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Feb 17, 2019 – Acts: Encountering God, Engaged in Mission
(See also The Baptism with the Spirit Part 1: A Look at Samaria)
Read Eph 3:14–21 by Dawn Ruhl
In Sep 1990 in a sermon John Piper used the illustration of a child walking with his father. Child loves his dad and knows his dad loves him. Father holding his hand and is close. But then suddenly the father stoops down and picks him up. Bounces him around. Looks him right in the eye and says, “Son, I love you so much! I’m so proud of you!” Well, now the child knows that he knows that knows that his father loves him. He’s ecstatic. Confident. Over-joyed. Ready to take on the world. And he’s ready to tell the world what an amazing dad he has—whether his dad is a plumber or President of the United States.
That’s a longing we can identify with our earthly fathers. Sometimes our dad’s were part of the “quiet but faithful” mold. We never lacked a meal, but they weren’t particulary affectionate. Sometimes not very talkative. They loved us but you had to just know it. Having the kind of assurance Piper talks about is a real desire—at a human level.
Our Christian lives can be like that, too. We look at the world around us and we know God made it. We know Jesus died on the cross, and he died for me. But sometimes his love for us feels more like a CONVICTION OF OUR MIND than a FEELING IN OUR HEART. It MUST be a conviction, but it CAN also be an experience.
God in his word holds out to us an invitation to experience his love, to know that we know that we know it. Paul’s prayer from Ephesians 3 speaks to that kind of assurance. This morning we’ll think about it as one of the results of Spirit baptism.
We looked at some aspects of Spirit baptism last week. We saw that a Christian becomes a Christian because of a work of the Spirit. That’s called regeneration. And we saw part of what it means to be a Christian is that the Spirit is dwelling in us. Paul in Rom 8:9 teaches that:
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. (Rom 8:9)
But the NT also presents to us another work of the Spirit. We’re calling at the Baptism of the Spirit only because Jesus and John the Baptist use that phrase. You could use other phrases. Here’s the definition we’re working with—again, not the official teaching of the church but what I believe the NT teaches:
A Definition of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit
The baptism in the Holy Spirit is a special giving of the Spirit by Jesus to the Christian either at conversion or afterwards. It is separate from regeneration and sanctification, though it’s the same Holy Spirit at work. It is an encounter with God that is undeniable and evident to others and accompanied by such things as new boldness, new assurance of God’s love, new fruitfulness, new displays of spiritual gifts, a new awareness of God, or even new joy. It is like a personal revival that enables someone to fulfill their callings with much greater spiritual power.
Sermon: This morning we'll look at 4 Characteristics of the Baptism of the Spirit.
Prayer – Moms at home with children…
The first characteristic: Spirit baptism is dramatic and undeniable. The effects of it are clear to the person who experiences it and to others around her. Here’s one such occurrences:
So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized. (Acts 9:17–18)
A place you can see the closeness between Acts and Paul’s writing also shows us Spirit baptism as dramatic and undeniable
PUT THESE 2 TEXTS ON SAME SLIDE – THANKS!
And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (Acts 19:2)
Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—(Gal 3:2–5)
You have to appreciate the closeness of the wording. A quotation from his ministry in Acts 19, a quotation from his first epistle in Gal 3. The question in Acts 19:2 clearly means “receive the Holy Spirit” in a dramatic and observable manner or else the question makes no sense. Gal 3 refers to the same kind of experience.
Whole argument is based on the fact that this initial RECEIVING of the Spirit was experiential and undeniable. Otherwise, the argument has no force.
The essence of the argument here is this: Your initial RECEIVING of the Spirit was dramatic and undeniable and entirely by faith and not works: Why would you now begin preaching something that is by works and not faith?
He adds to it. Not only was the initial RECEIVING THE SPIRIT dramatic and undeniable but the miracles God is continuing to work in your midst are also dramatic and undeniable and entirely by faith and not by works.
The idea here is an initial RECEIVING THE SPIRIT followed by ongoing MIRACLES by the Spirit. This is exactly the kind of experience Luke describes in many places in Acts—an INITIAL dramatic filling or baptism in the Spirit and THEN signs and wonders.
A Second Characteristic: Spirit baptism can result in new power for evangelism. This fills the pages of Acts. Fulfills the promises of Jesus:
“And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49)
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
Acts unfolds to show us these promises being accomplished. God fills his people with the Spirit and they preach with power and change the world.
John Piper[1] reminds us that this Spirit baptism power for evangelism is not just a first-century phenomenon
Under the influence of this power—this experience of the Spirit of the risen Christ—you will speak with the unwavering assurance of one who has tasted and knows the reality so immediately that all doubt is gone. You move from being an advocate of Christianity to being a witness of the living Christ. You move from simply deducing truths from valid premises to proclaiming them boldly as experienced realities. This is the power and the witness that will take Christ to the end of the earth….
The promise is valid till the Great Commission is complete, and the witness to Christ has been planted among all the unreached people groups of the world. Therefore, I conclude that the power promised here—the extraordinary experience of being ‘clothed with power’—is for us.
