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The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
I think I mentioned already, but I'll mention again, turn your
Bibles, please. Acts chapter 2 this morning.
Acts chapter #2 And I do feel like the Spirit of God is with
us today. Preached about that on Wednesday
night. Well, I think I did, but
preached on that on Wednesday night.
Plan on preaching on it again this Wednesday night.
And if you know, you know what I'm talking about.
But Acts chapter 2, you know, we did mention a few weeks ago, I
mentioned that as we finished our series, going through first
Peter and second Peter add to your faith.
And we were going through it for about a year and a half, maybe a
little bit longer. We mentioned that when we were
done, we were going to look at some stories again, some
biblical accounts of Peters life, because what we saw last
week was that the very last word of Peter's life was this growth.
Remember to grow in grace into our into the knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ and to grow in glory.
That he was to give glory to the Lord and Savior.
And so we saw that last week that Peter was to grow, that his
life wasn't defined by 1 moment, either good or bad, that his
life wasn't defined by one decision.
That his life was defined by the fact that as Peter went along
through the Bible, we saw him consistently grow over and over
again. And I want us to see some of
those accounts over the next few weeks in the book of Acts.
And the first one I want us to focus on is in ACT chapter #2
But I do want to ask this question because we saw that,
well, Peters last word was that he was to grow, but we saw last
week we're supposed to grow too, right?
And we're not perfect. I mean, if you think you are,
then well, you've got some more problems that we can't deal with
this morning for time. But we understand we're not
perfect. Even if you know Jesus Christ,
your Savior, we look forward to that day.
We'll meet him face to face and we will be in perfection in that
day. But in the meantime, we're in
the middle of our growth, of our sanctification.
We're just trying to be more like Christ every day.
We are supposed to be growing. But here's the question.
You know, we all agreed last week, at least I think you did,
that we're supposed to grow. I preached on that for quite a
while, but here's the question. Seven days have passed.
Did you grow? Did you find some areas in your
life where you realized, you know what I need to grow in
these areas in my Christian life?
Did you take some time to think about how you can work towards
that growth? And finally, in the end, can you
say, you know what, the growth may have been small over this
last week? Because of course, in the amount
of seven days, it could be that's very short or very small.
But at the same time, do you at least feel like you grew from
last week to this week? Or maybe you'd say something
like this? You know, Pastor, I don't feel
like I grew at all. In fact, I feel like I might
have regret, regressed, or maybe you'd even say something like
this. Pastor, I was all about it on
Sunday, but by Monday, I really didn't think about it again
until you mentioned what you preached on last week just a few
moments ago. The question is, well, not
necessarily the fact that we need to grow, but maybe we need
to ask ourselves this question, What makes growth happen?
Okay, we know we need to grow. We saw that Peter commanded us
to by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we are to be
creatures of growth, grow in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ, to grow in grace and to grow by bringing God glory in
our life. But but if we're not doing it,
then what are we doing wrong and how do we do it?
How are we expected to do it? But here's what we do know.
Peter did grow. And look, don't make me go back
all the way to the beginning and to remind you all the ways that
he was an oath in the Gospels and how he was not so in the
book of Acts. We know that.
But what was it that made him this man of growth?
What changed in Acts chapter 2? What changed on that day of
Pentecost that made him the man that wrote the epistles that
have impacted countless generations for Christ?
Well, I think there's some very specific answers and I want us
to get into God's Word this morning to find those answers.
So let's play stand for the reading of God's Word.
If you're able. We're going to have a longer
passage of Scripture. So if you're not able, please be
seated. But if you are able, well,
please stand as we read God's Word, Acts chapter 2, beginning
in verse one. We'll get right to it.
And says. And when the day of Pentecost
was fully come, they were all with 1 accord in one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing
mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were
sitting, And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as a
fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they were all filled
with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as
the Spirit gave the mutter. And so we're going to find in
just a moment those other tongues were known languages,
and they were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men out
of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad,
the multitude came together, and we're confounded because that
every man heard them speak in his own language, and they were
all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not
all these which speak Galileans? And how here we every man in our
own tongue, wherein we were born Parthians, and Medes, and
Elamites, and the dwellers of Mesopotamia, and Judea, and
Cappadocia, and Pontius in Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia in Egypt,
and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome,
Jews, proselytes, Cretes, Arabians, we do hear them speak
in our tongue the wonderful works of God.
