Transcript: Spirit Filled

Spirit Filled (video transcript)
By David Feddes

The great and central theme of the book of Acts is being filled with the Holy Spirit. In your Bibles, it might say The Acts of the Apostles, but probably a better title is The Acts of the Holy Spirit Through the Apostles. The Holy Spirit is mentioned 57 times in that book of the Bible, and it is a wonderful book that shows us how the Spirit of God works.

Last time, we read the first part of Acts 4. For those of you who were here, this is a bit of a reminder. For those of you who weren’t, here’s just a quick update. Acts 4 begins by going back to Acts 3. There's the story of Peter and John going to the temple, and while they’re at the temple, they meet a person who has been crippled for many years and is begging for money. Peter and John say, “Well, we don’t have money, but we’ll give you what we have: in the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.” And he jumps up and starts leaping and praising God.

As other people gather around, they’re astonished to see this person, who’s always been crippled, now jumping, leaping, and praising the Lord. Peter and John explain to them that it’s not their own power that has done it, but the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. As they’re preaching to the crowd, telling them to repent and to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, some of the leaders come and seize Peter and John. They lead them away, jail them for the night, and call them in for questioning the next day.

Peter and John tell those leaders, “You killed the Lord of life, but God raised him to life. Salvation is found in no one else, for there’s no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” When Peter and John tell these people—right to their faces, the very people who had arranged for the murder of Jesus—that they need Jesus and there’s no other way to be saved, the leaders are astonished. They take note that these men have been with Jesus. They seem a lot like Jesus. They have the same kind of boldness that Jesus had.

The high priest instructs them no longer to speak anymore in the name of Jesus, and they say, “Well, judge for yourselves whether we should listen to you rather than to God. We can’t help speaking about the things that we’ve seen and heard.” And they can’t quite decide what to do with them, so finally they let them go.

And so that’s where we are in Acts 4. They’ve been released, and on their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God:

I want to first of all begin by noticing how the apostles pray, because we can learn a lot about prayer from this. They’ve just been threatened, and now they’re praying to God. One of the first things to do in prayer is to remember who you’re talking to. Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in the problem that we’re praying about that we forget about the one we’re actually talking to.

And they begin their prayer by saying, “Sovereign Lord, you created the heavens and the earth.” Sometimes when you’re facing powerful people who are against you, you might be tempted to look at their power. And now they’re thinking of the One who made everything. “Oh yeah, that’s right—we’re talking to him.” He’s far more powerful than the forces that threaten us.

And then they pray the Bible. That’s another good practice in prayer. Remember who you’re talking to, but also pray the Scriptures. They quoted Psalm 2: “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The rulers of the earth gather together against the Lord and against his anointed one.” They pray that Scripture, and they say, “Wow, that Scripture is talking about exactly what just happened. Herod and Pontius Pilate and the various leaders—they conspired against Jesus, but they did exactly what you had planned. This didn’t catch you by surprise at all, Lord. You predicted it a thousand years ago, and now they did exactly what you said.”

Another great guide in prayer is to realize that God is in charge. The things that happen don’t catch him by surprise or shock him. These events had been spoken of long ago through David when he wrote Psalm 2. And so they remind themselves that they are in God’s plan.

Now, what do you do when you know that God is in charge, that he has foreseen all of this, and that things are happening according to his direction? How do you actually pray? What do you ask for?

Notice what they ask for: “Consider their threats.” That’s all they say—that’s all they ask for as far as the enemies go. “Consider their threats, Lord. You take care of the threats. You take care of the enemies—that’s your problem. What we want—what we want is for you to give us boldness in testimony and to give us power to do great things. We’ll leave the enemies to you, but we need what you want us to have.”

When you pray, just hand the enemy over to the Lord. Even pray that God will bring them to repentance. Don’t sweat it too hard what the enemy is up to—hand the problem over to God. And then say, “Lord, however you choose to deal with the problem, what I want is power from you to be who you want me to be, to do what you want me to do. Give me boldness for testimony. Give me the power that I’m going to need to witness for you.”

