Jamie Haith Duration: 28’42”
10:00:00
10:00:05 In the last talk we saw how, early on in the book of Acts, the disciples are filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. They were actively seeking, they were expecting it, they were longing for it. But it wasn’t just at Pentecost.
There’s a number of other occasions as we go through the book of Acts where we see people experiencing the Holy Spirit.
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In Acts, chapter 8 there’s a group that aren’t so much longing or thirsting, but they are at least receptive. Acts 8 from verse 14:
When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then
Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
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HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 1/17

10:00:54 They’re quite open to receive. Clearly something dynamic’s going on. Not quite in that category of the disciples of longing for it, thirsting for it, but they are at least receptive. So that’s two groups, I suppose, that you could identify. But there
’s also some who are hostile, actively hostile. Apostle Paul: a perfect example of one of those. We first meet him early on in the book of Acts as Saul, the Christian persecutor. In Acts 9 it says:
10:02:21 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the
Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus so that if he found any there that belonged to the Way [early name for Christians, those that followed the Way] , whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.
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10:01:40 Saul could not have been more hostile —until something extraordinary happens to him on the road to Damascus: he encounte rs the risen Jesus Christ. He’s blinded by the glory and he’s, strangely enough, converted! And his life is utterly transformed. Verse 17 there:
10:01:56 Ananias went round to his house, placed his hands on Saul and said, ‘The Lord
Jesus…has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’
Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again.
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10:02:01
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 2/17

10:02:13 As we read on, the second part of Verse 19: ‘ Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus’ — I love that! You know, just if you want proof of the love and the forgiveness at the heart of this community, this is the man that’s been murdering everybody!
‘ Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus.
At once [at once!] he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.’
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10:02:36 Total transformation: actively hostile through to preaching about Jesus Christ.
From time to time we gather the stories of people that have done an Alpha course and their experience, and I was reading this one the other day —it’s in this little book called The God Who Changes Lives . And this is a story of one guy called Ian Morris. He says:
10:02:59 My wife was going off to church and loving it. And then one day in September she said to me, ‘Why don’t you come on an Alpha course?’ I said, ‘What do you mean, come on an Alpha course?’ She said, ‘Well, it’s a chance to come and discuss Christianity.’ I said, ‘No. That’s not a good idea.’ She said, ‘Why not?’ I said, ‘You’ve got to look at it this way: I’m red-hot at arguing with people, right?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, you know, frankly, you’re going to wheel up a load of weak, feeble Christians who are going to try and convin ce me that they’re right, and I’m going to blast them, and you won’t like that—so I’m not going!’
She said, ‘No, I won’t mind.’ ‘Look, okay, I’ll go on one condition: that you don’t get upset with me when I win the argument and people don’t turn up on
Sund ay because I’ve convinced them that God doesn’t exist!’ She said, ‘Yeah, come along.’ I said, ‘Right, you reckon your lads are up to taking it on? Okay, then I’m up for it!’ So I went along to disprove God.
10:03:49 How do you think this is going to end?! He goes on. He talks about his experience on the course, and then on this day, the Alpha Day, on the Alpha
Weekend. He says:
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 3/17

10:03:59
10:04:33
Later they asked if they could pray for me. I said, ‘Yeah, okay.’ So I sat on this plastic chair and a group gathered round me, laid their hands on me and started to pray for me. Richard, the pastor, said to me: ‘I feel God saying,
“What do you want?”’ I thought, ‘Well, okay, God, if you’re real, you prove it.’
I’m not a person given to emotion, but I suddenly felt this terrible darkness. It was like all the bad things I’d done and all the unkind things I’d said. At that I just broke down and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, surrounded by these people who basically I’d only just got acquainted with. I couldn’t stop crying. I sobbed uncontrollably.
They continued to pray for me, and suddenly there was this change —it was like a switch thrown inside me and then this weight lifted off me, and this real elation. It was like every nerve in my body was alive. I just felt God saying,
‘This is me, and this is what I’ve got for you.’ And I had this sense that God really was real and could change in a second the way your life is. Suddenly all the rest of the Alpha course made sense —all the stuff about redemption and your sins being wiped clean. As far as I was concerned, that was it, and there and then I said a prayer asking God for the forgiveness of all the sins I’d done in my life, and inviting Jesus in to be Lord of my life.
10:05:08 That man’s life was utterly transformed in an instant, just like Paul. There are some who are hostile, some longing, some at least receptive. And then there were also some who were just uninformed. In Acts 19 we read Paul found some disciples and said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’
They answered, ‘No, we haven’t heard there is a Holy Spirit.’
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10:05:31 And there’re some people like that today. Maybe they’ve been churchgoers for many years, confirmed, all of that stuff. But if they’re really honest, they say:
‘Well, never really heard that much about the Holy Spirit.’
10:05:42 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 4/17

