Sometimes – bad things happen to good people. So, when those bad things happen to other people, those around us, family, friends, work, work colleagues – what can we do, you and I?  What’s our role?  

These days we live in a pretty clinical world. We see images of war and poverty on TV so often we’re almost immune to them. We put our old people into nursing homes. We live very detached lives from our neighbours and instead as a society we chase luxury and comfort and entertainment. It’s sad but by and large, it’s true. So when people suffer so often they suffer alone.

Bad things happen to good people and when they happen to us and when they happen to us we expect others to get around us to support us. But what about when those bad things happen to the people around us? Where are we then? It’s so easy for us to detach ourselves from the suffering and the needs of other people. We all do it, me included.

Let me tell you a story. I have one sister her name is Corrie. When she was young she did a Bachelor of Music degree and then travelled to Europe to study music. She was a brilliant pianist, quite brilliant. She toured and studied as a concert pianist. But in her early twenties, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I don’t know if you have had any experience of that disease but it is the most debilitating mental disease. I mean her life has been plagued ever since.

Firstly she is one very, very strong drugs which make her tired. She can’t work. Sometimes she hears voices and she suffers from a chronically underfunded health system. There is no support system really there for people who are dealing with this horrible disease of schizophrenia. Just the other day she tried to take her own life again by cutting her wrists. Now, this is the second or third time that this has happened.

You know the thing with schizophrenia, sometimes a schizophrenic will hear these voices and it’s just so real and so painful and so dangerous because many end up committing suicide. Then when those voices are gone and the drugs are being taken the person knows that they are missing out on life. A schizophrenic hasn’t lost their marbles, she is all there, she is a wonderful person.

She is never done anything wrong in her life and since she was twenty now she is forty-eight she has struggled with this thing. She spends most of her time lying on the bed because the drugs are so debilitating. She lives about two hours away and right now she is in hospital and I’ve found myself thinking, “I’m so busy I don’t have time to go down there again, I‘ve got programs to write and I’ve got things to do.” God said to me, “Whoa, did you just hear your thought?” Good point God, a very good point.

How easy is it for us to be detached from the pain and the suffering. Not only those whom we love but for people we know whom aren’t part of our family. Jesus takes this very seriously. He explained how one day He would be coming back. Now Jesus often told stories about Himself in the third person and refers to Himself the Son of Man. Listen to what he said:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates sheep from the goats and he will put the sheep at this right hand and the goats at his left. Then the king will say to those on his right hand, ‘Come you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom that prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me. I was prison and you visited me.

Then those people will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was that we saw sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these you did it to me.’

And then he will say to the ones on his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepare for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you didn’t welcome me, naked and you didn’t clothe me, sick and in prison and you didn’t visit me. And they will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and didn’t take care of you?’

And he will answer, ‘Truly I tell you just as you didn’t do it to one of the least of these, you didn’t to it to me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. (Matthew 25:31-46).

Do you think he takes it seriously? He says when someone is hungry, feed them. When they are thirsty give them something to drink. When they are a stranger and feel on the outer, welcome them. When they need clothes, clothe them. When they are sick, care for them. When they are imprisoned, visit them. It’s so easy to over spiritualise this stuff. Anyone who says I believe in Jesus needs to have actions that match up with the belief.

It is so easy to be on one side of the world and say, “I’m going to meet the needs of the poor, I’m going to sponsor a child for $30 a month.” Now, don’t get me wrong I think that is a wonderful thing to do. But we can say right I’m sponsoring a child on the other side of the world for $30 a month, I have eased my conscious I am doing what I need to do.

Close your eyes for a minute. Who are the people in your life right now who have a need? Maybe in your family, maybe a parent from the local football club, maybe someone at work, maybe a neighbour. You see them every day or every week. Picture them. Who are the people right now in your life that need help?

The only reason that you are listening to my voice today is because, when something bad happened to me ten years ago a handful of Jesus follower’s people who had known me for years, they stepped forward into my life. They gave me somewhere to live. They gave me comfort. They welcomed me. They fed me. They cried with me. That stuff spoke more to me about the love of Jesus Christ than any sermon that anyone could preach any day of the week.

