The Holy Spirit: With, In, and Upon - Skip Heitzig

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Welcome to "Expound," our verse-by-verse study of God's word. Our goal is to expand your knowledge of the truth of God by explaining the word of God in a way that is interactive, enjoyable, and congregational. Father, we do come and we just want to put our attentions on pause. All the things that clamor for our attention, we just want to put them out of our minds and focus specifically on the fact that we are here together with other believers, in a place that is set apart for this purpose, so that we can focus on the text of scripture. And we trust that your Holy Spirit, who inspired the writing of it, would speak to us in this day and age in our situation. And not only speak to us, Lord, but draw us along as a guide and as a helper, as a counsellor, as a comforter, that we might grow. We might learn who Jesus is. More dramatically, we might learn what the Holy Spirit does and more of who He is in our lives. We might please you all the more. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I have to admit that I feel a little bit like that warrior in the Native American legend who came down from the mountains and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time in his life. It was a sight to behold. I don't know about you, but I remember as a little kid, the first time I actually saw the ocean, I was quite young, because I grew up on the coast, in that area. But when I first saw it, it's just an amazing sight. Well he came down from the mountains, saw it, was in awe of it. And he went down into it and started wading in the waves. And he brought with him a little clay jar and he was scooping water into the clay jar and he was putting the lid on it and somebody said, what are you doing? And he explained, he said, up in the mountains, my people have never seen the great waters. So I'm going to bring this back to them so they might understand what it's like. Now I have a question. Do you think that Native American showing his people a little clay jug full of salty water is going to make them understand the experience of seeing the ocean for the first time? Never. Not in a million years. But I sort of feel like that. I'm covering this vast, immeasurable subject of the person of the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Godhead, and I feel like I've got a little jug with a little bit of water in it, and I'm trying to show people what it's like and pour it out. And not just show people, to understand it myself. So I approach this with humility and knowing that I feel like I'm trying to capture the ocean in a jar. Last time we were together, we looked at John chapter 14, 15, and 16, some of the quotes that Jesus gave his disciples in that upper room discourse. We noted a couple of things. We began by saying that when it comes to the subject of the Holy Spirit working in the church, there are generally two camps. There are more, but generally there are two camps. There are cessationists and there are sensationalists. There are those who believe it ceased, that's a cessationist. The Holy Spirit doesn't work like He did during the New Testament. Now that we have the completed New Testament, some will say, we don't need the Holy Spirit like the early church had the Holy Spirit He doesn't work in the same way like he did back then. So they believe that the gifts of the Spirit, those miraculous operations, have ceased. On the other hand, there are the sensationalists. They're all about the Holy Spirit 24/7. Give me some Holy Ghost. That's what they're zeroing in on all the time. And I believe that the truth is in between those two extremes. Last time we were together, and again, this is just a little prelude, these three weeks, last time, this time, and next time, before we get into the book of Acts. But because we're going to do afterglows again, starting next week, I just want to give you a little bit of a primer on the Spirit. Last time when we were together, we discussed that the Holy Spirit is a person. He is a person. He is given personal attributes. He exhibits personal traits. He has a personality. When Jesus speaks about the Holy Spirit, He never says the Holy Spirit is an it or a force. He uses personal pronouns, He and Him, rather than that or it. So He is a person. We also noticed last time, He is not only a person, He is a divine person. He is the third member of the triune Godhead. We are trinitarians. We believe there is one God, but that God is seen and manifested in three distinct persons. The Holy Spirit is described as having omniscience, that is He knows everything. Having omnipotence, He's everywhere present, at the same time. The Holy Spirit is seen as being eternal in the scripture, we saw last time, even from this text. And finally, the other thing we saw last time is that, not only is the Holy Spirit a person, not only is the Holy Spirit a divine person, but the Holy Spirit is a divine person who helps us. The Holy Spirit is a divine person who helps us. And we told you that word that is written in the Greek, a word that some of you now know. You know this word, you know this Greek word, paracletas. Paracletas, one who is called alongside to help. Translated helper, also translated comforter, also translated counsellor. All of those translations come from that single Greek word, paracletas, one who comes alongside to help. I made a statement last time and I want to repeat it. We need all the help we can get. When it comes to living the Christian life, it's not hard. It's impossible on your own. You need His power to be able to do that. You need His help to be able to do that and we have His help. All believers have His help. So the Holy Spirit is a divine person who comes to help us. Not only is He a helper, but we made a very important note, and again I'm just sort of going back over some truths. The kind of helper the Holy Spirit is to us was the same kind of helper Jesus was to His apostles, to His disciples. He said I'm going to give you another helper. That's what Jesus promised them. One just like I have been to you. So we have a helper for