***The following is an unedited auto-generated transcript and may contain serious errors and speakers other than Dallas Willard. It is included here to assist your study. Please check the original audio for an authentic record of the event.
Dallas: Let us bow together in prayer. Almighty and most gracious Lord, we come again this evening before you in thankfulness because we have an opportunity to open the written word which you’ve left for us, the holy word of God. We pray that in its presence you will speak to us in such a way that we cannot mistake your voice and that this word of God will expand and create throughout all of our lives that divine order which you have appointed in which we shall know the fruits of righteousness and exercise the power of thy kingdom for thy glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.
The topic for this evening’s discussion is preparation for persecution, and I want to remind you of a few things that I said last time about the book of Acts. The function of the book of Acts is fundamentally the following. It provides us with the details of the story about how the kingdom of God was picked up and taken out of the Jewish nation and given to another group of people, the Gentiles. It gives us the details and in many ways it illustrates the work of God in history in a very narrow focus because if we look back through the history of Israel, you will see centuries in which it seems as if God is doing nothing, things just drag on. In fact, that’s not true. He’s doing something, the preparation is slow, the foundation has to be laid firmly, and the structure put up rightly before the fullness of time could come when Christ could come forth. Nevertheless, there are times when things do not seem to be moving speedily. That is not true in the book of Acts.
If you have watched the weather broadcasts on Channel 4 or 7 or others, you may have seen the satellite photos which show the cloud masses moving across the United States at a very rapid clip. It is speed up, what do they call it, time-lapse photography or something of that sort, where you may have seen pictures of a flower opening up by means of time-lapse photography. And if you watch Dr. George or those other comedians that put on the weather every evening, you will have noticed, I don’t miss Dr. George. He’s a good humor man for me and he sort of makes my day. And well, that tells you about my mentality, I suppose. But in any case, you will recall seeing how that they will show the cloud masses coming in off of the California coast at a rapid speed and zipping across the Rocky Mountains and before you know it, they’re over Boston. Well, maybe not quite that fast, but you get the idea. And that’s the sort of thing that you have in the book of Acts. Things are moving very rapidly. The principles of God in developing the kingdom of God upon this earth, which he will bring to conclusion eventually in his time. In this particular time, the principles are being applied, the events are occurring in a very rapid way so that we can see the people of God coming forth out of the nation of Israel.
Now in the Bible, there are two great transitions of this sort. The first is out of Exodus. In the book of Exodus, you will recall, we find the people of God in Egyptian bondage. And the Exodus is the story of how they came out. Now you may notice that in Egyptian bondage, a community was formed. And in the process of deliverance from Egyptian bondage, there was a redemptive experience which marked the history of the Jews forever and formed them into a community. In the transition years, there was provided a story of their deliverance and there was provided a book around which all of the history of Israel revolved subsequently. Similarly in the book of Acts, there is a process of experience of redemptive experience of events from which there arises a community with its structure, a redemptive experience which stands forever, the death, burial, resurrection of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit, and a book arises out of those events. We call it the New Testament.
I want to try to pull together in very simple words now and restate exactly what is happening in these early chapters of the book of Acts. In fact, I’m referring to all of it up to the first part of the eighth chapter. But we’re just going to be dealing with a few passages tonight from the third, fourth and fifth chapters.
What occurs here is the following. A community is formed that can eventually survive being separated from Jewish culture. That’s what happens. A community is formed which can survive separation from Jewish culture.
What that means is that some people emerged into positions of leadership and fellowship so that no matter what happened, the indestructible church of Jesus Christ would go on. When Peter confessed Christ as the Son of God, this very Jesus who stood before him as the Messiah, Jesus responded that he would build his church upon this rocks and the gates of the grave, the gates of hell should not prevail over it. That means two things. And these two things are the basis of the peace of which Janet so beautifully sung in letters and singing a moment ago, those lovely words from the Gospel of John, my peace I give unto you.