Wake up! When other people are hurting around us, when other people are hungry or thirsty, or alone or naked or sick or in prison. If we use Jesus name if we say I am a Christ-follower I am a Christian. Jesus says, “Look, go and meet their need.” There are no conditions on this there are no, “Well look if you have time, if you feel like it, if you feel motivated.”

Jesus said just do it. Just go and love them. When you go to that sick person and you visit them in the hospital, when you go to that neighbour who is in jail at the moment. do you notice he even talks about criminals? Go on love them.

You know that the people we have locked up ok they have done something wrong Jesus said if you know one go and visit them. It’s what I love about Jesus, He drags me out of my comfort zone, He challenges each one of us to live out the faith we have in Him. When we know someone who is in need, where are we? Are we on the right side or the left? Are we with the sheep or the goats? Do we touch Jesus and that person with our love or do we ignore them?

When we’re confronted by a great big mountain – something that’s blocking our path that we just can’t move – we kind of expect God to use someone else to move it. Someone bigger. Someone stronger. But what if He wants to use the likes of you and me? Scary thought.

Have you ever met a Mr or Mrs Super Christian!?? I have. These people have their lives so incredibly together and they seem so strong in their faith – that you go home, look in the mirror and think to yourself, “I, I could never be like that. I’m hopeless. I’m a failure.”

Funny, funny how we look at things through the world’s eyes. Just because on the outside someone appears confident, and they can tell us the good stories of their lives, we assume that they are perfection personified. And we know for sure that we’re not. But if someone has a position or a title or something like that – we think – well, they’re better than me.

Over the last couple of days on the program, we’ve been looking at a time in Israel’s history that is best described as rock bottom. The city of Samaria was under siege by the Aramean army. There was no food. Things were so desperate that, well, mothers were killing and eating their children.

Now God had a plan – and His plan was to bless His people. And you and I… we’d imagine that He’s going to use the king – the king of Israel to bless His people. Or maybe God’s Prophet, Elisha – God’s man on the ground. That’s because we look at it from a human perspective.

But God did neither of those things. He chooses, well not even ordinary people like you and me, because He wanted to make a point. So He chooses the least of the least.

I would like to introduce you now to the four key characters of this story. Let me emphasise that these men aren’t from the Bible ‘A list’. They’re no Abraham or Paul, or Moses or Elijah. They’re so far down the pecking order that they don’t even have names. In fact, they’re lepers. Outcasts. They’re unclean. That’s why they’re sitting at the gate. They were cast out. That’s what it meant. They didn’t get to live with everybody else in safety inside the city walls. The leper colony was on outside the walls, outside the protection of the city.

If there were a social register in Samaria, these men would be so far down the bottom that they wouldn’t even make it on the list, because as far as the people inside the safety of the city were concerned, these men didn’t even belong. They are at the complete opposite end of the social scale to the king.

Now there were four leprous men outside the city gate, who said to one another, ‘Why should we sit here until we die? If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there; but if we sit here, we shall also die. Therefore, let us desert to the Aramean camp; if they spare our lives, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.’ (2 Kings 7:3,4)

It turns out that these four nobodies asked the very best question they could ask: Why should we sit here until we die?

There they are at the gate. They look back over their shoulders. That’s not an option – everybody’s starving in there. Go there and we’re going to die. They look down at their feet. That’s not an option either – what are they going to do. Stay here – right here at the gate and starve here? They look out towards their enemies. They shudder. But you know something? It’s the only option with any hope of success, however slim that hope may appear from where they sat:

So the arose at twilight to go to the Aramean camp; but when they came to the edge of the Aramean camp, there was no one there at all. (2 Kings 7:5)

Imagine, it is twilight. The sun’s just gone down. The first of the stars are just starting to come out, and you and I are two of those four lepers sitting at the gate. We’ve thought it through. It’s logical. Our hunger tells us so. We know that if we sit here much longer, we’re going to dies. So we get up, and we start that long walk to the Aramean camp.

