Life in Christ

[AI translation] Pentecost is the most common celebration in Christianity. All that Christmas, Good Friday, Easter mean to me: Pentecost makes it alive and meaningful to me. All that Jesus has done for me through his birth, death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit makes it an experience, a living reality. The other great Christian feasts show me more what Christ means to me, and Pentecost shows me what Christ means in me and through me! The book of Acts is a rich example of this. The hitherto timid, silent, awkward apostles suddenly became not only active and active, but also powerful and strong under the influence of the filling of the Holy Spirit.It is like the wind suddenly kicking up the sails and taking the ship with it! Powers were at work in them that are inexplicable in human terms, things were done by them that cannot be done by human power. For example, on the very first day of Pentecost, the miracle is not that Peter, a fisherman, untrained and uneducated in the art of speaking, should come forward and make a great solemn speech before a great crowd - for after all, one can learn to speak with human diligence - but the miracle that three thousand people were converted by that speech! And it was not a very impressive speech, it was a very simple, clumsy speech! If someone were to learn it by heart and deliver the same speech in one of the pulpits of Budapest, it would not be a great oratorical success.
How is it, then, that it had such an impact? Only because every word was saturated with a high-voltage spiritual current. A power that was not given to the speech by Peter - for it would not have been given by him - but by Jesus Christ Himself through His Holy Spirit. Or when one of the apostles stretches out his hand to heal the sick: again, powers flow out through the human hand which are not the powers of the human hand, but the powers of Christ mysteriously present in man! What happened to the apostles on that Pentecost was indeed what Paul then expressed in our founding hymn: "And it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me". And this is not an empty phrase, but an accurate description of the miracle that took place in them by the power of the Holy Spirit. What happened was that the living Christ permeated their whole being and took them with Him.
And the Holy Spirit of God has written these historical facts, not so that we might remember them every Pentecost and long to think how good it would be for us to have this power, but so that every believer might have such a Pentecost in his or her life. It is the sad experience of many believers that they have come to faith by the grace of God, but always fail again in their efforts to live the Christian life. The man who has been forgiven of his sins now wants to overcome the sins that continue to haunt him, and is forced to realise that he cannot, and is always defeated again. The redeemed, or the man who has awakened to the consciousness of redemption, would now like to live redeemed, but is saddened to find that he is always slipping back into the life from which he was redeemed. The believer in Christ wants to become a man living in Christ, living Christ, living the Christ-life, and then realises that it is not enough to resolve to do so, to commit to it, and even to make the effort to do so is quite futile! After all the failures that have brought shame on his Christian name, the believer is finally shaken even in his faith: is my salvation true, has something happened to me, or have I just imagined it? Is a redeemed life even possible in practice?
Well, my brothers and sisters, it is not possible if I want it to be, because it is not possible to overcome sin, to live holy, truly and blamelessly, to live in a Christlike way, by human effort. That requires power from above. And it is precisely this power that the Holy Spirit gives! Jesus says to his disciples, "Be strong, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8) This promise of Jesus has already been fulfilled. The Holy Spirit has already come, it is not to be invoked afterwards, but is already here. He has been poured out on the earth, He is all around us, we just need to breathe Him in like air. With the breath of your soul, with your prayer, you have to breathe it into your soul, and then you will be empowered, then the power of the Holy Spirit will flow through you.
I read the other day in a Dutch newspaper the happy testimony of a young man. He tells how he was a slave to smoking. Several times he had decided to leave it, to break up with it, to quit it for good, but his addiction was stronger than he was, he would not let it go. After many failed attempts, she finally understood that what she could not do, the Lord Jesus could, and then she begged. And since then he has indeed been freed. It is a small thing, you might say, but the Christian life is made up of a series of small victories, and what makes a believer so bitter is that he is always defeated, again and again, in the smallest things. I don't know what your sin is that you keep falling into again and again, that makes even those around you begin to doubt whether you are truly a redeemed child of Christ, but if you breathe in the Holy Spirit with this prayer: Lord, I believe that I no longer need to hate, or be impetuous, or think impure thoughts, or fail in any way, because you have delivered me from these things too! - you will experience the power of the Holy Spirit all at once.
