NOT FAR ENOUGH

Religion

This sermon was preached at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia on May 26, 2013 by Pastor Paul Mims.

Acts 18:24-19:7
Frank McKee found out just how pugnacious his fellow paratroopers could be when he pulled MP duty in England and had to break up pub fights between the men of the 82nd Airborne and other units awaiting orders for D-Day. The night before the invasion, his plane dodged anti-aircraft fire, and he landed safely. He wasn’t as lucky a month later, on July 4, when he “felt something like a horse kicked me in the back” during a skirmish with German troops. But he recovered from his wounds to parachute into Holland and fight through the coldest winter in Europe in 40 years, in the Battle of the Bulge. They kept moving forward because where they were was not far enough to win the victory.

Last October, when we signed up for the cruise to Alaska, we were assigned to the second seating for dinner each evening. As soon as we boarded the Holland America Ship Westerdam, I went immediate to the dining room to have that changed. I was told, “We have only one table available at 5:15.” I said, ‘We will take it for the entire voyage.” It turned out to be at the stern of the ship next to a window, a table for four, overlooking the sea, the best table in the whole dining room. Evening dining on a ship is a five course meal that takes two hours to enjoy. So there came to sit beside us six different couples. All were Christians who were active in their churches. They were rejoicing in their faith, but most everyone had a family member or friend that they were burdened about who had not entered the reality of the Christian faith. For one it was parents, for another it was children, and for another, it was acquaintances. They had not gone far enough to really know the Lord.

There are many members of churches today who have not gone far enough. They are not Christian in the Biblical sense of the word. They only know about Jesus. They do not know Him personally. They have no experiential knowledge of the Holy Spirit. They live in their own strength. They are honest, devout, loyal members of the church. But something is lacking in their faith. They have not gone far enough to enjoy the treasures of grace. They have not embraced all that would embrace them.
There are two separate instances in our text today that illustrate the same point. One, a mighty preacher who knows only about Jesus, and two, a group of men who had only been reformed but not saved. Both of these had not gone far enough.

In a few short sentences, Dr. Luke ends his account of the Second Missionary Journey by having Paul conclude his ministry of eighteen months in Corinth and take with him to Ephesus Aquila and Pricilla, leaving them there, and going on to his home church back in Antioch in Syria, the Church that first sent him out as a missionary. He is there about a year and begins his Third Missionary Journey.

He returns to visit the Galatian churches and goes on to Ephesus where he is going to remain for three years. In Ephesus, he learns the story of the great Alexandrian preacher named “Apollos” who preached there during the last year and was now preaching in Corinth. His is the story of deficient faith.

I. APOLLOS HAD NOT GONE FAR ENOUGH TO KNOW JESUS. (18:24-28)

Apollos was preaching Christ, but did not fully know him. He was a Jew from Alexandria, Egypt who, like Paul, was educated in the best schools of his day. He had the gift of oratory and a passion of spirit. He was the kind of preacher you would drive miles to hear.

Dr. W.A. Criswell said, “He was educated in a world of rhetoric and of oratory. His teacher was Philo or those who belonged to the school of Philo. And the language in which he preached was Greek. And the text of the Bible that he used was the Greek Septuagint. When he came to Ephesus and began to speak boldly for the Lord, he knew only the baptism of John; that is, he knew just what John the Baptist knew which means that he knew the life of Christ—the other side of the crucifixion and the resurrection and the ascension, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. All of the post crucifixion life of our Lord was unknown to this eloquent preacher, Apollos.

That meant that he preached Jesus as the great ethical leader; that is, he preached the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount. He preached the Jesus of righteousness, the Jesus of reformation. This man, Apollos, mightily declaimed upon repentance and its sign the immersion of water—reformation which is, I would suppose, a very typical and fulsome explanation and presentation of what you would find in practically all of the modern pulpits of modern day Christianity. They preach a faith—they preach a Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount—of righteousness and justice which is fine and beautiful. But there is more to the Christian faith than just the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount. What we need is the forgiveness of our sins. We need justification before God. We who face death need someone who can deliver us from the victory of the grave. And that is the preaching of the full-orbed gospel of the Son of God. He is not only the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, but he is also the Jesus of the atoning blood—the Jesus of the triumphant resurrection; the Jesus of the ascension into heaven; and the session and intercessor at the right hand of God; and the Jesus who is coming again to be king and victor over all of the earth.” (From his sermon: Apollos, The Great Alexandrian Preacher).

The scripture says that, “He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor, and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John.”

