Being filled with the Spirit requires not just a matter of emotion or human effort, but of surrender, allowing the Holy Spirit to take control so that what flows from us reflects His will rather than just our skill. In Acts 6 and 7 we see how ordinary believers, chosen for practical service, became instruments for extraordinary purposes when they were full of faith, wisdom, and the Holy Spirit. When we trust God’s leading and obey even in small tasks, He often expands His work through us far beyond what we plan, providing what is needed and directing events for His glory.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] Actually, I want to talk from the book of Acts chapters 6 and 7 are very interesting because they’re chapters that contain about being filled with the Spirit. But what’s interesting, what’s very interesting in chapters 6 and 7 of the book of Acts is that not only is it about being filled with the Spirit, but it’s also about some very practical natures, practical issues that were happening in the church and actually is the cause for their getting people to come and step up into the administration of the church in what was called the office of deacons. And so in chapter 6, in those days the disciples were increasing in number and complaints by the Hellenists. Now they’re people whose culture is Greek. Helen is the word for Greek. And the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews.

[00:00:57] Now these probably were all Jewish people but depending on where you lived as to exact what language you spoke and whether or not you did a very Jewish thing. And speaking Hebrew wasn’t sort of the vernacular actually. At that time if you were living up in Galilee where most of the disciples came from you probably spoke Greek more than you knew your Hebrew. And the Hellenists and the Hebrews were two groups in the church and the nature of humanity is it’s something a little bit unavoidable that happens in churches that how we are in our humanity often affects how we relate to others who are different. And the Greekies and the strict Jewish ones, the Hebrews were not getting on well and it became visible that the Hellenists were the ones who had the up and the go apparently and they were busy

[00:01:54] when it came to the distribution of a common supply of needs and whatever that the Hebrews no, or is it the other way around? The Hellenists were annoyed because the Hebrews were getting it to go to their widows and now let me see no, it’s the Hebrews who say that they think that their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. and the 12 summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it’s not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve on tables. Now, by the way, the little word serve is actually working to mean more than just the looking after the distribution of the food on the tables when people had a common coming together to eat. It’s the idea of looking after service in their language was more than just bringing out the porridge or taking up the cutlery.

[00:02:48] Service is seeing to the needs of others and it’s a very big word in the Greek language and the Christian church adopts that idea of service as a major thing that we all do. But there’s different types of service and the service that the apostles felt was their most important one was the preaching and the leading and also quite a lot of the doing of miraculous things that they had a gift to do. Being an apostle usually came with a sense of the power of God and most of the miracles that happened, not all. Everybody might have God using to do a miracle back then but the apostles particularly had the power of God on them by the things that they did to accentuate the truthfulness of the message about Jesus and his death, resurrection and ascension to heaven. And so the apostles say, we’re going to be busy

[00:03:47] but we need to have some people who can look after this. Therefore, brothers, verse 3, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and wisdom. Notice the jewel bit about full of the Spirit and wisdom. There are some people filled with the Spirit but it doesn’t come out in practical ways. Not the practical wisdom that was needed for this. Whom we may appoint, we will appoint to this daily duty. And so that’s how we got to have the group of people which are called deacons in the church. You know in the setting up of the church, it wasn’t set up with deacons first and other people later. It was set up with the apostles first because the witness of the Christians to the death and resurrection of Christ and particularly the propagation of the gospel

[00:04:42] which was wrapped around those informations was the most important thing that the church had to do. And then only later as this need became visible did the apostles in their leadership under God’s leading, no doubt, suggest that we get another tier of people who would be, T-I-E-R, people who would be able to help with these practical areas. But notice that they didn’t say pick out people who are really good at the practical things, full stop. It’s a dual qualification of being full of the Spirit as well. And it pleased the whole gathering and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. When in the scriptures you read about somebody being full of something, it’s talking about control, dominance of the personality by whatever it is that’s taking over control.

[00:05:41] For someone to be full of faith meant that they’re a person who demonstrates that faith is always coming to play in their actions. But full of the Holy Spirit, what is that? Now there’s a fair bit of misunderstanding of the words about being filled with the Spirit because people bring to that term quite a number of different things that may have been involved in some instances, but not necessarily that the core of the meaning. The core of the meaning is that the Holy Spirit, at times, comes and takes over control so that whatever comes out of the person is more a statement of what the Holy Spirit would have done than it was someone who had developed skill. Being filled with the Spirit might work together with someone who has a practice skill. And so it is that people who are involved in Christian work

[00:06:33] can be trained and they use the training, some of the practical aspects of it, along with the guidance of the Spirit. But these are not something that are completely opposites. They’re things often in personality that get connected. And so it’s a man who’s full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. Then another one, Philip, and Procurus, another set, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas. And these they set before the apostles and they prayed and laid their hands on them. And that’s how the issue was solved. But the consequence of what was, by having that practical need answered by people who were not only suited to the task for other reasons like having wisdom, but because they were filled with the Spirit, meant that the church spiritually advanced greatly. And it not only set the apostles free,

