JR Vassar is senior pastor of the Apostles Church in New York City.
I’m speaking out of anguish of aspirations. I don’t want you to think for a moment that I’m speaking out of something I’ve mastered but out of my aspirations. I long for this.
I’ll never forget that at my ordination service, I was about 27 years old, and a man named Ron Proctor grabbed me by the shirt and yanked me to his face and said, “Don’t you ever let the great commission become something you read about.” And then he came back and put his finger in my face, “And don’t you ever lead her behind,” and he pointed at my wife. My pastor said, “Don’t settle for the results of the works of your flesh. You have enough talent and ability to pull some things off without God, but do not settle for the results of your flesh.”
And then we got this call to move to NYC. And so we parachuted in to the city, and immediately I began to forget that idea of relying on the Spirit. Our context began to intimidate us. Only 2% of the population had any relationship with Christ at all.
Intimidation can drive you to the Lord in desperation, or it can lead you to imitation. You get so scared you just find someone who’s doing something that works, and you just follow it. We adopt someone else’s vision, but God isn’t empowering us to do it. For me to try to lay hold of a role that is outside of God’s call on my life is dangerous and leads to frustration and despair.
Instead of being inspired by the Spirit, you just end up following models and best practices. I’m all for learning, but I’m not for imitation.
John 20:19 – On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”
Jesus was sent with a prophetic, priestly, and kingly role. He comes to be the prophet, priest, and king. He rescues us, saves us, restores us to God, and rules us. So he’s saying to them that you will be a community that reflects these things.
“And when he said this, he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” Jesus is telling them that if you’re going to fulfill your mission, you’re going to need the same resources he has. In his earthly ministry, in his incarnation, Jesus became fully reliant on the Holy Spirit to carry out his ministry. The Spirit would rest upon him. Even from his conception, the Holy Spirit is on him.
John 3:32 – He bears witness, yet no one receives his testimony. He who God has sent utters the words of God because he has the Spirit without measure.
Luke 4 – The Spirit has anointed me to speak Good News to the poor.
In his kingly ministry, he steps into the broken world to confront the powers of darkness. The kingdom of God comes and replaces the dominion of darkness. Matthew 12:28 Any time we get envious of someone’s success, we try to credit it to the flesh rather than the Spirit. Jesus says, if by the power of the Holy Spirit I cast out demons, the Kingdom of God is here. I’m exercising my kingly reign through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Hebrews 9:14 – By the power of the Holy Spirit he offered Himself up as a sacrifice.
Isaiah 11 – The Spirit will rest upon him, remain upon him.
If Jesus had to be fully dependent on the Holy Spirit for his prophetic, priestly, and kingly ministry, then we must depend on the Holy Spirit if we are to be a prophetic, priestly, and kingly community.
In Acts 2 the Holy Spirit comes and they speak the words of God, cast out demons, and care for people.
Jesus says something really powerful in John 16 – If I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. Jesus is saying that it’s better if I’m not physically here so the Spirit can come, so that God can come and be in you. We don’t think like this. We just want Jesus actually here. We want to just pick his brain. It is better if the presence of God is manifested in the people of God around the world. Jesus stresses that the Holy Spirit is what you need to carry out his mission.
The ultimate promise of the new covenant is that our hearts would be made clean so that God can give us his Spirit. Acts 2:33 – Being exalted at the right hand of God and received the promise of the Holy Spirit. Repent and be baptized for the forgivness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. There will be a restoration of the spirit of God. This is the whole promise of the new covenant, that God would remove all of your crap and give you the blessed promise of the Holy Spirit and mediate Christ to you.
We neglect the Holy Spirit, that the great promise of the new covenant is that God would give you the Holy Spirit. So we just manufacture ministry. It’s not about manifesting the wisdom and power of the spirit as much as just imitating what works. There are so many ministries that are lying dormant and ready to be birthed but won’t as long as the modus operandi of the Church is imitation.
The big question I want to put out in the time I have remaining, “What would it look like if we were to begin to experience the Holy Spirit in similar ways as Jesus did with similar results?”
- Confirmation of Sonship and Daughtership – What happens when Jesus is baptized and the Spirit of God descends on him? “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” We would have a willingness to rest in that sonship, to rest in being a child of God. This is what Jesus is trying to tell his disciples in Luke. “Rejoice that your names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” Jesus says, that that be your joy. The disciples want their identity to be wrapped up in ministry rather than their identity as God. LIke Rocky, all of us deep down are trying to prove we’re not a bumb. We’re not resting in sonship, we’re resting in what we’re trying to produce.
This will cause you to use people to build up your ministry rather than using your ministry to build up people. If you have to succeed, people will simply become tools.
It was his confirmation as sonship that would allow Jesus to press on even when people address him. - A Prompting for Ministry and an Empowerment for Ministry – The Holy Spirit is wooing this world for Jesus. He wants this world for Jesus. Just as Jesus is responsive to the Holy Spirit, we find ourselves prompted to engage in ministry by the Holy Spirit, but so often we are unresponsive, we quench that. Here’s the tragedy: You have no idea what you’re forefiting that’s on the other side of that prompting.
The Gospels are full of stories of life change and renewal because Jesus was constantly responsive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. God withholds power from us if we just want it for our own prominence or so we can just have a story and not because you love people and love God and want to see the Gospel transform people’s lives.
It’s the Father’s desire to give you the Spirit in greater measure. If you live your life wanting this, God will do it in your life. He longs to do that in your life. That’s why Jesus died. The more I live with an expectancy, the more I see the Spirit of God at work.
A lot of us overlook the significant for the sensational. You’ll begin to see some really significant things. Maybe not sensational but significant.
What do we do with this? I don’t know exactly, but I want to begin to experience the Spirit in the way Jesus did. To pray as a way of life.
