The Power of the Holy Spirit and True Discipleship

I would be negligent if I didn't thank you for praying for the Allen family. The funeral for Bud was the day before yesterday. The days got mixed up a little bit. Roz came for their mother. It was good to see someone from Great Bend there, too. They had it in a little chapel. They haven't been there but a couple of years or maybe not that long. I don't know. But they had to carry in chairs. People have learned to love Bud and Betty. They found a home and we're thankful for that. If you could print money, you know, just take your printer and print some money, you could take that $50 and you could pay somebody for fixing your plumbing. A plumber could take that same $50, that counterfeit $50, and give it to the store where he bought his stuff. They would take it. It's printed well enough. And then the store owner there could pay it to the guy that delivered it in the truck. And he could take it and pay it to the gas man that gave gas for his truck. And that $50 bill could travel around to a lot of different people. People look at it and wouldn't notice any difference in it. But, you know, when they deposit it at the bank, they have some kind of system there that picks up on that and they would determine that it was really counterfeit money. It's sometimes hard, you know, for us to tell the difference between counterfeit money and real money. Well, you know, in the spiritual world it's sometimes difficult to tell the difference between a counterfeit Christian and a real one. And even worse, sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference between a counterfeit church and a real one. But somehow or other, the bank has a way of detecting counterfeit bills. Maybe some of you know more about that than I do. But God has given us some way by which we can also identify when people are counterfeit followers of his and when a church is a counterfeit follower of his and when someone's a real follower of his and a church is a real church. The Book of Acts is a place where we're all reading this week in the story. And there it sets kind of a standard as to how you tell what the difference between the counterfeit and the real really is. But I want to step back just a minute to say that the God that we serve is a God of consistency. He does the same things day after day in the same way, just like we have summer every year and winter every year. God is consistent. And one of the marks of everything that God does, the chapter this week was talking about a new beginning, but every beginning that I see that God works in starts the same way, identically the same way. If you turn to the first chapter of Genesis you read the story where in the beginning God was in the heavens and the earth and the Holy Spirit was over the face of the deep. The Holy Spirit. God and the Holy Spirit in the first chapter of the Bible. Starting the entire world. Not Jesus there in that part. You have to go to John to find that. And then whenever the time came for Mary to be announced that she was going to have Jesus, an angel came and she was puzzled about how all this would take place. And the angel said to her, the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you and you will have a child. The Holy Spirit was there at the beginning of Jesus' even conception. And then when Jesus started his ministry, he went to John the Baptist and John the Baptist said, I'm not worthy to baptize you. And he said, yes, that's the way it ought to be. And Jesus was baptized and when he came up out of the water, beginning his ministry, the Holy Spirit came from heaven and lighted on him in the form of a bird. The beginning of Jesus' ministry was marked by the Holy Spirit. The creation of the world, the conception of Jesus, the beginning of Jesus' ministry, all of those are marked by the presence of the Spirit of God. A way of identifying that every important thing that God does is guided by the Spirit of God and saturated by the Spirit of God. This lets us know what's real and what's phony. Now in the story about the church in Acts, we find the Bible tells us a lot about what the church is like because of this very fact. Beginning in the book of Acts, Jesus gathered all of his disciples together and the Holy Spirit didn't come on them right away. He was with them 40 days talking to them. In chapter 1 of the book of Acts, it says after this, after Jesus had died and been raised, let me start reading verse 1 of chapter 1. 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 through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. Notice the Holy Spirit's presence. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God. It doesn't tell us what Jesus did for those 40 days. He appeared to his disciples for 40 days, talked to them about the kingdom of God. Now, this is a key ingredient in all that's going to take place in this book. The kingdom of God references what they would understand, and the Bible describes in that period as the supreme authority of God. Kings in the ancient world were powerful. They were so powerful they could do anything they wanted to do. They weren't subject to the laws of the land even. And when the Bible talks about the kingdom of God, it's talking about God ruling the lives of people without any interference or resistance. People completely yielded to God to say, Okay, God, whatever you want, I'm going to do it. So the kingdom of God has someone completely in charge. It has a set of instructions and rules that tell us as citizens in the kingdom of God how to behave. And it has the end result of God's kingdom being fulfilled or all that God wants to do being fulfilled in us. Now, this is a key part of all of this story. For the Holy Spirit of God never comes to people, never comes to people until there's a complete dependence of that person on God as the king or ruler of their life. So God is talking to these people saying, Here's what it means to let God rule you. Here are the rules you have to live by if God does rule you. He was teaching them this for 40 days. Now, I don't think he was teaching anything different than what he'd already taught. I think he was summarizing what you find in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. No reason for him to go over to print it again here because we already have that to read. So he's emphasizing, Just like I lived in obedience to the Father, so you must live in obedience to the Father. He's projecting future for them. And this is how it must be. So the disciples heard all of this. They listened to Jesus as He was talking about the commitment that they needed to make. There was gathered in the city people from all over the world. And Jesus had said to them, This is the kingdom and what it's about. And then He was ascended. He told them, I want you to go to the room where you're staying and pray and wait until the Spirit of God comes on you. They went to this room and they prayed. Now, the prayer meetings that they had in the Bible were more consistent with how Jesus said we should pray. You know, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. It was more like that than it was. Aunt Mary has a bad toe or Uncle Bob has a headache or whatever. You know, we get in our prayer meetings like that. There were exaltation of God as supreme authority over my life. They were praying, God, is there anything in my life that's not yielded to You? Is there anything in my life where I'm rebellious about what You want me to do? God, is there anything in my life that needs to be changed? And that's the kind of prayer we're talking about. Your rule over my life be complete. What they were praying was the prayer that Jesus had given them. Now, they did this for days. Waiting for the Spirit of God to come. And finally, the Spirit came. Now, the Bible doesn't tell us how God knew the time for the Spirit to come, but I'll tell you what I think is right. You see it all over the Bible. When they finally got to the place where they were willing to do whatever God asked them to do, where they'd cleaned their own mind and heart of rebellion and resistance to Him, willing to say, God, here's my whole life. I will do whatever You tell me to do. I am in Your hands like putty in Your hands, like clay in Your hands. I'll change my job. I'll quit doing the things that are so important to me. I'll change the way I spend my money. I'll change the way I raise my kids. I'll change everything in my life. All I want is for You to tell me what to do. And in that moment of their community being completely submitted to God, a very powerful thing happened. In that room, the Holy Spirit came. Like a flame. Sometimes you'll see churches with a flame on it. That's where it comes from. Like a flame coming down. And pieces of the flame came apart over the head of everybody in that room. A powerful thing. Now, they'd already cleared their life of sin. They'd already said, OK, God, we'll do anything You want us to do. And now they're capable. Here's the important thing about the Holy Spirit. He doesn't take residence in the life of a rebellious person. If you raise children, you know it doesn't always mean just because you tell them what to do that they do it. And every parent that's ever raised children says, I don't know why I keep telling you this. But we do keep on telling them. We just don't see the right response. And God's that way. He keeps on telling us, but He doesn't really close the deal until we say, OK, I'll do it. And in that moment, they did. What happened to them was a very strange thing. People were gathered from all over the world. They were speaking all kinds of different languages. And they went out, chapter 2 of the book of Acts, beginning with verse 42. They went out into that crowd where the people were. Excuse me, it's chapter 2, verses 1 through 5 I want to read. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. They went out in this crowd of people gathered from all over the world. They met someone who spoke an entirely different language than them. And they started trying to speak in Aramaic, which they spoke, and Greek came out. They didn't even know Greek. They started trying to speak to Egyptians and using Aramaic and the Egyptian language came out. The most miraculous thing that anyone had ever experienced. They had no language training. They had no language experience. But what happened was there was a need for them to communicate what they had learned about Jesus to people who spoke different languages. And by the miraculous power of this Holy Spirit, they were able to do that. We have no record that they ever did this again the rest of their lives or at any other place. But in that moment, at that time, they needed it and they were willing to do it. Now I'm afraid, you know, if you brought a Chinese person in here to me and say, I met this Chinese person, he doesn't speak any English, I'd like you to tell him about Jesus. My first reaction would be, well, let me see if I can find somebody who can translate for us. There were thousands of people there. No translators available. And the message needed to be given. And in that moment, the people of God completely surrendered to Him, did what they never had done before and never did afterward. They were able to do what God wanted them to do. The church was filled with people who were ready to do whatever God wanted for them. The apostles were going around after this experience telling everyone about God and telling them about Jesus and the power of the Spirit in their life. And they were telling what had happened. And the religious leaders who found Jesus offensive were upset about that. And they took Peter and John and put them in jail because they were in the street telling that Jesus had given them the way to obey God. Those 40 days that they'd been learning what they should do, now they were telling people about this. God is the ruler of this world. His Son Jesus has come to tell us. And here's the way He says we should live. They locked them in prison. Here are these guys shackled in prison. And an angel came and miraculously set them free. And they got out. And when they got out, now this doesn't make any sense really. If somebody gets you out of prison, the last thing you want to do is go back in. And as soon as the angel got them out of prison, the angel said to them, I want you to go down to the temple where everybody can see you. It's the most prominent place in town. And I want you to tell what Jesus has done. Now, in this moment, these men were faced with a situation. It was a difficult choice. I mean, you could say, well, we'll find another place to tell people. That's a pretty dangerous thing. And after all, you've gone to all this work to get us out. Surely it's the will of God that we don't go back in there. So what we're going to do to help you, God, is run away so nobody else will ever find us and put us back in jail because you've done so much to get us out. All kinds of rationale about what we should do. Do you know what they learned in that long prayer meeting? Whatever God wants us to do, we better do. And they went right down to the temple and began to proclaim the truth of God. You see, what they discovered was not only that God could give them a language they never had before so they could do anything in the world God asked them to do, but they discovered that God had the power to deliver them from anything. They didn't have to be afraid of anything in the world that God told them to do. So they went right back down to the temple, started telling about Jesus as if nothing else had ever occurred. Now, the people around them were sort of confused about all this. In chapter 4 of the book of Acts, there's a very important passage. Verse 13 of chapter 4. He's talking about the people that brought him in again for this trial. And the scripture says, When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and took note that these men had been with Jesus. You know what happens oftentimes whenever people meet someone they're witnessing to and they're ready to present Christ and have them come? I have sometimes people call me. They say, Pastor, I have a friend. I'd like you to go sit down and tell him about Christ. And I say, Well, why don't you tell him? Well, I don't know how to do that. You've been to seminary and you've been to school. You're trained. And you know how to do this because you've done it a lot. You're experienced. And you know that makes perfectly good sense in the counterfeit world of Christianity. But here we see what real Christianity is. I have a job that needs to be done. I don't have the skill and I don't have the training. But I know God wants me to speak this word. So I open my mouth and I speak it. And the people who heard them said, This is unbelievable. These guys have never gone to any kind of school. How can they know these things? These guys are not trained. How can they do this? That's what happens. A real follower of Christ can do things that they can't do. Not because they've learned it, but because the promise of God is, My Spirit will make you able to do whatever I tell you to do. Just speak your words. I'll take care of it. Remember the story of Moses? You know, God said, I want you to be a spokesman for me. Moses said, Well, I'm not a good speaker. God said, Who made tongues? If I can make a tongue, I can make it waggle to say the words I want it to say. And when these people got the power of the Holy Spirit, they could say things they didn't even understand they could say. Foreign language. They could do things they never even thought they could do. And others around them looked at them and said, These are not ordinary people. If all the people that know you think you're an ordinary person, something's missing here, they should see in your life something that is so different than