And they were all amazed. And we're in doubt, saying one
to another, What meaneth this? And of course not everyone could
be happy about this, right? Because others mocking said,
these men are full of new wine, meaning these guys are drunk.
But Peter standing up with the 11, lifted up his voice and said
unto them, Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem,
be this known unto you, and hearken to my word.
For these are not drunken as he supposed, seeing as but the
third hour of the day. But this is that which was
spoken by the prophet Joel. And what follows is Peter giving
a biblical message about what was taking place on that day.
But why? What was taking place on that
day was taking place, and it was all because of Jesus Christ.
Now drop down to verse #36 And Peter is summing it up.
And it says, therefore let all the House of Israel know
assuredly that God has made that same Jesus who He had crucified,
both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they
were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter, and to the rest
of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?
Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized, everyone
of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of
sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for the
promises unto you and to your children, and to all that are
afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
And with many other words to be testified, exhort, saying, Save
yourselves from this untoward generation.
The day that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same
day were added unto them about 3000 souls.
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and
fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers.
Why don't you go be seated this morning and we'll explore this
question. The title, the message is, what
makes growth happen? What makes growth happen?
Heavenly Father, help us here this morning as we look at
Peter's life. We've inspected him as epistles
over the last year and a half, and Lord, now we want to see it
applied in the life of Peter through the Acts.
And so I pray that you helped me this morning to say what needs
to be said. And again, we pray for the soul
of every person who is here that they be saved, and if they are
saved, that they're growing in the way that you ask them to
grow. And we ask this all in Jesus
name, Amen. Well, Acts chapter 1 tells us
that Jesus after 40 days ascended into heaven and he said
to his disciples that you are to wait here in Jerusalem for the
promise of the Holy Ghost. Now they were continuing to meet
in the upper room during that time.
In fact, there was in Acts chapter 1 about 120 who were
meeting together in the upper room and Peter took the lead.
In fact, Peter, who often was impetuous and got out ahead of
God, well, in this case was right where he needed to be and
he took leadership and he said, listen, Judas was an apostle.
He was a disciple. Disciple.
He no longer is because he is dead and we need to involve
someone else in his office of discipleship.
And the church had a vote. It says that they gave forth
their law. It's not that they cast their
lots in the sense that they gambled, but literally they
brought forth their votes, I believe, to be able to elect a
new disciple whose name was Matthias, who had been with them
since the very beginning. And so the disciples continue to
meet in this small group of people. 120 people were meeting
together. Now, could you imagine that
perhaps maybe there's a little bit of discouragement in the
lives of the church at that time?
Why would that be? Well, Jesus had ministered for
three years. He has died, he's buried, he has
rose again, but at the same time, he's no longer with them.
And not only that, it seems that the only fruit of Jesus's
ministry is 120 people. That could be some source of
discouragement for the disciples.
Look at all that we did. Look at all that Jesus did.
Look at the the multitudes of thousands that he would preach
to and they would feed and that he would do miracles.
And all we have is this 120 But yet they remained faithful.
And it was about 10 days. The Bible tells us, you say,
well, how do you know it was 10 days?
Well, because it tells us it was the day of Pentecost.
And the day of Pentecost was 50 days after the Passover penty,
meaning 50 Pentecost, this idea that 10 days after Jesus
ascended into heaven that they were meeting together.
And it says they were in all in one accord in one place.
By the way, there's a reason the church ought to meet together
because God does great things. When we're all in one accord and
we're in one place, it's good that we're all together because
God does great things. And listen, what you'll miss
when you miss church, and I'll leave it there, all right.
You don't know what you'll miss when you miss church.
And So what do we see? That they were all in what a
court in one place. And all of a sudden there was a
sound of a mighty rushing wind. And what happens?
There's these tongues that are as a fire, that are above the
heads of the disciples and those who were there, and those
they're seated upon them, it says in verse #3 And then they
start to speak. And they don't just start to
speak, but they start to speak in these other known languages.
Now, why is this important? Well, because there were all of
these people from all of these other nations.
Remember it was mentioned there of all those people from the
other nations. They'd all come, Jews for the
feast of Pentecost had come from all over the known world.
And so they had come bringing their own known languages with
them as well. And so God in a manifestation of
the Holy Spirit, who has now been bestowed upon the believer,
the promise that the Holy Spirit will indwell the believer.
And now the promise to wait for this.
And now it has been happening here in in Acts Chapter 2, they
start to speak to all these people and basically they're
able to witness to everyone in the crowd in their own
languages. And these people who are
speaking these languages didn't know those languages before.
