Acts 4:29-31 says, "Now, Lord, look to their threats and grant to your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word by stretching out your hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done through your holy servant, Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place where they had assembled together was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the word of God with boldness".
Father, this morning have your way in this service. As this word is given, may it prick our hearts and may you do something fresh inside each and every one of us. May we decrease and may you increase, in Jesus name, Amen.
Throughout the word of God there is a promise of a last days outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a revival of the church and a great harvest of the unsaved throughout all the world. I believe that not only has God prophesied this but I believe that we are on the threshold of about to receive. This outpouring has already begun to happen all over the world. As we speak, people are coming to Christ by the multitudes. All over our nation God is doing remarkable things as he is changing lives and people are being set free, as churches are being revived and Christians that once had a wonderful fervency for God and had begun to lose it are beginning to be filled with a fresh outpouring of his Holy Spirit.
All over the world, signs and wonders are taking place and God is being glorified. As Americans we need this revival; as Christians we should want this with all of our heart. In Jupiter we need a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost the church was baptized with fire. We talk about how in those first Christians the church was birthed, as the Holy Spirit came to meet with them and filled them in such a way that as a people they were never the same and the world was never the same. Every generation needs a unique and fresh move of God, something that the world can't deny and something that will wake up the body of Christ. How many believe that if the church doesn't have a fresh move of the spirit then it has seen its best days behind it? Unless the Holy Spirit moves fresh in us, unless we want and desire it, we will never have that walk with God and this world will never be transformed. I believe that we are witnessing in our time, a fulfillment of the prophesy that was given in the Bible that we saw in Joel. I believe that not only is Joel's prophesy of the Holy Spirit being fulfilled but the prophesies in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Malachi that were talking about a move of God is starting to be done in a way that we have never seen before in our world. I don't know about you but I want it to happen here in this place, in this city, in our church.
We live in a day that is filled with such doom and gloom. I don't know if you've begun to experience that heaviness in your own life or if you've watched it around you but there has been such a palatable heaviness on people. The truth is that even many Christians have begun to recognize this heaviness and instead of drawing near to God, they seek to escape; more television, more movies, more time at the beach though that's not necessarily a bad thing but many are trying to somehow dull the pain of what's going on in their life. All over the world it's an undeniable thing, the world is being shaken and we are seeing signs of the end. Matthew 24:5-8 lists many of those things that we would see in the end times and then it tells us that these are just the beginning of sorrows.
In Africa the AIDS epidemic is so prevalent that one in five children are orphans because their parents have passed away from AIDS and now those children have it as well. You are an old man if you live to the age of 30 on the continent of Africa. The world economic crisis has affected everyone. The frequency and the strength of natural disasters are undeniably increasing. As a matter of fact, just yesterday in Tennessee in the Smoky Mountains they had a 3.5 earthquake. That just doesn't happen on the east coast. Those of you ready to go on vacation, it's alright, the mountains are still there.
Al Gore just said that in the last few weeks much of the legislation that has been passed in America and around the world is over the environment. He said this, "They are the first steps towards global governments". I believe that we will see more of these things taking place. I believe we will see more earthquakes and famines. As a matter of fact, they were just showing that if something doesn't happen genetically in the world's wheat supply that very soon there could be such a trajedy that would strike our food supply in the world that many would have hunger problems. The Bible says that these are all the beginning of sorrows.
For some reason, even the church, with all the hope that we have and all the power of God that he has spoken to us and all the miracles that God has done in our lives, with all the joy that God has brought, many walk with gloom and despair. How many in this room have been touched by God in one way or another? How many has God healed a broken heart or a broken body? how many have had the Spirit of God encourage you when you were discouraged? I believe we need a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit once again in our land and in our churches to bring salvation and hope, joy and peace to every one of us because this is the promise of the Holy Spirit. He is here and alive and willing to minister to each and every life today.