How do we feel? Do we feel jubilant? Do we feel excited? I do not think so. I think we’re sick in the stomach. We’ve weighed up our chances and they’re slim at best. Five percent, ten percent at best? Every fibre of our beings wants to stay put. To preserve our lives for just a few more hours. Maybe a few more days. As our feet sandals crunch in the dirt, we look up at the stars starting to appear and in our heart of hearts, we know that this will be our last twilight.

It is such a long walk that walk. A kilometre. Two? Three? Out to the Aramean camp across the open ground. Across “no-man’s land” But then, then we arrive at the Aramean camp and something strange is going on. Have a listen (2 Kings 7:5-8):

So they arose at twilight to go to the Aramean camp; but when they came to the edge of the Aramean camp, there was no one there at all. For the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the sound of chariots, and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, ‘The king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to fight against us.’ So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys leaving the camp just as it was, and fled for their lives.

When these leprous men had come to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent, ate and drank, carried off silver, gold, and clothing, and went and hid them. Then they came back, entered another tent, carried off things from it, and went and hid them.

Where is everyone? I stick my head in this tent. It’s full of stuff – but there’s no one there. You stick your head in the next tent. Same thing. What’s going on? We wander around the tents, in absolute disbelief.

The one thing these lepers hadn’t banked on was God. Surely God wouldn’t be in that hopeless place with them. Surely God wouldn’t help them – lepers after all – against a mighty army. If God would help anyone, it would be the king. He was after all God’s anointed. He’s the one that God would help.

As Dr Barry Chant, one of my lecturers at Bible College put it – when we step out, God steps in. In fact, as catchy and as memorable as that is, it’s not quite correct, because what these lepers discovered when they stepped out, was that God had already stepped in. God had gone before them and driven the mighty army out.

And what happened was exactly according to the Word of God through the Prophet Elisha. It was unbelievable! So eventually, after they’ve played in Aladdin’s cave for a while they go back and tell everyone. At first, the king and the people won’t believe them. They send out scouts to confirm that these, these, these lepers after all are telling them. And then, finally the nation figures out that God showed up. Get it. Not through the king, but through four lepers. The king thought it was a trap. But eventually, well, have listen:

So the messengers returned, and told the king. The people went out, and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a measure of choice meal was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD. (2 Kings 7:9-16)

Exactly as the Prophet Elisha had predicted the day before. I love this part of the story. God’s just done an amazing miracle. And it’s discovered by four lepers who decided to step out of the misery and gloom and hopelessness, not out of some great altruistic sense of faith. But because they had to. They stepped and they walked into God’s miracle. They bumped into God’s miracle and they were blessed. But the one man who wasn’t blessed was the captain of the king’s guard. Have a listen to what it says:

Now the king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate; the people trampled him to death in the gate, just as the man of God had said when the king came down to him. For when the man of God had said to the king, ‘Two measures of barley shall be sold for a shekel, and a measure of choice meal for a shekel, about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria,’ the captain had answered the man of God, ‘Even if the LORD were to make windows in the sky, could such a thing happen?’ And he had answered, ‘You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat from it.’ It did indeed happen to him; the people trampled him to death in the gate. (2 Kings 7:17-20)

God did an amazing miracle that day. Not through the king, not through the prophet but through four hapless lepers.

It’s tough to be alone.  Sometimes we’re surrounded by people and yet we still feel alone. Well, one of God’s promises for you is this; that one day … one day you’ll be reunited with Jesus. And not only that. You’ll be spending the rest of eternity with Him. How’s that for a promise?!

Hope – is one of the most important things to our wellbeing that there is. It’s a feeling or expectation or desire for good things to happen in our future. You know when you sit there and you daydream about this or that – it’s always about good things isn’t it. It’s as though you’re creating a photo album in your mind of the good things that you want to happen to you in the future.

Worry and fear is pretty much the same – but that photo album is full of dark, negative pictures.

When we lose hope in the future, we often lose the will to go on. That’s why hope for tomorrow, is such an important part of who we are.

