Corrected Expectations and the Coming of the Spirit 1987

From Acts chapter 1 verse 4 And while staying with them, Jesus charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You heard from me. For John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. When they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? He said to them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father has fixed by his own authority.

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven, as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

The apostles knew that a big change was about to take place, that the death and resurrection of Jesus was about to impact on this world. But they expected Jesus to do it all as he had always done it all before. Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? Will you do it? The answer is, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father has fixed by his own authority.

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses. In other words, yes, I'm about to do something new, but I'm going to do it through you. This time, you're not going to sit back and watch me heal the sick and raise the dead.

You're not going to listen to me teach for the next 40 years. You're not going to watch me die on a cross and rise from the grave. This time, this time, you're going to do these things.

You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses. The disciples had a narrow view of the kingdom, as we tend to also have. Ours may not be the same as theirs, but they expected the kingdom to be Israel with Jesus on top and themselves very close by.

Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel, Lord? And it's as much as Jesus is saying, wipe your conception of the kingdom right out of your mind. Get rid of all your charts, your graphs, and your calendars, and do three things. Stay in Jerusalem, wait for the Holy Spirit, and know that you will be my witnesses to the end of the earth.

Because I am giving the kingdom, not to Israel, but to you. With this threefold word to his disciples, Jesus returned to the Father's throne. They never saw him again with these eyes.

But because they did what they were told, it all unfolded exactly as he promised. They stayed in Jerusalem, meaning they drew together, they stuck together, they entered into a unity, practiced a unity with each other deeper than they had ever known. Jesus was no longer visible to their eyes, he was no longer there in flesh and blood to take charge of the meeting, to make the decisions, to give them refuse and encouragement.

And yet, their fellowship did not fall apart. Their vision of the kingdom did not disintegrate. They did not split into factions.

They stuck together and took care of business. What was it that held these people together? Jesus had commanded them to wait for the Spirit. And they believed, they trusted that this would indeed happen.

That the same Spirit which had anointed their Lord was now going to anoint them. They had no idea what that would mean, how it would feel, what it would look like to be filled with the Spirit, but they were sure that the same light that visited from God to their Lord was now going to come to them. Within ten days later, their waiting was rewarded.

The Spirit came and fell upon them and filled them, filled these simple men and women with such power and such love and such holiness and such truth and such boldness that within a few decades every city of the empire heard and saw the name of Jesus exalted. Now the proof that the Holy Spirit had come upon them was not that they jumped around and felt good. They probably did jump around and there's no doubt they feel good, but that's not the proof.

The proof was that these men and women witnessed to the world who Jesus was with such authority that they were believed. Having been believed, they changed the course of history. In many respects, we as a congregation are in a parallel situation.

We're aware that we are involved even now in change. Whenever the Spirit of God sifts His body, the body of Christ, as He does, I mean the pattern is constantly gather, sift, gather, sift. You gather them in, you sift them down.

Gather them in, you sift them down. And whenever you're in the sifting phase, you can expect change. But what is the change, Lord? What's going to happen now? Are you going to now restore the kingdom to Israel? I mean, we've seen your cross at work in our lives.

We felt your power shaking us to awakenedness, the power of your resurrection. Are you going to return in glory now? And the Lord says to us, not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father has fixed by His own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. We say, wait a minute, Lord, the Holy Spirit already came.

Why, we got baptized in the Holy Spirit ten years ago. But to accomplish the work, says the Lord, that I have for you now, you need the power of the Spirit to an extent, to a degree you have never known. And so I command you to stay in Jerusalem, to wait for the Spirit, and to know that you are going to be my witnesses under the authority of the Holy Spirit, for I am giving the kingdom, not to Israel yet, but to you.

Stay in Jerusalem, which means stick together, draw together, practice unity. If Jesus is number one in our lives, if He is Lord, if His blood covers our sins, if His word is our commandment, we have no choice but to fit ourselves, each of us, into the body with a consistency and a faithfulness beyond anything we've practiced up to now. See, it's not me and Jesus, it's Jesus in the midst of His saints, Jesus in the midst of the lampstands, all the time in His church, Jesus working among His people.

