You Will Know the Holy SpiritSunday, June 1, 2003    9 AM

North Heights Lutheran Church, Arden Hills

Pastor Bob Cottingham, June 1, 2003

 

 

 

          Peace.  It’s not just a word, is it?  I know it’s hard to shift gears after seeing some of those scenes.  Many you have seen before; others are new photos from the Iraqi war.  But we need to, because the only lasting peace in the history of the universe, the only central place that the human race can find peace is in the center of the Trinity and by embracing the Father, embracing His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, and by receiving and living in and walking in the Holy Spirit. 

 

          Let me read you a couple of texts, if you have your Bibles with you this morning, that really form the basis of what we will be talking about today and the next ten weeks.  John 14, verses 15 to 17, this is that passage in which Jesus promises the Holy Spirit. 

“If you love me, you will obey what I command.  And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you” -- underline this in your Bibles if you can ‑‑ “forever -- the Spirit of truth.  The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”  

 

          And then from Acts, the 19th chapter, the question that St. Paul raised here and we want to raise every day, every Sunday, from 19, verses 1, 2 and 6:  “While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus.  There he found some disciples and asked them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’  They answered, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’"  And if you jump down to verse 6, “When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.”

 

          Father, we thank you for this Word.  We thank you for the Holy Spirit, for we know that he is the bringer of your Word, the bearer of your truth, and of all the things that Jesus Christ taught us.  So bless your Word.  And Holy Spirit, come and bless your people and fill us anew and afresh this day.  Amen.

 

          When you have been preaching for close to 30 years, you find it a tad difficult to get overly excited about any particular text or about any particular theme.  Now hear me.  I said it’s difficult.  I didn’t say it’s impossible.  You learn after a time that it is the Holy Spirit that quickens every text that you’re supposed to speak on because he knows what the hearts and souls of every congregation needs on every single Sunday morning.  He is the one that energizes both the preacher and the preached word. 

 

          I distinctly remember just before Christmas, Pastor Morris and I sat in the office going over this series, and I could sense even back then the Holy Spirit stirring in me and in and through this topic.  As I poured over the outline that was inspired and pulled together by Pastor Morris, I had also another flashback of all the pain and all the confusion that exists in the church and in my experiences when people wrestle with the Holy Spirit.  When the Apostle Paul asked the question back in Acts 19, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed”, I wonder if he had any idea of the aftermath of misunderstanding that would come about the person, the power, the giftings and the work of the Holy Spirit.  Frankly, today in many, many churches the Holy Spirit is the half‑known God at best.  There is in most denominational churches and in many, many evangelical churches a true lack of understanding of the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. 

 

          So I want to ask you this morning for today and for the remainder of this series, will you keep an open mind?  Regardless of your tradition, regardless of your experiences with the person or the power or other people who have experienced the Holy Spirit, keep an open mind. 

 

          In this series we would like to demystify and take the hype out of the teaching and give you, plain and simple, the person of the Holy Spirit.  My own testimony is like that.  Many of you know Herb Mjorud.  He taught in this church for many, many years.  He was an evangelist for the ALC.  He was a pastor in Alaska.  He was a lawyer by training.  He had tremendous healings in his own life and he had a tremendous gift of bringing healing to the nations through the Mjorud Evangelistic Association. 

 

          I can remember as a young person somewhere in the late ’60s, early ’70s ‑‑ it was back when I had hair, believe it or not -- having been converted at North Heights, brought to Jesus Christ, struggling with the sense, “Should I go be a pastor?”  I barely knew what that meant.  As we wrestled through all of what that means or could mean or should mean or what it is supposed to mean, Pastor Mjorud was giving some Wednesday evening and Thursday evening and Friday evening messages at the old Roseville sanctuary.  I had never met Pastor Mjorud.  I had never even heard him before that night.  And I said, “At the invitation,” I said to myself, “I’m just going to go down there and ask him to pray for clarity for me.”  I did not know Pastor Mjorud.  He had never spoken to me, never seen me.  As I lined up with dozens of other people around the altar after his message, I could hear him praying for the person next to me.  I was trying to figure out in my own mind what I was going to say, what I was going to ask him to pray for, because I heard other people asking.  And this is a pretty new gig to me.  Just as he finished with that person, he came over.  He laid his hand on my head, and I was going to open my mouth and he said, “Say,” took his hand up.  I thought, “Oh‑oh.”  He said, “Say, did you know God has called you to be a pastor?”  I said, “Yeah, I think so, but now I know.” 