John Piper, “You Shall Receive Power till Jesus Comes”[2]
One of the surprises for me preparing these two sermons was reading John Piper on Spirit baptism. His preaching through Acts in 1990-1991 and his biography of Lloyd-Jones in Jan 1991 show that he believes in a definitive Spirit baptism that can be AFTER our conversion.
His point – “The promise is valid till the Great Commission is complete.”
But we don’t want to be overly narrow in what power for witness looks like. For the Twelve and Paul, it looked like traveling around the Mediterranean nations and planting churches. But not many of us are called to that kind of ministry. But it could be that the Spirit baptism God wants to give you is to do what God has called you to do but with more of the Spirit’s power.
R. A. Torrey reflected on this in his 1895 book, The Baptism with the Holy Spirit, written about ten years before there was such a thing as a Pentecostal.
There are many who know they are not called to the work of preaching. For example, a mother with a large family of children, knows this. If then, they think that the baptism with the Holy Spirit simply imparts power to preach, it is a matter of no personal concern to them. But when we come to see the truth that, while the baptism with the Spirit imparts power, the way in which that power will be manifested depends upon the work to which God has called us and that no efficient work can be done without it, then the mother will see that she equally with the preacher needs this baptism—needs it for that most important and hallowed of all work, to bring up her children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” I have recently met a very happy mother. A few months ago she heard of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, sought it and received it. “Oh,” she joyfully exclaimed as she told me the story, “Since I received it, I have been able to get into the hearts of my children what I was never able to do before.”
R. A. Torrey, The Baptism with the Holy Spirit[3]
A Third Characteristic: It can result in an assurance of God's love. Here we want to think about Paul’s prayer that we started with, that described a distinct experience of God’s love.
A passage that speaks to this powerful experience of the love of God is the one read at the start of our sermon, Ephesians 3:14–19. Spirit baptism is a special filling of the Spirit that is undeniable and really changes you. In this text what changes you is a dramatic encounter with the love of God. This is Paul’s prayer for the saints in Asia Minor:
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:14–19)
There are things about this prayer that tell us Paul is praying for something experiential and which surpasses language to describe. It’s a prayer to the Father that from “the riches of his glory” he would give the Spirit’s power in our souls to give us the deepest experience of the love of God.
Such an experience of the love of God can never be separated from Christ who is dwelling in us by faith.
At the end of v17 he begins to pray for an overwhelming experience of the love of God. He want us “rooted and grounded in love.” The foundation on which we live and on which we stand. But then v18 he wants us to be able to “comprehend” (grasp, seize, take hold of) this love, to somehow see its “breadth and length and height and depth.”
All of this is so that we can “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” How do you know something beyond knowledge? You experience it.
There is certainly a knowledge component to the love of God. We need to know that the greatest expression of God’s love for us was at the cross of Christ where the Son of God gave his life for us.
John 3:16 says that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Rom 5:8 says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
These are things we need to KNOW, to understand, to believe about the love of God.
But Eph 3 is praying for something more than KNOWING IT. It’s praying for a knowing that surpassing knowing so that “you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” “Filled with fullness”! That’s the culmination of the prayer.
The Spirit’s power comes to us from the riches of glory and it results in such a knowledge of God’s love for us that we are “filled with all the fullness of God”!
It’s important to see what Paul is praying for. He’s talking to you who are Christians. You are Christians and so it’s 100% certain that God loves you. He could not love you any more than he does, and he will never love you less no matter what you do.
But the prayer is that you would not just know and believe it. You have to start there. But Paul is praying for something experiential, an experience of the love of God where you know that you know that you know God loves you and that changes everything.
In the Puritans and Martyn Lloyd-Jones this is sometimes called THE SEALING OF THE SPIRIT, a dramatic moment of assurance. Lloyd-Jones says,
Have you ever been sealed with the Spirit? Has the Spirit testified with your spirit that you are a child of God? I do not mean that you deduce it from your sanctification or from your reading of the Scripture or prayer or services or any of these others. I am asking, has he himself authenticated, attested, sealed it to you; let you know beyond any doubt or uncertainty that you are a child of God, and a joint-heir with Christ?....That is possible to you. Seek it. Seek it until you find it and have it and are able to say, ‘Oh that the whole world knew the joy that now know, as the Spirit fills my life and bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God.’
Martin Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable[4]
If you grow up in a Christian home and made a profession of faith at a young age, this might really speak to you. You haven’t ever rejected Christ, but you struggle with confidence that you belong to Christ and he belongs to you. It could be that the baptism of the Spirit in your life will be like what Marty Lloyd-Jones is talking about here—an deep experience and confidence that you are a child of God.
For many of us, this would be life-changing, almost like a conversion.
A Fourth Characteristic: It often comes through asking and laying on of hands.
When you ask, “HOW DO YOU GET IT?”, you have two things in tension. On the one side we’re talking about something God has to do. How it happens, when it happens, and the results in your life when it happens are all up to God.
You can make ourselves get WATER BAPTIZED. But we can’t make ourselves get SPIRIT BAPTIZED. God must do it!
That’s one side of the tension. But the other side is the general pattern in the Bible. You don’t want to miss this. The Lord doesn’t present Spirit baptism to us like it’s complicated. Like praying for healing or praying for heart change or praying for our daily bread, we simply pray! He tells us to ask, so we ask!