If my commitment to the body is half-baked, my commitment to Jesus will have to be sick. Let me say that one time again. Your commitment to Jesus can never be any better than your commitment to His body on earth.

All of us want to just retreat from the body. All them hypocrites, those people who rub us the wrong way, and just me and Jesus, we can have a good time here, it's impossible. Your commitment to Jesus can't be any better than your commitment to His body.

This is not a religious club with a chaplain and a few committees. This is the body of Christ. Everyone, member of the others, everyone bearing the weight of the fall of hostility down, and we are one, we are one by His blood.

Stay in Jerusalem until you know what that means. Wait for the Holy Spirit. Wait for the Holy Spirit! We got the Holy Spirit here.

What are you talking about? The Holy Spirit has visited us many times. Don't you remember, Lord, that on Palm Sunday 1970, 17 years ago, the Spirit fell and brought revival, which is still going here. But there is more, says the Lord.

There's more. He says to us, you, like most of the rest of the American renewal movement, have tended to drop the word holy from the word spirit. And you have missed what was absolutely essential to your apostolic brothers and sisters, that the Spirit of God is holy.

He moves among a holy people to exalt a holy God. Reading from Acts chapter 2, Peter's sermon, as he's quoting from Joel 2, verse 19, And I will show wonders in the heaven above, and signs on the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day.

Now what's all this blood and fire and vapor of smoke and the sun turning dark? These are two rays to a cup. When the Holy Spirit moves upon God's people, not only does He give us gorgeous music, uplifting experiences, but He also calls us to repentance. Before I can know the unspeakable joy of the Holy Spirit, I have to dump out of my life the self-centeredness and the self-righteousness and the self-pity and the vanity and the laziness and the attitudes that I have.

I have to repent of my sins. We all have to do this. Waiting for the Holy Spirit is not like going down to the river waiting for the fireworks to start.

When are they going to start? You eat popcorn while you're waiting. You know, I have a sandwich and a glass of pop. Waiting for the Holy Spirit is repentance time.

It's circumcise your heart time. It's clean up your house time. The promise of the Holy Spirit given by the prophet Joel was preceded by a call to repentance.

Rend your hearts and not your garments, he said, before he said this, or along with it. And likewise, that call to repentance comes to us. Get your house in order under God so that when the Holy Spirit comes in power you may be a burning bush instead of a pile of ash.

And finally, he says, know that you will be my witnesses under the power of the Holy Spirit. You will be my witnesses. The world looking at you will know that I'm alive from the dead and that I am Lord.

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Altavia and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And so it was. These simple men and women were his witnesses and they shook history.

Now they did it. They shook the earth not because they performed signs and wonders, which they did, not because they came up with wonderful music, which no doubt they did, but because they witnessed to Jesus' reality to the world with such authority and power that they were believed. They set hearts on fire.

How many hearts have we set on fire? Come on! You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses. You will ignite hearts. You will set them on fire.

Know it! Next Sunday is Pentecost, the day when we remember when it really first happened. Surely we desire that Pentecost among us next Sunday will be more than a memorial of a glorious event that took place 20 centuries ago, but that Pentecost next Sunday among us will be Pentecost, God pouring out his Spirit upon this body to make it effective as his witnesses to this city and beyond. And so beginning now, between today and next Sunday, beginning today, let's covenant with God and with each other to do three things.

One, to stay in Jerusalem. That is, stick together, draw together, tear down all the walls. Two, wait for the Spirit.

Expect more than you have now no matter how much you feel you have. And three, be sure that you will be, by the power of the Spirit, a witness to the reality of Jesus to this world right where we live. If we will draw and stick together, and if we will wait upon the Spirit, yearning for what we know we need, and if we will trust the Spirit of God to give us a word that will burn through doors of iron, we will not be disappointed.

We will take our place in the army of God conquering evil and freeing the captive. In the name of Jesus, our Lord. Crucified and risen.

Spirit of God, speak to our hearts in silence.