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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Hi. My name is pastor Matt Brown. I wanna welcome you guys to Sandals Church and I brought one of my best friends for show and tell today. This is, my best friend every single morning and if you're under 30, this is what old people do who care about money and don't wanna spend $6.50 every day on a cup of coffee and I know it tastes better and it comes from the mountains of wherever. But, this morning my my coffee pot wouldn't work.
Pastor Matt Brown:How many you guys ever had that experience? Where it just doesn't work. And so I brought it with me today to church hoping that we could lay hands on it and pray over it because the Lord knows I need my coffee, amen, before I go out and experience the world. So I brought it to church today. I've laid hands on it.
Pastor Matt Brown:I I I've prayed over it repeatedly. And no matter how much I believe, no matter how much I care, it just won't work. Does anybody wanna know why? It's It's not plugged in. And this is how most Christians come to church every single week, wondering why, oh, I didn't get anything out of the message.
Pastor Matt Brown:Oh, the worship was stale. Or I've heard that story before. The problem isn't the pot. The problem is the pot is not connected to its power source. And unfortunately, some of us have been disconnected from the Holy Spirit so long we forgot what it was like to experience him.
Pastor Matt Brown:Last week, Pastor Fredo did such an amazing job letting you know, look, the Holy Spirit isn't just a power source, He's a person. And He loves you and He cares for you and He wants to empower you today. And I wanna encourage you, open yourself up to the Holy Spirit. And remember, we're a big church. We have people coming from all different backgrounds, all different experiences, but we wanna know what has God called us to at Sandals Church and how does he wanna empower us through the power of the Holy Spirit?
Pastor Matt Brown:So let's open our Bibles to Acts chapter two. Acts chapter two is where the Holy Spirit takes center stage. Many of you believe in God, many of you are followers of Jesus, but you've never fully understood the Holy Spirit and his role in your spiritual life. So point number one, I want you to write this down. The Holy Spirit gives me power for a purpose.
Pastor Matt Brown:My coffee pot doesn't just want power because it wants power. Amen? That's called a politician. Can I get an amen? My coffee pot wants power to do something.
Pastor Matt Brown:It takes power to do what? Make coffee. Some of you guys don't understand. This is what this does. The young people are like, Oh, I don't have to go to Starbucks.
Pastor Matt Brown:No, you don't. It has power to produce something. The Holy Spirit is never about you receiving power. The Holy Spirit is about you receiving power to do something. So let's open our Bibles.
Pastor Matt Brown:I said Acts chapter two, let's move back a couple verses and let's look together at Acts chapter one verse eight. Jesus says this, but then you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. This is his promise to all believers, to all of us. And he says, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria. And then he keeps going, And to the ends of the earth.
Pastor Matt Brown:So the primary purpose of the Holy Spirit, and many people have missed this, is not to come and give you a feeling, but to come and give you a job. Can I get an amen? You see the Holy Spirit is more interested in my mission for Him than it is in my moments with Him. As Christians, we need to understand this. Jesus says, you're gonna receive the Holy Spirit, not to speak in tongues, not to have incredible feelings, not to have incredible gifts.
Pastor Matt Brown:The primary role of the Holy Spirit is for you to accomplish your mission in life. So if you're interested in the Holy Spirit, you need to be interested in his mission for you. Jesus tells us this in Luke twenty four forty nine. He says this, and now I will send the Holy Spirit just as my father promised. He says, but stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.
Pastor Matt Brown:How many of you have a family member, a friend, a spouse that does not know Jesus and you desperately want them to come to Christ? Raise your hands. Isn't it amazing? And you just can't connect with them. It just doesn't work.
Pastor Matt Brown:Maybe what we need to do today at the end of service is invite the Holy Spirit into this process. And the reason we wanna invite the Holy Spirit into this process is because we need more power from on high to convince people to believe in Jesus. Now, I could just take a survey and ask how many of you have ever had an experience with tongues in your life, really there would be a dividing marker in the middle of our church. Those of us that grew up in charismatic circles would say, yeah, of course, I've experienced this my whole life. I've been wondering why we don't do this more at Sandals Church.
Pastor Matt Brown:Thank you for your judgment. But then there's some of us that would say, no, I've never had that experience. Listen to me, want you to understand this. We have all had the experience of tongues. Everyone has experienced this and I can prove it to you.
Pastor Matt Brown:Sometimes after my service, I'll be in the lobby and you will tell me something that was so profound, so amazing about my message that I did not say. Because here's why, the Holy Spirit borrows the words of people. And just so you know, tongues in the Bible means language. Have you ever spoken without your tongue? Try it.