 

          Now, that wasn’t coincidence.  What evangelist goes around the table and lays his hands on people and asks you that direct question, the very question you were going down to ask to be prayed for?  Then he went on to the next person.  I didn’t even get to speak.  It was like, “Man alive, what just happened here?” 

 

          He prayed for the person across the railing here, and then he came back and he said, “By the way, I want to ask God to fill you with His spirit.”  I was going to open my mouth when he laid his hand on my head and began to pray, and when I opened my mouth, this language I’d never heard before began to flow forth.  I know what it is today, and we’ll talk about that in this series, but I don’t want to freak you out too early.

   

          So you see, knowing about the Holy Spirit is not quite as important as knowing the Holy Spirit.  Now, when you have an incident in your life like that, you begin your ministry with a positive understanding of the Holy Spirit. 

 

          Now, I have seen the excesses of the charismatic and the Pentecostal and the neo-Pentecostal movement.  I understand them and I know them.  But my initial experience was with a Godly man filled with the Spirit of God and filled with an understanding and a knowledge that went beyond him -- back to the Father Himself and came back through the Holy Spirit to those who had enough sense to go and pray or be prayed for.  So regardless of the excesses that I’ve experienced and seen in others, and maybe in my own self, I have a positive understanding. 

         

          Having said it’s not so much about knowing who the person, the power and the work of the Holy Spirit is, I believe every person ought to contemplate the question, “Do you know the Holy Spirit?” 

 

          It is our goal over the next ten weeks to teach every Biblical concept about him that we fully understand, but it is our understanding and it’s our knowledge that he himself will make himself known to you.  The only difference between any other experience that you have and the one I just shared with you from my own life is that you had a person, a pastor, filled with the Holy Spirit, operating in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and you have a person who is seeking God’s will and God’s will only.   Everything else being set aside, what is God’s will for my life?  And that is and that causes the most powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit that you can imagine.  A person with the Holy Spirit and a person seeking the will of God. 

“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you first believed?"  When you study the passage that we read this morning, John 14:15 to 17, you see a bunch of things.  You see, number one, that he is another.  It’s our task to introduce you to this other one.  He is another, so the Greek word allelon, it means literally that he is the same kind, that is to say, that the Holy Spirit is cut from the same cloth, is one of the analogies used in Greek.  He is like an identical triplet.  You see one, you see the second one, you see the third one, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  They come from the same cloth, from the same spirit, from the same whatever God is made of.  Jesus said He is spirit.  Jesus was the being.  Jesus was called to the Father’s side.  He was being reinstalled at the right hand of God to begin what Hebrews talks about as His intercessory ministry.  So He would leave us in this physical state that the disciples saw him, and they were concerned about that.  John 14 is about Jesus’ concern for the disciples feeling that not only did they lose Him during the death, the crucifixion and the tomb for three days, then they had Him back, and now here He is talking about leaving again and there was this sense of loss in them. 

 

          But He said, “The Holy Spirit is coming.  I have to leave so that he can come.  Right now in this form that I am in I can only be in one place at one time, but when the Holy Spirit comes, he can be in every place at every time for whatever you need him.”  He is the Counselor.  He is the Comforter.  He is the Advocate.  He is coming to stay forever.  He came from Pentecost until the very end of the age.  We don’t fully know what that all means, but we do know that once the Holy Spirit enters us and we continue to invite him to stay, we continue to allow him to work in every area and every facet of our lives, he will be with us until the end -- whatever that is, either the end of your life or the end of the world as we know it -- to stay, to counsel, to comfort, to speak for us. 

 

          He is the Paraclete.  It’s another Greek word, interesting, one called to the side to be with you, to speak on your behalf, to intercede also with Jesus, to help you, to give you the sense that you are never, ever alone.  If you struggle with loneliness in your life, if you struggle with the sense that “Why am I always by myself,” we need not struggle that way.  Once the Holy Spirit comes, he is by your side to help you, to give you that sense that you are never alone. 

 

          1 John 2:1, when we fail, when we fall down, when we sin, John’s bold about this, he speaks to the Father in our behalf.  When we’re unable to pray, he prays for us.  He prays in us, says Paul.  He prays through us, and that’s in large part what the gift of tongues is all about.  All of these attributes, all of these functions of the Holy Spirit are awesome.  But the one thing he brings that makes him co-equal and gives you this sign is that he is the spirit of truth.  Remember, truth for God is always the most important because truth causes trust, and any relationship with God incurs that you and I must trust.  We have to believe.  We have to trust His Word. 

