Allen Jackson - The Holy Spirit and Power - Part 1
The topic for this session is the Holy Spirit and power. And it really has emerged out of my own prayers of late and the awareness that we need the the power of God to address what is before us. The challenges that face us, the opportunities before us, cannot be resolved with just the means available to us as human beings: political activity, ideological discussion, negotiation, hard work, focused effort. Those are all appropriate things, but they will not solve the problems, the problems have not only beset us, the problems have overcome us. If you're not paying very careful attention, I would encourage you to. We are culturally on life support. I don't believe that we can sustain what we are doing for a matter of years.
I don't know that we can sustain it for a matter of months, but I know it's unsustainable for a matter of years. And there seems to be a reasonably small appetite to do anything to engage it, which brings us back to what can be done. And I believe the answer to that resides in the person in the presence of the Holy Spirit and the ability of the people of God, the church, to cooperate with him, to build a relationship with him, to recognize his voice, to be willing to yield to him. And my observation is that across all of the denominations' traditions, we have very profound language around the person and the work of the Holy Spirit, but we often have very small intent, and an idea absent intent remains dormant. It's inert.
For instance, you probably have an idea about what would be necessary to lose five pounds. It's not a complete mystery, but if you don't have the intent to do it, those five pounds are probably very much a part of your continuing future. And so, I think sometimes we confuse awareness of facts, or a grasp of information, with the same thing as actual implementation or activity. And what I hope to do in these next few minutes is to invite you towards a bit more of an intentional response to the Spirit of God. So that's my target. If you wanna know what the agenda is, you've heard it.
The title again is "The Holy Spirit and Power". And I wanna begin in John's gospel with a rather lengthy commentary Jesus provides us across several chapters about the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. John's gospel is different than the other of the four gospels. Almost half of John's gospel deals with the events surrounding that last trip to Jerusalem that Jesus made and the preparation of his disciples and what he wants to tell them with the awareness that the shadow of the cross has already fallen across them. And he's begun to tell them repeatedly that's what the future is, and they're struggling with that.
And he's telling them he's leaving, and they're not going to continue the relationship with him the way that they have known it, and that's very agitating to them. They're frustrated by it, frightened by it. And Jesus is trying to prepare them for what is next. I think that's very important because he's tried to prepare us for what's next. He's told us in the plainest of language some of the things that are in front of us, the hatred towards the people of God that's going to grow.
You see that with these blatant displays of anti-Semitism right now. It's not new, folks. Anti-Semitism has existed in the Earth for a long, long time. And it's the arrogance, the deception, and the manipulation of those that message us that have tried to convince us it's over. It's anything but over. Are you paying attention? The most elite universities in our nation are sponsors of anti-Semitism. Now, they wrap it in some fuzzy language around freedom of speech, but they weren't issuing permission for freedom of speech within recent months when they didn't agree with the viewpoint. They were very quick to label things "misinformation" and shut them down or things to be polarizing and say, "You can't say that on this campus".
And when people are calling for the annihilation of the Jewish people, they protect it under the guise of free speech. It's like the pornography in our children's libraries in our public schools, and the people who defend it say they're not in favor of book banning. I'm not in favor of book banning, but I do have enough life experience to know some things are inappropriate for children to read. Stop with the language manipulation. And have the courage to stand up to protect our children and the courage to say that's anti-Semitism and I won't support it. I won't send my children to those schools. It's evil. But the hatred you see being expressed towards the Jewish people will be pointed at all the people of God. It's coming for the Christian community. It's the same spirit. It's the spirit of Antichrist.
Now, we're reluctant to believe that because we haven't suffered from it the same way that the Jewish people have. But between here and the end of the age we will. Jesus told us we would. He said, "You'll be hated by all nations because of me". I would encourage you to consider it. It's not a negative statement. It's not a threat. It's about preparation. When Jesus told the disciples he would be betrayed, arrested, beaten, crucified, he wasn't trying to frighten them. He was trying to prepare them. And he's given us some wisdom for preparation and a great deal of that is centered in the person and the work of the Holy Spirit.
