JUN 4 2023 | Paul’s Third Missionary Journey S1E1 | More Than Saved

Sea Change Church · Paul's Third Missionary Journey S1E1 · "More Than Saved" · June 4, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

The Book of Acts chapter 19 verses one through seven. While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? They answered, no, we've not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. So Paul asked, then, what baptism did you receive? John's baptism? They replied, Paul said John's baptism was a baptism of repentance.

He told the people to believe in the one coming after him that is in Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about 12 men in all. This is the word of the Lord. Right on. If you can't tell, we're in a brand new series.

We are back in the third missionary journey of Paul. We've been here twice before for the first two journeys. And, uh, gonna be speaking about his trip throughout Asian minor to bring the word of God in power to different places and cities that had never experienced it before. Let me just pray for this series. And by the way, if you have not heard it, uh, go back to, uh, Spotify.

Go back to YouTube and you can listen to the first two journeys to get yourself caught up. Really easy to find. But I just wanna pray that God would work through these next six to eight weeks that we're gonna be here, uh, and give you the opportunity to really move into the scripture and see what God's doing. Lord Jesus, we ask that you would just bless this scripture, God, uh, would you speak to us as individuals, Lord, and as, uh, believers who want to know you, who want to follow you and are excited to, uh, experience the Holy Spirit. And we just bless you, the name of the Father's Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Like I said, Paul's on new journey. You're gonna see a map up here where Paul's going, where he's taking us this time. I'm gonna turn around. He's gonna be at Ephesus.

So he is gonna start out. We know he is not at Antioch, so a little bit above Jerusalem. It's not in the map. He's gonna head to Ephesus, he's gonna head to Pap Foss, not in this order. Philippi, Nikah be Corinth and Athens. You're gonna see he's gonna plant churches in these areas. And many of the books that you see in the Bible were written ab, um, into as letters to these places that he went.

And so when Paul would go somewhere, things would change. That's important. When Paul went places, things changed. And what we see is in these cities, there are churches that are planted. Now in this passage, he is moving up towards Ephesus and he comes across 12 men. Doesn't say whether they were Jews yet, or Gentiles, but 12 men who were believers. Uh, they probably had their families with them.

Uh, and this is important because back in the Jewish understanding, you need to have a thing called a minion. Maybe you've heard of minions, but it's m i n y a n. And these minions, you would need at least 10 people to form a minion in order to start something that was a legitimate church. So there's 12 here. Also, there's 12 disciples of Jesus. Maybe that's symbolic in this scripture.

But Paul shows up and he meets these 10 men along the road who had not known Jesus, at least had not understood the Holy Spirit, and he speaks to them and he takes them to the next level of faith. And so let's go to verse one and start there. While Apollos will learn about Apollos. Next week, we're gonna go backwards a little bit, was at Corinth.

Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and he asked them a crucial question, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? This is an important question, really important question because it is understood in Christian doctrine that when you believe in Jesus, that you receive the Holy Spirit, you receive at least a ceiling of the Holy Spirit, is it is a ceiling of your faith.

And when we were sealed in that faith and it says we are saved for heaven. But Paul has a message as he keeps going around and speaking to people saying that God wants you to be more than saved. He wants you not just to be saved and be sealed for heaven and to have a, a fullness of the Holy Spirit because there is no child size portion of the Holy Spirit, but he wants to release that Holy Spirit.

He wants you to operate in that Holy Spirit. And so he this really important question. He says, when you believed, did you receive the Holy Spirit? Now, we remember last week we finished the gospel of John. The gospel of John showed that John was baptizing people in a baptism of what? Of repentance. But they didn't. Many people who were baptized before John pointed, remember Jesus showed up and John's like, that's the Messiah. That's him.

That's the one who I see. But he had already been baptizing people down at the river for repentance. And so people were showing up to John as we saw he was baptizing them and then sending them back out into Asia Minor. And many of them didn't even know that Jesus had been crucified. Yet the news perhaps hadn't even gotten to that place.

They had left believing that Messiah was coming, believing that their sins needed to be repented for being washed in the Jewish tradition, but a little bit more being immersion, baptized. And they had left not knowing who Jesus was. Here's the point for today. God wants you to be more than saved. God's plan is not to just have you saved.

He's not here to just be a cosmic lifeguard. God wants a deep, meaningful relationship with you. And he wants you not only to have the seal of his spirit, he wants you to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit. He wants you to know the spirit, be led by the spirit, hear the spirit, follow his promptings, be empowered to use his giftings in the Spirit.

