Spirit Baptism

Bottom line

We need to live Spirit-empowered lives!

Opening Line

What word would you use to describe your life of faith? If faith is about having a relationship with Jesus, and if a life of faith is best described as a journey to walk, how would you describe your own personal life of faith?

Introduction

Now I just want to make something clear. No one is living a perfect life of faith. Just to get the ball rolling, I would probably use the word inconsistent. I have really good stretches where my devotion life is steady and I am praying constantly throughout the day, and I have stretches where I am climbing into bed and can’t remember if I even acknowledged God in my life. So I would use the word inconsistent.

So what word would you use? Yell it out, there’s no shame here. We’re all at different stages of the journey.

pause for answers and respond

Main Point

How many people would use the word, ‘powerful’?

Why it matters

See, that’s odd how few hands went up. I mean, one of the things that happens when you declare Jesus as Lord and you are saved, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within you. He is the seal of your salvation. This same Holy Spirit is the one who came to rest on Jesus when He was baptized by John and empowered him to do all the miracles that he did while he was on earth. In fact, the Apostle Paul says that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus rose from the dead. That same power now dwells within you.

Yet when I asked if anyone would describe their life of faith as powerful, not that many hands went up. I would say that the reason for that lies on the topic of this morning’s message. The series is called, the 3 experiences of every believer. These experiences are salvation, water baptism, and spirit baptism. Now regardless of what church you grew up in, the first two are generally universally held, but that third one tends to make some believers uncomfortable. As Pentecostals, it is one of our staple truths. When we did a seven year project to update our Statement of Essential Truths, spirit baptism remained one of our core beliefs.

So this morning I want to walk us through scripture, and I want to remove some of the misunderstanding of this fundamental doctrine, and why it is important that every believer be filled with the Holy Spirit.

So it is Pentecost Sunday, which means the vast majority of the scripture we will be studying this morning is found in Acts 2. You can turn there in your bible if you have it. If not, you can follow along on the screen.

Scripture

To set the stage for what happens in Acts 2, we actually need to go back to Matthew 3, at the time of John Baptist. Matthew 3 begins by describing John as one in the wilderness, preparing the way for the Messiah. Some Pharisees come out to investigate, and he begins to preach at them, and he says this about himself and the one to come.

Matthew 3:11 NLT

“I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God. But someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not worthy even to be his slave and carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

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There are very few stories that all four gospels tell, but this particular description of Jesus, as the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit, is repeated all four times. So John is differentiating between water baptism and spirit baptism. Matthew and Luke both include and fire in their descriptions, which is signficant as read the Acts 2 account of Pentecost.

So now we fast forward to Acts 1. Jesus has been crucified, buried, and has risen from the dead. He is about the ascend into heaven and he is speaking with the apostles.

Acts 1:4–8 NLT

Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” He replied, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

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I just want to say this. The disciples have just seen Jesus rise from the dead and have spent time with him over the 40 days that passed before he ascended. Yet they are still holding out hope that Jesus is going to destroy the Romans and restore Israel. In his incredible grace and love for his followers, he once again tries to redirect their attention to the kingdom of heaven, and that is the kingdom that they should really be focusing on. Which might be a good reminder for you before we dive into this morning’s story. I believe that there are some in the church that have desired the gifts of the spirit with wrong motives. The point of the gifts of the spirit is to build up the body of believers and to empower our witness to the world. There are some who say, “Well if I had this gift, then I would get involved in ministry.” The correct mindset is, “I am going to get involved with ministry, and trust that God is going to give me the gift I need to do it well.” See the difference. One is like the apostles, expecting Jesus to move so that they can follow, where the other is being willing to move, trusting that Jesus will move as you need him to.

This brings us to Acts 2. The apostles remain in Jerusalem, awaiting the Holy Spirit, and it just so happens to be on Pentecost, 50 days after Jesus rose from the dead.

Acts 2:1–4 NLT

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.

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So, the believers are all gathered into one place, and suddenly rhe Holy Spirit comes upon each of them in power. Something that looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on them. Matthew and Luke said that Jesus would with the… Holy Spirit and fire. In that moment, filled with the Holy Spirit, they were given the supernatural ability to speak in other langues or tongues as some translations say.

So, just as Jesus said would happen, the believers received the Holy Spirit and were empowered to do the ministry set before them. Now I want you to notice. It was not just the apostles, the 11 men that followed Jesus for the three years of his earthly ministry. It was all the believers.

This was the beginning of the New Covenant. Peter said this later on in Acts 2 as he explains to the crowds what is happening.

Acts 2:14–21 NLT

Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants—men and women alike— and they will prophesy. And I will cause wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below— blood and fire and clouds of smoke. The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and glorious day of the Lord arrives. But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

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So the prophet Joel, more then 400 years before this very moment, prophesied that God would pour out his Holy Spirit upon all people, regardless of gender, age, or status. Because the truth is, each of you is called to a unique ministry that only you can do, and the only way you can do it with the Holy Spirit’s help.

Now if this was a one off story, it would be hard to make a case that this is meant to be a common experience among the church. But hold on. I have more stories because I can see that some of you need a little more convincing.

If we go to Acts 10, there is quite a bit of build up before we get to the part of the story that I want to highlight. Peter is praying one day, and he receives a vision to eat some unclean food. Three times he has this vision, and as the vision ends the third time, so men arrived at the house he is staying at. They take him to Cornelius, who is a Roman officer that believes in God. When Peter arrives, he realizes that the vision wasn’t really about food, but God giving him permission to interact with Gentiles. As he begins to share the good news about Jesus with the household, this happens.

