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Acts Series Part 17: The Holy Spirit in Action: Paul and Barnabas Commissioned in Antioch · Growing Together in the Gospel

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: As Christians, we often ask the Holy Spirit to guide us and strengthen us.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: But in asking for all that Spirit gives, do we overlook asking for the Spirit Himself?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: In this podcast, we explore Acts chapter 13, where the Church in Antioch sets apart Paul and Barnus to take the good news to the Gentiles, sending them through Seleucia, Cyprus, and Pamphylia.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Spirit is at work from start to finish, but he works differently in each situation.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Picture a sailing boat, where each sail catches the wind in its own way.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: We can identify four.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: The mainsail, a church that expects God to speak.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: The mainsail drives the whole boat, and here is a church gathered in worship, expecting God to speak to the spirit.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else follows from that.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The jib, obedience that the spirit steers.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Once the church acts on what God has said, the spirit guides, adjusts, and refines.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Paul and Barnabas set out in obedience, and the Spirit directs them at each stage of the journey.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: The Genoa, power added to our words.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Our words and actions are only ours, yet the Spirit adds power at the right moment, and Paul's preaching has an effect that his words alone could not produce.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Spinaka, joy that carries us through opposition.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: When persecution drives Paul and Barnabas out of Pisidian Antioch, the Spirit does not remove the opposition.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: He fills the disciples with joy and carries them forward.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the question stands: When we pray, are we asking only for what the Spirit does?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Or for the Spirit Himself, the wind that fills every one of these sails.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's listen to Dean.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Part of Acts chapter 13 is a really long sermon where Paul preaches, and what he preaches is this story about God who creates the world for two people and gives it to them, this wonderful world full of wonderful things, and then they mess up.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then it goes to a man called Abraham, and he messes up.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to repeat it all again, but it's that that's the sermon that he preaches, the whole story.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: When he's preaching the gospel, that's the story he tells.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: They how God stuck with people, and there's David and there's Abraham, and then there's the descendants, and then God has finally been a light and he's come as the Messiah, and even they've rejected him and put the Messiah on the cross, but now the Messiah has risen once and for all and is pronouncing salvation for all.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a big part of the sermon of what we're going to look at today.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we could have focused on that, this wonderful story that God's telling.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: But uh with the book of Acts, I'm trying to stand back a bit and see it in its different sections.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: In this chapter 13, I what stood out to me was the way that the church is carried all the way through it by the Holy Spirit.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't leap off the page on your first reading, it's not something you stand out straight away, but I want to hopefully show that here we see we've had the Holy Spirit, he's intervened in Pentecost and he's led God Church in different ways, we've seen him, but here we we see a real focus on him in the way that church is operating, and and it I find it so instructive on how the Holy Spirit, what we should expect of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because we know the big moments, we know the excitement, we know the joy of praise and worship, we know those times where there's that experience of the spirit, where something is stirred in us, where there's this excitement, there's noise, there's there's movement, like Pentecost, there's war roaring winds, there's there's people turning, there's all sorts of wonderful things happening.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's great.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: We don't I don't want to diminish that.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's always a danger of diminishing that and saying, oh, that's just happy clappy, and that's just emotion, and that's not.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, if there is a true God who reaches your heart, it should touch your emotions, it should reach your innermost being, it should stir something in us, it should contact it and connect with every part of us, heart, mind, soul, strength, every bit of us should be open to God.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're not going to diminish that, but we also want to make sure that we are giving the emphasis that the Bible gives.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because here we see the Holy Spirit at work in numerous ways through the church.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it begs the question.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: One that Francis Chan, um he was a pastor of a church, left his church because he felt it was too much about him rather than the Holy Spirit, one of the only pastors in the world who I've ever heard do something like that, but he left to go to China to help with their church and become more anonymous.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then he asked this question.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: He said, If we if the Holy Spirit were suddenly taken from earth, if he was if this morning he'd been taken off at eight o'clock this morning and removed completely from the earth, would you notice when you went to church?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Would anything be different when you went to church?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Or have we orchestrated, arranged, planned, constructed, done things in such a way that actually we have no need for him, or perhaps there's just no room for him?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Would we be aware?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: How would we know?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: What would be different if the Holy Spirit wasn't here this morning?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Those things can be good.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: We should expect the presence of the living God, all the excitement and the joy, but there's an absence of those things, an absence of the Holy Spirit.