Breathe Into You
Acts 1:1-8; Romans 8:9
Pastor George Dillahunty tells the story of Norena who lived in southern Florida when Hurricane Andrew severely damaged her home. Norena received an insurance settlement, and the repair work began. However, when the money ran out, so did the contractor, leaving an unfinished home with no electricity. Norena lived in her dark, unfinished home - without power - for 15 years. She had no heat in her home when the winter chills settled over southern Florida and no air conditioning when the mercury climbed into the 90’s and the humidity clung to 100 percent. She did not have one hot shower. Without money to finish the repairs, Norena just got by with a small lamp and a single burner. Acting on a tip one day, the mayor of the Miami-Dade area got involved. It only took a few hours of work by electrical contractor, Kent Crook, to return power to Norena’s house. CBS News reported that Norena planned to let the water get really hot, and then take her first "bubble bath" in a decade and a half. "It’s hard to describe having [the electricity]...to switch on," Norena told reporters, "It’s overwhelming." And then George Dillahunty asks, "How many Christians have been living their entire lives without ever knowing what it is like to have the overwhelming Power of the Holy Spirit operating within them?"
This summer we’re going to look at what it really means to follow Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Book of Acts begins with the Day of Pentecost, which occurred 50 days after Easter, when God gave the Holy Spirit to the church. From that point on, the church is those who are born of and filled with the Spirit. It is this Spirit which empowers the church to demonstrate God’s presence here on earth and to do the works of Jesus in the world. Now the Holy Spirit is just one part of God. In an attempt to explain more fully the person and nature of God, the early church fathers began to talk about one God in three persons. And thus, the doctrine of the Trinity was formed. The Trinity is one of the distinctive beliefs of the Christian faith, setting it apart from all other world religions. In 2 Corinthians 13:14, we see the role of each person of the Trinity: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit will be with all of you.” In God the Father, we experience love. In Jesus the Son, we experience grace. In the Holy Spirit, we experience God’s presence and power. Now when we come to faith, we do so in knowledge of God the Father and His love and in God’s Son, Jesus Christ and His grace in our lives. And that’s where most Christians stay because they seem to know the least about the Holy Spirit.
Now to learn about the Holy Spirit, you have to go to the writings of Luke which include the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. These are the only two books in the NT written by a Gentile. Luke was a Greek doctor who was one of Paul’s most ardent followers. In the book of Acts, Luke is writing to Theopholis, a Roman official of high stature. He is not just asking Theopholis to buy the myth of the resurrection or the claims of Jesus as Messiah, but rather to consider the evidence. As a result, Luke is concerned with the proofs of Jesus. So Luke seeks to give an account of the evidence of Jesus’ existence and His identity. Now the Gospel of Luke tells the story the Good News of Jesus and the Book of Acts tells the story of Holy Spirit in the early church after Jesus was resurrected and ascended into heaven. And that’s the thing you need to understand about the Book of Acts, it is not the story of the church or the Apostles but rather the Holy Spirit who is the principle character in the story.
There are several things we learn about receiving the Holy Spirit in today’s Scripture. First and foremost, realize that it is absolutely critical to following Jesus. In fact, the key sign of being a follower of Jesus is the Holy Spirit in your life. It is the Holy Spirit which makes us a witness of the Good News of Jesus Christ. And before the disciples could ever carry on the ministry and mission of Jesus, they must first wait to receive the Holy Spirit. For Jesus told the disciples: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.” Now the disciple’s waiting for the gift of the Holy Spirit lends to the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit. In Greek, the word for the Holy Spirit is breathe. And just as breathing is essential for your physical life, the Holy Spirit is essential for the spiritual life. You can’t have a spiritual life apart from the Holy Spirit. Too many Christians concentrate only on the knowledge about God or knowledge about Jesus by studying the Scriptures. In fact, this was Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees that they studied the Scriptures thinking that you find life in the Scriptures. Life is not in the Scriptures. Life is in the Holy Spirit. Now the disciples had lived with Jesus for three years day in and day out. Can you imagine a better learning experience having personal instruction from Jesus himself? Can you imagine being an eyewitness to all of His miracles? But that wasn’t enough. Now if physical proximity and knowledge of Jesus’ teaching and being an eyewitness of his miracles weren’t enough for the disciples, what is? The answer is the Holy Spirit. You cannot live the Christian life and do the things of Jesus until you have received the Holy Spirit.
Second, In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus, you cannot see the kingdom of God, let alone participate in it, unless you have the Spirit, “no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.” Worship attendance doesn’t get you there. Sunday School or Bible study doesn’t get you there. Only the indwelling of the Holy Spirit does. Jesus said, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” John 3:6 Now listen to me very carefully: because God is Spirit, He does not speak to our ears but rather speaks to our spirit. Unless you are born of the Spirit, you cannot be in a relationship and communicate with God. You can know God, you can believe in God, you can work for God but you can’t communicate with God.
