“Life in the Spirit”
(Acts 18:24-19:10)
Series: The Church on Fire!
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
First Baptist Church Henderson, KY
(3-9-08) (AM)
- Take God’s Word and open to Acts, chapter 18.
If you’re visiting with us we’ve been making our way, verse-by-verse, through the book of Acts, studying what is really the best “Church-Growth Manual” for the church today. The book of Acts is all about how God intends to grow the church. And God is growing us as we’re learning what it really means to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
We believe that the best way to learn about God is to open His Word, the Bible, to open up the Scriptures and to read them, verse-by-verse whenever possible, reading in context, just as we would carefully read a love letter written to us, so we should read God’s Word; not simply reading a line here and a line there, but reading carefully together passage by passage, listening carefully to what God is saying.
We left off our study with Paul going to Jerusalem and then making his way back to Ephesus to begin his third missionary journey. But before Paul gets back to Ephesus, we read about what happens in his absence and we read about this remarkable guy named Apollos.
- Stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
24 Now a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus.
25 This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John.
26 So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.
27 And when he desired to cross to Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him; and when he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace;
28 for he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly, showing from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.
1 And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples
2 he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” So they said to him, “We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”
- Pray.
Introduction:
A few weeks ago when the power went out during the most recent thunderstorm activity, our power was out at the house for several hours. And when the power goes out like that in the early evening, it’s actually not too bad at the first, if not a little fun. Everyone’s getting candles out and setting them up as we all wait for the power to go back on. Maybe your family is like mine when this happens. We’ll get out a board game or something and try to pass the time this way. But after the fifth game of Yahtzee, the fun begins to wane. You know, the longer the power outage, the more obvious it becomes just how dependent we are upon the power to do anything. When the power’s out, you walk into a room and instinctively flip the light switch to turn on the light and then you shake your head and remember, “Oh, yeah: the power’s out.” You think: “Well, the TV won’t work, but I can watch a video—no, that won’t work, either…I’ll get on the computer—no, that won’t last very long, either. I know: I’ll get the radio…but do I have one that runs on batteries?” It can be pretty frustrating. I remember last time eventually sitting down on the couch with a book in my hand next to the candle light thinking, “I really need the power to be back on soon or I’m in trouble!” When the power’s out, we rightly feel—powerless.
What’s the key verse in the book of Acts? Acts 1:8. In Acts 1:8 Jesus says, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.” Fulfilling Christ’s commission to get the gospel to people in our Jerusalem: Henderson and our Judea and Samaria: Kentucky and North America and the uttermost parts of the earth: internationally across the seas, can be a daunting task. Even sharing the Gospel with our co-workers and friends at school can be scary, but the key is in the first part of the verse. Jesus says, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.”
Without that power, we rightly feel powerless. We should! We need the Holy Spirit in order to live the life Jesus Christ has called us to live. We need the Holy Spirit to witness, to serve, to teach, to work, to survive!…to finish a challenging job assignment, to study and do well on a test, to lead our families—to do anything and everything.
I want to talk to you this morning about “Life in the Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity. He is God! And I want us to see from this passage of Scripture what happens when God the Spirit guides. There are some things for us to learn here. Number one, when God’s Spirit guides:
I. We have Correct Preaching (18:24-28)
Look again at this guy Apollos in verses 24-25. The Bible says:
24 Now a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus.
25 This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John.
This guy Apollos is a remarkable man. He is described as eloquent and “mighty in the Scriptures.” I like that statement! Man, I want to be “mighty in the Scriptures,” don’t you? I mean, Apollos knew his Bible. He knew the Old Testament well. Could that be said of you? Are you “mighty in the Scriptures?” How’s your daily Bible reading coming along? Are you reading through the Bible this year? Stick with it!
Apollos is mighty in the Scriptures and he is eloquent. Verse 25 says he’s been instructed in the way of the Lord and he’s “fervent in spirit”—the word means, “to boil with heat.” I mean this guy’s on fire, preaching a message that’s muy caliente! But there’s a problem here. “He spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord,”—but—“he knew only the baptism of John.”
Now that’s interesting. Apollos has some background in the things of the Lord, but he knows only the baptism of John. You’ll remember John the Baptist from the earlier chapters of the Gospels. He was the forerunner of the Lord Jesus. John went around calling for people to repent to get ready for the Messiah. So people would go out to John in the wilderness and he would baptize them a “baptism of repentance.” It was not Christian baptism as the Bible later teaches and as we know it today. John’s baptism was simply a symbolic way of saying, “I have repented from my sins. I am getting ready for the coming of the Messiah.” That was it.
