The Holy Spirit

SERMON: 2016-08-28--ac16158--the-holy-spirit-part-1 SOURCE DURATION: 00:42:14.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.98 APPROVED: false REASON: Candidate 15 provides a strong concluding thought/pastoral application regarding the importance of the Holy Spirit's glow in the church. Since no subsequent non-sermon material (music, announcement, etc.) is provided, this segment represents the last token belonging to the sermon. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- We're beginning today a little miniseries on the Holy Spirit based on the first seven verses in Acts chapter 19. It's been four months since last we looked at the book of Acts. We've been doing, as many of you will recall, an extended study in the book of Acts. The reason being that the book of Acts is the ongoing work of the Lord Jesus through his church. That's why it's called the Acts of the Apostles. When last we looked at the book of Acts, we looked at Acts chapter 17. In Acts chapter 17, the Apostle Paul finds himself in one of the great metropolitan areas of the Greek Empire, the city of Athens. Let me just bring you up to date on his second missionary journey. He spends time in Athens, and then when he is finished in Athens, in Acts chapter 17, he moves on to the city of Corinth. We're skipping that chapter for the time being. He spends quite a bit of time in Corinth. Then he goes to a city called Concreia, where he gets his hair cut. You can read all about that in the previous chapter, why he got his hair cut. Then he decides he's going back home to Syria with a stopover in the city of Ephesus. Very brief, but he says, "I'm coming back to see you again." He goes to Caesarea, goes to Jerusalem, ends up going back to Antioch, which is, of course, his home church. They are the ones who commissioned him for his first and second missionary journeys. He spends a couple of months there, and now he starts his third missionary journey, and he decides to revisit all the places where he has established churches. He goes to Tarsus, which is his home city originally, then Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, Antioch, and then he goes over land to the city of Ephesus. That's where we pick up the story this morning in Acts chapter 19. Listen to these seven verses. While Apollos was in Corinth, keep that name in mind because he's referenced earlier on in chapter 18, while Apollos was in Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when or after you believed?" They answered, "No. We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." So Paul asked, "Then what baptism did you receive?" "John's baptism," they replied. 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. On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke in tongues or other languages and prophesied, "There were about twelve men in all." That passage will be our text as we launch this little mini-series. Before we get into that, please join me in prayer. Father, we looked last week at the story of dry bones in Ezekiel chapter 37 and we echoed that cry, "Can these bones live?" In Ezekiel's response, "Only you, sovereign Lord, know." And we know that by your spirit, the dead come to life, the blind see, the lame walk. And so the prayer of our own heart is that in any place where deadness remains in us, places where we have lost sight of you perhaps, or where the burdens and the difficulties of life have just become overwhelming, or we have just fallen back in love with the world, Lord, light the fire again. Grant us an anointing of the Holy Spirit so powerful, so real, so alive, that we cannot but speak of the things that we have heard and seen, so that the nations might know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. So bless us in these moments together. Give me liberty and freedom to share your word, and all of us, Lord, hear hearts that are like soil well prepared to receive that word, that it may spring up and cause righteousness to grow forth among the nations of the world. And we will be careful to give you the glory through Jesus Christ. It's in his name that we pray, amen. Well this passage in Ephesians chapter 9 that we have just read this morning is actually one of the more perplexing passages in the book of Acts. Perplexing because here you have a small group of Christians that can best be described as half-baked. They've come to faith in Jesus, but there's something missing. Paul notices there is something missing, and so he asks them point blank, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" And their response, I think, is fascinating. Not only have they not received the Holy Spirit, their response is, "We didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit." Well what baptism were you baptized in then? Well the baptism of John, John the Baptist. And if you read chapter 18 that we have just skipped over, you discover that a man by the name of Apollos was an extremely gifted preacher. He had been preaching in Ephesus, but he only knew about the baptism of John. He didn't know about the baptism in the Holy Spirit until Paul's companions Aquila and Priscilla took him aside and explained to him the way more adequately. So I wonder, are these twelve believers in Ephesus the fruit of that ministry? Whatever the case, they are half in the kingdom, but they're missing the power they need to live in the kingdom. So Paul explains the fullness of the gospel to them. John preached Jesus, baptized them into the name of Jesus, laid hands on them just like we did this morning with the installation of office bearers, and invoked the Holy Spirit who came upon them. The result was they spoke in tongues and they prophesied. Now the