Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
Hello and welcome to Lechem Panim. It is good to have you with us today as we seek the Lord Jesus Christ (our Bread and our Life) in His Word today.
“In the hole he goes”— Just recently I read of [Three small siblings {who} had a pet sparrow, which, to everyone’s disappointment, died. The children were very sad, and they decided to give the dead bird a really good burial service. Their families were faithful members of the church, so the children had some ideas of how to go about it. The first step was to dig the grave in a carefully chosen spot in a corner of the yard. Then they solemnly prepared for the actual interment. One child held the sparrow over the grave, and another recited, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and in the hole he goes.”] Now sadly, I’m sorry to say, the knowledge of many people regarding the Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit) often does not rise too much above this child’s understanding.
We Don’t Talk About…— Every week, my family has movie night on Fridays. And not long ago we watched one of the new Disney movies, Encanto. And it was very fun and entertaining. And the music is very memorable. And one of the songs is “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”. And that is the refrain that you hear over and over again, “We don’t talk about Bruno, no no no no”. It’s quite catchy, no matter how much you might want to “Let it Go!, Let it Go!” But in thinking about it, I feel that if you were to replace the word “Bruno” with “Holy Spirit” or “Holy Ghost”, the song would fairly accurate. “We don’t talk about the Holy Ghost, no no no no." And I wonder why that is. I think for many of us, we just don’t understand the Holy Spirit. We get the Father (at least we think we do; though I think our understanding of Him is also very warped at times; we think we get the Son (though honestly, if you don’t understand the Father, you won’t understand the Son either, who came to reveal to us the Father); but the Holy Spirit is the one I feel we understand the least. What or who is the Holy Spirit? What role does the Holy Spirit have to play in our day-to-day lives? Those are questions I hope to be able to at least scratch the surface in answering today. And our passage today provides the perfect opportunity to do so. Because here in Acts 19, verses 1-7, we find Paul (now on his third missionary journey) coming back to Ephesus and encountering a group of men who (through him) receive the Holy Spirit. It says in…
Acts 19:1a (ESV)— 1 And it happened that while Apollos {(whom we talked about last week)} was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus.
Ephesus— Now [Ephesus was the capital and leading business center of the Roman province of Asia (part of present-day Turkey). {It was} A hub of of sea and land transportation, {and} it ranked with Antioch in Syria and Alexandria in Egypt as one of the great cities on the Mediterranean Sea.] And it is here that Paul would be staying for a little over two years and would write his first letter to the Corinthians in order to help to counter several problems the church in Corinth was facing. And we will see later that during his imprisonment in Rome, Paul will write a letter to the Ephesian church (the book of Ephesians). And so we see that Paul kept his promise to return to the Ephesian church that he had made back in 18:21. When he had left them, they had been spiritually hungry to hear more; and now that he is returning he is hoping that the Jews will still be eager to hear. And when he arrives, it says in the rest of verse 1…
Acts 19:1b-2a (ESV)— There he found some disciples. 2 And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
Now the answer to this question is absolutely critical because it is the Holy Spirit who marks us believers in Christ. Paul in fact writes to the Ephesians, saying in…
Ephesians 1:13-14 (ESV)— 13 In him {(Jesus)} you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
Our Sanctifier— But the Holy Spirit also has another role. Not only does He mark us as believers and children of God, but He is the One who sanctifies us, re-molding and re-shaping us into the very image of Jesus, leading us out of the old way of the flesh into the new way of the Spirit. Paul writes of this clearly in…
Galatians 5:16-25 (ESV)— 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. {Now these “disciples” did not yet have the Holy Spirit in their lives. And so it says in…}
Acts 19:2b-3 (ESV)— And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John's baptism.”
