Re__ Re-member, Re-turn, Re-embrace Pt1 - We have Jesus do we need the Spirit?

GREET EVERYONE-

If I have not had a chance to meet you; My name is Scott and I am a follower of Jesus and have the privilege of serving Him as the Lead Pastor among the people of Stonewater Fellowship.

Our Vision:

We Desire see every follower of Jesus well equipped and fully deployed on the mission of Jesus.

That leads us to the question What mission? -

Which we articulate the mission of Jesus for His church in a simple way.

Jesus Mission for His people: Is for us engage people into a multiplying relationship with Jesus!

WELCOME-

One of the things that I am continually reminded of throughout the week is that God is sovereign.

This morning I would like us to just take a moment and realize that we are all here together!

Here is the beautiful thing in that… We are not here by accident. God has orchestrated all of the events in our life so that we would all be here together at this very moment.

and It may have been a minute for you since you have been to a worship gathering of the Church.

OR

You may have never been to a worship gathering before in your life.

Either way maybe its becasue you’re not really sure about this whole christian thing or maybe you just don't consider yourself a religious person.

We are really glad you are here. Our hope is that you would hang around long enough to discover that we are not all that religious either by hanging around with us you will also discover Jesus.

LETS GRAB OUR BIBLES IF YOU HAVE ONE AND

Open it to Romans Chapter 8 and we will begin in Verse 5 this morning as we Begin a new sermon series that as the Title -

RE---

NOW If you don’t have a bible or simply would like a new one!……..

GOAL OF THE SERIES

In this series we are Exposing SOME of the things that God says in His word about the Holy Spirit.

What I pray happens to all of us is that we will Re-member - Re-trun to and Re-embrace the Holy Spirit -

Or maybe do all of those things for the very first time.

We have heard it said That transformation - Change of us and of people into the ongoing image of Jesus takes three things that the Spirit uses to transform -

Grace - Truth - and the last thing that we have a tendency to forget about is TIME

Transformation takes time - and sometimes we are really impatient - and we want God to act and Work NOW

This Morning I am going to ask all of us to do something that for most of us might be hard to so.

But here is the good thing - I want us to all do it together.

Now I also know that when I ask this - the reality for some of us will be that it is not that hard and for others of us it will seem nearly impossible.

But here is the thing - IF we ask God to step in and make the rocky path smooth and the crooked trail straighten and we all Him to change us He is faithful.

Here is what I'm going to ask you to do.

I’m am going to ask you to lay aside some things.

1st thing is I am going to ask that through prayer you purposefully Place to the Side any denominational teachings.

God wants us let the Scriptures through the work of Holy Spirit have Primary spiritual formation place in our lives instead of what any denomination has taught.

That is the second thing that I would ask you to set aside is You preferences.

What you prefer to believe what you have been taught by others vs what the Bible Teaches.

So lets work to set aside our preferences!

And as we set down any denominational teachings, or things we have heard in the past or any of our preferences

the third thing I am going to ask you to do is let the scriptures and what they say and the questions they make us ask ourselves, answer the very same questions. So the Scriptures will form and shape what we believe and what we know to be true!

AMEN?

This is Especially important as we begin the process of Remembering, Returning to and Embracing the Holy Spirit. Because it is so important for all of us to be and open with our relationship with God enough to ask ourselves the hard questions and be honest with God.

This brings us to a big questions this morning:

Do we look at the Bible alone in community with faithful others and Desperately seek after the Scriptures Self Evident truth? -

OR

Have we simply ingested and accepted what we have heard from other people?

With that question in mind lets begin -

TRUTH -

ENGAGEMENT –

Compare and Contrast?

When I say Compare and Contrast what goes through your thoughts?

When we think about that do we begin to think about areas of our life or things in our life or people in our life that we compare and contrast?

Maybe its not something that we intentionally.

Maybe its just something that happens Automatically.

OR Maybe we have a brain that is wired to analyze and we are comparing and contrasting all the time.

What does that mean to compare and contrast?

Well it like shopping at amazon for an uposztlry carpet cleaner.

We have one here in our building.

When I bought it There was a chart -

Here is what the chart did - It listed out all of the features of the Cleaner that I had picked out and compared that list to the Other machines that are available.

IT then contrasted the cost Difference and Feature list of all the machines so that When I looked at what had I had choose compared to the others available and contrasted the ups and downs against the others I would form an opinion as to which one I wanted.

What are we trying to do when we compare and contrast?

When we do this to products we are shopping for We are trying to ascertain in advance how well something will function.

We want to do the best we can to know that the before we use the machine is dynamically different than after we use the machine.

and we do this in Every kinda way with all kinds of things.

Carpets, clothes and kitchen dishes from clean to dirty.

Grass from long to short.

