Burn The Idols

Well, good morning everybody. You say one more time, “Happy Father’s Day.” It’s good to be with you today. Welcome everybody who’s watching online and wherever they are. Maybe they’re traveling; we’re so glad you’re with us. There are hundreds of you who join us online every single week.

You know, over the last few years, I would wear what’s called a Guayabera. I use my grandfather’s Guayabera, and it’s a shirt. You know, different cultures sometimes have it in Africa, in South America, and different parts of Latin America. And this year, I was just out doing my thing with my wife, and I saw this shirt and I thought, I’m going to get myself a shirt. Not that I got rid of my grandfather’s Guayabera. My grandfather, by the way, if you’re new to Gateway or new to me, was a short Irish guy, white guy, blond hair, blue eyes. And then my grandmother on my dad’s side is tall, black, and beautiful. And she’s still with us. She doesn’t have any teeth, but the one tooth she does have is kind of like this, and when she smiles it is so awesome.

But I thought, I’m going to get myself a shirt. As I was getting it, I kind of thought about us today as we would gather on this Father’s Day. As I wear this shirt—not every time I wear something, but sometimes I wear something and it has some meaning to it—the question is, what is something new that God wants to do in us? It doesn’t mean my tradition or the thing from my grandfather doesn’t have any meaning anymore. It’s just as I wore this today for myself and for us to kind of get in the posture of: what is something new that God wants to do in us?

Maybe you’re here because your dad said, “Hey, you want a free lunch on Father’s Day? You go to church with me.” Glad you’re here. Maybe you’re here because it felt like the right thing to do on Father’s Day; you’re just going to kind of get a good thing going for the weekend. And maybe you’re here because you wanted to; you wanted to worship, and you wanted to be with other believers. But no matter where you are in the spectrum of the why that you’re in the room or watching online, you’re already here. You’re already in this moment. Why not have a posture in our mind and our heart of, “What could I learn today?” And if you’re a believer, “What’s new or something that God wants to renew in my life today?”

If you’ve been following along, we’ve been in these field guides that are at the entrances of all of our doors and all of our campuses. Make sure you get one on the way out if you didn’t get one today, and go ahead and take those out if you have them. I keep mine in my office as I’m reading throughout the week. We’re going to be on page 18 today. The title of today’s message is Burn the Idols from Acts 19 through 20.

Acts 19: Paul, Apollos, and Real History

Let’s go ahead and read the first couple of verses again. “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?'”

So what’s happening here is multiple things. These are real cities. Sometimes we’ll read the Bible like we’re reading a piece of literature or something that isn’t real, and there are these made-up cities and we imagine what they look like. But these are real cities that existed and in some ways exist today. Maybe not in the same way as 2,000 years ago, but they still exist.

So there’s going to be a map on the screen for you to look at. Understand that this is a region that Paul is traveling to. He is in Asia; he’s also in Europe. He’s going from modern-day Turkey over to Greece. These are real cities with real people. Both Jew and Gentiles—and Gentiles are people who are not Jews, who maybe worship other gods or who come to know the one true God. But because they’re not of Jewish heritage, they’re considered Gentiles. These are real cities. We learned last week about the Acropolis in Athens, and this next picture is the Temple of Apollo in Corinth. I mean, these are real things, real people that we consider brothers and sisters in the faith.

I want us to really know that when you study Scripture and you understand what’s happening, there’s a place on the other side of the world that many times seems foreign because we’ve never visited. And yet these are the places where either Jesus walked or the early followers of Jesus walked. It’s important for us to really have an understanding of that outside of these cities.

We’re talking about Apollos. Apollos was this learned man who came from Alexandria, which is in Egypt, and there was a place where philosophy was really important. Some of the Jewish intellectuals and scholars were there, and he was called mighty in the scriptures, which means he had a good understanding of the Jewish heritage and of the scriptures. And yet he didn’t have a full picture of Jesus. He understood Jesus; he would preach Jesus. But he didn’t have the full picture of Jesus, and two early disciples, Priscilla and Aquila, came alongside him. They came alongside this couple to say there is a better way, a more informed way. They came alongside Apollos, even though he was strong in the Scripture and had an understanding, because he only had a partial image of what Jesus wanted him to understand.