He wants you to go to the next level. Otherwise, it's like being hired for a job and never doing the job. You've been hired. HR knows who you are. Uh, when there's an employee meeting, they're gonna say, yeah, yeah, they're hired and they're one of us. But when it comes to actually stepping into the field of God's, uh, grace and work in the world, uh, you don't show up for work.

And a lot of people get in this place where they become stuck. They become stuck and either stuck in their faith for one reason or another, or they end up going in circles. Paul comes upon these, uh, men, these 12 men and perhaps their families in this scripture. And he finds people that are stuck. They know, they know that there was a messiah and they know that, that that Messiah is coming, but they perhaps don't even know about Jesus at the time.

So we're gonna look at that. It's really interesting that you can have people believe in repentance at a, a baptism of repentance as we'll see in a second. He's, they're called disciples, but they don't actually operate in the power of the Holy Spirit. They don't even know who the Holy Spirit is, and they perhaps don't even know who Jesus is.

So here's your two main points for today. The first one is this. Paul came across disciples who were stuck in their faith. Here's a question to you. Do you feel stuck or maybe not stuck, but going around in circles? I was in Mexico one time and we were going down to go serving and we were trying to find this place called cuatro casaa. And if you've surfed down there, it's four houses and the waves are okay.

And I remember we were two and a half hours trying to find the right spot when finally we realized we came back to the spot that we were on these dirt roads. And I realized I wasn't stuck. Although we did end up getting stuck in the sand. But I was just going in circles, is that you and I wanna say if you are stuck or you feel like you've been going in circles since maybe you accepted Christ, God wants to get you unstuck.

And it is the power of the Holy Spirit. It is knowing the Holy Spirit. It is walking in his immersion of the baptism that Jesus gives of the Holy Spirit that will get you unstuck. So that's the first thing. Paul came across disciples who were stuck in their faith. And I want to give you, uh, a way to get unstuck if you're stuck.

Some of us don't want to get unstuck. You gotta ask yourself that question, do I want to be unstuck? And number two, Paul exposed believers to the Holy Spirit who then equipped and resourced them for fullness in Christ. This is important because as we're gonna see when they get to Ephesus, this is a crazy place that they're going. Ephesus was crazy. I mean, when we get to Ephesus in two weeks, you are gonna see a place that kind of looks a lot like where you live. Um, the things that were going on in the temple of Athena, all these, you know, things that were happening.

There's a lot as we'll see that kind of models what's happening today. And without the power of the Holy Spirit with just, you know, a, you know, some coffee and some cake and and being, you know, knowing that you're saved, it's not gonna be enough. You're gonna be underequipped in order to bring what this world needs. And so Paul expose them. Let's look at the first one stuck in your faith.

Go to verse one there he found some disciples and asked them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believe? I think the important thing here is that he found some disciples, which means there was disciples that had gone out, people had heard the message and they were going out, but they weren't in fullness. Our job and Paul's job here is to help equip believers to walk in fullness.

We want you to walk in fullness. We don't want you just to be saved. We want you to be saved. But like I said, Jesus main purpose is not so he can rescue you. It's to have a life with you after you've been rescued and to work in power with you. It's a really important question he has. Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Now, if I were to ask you, you've believed, many of you believed, some of you might not have.

Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? If you're not sure, if you are not sure, the answer might be no. If you're not sure now, if you believed you were sealed, like I said, so just know that if you believed in Jesus and you made a decision, even as a child knowing that it says that you are sealed, your salvation is not in question. If we can, if we believe in our heart and confess with our mouth that Jesus says, Lord, that you will be saved. So I don't want anyone to think, oh, I might not be saved as you know, God mad at me. No, but there is a level that is within underneath the Holy Spirit's power that God wants to move you from being basically that hired analogy to being a servant for God working in the world.

So a great question. He asked, did you receive the Holy Spirit? Now, let's, let's look at these believers real quick cuz these, this is a really, really interesting group of people. And the first thing we see is Luke, who wrote the book of Acts identifies the men that Paul met as not only believers, but also disciples. He identifies them. Now, if you were to take me to this passage, and you just gave me the information that you have some people that have been baptized and they had, um, maybe not even known who Jesus was and they were only baptized but had not re un even know who the Holy Spirit is, cuz by their own admission, right? They said, we don't, we don't even know there is a Holy Spirit.

We don't even know what that is. I would say to you, they're not disciples, right? That's not a disciple. But Luke calls them not only believers, but he also calls them disciples. We'll see why that is in just a second. Because this is a transitory period right between the Old Testament and the New Testament where everything is changing, where Christ has come, people are looking for Messiah and people are waiting for him.