So how do you receive the Holy Spirit? First, you have to actively wait for the Spirit. Jesus tells the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit. It’s is up to the disciples to carry on Jesus’ ministry but there’s only one problem: they don’t have the power, wisdom or guidance of Jesus to minister with. And so Jesus has them wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit. But this is not a time of passive waiting but active waiting. How do you actively wait? First, pray constantly. Acts 1:14 says, “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. Now this is on the 40th day. Ten days later on the day of Pentecost, “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.” They had been constantly praying for 10 days! What’s the longest period of time you have ever prayed for anything? They prayed for 10 days! It really comes down to how bad you want it! It’s not passive waiting. It’s active waiting. God rewards persistent prayer. The parable of the widow and the unjust judge Luke 18:2-7. Second, study the Scriptures. Peter stood up and expounded on the Scriptures which revealed that Judas’ betrayal of Jesus had been foretold. Before that, they must have been confused at how Judas could do such a thing. John MacArthur writes, “Peter used the most compelling proof, Scripture, to reassure the believers that Judas’ defection and the choice of his replacement were both in God’s purpose.” Through the Scriptures, they began to make sense of what God was doing in their midst. So if you have questions, if you’re in need of God’s guidance, wait by turning to God’s word for us. Third is fast. John Wesley believed every Methodist should fast at least once a week. The purpose of the fast is to not only deny yourself food but to use that time of preparation and eating food to pursue God in prayer and the study of Scripture. This is actively waiting, seeking and listening for God’s voice and the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
What it really comes down to is this: how bad do you want it? How much time and effort are you willing to invest in your relationship with God and the seeking of His Spirit? As we look at the Book of Acts to see what it really means to live in the fullness of the Spirit, it really comes down to two things: desire and discipline. Not everyone in the Book of Acts receives the Spirit. In fact, some people in the Book of Acts are willing to pay for that power because they don’t have the desire and the discipline to pursue it. It’s like some of us would love to sing or play an instrument like Committed. When you listen to Committed and the absolutely incredible level of singing and musicianship, you’ve got to realize you just don’t show up on Sunday morning and play. None of us can do that and ever produce what they do because you’ve got to have the desire and the discipline to put in the work to prepare. And that’s the problem with too many Christians: we would like to have the Holy Spirit in our lives but we don’t really have the desire which will lead to the discipline to pursue it. People pray to God and ask for God’s blessing and presence in their life but they don’t yearn and strive for it. So actively waiting for the Spirit to come is absolutely critical because Jesus said, don’t think you can go out in the world with knowledge because that’s not going to cut it.
Receiving the Holy Spirit is about surrender. Listen to the promise of Jesus, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Jesus connects water and the Holy Spirit. Water signifies baptism. Baptism is a symbol of death and surrender. The word baptism in Greek means to be buried. When you’re immersed you literally go down under the water as if you are going in the grave and when you arise, you are born again of God. So when you are baptized, you are literally dying to your former way of life because you realize that’s not cutting it and you are surrendering to life in God. But here’s the thing: that act of dying isn’t a one-time event. Instead, it is a continual surrendering to the will of God. I am continually putting to death my will, my values, my wants, my priorities by surrendering to the will of God and allowing Holy Spirit to move in me so that Christ can be seen though me. It is only when we die to self that then the Spirit can come to live in us.
Baptism is my commitment to God, the Holy Spirit is God’s gift or commitment to me. Death to self is you, Spirit is God. Repentance is the sign of God with us, surrender is God in us where we are literally partakers of the divine nature as it says in 2 Peter 1:4. Now repentance is believing in God but new birth is being like Jesus. It is having Christ-like character in us, the Holy Spirit working in me and the love of God for others flows through me. Now faith in God is working for God. And there are good Christians who believe God is with them, they believe in God and are working for God and do so for many years but they have never come to a point of surrendering to God. And until they do, they will never walk with God. You’ve got to understand the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit in your life and that starts with surrendering, crucifying our will and wants so that God’s will can be born anew in us through the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit must precede witness. Verse 8 reads: “But 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.” The power of the Holy Spirit must precede witness and the problem of the church is that our witness gets ahead of the Holy Spirit. When we try to witness apart from the Holy Spirit then it becomes a liability to the work of the Jesus Christ. This explains a good deal of the powerlessness in the modern church and the poverty of spiritual experience in many a church and many a Christian. They haven’t waited on the Spirit and weren’t led or guided by the Spirit. The reason the church has such a bad rap in our culture today is that they have heard our words and seen our actions but have not seen Christ in us. Our witness, what little there is of it, has preceded the power rather than allowing the power to fill us and our words and actions.
Jesus is the revelation of God’s love and the Holy Spirit is the affirmation of God’s love. This is why we go and serve. This is why we share our faith because we can’t help it. It’s the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit which compels us. But for that passion and desire to ever be in us, you have to have the fire of the Holy Spirit in you. Have you ever lit on fire a pile of charcoal brickets? When it becomes really hot, it is fire red. But when a bricket is removed, what happens? It starts to cool. The problem with most Christians is that they are too far removed from the fire of Holy Spirit. Their life, their faith, their service and their witness is powerless and cold. The only way that will ever change is if you begin to actively wait for Holy Spirit, but to do that you have to have the desire to receive the Holy Spirit above everything else in your life. That leads to the discipline of prayer, Bible study and the fasting and then surrendering your entire life and will to God. You really have only two choices: to go ahead living the powerless, stillborn faith you have or to be filled with Holy Spirit and see and experience the power of God through you to change the world. The only question is, How bad do you want it?