us, just like Jesus was a helper to His early followers, those apostles. And finally, we noted, and we skipped through a lot of material, that the Holy Spirit, when it comes to working in and through us, is exclusive to believers. It's not saying that he has nothing to do with unbelievers. In fact, we're going to see tonight he certainly does. But the Holy Spirit is a relationship that believers exclusively enjoy. Now what I'd like to do is talk more about the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. I want to take a deeper look with you at the kind of help that He gives us. And we just barely mentioned it last time. We just touched on it, but we didn't drill down, and I want to drill down. I want you to know that the Holy Spirit comes after us, that the Holy Spirit comes inside us, and the Holy Spirit comes upon us. Those are the three things we're going to be talking about tonight. The Holy Spirit comes after us, the Holy Spirit then comes inside us, and then the Holy Spirit comes upon us. So what I'm going to be doing with you is sort of considering the relational journey that the Holy Spirit takes in our relationship with Him, a relational journey He takes with each of us. I'm going to be talking a little bit about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and I'm going to be talking about the filling of the Holy Spirit. But let's look at John 14:15. "If you love Me," Jesus speaking here, "If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever." That's the eternal nature of the Spirit. "The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He dwells with you and He will be in you." Let's begin with that first point that I mentioned. The Holy Spirit comes after us. He pursues us. You might say He chases us. Look at verse 17 once again, the Spirit of truth, and the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He dwells with you. Let's stop right there. He dwells with you. The Holy Spirit was with you before you got saved. That's how you got saved, because the Holy Spirit was with you. You go, what do you mean, with me? He was hanging around to make you feel really bad so that you would do something really good, and that is come to Christ. For that to happen, the Holy Spirit has to have some kind of a relationship with an unbeliever and that relationship is, He comes with the unbeliever. And I'll show you what he does in just a moment. We just read it last time, but we'll drill down this time. The Holy Spirit has been called by some the Hound of Heaven. I don't know if you've ever heard that phrase. The Hound of Heaven is something that some people, preachers, writers, Christians will use in referring to the Holy Spirit. It's a term that comes from a poem written in the 1800s by a man by the name of Francis Thompson. He wrote a poem called "The Hound of Heaven." Thompson had been a medical student. He dropped out of medical school, he got addicted to opium, he was in deep depression, he tried to commit suicide. But the poem, 182 lines of this poem, are his testimony of how he ran from God and tried to get away from God as far as possible. But the Holy Spirit, the Hound of Heaven, pursued him, chased him, was with him to bring him to salvation. Here's just a couple lines of his poem to get the flavor of it. "I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind." Then he describes God's pursuing him with these words. "But with unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace." I love that. It's like, you know what? I was running. God just kept coming and just kept coming, and He was determined. He was unrelenting to chase me down and get a hold of my life. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. He is with the unbeliever. Now what does He do when He's with the unbeliever? Jesus, in John 15:26, says "He," the Holy Spirit, "will testify of Me." Or another translation says, "He will tell you about Me." Or another translation, "He will speak plainly about Me." That is, one of the works of the Holy Spirit is to open the heart of the unbeliever to salvation, to Christ Himself. So it was God, the Holy Spirit, that awakened your need to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. That feeling you got, that thing that was happening inside of you before you said yes to Jesus, that was the Holy Spirit all along, the Hound of Heaven. Now go to chapter 16 please, of John, John 16. In verse 7, familiar territory, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away," something I'm sure the disciples did not agree with when he said that. "For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come," now watch this, "when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged." Jesus said the first thing the Holy Spirit does is convict the world of sin. So when the Holy Spirit is with you, you're running, He's walking right after you. He's chasing you, He's chasing you. And every time He gets close to you, you start feeling weird about you. You start getting convicted about your own sin. He convinces you that you're a sinner. That's the idea of this. He will convince people in the world that they're sinners. Here's how it works. Before anyone can ever figure out that they need a Savior, they have to figure out that they're a sinner. Unless you realize, man I'm in bad shape, you'll never look for a Savior. As long as you think, I'm good enough, I'm religious enough, I'm holy enough, you'll never look for help. Jesus said only those who are sick need a doctor and you have to admit that you're a sinner. So it's the Holy Spirit's job to convict the world of sin. Now have you discovered most unbelievers are not convinced of this? Yet. You don't give up on them. You pray for them. Just keep praying the Holy Spirit will chase them. The Hound of Heaven, sick 'em. Lord, in Jesus' name. [LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE] You pray for that. You pray for that conviction of the Holy Spirit, because most people, in their natural thinking, are not convinced that they are. Most won't admit that they're a sinner. They don't even tolerate the idea or the word sin. In fact, when it comes to what we call sin, what they