When the Spirit Comes

Receive the Holy Spirit

February 2, 1992 PM

Texts: Ephesians 5:18 and John 20:22

Introduction

There are many advantages to being brought up in a holiness church. Yet sometimes I think we get almost too familiar with God and holy things. It is often the most precious gifts that get taken for granted.
I am concerned that we holiness churches may come to think that we know all about God, and all about His will, and all about salvation, and particularly, to think that we have all the answers regarding being filled with the Spirit.
Even so, we need to ask the question: What does it mean to receive the Holy Spirit? Just what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? Shouldn't we know the "answers?" Should we, indeed?
The answer must be spiritually addressed. Understanding holiness— knowing about being filled with God— is not primarily and first of all an intellectual comprehension, as important as that certainly is.
1. We must have sound doctrine. Our information about entire sanctification must be both scriptural and Wesleyan.
  Unless we have solid Wesleyan preaching, and sound Wesleyan teaching and learning, we will find that we are strongly influenced by the most attractive features of whatever doctrines are being most skillfully or popularly presented at the time.
2. But even before doctrine is the need for a vital contact with God.
  DOCTRINE and EXPERIENCE and PRACTICE are like three legs of a tripod. Each one is absolutely essential.
  To the unconverted WORLD the only side of salvation they can see or care about in any way is PRACTICE.
  To the safe-guarding of the kingdom, and the ongoing health of the CHURCH, the most important side of salvation is DOCTRINE. But in the life of the INDIVIDUAL (the American rugged individual!!) there is nothing more important than personal EXPERIENCE.]
3. God's Spirit must bring Christ's LIFE into being into your heart and mine. It will never contradict God's revelation; it will finally agree with sound doctrine. But we are not saved first of all by WHAT we think we know, but by HIM WE KNOW WE KNOW!
Here is a quote from a great holiness exponent of a generation or so ago, Samuel Chadwick:
"The fullness of God is in Christ and Christ lives in men through His Spirit. He is Himself the gift. He brings all the blessings of grace, and wisdom, and power, but He is the blesser and the blessing. There is in the soul a very true sense of a divinely real Presence. The Spirit makes the Presence real. This is the crowning mystery and glory of grace. The Christian religion is not a set of doctrines about Christ, neither is it a rule of life based on the teaching and example of Christ. It is not even an earnest and sincere endeavor to live according to the mind and spirit of Christ.
It is LIFE, and that Life is the Life of Christ. It is the continuation of the Life of the Risen Lord in his Body, which is the Church, and in the Christian religion as set forth in the New Testament. It is not a system but a Presence; the Spirit of Christ indwelling the spirit of man."
Our knowledge of the indwelling Spirit— our answer to the question, "What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit needs to have this quality of LIFE in it! We cannot simply say, "I subscribe to the Nazarene position!" Our hearts must be tuned to the Presence of God! NOW we will look at the answer scripturally:

I. WE RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF GOD WHEN WE ARE BORN OF THE SPIRIT

John 20:22 / Romans 8:9

On the first Easter evening Jesus met with His disciples. Were they glad to see Him! And then the Bible says that Jesus breathed on them and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit!"
We receive the Spirit and the great work of being made in Christ's own image is begun, in the crisis moment when we are born of the Spirit of God. Jesus made it clear in talking to Nicodemus that when we are made alive in Him we are born of the Spirit. (John 3:8). And Paul says even more powerfully, (Romans 8:9) If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His.
No one is ever born again— receives Jesus Christ as personal Savior, without also receiving the Holy Spirit. In understandable zeal for the truth of entire sanctification we may speak of Christians as "receiving the Spirit" as though they had not known Him at all before. This is not scriptural! Every Christian is the Temple of the Holy Ghost, and every Christian is sanctified in this initial and very true sense.
The Spirit brings with Himself into the life of every man, woman, boy or girl who received Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord all the qualities of the Christ-life. There in the inner being are at least the embryonic qualities of all the mighty fruit of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22,23) of love, joy, peace and all the rest.
But the testimony of universal experience is that there is a deeper and deeper relationship with God to be explored. The Spirit is present in every child of God, making Jesus increasingly real, and fellowship with Him possible. Have YOU come alive in Christ by His Spirit?

