Jesus Was a Charismatic? Part 3

Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. Greer talks about the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is a person, and you have to begin to relate to Him like a person, a person that feels emotion, a person that can be grieved, a person that can be angered and saddened. And what that means is that for many of you who have resisted God's will for your life, you haven't resisted a moral code. You have rejected a person, a person who loves you, a person who created you, a person who came after you, came to a cross and died for you, and even now pleads with you to be reconciled to Him. Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.

I'm your host, Molly Vidovich. We all know that cars typically run on gasoline or maybe electricity if you have that fancy newer model. And if you've tried to fill up your car with anything else like milk or soda or even diesel, you're not going to get very far.

For a car to work, it has to be drawing from the right power source. And the same is true of us in our journey with Jesus. Today Pastor J.D. points us to the power source for the Christian life. It's part of our study of the Holy Spirit titled Rushing Wind. Now here's Pastor J.D. Today what I'm going to try to show you is that Jesus operated in the power of the Spirit. The Gospel of Luke. Luke goes to great lengths to show you that. And that is great news for you.

Let me tell you why. Because you weren't born the son or daughter of God. Jesus did not do what He did in the power of His own Godness. He limited His access to that. He did it in the power of the Spirit.

That's the same access, that's the same power that you have access to. You see, Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke and he also wrote what other book? What other book? He wrote the book of Acts.

That's right. And they actually go together as kind of one unit. And what Luke does in Luke and Acts is he draws these parallels between the experiences of Jesus and the experiences of the early church. And he shows you that both are experiencing in strikingly similar ways the power of the Spirit. Luke draws a number of different parallels between things that Jesus would do in the power of the Spirit and the same identical things that the church would do in the power of the Spirit. Here's a handful of them, okay?

If you're going to take notes, jot these down. Miracles. It'd be a letter A, miracles. Luke 5 17, Jesus heals a paralytic. But in Luke's account of this miracle, he includes the strangest little phrase, and the power of the Lord was present to heal. Now, I used to read that verse and be like, well, of course it was present to heal.

Jesus was there. But what Luke is showing you is that there was a power that was, Jesus would tap into the power of the Holy Spirit, and when the Holy Spirit's power was there, Jesus would use that power to heal. Well, in the same way, in the book of Acts, the power of the Spirit comes upon the church at different times, enabling them to do some pretty miraculous things.

Here's your second thing. Prophecy. Prophecy. And by prophecy, I mean speaking God's blessing into people's lives or making God's plans known to other people. What you see throughout Luke is that the Spirit of God comes onto various people, and God gives them wisdom and insight, and they'll speak into somebody's life something God wants them to know.

Then you see it happening in Acts. You see, for example, when the Holy Spirit baptizes the church, it says that the first thing they do is they begin to prophesy. A was miracles, B was prophecy. C is preaching. Preaching. Luke chapter 4 verse 14 says about Jesus before his first sermon. And Jesus returned and the power of the Spirit to Galilee.

And guess what he does? He preaches a sermon. The same language is used when people in the early church preached. Peter was filled with the Spirit in Acts 2, and he preached, and 3,000 were saved. Acts 7 says that Stephen was filled with the Spirit, and he preached a sermon that ended up with him being stoned, not stoned like the drunk sins, but stoned like the rocks coming at you since. And that sermon was used by God to convert the apostle Paul.

The whole point is this. Jesus depended on the power of the Spirit. That's how he did miracles. That's how he did prophecy. That's how he preached. That's how he prayed. That's how he resisted sin.

That's how he resisted Satan. Jesus limited his access to his Godness, and he operated in the power of the Spirit. And Luke shows you that so that you could see that you have access to the same power that he did.

The same power that he did. By the way, this is not even just a new thing with Luke. Even the images that Luke uses in Acts for the Holy Spirit are images that go all the way back to the Old Testament. What Luke is trying to show you is this is not something for one style of Christian, one branch of the church. This is something that runs through the whole Bible. The whole Bible has this one major theme, Zechariah 4-6, not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.