And what happened after they prayed? The place where they were meeting was shaken. Pentecost, in a sense, was repeated. The pouring of the Holy Spirit on the church could only happen once as the initial outpouring—when the Holy Spirit was given on Pentecost with the shaking of the place, the mighty rushing wind, and the tongues of fire. Yet there’s another sense in which Pentecost can be repeated. The place can be shaken again. The prayers can be answered afresh. The Holy Spirit can enable them again, and they can speak the word of God boldly, just as they did on the original Pentecost.

God answers that great prayer. Now, I’d like to zero in on just that one phrase for the rest of the message: “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” That’s a phrase that comes up repeatedly in this great book of Acts, and we want to understand what the Scriptures are talking about and what’s going on when people are filled with the Holy Spirit.

If you read the book of Acts, you’ll find that there are two main meanings for being Spirit-filled. “Full of the Holy Spirit” is a phrase that’s sometimes used. Or “filled”—“full” or “filled.” But either way, there are two main meanings. One is kind of describing what people are like, what their life is like. They’re brimming with the life of Jesus. They bear Jesus’ likeness. They’re just so full of God’s Holy Spirit that people see Jesus in them, and the character of Jesus is shining from them. The fruit of being like Jesus is evident in their life.

There’s also another meaning of being Spirit-filled in the book of Acts, and that is power for a particular purpose. It’s not so much the settled life of Jesus shining through them, but when they meet a particular challenge or are in a particular situation, the Holy Spirit gives them a burst of power to meet that challenge and accomplish a very big task that lies before them.

So, those are two related but somewhat different meanings of being full of the Holy Spirit. One is just brimming over with Jesus’ life as a way of life, and the other is special empowerments for particular circumstances.

To show you a little bit of what I mean, now that I’ve given kind of an overview: On Pentecost, it says they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues. The Holy Spirit was poured out on them. They had the ability to speak in other languages and be heard in those languages, with great power to speak the gospel. Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers and elders..." That’s from chapter four, which we’ve just been looking at. When he’s called on the carpet, he’s filled with the Holy Spirit and able to speak very boldly.

At the end of the chapter, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. In a pressure situation, faced with opposition, the Holy Spirit makes them supernaturally bold. They are not scared; they are not soft-spoken. They are confident and clear.

Then you get to chapter six, where some problems arise in the distribution of food and other goods to certain widows. The apostles say, "Well, that’s a real problem; it needs a good solution, but we are not the solution. We need to devote ourselves to the Word of God and to prayer." That’s what apostles, pastors, and preachers need to devote themselves to—the Word of God and prayer. That doesn’t mean the other things don’t matter. So they say, "You’ve got to choose some people to take care of that and oversee it."

They tell them to choose seven men from among them who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. The first one they choose is Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. When you look at Stephen, he’s a guy full of wisdom and faith—that’s the kind of person God made him. He’s got a lot of faith, and he’s very wise. Seeing that in him, they recognize that he is a man with the spirit of wisdom, faith, power, and a sound mind, which characterizes him.

Stephen is one of those chosen, and that’s what I mean by having that kind of settled character in which the life of Jesus shines. Now we see again—Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power. That’s another way of describing someone full of the Holy Spirit. He’s full of grace and power. That’s just who he is and what he’s like. He did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people, so he also had great power for action.

Then opposition arose against Stephen, but they could not stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke. Jesus had promised that he would give his people that kind of power, especially when they faced challenges and trials. He said, “Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.”

So, when they oppose Stephen, it’s not just him speaking—it’s the Holy Spirit speaking through him. They really can’t refute or undo what he says. Stephen is then seized. He gives a speech to them about Jesus Christ and their need to repent. They don’t like what they hear, so they decide to kill him. While they’re getting ready to kill him, Stephen—full of the Holy Spirit—gazes into heaven and sees the glory of God, with Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

“Look,” he says, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” He’s always been full of the Holy Spirit, but here, it means something fresh comes upon him. He’s about to die, and God gives him a vision of heaven, along with words to describe what he’s seeing. He has a special empowerment for that moment. In that moment, he even prays, “Lord, receive my spirit, and don’t hold this sin against them.”