[00:07:32] that they didn’t get hindered to take up time waiting on the tables instead of going and doing their preaching everywhere and talking to people about Christ, but it was that the whole church demonstrated something of the presence of the Spirit of God. And the conclusion in verse 7 tells us, and the Word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly. I can’t see you. Anyway. So here we have this, yeah, it is, greatly in Jerusalem, and also a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. So the people getting converted is a consequence of this work of the Spirit dominating people. And the work of the Spirit is called being filled with the Spirit when he takes over control. Now, by the way, the taking over control is something that could be just a very slight way

[00:08:31] that someone does it a lot more better than they expected. Or it could be that something very dramatic happens that they didn’t mean to do at all. Now, if you’re someone who is a preacher, which obviously has been my background, started when I was a young person, it wasn’t that I ever decided to be, it has just happened. But I discovered that if there were a group of people who prayed, how I did the preaching had some strange things happening in it. And we had a team, 27, 23, 27, I can’t remember now, the exact numbers of young people. We’d go around to the various churches wherever I got the appointment to speak. And we’d have a few of them who’d take part in the service, give testimonies. But the others would come for the purpose that they used to jump on, the young people of the local church and witness to them.

[00:09:23] At the end. But also they’d join in prayer. And so if I was going to be speaking up the front, like with a microphone, like I’m doing now, we would have the others, sometimes, you know, up to 20 of them, in a room at the back all praying. Now, I tell you, wow, sometimes, because of the prayer, things happen that you never expected to happen. And the nature of being filled with the Spirit has to be with the Holy Spirit taking over. And for example, one time, I think it was down in Margate or a church like that where someone had a connection and I was called to come and speak. My team went down and the group got into the room behind the front and they prayed in there. When I stood up to speak, I lost consciousness. I don’t know exactly how to word this, but I lost consciousness and was unaware of the next hour. Apparently,

[00:10:21] I preached for a good time. And when I came to myself, I was standing down the front and people were coming to me and saying, what should we do? Which is reminiscent of the Book of Acts and the Day of Pentecost. And there was something that happened. I don’t know what I even said that day. But the people told me that it was very powerful and I went around the back. Sometimes when these things happen, I’d sort of withdraw out of sight somewhere. I went around the back and there was little stairs that went down from where the others had been praying. So I tried to escape that way. As I got down the bottom, they’d had a meeting planned as an after meeting for young people and folk were walking by down the bottom and as I got to the bottom, this group of young fellows a little bit younger than me

[00:11:09] walking past. And I don’t know why I did it, but I just said to the one that was nearest, I said, are you a Christian? And he was caught by the question. I think he shrugged me off and kept walking. I don’t really know. I forgot about that fellow. Later on, when I went to a funeral, at the funeral there was a young man who kept staring at me all the time. And he came across afterwards and introduced himself and he was that fellow who went home and became a Christian. And he’d been one ever since. When you’re filled with the Spirit, the things that happen are not because you do them. Being filled with the Spirit is when he takes over, he may work through you, but it’s actually not you that has to do them. And what’s significant, it’s only just this, getting ready for tonight,

[00:12:06] I was looking for, you know, how to talk about being filled with the Spirit. And it suddenly was rather obvious. The way that we have Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 next to each other, if we go on to Chapter 7, let’s put that up for a minute. We’re in Chapter 7 there. Are we now? Nod your head. Yeah. Oh, I see. Well, that’s good where you started, yeah. You know, the people who are listed in Chapter 6, don’t go back, just leave it as it is, but the people listed who became the deacons, it’s interesting that there’s a fellow called Stephen, S-T-E-P-H-E-N. There’s another fellow, I think I’ve gotten the right way around, there’s another fellow called Philip. And these are people who were filled with the Spirit and wisdom and were chosen to help on the tables. Now, that’s a practical thing. It’s a good thing.

[00:13:08] But God didn’t want people to put into that thing of looking after the relationship of the Hellenists and the Hebrews and the help of people who were needing it, practically with food and whatever, to be in the hands of anybody who wasn’t someone walking with God. So it made it a requisite that they had to be filled with the Spirit. But then what you discover is some of the names, there’s a list of them there. When you track them down, they turn out to be people who actually do something rather interesting for God, especially Stephen, the first two, Stephen, and the next one, Philip. And Stephen’s a fellow who ends up carrying on a public dispute against the Pharisees about who Jesus was, and he’s the first one of the martyrs that happened because they stoned him.