And those two things are the destiny of the individual is settled forever so that no person need fear death. This is not well done in our churches and the fear of death is still terribly present in the Christian congregations in our world today. But we have to understand that in the eyes of the people who lived in the time of Christ and afterwards, death was simply a glorious transition to something which was better. Death was not feared. And when we look back and we hear the stories of the martyrs and how they went singing to their death, it is very difficult to appreciate that because we don’t have the similar experience of complete deliverance from the fear of death that they have. Now, some measure that’s because we don’t need it because we’re not dying. Someone once asked Moody if he had dying grace. He said, no, I’m not dying. We don’t need it until we’re dying. And I’m sure that if we face that kind of thing in our society today, we would have a lot more of the grace that is needed because the seed and the truth is there in our minds. But Paul said to depart and be with Christ is far better. It is far better than anything we have here.
Now, the death and the resurrection and the living presence of Christ after his death removed from the minds of those people forever any fear of obliteration and their connection with him removed any fear of God because of their sins. They were completely confident that they were accepted of God because of the merits of their friend, their risen friend, Christ. And they knew that the gates of the grave would never prevail over them because they weren’t even going to be there.
And then secondly, the gates of the grave, the gates of hell or Hades would not prevail against the church because the church as a living community would be indestructible. It still exists and it will go on existing. In what we see here in the book of Acts, we see the church form as a living, ongoing, never dying, indestructible community, which resides in the reality of the lives of certain individual people.
That’s what we’re invited to today. We are invited to a community which does not depend upon any culture, which does not depend upon any buildings, which frankly does not depend upon any denomination. It is beyond all of that. That’s what we’re invited to. And as we walk in the liberty of sons and daughters of God, we can enjoy the reality of that community and we will meet people wherever we go who are part of that community. And that is the church against which the gates of hell cannot prevail.
Now that’s the general description of what is happening, especially in these chapters we want to look at tonight. A community is being formed, which will survive being parted from the Jewish culture.
I don’t know if it struck you as you read this in preparation this week or last, but it was really a very large issue as to whether or not you could be saved and not be a Jew. That remained an issue for many, many years. Paul’s last letters are still dealing with the problem of whether or not, of course there’s no question in his own mind, but there are others who preach that you could not be saved unless you were circumcised. That was the essential mark of the Jew. That problem remained up to the very end of Paul’s life and even later.
And as we look back at it, we may think this is a terrible laboring over an obvious point, but in order to help us understand it, we need to think of how we associate being right with God with certain obvious features, cultural features of people today. I can remember a very few years ago when anyone who came into a church with hair as long as Greg Jessons was in trouble. I mean serious trouble. I mean people who would doubt your salvation if you had hair that long. You know, it’s a shame for a man to have long hair, isn’t that in the Bible somewhere, right? And people took that sort of thing and said, well, you just can’t be right if you’ve got that. There are all kinds of things that plague us and bring us into bondage today. I can pester Greg, he’s used to me, he doesn’t pay any attention to me, so don’t worry about that. People worry about these kinds of things, they’re very difficult things for people to handle. Can you be saved if you do such and such and such a thing? That is merely a cultural point.
Now I want us to look at some of the process of how this happened. And I’m going to move rather quickly because I have so much to cover and so little time. I promise I will not keep you terribly long tonight. And if you get enough and want to leave, please leave, but I won’t hold you terribly long, I promise that. But I understand that people have things to do and there’s so much here to cover that I think is very important for us to understand.
All right, first experience. What Jesus called the baptism of the Holy Ghost, Acts 1, 5. For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence. This is what happened in the opening of the second chapter of the book of Acts and you’ll see here a slightly different terminology is used and I want to refer to that in a moment. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place and suddenly there came a sound from heaven and it filled all of the house where they were sitting and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like a fire and sat upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, filled with the Holy Ghost. Baptized with the Holy Ghost, filled with the Holy Ghost. Strange manifestations resulted from this, but the most important thing that happened was that Peter was able to stand up and in plain language speak to the people who were present in such a way that those who had crucified the Lord Jesus Christ, who had consented to his death and had clamored for it, were cut to the heart and stabbed to death so that they realized they had betrayed their king. In verse 37 of chapter 2, now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, stabbed in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? They were stricken and Peter says to them, be baptized ever one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are far off and even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
Now dear friends, I would ask you, does that verse include me? Look at what it says. Unto you and your children and to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. In the eighth chapter of Romans, Paul says, as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.
Now, these people turned at this invitation, they were baptized and they joined the small community of disciples and it ceased to be small. And as a result of that, there was a period of communal life, which I want to read the description of in verse 41 and following.
