The Empowering Experience of the Spirit
Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, writes;
“mention the power of the Holy Spirit and most people think of miraculous demonstrations and intense emotions. Most of the time the power of the Holy Spirit is released in your life in quiet, unassuming ways... nudges and gentle whispers. Christlikeness is not produced by imitation, but by inhabitation!”
The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren, 2002, Zondervan
It is being INHABITED by God - being filled with the Holy Spirit- that is what I want to talk about this morning,
As He was preparing to leave the disciples, Jesus said this.
TEXT: Acts 1:8 “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
_______________________
Our Scripture text this morning brings us to one of the New Testament’s exciting stories, the birth of the Church and the power experience that transformed those first Believers.
Acts 2. read vv. 1-4.
If you are familiar with the rest of the book of Acts, you know that these men and women did amazing things - in a hostile world, with very little in the way of resources. In one generation, the message of Christ’s salvation had spread from Jerusalem to the whole Roman Empire! Within 300 years, the Gospel had changed the world!
How did they do it?
They were empowered by the Spirit.
It all started in a small 2nd story room in Jerusalem on the Jewish feast of Pentecost. “They were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues.” In those few words, we find the unique emphasis of our church. Our understanding of this passage is what makes us different from Baptists, Presbyterians, or the Alliance church. This church is a local congregation of the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal fellowship. What does that description - PENTECOSTAL - mean?
The nickname - “Pentecostal” – comes from the day on which those first Believers experienced that empowering by the Spirit. It was the Jewish feast of Pentecost, so named because it came 50 days after Passover. We are called “Pentecostal” because we believe that the Filling of the Spirit that those first Christians in Jerusalem experienced on that Day is an experience of transformation that God still gives to Believers today!
Jesus promised, (READ 1:5)
“In a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” They were and the world has never been the same!
So what is the Baptism in the Spirit?
By choosing the terminology of baptism, Jesus gave us an image, a way of understanding, what happens to us when we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Most of you have witnessed a conversion baptism. A person who has accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord makes that decision a public testimony by submitting to baptism.
Going into the water, he or she is plunged fully under the surface, coming up soaking wet, dripping water, and sometimes sputtering. There is a visible difference before and after baptism. Jesus says that He will plunge us into the Presence of the Holy Spirit saturating our beings: body, soul, and spirit, with the Divine and radically changing us in the process!
Some Christians will ask? “But didn’t I receive the Holy Spirit when I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior?” Yes, you did. If you had not received the Spirit of God, you would not have spiritual life or eternal salvation. The Holy Spirit is the agent the bringer of life to our spirits once deadened by sin and disobedience.
Titus 3:5-7 assures us that
“He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”
The Baptism with the Spirit is not about whether you have the Spirit; but rather about how much the Spirit owns you!
There is a second spiritual experience for every Believer that involves our full embrace of His presence. This happens when we become hungry for more of God, for a life that is more consistently holy, for spiritual power in our lives. Our desire for God causes us to press in near to the heart of God, to long intensely for more of Him, and to give ourselves fully to the Spirit.
Through history churches and teachers have called this deepening and empowering experience by many names:
∙ sanctification,
∙ the second blessing,
∙ the second work of grace.
Why not just use the Bible’s term?
The Scripture calls this moment of surrender when the Holy Spirit takes full control of an individual: the Baptism with the Holy Spirit.
So, why are more Christians entering into the experience of the Spirit’s power?
The number one reason is this: They sense NO NEED for it.
Here’s why! We have settled for a kind of Christianity that is very different from the one we see on display in the book of the Acts. A careful reading of the book of the Acts and the epistles will show that the early church looked for a visible transformation in a person’s life.
Today we declare a man a Christian based on his affirmation of a doctrine or his statement that he has prayed the ‘sinner’s prayer.’ All too often a person who joins a church, prays a prayer, or affirms belief in Jesus Christ shows LITTLE OR NO OUTWARD CHANGE and we regard that as normal.
How wrong!
Sinners should be changed into saints.
∙ People full of hate become full of love.
∙ People who were greedy become givers.
∙ Sensual, self-loving people should become Christ-loving, spiritual, and other-centered people
... IF they have a genuine and ongoing experience of the life-transforming Holy Spirit.
However, because we expect little or no change, there is no desperation for life and power of the Spirit!
The clear and convincing truth consistently taught throughout the New Testament about the normal Christian life is that a Believer cannot be all that God desires him to be unless he is filled with the Spirit!
PRINCIPLE -
The Christian life, as presented in the Word, is AN IMPOSSIBILITY for a person without the Spirit!
When we come to Christ for salvation we are made alive to God. When we desire to effectively do the works of God and live in a satisfying and intimate relationship with God we need to follow the pattern of those first Believers who waited for the empowering experience of the Spirit– the Baptism in the Spirit.
We sing a song that includes this line - “I’m desperate for you....” and I am convinced that few of really know what that means! Or we think we do, because we are fed up with life and think that God should step in and make it all better.
The early Christians waded into the world and its suffering! They didn’t look to avoid the sins and challlenges. They took the Gospel into the blackest holes and knew that unless the Spirit was flowing in them and from them; they were doomed to fail, to leave the work undone.
But, you might say, that was then. Now we have churches, trained pastors, money, influence, access to Bibles and Christian books. And all that is good, but if we are not full of the Spirit - it only goes so far!
