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"Pressing In After the Holy Spirit Meeting" Acts 2:42-47 Ezekiel 37

by Clancy Nixon

March 9, 2008

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

www.HolySpiritAnglican.org

I believe that last weekend was very significant in the life of our church. Our

godly new bishop, John Guernsey, came and brought words of life, words of

empowerment, words of hope and confidence in our oversight again. He brought a

passion for Holy Spirit revival to Lucketts at the meeting on Friday night, where 50

people prayed mightily for revival. On Saturday at our Mini-Retreat, Bishop John gave

what was the most winsome teaching and testimony about the baptism of the Holy Spirit,

and the difference between the public speaking in tongues and the private prayer

language that many of us have ever heard. Many of you came forward to receive prayer

for spiritual gifts, and several received a prayer language for the first time. Truly, God

reached down and touched us and through Bishop John's visit, and our church is not the

same.

Bishop John's visit fit perfectly into our vision for our church. What is that

vision? [pause] Our vision is to be an Acts 2 community. Let's say that together: "Our

Vision is to Be an Acts 2 Community." Acts chapter 2 starts with the Holy Spirit coming

with fire and the gift of tongues at Pentecost. At Church of the Holy Spirit, we want to be

like the first church in Jerusalem as described in Acts chapter 2. Please turn that up in

your Bibles.

Acts 2:42 and 43. In your blue pew Bibles, it's on page 1079. At verse 42 and 43,

it says this [Let's read this together]- "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching

and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with

awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles." (Acts 2:42-43)

In the margins of your Bibles, even your pew Bibles, I'd like to ask you to write down

this right next to those verses: "CHS Vision."

Another way to describe CHS is to say we are a "Three Streams, One River"

church. The three great streams, or traditions of the church, are these: the evangelical

stream, the charismatic stream, and the sacramental stream. They flow into one river:

inseparable, indispensable, self-reinforcing, self-correcting. We flow in the three streams

because the first church in Jerusalem did, and we want to be an Acts 2 community. The

three streams are evident in Acts 2.

You can see the evangelical stream in Acts 2 in the devotion to the Apostles'

Teaching, and in Peter's confrontational sermon, which resulted in 3,000 being saved and

baptized. For us here at CHS, the Bible is authoritative, it's foundational, it's inspired of

God. We're convinced of the urgency of evangelism, our call to share the good news.

The sacramental stream also shows up in Acts 2:42: The first church in Jerusalem was

devoted to "the breaking of bread." Scholars agree that this is about the Lord's Supper.

We celebrate communion every week because the early church did. The culmination of

our service every Lord's Day is the union with Christ we experience when we partake of

the bread and wine that become the body and blood of Jesus. The charismatic stream is

here, too. In Acts 2, the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit was the catalyst for the birth

of the church. It started with the fire of the Holy Spirit in the upper room, and moved to

the public operation of the gift of tongues. Then in Acts 2:43, it says, "Everyone was

filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles."

Raise your hand if you want to be filled with awe at what God is doing among us. [every

hand raised!]

We believe that this experience is not some kind of historical footnote; that living

with miraculous signs is normal Christianity, not just for the apostles, but for us, as well.

Jesus gave not just the apostles, but also the seventy-two, authority to heal the sick, raise

the dead, and cast out demons. In Mark's version of the Great Commission, Jesus extends

that commission to all of us. Most Christianity has been sub-normal for so long that

when normal Christianity shows up- when the Holy Spirit shows up in power - it's often

considered abnormal. Here at CHS, many of us have spoken in tongues; others have

prayed for and seen God do miraculous healings; and others have learned to hear the

voice of God with the gift of prophecy; and for others, it's all very new. Various

questions have arisen since last weekend, and I want to address some of them.

Some of you want to know, do I have to speak in tongues in order to be filled with

the Spirit of God and manifest other spiritual gifts? The answer is no, you don't. Now I

believe that tongues is often a gateway gift, that once you speak in a prayer language,

God will often give you many other gifts. That was my own experience. However, the

idea that until you get the gift of tongues, you can't get other supernatural gifts, is not

biblical. Paul says at First Corinthians 14:5, "I wish that all of you spoke in tongues, but I

would rather have you prophesy." Speaking in Tongues is something every believer

could do, but not everyone does. While speaking in a language you have not learned is

the usual way that the Bible records that a person is baptized in the Holy Spirit, it is not

the only way. Paul asks the rhetorical questions, in 1 Corinthians 12:30, "Do all have

gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues?" The answer is clearly, No. Then Paul says,

"eagerly desire the greater gifts" like prophecy, and other gifts that communicate

understandably to others. Ezekiel was operating in the gift of prophecy when he heard

God tell him to prophesy to the dry bones. How will the bones live? Through the

infusion of the ruach, the spirit of God, through the spoken word. Even so, Paul says, 1

Cor 14:18, "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than any of you." It's a good thing;

it's a blessing.