Could you imagine, you know, my last name is Rivero.
I ought to know Spanish. I know the language as far as
the food goes, I can order food, but that's about it.
But could you imagine me all of a sudden not knowing Spanish,
being able to witness to someone in Spanish that I didn't know
before? This is what's literally
happening here in Acts chapter 2, a manifestation of the Spirit
in a very special way here in this chapter.
And so people are marveling. People are amazed.
They say, as it says in verse #11 that they are giving glory
to the wonderful works of God that are are taking place.
But of course, not everyone can be happy.
Not everyone can rejoice in what God's doing.
And there are others trying to be dismissive of this who
basically say, well, you know what the issue is?
These guys are drunk now. I don't know about you.
I've never been drunk. I'm not asking if you've ever
been drunk. But I know enough about just the
process of times and the process of how this works to know that
people who are drunk typically don't learn new languages.
I mean, listen, you don't, you don't need to experience it to
know that all of a sudden you don't get smarter.
Listen, you might have more courage, but you definitely
don't get smarter. You understand what I'm saying?
And all of a sudden they're leveling the accusation that
these guys are drunk because they're speaking in all of these
other languages. And obviously they're saying
that because some of these people don't understand what
these other languages are, and so they don't understand what's
going on. So there's confusion.
Listen, there's great joy, there's people rejoicing in the
wonderful works of God. But yet now there's an element
that's coming in that's mocking, there's element that's coming in
that's trying to sow confusion among the group.
And we know that it had to have been a mammoth amount of people.
Why? Well, because 3000 people ended
up being saved. So we know that even more than
that must have been there. So there's thousands of people.
Listen, there's no PA system. There's no way to broadcast in
the way that we would today. But what happens?
There was a man who never said the right thing.
There was a man who 50 days before raised his voice and
cursed the fact that he knew Jesus Christ.
Now let's not forget that, that 50 days before, he raised his
voice and cursed the fact that he even knew Jesus Christ.
And he stands up and he raised his voice.
He's a changed man. He raises his voice and there's
something different. In fact, if I was to be able to
focus on some word on a phrase here that I think really cements
what has happened in Peter's life, it's the first 4 words of
verse #14 will you look at those with me?
Look at those first 4 words. It says this, but Peter standing
up. How can we see Peter's life
changed? Peter's standing up.
Well, listen, the other eleven were too.
It's not that Peter was the only one.
We want to make sure we're reading the Bible in its proper
context. But yes, Peter stood up where he
stood still or where he stood in opposition to the things of God,
not just many days before where he stood as one who was going to
quit on God when he said, I go a fishing.
Now Peter stood up and listen, he never sat down again.
He never changed from that moment.
No, no, he wasn't perfect. He was still a man of growth,
but something had changed in this man.
And he stood up and he said, listen, you think we're drunk?
What's the matter with you? It's the third hour of the day,
meaning this it's 9:00 AM. You think that we're drinking
and we're drunk and it's 9:00 in the morning.
No, no, this is not what it is. And then he starts to preach a
biblical message. Now I don't have time to go in
through all the message from the passages he brings out from
Joel. Chapter #2 Psalm.
Chapter #16 Psalm 110. And here's what Peter does.
And by the way, he's not carrying around the Bible with
him. He's not carrying around notes.
He's just preaching because the Holy Spirit is speaking through
him in that moment. And listen, there's nothing
wrong with having notes. If not, well, listen, we don't
have a problem if I didn't have notes up here.
Amen. But the idea is the Spirit can
work through notes. But there are also times that
I've had to have a word and I've had to speak extemporaneously
because of a situation. I know it's not me because if it
was me, it would be that's all folks.
And it would be that's all folks.
But you know, it's the Lord, you know it's Him.
And so we don't, we see that, that Peter starts preaching and
he preaches a message and he preaches in a way.
Listen, Peter's a changed man and he's never the same.
Now once you understand something, growth does take a
lifetime, but change in your life can happen in a moment.
Growth can happen over a lifetime.
It does have no life, but change could have no Do you realize God
could change your life today if you don't know Jesus Christ your
Savior? We'll look at this in a minute
because this is the thrust of Peters message.
If you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, your life can
change today by trusting in the gospel message that your life
can be forever changed. That you could spend an eternity
in a lake of fire, but instead that you could spend an eternity
with Jesus Christ in heaven. Not because of what you did.
Not because of what I said. Not because of who I am or who
you are, who this church is, or what we think of ourselves.