In John 15-5, apart from me, you can do nothing. When you start reading the Bible this way, even how Luke ends Acts, we have talked about this. You know how Luke ends the book of Acts?

He doesn't. He kind of ends it with the periods of ellipses. You've got Paul's prison in Rome, awaiting execution.

You've got the gospel spreading out the whole world. And Luke is like, that's a good place to end it. Boom, put a period, close the book. That's the way Acts ends.

It just ends. Why because the Spirit of God is like this rushing river running through the Bible. This wind that's blowing through the Bible. And Luke just ends it saying, this is how Moses did what he did. It's how David did what he did. It's how Samson did what he did. It's how Elijah did what he did.

It's how Nehemiah did what he did. It's how Malachi did what he did. It's how Jesus did what he did. It's how Peter did what he did. It's how Paul did what he did. It's how Agabus did what he did. It's how Dorcas did what she did.

It's how you are are gonna do what you do. And some of you have never experienced this kind of power because you thought Christianity is basically a moral code to be conformed to, it's a set of doctrines to be learned, and it is some of those things, but it is so much more. You can't read the Bible and not see that. Some of you have. I feel like sometimes I'm reading the Bible and you see this spirit moving through it.

And it just ends in Acts where it's like, dot, dot, dot. And what chapter are you gonna write? And how's the spirit of God gonna use you? And what's the spirit of God gonna do in your family? What's the spirit of God gonna do in your city and your campus and the place where you work?

God didn't quit being God at the end of Acts. It's all the way through there. Some of you have never tasted it. All right, that's my point, my point for you this week. Jesus, depend on the spirit, you should too. And I wanna apply it to you in two quick ways. That's my one point. I have two specific words for our church in light of that one point, okay?

Here it is. Number one, most of us depend on the wrong source of power. Most of us depend on the wrong source of power. Where do you look for? What do you look to for power to overcome sin, power to resist the devil, power to be freed from the captivity of bad habits? How do you find the ability to forgive people when they crucify you? Where do you look for the power to see dead things come back to life, a dead marriage, a deadness in your family, a deadness in your spirit?

Where do you look for power? Jesus looked for power in all these things to the spirit. You know how you develop the ability to forgive a husband who has betrayed and hurt you? It comes from the spirit of God.

That's how Jesus forgave people who were crucifying him. You wanna know how dead things come back to life in your life? It's not because you learn a new doctrine. It's not because you get greater willpower.

It's not because you read a new book. It's because the power of the spirit of God takes over in your life. You wanna know where you get power for ministry from? You wanna know where all of a sudden things start happening through you that you have a hard time explaining? You wanna know when your kids start growing and developing? You wanna know when people start coming to Christ around you? It's not because of might, not because of power, not because of intellectual might, not because of eloquence and power. It's because of the spirit of God at work in your life.

That's when it begins to happen. I feel like a lot of times Christian ministries, churches like ours end up looking like, you remember the story in the Bible, the Old Testament about Elijah and the prophets of Baal on the top of Mount Carmel? If you don't know that story, here it is real quick. Elijah and the prophets of Baal are in this contest to see who the real God is. So there's 400 prophets of Baal and there's Elijah and they're like, I wonder which one's God, Jehovah or Baal? And Elijah says, well, I got a great idea. Let's go build an altar, whichever one sends fire down from heaven, that's the real God. Prophets of Baal, that sounds like a great idea.

Let's go first. So they build their altar and 400 of them start dancing around and doing this thing that they think will make Baal send fire down from heaven. They dance for half the day. Baal's not listening, so Elijah makes fun of them, which is one of the most entertaining parts of the Old Testament. And then they start cutting themselves and they start like dancing really wildly and they think that if they can dance loud or dance vociferously enough and yell loud enough, then Baal's surely gotta send down the fire. So Elijah, after like a half day and after he's given every insult he can think of, he gets down on his knees and he's like, okay, first of all, take my altar and I want you to cover it with water. I want you to do that seven times.