In John chapter 14, Jesus is speaking to his closest friends, and he said, "If you love me, you will obey what I command". Did you know that? Jesus is all about love, people say. I agree. And he said, "If you have any love for me, you'll be obedient to my commandments". Jesus's expression of love was not sloppy. It didn't endorse immorality and brokenness and greed and selfishness and lust and all those expressions of our carnal self. He said, "If you really love me, you'll do what I say. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever, The Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and he will be," future tense, "in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you".
And he makes some statements about the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna walk through this really with you pretty quickly, but I want to begin to gather some of these statements Jesus makes about the person of the Holy Spirit for you to reflect upon because we've discounted him. We we've considered him irrelevant. After all, we know Jesus died for our sins and we made him Lord, and so, we focus on that. And it says, "In the beginning, God". And so we focused on that, and we've kind of left the Holy Spirit, you know, on the sidelines. It's kind of this, you know, ambivalent force for good, we think, Casper, the friendly ghost that likes church music. And that's not the biblical presentation at all. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will be with you forever.
Here's a suggestion. Any relationship you're going to have forever is worth developing. Perhaps we should begin to get to know him, to recognize his voice, to understand his promptings. What brings joy to him? I would encourage you to think of the Holy Spirit as a person in the same way you think of God the Father and Jesus the Son. And then, Jesus said, "The world cannot accept him". Your attitude towards the Holy Spirit is a point of differentiation between the Kingdom of God and the spirit of this present age. If you're indifferent towards the Holy Spirit, the spirit of this present age has far too much place in your heart and your value system.
Jesus said, "The world cannot accept him," and then he made the statement to his friends. He said, "I'll not leave you as orphans". Now, he's leaving them. He's gonna tell them that repeatedly, "I'm going, and where I'm going, you cannot go with me". They get really agitated about that. They said, "We've been with you everywhere. We climbed the Golan Heights with you. We walked the Jericho Road with you. We were in the boat when you walked on the Lake of Galilee. We've been with you when your life was threatened, and we've been with you for a triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem. What do you mean we can't go with you"? And Jesus here says, "I will not leave you as orphans. I'm leaving, but I'm not leaving you as orphans. I'll not leave you without care or without protection".
And he's entrusting. He has such confidence in the person of the Holy Spirit to complete what he has begun in the Earth. Jesus is the head of the church. The Holy Spirit is the head in the church, and Jesus has absolute confidence in him to care for his people. John 14, same chapter, verse 25: "All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I don't give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid". Those are declarative sentences. They're not suggestions. Jesus said, "Do not let your heart be troubled".
Folks, do not look at the world around us and let it trouble your heart, and you don't have to be afraid. If Jesus said, "Do not be afraid," he's given us provision to overcome fear. He wouldn't tell us not to do something that we were incapable of avoiding. So, you and I can understand, to the degree that our hearts are troubled and we're filled with fear, we have not learned to recognize the direction and the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said, "the Holy Spirit will teach you all things". That's a relationship worth having. How many of you would like to know more about all things? I'm in. He said he will remind you of everything I've said. That's amazing. I'm grateful to have reminders of important things. And then he said, "My peace I leave with you," peace I leave with you. And from the context in which he said that, there's a very clear implication that what he's leaving us is the person of the Holy Spirit, who's going to teach us all things and remind us of everything Jesus has said so that we can live in his peace. We will not live in the peace that Jesus has provided for us, not in absence of conflict.
Jesus's life was not absent conflict. Most places he went, he met resistance or hatred or rejection. We'll look at a couple. It wasn't an absence of conflict, but in the midst of every one of those challenging places, you never find Jesus, anxious or panicked or frightened. He's confronted by demons, and he says, "I have authority over you. Be quiet". He's confronted by storms, and he said, "Oh, be still". He's confronted by death, and he said, "Oh, it's just temporary. Sit up". He's confronted by sickness and disease, and he said, "No, they can't stay. They have to go". He's confronted by the IRS. It was tax time, and he said, "Peter, go fishing and bring back the tax money. Don't just go fishing".