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Here in the book of Acts, in chapter 13, we see this moment where God is still working in his church, and there's little hints of what's going on.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so it starts, it says that in the church at Antioch, now there's a shift.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Let me just explain, there's a shift.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Peter, in the last three weeks, remember he got escaped from prison.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Peter now basically disappears from Acts.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: He has a little cameo a bit later.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: But Peter is now gone, he doesn't appear again.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: It now shifts its focus to a man called Paul in his missionary's journeys.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: It says, now in the church at Antioch, there are prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Menae, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetriarch.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: So these are enemies who have become part of the people of God.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: These are different nations who are part of the people of God and Saul.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: So this wonderful mix of different backgrounds, different understandings, different ethnicities in one place, and they are worshiping God.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it says, While they are worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: They are worshipping God, they are giving God their attention, they are giving him glory, and in that moment the Holy Spirit speaks.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't say how he speaks, whether he wrote it in the sky or just wrote it in their hearts, whether it was just a sense in the room or a feeling or just a discernment that took place.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't, because I don't think it wants to trap us in a program or a way of doing things, but in some way the Spirit spoke as they worshipped and said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Alison just asked an interesting question that I'd obviously posed before.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: What are you getting from today?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because we come and we worship and we perhaps offer something to God, but there is something here in the sense that God also wants to speak to us.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: As they worship, the spirit works.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And what we're going to see today is that the spirit is at work in God's people, but there is a balance between the two.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: The clearest example I can I could give is one that we've mentioned before, and it's the idea of sailing.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I was 11 or 12, when my mum shipped me off to a place in near Bournemouth, where for the whole summer I learned to sail.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Never did it since, after I finished, but for a whole summer I learned how to sail in little dinghies and bigger boats and learnt all the moves and what you're meant to do.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm going to use the illustration of sailing today because I think it's perhaps the most helpful illustration of the spirit and how he works in our life.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: The idea being that when you sail, you don't generate the wind.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: You can try, you can sit in the boat, we'll try and get yourself moving, but you don't get very far.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: You don't generate the wind.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: The role in sailing is to adjust the sails so that you catch the wind and the wind takes you along.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that is how the Holy Spirit we see again and again is at work in the book of Acts.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: That the Holy Spirit is at work, but God's people are positioning themselves to be in step with the Spirit to go along with Him.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: So to that end, I'm going to teach you some of the different parts of a boat.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: There are four main sails.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to look at four sails today.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: The first main sail is the main sail.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that's nice and easy.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: You can learn.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: The main sail, it's the primary sail behind the mast that it can be fuller or flatter for control.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the big mast.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the first mast we see in this chapter is the mast of worship.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: One of the ways to be in step with the Spirit, to be able to hear his voice, is hear where it says, as they were worshiping, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart Barnabas and Saul.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: As you worship, there is a sense in as we glorify God, as we declare his praises, as we lift up his name, as we turn our attention to him, that while we are looking at him, we should also be expectant that God might be speaking to our hearts.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: That as we gather and as we encourage and as we praise him, that we should expect God might be saying something to us, might be stirring something in us, might be showing us something in someone around us.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not just me and God when I'm gathering in the church, but it's us and God.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And God may be putting something in you to say to someone else or an encouragement because that's what happens here.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: God in the in the heart of one, two, perhaps a few, is stirring up.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Barnabas and Saul need to be set apart.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: And in Barnabas and Saul themselves, we we feel like we're being set apart for a work that God is, not our work, not our idea, there is a work God is doing, but we need to be a part of it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: The church, the chapter begins with the church worshiping and fasting.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: And this remarkable group of leaders, this eclectic group, different people, different backgrounds, as they give their attention to God, they are raising a sail, and the spirit speaks into that moment.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that that God does nothing, that they sit back and just wait for God to show them.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's as they give him their attention.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now, our attention is precious, it's perhaps our most precious commodity.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: It certainly seems that way because culture sends billions and billions of pounds to capture our attention, to get our focus on something, to help make us see something or notice something or be aware.