7-18-10 Holy Spirit: Power On Us

Two weeks ago we began this series on the Holy Spirit and we asked the question, “Do you ever feel powerless?” Do you ever feel like you are powerless to change your marriage, to change the relationship between you and your spouse, and you’ve tried, but nothing seems to work? Do you ever feel powerless to change your relationship with your children, and you’ve tried, but you feel powerless to change that relationship? Do you ever feel powerless to kick an addiction, I mean, you’ve tried, but you couldn’t? Do you ever have issues with anger, where you just go off and you say things and do things that hurt people, and you’ve tried to stop, but you just feel powerless? Do you ever wish that you could change this dark broken world, but when you think about it, it’s so big that you feel powerless to change it?

Then we asked the next obvious question if you’re feeling powerless, which is, “Where does your power come from?” Because as an electrician, when someone called me and said, “I don’t have any power” I immediately knew where I would begin, I would immediately go to the power source, which is the panel in most homes. If there’s no power there, then there’s no possibility to have power anywhere in the house. If there’s power there is the possibility of having power everywhere.

Popeye drew his power from spinach; Sampson drew his power from his uncut hair, but where does your power come from? And we said, that’s not a normal question to ask people in the 21^st century. I know it’s a bit of an unusual question in our world, but do you ever feel like you don’t have enough power?

 

The way that most people in our world answer the power question is they try to make more money, because we know that money is power. And we know that you can buy almost anything if you have enough money. Notice I said almost.

You can’t buy a better marriage. You can’t buy something that gives you a different relationship with your children or with your parents. You can’t buy anything that will give you more time, when your time is up, your time is up. You can’t buy peace, or joy, or love. You can change how you look on the outside with money, but you can change how you feel on the inside with money. Many of the wealthiest people in the world have died very lonely and very empty people ultimately because they couldn’t buy what they needed with money.

So I ask the question again, “Where does your power come from?” Jesus said something very unusual. He said: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. Acts 1:8

When we read about the day of Pentecost, the day in which the Holy Spirit came upon the early church for the first time, the people in that church, who before this outpouring of the Holy Spirit were powerless people, but then after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit they became powerful. So much so, that they were changed people, they were different on the inside and what they were able to do on the outside in order to change the world was very different as well. They were changed, their communities were changed, the whole known world changed because of the power of the Holy Spirit that they received from the Holy Spirit. But it didn’t stop there. To this day, some 2000 years later, the power that they were given by the Holy Spirit continues to change people’s lives and it continues to change THE WORLD! Now that’s power!

Today, in our time, in our world, the Holy Spirit traditionally gives us power inside of us first. We talked about that last week.

 Last week we said that the Holy Spirit primarily does two things inside of us. The first is that we are born again. The second is that we are redeemed. We are born again in a similar fashion as when we are conceived in our mother’s womb. A man plants a seed inside a woman’s womb and a child is born. In a similar way, Jesus tells us, and many of us have experienced this, that we also have a spiritual birth, where the Holy Spirit plants a seed in the core of our being and that seed is an eternal seed. It is the conception of a spiritual being inside of you. We have a physical body and we have a spiritual body. One is seen and one is not seen. They work in tandem.

We also said that the Holy Spirit is like a Gardener for our soul. It is his job to cultivate that seed and make it grow and produce fruit, but he can only do the Father’s will, so he always lines himself up with God’s will However he also only works when you desire him to work. The Holy Spirit will not do any work in your soul apart from your direction, because you’ve been give free will and therefore he will only do what you ask him to do, if it aligns with God’s perfect will for your life. In other words, the Holy Spirit will never hurt you, he will only help you become all of what God created you to be.

