Last week we talked about walking
in the Spirit, which we defined as a daily and lifetime pursuit to imitate
Christ in our thoughts, minds and actions. But that is not all. If walking in
the Spirit is all up to us, then God does nothing. If it were all up to God,
then we do nothing. Walking in the Spirit is a cooperation between us and God.
Walking in the Spirit is also walking under his power and control.
We cannot see God. For that
reason, we lean heavily on what we can see, not what we can’t see. We can see our bank statements, our
membership numbers, and our building facilities, so we assume that what we can
see is all there is. We want physical evidence for what we can see and make our
plans based on what is before us. But we leave out the power of the Holy
Spirit.
We divide God from ourselves,
make Him an impersonal force, not a living friend. Our tradition emphasizes the
transcendence—or otherness—of God. Our vision of God is like watching a parade
roll by. We wave at God as He passes us, and He waves at us, but only impersonally.
God is high above us; so all we can do is pursue Him. But we forget that we can
also know Him, talk with Him, and walk with Him. We keep the Spirit at a
distance, and instead embrace the methods and knowledge of the World.
But God is so much more than
an impersonal goal. When we walk in the Spirit, the Spirit of God is within us.
As we walk with Him, He lives in us. No one can come to Christ without the Holy
Spirit. He convicts us of sin. He gives us faith. By Him we are born again.
But we can—and often do—live
daily without any recognition of the presence of the Holy Spirit living in us.
This is understandable, of course. Since the Holy Spirit is invisible, we often
overlook Him. It’s like watching a play. We see the actors on the stage, but we
don’t see the stagehands and the director working hard in the wings to make the
play happen. In the same way, we see the human agents of the Spirit on earth,
and attribute all that happens to human action, without recognizing that it is
the Spirit working behind the scenes.
Walking in the Spirit is not
just than pursuing God. It is also walking with God, under His command and in
His power. The more we submit to God, the more He is able to work through
us.
The first thing we must learn
if we are going to walk in the power of the Spirit is to submit to His command.
In Acts 1, Jesus is sharing a
few last words with His disciples before He ascends to heaven. His disciples
think they already know everything. They know—or at least they think they
know—that God is going to restore the Kingdom. Just a short while before, Jesus
had given them their marching orders, in the Great Commission in Matthew 28. Now,
the disciples are ready to go into action.
They ask Him in verse 6, “Lord, will you at this
time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7
Jesus answered, “It
is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own
authority.” In
other words, Jesus says it is none of their business when the Father is going
to restore the kingdom.
We can’t
stand to be told something is none of our business, especially from God. It
makes us nervous. If we knew when God were to restore the kingdom, then we
could prepare for it. We like deadlines, because we can work towards those
deadlines. But Jesus refuses to give them this crucial bit of information that
would allow them to plan for the future. Without plans, they don’t know how to
proceed. When we have a plan, we know we have control.
But God doesn’t want us in
control. In order for God to work in us, the Holy Spirit must have control. Submission
to God is essential. A man cannot ride a horse that is not broken, neither can
God use a man or woman who is not broken and submissive to His will. But when
we learn to submit--what miracles, what power, hope, and love is present! When the Holy Spirit is operating in our
lives and in our church, there is so much more that we can do, than when we
merely operate in our own strength. We receive God’s power, operating through
us, leading us, shaping us, and empowering us.
Let me illustrate with three
personal events which happened to me shortly after I became a Christian. The
first time in my life I was aware of the power of the Holy Spirit working
through me was when I was a counselor at a Billy Graham Crusade. I was only
sixteen, and not capable of counseling anyone, and I was full of my own doubts and
questions about God. A girl from my high school responded to the invitation,
and some friends pulled me over to talk with her. As I started talking with her, I soon
recognized that the answers I gave weren’t coming from me. I was aware of God
speaking through me. Whenever I wanted to go off and mention my own doubts or
crackpot theories, the Spirit would prevent me. God would not let me get off
course. I was quoting Scripture I was not aware that I even knew. I felt as if
someone else had taken over my voice, speaking to her through me. I am
convinced that the Holy Spirit had taken over and was using me.