And then he said, "I leave that peace with you". But it's in a person in the same way the disciples came to trust Jesus, that if Jesus was present, there was no challenge they faced that frightened them. They would bring people from ministry and the disciples would say we prayed for them, but we couldn't get an outcome. What will you do? And then Jesus would say, "You know, how long do I have to tolerate this"? And he would minister to the person. And so he's provided us with a presence he said that would be with us forever, that the world couldn't accept, that he wouldn't leave us. You start to stack these things together from this dialogue that Jesus is having and you'll begin to raise your hand to cooperated with the Holy Spirit more regularly.
John 15:26: "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me". Jesus is the one that sent the Holy Spirit. Chapter 16, verse 5: "Now I'm going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' Because I've said these things, you're filled with grief. But I tell you the truth," what do you know about that phrase? When you read it, what's coming next is gonna be shocking. It's illogical. It's irrational. So Jesus is saying, "No, really. I'm telling you the truth. I tell you the truth. It is for your good that I'm going away," period. Full stop.
I promise you the disciples didn't believe him. Can you believe you could be in a Bible study with Jesus and you'd think he's lying to me? I assure you they did not believe him. He said, "It's for your good if I go away". They're thinking, "Must be a metaphor". It's for your good. Then look at what he said: "Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you". It's for your good because unless I go, the Counselor will not come. If the counselor comes, you're gonna be in a better place. We're building our whole hope on the future, on the return of the king. And that's not inappropriate, but Jesus said, "It's better for you in this point if I go away because I will send the Holy Spirit. He will be in you, and he will remind you of everything I've said. He will show you what you need to know".
Same chapter, John 16: "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear". That's one of the most grace-filled statements I think Jesus ever made: "I have a lot more you need to know, but you can't take any more". You can't take anymore. You have that feeling on a weekly basis. Lord let him hush please. We can't take anymore. You've been at those places in your life. Before COVID and before wars, we did pretty routine tours to Israel, and most of the people who travel haven't been before. And many of the people who travel have never traveled internationally.
So there's quite a bit to process in that. How are we gonna do it? What kind of electricity do they have? What's the currency? Is the food any good? And you have a meeting, but the reality is after about 20 minutes, that's all people can take. That's just all they're gonna absorb. So whatever the important points are, you better put them in that first 10 or 15 minutes because there's a capacity issue. Oh, you can learn more later, but you just get overwhelmed with it. It's gonna be hot. We're gonna walk how far? Everyday? Uphill? Really? What if I don't wanna walk?
And Jesus is talking to his friends, and he said, "Listen, there's so much more I need to tell you, but you can't take any more right now". "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth". That is such an amazing statement. Jesus said, "I will send you a comforter that will guide you into all truth". Do you get weary with the deception? I do. I get tired of watching people tell half-truths, partial-truths, complete falsehoods. And you're trying to process it and figure out what the right answer is or the right response is. And Jesus said he would send us a counselor that would guide us into the truth.
So you don't have to be afraid. Don't be troubled. I'm sending you a counselor. Unbelievable. "He will guide you. He'll not speak on his own; he'll speak only what he hears, and he'll tell you what is yet to come. He'll bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you". He'll guide you into all truth. He'll tell you what is yet to come. And he's not gonna tell you who to bet on for the Super Bowl. Don't turn the Spirit of God into something carnal. You know, when we talk about the Holy Spirit and the power of God, which is really the point of this discussion, you have to bring some maturity and some self-discipline to the conversation or you will simply turn God, you'll begin to shift your imagination to a way to manipulate the power of God for your selfish, carnal gain.
This is not about self-promotion. There isn't anything Jesus said about the Holy Spirit that intends to promote ourselves. He said he would tell us about Jesus and what he's done for us. And whenever you find yourself thinking of the Holy Spirit as a way to gain opportunity or for self-promotion, you'll know that you are pedaling in the wrong direction. The Holy Spirit will bring glory to the Lord. Jesus is the one that will be exalted. In fact, if you want to attract the attention of the Holy Spirit, begin to exalt Jesus.
