The greatest credential for Christianity is the Church!  It was brought into existence by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. While arguments and historical facts have their place, a church made alive by the Spirit of God is the most compelling witness to the reality of Christ’s death and resurrection. Just as Jesus promised (John 7:38), when we simply believe, rivers of living water can flow from us, making our lives and our fellowship a powerful testimony to the Saviour.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] We’ve just come through the Easter period and so I thought this morning that we’d call this message coming out of Easter or the service after Easter and it depends on when you think was the last event that belonged to Easter because there’s one great event that happened right at the end of that weekend originally. It was actually the beginning of the church. It was the time when the Holy Spirit came on the gathered disciples. It was a time when the Old Testament fulfillment of one day God would make a new covenant with Israel and with Judah. Which covenant we learned from the New Testament was open to anybody who had come to Christ. So this new covenant wasn’t one just where you had to be Jewish and go to the Jewish temple alone but it was one open to any person who would come and do business with Jesus as the Saviour and it’s called the New Covenant and the beginning of it is at the very moment of the day of Pentecost when Peter preached that first New Testament sermon. New

[00:01:12] Testament in the sense, I mean Jesus was giving lots of sermons earlier, but in the sense of the opening of the opportunity to receive the Holy Spirit and become a Christian and be a part of what is now in the assembly of God’s people that is now the church. A little word assembly is often used in the Old Testament of the assembly of the people of God, the Jewish people, and the simple word in the Greek just means assembly and so when the word assembly is now used, it’s used of those who are the church and so that word comes to mean it’s one of the ways to translate church in your New Testament and the first beginning moment of that was at the day of Pentecost and if we put that verse up again from the end of Peter’s sermon as he’s talking this is in Acts 2 verse 33 you’ve already got it up good being therefore exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the father this is Jesus in heaven having finished dying on the cross for our sins

[00:02:22] having been raised from the dead and in 40 days talking to his disciples on and off then he goes back to heaven it’s called the ascension but it’s not just his arrival in heaven but that he is crown king of kings and lord of lords and he is given as it says here in this verse the promise of the father of the holy spirit it is father to the son to be the one who will send the holy spirit actually church history agreed together in their councils that both the father and the son were the ones who sent the holy spirit but there was something that happened in heaven whereby the Holy Spirit became the one who is going to speak on behalf of Jesus and that is the day of Pentecost and it’s the day where the church was conceived

[00:03:13] and came into existence and so the verse says having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit he has poured out this there’s no doubt of the moment of the start of the church and the first offering of the Holy Spirit because this verse is talking about that very event of the day of Pentecost and they are all it wasn’t an uproar

[00:03:35] but there was such a number of things going on and people were asking what’s going on and the people were aware that the event had happened there was the sound of the rushing mighty wind there were the tongues of fire that came and sat upon the gathered disciples he has poured out this it’s the day of Pentecost it’s the moment where the Holy Spirit is given

[00:03:58] and that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. The people that Peter spoke to knew what he was talking about. I had a very interesting moment during my week in studying up for this morning because talking about coming out of Easter, where is that moment of impact? And it is this moment of the giving of the Holy Spirit. And I found a book of sermons and I read and it gave me a bit of a shock because I respected the writer of the sermons, but I thought he was making a mistake. And he said, there is nothing better that doesn’t credential Christianity

[00:04:40] than the church. And I’m thinking to myself, there’s many times when the church doesn’t give Christianity a good credential. I’m thinking of myself, that set of videos that have been put out by Wheaton College which talks about the church is, on one hand, is worse than you think and on the other hand, it’s better than you think.

[00:05:07] Very insightful, that set of videos. So to say that the church is great evidence. The man I’m talking of is Campbell Morgan who said that there are two things that really make Jesus’ death on the cross visible, his death and then the coming of the Holy Spirit and the church. Now I had my problem because I’m writing a book at the moment and a part of the book that I’m writing is on the evidences for the gospel from 1 Corinthians 15. And in 1 Corinthians 15 it speaks about the fact

[00:05:48] that there’s two great evidences and Paul reminds them in that great letter how he first had gospelized them and they turned into being Christians. Let’s read it. I remind you brothers of the gospel I preach to you which you received, in which you stand and by which you’re being saved. Now notice that by which you’re being saved without these two great facts believed