This was a very important time and we’re apt to misunderstand the significance of these times in which really nothing very big was happening. Because in those times there were solidified the experiences which had occurred. People had an opportunity to interpret them and to live together with them so that they became welded evermore into a group in which trust, confidence, knowledge and faithfulness was flowing in all directions.
Initially that group was solidified by one simple fact. They were all the followers of a condemned criminal. We all know how easy it is for a group to hang together when the whole world is attacking them. And that at first was the unity of the group of disciples.
But that wasn’t to continue to be forever the unity of the group. The unity of the group has to take on a positive structure and principle. And this comes through the process of the people living together and interpreting the experiences which they were having and the Lord leading them on into more and different experiences.
So we have in verse 41 and following a time of consolidation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized and the same day they were added unto them about 3,000 souls. And they continued steadfastly, now here is a period of time, in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. It is very difficult to establish exactly the length of times, but this was certainly some weeks, possibly a few months. And fear came upon every soul. The effect of this community was to inspire awe in those round about because many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and parted them unto all men as every man had need. And they continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, that is they ate in various houses, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all of the people. And the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved, a process of constant addition given these light-filled and powerful people who are living together, a process of constant addition. People looking at him saying this both inspires us with awe and fear and attracts us and finally people being drawn into it as the word of God was spoken.
Now this is the first effects of the Spirit coming into the church in a new way. And I’ve got to stop this evening now and talk a little bit about the coming of the Spirit into the church. And I want to do this by discussing three different terms that are used to refer to the coming of the Spirit into the individual.
The first of these is one we’ve already seen, baptism. One the Baptist said there is going to be one who will come who will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Jesus said a few days hence you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. It turned out with fire too. But when we come to that day, we find it described in Acts 2 verse 4 and they were all filled. Here’s the second piece of terminology, filling, we have baptism, we have filling. And the word filling or full or derivatives of that term are used over and over throughout the book of Acts. If for example, you look at Acts chapter 4, 8, then Peter filled with the Holy Ghost said unto them ye rulers of the people and elders of Israel. If we be examined this day and so on, look again at the 31st verse of that chapter. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. Chapter 6 verse 3, wherefore brethren look ye out among you seven men, these are deacons, of honest report full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom whom we may appoint over this business. Acts 11, 24, speaking of Barnabas, that great son of consolation, 11, 24, for he was a good man and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith and much people was added unto the Lord. We could go on and on and on, that famous passage in Ephesians 5, 18, be ye not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. So that’s the second piece of terminology. The third piece of terminology is anointing, anointing by the Holy Ghost. In 2 Corinthians, the first chapter and the 21st verse, we find Paul speaking about the situation where we become established in Christ. Verse 21, now he which establishes us with you in Christ and hath anointed us is God who hath also sealed us and given us the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts. If you want to compare that, I won’t go onto these verses, but if you’re keeping notes, you may want to list with that Hebrews 1, 9, where it speaks of the Messiah being anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. And 1 John 2, 27, when it says to every Christian that we have an anointing which remains in us and teaches us so that we don’t need other teachers.
Now let me go back to these three ways of speaking about the experience of the Christian with the Holy Ghost. There are three ways of speaking. There are some other ways of speaking like the Holy Spirit coming upon or falling upon people. I will pretend that these are exhaustive, but it is very important to have some way of articulating different aspects of the relation of the believer to the Holy Spirit. We’d regard it as settled that the believer who has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit is not a child of God. That I think is plain in the scriptures. One who simply has nothing to do with it is not a child of God. Now we need to try to understand as much as we can about how exactly that relation works. So I want you to look at these three words.
First baptism. Baptism is a matter of something coming upon another thing, surrounding it, covering it. And that’s one aspect of our relationship to the Holy Spirit. We are baptized into Christ in his spiritual dimensions. As many as are baptized into Christ, Paul says, have put on Christ. If you baptize something in water, you get it wet on the outside. But you don’t necessarily get any water on the inside. Let’s hope you don’t, because you might drown them. The object of baptism is to provide a covering or a surrounding in which something may be immersed. Covered. Don’t want to get the Presbyterian walls down on me here by sticking too much to immersion. I’ll settle for pouring if that’s what you want. The point is that you get covered with something, okay? In 1 Corinthians 10, we read of those who came out under Moses, and all were baptized under Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 1 Corinthians 10, 2, there’s a baptism into Moses. Speaking of going through the Red Sea, being surrounded by something, of being baptized in the cloud which kept them, you recall the cloud which went before them by day on the fiery pillar at night, and possibly the cloud around Sinai, it isn’t exactly clear which cloud he has in mind, but again, it’s this idea of being surrounded by something. Now on the day of Pentecost, those people were surrounded by something. They were baptized, as Jesus put it, in the Holy Ghost.