Where have you heard that before? Those are almost the exact words that Jesus Christ prayed on the cross. It’s the Spirit of Jesus who gives Stephen what he needs as he lays down his life for the Lord. So in Stephen, you see both aspects of being full of the Holy Spirit. He is someone who is brimming with the life of Jesus, and when he faces difficult, even deadly, situations, he receives special empowerments from the Holy Spirit to do and say what the occasion demands—even laying down his life.

If you think receiving the Holy Spirit’s power is only about working miracles, keep in mind that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and power—and he was crucified. Stephen had great power for miracles and mighty speech, and he was murdered. So divine power does not always rescue us or give us an escape route to avoid suffering for the gospel.

We see more Spirit-filled people and situations in the book of Acts. They sent Barnabas to Antioch, and he encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord. Again, he’s full of the Holy Spirit, full of faith—a good man. That’s the first meaning of being full of the Holy Spirit: the goodness of the Holy Spirit and the faith the Spirit gives in Jesus are evident in him.

Barnabas’ very name reflects the nature of the Holy Spirit. His real name is Joseph, but he’s known as Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement.” The title Jesus uses for the Holy Spirit is the Paraclete, which means “the Encourager.” Barnabas, in a different language, means the same thing—Encourager. The Holy Spirit is the Encourager, and here’s a man whose nickname is “the Encourager,” a man full of the Holy Spirit.

Barnabas sees what’s going on in Antioch. These people are non-Jews coming to the Lord, which is a new thing. So the apostles know whom to send—they send Mr. Encouragement. He sees the evidence of God’s grace in them, rejoices, and encourages them to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. That’s what happens when a Spirit-filled person is let loose in the world. They’ve got the Encourager in them, and they become an encourager to others because the Paraclete is working through them.

Now, let’s talk about Saul—who later becomes Paul. He wants to kill Christians, but Jesus appears to him on the road to Damascus. Saul sees a blinding light and can no longer see, but he hears the voice of Christ saying, “Why are you persecuting me?” Saul realizes he’s been fighting against Christ, who is risen and reigning. The next thing that happens is that God sends a man named Ananias to pray over Saul.

Ananias says, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Saul has seen the risen Christ, but now he needs the filling of the Holy Spirit. He needs the life of Christ to take over his life. Since he is going to become an apostle, he needs the mighty power of the Holy Spirit to carry out what Jesus has assigned him to do. He needs the life and the power, so he needs to be Spirit-filled.

When you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, one of the things that happen is boldness—even in confronting enemies of the gospel. Paul speaks to a ruler in Cyprus named Sergius Paulus, who is interested in the faith and considering it. But there’s another man named Elymas (or Bar-Jesus) who tries to talk Sergius out of believing. It says Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at Elymas and said, “You are a child of the devil,” and the man is struck blind for a while. Sergius Paulus takes the hint and becomes a Christian. Once again, you see that in the face of opposition, the Holy Spirit gives boldness. Sometimes you need courage to face martyrdom, and sometimes the Holy Spirit gives power to say, “You son of the devil, you can’t see anymore.”

At the end of Acts 13, the disciples have been persecuted and hunted. How do they respond? It says, “The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” Even in tough situations, instead of getting discouraged, the Encourager comes on them afresh. They are filled with the Holy Spirit, and he gives them joy, even though people are against them.

Then the apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, says, "Don’t be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit." You need another power in your life, but don’t let it be the power of alcohol and drugs. Let it be the power of God. Let it be the Holy Spirit that’s filling you constantly, influencing you, changing who you are, and making you different.

Hey, one thing about getting drunk and having the Holy Spirit in common: It changes you. In one sense, you’re still you, but you’re not. One is for the worse, the other for the much better. It’s still you, but it’s a transformed you in a wonderful way.

So those are the two main meanings of being filled: brimming with Jesus’ life and likeness, and having bursts of power to meet a challenge or accomplish a task. Now, the important thing for us is not just to do a quick overview of some of the texts in Acts about being filled with the Holy Spirit and say, "Yeah, check. I saw the PowerPoint. Got that marked down."

The question is, do I live the Spirit-filled life? Have I been filled with the Holy Spirit in both senses? Am I someone who is filled to overflowing, brimming with the life and reality of Jesus Christ? Am I becoming more like him because something that’s not just me is going on inside?