will often do is blame their environment. Well I'm not a sinner. I am this way because it's how-- my parents made me eat spinach when I was a kid, and now I act like this. It's their fault. It's my environment. Or they blame it on their genetic structure, their genes. Well I have a genetic propensity to get really angry. That's why I beat people up all the time. I'm so violent. I can't help it. No, the problem is you're a sinner and sinners need saviors, and the Holy Spirit is really good at this. It's amazing. The world can deny it, but I have watched, in a flash of time, in a moment of time, the Holy Spirit shine His bright light of conviction and make people aware of their need. And by the way, that's His job, not yours. It's not your job to convict people of sin. You're not very good at it. I'm not very good at it. Whenever Christians try to be the convictors, it doesn't come out as convicting. It comes out as condemnation. That's what happens when we do it. When you leave it to the Holy Spirit, it drives a person down to the place where they see their deep need of a Savior and they desire forgiveness. Not like 13-year-old Elizabeth. 13-year-old Elizabeth was congratulated because she sold, get this-- any Girl Scouts in here? She sold 11,200 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. One girl, Elizabeth, 11,200 boxes. She was on the news and people said, how did you do it? You know what she said? She said, you got to look people in the eye and make them feel guilty. [LAUGHTER] That might work selling cookies, it doesn't work sharing Christ. It's the Holy Spirit's job. And so, when we look at the New Testament book of Acts, and we will, we see Peter on Pentecost standing up and preaching, and it says-- do you remember how many people got saved that day? 3,000 souls got saved on Pentecost. That wasn't because Peter was a great exegetical preacher and analyzed the text with such precision. It's because the Holy Spirit of God convicted people. And it says, listen to what it says, "and they were cut to the heart." They were cut to the heart. And they said, what must we do? And Peter showed them what they must do. So the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin. There's something else I just want to make note of before we go on. Notice that it's in the singular, not in the plural. It doesn't say the Holy Spirit will convict people of sins, but of sin. It's not like He's going to come along and say, that was wrong, that was bad. It's not like He's going to convict people of individual sins like stealing or lying or speeding. I find that most people aren't convicted if they speed anyways. [LAUGHTER] Or murdering or adultery, no. Your conscience will do that. The Holy Spirit, rather than convicting of individual sins, He'll convict of sin and more particularly, He will convict you of the sin your conscience will never convict you of, and society will never convict you of. And you know what that is? Unbelief. He'll convict the world of sin. What did Jesus say? "Because they believe not on Me." The Holy Spirit convicts people that their unbelief is a sin and they want to do something about that sin of unbelief. Now it takes the Holy Spirit to convince a person of that, because you know what? Most worldly people don't see unbelief as a bad thing. They see it as a good thing. It's almost a badge of honor to them. Well, I'm just so smart. I'm just so intelligent. That's why I don't believe. I can't believe. I'm just smarter than all you Christians. I don't have a crutch like you have. They look at unbelief, not as something that's a sin, they see it as a mark of intelligence. Jesus said it's sin. In fact, it's the worst sin of all, because it's the sin of unbelief that prevents people from being forgiven for every other sin. So the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin, "because they believe not on Me." Now let me just say a word to you. If you are closely related to an unbeliever, you're married to an unbeliever, you have an unbeliever living in your house, you're around an unbeliever a lot. If that's true, you make sure you get special prayer before you go home tonight. And I mean that seriously. Let us bear that burden with you. Because one of the hardest things to do in life is to share the same space with an unbeliever under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. When a person is convicted of their sin, but they haven't surrendered yet to Christ, they are miserable to hang with. They'll say the meanest things. They'll do the harshest things. A person under the conviction of the Holy Spirit can be a tyrant, can be hostile. Conviction is a good thing, but if you're living around somebody who has it, it can be a hard thing. So the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin. Next, look at the text again, He'll convict the world of righteousness, Jesus said. "Of righteousness, because I go to My Father," chapter 16, verse 10, "and you see Me no more." The Holy Spirit convicts people of righteousness. What does that mean? He convinces people that they are not good enough in their own righteousness. They're not good enough. Their own good deeds, religious works, righteous behavior, isn't good enough. What does the Bible say about our righteousness? It's like what? Filthy rags before God. Filthy rags. The Holy Spirit is the one who convinces a person that their righteousness, whatever they measure that by, isn't good enough. You know the world has a standard of righteousness, right? And you know what it is, typically? It's typically this. I'm not perfect, but I'm not as bad as some. So if they were to map out righteousness, it would sort of look like a thermometer or a gauge. At the very bottom would be like the worse possible person in solitary confinement for doing the most heinous things ever in the world. So that's the bottom tier, all the bad criminals. Then you go up a little bit, up to 20 degrees or 20% or 40%, you get a little bit better people, then a bit better people, and better people. It's always fun when they say that, say where are you on that scale? Just point to a number. Just curious. But then on that same scale, a hundred, well, that's God. That's the white hot perfection of God, and nobody can be perfect, so I'm better than a lot of other people. It's a floating standard of righteousness. OK. Then Jesus comes along and when Jesus came along, He demonstrated a completely different kind of righteousness. And He blew their minds when He said to them things like this. Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the most religious people you can think of, scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of God. Ouch. That was a hard sermon to hear. And then in the same sermon, He said, "Be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven is perfect." He drew the line at 100%. How would that make anybody feel, hearing that? Not great, right? Not a pat on the back. My righteousness has to be better than the religious dudes? I'm sure if I heard that sermon for the first time-- it was the Sermon on the Mount, by the way-- I'd feel like Isaiah the prophet, when he had a vision of God. Remember what he said when he saw the vision of God? Did he say, wow is me? I'm lucky. I saw God. I'm going on Christian TV to show people my new book, I Saw God. [LAUGHTER] What did he say? Woe is me. Woe is me, he said in that vision. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell among a generation of unclean lips and my eyes have beheld the Lord. So when you stand next to the Perfect One, it shows how imperfect you and I are. An illustration I go back to is, years ago, I was asked to speak at the Billy Graham Training Center. I've spoken there for many years, back in North Carolina. It was a thing that I did every year and I was speaking that night. That was OK. I loved doing that. I love speaking. I love speaking to believers. But that afternoon, I was at Dr. Billy Graham's home. We had lunch, which was a privilege. And he said to me, I'm coming to hear you speak tonight. Well-- [LAUGHTER] I'd never put myself in the Billy Graham category, but if I said to you, if you were going to speak, hey I'm going to come listen to you speak tonight, you might go, oh, just stay home. And that's what I'm thinking. Just relax, you have a busy life. You're a televangelist, just hang out. Because I'm going to come and hear you tonight. To make matters worse, you know my topic was at the Cove? Evangelism. So I am going to speak on evangelism with the world's greatest evangelist in the house, in history. He's seen more people come to Christ in his ministry than any person who has ever lived and I'm going to talk on evangelism. Hello. It was just so hard to get that message out. And then before I went up to speak, they said at the Cove, now not everybody here who comes to these meetings is saved. You may want to give an altar call. I said, great I'm going to give an altar call to the guy who does altar calls all the time with great success. All of that, I just realized, it put me in my place, in a good way. It's like, he's Billy Graham and I'm not, but here goes. So in the same manner, you never impress God with your righteousness. Because He's so perfect. He's perfectly righteous. But, and this gets to the point, Jesus came and died, atoning for our sins, and He ascended into Heaven. And when He ascended into Heaven, it was as if the Father said, now this is the righteousness that I will accept. His righteousness is perfect and He ascended into Heaven and sat at the right hand of the throne of God. It's as if God was saying, this is the righteous life, the righteous standing, the righteousness I will accept. So the Holy Spirit then convinces us that we are sinners, but He tells us what to do about it. He convinces us we need to stand in Jesus' imputed righteousness. That just means He gives it to you, He confers it upon you when you believe in Him. So He makes you feel really bad that you're a sinner, but then really good because you're standing in His righteousness. As Paul said in one of my favorite texts in Philippians, and by God's grace we'll get to it one day, on Sunday morning. [LAUGHTER] When Paul said, "And being found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is by the law, but the righteousness which comes through faith in Jesus Christ." I am not standing in my goodness, my righteousness, my background, my pedigree, my religion, the religion of my parents and grandparents. I am found in Him, having His righteousness and not my own. So the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin. He convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and then third, go back to the text. He convicts the world of judgment. And he says of judgment, because the ruler-- notice that-- or prince, the ruler of this world is judged. What the Holy Spirit does, part and parcel of the work of the Spirit with an unbeliever, is to show them, not only are they a sinner and that Jesus has perfect righteousness for them, but if they push his righteousness away and say I don't want to receive Christ, I don't need Christ, the further conviction is that there is a judgment that is coming and they are standing right in judgment's path. That there is such a thing, if they reject the righteousness of Christ. And Jesus says that is proved by what happened to the ruler of this world. When Jesus died on the cross, Satan's fate, his doom, was sealed. It was set. And I just want to say it's always healthy, it's always healthy when somebody is nervous about judgment-- I've heard people say, you know, I don't like churches that speak about judgment. I do, I'm sorry. I do because people need to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And if you say no to Christ, there is a judgment that is coming, and that's the work of the Holy Spirit as well. And it's always a healthy sign when I find somebody who's worried about where they're going to go when they die. That's good. God uses guilt so that it can be alleviated at the cross. I was a chaplain for the FBI for a number of years and I'll never forget a meeting that I had with one of the agents. He came to my office and he was embarrassed. He kind of paced around a little bit, and he goes, I don't know how to say this. I just feel weird. And so he finally