Hurry up…and wait.

Steve Brown:
Hey, hurry up…and wait. Let’s talk about it, on this edition of Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
God’s grace changes everything. How we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase, and worship. This is Key Life, with practical Bible teaching to get you home with radical freedom, infectious joy, and surprising faithfulness.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. We’re talking about the Holy Spirit, and we’re looking primarily at the first chapter of Acts and the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer as we share our faith in Christ. I know you’re tired of me saying it, but I’m not telling you to go out and to have this prepared message that you can give to the world and will change the world. That’s not what this is about. What it’s about is spending time with Jesus until you smell like Jesus, and then when you go out, sometimes you don’t have to say anything. Sometimes people notice a difference. Sometimes you create questions and you can have answers. And when you have answers, don’t be phony about it. I would add that the Holy Spirit reminds us, because if you’ve been listening to this teaching on the Holy Spirit, we have seen that one of the job descriptions of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world, and that includes Christians of sin. And so, when you go out, you don’t say to the world, I’m good and pure because Jesus made me that way. And Jesus will make you like me if you want him to. That’s not a witness, that’s a lie. Maybe a witness more than anything else is to be honest about your own sins. Maybe that’s confessing. Maybe when somebody’s going through a hard time because something really bad they did, you could say, you know, I’ve thought about doing that myself and they go you too and you say, yeah. But let me tell you something else, Jesus loves me a lot, about 10 percent more than he loves you And if you’ll go to him, you’ll find out that he’ll love you in exactly the same way, that’s winsome. That makes a difference. But Jesus said hurry up and wait and be still. Let the Holy Spirit build a fire. At the end of the broadcast yesterday, I said something that always makes me feel pious and I don’t even like saying it, but it’s true. I said, I’m a man of prayer and I really am. I get up most mornings pretty early and I spend time with Jesus. I don’t know how, sometimes I play solitaire too. I don’t know, and this is honest, I don’t know how I could function without that time with him in his presence. It makes all of the difference in the world. And that time with him overcomes the intimidation the world is trying to use on me to get me to be still and not say anything. You can’t shut me up because of Jesus. You can’t make me go away because of Jesus. You can’t force me to ignore you because of Jesus. And that starts in the morning, and it’s an important time for me. A number of years ago, and this is by way of confession. Now, I was ordained, I was a pastor, and this is what I prayed.

Father, my sin is more real to me than you are. I’ve studied theology. I’m a Bible teacher. And a leader of your people, that there are people in the pews of my church who have never read a theology book, don’t know much about the Bible, and are certainly not leaders, and they know you better than I do. Father, whatever it takes, I want to know you more than I want to know about you, and I know a lot about you.

That was when the Holy Spirit began, and this is honest, to really work in my life. That was when the fire started burning. That’s when I knew I was acceptable. No matter where I went, no matter what I did, no matter my sin and my secrets, it was covered. That’s when I began to realize that grace wasn’t a side issue among Christians. It’s the main deal. To be loved and accepted, to have the promises apply to you. That’s it. And if you don’t know that, what should you do? Nothing. Just sit. I didn’t say that. Jesus said it. He started this whole thing by saying to his disciples.

“Go back to Jerusalem and be still and wait.”

Because he knew that in the quietness, the fire would start. It would start slowly, and it would start burning, and then when you went out, and you served in the world, wherever he put you, there would be the smell of Jesus, and you will see lives change. Now, don’t get me wrong, Biblical theology and doctrine are very important, but they bear the same relationship to the Christian faith as the relationship between botany and flowers. They’re both descriptive of a reality, but only one is the reality itself. So, the first thing one does in sharing the fire of Jesus, is to hurry up and wait. Then the second question before the house is this, to whom shall I go with my witness? Believe it or not, the Holy Spirit is vitally involved in this action too. One of the interesting things about the Book of Acts is the way those involved in the early church were led by our Lord the Holy Spirit. Acts has often been called the Acts of the Apostles, and I guess that’s fine, but it would be better to call it the Acts of the Holy Spirit in and through the Apostles. Throughout that book, there is a recurring theme, the leading of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Christians. Let me give you some examples. Acts 2:4

As the Spirit gave them utterance.

Acts 8:29

Then the Spirit said to Philip.

Acts 8:39

The Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away.

Acts 10:19

The Spirit said to him.

Acts 11:12

Then the Spirit told me to go with them.

Acts 16:7

But the Spirit did not permit them.

Acts 18:5

Paul was constrained by the Spirit.

Acts 19:21

Paul purposed in the Spirit.

Acts 20:22

Compelled by the Spirit.

Acts 21:4

They told Paul through the Spirit.

And I could go on and on, but you get the idea. The Holy Spirit has some specific ideas about the places where we should go with the fire that he has given us. There is a lot of disagreement among Christians about what baptism of the Holy Spirit is about. If you’ve been listening to this teaching on the Holy Spirit, I’ve offended everybody with telling them what I think the Bible tells about that. I believe that those of you who are Pentecostal and charismatic, I wish you wouldn’t call your experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You could call it the filling of the Holy Spirit. You could call it something else, but the baptism means initial, beginning. And that’s what happens to Christians when they become Christians. And it becomes a reality when you wait for the fire. The first place the Spirit would send us is, are you listening, where you are. Bloom where you’re planted. Jesus said to his disciples.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always through the Holy Spirit even to the end of the age.

Now, let me show you something interesting in the Greek. The go in go therefore, is a principle that is not a command to go, but an assumption that the listener will automatically be going. The Great Commission should be translated as you are going, make disciples. And notice in that first chapter of Acts when Jesus said.

Go into all the world.

He starts with Jerusalem. Why Jerusalem? Because that’s where they were, dummy! They were living in Jerusalem, and He says that’s where you start. And so, we wait until the fire. And then you start exactly where you are. When you become sensitive to the people around you, the people you love, the place where you work, where you play and where you get entertained and where you go and eat. All of those places. That’s your mission field. Not to be a fanatic, but to make sure that when God gives an opportunity, they know you belong to him. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thanks Steve. And with that we close the book on this week of teaching on the Holy Spirit. It’s a series we’re calling Follow the Wind and guess what? Steve will wrap up this entire series next week, so don’t miss it. And do join us again tomorrow for Friday Q&A. Tomorrow a caller calls out Steve and Pete for forgetting to start with prayer. And that’s just the beginning. What’s that all about? Tune in and find out. Well, we haven’t talked about it in a while, but Steve’s most recent book is called Laughter and Lament, and in it, he reveals that God has a purpose for both of those things. Have you read it? If not, I have some good news. We took sections of that book and created a special booklet that we would love to send to you for free. Claim your copy right now by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] and ask for that booklet. To mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, just ask for your free copy of the Laughter and Lament booklet. And before you go, if you value the work of Key Life, would you join us in that work through your financial support? You could charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or simply text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word or two. It doesn’t matter. Just text that to 28950, then follow the instructions. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.