Jeans from wrinkled to pressed.

WE do this with things, we do this with occupations and we do this with people as well.

You see what we want and what we are searching for is for things to be better than before - We want to be better off.

and we measure that in the form of Before and after.

So I brought some illustrations -

Here is a popular guy - And that is some dynamic change.

If this was a compare and Contrast for a tooth straightening product that is invisible and can do wonders for your smile.

The Change is Dynamic!!

But I also brought a second one - I want you to look at this one and see that there is not much change -

Here is something that happens to us when we don't see change or that much change -

What ever the promised change was - We would soon not believe that the thing or the product or the person or the occupation could live up to what their features promised or alluded to would happen.

TENSION

Let me ask this hard question.

Ever looked around at the Church - Ever looked at your self and others that are in the church and thought “something is wrong” Something has no completely connected”

There is a disconnect among the church and I don’t know what it is.

Ever look and thought - Man myself and the people in the church don't look all that different form those outside the Church

I have thought long and hard about that question.

Earlier in this message we collided with two very important questions as I asked all of us to put aside our preferences and any denominational teaching form our past and asked two hard questions:

Do we look at the Bible alone in community with faithful others and Desperately seek after the Scriptures Self Evident truth -

OR

Have we simply ingested and accepted what we have heard from other people much like I did when I was catholic.

In the framework of those two questions and the maybe just maybe one of the areas that we need to desperately examine in our life is how we think about, Yield to and relate to the Holy Spirit.

Here is why!

The Holy Spirit, in the life of most western american church goers, is that the Holy Spirit is possibly the most forgotten member of the Triune Godhead and very possibly the one we occasionally give a nod of recognition to.

Please - Before you begin that email I want to invite you to think through this with me. SO lets pray!

Father in Heaven, by the very power of your Holy Spirit put down any misconceptions or unbiblical doctrine that I have accepted as truth that is not truth and reveal to me the truth and change my mind and heart.

UNPACK AND UNWRAP

SO lets think about this as we look to the Scriptures.

If we had never been in church and we had never been in Sunday School and we had never heard a sermon and all we had ever done is Read our bibles, Responded to the call of repentance and being born again.

And all we did is read our bibles in the old testament and new - I think its is extremely possible that all of us would have a significantly higher expectation of the role and power the Holy Spirit would have in our life.

So let Look at the Text!

Jesus, in John chapter 14 verse 16

Now Here is where we are in the time line of Jesus in John Chapter 14 -

In John Chapters 12-17 what happens in the life of Jesus and His disciples between the Last supper - Where Jesus breaks bread and give it to His disciples and Shares a cup the Cup of the new covenant and Chapter 17 where he is in the Garden Praying.

In chapter 14 Jesus is telling them several things -

He and the Father are ONE -

He is the Way the Truth and the Life NO ONE gets to the father but through Himself.

He tells them that Who ever loves Him loves the father and the Father loves them.

He also tells them that if they keep his commandments Will not only be loved by the father But Jesus will Manifest Himself to them.

IF you have never sat down and slowed your roll enough to read what Jesus said and Taught in this last week of His life - man oh man let me encourage you to hear the words of Jesus.

But here is something Else Jesus Says.

John 14:16 ESV

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,

and If you keep reading Jesus refers to this helper as THE SPIRIT of TRUTH.

and his promise is that they will not be left alone!

He says “I will not leave you as Orphans”

and a few sentences later Jesus says “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, will be sent to you by the father and Here is the way it will help you. It Will teach you all things and bring to remembrance all that I have said.

Jesus teaches more and then Later in Chapter 16 Jesus reminds them that He is Going and Here is the weird thing - He says to them “it is to your advantage that I go away”

Jesus - The God in the flesh - Emmanuel - The one whom by His very word - Storm are calmed, Deaf hear, lame walk, lepers are cleaned Demons are driven out, and the dead are raised, This Jesus says “it is to your advantage that I go Away.

Now I looked up the word advantage in the original language of the New testament Just to know what Jesus might have been really saying.

The Word in the Original Greek has the implication of Bringing two things or people together in such a way that it implies some comparison, either a benefit which is greater than someone else has or a benefit which makes one’s later state better off than the previous state.

In other words - An increase - A profit like Paid a Profit - And advantage - Better off than before -

Jesus has Just said -

You are better off with the Holy Spirit and without me.

Jesus Says point blank - I'm leaving - you will be better off with me Gone becasue if I do not GO the Helper will not come.

You need the Helper - The Holy Spirit and so becasue you need the Holy Spirit I will send Him to you.

Now Right away we get the sense from Jesus that there is more to the Holy Spirit than we might have previously Thought.

Here is then what Happens as the life of Jesus continues through the narrative of His life. Jesus is arrested - Crucified and rises from the Dead and then Begins to Appear to his disciples, Others and 500 people.

So after His death He has not left yet -

He tells his disciples that He is sending the Promised Holy Spirit, to Stay in the City, until they are clothed with Power -

Luke 24:49 (ESV)

49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Acts 1:4–5 (ESV)

4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

So Stay until you are clothed with power -until you are Baptized with the Holy Spirit -

Now you and I and almost everybody in modern Christianity will agree that Baptize is a Transliteration of the Original Greek word Baptidzo which means to Immerse.

Sometimes we miss the word picture. The Word Picture is not just being fully covered. It is much more severe that just that.

The word picture that Baptize come with from the first centruy is like taking a cloth and immersing it in water that is filled with die and it comes out changed - It comes out of the water the same color as the DIE.

You see all cloth that was made back then was some shade of white.

in order to get the Color red or blue or green or purple. Dye was added to water and the cloth was immersed or Baptidzo in the water long enough to make the cloth absorb and adapt the same color - SO the Cloth would look like the Die -

And that is exactly how cloths gets its color today. White cotton cloth or threads are Immersed or baptidzo into dye liquid and the cloth changes and looks like the DYE.

No we would think something is terribly wrong if the the opposite happened. If the cloth made the DYE change.

Thing that make you go HMMMMMM

SO what we need to hear in this is that the understanding back then was that there was a change in baptism - Something dynamic was happening with immersion.

Later in this narrative in Acts

They get to the city Jesus spends time with them again and they start asking about the kingdom and when it will be restored to Israel.

So His disciples ask him about this and here is what Jesus said.

Basically that is not something to concern yourself with and in Acts 1:8 he says why they were not to concern themselves with all that.

WHY are they not to be concerned?

Because!

Acts 1:8 ESV

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

you will receive POWER

Jesus is indicating that they will receive power that they did not previously have.

They did not have power and they will receive that which they did not and could not previously possess.

Power to do what?

Power for what?

Jesus answers that -

“And you will be my witnesses”

There is a couple of things in this sentence that we need to grab on to and never let go of.

in our english translations there is the Conjunction “AND” then we read the words “you will be” and somehow in our minds and hearts we read that and we somehow separate this Power we receive form the Holy Spirit from being Jesus’ witnesses.

Because “will be” indicates some condition in the future.

But that is not what Jesus was saying: Here is why - The words “will be” and “will receive” are tied together in in the context and language of the same event.

You will receive power and at the same time you will be my witness.

When we look the original language of “will be” in the language of the new testament we will understand that the word means, “to exist as with no contingency”

So an equally proper rendering of the sentence that Jesus just spoke could also be “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and exist with no contingency as my witnesses...”

This is the purpose of the power of the Holy Spirit so that we can exist without contingency as His witnesses.

This is the promise of Jesus - This is the promise of God - This is the Promise of Emanuel God with us that He will send the Spirit,

we are better off with the Spirit than with Him

and what is in realty promised by Jesus is that there will be a time that Jesus is referring to that the God with us will be the Holy Spirit.

Because Jesus will be returning to the father and will be sitting at the right hand of God.

So the Story continues -

Jesus leaves he ascends to the father -

His Apostles and his Disciples - gather up in a large two story house in a room on the top floor and they have a 10 day prayer meeting.

Remember what Jesus had told them - “Stay in the city and wait - Wait until you are clothed with the Power of the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

SO that is what they did. They obeyed Jesus’ Instructions.

SO ten days later. Here is what happened?

Acts 2:1-4

Every one was together and they were sitting- 120 people and Here is what happened - A sound filled the entire house.

So upstairs and downstairs. Bathroom and living room In every bedroom this Sound that sounded like a mighty rushing wind.

Now here is what the scripture says - It was a sound like a mighty rushing wind - Not a Mighty rushing wind.

So imagine with me - This sound like you are sitting in front of a gigantic blow dryer happens in this room but nothing moves. There is not a hair that is flapping in the wind - There is not a piece of clothing that tries to get blown off - there is not a sliver piece of paper or leaf of a plant that shows any movement at all but the sound is everywhere.

And these things that looked like individual groups of flames appeared and the scripture says they “rested on each one of them”

Here is what a cool picture is. This is important becasue often times we look at artists renderings of that particular event and we see these little flames like perched on the heads of the people.

That is not the word picture that the original language paints for us.

The Picture is of these groups of that looked like flame:

Resting in other words “Sitting on them like sitting on their lap in such a way that complete engulfed the individual.

Here is what the Scripture says was the result of this phenomenon and it is depicted for us a couple of times in the new testament.

They were all FILLED with the Holy Spirit and what did the Filling of the Spirit do to them -

The Filling of the Spirit Made them witnesses of Jesus.