So, the Holy Spirit gives us new birth, that’s one, but then he also redeems us. That is he, through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and the forgiveness that Jesus offers, the Holy Spirit forgives us, and begins the process of restoring us to who God created us to be. It’s like taking an old dilapidated, condemned house, because that’s what we are apart from Jesus, is condemned. It’s like taking an old broken down, dilapidated, condemned house, that’s what our soul looks like, and the Holy Spirit is the general contractor that comes in and jacks up the house and puts a new foundation under it called Jesus and begin the restoration process.

We are given the Holy Spirit at baptism to give us a spiritual birth and then to redeem us and restore us so that we can become who God created us to be. When the seed that is planted in us is full grown it bears fruit, fruit that will last and they are called the fruits of the Spirit and there is a list of them in Galatians 5

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV)

Jesus had the Holy Spirit in him when he was conceived. And when we receive the gift of his forgiveness for our sins and when we make a choice to follow him, then he gives us the Holy Spirit to cleanses us of our sins, and begins to heal all the emotional and spiritual wounds, to make God’s will known to us, and to empower us to live godly lives, in order that we can become all that he created us to be. When the Holy Spirit enters us, he gives us the fruit of the Spirit and when the Holy Spirit enters us he begins to redeem us or make us knew again. He, often over long periods of times, transforms us into people who reflect his goodness.

Not only does the Holy Spirit give us internal power as we talked about last week, but he also gives us external power to positively affect the world around us.

Two weeks ago, we said that Jesus had the Holy Spirit in him from birth, that had never happened before, that was a God thing, and that’s how Jesus was free from sin because he had the Holy Spirit there to guide him. So, the Holy Spirit is already IN Jesus at this time.

Listen to what happens.

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying . . . so after Jesus was baptized with water and while he was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Luke 3:21-22 (NRSV)

Now, it is highly significant that Jesus did not perform any miracles until after this baptism of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus was baptized by the Holy Spirit he was granted gifts for power of service. These are not powers just for him. They are not powers that are for his own individual growth or health, but this power is meant to carry out God’s mission in the world. So not only is the power of the Holy Spirit given for helping us be born and grow and mature in godly character, but it is also given in order to join God in his mission of creating heaven on earth.

This was a decisive turning point for Jesus because up until this time Jesus had the Spirit of God within him from birth, shaping and molding his character as well as giving him knowledge of the Father and of the law or the Bible as we know it. But now the Spirit has descended on him to give him extra power for serving God and carrying out his will.

This is the point that I want to make today. There are two workings of the Holy Spirit, two different ways that the Holy Spirit empowers us.

1. The first is that Holy Spirit empowers us to change and become powerful on the inside. That’s what we primarily talked about last week.
2. The second, which we’re going to be talking for the rest of our time today, is that the Holy Spirit empowers us for service in God’s kingdom in order to bring about more of heaven on earth.

Listen to what Jesus says in Acts 1:8

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8 (NRSV)

The Holy Spirit was in Jesus from his conception. It was only after he was baptized with the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus taught with great boldness and wisdom, and he did great miracles among the people.

The Spirit falling upon Jesus and empowering him for service is not a new thing. It is consistent with the Spirit’s work in the Old Testament.

Listen to this, this is cool. Jesus must have been extremely aware what was happening to him was rooted in the Old Testament. Listen to this. Jesus said,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, did you get that? Upon him . . .because he has anointed me . . . and anointed in this case means to set aside for sacred use and that use is . . to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then to everyone’s astonishment Jesus adds, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:18-19, 21(NRSV)

The power and Spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus, so that he could fulfill the mission given to him by God the Father.

The Holy Spirit was a gift from God, even to Jesus, and apart from the Holy Spirit, Jesus was still just a man – a holy man, but just a man. When the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus, he became powerful to do the will of the Father and to join him in his mission of bringing heaven to earth or redeeming the earth to its original design.

So here’s the distinction that I want to make. The Holy Spirit was IN Jesus from conception, that’s what made him special on the inside, because he was without sin, but it was the baptism of the Holy Spirit on Jesus that made him powerfully equipped to do ministry.