[00:06:11] you’re not saved. And if you hold, by which you are being saved and if you hold fast to the word I preach to you unless you believed in vain and if someone talks you out of or teaches you differently that is anti-supernaturalistic in the sense that there’s no such thing as a resurrection then know that there is a lost person

[00:06:34] that you’re listening to. The apostle Paul says unless you believed in vain if you quit believing in the resurrection for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

[00:06:56] These are scriptural truths about which we are given no option whether we believe it or not. It goes on that he appeared to Cephas, it’s another name for Peter, then to the twelve and then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time most of whom are still living though some have fallen asleep. He admits that a few have died since but most of those are people you could look up and say were you there that day and they’d tell you their story. Jesus came to life again and he was seen and the resurrection is a part of that which we believe that makes us a Christian.

[00:07:32] Now last week I was talking about Michelle and telling you of how she got her first job as a teacher and she’d been studying, we’d been living in Adelaide and she’d been studying at the Adelaide University and I was a little bit chuffed at the fact that the church was a little church there and they said you can preach on Sundays and do what you like during the week and I went and did every philosophy subject in the Adelaide University and I got to know the philosophy lecturers and I was feeling I was getting on well, they needed to have a student representative, I sort of thought I would have qualified. Michelle was doing her studies there, they picked her, not me.

[00:08:13] and she was on the Faculty of Arts as a student representative and she finished her degree and her Diploma of Education and she needed a job and we couldn’t find one open in Adelaide immediately so I got the Australian newspaper and looked up. It had the advertisements all over the country and there was one in Sydney for a very high quality girls school and I sent an application in and the principal of that school rang up on the phone and wanted to pay for Michelle to go over there

[00:08:49] so they could see whether she’d do. She came back to me in Adelaide and they rang again. They wanted her to come a second time. They wanted to talk her into coming to their school and it was one of those uppity schools where the staff were quality type people and most of them were women, I understand. Is that right, honey? Or they’re men as well?

[00:09:10] Teachers? Teachers? Hey? Anyway, alright. And anyway, they were really high quality sort of characters in Sydney. You could sort of tell that they were used to the upper echelon of the city and they were very demure and able to speak well and this principal was a lovely lady but as they got to know Michelle they realised that she was one of these evangelicals

[00:09:38] that believes in Jesus being alive and believes in the fact that he rose from the dead and she later explained to Michelle that she really wasn’t into this idea of the supernatural. And so Michelle had a bit of an up and down time in that school as a consequence of most of the other teachers were of a different colour than us. And then something happened. The principal got into trouble with some of the other teachers because she stood on a more biblical way of sexuality.

[00:10:10] She stood up for certain truths of the Bible. She didn’t believe in the supernatural but she had some very good morals. And a lot of the staff all then ganged against her. And there were times when… It moves me to think about this happening in workplaces and some of you probably know what this is like but that principal had pretty well all the staff not go and sit with her if she went to have lunch somewhere. Except for Michelle.

[00:10:41] Maybe a few others I don’t know but something happened to that principal. And when it came time because we had our first child coming that Michelle was going to stop the principal encouraged Michelle and said to her to the effect that she was rethinking the whole issue of the fact that she had previously not believed in the supernatural.

[00:11:02] She was accepting the idea that maybe she’d seen something in Michelle that made her believe. That there is something more than just the finery of culture and the niceness of religion and the training that you might give all in the human dimension. That’s something that happens when there’s somebody who’s a Christian who has within them something more than just culture, something more than just training in the home,

[00:11:36] something more that comes because of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Now the issue about the Holy Spirit is that it’s what makes the church something that is, according to Campbell Morgan, one of the very best apologetics you can give. You know we put on on Thursday nights, every second Thursday, this apologetics club. And we talk about the ways that we can answer back to criticisms of Christianity. What is the Bible’s illustration of the best way God has answered those who doubted who Jesus was, those who doubted that he rose from the dead? The greatest apologetic has been, listen to me, it’s the church. Not always the church when the church gets cold or when the church gets lukewarm and neither cold nor hot. Or when the church has people who will believe in the niceness of what we are and do and all the training that we give, but they don’t believe in the supernatural. In that case, the church is, according to Wheaton College in its videos, it’s worse than you might think. But that’s not the end of the story.

