OPEN: During the Middle ages, in Florence Italy, there was a wealthy citizen by the name of Lorenzo de’Medici. He was a patron of the arts and very proud of the grand plays and pageants he staged for the citizens of the area. Among his productions were several amazingly realistic religious pageants performed in church.
But one Pentecost, Lorenzo went too far: He had his players reenact Acts 2 where it tells of the tongues of fire which descended on the apostles… and he used actual fire.
As a result, the stage caught fire and the entire building burned to the ground.
One commentator observed: “The moral is clear: pray for Pentecostal power, but don’t try to manufacture it.” (Charismatic Chaos, J. MacArthur, Jr., Zondervan, 1992, p. 175)
APPLY: The people of God should always desire God’s power in their lives. But, the Bible tells us: we don’t have to manufacture that power.
We don’t have to stage a grand production or experience earth shaking feelings of ecstasy to come into contact with the Spirit of God.
Because God’s Spirit is right here.
He’s inside of every believer.
We don’t have to go through mental, or physical or spiritual gymnastics to have God’ Spirit… because He’s there with all the time.
And Paul tells us:
“We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 1 Corinthians 2:12
If you are a Christian today - you HAVE received God’s Spirit. He’s dwelling right inside of you.
And He has some very specific purposes to accomplish in your life.
I went down thru a list of things I could think of that God says His Spirit does for me, and I found that:
1. God’s Spirit marks me as belonging to God (Ephesians 1:13-14). He is the seal of salvation. When God looks down from heaven on you and I, He sees His Spirit and knows us to be His son/daughter.
2. He helps me pray (Romans 8:26). “…We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
3. He makes me powerful as a Christian (Eph. 6:17). This is a difficult and hard world at times, and God’s Spirit works inside me to help me keep my footing and stand firm for my faith.
4. And thru those Scriptures, He teaches me about the things of God (I John 2:27). The Bible is called the Sword of the Spirit because it is used (in part) to teach me about God and His will for my life.
5. He reminds me of Jesus’ teachings (John 14:26).
ILLUS: I experienced this first hand back in the last church I served. A man there had grown angry with me (frankly, anger about many things at the church had become a hallmark of life for some time) to the point where he left church for several months. But then one day he and friends decided to stage a comeback. They intended to come and sit together and glare at me and generally make life difficult for me. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t dislike the man but there didn’t seem to be much I could do to head off the crisis he wanted to create.
So I spent time in prayer. And into my mind (I’m convinced it was God’s Spirit that placed it there) came this quote from Jesus: “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.”
But what did I want this man to do to me?
I wanted him to shake my hand.
So, that next Sunday, when the man and his friends went to their section of the pews, I walked right over to them. I swear, they got up and moved across the church building. But I wasn’t going to let them get away from me. I followed all the way across the church and insisted on shaking the man’s hand.
Now, that didn’t defuse the man’s anger… but it did defuse the crisis.
6. He convicts me of sin, and the need for righteousness in my life (John 16:8). He’s like my conscience… except this isn’t my conscience. My conscience is based upon my life experiences and my personal take on morality. By contrast, the Spirit’s prompting is based on God’s morality… and there are times when He’s going to convict me of things I don’t necessarily want to deal with.
7. And He helps me to understand the mind of God (I Corinthians 2:11&16). “… no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God… We have the mind of Christ”
I could preach entire sermons on each one of those topics.
But I wanted to focus on the LAST of those because I believe that this is the key to the Spirit’s power in our lives.
God’s Spirit helps me to understand the mind of God – how God thinks! AND if I can understand how God thinks, then I should be able to start thinking that way myself and then my life will change… and I can even change the world around me.
This is such a powerful concept, that Albert Einstein once said:
"I want to know God’s thoughts... the rest are details."
The beauty for us is that the Spirit is like a direct line between God and us. We are literally tapped into God through His Spirit.
And when we allow ourselves to be immersed in God - if we allow ourselves to be focused on His thoughts - then we can do powerful things in this world.
ILLUS: Samuel F.B. Morse was the inventor of the telegraph (Morse’ code).
An interviewer (George Hervey) once asked him: "Professor Morse, when you were making your experiments at the university, did you ever come to a standstill, not knowing what to do next?"
“I’ve never discussed this with anyone, so the public knows nothing about it. But now that you ask me, I’ll tell you frankly -- I prayed for more light"
"And did God give you the wisdom and knowledge you needed?"
