The Promise: I Will Send You a Helper

May 7, 1989 AM

Luke 24:49 And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

Introduction:

Next Sunday is one of the great days of the church: Pentecost. It commemorates the climax of the greatest promise God ever made to human beings: that He would come, in Person, and live with every man or woman who would receive Him.

We don't quite know what to make of Pentecost. We would like to control it. We would like to say "This, or that, is what happened, and what happens now."

Look with me at what Jesus said to His disciples just before He ascended to the Father.

(Lesson:) John 15:26 - 16:4a When the Helper comes, whom I will send you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me, and you will bear witness also, because you have been with me from the beginning

These things I have spoken to you, that you may be kept from stumbling. They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think he is offering service to God. And these things they will do, because they have not known the Father, or Me. But these things I have spoken to you, that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them.

Jesus made it clear that we would face conflict, and that we would need His Spirit in those times.

Jesus also said, in the closing words of Luke's gospel (text:) "And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high."

If only we might come to these words as though we had never heard them before! If we could come with fresh understanding, what might stand out to us?

I. THE PROMISE: YOU WILL HAVE THE HELPER

Nothing less than God's Presence in our everyday living will suffice to enable us to be truly Christian. "Christian" is not just another way among man; "Christian" is LIFE itself! It is intended to be vibrant, pulsing LIFE because we are vitally connected with the Source, the Author of LIFE. And that connection is the promised Spirit.

Those who heard the Promise for the first time could not grasp this new thing. It is hard to comprehend, even after all these centuries: that God Himself will make His home in the hearts of His people, and make them One in Himself. But this is the Promise.

And this was the central thing about Pentecost. There was incredible JOY as the disciples realized that Jesus WAS with them! He had said, "I am with you always!" And now He was!

II. THE PAUSE: A REASON TO WAIT

The Promise of the indwelling Presence was given with a strict command: Don't go out on the Great Commission until you are clothed with the Promise!

Why tarry? Jesus had finished His TEACHING. The facts were in, complete. The ATONEMENT had been made: Jesus had said: "It is finished!" A world was lost. Why not start out right now!! ??

Why not start out, indeed?:

Because Jesus did not want the disciples to share THEIR lives, at least not the way they were just then. These were good and decent men, with sincere love for Jesus. But Jesus knew that they would make disciples just like themselves, and that would be disaster to any hopes of building a holy church.
By the same argument, Jesus does not want us to make the church in OUR image. He does not want us to simply give other people our lives. He wants us to give them HIS life. And the only way we can give Jesus away is to have His Spirit filling us.
Why wait? Because the Holy Spirit's empowering is absolutely necessary for doing the Holy Spirit's work. Kingdom work is never accomplished by human wisdom, human scheming.
Why wait? Because "the mind of Christ" which is essential to "working out our salvation" (see Philippians 2:5-12) is only available to those who have received Christ's Promise, the Gift of the Holy Spirit.

III. THE PLENTY: THEY WERE (ALL) FILLED

What does 'being filled' mean?

ARE WE SO CERTAIN THAT WE KNOW? We are so conditioned at this point that it will probably take an effort for you not to anticipate what you think I am going to say. You will be tempted simply to turn me off. We know the answers so very well— but do we have the questions clear?
So- to this question ("What does it mean to be filled?) there is a "holiness answer" and a "Pentecostal answer" and a "Reformed answer" and we are all so smug and so sure we are right and they are mistaken.
But set answers aside, now: what does being filled with the Spirit mean?
1. An experience. [I don't deny it.] But lets come back to this. "Experience" as necessary and valid and crucial as it is, is not the end and all of what it means to be filled!
2. A mind-set. To be "filled" reflects a certain attitude of mind. [As: "He is certainly FULL of his subject!" Like a person who sells Nutri-Lite.] To be FILLED means to interpret all of life from a particular perspective.
  A heart surgeon watches how people carry themselves, and says: "There goes an ailing circulatory system!" A shoe salesman once looked at my feet and told me where I bought my shoes and who (probably) had sold them to me! And a Christian does and says all that she or he does and says in the consciousness of Christ's life.
  Is there any reason that someone might look at your life and say:"Everything that person does somehow he relates to Jesus Christ!"??
3. A passion. Being "filled" can mean even more than a mind-set. It can be a passion. [Like springtime lovers full of each other (sort of sickening when it is too public, isn't it?) True passion is not always flamboyant and public.
  In fact some of the deepest and most moving manifestations of love I have ever known have little or no resemblance to the flowers of spring. So we had better not judge the depths of commitment by the public displays.
  But if the commitment is there— and a person is "filled"— if the love is real and true, it will exclude purely selfish commitments, and it will exalt the one who is loved.
  Is there any basis for any person to say of you or me: "He/she is full of the love of Jesus!"??
4. To be filled with the Spirit is to reveal a way of life that 'overcomes.' The Holy Spirit must begin to manifest His Presence by His increasing fruit: Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Temperance.
  A life that is constantly defeated, or that manifests chronic lack of joy, or constant criticism, or a jaded attitude toward the means of God's grace, or that makes every hard place a call for a vote: (Shall I go ahead and do God's will, or shall I quit??)— such a life is hardly a great advertisement for Jesus Christ.
  To be filled with the Spirit means a life that is, at least on average, "overcoming."
  Is there any basis for an objective and impartial observer to say about your life and mine: "She/he is an overcomer!"??
5. To be filled with the Spirit will mean special grace for special assignments. I know this is probably a basic definition of our Keswickian brothers and sisters. But it is a valid definition. We do not always have great manifest power and great enduement from on high, because (Thank God!) we don't always live in a time of crisis.
  But being filled means that the Holy Spirit will be there when we need Him. When the pathway of obedience leads us out over our own depth, the Holy Spirit must come through, according to the Promise. 6. But being filled IS an experience! It IS something which is more than just subjective, existential, or whimsical and capricious. It is a Promise which we can know even if we cannot completely control or categorize it.
  The climate of fullness is always surrender. There must be a desire for and a submission to God's whole will. We teach, and rightly so, that we come to a crisis of deliberate surrender to God for time and for eternity.
  Certainly there is a submission to God's direct commands. "Don't leave town!" God's will, not ours! This submission is epitomized in Romans 12:1,2 and Philippians 2:5-11.
  There is also a submission one to another. (Ephesians 5:21) And Acts 2 tells us that when the Holy Spirit came to fill them "They were all in one place, in one accord."
  Don't overlook that fact.
  It was in this spirit of submission, surrender to God, that they WAITED!
This experience of being filled should manifest itself by these five or six criteria, perhaps. Not "pass" in order to satisfy some self-appointed human panel, but in order to enter into the joyful realm of Christ's expectations and His Promise.
And the absolute essential manifestation of being filled with the Spirit is OBEDIENCE! God's will is now MORE than a law written somewhere in stone. God's will has become DELIGHT!