Because if you’re a Christian at all, then you have the Holy Spirit. But is that Spirit filling you to overflowing and transforming you? Are you counting on the Holy Spirit when you are called by God to do hard things? Are you going to accept the call to attempt hard things—things that are harder than you can handle but not harder than he can handle? Because it’s in those situations that the burst of power from the Holy Spirit comes to meet the challenge, to carry out the task that God gives you.

Well, let’s think about some frequently asked questions—a bit of an FAQ about being Spirit-filled—because this can sometimes be a difficult topic, sometimes controversial, with different views among Christians. So let’s think about some of the questions that arise.

First question: Who has been baptized with the Holy Spirit? Sometimes the Bible uses the term baptized with the Holy Spirit, and sometimes it uses the term filled with the Holy Spirit. They don’t always mean exactly the same thing. Being baptized with the Holy Spirit simply means that you have received the Holy Spirit from the Lord Jesus Christ.

And who has been baptized with the Holy Spirit? Well, anybody who’s been given faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to trust him as Savior and surrender to him as Lord. This cannot happen without the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. The Bible says that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit, and it is by faith in Jesus that the baptism of the Holy Spirit comes.

I think it’s a misunderstanding to say that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is totally separate from being converted to faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible says, "You’ve all been baptized into one Spirit." We shouldn’t make distinctions among Christians, saying, "Well, these are the carnal Christians who haven’t yet received any baptism in the Holy Spirit, and those are the spiritual Christians who’ve received that baptism." Everybody who trusts in Jesus Christ as Savior and surrenders to him as Lord has been baptized with the Holy Spirit.

A second question, related to that: Is a two-stage experience the norm? Some Christians think so—that first you put your faith in Christ, and then later comes a second blessing, an endowment of the Holy Spirit that raises your life to a different level of power, joy, love, and energy in the Holy Spirit. One reason they believe this is that it’s been characteristic of their own experience. They came to know the Lord, walked with him for a while, and then something else happened. Whoa—they believed that the Holy Spirit came on them in a way that he never had before.

So they see their own life as a two-stage experience: faith, and then later, tremendous empowerment and closeness to God. When that’s been your experience, and you read the book of Acts, it seems to fit. In Acts, the apostles and other disciples followed Jesus for several years, getting to know him, learning to do things on his behalf, and spreading the gospel. Then Pentecost came, and boom—the wind, the fire, the Holy Spirit. One day, three thousand people were converted. Peter was like he’d never been before.

Later in Acts, we read about occasions where people hear the gospel and believe, but then Peter and John come, and they receive the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. So Acts contains several examples of people who first come to faith and then later experience tremendous empowerment by the Holy Spirit. If you see those two-stage examples in Acts and in your own life, it seems reasonable to say, "Yeah, that sounds right—two stages. That’s the way God normally works."

But it’s not. I’m not saying that there are never two major stages. I’m saying it’s not the norm. I’ll explain why.

First, it’s not the norm in the book of Acts. Acts tells us about Pentecost, one of the great events in redemption history—when the Holy Spirit was first poured out by Jesus on the church. That happens in Acts 2. When Gentiles in Samaria and elsewhere come to the Lord, that too is a one-time thing, marking a great turning point where the Jews are welcomed with signs from the Holy Spirit, and then the Gentiles are welcomed with great signs as well.

We shouldn’t take these unique events and assume they are the norm for all Christians for all time—that you first hear about Jesus, believe in him, and later receive a second blessing. In fact, there are situations in Acts where people come to faith in Jesus and are immediately filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s that.

It’s always risky to take descriptions from a few incidents in the Bible and turn them into prescriptions or to assume that everyone’s experience should follow the same pattern as your own.

Another question: Do tongues always accompany being filled with the Spirit? In Acts, several times when people are baptized or filled with the Holy Spirit, they speak in tongues. Some Christians say this is the sign of the second blessing—being filled with the Spirit.