“Yes He did. That’s why I never felt I deserved the honors that came to me … because of the invention associated with my name. I had made a valuable application of the use of electrical power, but it was all through God’s help. It wasn’t because I was superior to other scientists. When the Lord wanted to bestow this gift on mankind. He had to use someone. I’m just grateful He chose to reveal it to me."
Morse understood, what every Christian should understand:
When you tap into the mind of God, you can accomplish great things for God.
· You can change your life
· You can change your family
· You can change your workplace
· You can even change the world around you.
But FIRST, you need to think like God.
And that is one of the most significant things the Spirit does for us.
Now - as God’s Spirit takes over my thinking, several things happen.
1st – My priorities change.
Before I became a Christian… it was all about me.
I did - what I did - because I wanted to.
My morals were MY morals.
My goals were MY goals.
I made my decisions based on what I felt was best.
BUT NOW… things have changed
One man put it this way:
“The natural man lives as if there was nothing beyond the physical life and there were no needs other than his material needs. Such a person thinks that nothing is more important than the satisfaction of the sex urge and thus cannot understand the meaning of moral purity. One who believes collecting material things is the supreme end of life can’t understand generosity
and one who has never thought beyond this world… cannot understand the things of God.
(I apologize for the fact that I’m sure who to attribute this quote to.)
God’s Spirit constantly reminds us that we don’t belong to “ourselves” anymore.
We belong to God.
We’ve been bought with a price.
We’re no longer our own.
And because we now belong to God, His Spirit expects to make changes in our lives.
Now sometimes the change He makes in us is dramatic.
I’ve seen people who’ve come out of alcoholism, drug abuse and other disastrous lifestyles when they became Christians. It was like the wickedness of their life and simply snapped away and they had literally received a different personality.
But more often the change in our lives is far more subtle.
In fact, it can be so subtle that we don’t even know that’s it’s happening.
ILLUS: My folks were faithful Christians who lived what they believed.
Mom once told me of the time they visited some friends they hadn’t seen in years. They were visiting and talking… and suddenly one of them asked: “You’re a Christian aren’t you?”
The topic had never come up, but there was something about how my parents talked that made it obvious that they spent their lives walking by the Spirit of God. And that Spirit made them look/act different than other people
But THIS IS KEY - I don’t become a better person because I’m a superior individual.
I become a better person because God’s Spirit is a superior influence in my life.
So, 1st - God’s Spirit changes my priorities.
2ndly – when God’s Spirit takes over my life… I pray differently
The Holy Spirit changes how I think when I pray.
Romans 8:26 tells me “… the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
The Spirit is there to guide me in what to pray for… and how to pray for what I DO pray for.
ILLUS: Several years ago, Guideposts carried this story by a man named Mac St. Johns
It was the Winter of 1944 during World War II. St. Johns was in France, a platoon sergeant in the Yankee Division under General Patton. As he told the story:
“About mid-December I received a letter from my mother back in the States. ‘Can you remember,’ she asked, ‘where you were on Thanksgiving Day?’
Could I remember? How could I forget the odd thing that happened that day. At dawn I was sent to check out a crossroads where an enemy strongpoint was suspected. Normally I would have had my men fan out so that they could move with the cover of the trees. But just before we started out that Thanksgiving morning, I stopped. I stood stark still arguing with myself about what I should do.
Then, going strictly against the book I walked my men right down the middle of a road in an exposed column. No one fired at us; there was no evidence of the enemy. We found the crossroads unoccupied and turned to walk back. There, on the backside of the trees where only the German soldiers would have seen were signs cautioning "MINEN". The woods were mined.
We could have been blown to bits!
Mother’s letter continued. She told me how she awakened after midnight on Thanksgiving Eve when it would have been daylight in France: "I had a strong feeling that you were in great danger," she wrote. "When I opened my Bible, a phrase in Second Chronicles [20:17] gleamed on the page: ’Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord with you..."’
He felt a chill as he realized the impact of that verse: Stand ye still. Stark still.
(Maj. Michael Halt Guideposts 11/02)
His mother didn’t know WHAT to pray for… but she felt God’s Spirit guiding her in her prayer. And her prayer made a powerful difference for her son… and his entire company.
I’m convinced that when we commit ourselves to serious praying, the Spirit of God can literally help us know what to pray for, and bring God’s power into the lives of people we care about.
