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What does a life lived in and through the Holy Spirit look like? Join Reverend Daniel as we explore the charismatic tradition.

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We are continuing the sermon series on streams of Christian spirituality, exploring the traditions of the church in terms of spirituality and asking ourselves the question: how can we uh through these streams of uh spirituality grow in our understanding of God and in our own spiritual life? So let's just do a quick recap. If you recall, we started this uh two weeks ago. The first uh sermon was preached by me on the contemplative tradition, right? So that's where it all begins: a life of adoring God, a life of adoration, uh, contemplating God. And we came to the conclusion that it is a life where we return to our first love as uh as an evidence of what it means to uh walk in the contemplative tradition, making time for God, in some way, even wasting time for God so that we can dwell, we can linger, as the songs led us this morning, as Janiel and the team uh led us in the songs uh to wait on God to allow him to minister to us. So the contemplative tradition, adoring God, uh, looking at his majesty. And last week uh Pastor Wei shared on the holiness tradition, which is the virtuous life, a life of holiness, a life in which God calls us to right living, right uh understanding that leads to right living. And today my focus uh is on the charismatic tradition, discovering the spirit empowered life. Let us pray. Holy Spirit, I pray that you will just come to your people this morning, create in us a hunger, a desire for spiritual realities. Lord, may you birth in us a strong desire that will not obey, even beyond this service, a hunger and desire for more of you, more of your presence in our lives, more of your work in our lives. So we pray and ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Some would say that the Christian life is by definition a life lived in and through the Holy Spirit. Frankly, uh, there are no non-charismatic Christians because every follower of Jesus is endowed with the spirit, with one or more spiritual chasms. When I mean chasms, it means gifts of grace that God has poured out on us. And all of us have grace gifts, or in some traditions we say charismatic gifts, in which the Lord places his spirit on us, he poured forth his gifts on us. So there are three crucial passages that talk about it Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Corinthians 12 to 14. But today the focus of the sermon is not to talk about the uh spiritual chasms or spiritual gifts, uh, but we will leave it for another time. The focus today, uh the sermon today, as we look at the spirit-empowered life, is to ask ourselves this question: What does a life live in and through the spirit look like? What does a life live in and through the spirit look like? I have three points to share with us, and hopefully, as I share each point, the spirit of God will stir our hearts to long and desire for more of a life that is lived in and through the Holy Spirit. First, a life lived in and through the Spirit is a life of power. You know, when we are in the Spirit and we live our lives in and through the Spirit, we realize there are times in our lives where we experience God's power over our lives beyond our human ability, beyond our ability to endure trials, uh difficult situations, or even when we are facing pressing situations, somehow we find divine power and strength. And we know and we hear of testimonies of that happening. So we see that in the in the life of the apostle Paul, he's a good example in scripture of what it means to be a man of God and a man of power. He had received power from God, not only in his own human weakness, which we will read about, but also power to minister the gospel, not only with words, but with deeds, with proclamation of the Spirit's power in such that whatever he speaks of uh authenticates through the acts and deeds of power. So, one uh good example of this is in Paul's missionary journeys, uh, especially when he was called to Philippi, we see that he attempted to go north in Acts 16, verse 6 to 8. It gives us a context. Paul attempted to go north, but he was hindered on two separate occasions. First, the team was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And then when they tried to go into Diphinia, the spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So there's a very strong guidance of the Holy Spirit upon Paul, at least in his call to Philippi, to Macedonia. So the Spirit of God instructed and guided the steps of Paul and the early missionaries. So Paul is well acquainted with walking in responsiveness to the movements of the spirit. So instead of going north, they angled west and came to Troas, where they waited for further guidance. And further guidance they received in Acts 16, verse 9. Uh, Paul had a vision of a man in the night. There stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. And then Paul journeyed there and began ministry by using the religious life of the place as his starting point. In the non-Jewish context of Philippi, where Paul landed where the where the Lord Jesus wanted him to be. There was no synagogue, but there was a small prayer gathering of women by the river. And Paul, Silas, and Timothy and Luke joined them. He he says in Acts 16, verse 13, we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. The first miracle that happened through the leading of the Holy Spirit was that the businesswoman in the group Lydia was converted and baptized, she and her household. She then urged Paul and the others to stay in the home, giving Paul a base for his operations. So we see how in Paul's ministry the Spirit of God constantly opened doors and opened the heart of Lydia, the businesswoman, as a gateway for the gospel, where she where Paul could use Lydia's home as a base for his operations. Then, as they were making their way about Philippi, a second miracle happened when Paul and the others were continuing their regular practice of gathering by the river, the place of prayer. Suddenly, a slave girl who had a spirit of divination latched onto Paul and his ministry companions, crying out, These men are slaves of the Most High God who proclaimed to you the way of salvation. Paul, sensing that she needed deliverance, spoke directly to her, the spirit possessing her, and said, I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very hour. But rather than thanking God, thanking Paul for the deliverance of the slave girl, the owner, seeing that their hope of making money was gone, had Paul and Silas beaten and thrown into prison. So we thought, I mean, as we read on the account in Acts 16, we thought, wow, that's it for Paul and his ministry companions. Is their fate is sealed. You know, after ministering and delivering uh the slave girl, that's the end. But no, the next miraculous event came in response to their midnight prayer and praise. You know, while they were praying, singing hymns to God, God, in wonderworking power, threw open the doors of the prison for Paul and Silas and provided an opportunity, even for the jailer to come to Christ. Suddenly, Acts 16, verse 26 tells us suddenly there was an earthquake. Where it happened, how it happened, no one knows, but there was an earthquake so violent that all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. Then the jailer said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? So we see Paul's acceleration of ministry of power. We see that at work, first in the conversion of Lydia, the businesswoman, then the healing of the slave girl. And now we see uh how God responded by breaking the chains of the prison doors and caused the jailer to come to Christ. The fruits of all that happened in Philippi definitely was supernatural. God was at work in and through Paul. Uh, Paul was just an instrument, a means to uh fulfill the ministry of God. So we see a life of power brings us beyond our human ability to embrace what God and only God can do. So as we receive uh a spirit-empowered life, as we live the spirit-empowered lives, God will use us to minister to others. You know, God doesn't only uh use pastors to minister, but God can use all of us because all of us are filled with the Holy Spirit to minister and to pray for one another so that the body of Christ can be built up. So Paul received power from God to minister, but he also received power in his own human weakness. Power in personal weakness. We see in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 8 to 9, where Paul speaks of his situation in Corinth. He said, We are heart-pressed in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed. Paul was emphatic in using a connecting particle, which says, We are by no means crushed. In other words, even though we are hard-pressed, but we are by no means crushed. In other words, there's super and uh uh uh abounding strength in the midst of Paul's difficult situation or being hard-pressed, uh, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. But Paul was emphatic. He says, even though we are in such a dire situation, but we are by no means crushed, we are by no means despairing, we are by no means forsaken, or we are by no means destroyed. So this shows us how divine power is carried out in Paul's life. It is through human weakness and frailty that God's power is made manifest to show that the surpassing power for life and for ministry belongs to God and not to us. Applied to his present context, Paul is speaking of the cumulative weight of physical suffering and afflictions. Uh, the present context in Corinth, uh, Paul is talking about all his sufferings, all his uh affliction that he goes through. Yet in all that he abounds in power. So God assured Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 9, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. So God's strength and power is not made perfect when all is well, when we have no problems, but precisely in and through our weakness, in and through very trying circumstances in our lives, God's power is made perfect, complete in our lives. That's why Paul can articulate the theological principle in 2 Corinthians. He says, For when I am weak, then I am strong. For when I'm weak, then I'm strong. So my first point power in our lives, a life of power, experiencing a greater effect of power beyond our human ability, can be us, can be part of our lives today if we embrace more of the spirit in our lives. God will use us to minister, God will use us uh to strengthen, God will use his spirit to strengthen us in our times of weakness, or we or when we go through trials in our lives. My second point is this uh supernatural joy and freedom. First, it's about power. Secondly, when the Holy Spirit of God fills us, there'll be joy overflowing, and this is supernatural joy and freedom. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are filled with a sense of joy and freedom. The Holy Spirit releases joy into our hearts. The story of the charismatic renewal that swept across churches in the United States began actually in an Anglican church when a couple, John and Joan, right, just like any one of us here in the couple in the pew, uh, they encountered this person by the name of Bart, B-U-D, who seemed so happy and sure of God that created in the couple uh John and Joan a hunger to know what Bart had. In other words, Bart was just radiating such joy. He seemed so happy. There's something God is doing in him. And this couple, John and Joan, were curious because they look at this uh Bart, why is he so happy? Why is there so much joy? What does he have that I don't have? Right? So that created them uh in them a hunger to know more of the joy that Bart had. Um so as they corresponded, then the John and Joan realized that the joy that Bart had experienced and the is the sureness of God, he he is very sure that God is real in his life and came from what he mentioned as the baptism in the Holy Spirit. So, to cut the long story short, so through this incident, uh Dennis Bennett, who is uh uh episcopal or anglican priest in the United States, was initially skeptical. So uh uh a minister brought the news to Bennett about what was going on, and he was a bit skeptical. But when he did a further study of scripture and the Anglican tradition and church history, he discovered this. He says, and I quote, participation in the Holy Spirit is set forth in the New Testament as the distinctive mark of Christians, which which separated them from the surrounding world in the Christianity of apostolic times. And this is what this is what he says, and we ought to listen closely. The experience described as that of receiving the spirit stands in the forefront of the Christian life, meaning the central place of the Christian life at once, as the secret of its transporting joy and power, and as the source of the victory of faith which could overcome the world. Prior to uh Bennett's uh baptism in the Holy Spirit, he shares that while he was studying in the seminary and pastoring to rural churches, and I quote this is what he says, I become I became increasingly interested in my studies and in ministering to my churches. Strangely enough, I soon realized that theological study and church work were leading me away from my personal relationship with God. In fact, I came to, I came to, after three years, to discover that I had ceased saying any private prayers at all. I had become so concerned about study and church work that my personal life with God had become almost nil. As soon as I realized this, I did begin to say petitionary prayers again, but I was too busy for much more. It was a little like having a personal friend become your employer. You are now so busy working for him that you don't have time to spend enjoying his friendship. Your relationship has become professional. Like uh I can uh identify quite a bit with what Bennett shares. You know, this is a potential issue for full-time ministers, you know, where each time we open the Bible, it's you know, it's really in some way it's work, right? We are trying to craft a sermon, we're trying to prepare for a meeting. So, yeah, so the thing is how do we integrate that uh along with our relationship with God? But if we don't, uh we can easily be overwhelmed by the needs of ministry. So, this is what Bennett shared honestly about his own spiritual life. He was ministering, pastoring two churches, and also at the same time doing his theological studies. He must be really busy, right? And yet too busy for his own good. So he goes on to say, in my congregation too, I saw that while people were being helped, lives were rarely being changed. Because I had for the most part lost my personal awareness of God in my life. I wasn't able to lead the people of the congregation into that kind of awareness. I was propping them up, counseling them, encouraging them, being a poor man's psychiatrist and teaching them about God, but something was seriously lacking. God wasn't becoming real enough to them to make any noticeable change in their lives. Their religion or their faith was amount, sedative to make their lives more palatable rather than an experience that would drastically change them. Suppose there was something more, a great deal more to this whole business of Christianity, and we were missing it. So this was his own encounter, you know, of how dry he felt even in the midst of ministry, not only to himself but the context of the church. Um, there was something missing, right? Uh and interestingly, as uh he recounted his story, there's the same experience as he was being baptized in the Holy Spirit. The effects that he felt was similar to what Bart experienced and what John and Joan had experienced. As the Spirit gave him the utterance of a new tongue, he's as he was being baptized by the Holy Spirit, he had the same effects. And this is what he says, and I quote, as I spoke on in