You see, if you're ashamed of Jesus, embarrassed of Jesus, if you don't take Jesus to work with you, if you don't take Jesus to the ball fields with you, if you don't take Jesus to the gatherings of your friends when you have your discretionary time, why do you think the Holy Spirit would entrust you with anything of significance? You're embarrassed of the one who's dispatched him. But if you'll begin to exalt the Lord wherever you go and in whatever setting you're in, you don't have to be bizarre or weird, but you wanna be an advocate, an unrelenting, unyielding advocate for Jesus of Nazareth, you'll begin to attract the interaction of the Holy Spirit.
It isn't that complicated. Jesus said he'll bring glory to me. He will do that. When he moves, the people go, "You know, only God could have done that". You're absolutely right. Only God could have done that. I put a little segment in your notes. Jesus is introduced to us in each of the four gospels in the same way. It's very unusual. There are very few things that all four of the gospels record, and it's even more unusual for all four of the gospels to record it in the precisely the same way. And I think it's unique that when Jesus is introduced to us, one of the first introductions comes from John the Baptist. After all, that was John the Baptist's assignment. He was the forerunner of the Messiah.
Some of you know his story. And when John introduces the Messiah, the language he uses is worth noting. John 1:33, you have it in your notes. John said, "I wouldn't have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God".
Now, the purpose in this session is not Spirit baptism so if that's a point of anxiety for you, you can relax. that's not the objective in this session. I'm not opposed to it. I just don't have time tonight. But when Jesus is introduced to us, he's not introduced to us as the one who's going to die for our sins. He's not introduced to us as our redeemer. Think of all the titles attributed to Jesus throughout Scripture. And all four of the gospel writers, when they wanted to introduce their audience to the Messiah, I would submit to you that that first introduction has a unique importance, a unique significance.
If you were going to introduce me to a complete stranger, it would be not unusual if you said, "This is Allen Jackson. He's my pastor". I doubt you would say, "This is Allen Jackson. He attended Bellwood Elementary School. This is Allen Jackson. He's pretty good at cleaning stalls. This is Allen Jackson. He's been thrown from a horse". There's many statements you could make about me, but when you introduced me for the first time to someone who didn't know me, you would try to focus that introduction on something that was most defining of who I was. Well, I would submit to you that when Jesus is introduced to us in each of the gospels by John, that the introduction is consistent across all four gospels. He said, "This is the one who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit".
Now, if you'll allow me a suggestion, it would be in everybody's best interest to understand what that means and to contemplate your participation. Do you know Jesus as the one who baptizes you in the Holy Spirit? If you don't, you don't know him in the way of primary importance as he was introduced. Say, "Well, I know him as Savior". That's wonderful. I'm not diminishing that, but you don't know him completely because Jesus went out of his way, we just read it in multiple passages, to say that the Holy Spirit will tell us what we need to know about Jesus. And what we're saying so often is "I have decided what I wanna know about Jesus. Don't bother me with the Bible. I will decide this".
Folks, we are walking into a season where I do not believe we will be able to stand apart from the power of God. I don't believe we will out-work evil, out-think evil, out-worship evil. We're not gonna out-plan evil or out-scheme evil. We're not gonna out-number evil. We're very clearly told we will be in the minority. Narrow roads, narrow gates, broad roads, wide gates, remember all that stuff? So we had better know that the source of power to direct, lead, guide, and protect us. This is moving beyond a a theological, theoretical banter. This is about understanding how to flourish in the midst of some pretty tumultuous times.
I want to pray with you before we go:
Heavenly Father, I thank you for every person that I've had this time with today, and I pray that in the name of Jesus, you would give us the will to persevere, the determination to overcome, that we may be reminded that greater is the spirit within us than any challenge we face in this world. In Jesus's name. Amen.