But the Holy Spirit’s involvement in my prayer life goes even deeper. Because – you see, in my weakness - I may sometimes think God’s not listening to me.
But that’s never going to be a problem because – notice again what Romans 8:26 says “…the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express”
That’s the PROMISE of God. I don’t have to FEEL that God is hearing me because even when I can’t find the right words His Spirit is INSIDE of me, feeling every emotion I feel knowing exactly what I want to say, even when I can’t say it.
The Spirit of God doesn’t depend upon what I feel.
His presence is based upon my emotions.
God promised the Spirit to every Christian.
But there are people who aren’t satisfied with that.
There are people want something more.
They desire more flash and showiness or they don’t “feel” the Spirit.
And when they can’t get that “feeling”, they tend to try to “manufacture” the Spirit’s presence.
ILLUS: Years ago, when I was at Great Lakes Bible College in Lansing, MI, a few of us decided to go to the other side of town (E. Lansing – home of Michigan State Univ.) where most of the movies and restaurants were. While we driving through town, we noticed a sign that said “Revival”… and we thought “Why not?”
We drove up to a clapboard church building and went inside to see what this Revival would be like.
It was a small gathering. Pleasant people. A little girl peaked over the back of her pew to look at us (we were newbies). And then the Revival began.
After the opening songs and activities, the Revivalist took the stage. He was a confident man with a Bible in his hand and he began pacing across the stage. He’d get to one end of the stage and he’d grunt “Ha”. And then he’d pace back to the other side and grunt again “Ha”. He kept at this for the better part of the sermon and you could see the audience begin to sway with his actions, and they’d cry out “Glory” and “Hallelujah” and “Praise God.”
And I thought to myself: This guy is ginning up this audience. He’s “creating” the mood. And the audience (well primed for this kind of behavior) were excited because they sensed the Spirit “moving” amongst them.
Since that day, I’ve seen a few other preachers use this technique and it’s always made feel uncomfortable. If the Spirit wants to “move” in a congregation, He really shouldn’t need my help to “manufacture” the feeling of His presence.
But I’m not sure God is necessarily offended by this behavior. I’m just convinced that this practice can tend to make people confuse showiness and emotion --- for God’s actual presence.
Even back in the days of the early Church (in the days when God’s Spirit gave Christians miraculous and flashy gifts and abilities) even back then, people mistook showiness and emotion for God’s actual presence.
The Christians in Corinth could speak in tongues, prophesy, heal the sick.
And yet – notice what Paul writes to them in chapter 3
“Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly— mere infants in Christ.” (1Corintians 3:1)
Because they were Christians, the Spirit was inside them.
And because they lived in the early days of the church the Spirit did miraculous things through them He doesn’t do today.
But they were still “UNSPIRITUAL.”
They didn’t have to manufacture the showiness of God’s Spirit like some folks today do. But even with the REAL miraculous gifts from the Spirit they still missed the God’s real presence.
The Spirit hadn’t changed them.
The Spirit hadn’t affected how they thought, or how they prayed or how they treated others.
They lived like mere mortals, not Spirit filled children of God.
Why?
Because they weren’t looking for the Spirit to make them better servants of God.
They wanted God’s Spirit so they could be BETTER THAN OTHER servants of God.
And the difference between those two motives is the difference between
* a power that can burn down a church building through the selfishness of Christians
* and a power that can set God’s people on fire because they’ve sacrificed self to service.
For 2000 years, the Christians who understood that difference have been God’s best servants. They have been the ones who understood that Scripture never exalted and gloried in the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Instead it always focuses on worship of Jesus and glorying in the freedom and blessings He gives us. That’s what Paul says just before he launches into his description of the Spirit’s involvement in our lives:
“… I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” 1 Corinthians 2:2 NKJV
CLOSE: The year was 1865, and Richmond had fallen to the Federals. Abraham Lincoln came into the city by boat, and “no sooner had the presidential party reached the landing than Lincoln was surrounded by a small group of black laborers shouting,
‘Bress de Lord!… dere is de great Messiah!… Glory, Hallelujah!’
First one, and then several others fell on their knees.
His voice full of emotion, Lincoln said ‘Don’t kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to Him only, and thank Him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy.’
The men stood up, joined hands, and began to sing a hymn. (p. 719 Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin)
No matter how someone views the Holy Spirit, that should be the primary focus of our faith. We should be so taken by Jesus - so given over to worshipping and lifting us His name - that we bow to nothing and no one else.