reason then that this passage is perplexing is because it raises a very interesting question. Can you be a believer in Jesus and not have the Holy Spirit? It's an interesting question, isn't it? And if the answer to that is yes, you can, because that appeared to be the case here, then what do you do with Paul's assertion in Romans 8 verse 9 where he says, "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ." Paul makes it clear, you cannot belong to Christ and not have the Spirit of Jesus. So if the answer to that question is no, you cannot be a believer in Jesus and not have received the Holy Spirit, then what's happening in this particular story, and more importantly for our considerations, why are there so many of God's people around the world who also appear to be half-baked Christians? That is to say they miss the passion, the fire that burns within God's people to follow the Lord Jesus and instead they're conformed to the world and their testimony withers on the vine. I don't think that's too harsh a judgment. We all know people like that and not infrequently we find ourselves to our dismay, at least I hope it's to our dismay. We find ourselves in places where our love has grown cold, where the fire is barely glowing and the world is much more attractive than the Kingdom of God. So these are very important questions and that's why we're starting this little mini series then on the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. We're going to talk about questions like who is he? What has he come to do? What can we reasonably expect to experience in our lives when the Holy Spirit is there? And how can we experience much more of who he is and what he has come to do? So we're going to begin this morning then with the question of who is the Holy Spirit. Let me say at the outlet or at the outset that there's going to be times this morning as we go through this that some of you are going to think this is way too heady for me. This doesn't apply to the practical issues of my life. Let me encourage you to resist that temptation and to stick it out. Because who God is and what he is like in the long run will translate into who you are, how you live life and what you value. Because the reality is show me your God and I will show you your life. Give you an example. Why does Islam produce suicide killers and why are there at least a significant number of adherents to Islam who cheer on the martyrs who do that? But in Christianity there are no significant suicide killers and generally speaking if there are it is condemned by Christians. Wouldn't you agree that's a big difference between the two religions? Why? Well it traces back to the God we serve. Allah and Yahweh are not the same God. They don't have the same values. They don't have the same characteristics and therefore their followers embrace an entirely different way of life. And that's why one of the most important things that you and I can do is to have a proper and biblical understanding of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So back to the question who is the Holy Spirit? Well if you're even remotely schooled in biblical theology then you will know that the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Christianity is said to be the third person of the Godhead. For many, many centuries now the Christian Orthodox faith has maintained that God reveals himself in the scriptures as three in one, that is to say one God but three persons, father, son, and Holy Spirit. Here is how one of the ancient creeds of the church expresses it. This is the Athanasian creed. It says in the Catholic faith, the Catholic faith there being the universal faith not just the Roman Catholic faith. The word Catholic means universal and the Catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity. And if you ever have occasion to read through the Athanasian creed it then goes into great detail to explain what is meant by that. And there is this particular diagram that has been around for many, many years that is known as the Trinity shield that tries to capture the essence of the Athanasian creed as it tries to express the relationship of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. Notice what it says, the father is not the son, is not the Holy Spirit, is not the father. The father is God, the son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. So you have one God but three persons in the Godhead. And if that makes your head explode a little bit, welcome to the club because that has been the challenge for God's people throughout all the years. And for that reason, trying to grapple with what doesn't make any sense to us, historically God's people try to come up with analogies and some are better than others. One analogy that I've often heard is the analogy of an egg, where the egg is composed of three parts, the shell corresponding let's say to the father, the yolk corresponding to the son, and the white of the egg corresponding to the Holy Spirit. And then the argument is, well you've got these three parts but they're really one egg. Not bad, not good, because you still have three separate parts that added together become a God. Whereas in biblical reality, father, son, and Holy Spirit are three different persons but they're still in substance one God. And that is why there's an analogy that I always come back to that to me captures it better than anything else that I know. And that is the analogy of a prism. If you've ever done this experiment in school or if you've ever watched a rainbow form in the sky, then you will know that rainbow colors are formed by the refraction of light. And when you take white light and you pass it through a prism, you get the seven colors