Pastor Matt Brown:It doesn't work. You can't do it. So listen, the Holy Spirit is always involved in speech that proclaims the truth of God. Always, it's the only way people get saved. And have you ever wondered why you came to Sandals Church?
Pastor Matt Brown:You ever wonder why God brought you to Sandals Church? He loves you so much. Listen to me. The Holy Spirit cares for you so much. He created a church specifically for you with a pastor designed specifically to reach your ears.
Pastor Matt Brown:That's why there are thousands of different churches all over the world because God wants to bless not just the gift of tongues, but he wants to bless your ears. The Holy Spirit, number two, allows us to hear and understand God through others. So I wanna encourage you, if you grew up Pentecostal, I want you to read through Acts chapter two. The miracle is not the tongues, the miracle is the hearing. They heard God for the first time in their lives through a person who didn't speak their native language.
Pastor Matt Brown:Acts chapter two, let's look at verse one through six. Now we're gonna talk more about this next week. I want you to be really, really careful about personal experiences with the Holy Spirit and here's why. In the Bible there's only one time, one person who has a personal experience with the Holy Spirit alone. Do know what his name Jesus.
Pastor Matt Brown:Everybody else is in community with someone else. Even the Apostle Paul to receive the Holy Spirit, he gets it from Ananias, another believer. So we have to understand this. The Holy Spirit works primarily dynamically with the gathered church. So they're all together.
Pastor Matt Brown:They're not individual. They're not out on their own. Okay? They're not listening to the U2 Joshua Tree album out in the desert. What they're doing is they're worshiping together.
Pastor Matt Brown:This is why coming together and worshiping is so powerful because the Holy Spirit works dynamically when we're gathered. Verse two, And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind. Now be careful here. Don't get caught up in the wrapping of the gift. A lot of people wanna focus on how the gift was wrapped.
Pastor Matt Brown:The gift is the Holy Spirit. Let's not lose our minds with the pyrotechnics that God used. And it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak in other tongues.
Pastor Matt Brown:So here's what I want you to see here in Acts chapter two, they instantly have the gift of speaking in languages they never studied and did not know. And if you're a missionary or you're thinking about missions, the Holy Spirit needs to be a part of what you're doing or you're never gonna learn another language. Anybody take seven years of Spanish like me and can't say a thing? Somebody should have prayed the Holy Spirit over me. Amen?
Pastor Matt Brown:Because that's what that's what we need. We need the Holy Spirit. Children can learn language as adults, man, we suffer, amen. We suffer. At this, as the spirit gave them utterance.
Pastor Matt Brown:And they were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. Think about this. God gathered the nations to himself. And at this sound, the multitude came together and they were bewildered. I want you to underline that word in your outlines because we're gonna talk about this.
Pastor Matt Brown:This is huge. Here's what's happening is Luke, the author is leaving us little breadcrumbs to understand what God is doing. So they're bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak his own language. So every person, every nation that's gathered together in this moment, they're not all hearing the same thing. They're all hearing their own native language and God is speaking directly to them.
Pastor Matt Brown:So why did I ask you to underline the word bewildered? This is important. Luke is trying to tell us something. The word bewildered or in some of your translations, it'll say confused, right? It means the same thing.
Pastor Matt Brown:It's just how you translate it. What it means is they didn't understand. What is happening here? How on earth can a person from a different nation, a different language, how can they be speaking to me in a way that I understand? They're confused.
Pastor Matt Brown:The word in the Greek is And here's why it's important. Because in Genesis eleven:seven, look at this verse, Genesis eleven:seven, this goes all the way back to the very first book in the Bible. God was fed up with us. We just kept sinning, we kept going our own way, we kept doing our own things and mankind said, hey, let's come make a name for ourself. Even though God had already given us a name.
Pastor Matt Brown:And Genesis 11 said, come let us go down there and confuse. Do you see the word? Their language. So that they may not understand one another's speech. Now here's what's crazy.
Pastor Matt Brown:The Hebrew word confuse is Bilal in the verb. In the noun form, it's Babel. So what that means is God did something there to confuse the language. So Jews for centuries quit speaking Hebrew and eventually almost overwhelmingly only spoke Greek. And so they translated the Hebrew Bible in to Greek.