However, not everyone in the Bible who is filled with the Spirit speaks in tongues. Paul says, "I speak in tongues more than all of you," but he also asks, "Does everyone speak in tongues?" No. God gives different gifts to different people as he decides. Speaking in tongues is not the only gift, nor is it the primary sign of receiving the Holy Spirit. In some situations, it was a sign, but not always. It’s not a gift that marks everyone who has reached a higher level spiritually.

This is comforting to people who don’t speak in tongues. It’s also reassuring to those who haven’t experienced a dramatic second blessing and might wonder, "Was I really filled with the Holy Spirit?" They can relax, knowing that not everyone speaks in tongues or has such a moment.

Now, another question: Are there fresh fillings after conversion? Yes. If you think that those who experience a dramatic second blessing are wrong in their understanding of two stages or tongues, don’t conclude that you don’t need to seek more than you’ve got. Conversion is not the only step. There could be a third, fourth, or seventeenth blessing. Tremendous growth can come from the Holy Spirit later in life, with greater fullness still ahead.

You may think, "I’ve received the Holy Spirit and have that fullness." Well, you wish. In one sense, it’s true, but in another sense, there’s so much more of you that the Holy Spirit needs to have. Sometimes we talk about having more of the Holy Spirit, which is one way to describe it—becoming fuller and fuller. But in truth, you have the Holy Spirit when you have him. The question is: Does he have all of you?

The fullness of the Spirit means filling more and more parts of your life with himself. There can be many fresh fillings after conversion. When I answer these questions, my aim is not to reassure those who don’t feel a lively sense of the Spirit’s presence or empowerment. God does unusual things and makes you more than you were without him.

Is being filled with the Spirit sudden and spectacular? Sometimes. Not always. Sometimes the place is shaken. Sometimes you can just tell God is there, and lots of people are anointed and empowered afresh with the Holy Spirit, and you know it.

Sometimes, the Holy Spirit kind of sneaks up on you—changes this, alters that, strengthens you for something else. It might almost be imperceptible to you. It’s a little bit like when you watch people grow. I never see them grow—never. But when I meet people I knew as kids ten years ago, and they were here, and now they’re here, I think, “Something happened to that kid.” You can’t see it happening in the moment, but it’s happening because there’s life in there—there’s growth in there.

So, sometimes the filling of the Spirit is spectacular and sudden—maybe a little like those growth spurts, where you saw them two weeks ago, and now they’re five inches taller. You know what kids are like during a growth spurt—they go crazy. There are growth spurts in the Christian life that the Holy Spirit gives us, and they’re very sudden and noticeable. But then, there are the gradual changes that the Spirit constantly makes.

As the Spirit works, people may begin to look at you the way they looked at Barnabas and say, “Boy, that guy has the Paraclete. He is the Encourager.” You look at Stephen and say, “He is full of faith. He’s full of the Holy Spirit.” You look at Barnabas and say, “He’s a good man.”

Now, do we dare say that some of us—who have learned a lot about the biblical theology of sin—are constantly saying how sinful we are? When we realize how weak and helpless we are apart from Jesus’ power and the power of the Holy Spirit, we may emphasize how little we can do. But there’s another way of looking at these things—not just what I am apart from the Spirit, but who I am when I’m filled with the Spirit.

Nobody could outdo the apostle Paul in describing the seriousness of sin. He describes it in terrible detail in the first part of Romans. But what does he say at the end of Romans? He says, “You yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge, and competent to instruct one another.” This is the same guy who, at the beginning of the letter, said, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one. Their mouths are full of poison—they’re a bunch of rats.” But now, he says, “You yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge, and able to instruct one another.”

That is the truth about the Christian. That is the truth about you when you belong to Jesus, and the Holy Spirit lives in you. You must not get stuck in Romans 1 to 3. If you’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit, “The law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death.” Reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, full of goodness.

The apostle John says, “Well, I really wouldn’t even need to instruct you, because you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.” So, to be Spirit-filled is to have the goodness of Jesus in you, the truth of Jesus in you, and to count on that—not simply to wallow in what you were apart from him.

Jesus said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” But it’s equally true that “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” Keep both truths—never forget what life is like, or rather what death is like, apart from Christ. But also never forget that you’re alive in Christ, and the Holy Spirit lives in you.