But it’s really interesting, the word hope appears around 133 times throughout the Bible, but it’s meaning is a little different to what we’re used to. When we hope for something, it has a sense of uncertainty about it generally.

I hope I get a promotion at work, I hope that the scans didn’t detect cancer, I hope that my kids grow up to lead healthy, productive, successful lives. When something is certain – like you know that you’re going on a 2 week holiday starting next Thursday – we look forward to that with anticipation.

But when something is uncertain then we hope that it will happen. But the biblical word for hope doesn’t make any room for uncertainty. The moment you read hope in the Bible, it’s an indication of certainty. As the article on bible.org says, the word Hope in Scripture means a strong, confident expectation.

So you see, there’s a profound difference between the way we use the Word today, and the way it’s used in God’s Word and if we transpose our meaning, onto that Word in Scripture we completely miss the point. Take this passage for instance:

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Romans 8:24,25)

If you read those words using our modern-day understanding of the meaning of the Word Hope, it’s not very helpful at all. Let me give you that version:

For in uncertain hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we have a wishy washy, uncertain hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Not only isn’t it helpful, but it just doesn’t make sense. Because if we wait with a wishy washy uncertain hope, then there is no way that we’re going to feel patient on the inside. Now let’s read it the way that it was meant, when it was written:

For in a certain, rock solid hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we have a strong, certain hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Now it makes sense. Now it’s a help. So the hope that God talks about, the hope that the Holy Spirit puts into our hearts, is a rock solid, guaranteed, done deal, it’s going to happen, certain kind of hope. It’s more akin to our understanding of anticipation – you know you’re going on holidays next Thursday, so you anticipate and savour that certainty – that’s what the Biblical Word hope actually means.

And one of the things that we can hope in with absolute certainty, is that when we die and when Jesus comes again, we will be reunited with Him. In those days before He was crucified, Jesus told His disciples that He was going away – that was a scary thing for them, because they could sense the assassination plot, and they were wondering if they were going to be next. But this is what He said to them (John 14:1–3):

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also”

So this Jesus who was born as a babe onto this earth for us, this Jesus who died for us and who rose again, this Jesus who sits at the right hand of the Father, this Jesus whose name is above every name, to whom every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord – this very same Jesus is the one that we will be reunited with on that day. The Apostle Paul puts it this way, in his letter to the Thessalonians, Chapter 4, verses 16 to 18:

For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Forget the dramatic happenings around Christ’s second coming for a moment – as glorious and as wonderful as that day will be – the bit that grabs my heart is this – that we will be with the Lord forever. Forever – we will be reunited with Jesus and we will be with Him for ever and ever and ever without end.

Therefore – writes Paul – therefore encourage one another with these words. And that’s exactly what I want to do today – encourage you with these words. Because whatever your present circumstances are – and the disciples, when Jesus told them He was going away, their circumstances were desperate, they were in fear of their very lives – whatever you’re going through at the moment, if you believe in Jesus then you have the absolutely, rock solid, it’s a done deal hope that one day you will be reunited with Him and that you will dwell with Him forever and ever and ever amen. That’s what I call something to really look forward to.

The reason that I’ve called this series of messages “Merchants of Hope” is that this rock solid, certain hope of an eternity with Jesus is meant to do two things. It’s meant to make a difference to our lives and it’s meant to make a difference to the lives of those around us.

If you believe in Jesus and you’re not filled with this rock-solid, certain confidence and hope in Christ, then it’s pretty difficult, I think you’d agree, to impact the lives of the people around us with the good news of Jesus. And actually, I think that good news is a complete understatement.

I’d go with fantastic news. Mind-blowingly stunning news. The best news that’s ever been told or that ever will be told. Anyone who believes in Jesus needs to be telling this great news to those around them – not by being one of those boring, Bible-bashing, condemnatory Christians. But by letting our confidence in Christ, the certain hope that we have in Him overflow out of our lives into the lives of those around us.

