The Holy Spirit in Our House I - Fullness - Conviction or Preference

Turning your bibles to Luke 24, begin reading in verse 44. I know I had asked you to read in Acts, and if you're fuming already, we'll get there. This is immediately following the resurrection of Jesus. This is during his stay. Of how many days was Jesus on the earth before he was ascended? 40 days. Long time. Here's what it says. Verse 44. Then he said to them, these are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. You think about that for a minute. Has everything been fulfilled? That's right. The second coming of Jesus will be the consummation of the things that were prophesied about Him. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. That's our prayer today as we come to this teaching and said to them, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them. Ever wondered if Jesus lifted his hands there? It says so while he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising God. Alright, hold on there and then we'll pick up an Acts in a few minutes. About six weeks ago, in a day that I took alone to be with the Lord, I had a distinct, clear impression from the Lord that I was to, in the time following Easter and before Pentecost, speak to you on the subject of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. For a number of weeks, and interestingly, without saying that to anybody, I had a lot of people who came up and said, boy, I sure would like to know some more about this subject. And we, our home group is wrestling with questions on the Holy Spirit and when are you and Grant or someone going to teach on the Holy Spirit? And on and on it went. And it's really hard to sort out the planting of seeds of the voices of the flock. And when the good shepherd says, now it's time. And that's what he said to me, in case you're visiting with us. And you heard that this is one of those churches where all they ever talk about is the Holy Spirit, that's not true. I looked over our tapes and our messages from the last year and one time in a year of being together have we talked about this subject of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And it's interesting because I believe that it's been sovereignly ordained of God that we wait to discuss and share and learn about this subject together. All of us agree on some things about the Holy Spirit, like he's holy. Thank you, Ray. He's the third person of the Trinity. Right. And none of us would disagree if we'd say that without the Holy Spirit you cannot be saved. Alright? And so there's a lot of things that are easy to agree on. There's some things, however, that are much more to the point of what it means to live a surrendered life. And consequently there's been much more adversity and affliction and attack by the enemy to bring confusion and to bring division over the subject, particularly of the baptism of the Holy Spirit or the fullness of the Holy Spirit, which in my estimation, and as you'll see in the coming weeks, I believe are synonyms. All right. And so I'm going to be talking about the Holy Spirit in our house, the house the Bible says, which is the temple of our hearts and the house which his people gather together. We are a living temple, a living house. And that will be the title, if you would, for this series of teachings that we'll cover the next several weeks. Now, let me say also I'm going to give a rather lengthy introduction today because this is for a whole series. But I want to say that because some people feel that this is such an important thing and we at the community have not really addressed it, there's been some thought and maybe a little bit of expression of the thought that maybe we don't really have a conviction on this point and it's sort of just a matter of preference. What's the difference between preference and conviction? We've been talking about that at the men's breakfast. I'll give you an illustration. Oh, it's been a while now, probably a couple years ago when we were still sort of breaking in our Cadillac station wagon. The gas fuel gage read low. But you know how you always think, well, you've got more in there. And I was reminded by Carol that the gas was low several times and you know, how makes you think there's more gas in there? And we kept moving along and there was a. I preferred to go to the gas station that's up here on Wexford Flats because It was less expensive, but my preference changed to conviction when the car stopped right out here in front of Murphy Mart's or Another illustration of the difference between a preference and a conviction is regarding Harding Peterson and one of the Pirate baseball players who I won't name, who if Harding Peterson had a preference, he would have traded this winner and try as he might, he could not. But if this unnamed individual bats 185 this season and throws some tantrums, that preference will become a conviction. A conviction is something that results in a change of behavior, a commitment that results in a course of action on a consistent basis. That's a conviction. And the New Testament believers had a conviction that they needed the fullness of the Holy Spirit. It's amazing to me if you look here in your Bible in Luke 24, that here were people, first of all, that had seen the resurrection life, number one. Number two, they had received teaching of the Scriptures from Jesus himself. And number three, as we read down in verse 50 through 53, they were in worship and blessing God in the temple. You see those three characteristics. And yet what were they told to do? To wait for the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Beloved, we are a fellowship that is growing in the new life that Jesus is bringing among us. We are a fellowship. It's growing in the understanding of the word of God. And we are a fellowship. It's