         

          Likewise, we must learn to trust the Holy Spirit just like we trust God the Father, just like we trust Jesus, that He has taken care of our salvation.  There’s nothing else that you and I can do but follow his will, obey him.  You can know the Holy Spirit intimately.  What does that mean?  I know for you guys that word “intimate” is a struggle.  For us guys that word “intimate” is a struggle. 

         

          Knowing the Holy Spirit begins with loving Jesus.  Our vision calls for us to love Jesus.  In fact, it calls us to a deeper relationship, that some understanding that we have gotten in the past of knowing Jesus, knowing Him as a historical figure, knowing Him as the acts that He did, that He died on the cross, that He rose on the third day and that He’s coming again.  Many, many people, billions of people around the world know those facts.  But are we really in love with Jesus Christ?  Are we, as our vision statement says, radically devoted to Him?  When you are radically devoted to Jesus Christ, the spirit of truth works powerfully. 

 

          Love for Jesus and obedience fit together.  Love is given by Jesus.  It’s not started with you.  We love because He first loved us.  He is the lover of our souls.  Radical devotion is returning that love to Him in the fullest way that you and I know how.  If you love me, says Jesus, you will do my will.  The greatest way to return the love that Jesus Christ has for you and for me is to do His will, the will of the Father in all ways. 

 

          But it’s a struggle.  It’s a struggle understanding the Holy Spirit in our era because the world is afraid of truth and it is afraid of the Holy Spirit.  In fact, the world is anti‑Holy Spirit and many churches are anti‑Holy Spirit.  They may use the triune God in the invocation and in other places, but the Holy Spirit is not known and he is not fully welcomed as God because we have been so touched and so instructed by the world.  The world doesn’t accept the Holy Spirit because the world is conformed to the god of this world. 

 

          The culture we live in, even, and often, church culture, reject the Holy Spirit in some ways because often we are sold out to the world.  It’s a sad thing to say, but every church I know of struggles with it.  The world has infected us as a people so powerfully in this country that we have troubles sorting out all of the things and all of the impacts that the world has on each of us. That is why in this day and age, I say to you in this day and age it is even more necessary than any single era in history to understand and to know and to experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that the truth of God, the whole counsel of God can unfold in our lives, and we will understand what is it the world is saying to us and what is it the kingdom of God is saying to us, and how do we follow the Word of God rather than the word of the god of this world.  Are you with me?  Do you get it?            [Response:  “Got it."] 

         

          All right.  We want to be very clear when we take away the hype, the hyperbole, all of that stuff, and introduce you to this awesome person.  You know and I know in our minds that you cannot live the Christian life in your own power.  You can invite Jesus Christ into your life and still be powerless to live out and to obey him until the Holy Spirit comes and energizes you to do that because he lives within you. To know and accept requires obedience to the kingdom of God, another word this culture does not like.  We don’t like being obedient.  It’s too servile.  God calls for obedience.

   

          Let me remind you of just some examples of who and what the Holy Spirit is and we’ll have communion.

 

          The Holy Spirit is a free gift of grace.  Like Jesus Christ, he cannot be bought.  He cannot be coerced.  He’s free to the willing soul because he is willing.  He’s willing to live with you.  He’s willing to dwell with you, the Paraclete, to come alongside you in every single endeavor that you’ve ever been a part of or will be a part of.  He’s willing to be beside you in all of the issues of life.  He’s willing to be in you, to indwell in you, inside you.  He’s willing to anoint you, to bring the full power and the full blessing and the giftedness of God upon you as he anoints you to do the tasks that he calls you to do, to live for Jesus Christ.  Look that up in Romans 8:9 and 11.  Because he is literally everywhere, he can be everywhere.  He can be in every single person here.  The finite mind doesn’t quite know how to grasp that because it is our understanding in the physical nature to be everywhere present, you have to divide something.  But the Holy Spirit is indivisible because his power, his person and his presence is every single place through every single person that invites him into their hearts and into their lives to indwell them. 

“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?"  These are questions we want to ask ourselves.  Is he dwelling in you?  How intimate are we with the Holy Spirit?  Is he another name in our head?  Is he another god of some sort in our minds?  How intimate are we?  You know that by how sensitive to his voice are you?  How in touch with those inner promptings are we when he wants to speak to us in a powerful way?  How well do we read the Holy Spirit operating within us?  How good are we at obeying his guidance and stepping forth when he calls us to do just that? 