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's all branding and advertising, it's what it's all about, why so much is spent on it.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because our attention matters so much.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: But here their attention is given to God, and because of that, their sail is raised, ready to catch what the Spirit is doing.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: When we worship, it's so easy the enemy would love to reduce us to did I enjoy it?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Did it move me?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Was it my kind of music?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they're all understandable, but worship also asks, Did I offer myself to God?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Was I willing for Him to direct me?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Was I more surrendered after worshiping Him than I was before?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's what they're doing, as they worship.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: God is speaking and they are responding to it.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: There are obviously decisions and practical arrangements, all the other things that come along with it, but that main sale of worship means give God that unhurried attention.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: His word, prayer, song.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Doing that, praising him and allowing God to speak into it.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: As we worship, are we letting God redirect us?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's the first sale as the church worship him together as they praise God.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then it goes on in verse 4, and it says, The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: John was with them as their helper.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the two of them are set apart and they're sent off.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it says it's the Holy Spirit that sends them on their way.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: So here's our second sail, the jib, the smaller sail at the front.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one that it makes it easier.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's how you handle the boat.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: The first one drives the boat, it's the power, that's worship.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: This one has to be steered.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, this is them on their way by the Spirit.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: As they walk in obedience, the Spirit is sending them.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: As they worship, the Spirit speaks.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: As they obey, the Spirit guides.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: But you notice the order of that.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: They don't wait around going, God, would you tell us to do something, then we do it.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, we know what to do, so we're obeying it, and as we obey, the Spirit gives his help.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Again and again, you see this in Acts.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit speaks in different ways.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: He redirects one day they're going this way and they see a vision of someone, one day they're going this way and they hear a voice, but it's as they are obeying.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: In Acts, you don't see someone that sort of sat around and then God's stirring them and giving them instruction.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's as they're on their way, the spirit guides and redirects.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I am useless at directions, and I've I'm I'm not proud of the fact.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: We've been here 12 years and we go to Bournemouth quite regularly to see family.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I could do that journey without a satnav.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: The reason being, whenever I do that journey, I use a sat nav.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And a satnav's great because you press in the button and you press go and then you follow it, and you don't have to think.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: You have to think a little bit because you've got to drive, but you you literally it takes you there and you don't have to pay attention to what road it is, what number it is.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't tell you the numbers, I don't know where we Winchester, sort of maybe, somewhere around there.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: But uh I it's awful, and it's just this generation, isn't it?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Awful.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know anything.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um technology taking over.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it's the truth.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I don't know.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I think we want the Holy Spirit to be like a satnav.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what I'm doing, so you just tell me everything I need to do.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't tell me anything, just I won't do anything, because obviously you don't want it.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: But the Holy Spirit seems to function more like a compass than a satnav.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the direction, here's the way to go.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And as I walk in it, I will direct you, I will guide you, I will lead you into all truth as Jesus promised he would.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: I will redirect when I need to, but it's not an excuse.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: The leading of the Holy Spirit is not an excuse to abdicate responsibility, it's not an excuse to not obey.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Go into all the world and make disciples.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need a satanaf to tell me to do that.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's already been told.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: I obey it.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Love your neighbor.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need, don't need anything else to do that.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I've already been told that.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do to others as you'd have them do to you.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need another prompting or a word written in the sky from the Holy Spirit to tell me to do that.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I do that.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And as I do that, God will direct me, God will help me, God will lead me and stop me and guide that process and assist me along the way.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: But it's as I obey.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's why the jib's a good example, because this the wind's filling it, and it's sometimes it needs to be tweaked, sometimes tightened, so there is a responding to what the spirit is doing and what he's where he's guiding you.