Hadn’t Heard— And so Paul comes to this group of disciples who we see have a faith, but a faith that is incomplete, because not only had they not heard of what had happened at Pentecost (the Holy Spirit being given) but they say that they have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. Now this does not mean that they had not heard of the Holy Spirit or even that they were not expecting the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. No. They would have known about the Holy Spirit through the Old Testament, which has clear teachings about the Holy Spirit of God and promises that He will one day be poured out (Joel 2:28). But they also would have known about the Holy Spirit in and through John the Baptist (whom verse three says they were baptized by); because he said very clearly that the Messiah/Lamb of God would “baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16). And so all this phrase means is that they were simply ignorant of the fact that this expectation had been realized at Pentecost. They were Old Testament Saints still waiting for that promised gift of God, not knowing that it had actually already come. In fact, F.F. Bruce translates their answer, “We never even heard that the Holy Spirit is available.” And so these men were disciples of John the Baptist who had received John’s Baptism, which was an outward sign of repentance from sin, but was not a sign (as it is now) of new life in Christ. John’s Baptism looked forward in anticipation to the atoning work of Christ. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit looks back at the atoning work of Christ, resting on its completion. Well, these men had apparently believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but (like Apollos) they needed to come to understand the significance of his death, resurrection, ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit. And so it says in…
Acts 19:4 (ESV)— 4 And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.”
Start With Jesus— Now notice that Paul doesn’t explain to them about what it means to receive the Holy Spirit. Instead, he talks to them about the person of Jesus. And this is for two reasons. First of all (like we already talked about) they already knew who the Holy Spirit was and were anticipating His coming. But secondly (and this is what is key for us) Paul begins with Jesus because it is only in and through Jesus that we can receive the Holy Spirit. You have to start with Jesus; because it is in and through His atoning work alone that we are reconciled to God, given the Holy Spirit, and consequently are transformed by the Holy Spirit into the likeness of Christ. That is why if you have somebody in your life who is living in darkness; who is making bad choices; who seems bent on self-destruction (and I have known people like this), the best thing you can do is bring them to Jesus. Draw them to Christ with your words and actions; inspire them to Christ with your testimony of what He has done for you. Drive them to Christ with your prayers. Whatever it takes, if you can get that person to Him, He can reconcile them to Himself and give them the One (the ONLY One) who has the power to change a human heart. And that is what Paul does here. And they believe. And it says…
Acts 19:5-7 (ESV)— 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. 7 There were about twelve men in all.
A Unified Church— Now this does not mean that speaking in tongues is necessary for salvation. But in the book of Acts (for every people group that received Christ) it was given as an outward sign in order to both ease the spread of the Gospel, but also as a sign to the Church that God was the one bringing this new people group into the fold. [And in each case apostles were present to verify that all received the same Holy Spirit in the same way. That having been completed, Paul could write to the Ephesians, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:4–5). From then on, the Holy Spirit would come to every heart at salvation, as the epistles teach.]
A Sad Discord— Now I find it amazing how the Holy Spirit, who was the means of bringing the Church together in the book of Acts, has since become the center of much controversy and division. And what is worse, in our day and age (perhaps because we don’t really understand the Holy Spirit; who He is and what He can do in us) we neglect Him. We know He’s there and acknowledge Him occasionally, but don’t know what it means to truly know the One who abides in us and be fully surrendered to Him. And what is so scary to me about the modern church (as somebody I read recently pointed out) is the fact that our churches are [so rigidly programmed that it seems we need no longer depend on Him—yet Jesus said, "Without Me you can do nothing.”]
95%— [The late Dr. A. W. Tozer, author and pastor, said, "If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.”] Let me ask you this, do you truly know the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in your life? Are you abiding in constant communion with Him and allowing Him to keep you in God’s Holy way?
A Monopoly— Once [A committee of ministers in a certain city was discussing the possibility of having D. L. Moody to serve as the evangelist during a city-wide evangelistic campaign. Finally, one young minister who did not want to invite Moody stood up and said: “Why Moody? Does he have a monopoly of the Holy Spirit?” There was silence. Then an old, godly minister spoke up: “No, he does not have a monopoly of the Holy Spirit; but the Holy Spirit has a monopoly of D. L. Moody.”
Does the Holy Spirit have a monopoly on your life?] Do you have the Holy Spirit? If not, He is available to you know in and through faith in Jesus Christ. And if you are already a believer, is the Holy Spirit more than just in you? Are you fully given over to Him in utter and complete surrender? If not, give yourself to Him today; let Him have a monopoly on your life; and in the world He will make you like Christ and use you in amazing ways. Surrender to Him today. Amen.
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