Title: Experiential Faith
Contents
Text: Acts 1-9
The God who has worked since the foundation of the world is still working today.
God, who accomplished the work of salvation through his only begotten Son Jesus Christ 2000 years ago, is still sending the Holy Spirit to keep the faith and preach the gospel through believers.
Faith is the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
The work of the Holy Spirit transforms us and enables us to be born anew in Jesus Christ. In other words, “the old man dies and puts on the new man.” Therefore, the Apostle Paul said, “Put off your old self, which is corrupt according to the lusts of deceit, and be renewed in your mind, but created after God in righteousness and holiness of truth. Put on the new man you have received” (Ephesians 4:22-24).
In order to put on the new person, the level of faith must also change.
Faith can be broadly divided into ideological faith and experiential faith. Ideal faith can be said to be a theoretical and academic faith, and it is a faith that appeals to reason, which makes people literate, but does not change them. Experiential faith can be said to be faith that touches the heart and shocks the heart, and gives confidence to people. And it makes a difference. Peter denied Jesus! The cowardly Peter became a great apostle who was martyred upside down on the cross, and Thomas, who was known for his suspicions, after meeting the risen Lord, repented of his unbelief and was able to walk the path of a martyr while preaching the gospel to India.
Just as theory and practice are different, ideal and reality are different, statistics and field are different, so there is a difference between empirical and ideological beliefs.
Paul the persecutor who appears in today's text became Paul the preacher of the gospel through the experience of meeting the Lord on the Damascus road and became a great apostle to the Gentiles who opened the door for world missions. Before he had experiential faith, he was a typical Jew who persecuted Christians with zeal, knowing that it was God's will to persecute, arrest, and imprison those who believe in Jesus.
Then he met Jesus.
His experiential faith completely changed his life 180 degrees. From Saul the persecutor to Paul the evangelist. He, who was like a Christian's thorn, became a great Gentile apostle at the forefront of Gentile missions. Gamaliel's best education made him arrogant, but after meeting Jesus, he turned into a powerful witness of the gospel, where even if he took his apron and put it on a person possessed by a demon, demons would leave him.
The greatest experience for Christians is the experience of the Holy Spirit.
You must receive the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, we cannot say that Jesus is our Savior, and without receiving the Holy Spirit, our assurance of salvation cannot but be shaken.
As I was preparing this sermon, it was as if I was looking at our age right now. No, we overlapped even the issues of ideology and ideology, how many times more than then? No, it really breaks my heart to think that we are living in a dark, difficult, and absurd age several dozen times darker.
In this despair, our only hope is that we believers experience the Holy Spirit, pray for our country and nation with the power of the Holy Spirit, fasten our hearts and live reverently, repent and take the lead in saving souls. is. I hope that God will use you and me in this work, just as he used Pastor Wesley.
Therefore, the saints of our shepherd must receive the work of the Holy Spirit and experience faith.
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Through this, I pray that you will become great Christians who live for God, for the salvation of souls, and for the nation and people. Hallelujah! Amen.