The Word of God says wonderful things about the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us. In Romans 8:11, for example, we read. Can we imagine the power, the inexpressible energy that raised Jesus from the dead?! Man can generate terrifying energy, modern explosives contain energy that, if released, could cause unimaginable destruction and could extinguish thousands of lives in a matter of moments. But an energy that can rekindle the flame of extinguished life, that can raise life from death: such energy cannot be produced by man, only by the Lord God. And this divine energy is precisely the Holy Spirit. This cannot be measured by human standards, but only by the astonishing realisation that the Holy Spirit is a terrifying power that raised the dead Jesus from the dead, and now that same power, if it begins to work in you, what happens in you? Even if you were as helpless and powerless as a dead man, you will be spiritually revived by the Holy Spirit.
The apostle Peter, in his ordinary Second Epistle, speaks of the Holy Spirit in this way. (Gal 5,22) The Holy Spirit is a power that is able to develop the temper of Christ and the nature of Christ in the place of my impulsive nature, so that my every word, deed, thought and look becomes literally Jesus-like! The Holy Spirit is a creative power who is able to reveal Christ in me - who could not overcome even the slightest of my evil qualities - so that His holy, blessed and blessed life may be made visible in my appearance. So terribly great is the power that He is able through me, in my person, to present to the world the living Jesus Christ! The Holy Spirit is the divine power that can make you, me, a partaker of the divine nature!
But let us remember something here: the Holy Spirit is not a certain impersonal power! It is not something, it is Someone, and it is the divine Person who is with us and at work in us. Christ said goodbye to his disciples: "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." (Jn 14,18) And this was his promise fulfilled at Pentecost: in the Holy Spirit he himself, the glorified Lord, came back to them. The Father sends the Holy Spirit as a substitute for the Son, but the Holy Spirit is both the Father and the Son. It is God who is here, who is present and willing to move into the heart of any of us now and make us partakers of the divine nature. The Holy Spirit is Christ living in you. For Christianity is not only about believing in Christ, but also about having Christ living in you. The Holy Spirit is at work in you in such a way as to make you more and more like Christ. He makes you more and more aware of the presence of Christ, He makes you aware of the will of Christ, and He also enables you, He gives you the strength to live out that will. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ begins to live in you. And when you realize that you are unable to live a redeemed life, even with the best of intentions, remember that Christ is able! You don't have to struggle, struggle, gnash your teeth to live a holy life if Christ lives in you. Let Him think with your soul, love with your heart, act with your will, speak with your tongue, look with your eyes, do the blessed work with your two hands! You are not strong, brave, persevering, you do not fight, conquer, love and comfort - you are incapable of all that - but the living Jesus Christ does all these things in you! He lives in you His holy and blessed life through the Holy Spirit! This was the Apostle Paul's happiest experience at Pentecost, when he said in our foundational hymn, "And it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me!"
In any case, this requires that I no longer live and not I! Do you know which "I" it is? The "I" that is best expressed in these words: self-will, self-love, self-confidence, self-satisfaction, self-righteousness, self-conceit, self-indulgence, self-pity, self-congratulation, etc. Well, that "self" can't live on if you want Christ to live in you. The divine nature that the Word speaks of, that the Holy Spirit is working in you, can only flourish in place of, and never alongside, your own sinful, depraved human nature.
In times of housing shortage, it happens that the authorities seize a room or two of someone's home and put strangers in it. Even if the whole flat is rented or owned, the authority has only a right of disposal over a certain part of it. The rest of the apartment is off limits to him. This may be all right in a certain respect with earthly dwellings, but it is not all right if it is so in your heart! The whole dwelling, the whole heart, must be put under the disposition of the Holy Spirit! It is just that this is so seldom done by the redeemed of Christ. There are still many closed areas where the Holy Spirit is not allowed free access. But the Holy Spirit does not force or break down closed doors, but waits until we voluntarily open them for Him, and only then does He enter them!
Is there such a closed area, room, niche or hole in your heart, in your life, where you have not yet asked and allowed the Holy Spirit of Christ to enter? Do you not hinder, do you not hinder the Spirit of the Lord from beginning and exercising His blessed dominion over your life? "But I live no more," says the apostle. If your problem is that the "I" is very much alive, tell the Lord that, too, like this: 'Lord, I believe that my self does not have to live, I believe that my self has been crucified with you, and I believe that you are now living in me!
Even this Pentecost does not have to pass without being a real Pentecost for you! You are free to leave here with the living Jesus Christ in your heart, and to live now the full, triumphant, redeemed life of Christ!
Amen
Date: 5 June 1949 (Pentecost)