These are notes on the sermon, Sweet Communion, preached by Pastor Gabriel Tan on Sunday, August 16, 2026 at The Star Performing Arts Centre, Singapore. We hope these sermon notes will encourage you to keep praying, keep believing, and not lose heart.
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As we look back on the messages preached by different pastors over the recent Sundays, we see a beautiful pattern in their focus: the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of the Father, and the person of the Holy Spirit. What makes this even more amazing is that it wasn’t something the pastors had planned beforehand. Hence, we can see how the Lord has been leading us by His Spirit and revealing the triune God to us through His Word.
Here, we see all three come together in a single verse:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
—2 Corinthians 13:14
In his message, Pastor Gabriel spoke about the sweet communion of the Holy Spirit that believers get to enjoy. And how does this communion come about? Through praying in tongues.
Notice how the verse says “communion of the Holy Spirit”? This means that we don’t just enjoy communion with the Holy Spirit. We are also in communion with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us and reminds us daily of this beautiful oneness we have with our God.
Now perhaps, when it comes to praying in the Spirit, some of us feel discouraged. Maybe you have doubts, or maybe you find that you can’t yet pray in tongues.
Pastor Gabriel encourages us with a personal testimony of how he came to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and to speak in tongues. He was saved and water baptized at sixteen, and prayed to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit a few times. Yet nothing happened. Watching others around him pray in tongues, he felt like a spectator rather than a partaker. Finally, one night, while alone in prayer, he told the Lord simply, “If this gift is good, I want it,” and began to speak in tongues right after.
So if you’ve also prayed to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit but are still waiting to speak in tongues, don’t give up. Believe that you have received the gift and begin to exercise it. The Lord’s heart is not for us to sit on the sidelines but to be participants and partakers in all that the Spirit has for us.
Maybe some of us are wondering: Why do we need to pray in tongues? What about praying in our known language?
In 1 Corinthians 14:13–17, Paul writes about praying both with the spirit and with our understanding. The point is not that we must choose one over the other. There is no competition and no contradiction. Both are gifts the Lord has given us to commune with Him, and together, they complete our prayer life.
When you pray in tongues, the Holy Spirit can pray for people, things, or situations beyond your knowledge through you. And praying with understanding matters when we pray for others, as they can only come into agreement with us and say “Amen” when they understand what we are praying. So whether we pray in the Spirit or with our understanding, both are important and powerful.
While some of us may have doubts about praying in tongues, others might have fears about praying in their known language—afraid they might say the wrong thing, or that their prayers might not be polished or specific enough.
But prayer has never been about getting our words right. It’s about coming to God and asking in Jesus’ name. Our Lord Jesus tells us, “Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24).
Now, what does it really mean to pray in Jesus’ name? To explain this, Pastor Gabriel drew on a teaching Pastor Prince shared some years back, on the offering of the dove in Leviticus 1:16–17.
Before the offering was to be presented, the high priest would remove the crop and feathers of the dove, signifying whatever was unnecessary, and cast it aside. What remained was burned as “a sweet aroma to the LORD.”
In the same way, when we pray in Jesus’ name, our great High Priest, our Lord Jesus Himself, takes our prayers and removes whatever is unnecessary, whatever is superfluous. Not only that, He also adds His own sweet aroma to our prayers. He adds His beauty, His favor, His perfume. Then He turns to the Father and offers Him a perfect prayer.
This is why it’s not about how long or how eloquently we pray. We don’t need to pray perfect prayers. We can simply pray from our hearts. Because when we pray, our prayers go through the Lord Jesus, and God receives them as perfect.
What freedom this brings! We no longer have to worry that our prayers are too clumsy or imperfect, too short or not worded eloquently. And, friend, don’t underestimate the power of prayer because it is the Lord Jesus Himself who carries it to the Father on your behalf.
Now, let’s go back to the verse we started with:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
—2 Corinthians 13:14
In Greek, the word “communion” is koinonia, which means fellowship. And in English, you get the same idea even when you say the word “communion”: common union. This means that today, we have been given a shared, common union with the Holy Spirit Himself!
Think of a marriage: A husband and wife are already one in a covenant. But they get to enjoy deeper intimacy with each other when they have things in common, for example, their values, hobbies, the way they want to raise their children. That’s the kind of intimacy and union we get to enjoy with the Holy Spirit today!