And that’s all Apollos knew. “He knew only the baptism of John.” So Apollos did not yet know how the coming of the Messiah was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. He had not yet heard about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and he had not heard of the coming of the Holy Spirit and thus had not yet received Christ personally as Lord of His life. “He knew only the baptism of John.”
I don’t know where he learned this. He was born in Alexandria, founded by and named after Alexander the Great, a center of great education and home of the greatest library in the world at that time. The library there in Alexandria contained 700,000 volumes so maybe Apollos got a lot of his learning from studying.
It’s interesting to me that the word “instructed” there in verse 25 is the word from which we get “catechism.” Apollos had been catechized about some truth in the Lord, but he was not yet a believer. You and I can receive some truth about the Lord and still not be a believer because we have not received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We can be very religious and yet still be lost.
Now watch what happens as Aquila and Priscilla hear Apollos. Remember them? They’re friends of the Apostle Paul’s. Look at verse 26:
26 So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.
What a loving thing to do! Aquila and Priscilla did not address Apollos publicly. This is a good model for us! They did not humiliate Apollos. They lovingly took him aside privately; probably invited him over to their place for a meal and shared with Apollos the FAITH outline! They shared the Gospel with him. They told him how the Messiah is the Lord Jesus Christ from Nazareth, how he died and was raised. They told Apollos about the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Now to be sure, I said this first point is about “correct preaching,” but we may want to rename it “complete preaching.” It’s not so much that Apollos’ message was “incorrect” as it was “incomplete.” Aquila and Priscilla help Apollos see the complete message. Apollos now becomes a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.
27 And when he desired to cross to Achaia, the brethren (the Ephesians) wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him; and when he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace;
28 for he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly, showing from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.
So now Apollos has the complete message of the Gospel. He is now guided by the Holy Spirit and is preaching the complete and correct message about Christ.
Ray Stedman said, “No preacher can ever lift his congregation above his own spiritual experience.” If a preacher knows only how to take a verse here and a verse there and talk about how you can make a lot of money and feel good about yourself, he’s preaching a message that is incomplete. Christian preaching is all about the Gospel. We’ve got to hear about sin. We’ve got to hear how Jesus came to take care of our sin problem, how He died, was buried, and rose again. “No preacher can lift his congregation above his own spiritual experience.” We’ve got to get the message right. We’ve got to get the message right. Say, “We’ve got to get the message right.”
Appollos got the message right. When God’s Spirit guides we have correct preaching. Number two: when God’s Spirit guides:
II. We have Christ’s Presence (19:1-7)
Remember: Paul had gone to Jerusalem to fulfill his vow. Now he comes back to Ephesus. He had said, “I’ll be back if it’s the Lord’s will” (18:21) and it’s the Lord’s will so he’s back:
1 And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples
2 he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” So they said to him, “We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”
I just think that’s an extraordinary statement. “We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” I wonder if some Baptists would have responded like those Ephesians.
3 And he said to them, “Into what then were you baptized?” So they said, “Into John’s baptism.”
How many of you think that sounds familiar?! Just like who? Just like Apollos. So Paul does the same thing with these guys that Aquila and Priscilla did with Apollos: he shares the FAITH outline; he shares the Gospel. We just have the condensed version here:
4 Then Paul said, “John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.”
5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
So they became believers; they became Christians. And because their first baptism did not represent a personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are re-baptized. Some of us had similar experiences. We may have been baptized when we were small or even as infants, but it wasn’t until later that we understood what it meant to follow Jesus Christ in a personal, real way. So because our first baptism did not represent personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ we were re-baptized. Biblical baptism pictures the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The believer goes down into the water—that’s a picture of death—and arises out of the water—that’s a picture of resurrection. So these 12 Ephesians became Christians and were baptized.
We see the evidence of their newfound faith in what happens next. Remember: when God’s Spirit guides, we have Christ’s presence. Verses 6-7:
6 And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.
7 Now the men were about twelve in all.
After these 12 received Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior they received the Holy Spirit. The evidence of their conversion their speaking in tongues and prophesying, proclaiming truth about Jesus Christ. Now, we’ve talked before about this matter of speaking in tongues. I refer you back to our message from Acts chapter 2 and you can read about it there at Pentecost. This is really something of a “mini-Pentecost” here. I think Kent Hughes is correct: “We see the Pentecost experience four times in the book of Acts: to Jewish believers in Jerusalem, to the Samaritans through Philip, to the Gentiles by Peter, and here to dispersed Jews through Paul.”