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not simply you said it and you sit back like you do with the satnath.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's more engaged than that.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm listening and I'm discerning and I'm going, and as I walk in obedience, and so if you want to know what God wants you to do, or you love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and you love your neighbor as yourself.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Once you finish those, come and see me and I'll give you your next task.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: But you've got enough to be getting on with, and as you get on with that, the spirit will guide, the spirit will lead, he will open doors and give opportunities and he will equip and strengthen.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it's as you obey, you will find the spirit at work.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: It is not an excuse for obedience, it is the helper in our obedience to God.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that's our second sail that we see in this.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: So they travel the whole island.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: There's a moment where they are filled with the spirit because there's a man who's opposing them, a sorcerer who's trying to stop them from communicating the gospel to someone else.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so it says, Paul is filled with the Holy Spirit and says to him, You are a child of the devil, the spirit will make you say some strong things at times, and then says to him, You are trying to stop the gospel spreading.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so the man loses his sight until he comes to a place of repentance.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then he preaches this message.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: This message, as we've heard from Alistair, this message of Jesus who has come and come to save.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: There is a third sail, the Genoa.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sail that covers over the jib sometimes.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's not a replacement, but it goes over it, it overlaps it, and it adds power.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: In moderate winds, it adds a power to what you're doing.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so, Paul, there, he's he's given an opportunity to preach the gospel.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you can read the gospel, you can say the gospel, I can say the words of the gospel.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: God created the world in love, that we sinned, that God is holy, that Jesus came to die to take our place, to remove the sin of the world and give us light, and that we are called to repent and trust in Him.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: I can say those words.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: But unless the Spirit covers over and empowers it, they are just words.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And here we see the Spirit feels to add to what we are doing.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's this beautiful picture that as we love, as we witness, as we display God's love and proclaim his love, we are not simply doing it in our own strength.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: We are trusting that the Spirit will add to what we do, that he will give it power and breathe on it.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's the picture of a child trying to help mummy and daddy carry in the shopping, and they get the big bag and they're carrying it in, thinking they're doing it all the while the dad's holding the bag above them because it's too heavy for them.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's the child sat on their parents' lap as they're pretending they're driving the car, going like this, all the while the parents holding the wheel underneath and pressing the pedals.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: That we will do something, but it will be under underpinned, it'll be upheld, it'll be supported by the grace and the power of God.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's why Paul later on, when he writes to the Corinthians, he said, I didn't come to you with eloquent speeches.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: My sermons were rubbish.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have the right words, I fumbled up, I didn't have power, I was timid, I was afraid, I was nervous, my hands were shaking, but they came with a demonstration of the Spirit's power.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: He added to my lack.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: He took my little thing, that my little bit, and he covered it in a great sail that gave it a power beyond the words themselves.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it changes hearts, which is what it does here.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: He speaks the message and it culminates with these wonderful words.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Through him, everyone who believes is set free from every sin.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: A justification, standing right with God you weren't able to obtain by obeying the law, doing right and being good.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: You never lived up to it.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: You messed up again and again.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Alistair remind us, you messed up, you messed up, you messed up.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: But now everyone who believes is set free.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Today, maybe that's the word for you.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: If you are new to this or you've been visiting or exploring, that might be the word too.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Today there is a Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Through him, you can be forgiven.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Your guilt taken away, your shame washed through him.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone who believes who says, Jesus, I trust you, is set free from every sin.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: All that burdens you, all that you're embarrassed, all that you are ashamed of, washed away, and you stand before God right in his eyes is not condemnation but love.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: As you stare in his face, you don't see rejection, you see the warmth of his smile and the grace that is in him.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you can receive that through Jesus.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And if that lands with you, it's because the spirit is staring it in you.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Not because I've said it in a particular tone and I've gone all soft and nice.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's because the spirit is speaking to your heart and showing you this is for you, there is grace for you.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's what happens in this.