The Wind Beneath Our Wings I, Spirit-Filled or Spirit-Fooled

The announcement that Jesus came and said, I will build my church. And when he had his baptism there in Matthew chapter 3, did you notice that it says that the heavens were opened and the Spirit came upon him. Now I want us to see the parallel between Matthew 3 and Acts chapter 2. Recall, won't you, that when we get to Acts chapter 2 that the disciples had already experienced the cross and the resurrection, true? They had already been partied to those events. Their lives had already been touched by those events. They were fully alive in the power of the hope of seeing Jesus risen from the dead. But now Jesus himself said, that's not all. And I want to stop right now and grab a couple of your ears. Because it strikes me as no small thing that in most of Christian circles tonight, 1992, April the 1st, in most Christian circles, that is all they talk about. That is all there is. It's the cross and the resurrection, and very little attention is given to what Jesus said after his resurrection was to wait for power from on high. And so a massive portion of Christendom today stops at the point of the cross and the resurrection and feels good about sharing it with people and that's all wonderful, but that's not what Jesus had to do. Jesus said, now wait for power from on high. Because that's the provision that he's going to give in order to make the cross and the resurrection come to life. What does this all mean to us now? I mean in the real world, in everyday living, and not in some spiritual fantasy land. What does it mean to live a powerfully authentic life in the world where we are penetrating and transforming it through his grace on us? I had a great conversation with an executive who works downtown and he was saying, he sits on the board of a rather large corporation and he said he'd been put on the spot because the corporation wanted to do business on Sundays. And he was the lone dissenting voice on the corporate board for not doing business on Sunday. Financially it made sense, more revenues and all the rest, and he said, you know, I had a chance, I stood up and I said, you know, but for the sake of our employees and for sake of honoring their convictions and so, we ought to remain closed. And he said, you know, it was silent there for a while and the board voted, they'll stay closed on Sunday. Wow. I said, that's penetrating the culture that's being salt and light right where you are. See, the church, and here in Acts chapter 2, on its birthday, had some very visible birthmarks. How many of you have birthmarks? No, don't put your hand up. I mean, well, how many of you have birthmarks you can talk about? Okay. Well, the church had some birthmarks and what we're going to see tonight is, if we're part of that church, I mean, if we were born into that family and we share the same heritage, we should also share some of those birthmarks, don't you think? Otherwise, it may be said of us that we don't have a full family resemblance with those who preceded us in the family of God and I think it's very important. Now, let's examine this parallel just a little bit more between Jesus' experience in the River Jordan and his pronouncement about the fact that he would build his church and what happened here in Acts chapter 2 when the church was born. On your teaching outline, let's look down to Roman numeral 1, the parallel. All right? Now, can we flash those up, please? Matthew chapter 3, the heavens were opened. You see that? Look at Acts chapter 2. It says, suddenly a sound from heaven. See that parallel? All right, back to Matthew chapter 3, and the Spirit descended on him like a dove. What's the next thing? Acts chapter 2, the Bible says that the Spirit came upon each of them. Do you see that little bit of a parallel there? Heavens were opened, sounds from heaven, Spirit descended, Spirit descended. You see, some similarities are taking place. Now, what does it mean when the Bible says that Jesus saw the heavens open? Does that mean he looked up and saw the glassy sea and the golden streets and the pearly gates? Is that what he saw? Probably not. When the Bible talks about the heavens, I've shared before, there's at least three heavens in the Scriptures. And the one most commonly referred to is the other realm, right alongside of the realm that we see and hear and live in. How many of you are physics majors in college? I thought so. Not a single person. I mean, it's got to be pretty weird, right? But advanced physics will tell you that there are other dimensions of reality out there. In fact, I was reading an article a lot too long that said there may be as many as ten other realms, dimensions that we just haven't discovered yet, but there's reason to believe that there's other things going on. Well, Jesus, you see, saw that other realm that overlaps with this one and sometimes intersects with it. That's when what we call a miracle