Sermon Tone Analysis

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?

Deborah and Barak.

God raised up Deborah - Judge and Prophet.

And Gideon:

And we had some not-so-great Judges.

Like Jeff the Shaman, Jeff the Racist, Jephthah.

But the Holy Spirit used him too:

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:

Tearing lions to pieces:

And tearing Philistines to pieces:

(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...

He elaborates on this in

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:

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?

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

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.

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:

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.