A New Beginning

Guest (Male): God has a job for us to do as believers. It's an important job, and Pastor Greg Laurie points out we've been given the resources to do it as well.

Greg Laurie: Jesus said that the Father would give the Holy Spirit to those that ask Him. How many of you feel that you need more power from the Holy Spirit? Well, God wants to give you that power. And He wants to fill you, and He wants to refill you, and then He wants to refill you again. So, what do you have to do to receive it? You just pray for this power.

Guest (Male): Every try to accomplish the simplest tasks in a power failure? Everywhere you go inside your home, you instinctively reach for the light switch, and it doesn't work. If you can't see, you can't do much. You might think, "All right, I'll just watch TV." Oh, yeah, you can't.

Well, today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points out power is just as necessary in accomplishing the work God wants us to do. And we'll find out today that work has never been more necessary.

Greg Laurie: Turn to Acts chapter 2, and the title of my message is "Jesus Revolution: The Holy Spirit in Revival." In the late 60s and early 70s, America seemed to be unraveling. There was a very real threat of nuclear war in the mid-60s. Nikita Khrushchev made some very serious threats against our nation, including placing nuclear missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy faced off with him in what is called historically the Cuban Missile Crisis. For kids in school—I was one of those kids in school—we thought we might all die tomorrow.

One year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, our youthful President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22nd, 1963. All of America mourned. Meanwhile, the Vietnam War, which was never officially declared, raged on with young men coming home in body bags. And then the drug revolution is breaking out at the same time. Thousands of kids are turning to drugs for some kind of self-realization, some kind of answer. It just made things worse.

Add to the drug revolution, the sexual revolution. With the discovery of the birth control pill in the early 60s, free love reigned, and everybody just wanted to express themselves and push away those parameters and those barriers that had existed for so long. It all sort of culminated in a big music festival called Woodstock, which was billed as three days of peace and music. Jimi Hendrix played "The Star-Spangled Banner" on his electric guitar. Everything was really groovy.

But then in 1968, all the psychedelic colors turned to black and white as reality began to kick in, and we reaped the consequences of all of these horrible decisions. It was in 1968 that civil rights leader Martin Luther King was assassinated. And then on the heels of that, shortly after, as a matter of fact, Robert F. Kennedy, the brother of President Kennedy, who was running for the presidency, was also assassinated in Los Angeles right here in California.

Then all of these rock icons died in a relatively short period of time: Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Jim Morrison of The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin. This is the reality. And because things were so dark, with riots in the streets and division, Time Magazine put out an ominous cover story: black cover, red letters, "Is God Dead?" That's how a lot of people felt, that maybe God was dead.

But God was not dead. God was very much at work. We don't know exactly when it started or where the actual beginning of it was, but in the middle of the drug revolution, in the middle of the sexual revolution, God sent the Jesus Revolution. I had the privilege of being there. I had a front-row seat. I didn't know it was a revival. I didn't know I walked into the middle of a spiritual awakening.

There was a man that opened his heart and opened his church to it named Chuck Smith. All these young kids are getting saved, and they want to go to church. A lot of churches took one look at them and said, "You're not coming in here looking like that." But for the churches that opened their doors to the Jesus people, as they were called, or the Jesus freaks, as they were also called, those churches experienced revival. For the churches that kept their doors shut to these folks, they did not experience revival.

Here are some things that stand out to me about that time. Number one, there was a sense of expectancy in the services. When you came to church, you came with a sense that God is going to do something. No one was ever late for church back in those days, by the way, because if you were, you wouldn't get a seat.

Number two, the Word of God was taught in every service. Pastor Chuck Smith taught us to love the Bible, and we would go through books of the Bible, and our lives were changed by the Bible. And then also there was worship. It was a whole new kind of worship that was born before our very eyes. We would give invitations in pretty much every service. I think what happens is when non-believers come to a church that's alive, a church that's experiencing revival, they want to know God. So we brought friends, and people would accept the Lord.

Here is another big earmark of that time. We believed in the imminent return of Jesus Christ. We believed that Christ could come in our lifetime. Some of you would say, "Well, that was 45 years ago. I think your timing was a little off, Greg." I don't regret living in belief that Christ could come back. We're 45 years closer to His return than we were then. I still believe it. I believe Jesus could come in my lifetime.

