John 20:21-22 “Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit." Today's episode talks about when Jesus appeared in the upper room after He was crucified. It also talks about the amazing gift of the Holy Spirit that each one of us has been given. What are we doing with that gift? Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Chocolate Milk
John 20:21-22 “Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit."
This verse takes place after Jesus has been crucified. The apostles are all locked up in the upper room because they are afraid if the Jewish people knew where they were, they would be crucified, too. I am sure this was a very confusing time for the apostles. They had been living life with Jesus for the last few years. Every day extraordinary things happened. Then they find out that Jesus is going to be crucified. I mean, they knew Jesus had enemies, but I don’t think they understood what was truly going on. How could they? How is it possible to comprehend the man they had been following, the man they knew was the one true king, was going to be crucified? The Messiah was supposed to come and deliver them from their captives. Yet Jesus hadn’t defeated the Romans yet. How could He be leaving them?
I am sure this thought was going through so many people’s minds at the time. It must have been very confusing. They had read or been taught that when the Messiah comes, He will save them. They assume this means He will save them from the Roman occupation. They don’t realize that Jesus is here for much bigger things. Jesus has come to save their souls.
The apostles are locked in the upper room, and Jesus appears to them. I wonder if they were frightened at first. I wonder if they asked Him if it was really Him. Take a minute, close your eyes, and try to picture what it was like for them in that upper room. The man they thought was the Lord was crucified, and then they felt they needed to lock themselves in a room for fear of death, and then Jesus appeared to them in this locked room. I wonder if they thought He was a ghost? I wonder what they were thinking, what was going through their mind.
It says in the verse above this one that Jesus showed them his hands and feet, and then they rejoiced that He had risen. The first thing that Jesus did, even before showing them His hands and feet, was to impart peace to them. The first thing He said in that room was, “Peace be with you.” I think this makes perfect sense because they probably weren’t very peaceful. They were scared and unsure of what to do next.
After Jesus shows them his wounds, and they rejoice that He has returned, Jesus talks to them. “Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Jesus knows they are confused about what just happened and what is going to happen. They had been following Jesus. That was their job, their life for the last several years. They had to have been wondering what they were going to do now that Jesus was gone. Then Jesus appeared and told them what to do. He told them that He was sending them out to do the works that He did. This gives them some direction and some guidance.
However, how could they go out and do the things that He did when they were scared of persecution? The next line answers this. It says, “When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Jesus gave them the Holy Spirit to build them up and give them strength. The Holy Spirit gave them a holy boldness to go out and proclaim the good news about Jesus Christ. It gave them the courage to come out of the locked room and say all the things they had been taught to say. They witnessed all they had seen and heard over the several years they were with Jesus. They had the courage to leave the room, and that very same day, they baptized 3,000.
This is the same Holy Spirit that each one of us has living inside of us. We each, you and me, have the Spirit of Christ living inside of us. We have the potential to have this same holy boldness that the apostles exhibited. We have the potential to do all the signs and wonders that they did. The reason for this is that they were only capable of doing signs and wonders because Jesus gave them the authority, and He gave the Holy Spirit. Jesus didn’t just give these gifts to the apostles, and then they died with them 2,000 years ago. When Jesus gave them to the apostles, He was giving them to all those who were to follow after them as well.
If you have been baptized, you have received the Holy Spirit. This means you have all the power and all the courage that the apostles had living inside of you. You just have to access it. There is an analogy that I heard in Encounter Ministries, and I have also heard it at the Life in the Spirit seminars. I am not sure exactly how it goes, but it basically compares our lives to a glass of chocolate milk. Our life before the Holy Spirit, before baptism, is just plain milk. However, when you add the Holy Spirit, it is like you are adding chocolate sauce to the milk. Now that we have added the chocolate sauce, do we automatically have chocolate milk? No, we need to stir the milk to spread the chocolate sauce all around. This is similar to the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit can give you the power and the courage to do many things, but you need to call up it. You need to step out in faith and believe that it will be there to help you. Once you start calling upon the Holy Spirit to help you, then you will begin to see extraordinary things start to happen all around you. All you have to do is read the book of Acts in the Bible to see all the amazing things the apostles accomplished once they had the Holy Spirit living inside of them. Check out the book of Acts and then decide what amazing things you are going to do with this beautiful gift of the Holy Spirit that Jesus gave us.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening today. Lord, thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit. You are amazing. Thank you for giving us the authority to do the works that Jesus did and even great works now that He is with you in Heaven. Lord, we ask that you help us to see the ways you want us to use the power of the Holy Spirit in our own lives. Help us to see what you want us to do. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with our will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. If you want to come to hang out with me next weekend at the retreat, I need you to sign up by tomorrow. CLICK HERE to register for the retreat. Thank you to all those who have already signed up. It is going to be an amazing weekend! I can't wait to do life with you next weekend and talk all about how much God loves you! Retreats are such a great way to get filled up! I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!