happens, isn't it? In that other realm, lots of things are happening. One thing that's happening right here tonight in that other realm that's right alongside of us, there are angels here. I love that song we sang tonight, didn't you? I hear the brush of angels. How many of you believe in angels? How many of you have seen one? How many of you are married to one? I thought so. Boy, if your hand didn't go up, you missed a golden opportunity, but anyhow, angels. You know, Billy Graham in his book, Angels, said that he believes there's at least two assigned to every Christian, at least two. You know, for Billy Graham, who's a wonderful man, but pretty conservative, that's pretty significant. He said the reason he said that is because the Bible says he will give his angels charge over thee. And so, you see, it's not our job to worry about angels or to commune with them or try to figure them out. In fact, it's probably their job to try to figure us out, don't you think? I mean, that's the way it looks to me. They're probably, why do they do that now? Okay? But angels are in the heavenlies, and that realm overlaps with this realm, and that's what Jesus was seeing on that day. The Bible says the heavens were opened in Matthew 3, torn open, all right? And when that happened, the word for tearing is a word of violence. You know, if I took my shirt now and ripped it, you know, you can hear it. And there was an invasion then, you see. There was an invasion of that realm into this realm. The kingdom of God was coming into the kingdom of man. And the Bible says suddenly there was a sound from heaven. It wasn't like, you know, some heavenly sound man was up there going, and now there will be glory. We had to do that to wake up a couple people. Hey, this is Wednesday night, right? I mean, we just keep going along here. But the sound was a literal thing. The sound that we read about in Acts chapter 2 was a literal thing. There was a breaking in of the heavenly kingdom into the earthly kingdom. Look at Acts chapter 2, and look at verse 6. It says, When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment. All right? So there was sound going on here. There was a fire, and then there were tongues that were happening as well. But this initial sound wasn't the sound of tongues. The initial sound was the sound like a mighty rushing wind. Not a mighty rushing wind, but like one. I mean, kind of like we heard here a little bit earlier tonight. I mean, just something nondescript, but happening. This invasion was real. Now the key issue is this. Let me get down to the key issue here for you tonight. Does it make any impact on you at all to realize that when Jesus was baptized, the heavens were opened, and the Spirit descended on his life, something began to happen in him? What began right after this incident? Jesus went out into the desert, and he came back, and began his ministry for the Holy Spirit. And all of us love to read about what Jesus did in his ministry. I mean, the tenderness of God's love through him. The forgiveness that he extended to unmerited sinners. The healing touch. The deliverance that he brought. The authority with which he ruled over satanic powers. I mean, we love all those things, but do we recognize that it all began here? Now, do you see where I'm taking this? If that's true for Jesus, if it all happened for him at that point of the baptism, and the Holy Spirit falling upon him, how many of you believe maybe it's sort of important that we also receive that same enablement from God in the same way that God gave it to Jesus, so that we, too, can begin to do the works of God in the way that Jesus did them? See, the Father is saying this in my humble estimation. He's saying, what happened with my firstborn son, I want for all my adopted sons and daughters as well. Very important. You see, this whole thing about the fullness of the Spirit isn't so I can have an experience and be more spiritual. It's not so I can fit someone's doctrine and join a church. I was speaking with a person just recently who said, well, you know, do I have to speak in tongues to join your church? I said, no. We welcome people to come to be part of our life here. I would say if you don't believe that Jesus was the Son of God, this probably isn't a good church for you. But speaking in tongues, no. We don't want to set up a doctrinal standard for people to jump over and things that the Bible says are, you know, there's just some differences there, which we'll talk about in a moment. But the point is the Holy Spirit was given so that we might minister in power and freedom and liberty. Now, notice, number two, that Jesus said, I will build my church. It's his pronouncement, Roman numeral two on your outline. And it's here that Jesus begins this mission of building the church. All right, first He redeemed the church with His own blood. Then He released it and accomplished His redemption. And now He's saying, I'm going to equip