But we need to pray that God will do this again. Psalm 85:6 says, "Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?" The prophet Habakkuk understood this when he prayed in Habakkuk 3:2: "I've heard all about You, Lord, and I'm filled with awe by the amazing things You've done. In this time of deep need, revive Your work as You did in years gone by. Show us Your power to save us."

It's similar to how you might feel now. Some of you might be thinking, "Well, that must have been so great back then. I wish I could have been around then." God wants to do it again because Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It starts with us. "Revival is a community saturated with God," wrote one person. Another said revival is an invasion from heaven. Richard Owen Roberts wrote these words: "Revival is an extraordinary movement of the Holy Spirit producing extraordinary results."

In the book of Acts where we read about the Holy Spirit being poured out on the church, we see a very important principle. It is the Spirit of God working through the Word of God in the hearts of the people of God. Really, you need all three. The Spirit of God working through the Word of God in the hearts of the people of God. And the people that Jesus used to change His world were very ordinary people. Uneducated, calloused hands, few social graces. Many of them were outcasts. But in a relatively short time, they changed the world.

They didn't have social media. Thomas did not tweet. Peter did not update his Facebook page. They didn't use any of these tools. They had a road system and a common language that they could use to bring the gospel to the rest of the world under the control of Rome at that time. But really, it comes down to this: it was a work of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus told them all after He died on the cross and rose from the dead, go to Jerusalem and wait. He said in Acts 1:8, "You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you to be witnesses for Me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the rest of the planet, the uttermost parts of the earth." So they went to Jerusalem. It's the day of Pentecost. They don't know what they're even waiting for.

Suddenly, the Bible says there was a mighty rushing wind. Then there were these divided flames of fire over their heads. I don't even know what that was all about; it was never repeated again in scripture. Then they spoke in new languages. They spoke in tongues, glorifying God. People are watching trying to figure this out. There are a lot of non-believers there because people had come from all over to be in Jerusalem at that particular time.

Simon Peter gets up to preach. That in itself is no small feat. Only days earlier, this Simon Peter denied Jesus three times. What happened? He had been empowered by the Holy Spirit. Here is what Peter said in Acts 2:15 from the New Living Translation, "These people are not drunk as some of you are assuming. It's 9:00 in the morning. It's too early for that. The bars aren't even open yet."

He says, "What you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel where he says in the last days, God says I'll pour My spirit out on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams." Incredible. That was the day of Pentecost. You might say, "Well, we need another Pentecost." No, we don't. The last one was good. We don't need another Pentecost any more than we need another Calvary because the same power that was poured out by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost is available for believers today. You need to simply receive it.

Again, Acts 1:8 says you will receive power to be a witness. Power to share your faith. Power to speak up and be counted. Power to turn your world upside down. Here is the promise that was given here in Acts 2 about that power that was poured out on Pentecost: "This promise is unto you, it's to your children, and all that are afar off, and even as many as the Lord our God shall call."

God is still giving this power today. What do you have to do to receive it? You just pray for this power. In Ephesians 5, it says be filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to yourself in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. In the original language, that could be translated "be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit." By the way, in the original Greek, it's also a command. God commands you to be filled with the Spirit each and every day.

I think we make too much out of this and we feel it has to be some emotional thing. We are going to pray for people to be filled with the Spirit, so dim the lights and sing slow songs. You can do that if you want, but the Holy Spirit can be poured out when the lights are on or off. It doesn't have to be emotional. Talk about being filled. When you go and put gas in your car, do you have an emotional experience? Probably not until you see how much the gas costs. That's an emotional experience.

If you have an electric car, when you plug it in the wall, do you have an emotional experience? Maybe if you are standing in water when you do it, you might. But generally, it's not an emotional thing; it's just something you do. You put gas in your car. You do it again and again, sometimes once a week, others once every six months if you have a Prius. I guess because your tires are the size of donuts. But the thing is, you fill your car and your life needs to be filled in the same way with the Holy Spirit.

What do you do? You simply ask God. Jesus said that the Father would give the Holy Spirit to those that ask Him. I think we ought to do that right now. How many of you feel that you need more power from the Holy Spirit in your life? Raise your hand. God wants to give you that power. He wants to fill you, and He wants to refill you, and then He wants to refill you again.

I am going to lead you in a prayer. I would ask you to pray this prayer after me out loud even, very similar to what we would lead someone coming to Christ in, but this is a different kind of prayer. If this is what you want in your life, pray it. If you don't want this, don't pray it. No one's forcing you to do anything. But if you feel that you need more power to be a witness, if you feel that you want those gifts of the Spirit that God wants to give to you, then pray this prayer with me right now. Let's bow our heads.

