5-19-13 Sermon - Pentecost Sunday "Living in the Supernatural"

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LIVING IN THE SUPERNATURAL                                                  05-19-13 Sermon 

By the power of the Holy Spirit you will be able to see the invisible, hear the inaudible and do the impossible.  Ask him to fill you with his Holy Spirit today.  You come and pray as we sing. 

I am going to send you what my Father has promised, but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.  Luke 24:49

Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.  For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.  Acts 1:4-5

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.  Acts 2:1-4

In the early church Easter was regarded as the beginning of the G________ 50 D______, the season between Easter and Pentecost.

The disciples were to W__________ until they were clothed with power from on high.

Pentecost was M_______________ day for the Holy Spirit. 

The Spirit lives with you and shall be in you.  Jn 14:17

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 1 Cor 3:16

S_____________ and W______________ were to follow those who believed.

 The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. 

Acts 5:12

Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.  Acts 6:8

Simon followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.  Acts 8:13

Paul and Barnabas spend considerable time in Iconium, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.  Acts 14:3

What Jesus did through the D______________ he wants to do through Y__________

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.  Hebrews 13:8

The Holy Spirit needs to change from just being R______________ in your life to being P____________________ in your life. 

Jesus expects us to be doing all the S____________________ T____________ he did.

I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.  He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.  John 14:12 

When we are clothed with God’s power from on high we will be enabled to live in the supernatural and do three things:

1.  We will S__________ the In__________________

We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For want is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  2 Corinthians 4:18

Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.  Mark 11:24

Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.  Jn. 20:29 

2. We will H_____________ the In___________________

They, too will listen to my voice.  John 10:16

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  Rev. 2:17

3. We will D__________ the Im________________

If you have faith as small as a mustard seed…Nothing will be impossible for you. 

Mt 17:20

What is impossible with men is possible with God. Lk 18:27

Nothing is impossible with God.  Luke 1:37

On the church calendar, today is Pentecost Sunday.  The Sunday that we remember when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to come and fill and empower his people. 

In the worship and liturgy of the early church, Easter was not regarded as an isolated special day that ended Holy Week.  It was not the end of anything.  The church regarded Easter as the beginning of the great Fifty Days, the season between Easter and Pentecost, the season between the resurrection of Jesus and Jesus sending the Holy Spirit upon the believers and giving birth to the church.  Easter and Pentecost were more than two great days in the church year, they became the first and last days of the oldest and most important season of the Christian year.  Christmas was not celebrated in the early church.  The Lenten season was developed later as a time of preparation not for Easter, but for the Great Fifty Days.  The early Christians saw the Great Fifty Days as the most important season of the year.

While we use the term Pentecost to refer only to the fiftieth day of that time period, historically, Pentecost referred to the entire fifty day cycle beginning with Easter as well as the final day of that cycle.  Easter was and is incomplete without Pentecost. 

Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the filling of the Spirit.  Now remember that the disciples already had a 3 year training period with Jesus himself.  They heard his teachings many times.  They observed all kinds of miracles being performed right before their eyes.  The Gospel of John ends by saying “Jesus did many other things as well.  If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. The disciples observed all those other things that John refers to as well.

In addition to observation the disciples had been sent out by Jesus himself on an internship and they ministered to the needs of the people.  They, too, performed miracles.  They healed diseases.  They cast out demons.  Then they witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion, his burial, his resurrection and finally his ascension.  They knew the message.  They knew the methods.  They were ready to go.  But Jesus said Wait.  They needed something more.  They were incomplete having experienced Easter alone.  They were not to go out in their natural strength using just natural skills and talents.  They were to enter a supernatural mode of living and ministry.  They needed a supernatural extreme makeover. 

Luke said that they were to wait until they were clothed with power from on high.  Isn’t that an interesting phrase?  They were to put on a new look, like you would put on a new set of clothes for Easter or some other special occasion.  It would be the look of power.

There were people in the Old Testament who had a look of power.  The prophets Elijah and Elisha were good examples.  They did things like calling fire down from heaven, raising the dead, miraculously multiplying olive oil, and making an iron ax head float on water.  We all remember the miracles Moses did in front of Pharaoh.  In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit resided with people and came upon them from time to time to empower them for specific tasks.  But on the day of Pentecost things changed.