got around to saying, you know, I'm a Special Agent. I use a firearm, I put myself in harm's way, and I've shot at people, I've killed people. I've had people shoot at me. And I've never worried about it, ever. But he said, the weird thing is, I'm getting on an airplane to go to Washington, DC, to headquarters, and I'm worried about flying and dying. And then he said, I feel weird, like where am I going to go when I die. And then he goes, isn't that weird? And I go, no. [LAUGHTER] That's one of the smartest things you could ever say or feel. And we had a wonderful lengthy conversation, at the end of which he bowed his head and received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. [APPLAUSE] That's the Holy Spirit that convicted him of sin and righteousness and of judgment. So it's the Holy Spirit that pursues us and testifies that Jesus Christ is what we need. That's the Holy Spirit with a person. Second, the Holy Spirit comes inside of us. Go back to verse 17 of John 14. Love that sound. [PAGE TURNING NOISE] John 14:17. "The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him for he dwells with you," we just covered that, "and will be in you." That's future tense. Will be in you. OK, so here's a glass. Here's a pitcher. Here's the water inside the pitcher. I'm placing it next to the glass. What is the relationship of the water now to the glass? It's with the glass. That's all. Just with it. They share the same table space. But if I do this, then what is the relationship? Wait, they sealed it for me. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, let's put this out here so he cannot pour-- OK hold on, there we go. So now, what's the relationship? It's in, so you just use a different preposition. Remember propositions, by the way? Remember English? It's kind of fun to go over these things. Oh, no, English class! Prepositions tell us how nouns and pronouns work. So the first preposition, it's with, that's when it was here. Now I poured it, so now it's in. That's a different preposition, and Jesus uses that. He dwells with you and He will be in you. This is the church age now. Something happened at Pentecost that brought the Holy Spirit into the lives of believers that happens, since that happened on the day of Pentecost, to every person in the future. And that is, the Holy Spirit comes in. When you receive Christ as Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit comes inside of every single believer. He dwells with you. He lives inside of you. In the Old Testament, there are records, and we don't have time to chase it all down because of time, we're only doing three weeks. But in the Old Testament, there are certain people that the Holy Spirit came with and around and upon or in, for a very special task. For example, a judge by the name of Othniel. Othniel, it says, was filled with the Holy Spirit so that he could perform a task. King Saul, it says he was filled with the Holy Spirit and he became the King of Israel. Not a great King, by the way. But then the Holy Spirit departed from him. And that's what David meant in the Psalms when he said, take not by Holy Spirit from me. Because he saw what happened when the Holy Spirit said adios to King Saul. He thought, I don't want the Holy Spirit saying adios to me. But it was that tentative relationship. But now, but now, in the church age, we as believers have the Holy Spirit living in us 24/7. All the time. It's not like, oh, you wake up and He left during the night, and you don't know where He went so you better get Him back. He dwells permanently with believers 24/7, maturing you, sanctifying you, and a number of other things. 1 Corinthians 3:16. Paul says, "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Holy Spirit of God dwells in you?" In you. In you. 1 Corinthians 6, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you. Same word Jesus used. Whom you have from God. You are not your own, you were bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Now listen carefully. This happened in the church age on the day of Pentecost. On the day of Pentecost, something happened that changed the relationship of the Holy Spirit with every believer from that day forward who is in Christ. And as I will show you, this is what is meant by the term, the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The baptism with the Holy Spirit. Baptism, baptizo. And you know what a baptism is. We had a baptism this weekend. What do we do with people? We put them in and under. We immerse them in water. Baptizo means to immerse in. The baptism, you are immersed in something, and that is this. The Holy Spirit comes inside of you to dwell within you and then He puts you in or immerses you in the body of Christ, called the church. That's the baptism with the Holy Spirit. By the way, Jesus predicted it and before Him, John the Baptist predicted this. John the Baptist said this in Matthew 3:11. "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." Jesus came along and repeated that prediction, Acts 1:5. He said, "For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." Do you mind, since I have water here? Now it really is in me. [LAUGHTER] OK, so we are baptized. We are put into, we are immersed in the body of Christ. Every single believer in Jesus Christ is immersed into the church, the body of Christ. Baptism with the Spirit, He puts you in a group, a family, the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:13. "For by one Spirit we were all baptized." He's writing to Corinthians, they were far from being perfect or holy or awesome or powerful. "We were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we have all been made to drink into one Spirit." Now I want to throw something out at you and just-- I won't talk about it long, but the term, the phrase the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You've heard that phrase, the baptism of the Holy Spirit? You'll never find it once in scripture. It's not in there. Now I don't want you to go, [FRIGHTENED NOISE],, because sometimes when you make a statement like that, and people start panicking, and go, well, he said-- what is he saying? I'm just saying