And there was a bit of a difference that is happening. So the first thing we see is that he calls them believers. Here's what we know about these 12. They had confessed and repented of their sins, but not experienced the Holy Spirit. They had confessed and repented of their sins, but not re experienced or received the Holy Spirit. That's important, the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit begins to operate in your life, when you become open to the things of the Spirit, when you actually find out that there is a Holy Spirit that'll change your life.

When I was 27 years old, I had been walking with Christ since I was 19 and re well since I was 12. But at 19 I gave my life back over to Jesus. And when I did, I began to do all the things of the Spirit. And I was excited and passionate about Jesus. But I have to say, I didn't really know the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was operating in my life, but I didn't really know him. Then I got to a church called the Vineyard, and I went to this conference and the whole conference was about the Holy Spirit. And all of a sudden it opened me up to realizing there was power, there was understanding. And as I was open to the Holy Spirit and asking God, let your Spirit come into my life, let your Spirit, because remember that baptism we saw this last week, the baptism of the Holy Spirit doesn't come from us.

We do not baptize you in the Holy Spirit. We baptize you like we saw Paul here, right? Remember Paul says, I bap he baptized, and lemme just show it right here, let's just go right to it. Um, it says, uh, if you go to uh, verse four, he told the people to believe in the one coming after him that is Jesus. And after that, they were what?

Baptized into the name of whom the Lord Jesus. So as a church, we baptize you in the name of the holy of Jesus. But then Jesus, it says, member according to last week's sermon in John chapter one, that Jesus then opens the way for the Holy Spirit to be, uh, made into your life and to empower you in your life. That happens. Oftentimes God can do it on his own, is because churches like us, mentors like you who are operating in the power of the Spirit, develop and raise up people to teach them about the Holy Spirit.

That's what Paul's doing here. You see, the Holy Spirit came when they were taught about the Holy Spirit. And so as a church, what I'm doing right now is trying to do the same thing. And we're gonna give you an opportunity to open yourself up at the end of the service to allow the Holy Spirit to come upon your life. We know this, they had confessed and repented those sins but not experienced the Holy Spirit they had done. As John verse four says, look at verse four, had been baptized in John's baptism. That was a baptism of repentance.

So we know that their hearts were were soft. They had asked forgiveness, they were looking to be cleansed, and their hearts were testifying that they knew that they had sin in their life and they wanted to repent. So that was important. The next that they believed in the coming Messiah. So remember John's baptism when he was baptizing people at first, before Jesus showed up.

Cuz remember he was out in the desert doing this before Jesus showed up. Um, and he knew who Jesus was cuz he was related to him. He was a cousin of Jesus, but he had not been told for sure yet that Jesus was Messiah. And so remember John, in John chapter one, John the Baptist had this dream or something happen and he said the Father or some that God had told him, who you see the Spirit fall upon land upon.

Remember o Dove came, that will be the Messiah. And so he's waiting. Now the reason I say that is because there was a period here where he is baptizing into repentance and saying, Messiah is coming. Messiah is here. I just don't know who he is yet. So these men had been baptized in the name of the coming Messiah. Well, you might say, well, if they don't know who Jesus is, how can they be disciples? Because Luke calls them disciples, right?

He calls them believers. Well, the same question is would be true for Moses. The same question would be true for David. How can David, who the scripture says he will have a, his name will be remembered in heaven, he'll have an eternal throne That because Jesus, the the lineage of David goes through Jesus. Um, how could David be a believer?

He didn't know who Messiah was? Because faith, faith works in both directions. Imagine Jesus being here and this is the date in history where Jesus dies on the cross and you're Moses, or you are one of the prophets, or Ezekiel or David, and you know that Messiah is coming. The prophets have told you Messiah is coming. You believe in something you can't see. You're believing forward, right?

Faith is faith where you believe forward or you believe backwards. I can't see Jesus either, but I believe he was here. They couldn't see him, but they believed he was coming. And it says to Abraham in the scripture, remember, why are you saved? Abraham was saved by what? By belief, by faith. So these men repented and they believed that Messiah was coming even though they didn't know who he was.

This shows the importance of raising people up in discipleship and being willing to treat, teach and train people into the faith. It doesn't just stop at when Jesus, at repentance and at baptism says they've been baptized and they believed in the hope of the coming Messiah. It's very possible that they did not know who Jesus was until Paul had told them such a powerful point. And Paul tells them, but they were, but God knew their hearts. Now, there was a unique verse in Romans that talks about being able to be saved. Even if you never hear about God. There's a unique verse.

