Pull the Trigger, Lord—unleash the Potential of My Life!

Let us turn to the word of the Lord in chapter 2 of the Book of Acts, an extremely well-known passage. It says: “...When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together with one accord. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like that of a mighty rushing wind, which filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, resting upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance....”

Where does one begin? I have been wrestling with this passage; it is such an important passage and so full of teaching. I have preached about it or around it so many times that I even thought, look, let’s skip to chapter 3 and continue our study of the Book of Acts that way. But I believe it would truly be a criminal act if I did that, because this is a passage we must respect and give its proper place. And we will see how long it takes us over the next few weeks to make our way through this passage, but it is important for us to linger over it.

This passage is like the foundation of the church of Jesus Christ; it is like the inauguration of the church’s movement here on earth. It is a graduation, so to speak, of the followers of Jesus Christ and their initiation into a life of service, evangelism, and conquest.

From the beginning, in the Gospel of Luke, for example, the Lord had already said—and John himself, John the Baptist, had also said—John had drawn a distinction between his ministry, which was a ministry of leading people into repentance and preaching the word of God, as well as baptizing in water as a sign of repentance and new life in Christ. He had drawn a distinction between that ministry God had given him, John, and the ministry of Jesus, who had a much more powerful ministry characterized by a tempestuous movement of the power of God, a ministry that would be characterized by the ability to impart God’s power and energy directly.

John recognized that he operated in the priestly, religious realm. He had the ability to proclaim the truth of God. He could handle the symbols of the church of God. Perhaps one could say that he had the ability to handle the logos word of God, but Jesus’ ministry was qualitatively superior to John’s because Jesus could wield the creative power of God. Jesus could impart gifts. Jesus could activate ministries. Jesus could give life to that church which still existed only as mere potential. John could not do that. John could only declare a truth he had received from God, but Jesus could move with power.

That is why John said, I can baptize you with water—that is, with a symbol—but he said, after me comes another who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And as I think about that difference between the ministry of John the Baptist and the ministry of Jesus Christ, it occurs to me that this is the difference between a Christian church that merely possesses the general and eternal truth of God—a church that can be very beautiful and very pleasing to God, just as John the Baptist was pleasing to the Lord; a church that can move within God’s rhythms, symbols, and truths; that can tell people about Christ and his ministry; a church that can even introduce people to Jesus, just as John introduced people to Jesus Christ.

The difference between that Johannine church, so to speak—that is a theological term—and an anointed church filled with the Holy Spirit is that the latter is a church that has the word and the general, eternal truth of God as its foundation, but upon that foundation it also has the superstructure, to use a fancy Sunday word, of the baptism and fullness of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, access to direct revelation from God, the ability to transmit the power of God to others, the ability to bring others into a living and direct experience with the power of the Holy Spirit, the ability to set captives free, to heal the sick, to move in the power of God, to receive direct revelation from God, and to wield the transforming instruments of God’s power.

So, as we can see, I believe that is what this passage here in chapter 2 teaches us. At the beginning of chapter 2 we simply find a church that has been with Christ and has received the word of Jesus Christ. It is a church that has seen Jesus’ miracles and has walked with him, but it is not yet a church that possesses the power of God; it is not a church that can make the earth tremble; it is not a church that can transform society; it is not a church that can stir intrigue and uneasiness in society.

To a certain extent, the society around them does not even know that they exist. They are shut away and hidden, praying and waiting for something that is going to happen. They are potential, but that potential has not yet been unleashed.

Imagine a revolver loaded with bullets lying on a wooden table. That revolver is there; it has the capacity to kill and destroy in very powerful ways. It has the bullets it needs to do what it was created to do, but it is simply potential. That potential does not become something actual until a hand picks it up and pulls the trigger. And that is how it was with the early church. They were there; they had within them all the potential Christ had been accumulating in them throughout his earthly ministry. They were God’s weapon lying on the table, but the Lord knew that before they could be used to fulfill their potential, the Holy Spirit had to come and ignite the spark so that what was inside them could be fired.

I am not an expert on firearms, but as I understand it, everything having to do with firearms requires fire, whether it is a spark that unleashes the potential within the projectile. When a trigger—or the gunpowder in a cannon—is ignited, that fire, that spark produced when the firing pin strikes the metal of the bullet, sets off the gunpowder and then releases the bullet, the metal part of the projectile. It is interesting that even an atomic bomb, with all its complexity, needs that initial fire to unleash the power of the atom within it.