Because of what Jesus Christ He himself did on the cross.
And you trusting in the gospel message, your life can change in
a moment. But sometimes as believers, we
forget that our lives can change in a moment too, That you can be
on the wrong Rd. you could be in the wrong path.
No, no, that's that you're going back to hell.
No, no, when you are saved, you are safe with the Lord in the
sense that you are eternally secure in Him.
I believe the Bible clearly teaches that.
But yes, we can still make wrong choices.
We can still go down the wrong path.
And So what do we see from that? We come to the understanding
that, listen, there are times when the God speaks to us that
we need to make a change and while growth may take a
lifetime, that that change could happen in a moment.
That you can come to the altar today and your life can change.
Got a lot more quiet there. You have to go to the altar.
Yes, you have to go to the altar.
No, I'm just kidding. You don't have to go to the
altar. The altar is there and I think
it's there for a good purpose. I think it's there for a good
purpose. But your life can change in your
seat this morning by bowing your head and confessing sin to the
Lord or confessing going the wrong way.
Oh, oh, sure, there'll still be battles that take place after
that, but that's where the process of growth comes.
But but here's what happened. Peter stood up and all of a
sudden things started to change. And what happened while he
preaches this biblical message, he preaches about the fact that
it's all about Jesus Christ. And he's preaching to a group
that 50 days ago was shouting, crucify him, crucify him almost
in the exact same spot. Well, what happens?
Bible says they were pricked in their hearts and they said men
and brethren, what shall we do? He says repent and be baptized,
everyone of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins. And, and by the way, just I
don't have time to get into this this morning, but when it says
repent and be baptized for in the name of Christ for the
remissions of sins, it's not saying that you have to be
baptized for your sins to be washed away.
Rather, it's saying that you are to be baptized because your sins
were washed away through salvation, not by the water of
the baptismal font, but rather by what the blood of Jesus
Christ. That's what it's saying here
because nowhere else do we find in the Bible that someone was
baptized to be saved. We find in the Bible that people
were saved and then they were baptized.
And this is an important point because if it was up to baptism
to save us, then that would be our own work that we either we
did ourselves or whether our parents did for us to know that
every single one of us have to come in contact with Jesus
Christ ourselves. And like Peter was asked, well,
whom say ye that I am? He says thou art the Christ, the
Son of the living God. You have to answer for yourself
who Jesus Christ is and the Bible says in verse 39 for the
promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are far
off and Peter says this and I love this verse knew why I love
this verse so much because he says this promise is to you your
children. He's saying to the people that
are there at the temple that day, but he says that also to
all that are far off. Do you know who that is That's
you. Peter was talking about you that
day. He was talking about me.
The promise wasn't just for the Jews of that day.
The promise wasn't just for the children of the Jews that day.
The promise was for the Gentiles.
The promise was for all. The promise wasn't just for all
of that time. The promise was for all of all
time. And listen, that includes you
and that includes me. But the promise that Peter was
expressing that day is for us today as well.
And what happened? He says save yourselves from
this untoward generation. That doesn't mean you bring
salvation upon yourself, but what do you need to do?
You need to throw yourself upon the one who will save you, and
that's Jesus Christ. Make that decision to be saved.
They they gladly received His word, were baptized.
It says in the same day were added unto them about 3000
souls. The church that existed at that
day, I believe that church that was empowered by the Spirit that
day but already existed, It says they were added under that
meaning they were already there 3000 souls.
You want to talk about a church membership campaign, Have a
church that goes from 120 to 3120 in one day.
You think you don't know who's here right now because so many
new people are here. Imagine being one of the ones
saying, you know, are you new? Are you new?
And everybody says yes. In fact, you can't find the
people who are old because there's so many new people.
That's what happened. What happened?
Well, people got saved, got baptized, you got added in the
church. You know what happened After
that? They continued steadfast in
apostles. Doctrine.
Doctrine is important. What you believe is important.
Where you get that doctrine from is important.
And fellowship, you say? So they must have had potlucks.
And, well, the answer is no, because crock pots hadn't been
invented yet. All right, what do you know?
That they did break bread house to house, the Bible says.
But honestly, fellowship is so much more than a meal.
It's people having commonality with one another, loving one
another. The breaking of bread, it says.
And in prayers they continued on together.
They were changed. He preached.
Now, was Peter the one who saved them?
No, but did Peter, was Peter greatly used by God?
Yes. And he's almost unrecognizable
to us from the end of the book of John, the man who D quit, the
man who Jesus had to ask Peter, lovest thou me more than these?