John’s Baptism vs. The Holy Spirit

In Scripture, they called it John’s baptism. Now, if you want to understand what John’s baptism is, John’s baptism is referring to John the Baptist. John the Baptist was the second cousin to Jesus, and he was older than Jesus. He prepared the way of Jesus in ministry, and he talked about preparing the way for the one he had not fully seen. He was unalive; he was killed. So he wasn’t alive for Jesus’ death and resurrection. But people really referred to John’s baptism, and he was true, but didn’t have the full picture of what Jesus wanted him to know.

So Apollos doesn’t have an understanding of the Holy Spirit. What happened in the Upper Room when the Holy Spirit descended on the 120 in the room, and they were empowered with this power that Jesus said would come? He doesn’t have the full picture. Look at how Paul explains it in Acts chapter 19. “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”

So it’s true that there was this baptism of repentance. Now, if you’re new to Gateway, repentance is an invitation to turn, to repent. I go along my way, I do what I want to do. I see the world how I want to see it. I have my opinions, my thoughts; it’s me being me. It’s me doing my thing. And repentance says many of these things lead to a way that is apart from God. So the Holy Spirit invites me to repent, to turn from my way, my understanding, my filter of life to a filter of the way of Jesus. So we repent and we turn.

We’ve talked about this before many times. Repentance was a word used to kind of beat people down: “Repent, repent, repent.” And I understand how people got to that, but it really is a Holy Spirit invitation to turn to really see Jesus in his fullness. It reminds me, as a kid in the ’80s, there were these movies that were going around. They were actually from the ’70s, but we watched them in the ’80s: A Distant Thunder, A Thief in the Night. They were these movies used to scare people to believe in God, and they were talking about Jesus returning. Everybody looked like they were hippies because they were when they made the movies. And then, people are beheaded. I was a kid, I’m like eight years old, and I didn’t do this, but a lot of people did. They’re like, “I don’t want to go to hell. I want to go to heaven.” So they gave you this choice: heaven or hell? And that is a part of theology that we have to wrestle with. But people weren’t necessarily saying yes to Jesus. They weren’t necessarily saying yes to surrendering their will and their way. They were saying yes to, “I’d rather go to heaven than to hell.” That is a form of John’s baptism, right?

Jesus and what Paul is trying to bring is a full picture. Look at verse five. “On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and Paul placed his hands on them. The Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. And there were about 12 men in all.” So there weren’t 120 like we read earlier in Acts chapter two, but about 12 men in all. And they had the baptism of the Holy Spirit in a way they never experienced. They began to speak in tongues and they prophesied.

The Seal of the Holy Spirit

So here’s what we’re going to do. We need to talk about the Holy Spirit. What is the Holy Spirit? Who’s the Holy Spirit for? Here’s what we have to know about the Bible. The Bible talks about one God who reveals himself as Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised that if we said yes to following him, that another would come and God would come in the form of His Spirit as a comforter to walk with us in the earth in truth and righteousness, guiding us along the way.

Paul describes this in a letter to Ephesians: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” What does that mean? He was just giving praise to God. There are blessings and gifts that God has for us. He says, “When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession to the praise of his glory.”

You’re like, “I have no idea. That’s like a tongue twister.” It is. Here’s what he’s saying. He’s saying, praise be to God because he gives the gift of his Spirit. When we say yes to Jesus and when the Holy Spirit is in our life, it serves as a seal. Think of the ancient world in the 1400s or 1500s, where wax is being burned. The wax drips down and there’s a seal, a family crest of sorts that seals a letter shut. The Holy Spirit is like a seal that says this person has been marked and set apart as unto God. So praise be to God, for his spirit that comes and is living with us, that seals us and marks us as though we belong to God. So Paul says that. You say, “Well, why didn’t Paul just say that?” Because it was back then, and it leaves a lot more words.