Filling is a different dimension. Filling has to do with what is on your insides. You can take a cup of water, and if you’re clever enough, put it down into water in such a way that it’ll have hardly any water at all inside of it. Put it upside down, put it down flat, put it all the way under the water. When I was a kid, I used to have to wash the dishes, don’t have to do that anymore since I got married. I used to enjoy playing with the cups and the bowls, because take a big bowl and put it down in the water with its open side down, and it would do funny things. It wouldn’t sink, for example. Why? Well, because while that was baptized in water, it was not filled with water.
Now I want to say something to you very important. You can be baptized in the Holy Ghost and not filled with the Holy Ghost. That’s very important to understand. And although I do disagree with Scofield about quite a number of things, and some of them I have shared with you, Scofield’s formula, one baptism, many fillings is correct. One baptism, many fillings.
Why is there a need for many fillings? There’s a need for many fillings because as we go and we grow, there is more room to be filled. When I was converted as a young child of nine years old, I had no idea, really, of what a walk before the Lord meant. I felt a great need. I understood my own sins, and I saw the need of some kind of propitiation, and I understood the promise in Christ that that could be met if I would simply confess my faith in him and rely upon him for it. And so it came to pass, and that experience was very meaningful. And yet as I grew, there opened up in me large spaces which were not filled with commitment, and consequently were not consecrated by the Holy Ghost. If you have a glass of water and it has a certain quantity of dirt in it and you fill it up with water, you may have a full glass with a tenth of an inch of water in it. If you reach in and take dirt out and throw it away, you have to fill it again. It’s not filled any longer. This is a tremendously serious principle for us to understand, and on this point I want to share a passage from Matthew 12. Matthew 12 verse 43, And when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. And then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out. And when he’s come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished, and then goeth he, and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself. And they enter in and dwell there, and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation. Now Jesus is not speaking precisely about the case with which I’m immediately concerned. He is speaking about the case of a person who sees what is wrong, and from whom a spirit that is evil has been extracted, has gone out, and yet nothing positive takes its place. The Jewish people had found out many things that were wrong. They had, for example, found out that you shouldn’t worship any god but Jehovah. They had that straight. After centuries of offering their children to Moloch, worshiping the stars and the sun and everything else, they finally got it through their heads. See, you worship one god, Jehovah, and on that principle they crucified Jesus Christ. They knew what you did not do, but they did not know what you did. Now I want to move to the different case of the Christian who has come to Christ, genuinely been sealed by the touch of God, and as far, let us say, as his eternal destiny is concerned, that issue is settled. Now then, what fills that person’s life? What informs their actions, their thoughts, their choices, their study, their loves, their concerns, their fears, all of that, you see. I did not understand when I was a little child and I came to Christ. Now as I go along, if I can return to the metaphor, dirt is dipped out of my little glass, and as that dirt is removed, I need to be filled. That’s why there is one baptism, many fillings.
The language of anointing is slightly different. Anointing has to do with a specific spot. If you fall down and bruise your knee, you get some ointment and you anoint the spot, you see. Now anointing has to do with position and occasion. And when we come into the Church of Christ, we’re baptized into Christ, we are given an anointing that is the down payment for our complete redemption, the earnest of our salvation. Now he which establishes us with you in Christ and hath anointed us is God, who hath also sealed us. The anointing seals. The anointing serves for particular occasions and events. Therefore some have said, one baptism, many fillings, constant anointing. One baptism, many fillings, constant anointing.
I wanted you to look at this range of ideas and words that have to do with our relation to the Spirit, because they are vital importance for you. Most of you here this evening have been baptized into Christ. You have, in that ever crucial sense, been baptized by the Holy Spirit. Most of you here this evening have been anointed and sealed.
