September 9, 2018 Acts 1:1-4 The Gospel According to Jack Bauer: Download It To My PDA Mark 16:15, He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Acts 1:1-4, 1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. In last year s Emmy s the serial television show 24 won the award for best TV drama and Kiefer Sutherland, who plays Jack Bauer, an on again, off again United States Government Agent, won the Emmy for Lead Actor in a drama series. 24 has been characterized as one of the most innovative, thrilling and acclaimed drama series on television. Every season, each episode has covered one hour of real time, and the season s entire story takes place in one day. It is beginning it s sixth season this coming January. In the first five seasons, a former president was assassinated, a sitting president was arrested for complicity in that assassination. Nuclear threats have been averted, terrorist plots have been foiled. The main character, Jack Bauer has gone under cover to foil a Mexican drug ring, he faked his death and the series ended last spring with his abduction by Chinese Intelligence officials because of the death of a Los Angeles Chinese embassy worker on a 1
raid to get an American defector who had information on stolen nerve gas set to be released in a crowded shopping mall. Gayle says the reason that it is one of my favorite shows is because a lot of things get blown up, guns are routinely fired and people get killed. If that is true I am not quite sure what that says about me but I did grow up watching a lot of John Wayne in westerns and military movies. Train up a child in the way they should go. But, there are a couple of things from which Jay Leno and David Letterman have gotten quite a bit of mileage. Jack Bauer is able to get from one end of the L.A. basin to the other in about ten minutes, five if he floors it. If you have ever been to L.A. you know that that scenario is more far fetched than Russian mafia commandeering a nuclear attack sub as they did in last years series. Jack Bauer s cell phone always has coverage and perfect reception no matter where he calls from. He has called from the sub basement of an electrical generating plant perfect reception. He has called CTU, the Counter-Terrorism Unit from a bomb shelter, subway station, an abandoned factory in the middle of the desert and the cargo hold of a plane several miles out over the Pacific Ocean again perfect reception every time. (Take out cell phone) Yeah, that s what I thought 2 bars at 2901 E. Banta Rd, great day, quarter mile from a cell phone tower. I guess they have a bunch of towers in L.A. But, the one thing that has gotten the most comedic references occured nearly every episode is when Jack needs information. Most of the time he needs a floor plan of a building that they are going to break into and secure the release of the helpless hostages or his daughter or any number of helpless hostages. Chloe, the computer wiz back at CTU is 2
always able to find a schematic don t know how but she always gets what Jack needs. Oh by the way he always gets perfect reception of the information too. This is how it happens. (Show Video Clip) Download it to my PDA. What Jack is saying is, Chloe you have information that I need. It is kept someplace that I cannot access on my own. Without that information, I m dead in the water. The Gospel According to Popeye helped us to understand the nature of God s love for every man, woman, boy and girl on the planet. Barney Fife helped us to get our hands around what sin is and how sin affects each of us. The Gospel According to Duct Tape taught us of our need to cultivate an attitude of connectedness and unity so that those outside might be drawn inside. Then last week Tony Soprano s lack of true repentance was a negative example of the necessary first step in the gospel transforming out thoughts and our actions. The Gospel According to Jack Bauer lets us know that we need a download. There is information that we need that we cannot attain on our own. The information we need to know the will of God and fulfill his highest purpose for us is stored someplace else. Tony Evans tells the story of a man who went to buy a refrigerator he bought the most incredible refrigerator you could imagine it had all the bells and whistles you would expect, and then some it cost thousands of dollars more than a normal refrigerator, but what could you expect for such a fine product? The store delivers the new refrigerator to the man s home he fills it with all his food, and he s so excited to have this great new refrigerator. The next morning he goes into the kitchen to make breakfast, only to find that the milk is spoiled, the ice cream is running out of the bottom of the freezer compartment, 3
and the vegetables are changing color the refrigerator is not working. So the man calls the store to give them a piece of mind. The man at the store said, "I don t understand what s wrong. Open the door and see if the light comes on" He opened the door No light. "Put your ear up close to the refrigerator and see if you can hear the hum of the motor" No hum. Then the man says, "There s a cord at the back or your refrigerator. Check and see if it s plugged in". The man looks, and sure enough, it wasn t plugged in. He comes back to the phone and said, "You re right, the cord was not plugged in. But for the kind of money I paid for this refrigerator, that shouldn t matter. This thing should work anyway" Now that s sort of a silly story right, because all of us would say, well of course you ve got to plug the thing in. That s obvious. You see, refrigerators are dependent things and no matter how much you pay for it, even though it has all the parts needed to run, it won t run, without an invisible power source called electricity. Our spiritual lives will not run without the Holy Spirit s power. When God saves us, he gives us all the component parts we need to run our spiritual lives. But we are dependent creatures we weren t designed to work on our own. Unless we have the power of the Holy Spirit we can t produce what our lives are supposed to produce And we re like that dead refrigerator, that makes everything spoil. We must download the Holy Spirit from God. Is there a practical benefit of downloading and being filled with the Holy Spirit? In late 2002 U.S. News & World Report reported on a survey that asked the question, "In general, how often would you say you have experienced God s presence or a spiritual force that felt very close to you?" 4