[00:13:58] And as he was stoned to death, he cried out to God, coughing, Jesus, forgive them. He asked for the Lord to do the people stoning him. Now I’ll tell you what, if you get stoned, I don’t think you find it easy to be praying for the forgiveness of the people doing it. Such a witness must have been so powerful. Then we move on to the next personality. He’s one of the lists of the ones that were chosen to be deacons, and it’s Philip. And he gets travelling around the place, because when there’s persecution that started up about that time, a lot of the Christians had to not stay in Jerusalem, but they all got spread around. But everywhere they went, they went gossiping the gospel and speaking about Christ. And this fellow, he is discovered to be gifted in doing that itinerant ministry of preaching the gospel.

[00:14:54] And he’s having a lot of people come to Christ. Then that’s the account of the Lord telling him to go out in Lee, where he’s having a lot of success in preaching the gospel, to go out to a desert road. He just obeys, and that’s the incident that follows of him meeting up with the Ethiopian eunuch, who’s travelling home, having been, he’s a Jewish proselyte, but having visited Jerusalem, he’s going back to Ethiopia, or back down there to Africa somewhere, I forget the detail. And the Lord tells Stephen to go and join the chariot, which probably meant run alongside if it was horse-driven, or if it was carried by big long poles that slaves were carrying and the man was sitting in the little couch on the top. It wouldn’t have been so difficult to catch, but he had to go alongside.

[00:15:44] And while he goes alongside, the man is, you know the story, the man was reading from the Scriptures because he’s been up at the feasting time. And he doesn’t know what it’s talking about, but it’s talking about Christ. And he has the opportunity to win him to the Lord. all of that is sort of rather amazing now you may think that’s just sort of because it’s in the Bible and amazing things happen in the Bible but I want to say if you search for and find what it is to be controlled by the Spirit to be filled with the Spirit some of those things will happen you can’t dictate what they are and sometimes they’re to do with the scale needed for your context or to do with the scene that you’re in One of our times overseas with Michelle and I we were in I’m trying to remember the town I think it’s Dallas

[00:16:40] but we’re in a place and we’re in there and we were going actually to several churches I took opportunity to go to as many as I could and at these different churches I’d go to one on Saturday because some of them over there are very entrepreneurial and they’d have a special service on Saturday night because there are lots of folk who are hospital workers who can’t go on Sunday or people with other reasons but Saturday night would get a crowd as one of their service times and then for the Sundays the different churches had different times so you could go when you’re really keen to go along and spectate the various types of services you could go to three or four every weekend which is what I used to do and one of the places we went was not a Baptist church but they wanted me to help teach their young adults

[00:17:30] or young marrieds, I think it was because we were young marrieds and had little kids and they asked us to come there and they got me teaching and this group we really sort of got very in with and then we were getting ready to go back to Australia but we’d run out of money and you don’t go around and advertise, you’d run out of money but you prayed to God and we were praying to God about it and suddenly I was staying home and we had Heidi as a little girl then and she was at home with me and Michelle was off somewhere and actually Michelle was going to some women’s meetings because she thought if she went to the women’s meetings she wouldn’t say anything but she might find some women who would help her have food for the few weeks left that we had to survive before we got on the plane

[00:18:22] we even needed money for the I can’t remember now but the detail of getting home. Anyway, after the meeting was over she went out to the car park, she had the car, our car and another lady was there in the car and who sort of bailed up Michelle and talked to her and got her talking and discovered from her some of our needs and she says, well, Lord, I forget how she worded, but she’d been sent and she’s sitting in my car in the trunk, they call it, the boot. I’ve got a whole lot of stuffs and she led Michelle over to open the booth and had all the things that Michelle needed. Anyway, later on, just before we left to come Michelle drove to that church it had been some women’s meeting she thought she’d find that lady and thank her. But when she asked around no one knew who she was talking about.

[00:19:25] She described the car and described the lady she said, nah, she doesn’t come here. Who was that person? It’s a bit of a principle I think it’s there by chapter 6 following chapter 7 they were chosen to be were qualified by being full of the Spirit they were chosen to do practical service but God had in mind an awful lot more of what he was going to do with someone who made themselves available to be controlled by the Holy Spirit and this woman, whoever she was now, we don’t know exactly what to think while Michelle was away a man came to the front door and he rang the doorbell and I answered it Heidi was in the house just a little girl and the man says well this is for you he handed me a paper bag a big paper bag it had money inside notes and stuff and I said oh who’s it from? He said a friend and turned around and walked out

[00:20:46] I knew how much money we didn’t have about ticketing and things we were going to need to get home and what was in that bag was within six dollars of the exact amount I’d worked out I needed who was he? I said at one time to Heidi maybe he was an angel he could have been for all I know but most probably he’s a Christian who just was filled with the Spirit and though the cause for being needing to be filled with the Spirit may have been a practical one in the church and in the different churches we went to there are a number of things that happened where people contributed to the life of the church they did it out of their dedication but when the church got rather red hot and people became filled with the Spirit God used them in ways that you couldn’t have imagined I think there’s a principle between chapter 6 and chapter 7

