But You Will Receive Power

Intro

Whether you realize it or not, today is very important date in the Christian calendar. This is especially true as a cooperative fellowship with the Assemblies of God.

Today is Pentecost Sunday. And this is a day that is recognized by Christians and Churches everywhere, but it is especially important to us considering that we are in fact a pentecostal Church.

The thing that makes us uniquely Pentecostal, if you were to boil it down to one thing, would be our understanding of and dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives.

All Christians believe in the Holy Spirit and in His Power, but our Pentecostal distinctive is found in the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

We understand this to mean a post salvation experience in which a believer who is already indwelt with the Holy Spirit is baptized in that same Spirit by Jesus himself.

It is separate and subsequent to salvation. In fact, as we will see today, it is possible to be a Christian and never experience this baptism.

So this morning, as we celebrate Pentecost Sunday, we are celebrating the moment in History when Jesus poured out his Spirit and baptized the first believers.

And thank God that he did. Today we celebrate God pouring out his Spirit on all flesh, and his providence in ensuring that when it seemed like these teachings had been lost forever, God poured out his Spirit once again in a dramatic way toward the beginning of the 20th century, completely changing the Christian landscape of the world; so much so that 25% of all Christians worldwide are now Pentecostal.

So this morning I want to look at why the baptism in the Holy Spirit matters. Why we are celebrating. And why you and I should care about this event.

This was the fulfillment of prophecy

We often look at Prophecy as something that has not yet happened. But we must remember that the vast majority of prophecy in the bible has already been fulfilled.

We celebrate today the fulfillment of prophecy.

Joel 2:28-29 NIV 28 ”And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophecy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. 29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

If this sounds familiar it is because this prophecy is quoted in the book of Acts by Peter.

Acts 2:1-4 NIV 1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

So here this supernatural event takes place and people from all over are in the city and witness this event. As you can imagine people have a lot of questions and so Peter stands to address the crowd.

Acts 2:14-16 NIV 14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

Peter then goes on to quote the prophecy I just read to you out of Joel.

Peter understood this moment that he just experienced to be the fulfillment of prophecy, a prophecy written approximately 800 years before it came to pass.

Even in the New Testament we see John the Baptist, prophecy about this moment.

In Luke 3:15-16 NIV the people who were following John and being baptized in water by him began to think that he might be the messiah. He goes on to say 15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

You see we celebrate today because this event that took place at Pentecost continues to take place in the lives of believers. This baptism in the Holy Spirit was not reserved for the early Church but was meant to continue until Jesus comes back for his Church.

Pentecost Sunday is a reminder of the faithfulness of God. We celebrate the fact that when God says he will do something, he follows through.

So how should we view the importance of this experience? Well to answer that we need to look at how the importance of this experience was viewed by Jesus himself and the early Church.

This was the pre-requisite for ministry

Acts 1:4-5 NIV 4 On one occasion while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

Something that we have to realize here to fully understand the significance that Jesus was putting on this experience is that the very people he was talking too, the disciples, had already received the Holy Spirit on the evening of his resurrection in John 20 starting in verse 19.

You see it was on that day, the day Jesus defeated death that the first believers were indwelt with the Holy Spirit and every believer since then is indwelt with the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation.

Romans 8:9 NIV You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.

As you can see, every believer has the Holy Spirit living within them. So if the disciples had already been indwelt with the Holy Spirt, why did Jesus tell them in Acts 1 that they had to wait in Jerusalem to be baptized with the Holy Spirit?

This leads us to very important conclusion. It is very possible to be a believer and yet never experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit. You may be indwelt, but that does not mean the same thing.

Look at the Ephesian believers in Acts 19:1-6 NIV 1 While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2 and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”3 So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?”“John’s baptism,” they replied.

4 Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.

You see, every believer has the Holy Spirit living within them, the disciples did as well, yet Jesus told them they had to wait.

There were 120 of them gathered together in the city. Each of them presumably indwelt with the Holy Spirit and yet Jesus wanted, if not, required them to receive something they did not yet possess.

There is a reason that the Assemblies of God requires all credentialed ministers to affirm having experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit before they can even be considered for credentialing.

It is because Jesus himself required it before his followers were allowed to go and minister.

If Jesus thought it was so vital to the success of their ministry then who are we to diminish it.

It had a definitive purpose

We read just a moment ago in Acts 1 when Jesus told his disciples not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. If we jump down just a few verses to...

Acts 1:8 NIV 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This brings us back full circle to where we started. I said that our Pentecostal distinctive, the thing that sets us apart from other Christian groups is our reliance on and emphasis on the power of the Holy Spirit.

As Pentecostals we believe that as believers we can be filled with the Holy Spirit and therefore be used in the spiritual gifts, all of them, not just some.

Jesus says in John 14:12 NIV Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

What does that mean even greater things? Jesus is saying that because I am leaving I will send the Holy Spirit to empower believers to do all the works I have been doing, plus more.

There is no miracle, no supernatural act that Jesus performed, that his Holy Spirit cannot do through believers today.

We believe the Bible clearly teachers and demonstrates that all the gifts of the Spirit were intended to manifest in the lives of believers from pentecost to today.

We believe that the Holy Spirit is moving the same today as he did when he filled those 120 believers 2000 years ago.

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is meant to bring us into the realm and power of the Spirit of God so that we can be the most effective witnesses there are.

Conclusion

You want to know why you should care, because Jesus cared enough to make it the last thing he said to his disciples before his ascension.

We care because Jesus knew that we could never have the impact he desired us to have on our culture, in our communities, and among our families if we were not filled with the Spirit.

We care because we can live victoriously over sin because of the power the Holy Spirit provides.

We care because the baptism in the Holy Spirit brings us into a level of intimacy with God that isn’t possible any other way.

We care because we should be people who are obedient to Jesus and this is what he expects of us, to be filled with his Spirit.

I invite you this morning to seek Jesus to be baptized in His Spirit.