Acts
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Please turn to Acts 1 and Luke 24
Our focus over the last several weeks has been on the Baptism of the Spirit. God promised that He would give His Spirit to His people, that He would literally take up residence in the human heart. We then looked at the baptism of Jesus, both water and His receiving of the Holy Spirit. Now, we’re going to spend the next several weeks looking at the baptism of the Spirit for believers.
And the question that I asked a couple weeks ago was this - “if Jesus needed the Holy Spirit to minister in His world and complete His mission, how much more do the followers of Christ need to be filled with the Spirit of God in order to minister to our world and complete our mission.” I think the answer is obvious.
No what's interesting to me is when you look at the 1st century Christians who received the promise of the Holy Spirit, they had no idea what was about to happen to their world. They had no idea what they were about to face. They had no idea that the Church would endure 400 years of intense persecution under the Roman Empire - that many of them would be imprisoned, tortured, that they would lose their lives and spill their blood for the sake of the gospel Jesus Christ - that persecution has never ended.
One of the reasons why I’m focusing on the need to be filled with the Holy Spirit is because I believe we will face a similar turn of events in our nation. I’m not normally pessimistic and I do not intend to sound like one, but it is my duty to prepare the church for what seems to be inevitable. Unless God brings revival to this nation, we Christians are going to face some very difficult and challenging times. We will need to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit more than we are used to. I’ll be talking more about that in the weeks to come.
Again, we’re going to spend the next several weeks looking at the baptism of Spirit for Believers. So, let’s look at Acts 1 and Luke 24. Both of these passages are after the resurrection of Christ shortly before His ascension. He said this to His disciples.
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;
for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.
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.”
and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,
and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.
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.”
From those two passages, we’ll be using the following outline over the next several weeks. We’ll be talking about
1) The Promise
2) The Person
3) The Power
4) The Purpose
… of the Spirit
Let’s talk about the
1) The Promise of the Spirit
We've already talked about the Promise of the Father, that centuries before Jesus God promised to pour out His Spirit on all flesh - meaning Jewish and Gentile Believers. We saw the fulfillment of this promise first at the baptism of Jesus, then on the day of Pentecost, and also when Peter proclaimed that this Promise is for you and your children, and their children and for all who are far and near. So what he was saying is that the promise of the Holy Spirit is for every generation until Jesus returns. I don’t think He’s returned yet, so this promise is for me and you.
There are a few things I want to reiterate about the Promise before we move on. Now the promise of the Holy Spirit corresponds with at least three things:
First, it’s about
A) God’s Presence
God's place of residence has always been and always will be with His people.
When Jesus died on the cross and the veil in the Temple was torn, this was God’s proclamation that His presence would no longer be contained or limited to a temple in a geographical area - meaning that the promise of the Holy Spirit is about God taking up personal residence within His people - both individually and as the Church.
We affirm that when a person receives Christ as Savior, God begins to take up residence within that person [God is all in - just not all in a person until there is maturity, surrender, transformation …]. But we do affirm that a believer is to be the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
In other words if God lives in you then you - then live like it! If we don't live like it now - how will we live when the persecution gets worse? Do you think you're all of a sudden going to be Mr. and Mrs. spiritual?
So here's a question - How is your temple? Have you given the Holy Spirit access to every room in your home? Every area of your life? Is He welcome in …?
Secondly, the promise of the Spirit is about
B) God’s Purpose
God's purpose is to redeem the world and to reclaim nations.
- to advance His Kingdom, not ours. Think of everything the Kingdom of God is - we have been given the Spirit to advance that Kingdom. The Kingdom of love, grace, truth, compassion, mercy, righteousness, justice, holiness ….
God gives us His Spirit to invade and repel the kingdom of darkness with His Kingdom of light.
If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, if you are a citizen of God’s Kingdom, and especially if you have been baptized in His Spirit, then you have
Each Christian has a responsibility to be engaged in the purposes of the Kingdom.
I’m going to be blunt - if you get to heaven and Jesus asks why you weren't involved in His Kingdom, you cannot say, “Well, no one asked me” or “No one told me what to do.” We each have a responsibility to seek God and discover His will for our lives and how our lives advance His purposes. And a lot of it is already in Scripture - caring for the widow, giving to the poor, feeding the hungry, being a father to the fatherless … more than to it than that but the basics are there.
If you want to know His will - read Romans 12:1-2.
Lastly, the Promise of the Holy Spirit is for …
C) Our Purity
We talk a lot about forgiveness of sin in the Church, but for some reason the idea of purity seems all but lost - purity in the way we talk, dress, things we participate in …. Yes, God desires to forgive us and save us, but He also desires to sanctify His people - to purify us, to transform us and to make us holy and purified vessels.
“ ‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.
Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable.
Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.
The Holy Spirit is given so that God would be present with His people.
The Holy Spirit is given so we can participate in God’s purposes.
The Holy Spirit is given for our purity.
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What is the Spirit saying?
Receive the Spirit