And I believe when he said love is thee more than these, he was
pointing at those fish that he toiled all night to catch and he
couldn't catch and that only Jesus Christ could bring to him.
And he says you love me more than these.
And the third time broke him and just a few days later, a few
weeks later, here he is. But Peter standing up.
So here's the question, what did or whether, why did Peter change
only 50 days after his greatest failure and just a few weeks
after quitting as a disciple? But before I answer that, I want
to ask you the question this morning.
In your Christian life, have you ever feel felt like giving up,
throwing in the towel? I get tired of feeling like I
deal with the same things over and over again.
You ever feel like you go 2 steps forward and three steps
back? You ever feel like, well I'm
faithful for a while, then I'm unfaithful for a while.
I know I need to grow. In fact, every time I come on
Sunday morning, I know I need to grow, but then I don't grow.
You get tired of that. By the way, if you think I'm
preaching at you, I got bad news and good news for you.
The bad news is a lot of other people in this building feel the
same way. And the good news is a lot of
other people in the building feel the same way.
A lot of us feel like we should be further along than we
actually are in our Christian life.
So how what makes growth happen? Well, I think the answer is
right here in our text, and I've alluded to it several times
without directly pointing to it, but the answer is right here.
Go to verse #4 if you will. And it says this.
And they're all filled with the, what's the next two words, Holy
Ghost? And they were all filled with
the Holy Ghost. See, the issue isn't what makes
growth happen. You know, what is it, Pastor?
Tell me the trick. Tell me the one weird trick that
I need to do to be able to live my Christian life.
You know, just tell me what it is.
Tell me what the scheme is. Tell me what the program is.
Tell me what the pay in is. Whatever it is, I'll do it.
But see, the issue is, it's not what it is that makes growth
happen in the Christian life. Really, the question is, who is
it that makes growth happen in the Christian life because of
its human effort? It's about you, about what
you're going to get done, and you're going to make yourself
grow. You're going to fall flat in
your face over and over and over and over and over again.
And then sanity is doing the same thing a million times,
expecting something different. What do we see that the
difference in Peter's life, the difference in the other
disciples life. The reason Peter was able to
stand up and speak in the way that he spoke and you see
results in the way they saw results was not because Peter
pulled himself up by his bootstraps.
It wasn't because he felt guilty before, but now he feels better.
It wasn't because he decided to, you know, get some help from
someone and, and be able to go and, and talk to a stranger or
talk to a friend or vent to somebody.
You know, there's only one reason and one reason alone.
He was able to do what he was able to do here in Acts chapter
2, and it was the Spirit, and the Spirit inside of him was the
agent of change, the Holy Spirit who helps us grow.
I want you to turn your Bibles quickly to John chapter 14.
You don't need to save your space in Acts chapter 2, John
chapter 14. Remember, they've been promised
the Spirit's manifestation in Acts chapter 1.
I mentioned that just a few moments ago.
But but look at John chapter 14. Look at verse #15 if you love
me, keep my commandments. Well, Pastor, why do I need to
live like Christ? Well, I mean, there's a good
reason right there. In fact, I'd say that was
checkmate right there, isn't it? If you love me, keep my
commandments, and I will pray the Father, and He shall give
you another comforter, that He may abide with you forever.
Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because
it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him.
But you know Him, for He dwelleth with you and shall be
in you. I will not leave you comforted
us, I will come to you. What is He saying here?
He was saying you wait. But the Holy Spirit, who in the
time frame we would call the Old Testament would come and go,
would dwell upon someone and then not dwell upon someone.
I think of Saul, for instance. I think of others.
That same Holy Spirit would now in dwell the believer the moment
they got saved. If you know Jesus Christ your
Savior, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you.
You understand when I say the Holy Spirit lives inside of you,
that means God himself dwells within you.
I mean, let's understand the ramifications of what we're
talking about here, that the minute you got saved, no, no,
not a progression, not after a moment of time, not after a
trial period, the minute you got saved, God himself dwells within
you. And that is a promise that was
given to us. And it's the Holy Spirit who
helps us grow. Drop down to verse #26.
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will
send in my name, He shall. What's that next word?
Teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance,
whatsoever I have said unto you. Do you think there's a reason
that Peter all of a sudden remembered all those verses he's
quoting in Acts chapter 2? Do you think there's a reason he
remembered the book of Psalms and there's a reason he
remembered Joe? Well, maybe it was the Holy
Spirit inside of him stirred up those things that he had
remembered before. Perhaps it was the Holy Spirit
who helped him to be able to stand up in the 1st place.
