1 Sam 10:6, Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man. 
	We are looking at a most beloved aspect of our relationship with Our Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth. He is our Savior and He is Our Lord. In line with the fact that we are the objects of His so great love and salvation, we are approaching a truth upon which we have not before spent much specific detail. The Lord has been working on my heart, and I pray on all our hearts with respect to the outpouring of His Holy Spirit upon those who are His own.
	Most regretfully, this is a subject which has caused much upheaval and division within the Body of Christ. There are so many diverse teachings about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and there are doctrinal arguments all over the map of Christianity. It has divided churches asunder and caused many well-meaning pastors to be pushed from their pulpits for taking a stand on one side or the other. I pray, and I hope that we all pray, that we will approach this vital reality of God and His outpouring of love and power into the core of His people, with a desire to simply know the greater reality of His love to His glory in His people. 
This is opened by the recognition that without the indwelling guidance and power and working revelation of the Holy Spirit, we are merely boats adrift on the ocean currents of this creation. We have no rudder with which to have our lives directed. Without the conscious knowledge of the Holy Spirit actively guiding our hearts, we have no direction toward the landing place He desires for our witness of Jesus Christ to be effectively evidenced. 
Without the Holy Spirit’s ceaseless and conscious operation, we are adrift and becalmed. We must never allow ourselves to neglect this miraculous gift of the power of God within us. It is imperative that we learn what it means to cherish and to obey the Spirit’s every direction and admonition.
Another absolutely foundational reality of the blessing of God upon us by the indwelling of Himself is that it is the Holy Spirit Who makes the Word of God alive and active in our lives. It was the work of the Spirit of God, by which the Bible was written and through Whom the Living Word of God, is made to be understood. He applies it to meet the every need of the people in whom He is so active and who are willingly obedient to His instruction.
There is so much more that could be said about the immeasurable and eternal essential Being of God Who makes our spirit alive and functioning, Spirit to spirit. The Holy Spirit is the One Who opens us up to the full measure of the wisdom of God in action, as He makes known the paths of our walk and is the power to obey His every decision that is necessary in this realm. 
He is our strength toward complete obedience! He is our wisdom! He is our peace in the midst of every dilemma! He is our comfort in the course of our earthly need to mourn! He is the One by Whom songs of praise and adoration spring forth from our hearts and from our lips! He is the One Who builds us into the living temple of the Lord on this earth! He is the means by which we are made to be the very family of God together! He works in so many ways to give us utterance to the glory and the praise and the worship of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
Such is the unspeakable wonder and miracle of God, put into place by the work of the Third Person of the God-head – the Holy Spirit. There is no manner of our circumspect study that will by any determination adequately give voice to the tremendously glorious reality of the heart of God expressed so magnificently to us by His Spirit. 
Sadly, so many of us seem to just take Him and His ministry in our lives for granted. There is no measurable appreciation for how blessed we are and how awesome is this great outpouring of the Triune Godhead upon us. Only as He shows Himself in us and through us, can we gain the ever increasing, although absolutely limited human understanding of His Hand upon us and His Spirit within us.
Therefore, we will keep our morning’s deliberation concise and fundamentally basic. Our prayer is that the Holy Spirit Himself will manifest the individual need to come into the increasing appreciation of His vital essence and ministry. That is the general focal point that we will keep before us this morning.
We begin with the glorious pronouncement of the Prophet Isaiah in Isa 61:1-3. Please open to it as the means of the preparation of our hearts to that which God, Alone, bestows as He deems so fit and necessary.
Isa 61:1-3, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives, And freedom to prisoners; To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. 
	This manifested proclamation of the Lord through the prophet indicates all that we have so briefly addressed this morning as the awesome and magnificent work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those upon whom He is so poured out. The Hand of God, Alone, can make this the reality of our every day to day walk on this earth. It is only by the power and the presence of God through His Holy Spirit that any of this declared and real powerful work of God can be experienced as the Lord meets the tremendous needs of His chosen people, day in and day out.
	It is the very direct statement of Our Lord Jesus Christ as He quoted this text that proclaimed that the work of God was going forward as was always His eternal plan and purpose. Jesus knew the unyielding vital necessity for the Holy Spirit to guide His steps as a man. It is only the power of the Holy Spirit Who is the source of all that is necessary in order for mankind to be brought into the course of this same, living walk with God.
	At the beginning of His earthly ministry, Jesus read and expounded upon the truth of what the Holy Spirit had inspired the prophet Isaiah to write all those centuries earlier. What had been proclaimed then, had come into fulfillment with the advent of Jesus, the Only Begotten Son of God. Please turn to Luke 4:16-21, where this is relayed for all of us.