tongues, something else began to happen. My heart began to get more and more happy. The presence of God that I had so clearly seen in earlier days to be the reason for leaving suddenly enveloped me again after the many, many years of dryness. Never had I experienced God's presence in such reality as now. This was the same presence of the Lord that I had sensed when I first accepted Jesus and that I've known when I used to get up early during my years in the business world. Only the intensity and reality of my present experience were far greater than anything I had believed possible. If those earlier experiences were like flash bugs, this was as if someone had turned on the floodlights. The reality of God was something that I felt all the way through, even with my body. But instead of being fearful, I felt tremendously happy and elated. Church, when the Spirit of God comes upon us, when we are filled with the Spirit, when we are baptized in the Spirit, there'll be joy. There'll be joy in our lives, there'll be a new awareness of God that we never knew before. And I believe that is what it means to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is one trait and one sign the joy that God fills us, the joy and freedom. Suddenly, we are so happy. We don't know why we are so happy. We are so happy. We are so elated. You know, it's so simple as that, right? You don't need to be a theologian to experience happiness or joy. You know, but this joy, this awareness of God, God came near, God is real, God is near. And there was a time, I think it's a recent phenomenon. Uh, if you all recall, there's something called the holy laughter movement that began in the US. There were a lot of literature, pastors weighed in, theologians came in to either critique or to uh uh to come in and say it's uh of the devil, you know, and all so people, as human beings, we are always into the outward signs, you know. Is it of God? You know, how can people laugh, roll on the floor, you know, how can people do such things? You know, and and we we try to weigh in, you know, and try to theologize about that. But as I reflected on that, actually, as what was read for us in the scripture uh that Vanessa read for us, the fruit of the spirit is what? Love, joy, right? One of the fruit of the spirit is joy, right? So can't God flow give us overwhelming joy? I mean, of course, uh I've not analyzed the movement. I I don't intend to, but what I'm saying is our human nature is we look at a phenomenon and we want to critique what had happened, but actually it's beyond that. You know, it is about the joy of God that fills our heart and lives. And when the Holy Spirit fills us, he fills us with joy, he fills us with an overwhelming sense of his presence. That's why people break down and cry, people start to laugh because they are filled with God. God is doing a deep work in their lives, right? So um, not saying holy laughter is right or wrong, I'm just saying that one of the fruit of being filled with the Holy Spirit is joy and joy that flows and overflows. Right? It happened for Bart, for Joan and John. Uh, it happened for Dennis Bennett that launched his ministry, and beyond that, uh to the Charismatic Renewal Association, and now I think it's Soma. And beyond that, it is, it all begins with a couple in the church, with a couple that is just filled with joy, you know, and people are curious why the person has so much joy. So if you turn to someone, look, look at the person beside you, you know, and see whether the person has joy in his life or her life, you know, that would be a sign of you know, God in our lives, a strong awareness of the presence of God. It's just joy. You're just radiating, just smiling, you're just happy. For right, not that when we pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, then the Spirit comes. You know, He's always in us, just that we need to fan the flame. We need to continually be filled with the Spirit. That's what Paul tells us uh to be filled with the Spirit. So, how do we receive the baptism in the Spirit? Actually, it's very simple. You know, it's to us, right? To ask Jesus to baptize you in is also the one who look into that, but have a greater awareness of you. Lord, I long to have more joy in my life and a greater awareness of your presence, your nearness to me. Would you fill me with your Holy Spirit? Jesus, I long, I hunger for more of you. Right? So it begins with that, you know, ask Jesus to fill you. Second, usually that case, even though you can even pray in your bedroom, the Lord may fill you and you may start speaking in tongues, that can happen. But there are also times where we receive prayer and support. So we do have time after the service. If any of you want to be prayed, to receive the Spirit, uh, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, please feel free to come forward. So as you ask Jesus to be filled, get someone to pray with you, right? Uh probably someone who's aware of what it means to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, uh, church leader or pastor to lay hands on you and to pray for you for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So all the person does is to lay hands and to support you. And usually it begins where you start to pray quietly, right? Uh and at first, and as you continue to wait your wait before