What if you have prayed for a gift in the past, perhaps you've prayed many times,

but you still didn't get it? What should you do? Should you give up praying for it, saying

with Paul, when he didn't receive healing from the thorn in his flesh, "God's grace is

sufficient for me?" Listen once more to the Apostle Paul a First Corinthians 12:31-

"eagerly desire (earnestly covet) the spiritual gifts." The answer is, Press In closer to

God and ask him again! Be like the persistent widow and continue to ask God again and

again for the gifts you want. This may seem counter-intuitive to you. Many of us were

taught as children to defer to others, to share, to be content with what we have. In many

ways, those are very helpful attitudes when dealing with people. However, those

attitudes are not helpful when dealing with God. In Matthew 11:12, Jesus says "The

Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by storm." Beloved,

sometimes you have to reach out and grab hold of the things of God! It's not enough to

believe that spiritual gifts are for today. Some of you believe that others get spiritual

gifts, but not you. If you want to walk in a spiritual blessing, you appropriate it, you

make it your own by faith.

I noticed that my own faith was waning last fall. That was very hard for me, since

that is my primary spiritual gift. I think it was due to my own disappointment over not

being healed for so long from lyme disease. I do pray regularly for every spiritual gift to

be released in my own life and yours as a list of regular prayers that I pray. But I began

to earnestly pray at length to God that he would increase my own gift of faith. Faith for

gifts of healing; faith for evangelism; faith that our church would grow; faith for my own

healing from lyme disease. Friends, all those things are now happening. My Lyme doctor

confirmed with me this week that I'm well, so don't need to see him again for a year. Our

church is growing because people are inviting others. I'm seeing more people make first-

time commitments to Christ. I'm seeing many, many people healed in response to

believing prayer. As Bishop John told us last week, we need to pray in the promises. It's

not enough to believe that God's promises to us, his rhema words to us personally, will

come true; God wants us to be involved with him by praying them in, and walking them

out.

What if you did get a gift last week what should you do? If you got a prayer

language, then pray in your prayer language every day. In the American church, we

swim in so much more truth than we ever appropriate in our lives. Not only is that so

with Biblical truth, it's also true with spiritual gifts. If you prayed for a gift of teaching,

but then you used it and taught only one time, then you wouldn't develop that gift, would

you? The same is true with tongues, healing, or any other gift. You must practice the

gift in order to develop it. Spiritual gifts are like muscles. You have to exercise them, or

they atrophy. A prophetic word was spoken over Heidi Baker, the missionary to

Mozambique, that blind people would see when she prayed for them. She prayed for a

whole year for the blind, and no blind eyes were opened. What if she had given up?

Once that dry year was over, she has seen scores of blind eyes healed, deaf ears opened,

and lame people walk.

What if Ezekiel had given up in his vision after God told him to prophesy to the

bones, and flesh formed on them, but they were still dead, still not a living army? He had

to press in to God to hear the second word, to prophesy to the wind as well. Before he

received the gift of prophecy, early in Ezekiel's ministry, he was filled with the Spirit,

Ezekiel 2:2. What if you have never been filled with the Spirit of God? In Ezekiel 37:11,

the people of Israel were cut off; their hope was gone; they were dry and dead! God

spoke to them and addressed them as "my people." Our faith is not based on what we

can do; it's based on God's determination to bring about his will, even if we feel dry and

spiritually dead. Ask God persistently to be filled and to receive all the gifts of the spirit;

Exercise your gifts; walk by faith, not by sight, and be persistent in prayer.

I'd like to invite Pete Ruhl, Suzanya D'Angelo and Jodi Eanes to come forward to

share their stories of what God did in them last weekend. Their stories are so

encouraging, and will build our faith for what God can do in us. [stories on recording]

So if you'd like to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to receive a spiritual gift, or

speak in a prayer language, but you have not yet done so, I encourage you to seek prayer

today from a prayer minister during the communion time. Please go to receive prayer

first, before receiving communion. Then you can receive communion after receiving

prayer. Let's pray.