The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E51 - The Spirit

Episode Date: July 7, 2020

Hey, church family, it is time for Devo. If you got your Bible, it's going to be in Acts chapter 19. We're going to be here today and tomorrow, and we're going to talk about, well, tomorrow we're going to talk about kind of the rise and fall of the church in Ephesus. But in that context, I want to take a look at Acts 19, because as I was reading through, I think what we see here in Acts 19 is what it looks like for the Christian, and I put that in air quotes because I think there's a lot of church people that would consider themselves Christians that may not have surrendered their life to Christ. Okay, so what it looks like for church folk to try

to operate absent the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, as you know, I didn't grow up in church, but whatever church encounters I had growing up was with the Baptist. And so, and I make fun of the Baptist, but doctrinally, that's where I align mostly. And it was almost like we left the Holy Spirit out of the Trinity. It was like the people that I was around believed in God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Bible, not the Holy Spirit. And anything that smelled of charismatic action, they just thought that was awful. And so oftentimes Christians try to operate in their own power, in their own might, with their own will absent the very spirit of God. And you cannot read through the New Testament, particularly

the book of Acts, and come away with this idea that the abundant life that Jesus was talking about was you being a better version of you. But in fact, when Jesus resurrects from the grave and leaves the tomb empty and then sends the helper, the Spirit of God on the day of Pentecost, he didn't leave us empty. But we are filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of His Spirit. The Spirit of His son that we would cry out Abba Father. And so we're going to see what it looks like to try to operate absent the Holy Spirit. Acts Haber 19. And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country

and came to Ephesus. And there he found some disciples. These are people that are already followers. And he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And look at their answer. and they said, no, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. Well, how could that happen? Okay, so here's how it happens. This is, this text gets abused and used all the time.

When you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you are immersed into the Holy Spirit. And every believer has been invaded with the Holy Spirit. But the reason they hadn't heard of the Holy Spirit is because of the Holy Spirit, is because apparently when they heard this message of the coming Messiah, they heard it from John the Baptist. And so what has yet happened in their life, even though they repented and said, all right, John the Baptist,

we will be followers of your teaching as we look for this Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world, what hasn't happened yet is they don't know that Jesus has come, live, died, crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, ascended to the right hand, and the Spirit of God on the day of Pend. Menecost has invaded every believer.

Okay? So these are people that believe in God and the Bible and things like that, but they don't even know that there is a Holy Spirit. Just bring this up because I think there's a lot of church people that operate like this. So he follows up and says, into what were you baptized? And they said into John's baptism. And Paul's like, oh, well, this makes sense.

You see, because John was pointing to the way, but John isn't the way, the truth and life. You can't get to the Father through John. You can only get to the Father through Jesus. And if you get to the Father through Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes along with them because it's one God in three persons. And so he goes, all into John's baptism. Paul says, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is Jesus. and on hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. So basically, Paul finishes up the gospel.

They had a pretty good head start, but he goes ahead and shares the life, death, resurrection of Jesus with them, and so they put their faith in Jesus there, baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. By the way, also, if you've never been baptized as a believer, and you're like, well, I got baptized back in the day, then according to Acts 19, you should be baptized as a believer. and you're not undoing your baptism as a child when somebody else decided this for you.

You're actually confirming what those people that chose for you to be baptized were praying for, that you would know Jesus. And when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about 12 men in all. And he entered the synagogue, and for three months he spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. but when some became stubborn and continued to know unbelief, speaking evil of the way, that's what

early Christianity was called. In fact, we're only called Christians a couple of times in the New Testament, and one time is a pejorative term, it's derogatory. It was like making fun of little Christ. But originally, followers of Jesus were called people of the way, because Jesus says, I am the way, the truth in the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. So speaking evil of the way, or believers, before the congregation. And he would, withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannis. This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greek. So Paul is doing a mighty work. Okay, so you see the umbrella here is he

gets the Ephesus. There are some people that are God-fearers, but not yet Jesus discovering and deepening relationship followers, and they don't even know about the power of the Holy Spirit. Okay, so that's kind of the context. which I think matters into what happens next. I think this next event, and I like to call it a story, because it's not like a make-believe story. This is an actual historical event. I think now what we're going to see is some particular people

trying to operate like a Christian, like a church person, but they don't know Jesus and they don't have the Holy Spirit. One of my favorite accounts in all of the Bible. Here we go. and God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul. So that even handkerchiefs or aprons that he had touched his skin to were carried away to the sick, and their disease left them, and evil spirits came out of them.

You see, Luke, who wrote the Book of Acts, wants us to know that Paul has an anointing on him like few ever had. I mean, people are just taking aprons or handkerchiefs, that he has touched and just contact with those things, evil spirits are fleeing from him. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcist undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits.

Okay, so I think it's crazy that this was a job, that there were some people in Ephesus who were known as itinerant Jewish exorcist. That was their job. They traveled around under the Torah and cast out demons. But they've heard these stories about the Apostle Paul. They've heard these rumors that are true that the Apostle Paul's casting out demons and that the Apostle Paul's handkerchief.