The second time came my
freshman year in college. I was working with a group of Christians who were
starting a church in a small town in Kentucky.
As we walked the streets I noticed sick people all around me. My mind churched with a nagging question—why
do Christians not regularly see people healed? The need for it is still there,
but God’s power doesn’t seem to be there. Maybe (I thought) we don’t see
because we don’t ask. I prayed to God--let me see if you still heal today.
That evening there was a
prayer meeting in my dorm. I shared what I had prayed with my dorm mates. One
student there had had a knee injury, and the others asked me to try it out by
praying for him. As I prayed I felt the bones move back into place in his knee.
Something happened I could not explain rationally, but that power was real.
The
third time I felt the power came just a few months later. I had just broken up
with two girls in a month—or rather, they broke up with me! I was feeling very,
very low. But even so, I remember reading John 4, how Jesus said that the
Spirit within us is like a spring of living water, coming from within. In spite
of my emotional distress, I became aware that there was another emotion—a
feeling of joy that was present within, in spite of my emotional hurt,
springing up from a hidden well inside. I came to understand that when I needed
it, it was still there. The hurts of the moment might obscure it, but they did
not hide it. It still remained inside.
These three personal illustrations
each describe a different aspect of the Holy Spirit power.
He give us ability to lead, and
power to speak. In Acts 1:8 Jesus tells
us that we receive power when the Holy Spirit comes, and that we will be
witnesses. In Matthew 10: 19-20 Jesus
says, “When they deliver
you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for
what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For
it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
The Holy Spirit gives us
power to do miracles. In John 14: 12-14, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to
you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works
than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever
you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the
Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”
I do not have much agreement
with so-called faith healers and miracle workers, who try to impress people on
a stage with their Spiritual gifts. Healing and miracles are not a sideshow
act. We don’t control the miracles of God—but it is the Spirit who controls us.
The Holy Spirit is not a superpower. We work
in submission to Him, not the other way around. But the Holy Spirit still works
miracles through us, and bringing works of healing and deliverance, and is even
able to bend time and space if necessary to do the will of the Father is very
real. Miracles happen regularly when the
Holy Spirit is allowed to be in control.
The Holy Spirit also brings
inner joy and transforming our motivation emotional. Every time a Christian
prays for boldness, he or she is praying for emotional change, because boldness
is an emotion.
The Holy Spirit changes other
emotions as well. He gives us hope--that’s
the greatest one. He brings us inner joy, which is independent of circumstances. He grants us the gift of sorrow and remorse
when we do wrong. We call that conviction of sin. He brings us emotional
healing from the suffering of life. He grants us the gift of forgiveness of our
enemies. He gives us love for people we would naturally hate. He gives us grace
under fire, and the emotion of peace when things are not peaceful.
What happens when all this
starts to happen inside us? Jesus tells us—we get power.
There are two Greek words for
power. One is exousia, or authority.
It’s what a policeman has by virtue of his uniform. It’s potential power, dependent on respect
for authority. The other is dynamis, from
which we get the word dynamite. It is
real power to make things happen in spite of all resistance. This is the kind
of power that the Holy Spirit grants to us, to be witnesses to Christ’s power
everywhere.
When Alfred Nobel invented
dynamite, he called together a group of investors to witness what happens when
fire ignites a stick. That explosion witnessed to the power of his invention.
When we become submissive and filled with His power, we become God’s dynamite. Blowing
up the cultural barriers between Jews, Greeks, and Romans. Think of the impact
that the Spirit can have in our community! As we learn to be submissive to God
in our walk, actions, and feelings, then the Spirit ignites us, not just in
specific ministries but wherever we go. We can really make an impact. We don’t
have to know what or how to do it, we only have to know that the Holy Spirit is
working and shining through us.
Christ called us to walk in
the power of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit has not changed. God’s power has not
changed. It is God’s people who have changed. God has not failed us, but we no
longer submit to Him, so He cannot do miracles through us. When we submit, we become witnesses of His
power.
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