The question is, what are you full of? That’s our question. What am I full of? Am I full of myself? Am I full of my attainments, of what I can do? Am I full of my reputation that I’m worried about? Am I full of my manipulative schemes to get great things going and done? Is that what fills me? Then I shall eat the bitter fruits of self-effort and self-reliance, and although I am reconciled to God, I will not know the power of God in the community of God to accomplish his purpose.
And in a community of people, unless they are filled with the Holy Spirit, in a community of people who are attempting to walk as disciples of Christ, the great hindrance comes from so many that really are not filled with the Spirit. They are filled with themselves. They are filled with their desires and their ideas and their plans. And they do not know how to submit all of that to God and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Many times they don’t know that there is such a thing or we’ve been frightened away from it. Satan has taken something that is good and shown us an awful picture of it and we run like crazy to get away from it because that’s the only idea we have of it.
But now this community you see is God’s community. He’s going to run it. So he’s got to lead these people into an understanding of what it is like to be constantly governed and controlled and walk in the fullness of the Spirit. So that as they walk along in the life of this community now, they are not all of a sudden torn up by self-assertion, by some sort of self-righteousness that comes in, some sort of insistence about hair or the way that benches are in the building or whatever it may be. They have to be bound together.
Now that’s what you really see when you look at this passage that I’ve read to you, is the setting aside, this is the end of chapter two, the setting aside of all of those divisive things that come from the self. The Spirit has come in. All that believe were together and had all things in common, sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had needs.
The community is being formed. This is what is required at the time. Before we do it, why did that happen? It happened because the Spirit of God was filling these people. In the end of the fourth chapter, and when they had prayed, the 31st verse, another picture of this community, and when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, 431. And they spake the word of God with boldness, and the multitude of them that believed were one heart and one soul. How did they get that, one heart and one soul? Well, you see, their heart and their soul was the Spirit of Christ. They were all filled with it. That’s how they got that. They didn’t get it with the encounter session, but they certainly had some encounters. The encounter sessions were fine because they were dominated by the Spirit of Christ.
You know, when you come right down to it, we all just simply have to decide whether or not we believe there’s anything to this business about God being in us and accomplishing things in us. Finally, we just have to face that, whether we believe it or not. Is God in the life of individuals in the church, or is he not? Or is it some sort of make-believe?
Now these people had an experience which taught them that there was much more going on in them than could be accounted for simply by reference to themselves and their plans and their powers. That started with the coming of those tongues into their lives, where they found themselves doing something which they did not originate. It continued with Peter standing up and speaking and telling a story which should get him killed. It should get him killed, but it doesn’t. All of a sudden, their hearts are stricken, and instead of killing him, they say, what are we going to do? Now can you imagine this dumb fisherman from Galilee, see, and they knew they were Galileans. They said, well, are not all of these people Galileans? They knew who they were from. This dumb fisherman from Galilee standing up in this center of Jewish culture and speaking in such a way that 3,000 souls immediately, immediately were brought into the kingdom of God. He hardly knew what was happening. He probably didn’t have a prepared speech when they said, what shall we do? His decision cards, he left them back at the shop somewhere, see. So he didn’t have any more sense to say, well, repent and be baptized. And they didn’t have any more sense than to do it. Now you see, that’s the image of God causing something to happen.
Let me tell you, if you want to see this sort of thing, you have to expect it. That’s what faith is. And in order to expect it, you have to come before the word of God and believe that it might be possible that what these things, what is being said here is a reality that God intends for you. The essence of what I’m saying is that you don’t have to make it happen, so don’t get sweaty palms over it. We have pushed and we have manipulated and we have squeezed in the communities that call themselves churches and congregations, and what we have are the results of pushing, manipulating and squeeze. And you push someone in the kingdom of God and you’ve got to stand there the rest of your life and just keep pushing. You never stop pushing. You just got to keep pushing. And one has to understand that the work we are concerned with, I believe you are concerned with, because so many of you have spoken with me about what is really in your heart. The work which you are concerned to see done is the work of God, and it will come to you if you will open yourself to it and expect it with those who are around you. It won’t look just like this because the circumstances are different. You’re not going to be going up to Jerusalem on feast day with people from all over the world. I mean, you live here. It’s going to happen where you are. It will suit your circumstances, but the principle is the same. The life of God is a reality which we can know insofar as we can bear it and insofar as we expect it and are open to the process which will lead us into it.