You know, the Holy Spirit changed everything and what to
them was something that he had never experienced before is
something you and I have lived with from the moment we got
saved. And it's an agent of change.
He is an agent of change that often times we don't even think
about. And we hear a message like last
week, Oh, I need to grow, I need to grow.
Well, I need to grow this week. You know what I'm going to do?
I'm gonna get up early, I'm gonna get up early.
I'm going to grow. I'm going to make sure I read.
I'm going to I'm going to pray and I'm going to do this and I'm
going to do that. I'm going to read some books
about growing. That's what I'm going to do.
I'm gonna get a growth. I'm gonna get a growth podcast.
And that's what I'm going to do. You know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to stand in the mirror and watch my hair grow and see,
let's grow now see growth. That's going to remind me that
I'm growing. You know that I'm growing, that
I'm growing a hair growing that I'm growing, I'm growing, I'm
growing, I'm growing, I'm going to that'm growing.
And you know what I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm
going to, I think I'm going to, I'm going to grow this and I'm
going to grow and that's that's growing.
And you know what I'm going to do kind of, but I'm really not.
None of those things in themselves are wrong.
It's good to have someone to help you grow.
Brothers and sisters in Christ ought to help each other.
There are good resources that are out there, biblical
resources that are out there to help you.
Be careful what podcast you listen to, friend, but there are
some good podcasts that could help you or sermons from other
churches that can help you. I'm not saying that I'm the only
source of truth that you're gonna be able to find.
That's the way the cults talk. You know, there's some really
good resources that are out there, but I'll tell you, don't
look to all the other resources without first looking to the
resource that lives inside of you.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Why on earth would you go to book before you'd go to God
Almighty who lives inside of you?
Why? Unless the book is the book of
books of which He has given us. Why would you go to a podcast
before you realize the Holy Spirit is my method of growth?
Why would you go to another fallible person, even if it's
your pastor? Before you say Holy Spirit, I is
the He is the one that's going to help me grow.
Ephesians 316 that he would grant you according to the
riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his
Spirit in the inner man. What does Holy Spirit do?
He strengths us in our inner self. 2nd Corinthians 318 But we
all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even
as the Spirit of the Lord. And basically what that verse is
saying is it's like looking into a mirror and the Holy Spirit is
able to change us when we see the man of who we're supposed to
be, the person who we're supposed to be, but not who we
are. How do we make that change?
Not on your own, but through the Spirit.
So what's the issue? The issue is the Spirit wants
you to grow and the Holy Spirit will help you grow, but the Holy
Spirit will not force you to grow.
It takes human effort. You say?
Are you talking about salvation? I didn't say I was talking about
salvation. Human effort and salvation are
two phrases that don't go together other than you
accepting the gift that already has been given.
But that's not works. That's accepting the free gift
that has already been given to us.
What I'm saying is this, maybe you hear this about the Holy
Spirit. You say, well, how does this,
OK, I like this, I like what you're saying, pastor, It's
encouraging to me. God lives inside of me.
But what does this look like? How do I make this happen?
Well, really, those two agents are necessary.
You have to have the Holy Spirit who does the growing, but you
also have to decide to take a step on your own to do the
things that God's called you to do.
I thought about doing this this morning, but I thought it would
probably be bad in a lot of different ways.
But many of you have seen science experiments done,
science experiments done, this with your children where you get
baking soda and you put vinegar in the baking soda.
Isn't that a lot of fun? But I thought about doing that
this morning, but I thought, you know, between the smell or the
fumes or sounds like we don't, we don't need any more variables
going on this building anymore right now.
And so let's just keep it as best as we can.
I think in our minds, we can imagine just a bowl full of
vinegar being here and just taking a large box of baking
soda and dumping it inside the vinegar.
What happens immediately? There's a reaction, isn't there?
The growth is immediate and large and violent in many ways,
isn't it? What happens?
There's a reaction between. Don't ask me scientifically how
this happens, all right? It's just, it just happens.
There's a reaction between the baking soda and the vinegar, and
all of a sudden here it is. What I'm telling you this
morning is if you want to truly grow, you need to decide to take
the steps that you need to take, but then watch what the Holy
Spirit will do when you take those steps.
So well, you're saying this is all about me.
