The Critical Point -- Longing/Seeking/Hungering -- 3/10/13

Sunday, March 10, 2013

THE CRITICAL POINT -- LONGING/SEEKING/HUNGERING

            Let's begin by reading again some passages from Luke/Acts...

Luke 11:9-13... So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!

Luke 24:44-49... Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the  Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me." 45 And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. 46 Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, 47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 And you are witnesses of these things. 49 Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high."

Acts 1:1-1...1 The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, 2 until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, 3 to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. 4 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me; 5 for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." 6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" 7 And He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." 9 Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 10 And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, 11 who also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven."

            Please permit me to have a little heart-to-heart visit with you this morning.  There's a sense in which that's what good preaching really is.  If the preaching of the Word only touches our minds, then it hasn't achieved its goal.  Over 50 years ago a godly man named A. W. Tozer spoke and wrote about a dangerous trend in American Christianity, and he emphasized that a large part of that trend was the reduction of the Christian life to a mere mental process.  What is the first and foremost commandment?  "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength" (Deut. 6:5).  We speak a great deal about exhorting one another.  Brothers and sisters, one of our great needs is to exhort one another to put the heart back into our relationship with God.  Remember that in that passage where we are commanded to exhort one another, there is reason for that exhortation.  "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God" (Heb. 3:12).  We can be diligently listening to sermons and studying the Bible and cultivating a hard heart at the same time.  That is why we need to exhort one another, encourage one another on the basis of God's Word, literally come alongside one another.

            Wednesday evening we talked some about how our seeking of the Holy Spirit's ministry has impacted us individually.  Perhaps you didn't have an opportunity to share, or maybe you weren't there.  So I want to ask you very directly this morning.  So where are you with the Holy Spirit?  After reading from the Word about the Spirit and listening to that Word expounded for many months, it is impossible for you to be in the same place you were before we started.  When we hear the Word of God, we do not remain at the same place.  We either embrace the Word and obey it, or we become hard.  Though you may try to convince yourself that you haven't been moved one way or the other, neutrality is not an option.  When you come to the Word and do nothing, you are becoming hard, whether you realize it or not.

            At this point I need to make a confession to you.  Preaching on a particular subject this long is a bit difficult for me in one sense.  I am more familiar with preaching from a particular book of the Bible, and I believe that is healthy.  That way it is the Word of God that is directly dictating what we are studying.  However, I do believe with all my heart that the Lord has led us to seek the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  I deliberately use that phrase "seek the ministry of the Holy Spirit" instead of "studying the Holy Spirit."  And that makes some of us a bit uncomfortable, doesn't it?  And why is that?  Because seeking implies that we are actually doing something, while studying leaves the impression that we are going to take a look at something and then determine whether or not we will act on it.  I am basically saying that all of us need to be actively seeking the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Without His power, we are powerless.

            Back to my confession.  From time to time these past two or three months, I have wrestled with misgivings which come in the form of questions.  "Are we spending too much time on this subject?  Are we neglecting other things?"  And if I am perfectly honest with you, mingled with those questions is the thought, "Do people in the congregation feel like we are spending too much time with that?"  The fact that I wrestle with such temptation is due to the fact that for too much of my life I have been concerned about pleasing men and finding the approval of people around me.  The good news is that God is giving me victory in these temptations.  Two truths have become clear to me.  First of all, if we don't get this right, what good is all the rest?  It is the Holy Spirit who empowers us to live holy lives.  It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to be effective witnesses for our Lord Jesus.  The second truth is simply:  This is the great need of my life right now.  I shared with some of you Wednesday evening that somewhere about three weeks ago I basically quit preaching to you and started preaching to me.  In other words, this seeking of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is more for me than anyone else.  To put it another way, this is not about preparing a sermon on the Holy Spirit for you to examine, but it is about me crying out to God and discovering the power of the Spirit in my own life.  And I know that some of you are crying out along with me. 

            So what I am doing is sharing a bit of where I am.  Where are you?  Are you excited, as we emphasize our great need for the Spirit's work in our lives?  Are you convicted that far too much of what you do is in your own strength?  Do you try to just maintain your composure and tune the message out, because it is too convicting for you to deal with?  Do you fear that if you let the Holy Spirit control your life, He will take you places you don't want to go or require you to do things you don't want to do?  Are you focused on how some other people need to discover the ministry of the Holy Spirit?  Where are you?

            Two weeks ago the sermon was entitled "Where's the Fire?"  Jesus said, "When the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and you will be witnesses unto me..." (Acts 1:8).  We like to apply that to ourselves.  The Spirit has come upon us and we are witnesses.  But as I observe my life and our lives, I have to cry out, "Lord, where's the power."  Jesus said He would immerse in the Spirit and fire.  "But Lord, where's the fire?"  Last week we looked at Luke 11:1-13 and considered the question, "Shall We Ask for the Spirit?"  Jesus Himself talked about asking for the Spirit.

            I am aware that these sermons have raised some questions in your minds.  Some of you are wondering something like this:  "So where is Ron, anyway?  What camp is he in?"  Let me ease your minds; I'm not in any camp.  I used to be in the camp that says:  "There is no real significant experience of the Holy Spirit after conversion.  It all happens at conversion."  We looked at that some last week.  Yes, every true believer receives the Spirit at conversion.  Paul clearly says that if a person doesn't have the Spirit, then he doesn't belong to Christ (Rom. 8:9).  But if there is nothing beyond conversion, then why don't we experience more of the Spirit's power?  The camp says, "We need to be filled with the Spirit."  We certainly do, but too often we tone that down until it means very little.  If every believer has been immersed in the Spirit, then where's the fire?  Where's the power?

            Charles Leiter is a pastor in Missouri.  He puts it like this:  Speaking of the baptism in the Spirit and the Christian, he says:  "It is something that everyone has, but nobody knows it.  The only way a Christian knows he has the Holy Spirit is by going to the scripture and discovering, 'Oh, I see, I was baptized in the Spirit when I got saved.  Now I know it.'"  Leiter goes on to point out, as do many others, whatever you believe about the powerful manifes-tations of the Spirit in the book of Acts, one thing is clear -- it was an experience that was known.  In other words, when people were baptized in the Spirit, they knew it.  When people were filled with the Spirit, they knew it.  All you have to do is read the accounts in the book of Acts.  When they were filled with the Spirit in Acts 2 (which Peter later described as baptism in the Spirit), all 120 of them spoke the wonderful works of God in many different languages, languages they had never learned.  When a group that included many of those same believers prayed in chapter 4, they were filled with the Spirit and the whole building started shaking.  Immersion in the Spirit was experiential.  No one had to tell them that Jesus had immersed them in the Holy Spirit; they knew it.  I don't want to be in that camp.

            So does that mean that I have joined the Pentecostal camp?  By the way, the term "Pentecostal" cuts a wide path across American Christianity.  All Pentecostals do not believe the same thing, just as Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians don't.  There are camps within the Pentecostal camp.  Classic Pentecostalism, especially in earlier days, taught that the baptism in the Spirit came after conversion and the evidence that one had been baptized in the Spirit was speaking in tongues.  No, I am not in that camp, because Paul clearly says that the Holy Spirit does not give everyone the gift of tongues

            But not all Pentecostals believe that you have to speak in tongues to be immersed in the Spirit.  That is especially true in more recent times.  So what about the "second blessing" camp.  Many Pentecostals and Charismatics, though not believing that tongues is the evidence of baptism in the Spirit, still insist that every Christian needs to be immersed in the Spirit, and that is an experience that almost always (if not always) occurs after conversion.  It is often referred to as a second blessing, with conversion being understood as the first blessing.  No, I am not in the second blessing camp.  Do I believe that I need a second blessing.  Absolutely... and a third blessing, and a fourth, and a fifth.

            If you want to put me in a camp, then let me identify myself like this.  I want to be in the hungry-hearts camp.  I admit to you that I don't have all the answers.  As I stated last week, I, like many of you, have been heavily biased by the background in which I grew up.  Yes, I am searching for answers, and I believe I have found some.  I believe the most important things I have learned are these...

            1.  The key to experiencing he fullness and power of the Spirit is an intense longing.  I heard a couple of my brothers emphasize that Wednesday evening.  If you want to know that you have been immersed in the Spirit and that He is working in you in power, then you must long for Him.  And that brings me to the second thing I am learning.

            2.  You will notice that I didn't say, "You must long for it."  I'm not longing for an experience; I am longing for the Holy Spirit.  I am longing for the Lord Jesus.  I am longing for a person, not an experience.  Don't misunderstand me.  I am not downplaying the importance of experience.  Nor am I saying there is anything wrong with a highly emotional experience of the Holy Spirit's power.  Both people in the Bible and in modern times give testimony to such experience.  Praise God!  But that doesn't mean it is healthy to look for that experience.  The problem is that when we look for an experience, we have in our mind what we are expecting, and we force ourselves and others into that mold.   It's either something that has happened to us in the past or we have observed or heard from someone else.  The Spirit of God cannot be put into a mold.  When we seek Him, He will give us the experience He sees fit.  The important thing is not the experience, but the Lord.  Jesus sent the Spirit to glorify Him.