 

          Ask yourself this morning prior to communion, is it time?  Is it time to invite the Holy Spirit into my life?  There will be prayer people on both ends.  This isn’t the greatest day to begin that process, but at North Heights we never ever want to let an opportunity go.  So there are prayer people on either side that will pray with you so you can invite the Holy Spirit in.  You can do it right where you sit. 

 

          Is it time to renew?  Maybe you have been a part, like I have and others, of the charismatic renewal for almost 30 years now.  Somehow because of life and because of the impact of all the things we have to do in our daily lives, we have somehow shelved the Holy Spirit.  Or we have areas in our life that we have never allowed him to enter and clean up and make right for us because we’re hanging onto these things as if they themselves were life and he was something besides life. 

 

          Is it time to surrender?  Surrender your heart, surrender your mind, surrender your will, so that the fullness of God, the Holy Spirit, can flood through your heart and your life. 

 

          They are going to put the last slide up now, which are some pieces that are worth reading.  This will take you a while, but in these four books I have found every answer to every question on the Holy Spirit that I ever had.  We’re also putting together two pamphlets.  Pastor Steve is working on a pamphlet that talks about the historical aspects of the Holy Spirit.  We’re hoping that it will be done by next Sunday.  And Elsie and Don Fuhrman are putting together sort of a compendium, the very heart of hearts of Elsie’s book on Baptism in the Holy Spirit.  That book and some of these others will be available.  That book by Elsie is in the bookstore today.  The others we’ll make available. 

 

          But read your Bible.  Read the 14th chapter of John over and over and over.  Read the book of Acts.  It’s called the Acts of the Apostles, but the reality of it, it’s really the Acts of the Holy Spirit working in and through the apostles in ever and ever more powerful ways until they finally get it.  Apart from the Holy Spirit, you will live on a lower understanding and a less powerful life than with the Holy Spirit. 

 

          So as we look again to the next ten weeks, ask yourself, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you first believed?”  If you’re fuzzy on that question, you’re in the right place.  If you have friends from evangelical churches, I encourage you to bring them and let them understand in a new way the person, the power, the works and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, because you will see some of them in operation.  You will see some testimonies of how the Holy Spirit is operating in the lives and hearts of people today. 

          Not this coming Tuesday evening but the Tuesday evening after is Alpha testimony night.  I want to invite you to the chapel.  There’s not always a lot of room in there, but you can at least stand in the overflow and hear of the Alpha weekend, how the person, the power, the work of the Holy Spirit touched people’s lives in powerful ways.  I have been hearing them already. 

 

          Is Eldy here?  I saw him earlier.  Eldy, did the Holy Spirit show up for the weekend?  He always does.  I can’t even sit through most of the Alpha testimony night because it tears me up.  The power of God at work.  And yet so many of us come and sit Sunday after Sunday, and we don’t walk, we don’t acknowledge that we need more power.  We don’t acknowledge that we need more strength, more understanding, more comprehension of the truth of the Living God.  And yet it’s right here, and it’s here every Sunday.  You don’t need to go anywhere else.  You don’t need to go to any meetings, any big‑time evangelist.  He is here.  Get it?  He’s here.  He’s right beside you right now today. You need go nowhere else. 

         

          Did you receive the spirit of God when you first believed?  It’s our hope that in ten weeks every soul here will raise their hand and say, “Yes, I have received the Holy Spirit, and he is working mightily in my life today.” 

 

          Let’s pray.  Let’s stand.  We’ll sing our hymn and prepare for communion. 

 

          Our Father and our God, we thank you.  We thank you for Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit.  We thank you, Father, for sending the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus promised, on Pentecost.  And we pray, Lord, that today in communion and that the weeks that stretch out ahead of us over the summer, we will experience the fullness of what it means to live and to walk in the power of your Holy Spirit.  We thank you for the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus Christ, for sending this Comforter, this Advocate, who stands up for us and who gives us courage and strength and wisdom, who takes all of the things that you have taught us, Jesus, and makes it come alive. We pray now, Holy Spirit, come.  Come and touch every soul here with a hunger to hear your word and to understand who you are as part of the Trinity.  Come, Holy Spirit, right now, as we lift up your name.  Bless you.  Amen.

 

Recommended Reading You shall Receive George Otis - Bible Voice   The Holy Spirit Arthur W. Pink - Baker Books   You Shall be Baptized in the Holy Spirit Elsie Fuhrman - Eldo Publishers   The Spirit of Christ Andrew Murray - Bethany House Publishers 1