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: It says when the Gentiles heard this, those outside, those who didn't know the story, they were glad and they honored the word of God, and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Something happened because these Gentile people who believed in every God, all kinds of different things, suddenly went, This Jesus, this Nazarene carpenter from the middle of nowhere, who we've never heard of, he is the savior of the world and the king of the universe.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So only the Holy Spirit can show that.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Only the Holy Spirit could break in in that way, and so they believed and received eternal life.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: But it's because the Spirit adds to it, the Spirit breathes on it and makes it more than it is by itself.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's so that's the Genoa.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Then the last one, the Spinnaker.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a sail that's used in when the winds are low, a lightweight sail, uh, because sailing's really easy when the wind's behind you.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really hard when the wind's nice.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we used to have these races in this these lessons where you'd have to go out to a point, a boy, and then come back and whoever was back first won.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And going out was always easy.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was almost level.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: You'd go out all at the same speed because you've all got the same wind.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you all get out there, and that's great.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's as you turn around and the wind suddenly isn't behind you, it's in front of you.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: You have to sail in a different way.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the race was won and lost.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: I used to win quite a lot of them.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like, like I said, I'd never put into practice after that, but I for somehow I'd work this out.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: But there is a sail that helps you.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: That when the wind is so low down, you need a lightweight wind that can carry you along when the wind is against you, when there's opposition.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what happens at the end of this chapter.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: After the long sermon, we read at the end, it says the word of the Lord spread through the whole region, but the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their region.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So they've been not they've been opposed, but now they're being persecuted.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: So it says they shook the dust off their feet as a warning to them and went to Iconium, and the disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: They're being persecuted, they've been driven out of the land, and they go with the joy of the Holy Spirit.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I liken it to the sail.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because despite the opposition, despite the headwinds against them, their sail is full, and they are going in the joy of the spirit.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: There is something that sustains them.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: When the circumstances aren't there, or the circumstances are against them, the Holy Spirit brings a deeper joy, a deeper peace, not based on what's happening to them, but based on who they are as God's children, who dwelt by the spirit, and that carries them along.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: There is a place, a well, that's why I've called it the well, a well that is deeper.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: If your circle if your joy is based on your circumstances and what's going well, then it's not going to go well.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Some of us believe if we're led by the spirit that things should get easy.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Surely if God's at work in my life, then then people will always respond.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And yet Acts chapter 13 shows the entire opposite.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: They go there and there's a man trying to stop them, and then they get driven out of the region.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't the spirit send them there though?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't the spirit set them apart and then lead them there and then give them the words to speak?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: So what's going on?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Does all of that, and some do respond.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And when they don't, the Spirit gives a greater joy, a greater peace that says, It's not in my hands.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was never my burden to carry.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: I've obeyed God, and now I have the joy of walking to where He takes me next.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Acts talks about joy.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Romans 15 puts it like this: it says, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: This is what this sale is about: a deeper joy, a deeper peace that the world, circumstances, health, wealth, people cannot take away.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: A rock on which you can stand in the midst of storms.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Elsewhere he says it like this for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, of right standing with God, peace in my heart and joy in the Holy Spirit.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is how the Spirit works.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think that's a that's an all right sermon, isn't it?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Good points.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And as I was doing that, I thought, right, that's fine, I've got that.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then at 10 to 9 this morning, like I said, I had this suspicion that something was gonna, because whenever I speak on the Holy Spirit, I want to listen to the Holy Spirit.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is there's something I've missed?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And this is all good, and I could do this, but it's a lovely big big book.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Please don't judge me on the theology because I just picked off the shelf.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was the first big book I could find.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And if I turn to this bit, it's a systematic theology, so you get everything in here from creation to the church to God to Jesus to humanity to the nature of sin to all these different things.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a nice chapter on the Holy Spirit.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you can go to the Holy Spirit and I can tell you all about him.