[00:12:48] And Campbell Morgan and his talk about it says that the fact that Jesus died on the cross is one of the things that have happened in history that nobody could really put up a case to deny. There’s too much historical evidence that he died. And I was expecting to read on him when I was reading of one of his sermons that he was going to say, And then he rose from the dead. And I was ready to hear him speak from this passage in 1 Corinthians 15 about the 500 brothers who at one time saw Jesus alive. But he blurred right over that. He just said the fact of the church is the evidence. And I stood back from the book a little bit and began to think, you know, that’s true. It’s been a miracle of the survival of the church across the centuries. It’s been the fact of something has happened in this church that is in the church that has changed the course of nations.

[00:13:43] And those nations that have let the belief in the Bible and belief in Christ be something at their center, such as the British system does, which has been put into operation. Very well done, we saw our queen, who’s no longer with us anymore, but she lived out a belief like that. and we have got a legal system that’s come down to us that we in Australia have inherited that’s really good and it’s because when you put God into the church again it is the best evidence for Christianity. Wow, so I began to realise Campbell Morgan had a point even though he’s missing the big one that I see that the resurrection is enormous

[00:14:29] but the fact of what happens when you come out of Easter and you read about what this verse, our original verse says that Peter and he’s preaching the first day of the church he’s preaching about the Holy Spirit coming and he says to them about that day being something so important he says this day, he says if you miss this day you won’t be saved he calls to his congregation save yourselves from this wicked generation the one that hasn’t believed you know if Peter are alive today he’d say the same

[00:15:02] thing to Australia we are in a nation at the moment which is going downhill spiritually which is not sticking to the inheritance that we’ve received in our politics from Britain which is not sticking to the belief in God and putting it at the center of our society because when the church is a proper church when the church

[00:15:22] is a church that’s alive because of the Holy Spirit there is something that changes things and indeed The church itself is perhaps Christianity’s greatest, well, credential is how Campbell Morgan worded it. There’s a truth in that. Now that brings up to us this morning the question about when did this occasion of the church coming alive happen and how can it be for us that we also can have that liveliness that the Holy Spirit brings. And so you’ve probably heard some of you from me previously how God stepped into my life in terms of the Holy Spirit’s work and I’m not preaching to you that there is a second blessing. I’m preaching to you about a time when I had to discover, though I was already a Christian,

[00:16:08] the first blessing, the blessing that God gave me, the Holy Spirit, when I came to Christ. And there’s a verse in the scriptures that is very much speaking to this, Jesus speaking before his death that time and the last day at the great feast where he stood up and he cried and it’s in John chapter 7. So if we put John chapter 7, it’s already there, you’re being very quick, thank you, verses 37 to 39. This is a passage where Jesus is showing that even though the Holy Spirit wasn’t yet available,

[00:16:40] he was going to be and Jesus is wanting the people to know that it’s through the Holy Spirit in your life taking control and filling you that you become in the church that credential that proves that Jesus really is the Messiah. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood out and cried, stood up and cried out, if anybody thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

[00:17:06] Whosoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the Spirit those who believed in him were to receive, they’re yet to receive. For as yet the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Now if you want to know when the moment was that Jesus had been glorified, it’s what the verse that we had up on the screen

[00:17:34] right at the start says, that one in Acts chapter 2. And that one in Acts chapter 2 verse 33. and it’s talking about the facts that all that Jesus did by dying is paying for the cost, he’s performing for our atonement as we’ve been talking previous weeks, but he’s getting ready for the gift of the Holy Spirit and where the church has the Holy Spirit on them then it is that it becomes that credential that proves Christianity better than any arguments, better than any apologetic that’s based on human reasoning

[00:18:10] alone, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit this is the moment more than just his resurrection, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing this is the moment when

[00:18:30] the Holy Spirit was available now you may be having a bit of struggle to follow my logic I’m trying to say that there’s only one moment of the Holy Spirit being given to the church as available and it is after the day of Pentecost, at the day of Pentecost in Peter’s

[00:18:50] sermon that followed that great outpouring of the Spirit and so if you find another passage that talks about the Holy Spirit from Jesus beforehand you’ve got to do a bit of mental gymnastics to call that the moment of the availability of the Spirit I actually learned in theological circles that there is one theory that some scholars have

[00:19:13] to get around the trouble of they didn’t want to make the day of Pentecost when the Spirit was available. But what they did is come up with a theory that when Jesus rose from the dead, he went straight to heaven. We’re not told that. It’s just a theory this is. I don’t think it’s true. But the theory is he went straight to heaven

[00:19:31] and then all of his appearances thereafter coming through the locked doors and speaking to the 500 at once that Corinthians talked about, all of those was Jesus flashing in and out from heaven because he’d already gone there and received the Spirit as this verse in Acts talks. Now that’s the way they get around it and so they could make the moment of the disciples receiving the Spirit when Jesus spoke to them in the upper room in John 20 where he breathed on them and said, Receive you the Holy Spirit.