Verse 18: “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.” What does that mean? It means this: So now that you’ve come to know God, who is glorious and good, and he seals you with His Holy Spirit once you believe in him, that marks you to be one who belongs to God. I pray that your eyes would be open. Do you ever pray that your eyes would be open? There was a song years ago: “Open the eyes of my Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see you.” I wasn’t a Christian back then. I was like, this is a dumb song. Do you ever have people opening their eyes, asking God to open their eyes? Does it make sense? But open the eyes of your heart so that your surrendered heart would be able to see things the way God sees things.

Do you ever look at the tensions in your life, the relationships in your life, the business decisions, the classes you lead, the firms you lead, and the patients you have as doctors, whatever it is? Do you ever pray, “God, give me eyes to see what you see?” Give me eyes as Paul is saying, that you would have the eyes to see “his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead, and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” That you and I would have eyes to see that this Holy Spirit that partners with us when we say yes to Jesus, has access to all the power and authority we need. It’s not our power, it’s not our authority. And yet, because we have been sealed and we have an inheritance and we belong to God, we have access to a Holy Spirit that is powerful and full of might.

Daily Confession Removes Obstacles

So my question for us today is, have we been baptized by the Holy Spirit? Have we been baptized by a Holy Spirit that comes with salvation? Because if you have surrendered your life to Jesus fully and you’re fully saying, “God, your will, your way, not my way,” then you have been baptized by the Holy Spirit, and you may not even know it yet because the eyes of your heart have not been opened. Such a shame, you. It’s to encourage you, it’s to excite you that you have a life full of adventure ahead of you, that you have no idea what God wants to do. And yet we have moments when we don’t feel so close to God. We have moments where we’re fighting an addiction, we’re fighting in our marriage, we’re trying to raise up kids, we have an issue with work, and we feel distant from God. We’ve had loss and we feel distance. And then we have moments where we feel really close to God, like really connected to God. The difference in many of those are the issues of life. And for some of us, the sin issues, the issues of our life that really keep us and become an obstacle for us to connect with God.

Look at 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” We are called to live a life of confession. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to look at the people to your left and to your right. If you know them, just smile. Don’t say anything, just look at them. If you don’t know them, look at them anyway. Give them that weird, awkward gaze, right? Can you imagine what your life would look like if every day you confessed the things you did wrong, instead of giving an excuse for them? Your life would be so much better if you just confessed the things you know that you have done wrong. You know how I know that? Because my wife told me. She’s like, “I need to know that you know that what you did was wrong, and that you know that I know. I am watching you to see if you know, if I know.” I don’t know how many times you did that, but I got it on the second time.

If we do that to the people we love in the earth—”I knew I was supposed to pick it up at the store and I didn’t,” “I knew I was supposed to do this, and I didn’t,” “I knew your favorite restaurant and I still didn’t take you there,” “I knew this, and I didn’t do that”—and we do that to one another in the earthly sense, how much more do you think we’d do this to the God who created us? And yet we’re being encouraged to confess it, to remove obstacles. Why do we remove obstacles? So that we can see Christ in His fullness by His Holy Spirit.

The Person vs. The Gifts of the Spirit

There is controversy around the Holy Spirit, especially in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, where they talk about some of the gifts of the Spirit: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues, interpretation of tongues. People will go to that right away. But let me be really clear for you. All those things are not the Holy Spirit. Hear me? All of those things are not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a comforter and a guide. In relationship with His Spirit, there might be an overflow that looks like discernment. Out of the overflow of relationship, there might be the gift of tongues. There might be wisdom and healing and miracles. But if we are not careful, we will idolize the outcome and ignore the person of the Holy Spirit. We are called and promised a Holy Spirit to be in relationship with. That might have an overflow of those things, and some of us are.

