March, 2007
“The Vicar of Christ”
John 14:16-26
Acts 2:1-4
INTRODUCTION: While Jesus was here on earth the disciples would call Him aside at any time to answer a question or solve a problem. In the Upper Room, He wanted to prepare them for the time when He no longer would be personally present with them. He would be going back to heaven, would be at the right hand of God interceding for them, but He was going to leave Someone Else on earth for them and FOR US TODAY to turn to. This person is His VICAR or personal representative on earth--the Holy Spirit is the Vicar or representative of Christ.
In John 14:16, 17 Jesus made the promise, “And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Counselor (Comforter). (Parakletos) that he may be (abide) with you forever.” In this verse Jesus was looking forward to the day of Pentecost where the Holy Spirit would come in a different way from that in the Old Testament. It is true that the Holy Spirit was active in the Old Testament but He was more of a VISITOR. In Genesis 1:2 in the Creation, “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Prior to Pentecost the Holy Spirit would come UPON certain people to carry out some work on earth at a particular time. But the difference between then and now is that Jesus said the Holy Spirit was coming as a RESIDENT rather than as a VISITOR. Many references to the Spirit coming UPON people to perform certain tasks are mentioned in the Old Testament. For example in Judges 3:10 “...to JUDGE Israel.
Judges 13:25 “...Spirit of the Lord began to move [Samson] AT TIMES.
Zechariah 7:12 the spirit moved through the Old Testament prophets. The work of the Spirit was INTERMITTANT rather than CONTINUOUS.
John 14:16 says, “and I will pray the Father and he will give you another comforter that he may ABIDE WITH YOU FOREVER.”
On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit would come to dwell or live WITHIN the believer.
In I Corinthians 6:19 Paul says the Spirit shall be IN you. Scripture says, “Don’t you know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit who is IN you, whom you have received from God?”
What significance does the day of Pentecost have in our lives today? As believers in the year 2007 how does this link from the past affect us as Christians? Is it just a historic event that we read about in the book of Acts or does it personally affect our daily lives?
1. Linking the Old to the New: You might wonder why that God used the wind, fire, and tongues on the day of Pentecost to usher in the Holy Spirit. In Jewish tradition these three things were considered a sign of God’s presence, and it links the Old Covenant with the New Covenant. You will remember that Ezekiel spoke of the wind as the breath of God blowing upon the dry bones in Ezekiel (Ezk. 37:9-14). He prophesied that the breath of God would fill them with new life and they would rise as a powerful army. It was this wind of God’s Spirit that Judiasm looked forward to ushering in the final Messianic age. In the book of Acts one of the signs of the Spirit coming was the “sound of the mighty rushing wind that filled the whole house.” This symbolized to everyone there the presence of God’s Spirit among them in a way that was more personal and powerful than they had ever experienced before.
Another link between the Old Covenant and the New was the fire. Throughout the Old Testament the fire was also a symbol of the divine presence of God. First-century Jews could relate to this. The account of the Burning Bush in Exodus (3:2-5), the pillar of fire that guided Israel by night through the desert (Ex. 13:21), the consuming fire on Mt. Sinai (Ex. 24), and the fire that hovered over the wilderness tabernacle (Ex. 40:38) were all significant Old Testament events that spoke of God’s presence.
In the New Testament John the Baptist spoke of the coming of the Spirit with fire. He said in Matthew 3:11, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me...he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with FIRE.” (See Luke 3:16). Luke, in Acts, speaks of “tongues of fire.” Tongues of fire here represents the FLAMES of Fire--the visible representation of the Spirit of God.
Another thing I found that I had never noticed before is that the tongues or flames of fire SEPARATED and came to rest on each of them. Verse 3 speaks of “cloven tongues” or “divided tongues”--the flame of fire separated and came to rest upon each one of them.
What is important about this is that up until this point in history, the divine presence of God rested on Israel in a CORPORATE way or upon certain leaders for SPECIAL Purposes--under the New Covenant established by Jesus and which went into effect on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit now rests upon the BELIEVER INDIVIDUALLY. The day of Pentecost opened up for each of us INDIVIDUALLY far more than the Old Testament people experienced.
Third--the tongues. In Old Testament times prophecy was regularly associated with the Spirit’s coming upon certain persons for special purposes. In Judiasm they expected that with the coming of the Messianic Age there would be a special outpouring of God’s Spirit and that prophecy would once again flourish. This is what Luke speaks of as having taken place at Pentecost among the followers of Jesus. The tongues spoken of here were languages that people recognized. The were “other tongues” from what the disciples spoke, but they were “current languages” that were in use at the time. People from out of the area recognized the languages as their own.
You might say, “What does this have to do with me today?” It is important for us to step back in time to the traditions of the Jewish people and what they understood. They recognized the wind and the fire and the tongues as evidence of God’s presence. Maybe today we do not recognize this as readily in the experiences we draw from. But this time was a TRANSITION for them and was their starting point into the days of the Early Church.