[00:21:52] I haven’t found it written out in any of my commentaries to quote some learned scholar for this idea it’s just something that occurs to me and you can make up your own mind when you get home read chapter 6 and chapter 7 and see that where people make themselves available even for little things but want to do it controlled by the Spirit God steps in with agendas bigger than we might have had that’s a fantastic thing that is a fantastic thing I also noticed that it mentioned that one of the people chosen in chapter 6 was a fellow who was filled with wisdom and the Holy Spirit you do have to have wisdom about the life of the Spirit I have another time a little later on this is now up in Chicago where I got invited to lots of different churches or got different churches to preach

[00:22:53] and I have invitations because I was young a lot of youth camps wanted me to come it was a bit of a thing to get an Australian with this funny accent and I’d be invited to a youth camp and they would say, well, here’s the address to turn up at. It might be out in the country. I had bought myself a second-hand car. I was enjoying doing that. But I didn’t have a lot of money and there was this weekend camp I was meant to turn up at. I headed out to arrive at the right time. But lo and behold, it was at a reasonable distance away from Chicago and it involved my going through a whole lot of those places where you pay a toll. And when I got to the first one, I said to the man, I don’t have any money on me. He said, don’t worry, I’ll write a thing here of what you can send in.

[00:23:45] But the man made a mistake when he wrote it out. He forgot to put it in the decimal point. So when I looked at it and I realised I’d gotten the bill which was rather large, it appeared that way because he didn’t put in the decimal point. I got really afraid and my faith didn’t measure up to the moment. I said, there’ll be a number of these along the way and I’m going to be in trouble. I turned around and drove back. They waited and waited and I never turned up to speak. A man full of faith, Stephen was, and of the Holy Spirit. And you might be full of the Holy Spirit but you also need to be full of faith. I wish to this day I had have said, Lord, you can provide somehow. And if this is of you, you want me there, you’ve got to look after all. And I imagine I’d have, you know, several thousand dollars

[00:24:53] if they all gave big tickets like this fella did. And my faith failed. That’s something else I regret to this day. How about you? Do you have trust in God? Being full of the Spirit won’t necessarily relieve you from needing to be a person that steps out with things of faith. Because the two go hand in hand very nicely. And the more you trust in God and you’ll get your faith exercised and you learn to know that you don’t have to worry about it. If God wants you to do something and you know you haven’t got everything for that, but if he’s called you to do it, just do it. And the lesson I learned, I learned it from things that happened to me, but also when I got back to Australia and I talked to others who’d gone to foreign countries without much money, that if you do something

[00:26:04] and you’re the one that’s led of God, there’s something in the deal. God picks up the bills. If he’s in it in the first place, he picks up the bills. But if you do it because you’ve got a grand scheme that you just made up. See, faith is not trying something, big thing, I’m doing it, God, you will provide. There are a lot of churches who’ve got this picture of faith of naming it and claiming it. The only trouble with that is you don’t name the thing just that you think. It’s good to name the things that God has promised. Claiming it’s good if it’s the Lord who’s made the promise. But if you put yourself in to do something that he didn’t send you to, then he’ll leave to you to pick up the bills. I’ve just discovered that from my times of being in that position, that if God asks you to do something,

[00:26:58] don’t worry about the bills. that’s his problem and I love the way the scriptures have this about Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit Philip and the others in the list as well they started as deacons but they become so used of God that they were known in the early church and they’re listed here it’s important to list them apparently these they set before the apostles and they prayed and laid their hands on them what a joy it is as our church progressively becomes more and more that when people take steps of faith and we stand with them that then in that step of faith there’s something of a miracle that happens and we become a supernatural group of people for what God is doing amongst us it’s not the supernatural that’s trumped up by us but when people follow the leading of the Lord.

[00:28:00] And you can make mistakes thinking he’s led one way and he proves that it wasn’t exactly that you had it right. But that’s the part of the deal. We’re human. We’ve got our difficulties. We’ve got to do our best at following where we think he’s leading. And as you take steps to be obedient, he’ll correct you if you’ve got it wrong. But that faith needs to go along with it being filled with the Holy Spirit. And the book of Acts, chapters 6 and 7, give us such beautiful examples. Let’s have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for our evening service. Thank you, Lord. My car was under a tree. I haven’t had a careful look, but I don’t think I’ve got any big dents that I can see. And Father, I pray that you’ll bless our lives. May they be ones, Father, where we can take them into places where storms come,

[00:29:05] if you’re leading us, because that you’ll pick up the bill, because you’ll look after us. Help us to be experimental. Help us also to have wisdom, it says of these young men. I think they were full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and in one case, full of wisdom. And we pray that you’ll increase those things to be said of us too, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. Amen.