certainly growing in the worship of the Lord Jesus. But we also need to see the same conviction in our lives that without the fullness of the Holy Spirit, all of these things will come, short of what God wants to work in us as his people. I'm under the absolute conviction this morning that God's goal for you today is fullness. And I want you to look for yourself in Ephesians chapter 3, verse 19. Look at Paul's prayer, Ephesians, chapter three. Just quickly look at verse 19. That we might know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge. That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Would you say those words with me? That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. That's God's purpose. That's his design. That's his idea. That's the conviction that we're to live under as believers. Now, I want to ask you a few questions as we get underway this morning. I'm still in the introduction. What about you? What's your conviction today about the Holy Spirit and the fullness of God? There's some who come to us at Northway with very painful experiences where you have somehow been convinced that anyone that talks about the baptism in the Holy Spirit is closed minded and insensitive and pushy. And you come to this experience or come to this session today with a little bit of fear and maybe some confusion about what this is all about. There's some that come here with a great deal of anxiety. And you've come from a church that was split over this issue, as it were. There are some who come today with a very smug comfortability. I know what this is about. I've been praying for the baptism for all these people because I know what it's about. And I want to speak to you this morning and say to you, are you living in that? The fullness of the Holy Spirit is not a one time experience, beloved. It's an ongoing way of life that we enter into. Some of you want to prove by the end of these weeks that you were right all along and that you get it all when you ask Jesus into your life. Some of you want to prove that speaking in tongues is not for today. Some of you want to prove that you can be a good Christian and still speak in tongues. And I want to ask us all, do we have the faith to lay aside our biases and our fears and our prejudices and our negative experiences and say, lord, teach me something about this full life. Open my heart to receive. Never more than today do we need what our community was established on in Ephesians 4:13. Remember that passage. Look at it. Flip back over there. Didn't intend to do this, but look at it. Ephesians 4:13. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, that twofold stream, beloved, the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and mature manhood. That's where we want to move today. Now, in order to see this take place, I want to show you several things we won't do. We will not exercise rigid dogma. In other words, we're not going to say to somebody, if you don't believe like we do, you're not really supposed to be here. And that happens all too frequently. Second, we're not going to insist on a uniform experience. Unless you receive the Holy Spirit the way I did, then you don't really have the Holy Spirit. Now I'll speak in future teaching about some of the evidences and indications that that life is being released in you. But there's no one way. And if you need to be convinced of that, you just Read the Book of Acts. Sometimes the Holy Spirit fell before the people, even baptized, and they spoke in tongues. Sometimes they didn't speak in tongues at all, but we'll talk about it. And third, I don't believe it's possible to fashion a precise theology so that what we could walk out of here with is this carefully. In fact, the people that have the carefully honed theologies don't have the full life. I'm not saying that I'm against theology, I believe the importance of it. But it's a fallacy to think that you can box God in. And that's what theologians try to do, Beloved. They try to make a tight box and then tell God how to work. And he doesn't do it that way. Okay. But on the other hand, Paul, we will, by God's grace, first of all, base everything we do on Scripture. And I trust that whatever you receive, you'll take the time to look up and study on your own. Second, we're going to move in simplicity. I'm always struck, you know, the thickest books I have in my library are books that people write trying to explain something that God said. Here, take it. Ever notice that these volumes of the Theology of the Holy Spirit, like that the Bible says that Peter and John were simple men without education and the Sanhedrin looked at them and saw the power of God in their lives. And whatever we talk about here can be received simply by faith, not by your head, but by your heart. We're going to be wholehearted about this. It's the only word I could think of. We're going to pursue this issue so that we're not just sort of dabbling in it, but we're really going to come to terms with it. And finally, all that we do will be for the glory of God. To the glory of God. Be filled. To the glory of God. Alright, praise the Lord. Now let's turn back into the book of Luke. That's the introduction for this morning. You can turn that off, Paul. Thank you. First thing I want to do you this morning is establish the origins of this blessing called the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And I want you to see a phrase that Jesus used. Verse 49. And behold, Luke 24:49. I send the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. That's a beautiful phrase, isn't it? The promise of the Father. As we read through the Scriptures, we see that God over and over again had promised to the people of God. That they would come into a new realm of experience, that they would be lifted out of what they had known formerly. For