[00:20:08] No, that couldn’t be it because he hadn’t yet been exalted unless you believe this other theory that at his resurrection he zipped up there quick without any notice being given and he’s been zipping in and out of heaven. That would give you the ability to have that theory but otherwise you can’t. What then was Jesus doing when he breathed on them and said in John 20, let’s put that up please if you can, John 20 and it’s a verse part way through the first appearance of Jesus and we’ll read that through now.

[00:20:46] On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark, saw the stone had been taken away from the tomb. She ran, went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, which is John and the one whom Jesus loved and said to them, they’ve taken away the Lord out of the tomb, we don’t know where they’ve laid him. So Peter went out with the other disciple and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, John was the faster runner, Peter’s got big fat legs I think and I’m always on the side of the skinny people but anyway, and John got there first but he didn’t go in but Peter arrived and barged straight in and then John had a look

[00:21:25] and it goes on down, keep on going a bit further down and it starts, I think, around verse 19. So let’s see if we can get to there. Or 20 to 21, 31 is good. The next one down. 19, there we are. Then on the evening of the day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood. And Jesus came and stood among them and said to them,

[00:21:57] Peace be with you. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. And then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. And Jesus said to them, Peace be with you. He said again, Peace be with you as the Father has sent me. Even so, I’m sending you. Now, that will take a while before we get to the final sending of Jesus in the Great Commission. But they didn’t run out the door and start immediately. But then he goes on to say, When he said this, he breathed on them

[00:22:28] he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. Now when you read that in English, you’d take that to mean that he’s breathing the Spirit and they’re getting the Spirit on the spot. That’s actually not the case because if you read it with the Greek words, it’s a command to be obeyed

[00:22:47] but there’s no stress on when to do it. It’s like saying to the children, don’t run on the road. You don’t necessarily mean just for that moment alone. You’re saying it’s to be done. Stay off the road. And it’s in that command mode, the imperative mood that this command is given. And it’s simply Jesus saying that there the Holy Spirit is to be received. And what he did when he breathed on them was doing what was called a prophetic gesture. He was showing how the Spirit would come.

[00:23:22] From him to them. And that’s precisely what our text we started with this morning has in it. Jesus having received, this is in heaven, the promise of the Holy Spirit. He has shed forth this, which you see and hear. And the fact that they could see and hear it is identifying the moment of the coming of the Spirit to the day of Pentecost and Peter’s sermon when all that ruckus had happened and the people speaking in other tongues, all the people of Jerusalem being wondering what’s going on. It’s the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was first available and not before. That before was just giving you an idea. An idea, Jesus giving them an idea of how the Spirit was to come from him to them.

[00:24:10] Now I’ve had opportunities to try and explain this to people before and some of them say, Oh no Jim, that’s just how you’re reading it. But I’ll give you some more reasons and I’m guessing that before I finish these other reasons, you’ll agree with me. That they did not receive the Spirit in the upper room when he breathed on them. There’s a number of little evidences. Number one, who’s missing? Thomas. Thomas was away at the time. But the next week, Jesus comes again and meets with them and Thomas is there.

[00:24:46] And Thomas had told him, We have seen the Lord, but he said to them, Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand into his side, I will never believe. Eight days later, his disciples were inside again and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.

[00:25:22] So Jesus corrects what Thomas missed by his encouragement to see the reality, the evidence of his death and the reality of his presence with them then and asked him to believe. What Jesus did not do was say, Thomas, come over here to the corner. As he’d done the previous week. He didn’t do that because what he did the previous week was to give an instruction that the Holy Spirit was to be received. He wasn’t giving it through his breathing on them like that. Or he would have repeated it with Thomas.

[00:26:01] One little point that is. I’ll give you another one. If it was the previous week where Jesus breathed on them and they received the Spirit, you’d expect to see the sort of change that later we do see after the day of Pentecost. But who’s the big person in that group that got breathed on by Jesus but doesn’t really show up terribly quickly as a changed person? Who’s the person? Peter. Thank you. Peter.

[00:26:28] He denies the Lord three times and he loses all of his courage. And what’s worse, he even leads others. And, you know, in his backslidden estate, he says, Oh, let’s go fishing. And they all go off with him. Jesus, in his grace, goes down to the same beach. And Jesus calls Peter. That’s when he jumps out of the boat and comes running in. And Jesus gives him that little talk. Peter, do you love me more than these?

[00:26:58] Then he says, When you’re converted, strengthen the brethren. Now, if Peter needed to be converted after receiving the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t speak much for the thing of receiving the Holy Spirit. If you’re like Peter and still deny the Lord and need to be converted. That’s point number two. One was Judas not getting breathed on. Two is that Peter not getting converted, even though he got breathed on. Are you following my logic? There’s actually quite a few little things that you can see there.

[00:27:28] Third one is that Jesus, in that time of the upper room, is beginning to lead his disciples in the fact that if they forgive anybody’s sins, they’re forgiven. Or if they retain anybody’s sins, they’re retained. He’s going to put authority into the disciples’ hands. How will they exercise that? By their telling the gospel and calling people to come and believe in Jesus. that authority that people’s sins be forgiven or people’s sins be retained when is that actually exercised?

[00:28:01] When you turn the pages of scriptures it gets exercised immediately after the day of Pentecost. It doesn’t get exercised by the scared disciples that are still hiding behind closed doors for another week or so and even the ones that Jesus came for 40 days spent teaching them. They’re all there getting instructed but none of them are going anywhere. But when the Holy Spirit came

[00:28:27] he thrust the church out and it became that beautiful credential for Christ and his death and resurrection. Because the church with the Holy Spirit on it becomes powerful in God’s hands. What is it the agenda that we have for our church that we should so teach the gospel that we’ll have the same result as what happened in the book of Acts? It will be that the Holy Spirit will be so working in our church that there will be things happening

[00:29:00] and we the church will be a great witness, a great, the best apologetic Jesus could have is the church when the church has got the Holy Spirit. Now that also tells me that though the Holy Spirit was given once and for all from Jesus at the day of Pentecost, you don’t need to repeat it, there’s no having a second Pentecost, it happened once, the giving of the Spirit to the church. Nonetheless, there’s a time that sometimes individuals of us are called

[00:29:32] to appropriate the availability of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I had one of those moments when a man who was a missionary to overseas, to India and Pakistan, a very powerful Anglican man, a very powerful preacher, came home from being a missionary because he got called to take over being the principal of a Bible college. My dad had been such

[00:29:57] and had gone to another place and this man came in his replacement and he was such a powerful preacher with the power of the Holy Spirit. You saw things happen as the Spirit of God used his message and he came to our church but the church I’m talking about, the Anderley Park Baptist Church in Adelaide was a very famous,

[00:30:20] well upright Baptist church and leader of the state, really as a Baptist were concerned and it had wonderful music, it had everything wonderful really, beautiful property but it was all very conventional and when this man was offered to come because he was the principal of the Bible college in Adelaide, the leaders of the church thought,

[00:30:42] no, he was a bit too way out. So they said, no, we won’t let you preach but as a concession they said, you can come and speak to the young people. And we had a Christian Endeavour group in which I was in. That’s probably, he’s passed away now, that preacher, but he’s probably one of the best preachers, along with Billy Graham perhaps, that I’ve ever heard. And that silly church thought they were a bit too everything right

[00:31:10] to let him be a speaker. But they said you can go and speak to the young people. Well, our young people were just 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds. And he came and spoke on this passage. The passage I’m talking about now is in John 7. We’ll go back to that, John 7, 37-39, on the last day of the feast. And he taught the passage to us. This is intermediate Christian endeavour. And he landed on that verse, if anybody thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

[00:31:49] And he said, if you’re feeling that you lack the power of the Holy Spirit, if you’re thirsty and something’s missing, Jesus is the one to go to. And then he said, he doesn’t ask you to do any big action or to have a special fall over backwards or anything. He doesn’t ask any of that. He said, whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his, well, the old-fashioned verses used to read,

[00:32:17] belly, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water. And as he finished his talk and heads were bowed, he says, put your finger on that word, believe. The Holy Spirit was given once at the day of Pentecost. That’s the baptism of the Spirit. That’s the giving of the Spirit. That’s the beginning of the Church. It’s the fulfilment of the new covenant with not only Jews allowed in, but anybody who believes in Jesus.