Father, we are asking that You will bless this moment as we ask You for something You've told us You want to give us. We want everything You have for us. So we are asking You to hear our prayer. If you want God to fill you with the Holy Spirit, I want you to pray this out loud after me. Pray these words.

Lord Jesus, I am weak, but You are strong. And You've promised power to me. Power to be a witness. Power to change the world. I need this power in my life, Lord. So I am asking You now, in the name that is above all names, the name of Jesus Christ, I am asking You to fill me with the Holy Spirit. Give me all the gifts You want me to have. Give me all the power that I need to serve You, to glorify You, to be used by You. I receive this power in my life now. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.

Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie with an important prayer. And if you'd like to make a change in your relationship with the Lord, Pastor Greg will help you do that in just a moment. And to brothers and sisters in Christ, please be in prayer right now for those who are making this kind of decision. Also, don't forget, this moment in history gave birth to the film called "Jesus Revolution." It's actually Pastor Greg's personal story, set against the backdrop of the Jesus movement. It's now available for streaming on many platforms.

Guest (Female): Pastor Greg, my brother is a youth pastor. He and a small group of adults were able to bring 16 kids from his youth group to one of your Harvest Crusades. At the end of your message, 10 of the kids answered the altar call to follow Jesus. One of the girls expressed that she wanted to be baptized, and even my husband, who watched the livestream of the crusade, felt the Holy Spirit urge him to get baptized too. Thank you so much for these opportunities to grow closer to the Lord. God is moving.

Guest (Male): We are grateful to hear of the changed lives through Harvest Ministries. And if you have a story to tell of how Pastor Greg's messages have touched your life and that of a family member, I hope you'll contact us. Email Pastor Greg. Send it to greg@harvest.org. That's greg@harvest.org.

Today, Pastor Greg is helping us receive God's power to do God's work and help bring about a spiritual awakening in our culture. He continues his study now in Acts chapter 2.

Greg Laurie: Yeah, Dave, the Bible says whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So here is the picture: you are out at sea, you are drowning, you have no energy left, and there is the lifeguard on the shore, and you need to call out for help. Sometimes we are reluctant to do this, but if you want to be saved, this is what you need to do. Well, the same is true in your relationship with God or lack thereof.

You are drowning in the sea of sin. Jesus can save you, but you have to call out to Him. The Bible says whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. I want to lead you in a prayer where you will be doing just that: calling on the name of the Lord. If you want your sin forgiven, if you want to know that when you die you will go to heaven, if you want Jesus Christ to come into your life and take away your guilt and your shame, then just stop what you're doing and pray this prayer with me right now. Pray this after me if you would.

Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner. I have broken Your commandments. I have fallen short of Your standards. But 2,000 years ago You died on that cross for me. Then You rose again from the dead. So Jesus, come into my life and be my Savior and my Lord and my God and my friend. I choose to follow You from this moment forward. Thank You for calling me and accepting me and forgiving me. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.

Guest (Male): Amen. Listen, if you have just prayed those words with Pastor Greg and meant them sincerely, the Lord has heard you and forgiven you of your sin. We want to welcome you into the family of God. We'd like to send an important resource your way to help you begin to live a life of faith. Let us send you our "New Believer's Bible." Just ask for it when you call 1-800-821-3300. That's a 24/7 phone number: 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org and click on Know God.

Let us take a moment to thank you for praying for this ministry and for supporting it through your generous donation. It's an investment in kingdom business, isn't that right, Pastor Greg?

Greg Laurie: It's really true, Dave. I believe it's so important because the gospel saves lives. It saves eternal lives because when a person believes in Jesus according to scripture, they pass from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the power of God. Then of course that changes the course of their future. That impacts their children and their children's children.

The gospel changes everything. Thousands and thousands of people respond every single year thanks to the Lord, also thanks to you for your investment in this ministry enabling us to reach people wherever they are. If this is something you care about, I encourage you to make a financial investment in A New Beginning and Harvest Ministries.

Guest (Male): We really do appreciate your support. Thanks for partnering with us today. It can make a real difference not just for today or this week, but for eternity. Get in touch with your support today by calling 1-800-821-3300. That's a 24/7 phone number: 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org.

Next time, as Pastor Greg continues his series called "Jesus Revolution," he'll show us the direct connection between revival and prayer. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie.