Power

This is the last Sunday of the season of Easter and the last week of our sermon series “Acts of the Holy Spirit. We have been spending this time looking at the impact the Holy Spirit had on the early followers of Jesus and how the Holy Spirit can also impact us.

This week we focus on the ascension of Jesus into Heaven and the promise he made to his disciples to give them power through the Holy Spirit. Our scripture comes from Acts 1:1-11. The words will be on the screen.

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 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.” 9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Please pray with me…

We have spent these last few weeks looking at how through the power of the Holy Spirit God has impacted those that were his early followers. We saw how God united the people together with one belief.

How the power of the Holy Spirit allowed for healing power which led to Peter being able to let the people know that if was God who did the healing. We have focused on how when questioned by the Jewish religious authorities the Holy Spirit gave Peter the words to say.

And last week we had God arrange a situation that led to Peter going into the house of a Gentile and eventually seeing the Holy Spirit fall upon the Gentiles that were there.

What I am pointing out is that we have spent these last five weeks indirectly focusing on the power of the Holy Spirit. Today we are reminded of the promise made by Jesus to his disciples. They were told that power would be given to them.

We have spoken before that our English word dynamite derives from the word that we find in today’s text. Jesus is telling his disciples that he is giving them power that will be explosive to those around them.

Next week is Pentecost Sunday. It is when we celebrate the birth of the church by remembering t that those early followers of Jesus received the Holy Spirit and used the Spirit to show those around them that Jesus is the Messiah through their words and their actions.

This is shown in our recent sermons how thousands would hear the words offered by Peter after he has received the Holy Spirit and how it led them to reach the decision that Jesus was the Messiah and should become their Lord and Savior.

We have that same explosive power within us. We seem to forget that what the disciples are able to do within scripture is available to us that believe that Jesus is our Lord and Savior. The same power can be used by us through our words and actions.

What often happens is that we allow our fear factor to be greater than our faith factor. We forget that God tells us he will be with us. We forget that we aren’t on our own. God is with us helping us overcome the obstacles that we may face.

We need to be willing to take these scriptures and allow for them to become motivation for what we can do if we are willing to try. We need to be willing to ask God to place us into situations that can have us use the power he has given us to change the lives of those around us.

(Transition)

Jesus promising power to his disciples just before going to Heaven is not a new story within scripture. We find within Old Testament scripture the story of Elijah and Elisha. Elijah is seen as the greatest of all Prophets in the Old Testament.

You may remember that there was an understanding that Elijah would come to prepare the way for the Messiah. Jesus points out when questioned about this by his disciples that John the Baptist was the modern day, Elijah.

Elijah had a disciple named Elisha. In 2 Kings 2:9 we have this conversation where Elijah says to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.”

We have Elijah then taken up to Heaven in a whirlwind and after seeing that occur, we have Elisha having the Spirit of Elijah upon him. He received greater power than his teacher. But Elijah had to leave for him to be able to receive that power.

Jesus makes the same point to his disciples. He needs to leave so that they can become greater than him. We have the disciples receiving the same power that Jesus had within him. They become greater by how many are now filled with the Spirit.

One person can only do so much. The Spirit entering each of those in the room allowed for the word of God to be able to be spread around the world. We are here today hearing the word of God because those early followers received the power of the Holy Spirit and used that power to change lives.

Jesus in his human form could only do so much to spread the word of God. By him leaving, the Holy Spirit was able to enter those early followers and allow for them to spread out and let a larger group of people discover Jesus as their Savior.

(Transition)

Our first reading has Paul praying to God and asking for God to intervene into the lives of those early followers of Jesus in Ephesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. He ends this prayer with these words, “to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

This prayer has Paul hoping that what he is accomplishing through these early followers will continue “throughout all generations.” He desires us to have and to use the same spirit that he used to change the lives of so many people.

We become followers of Jesus through faith. A realization that our lives are missing something. We often are not completely sure what we are missing. It is through God guiding and directing us towards a relationship with him that will often have us receive a glimpse of what is possible when we have a relationship with him.

The first reading tells us that when we allow Christ to dwell within us, we can become “rooted and grounded in love.” This would mean that we become followers of Jesus by believing in his love, but we can’t completely comprehend how great that love truly is until we give our lives to him.

I believe this is one of the reasons why John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believes so strongly in the power of communion. It is through ingesting that bread and juice, the body and blood of Jesus, that allows for us to pause and receive a greater understanding of what Jesus did for us.

How he not only loves us but loves us so much that he was willing to give up some of his power to reside with us and show humanity what it means to be a follower of God and what God desires from us as followers of him.

He then took matters a step further and not only became our example, but he also died on the cross for us. Jesus became the way in which we were able to be sinners but free from the power of the sins that we have committed.

This understanding should deepen our love for Jesus as we attempt to comprehend the love that Jesus has offered to each one of us. This can return us to a focus on John 3:16 that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that who so ever believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life.”

We need to allow the love of God become so “rooted and grounded” within us that we will desire to praise him, thank him, and serve him. We should desire to allow the power of the Holy Spirit to work within us and through us to allow us to have the glory of God shine through us.

This is why Jesus says that we must come to God like children. We need to remain inquisitive. We should always strive to become closer to him and remember that we can always trust him.

That brings us to the next part of the prayer. The Holy Spirit helps us strengthen our comprehension of what God has done for us. The Holy Spirit can help us to become more like God.

This returns us to the idea of being formed into the identity of Christ. We become formed through allowing the Holy Spirit to pour into us how God sees us and the gifts he has given us to use for him.

We often forget that Paul didn’t just start his ministry to the Gentiles. He went away and allowed the Holy Spirit to pour into him so that he could receive a greater understanding of his calling.

Paul went from an enemy to Christians as a Pharisee who strongly believed that they were working against God into becoming a follower of Jesus. It was through his time with God that he discovered that God wanted him to reach the very people that he would have considered unworthy of being a follower of God when he believed as the Pharisees believed.

God used someone who would have thought Gentiles were unclean and unworthy to be the one to tell them they not only were worthy but that the Jewish God wanted them to become a part of his family.

Understanding our identity in Jesus is not something that usually happens overnight. It takes spending time with God and allowing God to pour into our hearts that will often lead to our calling.

Receiving the understanding of what God desires for us to do for him does not mean that we will still have enough faith to follow what we are called to do. I felt called to becoming a pastor at 22 but I didn’t have the faith to fulfill that calling until I was 44. God continued to work within me to lead me to believe I was good enough.

Don’t be like me, listen and respond when you believe you are called by God. Let him use you as the sinful person you are and have you change the lives of those around you. Trust that he has given you the gifts to allow you to reach those that he has called you to reach.

This leads us to that the Holy Spirit allows us to understand the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. It is through spending time reading the word of God that we receive a deeper understanding of the nature of God.

The scriptures could be called a prism to our soul. A prism refracts light so that as it is turned it looks different every time. The scriptures can work the same way in our lives. We can read the same scripture twice and the second time it will mean something different to us.

It is through our other readings, our time we have spent with God, our interactions with those around us that can allow God to have us receive a greater understanding of what he is trying to say to us. Be open to God and the message that he is attempting to offer to you.

It is through us being strengthened, rooted and grounded in love, and a willingness to be open to new understandings of what God is trying to say to us that can allow us to be “filled with all the fullness of God.”

Jesus was different than us and his disciples because he was always filled with the Holy Spirit. His connection with God never wavered. We, at times, may not feel as connected to God as we do at other times. We should strive to live our lives so that we will be close to God most if not all the time.

We have the power. We have the Holy Spirit available within us to allow us to be the person that God desires for us to be. Let us not allow the busyness of life prevent us from fully receiving an understanding of God and what he is calling us to do through the power of the Holy Spirit.