Jesus told his disciples in John 14:17 The Spirit lives with you and shall be in you.  Pentecost was moving day for the Holy Spirit.  On Pentecost the Holy Spirit came to fill the believers with his presence.  Peter quotes the prophet Joel on the day of Pentecost in saying that the Holy Spirit is poured out on ALL flesh.  Old and young, men and women, people of all races.  The Spirit is freely given to all who would receive him. 

That is why in 1 Corinthians 3:16 Paul could say Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 1 Cor 3:16.  The Holy Spirit came to dwell within us and fill us as he did the temple in the Old Testament.  Because the Holy Spirit came to dwell within us and fill us, never again after the day of Pentecost does the bible refer to a physical building as being the house of God.  Instead, the New Testament says that now WE are the house of God, for God the Holy Spirit dwells within us.  So if you hear someone refer to their church building as the house of God, you can tell them, No, if you are a believer, the bible says that YOU are a house of God!

At the end of the Gospel of Mark, before he ascended into heaven, Jesus told the disciples that signs and wonders would follow those that believed.  And as we read through the book of Acts we find that Jesus’ promise came true.  So we read in Acts 5:12 the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people.  And in Acts 6:8 Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.  And in Acts 8:13 Simon followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.  And in Acts 14:3 Paul and Barnabas spend considerable time in Iconium, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.  Over and over again we see the believers going forth clothed with power from on high and miraculous signs and wonders follow them.  They began to live in the supernatural.  They had an extreme spiritual makeover. 

The book of Acts is an unfinished book.  If you read the last chapter, chapter 28, you come to the end and Paul is in Rome continuing to preach.  But the book really doesn’t have an ending.  There is no conclusion drawn.  It just stops.  I think that is intentional.  For the next chapter, Acts 29, is to be written in our church and in your life.  Hebrews 13:8 tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.  What he did then through the disciples, he wants to do through you today.  Our world needs to see followers of Jesus going forth clothed with power from on high and doing the works of the Father just as much as the people of the first century did. 

Do you have the Holy Spirit within you?  If you have given your life to Christ and asked him to save you from your sins, you do.  But, you know what.  That’s not enough. 

On the evening of the day that Jesus rose from the dead, John 20 tells us that Jesus appeared to his disciples in a locked room and he breathed on them and said Receive the Holy Spirit.  How many of you believe that if Jesus said, Receive the Holy Spirit, the disciples received the Holy Spirit at that point?  The Holy Spirit came to dwell within them on Easter evening.

But that was not enough.  Because that same Jesus who just put the Holy Spirit within them told them to wait in Jerusalem to be clothed with power from on high.  He called it the baptism in the Holy Spirit.  Immersion in the Holy Spirit.  Total soaking in the Holy Spirit to the point where the Holy Spirit just drips off you and leaves evidence of the Holy Spirit behind wherever you go.  That’s what happened on the day of Pentecost.  The Holy Spirit not only was dwelling within them, now he was filling them.

The Holy Spirit needs to change from just being just resident in your life, to being president in your life, the one in charge, the one calling the shots.

If you have been saved, God did not put his Holy Spirit within you so you could attend church regularly and sit in a pew.  The book of Acts does not mention anyone being filled with the Spirit so they could be a good person and sit in a pew.  We don’t read any accounts there of people sitting in church.  If you can sum up your Christian life by saying that Jesus saved me, and now I try to live a good life and go to church, you miss the point.  That is not the Christian lifestyle pictured in the New Testament!  The world was not changed in the book of Acts by non-believers observing the believers living a good moral life and going to church on Sundays.

If you read the book of Acts you will see that almost all of the miraculous signs and wonders that the Holy Spirit did through the believers were done outside the church.  The Holy Spirit wants the world to see you clothed with power from on high.  He wants to demonstrate his power through you to the world.  He wants the world to see you doing the works that Jesus did on their turf, outside the church building.  He wants the world to see your new look.  He wants you to live in the supernatural out in the world.

Living in the supernatural means that you use your own reason, but you are not limited by it.  Living in the supernatural means that you use your talents, abilities and skills, but you are not limited by them.  It means you use your own resources but you are not limited by them.  It means that you are part of a supernatural body of Christ, you are not alone.  It means that you believe that God will act in and through your life in supernatural ways and you trust him to do so. 

Jesus told us a disciple, when he is fully trained, shall be like his master.  So when we are fully trained, we shall be like Jesus, living in the supernatural.  Jesus told his disciples in John 14:12  I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.  He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.   Jesus expects us to be doing all the supernatural things that he was doing.  That’s what the man said!  When living in the supernatural we have a new world view.  The Holy Spirit is part of every equation.  He is part of every decision, every opportunity, and every challenge we face. 