10:05:41
10:05:50 Some longing, some receptive, some hostile, some unin formed. Let’s look at one more passage in a little bit more detail. Acts, chapter 10: this is a group of
Gentiles, non-Jews. Acts, chapter 10 from verse 44:
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While Peter was still speaking these words [while he’s still preaching] , the
Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the
Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.
10:06:19 Up until this point in the book of Acts everyone that is experiencing this is of
Jewish origin. Now here’s a group of Gentiles, and here you see that promise fulfilled: ‘ on all people .’ A remarkable set of circumstances by God speaking powerfully, both to Cornelius and to Peter. Peter ends up at the house of
Cornelius, who’s a Gentile. He ends up preaching about Jesus. And as he’s preaching this is what happened. What did they experience? Firstly they experienced the power of the Holy Spirit. We know that because Peter was in the middle of a sermon and he had to stop preaching. Preachers don’t stop preaching unless something remarkable happens —you can’t shut them up for love nor money! But something interrupted his sermon: the Holy Spirit.
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 5/17

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10:07:01 Now, we don’t know exactly what they experienced. It’s different for everyone.
What they experienced back on the day of Pentecost was clearly a very powerful thing. And th e language that’s used is of a heavy tropical rainstorm: this idea of just gushing, gushing water, overflowing, flooding their beings.
There were physical manifestations that we read about on the day of Pentecost: they heard a gale: was it a real gale? What was that?
10:07:26 Either way, it was the rûah —the wind, the breath of God animating people. The life-giving breath of God. And sometimes when the Holy Spirit comes, when we pray, when we’re expectant, we see people being filled up, a little bit like if you blow air into a balloon: there’s just that sense of just your whole body, your spirit, being filled up by God! Deep sense of peace and contentment.
10:07:55 Sometimes you see people physically shaking. Sometimes people even might rest to the floor, a nd you think: ‘Whoa, that’s weird! Don’t like that.’ I don’t know,
I don’t know if it is that weird, really. I sometimes think, well, if we can assent to the fact that God can affect me spiritually deep inside, is it that much of a leap to think that if he created everything he can affect me physically in some small way? I don’t think it’s anything more than just maybe a small physical sign of a deeper spiritual work that may be going on.
10:08:27 They also saw something on the day of Pentecost that resembled fire coming out of heaven, touching on people’s heads. What’s that about? Often people when they pray to receive the Spirit talk about feeling fire in their bodies, like a heat in them. Fire in Scripture symbolises the passion, the holiness of God, the refining power of God, the purity of God.
10:08:52 I am not suggesting you need to experience any of these things; absolutely not.
The reason for mentioning them is because sometimes people do experience them. And if we haven’t mentioned it, if I haven’t mentioned it, then it becomes more of a distraction than anything. Does that make sense? Don’t want any surprises here. Don’t want anyone saying, you know, ‘What was that? Was it the Holy Spirit or..?’ It’s perfectly biblical. Just enjoy God’s love. That’s the key thing. Not the physical manifestations; they’re not the focus.
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 6/17