that you'll never find that phrase in the Bible. That's all I'm saying. You'll find the phrase baptism with the Holy Spirit, baptism in the Holy Spirit, and baptize by the Holy Spirit. But that phrase, which is so often used by people, is a phrase that is never found, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That could just be semantics, so I don't want to dwell on that. But I do want to say that the whole idea of the baptism with the Spirit has been misused by many groups for many years. There are spiritual thrill-seekers out there who feel like, if you don't have enough shakes and shandalas, that the Holy Spirit did not come. He did not show up, he wasn't there. Because it's evidenced by the shakes and the shandalas and the speaking in tongues. I remember my first experience with this. I went to a church, I won't say which church it was. It was a denominational church. I went to it and they were asking people to come forward. I came forward. I'm a young believer, I want whatever it takes, you know. I want all the help I can get. So I remember the preacher grabbing me by the head, saying, "Have you been baptized by the Holy Spirit?" And I'm going, I think so. And so he kind of shook me, and he goes, "Well, speak in tongues, boy." He kept just trying to-- and I didn't even know what that was-- but I did finally. Maybe I was polite, maybe I wasn't, but I said, "Excuse me sir, but you're not the Holy Spirit and He hadn't told me that. So I know what you're trying to do, I think, but you're just not Him." So it wasn't a great start to begin with, for me. But now I want to make a quick shift, because I just mentioned what the Bible speaks about as the baptism with the Holy Spirit, which would lead some to ask this question. That's it? Is that all there is, you're telling me? Are you telling me the extent of the Christian life is, I believe in Jesus and he sticks me in church and that's all? No, that's not all. That's not all. There's more and it's called being filled with the Holy Spirit. I'm using biblical terminology now, being filled with the Spirit. At Pentecost, both of these things happened. They were baptized with the Spirit or by the Spirit into the body of Christ and they were filled with the Spirit. Both of them happened same day. I'll show it to you. Both of them happened. It was the birthday of the church. The church was born on that day. The Holy Spirit was putting people into that group and they were filled. Before I get to that, I'm going to read something to you. I want to just trigger your memory. Remember, in John 7, the day is the day of the Feast of Tabernacles. It's the last day of the feast. Temple's packed full of people, it's standing room only. And Jesus is there. And at a certain ceremony, at a certain time, Jesus lifts His voice. So everybody-- you had to yell, because He didn't have one of these and one of these speakers. So He had to say something like this, [SHOUTING] "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink!" Everybody stopped and turned and looked at that guy. And He said these words after that, "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." Would you love to have that experience? Would you love to have an experience that is described by Jesus as rivers of living water flowing out? Listen to what John wrote right after Jesus said that. "But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." Guess what? He's been given. He's been given in the book of Acts in the day of Pentecost. The church began, the church age began. But what Jesus said was all-important. He said, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. It tells me that the goal of the Christian believer is not just to be a contented person, but a conduit. A conduit. Not just contented, but a conduit. Not just that we would be blessed, but that we would be a blessing. Not that we would be a gulper [GULPING NOISES],, drinking all the water, but we would be a gusher. A gusher. If I were to ask you a simple question, do you have a firm faith, you would probably say yes. Do you have a firm faith? Do you believe Jesus is the only way to Heaven? Do you place all of your faith alone in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross? You'd probably say, that's what I believe. I have a firm faith. Here's my follow up question. Do you have a flowing faith? You see, I don't think Jesus wants us to just sort of be content splashing around in our own little pond that we've collected. We've collected this water. Woohoo, I'm going to have fun! He wants us to be a conduit, to help see others refreshed, so it flows out from us. Empowered to refresh and serve others. So the Holy Spirit comes after us, the Holy Spirit comes inside of us. Now, Acts 1:8. Do you have a Bible? I'll wait till you turn there. Acts, chapter 1. I'm going to make the time. I believe it. Acts 1:8. No, let's do verse 7. "And He said to them, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in His own authority." See, they were asking him about when the end time scenario was going to happen, the Kingdom was going to be set up. He said don't worry about it. But, but, verse 8, "You shall receive," now watch the wording here, "power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." I want you to notice that sentence in verse 8. I want you to notice three key elements in that sentence. Notice first of all, the word power. You know what power means? Dunamin is the Greek word. Dunamin. We get the word dynamic from that. Well That sounds a little bit more like that living water thing Jesus spoke about, a dynamic. By the way, we get the word dynamite from it as well. But I think too many people are going to pieces already. I prefer the word dynamic. You shall receive a spiritual dynamic. The Amplified Bible puts it, "You shall receive power, that is the ability, efficiency, and might." In other words, a new capacity. A whole new capacity. Notice also the word upon. Now that's another preposition. With, glass is next to the water. With. I poured it in, it's in. Now we use a different preposition. When the Holy Spirit, verse 8, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth." Now upon is a different experience from with and in. There's a big difference. Go back to this analogy. The glass was next to the water, it's with. I poured it in, it's in. Now it's filled. Now it's in. Now watch, watch, watch, watch. Look at that. Don't worry, it'll dry. You know what it is now? It's upon it. It's upon it. It's overflowing. It's flowing in, but it's also flowing out. So if you're around it, it's like well, give me a glass, because I could use some of that. So as you keep pouring it and keep pouring it and keep pouring it, you have an overflow now. The Holy Spirit comes upon you. So watch the verse again. "You will receive power, dynamic, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you," that overflow that I believe Jesus meant in John 7, "and you will be witnesses to Me." Martures. To That's the Greek word, martures. We get the word martyr from martures. Unfortunately, you think of a martyr as somebody who dies for their faith. What it means is somebody who lives for their faith and is willing to die for their faith. It really means somebody who is a witness. It's somebody who tells somebody else what he's experienced, seen, or heard. If I tell you what I've experienced, seen, or heard, I'm witnessing. I'm bearing witness to you. And that's the word martyr, martures. Did this happen in the book of Acts? Happened with Peter. Acts, chapter 2, day of Pentecost. He stands up, preaches the gospel, 3,000 souls get saved. He gave a bold, clear, compelling witness. Interesting that it was Peter. Why is it interesting? Because not too long before that, Peter stood in a courtyard when a servant girl said, you look familiar. You were with Him. I wasn't with Him. No, you were with Him. I wasn't with Him. No, you're the guy. And then he starts cussing at her. Why didn't Peter boldly stand there and go, I was with Him because I believe in Him. He ran away. He denied Jesus. What happened so that Peter could stand up and boldly preach the gospel? Two things. Resurrection of Jesus Christ, to be fair. And number two, the Holy Spirit filled him. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, a dynamic, and he preached the gospel. So there is a filling. OK, go to Acts chapter 2. Really quickly, Acts chapter 2. I want you to see this. Verse 1, "When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from Heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared on them divided tongues of fire and one sat upon each of them. And they were all," watch the word, what does it say, "filled." Now Jesus, in chapter 1, verse 5 repeated that baptism with the Spirit. But now it says they were filled. Baptized, and now filled. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the word of God with boldness. So on that day of Pentecost, not only were they baptized with the Spirit into the body of Christ and the Holy Spirit came in them, but they were also filled with the Holy Spirit. By the way, the Bible does make a distinction between baptism with the Spirit and being filled with the Spirit. Baptism with the Spirit takes place at the moment of salvation and places believers into the church, the body of Christ. Filling with the Spirit takes place after a person is saved and empowers that person to say and to serve. You're going to say, you're going to speak, and you're going to serve the body of Christ. Those two things it will help a person do. It'll give a person boldness and the dynamic to say and to serve. Baptism with the Holy Spirit, according to the Bible, is a once for all, non-repeatable event. Hear that. You never, ever, ever, ever-- let me add it again-- ever, ever read of somebody being baptized with the Holy Spirit a second or third or fourth time. Ever. You don't read about it. You can say that it happens, but you can't find it in the Bible. But there are many times a person is filled with the Holy Spirit. I just showed you one in chapter 2, verse 4, where it says they were filled with the Holy Spirit. If you have your Bible open and you can go quickly to Acts chapter 4, I'll show you another one. Verse 31, Acts 4. They've been threatened, they've been told not to preach in Jerusalem. It says, when they prayed, Acts 4:31, "when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all," what? "Filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness." So they were filled with the Holy Spirit, after they were baptized with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost into the body of Christ. They were filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Now, some time later, they're filled again with the Holy Spirit. And it won't be the last time. It's like Paul the Apostle, Acts chapter 9, he was filled with the Spirit. Acts chapter 13, he was filled with the Spirit. When we get to the book of Ephesians, chapter 5, we're given a command to be filled with the Spirit regularly. I'll read it to you. Ephesians 5:17. You need to write this down unless you have, like, supercomputer memory. Ephesians 5:17-18, he says, "Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is." Let me stop right there. Do you want to know God's will for your life? Who doesn't? We all do, right? I'm going to tell you what God's will for your life is right now. It says, "Do not be drunk with wine," that's part of it, "in which is dissipation, debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit." Be filled with the Spirit. Now that is a command, by the way. That is a command that is given. Now isn't it interesting that the filling of the Holy Spirit is compared to what? To what? You can say it out loud. I know it's a church, but go ahead. Getting drunk. Why? Please do not think it hints at losing control. In fact, what it means is giving over control. That's the idea. When a person drinks and drinks, he's giving control over to alcohol. You've even said it, when you see somebody slurring or saying a compliment that you know in their normal reality they'd never say, that's the alcohol talking. I remember my first experience, I tried to witness to a guy who was drunk. Man, he was so moved. I thought he was so convicted. And he was like [CRYING SOUND]. He starts crying. (SLURRING) I