I'm gonna read it to you, it's a bit complex, but see if you can follow me. It's not gonna be on the screen. So it's extra difficult to follow. But nonetheless, it says this, put the better glasses on, if I may. In Romans, in Romans two 14, it says, indeed when the Gentiles. Now, now imagine that's a person who lived, uh, maybe a Germanic tribe before Jesus had, you know, um, the word of God had gotten to Europe who did not, uh, who indeed, when Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature the things required by the law, they are a law for themselves.

So lemme just stop and just interpret that real quick. God says that the law, his his law is written on our hearts. And if someone has never heard of Jesus, if they follow the law that is written on their heart, this is why every culture knows that murder's wrong, because God has put these things on our heart. God says, if you've never heard about Jesus, but you follow the law on your heart, let's see what it says. Verse 15 says, um, these things will become a law for themselves.

These things that are on their heart, even though they do not have the law since they show in the way that they live, the requirements of the law that are written on their hearts and their consciousness will also bear witnesses. Let me give you some interpretation, meaning that if you live in a Germanic tribe before you Jesus, the word of Jesus had ever gotten there and you want to kill your neighbor and something in your heart says, no murder is wrong, and your conscience says, I shouldn't do that. I shouldn't murder my neighbor. And you say, I will not murder him because I know it's wrong. It says, God will take that into account on the day of judgment.

Lemme tell you what it says, it says, now their thoughts will either accuse them or defend them. This will take place on the day of judgment. When God's, when, when men's secrets are seen through Jesus Christ, as, as gospel declares, this is where these 12 believers were, they believed and they were acting in accordance with what was on their heart even though they didn't have the Holy Spirit. Now, the Holy Spirit, once you get the Holy Spirit, this thing that's on your heart becomes alive.

You see, it's much harder to follow the things upon your heart when you're not being coached and encouraged by the Holy Spirit and opening yourself up to the Holy Spirit in this place. So that's what we see. Let's go to the second point. Paul then exposes believers to the Holy Spirit, who then are equipped and resourced for fullness in Christ.

Let me read that again. Paul exposed believers to the Holy Spirit. He taught them about the Holy Spirit. He introduced the Holy Spirit who were then equipped and resourced for what fullness in Christ. Christ wants you to be full. He wants your, your life, your soul, your mind, your emotions to be full says the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, understanding. These are the things. And if you under, if you feel like you're walking in those things somewhat regularly, there's a good chance that you are being led and filled with the Holy Spirit.

These are the fruits of the Spirit as we follow the Spirit. George Barna is a, um, he does church surveys. He's kind of the guy when it comes to doing surveys about Christians and church and culture in the world. He's been around for about 20 years. He said nearly 60% of Americans who regularly attend church say there is no such thing as the Holy Spirit.

And they say the Holy Spirit is just a symbol of God's power, presence and purity. Let me say that again. Okay? It's Barna. Barna is like, he's legit, okay? He's not just some guy just rando a u you know, a YouTube survey. Nearly 60%, that's six outta 10 of us. It's majority who regularly attend Christian Church say that there is no such thing as the Holy Spirit.

And they say that the Holy Spirit is just a symbol of God's power and presence, uh, uh, presence or purity. Let me, let me assure you that the Holy Spirit is more than a symbol or a metaphor. The Holy Spirit is part of the divine trinity and the part of God's spirit that he wants to equip and enable us in order to know him in a deeper way.

God wants to partner with you in the adventure that his life. He wants you to change your world. He wants you like Paul to when you go to a city, when you go to a place, when you go to a school, he wants to empower and equip you to change that place, to change that place in a powerful way. And we see churches starting here. We see lives change. You'll see when we get to emphasis, if you wanna read ahead, the entire city goes into an uproar because Paul changes the economic system because people stop buying idols and then there's a riot.

He changes. He just ruins an entire trade by just preaching the gospel. Go to verse five, if you would, on hearing this. Hearing what that there was always his spirit. Maybe you're hearing it for the first time today on hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Holy Spirit. No, into the name of the Lord Jesus. So they were baptized again.

They had been baptized, but they didn't know who Jesus was and they didn't know who the Holy Spirit was. Perhaps didn't know who Jesus was. And so they were baptized that ti again a second time into the name of Jesus. And when Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them. It didn't say it went into them because they're already believers and we believe that they were sealed.

We believe that they have the seal because how do we know that? Because Luke told us, he said they were believers and disciples. So we believe that the Holy Spirit was within them, but he wasn't on 'em. I I, we could talk for, we could just chase our tail forever about is the Holy Spirit on us within us power? I don't know. I just wanna be open to the spirit.