Relationship with the Holy Spirit really depends on some upbringing or what we’ve seen. You see things on television and you’re like, “Yeah, I believe in Jesus, but I don’t want any of that. I don’t want any of that.” Because we get put in awkward positions. This last week I saw somebody, and I didn’t know them. I was like, “I’m supposed to say something to them, but I don’t know them. I don’t know their name, I don’t even know if I’ve heard of them before. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before.” I feel like I’m supposed to go say something to this person. As I go to have this conversation, the person makes their way to me because I’m doing that awkward thing. I’m kind of looking at them. I look away. I look again, look away. They probably thought I was flirting, but I was just like, “Do I do it? Do I not? God, why do I… I don’t want to do this.” I’m having this moment because I don’t know this person.

The person comes up to me. As we’re having the conversation, I said what I felt I was supposed to say to them. They looked at me and said, “You don’t know me, but I’ve been to your church before.” He introduced himself as a gay man who’s from out of town, comes to Austin every once in a while, and he goes, “I just want to say thank you. We might believe differently, but you’ve created an environment in your church that’s for everyone. And I felt welcomed.” And then, yeah, walk away. I walk away. It wasn’t me. It was us. I don’t like awkward moments, but how many times can God use an awkward moment for us to be healing and revealing for someone else? “Yeah, but I don’t like this, and I don’t like this.”

And this is the opposite side. Some of you grew up in environments where, “Well, you love the Holy Spirit. Why? I can’t wait to prophesy, and I can’t wait… and I can’t wait to feel the goosebumps.” Those are not the Holy Spirit, because you can have an outpour that looks like the Holy Spirit and still live like the devil. The Holy Spirit is a person that walks with us in relationship, that seals us to Christ. But here’s the problem: “I love the Holy Spirit, I want to prophesy, I want to pray, I want to speak in tongues.” Or, “Oh, I feel awkward. I don’t want anything to do with that.” What do they have in common? The word “I”. And that’s fruit and pride. There is no room for pride in this. It’s an openness of our hearts and our minds to what God may want to do.

So no matter what tradition you grew up with, or no tradition at all, and you’re learning about it for the first time, here’s what I can tell you. All Christian traditions all over the spectrum do believe this in common: the Holy Spirit represents God’s living presence within and dwelling in us. The Holy Spirit wants to walk with us. It is a gift from God, and it transforms our character and enables us to serve other people. So it’s really important. I spent a lot of time establishing that there is a baptism that is partial in the sense of, “I’ve come to know Jesus,” but the fullness is when Jesus says, “I must go so I can send another, and he’s going to walk with you in the earth.”

Paul’s Journey and True Fatherhood

Now we get to some of the characters and entities in this passage. There are four entities: Paul himself, the seven sons, the evil spirits, and the disciples of Jesus.

Let’s start with Paul. Paul used to be Saul. He’s a Jew of all Jews, and he was going after those who were following the way, the way of Jesus. He’s on the road to Damascus, and on that road he encounters a light. It ends up being Jesus appearing to him, asking him why is he persecuting people of the way? So Saul has this encounter; he eventually becomes Paul, and instead of persecuting people of the way, he becomes the number one person preaching about the way of Jesus. So here he is preaching and teaching and going all over the world. He’s as extreme for Jesus as he was extreme going against those who believed in Jesus.

We see throughout Acts these missionary journeys that he’s on. We’re going to have a map that goes onto the screen. He’s on several missionary journeys, and you can follow along through the book of Acts really understanding what’s happening. Many of these stories in Paul’s life, from his conversion to when he loses his life, happen over around 35 to 37 years—three and a half decades of living fully surrendered to Jesus. A lot of historians have put some pieces together, like the next graphic that tells us a timeline and major events, where they are in Scripture in the period of time, and the letters he wrote.

These are really important things to understand. Here’s a distinction I want to make: this is historicity. This history of our faith is important for you to understand. Our faith is not the works of Paul, but it does bolster our faith. It does encourage us and give us a history lesson of the early followers of Jesus. If you want to read more, Paul: A Biography by N.T. Wright is a great book to read around Paul, what he’s done, and he wrote most of the New Testament. So understanding who he was is important.