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell you about his divinity, and I can tell you about the gifts of the spirit, I can tell you about the fruit of the spirit, I can tell you about the person of the Holy Spirit, I can tell you about the implications, I can tell you about the spirit at work in the Old Testament and the Spirit at the work in the life of Jesus and the spirit at the work in the life of Christian.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: I can talk about regeneration and being born again and how that works.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: I can explain all of that.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lovely book here.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you want it, you can read all about the Holy Spirit.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is, and the problem with my illustration of the sail and the wind, is that as we talk about the Holy Spirit, the greatest danger for all these things might be helpful and how the spirit might work.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: But what does Acts chapter 13 give us?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't give us the systematic theology.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say, let me explain four ways the Holy Spirit might work at you.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: That was me doing the sermon, that's what I did.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: But Acts doesn't do that.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say here's four ways the Holy Spirit might work in your life.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: It just tells the story of ordinary people, and the spirit is almost sprinkled in there, like he's another person in the story.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: Not like he's a theology or an it.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's like he's another partner as they go along.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's Paul and there's Barnabas and there's the Spirit.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And he's not something else.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: He he is one, he is a person, he is not an it, it is a hymn, and he is present, and it tells the story of a person at work in people, a person at work alongside people, a person who cannot be reduced to four points in a sermon because he is a person.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized as I was preparing the message that I could leave you with the impression that the spirit is, there is the four things he could do at your life, go away.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: And there might be something in that.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't just wasted your time, I hope, in the last half an hour.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: But if I leave you with that, then it won't be enough.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, it makes the Holy Spirit an experience, an excitement, an exuberant praise or a moment of guidance or a flash of inspiration.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: It makes the spirit into something that helps you to say things and do things, but it is more than that.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: We do see here that as they worship, he speaks, as they go, he directs.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: As they speak, they are filled.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: As they are posed, they find his joy.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: They do all of that.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: But as I've broken this down, it's not a systematic theology, it is a person, and I believe God doesn't in nowhere in the Bible does he give us that.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: It'd be nice and simple.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible could probably be about three pages if he could have done it in a systematic way.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Here's who God is, here's who you are, here's who the Holy Spirit is, off you go.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: But God gives us a story because it's a story of people, and God is a person, a personality.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: He's not a human, but he is a person.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: He can be related to, he can be known, he can be grieved, he can be resisted, he can be quenched.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit is not an it or a power, he is not the wind, although we can use that as a helpful illustration.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: He is the one who dwells in our heart.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: He is the presence of Jesus Himself in our life today.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the number of times I've heard or I've asked myself, God, would you fill me with power?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Would you give me your gifts?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Would you grow in me your fruit?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus didn't say to ask for any of those things.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: He said this: Your Father in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: I ask for the Spirit's power, and I ask for his gifts, and I ask for his fruit.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I paused this morning, like I said, at 10 to 9 and thought, do I ask for him?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's why I feel sometimes so weak.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because I want all the things that he would do for me.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want him to guide my steps.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: I want him to speak to me in worship.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: I want his words.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I want, I want him to equip me and fill me when I speak.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: I want him to give me joy.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: I want him, I want his stuff.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd wonder, I just thought, did I ever stop and say, Jesus, would you give me the Holy Spirit?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Would you give me him?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: If I have him, I will have all those other things, but it's him that I want.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus did teach this.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: He said, You lot, you're you're you're basically evil.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: You sometimes you get things wrong, you're evil.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's birthday or Christmas, you know how to give your children a good gift, don't you?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know how to give good gifts to them, then how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so while there might be something that's spoken to you today, I wanted to leave you with a better question to ask God.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Not would you guide me and would you speak?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: We want God to do that, and I think that's the evidence that God is at work and he's ministering in his church and that the Holy Spirit hasn't been taken.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: But under it all, the question that I think comes before them is God, would you give us your Holy Spirit?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Would you give us him?