I want you to make a water fountain where it's just overflowing with water. And he gets down on his knees and he prays a very simple, like eight or nine word prayer that basically is like God send the fire. God sends it and blows it up.

Now I look at those two things and I'm like, which one is the church more like today? Because we end up doing all this stuff, all this activity and we're like, we just give a little more and yell a little louder and practice a little harder and give out a few more of this then the fire's gotta come. The fire doesn't come from our activity. The fire comes very simply from God's Spirit. And God's Spirit can do more in an instant than we can do with 400 of us yelling our heads off all day long. My favorite part of that whole story, by the way, is 1 Kings 18, 39, let me read this to you, I love this.

When it's all over and God had sent the fire and all the people that are watching are on their face saying, the Lord, He is God, the Lord, He is God. What they're not saying, this is my favorite part, what they're not saying is, dang, Elijah's a great speaker. How awesome is Elijah? Let's bring back some friends to hear Elijah. No, because it was so clear that God's Spirit had done it.

Not Elijah had done it. Did you know that God can be so powerful in your life that people don't even notice you anymore? Matthew 5, 16, Jesus said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. See, a lot of us think that good works end up glorifying us, but when the Spirit of God begins to empower you to do good works, they begin to glorify God. That's one of the ways you know that the Spirit of God is not upon you is because people are still noticing you. I want to preach, I want to minister in such a way that people leave not saying, what a great preacher, they leave saying, what a great God.

Many of us have no access to that kind of power. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of wisdom, Isaiah 11, two, he's the Spirit of revelation, Ephesians 1, 17. He is the Spirit of might and counsel, Daniel 5, verse 12. That Spirit of God is available to you as a mother, as a worker, as an employer, as a professor, as a student, as a preacher, as a pastor. You just gotta ask for it because God your Father will not withhold it.

You just gotta ask. So my first word for our church is many of us are completely in the wrong ballpark looking to the wrong source of power. Number two, some of us don't encounter the power of the Spirit because we're not engaged in the mission of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not like a magic amulet that you get or a crystal that when you get him and put him in the right place, he starts to give you good luck. The Spirit came upon Jesus and the church for mission. A lot of my charismatic friends, for example, a lot of my charismatic friends, they love Acts 2. You ever know, okay, they love Acts 2. Acts 2 is on the refrigerator. Oh Acts 2, Pentecost, speaking in tongues, tongues of fire, that's awesome. And I always wanna tell them Acts 2 is awesome but Acts 2 is not the first chapter in that book. Acts 1 is the first chapter in that book. And Acts 2 comes in response to Acts 1 and in Acts 1, Jesus said that the Spirit is coming for mission. So the whole point of Acts 2 is not for this ecstatic experience. The whole point is to complete the mission that's given in Acts 1. So what you see is that when the Spirit of God has come into you, you begin to do the mission that Jesus himself was on because that's why the Spirit was given.

Let me ask you this. If Jesus had come as a basketball player, if for whatever reason Jesus thought that what the world needed was like the best basketball player ever, so he shows up as an NBA basketball player who's just like the greatest basketball player ever, he's the linsanity of the first century, you know, he's just it. If I said that the Spirit of Jesus was now within me and he had come as the NBA awesome basketball player, wouldn't you expect that my game would take a few steps up? Wouldn't you expect me to become a pretty spectacular basketball player?

Yes, you would. If I said the Spirit of Jesus, the unbelievable basketball player is in me and then my game is as lame as it's always been, you'd be like, I don't know what you're talking about. Now, did Jesus come as a basketball player? No. Did he come as a wealthy businessman?

