Sent
They thought he was crazy. They thought he was the Christ, or Elijah or the Prophet. John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way of the Lord. He baptized with water for repentance and when questioned about it he replied, “He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11).
Pastor Dave continued in this new series called “Sent” with the disciples witnessing Christ ascending into heaven. Before Christ left them He told them to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them to receive power (Acts 1:8). The purpose of the Holy Spirit was to lead them to carry out the commands of Christ especially the words He left all of us: to make disciples of all nations, to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirt, and to teach them to obey all that He commanded (Matthew 28:16-20).
This picture of the baptism of the Holy Spirit that John describes shows us how significant this is to Christ. We can clearly see the representation of immersive water baptism. It depicts identifying with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ we see how the water washes over the entire body. This is the degree of immersion the Spirit desires with each Christ follower. He desires to move us into more Christlikeness each day. This is how much our lives need to be saturated by the Spirit. Why? Because Christ has set us free from sin. The Spirit’s is to be at work in us. We are to walk by Him, so we won’t gratify the desires of our old nature (Gal 5:16-17).
Moving into the Sent series for this next season we must ask ourselves, “Do I let the grace of Christ govern my life?” When we enter into covenant with Christ and receive new life we literally get His life. Christ is eternal life. He is the way, the truth, the life. Those things are only found and experienced in Him. Christ carried the nature of the Father. Christ’s Lordship should be the determining factor regarding the nature of our relationship with Him. We get to partake in the divine nature and carry His nature. If we are experiencing areas of our lives that do not live out of His governing grace and the leadership of the Holy Spirit (which is immersive in nature) we must search Him for why and allow Him to do His work to transform us.
That word “power” in Acts 1:8 refers to the literal power of God, in which it gives ability. The ability is to put aside our old nature and to have Christ speak through us and to move us. That’s why Paul says that the Spirit and the flesh are against each other in order to keep us from doing the things we want to do. The Spirit is there to keep the flesh dead.
Think about it this way. The bride of Christ will be forever in submissive service to Christ in the age to come. Are we practicing this today? When Pastor Dave talked about being sent I don’t think he was necessarily telling us to uproot everything and go overseas to serve as missionaries. Although maybe that is God’s purpose for you. I believe that the idea of sent is to have a heart position which is governed by the grace of Christ in every aspect of life. To allow His Lordship to be the single determining factor of my relationship with Him. When we are here we are ready to experience Him moving us and speaking through us in order that the world will see Christ through us. The reality of sent is from living in a deep desire to abide in the vine, to bear fruit in all things, to prove to be His disciples, to abide in His love, to keep His commandments in order to be prepared to live under His loving leadership forever (John 15).
The experience of sent is that everything is sourced and initiated by Christ through His Spirit in us. That is why John said that Christ would baptize with the Spirit and fire. That baptism is to be a picture of how immersive Christ desires to be with us. This baptism in the Holy Spirit is so overwhelming that we cannot deny the power of His love in bringing us to a place we cannot attain on our own. This overwhelming reality is to lead us into holiness (by purifying fire). We must breathe Him in and His word in. Then breathe Him out and His word out. To have Him completely cover us and manage every aspect of our lives. This is how He wants to send us.
Do I let the grace of Christ govern my life?
Is His Lordship the determining factor of the nature of my relationship with Him?
What would life look like if I leaned into this?