2. The Day of Pentecost--the New and the Now: Jesus said in John 14:26, I’m going to send you another Comforter or Counselor and he is going to “TEACH you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatever I have said to you.”
In this promise Jesus lets the disciples know that there is going to be the opportunity for a personal relationship of the Holy Spirit with the individual believer.
Sometimes I think Christians feel as if they are stumbling around trying to figure out things and struggling to live up to a lot of unnecessary shoulds and oughts and all the time experiencing one failure after another. Jesus is saying to us today,”It doesn’t have to be that way because I have sent the Holy Spirit as a gift to you to help you in your struggles.” He has come to do a number of things for you and me individually:
Here are five things to think about:
1. Convicts of sin--John 16:8 says he will “convict the world of sin”
2. He will reveal truth to us--John 16:13-14
3. Help us to distinguish truth from error--I John 4:1-3
4. Frees us from the power of sin--Romans 8:2
5. Enables us to live a Holy life--Gal. 5:16
Before we even come to the Lord the Holy Spirit is constantly convicting of sin, He is drawing us to the Lord. A lot of times we ignore it and continue on in our sin. We push Him aside. It might take a long time before we decide to quit sinning and go a different way. He continues to speak and to nudge us in various ways.
He will reveal truth to us. There are so many subtle things we hear every day. Sometimes we wonder whether something is the truth or a subtle lie of the devil. How can you know for sure? Jesus said the Holy Spirit will GUIDE YOU into truth. He can steer us around error and false doctrine so that we do not fall into the traps of Satan. Many people today are following all kinds of religions--many of these man made religions have a kernel of truth in them. A lot of movies have a kernal of religious truth in them, and if you don’t know what scripture says, you can easily buy into error. I John 4:1-3 tells us to test the Spirits to see if they are from God or not. The Holy Spirit can help you to pick up on these errors that are floating around in our world today. There are a lot of things that are not specifically mentioned in the Bible. People say, “Well, it’s not mentioned in the Bible so it must be OK.” We must depend upon the Holy Spirit to put up a red flag to warn us of specific things that are not right in our culture today. We can’t always try to figure out things on our own.
One of the important things for us as individuals is that the Holy Spirit frees us from the power of sin. Do you have problems in your life that you can’t overcome? You might have actions or habits that you repeat over and over again. It is really sin and the Holy Spirit can free you from the hold it has over you. It might be ATTITUDES of the heart such as the attitude of worry and stress--these are things we often put needlessly on ourselves that we can’t lay down--they hound us day after day. The Holy Spirit can free us by bringing peace and calmness to our lives. The Holy Spirit can help us to live a holy and clean life as we learn to WALK IN THE SPIRIT daily. Paul said in Romans 7--”the things I want to do, I can’t do.” Romans 7:18 says, “...for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”
Verse 24 says, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death. Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Chapter 8 goes on to tell us that there is hope. He says in verse 2, “...because through Christ Jesus the law of the SPIRIT OF LIFE set me Free.”
verse 9, “you are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit if the Spirit of God lives in you.” The Holy Spirit that came on the day of Pentecost to live within the individual believer enables us to live the kind of life we desire to live as a Christian--a life that is holy and acceptable to God. Not a sin-filled life that we can’t get free from but an Overcoming Life of Victory.
3. What Does the Holy Spirit Mean to me Personally?: The Holy Spirit probably means different things to each of you personally depending on where you are in your walk with the Lord. If you have not come to know the Lord as your Savior, He may come to you to convict of sin and to nudge you in the ways you need to respond to the Lord. For those of you who struggle with sin in your life and cannot rise about temptations, He may come to you to break the power of habits and sins. Others may need the power and boldness that the Holy Spirit brings to give you a push out into the world in ministry. First of all we must be equipped in many ways. The Holy Spirit needs to do a work in our lives to make us ready to be God’s people in the world. This equipping and enabling power is available to each of us today. So often we are not aware of all that the Holy Spirit can do or wants to do in our individual lives. We come to church year after year and yet are not changed into the people He wants us to be. But on this historic day--Pentecost Sunday we are presented with another opportunity. Scripture in Ephesians 5:18 tells us to be “filled with the Spirit.”
Ask yourself today as you look at the Red Flame that you were given when you came in the door, what does the Holy Spirit mean to me personally? Am I filled with His Spirit in the same way that those in the upper room were that day? Have I been “clothed with power from on high” as those in the early church were as they began to move out into the world in ministry? Do I want to be filled with the Spirit?
These are questions that only you can answer. How can I be filled with His Spirit?
Luke 11:9-13 gives us an answer:
9 "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
10 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?
12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
(NIV)
We must have a DESIRE to be filled with His Holy Spirit. We must ASK-SEEK-KNOCK. It must be a PRIORITY with us. We must believe that we RECEIVE when we ask because it is His desire to give us this gift. The Vicar of Christ is here today for us. What is your response today to the Vicar of Christ--the Holy Spirit?
Shall we pray:
