More Powerful Than I

and we're going to complete our study today with the topic more powerful than i it's a quote from john the baptist john had a remarkable life and a phenomenal ministry he impacted than the nation of israel calling them to repentance in the desert no less but when they came to interview him he said there's one more powerful than i am who's coming well the one more powerful than john is here certainly it begins with jesus but jesus said if i go away i will send you another comforter a counselor the spirit of god now he is in you if you're a christ follower our challenge is to learn to trust him to open our lives to him folks we need one more powerful than we are we're not going to outwork evil or out think evil or out negotiate evil it's not about our numbers the spirit of god is moving in the earth god is pouring out his spirit we have baptized more people this year in our church than in any similar period of time in the history of our congregation god is moving i don't want to miss out and i don't want you to miss out either grab your bible in a notepad most of all open your heart [Music] this is something the lord just put inside of me and i wanted to share it with you and we'll see how formally it comes out the the topic or the theme is more powerful than i and it comes directly from a quote that we'll look at together in a moment the premise is rather simple i think we're in a troubled time and i don't believe that the solution is going to come just from our collective effort i think it's going to take more than our hard work or our pooled resources or our collective intellects i think we're going to need a power from beyond ourselves now the good news is god has sent his spirit into the earth and we have help the awkward news is that we're not as comfortable with the person as the holy spirit as we might be now if if you're churched and most of us probably would be on for this service we probably spent most of our lives debating to the degree we would or would not cooperate or even talk about the person of the holy spirit and i would submit to you that that season has passed it's it's like being abandoned in the ocean debating whether or not you believed in life preservers if there's one available i would take it and if to the extent that the holy spirit is willing to help and he is available to interact with you my counsel to you would be to cooperate with him as fully and completely as you're capable of he will meet you to whatever extent you're willing to open your heart but i want to start in matthew 23. it's kind of a statement of need and i think it reflects in some ways the need that we have today it's jesus in jerusalem and he said jerusalem jerusalem you who killed the prophets and stoned those sent to you how often i've longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you were not willing when i look at our nation in the history of our nation we have been given inordinate disproportionate expressions of the mercy and the grace of god if you want to be a student of christianity in our world today it's it's all it's almost necessary that you would learn the english language the overwhelming majority of literature that deals with the history of christianity the history of the church of biblical studies is put into english if you're going to do post-graduate studies they'll require you to learn some other languages but the the language that's most essential would be english so if if english is your native language or your first language you're given a disproportionate advantage just by that and in our nation the legal system and the opportunities and the freedom of religions have been such they're not unique around the world they're not universal they're by no means reproduced in most places we've just had more opportunities and more freedoms and yet we have banned jesus from our public schools and our public courtrooms and in so many corridors of our hospitals we rebrand our hospitals and take away crosses and take away the christian image we want to be more marketing savvy it feels a lot like what jesus was saying to jerusalem god said i chose you and i established myself in a very unique way in that city well i'm not suggesting that that we have a parallel with israel but i am suggesting that god has very uniquely blessed our nation and that we have very busily pushed him to the margins and we've done that in our lifetime this is not some ancient thing this has happened on our watch they took the nativity scenes off the public property at christmas time and we didn't say much i'm embarrassed nevertheless verse 38 look your house is left to you desolate and i tell you it's very close to i tell you the truth it's a warning statement he said i tell you you will not see me again until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord jesus said that my my time with you is at an end and before you see me again you will be desperate to see me there'll be no longer a hesitation or a reluctance or a skepticism that the pressure will be so intense and the need's so great that you will welcome my arrival and i believe we're in a similar place we've had so much we've had so much freedom and such abundance and such affluence and so many opportunities and our kids could have good lives we didn't really have to make our faith essential we didn't really imagine that our kids needed to be godly we wanted them to be happy if they were happy we would deal with godly later and the same was true to a greater extent for our grandchildren and to an unfortunate extent for ourselves and and now we find ourselves in a place where all those systems seem to be in peril they're at least teetering on the brink of something that doesn't look very pleasing and i believe jesus words are relevant to us tonight that we're really not going to see an expression of his power or his deliverance or his assistance until we we are in that desperate place where we're willing to say blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord i think we have to as the people of god have to come to the realization that our deliverance will come from the lord not a party or a politician or an ideology or another election cycle or i'm not opposed to any of those things i hope we have the privilege of continuing them but our deliverer is none other than the creator of heaven and earth and if we will start with that i believe it it leads it puts us our feet on a pathway towards a set of invitations that can be extraordinarily beneficial i want to start with this notion of the power of god it's uniquely connected in scripture and particularly in the new testament with the person of the holy spirit we know god the father we have some imaginations around that because of our earthly fathers and the relationships that that represents to us and then jesus his son because of the incarnation because jesus took an earth suit and the gospels we can connect with jesus and jesus also the reason god the father is more available to us is jesus came to make known god his father that is the unique revelation of a son in hebrews it said in the past god spoke to us through the prophets and in various ways and different means but in these last days he's spoken to us through his son you see the son can reveal a father in a way that no one else could but but god the holy spirit the person of the holy spirit remains i think a bit more removed from our awareness and that's unfortunate because jesus said it's better for you if i go away because if i go the father will send you another comforter the holy spirit and again in times of such abundance and and liberty and freedom and security perhaps we didn't have to think about that much but we're not there anymore reading through exodus if you're doing the bible reading with us and the the children of the the the hebrew slaves would not have flourished without the abiding presence of god without the manna every day and the water when it was necessary or the leading of the pillar of cloud or the pillar of fire or the protection from the enemies their clothing didn't wear out there were no sick people amongst them we're going to have to learn to live in the provision of god [Music] we have lived under the idolatrous provision of the government and we haven't had to imagine that god was our provider our sustainer we haven't had to trust him in those ways but it may be that we need to know him in those ways more fully to flourish in what is in front of us so coming back to the person of the holy spirit in romans 15 says may the god of hope filled you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the holy spirit it intrigues me that if we're going to overflow with hope this is the conclusion of paul's letter to the church in rome the most powerful city of his day lots of challenges for the church there but as he's concluding that letter he says i would i would like you to overflow with hope but the foundation from which that emerges is the power of the holy spirit if you and i are going to live in hope it will be because we understand and cooperate with the person of the spirit of god it's not going to come from our church buildings or our theological education or the resources we've accumulated because all of those things are in flux we've seen them close our church buildings and tell us we couldn't meet and inject enough fear into the system of the people around us that we really weren't certain it's nonsensical to think that we could secure our futures we've we've been to school on that in the last couple of years our hope comes from our confidence in and our awareness of the spirit of god now the power of god and the presence of the holy spirit are a theme in luke's writings in particular both the gospel that bears his name in the book of acts we don't have time to explore that in a great detail but in luke chapter 3 this was john the baptist and john answered them all they've come and they've said you know are you the messiah and john answered them all i baptize you with water but one more powerful than i will come the thongs of whose sandals i'm not worthy to untie he will baptize you with the holy spirit and with fire i'm intrigued by that statement john made that there's someone coming who is more powerful than i am and we read that and what we know about john he he wore camp clothing made with camel's hair and he ate wild locust not bugs but something that's a tree that grows in the judean wilderness uh he may have eaten bugs too but that's not what's being referenced in the scripture he lived a simple life an ascetic life but he had a very powerful life john called the people to repentance and there was enough of a groundswell of response that it threatened the power system in jerusalem and he wasn't preaching his sermons in the temple in jerusalem the temple was the most one of the grandest buildings in all of the roman empire it was a point of travel for people throughout the empire regardless of their ethnicity or their religion it was the national bank it was the center of the power structure for the for the jewish community but john the the renewal the awakening the repentance didn't begin in the temple it didn't begin where the sacrifices were offered it didn't begin where the people of israel were called to make their three annual pilgrimage feasts he said you need to come out into the wilderness it was a 20-mile hike into the desert there weren't a lot of buses that ran to the jordan river and it was a steep climb back to jerusalem the jordan river runs through the the rift valley the where the dead sea is it's the lowest place on the face of the earth jerusalem is at elevation so it wasn't an easy trip anyway you sliced it and enough people were making the trip that the power brokers in jerusalem came to see what john was doing imagine so many people from washington dc and new york coming to murfreesboro to be baptized that members of congress start to come to see what's happening i'm not suggesting that's our future i'm suggesting that's roughly analogous to what was happening with john there was something significant happening with john there was plenty of room for john to be puffed up to say he was he was launching a revival that god had sent him for a renewal movement and when they came to ask john a question you know what are your credentials you're you're disrupting what are we're doing and john said to them there's one more powerful than i am he deflects completely there's one more powerful than i am and i think that's where we want to start our discussion with the recognition that we are dependent upon one who is more powerful than we are amen i don't want us to imagine we're going to out think evil or outwork evil or you know that it's going to be a group effort we're going to get enough people we're going to mobilize we're going to get sophisticated enough we're going to get rid of all of the illegalities or the illegitimacies or whatever we think is causing the problem we are dependent upon something more powerful than we are can we agree on that can we have the courage to say that with the boldness that john did he's being interviewed tell us the secret of your success and they said you know it's not my success he said there's one coming who's more powerful than i am and you need to get ready for him and that's our message folks if you don't like what we're saying there's one coming who's more powerful than we are and you want to be prepared to meet him you want everybody that knows you to be prepared to meet him you at least want them to have heard you say you want to be prepared to meet him we've been timid long enough what exactly are we afraid of we're going to be taking off an invitation list oh bother they'll think you're too zealous okay i mean just exactly what is it we're afraid of will be canceled luke chapter 1. this is mary gabriel has come with a birth announcement it's an invitation you know how easy it would have been for mary to say no sounds like an intrusion to me i've already planned a wedding i've already picked that address and pregnant won't work there was a hundred reasons for her to say no she asked the question an appropriate question how can this be i'm not engaged in the behaviors that make pregnancy a possibility and the angels answer gabriel said the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you so the holy one to be born will be called the son of god as if that were an explanation i'm not engaged in the behaviors that make pregnancy a possibility how can this be and this is the angel's answer this is the angel the the response from the archangel the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you oh well that clarifies everything suppose you prayed and fasted for 40 days and you had a vision of an archangel and he said i've come to tell you that god's going to use you to change the direction of rutherford county you say well how will that happen he said well the power of the most high will come upon you well i mean you're like i'll glow in the dark i mean mary doesn't know anyone else who has conceived immaculately there's no peer groups you can't google it and i think to me the invitation both in john's case and in mary's case is this willingness to believe that there is something more powerful than i am and we serve at his pleasure amen and we're not just content with that we're enthused about that we're all in with that folks we've been in the skeptic seats long enough we've been half-hearted disinterested you know we'll pray when nothing else works we've exhausted every other resource and looked under every other rock and pursued every other possible solution then you know we'll maybe god could do something maybe he could and maybe he's grace and gracious enough to accept that place in the line but we're at a different time in luke chapter four it says of jesus he returned to galilee in the power of the spirit and the news about him spread throughout the whole countryside he's lived 30 years anonymously for the most part below the radar very little attention no public life no public ministry mary's aware i'm sure his brothers have some clue that you know i don't know how that worked at home right did jesus get put in time out you know if he did the clock melt i don't know i don't know how that worked but we know that after his baptism luke tells us he came back to galilee the region where he'd grown up and the power of the spirit that his whole life changed he didn't his ministry didn't begin the the miracles didn't begin the supernatural things didn't begin until the descent of the spirit at jesus baptism and i think if you and i are going imagine that through bible study and they had the focused intent of our intellect and i'm not opposed to that but if we think that those things alone are going to deliver us to a more empowered spiritual life we're deceived we're ignoring the counsel of scripture we need the help of the spirit of god now one of the statements that's made about jesus in all four of the gospels which there are very few things that are repeated in each of those four gospels and this particular title of jesus comes to us as his introduction and each of the four gospels and we've read it once but i'll give it back to you in matthew 3 this is john he said i'll baptize you with water for repentance but after me will come one who is more powerful than i whose sandals i'm not fit to carry he will baptize you with the holy spirit and fire think of all the things that could have been said about jesus the savior the redeemer i mean there's dozens and dozens and dozens of titles accurate descriptions of the redemptive work of jesus but the one that is chosen by the spirit of god is that he will baptize us with the holy spirit and fire mark chapter 1 this was his message after me will come one more powerful than i the thongs of who sandals i'm not worthy to stoop down and untie i baptize you with water but he'll baptize you with the holy spirit sounds familiar luke 3 we have already looked at john answered and says i baptize you with water but one more powerful than i will come the thongs of whose sandals i'm not worthy to untie he'll baptize you with the holy spirit and with fire john's gospel different from the other three i would not have known him except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me the man on whom you see the spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the holy spirit i have seen and i testify that this is the son of god in all four gospels jesus is introduced to us before his public ministry before the miracles before the drama is unfold before we even know the the remarkable aspects of his birth narrative he's introduced to us as the one who will baptize us with the holy spirit may i suggest if that's the way he's introduced to us in each of the gospels that we need to get to know jesus as the baptizer in the holy spirit it just seems like a logical conclusion to me it has nothing to do with the denomination you affiliate or where you want to place yourself on a theological spectrum if that's the way jesus is introduced to us i want to know him that way well the best way i think to understand that for me or the simplest way perhaps for this discussion is in the context of two sundays both described to us in this in the new testament there is some division in american christian and really in christian and around the world about how we talk about the baptism in the holy spirit or the person of the holy spirit in general there's there's one school of thought that says when you're born again you get everything there is to be had you got the whole package and the spirit of god takes up residence within you and you have your ticket stamped for eternity and there's no need for further exploration there's another group of people who suggest that after conversion there's another experience with the holy spirit where you're baptized in the holy spirit and that group of people tends to think that your spiritual formation is not complete unless you've been baptized in the holy spirit that somehow you're a substandard christ follower and they tend to look with a bit of derision down on the people who don't embrace that well the other group looks across the aisle and thinks the other people are fanatics or crazy or emotional and as is is typically true within christendom i think in both camps there is some truth and some confusion and i don't want to try to unpack that in complete detail but i would like to use these two sundays to see if we could get some clarity on that because at the end of the day i want all the help that god has provided in john chapter 20 it's the evening of the first day of the week it's sunday evening it's resurrection day so it's resurrection sunday and the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the jews you know why they have the doors locked right they have they have tortured to death their leader their best friend the public the public face of the group that defines them and there's a reasonable expectation they could be next and if they could take jesus down they feel very vulnerable so they're in hiding and jesus came and stood among them now the last time they saw him he had died on the cross and his body had been placed in that borrowed tomb and when the women went to the tomb early on the morning they couldn't find jesus and peter and john went investigated and they couldn't find jesus so there's been some discussion amongst them but there is no conclusion there's certainly no imagination that he's alive they think someone's stolen the body and now they're behind locked doors and john says that jesus came and stood among them with this remarkable gift of understatement peace be with you and after he said this he showed them his hands and his side and the disciples were overjoyed when they saw the lord let me think that might be just a bit of a low-key characterization of the emotion in the room right jesus is standing there and he's shown them the signs of his passion the nail prints and the wound at his side and john says the disciples were overjoyed i would submit their operating right at the very fringe limit of what they can even process ecstatic uproariously hilariously overwhelmed it's beyond any life experience they have had they have nothing to connect it to but it's our friend and he's here suffice it to say it's a good day then watch what's jesus response again jesus said peace be with you as the father has sent me i'm sending you and with that he breathed on them and said receive the holy spirit does it remind you of anything in scripture reminds me a great deal of the genesis narrative when god formed adam out of the dust of the ground and it says he breathed in him and he became a living being you know we could go into the language of that and the specifics i i think if we break it down technically jesus breathed on them individually i think it was a very personal experience for the the people in that room that evening i would submit to you that qualifies for the new birth they had a personal encounter with a resurrected christ and he breathed on them and said receive the holy spirit and the holy spirit had taken up residence within them that describes the new birth as i understand it if we did this in more detail we could walk through a dozen passages of scripture trying to outline the fullness of what happened but whether we call it conversion or the new birth or salvation that was their initiation into the kingdom of god because until they had experienced a resurrected christ that opportunity wasn't available to them it wasn't available for the before the cross that's why the book of hebrews says to us when it lists our the hall of fame of those men and women it says these people did all of these things by faith but there was something better for us and only together could we experience what god has for us because until the redemptive work of jesus was complete that opportunity for the new birth that conversion initiation into the kingdom of god was not available so it's very much a necessary step jesus said no one comes to the father except through me buddha won't do it muhammad won't do it islam won't do it the new age won't do it there's an exclusive exclusivity in jesus that we're going to have to have the courage to advocate for there are not many ways to god and the church has been reluctant to say that forget the secular culture folks we've been reluctant to say that within our churches what if we offend someone it's far more offensive to lie to someone than it is to tell them the truth so resurrection sunday can can we at least arrive at a tentative agreement that that would qualify for the new birth in the lives of the disciples let's let's go forward just a few weeks pentecost just means 50. it's a jewish holiday that's 50 days after passover it has nothing to do with pentecostals or theology it's a jewish holiday and jesus has told the disciples to wait in jerusalem until they have been baptized in the holy spirit and they have been obedient on this case they had trouble with that obedience thing but this particular event they got it so they're waiting in jerusalem in acts chapter 2 it describes when the day of pentecost came they were all together in one place and suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting and they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them and all of them were filled with the holy spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the spirit enabled them it's another experience with the holy spirit another encounter with the spirit of god it's the same people who in john 20 on resurrection day jesus breathed on and said receive the holy spirit and yet in acts chapter 1 he said to that same group of people don't leave jerusalem until you're baptized with the holy spirit so clearly he's inviting them to an anticipation of something beyond what happened on resurrection day it isn't presented to us as a necessity for salvation i believe what happened in john 20 was sufficient for your citizenship in the kingdom of god but jesus felt like there was something necessary for them before they could fulfill the assignment they had as christ followers there was more equipment there was something necessary in their lives now we have i've spent my much of my adult life in christendom and christian academia and we've gone through all sorts of gymnastics to try to avoid dealing with this but it's really not that complicated and what i'm asking you to consider is not to agree with me tonight but get your bibles out read the passages and begin to settle for yourself what they say and if you believe that there really was an invitation on both of those days that are a necessary part of our journey then i'm going to ask you to begin to say to the holy spirit i want everything you have for me and i would counsel you not to say it to him you know sometimes we are we talk to the lord with less than complete sincerity in the lord i'll do anything you want me to do but in our hearts we're thinking yeah but you'd need to like write it on the wall [Music] in neon paint and confirm it in the mouth of three or four witnesses and then i would need a talking donkey and an angelic visit and after all of those things i could pull six promises from the promise box and in succession they affirmed what you said to me i would consider it and i think oftentimes we deal with god with with something less than a sincerity that comes from desperation and i would submit to you that we're at a point in the unfolding narrative that is our lives we are desperate for god's help amen and that we no longer have the the luxury of dealing with god with that lack of sincerity and i have discovered something that if you will talk to the lord with a sincere heart he will respond to you i've never seen anyone who sincerely invited jesus to be lord of their life for whom the lord said no not you you know when i meet people who say to me well you know pastor that's not a gift god has for me and i'm like well salvation is described as a gift why do you believe you got that one now why is it we're so willing within christian to believe well the gift of salvation you know if you kind of halfway ask and you're halfway interested most of us have helped people you know process that step towards the lord and their lives were wildly inconsistent but we assured them they'd receive that gift and yet when we talk about the gift of the holy spirit we rather casually go you know that that gift's just not for me there's some exposure that comes because the the part of spirit baptism that's awkward i think if we get really candid is the speaking in tongues you know if the scripture said that after they were baptized in the holy spirit they all ate more chocolate that would be a very invitation easy invitation to extend but but the notion of speaking in tongues is a bit awkward and it's a bit beyond our intellect because it is independent upon our intellect the bible says that the spirit enables us to pray in accordance with the will of god that we can pray for one another beyond our understanding beyond our intellect now we can pray prayers that are directed by the spirit of god based upon the need we have at this point in time you see we have treated god rather awkwardly almost like a genie in a bottle we present to him our request as if we really know the best way to get the best outcomes for our lives as if we know what's best for our children or what's best for our ourselves or as if we understand the ending at the beginning and we're telling god these are the three things i really need you to do i got three wishes here they are i want to cast them in and most of us have lived enough life to understand that we're very grateful god has not answered all the prayers we prayed how many of us could testify we would have prayed ourselves into a mess if god would have answered every prayer we had prayed right we'd probably been married 12 or 15 times because that's the one right there god i know that's the one and what we're given is a different approach that the spirit of god could direct our prayers beyond my intellect i can tell you i i could not i would not be comfortable doing the job i have today if i didn't have the confidence that i could pray in the spirit and believe that the holy spirit would direct my prayers beyond my understanding if i were gonna pray for you and i knew that the first three things i were to pray god would respond to i would mess it up and i'd pray that you'd get a new car you don't want a new car you want a new washing machine or i pray that your vacation would work out and you don't want to go on vacation you want you know we're limited in our understanding and then rather than press in on the lord and say lord jesus said it was for me and in every gospel he was introduced is the one who would baptize me in the spirit we want to find somebody to convince us or to i want i want to give you that invitation tonight just to begin quietly saying to the spirit of god you're welcome in my life i want all you have for me lord jesus jesus is the baptizer we read in every gospel jesus i want everything you have for me baptize me in your spirit so what if nothing happens well how many after you said the sinner's prayer were never tempted again how many of you after you said the sinner's prayer never got mad again never got anxious in traffic anybody well did anything at all happen when you prayed that prayer you know i mean some people say oh i felt something warm from the top of my head to the soles of my feet and i'm like wow i didn't get that deluxe version i felt like the same scoundrel i was before i prayed the prayer and i've been working on that ever since learning to yield my life to the lord to take up my cross and deny myself on a daily basis i'm working on that with the person of the holy spirit too a little bit of tractor time this week it's one of the gifts in my life i don't get it very often anymore but i got a little time on the tractor and i can't hear anybody when i'm on the tractor i wouldn't know if my phone rang i couldn't hear what you were saying if i saw the phone was ringing so i'm on the tractor i get to pray in the spirit it's almost like a divine appointment if you see me sitting in the church parking lot with the tractor running i'm just praying don't bother me look in joel chapter 2 in acts chapter 2 after the holy spirit's poured out peter stands up to address the crowd that's gathered there's some people were making fun of them [Music] some people were curious and some were inquiring as to what happened and some said they're drunk and peter stands up and he said no it's only nine o'clock in the morning it's a little early for us if it'd been five o'clock but it's nine o'clock but then he quotes from joel chapter 2. and i thought rather than read you the quote in acts chapter 2 we'd go back and look at joel chapter 2. because i think it speaks to this invitation that we're extending to the holy spirit you see the the motivation for this is the recognition that we need help if you don't think you need any help if you think the world is going in a way that's suitable that your kids and your grandkids are going to be okay if you're content with yourself and your circumstances and you feel like you have the power to negotiate you're probably not overly interested in this but if you feel like we're dangerously close to a tipping point where freedom and liberty and opportunity for our children could slip through their fingers or if you're facing threats to your own person then i would invite you towards this joel chapter 2 i will repay you for the years the locust have eaten he's speaking to the to the israelites the great locust and the young locust the other locust and the locust swarm my great army that i sent among you it's worth noting god said i sent devouring armies amongst my people why would he do that because of their syncretism because of their compromise folks we cannot practice compromise and imagine we will enjoy the blessings of god amen and forget pointing your fingers at some politician you don't agree with or whomever we have the church has been filled with compromise and we've excused it with statements like well you know that's not how i believe or god knows my heart or it's only a piece of paper we have such flimsy excuses and so before we get to the bonus lines here i want god said that i sent devouring armies amongst my people you'll have plenty to eat until you were full and you will praise the name of the lord your god who has worked wonders for you never again will my people be shamed then you will know that i am in israel and that i am the lord your god and that there is no other never again will my people be shamed god said there's a day coming when i will gather you again and i will restore what the devourer has taken from you so god is both the judge and the restorer and it's not just an old testament concept because peter borrows it in acts chapter 2. and then he says afterward after what after i've regathered my people after i've begun the restoration process i'll pour out my spirit on all people all people your sons and your daughters will prophesy and your old men will dream dreams and your young men will see visions even on my servants both men and women i'll pour out my spirit in those days i'll show wonders in the heavens and on the earth blood and fire and billows of smoke peter quotes those verses in acts chapter 2 and he says what you're seeing in jerusalem today is the fulfillment of what god said to joel and i believe it was the beginning of something that we are now seeing on the concluding side you see when we think of biblical prophecy we want there to be two or three chapters that are arranged chronologically and describe what we're watching from from stem to stern from beginning to end but that's not the way prophecy is typically used in scripture jesus would take one sentence from a prophet and say they would say he was fulfilling it that i'll call my son out of egypt if you go back and find that prophecy it's in the midst of a whole collection of other statements but what joel concludes with sounds a great deal like what jesus was talking about in matthew 24 when he said there will be signs in the heavens but the common theme between both is the outpouring of the spirit of god upon all people young and old jew and gentile and i believe before jesus returns to the earth before this age concludes we will see an outpouring of the spirit of god but rather than us think of someone else what if we begin to say to the lord lord i want in on that i want to receive your spirit in a new way i would cooperate with you i think we could all agree that that conversion saying the sinner's prayer prayer of repentance and asking jesus to be lord of your life is an introduction but to work that out is a continual determination to yield to the lordship of jesus does that sound right well i would submit to you that that second sunday is much like that the invitation to be baptized in the holy spirit begins with a response from god to your openness to the gift that he has for you but the fullness of a spirit-led life is a daily determination to make room for the spirit of god in your life to yield yourself to his engagement and his involvement if you pray the sinner's prayer and you you mark down the the date of your conversion but you make no attempt to yield yourself to the lordship of jesus you'll have a very underdeveloped spiritual growth well the same is true with the holy spirit if you invite this holy spirit into your life be baptized with a spirit but you don't take time on a daily basis to pray in the spirit and to develop that relationship and to listen to his voice you have a very marginal relationship with the person of the spirit of god isaiah 32 it says this fortress the fortress will be abandoned the noisy city deserted and the citadel and the watchtower will become a wasteland forever the delight of donkeys a pasture for flocks he's describing a time of desolation in the land of israel he said until the spirit is poured out from upon high and the desert becomes a fertile field and the fertile field seems like a forest and justice will dwell in the desert and righteousness live in the fertile field the fruit of righteousness will be peace and the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever what is the line of demarcation what's the transition there's a power that's brought to air that moves the people from desolation in a wasteland to a fertile field that becomes a flourishing forest and the distinctive characteristics is the the outpouring of the spirit of god my hope would begin to to to peak your interest a bit in welcoming the spirit of god into your life being a spiritual person doesn't mean you're less rational your intellect is not so towering that god is concerned about it so you don't need to be bothered with that you'll need your mind in order to pursue the lord but there is a dimension of authority and power beyond ourselves or our faith is foolish excuse me the next two verses i think are worthwhile my people will live in peaceful dwelling places in secure homes in undisturbed places of rest though hail flattens the forest and the city is leveled completely how blessed you will be sowing your seed by every stream and letting your cattle and donkeys range free god seems to me that he's saying even if the circumstances are such that the forest is destroyed and the city is completely leveled my presence amongst you [Music] will keep you secure there's a lot of anxiety amongst god's people these days because i think we've imagined that our security came from something other than the lord himself empires come and go and the empire that has described our nation in recent years and decades is ultimately destined to pass as well i don't know what the future holds i have my preferences but either way i believe my future is secured by god not by government and if that thought hasn't dwelt in your heart if you haven't lived that way i would begin to encourage you to on a daily basis make an incremental change begin to say to the lord lord i'm sorry i've trusted other things i've put my hope in other things i have pursued other things i'd like to know you better i'd like to make room in my heart for you in new ways i'd like to cooperate with you in ways i've never cooperated i'd like to be engaged with you give me an understanding heart talk to the lord the same way you've pursued the things that you thought would bring contentment and fulfillment and happiness to you if you've done them well you've done them with great enthusiasm with great persistence with great determination you wouldn't accept barriers or roadblocks or detours you'd study and think and fret and until you found an avenue that gave you some momentum towards what you were pursuing what if we pursued god in that way let's look at one more isaiah passage isaiah 44 it says but now listen o jacob my servant israel whom i have chosen this is what the lord says he who made you who formed you in the womb imagine that long before we had ultrasound the bible really will help you most of the difficult questions that are being asked of us today could be resolved if we would accept the truth of scripture marriage was god's idea he created us male and female family was his idea now there are struggles that come along with all of that none of that's easy or simple i understand it can be complicated but the categories aren't blurry neither is life i pray our supreme court has the courage i pray that we have the courage to stand with them he who made you who formed you in the womb and who will help you do not be afraid o jacob my servant whom i have chosen for i will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground i will pour out my spirit on your offspring the most powerful resource the most significant the most valued resource in the middle east is not oil we all understand the power of oil these days it's driving the global conversation but i assure you the most powerful resource the most prized resource in the middle east is water if you have water you can grow anything can take you to israel and give you abundant illustrations of that so when you find those references to water and he says i'll pour out my water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground i'll pour out my spirit on your offspring jesus said something very similar in john's gospel he said if anyone's thirsty let him come to me and drink and out of his innermost being will flow streams of living water that's that's not just some metaphor about watering your garden and if we used the images of today it would be like there'd be an oil well that would come bursting out of your innermost being you'd have a renewable energy source that would provide everything that was necessary for your life forever and isaiah is using a similar image i'll pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants they'll spring up like grass in a meadow and the poplar trees by flowing streams one will say i belong to the lord and another will call himself by the name of jacob still another will write on his hand the lords and he will take the name of israel excuse me again there's this alignment with the outpouring of the spirit of god and this amazing transformation from something that's desolate to something that's alive and vibrant and reproductive what would the spirit of god bring to your life or my life in greater measure if we cooperate with him life and vibrancy and health and fruitfulness in ways that we're incapable of doing on our own because it represents one greater than i am it's something greater than i am it's greater than my power and my strength and my ability and my experiences and whatever i can marshal there's something greater than that do we have the humility to acknowledge that and do we are we willing to acknowledge our need for that help i'll close with those last two verses you have their prayers we've been praying here for months now we started we were outdoors and we couldn't be in the building isaiah 45 you heavens above rain down righteousness let the clouds shower it down let the earth open wide let salvation spring up let righteousness grow with it i the lord have created it that is such a powerful passage righteousness will rain down upon us with an outpouring of the spirit of god but what isaiah understood was that salvation would spring up because god created the earth for righteousness when god created the earth he said it's good it was our sin our fault our rebellion that introduced all the corruption and the decay and the diminishment god's intent is to pour out his spirit and righteousness would flourish in the earth again we can begin to pray lord rain down righteousness and then hosea is a parallel passage sow for yourselves righteousness reap the fruit of unfailing love and break up your unplowed ground it's time to seek the lord until he comes and showers righteousness on you it's planting time in tennessee it's just about past planting time in tennessee but break up the unplowed ground that's hard work it hasn't been fruitful there's a transformation being called for your preparation is different your outcome is different your expectations are different your responses are different you're not going to get the harvest and the crop if you're not willing to break up your unplowed ground we won't in our lives either if your attitude is lord i'm open to anything you have for me i'd say whatever you have i want everything you have folks you can repeat that line until you breathe your last breath and go to hell you can because the bible says unless you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth jesus is lord you won't be saved so you can spend your whole life going i'm open to whatever god has for me if he wants me to do something if he tells me i'll do it you can say that your whole life and completely miss the kingdom of god you can be good kind generous there'll be good kind generous people in hell so again we've got to bring a different kind of sincerity and a different kind of intent to cooperating with the holy spirit it's not this passive response it's the attitude of a searcher someone who's hungering jesus said if you hunger and thirst for righteousness you'll be filled he didn't say much about the casual inquiry or the person who said you know it's okay if god wants to force it on me he won't if you're afraid the holy spirit will embarrass you relax he won't he will not bother you you'll have to be so desperate for his presence that you'll be willing to hang out with goofy people like us it's time to seek the lord until he comes and showers righteousness on him lord we're not going to stop seeking we're not going to stop knocking we're not going to stop calling we're not going to stop praying we're not going to stop changing until you have showered righteousness on us because the next verse is a more accurate description of our patterns you have planted wickedness you've reaped evil you've eaten the fruit of deception because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors could we say that that we've depended on our strength and now we're at a place where we realize we don't have the strength for the outcomes we need so in humility like the prodigal we've come to the end of ourselves and we said you know i'm in a desperate place and i i don't deserve to be welcome back into my father's family but i want to go back maybe i could be a servant if i could just be a servant the servants in my dad's house are doing better than i'm doing i wonder if we could come to the lord and say lord we would be delighted to be servants in your house you need to be born again but i would submit you need the strength that comes from spirit baptism it's a tool that i don't believe you can afford to be without i'm not talking about your eternal destiny i'm talking about fulfilling what god has for you if that's a new idea to you there's a little book in the bookstore called um [Music] unleashing the power of the holy spirit it'll help you with that in the last chapter they'll tell you how to receive the baptism in the spirit because i'm out of time tonight we'll be together again i promise god willing okay god is moving in the earth he's stirring the hearts of people don't be discouraged god doesn't need tens of thousands of people a group of people fully committed to the lord willing to cooperate with him god will move heaven and earth amen i want to be one of those people but we've got to put away our compromise our indifference we've been friends with the world too long we've excused ungodliness we've winked at it we've nodded at it we've invited it to our tables we've been rebellious we've used our words to discredit and demean and destroy others we've got to stop we've got to be more serious with the lord than we've been but he will help us don't you stand with me maybe palms up let's just say let's invite the spirit of god into our lives huh without measure one greater than i am i'd like to have help from one greater than i am or you are me too father thank you for what you've done for us thank you that you've opened our eyes and our hearts to the reality of jesus of nazareth lord jesus we thank you that your lord of our lives would we choose to turn away from our sin and our ungodliness and our rebellion to forgive those who have sinned against us and to ask you to forgive each of us be lord of our lives lord of all that we have and all that we are we want to serve you we want to walk uprightly before you we ask you to baptize us in your spirit but in a powerful way holy spirit you are welcome in our lives we want all that you have for us we want every invitation we want to hear every word of conviction every prompt of direction we choose to yield to you almighty god may your righteousness rain down upon us we are willing to break up the fallow ground to make the changes that we need to make to reorient our attention to give you first place teach us to pray in new ways [Music] open our eyes and our ears give us understanding hearts empower us to be witnesses for you beyond anything we've ever seen or imagined or understood as a possibility i thank you the greater is he who is for us then all those forces are raid against us and we receive tonight in jesus name amen hallelujah god bless you [Music] hey this is pastor allen thank you for watching this video if you enjoyed it like it and most importantly share it with your friends if you want to be notified when there's new content when we post new material if you'll just subscribe to my channel and hit the bell you'll get the notification most of all i pray god blesses you as you continue on your spiritual journey and open your heart to the lord god bless [Music] you

Channel: Allen Jackson Ministries

Views: 58,563

Keywords: Pastor Allen Jackson, allen jackson ministries, world outreach church, alan jackson, sermons, preachers, how to be saved, Finding Jesus, pastor allen jackson sermons, Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit baptism, Spirit baptism, tongues, speaking in tongues, violence, school shooting, joel, Resurrection Sunday, Easter, Acts, Luke, Pentecost, what is the Holy Spirit, what does the Holy Spirit do, power of God

Id: nocht8RP9ds

Length: 56min 33sec (3393 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 09 2022