For many believers, the passion that they once had is being replaced with a skepticism, even an apathy. When I woke up this morning, the Holy Spirit told me that when you begin to preach this message, it's a bright sunny day in south Florida. Many want to come to church and sing the praises of God, they want to feel good and go home. So get ready when you preach, there might be a little bit of resistance when you begin to speak the word of God. But I came here to tell you this morning that if we as a church will receive what the word of God has to say, if we will want that fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he will not only break through the gloom and doom but the joy that you feel in the sun will actually do a lasting work in our lives and in our city as people are changed to the glory of God. It's a revival that the Lord wants to pour out.
I believe that one reason why we see the fire waining is because believers are tied up in fear and unbelief. Those who were once so sure and so filled with the Holy Spirit, that were once so sold out to God, are now finding their faith challenged and the result tested by the trials of life and emotional pain that they have never experienced on this level before. But I want to tell you now that the Holy Spirit is here, not only to bring you through the trials but to heal every emotional pain that you're dealing with and to let that life of God flow through you and in you so that not only are you changed but the world knows that God is here and that he is doing something special in the lives of people.
God cannot answer where there is no faith and Satan will not flee where there is unbelief. I believe that God wants to stir the church. Satan has worked people over and raked them over the coals. He puts them in places where they say they belive but are brought to the point where they have to choose. Either they are going to give into fear and unbelief, doubt and discouragement or they are going to stand on the word of God and God is going to work in their life and he is going to do something tremendous and bring a miracle that they can't deny and that others won't be able to argue with. Satan is not afraid because the church doesn't believe many times that God would do what he said he would do. We have just become like the world to get comfortable and sit back and ignore it than to seek the face of God and let a fresh outpouring of his spirit come.
I believe that God wants to set his people free and he has a promise for all of his people who will dare to trust him. In Malachi 4:2 it says, "But for you who revere my name, the son of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings and you shall go out and leap like calves released from the stall". We all put the emphasis on ?we all shall be healed when the son of righteousness rises with healing in his wings' but he said you shall go free like a calf released from a stall. God's word today says he wants to fill you with joy and set you free from the fear you've been in, from the emotional baggage that you've carried from the situations that the enemy has brought. The word "stall" means to be tied up, to be going in circles, to be confined in a place and to be bound up.
Satan has been working hard to keep believers bound up in little stalls, going in circles, growing fat and unhappy away from God's pasture and away from fresh water. Some Christians are so tied up in the stall of hopelessness and circling in their own tiny little world, bored with God and with life. They're tied up with self and with materialism and their own needs with no joy thinking that they will never change. I have a word for you this morning, "No More". You don't have to live like that anymore. You don't have to be bound up like that anymore. The world doesn't have to be about you and about your problem. God wants to set you free, he wants you to see not only the light of day but the hope of his plan for your life if you will just receive a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
I don't know if you've ever seen what happens when a calf is set free from a stall after he's been tied up and wandering around in his own little circle, he comes out with such joy, jumps and runs all over the field because it has a freedom and a joy. It has been set free and is now experiencing everything that is out in the open. That's the plan that God has for every believer and for every person in this world. God desires to send a fresh outpouring of his Holy Spirit and I believe that any person, any church and any city can have it. Those who will come into agreement with God and his word will have it and I believe that God will do that in our day. He didn't just do it in days past just for our parents and grandparents or just for those who have gone before us. He wants to do it in this generation, in this time, in your life and in my life because the time is short and God is coming back and we need a revival in our church and in our city.
I believe that there are four things that we do to receive this outpouring of the Holy Spirit and I am so convinced that God wants to do it in our day. Number one, it will come when we ask. You've got to ask for it, you've got to want it. Here's what I found with God, if you don't want it, don't ask for it because if you want it you're going to receive it and you're going to have it. But the church has got to decide if they want to have it. Every believer has to decide if they want that fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in their life. Some people in that city needs to say our city needs it so bad and we're going to be the ones to ask.