• The inward work of the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus to BE the model of humanity.
• The outward work of the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus to DO the Work of God and live the will of God.

 

But this isn’t just for Jesus, look what happens. Just before Jesus ascends into heaven he tells his disciples to stay in Jerusalem until something really important happens, and then he says these words:

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes ON you. Acts 1:8 (NIV)

And 40 days later while the disciples were all together in one place, suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest ON each of them . . . and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles Acts 2:2-4;43 NIV

All of the wonders and miraculous signs that Jesus did and all the wonders and miraculous signs that the apostles did were because the Holy Spirit had come upon them and empowered them to do what they could not have done on their own. God gave them power to do his will and to enable them to partner with him in bringing about heaven on earth.

God calls us to proclaim the good news of Jesus, but then he also calls us to demonstrate it through the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon human beings. God is aware that words are cheap and that actions need to follow words. If God is about bringing heaven to earth and he is about using people to carry out this action, then we are going to need help.

Last week I said that God the Father is the idea guy. He is the one who came up with the blueprint for creation. It is like designing a concept car. Jesus is the prototype of God’s design. He is what a human being outght to look like when we have become completely restored. The Holy Spirit is like an assembly line. The Holy Spirit gives every human being that seeks forgiveness of sin and the will to follow Jesus, the power to live like him, to be like him, to do the things that Jesus did.

In the ancient world, when a rabbi said, “Come, follow me” he was saying I think you be like me. I think you can do what I can do. When Jesus called the group of rabbinic school drop outs to follow him, he was saying you can do what I do, and you can be like me. For every disciple that seeks to follow him, Jesus says to you and to I, “Come follow me. You can do what I do, and you can be like me, but you will need to be filled with the Holy Spirit and you will have to be anointed or have the Holy Spirit come upon you for power, but that’s what you were created for.

The disciples healed people from sickness, they raised people from the dead, they healed they mute, the deaf, the blind, and the sick. All of these miracles were because the Holy Spirit had come ON or UPON them.

Now, we might think, well this was just for the apostles. The Holy Spirit is just for a few select people that God chooses, but in Acts 10 we are told about Cornelius and his family, a group of Gentiles – these are non-Jews, who were devout believers of God. Peter received a vision from God and went to their house to tell them about Jesus and:

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers or Jews who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Acts 10:44-48 (NIV)

The Gentiles were given the same gift as the apostles. They were given the same gift as the Jews and they were given these gifts why? They were given the gift of the Holy Spirit upon them to demonstrate the power of God and to do his will and his work in the world.

Now, get this, this is where we started. Jesus said:

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.” Acts 1:8 (NIV)

What are they going to witness and testify about? They are going to testify to what they have seen God doing in and through them. God knows that proclamation needs demonstration for it to be valid.

In North America with the huge individualistic culture that exists here, we get stuck on what God can do for us, and we get stuck believing that what God gives to us is only for us. But God’s desire is for you to become born again, saved, and redeemed, that is the work of the Holy Spirit in you, SO THAT God can baptize you with the gift of the Holy Spirit and empower you to proclaim and demonstrate the good news of Jesus.

God’s gift of the Holy Spirit is not just for us, but in America that’s what it’s become. It’s all about my relationship with God; it’s primarily self-centered and therefore we don’t see many people who have had the Holy Spirit poured out UPON them in order to participate with God in what he’s doing here on earth. There are not many miracles and there are not many healings in the churches in America because there is so little awareness that God wants to use us. So many of us think about heaven as being “Some day when I die” and therefore we think to ourselves that we just need to keep our nose clean enough so that God will let us into heaven when we die.

But God’s kingdom is not just about when we die. Eternal life begins on the day that we accept Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins and begin to follow Jesus and begin desiring to live like him. From that day on, the Holy Spirit plants a seed in us and it’s up to us, through the power of the Holy
Spirit to grow that seed into eternal fruit named in Gal 5.