love you, man. And he prayed and everything. The next day, didn't even know who I was. [LAUGHTER] No recollection of the conversation at all. None. He was completely under the control of alcohol. The idea of being filled with the Spirit is the idea of being controlled by the Spirit. You may want to picture a hand in a glove. You have a glove and you put a hand in it. And now that glove can work because the hand behind it can move it. So here, you're the glove. Let God put His hand in and on you, and control your life, where you give control completely over to the Holy Spirit. Now here he says be filled with the Spirit. I said it's a command. We are never commanded in the Bible to be sealed with the Spirit, because you can't do anything about that. You believe in Christ, you're sealed with the spirit to the day of redemption, period. That's just part of the package deal. He does that. You're never commanded in the Bible, be baptized with the Holy Spirit, because that's what happens when you believe in Christ. The Holy Spirit will baptize you into the body of Christ. You're never commanded to do that. But here you are commanded to be filled with the Spirit. So it is a command, which means you can do it. It's possible. It's an element where you and I are cooperating together. In fact, this is the only work of the Holy Spirit you have a part in. You say yes to Jesus Christ. You can't say, OK I said yes to Jesus, but Holy Spirit, don't come inside me. Sorry, it's going to happen. Don't seal me. It's going to happen. Don't baptize me into the body of Christ. Going to happen. But this is the work of the Spirit where you and I are cooperating with Him. It is a command for us to put into practice. It's also in the passive. It's written in the passive, that is something that is done to me. When it says be filled with the Spirit, it means allow yourself to be filled by something from the outside. It's in the passive mood. And it's also written in the plural. When it says be filled with the Spirit, it's all y'all be filled with the Spirit. Not one single person, not for elite Christians, special class of second blessing believers. It is for, available to, all believers. And, this is the most important, it's in the continuous, or imperfect in Greek, tense. The imperfect or continuous tense. In other words, the best translation of it is, be constantly being filled with the Spirit. You know what I prayed before I came out here tonight? Fill me with Your Spirit. You know what I prayed this morning when I began to study? Fill me with Your Spirit. Control, Lord, take my life. Fill me, empower me, use me. You go, well, you already prayed once. Why do you need to pray again? I leak. [LAUGHTER] So remember this. One baptism, many fillings. Can you say that? One baptism, many fillings. That's the New Testament teaching on it. One baptism, many fillings. So the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a positional work. The Holy Spirit places a person in the body of Christ. The filling of the Holy Spirit is an experiential work. We experience that. It has to do with living the Christian life. So at Pentecost, then, two things happened. They were baptized by the Holy Spirit or with the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit came to dwell within them as a permanent possession. But they were also filled with the Holy Spirit to be a witness to the world and to be winsome to God's people, the church, to serve them in the future. I love what Spurgeon said. I love Spurgeon. I love him so much, I love Charles Spurgeon so much, that when I was in London once, I not only went to his church to see the facade of it-- because I'd read him since probably the first week I was saved-- but I went to where he was buried, because I had read about his funeral procession. It was massive. It was one of the biggest ever in London. So I went to see it and I remembered there something Spurgeon said. He said his last prayer, "If there was only one prayer which I might pray before I died, it would be this. Lord, send thy church men filled with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Close quote. It's a good prayer. Lord, send your church, men and women, young, old, and everybody in between, to be filled, filled with Your Holy Spirit. Upon. So that you become a river of living water, not just being satisfied and getting soaked, and saying, man I'm so happy, I'm so content. But you turn your focus on refreshing, blessing others, witnessing to the world, and serving the church. So the Holy Spirit then comes after us to make us saved. The Holy Spirit comes into us to make us sanctified. The Holy Spirit comes upon us to make us, as I mentioned last time, supercharged or servants to serve the world. To serve the church. I want that. I want that. That's what you're thinking. I want that. How do I get that? You know how you get that? You just ask. Because here's what Jesus said. He said, you know if you guys, being evil, can give good gifts to your children, how much more would the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. Father, we ask, right now, right here in this place, in our lives, imperfect vessels as we are, all of us. We who have been baptized by Your Spirit, with Your Spirit, into the body of Christ, where the Holy Spirit lives within us to satisfy us, to sanctify us. Lord, come upon us. Fill us to overflowing, that our experience would be like Jesus promised would happen on that day. We just ask You for it, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. For more resources from Calvary Albuquerque and Skip Heitzig, visit calvaryabq.org.
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Channel: Calvary Church with Skip Heitzig
Views: 41,123
Rating: 4.7799606 out of 5
Keywords: Holy, Spirit, Skip, Heitzig, Calvary, albuquerque, abq, Holy Spirit, the church, hound of heaven, conviction, Pentecost, righteousness, judgment, church age, baptism of the Holy Spirit, filling of the Holy Spirit, witness
Id: GTr_e82zULg
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 63min 36sec (3816 seconds)
Published: Thu Aug 03 2017
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