To mark Pentecost Sunday last weekend, Pastor Bobby Chaw taught the church how to enjoy life in the Holy Spirit by, first and foremost, praying.
Pentecost Sunday, the 50th day after Easter, is when Christians all over the world celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as it first happened in Acts 2. This day serves as a reminder that the Holy Spirit is actively working in the lives of believers today.
“Day by day, the Holy Spirit will transform us into Christlikeness and union with God,” preached Bobby Chaw, executive pastor of City Harvest Church as he began his sermon on the weekend of 27 and 28 May.
However, the pastor cautioned that the presence of the Holy Spirit alone does not ensure transformation automatically. The Holy Spirit should neither be grieved (Eph 4:30) nor quenched (1 Thess 5:19). It is also essential for the believer to walk in the Spirit (Gal 5:16) and to keep fanning the flame of the gift of the Holy Spirit. (2 Tim1:6) One of the ways to fan this flame is through prayer.
Jesus set the perfect example. At the beginning of His ministry, the Holy Spirit descended on Him when He prayed (Lk 3:21-22). “Prayer cultivates an awareness of the presence of the Spirit,” Pastor Bobby noted.
Even before Jesus launched His ministry, he was constantly in prayer. This discipline that led Him to encounter the Holy Spirit frequently throughout His life and ministry. “The more you spend time in prayer, the more you will be aware of the Holy Spirit’s presence. The more you will be guided by Him, the less you will worry,” the pastor explained, emphasising that it is essential for all believers to pray.
Drawing an anecdote from his personal life, Pastor Bobby recounted the night his family went bankrupt when he was a teenager and a new believer. In the midst of overwhelming failure and shame, he poured his heart out onto the Lord in desperation and prayed in the Spirit. As he prayed, fear and anxiety started to dissipate, and the peace of God filled his heart. However, reality set in the next day and anxiety filled his heart again. He would come repeatedly before God to pray fervently, casting his burdens and concerns onto Him. As time passed, Pastor Bobby became less aware of his worries and more aware of the Holy Spirit’s presence and providence for his family.
By God’s grace, the seemingly insurmountable debt his family faced was completely cleared within a few years. Acknowledging that it is inevitable to experience anxiety in life, the pastor urged the church to pray in times of adversity. “Through prayer, even in the midst of trouble, you can become aware of the Spirit’s presence and worries will disappear, giving way to peace in your heart and your mind,” he explained.
Encouraging the church to cultivate the habit of praying, Pastor Bobby shared four things the Holy Spirit does when His believers make time to pray.
1. The Spirit assures us of God’s love
Romans 8:14-16 says that the Holy Spirit brings about God’s adoption of His believers as sons and testifies of their identity as God’s children. The word “testify” means to give confidence and assurance. This means that the Holy Spirit wants to alleviate the believer’s anxieties and concerns about life so he can be confident that God will protect him as his Father. This assurance comes when believers encounter the Spirit in prayer.
Pastor Bobby shared another traumatic incident from his childhood. When he was five years old, his aunt forgot to pick him up from kindergarten and he was left to wait alone outside the school for hours. This affected his confidence as he grew up.
Not long after Pastor Bobby accepted Christ, he was at a prayer meeting where a fellow churchgoer laid hands on him and prayed for him. She said to him, “God was there”, and he had a flashback of the traumatic event and burst into tears.
As the sister in Christ prayed for him, Pastor Bobby saw in a vision of himself as a young boy standing outside the kindergarten, and God was standing behind him, encircling little Bobby with His arms and embracing him, telling him, “I was there my son, I was there.” God’s love flooded his heart and brought him complete assurance.
As he spent time praying and soaking in God’s presence daily, receiving God’s love and responding to Him each time, Pastor Bobby learned that God’s perfect love casts out all fears (1 Jn 4:18). That was how he grew in confidence and trust in the Lord.
2. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness
When a person faces a sudden, devastating tragedy, he may find it hard to find the words to pray. Romans 8:26 says that the Holy Spirit intercedes for them through wordless groans—in other words, through tongues.