No, no, I'm saying is this. The Holy Spirit won't force you
to grow. The Holy Spirit's not going to
force you to pray. The Holy Spirit won't force you
to live a holy life. The Holy Spirit won't force you
to do the things that you ought to do.
God has given us a free will to be able to discern whether we
should or should not do these things or whether we should obey
or disobey God. He will not force us to be able
to do these things, although He has granted us so many gifts to
be able to help us to do that which is right.
So what do we do? So in our human effort we say,
God, I know I need to read my Bible.
Do I feel like it? No, but I'm going to anyway.
I'm going to pray. Anyone have trouble praying the
last few days? No, you're allowed to be honest
in church. It's OK.
Good place to be honest. I mean, no.
You start to pray. Maybe there's anger boiling up
inside of you. Unrighteous thoughts and you
have to stop and kind of reset. And if you're struggling with
sin, you know it's sin, habitual sin that you wrestle with and
you cry about and you pray to God and you go right back to it
like a dog to the vomit. And you have no idea what to do.
Could I encourage you? You need to make a decision to
move forward and take the steps that are necessary.
Well, what do I do with that habitual sin?
Well, the Bible says if your eye offend you, cut it out.
Whatever is that offending item in your life, get rid of it.
Well, it's not that simple. What needs to be that simple?
Well, life's more complicated than that.
Well then you made it too complicated.
No, we want to show if you love me, keep my commandments.
But on our own that seems so hard.
On our own, it's impossible. It's impossible.
So you know what you do? You take the step, It's the
baking soda. But then you find that as you
take that step and you think, I can't do this, you realize
somehow, some way, the whole you to be able to do it.
And he carries you through. And then when you mess up, you
pray and you confess it, and you go back to starting to do what
God's called you to do again. Well, I want to be faithful in
church, but I just can't be faithful in church.
Well, you probably aren't faithful in church because
you've been trying to do it on your own.
Let God help you. I want to be faithful in giving.
Well, maybe you need the Holy Spirit to be able to help you.
So you want to give as God has commanded you to give, but you
want to do it on your own when God is the one who supplies all
of your needs in the 1st place. Don't you think God ought to be
part of that equation? He'll help you.
He'll help you to give. He'll help you to grow.
He'll help you in every air of your life.
I've got a multitude of verses up here that I could read to
you, but forsake of time. I won't do so this morning, but
I realize you want to read your Bible again.
He's the one that leads us in all truth.
Prayer, prayer. In prayer.
It says the likewise, Romans 826.
The Spirit helps us with our infirmities, for we knoweth not
what we pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes
intercession for us with groanings that cannot be
uttered. There are times that you don't
even know what to pray, and you just say, Lord, help me through
your Holy Spirit to be able to pray when I need to, and He'll
help you walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill what?
The lust of the flesh. Galatians 516 He's the one, the
Spirit of truth, that will guide us in all truth.
So He'll help us with the future.
He'll help us to have a spiritual motivation.
He'll help us with fear. Remember, we preached on fear a
few weeks ago. So Pastor, I'm still dealing
with fear and I look in the world, I'm still dealing with
fear. Look, the Lord had not given us
the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind.
Second Timothy 170 the Spirit is the catalyst for all of these
things. It's all about the Spirit.
And if you are trying to change your life on the on your own, if
you were trying to grow on your own, my advice to you this
morning is this, quit trying. Take the step of faith that you
need to take to make the changes in your life and allow the Holy
Spirit to do the work that only he can do.
And I will say this, there's an element of you today that again,
if there's some confusion in your heart, OK, I see pastor, I
need to make myself more like Christ and eventually I'll know
that I can go to heaven. You have fundamentally missed
the point of this message and you fundamentally missed what
Peter was telling us in Acts chapter 2.
Listen, only Jesus can save you, and only the Spirit of Jesus can
change you. And just as much as a plant
cannot grow without water and light, a Christian cannot grow
apart from the power of the Spirit.
And by the way, it's hard to have the Spirit lead you when
he's a Holy Spirit and you're not living a holy life.
Well, how can I do that? Well, you can't live a holy life
without the Holy Spirit. Don't walk in the Spirit.
Allow yourself to listen to Him and not your heart.
Allow yourself to listen to Him and not your flesh.
Allow yourself to listen to Him and not your emotions.
Your emotions rarely want to do what God wants you to do.
Now. Emotions are a wonderful gift
from God. They are.
Aren't you glad we're not robots?
I'm glad we're not. But a person who is guided by
their emotions is like a ship in the water that's tossed to and
fro and has no way of controlling itself.
