Wait!
Pentacost • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 15 viewsNotes
Transcript
Wait
Wait
The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen,
to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me;
for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
We have been talking about the importance of walking by the leading of the Holy Spirit as we live in these interesting times
And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me;
The “to wait” here is literally translated - Stand still and be expectant!
I have waited for your salvation, O Lord!
In Hebrew - the waiting of a dying man for divine intervention - Kittle
Jacob is calling his sons together to tell them what will transpire in the future
Look at verse 8
“Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your father’s children shall bow down before you.
Judah is a lion’s whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who shall rouse him?
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people.
He prophesies of the coming Messiah!
He then cries out in verse 18 the truth we all longed to know - salvation is with the Lord!
Even on his death bed he commits to wait for the promises of God!
The only appearance of the word in the NT is here in verse 4
The root of the word means to “remain of stay with someone or something” - Kittle
Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart, All you who hope in the Lord.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope.
I am weary with my crying; My throat is dry; My eyes fail while I wait for my God.
It is with that same commitment, faith, and determination that Jesus told the disciples to go and be ready to receive the Holy Spirit!
Kittle puts it this way
...”with an implicit element of believing adherence and confident personal commitment to Him as the divinely sent Helper refers to faithful going on with the Lord, which is a decisive demand made upon Christians in addition to the initial decision of conversion.”
Going on! It should be the goal of every born again believer!
But “going on” with Him can’t be accomplished without the empowering of the Holy Spirit!
So he answered and said to me: “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the Lord of hosts.
Jesus knew that we would not be able to stand the test of time in the strength of our own power!
That is the very thing that got us into this mess to begin with! Trying on our own strength!
Again Kittle describes it this way:
“Faithful cleaving to the saving revelation of God is contrasted with the vacillation which for the slightest reason lets go of the salvation found.”
The Holy Spirit is the “staying power” of our lives!
For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirt not many days from now!
I love it! SHALL BE! No questions asked! It will be done!
The word baptized here is from the root word - Bapta - meaning to “dye material” or “Dyed or colored cloths”
Remember the promise of God in Isa?
“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.
He was saying that their nature had become so corrupt that it was like cloth that was dyed through to the fiber and could not be changed!
It means to be immersed, to suffer shipwreck, to drown, to perish - oh that we would learn to surrender to the power of God’s Spirit!
That our life of sin would be “shipwrecked” the old man drowned and perished so that Christ would life through me!
The same thought is continued here!
If you’ll receive him, the Holy Spirit will invade every fiber of your being!
Water baptism is the outward sign, the Holy Spirit is the inward sign of a changed life!
Jesus did not tell them to go immediately and fulfill the great commission for He knew that in the power of their own strength they would fail!
And so it is with many of the man-made religious organizations
They are like branches dying on the vine because they are not receiving of the life-give power of the Holy Spirit!
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
Jesus told them to wait and they believed and received, now God is waiting for you!
The stage is set, the play have begun and we the church are about to take center stage!
Everything you need has been provided, you have been called from the foundations of the world to be more than an overcomer. You are a holy nation of Kings and priests unto our God!
Rise up oh believer and receive of the power that is rightfully yours!
Let’s pray