Power from on High 1985

Okay, I'd like to skip through Some of the verses in Acts chapter 2 which Olivia already read just highlight them a little bit and then go on from there This is what we're looking at today the event of Pentecost Acts 2 1 when the day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place and Suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting And there appeared to them tongues as a fire distributed and resting on each one of them And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance Now that we're dwelling in Jerusalem Jews devout men from every nation under heaven and at this sound the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one heard them speaking in his own language and They were amazed and wondered saying are not all these speaking Galileans? how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language and They were all amazed and perplexed saying to one another. What does this mean? but others mocking said They are filled with new wine People can argue About what really happened on Pentecost To these believers the sound of the rushing wind the tongues of flame dancing over their heads and These languages coming from their untrained mouths There have been Believers Skeptics and agnostics about these things for 20 centuries But Nobody not even the most hardened cynical skeptic can argue about the fact that this event Was the turning point in their lives It was at this point that these people underwent a total and permanent change a A Change Like the change Jesus went through when he went down into the waters of his baptism Remember he went down into the waters of his baptism Who had never done one spectacular thing in all his life He came up out of the waters of his baptism The Spirit descended upon him and he became the Christ the Anointed One and Suddenly at that point his behavior changed He came out of his obscurity and began to do Things that he had never done before he began to manifest the kingdom of God with a power No prophet before him had ever manifest Now This was exactly the same order as we see happening to these believers of Pentecost This was their time to emerge in the same way And it was like a resurrection. They came up out of their Obscurity and they began to experience and manifest the change in their speech and action That was absolutely convincing that now they begin to act and speak in such a way that Multitudes were shaken and thousands were drawn into the kingdom Now, of course they were believers before Pentecost And of course They had experienced and done things in the dimension of the kingdom of God prior to Pentecost But on Pentecost the life of the kingdom entered into the vessel of their bodies and They became anointed ones their life had come and began now to shine and The change in them was very very very obvious Reading on in the second chapter of Acts But Peter standing up with the eleven lifted up his Voice and addressed them men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem.

Let this be known to you Give ear to my words, but these men are not drunk as you suppose Since it is only nine o'clock in the morning But this is what was spoken by the Prophet Joel in the last days It shall be God declares that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams Yay, and on my men servants and maidservants in those days I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy and I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath Blood and fire and vapor of smoke and the Sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon into blood before the day of the Lord comes the great and manifest day and it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved Most of us in this gathering Have experienced In our own lives directly firsthand This spirit that we're reading about in Acts chapter 2 We have seen miracles in our lives We had tasted the supernatural We have had prayers answered We have done exploits in the kingdom And yet as we read this second chapter of Acts we have to admit That there is something going on in here That is beyond our prison experience there is something in this second chapter of Acts that we don't have yet and That we desperately need And we need it not five years down the road we need it now I Mean example people are coming to us for spiritual bread Living bread and How many times our covers are there, you know, they're actually begging for a living word and we don't seem to have it Plus the fact that multitudes keep walking past us in the world weighed down by discouragement and fear and despair and Delusion we can't even get their attention We try to talk to them about the things of the kingdom of God and they aren't listening Somehow or other we're not getting it across to them Now the authority of heaven that we honor and recognize and worship that authority needs to descend upon us as a body You should receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you he says to the disciples we need that power Now It's true Pentecost was not something that these people caused to happen. God made it happen They didn't bring it on God brought it on nor did they earn it They didn't earn it it was a gift of grace it was just as much a gift of grace as the cross itself all these people did was wait and Pray and expect and believe and Then it came and When the Spirit came there was no question at all There was no argument about whether it really happened or not. Was that for real? Did this happen? Are you sure? Do you know whether you have the Holy Spirit? Nobody was asking that question that it was all clear and so obvious.