In Acts 4:31 it says, "When they had prayed, the place where they had assembled was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit". I don't only believe that they were filled with the Holy Ghost beginning to speak in other tongues. I also believe because there were other people there, they had already received that infilling of the spirit and began to receive something fresh. Every single one of them in that place needed something fresh in their life. How many have gone untouched by these difficult times? The truth is you can't go through it on your own and we aren't expected to go through it on our own. We need that filling of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I believe that when they began to pray it was a prayer of desire. Those believers wanted it, they needed it and couldn't live without it and they weren't going to leave that place until God did something in them.
I'm wondering if there are any believers in this place today? I know our lives are busy and that our time is valuable but I wonder if there are any people in this room this morning who would say, "Holy Spirit, I need you, I want you and I'm not going to leave until you fill me with your spirit. Not just for myself but for the others. They need a touch from God and I know that you want to do such a work in me so that I can be God's hands extended to a world that desperately needs him". I want to ask you this morning, "Do you have a hunger for God? Is there something stirring inside of you in your walk with God where you know there must be more? Did you once have a fire that burned so brightly and now its begun to grow dim? Do you have a heart for God? And if not, why not? Believer, you've been set free, your sins have been forgiven. You see what's going on in this world. Your family and your neighbors need a touch from God. Your own life has been touched by the things that have been going on and you have a choice. You can live in the doom and gloom of discouragement or you can live in that fresh filling of the Spirit of God that will light your life on fire. It will change you and change people around you.
The 2nd thing that outpouring requires is purity or holiness. The truth is that when you are forgiven of your sins and when you are not living a life that is bound up by sin, that is freeing all in itself. There are so many believers that are bound up in that stall of iniquity, locked up in sin. For some it has just been bitterness over what this life has given them. For some it has been unforgiveness over what people have done to you. Others are stalled in their life and not moving forward, not experiencing God's best because they have these besetting sins in their life: lust, unbelief, fear or overwhelming sorrow and they have not allowed God to heal because they are angry at him. Listen, we cannot free ourselves from these stalls or from the bondage that is over our lives. There is nothing we could ever do in our human strength to make sure that we walk in that freedom and God doesn't expect you to do it yourself. That's why he sends the Holy Spirit.
I believe the reason why many Christians are living in discouragement and all bound up in fear is because there are sins they have had for a long time that they have battled and have tried to conquer it on their own. Addictions they thought they could get rid of; lust they thought they could think their way out of, sins that have been a part of their life for a long time and then had freedom from it, then go back to it and ask for forgiveness and God helps them but they keep trying to do it in their own strength. God wants to set you free. When we get it, we'll come out of those stalls in joy and gladness. Instead of gloom and doom we will walk in the power of the abundant life that God desires for every single one of us. God wants us to be free and to walk in joy.
The third thing that outpouring requires is waiting. Luke 24:49 says, "Behold, I will send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high". Today we want everything in a hurry. We consume it and then we move on. The Holy Spirit is to consume us, not just consuming Him or using him for a moment of joy or peace and then we walk away and say I'm done with all that. The Christian life is to want the Holy Spirit to consume me, every part of me, body, souls and spirit and mind. I want the Holy Spirit to have his way. We are to be patient yet expecting. Will you pray and wait until we get that outpouring of the Holy Spirit? This Friday we're going to have First Friday prayer and I know that summer is almost over and kids go back to school but how many know our kids need the Holy Spirit more today than ever before in all their life? The things that they are facing, the things the church will face, the things our marriages are facing, will we tarry to wait on God?
I believe that one night we're going to come in here to a first Friday prayer and the Spirit of God is going to begin to move. I believe that some people are going to know that hour is over and are not going to want to leave. I think we're going to be on our face before God and all of a sudden there's going to be that hunger for more of Him and pretty soon one hour will be two and you won't even recognize that it went by. Then two hours will become five and all of a sudden as you're seeking the face of God corporately, God will begin to do something in every one of us while we're together and he will begin to fill us and begin to change the church. Just like those first disciples did, they got in the upper room and would not leave until they received the promises of God and they were filled with that Holy Spirit. Will we do that today as a church until he comes and brings that fresh outpouring?