And yet he sparked debate everywhere he went. He sparked debate. Look at Acts chapter 19. Paul enters the synagogue; he speaks boldly for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. Three months, not like one time. For three months he was being persuasive. But some of them became obstinate, and they refused to believe and publicly maligned the way—remember, the way of Jesus. So Paul left them, and he took the disciples with him. And they had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years. We know that Paul was teaching, preaching, raising disciples in this town for at least two years and three months.

But everywhere he went, he caused problems, whether it was the Middle East or Asia or Europe, because he was preaching Jesus, this risen Savior, the one who had died and rose again. People had so many problems with this. Advancing the kingdom of God is messy. It’s hard to do. He stepped in the mess, and people have misunderstood Paul because he was in multiple contexts. He was writing multiple letters, and people don’t always like the letters of Paul. They think he’s a misogynist. They think that he’s against women. I get that because some of the letters written and interpreted over the years have been weaponized against people, especially against women.

But let me read to you from Galatians, the same Paul that people say that about. Look what he says now: “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Do you know how important this was in this day and time? For someone to say that men and women had equal standing in the kingdom of God, that slave or free were no different in the kingdom of God? This upside-down kingdom is what Paul was pushing.

And yet in the middle of this chaos, in the middle of causing so many problems as he preached the good news of Jesus everywhere he went, there were people who did love him. This person who caused problems, this person that some people don’t like 2,000 years later. Why? Because we will use revisionist history. We’ll use language from 2,000 years ago and we will project onto it our thoughts, our opinions, our way of doing things. But if we look at that name, time, and the relationships, look what happens.

Acts chapter 20: “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” He went from city to city knowing it could be his last trip, and yet he still went.

And the people who were mentored by him, discipled by him, taught by him… Look at verse 36 and 37: “When Paul had finished speaking, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.” Doesn’t sound like people who were ready to get rid of him. It sounds like a people who were fathered by him, loved by him, provided for by him, protected, guided, rebuked, disciplined, comforted, and so much more—like any good father does. There’s a spectrum. If you’re a dad in the room, and all you ever do with your kids is have fun, you are missing part of fatherhood. And if you’re a strict dad who’s really disciplined and you want your kids to just be disciplined, you’re missing important parts of fatherhood. See, Paul models for us all of it: love, compassion, comfort, correction, discipline. It’s all encompassed. God used his life in extraordinary, powerful ways. There are miracles that happen. I mean, he would walk by and his shadow would sometimes heal people. See, the goal isn’t that your shadow would heal people. Your goal is to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit that’s so strong that things like that might happen.

Fake Authority: The Sons of Sceva

But then there are people, the second entity, who try to ride the coattails: the sons of Sceva. Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus, whom Paul preaches…” They couldn’t even say the name of Jesus that I preach; they used Paul’s authority. “I command you to come out.” The seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. They had a fake authority.

You’ve been at work and somebody tries to walk around with fake authority. You know what I’m talking about, every job has one of those. They walk around, “Oh yeah, I know this and I heard this.” And then the boss comes in and they shrink back because they know they have no authority. That’s what they were doing. One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” You have no authority. “Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.”

Some of you are getting freaked out by this because you only hear about this in movies. But the truth is, there’s a real spirit world that we encounter. There’s real evil that we encounter. Paul encountered these, and he had power and authority through the Holy Spirit to come against these things. But people with fake power, fake authority, no real relationship with Jesus or His spirit, they become overpowered.

Our culture loves this stuff. Our culture loves fear. I mean, we just love this stuff until we don’t. My wife loves scary movies. For a long time until she came to know Jesus, she stopped watching them, and she marries me. Our first apartment, we lived in the hood. It’s all we could afford in Dallas, in Oak Cliff. And it was scary. I get up at night—I get up since I was young, get up in the middle of the night, drink some water, go to the bathroom, whatever it is. And finally, one time my wife says, “I don’t like that you do that. I’m afraid you’re going to kill me. You watch too many movies.” The very next night, I get up, I go to the kitchen, I go to the knife drawer, and I shake all the knives. She yells, “That’s not funny!”

