The Kingdom of God and the Holy Spirit's Guidance

When Jesus saw his disciples and asked them to come and follow him, it was really a very simple thing. He said, I want you to leave what you're doing and come and do what I tell you to do. Live the way I want you to live. This is the pattern of life that you'll have. Three years they did this. They didn't have to worry very much about it. They looked at Jesus and he said, this is where we're going to go, and they went. They listened to Jesus and he said, this is what I want you to do, and they did it. There were no questions about that. Jesus was in charge of the group. He made the plans, he told them what to do, and they followed him to do it. That pattern followed all of their time with Jesus. They watched him and they could hear his voice in their ears. They could see the expression on his face. They could tell by his body language what he was saying to them. Their king, ruler, and lord was visible to them. And then something terrible happened. Jesus was crucified. No longer could they see Jesus. It was devastating to them, really. Jesus had told them that this was going to happen, but you know how it is whenever you're thinking about your loved one dying and when it really happens, it's just a big difference. Some of the disciples actually wanted to go back to their former life, become fishermen again. No one was there to tell them what exactly to do. And then another powerful thing happened. Jesus was resurrected. In the book of Acts, the Bible tells us of something that happened when Jesus rose from the dead. His resurrection didn't take him directly to heaven, even though he was prepared to go. He took another 40 days in which he stayed on this earth and met with his disciples to continue his discussions with them. Luke writes, In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions to the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 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. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Jesus gathered with his disciples after three years with them, talking about the kingdom of God. And now he spends, after he is dead, raised from the dead, 40 days talking to them about the kingdom of God, the same thing he spent three years talking with them about. What was the difference? They had been used to a kingdom of God where their king was visible. They could see Jesus. They could hear him. They could talk to him. They could see his expressions. They knew what the king thought by just listening and watching. Now suddenly, there would be no longer a visible king for them. How could you live in the kingdom if you never heard the king? How could you live in a kingdom if you could never see the king? How would you know what the king wanted you to do if you couldn't talk to him? All of these changes from the physical kingdom of God to the spiritual kingdom of God were very important to them. We don't know exactly what Jesus said to them in the 40 days. Not one word of all this instruction did he leave for us. I think that you could be confident to say that he was giving them the same things he talked about before. But now he was telling them how the kingdom of God was going to operate with him gone. That's what he was trying to do when he was on earth. He kept saying to them, I'm not going to be here. I'm going to be crucified. Life is over for me. They just didn't grasp it until it really occurred. Now he was there with his resurrection body. He was ready to be able to tell them, this is what the kingdom of God will be like from now on. The Father said that in a while the Holy Spirit would come. He would come to you. When the Spirit would light on you, you will be able to know he's there with you, giving you guidance and direction. Now the time has come. When instead of looking and listening to me, you will listen for the very Spirit of God. You see, what Jesus was teaching his disciples was the very, very important thing for us. I hear a lot of people sometimes say what a wonderful thing it would have been to have been back and see Jesus when he was walking on earth, and to be able to hear Jesus when he was talking, see his face and hear his voice and see his expressions. Well, if you'd have been in that crowd of 5,000 men, 5,000 women and children, 10,000, and on the back row, what could you have seen? Even if you'd been on the front row, what could you have seen? He was talking to everybody, not specifically or concretely to you. You see, the great presence of Jesus on this earth was not the height of the kingdom of God, for that was yet to come. For what Jesus was teaching his disciples is no longer do you have to wait till I wake up to ask me what question you have of the Lord. For if you wake up at 3 in the morning, the Holy Spirit will be awake. And all you have to say is, Lord, I don't know what to do about these things that I'm facing today. I'm worried. And your King will answer you. The King present among you will answer you. For you see, you come to the crowd like this and you hear someone speaking, but there is something different. The King, by the Holy Spirit, has led me to say the things I'm going to say I trust. But for you who have come, because the Holy Spirit led you here, he has for you, each one of you, a different message. Sometimes whenever sermons are over and people are talking to me, they say, well, I really appreciate what you said today, and they tell me something I said, and I think, I don't remember saying that. The miracle of all this is that now the King is alive. Not one person in one place, but in every single human being's life who trusts Christ. You have your own personal Lord and ruler there with you. The kingdom of God now is not like it was when Jesus walked on the earth and you had to travel for miles to get to hear him, and maybe you'd be in the back. And the line to talk to him would be so long you could never wait. For now, he says, everything has changed. The kingdom of God is at hand. The Spirit of God is going to come on you because everything has changed. In chapter 2 of the book of Acts, verse 29, Peter is describing for the people the promise that God had made in comparison with what had happened in the past. And he's letting us know how important it is that this new kingdom that he's introduced to us changes our lives. Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. He was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor his body see decay. God has raised Jesus to life, and we're all witnesses to the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit. Listen. And has poured out what you now see and hear. What he was explaining was this new kingdom of God. These people had gathered as God told them to do in the upper room. They were waiting for God to act as he would then tell them what they were supposed to do. And then in a mighty demonstration, the Spirit of God came on those people who were there, ordinary people like yourselves. They had no language training. They had no witness training. They were just people. The Spirit of God descended on them. And there in that moment, something happened. An ordinary Hebrew person went out in the crowd of thousands of people there for the Passover experience. And they would see someone start talking to them, discover they were Greek, and begin to speak. And all of a sudden, their words were translated into Greek. They'd never spoken it before, didn't know how to speak it. It was a miracle. The king said, go out and tell about Jesus. And they did exactly what they were told to do. And the miracle of communication occurred. There were people from all over the world. And this small group of people went out and began to talk. And because they were obedient to what God said, waited for the Spirit to come on them, and obedient to what he asked them to do, tell the story of Jesus' life and who he was and what he did, they were able to communicate to people whose languages they'd never spoken. The miracle of the kingdom of God. See, when the disciples were on earth, they listened to what Jesus said, come and follow me, and they did it. They listened to what Jesus said, and when he told them to take the food and tear it up and feed 5,000 people with just a little bread and fish, they did it. And when Peter heard that he was supposed to step out of the boat and walk on water, he did. They heard the commands of the king from the mouth of Jesus and did exactly what he said. Miraculous things happened. Now he wanted them to understand, you go and wait until the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you do what the Holy Spirit tells you to do. So this small group of people gathered, they heard the message, they went out in the crowd and did exactly what they were told to do. And a powerful act of God was displayed. What Jesus was preparing them for was this great experience of finding that they transfer from looking at him to listening to the presence of the Spirit inside of them. You don't ever wish that you could go back and stand there with Jesus. That's backwards. You have now everything that God has to give to us. It is the apex of all that there was in this spiritual story. Because wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whatever you need, the very presence of God is with you. The disciples were reconciled with Christ. They were at one with him because they listened to his voice, they went where he did, they said they did what he told them to say, and they were at one with him. Those of you in the small groups have been listening to, talking about the word atonement, being at one with God. They were at one with Christ, physically and spiritually, except for one. There was Judas, listening to all that Jesus said, watching everything he did, but he wasn't at one with Jesus. He was there for another purpose. We don't know what went through his mind because we don't have anything he wrote about it. We know at the end, though, that he was more interested in getting a reward, financial reward, than what he thought Jesus was doing in the kingdom of God. That gives you a little clue. And so here you have a guy who was with everything Jesus said, listened to the Sermon on the Mount with his own ears, saw all the miracles Jesus did, but they were not together. One was headed one way, and the other was headed another. So you can sit in the church service, look around, and see all these people interested in God, but you don't know. The person sitting in front or behind of you may be thinking of something else entirely, and wish they were somewhere else. You can read the Bible. And if you're not saying to God, I want to listen to what you have to say to me, and I want you to show me how I can live in obedience to you, you're not going to get anything out of it. That's what people say. Get anything out of it. Because you're not at one with God. You don't open and say, OK, God, what do you need to tell me today? What do I need to stop doing? What do I need to start doing? What do I need to change? And then the Holy Spirit speaks to you. You can sit in church, read the Bible, be in Sunday school class, go through all this religious stuff, and never, ever get touched. For you see, what happens is, you have to come to God ready to hear what he wants you to hear, and prepared to do what he wants you to do. Jesus was saying to his followers, you're not going to see me anymore. But what I want to teach you is that all the things I've said to you were given to me by the Spirit of God. And I'm leaving. And now, in a little while, the Spirit of God will come on you. And just as I have had his Spirit give me these things, like the Sermon on the Mount, so you will have the Spirit of God to tell you what it means. I am going to be gone physically, but God will still be with you. And in this moment, when they were in that room, waiting on what God told them they should wait for, in obedience to him, the Spirit of God came. Everything changed. They had a new Lord. The Lord that was the one who talked to them personally. So when you get up in the morning, you say, God, what plans do you have for me today? He'll tell you. You may have to rearrange some things in your day, and some things might come up that would cause you to question whether what you were supposed to do today, you really should go ahead and do. Remember who the King is. The Holy Spirit has placed that in your mind and heart. You read the Bible, and it says, here is something in your life that needs to change. You may say, well, no one else knows. It doesn't matter. If it's the King speaking to you, you say, OK, God, I'm ready to let you change me. Whatever you want, I'll do it. And the King guides us with those choices, and the King provides the needs that we have. You don't have to be desperate for God to provide your need. You just have to be His child, and He provides your need. And He protects us. Protects us from things that would destroy us. He's our King. He stands between us and disasters that would destroy us. Now, Jesus