of the rainbow. But of those seven colors, red, green, and blue are known as the primary colors. So these three colors, RGB in computer language, together make up white. And I love that particular analogy because here you have light, it's one substance when you see it, but it has three different parts somehow working together to becoming the one. Still doesn't solve the total mystery, but it helps us to understand that even in nature there are manifestations of the Trinitarian nature of God. Now to me, it's more important to understand the working relationship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit than how together they become one God. And if you've been around this church for a long, long time, you may remember that on one or two occasions I've walked you through this before, but the analogy that I prefer is this analogy. This is an electric circuit. The G is a generator. These are wires, and this is a light bulb lit up. And in this analogy, you find, I think, the biblical dynamic working relationship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, both in the act of creation, as we're going to see in a few moments, and in the act of redemption. If we can keep that drawing up for just a moment, the generator represents God the Father. The G can stand for God. And the reason I pick a generator to represent God the Father is because what do you think is the first and foremost primary quality of God as a Father? Give me the answer. Power, yes. He's many, many things. People often think of God the Father as the provider and the sustainer, but the most primary characteristic of God the Father is that He generates life. He calls creation into being because you cannot be a father without having a son. And so understand this, that for all eternity past, and God has been around forever, and if that blows your mind, welcome to the world, that's only because we live in time. God lives outside of time. Time doesn't apply to Him. So God's been there forever. When I was a kid, I tried to figure that one out, gave up. Still don't know how that works. Decided I don't need to figure that one out. God's always been there, but He's always had a son. And He's always had a relationship with His son, a son who was in His image and a son with whom He could share the fullness of His love. That's why a biblical view of the Trinity is so important because whenever Christians talk about relationship, whenever Christians talk about community, whenever Christians talk about loving your neighbor as you love yourself, it comes out of the heart of who God is. That's why Islam and Christianity are very different in their practical outworkings. When the migrants flood into Europe, it's the European nations who have in a lot of ways rejected their Christian heritage, but who are still the fruit of the Christian heritage, embrace them with wide open arms because they know that's what you're supposed to do as a human being. Do you know that none of the big Islam nations in the Middle East have ever taken in more than a handful of migrants? It's not part of their view of who God is because they reject the Trinitarian nature of God and they think it's a heresy and they do not believe that God ever had a son. So God the Father is the generator, if we can have that back up, then who do you think the wires are? No, it's a good try, but we'll get there. Who are the wires? Jesus is the wires. Why is Jesus the wires? Because this is how the Trinity works. God the Father is the architect of creation, He's the one who sits down, designs it all. Jesus is the general contractor who says to the Father, "All right, give me the plans, I'll go make it happen." Now here comes the trick question, I'm warning you. What does the light bulb represent? I can't hear you, you've got to speak up. The temptation is to say it's the Holy Spirit, but it's no on. We'll get to that in a moment. The light bulb is us or all of creation because the power of God the Father through the Lord Jesus empowers all of creation as we'll see in a few moments, calls all of creation forth. So now the big question is, where's the Holy Spirit in this? The Holy Spirit is the electrical power who lights up the light bulb. Are you with me in this? The generator generates life. God the Father is the architect, Jesus is the general contractor, the Holy Spirit represents the trades who makes it happen. He is the power that comes from the Father through the Son. That's been a big theological discussion historically and still a point of difference between the Eastern and the Western Orthodox Churches, it's known as the Filio Clause in the Nicene Creed. They don't believe that the Nicene Creed says the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Eastern Orthodox Church says he only proceeds from the Father. That's a whole complicated issue that a lot of theological battles were fought over years and years ago. The Father is the architect. The Son is the general contractor and the Holy Spirit is the one who hits the road and he actually makes it happen with his power. Now if you're still with me, let's apply this first of all to the creation story and then to the story of redemption because remember, redemption is creation revisited. It's to undo the damage caused by sin. So let's talk then about the role of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in terms of creation. We've already alluded to it. God the Father is the creator. He is the designer. He is the one who decides, so to speak, to call all of creation into being. And if I ask you this morning the question, why did God, who has been eternally satisfied within him, his own self, he doesn't need anybody from the outside, why did God