But there’s something about our human nature that’s intrigued by spiritual things. They were intrigued by it, but had no power. There are so many people intrigued with podcasts and understandings; they want to know about the Nephilim and the evil spirits, and they listen to podcasts. We will spend more time learning names of evil spirits than we do walking in the power and the authority of the Holy Spirit given to us as a gift. Here are some lines we can draw: the supernatural realm is real, but Jesus has the power to remove darkness if we rely on him. And number three, we need to have a holy fear of God.

Flirting with Evil vs. Holy Fear

Romans says this: “Hate what is evil and cling to what is good.” Before we talk about the spirit world that we read about here in Acts chapter 19, let me ask you a question. Where are you flirting with evil? We can look at the obvious things, things you see in movies and imagery: “Am I a devil worshiper?” All of those things, especially if you grew up in the ’80s and ’90s—pentagrams everywhere, right? That’s not what I’m talking about.

Let me go through a series of questions and let’s see how this lands on you. How do you flirt with evil? Are you watching pornography or shows that should be labeled as pornography? You know evil that is. How many people who are now followers of Christ, who’ve come out of that industry, will talk about the evil behind what happens. And we just think it’s sheer entertainment. Do you let your mind imagine all the worst things that could happen in the world? Do you know that’s not setting our mind on things above? Such a shame, you. It’s to let you know when that happens, we have to take action to capture thoughts. Have you let your moral compass slip? Have you allowed yourself to have feelings for someone that you should not have feelings for? Have you become selfish in your relationships with the people around you? Do you think more about money than you do about the mission of Jesus? Where are you spending your free time? Where are you spending your money? Where are you spending your talent?

These become idols. These become idols in your life. “Yeah, but these things in and of itself aren’t bad.” But one degree of separation and we go down. Something that maybe isn’t so bad leads us to something that destroys your family a year later. I was at student camp this week talking to teenagers. I told them, “The issues your parents or aunts and uncles or grandparents have in their life didn’t start when they turned 40 or 50. They started when they were 13 and 14 like you and never got dealt with.” It’s just one little thing. It’s just a little thing. It’s just a little thing. Until you go before a judge. What do you tell the judge? “It’s just a little thing.” I’m going to destroy my family over this.

Where are you and I flirting with things that do not honor God? So I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. So holy fear, it may not be what you think. It’s not superstitious. It’s not like, “Well, if I do this, God’s going to strike me down.” Or, “If I do the symbol of the cross, or if I wear my cross, or if I say the right prayer…” No, we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about a holy fear that just makes us in awe of God’s greatness. Psalm 111: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The fear of God is not being afraid that God wants to harm you, but having an honor, reverence for him like we do sometimes for the fears of life. John Brown, a Scottish pastor of the 1700s, wrote this: “To fear God is to love him so that his frown is your greatest dread and his smile is your greatest delight.”

So here’s what I’ll say about evil spirits and the Holy Spirit. We do not need to focus on evil spirits when we hold on to the Holy Spirit. When I was in high school, I went to a high school that was somewhat rough, kind of had a little bit of everything. I saw this one time in a hallway: there was a group of girls. We had some girl gangs in that high school. These are tough, like hair way up high with eyeliner in my eye all over the school. These twelve girls, they got around this one girl. This is the ’80s, right? So the hair was big with all the Aqua Net. Everybody stepped back because these twelve girls were going to jump this one girl. And this one girl, I don’t know how it happened, it’s like a movie, she went, “Chris. Chris!” And this boy Chris came out of nowhere. He took everybody out. Not just the twelve, he took everybody. He was like no respecter of person, girl, guy. There are like 30 people on the ground. I don’t know how he did it, it was like Samson. I was just like, wow.

See, when we have the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t matter what comes against you because the Holy Spirit is greater, and greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. So we don’t focus on the evil spirits, but we do cultivate and grow the Holy Spirit’s work in us. That’s what we do.