That fresh outpouring will require availability and this deals with our openness. Are we available to God? Are we giving him the time that he needs to do the work inside of us? Or is our life so full and we're so weary that we want to fill our time with a little more television or more time in recreation; or will we say, "Holy Spirit, I will seek you until you fill me, until my life isn't the same again, until every bit of sin is gone and until all of me belongs to you, until the miracles that you want to do through my life are manifested and our church is on fire for God. I know that in this day and age there are people who will say, "Pastor, you're getting just a little bit too radical for me, just a little bit too intense. It's August 2nd and I'm enjoying the heat and the lazy dog days of summer". I want to ask you, in the middle of these dog days of summer, do you have a hunger for God? And if not, why not? Have you allowed your spiritual life to become vacation minded like the state that we live in. We live in one of the best states and one of the best cities in America and I wouldn't trade it for all the world. You know our city needs the Lord and that our church needs the filling of the Holy Spirit. Is there a fire burning inside of you that says, "I won't settle for anything less than what God has for us". We've got to be available. We try to fit the Holy Spirit into our schedules. If we would get up in the morning and just seek the face of God then he would begin to stir you and begin to stir our church. I believe that what God is going to do in Harvest Community and in Jupiter will blow every one of us away. I've talked with you and listened to you and I know our hearts are the same but we've got to be willing to seek the face of God and to be available to him. There must be individual times of prayer and times of corporate prayer for this to happen. I believe that if we will, we will see God do a powerful thing.
This week in Orlando, the general council of the Assemblies of God are going to meet. I'm going to go but you've got to understand, I like district council and general council meetings like going to the dentist. The church services are great but I'd rather have a tooth pulled than go to the business meetings. I know that there are men and women from all over this nation and this movement was born out of the fires of revival at Azuza Street. Preachers from around this nation are getting together and I don't just mean our denomination. Thank God for the Assemblies of God but the Kingdom of God is way bigger than just the Assemblies of God. I want to tell you that there are people who are hungry for a move of God again. These men are going to get together in Orlando and I wasn't going to go but God said I need to go. We're going to seek God. There are churches all over this nation and the world that need a fresh outpouring of his Holy Spirit.
There has been an apathy that has gripped the people of God and the enemy has come in and got us so busy that we forget that we were birthed in revival and that what God wants to do in and through us will not only energize us but will change the world for his glory. The question for many is what will this outpouring of the Holy Spirit require? How will I know when God is touching our church? How do I know when God is reaching our city? What is this thing going to look like. The truth is that many revivals look different. Some are real exciting, some are kind of mellow, some are kind of laid back, some have a lot of jumping and shouting, some have cities that are changed and people being saved. What will it look like? Acts 4:29-31 tells us what it will look like. Number one is that there will be a zeal for the work and the presence of God. The disciples in the upper room longed for the Holy Spirit's presence.
I want to ask you, when you come here on Sunday morning, are you hoping to just get it over with or do you want to meet with the Holy Spirit? When you go to your prayer time, in the morning or at night, even in your time constraints, do you long to meet with him? To make that emotional investment, to truly seek his face. Those disciples came before God with a boldness and a passion and an expectancy. They were not a people with indifference or apathy, they had a hunger and thirst personally for God and a burning desire to meet with him and to share with the world this wonderful savior that they had.
This fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit will be marked with healings, signs and wonders. A precious brother in the Lord, in his eighties, that's part of our district was over in Cuba and as he got off the plane to minister in that country, he fell off the last step getting on to the tarmac and he broke his shoulder. So of course he went and had his shoulder reset and you could see that fracture. He began to send out e-mails asking for prayer so he could continue to minister and to do the work of God. They told him that fracture will not heal for 6-8 weeks especially since he's in his eighties. His arm started feeling better after 3 weeks and realized he could use it so he went to have it xrayed. He just e-mailed me the xrays when it was broken and now its healed. God does miracles, signs and wonders today just like he always has.
The disciples prayed for the sick and they were made well. Miracles and confirmations were being done to prove that God was God and they weren't afraid to make sure they spoke that word of God. It will look like people with emotional pain being whole again. Those that are physically, morally and mentally not in the right place are going to be instantaneously and progressively healed by God. These are the signs and wonders that will follow. God said it would follow those who believe. This is why Satan has produced so many charlatans and phonies to produce doubt because many people today don't even trust that what they see is real. We should welcome the supernatural God and we should know that it is true. Just because you prayed and it didn't happen the way you thought it should happen doesn't mean that God doesn't still do miracles today; it doesn't mean that God doesn't change lives today; it doesn't mean that God doesn't heal diseases today. Satan has worked hard on the belief system of the church. As long as you know that you're saved, he can't get you unsaved but if he can get you to doubt the rest of what God wants to do in your life then you're not a threat to his kingdom. But if you believe that the Holy Spirit will do a work in you and through you and that God will be God then the devils work and his lies are proved absolutely false in people.
Let me ask you, what do you believe today? The church won't just pray for a little while and then stop; the church will keep on in prayer. The truth is that prayer marks every true move of God. We pray to see it and then we pray for it to stay so that we are continually empowered to do the work of God. Nothing can break the stronghold of Satan like the prayers of God's people.
What happened in the Pentecostal churches at the time of Azuza St. was that those people gathered and they asked for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit and then they began to pray. But somehow over the decades the church has lost that fervency for prayer. They forgot that you pray to get the move of God and you've got to continue to walk with God so you keep the move of God. Not to keep salvation because when you give your life to Jesus you're saved but to see a city transformed, to see people's lives changed then we must be a people of continual prayer. That is what will break Satan's stronghold's.
I have watched Satan increase his work in this world. I have seen more cases of demon posession and more people whose minds have been absolutely warped by the lies of the enemy. I have been in more places and talked with more people where you can sense the evil of Satan working more powerfully than ever before. It's happening because the people of God have not bathed themselves in prayer; they have not been before the throne of God and they are not receiving that continual empowerment of the Holy Spirit. As a matter of fact when they wind up with people who have that evil in their life they are unsure what to do with it because they get scared and intimidated either because there is sin in their own life or because they are not prayed up to the point where the power of God can work through them.
Listen to me, If we want to see Satan's stronghold's broken then we must be a people who are in the presence of God so that his work is rendered absolutely powerless. We don't walk in fear so we are not intimidated by him and so we know what to do when we are confronted with it. God wants to heal broken minds and to set people free. God wants to heal marriages where the enemy has been in there so strong and you think nothing else can be done and that enemy just keeps stirring but you have to recognize that it's not flesh and blood you battle, it is the enemy of our souls and only the power of the Holy Spirit can break his hold. We never do it on our own and we can't; we need a fresh outpouring.
This fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit will bring a shaking. In the Book of Acts God was always shaking believers in places. This is the one that confuses most churches. People don't like it when God grabs hold and begins to shake. This happened more than just on the day of pentecost; it happened every place they went. It says that the place where they prayed was shaken. The Bible says that in the last days that whatever can be shaken will be shaken and I believe that we need a shaking like never before. The church needs to be shaken again. Peter and Paul were already filled with the Holy Spirit but God had to shake them again. Paul, on the road to Damascus, when he was still Saul had a life changing experience and he was never the same again. We need a shaking again in the church today.
Hebrews 12: 25-29 says, "See that you do not refuse him who speaks for if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now he has promised saying, yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven. Now this, "Yet once more" indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverance and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire".
