Power From On High

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater Podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our Executive Director. Mark, before we started recording, you informed me that you have been assigned the very happy task of preaching this upcoming Sunday — as we record the podcast this week — at Covenant Fellowship. And you are eager; you are enjoying your preparation. And you have been provoked to encourage us this week on the podcast. In previous podcasts, we have talked about our need for the ongoing, daily empowering of the Holy Spirit. But you are ready and eager to talk about that again with us. And you also have a resource to recommend that will serve us.

Mark Prater:

I am eager. I was telling you before we recorded the podcast: I can't wait to preach this sermon, because I really care about this topic — about the work of the person and power of the Spirit in our lives. And I don't even know how that happened. I don't know how that burden sort of grew in my life, but I'm grateful for it.

I have been into a resource: Power From On High by Max Turner, subtitled The Spirit in Israel's Restoration and Witness in Luke-Acts. It's a fairly thick read — it's somewhat academic, although accessible. And Max Turner just writes very good material when it comes to the person and work of the Spirit. His other book, The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts by Max Turner, is just a solid biblical resource as well. So Max Turner, in my mind, is a go-to guy. If you haven't read Power From On High, I would recommend that pastors pick that up and give it a read.

So I've been assigned this week to preach from Luke 24, verse 49, where we've been in Luke — we're wrapping it up — and Jared Mellinger, our senior pastor, wisely said, "I want us to park on that verse and talk a little bit about pneumatology." And it's actually these are the last recorded words of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. He says, "And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." That's wonderful language — "clothed with power from on high."

J.C. Ryle talks about that in a wonderful way. He says the word literally means "to be clothed upon," or invested with, or imbued with — it implies putting on something which we do not naturally possess. And I just thought, oh, that's typical Ryle — said so well. We are being clothed with something we don't naturally possess, apart from our conversion, apart from the Spirit regenerating our heart, apart from repenting of our sin and placing our faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then the Spirit indwells us and continues to fill us. We need that power that we don't naturally have.

But as Jesus says there in that verse, this is a promise of the Father. The Father promised thousands of years ago to clothe His people with power from on high. And that takes you to Isaiah 32, verses 14 and 15. It says, "For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks" — until, so it's a desolate place right — "until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high." Isaiah language that Jesus used in Luke 24. "Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest." Of course, the context is the city of Jerusalem is desolate because the people of God have been taken into exile. And He says to them in exile: there's a time coming when I will pour out my Spirit upon you, and the wilderness will become a fruitful field and the fruitful field a forest. It's really talking about the restoration and redemption of Israel.

And that takes you to another promise in the Old Testament that tells us that true Israel are all those — Jew and Gentile — who repent of their sin and place their faith in Christ. Those are the true people of God upon whom the Spirit is poured out. We find that promise in Joel 2, verses 28 and 29. And then I'm going to read verse 32: "And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved." So we see that true Israel are all those who call upon the name of the Lord and will be saved. And it's on everyone who places their faith in Christ that the Spirit is poured out.

And of course, Jesus is pointing to the day of Pentecost, when just a few days later, after His ascension, He does exactly that — He pours out the promised Holy Spirit. He sends the promise of the Father. So the Father and the Son send the Spirit upon every disciple who trusts in Christ. And it's just a reminder, as I've been going through this, of my need for power — as a disciple of Christ, as a pastor. Every pastor, every Christian, daily needs the power of God that is poured out upon us from on high.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. Well, it appears fairly obvious that you are just about ready to preach this sermon.

Mark Prater:

Just about.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent, excellent. I'm sure the church is going to be well served through this sermon. You're certainly serving us by reminding us of some of the most important things — and really, what a profound gift of grace that we could ever receive, which is the person and activity of the Holy Spirit Himself at work in us. What a gift. But let's press into it just a little bit more. I liked how you mentioned Ryle identifying that the Holy Spirit is us receiving something that we do not naturally have — identifying the reality that we are weak, we are insufficient to do all that God has called us to in our daily lives. So talk a little bit more about why we need this divine power each and every day.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. I just want to talk about two reasons — you could list many, but I'm going to put them in two categories: God's presence, and God's power.

