Brengle Create. Finding Nemo Holiness, the Holy Spirit and the world.

Brengle Create

Finding Nemo

Holiness, the Holy Spirit and the world

Session 2 The Experience of Holiness

We can know about God with our minds; but it is not until we allow our hearts to become

involved that we actually begin to know God.

The Experience of Holiness

People experience God in different ways

Because people are different!!

Confusion can occur when experience becomes separated from the biblical and systematic theology. When this happens people develop their theology based on

what they experience.

The Experience of Holiness

Acts 2 – 3(Selected Verses)

Pentecostals - celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, and their worship re-enact the

signs and wonders of Pentecost.

The Salvation Army - celebrates the Holy Spirit by focusing on what the Holy Spirit did … the

creation of the church

First Purpose of the church:Preach the gospel of Christ

Second Purpose of the church:Gathered the new believers of the church

together for teaching, supporting, and community – they did Fellowship

Third Purpose of the church:Reaching out to a suffering society (healing

the sick)

Proclaiming the gospel (saving souls)

Sharing and teaching in fellowship (growing saints)

Caring for the sick (serving suffering humanity)

Discuss:

How do you personally respond to this

interpretation of Acts?

Hebrew – ruach

Greek – pneuma

How do we translate this dynamic ‘ruach’ into our Salvation Army expression?

Let me suggest that for us, the ‘power of the Holy Spirit’ comes through our personal

relationship with Jesus Christ. It is all about a permanent ongoing close personal relationship with Jesus through the

indwelling of his Holy Spirit.

I think that this is more powerful, more alive, more dynamic that any

‘sign or wonder’. Why? Because it is a whole of life experience – a life

lived in holiness – a life of “walking with my Saviour, heart in heart,

none can part” (Herbert Booth).

Earl Robinson – about John Wesley

“The complete assurance of salvation which he sought still eluded him … he was convinced to

replace outward acts of righteousness with inward ‘mental prayer and the like exercises, as the most effectual means of purifying the soul and uniting it with God,’ but these too proved of no comfort or help”. (Robinson pp.14-15)

John Wesley2 Peter 1:4

“Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires”.

The “problem” of experience

Trying to understand a balance

“ … we ought to face the New Testament witness with sufficient

candour to admit that in this ‘pneuma’ which the Ecclesia was conscious of

possessing, there lie forces of an extra-rational kind mostly lacking

among us Christian today”

Emile Brunner

1.It was the supernatural action of the Holy Spirit

2. This ‘baptism’ was a blessing that happened after a person was saved

(hence 2nd Blessing)

3. The result was a cleansed life in which purity of life was the evidence of

holiness

Early Salvation Army

“The experience is a definite experience. It is not mere growing in grace – that will come. It is not trying

to do better, or be better, or feel better, but is a definite, distinct gift as clearly offered, and to be a

clearly received and realised as pardon. Purity is not desiring to be pure … it is not more justification …

that first sanctification is the superb work whereby we ‘become as little children’ … conviction for entire sanctification is a definite conviction for a definite

work – in whatever form it may come … the work is instantly and perfectly done. It is immediately done

and well done. The heart is cleansed, entirely sanctified, and stands complete in love. Hallelujah!”

The War Cry 1880

William Sangster

How the saints come to their awareness of God’s love varies with individuals, but usually the place of revelation is the Place of the Skull. They see it normally at Calvary – and no wonder! Here is the heart of God unveiled. This He

is through all eternity: from everlasting to everlasting. What most of them had known all their lives, they now

realise for the first time – and it blinds them. They weep. They wonder. They are men and women made new.

General Frederick Coutts

Crisis and Process

General Clarence Wiseman

The New Testament does not teach that Christians need a new baptism in the Spirit,

for they already possess the Holy Spirit, otherwise they would not be Christians. What is required is an awakening to the

necessity for an utter and complete surrender to the Spirit.'

General John Larsson

“The main thrust of Salvation Army holiness teaching today would seem to be an

emphasis on the process of sanctification, with the crisis seen as the gateway to

growth in holiness”

We should be cautious about requiring for every Christian 'a second work of grace' that must be chronologically

subsequent to the 'first work of grace'. The sanctifying grace of God is not limited to human timetables. In the

experience of some, full salvation may come at conversion while for others it happens subsequently. A 'second

blessing' does not imply that there are only two blessings, or that a second blessing is the final completion of

Christian maturity and development. The Wesleyan doctrine of the second blessing relates however to actual

experiences of a spiritual crisis subsequent to conversion. As a vision of the potential for all believers in Christ, it is a powerful means of encouraging all Christians to partake in

the fullness of the grace of God.

Salvation Story

A Way Forward

O to be like Thee! blessed Redeemer,This is my constant longing and prayer,Gladly I'll forfeit all of earth's treasures,Jesus, your perfect likeness to wear.

Verse 1

O To Be Like Thee

O to be like Thee! O to be like Thee,Blessed Redeemer, pure as you are!Come in your sweetness, come in

your fullness;Stamp your own image deep on my

heart.

Chorus

O to be like Thee! full of compassion,Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,Helping the helpless, cheering the

fainting,Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

Verse 2

O to be like Thee! O to be like Thee,Blessed Redeemer, pure as you are!Come in your sweetness, come in

your fullness;Stamp your own image deep on my

heart.

Chorus

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,Holy and harmless, patient and brave;Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,Willing to suffer, others to save.

Verse 3

O to be like Thee! O to be like Thee,Blessed Redeemer, pure as you are!Come in your sweetness, come in

your fullness;Stamp your own image deep on my

heart.

Chorus

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,Pour out your Spirit, fill with your love;Make me a temple meet for your dwelling,Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Verse 4

O to be like Thee! O to be like Thee,Blessed Redeemer, pure as you are!Come in your sweetness, come in

your fullness;Stamp your own image deep on my

heart.

Chorus

Firstly comes our part – our ‘active faith’ in which our focus needs to be the goal of

holiness

Our absolute desire to be like Christ

Secondly, we completely open our lives up to the Holy Spirit and allow him to take us

to the goal of holiness

Our submission to the Holy Spirit

Thirdly, we accept the way the Holy Spirit works in our lives

Its is God’s work and this alone is

the source of our joy.

Brengle Create