you with the Holy Spirit. Use this analogy. The cross and the resurrection are the heart of the church, of redemption. But see that the baptism of the Spirit is the system whereby God releases that life flow on throughout the body and the world around us. It's like the heart. Yeah, you have to have the cross and the resurrection. That's the heart of it all. But the system by which it gets taken out is the fullness of the Spirit and Jesus speaking His powerful pronouncement that He's going to build His church. Remember that the disciples were never called just to be learners. But to be more than that, they were called to be agents of life. And one thing that just troubles me, gosh, I want to say this understandingly. So many people seem to want to keep being fed. I mean, being a disciple, in their minds, is I have to be more fed and more fed and more fed and more fed. And I've always discovered that the Holy Spirit's very happy to feed me as long as I keep giving out. I know I keep emptying out, and He just keeps filling up. I've never had a problem with being fed. I don't mean as a judgment on someone here tonight who's feeling real dry. But one of the keys to being fed is to get hungry. And you get hungry by just giving something of what God's giving you. Now when Jesus said in this pronouncement, I will build my church, Matthew 16, 18, the word for church there is the word ekklesia, or to be called out. That was a Greek term, to be called out of the old and into the new. It was a term that was used of those who were called out of the old systems of government and into a new empowerment to serve as agents of the Roman government that was being established. And so Jesus didn't accidentally pick this word. What He was saying was those who are in my church, the church I'm going to build, they're ekklesia. They're called out and empowered. And dear ones, how many of you believe that you're in this church because God's called you out and has empowered you to be an agent, a representative of the kingdom? I mean, I hope you live with that. It's a calling on your life, not just call to learn, but call to go and spread the life and power wherever they go. Now this announcement that I will build my church happened six months before Pentecost that we're reading here tonight. And so let's keep those four things in order, the cross, the resurrection, preceded by the baptism, and the pronouncement. But Jesus is saying, I want you to come to the cross and experience forgiveness. I want you to know the power of the resurrection and the assurance that it gives. I want you to know the outpouring of the Spirit through your life so that I can make you an agent and build my church through you. Now let's get down specifically to what happens when we open to that parallel experience. Acts chapter 2, look at it carefully. It says, as the Spirit came, it filled the whole house where they were sitting. I believe it's the desire of the Lord tonight to fill your house. What does that mean? Well, the Greek word oikos for house means four things. Why don't you write these down? It means your dwelling. It means your family. It means your vocation. Or it means your realm of influence. Clearly, the Holy Spirit wants to come and fill the place where we are here. I mean, how many believe God wants to fill his church, this church? I mean, if he doesn't, we're in serious trouble. Obviously, he wants to fill this house. But he also wants to fill your dwelling place. And let's talk individually about his purpose in your life. He wants to fill your dwelling place, you, the temple of the Holy Spirit. He wants to fill you. He wants to fill the place where you live. And I want to ask tonight, very honestly, is the Holy Spirit filling the place where you live? Has he filled your house? How would you know if he has? Because you have a plaque on there that says, Holy Spirit is welcome in this house. How would you know? How do you know if he's filling this house, your heart, this temple? Well, I see three things here in the Scriptures that might certainly be evidence. There's going to be a sound of some kind, right? Doesn't it say that? Then there's going to be some kind of fire going on. And there's going to be some kind of speech. See, the purpose of the Holy Spirit was to invade the places where we are. See, listen. The difference between being spirit-filled and spirit-fooled is that when you think that just all the Holy Spirit is meant to do is to come so you can be here on Wednesday night and have a message at the end of the service, or that you can walk around being like more another planet as you want, the Holy Spirit's given so you can live life more powerfully, so you can live right on target with the needs that are out there. When you need a touch of power, a touch of grace, you know how to tap into it. And the Holy Spirit wants to invade where you live. He wants to invade your family, your vocation. How many of you believe