10:09:20 Some people do experience something physical; some people don’t—doesn’t matter. What matters is that inward experience, like we were looking at earlier in the previous talk: the experience that the Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.
10:09:34 The love of God supremely displayed to us on the cross. If you want to know whether God loves you, you don’t have to sort of rely on some experience; you just have to look at the cross. That’s enough. But in Ephesians, Paul prays that his readers would not only understand here in their minds the love of God —that they would experience and would be filled with the fullness of God. And the love of God, God’s love for you and me, is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
10:10:03 Every single one of us needs to know that love of God. Every single one of us needs to know love. It changes things. I heard about this elderly couple: throughout their lives always argued. Argued, argued, argued about everything it’s possible to argue about in life. And that was just the way they were. And their family, or the children and grandchildren, you know, when it came to their fiftieth wedding anniversary (by some miracle they made it there!), they couldn’t decide what to buy them as a present. There’s no way they’re going to agree on receiving this thing. They’re not going to want the same thing. And so someone had the great idea: ‘Let’s buy them an all-expenses-paid trip to the top psychiatrist in the country!’ And so they gathered their resources and they bought this appointment at the top psychiatrist.
10:10:51 And obviously they argued about whether they should receive it, and argued about when they should go, how they should get there. They argued as they got there on the bus, they argued as they got off the bus, they argued as they walked up to the offices, they argued as they went through the door. They argued as they sat in the waiting room, they argued as they walked through into his office and sat down opposite the psychiatrist. For five minutes they’re just backwards and forwards, and the psychiatrist is like he’s watching a tennis match —he’s just watching and can’t believe what he’s seeing!
10:11:16 After this five minutes, he’s just beside himself! He said, ‘Stop, for goodness sake! I’ve never seen anything like this!’ Then he starts to get up, and he walks round his desk. He says, ‘Right.’ He looks at the old man, and he says: ‘I am now going to do something I have not done in all of my years of practice. Okay? Right.’
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 7/17

10:11:38 And he reaches and he picks up the little old lady, holds her in his arms, kisses her on the mouth for quite a long time, gives her a little squeeze, and then puts her back in her chair. And then he turns to the man and he says, ‘Look, that is what your wife needs, three times a week!’ The little old man, he sits there and he starts nodding. He says, ‘All right, well, you’re the boss. I’ll bring her in on
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.’
10:12:04 What he’s saying is, what the doctor was saying: ‘She just needs love!’ We all need love, and supremely we need the love of God —that is what transforms us.
It’s what we were born for.
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10:12:18 It’s perhaps easier to believe—John 3:16: ‘ For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son’ —this kind of wholesale exchange. But Paul wrote: ‘ the Son of God…loved me and gave himself for me.’ It is as personal as that, the experience of God’s love. And that’s a transforming experience. And like I say, the outward manifestations don’t matter; what matters is what goes on in our heart. That brings great change to our lives.
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So that’s the first thing: they experience the power of the Spirit. And that’s a beautiful and a lifechanging thing, and it’s only natural to want to say something about that or express that in some way. It happened at Pentecost as well. You know, there’s this excitement and you want to say something about that. So we read that they were released in praise: ‘ For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.’
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HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 8/17

10:13:11 Spontaneous praise is the language of those who are excited and thrilled about something. All of us get excited about things. We’re used to public displays of affection and excitement. You know, we’re used to public displays of joy and outbursts of excitement. Football matches, soccer matches, whatever you want to call them; you know, all over —people going crazy at concerts and gigs, just loving life, and getting excited.
10:13:44 But perhaps not in church. Actually, when you think about it, why not? Surely, if
God is God and he created e verything and he loves us, that’s something to get excited about. It should involve our minds, our hearts, our emotions. There’s nothing wrong with expressing our emotions. Nothing wrong with even raising our hands in church. You might have seen people do this, I don’t know, in the newspaper or on TV or something. Actually you might have thought, ‘That’s a bit weird! Why are they doing that?’ But in fact that was how early Christians prayed: they all raised their hands in prayer. 1 Timothy talks about ‘ lifting up holy hands in prayer’ —there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s a traditional form of prayer.
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10:14:39
I came across this, apparently a genuine advert from the American religious press. It’s an advert for some deodorant called ‘Aglow—the holy roll-on’! It says:
Roger Van Norton of Calvary Chapel, Van Nuys, California, says:
‘I was always hesitant to raise my arms in church for fear that the person next to me wouldn’t be as blessed by it as I would be. You might say the Spirit was willing, but the flesh was.. strong! Hey, now I use Aglow and I can go the whole meetin’, no problem!’
Attention pastors: Clergymen from across the country have confirmed significant increases in attendance since their congregations have been using Aglow, the Holy Roll-on —ask about our special pew-holders and quantity discounts.
And then at the bottom it says:
Aglow —the extra-strength deodorant for the extra-active worshipper!
10:15:24 Being filled with the Spirit brings this release in praise, but you don’t have to go over the top. We’ve actually got a box around the back if you want some—no, we don’t!
10:15:32 They experienced the Spirit, they were released in praise. Thirdly, they received a new language. Now, what is this about? We saw in Acts, chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost they received the gift of speaking in other languages. In the account of Ephesus in Acts 19, they received the gift of tongues.
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 9/17