Discipleship and The Great Commission

And the last entity were the disciples that Paul led, these people who were surrendered to Jesus. Here’s what I want to say about what does it mean to be a disciple. We’re going to have this quick definition kind of break it down for us. We’re going to talk a lot about this over the next few years. We’re going to marinate this in our church. Disciples of Jesus are those who follow Jesus, are being changed by Jesus, and committed to the mission of Jesus. The overall statement is this: A disciple continuously surrenders their whole life to the authority and the way of Jesus. These are the people that Paul got to lead, people who continuously surrender their whole life to the authority and the way of Jesus.

That’s our calling. You’ve heard me read this dozens of times. Matthew 28, Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Yes, we get together to worship. Yes, we get together to sing. Yes, we have classes. We have resources to help people get out of addiction. Yes, yes, yes. Those are amazing things that I’m so glad we do. But our number one priority is leading people to be fully devoted, fully surrendered to who Jesus is. That’s our number one thing. That’s what we’re called to do. That’s why the church still exists 2,000 years later. It’s called the Great Commission: to go and make disciples of all nations, to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

When we go baptize—July baptisms are coming; if you haven’t been baptized and you follow Jesus, come on, let’s party together, right? Because when we get baptized, we symbolize death to ourselves, life in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. And then teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. Listen. That’s why we’ve made a change over the last couple of years. If you’ve been here a while, we read more scripture than we ever have before. Why? Because we have to be careful to not ground you in an opinion from the pastor. We cannot ground you in the times and the current events. We have to ground you in what is sustainable. What is sustainable is Scripture, God’s Word, and what it says about him. So we teach to obey everything Jesus commanded, because a disciple continuously surrenders their whole life to authority in the way of Jesus.

So I ask you today, all of these promises are for those who surrender their life to Christ. You, a disciple of Jesus, are you fully surrendered? Because when you fully surrender, man, you get the gift of the Holy Spirit. Listen to this. The filling of the Holy Spirit can lead us to an awareness of areas of our life that need to be confessed. The filling of the Spirit can lead us to experience a sense of his peace and power, can give us freedom over particular struggles and temptations, and the filling of the Spirit leads to a demonstration of God’s spiritual gifts, such as healing or words of knowledge, or all the extra amazing supernatural things. But it starts with a people surrendered, wholly surrendered, continuously surrendering to the authority and the way of Jesus.

Communal Prayer

Here’s how we’re really close to it. We’re going to close with communal prayer. This prayer is going to be up on the screen. We’re going to read it together. We’re going to proclaim it together, and then we’ll pray. Let’s read together on the count of three. One, two, three:

“Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of your presence. I come to you today according to your promise in Luke 11:13, asking that you will fill me completely with Your Holy Spirit. I confess that I cannot walk this life in my own strength; remove any selfishness, pride, worry, or any darkness I have let into my life that blocks me from you. I yield my heart, mind, and actions to your control. Holy Spirit, give me the wisdom to make the right choices today. Give me the boldness to share your love with others and let your fruit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—be visible in everything I do, and lead me to fear you alone and to honor you in my thoughts, words, and deeds. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Let me pray for us today. Lord, I thank you for your goodness. I thank you that you go before us, and I thank you for the promise of the seal of Your Holy Spirit, that as we surrender our hearts and lives continuously—not one time, but every day in a confessional lifestyle—that when we do that, we remove obstacles. That allows your Holy Spirit to be and work in us, and gives us eyes to see what you want us to see. It gives us ears to hear. And as we do this, there’s a power and authority that comes that nothing can come against us because we walk under your authority. It’s not our authority, it’s your authority that’s promised to us. And when we do that, you use us in ways that might be uncomfortable, but you do so so others can know the goodness of Jesus.

For my friends who are praying this for the first time today, Lord, that you would help us as a church to come alongside them as they take steps to understand fully who Jesus is. For my friends who’ve kind of stepped away for a while, I pray like this: Holy Spirit, renew a right spirit in them today. And for my friends who are walking with you daily, that they would increase in power and might of the Holy Spirit, and not in and of themselves. We thank you for being with us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.