Still, this is not all there is to receiving God's Spirit:

II. WE RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF CLEANSING AND EMPOWERING WHEN WE ARE SANCTIFIED WHOLLY

(Acts 2: "They were in one place, in one accord, etc...")

The Bible does not speak merely of the "coming" of the Holy Spirit, but of the COMINGS.
Listen to what a current holiness advocate, Robert E. Coleman, of Asbury, says:
Interestingly enough, when we get through all the theological differences, a remarkable number of men and women greatly used of God from various schools of thought witness to essentially the same kind of a plus experience in their own lives. Naturally, they speak of it in different ways, depending upon their particular doctrinal point of view. Some call it "entire sanctification," "holiness," "perfect love," or "the victorious life." Others may prefer to describe it as "the baptism of the Holy Spirit," "the rest of faith," "death to self," or something else. The terminology, however, is not the important thing. What is significant is that there exists among Christian leaders representing many different theological and church connections a basic unanimity of agreement upon the fact— the fact of a deeper and abiding life in Christ that is entered into subsequent to regeneration whereby the trusting heart is delivered from the bondage of self, filled with the Holy Spirit, and set aflame by the love of God to serve the Lord with gladness.
There is an experience, a crisis experience of entire and complete consecration, of full surrender, to which as children of God we are brought by the loving conviction of the Holy Spirit. To this complete consecration, in response to faith, the Holy Spirit COMES in sanctifying fullness, not merely to reside, but to PRESIDE in the heart of the believer.

But this, marvelous as it is, is not all that is implicit in the simple command of Jesus: Receive the Spirit!

III. WE RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF ADEQUACY DAY BY DAY AS WE APPROPRIATE HIS PRESENCE AND POWER

(Ephesians 5:18)

he "coming of the Spirit" is not over and ended when we enter the relationship of entire sanctification. For again and again we read in the account of the early church how the people, challenged by evil powers, or blocked by civil authorities, facing death or imprisonment, would come together and pray, and in answer to their prayer they would be "FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT!"
This important verse, as important as any in the New Testament, is properly translated "Be being filled with the Spirit!" Make being filled with God an on-going reality in your life!.
One reason the power of God is not manifested more in Christian's lives is that Christians are not living at that end of the scale where the Spirit's power is urgently needed!
If we are content to take our pure and holy selves off into the corner (like Little Jack Horner) and congratulate ourselves on our doctrinal purity and our ethical honesty while the rest of the world suffers and bleeds, we will never know the reality of what BEING FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT REALLY IS ALL ABOUT!
But if we stay in step with Jesus by His indwelling Spirit— if we let HIM challenge our pure minds with HIS love— He will take us into situations where we are way over our heads— where we KNOW WE CAN NOT MAKE IT UNLESS HE POURS IN HIS SPIRIT!
But the beautiful thing is— if we are HIS! No holds barred— no reservations— then THE SPIRIT DOES COME! He comes with His adequacy! He comes in His love and power day by day as we need HIM!

Conclusion:

God is bigger than we can grasp! Being filled with His Spirit is a promise that staggers our imagination— but it is His promise!

We may not know all ABOUT God— and we may not even have all the answers about being filled with the Spirit; but we can in fact know God, and we can in fact be filled with His Spirit!

God is not only BIGGER than you think— God is NEARER THAN YOU KNOW! God is HERE JUST NOW! He is bringing witness to the truth about His salvation. He is telling YOU that you can have His Spirit deep within!

GOD: "Do you know Me?" "Do you really WANT to know Me?"

I ask you myself, this evening: ARE YOU FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT?

ARE YOU SATISFIED THAT GOD HAS ALL OF YOU?

ARE YOU DAILY ASKING TO BE BEING FILLED?

Prayer

Hymn #276 - "Have Thine Own Way, Lord"