Same Spirit

Acts  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  1:03:03
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Judges is a book of the Holy Spirit empowering people to establish and rescue the Kingdom. Acts is a book of the Holy Spirit empowering people to establish the Kingdom… this time free from sin and death. Jesus promises the same Holy Spirit that empowered the Judges, empowered Jesus and raised Jesus from the dead to indwell and empower all his followers. This same Spirit guides and empowers us to be His Kingdom.

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Super Powers

If you could pick a super power, what would it be? Think of your answer now… I’ll wait. On the count of three tell me your power. 1.. 2.. 3..
I play this game with Logan and he never likes the powers I choose. “Power over space time”
Jono and I, Invincible vs. Invisible super powers. I would let him go first and he would choose “Invisibility.” Then I would smugly choose “Invincibility” and his eyes would go wide with realization and frustration and he’d shout “That’s what I MEANT!”
Wrong power every time.
Then we’d fight. It’s really hard for “Invisible man” to beat “Invincible man.”
What is so exciting about that? Why do we get fascinated by super heroes or the supernatural, heroes who have great and mysterious powers?
Maybe we want power… because it really stinks to feel powerless.
Maybe we want excitement… because nobody likes feeling bored.
Maybe deep down we just know that super powers are super cool (and yes, I know I am a super nerd).
And maybe, written somewhere in our souls, we know that we are created and destined to be immortal beings filled with infinite power. Just maybe.

Spirit in Judges

Well… we are finishing out the book of Judges. In the darkness at the end, let’s not forget the glory days, the highlight reel of Judges.
Recall that Judges is like the comic book of Ancient Israel, the Hall of Heroes.
Real-life stinkin’ super heroes!
Heroes like Gideon the left-handed man. Shamgar with his bow-staff skills, or Othniel. I bet you forgot about him, but what did Scripture say about him?
Judges 3:10 ESV
The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he judged Israel. He went out to war, and the Lord gave Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand. And his hand prevailed over Cushan-rishathaim.
Deborah and Barak. God raised up Deborah - Judge and Prophet. And Gideon:
Judges 6:34 ESV
But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him.
And we had some not-so-great Judges. Like Jeff the Shaman, Jeff the Racist, Jephthah. But the Holy Spirit used him too:
Judges 11:29 ESV
Then the Spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites.
And Samson, the champion of Judges, the strong man with a weakness for the ladies. Again and again the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, within him. As a child:
Judges 13:25 ESV
And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Tearing lions to pieces:
Judges 14:6 ESV
Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.
And tearing Philistines to pieces:
Judges 15:14–15 ESV
When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men.
(or moist jawbone)
Some great characters in there. The super heroes of Ancient Israel.
Who was the main character?
Who was mentioned there over and over, the person who kept showing up?
The Holy Spirit.
We saw two major themes in Judges:
When everyone does what is right in their own eyes, the result is chaos and depravity.
The Holy Spirit coming upon chosen men and women in power to rescue God’s people.
To call them back, to save them.

The Holy Spirit in Jesus

Then again and again we see the ways Jesus fulfills the book of Judges. Every judge is a shadow, an anticipation of Jesus. And Jesus shows up as the ultimate Judge: Prophet, Priest and King.
And even though Jesus was and is the very Son of God, still he said that everything He did was in the anointing of and power of this same Holy Spirit that kept showing up in the book of Judges.
And towards the end of his ministry, Jesus seems to get start getting excited for something that is about to happen.
Remember in John 14, he said we would do greater works...
John 14:12 ESV
“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.
John 14:16 ESV
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
He elaborates on this in
John 16:7 ESV
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
Jesus is anticipating what the Holy Spirit is going to do in His followers.
And stresses that it is absolutely necessary that He, Jesus, goes away in order that the Holy Spirit can come upon them.
Jesus was Emmanuel, God with us, but can you imagine the scale of ministry if he had stayed. Can you imagine the line to see and meet Jesus? You think the DMV is bad, everyone in the world wants to see Jesus, to touch him, to talk with him. Hard to have a personal relationship with everyone in the flesh...
But he had (and has) a better plan. a Helper, God with and within each of us. The 3rd person of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit.