The same thing happens in chemical reactions. Every chemical reaction needs what is called a catalyst; that is, an infusion of energy from outside that enables the reaction between two or more elements. And I am not going to go too deeply into this because I know there are scientists here who could ridicule me if I go any deeper than this. So I will leave it there in general terms. But the idea is that for the potential of things to be unleashed, for reactions between different elements to take place and for them to combine at the atomic level, there must be an infusion of, so to speak, fire that adds pressure....

And it is interesting that something like that happens on the day of Pentecost. And it is interesting to me because I always see that God works supernaturally while also respecting the principles of nature. It occurs to me that this is simply because, in reality, for God there is no such thing as supernatural and natural. The principles we call natural in science are simply the mind of God poured into time and space. But when God wants to work in the spiritual realm, he also uses the same general principles of his mind.

So, for the potential within the disciples to be unleashed, there had to be an infusion of energy from outside, a fire that came from outside, entered into them, and, in a sense, pulled the trigger. It ignited that spark of fire that would set ablaze the wood upon the altar. And I believe all of that is implicit in this passage.

Actually, it had never occurred to me in the way I have explained it this afternoon, but I believe that, in spiritual terms, this is exactly what happened on the day of Pentecost. God wanted to launch his church; God wanted to release what Christ had placed within them. For them to move from potential to actuality, they needed the Lord to touch them with fire from on high, for God to set fire to the burnt offering that was there on the table.

And that is why the Lord Jesus Christ told them, do not leave Jerusalem until you receive that power, that infusion of energy from on high, because if they had gone out to do the work God had entrusted to them without receiving that actualization of the power within them, they would have been like a revolver that simply rises from the table on its own and tries to do the work it has to do without a hand behind it pulling the trigger.

It occurs to me that this is often how we, the servants of God and the churches of God, try to do the work God has entrusted to us without first making sure that we have received that activation of the power of God that is potentially within us.

There is a false controversy among Christian theologians today. Some theologians say, well, when I receive Christ as my Lord and Savior, I have already received and possess the Holy Spirit, and therefore I do not need anything else, because I have the Holy Spirit, period; because Christ says that when I receive Jesus, the Holy Spirit enters into me. And so these people, using that argument, say, I do not need a second experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit. And then there is the Pentecostal, charismatic world, which says, yes, one receives Christ, but one needs a second experience, like an infusion of power, an immersion in the power of the Holy Spirit, an activation of the power of God within you, the igniting of the spark, the pulling of the trigger. Because, in reality, Pentecostal thinking includes the idea that, yes, we have the Holy Spirit within us when we receive Jesus Christ, and that is what the disciples had when they were there in the upper room, somewhat expectantly awaiting the visitation of the power of God: they already had the Holy Spirit within them.

In one passage, the Lord is described to us—I believe it is in the Gospel according to Saint John, and I believe it was after his resurrection—as appearing to the disciples and telling them, receive the Holy Spirit. I think, if the Lord Jesus Christ said, receive the Holy Spirit, do you think they received him or not? Because when he says something, it is fulfilled. So if they received that Holy Spirit when the Lord told them to receive him, why does the Lord tell them, do not leave Jerusalem until you have received power from on high? It was because the Lord was referring to an experience qualitatively different from the first.

Until we are set ablaze by the Holy Spirit, what we have within us is simply the potential of God. And let me tell you, like John, we can do many things with just that reservoir, those reserves of power within us, but how much more can be done when that reserve of water becomes a mighty, surging waterfall.

I believe my meditation this morning is about to end; it will be limited solely to an apologetic for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Let me look at it another way. Think of a peaceful lake, full of water, holding water, a reserve of water, a placid and tranquil lake, as Samuel says. Many things can be done there. One can go.... One can take a little boat or a canoe and simply sit there listening to nature and watching the sunset. One can fish in a lake; one can bathe and swim in a lake. There are many things that can be done in a lake, but its usefulness is limited; its ability to unleash energy is limited.

And so it is with the church of Jesus Christ that has not had that transforming experience of the power of the Holy Spirit. So it is with a believer who knows only John’s baptism and the experience of the Johannine evangelical church. That church can do many interesting, important, and useful things. We should not denigrate or criticize that church excessively; it is very useful and does many things on behalf of the Kingdom of God. But its usefulness is limited, just as the water of a lake is limited because it is enclosed.