Let’s look at another event, astounding event, and let’s try to think in terms of what it actually meant to the people who lived through it. Here we find Peter and John, the opening of the third chapter, Peter and John going up the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.
One of the beautiful things, by the way, now, about the story in the book of Acts is simply this. They didn’t have to tear the temple down. They didn’t say, let’s quit going through these dead rituals. They stayed in the place they were until the power which entered into them blew it apart. Now that was what Jesus taught them. You see, Jesus taught them that you do not put new wine in old wine skins, and we read that as saying, let’s don’t try to do anything new. We might ruin the wine skin, but you see there’s another side to that teaching which says if you’ve got new wine, it’ll take care of the wine skin. You don’t need to get an axe and chop the wine skin up. If you’ve got new wine, the wine skin has had it. Just give it time. The fermentation process will eat the thing up and blow it apart.
They didn’t need to tear the temple down. You see, the mark of the fleshly revolutionary is that they get the idea, we ought to go up and tear the building down. We ought to change everything around. So, receive the Word of God into the wine skin, let it blow it apart. There is a time for conscious change, but it is to be taken in dependence upon the Word of God to accomplish the end. Like a lot of folks will say, let’s get rid of the church. Someone goes, why should we meet at 11 o’clock on Sunday morning? No very good reason to tell you the truth. But why do anything else? It isn’t going to be a great thing if you meet at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, right? I mean, the problems we face as human beings, as a congregation and so on, that’s not gonna be met by meeting at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Where we meet, when we meet, all of these things will change of themselves.
And Peter and John, they’re just going up to the temple to pray. Look at them. Just good old Jewish men doing their duty. Chapter 3 verse 1, Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man, lame from his mother’s womb, was carried to whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered the temple. Who seeing Peter and John about to go in, asking alms, is begging.
Now our difficulty in reading this passage is to understand the condition of mind in which Peter was and John was when what happens in verse 4 occurred. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, look on us. Look at me. The beggar was sitting there, you know how a beggar doesn’t look at people, an alms, an alms, an alms, just gazing off in distance, sort of reduces it to a method hoping something’s going to happen. He said, look on us. The contact of the person. The contact of the person. Look on us. I’ve said to you before that the first rule of discipleship is to say, follow me. If we are going to stand as the community of God in this present world, we have to be prepared to say, look on us. And he gave heed to them, expecting to receive something of them. And Peter said, silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand. Look on us, then contact. He reached out and took him by the right hand. And immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. Well, rather unhindered convert there, we would say.
Now what I want to say to you is simply this, that Peter and John were ready for this. Peter by now was not just your ordinary old knock-kneed fisherman, you see. Peter had been through some experiences. You’re talking here about a man who had walked on water. You’re talking here about a man who had seen a dead man rise up and had talked with him for days. This was a man who was getting used to the possibilities of God’s action.
Now if you’re bothered about such things as ankle bones receiving strength and so on, I would just like to ask you who do you think is in control of ankle bones? And you say well, there are these things called atoms and molecules and tissues and so on. And for many folk, they are not able to transcend the simple fact that those things don’t run by themselves. They continue to believe that somehow what makes the material universe run is not in God’s control, see. And that stops them cold.
Peter had been through some experiences which had made him believe, honestly believe, that God could heal. Now here again, you see, we have to say as we study the book of Acts, do not strain yourself. Don’t try to do this unless you feel you’ve been especially prepared. Don’t undertake this because it will give you a terrible spiritual headache. It will strain you terribly. You have to be led into it to the point where you can with confidence see the result. That was Peter’s state of mind, you may be sure. He simply saw that this would be so. He didn’t have to try to believe. It was something which was real in him. He had the faith. He saw this to be so. That’s what faith is. It is a kind of vision whereby we see the will of God accomplished in something.