example, in Isaiah 44,3, you might write it down, but don't turn there. The Lord speaking says, for I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground, I will pour out my spirit upon your descendants. And then in the prophecy in the book of Joel, the prophet again speaks about a day that was to come that had not yet come. And it says, and in the last days shall it be, God declares that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. You see, the promise of the Father was that the people of God would be able to live in a dynamic beyond what they'd ever known. Jesus said, the Holy Spirit has been with you, but now he will be in you. That's a different way of life, beloved. And I think that there's someone here today that needs to know that this is the promise of the Father. It's a father's love. Isn't it interesting? Those of you who are fathers, and those of you who have observed fathers, I guess I could say those of you who have fathers, don't you notice that fathers have a way of caring for the needs of the child that are different from the mothers? It's the Father that are generally, as a general rule, more concerned about the provision and more concerned about the adequacy of their preparation for life. Now, it's not to say that mothers don't and don't misunderstand, but what I'm saying is the father tends to be very much committed to see that the child gets the right education and gets the right equipment for life, where the mother, as a general rule, tends to be loving and compassionate. Do you understand that? It's a father's love. The Father wants you to be provided for. And he talked about it in the prophets. Then John the Baptist said something. Turn to John, chapter one. Keep your place in Luke and just turn over a page. Verse 29. John the Baptist, who was the last of the prophets. He was the bridge in the errors of God from the old to the new. The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me alright. And then down, verse 33. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, he on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain. This is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. That was Jesus. That was one of his functions. One was to save us from sin. The other was to fill us with the Holy Spirit. Beloved, you've got to see that there's the double mission of God. He didn't just save us to throw us into the world, but he saved us. And then he fills us and equips us. And John the Baptist spoke of it. Then Jesus himself, as we're seeing here in Luke, said the same things. Go and wait for the promise of my Father. Now, the Book of Acts. Would you turn there? This is where we're going to stay. Okay, let's just pick up in verse 4. For the sake of moving along. And While staying Acts 1:4 with them, he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the. Say it with me. Promise of the Father. Say it again. Promise of the Father. Which he said, you heard from me. For John baptized with water. But before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. The promise of the Father and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And then, lest there be any doubt about what, Jesus spoke. And John the Baptist spoke. And the prophet spoke. Turn over one page to Acts, chapter 2, verse 33. At the middle of Pentecost, here's what Peter said in his sermon. Verse 32. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Acts 2:33. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you see and hear. Pentecost, the baptism of the Holy Spirit was the expression of this promise of the Father. Now, the word for promise in Greek is the word epangelia, which means, and this is important. It's a gift graciously bestowed, not a negotiated contract. A gift graciously bestowed, freely bestowed. It has to do with mercy, not reward. The promise of the Father. The epigelia of the Father is a gift that God the Father wants to give to you to live your Christian life for him. And this is important because there's people here today who think I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy to receive the promise. I haven't been living a very good Christian life. I fought God all along. The promise is a free gift, graciously bestowed. I was thinking as I was preparing the teaching that Jay would be here with his little daughter, and the picture of it would be so perfect. Because you couldn't imagine a father with a child who would say, well, if you're really good. And you do all the things that you're supposed to, then I'll provide for you what you need to live your life adequately. Isn't it the other way around? I'll provide for you and then I'll expect obedience. The promise of the Father is given that we might live adequately before God. Now, one reason why I'm convinced that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is for every believer. It's the promise of the Father. Second, it's the provision for communicating life. There's absolutely no way that we can please God. How many of you agree to that? All right. And all of us have had testimony after testimony of frustration where we just couldn't live the way God wanted us to live. And I'm going to speak to you as to why it so happens that even after you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you still get struggles and so on. But you see, Jesus wanted it to be clear that it was this provision that would enable you to live like a king. Now look at this. He had just spoken these words in Acts 15. Then look at verse 6. The disciples heard him talking about this thing of being filled with the Holy Spirit. And they knew that he was talking about the kingdom of God, but they didn't understand this kingdom. And they said verse six. When they came together, they asked him, lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? What were they thinking about? The political kingdom, right? The flesh and bones kingdom. And Jesus said to them, it is not for you to know times or season which the Father has fixed by his own authority. He's saying, that's not the issue. That kingdom, that expression will come. But that's not what you need to concern yourself with. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Revelations 1, 5, 6 says that we are all to be kings to our God. All of us are to be kings in this kingdom. That's kind of strange, isn't it? Most kingdoms have how many kings? The kingdom of God has countless numbers of kings. We are all rulers to rule and reign as kings in his kingdom. Now why is this important? Because if you miss the reality that you are to be a king and function with authority and rulership, then that slips us one inch closer to a debilitating mentality that's crippled the church of Jesus. And what is that? Only a few people are really specially prepared to be ministers and that the really anointed ones are the leaders. And I'm just, you know, I'm just less than a king in the kingdom. Beloved, I just want you right now to become convinced that you are a king and you're to rule as a king. And I want you to turn to a person and say, I'm a king. Go ahead and tell them that. Look at them. I'm a king in the kingdom. All right, now, beloved, a king rules with what authority? A king rules with authority. And Jesus said to you, kings, in my kingdom, you shall receive power. Write down the word Dunamis. D U N A M I s. How do you spell power? D U N A M I S. Dunamis, from which we get the English word dynamite. It's also translated in the Greek New Testament. Miracle. You shall receive miracle. Miracle power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Think about that for a minute. The fullness of the Holy Spirit is given that you might receive miracle power. Last night it was particularly windy, and it's been windy, and we've had quite a bit of these storm fronts coming through. And I was in my office just thinking about this teaching, and I sensed that wind, the power of it, and you can't escape it. If I was standing in the driveway at the open door and I ran down to Murphy Mart's, I'd still feel that wind. This is the kind of. This is the power of the Holy Spirit, the wind that you can't escape from. No matter where you go, you're going to sense that power. It's dunamis, it's dynamite. It's miracle power. And Jesus said, in that power, you shall be my witnesses. Martyrion is the word from which we get martyr. And a martyr is a person who gives a testimony even at the cost of their life. It's also the word for evidence. You shall receive dynamite, and you shall be my evidence. Hallelujah. You shall be the evidence that Jesus Christ is alive. By the Holy Spirit. You will be the testimony. Not necessarily just your words, but your whole life, full of power. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is given so that the power of God can be evidence to the world that Jesus is alive and beloved. Here's a point that will be hard for some of you to receive, and I think it's important that you listen carefully on this. I believe that it's possible, in fact, it's been the experience of many of us to be born again, to have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, but to not be able to fully communicate this life of Jesus to others because We've not been overflowed with the Holy Spirit to do so. And one of these weeks I'm going to talk about the difference between indwelling and infilling and show you in the purpose of God how indwelling is given to every believer. Infilling is given to everyone who will receive for the purpose of communicating life. It's possible today that you're here and you know that the Holy Spirit lives in you. I appreciated what Fred said earlier on in his testimony. He said, I knew the Holy Spirit was in me. It's possible to be living in that realm. And you're even growing up and you're growing in your Bible knowledge and you're growing in your purity and you're growing in your stability as a Christian. But the communication of that is far short in your life. The capacity to touch others, the capacity to be a Dunamis type of person hasn't been released in your life. And I'll tell you something. You know, when you find the people that are filled with the Holy Spirit, according to the word of God, when things get tough, when hell starts breaking loose and people need a touch from God, who do they go to? They go to the people that they know are walking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit because you don't go against hell and just hope that God will work it out. I don't want to over dramatize this, but I want to tell you something, beloved. The more that God privileges me to be in the ministry, the more I realize the depths of the problems of people. And you don't come against some of the things that we confront day after day. And just like, hopefully pray well, God, if you would, it would be great if you'd help this person. You've got to come and know how to pray. Remember, Jesus was our model Son and what did God do with him? He crucified him, he sent him into hell to set the captives free. Is he going to do any less with you and me? He wants to send us against the forces of hell because he wants to give us that victory. And if you need power, the Holy Spirit is given for that sort of a thing. With me in previous years, there's a few ladies in particular that I think of who in getting to know them, I always would say to them, you know, if I ever really get in trouble and I know the enemy is attacking me, you're going to be the first one I'm going to call. Do you have people like that, beloved? I want you to know something I hope it's not just a few people in the leadership of this community. I hope you can look beside you and say, I'm