John Piper, pastor and scholar, who is not a Pentecostal, explores the book of Acts and finds four reasons that it is of vital importance for modern Christians to seek to be filled with the Spirit. Let me borrow the next part of my message straight from him. He says:
1. The implication of the experience’s description
To be ‘baptized in the Spirit’ implies immersion, an overwhelming experience. You can’t imagine him merely sneaking in quietly while you are asleep and taking up inconspicuous residence. ... If it ends there, Jesus and Luke would not call it a baptism in the Spirit.
2. Power, Boldness, and Confidence
Jesus says in Acts 1:5 and 8 that baptism in the Spirit means, "You shall receive power . . . and you shall be my witnesses." This is an experience of boldness and confidence and victory over sin. A Christian without power is a Christian who needs a baptism in the Holy Spirit. I am aware that in 1 Corinthians 12:13 Paul says that baptism in the Spirit is an act of God by which we become a part of the body of Christ at conversion, so that in his terminology all genuine converts have been baptized in the Spirit. ... for sure in the book of Acts the baptism in the Holy Spirit is more than a subconscious divine act of regeneration—it is a conscious experience of power (Acts 1:8).
3. The Testimony of Acts
In fact the third reason I think this is that when you take your concordance and look up every text in Acts where the Holy Spirit works in believers, it is never subconscious. In Acts the Holy Spirit is not a silent influence but an experienced power. Believers experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit. They didn’t just believe it happened because an apostle said so.
4. The Consequence of Faith
The fourth reason we should stress the experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit is that in Acts the apostles teach that it is a consequence of faith not a subconscious cause of faith. ... this regenerating work of God’s Spirit is not the limit of what Peter means by baptism in the Spirit. In Acts 11:15-17 Peter reports how the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius just as on the disciples at Pentecost.
"As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ’John baptized in water, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us, when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I should withstand God?"
Notice that the gift of the Spirit, or baptism in the Spirit, is preceded by faith. The NASB correctly says in v. 17 that God gave the Holy Spirit after they believed.-http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1984/437_How_to_Receive_the_Gift_of_the_Holy_Spirit/
So, how do we receive this experience of the Spirit?
John Rea created an acrostic that helps us understand how we receive the Baptism in the Spirit.
He uses the word: READY.
Bible Handbook of the Holy Spirit, John Rea, Th.D, 1998 Charisma
Close
R- epent.
Those who would be full of God have realized their brokeness and sin and they have turned to Christ.
E-xpect.
Hearing the promise of power, we wait for God’s power to come with an expectant, faith-filled heart.
A-sk.
We pray for God to fill us.
D-rink.
There is nothing to compare with a glass of cool water when we are thirsty, is there? Likewise, our spirit grows parched by life’s demands and sin’s prevalence. Jesus invites us {John 7:37-39}
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
Y-ield.
When I baptize a new believe, that person must allow me to take control of their being for a moment, to plunge them into the water. They relax and I do the work. I lay them back into the water, pushing them down until the water flows over their whole being, then I bring them back up! When Christ baptizes us in the Spirit, we must allow Him to control! If we remain rigid, unbending, inflexible in our approach, He cannot touch us with the fullness of His powerful Presence in the Spirit.
PAUSE here...
There is one more thing that I must talk about before I close, the word that some of you have been waiting to hear.
It is the controversial issue of speaking in tongues. I don’t have time to explore the several passages in the book of Acts where people were filled with the Spirit, but I hope you’ll take my word that in most of them there is a common experience with the first Pentecost - and this it - they spoke in tongues!
So what is it?
In the context of the Baptism with the Spirit, Tongues are a prayer language given to the Believer by the inspiration of the Spirit. When that person is filled to overflowing with God, the language of their conscious mind is simply inadequate to express the emotions, the feelings that are occasioned in that moment. Surrendering to the Spirit, they speak in tongues in a way that builds up their spirit and praises God.
The closest analogies that I can think of to help your understanding are these:
- the unique nonverbal communication that happens between parents and new baby!
- the whoops and yells of a person overcome with ecstasy in a great moment of excitement!
The Assemblies of God, of which this church is a local congregation, teaches that speaking in tongues is the first physical evidence of their Baptism in the Holy Spirit. While this position does find some support in the study of the book of Acts, it is much more important to seek the person of God and His Holy Spirit than it is to seek this one experience. Paul teaches that tongues is a normal part of the Christian life, that helps us to enter into intimate prayer, and that allows us to communicate spirit to Spirit!
Speaking with tongues can be faked and/or manufactured in response to pressure no matter how slight. Nevertheless, it is a real experience. I believe that the study of the New Testament confirms that every Spirit-filled Believer can accept the gift of a prayer language and communicate with the Lord in a language of the Spirit. However, we must be cautious about insisting that everyone share the experience before their faith and understanding have developed to the point where they can accept this gift without fear or a need to please someone other than God.
Don’t get side-tracked from the true reason for the baptism in the Spirit – power to serve God in this present world!
Don’t let this become about having an experience of tongues! You will come to that – maybe today, maybe next year – when you are ready. Meanwhile, seek the Spirit!
__________________________
Are you hungry for more of God?
Do you enjoy a personal relationship with Him that gives your life power and that causes you to overflow with the evidence of His life in you?
Jesus would like to baptize you in the flow of His Holy Spirit.
Are you READY?
Repentant,
Expectant,
Asking,
Drinking up what Christ offers,
and Yielded?
Then He will come to YOU.
I know that there are some here who have been taught differently about this subject. I respect your previous teaching asking only that you take a second look at the Word of God and the experience of other Believers. No one here will ever force any doctrine on you. Feel free to examine what I’ve shared with you today. Question it! Just do one thing!
Pray and ask God for every good gift He has for you. Amen
Jerry D. Scott
copyright 2009
www.WashingtonAG.com