No. Jesus came as one who is a minister and a witness to the power of God and one who poured out his life for others. Therefore, if his Spirit lives in you, I would expect to see you as someone who is extraordinary at those things. Can I tell you what I don't see a lot of the Holy Spirit doing in Luke and Acts? I don't see him keeping the church from difficulty. Oh, I just pulled up at the mall and the Holy Spirit gave me a parking space, praise Alleluia. You know, it's just the favorite God was all over me, please. In Acts, God parked Paul in prison.

In Luke, God parked Jesus on a cross. I don't see in Luke or Acts, I don't see the Spirit of God making a lot of people wealthy. I think the Spirit of God can do that.

I think he can, but Paul says in 2 Corinthians that the Spirit increases our ability to make money so that we can increase our capacity to give our lives away like Jesus did. Just to answer my question for you now, do you even want his power? What if you're like, oh yeah, I want the Spirit, I want his power, I want me in Acts 2 experience, I want the Spirit of wisdom, I wanna be able to succeed in my job. Why do you want his power, why? That's a question I would encourage you to ask in just about anything you ask from God.

Why are you asking for this? Even if it's physical healing, you gotta ask yourself, why are you asking for physical healing? Are you asking for physical healing just so you can go through a life pain-free? Or are you asking for physical healing because there's some things you wanna do for the kingdom of God? Are you asking God to make you rich and to bless you so that you can be like him and give even more away?

Jesus was the richest person ever who gave it all away. Right, so are you saying God enriched me so that I can increase my capacity for giving? Or are you saying enrich me so I can increase my capacity for living?

You see, there's a fundamental difference in those things. The Spirit of God is not on some of you, the power of God is not on some of us because we are disconnected from the mission of God. Why are you asking for various things that you're asking for? Is it for your sake? Or is it for his kingdom, his mission sake? James 4, you have not because you ask not. But you also don't have because you ask and you ask it for selfish reasons.

You ask it because it's about your kingdom. So you said, God bless me, make me healthy, make everything in my life work, but it's for you. And my spirit comes for people who pour themselves out for my kingdom and my mission. Y'all listen, there is no disconnect between the mission of God and the power of God. The disconnect is between the people of God and the mission of God. If the people of God would ever embrace the mission of God, they would be filled by the Spirit of God and then they would exude the power of God.

If you would embrace God's mission, which is to live like Jesus and to pour out your life like Jesus, you would be filled with the spirit that Jesus was filled with and you would exude the power that Jesus lived with. It's a power that heals your family. It's a power that heals your marriage. It's a power that changes your coworkers. It's a power that transforms your world. It's a power that sets a captive free and it's available.

It is available. But you gotta ask for it and you gotta be about His mission. Now, here's my last word. I told you those are the two words for our church, right? Review my one point. Jesus depend on the Spirit, you should too.

Two applications for our church. Most of us spend on the wrong source of power. Most of us have no access to power because we're on the wrong mission, right? Here's my last kind of concluding word for all of you. Every sermon series that we do, I always try to study the text. I try to let the text of Scripture drive my sermons so that I'm not coming to the text with an agenda. But I also ask the Spirit of God what there is specially that He has for our church in this series. And what the Spirit of God, I think, helped me see in this series that what He wants this church to know, what He wants me, what He wants you to know, is the Spirit of God is a person.

It's not a force. It's not a doctrine. Only He is a person. And you have to begin to relate to Him like a person, a person that feels emotion, a person that can be grieved, a person that can be angered and saddened. And what that means is that for many of you in this room, in the sound of my voice or at our campuses, who have resisted God's will for your life, you haven't resisted a moral code. You haven't rejected just a way of living. You have rejected a person, a person who loves you, a person who created you, a person that you rebelled against, a person who came after you, came to a cross and died for you, and even now pleads with you to be reconciled to Him.

He is the Father that you always wanted, but never had. That's why Romans 5 says that the Spirit of God wants to come in and shed abroad the love of God in our hearts. The Spirit of God's not coming to make you just become more moral and teach you a few more facts and give you regular church attendance. The Spirit of God is coming to pour love over you, the love of a Father who created you, died to reconcile you, and calls you back. Some of you have rejected Christianity.

