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Knowing God's Will, #6: "The Spirit-Filled Life"
by The Rev. Clancy Nixon
Pentecost Sunday, May 15, 2005
Church of the Holy Spirit
Ashburn, Virginia
I came to Christ at an Episcopal summer camp on the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio.
I love that place so much that I take my family back there every other summer. I
remember one family camper named Rick from a few years back. I asked him how he
was doing. He said, "I've been doing great, at least since I've been here. See that water
bucket on the back of the cabin? When I come to camp, slow down, and take a long look
at the lake, my bucket gets filled up again." I know how Rick feels. From time to time, I
can feel like I'm running close to empty; the water level in the bucket of my life can get
low. Those times of emptiness typically come when 2 things happen to me at the same
time: 1) Things go bad for me; and 2) God seems far away. When I am filled with the
Holy Spirit, when God seems near, then even when things go bad, bad, bad - still I don't
feel like the bucket is low. If I am a bucket, then the Holy Spirit is the water in the
bucket. When I don't have enough of God in my life, then the normal downturns in the
ups and downs of life will bring emptiness.
This week, I've enjoyed extra prayer times, an outstanding vision of Heaven, and
new clarity in hearing God about some vexing problems. Alleluia!
Terry Fullam said, "The Church has been subnormal for so long, that were it ever
to become normal, it would seem abnormal." The Church today has been operating on
such little supernatural power for so long, that were it ever to act like the early church,
were it ever to become normal again, it would seem abnormal. The Bible shows us that
the church that moves in supernatural power is normal. "The Church has been subnormal
for so long, that were it ever to become normal, it would seem abnormal."
Pentecost is about the Holy Spirit. Contrary to some church traditions, Pentecost
is NOT the occasion of the initial giving of the Holy Spirit to the Church. As we read in
the gospel lesson from John, Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to His disciples on the first
Easter. In Chapter 20, verse 22, Jesus breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy
Spirit." In Acts Chapter 1, Luke tells us that for fifty days after the first Easter, the
disciples waited in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come on them in Power. Jesus said,
"Wait for the gift my Father promised.... You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. ...
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my
witnesses...." Acts 1:4-8 So receiving the Holy Spirit is a different thing from the
supernatural empowerment of the Holy Spirit. So the reason we talk about two baptisms -
water baptism and the baptism in the Holy Spirit is because Jesus talked about these
two baptisms. In our lives, these two events can happen at the same time, we'd like for
them to happen at the same time, we pray for them to happen at the same time, like it did
for Chris Lutyk and many others - but most often, they do not happen at the same time.
Most often, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit comes subsequent to the conversion, so it's
been called a "Second Blessing." They did not happen at the same time for Ginger, or for
me, or for most of us.
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The empowerment of the Holy Spirit helps us to hear God. Praying in tongues
helps me hear God. After you pray in your prayer language, you can ask God to interpret
what you just said. Usually, I don't know what I'm saying when I say it in my prayer
language so I ask God for an interpretation. The Apostle Paul says that he who prays in
a prayer language edifies himself. That means he builds up his spirit. When your Spirit
Man is built up, you can hear God more often and more clearly.
We're quite familiar with the Pentecost story, so I'd like us to look at the prophet
Joel, who wrote 800 years before Pentecost. Peter quotes Joel in his Pentecost sermon,
page 1078, Acts 2:17. Joel says, "In the last days, I will pour out my Spirit on all people."
Pouring out means that there will be great abundance. If you go back to Joel and read the
context, Joel had just prophesied that after the locusts came and denuded the crops and
forests, there would be rain on the parched land, the former rain and the latter rain. This
latter rain would be poured out in such abundance that the dry stream beds, the wadi,
would run again like rivers. In the same way, this coming of the Holy Spirit would be an
abundant outpouring, bringing life to the dead places. The Spirit will be poured out on all
people, verse 17, young and old, men and women, verse 18, servants, slaves and free -
without regard to age, sex, or social class - and they will prophesy. In the Old Covenant,
the Holy Spirit came only on prophets, priests and kings. Not so in the New Covenant.
Teenagers, you are not too young to prophesy, or to walk in spiritual gifts! God pours out
his gifts without regard to age. All you need to do is ask in faith. What will be the mark
of this outpouring? In verse 19, he talks of signs and wonders, and massive conversions;
and in verse 17 and 18 he said it would be marked by the prophetic. Joel says his people
will speak prophecies, they will see visions, and they will dream dreams. Notice that the
outpouring is connected with receiving communication from God. Signs are things that
point elsewhere, and tell us where things are; and prophecies point us to God and God's
ways. Prophecy is hearing words from God, visions and dreams are seeing pictures or
scenes from God. Hearing God is rooted in the gift of Prophecy. Moses' dream was that
all believers would prophesy; Joel foresaw it; and Peter's generation experienced it. You
and I can experience it today. When you hear God, know that you are experiencing the
outworking of this same outpouring of the Holy Spirit. I'd like to ask Sharla Chadwick
to come forward to share with you a recent experience of seeing visions.
[Sharla shares]
Back in Acts 1:5, the resurrected Christ appeared to his disciples, and Jesus told
them that he would baptize them with the Holy Spirit. Now the Greek word for baptize,
baptizo, means to immerse, or in the sense of a sunken ship, to be waterlogged. It doesn't
mean sprinkle. It means dunk. Not just a dip in the water, but a sense that the water is
now with you always: to be saturated, or marinated in the Holy Spirit, so God the Holy
Spirit seeps through and becomes a part of your every fiber. Jesus says, be baptized; we
might say, let your bucket be filled to overflowing, so that even your bucket is
waterlogged, and wet on the outside, so people can see the Holy Spirit on you. That is
what happened at Pentecost, in fulfillment of Acts 1:5 - they were baptized in the Holy
Spirit. That is what God is doing among us. If we are attentive, we can see the Holy
Spirit all over some people.