Now think of a great river, a mighty river, a river flowing at great speed, gathering force as it crashes against rocks and moves through the bends in its channel, a river that descends over long distances, gradually picking up speed as it heads toward the sea. That river has a potential and a power to do things that the lake does not have, because that energy can even be harnessed by human beings, who can build it into a reservoir and turn it, for example, into a hydroelectric dam that gives light to multitudes, drives engines, and makes all kinds of transactions within a society possible—things that give life, transform, and set things in motion. There is a difference, and that is what happens with that energy, that power of God, when it is unleashed within us.

It is interesting that the Lord Jesus Christ did not compare the energy he brings to his believers and followers to a peaceful lake, beautiful to behold, but rather envisioned it as the energy of a river that was flowing and leaping everywhere. That is why the Lord said, those who believe in me, rivers of living water will leap from within them. Because the energy that Christ places in the believer’s life and unleashes is an energy that breaks through, changes, transforms, and moves things.

And I promise you now, brothers and sisters, that I am finally going to bring this in for a landing. Right now, we are at this point in human history when great things have to be moved; there are entire nations that have to be enlightened; there are railroads, there are engines that have to be mobilized and moved; there are mountains that have to be pierced and turned into tunnels; there are rocks that have to be moved; there are powers that have to be defeated; there is revelation that has to be received; there are things that have to be declared; there are dead people who have to be raised; there are sick people who have to be healed; there are minds held captive by the devil that have to be set free; there are hearts imprisoned by Satan’s lies that have to be opened with a key that only God has the power to give.

The energy needed to set the world free in the twenty-first century will not come from the Johannine church. The energy that is needed will have to come from a church endowed with the transforming power of the river of life that only Christ can provide for us.

After this trip to Spain from which my wife and I just returned last night—rather, the night before last—where we were sharing with the pastors and leaders of a Spanish denomination—and if any of them are listening to me, I bless you in the name of the Lord, and thank you for receiving us and treating us so well—one of the things that became abundantly clear during our stay there is that Spain and all of Europe are held captive by the power of secularism and modernism, and the entire European Union and all the nations of Europe are held captive by that same power.

In fact, one could say that the entire industrialized Western world is held captive by this power. That includes the United States, Canada, Australia—the great countries, the countries where military, economic, and intellectual power reside, are held captive by this spirit. And our fellow pastors and the leaders of Spain and we were clear that in Spain, or in Europe, there is no way—this very nation, I see it clearly—there is no way for us to break the confinement into which the devil has placed these nations.

In this nation of the United States, a merely evangelical church, with the general Johannine truth of God, cannot break the rocks and open the cells that have to be opened. Every day it is becoming clearer and clearer to me that, like those first disciples, we have to concentrate on gathering and strengthening the power of God within us until there is an explosion of power.

I believe that the Lord is telling us: Church, do not move; do not leave Jerusalem until you have been clothed with power from on high. Because with the power you currently have, you will be like that revolver moving around but without a hand to pull the trigger.

I understand that this is why we moved the way we did here this morning during the time of worship. I understand that we have to learn to unleash; we have to learn the chemistry of God’s power; we have to learn to handle the substances of God’s power, the elements of God’s power. We have to learn the way chemists learn to combine substances and experiment until they find the perfect formula that can move the machinery of the church, until the power of God descends upon us and we burst forth as the first disciples did on the day of Pentecost.

I suffer; I die a little during services like this morning’s. Why? Because my intellect and my desire to control and follow the program plunge me into agony and conflict with what God is telling me. I think about the brothers and sisters who have prepared and rehearsed a good worship program, and I wonder how they must feel. I wonder what you will think of Pastor Miranda driving the worship and the preaching. Will the brothers and sisters think that Pastor Miranda believes he is a great singer and that is why he is doing this? Will the brothers and sisters in the English ministry wonder why we are not letting them go to their services already and continue with the part that falls to them? And while we are singing a song, I am thinking, well, if I let them go now, what are they going to do, since perhaps we have already taken all their time? Then I am going to leave them hanging, wondering how they are going to begin and connect with what I have left. And I am thinking, well, okay, we sing this chorus, so what comes next? What happens afterward? And what happens if I run out of choruses to sing and we are only halfway through the service? The Lord tells me, look, sing this, and I say, but all I have is one word, and what happens if halfway through the phrase I am left with nothing—the new song? And then I wonder, well, what happens if I ask John to come up here and then put him in a difficult position, put Enrique in a difficult position?