Now you might be saying “Pastor that is not what the verse says, the verse says they began to speak in tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance”

To which I will say Yes that is true.

But here is what we must do - WE must look at the whole council of Scripture.

Because when we do that we will stop looking at the the phenomenon and we will look at the use and purpose of the phenomenon.

Jesus said you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and be my witnesses.

Jesus didn't say you will receive power when the spirit comes upon you and speak in tongues - He said be my witnesses - The power of the Spirit is not so we can so this phenomenon or that phenomenon - The Spirit is given to power us to be his witness.

and when we keep reading that is exactly what happened - They hit the streets - Bore witness to Jesus - in different languages and 3000 souls we added to the number that one day. They were His witnesses in Jerusalem just like He said they would be.

So what does this look like in an ever ongoing way? HOw does this come forward 2000 years to us this mornings.

STICKY POINT

APPLICATION OR IMAGINE

As Robert and Melissa and team come to lead us into musical worship.

It begins with a hard question - One that I pray we all ask ourselves.

and that hard question is: Have We thought to ourselves in either direct or indirect ways -I have Jesus so I done need anyone else.

Have you ever thought to your self about the Dynamic or not so dynamic presence of the Holy Spirit in your life?

You see loved ones when we read these narratives about the promise, the definitive characteristics of power, the arrival of and the effect of the Holy Sprit on people back then -

When we do this away from our teaching of the past and our historical and denominational influences - I think we might very well have a greater expectation of the Spirit to be the powerful dynamic catalyst of change in our life.

I mean think about it. If I came to you and said something like “last night God gave me the super natural ability to play baseball” and you and I went to the baseball diamond your expectation would be that I can throw, hit run catch and steel a base with supernatural divine power, like a professional baseball player”

You and I both would expect that my abilities after God giving me the ability to play baseball would look dynamically different that before God gave me the ability.

So this leaves us with a question: What does my life with the Spirit look like?

Here is what Paul writes to the assembly of the Called out ones - Some 25 years after this Phenomenal movement of the Holy Spirit.

and this passage of Scripture provides lots of question that when we answer from the whole council of Scripture we might be confronted in a very deep way.

Romans Chapter 8

VS5

If we live according to the Spirit we will set our minds on the things of the Spirit. What did Jesus say was the reason we would receive the Spirit and the power that come with it. To be His witnesses - Being the witness of Jesus are the things of the Spirit.

Do we set our minds on Being His witnesses? This is what the Spirit does. The Spirit points to Jesus. Is that our mind to point ourselves and others to Jesus?

VS6

The mind of the Spirit is life and peace. Eternal life with God and peace with God - known in the new testament as Reconciliation. We are ambassadors of Christ with the ministry of reconciliation. So: are our minds focusing on having peace WITH God? or are with focused with having the peace of God.

Loved ones - Peace with God is the purpose of Jesus on the Cross - Peace WITH God our relationsh with HIm repaired after we had broken it with our sin and rebellion. This is the mind of the Spirit!

VS7

Are we submitted to being obedient to Jesus - This is what the Spirit causes - It causes us to desire to follow that commands of Jesus and one of those is to be His witnesses. Are we hostile towards that or are we submitted to His purposes for our life?

VS8

Draws the conclusion “in the flesh we cannot please God - Because the flesh loved ones does not live by Faith by Trust - The flesh lives by sight and with our Faith without WHAT? Faith is it impossible to please God. So, in our life characterized that we live by trust In God?

VS9

But here is the encouragement - We are not in the flesh we are in the Spirit IF and it is a big IF If the Spirit lived in us - IF we do not have the Spirit in us we do not belong to Christ. Does the Spirit live in us?

VS10 - look at the dynamics that are going on here in vs 10 and 11 If the spirit is in you and you are in Christ then your spirit will have life and your bodies although dead becasue of sin will also have life.

Loved ones - we must look at these passages of Scripture and allow our expectation of the power of the Holy Spirit to be raised in our own life.

We need to expect the Spirit to move and act and have his way over and above our own way

I mean think about it - If I said that God gave me the power to play base ball and you and I went to the diamond and I couldn't catch or trow or hit the ball any better than a tee ball playing 5 year old. you would think SOMETHING IS WRONG -

This is why this is so important - The outside world is looking in and we are saying - We are new creatures - We have been saved - The Spirit of God has regenerated us, we are adopted children of the Most High God - and they look at our witness of Jesus and they very well be saying

‘Something is wrong”

Evidence that this may be so is the truth claims of Christ have been eroded in our culture.

So loved ones - we must pray - Pray that God would renew us by the power of His spirit - That our minds our be set on the things of the Spirit. Namely that the power of God would empower us to be His witnesses to anyone, any where at any time.

PRAYER TEAM