God, sometimes you will break out in spontaneous utterance of a new language. Right? So this is not a scientific way of receiving the Holy Spirit, but this is just a paradigm in which many people uh encounter the Holy Spirit's work through this way. Right. So may the Lord help us, may the Lord grow in us, supernatural joy and freedom. My last point uh radical love and oneness. I'm not sure whether you have heard of this person, uh William Seymour. Right, so I I had to uh study about him when I was in seminary uh because I I came from a Pentecostal uh seminary, so we had to do a course on uh Pentecostal studies, so I had to look into the life of William Seymour. So he's the he's uh he's uh he's the one that kind of started the uh so-called the Azusa Street Revival in 1906. And interestingly, while I reread his story, I'm really inspired to see uh what the Lord was doing in 1906. And the revival at Azusa Street, the Azusa Street Revival led eventually to the worldwide uh Pentecostal movement in the 20th century. So it's quite a recent phenomenon, and um and this is what it records, it recounts for us how um the journey of um radical love and oneness became the hallmark, should be the hallmark of the charismatic renewal, you know. But we will see again that man later, because of our fallen nature, we circumvent God's purposes, you know, through our own human weakness. So Richard Foster, in his book Streams of Living Water, writes In the most unassuming of places in the heart of Los Angeles, that's where the revival took place, a work of the spirit broke forth in 1906 that was destined to become the fountainhead of a worldwide Pentecostal explosion. William J. Seymour was the divinely chosen leader of this work, which came to be known as the Azusa Street Revival. In terms of the context of the day, Seymour uh stood at the forefront of one of the most revolutionary social movements in history. A movement intent on upon erasing the color line. So the context of the revival took place where there was uh a sense of a white supremacy in the US. You know, so uh so he being uh a black person uh couldn't uh there were certain disadvantages, right? They were they were influenced by a certain uh sectarian group called the Ku Klux Klan, right? So they were violent, uh it's a terrorist organization uh that uh used intimidation, violence, and murder to maintain white supremacy in the Southern government and social life. So that was the social historical context that led to the movement. Uh so even in churches, sad to say, even in churches, if you were there in the 1906, there was a practice of racial segregation. Uh uh and interracial mingling at the altar was not permitted. So that was the culture at the time. Uh white supremacy is a huge issue, not here, but in the West, right? So, but this this happened. So William Seymour was there. So in the midst of the most racialist era of a totally segregated uh society in which uh the whites and the blacks are separated, uh, what happened in the revival was a move of God. Huge throngs of people from virtually every race, nationality, and class on earth came together at Azusa Street, meeting night and day continuously for three years. Azusa Street was an all-inclusive fellowship beyond the color line. Somehow, as the people of God gather uh to pray and to seek the Lord, uh, the Lord just broke out and caused a revival to happen. So the revival meetings took place nightly over several weeks. And this is what Simon said the color line, the color line was washed away in the blood. We are reminded of Galatians 3, verse 28, which says, There's neither Jew nor Greek. Paul says, There's neither slave nor free, there's no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. So the the revival and what was happening there kind of uh really is a testimony to Galatians 3, 28. So Seymour saw the Pentecost uh or the revival that happened in Azusa Street as a new jubilee, a new freedom where it requires the release of the broken and the bruised from their oppression in the context of slavery and white supremacy. So he consistently connected what was happening in Azusa Street with the Pentecostal outpouring in Acts 2, which was the scripture being read for us, where the result of the tongues of fire, where the Holy Spirit came in Acts 2, was a reconciliation between nations and races and cultures. In other words, everyone heard one another in their own tongue. There was a sense of reconciliation. God was bringing in people, uh, regardless of color uh issues to um one body in Christ. All are one in Christ. So in the very first issue of the magazine published uh by Seymour called the Apostolic Faith, he writes, multitudes have come. God makes no difference in nationality, Ethiopians, Chinese, Indians, Mexicans, and other nationalities worship together. Three months later, in December 1906, he writes, the people are all melted together, made one lamb, one bread, and all one body in Jesus Christ. There's no Jew or Gentile born or free in the Azusa Street mission. He's no respecter of persons or places. Then, right at the moment of Seymour's greatest influence, white supremacy reared his ugly head, denouncing and rejecting this grace-filled work of God. Seymour had invited a white minister by the name of Charles Baham to Los Angeles, hoping that he would lead the