I actually wanna live a Christian life that matters or I just wanna go home. Lately I've just been really like, Lord, let's just, let's get after it. When I saw eight people last week, leave the pews didn't plan on getting baptized, walk up and get baptized. Last Sunday we were out to the cafe with people getting anointed with oil.

If you were here last Sunday, people just, Hey, I want the Holy Spirit. I wanna be anointed with oil. If you missed that, it was legit. That was fresh. And that's what we want to see. That kind of just that open, you know what it is? It's people that are hungry, people that want more, they want more of what it is. And so we see that these 12 men were rebaptized in the name of Jesus.

And then verse six is the verse that people kind of get messed up on. Well, Paul placed hands on them and the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke in tongues and they prophesied. And there are some denominations that believe, well, this is how we do it. And if you don't prophesy and speak in tongues, you're not saved. That's a heresy. That is not true. That is, that is not true. The, the Bible was very clear that speaking in tongues is a gift to the Holy Spirit.

And he gives gifts to some and not to others. That a kid in my youth group who was desperate to speak in tongues almost ruined his faith because he was just, I wanted to speak in, I've done everything I can and just striving and it just never happened that I know of it. And then like, you know, a rando kid would come to the youth group and then all of a sudden we, you know, start speaking in tongues. I know I was, I was at, I was at a charismatic church. So if he were not a charismatic church, but he'd be like, why did that kid, that kid doesn't even follow God really?

Like I'm following God. He's got, you know, I don't know what to tell you. Let me tell you about this passage. Um, this passage is more of a depiction than a, than a prescription. This is a depiction of something that happened. There are things that you're gonna see in this book of acts that people try to turn into a prescription. What is a prescription? We all gotta do this.

You all gotta do this. If you don't do this, if you don't speak in tongues, if you don't do this, it causes this workspace thing where you're constantly striving for the next Holy Spirit encounter. I got a little burned on the Holy Spirit because I was in a Holy Spirit movement for a while and it felt like we were just trying to whip it up all the time.

Just whip it up, we're gonna get the spirit coming again. Here comes the spirit. You know, we're gonna just whip it up and strive and it just becomes eventually I was like, what's the point? I just wanna get back to evangelism and discipleship and raising people up, you know, strong people. And the Lord's really convicted me lately after about 10 years of that.

Like you might overcorrected, you know? So I think we have overcorrected and there's a hunger and a passion and what the Holy Spirit is. What God, the Holy Spirit actually has told me recently was you need to equip your church for what's to come. You need to equip your church. And like I said last week, we are going to have a trauma center within the next five to 10 years.

People that have emasculated themselves and show up on our front door saying, I couldn't find what I was looking for. And like the first century Unix are looking for something else on the verge of suicide. I gotta give them something more than a chili Cookoff. We have to show up for people that are struggling with, with all these different issues. Whether it be identity, whether it be a depression, suicidal ideation, fentanyl, whatever.

This whatever's happening, it's gonna be like a trauma ward. And we are going to have to be equipped in the power of the Holy Spirit so that we can bring life to people. That's the point. To bring life. Because we are going to become irrelevant, absolutely irrelevant. And I don't want to be part of something that is irrelevant.

And so we see that this is more of a depiction than a description, right? It's more of a des uh, a des than a prescription that God is not prescripted, that it happens this way. And then verse six, the cool thing, the Holy Spirit came on 'em. The Holy Spirit came upon them. You'll know it when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

And there's only one thing that you need to do. There's one characteristic cuz there's so many different personalities in scripture. Everyone's different. There's not a personality trait that opens the Holy Spirit. There's one thing. It's openness. It's openness. Thank God I am open surrender might be another one, maybe a second one.

But it's an openness to the spirit. I want more. I want more. So I wanna give you an opportunity once again today to get unstuck. Um, not trying to, to create something or make something happen, but I just felt like the Lord said last week, you know, in Ezekiel 47 it says that water starts flowing from the temple. Read Ekko 47 is powerful.

And it says that it flows at first and it's about ankle deep. And then they measure a little bit further, and then it goes up to knee deep, measure a little bit further. It's waist deep. It's all coming from the front of the temple into the streets of the city. It says next, it's a flowing torrent, a river that is flowing from the front of the temple and it goes into all the city streets, it goes into all the countryside and it makes rivers.

And it says that trees grow up beside it and it brings life to that area. I felt last week we got, we got a little ankle deep. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe you were here. But I felt like the Holy Spirit said, you know what? Give another opportunity. Maybe we can go, maybe we can go knee deep. Let's see what happens. It's gonna be up to us and to our openness.