Pastor Matt Brown:And the authors of the New Testament, Luke, Paul, John, these guys, they almost certainly read almost always from the Greek translation of the Bible. Guess which word they use to translate below. So here's what's happening. The tower of Babel is a story of confusion. Pentecost is the story about clarity.
Pastor Matt Brown:One, God scattered the nations and the second God is gathering the nations to reclaim them. Acts two eleven-twelve. We, by the way, 15 nations, I'm not gonna read all the names to you. We hear them telling in our own tongues, the mighty works of God. So there's at least 15 languages being instantaneously spoken.
Pastor Matt Brown:People that never studied, never learned, but they're communicating the wonders of God in a way that people can hear it and understand. Verse 12, And all were amazed and perplexed saying to one another, what does this mean? Listen to me, the Holy Spirit draws a crowd. Jesus saves the crowd. Can I get an amen?
Pastor Matt Brown:So listen to me, some of you guys you say, we need more of the Holy Spirit, amen. But we also need Jesus proclaimed. We need Jesus proclaimed. The Holy Spirit always points to Jesus. He's always pointing to Jesus.
Pastor Matt Brown:That's His role because Jesus is the savior of the world. Now again, big church, lots of different people, lots of different backgrounds, lots of different understandings. Here's what we believe at Sandals Church. There are not two classes of Christians. There are not those who are baptized in the spirit and those who are not.
Pastor Matt Brown:Here's what we believe at Sandals Church. Every single believer is baptized into the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation. Now, are many feelings, there are many experiences, there are many times where God has done something amazing, but you are baptized. If you are not baptized in the spirit, you are not saved. Jesus promised you will receive the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Matt Brown:And one of the greatest Pentecostal theologians of all time, his name is Gordon D. Fee, He says this with great pain. He says, I am a Pentecostal. He says, I am a Charismatic and my Charismatic and Pentecostal brothers believe in two baptisms and he says, there is one. And again, that's not to rebuke anybody.
Pastor Matt Brown:That's to say this is why we teach what we believe at Sandals Church and that's not to negate your experience. I'm just saying it wasn't a second baptism. It could have been a filling. Man, I hope you get a filling today. I hope you get a thousand fillings before you die.
Pastor Matt Brown:I want you to connect. I want you to be empowered. But listen to me, the Holy Spirit is available to every believer, every believer. And if you're not a Christian, listen to me, you can't have the Holy Spirit if you don't have Jesus. There's a guy in the book of Acts, his name is literally Simon the Sorcerer.
Pastor Matt Brown:How'd like to go down in history with that name? You're like holy Harry Potter, yep, that's in the book Acts. And do you know what Simon the sorcerer tries to do? He tries to buy the Holy Spirit. You can't buy the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Matt Brown:You can only receive him when you repent of your sins and you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. That's it. Jesus sends the spirit. You want the spirit, you need Jesus. Acts chapter two verse 13, look at this.
Pastor Matt Brown:But others were mocking him and said, they're filled with new wine. Right? Peter standing up with the 11 lifted up his voice and he addressed them. This is probably the funniest sermon ever. You guys are like, why are you always so funny?
Pastor Matt Brown:Why do you have to tell all these jokes? Listen to Peter's joke. He says, men of Judea and we who dwell in Jerusalem. You're like, that's not funny. He's gonna get there.
Pastor Matt Brown:He says, Let this be known to you and give ear to my words. Sounds like Abraham Lincoln. Amen? For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only 9AM. That is the funniest verse in the Bible.
Pastor Matt Brown:You know what he's saying? It's not 05:00. And you can hear somebody, It's 05:00 somewhere. It's the funniest verse in the Bible. We're not drunk yet.
Pastor Matt Brown:That's what he's saying. It's only 9AM, we have principles and morals. But look at verse 16, but this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. So if he grew up Jewish, he's going back to the Hebrew Bible and what he's gonna say is this has always been God's plan. God's plan was never to abandon the people of earth.
Pastor Matt Brown:God's plan has always been to save all people on earth. He started that mission through the Jews, but because the Jews were faithful and they brought us Jesus, now Jesus is bringing all nations to himself. Look at verse 17, And in the last days it shall be, God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Not just Jews, but Gentiles as well. Here's the thing, the Holy Spirit is for you.
Pastor Matt Brown:The Holy Spirit is for me. And this is why this is so important. I want you to go back to that family member, that friend that you have. We all have somebody that desperately needs to be delivered. My wife and I are going through this this week with someone that we love deeply, that's losing their battle to drugs, that's affecting our entire family.
Pastor Matt Brown:And we love this person so much. Listen to me, there's nothing we can do to reach this person. You ever tried to communicate your love to somebody and your words just don't work? You just can't seem to penetrate through the veil of their addiction, their lack of discernment, their lack of wisdom. The Holy Spirit can get through anything.
Pastor Matt Brown:The Holy Spirit can get through anything. And I wanna encourage you that God wants to use my voice to help save someone's soul. This is so important. I always get nervous before I give altar calls. And I know some of you are well you shouldn't pastor, well you're not the one giving the altar call.
Pastor Matt Brown:And here's why in my flesh, our vision is being real. I just wanna be real with you. I'm always worried about my part. You know, I'm always scared to death that my sermon will be so bad somebody invites Buddha into their heart. You know what I'm saying?
Pastor Matt Brown:It's just like, wait a minute. But I have to remind myself, I'm just the messenger. The Holy Spirit is the power. The Holy Spirit's the power. Now, some of you have noticed, it's always amazing, you know, the comments I get from you guys after my sermons and very, very few comments about the actual sermon.
Pastor Matt Brown:Lots about how I dress, what I say, still getting letters from homeschool moms, appreciate that. I love you. But inevitably, inevitably I'm gonna get a DM on Instagram this week and you know what somebody's gonna say? Where's your wedding ring? All the time.
Pastor Matt Brown:Where's your wedding ring pastor? Matt's been on vacation, what's he been doing? Well let me tell you what happened to my wedding ring. Anybody know we've had huge surf lately? You wanna know where your pastor's been?
Pastor Matt Brown:Enjoying it. Every single day. Every single day. I got my brother in Chicago's like, Are your guys house okay? I'm like, Yep, and I'm in the water loving every second of it because I don't own a house on the beach, Amen.
Pastor Matt Brown:Can I get an Amen? Not my problem. But the waves were really big and particularly last Sunday the waves were 20 feet and if I can just be honest with you, better than my skill level at surfing. And I figured that of course after I paddled out, right? Amen, that's a good time to realize, yeah, this is beyond my level and no surfer's gonna rescue, you're on your own buddy, I don't care if they go to Sandals Church or not, they're like, we can get a new pastor, amen?
Pastor Matt Brown:And so I caught a couple waves and I realized, look, I knew Tammy was nervous, I gotta get home, God still has a purpose for my life and you know, I'm not sure He loves me enough to be Jonah, can I get an Amen? Know, I'm like, I don't know that I get to share that story and so I paddled in and it was really, really scary, there was debris in the water, I mean like parts appear and houses and people's like lawn chairs and stuff out in the ocean and the hardest part is to get back in and you're trying to time it right and the beaches are gone you guys, there's no beach, just like rocks and houses and it's crazy so I'm trying to figure out how to get in and somebody asked me, well, you weren't nervous, right? Because lifeguards. And I was like, that's interesting that you say that. And I never look at the lifeguard towers, I never do, but for whatever reason this week when I was paddling in and I did, I looked at the lifeguard tower right as I came in and you know what the lifeguard was doing and this is no shame on any lifeguards, thank God for them, they're all brave, I appreciate what they do so please don't send me a letter about how I disrespected your 17 year old that's a lifeguard.
Pastor Matt Brown:Every profession is people. When I looked up at the lifeguard, do you know what he's doing? He's on his phone. And can I just tell you church, I know many of you are worried that California is going to hell and it is, but I think we're more connected to our phones than we are to our mission? And I told that story to one of my friends and they said, was your wife mad that you lost your wedding ring?
Pastor Matt Brown:I said no, she's glad I didn't drown and I'll buy another one, can I get an amen? Still married, still in love, going on thirty one years, relax. But as a church, we have to just say, okay, we gotta take responsibility for this. We can't convince California they're sinners and they need Jesus. We have to convince ourselves that we desperately need the Holy Spirit and without him, we won't save anybody and we won't make a difference.
Pastor Matt Brown:So let's get off our phones and let's get connected to the spirit. Let's take a look at Acts two thirty seven. And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, listen, this is why preaching is so important. This is why tongues is never enough.
Pastor Matt Brown:This is why ecstatic worship and celebration is never enough. People need to hear the gospel. The Holy Spirit draws the crowd. The gospel gives people an opportunity to be saved. And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized.
Pastor Matt Brown:Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you, not some of you and you, all of you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So here's what I want you to know. The Holy Spirit is here. We don't have to invite Him here.