            Let's read that little poem by A. B. Simpson...   Himself

Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord;
Once it was the feeling, Now it is His Word.
Once His gifts I wanted, Now the Giver own;
Once I sought for healing, Now Himself alone.

Once 'twas painful trying, Now 'tis perfect trust;
Once a half salvation, Now the uttermost.
Once 'twas ceaseless holding, Now He holds me fast;
Once 'twas constant drifting, Now my anchor's cast.

Once 'twas busy planning, Now 'tis trustful prayer;
Once 'twas anxious caring, Now He has the care.
Once 'twas what I wanted, Now what Jesus says;
Once 'twas constant asking, Now 'tis ceaseless praise.

Once it was my working, His it hence shall be;
Once I tried to use Him, Now He uses me.
Once the power I wanted, Now the Mighty One;
Once for self I labored, Now for Him alone.

Once I hoped in Jesus, Now I know He's mine;
Once my lamps were dying, Now they brightly shine.
Once for death I waited, Now His coming hail;
And my hopes are anchored, Safe within the vail.

            3.  God is faithful.  If I long for Him and keep on crying out to Him, He will come.  That has been the experience of believers down through the ages.  Go back and read again that little pamphlet by Hudson Taylor, entitled "The Exchanged Life."  We read about a man who was a faithful servant of God and had been for years, and yet he longed for more.  How he sought to be delivered from self-effort.  We read about a man who became desperate for God to do a work in him, and the Lord did more than he asked.

            If we are satisfied with the life we are now living, there is no use asking for the power of the Spirit.  It's as simple as that.  The Lord knows our heart.  Praise God for all the precious promises He has given us. 

There is a blessing for those who seek the Lord...

Ps. 34:8-10

Ps. 119:2

Matt. 5:3-6

Not only a blessing for those who seek with the whole heart, but the promise that God will answer...

Mt. 5:6

Jer. 29:13

Ps. 34:18... But that is a hard way... 34:19

Ps. 91:1

Ps. 63

Is. 57:15

Is. 66:1-2

Luke 11:9-13

John 7:37-39

Rev. 21:6; 22:17

Ps. 37:4

            But isn't there an end to this seeking?  Can't we ever come to the place where we are just satisfied and can rest, without longing for more?  We ask that question, because we don't understand the infinite supply of our Lord.  We ask that question because we are not truly tasting the goodness of the Lord.  No one who tastes His goodness wants to settle down and discontinue hungering for more.

            Perhaps a parallel with materialism.  "I want to be a millionaire."  What happens after he attains his goal?  He wants more.  If so with the material counterfeit, how much more with the riches of our Lord.  Matt. 13:44.  But can't stop there.  Have to explore all the treasures.

            Mary couldn't get enough of Jesus.  Is that not why she was commended by our Lord?

Conclude with "hungry" passages...

Ps. 27:1-4

Ps. 42:1-2

Ps. 73:25-28

Ps. 84:1-2

Is. 57:15

            My purpose is this:  I am praying that the Spirit of God will stir us mightily and shake us out of our apathy and false contentment.   I am praying that He will show me and you that the great need is not for someone else, it is for me, for you personally.  Pray for yourself, that God will demonstrate in you such a powerful example of the working of His Spirit that those around you will be touched by our Lord as well.  It begins with you, with me.

            I am reading a biography of Leonard Ravenhill.  This man was raised in a background very different from mine.  His theology is quite different from mine.  He was a Pentecostal preacher.  So why would I read a 450 page book about a man with whom I would disagree about many things?  Because the power of the Holy Spirit was evident in that man.  God used him in marvelous ways.  In his early years of ministry, he and some of his fellow preachers literally walked all over England, hundreds of miles, in order to bring the gospel to people in need.  As I am reading it, I am praising God for Leonard Ravenhill and the way he was used by the Lord.  He preached the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He taught by precept and example that the Holy Spirit can empower us for holy living and effective witness.

            Doctrine is important, but if it gets in the way of our longing for Jesus and the ministry of His Spirit, then our desire to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" has made us biblically illiterate and spiritually powerless.