You have to be led by the Spirit, Charles Spurgeon said.
The Holy Spirit does not merely help us.
He empowers us to live victoriously and to accomplish
God's purposes beyond our natural ability, AW Tozer said.
The Holy Spirit's power is not just a mere influence.
It's the very life of God flowing through US, enabling us
to do the impossible for His glory.
So stop treating the Holy Spirit like a powerless, lifeless,
toothless force and realize that He is the very Spirit of God.
And Acts chapter 1 tells us that He will give us power, gave them
power to reach Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of
the earth. And we have that power, but you
can't do it on your own. A few weeks ago, I had the
opportunity to go out on a pontoon boat with the Fletchers.
And so it was a good time. And they're trying to teach me.
I have AI, have a boating license.
I am a yes. I am a captain, in case you were
curious about that. And so back during the pandemic,
you could get boating licenses in New Hampshire online without
having to go in and take a class.
And so I thought, and this is great, I can get a boating
license during the pandemic. Of course, you know, you
couldn't actually, like, go on a boat.
But anyway, I can get the license and I'll be good.
I had the license for four years, never used it.
And so I realized I wanted to take a boat out, but I didn't
know how to do anything. It's been 4 years.
All right. You think you remember something
you learned from a class four years ago?
Yeah, right. Oh, man.
All right. So no way.
So we went out and I remember going at me.
We had a wonderful time. I'm just very thankful for the
opportunity we had. But we, there was a storm that
was coming. It's kind of like, I felt kind
of like Elisha's or Elijah's servant.
He kept running back and forth. And he says, oh, there's a
there's a cloud. It's like a like a man's hand.
And the next thing you know, like, you know, it rained like
it hadn't rained for 3 1/2 years.
I said, well, look at that cloud over there.
Isn't that cute? Next thing I knew, I mean, the,
oh man, it was, we're on the lake.
But it felt like we were just in the middle of, you know, the
perfect storm. You know what I'm saying?
It's like, this is, this is crazy.
It's going, the waves are going and all this.
And again, it probably was nothing.
But to someone who's a landlubber, someone who needs
Dramamine most of the time, it was a big deal, All right.
And so in a moment we had to get everything ready to pull out
because it came upon us so fast. And, and, and so Scott says pull
up the anchor. Now I don't know a lot about
boats. I know a little bit more now,
but I know what the anchor is. I saw us put it out and as it's
time to pull. And so it is, it is raining.
You ever been in rain? That's so hard.
It's like it stings you. It's just, and you're in the
rain and it's coming down. I can't see my glasses are I'm
trying to take my glasses off now.
I can't see because my glasses are off.
Oh yeah, there you all are. OK.
And so I'm pulling the anchor and I'm pulling it and I'm, I'm
getting it, but I'm not really getting it fast enough.
You know what I'm saying? It's like it's got to go.
It's slipping in my hand. I've never even done this
before. I'm pulling.
I'm like, does this thing ever end?
It's like it keeps going and going and going and finally I'm
just, I'm getting tired. I can't do anymore.
And all of a sudden I got a second wind.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm pulling it up, pulling the
chain up, throwing it up. And I felt like, man, I, I got
this, this is good. And I look back and I realized
for the last 20 seconds, Scott had actually been doing most of
the pulling. And I was there.
Somebody thought I should say Peyton was pulling, but it
wasn't my daughter. You know, it's just a I'm
pulling up. I got it, man.
I finally figured this out. I was like it, it wasn't even
me. It was him that was pulling it.
But you know, I had to boot. I had to do my part, but I
needed some help. And listen, when it comes to
growing your Christian life, you don't just need some help.
You can't do it without the Holy Spirit.
And some of you've been trying to do it on your own and you're
going like this and this and this, and you don't understand
why it doesn't get better. And listen, we all struggle with
this. Listen, avail yourself to the
power of the Spirit that lives inside of you.
And if you are not saved today, if you don't know Jesus Christ
your Savior, what are you waiting for?
I mean, you're never going to find a more friendlier crowd
that is literally rooting for you, praying for you to trust
Jesus Christ. Not to trust in Catholicism, not
to trust in empty religion, not to trust in humanism.
Self works, self love, self, anything, in fact anything that
starts with self and A-IS not going to save you.
Christ and Christ alone come to Jesus today.
Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of
Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing
to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us
know by contacting us at info@mylibertybaptist.org.
Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,
MA. May the Lord bless you as you
grow in His Word.