10:15:49 That word ‘tongues’ when you see it in Scripture simply means a language that has not been learnt. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 it could be earthly human languages or it could be heavenly angelic languages. ‘ If I speak with the tongue of men or of angels’ —you know, that scripture.
10:16:08 Sometimes, even on a day like this, on an Alpha Weekend or an Alpha Day, we’ve found that people have received the gift of speaking in another tongue that they don’t know, that is actually an earthly language. And I know that, because it’s happened to me once! I used to be a worship leader, and playing the guitar and singing. It got to the end of this talk and I was singing some quiet worship songs, and I got in my head these two words that were sort of going round and round in my head, and I thought I should sing them. And so I just gently sang them out, over and over again.
10:16:44 And that’s one way that is wonderful to receive the gift of tongues, actually, is just by singing in tongues together. It’s a corporate activity—we just let the melodies and the harmonies interlace. We could do that later, if you like.
10:16:58 Anyway, it turned out that there was a woman there called Stefania. She was with her sister Elisabetta. And the two of them were from Italy. Elisabetta spoke
English, but Stefania didn’t. And so they’re sitting together, and Elisabetta is translating t he talk for Stefania, who’s only just arrived for this weekend—come on an Alpha Weekend by herself, not been on The Alpha Course. She’s sitting there feeling like, ‘What is all of this?’
10:17:23 And then when it comes to the prayer time at the end, her sister starts praying and stops translating for her. And so she’s sitting there thinking, ‘This is..! Is this you, God? What’s going on?’ And then over the PA she hears these two words:
Ti amo! Ti amo! Ti amo! And I don’t know what it is; I just know that it’s a sound, it’s words that I’m singing at that point. It turns out that those words are.. They came up to me afterwards and said, ‘Do you speak Italian?’ I said, ‘No.’ They said, ‘You were singing Italian.’ I said, ‘Was I? What was I saying?!’ And they s aid, ‘You were saying, I love you , over and over again.’
10:18:00 And I was not singing to her , let’s just get that clear! I believe that was God using this thick brain, you know, just to communicate with her that she was loved, in that moment. And she knows.
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 10/17

10:18:13 I actually asked her again yesterday —this is going back about twelve years now, so it doesn’t happen very often. But I just double-checked with her yesterday, and she said that’s exactly how it is. The irony is now she teaches my little daughter English, which I think is crazy! Okay!
10:18:27 It’s probably worth saying, as I say, that that is the only time that’s happened to me. Tongues is actually mostly a very private thing. Does a Christian need to speak in tongues? No. Not all Christians speak in tongues. It’s not the mark of being a Christian, it’s not the mark of being filled with the Spirit, it’s not the most important gift. But in the New Testament it’s a beginner’s gift. It’s often the first of the more supernatural gifts that we receive. It takes time to see if you have other gifts like healing and prophecy and those things, but speaking in tongues is a beautiful, very instant thing.
10:19:00 I said to my small group on the last course of Alpha: ‘What you see is what you get’, with Alpha. It’s kind of a slice of church life, a cross-section of church life.
You’re not going to suddenly go to church at the end of it and go, ‘What are they doing? No one told me about this!’ And it doesn’t really happen that much generally in church. It’s a very private thing. But I said to them, you know, ‘This is as weird as it gets. If you can handle this, you can handle anything!’
10:19:24 But I’m just being honest, you know. To our logical minds it is maybe kind of odd. But also it’s amazing. And it’s perfectly biblical. But what exactly is it?
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10:19:34 1 Corinthians 14, St Paul writes: ‘ those who speak in a tongue do not speak to people but to God’ —in other words, it’s prayer. ‘ Those who speak in a tongue edify themselves’ —so there’s a sense in which it builds up your faith.
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 11/17