A few of you have been baptized with the Holy Spirit. I have, without a shadow of a doubt been baptized with the Holy Spirit, but we don’t see many miracles being performed because there is so little knowledge and therefore, so little faith that God wants to empower us do miracles among us.

When Jesus went to his home town it says:

He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith. Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Mark 6:5-6 (NIV)

Why don’t we see more miracles? Why don’t we see more demonstration of God’s power around us? It may not be you. It may be that you are a part of a group of people who don’t yet have enough faith.

I have seen miracles performed and have heard many amazing testimonies by people who have miraculous healing. I have had people pray for me and had wonderful healing. Just last month I had a muscle twitch in my arm that had been twitching none stop for three days. My arm was very sore and I was unable to sleep well, because the twitching muscle kept bothering me. A group of people prayed for me on Sunday and before the end of the day, the muscle stopped twitching.

I have prayed for myself when I pulled my Achilles and within moments the pain went away. I had a deeply bruised and maybe cracked knee from a terrible fall on the ice and within moments  after praying the pain went away. I know of a woman whose son was born with one leg two inches shorter than the other. When he was a teenager, a group of people prayed over him for healing and the leg grew to it’s full length by the time they were done praying.

I have a close friend who was told by the doctor that he would never play basketball again because of his bad knees. He had already had two surgeries per knee and the doctor told him that he would be lucky to walk without assistance when he got older. People prayed for my friend and laid hands on him and he was completely healed and to this day he’s playing hoops three times a week.

God desires not just proclamation of his word. He desires demonstration of his word. Jesus says, I will be with you even to the end of the age. How will we know that? We ought to see his power being demonstrated all around us. But we don’t primarily because we don’t truly believe that we should. The gospel of Jesus Christ has been neutered of the power that demonstrates who he is, and that really hinders our ability to testify. All we have is good news in our hearts. We are transformed people and sometimes people can see that, but what about the ability to live powerfully as Jesus did?

The power of God did not stop with Jesus. It did not stop with the early church. And to the best of my ability, I will not let it stop now.

So here’s the question: When does God typically baptize people with his Holy Spirit. When does God typically lay power on people through the gift of the Holy Spirit? First, there is no equation; there is no formula that says, “If I do this, then God will do that.” Don’t ever think you can reduce God down to a formula, because you can’t. God will not be demeaned in such a way.

However, there are some common themes that occur among people who receive the Spirit of God upon them. The first is:

These are a few factors that contribute to God’s Spirit coming upon people?

• Passion for God’s presence
• A deep craving to reach the lost
• Sincere integrity
• Spirit filled faith
• Down to earth humility
• Understanding of our brokenness

 

When people are baptized with Holy Spirit, they are desperate and thirsty for more of God’s presence and goodness in the world. God anoints people with the Holy Spirit in order that they might participate with him in leading others to Christ, so that they might experience all of what they were created to be.

Life Link:

Make sure there is at least one empty seat in the room and pray as a group for God to fill that seat with a new person who would benefit from your group in their walk with Jesus.

Has anyone ever helped you do something that you couldn’t have done your self? How did that make you feel?

What was Sunday’s message about? Can anyone summarize it?

Was there anything that challenged you, convicted you or confused you about Sunday’s message?

As you reflect on this series, who do you think the Holy Spirit is, and how does relate to how you are called to live your life?

The fruits of the Spirit are Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control. How do they helpful in determining your spiritual maturity? How could they be helpful in how you pray for yourself?

What are the two ways the Holy Spirit was given to empower us?

Why do you think there are so few miracles done among Christians in the U.S?

Are there any new ideas that you’ve learned from this series that will affect how you understand the Holy Spirit? Are there any new ways that you’ll live as a result of this series?

Does anyone here believe or see evidence of the Holy Spirit in or on them? Explain

Encourage those who don’t see any evidence of the Holy Spirit in their lives to pray boldly for God to put his Spirit in or/and on you.