So, whether that reality sometimes comes on you suddenly and in spectacular ways, or whether the Holy Spirit sneaks up on you and keeps imparting gradual growth—either way, it’s the Holy Spirit’s work, and you are not who you were.

Final question in our FAQs: Can events like those in Acts still happen?

Sometimes, we read Acts as a historical record, and then we get to the end of Acts 28 and think, “Well, now the Holy Spirit has done his work.” The Holy Spirit has inspired the truth, given us the Scriptures as his final written revelation, and we almost become “Bible deists.”

Deists are people who believe that a great power created the universe, got it going, and then let it go—because it had everything it needed to keep rolling on its own steam. A Bible deist is someone who says, “Now that the Holy Spirit has given the Bible, he’s pretty well done his work, and he doesn’t do the kind of things described in the Bible anymore.”

The irony is this: He did things like that in Bible times, but now that we have the Bible, he doesn’t do them anymore? I think that’s a misreading of the evidence—not only of the Bible and history but maybe even of our own hearts. If we don’t see much happening in our lives like what we read in the Bible, it’s comforting to be told, “Don’t expect it. Nothing’s wrong. Nothing to see here.”

It’s comforting to believe you shouldn’t expect things to happen in your church like they did in the book of Acts. Or to think you shouldn’t expect things to happen in your life like they did for those people—because they lived in a different era. They were unusual. They were extraordinary.

But “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” The great promise of the New Testament is that you are living in a new covenant, in which the Holy Spirit has been given to God’s people in a way that had not been experienced before. He has been given for the entire new covenant era, to increase his might and influence in God’s people.

If that’s not happening, we have to ask: Is something amiss in my life or in the life of the church?

Am I content to be ordinary? In one sense, it’s okay to be ordinary—the Lord delights in the ordinary and doing extraordinary things through it. But is my goal in life just to get through it without too much fuss, without expecting much? Hopefully, I’ll have decent relationships, a little fun, some good food, live to a ripe old age, and pass into glory. Is that what I expect of the normal Christian life?

Or do I expect something divine—something supernatural? Can events like those in Acts happen? They have happened again and again throughout history. I don't have time to go into all the great revivals, but Acts is a book of revival, and God has sent tremendous revivals throughout the history of the church. He has sent times when entire churches were made more alive than they’d ever been, and the fire of the Holy Spirit swept through communities, transforming them.

What happens in revival? In one sense, Pentecost is repeated. The Holy Spirit is outpoured afresh. Revival is often preceded by believers praying eagerly and earnestly: “Lord, fill us with the Holy Spirit. Lord, give us new life and new power.” God manifests his mighty presence—sometimes to an individual, sometimes to a whole group.

Dwight Moody, a shoe salesman with a somewhat successful Sunday school program, began praying for more of the Holy Spirit. He said that one day, God poured out his love on him so powerfully that he had to ask the Lord to stop—he was afraid he would die. He said, “I went on, and I preached pretty much the same sermons as before, but they weren’t the same.” The impact was no longer the same. Suddenly, many people were being swept into the kingdom of God because the Holy Spirit was working in fresh and powerful ways.

In Korea, in 1907, a small group of discouraged missionaries with just a handful of people were gathered together. Suddenly, they experienced a mighty sense of the presence of God among them. They began to cry and confess their sins to each other. Even church elders and pastors admitted their sins before the congregation—they couldn’t help themselves. The Holy Spirit came upon them with such power that they didn’t care what anyone thought. That little group became tens of millions of people in Korea. That doesn’t happen through ordinary processes—this happens when the Holy Spirit brings revival.

In East Africa, in Kenya, a missionary described what happened during the Kenyan revival. “We were in that place, and suddenly it was like the sound of a hurricane. The place where we were meeting was shaken. Everybody knew that God was there. They started weeping and crying. They were overwhelmed by awe and guilt—just a sense of dread. Then, a tremendous joy came upon them.” These things don’t happen only in the book of Acts. As I’ve said before, not everything is sudden and spectacular, but sometimes it is—and that’s what we call revival.