I want you to know that all those thoughts and many more were going through my mind while we were leading here this morning. There is a part—and I speak to you this way because I want to give you access to the thoughts of a pastor and a man like me, who likes control and does not like to look bad in front of people. But in that process, there is a part of me that says, no, but we have to learn to allow ourselves to be moved in the power of the Holy Spirit. We have to learn to move both in God’s order and in God’s creative chaos. We have to learn to navigate both the peaceful waters and the stormy waters of the river of the Holy Spirit. We need to gain experience in these things. We need to learn to unleash the gift of God that is already within us.

Paul tells Timothy, I advise you to fan into flame the gift of God that is within you. I believe that God wants to do great things through the congregations in this time. I believe that many times the Holy Spirit comes and says, my children, I want you to worship and exalt me, as the prophecy said this morning. I want you to minister to me, to serve me as a waiter serves someone in a restaurant. And when you have lifted me up and exalted me, then I will release my blessing and my power upon you. But you have to relinquish the appetite for control; you have to let go of the spirit of programming, and Roberto Miranda may be the first one who has to learn to do that. Because many times we pastors are the first who, in our desire to keep our congregations orderly and happy, suppress that death which has to occur so that the power of God can open a path through the cracks. We ourselves have to be broken first; the intellect has to be broken; our appetite for control has to be broken; our inclination to place ourselves in the position that only God should occupy has to be broken.

That is what grieves the heart of God at this point in human history: man’s desire to be the one in control, determining programs. And we have to perform prophetic acts and say, Lord, we yield control to you, and if we perish, let us perish.

One last illustration: a Spanish pastor with whom we spent a day there in Spain about three days ago—after the day, it was not merely a trip we took—and on the return trip at the end of the day, he told me that he had begun a series of sermons on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that when he was going to preach the first sermon that Sunday, last Sunday, there was a wonderful time of worship, and God was moving powerfully during the time of worship. But because the allotted time for the sermon was already slipping away, he decided to stop the time of worship and begin his sermon. But what happened was that when he began preaching his sermon on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, he says he ended with a total sense of failure. And we began discussing it and came to the conclusion that perhaps his failure to reach the goal, the target of his sermon, was because the Holy Spirit may have been grieved. Because perhaps all the Holy Spirit wanted on that first day of that sermon series about the Holy Spirit was for them to let him take control. And the Holy Spirit wanted to speak about himself through that free-flowing prayer, but when the program took control, the Holy Spirit said, well, I cannot bless you in the proclamation of the Word.

I wonder how many times we speak about the Holy Spirit only as a theory, without having any experience of the mystery and the secret ways in which the Holy Spirit truly moves. So, brothers and sisters, the Lord tells us: My people, learn to move in my power. Learn to respect my priorities and my prerogatives. Know when I yield the place to you and when you have to yield the place to me. And then, I believe, a more powerful move of God will begin in our lives and in our congregations.

I know that I have taken much more time than we had planned, but that is what happens when the Holy Spirit takes control. That is the lesson the Holy Spirit wants to teach about himself—an object lesson; it is a drama that the Lord is unfolding among us. Let us learn to flow in the energy of the Holy Spirit.

Let us stand. Hallelujah! Thank you, Lord. We worship you; we bless you. Worship the Lord for a moment. Give the Lord the extra time; give the Lord the plans you had; give the Lord the expectations you had. Thank the Lord that it pleases the Holy Spirit to take control of your time—which is not your time; it is the time of this church and its program—and to do things as he wishes. And tell him, Lord, I want to live my life that way. And tell him, Lord, I want you to teach me, to take me to places where I do not want to go, to speak to me and tell me things I do not want to hear, to command me to do things I do not want to do, to change my life, to transform my life, and to make me into something different from what I want to be.

Let us tell the Lord that we want to be a church that moves in the unpredictable wind of the Holy Spirit. The wind moves wherever it wants to go. You do not control the wind; the wind controls you. Give the Lord control. Give the Lord control; tell him, Lord, pull the trigger, pull the trigger. Pull the trigger, Lord; fire the trigger in my life; unleash the potential. Oh Lord, we worship you; we bless you.