create you and me? Not because he was lonely. Not because we were going to be such a great addition to his family, just in case you think you are. Why? Because God wanted children like Jesus with whom he could share himself. My go-to verse for that in the Revised Standard Version reads it a little bit clearer than the NIV and it says that God destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will. For all eternity past, God has had this great relationship with his Son. The Holy Spirit has been part of them and they have so much love to give that they decided they wanted to share it with creation, particularly with the human race made in the image of God. And so the opening chapters of Genesis tells you all about how God creates the heavens and the earth and makes every living thing upon the face of the earth and then on the sixth day of creation creates Adam and ultimately Eve, image bearers of God, people who can reflect his character and his likeness. Now as most of you know I'm a little bit of a science buff and I'm fascinated by space exploration and I am fascinated by the discoveries of science and of late science has come up with a very interesting dilemma and the dilemma is this, the Big Bang Theory states that the universe, let's put up that next picture of a shot of the universe with modern telescopes and the Hubble telescope and we get glimpses of the universe beyond anything that we have previously been able to understand. And you know by now I trust that the universe is made up of galaxies, there's hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, each galaxy has hundreds of billions of stars. Now here's what they've discovered in the last little while, the universe according to the Big Bang Theory is expanding and normal understandings of science are that the gravitational force of all the stars should collapse upon itself so that it should begin to shrink, in other words the expansion ought to be slowing down. It's like you throw a ball up in the air, I was going to bring along one just to show you but forgot. What happens when you throw a ball up in the air, well what goes up comes down, right? It goes up, slows down, reaches a point of being stationary and then that's what the universe is supposed to do and a couple of years ago they discovered to their amazement instead of slowing down it's speeding up and you know how they're trying to explain that? I just told you how big the universe is, right? I mean talk about blowing your mind. They now believe that the physical universe that we see is only 5% of what's out there, 27% they think is a thing called dark matter, nobody knows what that is and 68% is dark energy. They don't know what that is either but that's the only way that they can explain how the universe is functioning. I think one of these days they're going to wake up and they're going to see Jesus's fingerprints all over this. That's our God of creation and the purpose of all of that is to demonstrate how big our God is. Next time you think you wonder if God's big enough to look after you, you look at one of these pictures and you understand the incredible amount of time, space, and energy that is out there all of which is a product of God the Father. That's what the Father did, that's who He is and the universe displays as the Bible says His handiwork. Alright, now what's the role of Jesus in this? Well remember Jesus is a general contractor. So Jesus is the one who takes the Father's plans for the whole universe including the human race and He says I'm going to make it happen. And so repeatedly throughout scripture we're told in verses that otherwise don't make any sense at all that the universe is created through the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to these passages. First of all there is Colossians 1, 15, 16, and 17. He is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation. That doesn't mean that He was born, it means that He inherits all of creation. For by Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible by the thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. That's why I keep saying one of these days they're going to find out that Jesus' fingerprints are all over the universe because He keeps it functioning. That's how big He is. And remember this is Jesus before He is born as a human being. He existed eternally as co-God if you will with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 1, same thing. In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son whom He appointed heir of all things through whom He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful Word. Why doesn't the universe blow up or collapse or destroy itself? Because Jesus is holding onto it by the power of His Word. That is how strong the Father and the Son are together. Jesus explains the tragedy of His rejection when He comes to the earth that He had created. John puts it this way. He says, "He that is Jesus was in the world," now notice the contrast here, "though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him." This is like you and me investing an enormous amount of time and energy building a big company let's say and we are providing employment for who knows how many people and products to improve people's lives and you come into the plant and they won't let you in, in fact they throw stones at you because they don't recognize that you are the architect of creation. That's how Jesus would have felt when He came into the world and the world rejected Him and not only the world but He came to His own home, He came to His own people and His own people said, "Who are you? We don't know you." That is the tragedy of the incarnation and the incredible demonstration of God's