Peter and John healed this man by letting go the power which was in them in such a way that it entered his body and corrected what was wrong with it. The man himself had no faith. The scripture says he thought he was going to get some money. That’s why he looked at them. Peter was conscious that he had in him something greater than money. And that’s why he says to the fellow, silver and gold have I none, but such as I have. Did you notice those words? Such as I have, I give you something that I have. That may just spook you to death, the idea that it is in you. Let me just remind you of the story of Jesus when he was going through the crowd and the woman with an issue of blood touched him. And the scripture says he felt virtue had gone out of him. You see, we talk very nicely about Christ being in us until we’re asked to make literal sense of it and then it begins to bother us. But what I’m saying to you is, is that God intends to inhabit you and me. We are the habitation of God. We are meant to be inhabited by him. Peter had begun to understand that and being rightly connected to a community of similar believers, he was able to receive the charge of God’s power without it hurting him. And as a result, he could use it.
Now why do I say that? Very simply, and I close with this, there’s so much more I’d like to say this evening. I close with this. I said the purpose of this experience after Pentecost of the church was to form a community that would survive being cut off from Jewish culture.
You cannot have a community without power. You must have power if you’re going to have a community. There has, in other words, to be an organization in that community. An organization always depends upon power flowing through, back and forth connections between people. Your body is organized. What does that organization mean? Simply this, there is power in the parts of that body that flow back and forth. See that finger? It’s got joints in it, right? It can exercise power. There’s power in it. Because of the connections between the parts. Power is something that rests in a complex whole of parts organized in a certain way. If you’re going to have a community, you’re going to have a complex whole that is organized in a certain way, and it’s going to continue that life only so long as the power is there. Now if the power is tied in to Moses, what’s going to happen when the community is cut off from Moses? It’ll die, right? This power is not tied to Moses. This power is resident in Jesus Christ, it is in Peter, it is in John, and they can use it, and because that power is there, that community lives. Simple principle, but absolutely fundamental of importance. The community lives because the people have been formed in such a way that they can receive and exercise power. And they had to learn that lesson, and they learned it through the process of these events. So that whenever the time came, that persecution began to fall upon this group of people. And the Jewish authorities wanted to kill them and get rid of them. That community could just move out, move away. It did not have to go back to Moses and the institutions of the nation of Israel in order to maintain its existence and exercise its power.
One of the funny things about power is that you can have it and not know it. You can have it and not use it. And in all of the controversies that devolve around the so-called charismatic movement, one of the most important is the question of whether or not you already have the power in you as a child of God and are just not using it, or whether you don’t have it and have got to get it through some sort of second blessing or whatever you want to call it. That’s one of the main issues. See it does not make much difference because the effect is the same. Years ago in the hills of Pennsylvania they were used to this black stuff that would come out of the ground, you know, ooze out of the ground, could spoil your cornfield. They didn’t know what it was, whether power was just lying there. They had no idea what it was.
Are you willing to step out in your own individual life and give place to the power of God, risk yourself enough that God might make a fool of you and the world might laugh at you? Are you ready to exercise the power of God for the glory of his kingdom? That’s the question that stands before all of us. The question of power comes to us day after day. You as a church have to face the question of what authenticates your existence. Just as they came to Jesus and said by what authority do you stand here, the world comes to you today and says by what authority do you stand here. Who are you? What are you doing? That is your invitation, that is my invitation to say in confidence and trust in God such as is available to me, I am nothing except a slave of Christ, but as the slave of Christ I put forth my hands and I put forth my words to accomplish in his power those things which would glorify God and bless other human beings. Now that’s the challenge to all of us, whether we’re a mother with a little child, schoolteacher, a mechanic, no matter what we do, everything that comes into our life, that’s the challenge. Will we submit it to God, will we submit ourselves to God in that connection?
We mustn’t be misled by the grandeur of the events in the book of Acts into believing that it all has no application to our lives because where we are is the dwelling place of God. As is our faith, so it will be unto us.
Let’s bow together in prayer. Lord we are so thankful to see here the witness of your presence in the early church. Help us to just contemplate it and look at it and draw strength and faith from it, that it can be so in our lives now, that the same God is there. He wants the same things, makes himself available in the same way. Help us not to be misled by any kinds of problems or excesses or doubts which would lead us to say this is not for us, but for another time only, but simply to say rather, Lord teach me how it is to be with us in this time. Help us each to surrender all of our lives for the filling of the Holy Spirit. If not in this hour, give us the grace in this coming week to do that, to open ourselves and be taught and led into the fullness of your spirit in every aspect of our lives. In Jesus’ name, Amen.