Spirit in Acts

And that finally takes us into our next sermon series. The book of Acts (which is short for Acts of the Apostles). It picks right up as Jesus is about to ascend into heaven:
Acts 1:1–3 ESV
In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
How badly do you want to know what Jesus was teaching them during those 40 days??? Speaking about the “kingdom of God”. I want the transcript! I want the video! I want to soak in every moment of every word, of every thought! Why doesn’t Scripture give us those speeches and those teachings?
We will talk about that a bit in the coming weeks. Something amazing happens in those 40 days.
But it does zoom in on one last conversation in those 40 days. It is going to give us one snippet of conversation. How important must that be?
Acts 1:4–5 ESV
And while staying with them he ordered 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 you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
He goes straight to the Holy Spirit. That’s the one topic that gets highlighted from the 40 days. The apostles want to talk about something else
Acts 1:6 ESV
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Prophecy. Man, have I had that conversation. But… let’s skip to the future stuff! Let’s get to end times, victory, fulfillment of all the things, let’s get to that.
Acts 1:7 ESV
He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.
He reminds them of what He said before… and then immediately turns the topic right back to what He wants to talk about, where He wants the focus, and something He has been anticipating since even before His death and resurrection:
Acts 1:8 ESV
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
The Apostles are all concerned that Jesus is leaving… and right so.
But Jesus is excited about what is about to happen. What is about to occur… that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon them.
“When the Holy Spirit has come upon you...”
The same language we see in Judges when things got real. We things got crazy. When people started showing super powers all over.
Any guesses who I think the main character is?
This book is often called “Acts of the Apostles”… but it could easily be called “Acts of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is mentioned 70 times through this book, but is directing and empowering every moment.
So we going to dive in to Acts. We are going to study in depth, I love the stories of the Apostles and the miracles, and seeing the church take shape and all the other things. But today I just want to lean forward in eager expectation, I want to get to know this often-secret, often-mysterious, often-invisible third person of the Trinity.
We look with eager anticipation to what the Holy Spirit is going to do in the book of Acts. In many ways, this is His book. It is called the “Acts of the Apostles” but I would rather call it the “Acts of the Holy Spirit”.
We anticipate seeing what the Holy Spirit is going to unleash, how he is going to work through the apostles, through the church, through the unlikely to change the world.

The Holy Spirit in Next Step Church

Why do we care? What do we REALLY want to know?
What is the Holy Spirit going to do in us?
What power, what insights of wisdom, what Acts of Next Step Christian Church?
We look with eager anticipation to what the Holy Spirit is going to do in us.
As we ask “what is next?” we could fall into the trap of “what should I do next?”
What we really want to know and see is “what is the Holy Spirit doing next?… and how can I join in?”
What are you going to do “when the Holy Spirit comes upon you”?
The same Spirit that empowered the Judges. Same Spirit.
The same Spirit that empowered Jesus. Same Spirit.
The same Spirit that rose Jesus from the dead. Same Spirit.
What is the Holy Spirit going to do in us? Going to do in you and me? Going to do through you and me? What is the Holy Spirit doing even now?
That’s a scary question, perhaps, because you’ve known some people who did or said crazy things and called it “Spirit”.
Or it may be a scary question because you had strong expectations for what the Spirit was going to feel like, be like, how there would be power and miracles here… and it didn’t look like what you expected it to look like.
From fear of crazy-town to disappointment… the Holy Spirit is to many Christians mysterious and invisible. We have a lot of concerns, we have a lot of questions, there is a lot unknown… and I think we are a lot like the disciples left staring upwards at a departing Jesus and wondering what this Holy Spirit stuff was really all about.
With all our concerns, with all our questions...
We eagerly anticipate what the Holy Spirit is going to do in Acts.
We eagerly anticipate what the Holy Spirit is going to do in us.

Holy Spirit Prayer

Ephesians 3:14–19 ESV
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
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