God will not just shake the nations and I believe the nations are being shaken today. All you have to do is look at the world and know that things are getting all messed up. But he will shake everything that is of flesh. I believe God will shake the church and I believe that even the very elect and those who have known God all their life are about to be shaken. Their beliefs will be shaken until all doubt in God is shaken loose and all that is left is a bedrock faith that trusts him in everything, knowing that he will not fail, knowing that he will set free, knowing that he is still just as able today as he has ever been. I believe that he will not only shake the world but he will also shake the church. I believe he is going to shake the religiosity out of every Christian and every church that will let him. We have so many man made rules and doctrines that don't mean anything and keep everybody all bound up. God is shaking until we are absolutely free in him.
The last thing that will mark this great move of God will be that the people will speak the word of God with boldness. There is a real timidity that has grabbed the body of Christ. We like to be politically correct and to just be copastetic. We don't want to ruffle anybody. But the truth is this, the people of God are going to speak with more boldness than they ever have before. Instead of us being silent, we'll begin to speak again with the power that comes from the Holy Spirit that declares what God's word says and isn't afraid to believe that God will fulfill it, unafraid that somehow if we speak it that God's word won't come through. The word "boldness" means to be outspoken, to be unreserved, to have a freedom to proclaim his word. It deals with a frankness and a candor that is to the point but absolutely refreshing to people, something that is not bound up by religiousness.
Boldness is the opposite of cowardice and fear. It is speaking the living word of God with power and authority because you know that the Holy Spirit lives inside of you. I want to ask you, Christian, do you have that kind of boldness? God will work within your personality. You may not be as bold and you may not shout like this preacher does because I may be just a little different than you are but that's ok. God made each and every one of us unique so that word can be proclaimed, so that people I can't reach you'll be able to reach and so Satan will be defeated and people will be brought out of bondage. That's what God wants to do.
I also believe that this outpouring will be maked with absolute joy. The Christian walk isn't all about sacrifice, suffering and trials. I believe that we will have trials and we will have suffering and that there is sacrifice involved especially if you want to see a move of God. But I believe that every move of God is marked by the believer living in such joy, peace and freedom. Romans 14:17 says, "For the Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit". Living for God is not doom and gloom where when things are bad you have to sacrifice everything in prayer because it's so serious that God just has to do something so powerfully that you have to lose all kinds of happiness and freedom that you have in life. If anything, what will happen is you will begin to have the joy of the Lord in your life in that Holy Spirit that lives inside of you. You won't be a grouchy, crabby person and you'll actually smile more than you ever smiled before. There will be true peace inside of your life no matter what you walk through and it will show as you touch other people's lives.
Too many churches think that when we get filled with the Holy Spirit it means that we get real serious. It is a serious thing but how many believe Jesus smiled a lot more than he frowned? The power of God sets people free and when they're set free they have joy. Something happens, where there once was doom and gloom, now joy begins to reside in the heart. Even when you go through the hardest things that you've ever faced you know that God is with you. Although you might not be dancing because you're so glad to be going through the difficult times, you have a peace because you know that God is your savior and that he is an ever present help in times of trouble and you're bringing that same message to others, that peace and joy that God brings. May we be a church that has a fresh outpouring. May we long for it, may we pay the price for it and may we reap the benefits of it.
I believe that here at Harvest Community we are about to see a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit like we've never seen before. So many come up to me and say, "Pastor, I see what God is doing in our services and in our lives but I also know that there must be more". How many believe there is more? It is that outpouring of his Holy Spirit. Church, I believe when we started this year that we would have a passion for the presence of God, that our hearts would be moved to want to meet with him, moved by what he does in the lives of those he's changed and that we ourselves would experience that outpouring in our own life. Let me ask you, is that your desire this morning? Are you ready for it? Our church will never be the same again. As God begins to pour it out there will be a lot of different things taking place and it will be exciting beyond all belief. You can already sense what he's begun in this place but is it something that you long for? Is it something that you can't live without? As you look at your neighbors and your friends who still need Christ, as you walk around this city, do you see those who need a touch by the Lord? We've only begun to touch the surface of what God wants to do in and through our lives but we need a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
