Title/ I will pour out my Spirit Text/ Joel 2:23-32 A young woman brings home her fiance to meet her parents. After dinner, her mother tells her father to find out more about the young man. The father invites the fiance into his study. So what are your plans? the father asks the young man. I am a Bible scholar, he replies. A Bible scholar. Hmm, the father says. Admirable, but what will you do to provide a nice house for my daughter to live in as she’s accustomed to? I will study, the young man replies, and God will provide for us. And how will you buy her a beautiful engagement ring such as she deserves? asks the father. I will concentrate on my studies, the young man replies, and God will provide for us. And children? asks the father. How will you support children? Don’t worry, sir. God will provide, replies the fiance. The conversation proceeds like this, and each time the father questions, the young idealist insists that God will provide. Later the mother asks, How did it go, honey? The father answers, He has no job and no plans, but the good news is he believes I’m God. We believe, as good Christians, that God will provide everything we need in our life. Jesus also has urged us to ask God, who is our heavenly Father, for “good gifts.” So, we don’t need to feel sorry or guilty when we ask God for something we need, because we are all His beloved children. You and I have the right to claim what we think it is needed, and our Father will be happy whenever we call on His name in prayer asking for His supplying grace. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7)” We have to remember that our God is the greatest Giver of all, and His biggest gift for us is beyond materials. The Holy Spirit is the biggest and the greatest gift for us from God. Jesus said in John 14:16, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever.” And the Lord told His disciples just before the Ascension in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The Holy Spirit, as we know, is the third Person of the Triune God, and he is God’s most valuable gift to the human beings. When Peter was preaching the gospel in Jerusalem, he boldly told the people. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off--for all whom the Lord our God will call. (Acts 2:38-39)” He once was a coward, and had disowned Jesus as many as three times in fear of persecution, but now he was so confident that he was working as a witness of Jesus Christ. The dynamite power (or dynamis in Greek) of the Holy Spirit has been added to this ordinary fisherman, and God has dramatically changed him into an extraordinary fisherman of the gospel. And from today’s Bible lesson, we are able to find that God’s promise about the Holy Spirit had already been made in the Old Testament times. The Lord declared in vv. 28-29, “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions./ Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.” It is the Holy Spirit who enables the sons and daughters to prophesy, the old men to dream dreams, and the young men to see visions. Spiritually, without the help of the Spirit of God, no one can prophesy, dream, or see any vision, because God works within us only in the relationship with the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we can say that the true spiritual actions or ministries including prophecy, dream interpretation and Christian vision must be based on the Holy Spirit. “I will pour out my Spirit.” God’s promise was clearly made at the time of Prophet Joel, which was sometime between the late seventh century and early fifth century BC, and reconfirmed by our Lord Jesus. And this promise was finally kept after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ when His followers were all together in one place on a Pentecost day. The Bible describes the scene as follows; “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:4)” God pours out his Holy Spirit. The prophets of God were blessed to receive God’s message. The prophets of God were privileged to relay God’s message to God’s people. Today, God pours out his Spirit on “all flesh”. This is God’s glorious and practical gift for each and every believer. Like most gifts, God’s gift of the Holy Spirit is undeserved, unearned. Our gracious God freely gives. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us (Romans 5:5). Our world seems to be almost always in a hopeless state, but God pours his Holy Spirit to give us eternal hope. God pours out his gifts. Pour out is like a bucket or spilled glass of water. Once poured out, it spreads. God pours out his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God’s practical gift for us. By grace and in his mercy, our Lord God provides us certainty in our uncertain world. By faith we are blessed to be able to look beyond the distractions of this life and focus on our treasure in heaven. By faith God gives us many gifts. Believers are given hearing ears. Our hearts of stone have been miraculously changed into hearts of flesh. We know Christ—our Saviour. This is God’s practical gift of the Holy Spirit. Knowing Christ means we also know, confess, and believe in the Way and the Truth and the Life. Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1). God warns against many false prophets who go out into this world. These false prophets do not preach Christ. Test them with the light of God’s truth! According to the Church calendar, today is the 23rd Sunday after the Pentecost. Until the Advent that lasts for 4 weeks, we celebrate 27 consecutive Sundays as the series of Pentecost, the blessed coming of the Holy Spirit. And you know that Pentecost is the starting point of the Christian church or its birthday. God has richly blessed us, who are members of the church, by pouring our His Spirit on the church. So, as long as we live in the power of the Holy Spirit, our sons and daughters will prophesy, our old men will dream dreams and our young men will see visions. Therefore, we must pray to God to keep us in the Spirit-led life and save our next generations from the corrupt world. God’s most precious gift should be kept by all of us until the last days. Dear friends, have you heard of this following quote before? “Bethlehem means God with us. Calvary means God for us. Pentecost means God in us.” What does the Holy Spirit mean to you today? Is he really the greatest gift of God that makes your everyday life whole? Are you satisfied with your life, being led by the Spirit of God? When you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, He will provide everything good you might possibly need throughout your life. For the following four Sundays of Pentecost until Advent, I hope each and every one of you feels really blessed in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Spirit-filled, Spirit-led, and Spirit-motivated life to you all! Amen. (Oct. 27th, 2013 Sunday Worship)
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 05:44:13 +0000
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