IV. THE PEOPLE: WHO MAY BE FILLED?

On that great Birthday of the Church Peter said: "This Promise is to YOU and to your children"(to you people here, listening to me speak today.) "And," Peter also said, "to those who are afar off (even back home in Asia Minor where some of you live..) "And to as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself."(Acts 2:39)
So here, according to scripture, if God speaks to you in convicting, convincing, promising persuasion, then you are a candidate for this fullness.
Only God's people may be filled. This must be more than a shibboleth of our tradition. I would far rather be dead wrong, theologically, and belong to God totally, than to be dead right and too rigid to acknowledge my own deep need!
To be a part of the 'holiness tradition' is to have both a great blessing AND a danger! We sometimes almost come to think that WE own the Spirit! We think that WE understand the Wind!
CONSECRATED PEOPLE WILL BE FILLED. There will be a deliberate consecration! Remember Jacob at Jabbok? There will probably be a crisis time of surrender. It may be big and traumatic, or it may be quiet and sweet and almost uneventful.
PEOPLE WHO SEEK TO BE TOTALLY OPEN BEFORE GOD WILL BE FILLED. "What is your name?" There must be confession, and understanding of our own UN-righteousness apart from God. Apart from GRACE we have no right to claim the Promise.
There probably will be a challenge to our faith. Salvation— all of salvation— is by GRACE through faith! Not by "feelings." No some predictable, measurable response. Not the assurance of someone dear and trusted. On your own, for yourself, ALONE, you come to realize: This Promise is for ME! And then, I ACCEPT THIS GIFT!
Then: This fullness will "work its way OUT" in a life-time of open-ness and obedience and surrender— and VICTORY AND JOY AND FULLNESS AND RICHNESS which we can then proceed to give away!
Don't you see: that is why Jesus didn't want the disciples to leave town UNTIL....

V. THE PLAN: WHAT DO WE DO WITH THIS FULLNESS?

I say it reverently: That is Jesus' problem! If we will tarry until we are filled with His Spirit, then we are simply to witness wherever we are led.
The disciples did not have a great Master Plan to win over the world. They didn't even have a world-wide vision, even though Jesus had said: "Go to the uttermost part!" The very idea of sharing their faith with Gentiles was almost too much for them.
But the disciples were genuinely filled! They were God-soaked people! And God could NOT be contained!
The people who accomplish for God are people who are filled with God.
Mother Teresa prays four hours a day. We rightly stand in awe of WHAT SHE DOES for Jesus. But she does much because she prays much; and she prays much because she needs the strength because she in herself cannot do what she does.
Too often we are TOO STRONG or TOO SMART for Jesus to use. Or we are TOO SURE that we know what Jesus wants.
But if we will be filled, then Jesus will not be CONTAINED. Jesus will out! "They took knowledge" of Peter and John "that they had been with Jesus!" They simply lived out Jesus, and went where Jesus said, and did their best to do what Jesus ordered. And without computers or jet planes or copy machines or tremendous organizational ability they turned their world over for Jesus in one generation!

The Promise was also their Plan!

Conclusion:

I'm glad that I was brought up in a Nazarene church to hear about the fullness of the Spirit, and the Promise of Pentecost. I'm also glad that I learned about consecration, and I believe I have given my whole being to Jesus forever and ever.

But I want to probe to the depths all that this Promise of Jesus, that I may be filled with His Spirit— probe all that it means! Will you claim with me the promise of our Ascended Savior?

Exalt Him #37 Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise OR #38 Come, Holy Spirit