I know every week we have people like that here. I wanna tell some of you what you have rejected is not Christianity, it's a caricature of Christianity. And I need you to get beyond that and get to God Himself. Jesus was no fan of religious phoneyism. In fact, religious phoneyism was a crucified Him. And some of you have been exposed to a Christianity that was used like a weapon. It was used as a way to exclude people. It was used to justify hypocrisy, to justify racism, to justify all kinds of things that you know are wrong. And I need you to get beyond that.

Because ultimately this is not about a group of people or a system, it's about a person. And the Spirit of God wants to take the Father who created you. Listen, it's not about you becoming religious, it's not about you becoming a Republican. This is about you understanding that God created you, God comes after you, God wants to pour love out over you. That's what the Spirit of God comes to do is reunite you to the person of God. And if you have never received that, John 1-12, to as many as received Him, not to as many who corrected their lives or learned this, to as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God, even to those who believe on His name.

Because they were born not of the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but they were born of the Spirit of God. Have you opened your life to that person? Are you moving in intimacy and in the power of that person? Holy God, I have asked, and I will ask again, that this be a landmark moment for our church. Where individuals in our church begin a whole new chapter of their Christian life where it's less about the doctrines, less about the moral code, and more about you.

God, we know that the doctrines are important, we know that the morals are important, but God, that this would be a moment where they encountered you. I pray for individuals who are hardening their hearts and resisting you, God, let them hear the voice of their Savior, even right now, who created them, who loved them, who came to earth and died for them and calls them, who knocks at their heart's door and says, come back to me. I pray that our church would begin a new chapter of its existence, where we experience, we move in, we feel the power of your Spirit raging within us. In Jesus' name, in Jesus' name, amen. The Holy Spirit pursues us. He wants you to know God your Father and to know and trust Jesus with your whole life.

Have you received the relationship He's offering to you? You're listening to Pastor J.D. Greer on Summit Life and a message from our series titled Rushing Wind.

J.D., something a lot of our listeners may not know is that there is always a free download on the homepage of jdgreer.com that's available for anyone who's interested. And this month, we have a set of devotionals to go along with our current teaching on the Holy Spirit, right? Yeah, it's something we are proud to provide.

It's a lot of times people's first connection point with Summit Life, it's something that your generosity actually makes possible. Typically, it's a free resource that's related to our teaching or a resource we're featuring that month. This month, we're focusing on understanding the Holy Spirit. So we have a download with 10 brief devotionals. Like we've said a lot of times around here, we love devotional resources because they offer a quick way to set the tone for your day.

And these 10 are completely free. Each one is gonna have a scripture passage, a devotional thoughts, it's gonna ask some reflective questions that'll help you think about application in your life. And then most importantly, it'll prompt you to pray. This is a free companion piece that goes along with the longer form study we're offering this month.

And that's called Rushing Wind. And that's gonna walk through various Bible passages that go along with the messages you're hearing. And that comes with reflection questions and scripture passages and devotional thoughts that'll take you a little bit deeper and some prayer prompts that'll help you pray these things into reality, into your life. That's a 20-day interactive devotional, and you can get it now with a donation at jdgrier.com. A copy of this new devotional comes with our thanks when you give a gift at the suggested level of $25 or more to support this ministry.

The book is titled Rushing Wind, just like our current teaching series. Your donation is so essential because you're actually the ones who make these daily broadcasts possible. When someone is scanning channels and they discover Pastor JD's teaching, they have you to thank for that. So help us bring this gospel-centered teaching to the radio and web and give today by calling 866-335-5220. And if you'd like a copy of the 20-day devotional, remember to mention the title, Rushing Wind, Understanding the Holy Spirit. Or you can give and request the devotional book online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Bidevich, inviting you to join us again next time when we learn what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Sounds important, doesn't it? Be sure to join us Wednesday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.