the way they do things that they're astonished. And you will discover, as Don talked about in his own story, that God will do things that you don't understand because you had no idea He was going to do. Just amazing things when you just say, Okay, God, whatever you want, I will do it. And the power of God is unbelievable with such power and such strength that we can't duplicate it and we can't change it. One of the most famous passages in the Bible, story of disciples as they came together in the book of Acts, they were drawn to each other in Acts where it talks about the church all being united, all meeting the needs of each other. And when people look at Acts chapter 2, verse 42, they want their church to be like this. They look at this and say, We would like to have an Acts 2.42 church. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together. They had everything in common, selling their possessions and goods as they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes, ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. A lot of people read this and they long to be a part of a church like this. And so they look at this passage and say, How can we copy this? How can we meet every day? How can we have the teaching that we would like to have? But this passage is the result. It's not the plan. It's the result. This passage takes place because of what happened in chapter 1, where everyone was submitted to God, willing to do whatever he wanted, however impossible it might seem. And when you have a group of people who are so controlled by the Spirit of God that they're willing to do anything he asks, that is the consequence. The real church may be 5,000. It could be 4. The counter church could be 5,000. It could be 4. What makes a difference is what they look to for guidance. What are we going to do? Let's do what we would enjoy. Let's do what seems popular. Let's do what other churches are doing. The real church says to God, What do you want us to do? We will do it even if it seems like the most stupid thing in the world, so long as we know you're telling us this is what you want. The real church doesn't have to worry about money because God has all of it. It doesn't have to worry about trained people because it has the Holy Spirit. It doesn't have to worry about being able to be perfect in every way because we have the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit of God that gives us everything we need to live, and it is the Spirit of God that makes what we do and say powerful and strong. And when there is one Spirit of God controlling all the people in the real church, they're at one with each other. They're at one with God. They have a clear focus as to where they're going. They have a passion to do what God wants them to do. And when they do it, amazing and wonderful things take place. We want the results of chapter 2 without the sacrifice of chapter 1. It will never happen. Until we come to the place as individuals to say to God, I empty my life before you. I will stop whatever you want me to stop. I will do whatever you tell me to do. Nothing do I withhold from you. My time is yours. My money is yours. My personality is yours. My career is yours. I lay it all in your lap. With that surrender, then the Spirit of God comes. Never before, but then the Spirit of God comes, and His power now is within you. Here's what He will do. He will help you make the choices you ought to make. He will provide every need that you have. He will protect you from the things that would destroy you, and He'll make your life a blessing to the people around you. He will do that in spite of the fact that you don't know how. He will do that in spite of the fact that you're not trained. He will do that in spite of the fact that you don't ever plan to do it. He will just make it happen. What He needs is a person who has said to God, My life is yours. I heard a story a long time ago. I don't know if it's a true story or just a parable, but it makes the point that's wonderful. Because I tell you, I meet a lot of people that tell me they believe in God. I start talking to them about these things. They say, Oh, I believe in God. I've always believed in God. Well, the story's about a man that was a tightrope walker, and he decided to do this great stunt by walking across Niagara Falls, pushing a wheelbarrow. And so he publicized this event, and everybody came out to see him, and people were standing on the side cheering him on, and he was kind of ragging the crowd saying, Do you think I can do this? Yeah, yeah, you can do it. Think I ought to start out now? Yeah, start. Go, go. We're ready. He looked at a guy particularly enthusiastic in front, and he said, Do you believe I can do this? And he said, Yes. They all believed he could do it. He said, Well, what I want you to do is come up and get in the wheelbarrow and let me push you across. It's the difference between believing and trusting. When you're in the wheelbarrow, you trust that guy with your life. When you're standing on the shore, you may get palms, your hands may get wet and sweaty, and you may think, Boy, he might fall, but you're safe. You believed he could do it, but if he falls, you just say, Gosh, I'm really sorry about that. But the guy who trusts him has everything to