[00:32:46] That’s a moment once and for all. You can’t repeat it. If anybody tells you, you can have another baptism in the Spirit, they just don’t know what they’re talking about. That baptism in the Spirit of the Church happened once. you get your baptism of the Spirit when you join the church. That is to say, if you believe the promise. And if you’ve already come to that place, but you’re dry, what you need to do is to just go to that word believe

[00:33:12] and believe Jesus for the application of his Spirit in you. And that day, as the heads were bowed, I confess I looked around to see who was. But I put my finger on the word believe and I believe the promise that the Holy Spirit would flow through me like rivers of living water. This he spoke of the Spirit whom those who believed in him were yet to receive the tenses. For as yet the Spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified. He got glorified in his death and his resurrection.

[00:33:54] He got glorified in his ascension, but he got glorified by the Father when the Father passed to him the promise of the Spirit that he might give to his church. And Peter’s sermon is that moment as he called at the end. He called first of all for people to be saved. Save yourselves from this wicked generation, he said, but also come and be saved as a person. and he called on people because you will receive the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and that is the baptism of the Spirit applied to you

[00:34:26] when you come and put your faith in Jesus. And if you’re a person for whom that’s happened, which it had for me when I was a child, this was calling on me to believe that it will be applicable to me and that the rivers of living water were going to flow. Well, that man went away. The church had a trouble finding anybody to be in charge of the intermediate Christian endeavour and the fellow who’d been really good got transferred to Sydney for another job. And we were left without a leader.

[00:34:59] We used to have committees, committees for everything, and I was on a committee and they would get us committee leaders to come together on a Thursday afternoon and we’d have to report on what we’re doing. I remember I reported every time that our committee had never met because I never knew that there was a chairman’s job to call them. So I had never called my committee and it never met and I just said, no, my committee’s not met, ignorantly. And the oldest fellow amongst us, we were all high school ages and this bloke was in first year uni.

[00:35:33] He stayed around in Christian endeavour intermediate because he had an eye on one of the girls who was still at school. We all knew that. But he had a book he’d read that was a book about revivals and he began to read to us. And as he read, it was calling on us, the book he read, to confess our sins. Now, he was very untrained, this young bloke, just first year of university. He didn’t really know socially what was right to do

[00:36:02] but we’re sitting in the room. It was actually a pastor’s vestry. We didn’t ever ask. We didn’t know to ask his permission. And one day he came to barge into it and saw us there and so he retreated and listened at the door. He had to have the door open a wire because he was a big man with a big stomach and to listen, anyway, I could see him there and we were praying.

[00:36:24] And what we were praying about was that the Lord had asked us to go and help some old lady’s house and we were praying about going out together and doing it and he listened. Then he shut the door, let us go. anyway something happened in that room that bloke who was leading it he really was a bossy boot sort of leader that he made himself and he’s going to have a time as the book says

[00:36:47] that I’m reading to confess your sins we’re going to start over here and he pointed to someone I breathed an easy breath because there was a doorway between that person and me and it was going to go around the room the other way and he says I want you all to confess your sins and he got them to give their list of sins as we went around the room that they needed forgiveness for.

[00:37:16] When it got to me, I had this conviction of how annoyed I was at him, the leader, because he’d stolen the march on me. I figured I was the one who should be giving the commands and he’d gotten in first and I was jealous and annoyed and I confessed it. A great relief.

[00:37:40] You sometimes have those sins without even being aware you’re doing it and that was me. And in the group, funny things came out. This girl here said how she was jealous of this girl over there because she had pretty hair. Now, when you’re a boy, you recognise the pretty hair but you’d never think anything like that at all.

[00:38:02] That’s beyond your experience. And the things that I learned that day and the tightness, how the group came together, we became, there was one fellow who had tears and he wouldn’t stop crying. And what was his problem? He was my best friend actually in the group and he was a fellow,

[00:38:27] one of those, he was very short and I was tall and he had dark hair and I had fair hair and he played tennis, he always won. And when he was on the tennis court is when he’d win and let you know how you lost.

[00:38:41] And as he had to make up for his height, he was a good athlete But he was socially having troubles. And anyway, he confessed this. And something happened to that lad. His lead to always beat you and then rub your nose and it disappeared. The church people noticed something different about him and so when there was a youth service they put him up to lead the singing.