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13)
Again a look at one of Paul’s writings for HOW to receive Spirit baptism
NOTE: FOR THIS SLIDE, CHANGE “s” to CAPITAL in “SPIRIT”:
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, 7 for God gave us a Spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. (2 Tim 1:6–7)
This isn’t Timothy’s ordination into the ministry, described in 1 Tim 4:14. Paul is referring to a different experience here in 2 Tim. Maybe in Lystra (Acts 16:1).
A Definition of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit
The baptism in the Holy Spirit is a special giving of the Spirit by Jesus to the Christian either at conversion or afterwards. It is separate from regeneration and sanctification, though it’s the same Holy Spirit at work. It is an encounter with God that is undeniable and evident to others and accompanied by such things as new boldness, new assurance of God’s love, new fruitfulness, new displays of spiritual gifts, a new awareness of God, or even new joy. It is like a personal revival that enables someone to fulfill their callings with much greater spiritual power.
John Wesley and George Whitefield, two giants of church history had an experience of the Spirit about 9 mos. after Wesley converted:
Monday, January 1, 1739. Mr. Hall, Hinching, Ingham, Whitefield, Hutching and my brother Charles were present at our love feast in Fetter Lane with about sixty of our brethren. About three in the morning as we were continuing instant in prayer the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exulting joy and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from the awe and amazement at the presence of His Majesty, we broke out with one voice, “We praise Thee O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord!”
Reverend John Wesley’s Journal[5]
Categories of People:
Prayer
Closing Song
EXTRA NOTES AND QUOTES:
Charles Simeon from his commentary on Romans 5:
This is a blessing which, though not to be appreciated or understood by those who have never received it, is yet most assuredly enjoyed by many of God’s chosen people. We scarcely know how to describe it, because it consists chiefly in an impression on the mind occasioned by manifestations of God’s love to the soul. …. This is in reality a foretaste of heaven itself; and, where this is, a man, if he had a thousand lives, would be ready to lay them all down for his Lord and Saviour, accounting nothing dear to him, so that “Christ might but be magnified in him, whether by life or death.”
Charles Simeon, “Benefits Arising from a Justifying Faith”[6]
John Piper’s sermon, “You Shall Receive Power till Jesus Comes” from Sep 30, 1990[7]
Let me use an illustration from Martin Lloyd-Jones in his book Joy Unspeakable to describe the difference between common Christian living and what happens when the Holy Spirit "clothes" a person with power or "comes upon" a person with this unusual power.
He says it is like a child walking along holding his father's hand. All is well. The child is happy. He feels secure. His father loves him. He believes that his father loves him but there is no unusual urge to talk about this or sing about it. It is true and it is pleasant.
Then suddenly the father startles the child by reaching down and sweeping him up into his arms and hugging him tightly and kissing him on the neck and whispering, "I love you so much!" And then holding the stunned child back so that he can look into his face and saying with all his heart, "I am so glad you are mine." Then hugging him once more with unspeakable warmth and affection. Then he puts the child down and they continue their walk.
This, Lloyd-Jones says, is what happens when a person is baptized with the Holy Spirit. A pleasant and happy walk with God is swept up into an unspeakable new level of joy and love and assurance and reality that leaves the Christian so utterly certain of the immediate reality of Jesus that he is overflowing in praise and more free and bold in witness than he ever imagined he could be.
The child is simply stunned. He doesn't know whether to cry or shout or fall down or run, he is so happy. The fuses of love are so overloaded they almost blow out. The subconscious doubts—that he wasn't thinking about at the time, but that pop up every now and then—are gone! And in their place is utter and indestructible assurance, so that you know that you know that you know that God is real and that Jesus lives and that you are loved, and that to be saved is the greatest thing in the world. And as you walk on down the street you can scarcely contain yourself, and you want to cry out, "My father loves me! My father loves me! O, what a great father I have! What a father! What a father!"
I think this is basically what happened at Pentecost. And has happened again and again in the life of the church. They were so filled with the fullness of God—they were overwhelmed with the length and breadth and height and depth of the love of Christ—that they began (as Acts 2:11 says) to speak "the greatnesses of God." Their mind was full of a fresh, new, breathtaking vision of God and their mouth overflowed with prophetic praise—sons and daughters, old and young, slave and free.
John Piper, “You Shall Receive Power”
[1] John Piper, “You Shall Receive Power Till Jesus Comes (Acts 1:6–14),” 30 September 1990, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/you-shall-receive-power-till-jesus-comes.
[2]https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/you-shall-receive-power-till-jesus-comes
[3] Torrey, The Baptism with the Holy Spirit (Fleming H. Revell, 1895), 19.
[4]Joy Unspeakable (Harold Shaw), 161–162.
[5]The Works of the Reverend John Wesley, A. M., Vol 3, 117. Obtained at www.books.google.com.
[6] First saw an abbreviated version of this quote in Lloyd-Jones Joy, 63. Full version from Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae on Rom 5 available at https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/shh/romans-5.html.
[7]https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/you-shall-receive-power-till-jesus-comes
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