area-wide revival meetings to strengthen the work. At that time, such large-scale meetings was something that a black leader could not do in a dominant white society. He needed so-called white partners who would value not only speaking in tongues or glossolia, but racial equality and Christian unity. Paham, who was then at the height of his power and influence, might possibly make a difference if they could work together. However, uh Pahham's response was disappointing. He thought that the mixing of races had caused the flood in Noah's time, and he viewed the Anglo-Saxon race as the lineal descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel. So he recalled in disgust at the racial intermingling. He was aghast that black people were not in their place and simply could not abide. White people imitating unintelligible, crude negrocisms of the Southland and laying it on the Holy Spirit. In a rally, Baha made his way through the crowd, stood at the pulpit, and delivered a stinking rebuke. God is sick in his stomach. He proceeded to explain that God would not stand for such animalism. So it's sad that that was, I mean, I'm just reading to us some historical documents. This was what happened at that time. So in no way, this is what we practice here in uh YCCA. So according to Seymour, the primary evidence of the Holy Spirit was divine love. So again, human nature, we always grab onto the phenomenon, right? We always talk about speaking in tongues, right or wrong, whether tongues have ceased or not. And theologians have done that over the years, you know, and denominations have been formed to be separated because they don't believe uh the tongues exist today. But actually, if you trace back the roots of the revival, it's not about that. You know, Simon was really not talking about the speaking or in tongues as the highlight. This is what he says, and I quote, tongues are the signs that go with every baptized person, but it's not the real evidence of the baptism in everyday life. If you get angry or speak evil or back by, I care not how many tongues you may have, you have not the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Pentecost, he said, makes us love Jesus more and love our brothers more. It brings us into one common family. It's surprising to note that the beginning of the Pentecostal movement was fundamentally a call to radical love and oneness. There's neither Jew nor Greek or slave or free. All of us are one in Christ. Because when the Holy Spirit comes on us, divine love comes to us, we no longer see color. They have been washed in the blood of Jesus. So if Symo is right, if he's truly the founder of the worldwide Pentecostal movement, then speaking in tongues takes a lesser priority to the first principles, the core to radical love and oneness in Christ. Because where the Holy Spirit of God is, radical love and oneness will be the evidential fruit of the sin. So it's not about tongue speaking, as much as that is a fruit of our experience of God, but it's really about love, and oneness. Let me conclude. What does a life live in and through the Spirit look like? First, it's a life of power. It's a life where we experience a greater effect of power beyond our human ability, both to minister and to serve God, whatever role we are serving the Lord, even in our families, to be more patient with our children, with our spouses, power beyond ourselves can be used, can be experienced today. Both to minister and in our personal weakness, God will give us strength beyond our ability. Secondly, supernatural joy and freedom. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are filled with a sense of joy and freedom. Just as how the charismatic renewal was launched in the US by Dennis Bennett, it all begins to be happy people. People are just happy, people are just aware of God. So to receive this supernatural joy and freedom, we need to pray for the infilling of the Holy Spirit, or what in other terms is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Thirdly, radical love and oneness. We are called to radical love and oneness in Christ. Where the Holy Spirit is, radical love and oneness will be the evidential fruits we see. I painted a picture using words to help us see the possibilities. My goal today, as I share with us, is to stir in us a hunger for the Spirit of God, for a spirit-empowered life. It's not really to tell us what to do, so to speak, but to stir in us a hunger, a desire for a greater work of God in our lives. Do we desire to experience more of the reality and presence of God in our lives? Or are we content? Are we contented where we are? Supernatural power, a life of power to live beyond our human ability can be can be ours. We find that God carries us through life, the good and the bad, instead of us striving to keep it afloat. The life in the spirit is a life of supernatural power over our lives. Overflowing joy. The manifest presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives brings about supernatural joy and freedom. And lastly, radical love and oneness. It's all about love and oneness. It's not about hatred, discord, division, playing the racial game. It's about people of God gathering to pray and seeking God's God's love comes upon us.

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We are all one.com. Have a blessed day.