that where you work is God's mission field for you? That is a very profound thought, isn't it? I hope you see it that way. And just could it be that the Lord, the Spirit, wants to fill your house of vocational employment? That's a wild thought, isn't it? Can you see God filling USX? Big job. God filling the Ponderosa Steakhouse. But really, did you know that when it says in the Bible oikos and means vocation, many times in Middle Eastern cultures, enterprises were called the house of something. Who remembers what this building was called when we bought it? What? The Bradley House. Bradley House of Catering. Now the Holy Spirit fills this house. He wants to fill the house, the place where you live, the place of your heart, the place of your employment, the place of your influences, your neighbor, the clerk that you see at the supermarket. You see, if he's flowing through you, he's going to touch these lives. And when the Spirit comes, there's going to be three specific things. A mighty sound as the heavens are open, a flame, which we'll talk about in a moment, and the spiritual language, your tongues. Let me talk about those three things, because that's how you know if the Spirit's in a place. Let's first of all talk about this sound as we kind of draw to a conclusion here, all right? What is the sound of the Spirit? What's the dominating sound? Roman numeral I here in this last portion. OK, actually it's three ways the Spirit fills our house. What's the dominant sound in your house? Well, remember now, remember, when the Spirit began to fall, Acts chapter 2, what did the people out there hear? They heard this sound like a mighty rushing wind, a sound. And I want to say, I'm going to get real practical here for those of you who are teenagers, perhaps you'll plug into this point. I feel personally that there is a very great struggle in our culture for the domination of sound. I mean, to get mankind's attention through sound, just through sound. I mean, what sounds dominate your life? Have you ever had the experience like I did a few weeks ago of pulling up to a traffic light on McKnight Road, just sitting there innocently? And this little pickup truck with smoked windows so I couldn't see in, and a little tonneau cover in the back. And he came up, and it was this boom, ba-ba, boom, ba-ba. And I mean, you know, my car's shaking, and the car on the other side of me's shaking. I mean, have you ever had that happen? Was he marking me for something? I mean, powerful. I mean, there's other, I've seen this a lot. And you know, it's a big deal. Or go down to Three Rivers Stadium or the Civic Arena for one of these concerts and see the massive towers of speakers out there. You know? Or go to the Hell Spa, like I tried to do today, and see the people with the speakers in their ears, pumping sound in their head. Now, I don't want to sound like some kind of a prudish preacher type that's against music and all that. I mean, I'm not against stuff. But I believe that the sounds we listen to shape us. And if you listen to the wrong sounds long enough, it's going to have an impact on your life. And it's going to dominate you. And we need to be very careful what we let permeate our house, parents. We want the Holy Spirit to be there. You better give place to his sounds. I mean, even the TV. Let's talk about that one for a minute. When's the last time you had the sounds of whining and crying in your home, as the soap operas came blaring through? I mean, again, I don't want to be picky. I mean, last night, I had a classic. We sat down, there was four of us, I think, for dinner last night. One of the kids wasn't there. And we had a great opportunity for some family time. And I let the sound, why is it always that we eat at 619 when the sports come on, you know? I let the sound of the sports invade that family time. And kids picked up on it right away. They ate and left. I mean, we don't got to talk. Why do we do that? I don't know. Sounds are really important. How about the sound of praise? Can that be heard in your house pretty often? Interesting story out of Vietnam. A number of prisoners of war have come back. They became Christians there. And one of them writes in a book about the effort he was undertaking to maintain camaraderie and support between the prisoners. And they do things like sending signals through the walls and that kind of thing. But he writes in his book that the most violent reaction that they ever received when they were trying to communicate and build a sense of support for each other was always when they would sing. And when they sang, it was always a hymn. He said, that's when the captors beat us into oblivion. He said, it was almost as if the spirit that we were introducing in our song of praise was counteracting head on the spirit that was seeking to destroy them and beat them. It's no surprise to me that I still hear regularly from people who come here to North Way how uncomfortable