When we first receive the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes to live in us, like water poured into a vessel. That is already beautiful in itself, but when we receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we become completely immersed in Him, united with Him in oneness, like being surrounded on every side by the ocean. And we step deeper into this intimate fellowship with Him when we pray in tongues.
To enjoy this sweet communion, it helps to know more about the Person of the Holy Spirit—His role, His ministry, and His work in our lives.
He is our Helper and Advocate
Our Lord Jesus revealed the Holy Spirit’s role in our lives in the upper room:
And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever.
—John 14:16
The word “Helper” here is parakletos, one called alongside to help us. It’s the same word John used in 1 John 2:1, where he tells us the Lord Jesus is our Advocate with the Father. So in heaven, we have Jesus as our Advocate (parakletos) at the Father’s right hand. And on earth, we have the Holy Spirit, our Helper (parakletos), living on the inside of us.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t just come alongside us for a moment. He abides with us forever. He dwells with us and in us, and He will never leave us nor forsake us. How secure we are in Him!
He teaches us all things and guides us into all truth
Our Lord Jesus tells us this Helper “will teach you all things” (John 14:26). And in John 16:12–15, He says the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth, will guide us into all truth.
Perhaps you’re not sure what to do or what steps to take next. As you lean on the Holy Spirit, He can guide you, and not just in some areas, but in ALL areas of your life! He can even show you things to come. Whatever He teaches us, whatever He guides us into, the result is always the same: Our Lord Jesus is glorified.
He brings Jesus’ words to our remembrance
Not only does the Holy Spirit teach us all things, He also brings to remembrance what the Lord Jesus has already spoken to us. Whether it’s the Lord’s words of wisdom, His words of encouragement, His words of affirmation, the Holy Spirit will bring to our remembrance what the Lord has spoken to us in our time of need.
And in John 14:27, immediately after Jesus tells us this Helper will bring to our remembrance all that He has said to us, He says:
“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, neither let it be afraid.”
This means that whenever you are worried or stressed, the Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance the words of peace our Lord Jesus has already spoken over you. Friend, you can’t find peace by looking around at your circumstances or the world; only the Prince of Peace, our Lord Jesus Himself can give you a peace that surpasses all understanding.
In John 15, our Lord Jesus calls Himself the true vine, and us the branches. It’s in this same chapter that He speaks about fruitfulness. As we abide in Him, remaining in constant, sweet communion with Him, the fruit of the Spirit will begin to flow naturally in our lives.
Our heavenly Father wants us to be fruitful in every area of our lives. But fruitfulness isn’t just about aptitude, about being able to do things well. It’s also about attitude, about how we do the things we do. As we flow with the Holy Spirit, His fruit will begin to show up not just in what we do, but also in how we do it—in the attitudes and attributes we display toward those around us.
“But the fruit of the Spirit [the result of His presence within us] is love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
—Galatians 5:22–23 AMP
Isn’t that beautiful? This fruit is the result of His presence within us. It’s not something we can manufacture by trying harder.
All the attributes of the “fruit of the Spirit” are desirable, and in the Amplified Bible, we are given more explanation on three of them. The first is love, a love that is unselfish, the God-kind of love. The next is inner peace, and the last is patience, not just the ability to simply wait, but also how we behave while we wait.
This attitude extends to seasons when it feels like nothing is happening, when we’re still waiting for a breakthrough, meaning we can be fruitful even in such seasons. One way this can look like is coming honestly to the Lord, instead of gritting our teeth in silence, and saying, “Lord, help me. I need You. I feel so tired. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Whether you pray in your known language or in the Spirit, prayer isn’t only about making your requests known. It’s also about sharing your heart with the Lord. And when you do, it builds intimacy, and the waiting itself becomes a place of deep fellowship with Him.
So beloved, take time this week to enjoy the sweet communion of the Holy Spirit. If you’ve been feeling depleted or worn out, simply receive from Him. Allow Him to refresh you, restore you, and fill you afresh. Whether through spending time in the Word, through worship, or through sharing your heart with Him in prayer, may you know afresh the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of the Father, and the sweet communion of the Holy Spirit that is yours to enjoy, today and always!
We hope these sermon notes blessed you! If they did, we encourage you to get the sermon and allow the Lord to speak to you personally as you watch or listen to it.
© Copyright JosephPrince.com 2026
These sermon notes were taken by volunteers during the service. They are not a verbatim representation of the sermon.
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