10:19:46 Paul goes on to say that it transcends the limits of human language: ‘For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful’ —what he means by that is that you’re not having to go through processes of formulating eloquent structured sentences to express what you’re thinking and feeling.
10:20:02 And so because of that it really helps you in a number of ways. One, it helps you praise more freely. I know that I try and write songs on the guitar, and it’s impossible to come up with lyrics about my relationship with God, even, that just haven’t been sung a thousand times before. You know that feeling: you want to say something in some way to thank someone or to tell someone you love them, but you just can’t come up with the words. And actually it gives you this sense of just your heart communicating with God.
10:20:32 Helps you pray under pressure, as well. In 1995, I went through what to this day is still the hardest thing that I ever went through. I broke up with the woman that
I was convinced I was going to marry. Everything that had happened was pointing towards it —perfect. We split up and I just didn’t know how to pray. I didn’t know if I should hold on in prayer, I didn’t know if I should let go in prayer.
I just didn ’t know what to do.
10:20:55 And so the only release, a sense of being able to pray still, was praying in tongues; and that sense of my deepest emotions still being expressed. It was very precious. Two years went by and we got back together, and now we’ve been married 11 years. Now, I’m not saying if you pray in tongues you get the girl, okay
—doesn’t work like that! But it was very precious at that time.
10:21:20 Thirdly, it helps us to pray for others. Sometimes it’s very hard to pray for other people, p articularly if you haven’t seen them in a long time and the best you can come up with is, ‘Lord, look after them. Bless them. Amen.’ Praying in tongues is just this sense of the Spirit is with you in your prayers and there’s this sort of working together with God.
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10:21:43 Jackie Pullinger is a woman that works in Hong Kong, working with drug addicts and gangsters and prostitutes, and she wrote this, how there was a transformation in her ministry when she started using this gift. She says:
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 12/17

10:21:58 By the clock I prayed 15 minutes a day in the language of the Spirit, and I still felt nothing as I asked the Spirit to help me intercede for those who he wanted me to reach.
10:22:07 It’s interesting: it wasn’t a feeling, it wasn’t a trance or something that took her over; she just looked at the clock and went for it, used it as a gift.
10:22:14 After about six weeks of this I began to lead people to Jesus without trying.
Gangsters fell on their knees, sobbing in the streets. Women were healed.
Heroin addicts were miraculously set free. And I knew it all had nothing to do with me.
10:22:28 The New Testament approves of the gift. But there are restrictions. In 1
Corinthians 14 Paul is addressing... it’s fascinating. What happened in Corinth, in the town of Corinth, was excessive public use of this gift. They thought because it was kind of like a heavenly language that this was more special than everything else. And so people would get up in church and just do it, and everyone wa s sitting there going, ‘Well, I don’t understand!’ And so Paul addresses this. He says: ‘ I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all, but in church I’d rather speak five intelligible words than ten thousand in a tongue.’ In other words, ‘Stop it! Stop it! No one understands what you’re saying. In private, go for it, great!’
10:23:12 How do we receive it? We just ask for the gift and then cooperate. Just go for it!
Simply start to praise God in any other language other than one you speak naturally . And it’s just one or two words at first, and you feel like you’re making it up. But just like any vocabulary, any new language that you learnt, it grows.
What’s important is that the focus is on the Giver, not the gift. The gifts are one thing, but this is all about God, it’s all about his love. That’s the main thing.
10:23:41 So coming back to that main theme that we were looking at in the last session of this, would you like to experience the love of God, that deep experience of the
Father’s love? How do you receive?
10:23:54
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 13/17

