy Spirit, the gifting of the Holy Spirit to help us accomplish the mission of making disciples. We need to keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit. As Tozer would ask, if the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from your life today,

What would happen tomorrow? How much of it would just go on, continued, not much difference? And how much of it would be radically changed because the Holy Spirit wasn't there with you? We need to live lives that are dependent upon the Holy Spirit. That will produce in us consistent faithfulness. Again, these are important things for us. And I'll close with that last quote from Dave Guzik. God always wants us to go deeper. And I want to encourage you this evening, even if you received the Holy Spirit when you believed,

Even if you walked in here filled with the Holy Spirit, God wants to fill you. He wants to take you deeper. He wants to take you into a greater sense of his presence and a walk with him. And so we want to take some time this evening to do that. And so Kim's going to close us out in a time of worship. And we want to just take this time to seek the Lord and ask him to take us deeper. Again, the most important thing about the receiving of the Holy Spirit is not what you call it, not the formula, not the form.

but that you ask and that also you earnestly desire on top of that to prophesy, to be used by the Holy Spirit to minister to others. And so during this time of worship, we would invite you, number one, if you would like to have hands laid on you, I'm going to invite Richard and Rick to be up here and they'll be available. If you just want them to pray for you and lay hands on you and just ask for the Holy Spirit to come upon you, they'll be glad to do that.

But then also number two, as you ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you can also earnestly desire to prophesy.

And God may put upon your heart and move upon your heart to go and pray for somebody, to go encourage somebody, to go minister, to go share something specific, or maybe he's not even gonna tell you what you're gonna share until you get there and start doing it. But as God prompts your heart, be free to do that. And during the time of worship, you can minister to one another and get up and move around and go do what the Lord prompts you to do as we seek him together. And so let's do that. Receive the Holy Spirit. Let's go deeper as we call out to the Lord and receive all that he has for us.

We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.