win and lose. God is not satisfied that you believe in him. There's a lot of people standing on the side that believe in him. He wants you in the wheelbarrow. He wants you to say, My life is yours. If you mess up, I'm gone. I am doing what you tell me to do, and I'm trusting that you'll lead me across. Our salvation is not the result of believing in God so much as it is trusting in God. When the Bible talks about believing, it's including that idea of trust and it's including the idea of salvation for when you believe and you trust, salvation results. The real follower of Christ not only believes in him, but trusts in him. You put your life on the line. You put your money on the line. You put your job on the line. You put your marriage on the line. You put your kids on the line. And you say, God, if you're not telling me the right things, I don't have a hope. That person gets filled with the Spirit. And when the church lives that way, the church gets filled with the Spirit. What the Bible means by being filled with the Spirit, there's a passage where Paul writes, don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. That gives you a clue about what it means. If you're drunk with wine, the drunk controls your behavior. If you're filled with the Spirit, the Spirit controls your behavior. John gave us a perfect example. All of a sudden, in the middle of everything, the Holy Spirit says, this is what I want you to do. And people do it. It changes everything. But it never happens to people who have not yielded to the authority and power of God and who do not trust Him to do what He says. Would you bow your heads, please? Now, let me tell you something that you may or may not know. When you have thoughts in your mind, that's one of the ways God talks to you. You may know that there's something wrong with your life right now. And you're searching for an answer for it. That's God talking to you. And when I start talking to God about what I should say on Sunday, He's trying to give you answers to things He's raised in your own mind. So you're here. These are the things God wanted me to say. You ask yourself, what does God want to say to me? Address Him. What are you saying to me, God? Did something come to your mind that said you're not really committed to Christ? You're just partially committed? You're just believing? Not trusting? Then He's trying to tell you something. Did something come to your mind that you know you should get out of your life? He's talking to you. Is there something He's adding to your life? He's talking to you. You'll never experience the power of God until you say, Okay, God, I'll stop what You tell me to stop with Your power. I'll do what You tell me to do with Your strength. I'll live my life as You direct me by Your power. So now, if thoughts come to your mind, do you trust God enough to stop or start or do what He's asking? Father, I'm asking the power of Your Spirit to be on each of us that we might know what You want from us. I'm asking that Your Spirit would give us the strength to do what You're telling us to do, that we might experience what it means to be a real follower of Yours, not counterfeit, looking right on the outside but fake on the inside. We know as the bank will test dollars to prove if they're true, that at the end of our lives You test us to see if we really were Spirit-controlled, obedient servants. We can fool each other on the outside, but we can't fool You. So we ask in these moments for Your truth and the courage like Paul and the courage like Peter to stand up and do what You tell us, for it's in the name of Christ and in His Spirit's control that we pray. I want you just to remain in your seats for a moment. I'm going to ask the pianist to play. I want to ask if God has spoken to you this morning in some way and you know something He wants you to do. If you have the courage, just get up from where you are and come and say, Lord, I'll do it. We'll pray for you. God's told you you need to commit your life to Him. This is the day. He's told you that you need to be baptized. This is the time to say yes. He's told you you ought to be a part of this fellowship of believers. Come and say, this is where the Lord wants me. Let's pray. Would you stand, please, for a moment to pray. We not only have the Allen family with grief now, but also George Bergen's family. They're at the funeral this afternoon at 2 o'clock here at the church. I know they would appreciate you remembering them and their prayers, and I'd like to lead you in that. So, Father, we do pray for Bud Allen's family, the grief and sorrow they're going through, and the comfort that you alone can provide. You help them to know that life is not all here on this earth, but there's life forever. George has made his commitment to you publicly and openly and has tried to live in faithfulness to you. We pray that this would be an example to his family and friends, that he might lead them to life everlasting. We ask, Father, for ourselves that we keep the promises we made to you today. May our life be a testimony to your power, and people would say, how can an ordinary person like that do these things and say these things? And we'll always remember to say it's you, the Lord of our life, who has given us what we need to live. Amen.