If you have forgiveness where others want to create conflict, if you have a warm smile on your face when others just have a furrowed brow and steely eyes, if you have a sense of assurance when the ocean of life is tossing people to and fro in some great storm – people notice that. As Paul Said – 2 Cor 5:20:

We are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Anyone who believes in Jesus is an ambassador of His – you and I should be merchants of hope. That’s the whole point. That’s how lives are transformed.

Sometimes, when it comes to receiving God’s blessing in our lives, we imagine that we have to drag it out of Him. Convince Him to bless us. But what if … I mean, what if He’s already decided to bless you? What if the blessing, is actually already a done deal?

I want to share with you right now the biggest turn around in thinking about God’s blessing that we can ever experience. It’s changing our understanding completely about what God is on about when He talks about His blessing.

I want to go back to another parable about persistence in prayer because I think we can get the wrong impression about God’s blessing if we read these parables from Jesus incorrectly. We’re going to Luke 11:5-8:

Jesus said to them, ‘suppose one of you has a friend and you go to him at midnight and you say to him ‘friend lend me three loaves of bread for another friend of mine has just arrived and I have nothing to set before him’ and this guy answers from within, ‘don’t bother me, the door’s already been locked, my children are already in bed with me, I can’t get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you anything because he is your friend at least because of your persistence he will get up and give you what you need.

It’s an odd parable that one, like the parable of the unjust judge. In this one, God is compared to a neighbour who is unwilling to get out of bed and help you in the middle of the night. Which is really weird because God never sleeps. He never doesn’t want to help you, He’s never short on bread to give you.

So what’s this parable saying? Is it saying that we have to drag a blessing out of God? No! It’s saying that God wants us to be persistent, to keep on asking because He wants to build a healthy dependence on Him (in us). How do I know that? Because immediately what follows on from this parable is this familiar passage, Luke 11:9-13:

So I say to you ask and it will be given to you, search and you’ll find, knock and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks receives, everyone who searches finds and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you if your child asks for a fish will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, you give a scorpion. If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

So God’s saying here that He totally gets it that we need a blessing and when we ask Him, even more so than an earthly parent, our heavenly Father will give us every good thing. But here’s the turnaround I want to share with you today. It’s not a case of having to drag the blessing out of God because God has already purposed the blessing for us. Listen very carefully to these words written by the Apostle Paul to the Church in Ephesus (very, very carefully), Ephesians 1:3:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

What does that verse say? It says that God has already blessed you in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. So what’s a spiritual blessing? Well the word ‘spiritual’ here relates to the human spirit or the rational soul, that part of us which is akin to God. It belongs to God but its part of us. That’s what the word spiritual is referring to and blessing?

What does that word actually mean? Well it’s the Greek word eulogia, which means to praise, to speak well of. You know the word eulogy, when someone gets up at a person’s funeral and says nice things about that person. That’s where we get the word eulogy from. So if we put those two words together – spiritual and blessing – God is already, He has already, He continues to speak His good words, His praise for us, good things for our lives into our spirit in the heavenly places.

Now, at first blush that may not be so encouraging. “Great, so God’s saying nice things about me.” But let me ask you, how did God create the universe? Do you remember? Back there in Genesis chapter 1:

Then God said, ‘let there be light and there was light. (Genesis 1:3)

And each part of Creation God spoke into existence. Why? How? Well, Paul tells us in Romans 4:17. He says that:

God gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not yet exist.

So God is speaking blessing into existence just in the way that He spoke Creation into existence. In fact, it’s past tense, He’s already done it, it’s a done deal. Not just a few blessings but every spiritual blessing. They’re already on their way because God has already spoken them into existence.

Let’s read that verse from Ephesians again with a brand new understanding, Ephesians 1:3:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

He has already blessed you in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. And those blessings are already on their way, a steady flow right when God purposes them into your spirit … into your life.

So not only is God a fantastic Father who wants to bless you, not only does God have the power to bless you but He already has. He’s already spoken every blessing for your whole life into existence and they will each come to pass on the very day that God purposes them.