The results were: Never: 10 percent Once or twice: 17 percent Several times: 23 percent Many times: 49 percent Now these were all people who consider themselves Christians, yet over half, have little or no experience of the Holy Spirits power. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, said "If there were only one truth I could share with the Christian world, it would be how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, for there is no single truth that is more important to the believer." 2 Corinthians 1:21says, It is God who gives us the ability to stand firm for Christ. He has commissioned us and He has identified us as His own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts." You ve probably heard me talk about how Christianity is not just a religion, it s a relationship. Well, what really makes our relationship with God personal is that when we become a Christian the Holy Spirit comes to live within us. If you grew up in church, you ve probably heard people say, Jesus came into my heart, or I accepted Jesus into my heart. Well, if you want to be technical about it, Jesus doesn t come into your heart, the Holy Spirit does. One famous bible teacher made it very simple by just saying, The Holy Spirit is Christ in you. So when we say that Jesus is living in our heart, or the Holy Spirit lives in us, we re saying the same thing. Billy Graham wrote a book entitled, The Holy Spirit. Let me read a portion to you, I think it proper to say that anyone who is not filled with the spirit is a defective Christian. Paul s command to the Ephesian Christians, Be filled with the Spirit is binding on all of 5
us Christians, everywhere, in every age. There are no exceptions. We must conclude that since we are ordered to be filled with the spirit, we are sinning if we are not filled. And our failure to be filled with the Spirit constitutes one of the greatest sins against the Holy Spirit. It is interesting to note that the command to be filled with the spirit, actually means to be continuously filled. We are not filled once for all, like a bucket. Instead we are to be filled constantly. It might be translated, Be filled, and keep on being filled. The greatest reason that continuous filling is necessary is because we leak and sometimes we leak badly. In Charles Stanley s book, the Wonderful Spirit-Filled Life, Charles Stanley says that the first attitude that s important, to be filled with the Spirit is total dependence. He writes, "The Spirit-filled life begins once we are absolutely and thoroughly convinced that we can do nothing apart from the indwelling strength of the Holy Spirit The Spiritfilled life begins with an overwhelming realization that we are absolutely helpless and hopeless apart from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit Until then, we will always be out there doing things for God in our own strength" The Second attitude that s important, is total surrender. Until we surrender to the Spirit s control in our lives, until we come to the place where we are willing to put all of our lives under His control, we won t be filled with the Spirit. It is actually impossible to live the Christian life on our own. If we could pull it off, God would be unnecessary. In John 15:5, Jesus said, "Apart from me, you can do nothing" The Christian life is a supernatural life, and we need supernatural help to live it. Just before World War 2 a school fire in Itasca, Texas, took the lives of 263 children. One of the worst tragedies at a school, ever. It was devastating to the town. After the war, they 6
built a new school that featured "the finest sprinkler system in the world." The whole town was proud of this system. Honor students guided visitors on tours of the new school to show them the finest, most advanced sprinkler system money could buy. Never again would Itasca have a school building burn. 7 years later, the population was growing so they built a new wing onto the school. When they began construction, and uncovered the sprinkler system pipes, they discovered that their brand new, state-of-the art sprinkler system they had paid so much for had never been connected. A lot of us are trying to live our lives like that. We try to live for God, we try to do the right things, but we re not connected into the power of His Holy Spirit, and then we wonder why we burn out. Think of the disciples if anyone could live effective Christian lives without the Spirit, it was them. They were trained by Jesus himself. They had seen lame men walk, blind men see, and the dead brought to life again. They knew about the Father and the Son they had even performed miracles themselves. Nobody could have been more convinced, more motivated. But they were still missing something. That s why in Acts 1:4, Jesus told them, "Don t leave Jerusalem, don t do anything else, until you ve received the gift of the Holy Spirit!" You see, living the Christian life isn t just difficult, it s nearly impossible. You can t live the Christian life apart from the help of the Holy Spirit. If the disciples couldn t do it, you can t either! That s why I believe so many Christians live defeated, discouraged lives. Download it to my PDA and do it quick. That s the next part of the Gospel and Jack Bauer shows us that there is something we need outside ourselves, we need the floor plan for life. It comes when God fills us and keeps filling us with His Holy Spirit. What about you? 7