(This sermon is in an outline form so you may need to flesh it out a little)
Please open your Bibles to Mark 1:1-8 which we will read in a few minutes.
Last Sunday when we took a look at this passage of Scripture we talked about three things:
1. Mark was announcing Who Jesus is
2. Mark was immediately letting us know that Jesus was and is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies
3. And that John the Baptist had also been foretold in the Old Testament and that John, himself, was declaring Jesus as the Savior and we should be doing so as well.
With that in mind let’s go ahead and read Mark 1:1-8
Today we will be looking at the last verse in this passage of Scripture where Mark gives us a glimpse of what is coming in the future …
Mark 1:8
“I baptize you with water but He (Jesus) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
We as believers in Jesus the Nazarene love baptism.
We do not believe that the ritual of baptism saves the soul
Baptism is an honor; an honor to be identified as a follower of Jesus!
New thought … Baptism with the Holy Spirit.
The Jews were very familiar with the Holy Spirit but not Trinity.
The OT – Holy Spirit descends – specific events
What is this baptism in the Holy Spirit?
Function of Holy Spirit – administrator of Grace
Unmerited favor – too vague
Grace = God in action
Prevenient Grace is God wooing us
Convicting Grace is God revealing our sin
Saving Grace is God enabling us to respond salvation
Sanctifying Grace is transformational sinner-to-saint
(Blank Screen)
John Wesley – house analogy
Prevenient Grace
In our natural sinful state
We do not know the Lord
We may not even know that we do not know the Lord
Holy Spirit starts revealing a better way
Holy Spirit starts drawing – like the current in a river
We may
Move with the Holy Spirit
Resist the Holy Spirit
Prevenient Grace – activity of Holy Spirit alone but not Baptism in the Holy Spirit
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Convicting Grace
We are still in our natural sinful state
Holy Spirit reveals our sinful nature to us
Uncomfortable condition
We may
Understand our sinful condition
Resist the Holy Spirit and deny our sinful condition
Convicting Grace – understanding sinful condition – activity of Holy Spirit alone but not Baptism in the Holy Spirit
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Saving (Justifying) Grace
Holy Spirit reveals the need
Repent (turn away from sin)
Faith in Jesus Christ for salvation
Saving Grace –
Cooperative action
Holy Spirit enables human response
Person cooperates with Holy Spirit
Person rejects Holy Spirit’s help
Saving Grace – salvation is entered into – still not Baptism in the Holy Spirit
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Sanctifying Grace – Baptism in the Holy Spirit – entire sanctification
It IS totally possible for Saving Grace and Sanct. Grace to be simultaneous
Seldom the case
How do you know if your saved but not entirely sanctified?
Still feeling divided allegiance between self desires and pleasing the Lord
Still feeling divided allegiance between pleasing self and pleasing others
Struggling with sin
Sinning – conviction – repentance – sinning – conviction – repentance
Continual cycle
Life of spiritual struggle
Closet Christian
Weak prayer and erratic prayer life
No desire for God’s Word
No desire for Christian fellowship
Entire sanctification (holiness) impossible without the enabling Holy Spirit
Holiness requires holy love empowered by the Holy Spirit
Trying to live a holy life without the Holy Spirit – two outcomes
Attempting to achieve holiness without love results in dry legalism
Attempting to love without any regard to holiness results in acceptance of all sin
Scriptural basis for entire sanctification – living a holy life?
Matthew 22:37-40 – two great commandments – “all” means ALL
“Baptism in the Holy Spirit (entire sanctification) is the point where the serious work of transformation begins, not the point where it concludes.”
At the moment of sanctification we are empowered to love God with our whole hearts and our neighbors as ourselves.
We become able to live the life of faith
The absence of this experience is why the church in America is woefully sick.
We are a bunch of people trying to live with Jesus at the threshold, just enough to be saved but not allowing Him full access to us and denying Him full obedience.
John Fletcher said that Wesley’s understanding of entire sanctification is accomplished through the filling and baptism with the Holy Spirit whereby we come to love God with all our heart, soul and mind. Not a perfection of performance, not a perfection of behavior but a perfection of intent, a perfection of love. And that the essence of holiness is not behavior, behavior is important and behavior is improved as a result of the experience of holiness. But the essence of holiness is love, love for God. Righteousness is holy love, it is loving God and loving others as one loves oneself.
That can only be done as a gift, and that is through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
I am no longer my own, but Yours.
Put me to what You will, rank me with whom You will.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for You or laid aside for You,
exalted for You or brought low for You.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to Your pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
You are mine, and I am Yours.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.
When Mark wrote by the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus would baptize us with or in the Holy Spirit this is what he was talking about and this is the end result of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Concluding thoughts and closing prayer.