Somebody toaded it through a hallway in Mayo and everybody's out of there, okay? And so they are thinking, I want some of that. Now, again, what these itinerant Jewish exorcists, They're not trying to plug into the power source, which is a relationship with Jesus, in which we have access to the Holy Spirit, or really the Holy Spirit now has access to us. But they just kind of want the goods. And so, so my tenorate Jewish exorcist undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits saying,

I adjure you by the Jesus who Paul proclaims. seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Skeva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them. Jesus I know, Paul, I recognize. But who are you? I don't know if you've ever tried to cast out a demon. And I don't say that lightly. I don't am not trying to make fun.

But if you go to cast out a demon in someone's name and you don't even know their name, and then the demons start smack talking back to you, it ain't going to go good. And so the demons say to the seven sons of Sceva, yeah, we know about Jesus. Is he around here? Okay, all right, good. And Paul, I love this.

We've heard of him. Like, apparently one of the demons is like, yeah, man, I got a second cousin and ended up in a pig. You know, they've heard of Paul's anoint him, but they look at the seven sons of Sceva, and they go, but who are you? And then, I think this is awesome.

And the man in whom was the evil spirit leapt on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. All right, I've been in a bunch of fights in my life. I'm just going to admit it, you know, when I was younger, but I've been in a bunch of fights. And I've won some and I've lost some. And I have been wounded, but not in any significant kind of way,

you know, a bloody nose or a busted lip or something like that. And even sometimes there was some, some disparity over who won the fight, you know. Like maybe you take a couple shots, but it ended up on the ground and you had them in a headlock. But I promise you this, if you start the fight with clothes and you run away from the fight with no clothes,

you lost the fight. And not only that, if you're running down the street with no pants on after trying to cast out a demon, there's like wounded with like a bloody lip, and then there's wounded like in the soul that you're never going to shake this off. So these seven sons of Sceiva come in.

They've heard rumors about the name and the power of Jesus. They don't know the name of Jesus. They don't know the power of Jesus. They're not filled with the spirit, kind of like the guys at the beginning of Acts 19. But yet they're trying to like play the role. And they go toe to toe with a demon, and they say, all right, in the name of Jesus,

who Paul talks about, come out. And the demons go, who are you? and the demons whoop them. Now, do I believe in the demonic? Yes. I don't know how you don't. If you struggle with an addiction,

whether it's smoking something or drinking something or taking something or looking at something, there are these times when you don't want to do a thing and yet you feel like something in you overwhelms you and wants to push you down a road that you know you have decided, I don't want to go down this road. What do you call that?

Just poor decision making? Or you look at evil in our world, evil in our world. What do you think that is? You don't think that's demonic? Now here's why I bring this up. Oftentimes what we as Jesus followers try to do is we try to operate in our own power pointing to somebody else's relationship with Jesus. And when you do that, these addictions and this habitual sin and the things that you are trying to defeat in your life, they will whip

you senseless. They will beat you down to your naked and wounded. That there are no secondhand Christians, that if you don't know Jesus, then you don't know the power of the Holy Spirit in you. And if you do know Jesus, if you have surrendered your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, would you please open yourself up to what the Spirit of God wants to do in you? The Spirit of God in you cries out, Abba Father. The Spirit of God in you helps you know that he's your dad. 46 years old, we used to do this. We used to brag when we were kids about whose dad could whip.

other people's dad. I don't know if you ever did that. If you're my generation, you know what I'm talking about. My dad could beat your dad. And my dad was in the Navy. And my dad, my dad was actually the ship champion in boxing on an, like an aircraft carrier. He's kind of, I found that out the heart of way when I was like 17 years old. But here's the thing, man. I can remember, man, when my dad was with me, I felt like I was invincible. This is what the Spirit of God does in us. Galatians chapter four says that he has adopted us as sons and given us the spirit of his son and the spirit inside of us cries out Abba, Father.

So for all of us, struggling with broken relationship, struggling with sin, struggling with addictions and habits and hang-ups, whatever it is, whatever that thing is that you are trying to gain victory over, if you just try to do it in your own power, it will beat you down because it is not afraid of you. But when you walk in the power of the Holy Spirit

and when you don't just claim the name of Jesus with your mouth, but you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior and you have an abiding, growing relationship with him, then nothing will be impossible for you. In fact, instead of just trying to fight the demonic, instead of just trying to fight the addiction, the real fight is you need to fight for that relationship with Jesus. You need to abide in him, lean in him, be sensitive to the Spirit of God,

allow the Spirit of God to bring to life His Word in your life. And you will not be beaten and wounded, but you will walk in victory because you're more than accomplished. Father in heaven, Father, we pray to you. We pray in the name of Jesus, and we pray by the power of the Holy Spirit. God, I pray that you would open up our eyes and our ears and our minds and our hearts. hearts to your spirit, the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost inside each and every believer. That we would not be like these men that just had a baptism of repentance, but we would have a

baptism in the name of Jesus. It wouldn't just be about good moral conduct and us trying to sin less. It would be about an abiding relationship with you with the power of the Spirit of God flows in us and through us, but not for us, for your glory. God, I pray for the men and women right now that are dialed in and they struggle with an addiction. God, I pray for freedom. I pray that the power of the Spirit of God would break those chains because Jesus has already conquered sin and already conquered death. And I pray that those men and women would walk in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ

and they would know that they are adopted sons and they are more than conquerors. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.