they are when we praise. I mean, I go through this so often. The sound of praise is still hard for some people to get comfortable. Why? Because it's stirring up something inside there that's resisting what God wants to do many times. So spirit-filled songs should have a place in our lives, in our homes, in our cars, and where we work if we can. It's very important. Second, let's talk about the second sign, which is the flames. It says, it seemed to be as tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. Now, this is in direct fulfillment to Isaiah chapter 4, where the Bible says that there would come a day when the glory of God, as seen in the fire, rested over every home, just like it did over the tabernacle, and the temple, and the Old Testament. And fire is a very easy picture in the Bible. It means at least two things. It means purity and warmth. Spirit-filled people, when you're full of the Spirit, not only do you have the sounds of God, but you also live purely by God's power. And you live with a certain warmth and graciousness. And can I say one of the signs to me that's just sort of a tip off that someone's not full of the Spirit is when they're arrogant, when they're putting someone down, when they're prideful. I mean, that's not spirit-filled living. When the fire of the Holy Spirit's on a life, there's a certain humility. There's a certain sense of submission to the things of the Lord, and a graciousness toward people that comes as a byproduct. To me, that's as much a sign of the fullness of the Spirit as anything. And when someone's sort of arrogantly waiving their spirituality, or their gifts, or whatever, that's not Holy Spirit living, is it? As much as being able to love with a pure heart. Third thing, third sign, third evidence, rather, of the Spirit's fullness is speech. And this is the one that some of you came to hear about tonight. They spoke with other tongues. Now, you all know that throughout this century particularly, the last half of this century, there's been an incredibly heated controversy about this matter of tongues. You see, as the Spirit of God continues to restore to the Church what was true at its birth of power and manifestation, it's been the inclination of a sincere, but I think, fear-driven group of people to contain and limit the activity of the Holy Spirit. Because what happens when you invite the Holy Spirit into a situation? Who is in control? He is, isn't he? And dear ones, are you like me? I don't like to be out of control. I mean, in that sense. Sometimes, you get the picture of being out of control is like when you blow up a balloon and then let it go. And that's not what I mean when I say out of control. I'm saying turning over control. And so people like that, they just want to put safe limits around the Spirit of God and say, don't invade my humility. I'll just be where I am. They're afraid to be broken before the Lord. And many times, they're afraid that if they would speak in tongues, that suddenly they couldn't live with that stigma, because in their minds, it's been associated with people that they didn't like or something that was unpleasant to them. Now, on the other side of the coin, in some circles, tongues becomes a doctrinal issue. And I've mentioned this. Unless you speak with tongues, you're not one of us. Now, how many think that's a great attitude? I can't think, I mean, I can't defend that the Bible says that. Can you see that any place? And I have to say to you, I have seen people, I know people who told me they were filled with the Spirit. They acted like it, their life lined up, and they didn't speak in tongues yet. And I'm not gonna stand here and say, oh, no, you're not filled with the Spirit because you don't speak in tongues. So it's sort of a dilemma, isn't it, on both sides? And that side, we don't wanna shut people off, but neither do we wanna say that, well, it doesn't matter, because it does matter. The fullness of the Spirit and speaking in tongues does matter. It is a gift that we've been given to share. And I feel the reason why God wants to put the miracle of tongues on our lips is twofold. Let me close with this, two things. The first thing that the gift of tongues enables us to do is to praise God. Who was it that wrote, oh, for a thousand tongues to sing? Methodists, who was it? Charles Wesley. I mean, there should come a time in your life like it does in mine when my English or my native language isn't adequate. I run out of things. I mean, God gets tired of hearing me say, oh, Lord, you're so wonderful. And so you just overflow. And that's why the Apostle Paul, who's the great defender of doctrine in the New Testament, that's why he wrote this. This always used to crack me up. Fellow seminary students would say, ooh, I don't know about speaking in tongues, for the early days, not for now. And Paul says it's the least of the gifts. And Paul says that it shouldn't be exercised. And Paul said, I also speak