love. So what then is the role of the Holy Spirit? Well, remember the Holy Spirit is the one who engages the trades, He's the one who makes it happen. And so God the Father is the architect of creation, Jesus is the general contractor who says, "I'm going to make it happen," and the Holy Spirit says, "Give me the plans and I'll go out and I will make it happen." And so what do we read in Scripture, Genesis 1, 1 and 2? God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning, the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep and what was the Spirit of God doing? Hovering over the waters. The image here is that of a hen brooding its eggs. The image here is that of the breath of the Holy Spirit breathing life into Ezekiel's dry bones. The Holy Spirit is the power who goes forth and He makes it all happen and He brings it to life. And that is why we read in the creation story of Adam, Genesis 2, 7, the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and what did He do? Breathing into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being. See often people will say, "Well, God the Father is the God of creation, Jesus is the God of redemption, the Holy Spirit is the God of sanctification." There's some truth in that but it falls short of the big picture. All three persons of the Holy Spirit are involved in the creation of the world. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And I think when the universe exploded into being and all of creation came to life and Adam and Eve stood there in the garden and God rested on the seventh day, I think the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit did a big dance of high fives and they said, "My land, we do good work. We do good work." Don't you think? I mean, unbelievable and what I love about science personally is the more we dig into the universe both in terms of its micro dimensions and its macro dimensions, the more amazed we stand at the incredible nature of God's brilliant creation, isn't that true? If that's true for creation without spending too much time on it, it's also true for redemption. If you ever ask yourself the question, why if God knew the world was going to fall into sin and would ultimately cost his Son, why in the world did he go through with it? I mean, if you knew that your kid was going to give you nothing but trouble and cause you nothing but disaster, wouldn't you have thought twice about having that kid if you had any say about it? You might not have had any say about it because you don't know where it's going to go, but God did and nevertheless God did choose to go ahead. You know why? Because he wanted to demonstrate the character of his love and the best way that I can demonstrate that is this, again, picture yourself as rich and famous and you've got all this love so what do you want to do? You want to beget yourself a family so that you can crown them with the glory and the honor that you have and you place them in this amazing position of leadership and then what do they do? They squander it all away, they turn their back on you and they throw your love back in your face. So now they're in jail, they have ruined your reputation, they've cost you everything and you go to jail, you bail them out, you bring him home, you wash him up and you work with him until he is restored to a position of glory. Do you understand how in this second case your love is demonstrated in a way in which it was not demonstrated in creation? Does that make sense? When you love at the expense of your own well-being, you are demonstrating a degree of love which is beyond anything ordinary and that is the heart of God and so scripture will put it this way. Listen to this, Romans 5, 8, "God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners Christ died for us." He demonstrates his love in the gift of his son and John, it's not there, let me read it to you, 1 John 4, 9, "In this the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him." I've often said this, I'll say it again, if you ever doubt God's love for his people then number one look at the fact that he created you but secondly look at the fact that when you sinned and rebelled against you he did everything he could to bring you back. So I'm going to leave you this morning with these questions then because we're shortly running out of time ask yourself the question if this was the role of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit in creation and of redemption, if redemption is the turnaround of everything that was caused by sin then number one what was the role of the Father? Number two what was the role of the Son and number three what is the role of the Holy Spirit? And then you'll begin to understand why each of the persons of the Trinity is so terribly important and why the Holy Spirit particularly is of critical importance in terms of how we experience God and how we experience Jesus. He's the one who breeds life into us and who enables us to see who God is and to be so filled with his passion that we cannot but speak of the things that we have heard and seen. So what's the role of the Father? What's the role of the Son? What's the role of the Holy Spirit? How do they team up to make it possible for those of us, all of us who have wandered away from God to be restored to the inheritance that we've lost? Fair enough? You'll do your homework, I do my work, you do your work, this is like teamwork because [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:42:10.940; remove through 00:42:14.000] this is of critical importance if the church is to be aflame with the glow of God's Spirit. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:42:14.000; resume after this marked segment]