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HOLY SPIRIT: Filled, Baptized and Empowered


Icebreaker:
Who is the most powerful person you know?
What is the difference between personal power and positional power?

Overview:
The early church did not let persecution stop them from being filled with joy and power from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes (all the time) God wants the best for us but we have to get out of the way and let it happen.

A young woman applied multiple times for a job at a Bible publisher. She finally landed her dream job of marketing a new translation of the Bible. A couple of years passed but a downturn in the economy forced the company to lay-off hundreds of people including the young woman. She was devastated and desperate. She took a part time job at a Christian bookstore, tied on a green apron and started selling the very Bible she had helped design. Where was God? What was His plan for her now? Months later she was hired by an international company to market their broad line of consumer products. What got her the job? Her retail experience at the bookstore wearing the green apron.

“The church becomes irrelevant when it becomes purely a human creation. We are not all we were made to be when everything in our lives and churches can be explained apart from the work and presence of the Spirit of God.” – Francis Chan

Discussion:

Read Acts 13:48-52.

In his sermon Pastor Tommy said we have to be emptied before we can be filled. The problem is not God lacking power; the problem is ME. What are the three problems preventing us from letting go and experiencing Holy Spirit’s power in our lives?

1)      (Selfishness)
2)      (Insecurity)
3)      (Ambition)

Which of these problems affected the religious leaders of Jesus’ day?
Why did the early church make them insecure?
How could the young woman’s story have turned out differently?
When has the Holy Spirit taken you on a journey you did not expect?
Which one of these problems did you have to overcome?

And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Mark 1:7-8 ESV

How did the early church use Holy Spirit power to overcome persecution?
Why do we try to handle situations with our own power instead of Holy Spirit power?
What can we accomplish with the power of the Holy Spirit?

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