When we are clothed with God’s power from on high we will be enabled to live in the supernatural and do three things.  The first of these that we will see the invisible.

We as Christians believe that there is more to our world than what can be seen with the naked eye.  Of course we all believe that there are things too small or too far away to be seen without great magnification.  The Hubble space telescope has opened whole new worlds to us that we never knew existed.  But beyond that, we as Christians believe that there is a world that is part of the visible world, but beyond the visible world, that cannot be seen with any magnification.  Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:18 We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For want is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 

We believe that there is an unseen devil who influences our lives and the visible world.  We believe that the devil has unholy invisible spiritual beings assisting him called demons.  We also believe that there are holy invisible beings that do the work of God like, angels, and cherubs and seraphim.  And we believe that the Holy Spirit continues to move through the world carrying out the will of the Father.  As Christians we believe that as we go through life living in the supernatural we need to take into account not only the visible world but the invisible world.

As the Israelites came to the edge of the Promised Land, what if Joshua and Caleb would have believed only what they had seen, like the other 10 spies did when they went in and checked out this new land—giants, walled cities, vast fortifications.  Perhaps all the people of God would have died in the wilderness and God would have had to raise up a new people through Moses.  But Joshua and Caleb saw beyond the visible to the invisible.  They realized that God was with them and guiding them and empowering them so nothing could stand against them.  They were living in the supernatural.  The majority of the spies and the rest of the people were living in the natural.  They could not see the invisible so they ended up dying in the wilderness.

What if Elisha the prophet could not have seen the invisible protection of God when the armies of the king of Aram surrounded the city where he was staying.  Elisha’s servant comes in all in a tizzy, O what shall we do, O what shall we do?  There is no way out.  All is lost.  We are doomed!  He had an Eyor anointing! Have you ever felt like that?  Did you know that panic is not listed in the bible as a spiritual gift?

Elisha responds by praying to God.  Not about the situation, but for his servant who is so worried.  Elisha prays O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.  The scripture never says that Elisha ever went out to look at the situation.  He was already living in the supernatural.  He was able to see the invisible.  He prayed that his servant might also be able to see the invisible.  And we read that the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he looked and saw the hills filled with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.  Elisha wasn’t worried because with his spiritual eyes he saw the invisible—he saw that his physical enemies were greatly outnumbered and greatly out gunned!   Elisha had the armies of God on his side.  Who could stand against such a show of force?

What if Jesus was not able to see the resurrection and his ascension to the right hand of the Father and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost?  Could he have gone through the struggles in the Garden of Gethsemane and crucifixion on Calvary?

All these people were living and moving in the supernatural.  They were able to see the invisible and that made the difference in their lives. 

Are you a Missouri Christian?  You know, Missouri is the “Show Me State.”  Missouri Christians say Show me and I will believe.  But Jesus told us hat we have to have eyes to see the invisible.  He said in Mark 11:24 Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.  Missouri Christians say Show me and then I will believe.  Jesus says Believe and then you will see.

You remember the story of Thomas who was not present when Jesus appeared to the other disciples after the resurrection.  He told the other disciples Unless I see the nail marks in his hands…I will not believe it.  Thomas was a Missouri Christian.  And then Jesus appears to Thomas and he believes.  Jesus says to him in Jn. 20:29  Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. 

On the Day of Pentecost Peter quotes the prophet Joel in saying that one of the results of the Holy Spirit being poured out on all flesh was that young men would see visions and old men would dream dreams.  This is one of the ways that we come to see the invisible.  God sometimes grants dreams and visions in which he communicates some important truth to us.

So, God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel through a vision of dry bones in which he told the prophet that even though all the prophet could see with his natural eyes was spiritual deadness, God would bring new life to the people of Israel and with his spiritual eyes in the vision Ezekiel saw bones coming together and flesh coming onto those bones and breath coming into those bodies.

God spoke to a disciple named Ananias in Acts 9 and told him to go to the house of Judas on Straight street and ask for Saul and lay hands on him to restore his sight.  All Ananias could see with his natural eyes was Saul the persecutor of Christians.  But the vision of God convinced him that this Saul would be healed of his physical and spiritual blindness and he would become a great leader in the church.

As we are clothed with power from on high and as we live and move in the supernatural we are enabled to see the invisible.  We are also enabled to hear the inaudible.