Like Apollos, these 12 Ephesians were living during something of a “transition time” from the baptism of John to the baptism of Christ. They were not believers until they heard the Gospel and received Jesus Christ by faith. The evidence of their conversion was their receiving the Holy Spirit. After this “transition time,” every believer would receive the Holy Spirit at the moment of conversion. We know, for example, that every person who became a believer under Paul’s teaching at Ephesus received the Holy Spirit at the moment of conversion. We know that because of the letter Paul would later write to the Ephesians.
In Ephesians 1:13, Paul writes, “Having believed (that is, at the moment of your faith in Christ), you were sealed with the Holy Spirit.” And that is the normative experience today. Since that time, after that brief “transition time,” if you will, every single person who receives Jesus Christ as Savior receives the Holy Spirit at the moment of conversion. We don’t have to “pray for the Spirit” to come. He has already come. He lives within us.
See it is interesting to me that Paul could tell these 12 guys didn’t have the Spirit before he shared the Gospel with them. They were “disciples” of some kind. He knew that. They talked some religious talk, but he could tell they were not true believers in Christ. They did not have the witness of the Holy Spirit within them.
In John 14:16-17, Jesus says, “[The Father] will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”
When God’s Spirit guides, we have Christ’s presence—Christ’s very presence within us! How awesome is that?!
So when God’s Spirit guides, we have correct preaching, we have Christ’s presence, and that leads us to our final point of blessing. When God’s Spirit guides:
III. We have Consistent Power (19:8-10)
As a Spirit-filled believer, the Apostle Paul demonstrates that the Holy Spirit is within him by the powerful way in which he ministers. Verses 8-10:
8 And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God.
9 But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.
10 And this continued for two years, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.
Paul powerfully preaches and teaches the Gospel in the face of opposition, power to continue for as long as three years as he will later state in chapter 20. For three years Paul consistently demonstrates the power of the Holy Spirit as he shares the Gospel. In fact, I kind of like this over in chapter 20, verse 20. The Bible says that Paul did like we do on Monday evenings. Look at it there:
“I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house.”
How can you share the Gospel? In the power of the Holy Spirit. When God’s Spirit guides, we have correct preaching—we get the message right—we have Christ’s presence, and we have consistent power, power to persevere through opposition, persecution, difficult days and difficult challenges.
In fact, it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we do anything and can leap over any hurdle and climb any mountain of difficulty. We receive the gift of the Holy Spirit at conversion. It happens once for all. It is an unrepeated event. If you’re a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit. But listen carefully: It’s one thing to have the Holy Spirit. It’s another thing for the Spirit to have you.
Ephesians 5:18 says, “Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.” That is a repeated activity. Every day we must seek to be controlled by the Spirit. Throughout the day, we yield ourselves to the Spirit of God, living in the power of His presence.
Conclusion:
We used to own a Hyundai. It was a very good car and served us well for a number of years. But one day we came out of a store and it would not start. We thought it was the battery and tried to have it jump-started, but nothing happened. A guy inside the store said it was probably the starter. He had some cables that he used which got the car started by bypassing the starter.
So we drove the car home, not really happy about having to get a new starter, but grateful that we at least knew what the problem was. I share the information with my handy-dandy next-door neighbor and member of my Sunday school class. Larry helped me install the new starter. Actually Larry installed the starter and I held the flashlight. When we were finished we turned the key to start the car: nothing. We checked all the connections. Nothing. I think we even replaced the battery. The car just would not start.
Finally, someone where Michele worked suggested something. He said he used to own a Hyundai and he said that on the inside, underneath the driver’s side console, there was this plastic computer chip. It was a little burglary prevention device that you could pull out when you went shopping and then put it back in when you got back to the car. This supposedly kept people from hot-wiring the car (and I’m thinking, “Like someone would really jack my old, economy-sized Hyundai!”). But he told us about this little chip and said, “Sometimes those things get loose.”
So Michele went out and turned a screw or two and the car started right up! The answer was so simple, and so close, just within our grasp, and yet we had no power. Far too many Christians go through their lives with no power. They go around trying this new thing and that new thing, never really sure why they’re not victorious in their Christian lives. The answer is as close as that little plastic computer chip was to us. The Holy Spirit is our power for daily living.
- Stand for prayer.
Two questions: Do you have the Holy Spirit? If you have not been saved, you don’t. You need to come to Christ. Christian, does the Holy Spirit have you? Are you living a Spirit-filled life, living in the power of Christ’s presence within you? Let’s pray…
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