Spiritually, people are buckets. Without God in us, before we invite him in to our
life, we are bone dry, devoid of God, even though God may be drawing us. When Christ
becomes your savior, the Holy Spirit comes into your bucket, but your bucket is usually
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not completely filled at that time, because there is too much of us still in the bucket, and
we crowd God out. You fill up on God by asking Him to empty you of yourself, your
way of doing things, your worldview, and replace all of that with His ways, His version
of the story. This is radical conversion, this baptism in the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to
control you and to fill you with more of himself. Now speaking in tongues is only one
possible manifestation of being baptized in the Holy Spirit; many believers are baptized
in the Holy Spirit who have never spoken in tongues. Billy Graham has never spoken in
tongues, but that man is filled with the Spirit and has supernatural gifts of evangelism.
It's like it's Pentecost every time he speaks, for thousands are added to the Kingdom.
When I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, I spoke in tongues, and I was changed
forever. My conscience was changed, and became much more sensitive to right and
wrong. In an instant, several sin patterns in my life were gone. You can ask my wife!
My view of the Bible changed, and I accepted that the Scriptures were true. Soon after I
received the gift of tongues in 1989, I also received other gifts of the Spirit - healing,
prophecy, discernment of spirits, faith, encouragement, and exorcism. Tongues is often a
gateway gift to receiving other gifts. For me me, there was a new plateau, a one-time
jump. However, there is another side to this reality. When you have an experience of
speaking in tongues, or some other supernatural experience, all your problems typically
don't go away. Some do! Some problems associated with your forsaken sin patterns do
go away, thanks be to God. When people quit smoking, their lungs start getting better
immediately.
We all have a natural tendency in the spiritual life to dry up, like a bucket in the
open air. The water evaporates if you don't fill up the bucket again. It's not that God
goes away; it's that we drift away from God because that is the path of least resistance.
So you can lose some of the blessing of what you had when you were filled up. Like a
bucket, your habitual sins can cause the Holy Spirit to be grieved, and create holes in
your bucket. When you sin, the Holy Spirit leaks out pretty quickly, so your bucket can
seem pretty empty. The good news is that all you have to do to fill up again is to ask!
The apostle Paul says, "Go on being filled with the Holy Spirit." This is a command that
is to be continually obeyed. Go on being filled. Paul knew we needed refills! The
remedy for our emptiness is to ask God to fill us up again.
You are familiar with the image of God and Adam that Michelangelo painted on
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. John Ortberg says that "the figure of God is
extended toward the man with great vigor. He twists his body to move it as close to the
man as possible. His head is turned toward the man, and his gaze if fixed on him. God's
arm is stretched out, his index finger extended straight forward, every muscle is taut.
Before Michelangelo, the standard paintings of Creation showed God standing on the
ground, in effect helping Adam to his feet. Not here. This God is rushing towards Adam
on a cloud, propelled by the Angels, suggesting swiftness. God's entire being is wrapped
up in his impatient desire to close the gap between himself and this man. He can't wait.
His hand comes within a hair's breadth of the man's hand.... Adam has already been
offered physical life. His eyes are open, and he is conscious. Here he is being offered life
with God.... Apparently the artist wanted to show God's determination to reach out and
to be with humanity.... God is as close as he can be. But having come that close, he
allows just a little space, so that Adam can choose. He waits for Adam to make his
move...." (God is Closer than you Think, p. 12-13)
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This picture of Creation can also be seen as a metaphor for being filled with the
Holy Spirit. I believe that some of us are like Adam in this picture. Like Adam here, you
have life for us, that means that you know that Jesus is your Savior and Lord, and he
has filled you with his Spirit in the past. Even so, God still reaches out to you, wanting to
give you more of himself, to come even closer to you, waiting for you to reach out to
him. God is closer than you think. Maybe like Adam, you have been reaching out to God
with your arm, and looking at him, but your body language shows that you are is still
reclining, away from God's direction, not really as eager to touch God as your arm
suggests. For some people, this may be double-mindedness, or maybe half-heartedness; if
that describes you, please confess it and get right with God. I had to do that in these last
ten days of prayer and fasting for me, to confess my half-heartedness about pressing in, in
extended prayer. Maybe this position is reluctance, born from having been burned in the
past. Maybe you have tried to pray in tongues in the past, but have not yet done so.
Maybe you have asked God to speak to you, to give you a vision, or a picture of spiritual
reality, but you have heard and seen nothing. God is closer than you think. Remember
Jesus' promise in Luke 11:13 "How much more will your Father in heaven give the
Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"
Now we're going to move to a time of prayer and worship in song. You can pray
in two ways. First, you can stay right where you are, and ask God to touch you as you
stand and sing. You might want to ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit, or give you a
particular spiritual gift, perhaps tongues or prophecy. Maybe you need a fresh anointing
for the spiritual gift you already have. Second, you can go to one of our trained Prayer
Ministers at the altar rail or at the back of the gymnasium to pray individually for you.
For some, there may be a barrier or block to the full release of the Holy Spirit in your life.
We'd like to pray for you. As we sing, I want to encourage you to do business with God.
This is a time to ask God to fill your bucket again with the Holy Spirit; to empower you
for ministry; ask for gifts of healing, of teaching, of mercy, of tongues, whatever he
desires to give you.
Let's pray. Come, Holy Spirit. Pour out your Spirit on us in abundance, O God.
Pour it out like Joel prophesied, like a steady rain, bringing life to the dead places. Pour
out gifts of Prophecy and tongues; visions and dreams;... Fill us with your Spirit again.
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