Sermon: "THE SPIRIT FILLED CHRIST" Anderson
Isaiah 42:1-7; Acts 10:34-38; Luke 3:15-22
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Three excerpts from each of the lessons for
today inform this message. First, from the
inspired prophet Isaiah, speaking of the
coming Messiah, "I will put my Spirit on
Him." In Acts, the apostle Peter says of
Christ, "...God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and power." Finally,
from the trustworthy account of Luke, "the
Holy Spirit descended upon [Jesus] in bodily
form, as a dove..." THESE ARE YOUR WORDS,
HEAVENLY FATHER, sanctify us in Your Truth,
Your Word is everlasting Truth. Amen.
BELOVED BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CHRIST,
Grace, Mercy and Peace be yours because you
are empowered by the Holy Spirit to live
Godly lives that bear there mercies, and many
more. Amen.
Pastor Fred often makes fun of my
Scandinavian background-- and I would say
this even if he were here today! And if he
were here today, and heard what I am about to
say, he would mumble to himself, "It
figures."
There was a time when I was a bit confused
about the presence of the Holy Spirit in the
ministry of Christ. Maybe this is simply
because I am Norwegian, or perhaps there are
some Germans that have been a little confused
about this same thing.
In a movie about two mountain men, the two
mountaineers were discussing how they get
around in the mountains. The one suggested
that the other might have gotten lost. To
this the second feisty mountaineer replied,
"Lost! I’ve never been lost! Fiercely
confused for a month or two... but I’ve never
been LOST!"7
Well, for those who might be “fiercely
confused” about the place of the Holy Spirit
in Christ’s ministry, I want to explore what
the Bible seems to suggest in this area.
The first thing we see is that the Holy
Spirit begins a very definite presence in the
three year ministry of Christ. Matthew,
Mark, and Luke all record that the Holy
Spirit came to be physically seen as Christ
began His active ministry.
Clearly God wanted to make evident the
mysterious presence of the Holy Spirit within
our Lord’s Ministry. In fact, when Jesus
leaves the Jordan to go into his 40 days of
testing and temptation, Matthew and Mark say
he was led by the Holy Spirit into the
wilderness, and Luke says it even more
boldly, introducing his wilderness experience
with the phrase, "And Jesus, full of the Holy
Spirit..."
NOW HERE IS WHERE THINGS CAN GET DIFFICULT...
OR FIERCELY CONFUSING. If Jesus is God, then
why does He need the Holy Spirit, who is also
God? The Bible says that the Holy Trinity
shares all characteristics of power,
knowledge, holiness, and the like mutually.
If this is true, why did there seem to be a
need for the Holy Spirit in the ministry of
Christ?
The clue to answering this question is
recorded by the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit in the book of Philippians. Listen to
how Christ entered into the womb of the
virgin Mary-- “Your attitude should be the
same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being
in very nature God, did not consider equality
with God something to be grasped, 7 but made
himself nothing, taking the very nature of a
servant, being made in human likeness.”
(Philippians 2 NIV)
The Apostle Paul is encouraging the
Philippians to have a mind-set like Christ--
a noble desire for all of us. But the phrase
I want to call your attention to is this:
"Who, being in very nature God, did not
consider equality with God something to be
grasped, but made himself nothing..."
THIS IS A POWERFUL STATEMENT, but we must
unpack it from the original Greek to see its
awesome significance.
The phrase rendered "something to be grasped"
comes from one Greek word. At the time of
Paul, it meant a prize or windfall which was
immediately ours!
When our church school basketball teams have
recently received trophies for winning
various levels of competition, you could see
their enthusiasm as the players couldn’t wait
to get a hand on the trophy and hold it up--
THE PRIZE WAS THEIRS!
The prize which Christ would win for us was
not to be taken by His coming in glory, as
the Jews of His time expected. No, Jesus
would come by way of a cattle shed, nurtured
in a humble carpenter’s house, and then die
the death of a criminal on the cross.
Paul continues by telling us that Son of God
was "made nothing"--other translator’s use
the phrase "emptied Himself"-- a better
translation, and I want to come back to this
point.
But before developing what it means for
Christ to have "emptied" Himself, note what
He emptied Himself to become... He took on
the form of a servant.