It is possible to preach Christ as an ethical teacher and call for repentance that leads to a baptism of repentance which only produces a reformation and not salvation. Apollos was preaching as John the Baptist did telling only of the life of Christ. When Aquila and Pricilla detected this in his ministry, they invited him into their home and told him the complete story of Jesus the Christ who had come, lived, died, arose, ascended, and is coming again.

When Apollos understood the full gospel he became very effective in his ministry and was invited to Corinth to preach. “On arriving, he was a great help to those who by grace believed. For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.” It is not unusual to hear of the conversion of a preacher today.

Is it possible that all you know about Jesus is what someone has reported to you about him? Do you only know him as a great teacher of ethics or as an example of how we should live? Do you know him in the fullness of life transformation and not just a mild reformation of your life? If so, you have not gone far enough. There is a whole another spiritual world for you to enjoy. It can make the same difference in your life that it made in the life of Apollos.

II. THE MEN OF EPHESUS HAD NOT GONE FAR ENOUGH TO KNOW JESUS (19:1-7)

These twelve men were likely the converts of Apollos who had responded to his preaching of John the Baptist’s Baptism of repentance. When Paul began his ministry in Ephesus, he detected that there was something missing in their faith. So he asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit WHEN you believed?” The verb tense in Greek is of a completed past action. This means that the gift of the Holy Spirit occurs at Salvation. They had believed in the life of Jesus leading to a repentance that prompted only a human reformation of their lives and not a spiritual transformation of salvation.

This question Paul asked in verse 2 has been mis-translated and has been the occasion for the rise of the doctrine of the Second Blessing of receiving the Holy Spirit. It is not SINCE you believed but WHEN you believed according to the tense of the verb. At salvation, the Holy Spirit comes to live in the life of the believer and immerses the believer in the body of Christ, the church. There is one Baptism of the Holy Spirit at conversion and many “fillings” and “anointings” for service.

The men answered, “We have not heard of the Holy Spirit.” “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism, they replied.” Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” “On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.” “When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.” This Pentecostal experience was the same as happened at Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost when the Spirit came to indwell the church, the same as when the Spirit came on the Gentiles, and now on the disciples of John the Baptist. All were equal before the Lord and all had the same experience. All the New Testament groups were now complete in Christ.
I have no objection to the present day experience of speaking in tongues when believers get enraptured in the Spirit. Some believers have been given the ability to speak a language that they had not previously known. Others speak glossolalia which is non-sense syllables. I do object and believe that it is a miss-interpretation of scripture to claim that you are saved at one point, baptized in the Holy Spirit as a second experience of grace and that the sign of this happening is the ability to speak in tongues.
I ask you the question that Paul asked the Ephesians: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed in Christ?” If you did you are a New Testament Christian. If you did not, your salvation is not yet complete.

The Holy Spirit is the power within us to love and serve Jesus, hate sin, and live victoriously in a fallen world. To really be alive in Christ is to be conscious of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which is living in us. His main mission is to reveal Christ to us so that we can glorify him in the world.

James Packer in his book YOUR FATHER LOVES YOU says, “The Holy Spirit’s distinctive role is to fulfill what we may call a floodlight ministry in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ. So far as this role was concerned, the Spirit “was not yet” (John 7:29, literal Greek) while Jesus was on earth; only when the Father had glorified him (John 17:1, 5) could the Spirit’s work of making men aware of Jesus’ glory begin.

I remember walking to church one winter evening to preach on the words, “He will glorify me” (John 16:14), seeing the building floodlit as I turned a corner, and realizing that this was exactly the illustration my message needed. When floodlighting is well done, the floodlights are placed so that you do not see them; in fact, you are not supposed to see where the light is coming from; what you are meant to see is just the building on which the floodlights are trained. The intended effect is to make it visible when otherwise it would not be seen for the darkness, and to maximize its dignity by throwing all its details into relief so that you can see it properly. This perfectly illustrated the Spirit’s new covenant role. He is, so to speak, the hidden floodlight shining on the Savior.

Or think of it this way. It is as if the Spirit stands behind us, throwing light over our shoulder on to Jesus who stands facing us. The Spirit’s message to us is never, “Look at me; listen to me; come to me; get to know me”, but always, “Look at him, and see his glory; listen to him and hear his word; go to him and have life; get to know him and taste his gift of joy and peace.” The Spirit, we might say, is the matchmaker, the celestial marriage broker, whose role it is to bring us and Christ together and ensure that we stay together.”

If you are like Apollos and the twelve men at Ephesus whose faith was defective in that they did not go far enough, you can do as they did and be completed in Christ and be indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!

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