said, I'm not going to be here to tell you what to do tomorrow. I'm not going to be here to break the bread and feed you. I'm not going to be here to tell the wind to be still when you're in the boat. But the Spirit of God will be. And He not only will be with you twelve, He will be with everyone who gives their lives in submission to Me. Jesus was teaching them how to live like He wants us to live. Teaching us to live dependent on the Spirit of God as the Lord and Ruler of our lives. But not everyone in the world has the Spirit of God. You see, the Spirit of God came to these people because they were obedient and submissive to the authority of God. You can't halfway do it, as Jody was saying today. You have to be all in for God or out. For unless He's King and Ruler of all, He will not be your King at all. So the disciples experienced the very first time the spiritual Kingdom of God. Out there telling everyone exactly what had taken place. You want to know why all these ignorant people are able to talk all these languages? I'll tell you. Jesus is in Heaven. The Spirit of God has been given to Him. And He poured it out on all of His people. But there were the people standing there who had killed Jesus. They were listening to all this. They heard about who He was, but they didn't believe it. They didn't believe He was the King. They didn't believe He was the One who should rule their lives. They didn't believe He was the One sent by God to be their leader. Peter said, chapter 2, verse 36, Therefore, that all Israel be assured of this, God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. He was saying to them two powerful words. Jesus had been made Lord, which is Ruler. He was the One in charge. It would be used for a word. He was a King. It would be used for a word for a man who owned a big farm and everyone worked for him. It would be used for someone who was a business person and in charge of the business. The President, CEO, whatever the word would use to describe that person in charge. God has made Jesus in charge of all this. He has made Him Lord. And now the Lord rules through the Spirit of God. That's how His ruling takes place today. And He has made Him the Christ. The Christ was the word for Messiah, the One who has been sent to redeem us, to lead us to safety or salvation or victory. So you follow Him, do what He tells you to do, and you find this. Now all these people standing here, some of them have been there when Jesus was crucified, crucify Him, crucify Him, they heard and joined in the crowd. Now they're hearing a different story about who this man was. Not the thief and liar that they'd heard at the trial. Not the blasphemer that they'd heard, but the Lord and the Christ. The Holy Spirit was there at work. When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart. You see, what the Holy Spirit of God does is not only helps His people know how to live, what to say, and what to do, but He enters the lives of people who are in rebellion to Him, and He gets right down to their heart. He says to them, your life is wrong. What you've done is wrong. Your choices are wrong. Your lifestyle is wrong. Something needs to be changed about you. This is the work of God's Spirit. And when the truth was proclaimed about who Jesus was, there were people in the crowd who said, what have we done? We didn't realize what was taking place. Now we see that we have become enemies of God. Their heart was stricken. They were convicted. They knew that something had happened that was not right. And they immediately said to Peter and the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? I realize that my life is so at odds with God. I'm not at one with Him. He sent His own Son into the world, and instead of receiving Him and listening to Him, we killed Him. I did that. I had a part in it. What in the world can I do? I see some stories, you know, on the television about someone who accidentally does something that kills a husband, wife, or child of a family. How do you apologize for that? How do you go up and say to someone, forgive me that I killed one of your family members? It's hard to imagine the guilt that would come to someone who is guilty of doing something wrong that caused the death of another person. We have killed the Messiah. Is there anything in this world we can do? Peter replied, repent. The word is a powerful word. It simply means to change directions. It can be your thinking. I think you're bad, and all of a sudden I think you're good. It can mean to change the way you behave. I've been rebellious, and now I'm going to be submissive. It means to change the values you have. I want more than anything in the world to have what I want and have my plans fulfilled. And then to say, God, I realize you're the ruler of this world. I want nothing more in this whole world than to do exactly what you want. Jody was describing what it means to say, God, I want to serve you regardless of the consequences, to be reckless in your submission to God. I want to protect myself, but now I see that I should do whatever you want and never try to protect myself from you. Repenting means you say, I know what I've done, and I realize it's wrong, and I want to acknowledge that to you, God, and I want to change the direction of my life. I want to go a different kind of way. Repent, he said, and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Holy Spirit. What does it mean to be baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit? Jesus described baptism as a way to express in our lives what's happened to us. I have couples come to me to get married, and some of them I say to them when they sit down in the office, the last thing, you know, if you'll just get that marriage license, bring it to me right now in this office. I can say, do you take him to be your husband? Do you take him to be your wife? If you'll say yes, I can sign that, and you can do away with all this wedding stuff and all the rehearsal stuff and all the after effects. And it's all over. I've never had anyone take me up on that deal. Even though it's a money saver, a time saver, they want to be able to stand and say before everyone in the world, I commit myself to Merida for the rest of my life. They want everyone to know that their life will now be different. I am going to be connected to this person, and I want people to know it. Baptism is that declaration. I used to live doing what I wanted to do, the way I wanted to do it, when I wanted to do it. I did whatever I thought was