[00:39:09] He was so short that in the big pulpit they had there just a little bit of his black hair appeared over is all you saw then you’d see his hands come up to wave to lead the singing it was really rather funny to watch but the sweetness that came into his personality it was amazing

[00:39:29] his best friend at school he had a best friend at school I was his best friend out of school he had a best friend at school who came back to the church and said he was tracking down to what’s changed his friend and the friend That fellow got converted. Little things started happening in our group.

[00:39:51] I got my chance to preach a bit. There was a student at the college. My dad was the vice principal at this time at the Baptist College. And he asked me to come and preach at his church. And he wanted me to give an evangelistic message, which I did. And there was only one teenager there. But he came forward and got saved. Things started happening like that. How did it go? How did it happen?

[00:40:18] And suddenly I remembered, back to this moment, when that returned missionary said, he said, put your finger on the word believe. Then he said, you don’t have to pump a river. No force pumps needed. Put your finger on the word believe and the rivers of living water will flow. You won’t have to make it happen. Just let God be at work. Now this was said by Jesus before the spirit was given,

[00:40:49] excuse me, but before he was glorified. So Jesus was doing this in preparation for what was the day of Pentecost. And when the day of Pentecost came and people trusted in the gift of the spirit and it showed out in the church, that’s when the church becomes such a recommendation for Jesus when they believe in the supernatural as well. When they have the supernatural presence of the Holy Spirit and there’s nothing less supernatural

[00:41:22] when the Holy Spirit does things and you’re aware that you couldn’t have done it. It’s actually the greatest secret of ministry of how to do things and have God bless you is when you say, Lord, I am not really able to do that of my own. I need you. I learned to do that, to be a preacher. I didn’t necessarily make good organised sermons, but I actually got thrown into preaching to crowds.

[00:41:50] And the first time, a big enormous crowd, over a thousand people present, and with quivering legs, I walk up on the platform. What I do is I say, Lord, I’m leaning back in you. You’re the one to speak. And you know, when you trust in Jesus and his Holy Spirit given, when you rest in that Holy Spirit power,

[00:42:17] what happens is not measurable by human terms. I got into trouble at college because they had preaching classes and I didn’t pass them necessarily. We had a teacher who had good ideas and he used to say, hey, you’ve got to have a good introduction and you’ve got to be organised. And I’d get up there and out would tumble by sermon

[00:42:39] and he’d tell me it wasn’t very good. Well, I knew when God was working. And when I went to Dallas Seminary, they had a preaching group that used to video you while you did your sermon. And I got the same problem. That man told me, he says, you get too excited. You’re going to convince someone by your excitement and that would be just human.

[00:43:00] You want God to do it. I ignored him because when I walked out the door, the other students came and talked to me about what God said to them. The secret of preaching is when Jesus has sent you and you’ve got his message and when you know his spirit has promised to give you the power,

[00:43:20] if you believe in me, out of your heart shall flow rivers of living water. What our church needs is for more of us to trust the presence of the Holy Spirit and to ask God. He gives us different gifts so it’ll be different for different people. But when he works,

[00:43:40] the church is a miracle. And Campbell Morgan’s statement that there’s no greater credit for the church, not only the fact of Jesus’ death, but the fact of the existence of the church is a miracle. And when other people see changes in Christians’ lives, when they come along and, you know,

[00:44:00] our church is doing really well in the fellowship that we now have and it’s because the Holy Spirit is here, people come and say, what is it? How did you get that church to be like that? You’re asking the wrong person. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit in everyday people that makes the church

[00:44:20] the best credential that Jesus has ever had. I know when the church is not being that, that it’s probably the worst recommendation for him. But when we let the Holy Spirit take control of our lives, I’m calling on you this morning to put your finger in that word believe and believe for you. And if you’ve got little faults

[00:44:49] that you don’t even know about, the Holy Spirit knows how to tell you. Leave him to it. Ask him to make you someone whom he will credit the Saviour as responsible for. The Holy Spirit loves to do that and he will do that in your life. Let’s have a moment of prayer. Heavenly Father,

[00:45:10] I thank you this morning, Lord, for this wonderful verse. This verse, being therefore exalted to the right hand of God and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth this.

[00:45:29] And Peter said to his generation, which you see and hear, Father, I’m praying that our generation, through our church, people will see and hear the best evidence there is for Christianity as the Holy Spirit makes Christ known. We ask this in his name and for his sake. Amen.