Revival happens when God moves in sudden and swift ways. Jesus Christ is exalted, and he is experienced—you know he’s there. Lots of people know he’s there at the same time. When that happens, as in Acts 4, the witness becomes bold and strong because the reality of God becomes so present and real that what others might think of you doesn’t matter. Whether you’re confessing your sins or witnessing, you’re not as easily embarrassed because you have a sense that God is there.

When revival happens, the church grows, and society changes. During the Welsh revival in the early 1900s, they ran into a funny little problem. The donkeys in the mines didn’t know what to do anymore because the miners had stopped cursing. The donkeys were used to taking their cues from the cursing miners. The power of the Holy Spirit just changed the way people operated—throughout an entire society, village, or country. This is what happens in revival.

I mention these things not because revival is the constant state of the church—sadly, it’s not. But reading the book of Acts, I want you to think again about what it means to be Spirit-filled. Ask yourself: Am I content with my life as it is? Do I have as much of the life and reality of Jesus as I desire to have? Am I doing the things for God that I was meant to do? Do I have the power from God to do them?

Ask yourself these questions, and then seek the fullest measure of the Holy Spirit. Here are just a few thoughts on how to do that.

First, realize that if you belong to Jesus, you already have the Holy Spirit in you. Don’t ignore him. Don’t live as though there’s no one else there. Live with the constant awareness: “God is in me, and God is at work in me.” The Holy Spirit of the living God is watching everything I watch and involved in everything I do. What you watch and do might change—it will change—when you live in that awareness.

Repent of anything that grieves the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is grieved by sin, by grudges, by unforgiveness, and by bickering. Repent of anything you know of in your life that the Holy Spirit brings to mind—turn away from it.

There are things that quench the Holy Spirit. The Spirit can be quenched by not believing that he will do unusual things, by not believing that you’ll ever be much different from who you are, by thinking life will always be stuck in the same rut. You quench the Spirit by having no expectancy. Seek more. Don’t quench the Spirit.

Surrender your whole self and all your goals to the reign of Jesus Christ. That is the Spirit’s purpose: to lift your eyes to Jesus, to enlist you in Jesus’ mission, to make you like him, and to give you his gifts and power to accomplish what Jesus wants you to accomplish.

Think about this when you consider your career, your work life, and the way you spend your time. What does God want me to do? What is he calling me to do? He isn’t calling everyone to be a missionary or an apostle—but he is calling some. He has a call on your life, and you can be sure of that. Find out more and more what it is. If you don’t know the whole call on your life, ask: What is his call for me this week? Start with this week. Look for the opportunities. Then ask, What are the bigger opportunities and paths God wants for my life?

Don’t just say, “Well, I hope to marry happily, live a pleasant life, not have too much trouble, go to church, do some good things, and then pass into glory.” There is more to the Spirit-filled life than that.

Pray. Jesus says your Father in heaven won’t give you a rock if you ask for bread, and if you ask for the Holy Spirit, he won’t turn you down. He will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. What happened when the apostles and those persecuted believers prayed? The place was shaken, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God boldly.

Pray the Bible. James says, “You have not because you ask not.” One way to quench the Spirit is not to expect much—and because you don’t expect, you don’t seek or ask, and therefore, you don’t receive.

Prayer

We pray, Lord, fill us as you are pleased to fill us. May your life be our life, and may we be more and more fully yours. We pray, Lord, that Jesus may take shape and be formed in us, and that we may become more and more like him. We pray, too, Lord, that you will help us in our witness, giving us the boldness we need to make a difference in this world.

We live, Lord, in an increasingly twisted and depraved age, and it seems that nothing less than a mighty wind of revival will do. We don’t know all your plans, but we pray that your plans for us may be fulfilled—that we will not quench or grieve your Spirit.

We pray, Lord, that in our community, you will empower this church to become more of the church you want us to be—not just settling for small things but seeking and expecting more from you. We pray, Lord, for our nation and for the nations of the world. We ask that you bring a new, fresh Pentecost revival.

We thank you, Lord, for what you have done in many nations that were far from you, and we hold before you our own nation, which is sinking further into darkness and rebellion. We ask for the great winds of revival. We ask, Lord, for the filling of your Spirit—and nothing less.

In Jesus' name, Amen.