best in my life, but now I realize Jesus Christ is the Lord, the King of the world, the ruler of all. He made this world, and he has plans for this world. And now I want to quit doing that, and I want to begin to say, Lord, I will live any way you want me to live. Okay, he says, I want you to tell everyone about it. I want you to stand in the water and say, Jesus Christ is my Lord. That confession of faith. And then I want you to go under the water, like your old life has passed, and I want you to be raised up out of the water to show that your new life has started. Does going under the water and raising you up change you? No. No more than two people saying, I pledge myself to you the rest of my life, changes you. See, a lot of people say that when they don't mean it. Their life really is not committed to the other. Wedding ceremony can be as phony as anything in the world. So can going under the water. What changes a wedding ceremony is when both people mean what they say, and they plan to live it. And what changes when a person has made this commitment to Christ is that when they go under the water, they mean it. And when they come back up out of the water, they mean it. Turn away from the life you've lived. Declare to the world by baptism, as the Holy Spirit has directed you. And you will find then, that something powerful happens to you. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children, and for all who are way, way off. That's us. And for all who come to the Lord, our God will call. This is for those who are here, for their children, and for those who will come thousands of years later. This is what brings you at one with God. I acknowledge I've been living away from you, at odds with you. So my relationship is broken. I'm not at one with Him. Atonement. I now acknowledge that I haven't been at one with you. And now I ask you to change that. From this moment on, I will do everything you tell me to do. You are my Lord. My life is yours. Now I'm at one with Him. And when I'm at one with Him, His Holy Spirit comes to me. The King resides in me. And now, every day, the Spirit of God is in this person, guiding, providing, protecting, and making their life a powerful influence on the lives of others. When Jesus was on earth, He had twelve guys. He could give His life to them. When He left, He said, I can take care of millions. I will be your King. You won't see me, but you will know me. That's what Jesus meant when He said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go and make disciples. And I'll be with you to the end of the ages. So when you're doing the work that God has asked you to do, He'll be with you to the end of the ages. If He is not with you, you do not feel His presence. Either you've never turned away from your former life, or you've acted like you've turned away from Him, and maybe did turn away from Him, but you're not making disciples. Do you have a passion to see people who don't know Christ come to Him? The Spirit will give you that. You can't generate it on your own. Well, you can get worked up and come a few times to pray for someone or pray for them a little while, but when the Spirit controls your life, it is your life. What about you? Have you ever turned away from a self-directed life to give yourself to Him? Are you in the business of making disciples for Him? Do you have a list of people you're praying for to come to know Him? Are you building relationships with those people, asking God to show you how to love them and care for them? Are you inviting them to be in church with you, Sunday school? If you do this, you will know what it's like to be at one with God. If you don't, you will sense that separation between you and Him. God has planned a way for us to be at one with Him. His Spirit guides us to that. Would you bow your heads for a moment? Would you say your life is connected to God, close to Him? Or do you think there's some kind of wall between you and God? In this story, God explains exactly how it can be fixed. Admit what you're doing wrong. Ask God to forgive you for that. Promise Him that you're going to live in obedience to Him as best you can. It now is your goal. Turn your back on the life you've lived before. If you've never been baptized to show that commitment to Christ, and you suddenly think, I should do that, that's God. He's telling you what to do. Obey Him and you get closer. Say no and you get farther away. Maybe you've made that promise to God, but over the years things happen, you know. All of a sudden one day you wake up and the King is not really the King anymore. It's what you intended to be, the King, but it just somehow or other, you missed it. Confess what you've done, ask for forgiveness, and come to Him again and say, I got off track. My life, I promise, is yours. And you will find the peace that comes from God again. I'm going to ask the pianist to play this morning. I'm going to ask you to simply say to God, what do you want me to do with my life? Anything you ask, I'll do it. And then if He tells you there's something you need to do, like join the church or be baptized or come and tell everybody you've committed your life to Christ, you do that. You'll find yourself at one with God. Don't, and you'll leave with that uncertainty in your heart. The King wants a word with you. Whatever He tells you, you do it. You do it. You do it. Would you stand, please, for a moment of prayer together? Father, for each person who said to you, I hear your voice, and I will do what you've told me to do. I ask that your peace would come over their life, and as they live in obedience to you, that your power would possess everything that they do and say, that they might see your hand at work in their life. For every person that said, I know what I should do, but I'm afraid, be patient with them, Father. Give them an opportunity to find the life that's filled with peace and joy. For people that said, I know what God wants, but I'm just not going to do it. I pray for your Holy Spirit to be with us. Continue to convict us of our need to believe and trust you instead of ourselves. Father, we ask that as we leave here, the Holy Spirit might rule our lives, that all the world around us might see things happen in our lives and through us, that let them know that the power of God is alive in this world and touching and changing the lives of people. Make us different to be like you. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen. Amen. Amen. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