Acts 10:44–48 NLT

Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message. The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles, too. For they heard them speaking in other tongues and praising God. Then Peter asked, “Can anyone object to their being baptized, now that they have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?” So he gave orders for them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Afterward Cornelius asked him to stay with them for several days.

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So there is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the people, and the result is speaking in tongues. Peter affirmed that this is what happened when he reported back to the church leaders in Jerusalem. He says this in Acts 11:15-17

Acts 11:15–17 NLT

“As I began to speak,” Peter continued, “the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as he fell on us at the beginning. Then I thought of the Lord’s words when he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?”

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Then I have a third story.

Acts 19:1–7 NLT

While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior regions until he reached Ephesus, on the coast, where he found several believers. “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” he asked them. “No,” they replied, “we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” “Then what baptism did you experience?” he asked. And they replied, “The baptism of John.” Paul said, “John’s baptism called for repentance from sin. But John himself told the people to believe in the one who would come later, meaning Jesus.” As soon as they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all.

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So all three of these stories follow the same general form. Everyone involved were believers. The Holy Spirit came upon them in power, and the sign that followed was speaking in other tongues.

The significance of the sign of speaking in tongues is that their ability to communicate is now Spirit empowered. This follows the fact that the believers were called to be witnesses of Jesus to the ends of the earth.

So as we read through Acts, this theme of Spirit baptism comes up quite a bit, and then in correlation to that, Luke, the author of Acts, tells us that people were being added to the church daily. That shouldn’t surprise you since the believers were living a Spirit empowered life. In fact, I would go so far to say that the reason the church is currently in decline is because this idea of Spirit baptism has been shelved because it freaks people out. It is not very seeker friendly, even though the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14 that if the church were to be more Spirit empowered, new people would be saved because they would be convicted of their sin and be saved. The stigma of the crazy Pentecostals, no thanks to those pastors who were genuinely crazy, has scared the church and its leadership away from embracing the power of Holy Spirit, even though that power and that experience is the very thing that sets the church apart in its ability to have an impact in our community and the world. The teaching and the expectation of this third experience has been downplayed and as a result the church has gone into decline.

Transition to Application

So what do we do? Do we line everyone up and resurrect the old fire tunnel and hope for the best? If you don’t know what a fire tunnel is, find me later and I will explain.

For those who are uncomfortable with the idea of Spirit Baptism, I will meet you half way. Acts 4:31

Acts 4:31 NLT

After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness.

Ephesians 5:18 NLT

Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit,

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Even in the description of the Acts 2 account, it says that the tongues of fire rested on each of them, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Main To Do

If you are done living with a powerless faith and ready to really see the Holy Spirit move in and through you, then you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and this filling is something that doesn’t just happen once, but needs to happen regularly. So how is one filled with the Holy Spirit?

1. Obedience

John 15:10 NLT

When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

In order to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you need to walk in obedience to Jesus’ commands. Jesus himself said that when you make disciples, you must teach them everything He commanded you.. So live in obedience.

2. Confess all known sin

1 John 1:6 NLT

So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth.

You know that when you sin, you can grieve the Holy Spirit. It is one of the reasons that Scripture teaches that as believers, you should practice regular confession. You can’t hide anything from God anyways, you might as well get it out there.

3. Yield yourself fully to Him

Romans 12:1 NLT

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.

You need to sacrifice your ambitions, your desires, and lay them at the feet of Jesus, willing to be led by Him and follow His plans for you.

4. Depend fully of the Spirit to live the Christian life

Romans 8:13 NLT

For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.

I don’t know about you, but I know if I try to do things my way, I will mess it up. If I really want to live the life Jesus called me to, I need to depend on the Spirit to carry me through.

5. In prayer, ask the Lord to fill you with the Holy Spirit

Acts 1:14 NLT

They all met together and were constantly united in prayer, along with Mary the mother of Jesus, several other women, and the brothers of Jesus.

So after Jesus ascended, the believers joined together and started praying. What were they praying for? That everything Jesus promised them would happen.

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Sometimes you need to be prayed for by the elders. This is recorded all throughout the New Testament, that people were only filled or baptized after the apostles laid hands on them. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you need to get to place where you can seek it out on your own.

Why it matters

You need to get this right. You can’t keep living with a powerless faith because soon you will begin to wonder what the point of all of it is. If you begin to live the Spirit empowered life, the kind described in scripture, you will begin to notice a difference. Your family and friends will notice a difference. How can you not be different when the Holy Spirit, the one who was there at creation and rose Jesus from dead, is actively moving in your life?

So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to think about an area of your life that would be different, maybe even better, if you allowed the Holy Spirit to move in it? Wouldn’t it be worth it for that one scenario?

Closing Line

Now imagine your whole life impacted by that kind of love and power

Discussion Questions

What stood out from the message?

In what specific ways can you identify areas in your life where you might not be experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit?

What practical steps will you take this week to live a more Spirit-empowered life?

Can you think of a situation where you could have acted differently if you were more aware of the Holy Spirit's presence?

Why do you think some believers feel uncomfortable with the concept of Spirit baptism?

How do you think being filled with the Holy Spirit can change your approach to challenges you face?