	Luke 4:16-21, And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book, and found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are downtrodden, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." And He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him. And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
	The ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of all that the God-head had put into place in the redemption of humanity from before the ages of the ages of eternity. The Lord God Jehovah was at work in the course of the salvation of those who would respond to the great gift of His Love. Jesus, in reading forth The Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, was proclaiming the great day of the Lord was at hand. In Him, all the promises of God throughout the course of history were fulfilled! 
	Jesus encouraged His disciples with the truth that the Holy Spirit was essential to the walk that a Christian has on this earth. There is power beyond measure in the work of the Holy Spirit within those who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus knew this and was even encouraging His disciples with this truth before He was crucified. 
In John 14:25-27, is recounted how Jesus was laying the groundwork for their encouragement during that severe time of their crisis of faith when He would be brutally and physically taken from them. He was telling them what they needed to hear to cover their hearts during the time of their sadness and despair of all that they had hoped Jesus would establish during their lifetimes on this earth.
John 14:25-27, "These things I have spoken to you, while abiding with you. "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. 
Jesus was pointing out just how vital it was for them to be filled with the abiding presence of God through His Holy Spirit. Notice many of those realities upon which we have touched in just a cursory fashion. It is the Holy Spirit Who would guide them into all that they needed to know. This would not only be through the religious education that they were receiving, but in the opening of the Word of God into their minds and into their hearts. 
As well, the Holy Spirit would bring to mind that which they had been taught by the Living Word of God - Jesus, their teacher and their friend. The Holy Spirit would awaken their hearts and their minds to the truths that they had received at the feet of their precious Rabbi. The encouragement and the truth of God that was lived before them in Jesus would be brought to mind and manifested in their lives by the power of God in His Spirit. 
Additionally, there was the promise of peace, the true peace of God and with God that would be made their portion as the Holy Spirit manifested it in the quieting of their mortal beings. They would not be troubled or fearful as the Holy Spirit worked day by day in them to make the witness of Jesus Christ all the more vibrant and real as they followed in the course of His footsteps, being so led by the very Spirit, Himself.
	The Lord, on the day of His ascension into Heaven commanded His disciples to wait for the day of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They were together, the sought objects of the persecution of the Roman and Jewish authorities who had crucified their Rabbi in such a vile and cruel manner. They had to wait, in obedience to their Lord, lacking the courage to venture forth into the crowds of their community until that great day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon them, exactly as detailed by the Prophet Isaiah. 
	They were honoring that which Jesus had proclaimed to them as recorded in Acts 1:4-9. Acts 1:4-9, And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, "Which," He said, "you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. " And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."  And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 
	They had witnessed the resurrection of their friend, their Rabbi, their Lord from the unjust crucifixion which had laid Him in the grave for three days. He had spent time with them again showing them the truth that He was in fact, in deed, in person, and indubitably the Son of God incarnate! Theirs was no simple acceptance of the person of Jesus Christ, based upon the stories of others. They were first hand witnesses of the power of the salvation of God now and forever established in the resurrection life of their Christ, the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. 
	As He was leaving them for the time of their ministry of Him on this earth, He told them to wait until they had received the Gift of the Comforter. The manifest wisdom and power of God would be poured out upon them and in them through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, they gathered themselves together and waited for that time that Jesus had promised and that they knew assuredly would come upon them. 
	They were wise enough to know that without the Power of God through His Spirit, they would not be the effective ministers of the truth. They would be seen as merely tale bearers, spreading rumors. They would be easily dismissed as uneducated rabble and fishermen who could not know enough about the scriptures to make rational arguments in the temple. The Pharisees and the Scribes would simply shoo them away and tell the people that they were deluded and brainwashed. 
	Then, we have the tremendous account of Acts 2:1-4, which changed everything! No longer were they simple men telling tales. They were now baptized by the very Holy Spirit of God, going forth to proclaim the victorious reality of the risen Christ with all the power of Heaven in evidence. They mightily proclaimed the Good News of the Glorious Son of God Who laid down His life for the sake of any who would but call upon the name of Jesus! All that Jesus had made known to them on the day of His ascension was now in place in the effective witness of the Gospel message of the love of God incarnate!
	Please turn to Acts 2:1-4. Acts 2:1-4, And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent, rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. 
This is where we will stop for this morning. Lord willing, we will go forward with the truth of what it means to be baptized by the Holy Spirit in the weeks to come after the Easter season. The Lord bless us and cause us to seek Him as to the full measure of just how much the Holy Spirit is to mean to us as each day proceeds. So be it!
Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is 1 Sam 2:10.  "Those who contend with the Lord will be shattered; Against them He will thunder in the heavens, The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; And He will give strength to His king, And will exalt the horn of His anointed." Amen.