Pastor Matt Brown:He shows up whether you want Him here or not. The Holy Spirit is about the church. The Holy Spirit gathers with the church. The Holy Spirit is here to do a couple of things. Number one, to empower me.
Pastor Matt Brown:How many of guys need power in your life? It always cracks me up. Some of you come to church, you don't bring coffee. We got dudes with 32 ounce monster energy drinks. Okay, no judgment, but maybe give the Holy Spirit a try before we have a heart attack.
Pastor Matt Brown:Can I get an amen? I mean, could say a lot of things about my sermon, boring is not one of them. Heretical maybe, amen, right? But not boring. But the Holy Spirit is here to empower me.
Pastor Matt Brown:Anybody raising kids? You need power. Me and my sweet little grandson, my sweet little angels getting ready to turn two and we're feeling it. He's learned a new word. You wanna hear it?
Pastor Matt Brown:No. Nobody taught him, hey repeat after me, no. But he has this. Anybody raising teenagers? That's just a bigger version of a two year old.
Pastor Matt Brown:Anybody raising young adults? Nobody tells you, it never ends. It never ends. The decisions are just bigger and the consequences are greater. But next the Holy Spirit, listen to me, wants to embolden me.
Pastor Matt Brown:When I became your pastor thirty years ago, I was scared to death. I was a youth pastor, I had like three sermons. What do you do week four? I've said in three weeks, I said everything I know. Listen to me, the Holy Spirit does not make people impressive, He makes them talk.
Pastor Matt Brown:He makes them talk. Some of you have a spouse that you've been praying for for years, invite the Holy Spirit to give you words. You have a son or a daughter that's walked away from the church, invite the Holy Spirit to give you words. Jesus said this, Jesus said, Don't worry if you get dragged before kings and you go to court, the Holy Spirit will give you words. That's what Jesus said.
Pastor Matt Brown:Start asking the Holy Spirit for words. Give me words. I want you right now to think of one name, one name and you're gonna ask the Holy Spirit for today to help you share with them the good news about Jesus Christ this week. That way I'm not the only person that's scared, we're all scared, can I get an amen? Some of you've never done this in your life.
Pastor Matt Brown:You want the Holy Spirit in your life? You want the Holy Spirit's power? Then you need to accept the Holy Spirit's mission. And the Holy Spirit's mission is to share the gospel. And then here's how I'm gonna close today.
Pastor Matt Brown:The Holy Spirit is here to connect with you. My coffee pot won't work, right? We've prayed over it, we've laid hands on it, we've kicked the devil out, amen. We've done everything. I asked our team to count all the outlets in this room.
Pastor Matt Brown:There's 22. They're here the whole time. 22 outlets all around us. I want you to know the Holy Spirit is not just around you, if you're a believer, He's inside you. He's just waiting for permission to move.
Pastor Matt Brown:But here's the thing, the Holy Spirit doesn't wanna empower you for your mission, He wants to empower you for His. And I wanna encourage you, I wanna challenge you, invite the Holy Spirit in to your life today and just confess I've resisted you. I've sinned against you. I've made my faith about myself and I'm ready to embrace this crazy mission. And let me say this, California needs us to be full of the spirit, amen.
Pastor Matt Brown:They need us desperately. Your family needs you to be full of the spirit. Your marriage needs you to be full of the spirit. Our church needs you to be full of the spirit every single week. I promise you if you're full of the spirit my sermons will be better, can I get an Amen?
Pastor Matt Brown:I mean I go preach at my charismatic friends churches and I say my name is Matt Brown and somebody's like, alright, alright. I haven't even said anything yet. You guys are like impress me, impress me. But let's right now close our eyes, let's open our hands and let's just invite the Holy Spirit to fill us afresh again. And again, listen to me, if you're not a Christian, this is not for you.
Pastor Matt Brown:You have to have Jesus to have the Spirit. So for all believers, heavenly father, we just confess our sin to you. We confess that we've resisted the spirit. Some of us have resisted the spirit out of our religious tradition. Some of us have resisted the spirit out of our rhythms in life.
Pastor Matt Brown:Either way, Spirit, we just say we're sorry. And we invite you into our lives to empower us. For some of us Lord, that means conviction. We are closer to sin right now than we are to your spirit. Holy Spirit, we invite you to convict us of our sin.
Pastor Matt Brown:Holy Spirit, we invite you to empower us with your grace. Holy Spirit, do your work in us as a church. We cannot do this without you. Spirit of the living God, we ask that you fall fresh on us. We pray this in Jesus' name.
Pastor Matt Brown:Amen.