Has that just blown your understanding of God’s blessing completely out of the water? Has that just given your understanding of God’s blessing a complete one hundred and eighty degree turnaround? Because now, when you’re going to God, over and over again asking for His blessing, you don’t have to go there with this hang-dog kind of attitude – that you had to drag a blessing out of a stingy God, who really can’t be bothered getting up out of bed for you.

Now you can go to God forearmed with the truth knowing that He wants to bless you … knowing that He has the power to bless you and knowing that He’s already spoken every spiritual blessing into existence. Now you can go to Him day after day, asking for His blessing and know that it’s really on its way because by knowing the truth God has set you free to receive His blessing.

Listen to me very carefully … God wants to bless you. I know what a huge turnaround in thinking this probably is for you. It was for me when I realised what was going on in this whole area of God’s blessing. It still is, every time I sit down and ask for God’s blessing in my life, I have to do a reality check.

No, I don’t have to drag a blessing out of God – He does love me, He does want to bless me, He is more than able to bless me. And oh, by the way, yeah, there it is in the Bible … God’s very own Word to me. God tells me that He has already blessed me with every spiritual blessing. He’s already spoken each one of my blessings into existence and they’ll each be on their way just at the right time.

Wow, do you get it? So now when you read this verse, Mark 11:24, you’ll know precisely how to do it.

So I tell you whatever you ask for in prayer believe that you have received it and it will be yours.

Have you ever sat there and wondered “well how in the blazes am I supposed to believe that I’ve already received it? I don’t have that sort of faith.” Well actually you do, you do now because you know the truth. And the truth is that God has already blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places through Christ Jesus.

So now immersed in the truth … free in God’s truth … you can sit down and you can pray and ask with such joy, with such certain anticipation of God’s blessing that you (in fact), do already believe that it’s yours.

Remember, I’m not a prosperity doctrine preacher. I’m not from the “name it and claim it, blab it and grab it” school of prayer. I am simply opening up the Bible here and telling you what God is saying.

It doesn’t matter which way I come at it, how I read it, how many times I think about it, the answer is always the same – God wants to bless you.

Out of every one hundred people you know out there, one will read a Bible and 99 will read … your life. And in fact, your life, may be the only Bible they ever read. Now there’s a scary thought.

Yeah I know that this world is crazy out of control and I know that you and I are infinitesimally small blips in the sweep of world events in history. And I know that you and I can feel powerless to change even the course of a single life, let alone the history of the world. But any person, any man, woman or child who belongs to Jesus is filled with a power, the power of the Holy Spirit which is so much more than anything we can ever imagine, that we can have a huge impact in this world.

So why don’t we? Well in part it’s because those of us who believe in Jesus don’t have a really good handle on the immeasurable greatness of His power that He’s placed within us.

I want to share a story with you today, just something that came up as I was reading my Bible in my quiet time yesterday, a story that really leapt off the pages and into my heart. It happens after Jesus has ascended into heaven and the Apostles are busy kicking off this new thing that today we call the Church.

Stephen has just been stoned to death, egged on by Saul who later became the Apostle Paul. And through this great persecution the believers in Jerusalem flee and they’re scattered throughout the known world. As a result of that great persecution, the Gospel – the Good News of Jesus starts to spread.

In particular a guy called Phillip ends up in a place called Samaria. Now the Samaritans were the sworn enemy of the Jews, related but they were considered to be the dregs. And Phillip proclaims the Gospel to them and they accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour. Here’s what happens next, Acts chapter 8, verses 14 to 17.

Now when the Apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them, they had only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

Now I know that this whole thing of receiving the Holy Spirit, whether it happens at the moment you believe in Jesus or at some later time, has been the source of such great division across the Church. Just quietly what I see in the Bible is that sometimes receiving the Holy Spirit happens at the moment you believe as it did for Cornelius and his family. You can read about them in Acts chapter 10, and other times it happens at a later point in time.

Do I believe that everybody who believes in Jesus has the Spirit in them? Yes I do because that’s what the Bible says, Romans chapter 8, verse 9. But if you ask me, has everybody who has the Holy Spirit received the Holy Spirit then my answer would be no, because it’s as plain as the nose on my face that there are a whole bunch of people who call themselves Christians who haven’t received the Holy Spirit into their lives.