The Spirit indwelling us — which happens at conversion, the Spirit that we need to ask to continue to fill us (Ephesians 5:18) — means that we have with us each and every day God's empowering presence. And as we all know our gospel — and it's good not to be too familiar with it, but we know it — Jesus died, and on the third day He rose again. He appeared to many and He ascended. But when He ascended, He said, "I will not leave you alone." He says that in Matthew 28:20. Meaning that the ascended Christ sends the promise of the Father — from the Father and the Son, which is the Holy Spirit. And it's just a reminder for us as Christians that we are never left alone. I think there are times when we're walking through difficulty or trial and we can just feel that way — we can just feel like, where is God? That we're alone.

Gordon Fee says: “we are not left on our own as far as our relationship with God is concerned, neither are we left on our own to slug it out in the trenches with regard to the Christian life. Life in the present is empowered by the God who dwells in us as the personal presence of God. The Spirit is not merely some force or influence. The living God is a God of power, and by the Spirit, the power of the living God is present with us and for us.”

And there are so many implications to that. I could list so many, but I just want to talk about one that was on my heart as I put this episode together: God's presence comforts us. There may be some listening to this podcast who are going through some sort of suffering or trial. There may be a pastor who's facing some challenge in his church, and we can get discouraged, we can get distraught. And yet we know that the Spirit can and will comfort us. You see that in Acts 9:31: "So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up, and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied." The presence of God comforted the church and comforted God's people, and the presence of God allowed it to multiply — probably one of the reasons it multiplied, because people are drawn by the presence of God. So if anyone is listening to this and going through a difficult time: get with the Lord and ask Him to fill you with the Holy Spirit, and ask the Spirit's presence to be manifested in a tangible way to you, and to work to comfort you. So that's just a practical sort of application.

The other category I mentioned is God's power, which is clear in the text and in what Jesus has said: clothed with power from on high. And we need power for witness — power to have the courage to share the gospel with people who don't want to hear it. I was affected by this observation by David Garland. He said “the biblical word for witness is the Greek word martys, which ended up becoming the word for "martyr" — almost certainly because almost all the first witnesses to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus were killed for preaching the gospel. We do not face persecution alone, Garland says. We have received the promise of God, and therefore we will always have the strengthening presence of the Holy Spirit.” So when we share the gospel and it's rebuffed or rejected, God is there with us, and He will continue to give us courage to keep sharing the gospel. I was just very affected by that.

And then — we need power for a lot of things: power to preach, we've talked about that before, power for so many things. But I just want to point out this one: power to grow in the likeness of Christ, power to grow in godliness. Romans 8:13 is a reminder that in our battle with indwelling sin, we do not battle alone. We have the Spirit who gives us power to put to death the deeds of the flesh. We can't grow without the power of the Spirit. And if you think about those two things — power for witness and power for Christlikeness — growing in Christlikeness authenticates and brings integrity to this gospel that we share, this gospel that we proclaim from our pulpits, this gospel we want to build our churches around. It brings integrity when people see us growing in Christ.

And I love this observation by Gregg Allison and Andreas Köstenberger in their wonderful book on the Holy Spirit — it's really a systematic theology of the Spirit. They say this:

"The biblical notion of empowerment by the Spirit is always associated with accomplishing the will of God, humility, mercy for the distressed, love for God and love for others, ministry to and for the sake of unbelievers, doing good — ultimately so that glory may redound to God through human weakness rather than serving self-gratification or self-aggrandizement. The power of the Holy Spirit is to be appropriated for selfless motives and God-honoring ends."

Just so well said. So we need power to grow. And I just pray that for myself. I pray that for my family. I pray that for my church, Covenant Fellowship. I pray that for our family of churches. May God give us power to become more and more like Jesus Christ.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. Thanks for your encouragement, Mark. It reminds me of Jesus assuring us that the Father delights to pour out the Spirit upon us as well — He's not reluctant in that. When we ask. And so thank you for encouraging us to ask again, today and each day. God bless you and your sermon prep — sounds like you're almost there. And thanks for encouraging us. Thank you everybody for checking out the podcast, and we'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.