Nobody could miss it Now If it is true that we That there's something in the second chapter of Acts that we don't have that and that we need Power and If it is true That this can't be forced We can't make it happen. We can't earn it or buy it or deserve it or fake it It has to come from God's hand Then What do we do? To open the door so that God can Cause the Spirit to move upon us with the same authority and power they had What do we do so that he can work this work in our midst? In Acts chapter 2 and also in Luke chapter 11, we are told certain things Three things really that we offer to God that we can offer to God which are within our power to offer up to God as an act of worship and The assurance given in both these passages that is that if we offer these three things to God We can absolutely expect that he will anoint his people us with the Holy Spirit in fullness without three things first We offer up to him Lives that are turned toward the kingdom Second we offer up to him lives that are separate to the kingdom and Third we offer up to him lives that are dependent utterly dependent upon the kingdom First we offer up to him lives that are turned to the kingdom reading from Acts chapter 2 verse 37 At the end of Peter's sermon Now when they had heard this they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the rest of the Apostles brethren What shall we do and? Peter said to them repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises to you and to your children and to all that are afar off Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him What should we do they cried and Peter answered repent Which means turn Turn your life around change the direction of your life you're going your own way You may even be doing be doing your own religious thing Or your churchy thing, but now he says turn back this way With your mind with your heart with your will it's like renouncing Babylon and all its works and all its ways turning away from Babylon and From now on it's going to be the kingdom the kingdom the New Jerusalem Jesus when Jesus Princeton said to Peter Peter Simon son of John do you love me more than these fish? Jesus was asking Peter to turn away from the fish to him Or when he said to Martha Martha Martha, you're anxious and troubled about many things. One thing is needful He's asking Martha to turn away from the kitchen and all her anxieties about what's going to happen tomorrow When he says to the young ruler Go Sell everything you got give it away And come and follow me He's asking this man to turn away from his Lord the dollar bill to Jesus when Daniel in Babylon right in the middle of a battle right there in the Capitol building Stops three times a day goes to his house opens the window facing southwest toward Jerusalem and prays He's turning away from Babylon To the New Jerusalem, and he's doing this over and over and over again turning turning turning It's the only way this man could keep his sanity and his vision in the midst of Babylon It's the only way you and I can do it To repent means more than to feel sorry for the mess.

We've made of our lives To repent means turn from the mess And if you have to do it a thousand times a day good keep doing it keep turning keep turning keep turning until this is your second nature Until finally, this is the North Pole now and not Babylon These people on Pentecost were doing that. These were people who had turned their lives Jesus had disciplined them and taught them for three and a half years But especially now during these ten days between Ascension and Pentecost they were turning and they were turned This is all that matters anymore just the King Secondly we offer lives that are separate to the kingdom from that same passage again When they heard this they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles brethren What shall we do and Peter said? repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and You shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit to be baptized Means more than to be just under the water To be baptized means to be separated to the one into whom you've been baptized You've been buried with Jesus under this water. Your sins are washed away, but now you belong to him If my life still belongs to Babylon My baptism is meaningless My baptism makes sense Regardless of how much water was used or when it took place only it makes sense only if my life now belongs to Jesus From Romans chapter 6 verse 1 What should we then say? I'll be to continue in sin that grace may abound by no means How can we who died to sin still live in? Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism at the death that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father So we too should walk in newness of life The death he died he died to sin once for all but the life he lives he lives the God So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus Now if I'm dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, this means I'm separated I'm I'm separated from Babylon.

I'm in Babylon, but I don't belong to Babylon anymore And that's very clear to me. It must be clear to me that I'm crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me I'm a speckle bird I'm an oddball I'm walking around with a wounded thigh like Jacob after he wrestled with the angel He had this wounded foot time that made him look a little different from everybody else But now he's Israel the man of God the man who wrestles with God and likewise for you and me there must be clear-cut a Separation now people are trying to do it with a monastic lifestyle or some other kind of communal lifestyle Whatever help praise God for that, but we need to do it right in the middle of Babylon We need to see ourselves and reckon ourselves daily as separate That this is not my home anymore I don't belong here my loyalty my citizenship my commonwealth is in heaven and Heaven not at some fairyland far away But heaven is the kingdom of God where my Lord reigns and where the Spirit brings the life of heaven right down into my life every day Separate They were separate those people and we need to be too Finally we offer to him lives that are utterly dependent upon the kingdom Reading from this familiar passage in Luke 11 verse 11 What father among you if my son asks for bread will give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish will give him a serpent where if he asked for an egg will give him a scorpion If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children How much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him Here's a picture of dependency children asking their father and getting you know, not stones and scorpions and serpents but Something good and here we're dependent upon God for more than bread and fish and eggs Now we depend on God for his life the life of his spirit. This becomes our life Our way of life to say with our hearts all the time every day every hour apart from you Oh Lord, there is no health in me Apart from your spirit.

There is no life in me apart from your spirit. There is no wisdom in me I must have your spirit fresh now and when that's really The cry of my heart You know when I am dependent utterly dependent to the point of desperation The spirit So we're not living in a different dispensation We're living in the age of the spirit Which began on Pentecost and continues until the Lord comes back in this age The one source of life Vision Power to know and love Jesus power to manifest Jesus to the world comes only from the spirit He is the one and only source we have Scripture won't come alive without the spirit. Nothing makes any sense without the spirit and the spirit comes With great power To those Who mean business It is the spirit who is saying to the body of Christ on earth at this hour arise shine for your light has come and It is the spirit who enables us to rise and shine and draw the nations to the brightness of our rising The spirit Is not far away.

He's in our midst He's in our midst And he will move Within us and upon us with a power such as we have never known If together together Together we will turn toward him and his life Separate ourselves together away from Babylon toward his Christ and And together ask and ask and ask And keep asking for the spirit the power he promised until it comes And it will come that way Let's just take some time it's total silence now just let the spirit speak to our hearts