This word ‘form’ is very important to
correctly understanding the text. It means
that Jesus did not merely "appear to be" a
human and a servant. The text tells us He
actually BECAME a human and a servant. The
word ’form’ in the Greek means to become
something essentially. As Paul tells us in
Hebrews, "In all things it pleased [Christ]
to be made like His brethren..."
Jesus, not seeking to take hold of His glory
as the Son of God and in that way defeat our
enemies, He instead actually became a human
servant to accomplish God’s will. But how
did he become human?
God’s divine attributes-- infinite in every
way!-- would have swallowed up our Lord’s
puny humanity!
After all, if you poured a glass of wine into
the vast oceans and let it slosh together,
what of the wine could be tasted if you took
some of the ocean water to your lips? Only
the taste of salt water would remain!
How could Jesus, as God, really appreciate
our temptations if within Himself He always
had His infinite power... His infinite
knowledge... His total authority? Only
Christ’s deity would seem to remain!
The answer to the problem is disclosed from
the mysterious wisdom of God Himself. The
Son of God would empty Himself of these
great, divine attributes. He would no longer
have infinite power and infinite knowledge.
But how then, one might ask, did Jesus read
hearts, heal bodies, still storms, and raise
the dead? These are powers reserved to God.
The answer lies in the presence of the Holy
Spirit.
The murky water of the Crow River flows
through downtown Hutchinson. In the center
of the city the corp of engineers has built a
dam. Water flows over the damn until the
coldest part of winter.
The dam has a flood gate. It can be opened to
let a great deal of water through the dam, or
it can be closed shutting down the water flow
completely. Using the flood gate, the amount
of water coming through the dam is easily
controlled.
In the ministry of Christ, the Holy Spirit
served as a flood gate, allowing Jesus to
draw upon His divine powers as they were
needed, while protecting His humanity from
the greatness of His divinity.
How do we know this? Matthew and Luke tell
us about a time when Jesus cast out a demon
from a man, and the religious authorities
claimed that our Lord did it by the power of
the devil.
It is very insightful to note our Lord’s
response. He tells these Jewish authorities
that sins against the Son of Man can be
forgiven, but sin against the Holy Spirit can
not be forgiven.
Clearly our Lord implies that the power
behind his miracle was not Satan, not even
His own divinity, but the Holy Spirit. Jesus
Christ, true man and God, was Spirit filled.
Understanding the work of the Holy Spirit
within Christ’s ministry answers lots of
questions. If Jesus had full access to his
divine powers,
...why would the Holy Spirit need to lead Him
into the wilderness?
...why would Jesus ask before His death by
crucifixion if there were another way other
than the cross?
...why would He say that only the Father
knows when the Second Coming will be?
...why would Moses and Elijah need to come to
help strengthen Jesus during the
Trasfiguration?
I’d also like to think that Jesus had a
childhood like other children. Yes he was
perfect, but I’d like to think He was also a
child who kicked stones, tickled, and
laughed. I can’t imagine a seven year old
child thinking of dying by crucifixion and
still being a human child.
There are a number of theologians who believe
that the knowledge of how his three year
ministry was opened up to Jesus by the Holy
Spirit during his forty days of temptation.
If this is true, than how much more powerful
the temptation that Satan placed before
Jesus. God the Father was sending him to a
horrid death on a cross, and the devil would
give Him the world! Wow! Think about it.
What does this mean for us?
First of all, you received the Holy Spirit in
your baptisms. There’s no question but that
the Holy Spirit is at work within you.
At the same time, however, it is possible for
us to frustrate the work of the Holy Spirit
within our lives. We can do this by:
...turning our back upon God’s direction in
our lives as we lead worldly lives. We are
warned against doing this in the sixth
chapter of Romans.
...not accepting the Holy Spirit’s presence
in our lives. We are warned against this in
the fifth chapter of Galatians.
...we can also frustrate the Holy Spirit by
not giving credit to His work within our
lives; and we are reminded of this in Philp.
2:13.
Our Lord became a servant, and did mighty
things by the power of the Holy Spirit. He
then invited us to become servants... to deny
our selves and become cross-bearers.
But He also gave us a promise. He told us
that we would do mighty works by the power of
the Holy Spirit.
IF you are ever asked by someone if you are
Spirit filled, the answer is a resounding
YES! May God grant that through His Holy
Spirit we at St. Peter’s might not simply be
Spirit filled, but Spirit LED. Amen.