with tongues more than you all. 1 Corinthians 14, what? So a good case for it being okay, right? But there's another reason why I believe the Lord would have us all to speak in tongues. And that is that I need a miracle on this tongue every day of my life. I need it so that I can speak to this lady in a loving and gentle way, and to my kids in a way that lifts them up and doesn't cut them down. I need it so that I have something to say to people who ask me, what is this faith that you have? And what's it all about? I need it so that I can be edifying and not destructive in relationships. I need it just for the way I converse. I need to have that sense that God's touched my tongue. Do you understand that? It says in the Bible that the power of life and death is in the tongue. And if God could do a miracle in my tongue, maybe some life could come, and not always the death that I seem to have on there. And one reason I speak in tongues every day is because I want there to be life coming out of here. Sometimes. I need it. You know, some of you couples that struggle sometimes with your words to each other, why not try 15 good minutes of speaking in tongues together? Just praying quietly together in tongues. It might transform what comes out of here that's been so destructive in your life. If anything, I need to speak in tongues as a reminder of everything I'm not, not how great I am. It doesn't make me any better than anyone else. Interesting, I did an interview for a reporter a couple months ago who was pressing about what North Way believed. And they said, you know, they got onto this and said, well, do you speak in tongues? And they were waiting for my answer, you know. Like it makes me important or better. I said, you know, I do, but it doesn't make me any better than anybody else. It just reminds me of what I'm not. I'm not able on my own. And so why be filled with the Spirit? Why come to the Holy Spirit and say, come to the Lord Jesus and say, Lord, fill me with the Holy Spirit tonight? Because I want to have the sound and the sight of heaven. I want to see that other realm. I want to know it. Number two, I want the flame of God. I want His purity and warmth in my life. And number three, I want to have that language in me, that spiritual gift, that language of tongues that works a miracle and transforms what comes out of here. And I think those are three good reasons for everyday 1992 Christians, don't you? I mean, those are things I need just to live. I need to see beyond sight. You know, I need to see really what's happening at HOP Lumber or with my neighbor across the street who thinks, you know, weird people over there. I mean, I need to see the unseen as I plan for what North Way is going to become in the coming years. I need the fire of His purity in my heart, don't you? I mean, folks, sorry about this, but you know, I am not Mr. Purity without God. I'm inclined to sin. I know you're not, but I'm inclined to sin. And I sure need His warmth and graciousness in my life. And I need that tongue. That's why I say tonight, come and be filled. You say, well, I have a lot of questions. Well, bring them to Jesus. Funny thing happened. I mean, every time someone came and asked Jesus in faith, guess what happened to them? They received. You couldn't battle with this more than I did. I mean, I had every hand that had a name on it laid on me. Okay? I mean, I waited in every line. I had every oil there was, you know? I mean, I had imported everything because I was really looking for this thing. And I finally realized, wait a minute. And the reason I took so much time to parallel those two things with you tonight, I finally realized I wasn't creating something new. Jesus had had this same thing. And the Bible says when He was resurrected and ascended at the right hand of the Father, He poured out the gift of the Spirit. And all I need to do is receive it. I'll never forget, I read a little book called The Gift Is Already Yours. I read that book after two years of going to every meeting and every place and simple little prayer at night and little church choir loft and boom. Now you say, well, what if I pray and there's no boom? Well, I had a little boom, but I had a lot of faith and my faith grew. Tonight, we're gonna pray for, any of you who'd like to be prayed for? And if it's a little boom, just say, Lord, that's all I need. If it's no boom at all and you just believe, God says, I'll be there for you. I'll touch you. Let's stand together. Lord Jesus, thank you that you were baptized to fulfill all righteousness and receive the Spirit of power. And then Lord, you said, you're gonna build your church. And Lord, likewise, we wanna have those same birthmarks. We wanna be baptized in the Spirit. And we wanna live a life that's full of the marks of God, of the sounds of heaven and the fire of the Spirit, God, and the speech, the miracle speech that you put on our lips. We bless your holy name tonight.