The Holy Spirit brings the power to be holy. The Holy Spirit brings the power to be patient. The Holy Spirit brings peace and faith and hope and generosity and the list goes on. Now am I suggesting that everybody who has received the Holy Spirit is perfect? No, not at all.

I have been filled with the Holy Spirit and yet I fall short of the glory of God every day of my life. What’s different about me though now is that my heart yearns to honour God. I don’t always do that but in my heart I long to please Him and to honour Him. That’s what changed for me after I received the Holy Spirit.

I know at this point some people are thinking, ‘Berni are you getting all Pentecostal or charismatic on us?’ And you know what I don’t like labels, I just want to open the Bible and share with you what’s in it. And in this case when Peter and John laid hands on these Samaritans and they received the Holy Spirit the tense of the original Greek verb ‘received‘ tells us that it’s repeated, it’s an ongoing, continual action not a one-time event. In other words they went on receiving the Holy Spirit over and over and over again.

I for one need to keep on receiving the Holy Spirit over and over and over again because if He overflows out of me into the lives of other people around me I need to be continually filled with Him so that I can overflow some more. And that’s exactly what the Apostle Paul says later on to the Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 18 where he uses that same tense for the verb. He writes:

Keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Think about this, if your life is the entry point of the power of the Holy Spirit into this world, if He drenches you so much which by the way is exactly what the word ‘baptise‘ means which is why the Bible talks about being baptised with the Spirit, if you are soaked full of the Spirit, completely transformed by His presence then when you’re saturated He’s going to overflow out of you into the lives of the people around you. That is very deliberately the picture that the Bible paints.

So forget about splitting hairs about what we call it or when it happens, let me ask you, ‘Are you drenched with the Holy Spirit? Are you continually receiving Him into your life so that His goodness and love overflows out of you?’ Because when we come to the realisation that we are completely helpless to change this world apart from Him then we are absolutely in the right place, we’re exactly where Jesus wants us, dry and hungry and thirsty and ready to be filled with the Spirit.

If you believe in Jesus but you feel that dryness and that thirst I want you to rejoice today and ask the Holy Spirit to drench you literally, as the Bible says to baptise you. I’m not talking of any out-of-body experiences here or anything weird. Just a simple prayer for Him to fill you afresh today and again tomorrow and again the next day because now, all of a sudden, your life will be filled with the power to make a difference, a real difference in this world.

No, not all of us are called to be national leaders or hotshot preachers or TV evangelists, whatever, that’s not what I mean. Some of you have the gift of compassion, a pastoral gift that I could never ever have because that’s not how God made me. And when the Holy Spirit flows out of you that gift, your unique gift with which He’s blessed you and anointed you, then watch out, things will start changing in you and around you. God will start making a difference in the world through you.

Let me come back to what I just said at the beginning of the program, if you believe in Jesus then your life maybe the only Bible people around you ever read. How you speak, how you behave, how you live your life speaks of the authenticity of this Jesus to people around you.

The very same is true about how I speak and how I behave and how I live my life. And doing what I do my life is closely watched by the people around me and rightly so. They should expect a higher standard of a teacher of God’s Word. I can preach until I’m blue in the face, I can preach the best most powerful sermon that’s ever been preached since Jesus but if my life doesn’t back it up then it’s completely worthless and the same is true of you.

The first, the most important, the only sermon you and I preach that will ever really matter is the one that we preach with our lives and when we’re filled with the Holy Spirit, filled to overflowing then our lives are going to tell a new story, a different story, a story that is so compelling, a story that rings so true that people will be asking you for some of what you’ve got.

The single most powerful thing that you and I can do to change this world is pray. The next most powerful thing that you and I can do to change this world is to live a life that is continually being filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. And the more He works in us and through us the more we will be amazed as we see the Holy Spirit change the course of the lives of the people around us.

Remember in the end Jesus wins – in the end the Lion roars. In the meantime, He’s looking for the likes of you and me to make that truth real in other people’s lives.