10:23:54 In Luke 11:9-11, we see Jesus talking in the context of the Holy Spirit. And he addresses three barriers to receiving. The first is doubt, and he says: ‘I say to you:
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; everyone who seeks finds; and to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.’ He’s talking about the Spirit: he says, ‘You do not need to doubt.’ He has to say it six times because everyone’s looking at him, going: ‘Don’t believe you.’ ‘Really! Go for it! Ask!’
‘No, I don’t believe you!’ ‘Yeah, I mean, honestly, knock and the door will be opened!’
10:24:28 Second barrier to receiving is fear. You might say: ‘Well, okay, I’m convinced I want this, but I’m not sure—am I going to have some horrible experience?’
Again, that’s not a new feeling. And so Jesus deals with this worry using a fish, a snake, an egg and a scorpion.
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10:24:47 Not literally! He tells the story. He says this: ‘Which of you fathers, if your children ask for a fish, will give them a snake instead?
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10:24:57 Or if they ask for an egg –
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10:2 – will give them a scorpion?’
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No human father’s going to do that.
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10:25:03 He says: ‘If you then, though you are evil (he says, ‘You’re evil, and yet you wouldn’t do that’) , know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your
Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’ Simple as that.
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 14/17

10:25:19 Finally, Jesus deals with the third barrier: inadequacy. Many people say, ‘Look, if you knew what I was like inside… It’s fine, you stand there and you talk about this, but if you really knew me , who I am, the stuff I think and I’ve done, you would know that I’m not worthy of God’s love.’ We all feel like that. Every single one of us feels like that, because deep down we know that we’re unworthy.
10:25:49 A few years ago I was at a conference in West London with my wife and a couple of other people, and we went out for lunch. It was pouring with rain. We all jumped into the car, drove into the local town and I said, ‘Okay, you get out at that restaurant. I’ll go and park the car, run through the rain—‘cos I’m such a great guy I will get wet!’ And so they went into the restaurant.
10:26:10 I went and parked the car. I got soaking wet on the way back. We sat and ate, and it was still raining. I said, ‘We’ve got to go back to the conference, but I will get the car!’ So I ran through the rain, got the car, and then came and picked them up. And there were all these people running past with umbrellas. And I saw them in the restaurant. They ran to the car and jumped in. We got back to the conference, we sat down. My wife said, ‘Where’s my scarf?’ She had this beautiful red embroidered scarf, really precious to her. And we were like looking around underneath the seats, and I was like: ‘It must be in the car! And because
I am such a hero, I will go!’ We’re like that, aren’t we, guys, we just want to do it!
10:26:42 So I raced off down to the car park —couldn’t find it in the car. I’m like, ‘I’m not going to be beaten!’ I drove back into town. And I came to the restaurant, and I couldn’t park there, so I put my hazard lights on (because if you use them, you can park anywhere —they’re magic lights!). And so I got out, and I ran into the restaurant, and they hadn’t seen it. I ran into the shop next door to see if they’d been in there, and they hadn’t seen it. And I got back into the car and I was so fed up.
10:27:10 And I started to pull away from the side of the road, and as I looked I saw this dirty rag in a puddle as people were running past. And I knew what it was. And I parked the car again, put the hazards on —magic lights—and ran out and picked up this dirty rag and squeezed it out, and it went red in my hands! And I held it up and went, ‘YESSS!’ Got back in the car, and I put it down on the floor and drove back. I was feeling so chuffed with myself!
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 15/17

10:27:40 I was driving back to the conference. As I looked at it, it was just like God said to me: ‘You know, that’s like you. You know, you feel trodden down and discarded and a waste, just rubbish. And yet you are that precious to me.’
10:27:57 You are precious to God. He loves you. He loves you. The wonderful news is that God gives not because of our worthiness, not because we deserve it, not because we’ve served him faithfully for years—none of these things, but because he loves us. ‘ God gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.’
10:28:19
10:28:21
Let
’s stand together. We’re going to pray together.
10:28:26
10:28:28
10:28:30
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 16/17

10:28:35
10:28:39
HTB
—STUDENT ALPHA
W/e 02) How Can I Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?
—Jamie Haith
2010 17/17