going to call you when Satan comes against me. I'm going to call you when I get sick. Because I believe that you can touch God. And that's what Jesus wanted to provide. Jesus came not only to minister us to maturity, but but to mature us into ministry. And I want it to be settled that the ministry of Northway will never ever reside only in a few leaders, but it will always reside in you. Because God has supplied the power to make it happen. And if you want to be one of those people, say Amen. All right, let me conclude with five reasons why I'm convinced. I'm back to conviction. Convinced that the Holy Spirit has been given in his fullness for this day. Okay, first one. Jesus said that we were to wait for that promise. You're saying, well, that was back then. That was an historical event in the book of Acts. I mean, we are supposed to go to Jerusalem and wait around. No, but I'll tell you something. God spoke to my heart that that historical event set an eternal principle. You want to do an interesting study? You look in your Bible at the number of times that God puts waiting together with power. Those who say it wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. And he says it over and over again. Isaiah 64, 4. Another beautiful scripture just to write down if you want to look it up later. Now, I'm not saying here, and I'll talk more in detail about how we do this, that we have to go through this long agony of pleading with God for the Holy Spirit. I'm not saying that. But I am saying pause for a minute and look at your life. Are you evidencing power? And if not, it's time. And now is the time. Hallelujah. For us to look at what God's provided for power. Second, the Holy Spirit was given as an enablement for witnessing. I just can't get around what happened in the lives of Peter and John and those disciples. A cowering little group of men who were behind locked doors a few days before that, afraid that the Jews would come and throw them out and kill them too. And after the fullness of the Holy Spirit, what are they doing? You put him on the cross, they said. Hallelujah. Ever wished you could talk to someone with a conviction like that and help them to see that their sin is taking them to hell? And God transformed those men not by giving them a seminary education, but by Filling them with the Holy Spirit. Look at Acts 4:13 later. Don't look at now, but that's a reference. I've heard it said that once a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, they should be locked up for six months. Minimum. And the reason is because the dynamite is shaking inside of you. And sometimes there needs to be sensitivity with that dynamite. Have a sensitive stick. Hallelujah. God wants to minister. The third thing is it's the doorway to the supernatural. There is an absolute link in my own understanding between the fullness of the Holy Spirit and the expression of the gifts. And we'll look at that. Turn over one page to Acts, chapter two. As the Holy Spirit was given people. Peter quotes in verse 17. And in the last days it shall be God declares that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days, I will pour out my spirit. There's that phrase. And they shall prophesy. And we'll look at the link between the fullness of the Spirit and the exercise of the gifts. Prophecy, healing, deliverance, tongues, interpretation. You say, well, I don't really need those things to be a good Christian beloved. You need those things if you're to be the kind of Christian that God wants you to be. You need those things if you're to face the powers of hell. Why don't you just be honest with God and say, I don't want them? I don't really want to speak in tongues because it's going to push me over the brink. Right now there's still a measure of credibility and style to come to Northway, but if they start speaking in tongues, I just can't handle it. You talk to God about that, because I don't believe we can fight his battles on our terms only on his fourth. I believe the Holy Spirit. The fullness of the Holy Spirit is essential because it's a release of authority in our lives. All I want to say about that is it was the Holy Spirit that gave Peter, as I mentioned a moment ago, the authority of life to be able to say to these scribes and Pharisees and leaders. But the truth was they had put Jesus on the cross and there isn't a listen. You can have a purity of life and you can be a lovely Christian person and not have any authority at all. God wants both. He wants loveliness and power. A violent bride. Finally, I'm convinced of it because it's an overflow of love. I love the phrase that when people refer to their baptism in the spirit and they say it was a baptism of love. Love Romans, chapter 5 and verse 5. Hope does not disappoint. It's because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, which has been given to us, beloved. You look at those five reasons, those five points of conviction. You think about the promise. Is there one of those up there that you need today? Has there been something in what I've said this morning that's made you say, you know, lord, I need dynamic released in my life? If so, we can look together for God in these next weeks to minister his Holy Spirit to us. And I want to say this in a few moments, we're just going to conclude with a couple of songs of worship and focusing on the Lord. You don't need to wait until the end of May. You don't need to wait till Pentecost Sunday, Right? And if there's questions in your mind, it's all right to have questions. We're not going to. As I said, we're not going to ramrod you into anything. But if you know you need the power to communicate the life of Jesus, then why don't you ask for it today and let God minister to you. Let's close up and let's sing. Holy Spirit, thou art welcome in this place. That's our.