Right now, at this very moment there are inaudible waves traveling through this sanctuary.  Our wireless microphones broadcast inaudible signals through our sanctuary to the receivers at the mixer.  There are inaudible TV and radio waves traveling through our sanctuary at this very moment.  But just because they are inaudible to our ears does not mean they are undiscernable.  They can be discerned with the proper receiver.

Jesus wants us to be those proper receivers tuned in to what is naturally inaudible but what is spiritually discerned.  He says as our Good Shepherd, My sheep hear my voice.  He speaks to his sheep.  If you are one of his sheep you can expect to be spoken to.  But whether you hear him or not will depend on whether you are tuned to the wavelength of the Spirit or not. 

Over and over again in the Scriptures we read of God speaking to people.  He told Abram to leave the comfortable and the familiar land where he was raised, Ur of the Chaldees, and go to a land that God would show him.   God didn’t say where it was, just that he would show him.  He told Moses from a burning bush to go back to Egypt and lead his people out of bondage.  We read in the 16^th chapter of Acts that Paul and Silas and Timothy traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia but they were kept from preaching the word in the province of Asia.  When they came to the border of Mysia, the tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.  They heard the voice of Jesus telling them where to go and where not to go.  Then Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him to come over to Macedonia to help them.  He heard the voice of God in the vision telling them to go to Macedonia. 

The people of God who are living in the supernatural and who are clothed with power from on high can expect to hear from God.  They can expect direction from God, as long as it is their intention to do what God tells them to do when he speaks to them.  God does not promise to speak to those who just want to hear what God wants them to do so they can then decide whether they will do it or not.  But those who want to hear from
God so they can know what to do can expect to hear from God.  God wants to give input to the decisions you make in life.  Don’t you think God’s opinion, and God’s wisdom might be helpful to you?

The apostle John says 7 times in the book of Revelation He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.  We need to listen to God with the ear of the Spirit.  The Spirit speaks to his churches. In our Scripture from John’s gospel, Jesus tells us that when the Spirit of truth comes, he will tell you what is yet to come. He will take from what is mine and make it known to you.  Well, on the Day of Pentecost the Spirit of Truth HAS come and he wants to speak to you.

Sometimes this might be in an audible voice.  Sometimes it might be in a voice that only you can hear in your spirit.  Sometimes it can be a growing conviction.  Sometimes it can be a set of divinely arranged circumstances.  Sometimes it can be a combination of a number of these.  And being sensitive to the Spirit’s voice is something that is learned over time.  But the bottom line is that God wants to speak to his people through his Spirit and as we are clothed with power from on high and living in the supernatural we are enabled to hear the voice of God that may be inaudible to others.

And thirdly, as we live and move in the supernatural we are also enabled to do the impossible.  Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 17:20 that doing the impossible is linked to our faith.  He says that if we have a mustard seed sized faith nothing will be impossible for us.

If you SEE what God wants to happen and when you HEAR what God wants you to do about it, then you can DO the impossible.  It depends on your faith and the power of God, not your own power. 

It is impossible to walk on water unless it is frozen or you know where the rocks are.  But Peter walked on water, didn’t he?  We often focus on the fact that he looked at the wind and waves, became frightened, and sank.  But there were 11 other disciples who were playing it safe and sitting in the boat.  Peter was the one who had the faith to step out of the boat in response to the word of Jesus and he walked on water like Jesus was doing.

Jesus tells us What is impossible with men is possible with God.  And the angel of God told Mary Nothing is impossible with God.  It is impossible for the dead to come back to life, but Jesus and the apostles raised the dead.  It is impossible to feed thousands with one boy’s lunch, but Jesus did that.  It is impossible for those born blind and crippled to see and walk, but they did under the ministry of Jesus and the apostles.  And these things continue to happen today.  As Christians are filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit to see the invisible, hear the inaudible they are enabled to do the impossible, just like Jesus did. 

What would it be like if we could really begin to live our lies in the supernatural?  What would it be like if our desire was to actually see the invisible, to hear the inaudible, and then to do the impossible?  I believe it would mean Acts 29 would begin in our lives and in the life of our church.  I believe it can happen and will happen as we are open and obedient to the Spirit.

I am going to invite you to join me in prayer at the communion rail during the singing of our closing hymn. 

What do you need God to show you that is now invisible to you?  Come and tell God about that.

What do you need God to tell you that is now inaudible to you?  Come and tell God about that.

What do you need God to do for you that is now impossible for you?  Come tell God about that this morning.