This message seeks to answer two questions in light of the book of Acts. 1. Is baptism with the Spirit a once off experience? 2. Is tongues the initial, essential evidence of being baptised with the Spirit? The message also reminds us of how much we continually depend on the presence & power of the Holy Spirit for everything in the Christian life & inspires us to raise our expectation again as we live for God & gather together as church. Series: Spirit-filled ![]()
![]()
The reality of being filled with the Spirit provides both what we need & it flows out of us for the benefit of others. It is for our good but it does not stop there! It is a blessing for us with a purpose bigger than us! Therefore the church is not so much like a bucket catching all the blessing of God, but like a drainpipe through which the blessing of God's Spirit flows. Reading: John 7:37-38; 2 Timothy 1:5-8 Series: Spirit-filled ![]()
![]()
'Baptism with the Spirit' is a gift given to equip believers for Christian life, ministry & mission. In this reality the Spirit gives freedom, confidence, boldness & power to do what God has called us to do. This has nothing to do with different levels of Christianity since it is promised to every believer. Rather this is about our desperate & ongoing reliance on the Spirit of God filling us. In the book of Acts the filling of the Spirit was not a reward for being holy. It was a gift given to empower weak & ordinary people to live lives they otherwise would not have lived. Reading: Matthew 3:11 Series: Spirit-filled ![]()
![]()
While new birth is a mysterious & supernatural work of the Spirit it will always brings focus on & connection to Jesus. The life that the Spirit brings to a person is focused on Jesus & it brings something of the eternal life he promised into our lives today. This is what the Spirit has come to do for us. He has come to connect us to Jesus, who is our life. To be Spirit-filled is to be connected to Jesus & to be connected to Jesus is to be connected to the eternal kind of life. Reading: 1 John 5:1-5 & 1 Peter 1:22-25 Series: Spirit-filled ![]()
![]()
![]()
Genuine Christianity is not fundamentally about going from bad to good, or good to great, or immoral to moral. It is fundamentally about going from death to life – it’s being raised from spiritual death to spiritual life so one can have a living relationship with a living God. Jesus taught that this is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is also how the Spirit-filled life begins. Reading: John 2:23-3:12 Series: Spirit-filled ![]()
![]()
How do we be a church solid in God’s Word & dynamic in the Holy Spirit? The answer is we embrace both wholeheartedly & we accept that they are so intimately related they cannot actually be separated. The Holy Spirit uses the words he inspired to make us spirutually alive & to progressively change us to be like Jesus. He has also come to empower the church to declare & live out the Word of God. This message underlines the importance of why we need to be a people of both the Word & the Spirit of God. Reading: 1 Thess. 1:4-5 Series: Spirit-filled ![]()
![]()
When the Spirit moves in people’s lives & in church gatherings people are liberated to worship God as themselves.To be filled with the Spirit means the Spirit filling our personality with his presence. When he fills us he does not cancel out who we are. He fills us as us. He fills our uniqueness, he fills our quirks & he fills our temperament. He does not come to squeeze us into a mould, to make us into someone else or to force us to conform to a particular style of worship; no he comes to liberate us to be who God created us to be - to worship & live for God as ourselves. As he does so he deals with the worst in us to bring out the best in us. We cannot worship God or serve others as anyone but ourselves. This is why we need to get this vision of the Spirit personally filling & empowering us as us, inhabiting us, filling & purifying our personhood for the glory of God so that we can mature in reflecting Christ together. What is needed is all of us filled with all of him. Series: Spirit-filled ![]()
|
Listen to AGF audio sermons. If you have any questions or would like to chat to someone after listening to a sermon please get in contact.Use the search box to seach for topics etc. Series
All
|