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Would you show us where there is anywhere in our gathering in my life where he is not welcome?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Where I've put up a barrier, where I've put a closed, no entry sign to him, where I've said, I don't want him to peer in, I don't want him to look there, I don't want him to step, I don't want him to speak to that place.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anywhere where he is not welcome?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because if he is not welcome, he will not come.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: If he will not come, I have nothing else.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: He is life, he is the presence of God, he is the one who shows me the love of God.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so today there may be a place where you need to listen, maybe a step you need to take, there may be a person you need to speak to, or a weariness you need to bring honestly to God.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: But before any of that, there is someone who has been given to you.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said it's better for him to go so that you could have him in your life, have him in your heart.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: And what I would encourage you to do, not spectacularly, not with great emotion necessarily, not with great performance, but simply and honestly, God, I do want your Holy Spirit.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: I want him in my life.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I want all the things he brings, but but beside that I want him.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because he is you, God.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: He is the presence of God that I need.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: He's the power of God that I need.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: He is the love of God.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: He is the Spirit of Jesus.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is his church.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't a church without him.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: And say, Holy Spirit, we want you.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps we should stop talking and simply do that.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just pause however this might land with you.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: As I say, there may be something in what I've shared that that may speak to you, something that you can adjust or or respond to.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: But before doing any of that, Lord, we just ask that you would search our hearts.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit, we we welcome you first and foremost to show us where we are in our relationship with you.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: God, you wanted us to have the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and also a fellowship with the Holy Spirit.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: A familiarity with him, a closeness with him, a partnership with him.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we ask you'd forgive us where we have reduced him not to fellowship but to a tool in our hands or a force that we can harness.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: We want fellowship with the Spirit.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: We want to sit with him.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: We want to be familiar with his presence.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: We want to recognize his voice in our lives.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: We want to be able to discern his heart.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: We want to know where we have grieved him and need to be made right.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: We want to know where we are resisting him and need our hearts to be softened.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: We want to know where we have quenched him so that you can stir up a fire in us.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: We want this, Lord, because we want the Holy Spirit.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: We need him.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: We need him, but today we're declaring we want him because we want you, God.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: You alone are life in its fullness.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: You alone are the rock on which we can stand.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: You alone our home where we are safe.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: You alone are our refuge and our strength.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so we ask, Father, would you please give your Holy Spirit for some we're asking for the first time that we might walk with Him and know Him and grow in that.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: We pray for those who are coming seeking, Lord, that you, Holy Spirit, would be stirred in their hearts, that you would be making your home in them, you'd be turning and softening them to say yes to Jesus.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: For some of us we're asking after a long journey, but somewhere along the line it feels like we lost you, that we went ahead or we fell behind, or we just got distracted and occupied with other things, and so we're asking afresh, Lord.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Would you give again your Holy Spirit?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: May He be welcome in our lives.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: May He find a home in our hearts.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: May we be led by you.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: And as we go, Lord, may we be a church marked not by great planning and schemes, not by great speeches or many activities.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: May we be a church marked by the Holy Spirit.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: By the fact that He dwells in our midst, that He leads and guides, that He redirects and He corrects, that He is present in all that we do.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: We thank you for this greatest of gifts.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: As we worship, Lord, may you speak now.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, as we go to obey, may you give us courage, even when the next step is costly.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: And where we are weary, would you refresh us?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Would you give us a deeper joy, a deeper peace, renew our hope.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: We make ourselves available to you now.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us on Growing Together in the Gospel.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: We hope that you've enjoyed listening to Dean's teaching today and encourage you to feed back to us any questions or reflections that you might have.
• 34:12
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• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Alternatively, if you live locally, please feel free to give us a call or drop by.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to answer your questions.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to meet you.