“When we pray in tongues, it is the Holy Spirit, who knows the heart and will of God, that is inspiring us to pray, interceding through us and for us,” Pastor Bobby preached. “Praying in tongues is powerful because our prayer rises from our spirit directly to God.”
The pastor then shared the testimony of his wife, Cindy. When she was in Secondary Four, she returned home from school one day to find a letter from her father, stating that he had left their family. She was in utter shock as she was very close to him. That night, words failed her, but.she prayed in tongues, pouring her heart out to the Lord. As she prayed, the Holy Spirit interceded for her and inspired her to read Psalm 27:10, “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” The love of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit flooded her soul, and day by day, she found healing and grace to forgive her father, and eventually her father reconciled with his family.
For 30 years, Cindy had prayed that God’s love would touch her father’s heart and she often prayed in tongues for him. In February 2018, he accepted Christ as his Lord and Saviour and in July was baptised. Just before he passed away, he told Pastor Bobby that the past five months of knowing Jesus were the happiest days of his life.
3. The Holy Spirit empowers us in spiritual warfare
When Christians aspire to do great things for God, they can expect demonic opposition that causes fear and panic. “With every great plan that God has, the devil will scheme an evil plot,” Pastor Bobby warned.
it is normal to feel disheartened and frustrated when that happens, but the pastor reminded the church that the Holy Spirit empowers them. To withstand and defeat the devil, one needs to put on the whole armour of God (Eph 6:13). Apostle Paul also highlights the importance of praying in the Spirit (V18), a powerful weapon that destroys demonic powers.
Pastor Bobby recounted that how, when he was a student at CHC’s Bible school, he went on a mission trip with a team of seven other young men. When they arrived, they found that the people were antagonistic towards Christian missionaries and that doing ministry was hard.
One night, they held a prayer meeting but his teammates started sharing that they were seeing demons in the room. Pastor Bobby decided to pray and praise. However, just as he strummed his guitar, the lights went out throughout the whole building. One of the team members turned on a torchlight but it flickered constantly. Fear overwhelmed their hearts, but they decided to stay and prayed in tongues, declaring the promises of God.
After 45 minutes, the building lights returned, and the torchlight stopped flickering. And over the next 10 days, by God’s grace, the team saw success in ministry: many sick people were healed and many of those who came from a small village to hear the gospel accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
“When you feel oppressed, pray in tongues!” encouraged Pastor Bobby. “When facing resistance, pray in tongues! When you want to step out in faith to obey God, pray in tongues, as it is a spiritual weapon that will destroy the works of the devil!”
4. The Holy Spirit reminds us of God’s promises
Adversities in life and worldly pursuits may cause Christians to lose sight of the goodness of God. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit has come to teach and to remind His believers of God’s promises (Jn 14:26).
Pastor Bobby then shared a testimony from his member Jane Quek. Two years ago, her son who was in junior college displayed a sudden change of behaviour, becoming distant and indifferent to the family. She tried all means to communicate with him but to no avail.
Once, when Pastor Bobby was praying with Jane, the Holy Spirit led them to Malachi 4:6, which declares that God will turn the heart of the parent to the children and vice versa. Since then, for the past year, the pastor daily joined his faith with Jane’s, believing God for a turn of the heart. Just a few weeks ago, Jane’s son underwent a reversal of attitude, and he began to treat her with warmth and love again.
“When you’re in a difficult situation and you cannot see or remember the goodness of God, the Holy Spirit is here to remind you of God’s promises He will help you focus on Him,” the pastor taught.
As he concluded the sermon, Pastor Bobby reminded the church of the need to have expectation. Two thousand years ago, people were full of expectation, ready to receive the Messiah. After His resurrection, Jesus’ disciples waited expectantly for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
On the day of Pentecost, 120 disciples received the Holy Spirit after waiting expectantly for 10 days. The pastor pointed out that many of them would have had jobs and families too, yet they were not distracted but were focused wholeheartedly on God.
“Expectation is the breeding ground for miracles, so pray with expectation to allow the Lord to speak and move in your lives,” Pastor Bobby stated. He concluded the service by encouraging the church to make time for the Holy Spirit and to make room to pray. He also prayed for those who wanted to receive the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues.
