First Sermon in series on
the Holy Spirit, Clevedon Baptist Church,
– April 15/2012
We
start a new series today on the Holy Spirit and what a challenge this is for us
- to understand more fully the person and the work of the Holy Spirit, is the most
vital thing for our church today. This is because the Holy Spirit is God
Himself. Let us humbly confess that God is infinite and we know Him in only in
part. But let us not fool ourselves, this part is very much smaller than it
should be because of our sins - or in plain language our lack of commitment to
Him, our complacency, and our fear.
The
works of the Holy Spirit are the actions of God, and His plans are the will of
God for us as individuals and for our church.
The
Holy Spirit is person who convicts the world of sin[1].
He shows us our utter need for God. If we say ‘yes’ to the prompting of The
Holy Spirit then He will breath into us a new life. Since God is Spirit we must
be spiritually alive before we can know him, as Jesus says to us we must be
born anew[2].
The
Holy Spirit brings us assurance. He helps us feel in our hearts[3]
that we truly are God’s children, forgiven, accepted and loved[4]. He
can and does bring healing[5],
healing of heart and minds, healing of broken and damage relationships, and sometimes
healing of our bodies. He is our helper and Guide in the Christian life, the
source of all transformation. He helps us to become more like Jesus – although
this work is never complete before we see Him face to face.
The
Holy Spirit continues to teach us deep truths about God if we will listen. He increases our understanding of the Holy
Scriptures; and this understanding is not just some intellectual activity. This
is the mistake the Pharisees made. You cannot understand scripture without experiencing
the love of God in your hearts. The more you experience this love the more you
will understand what God’s word means.
The
Holy Spirit enables us to worship God, in spirit and in truth, intimately, reverently
and lovingly. True worshiper is what God is looking for not a people just
singing a bunch of songs without feeling or understanding anything.
And
most importantly, the Holy Spirit is the power of God in his Church. Without
this power, this wonder working power, this power shown throughout the book of
Acts and the New Testament, our witness is lifeless and will be without much
fruit. In our thinking let us not put limits on God. Let us not interpret God’s
word through our shallow experiences and understanding. Let us not say, I have
not experienced this therefore scripture doesn’t apply to me now! If you think
this, you are on very doggy ground with this argument. No, God’s word does not
change, and his ways do not change. Let us seek God, return to God and ask God
for more of this power of the Holy Spirit – for with this power I just wonder
what things are possible.
So
you see the Holy Spirit is not some optional extra. He is not something added,
once every generation, to make a deluxe type Christian[6].
He is an absolute necessity. He is vital and essential for He is truly God
among us and within us.
If
you are truly a Christian then you must know something of the Holy Spirit
within you. The Apostle Paul makes it plain when he says
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is
Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved”. (Roman 10:9) (NLT) And “no
one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit”. (1 Corinthians
12:3) (NLT)
And
listen to the words of Jesus in John 14 (NKJV)
“I will pray the Father, and He will
give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17the
Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor
knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you”.
Note
that the Holy Spirit is another helper, or as it says in other translations, a
counsellor, an advocate, a comforter and an encourager. He is another one, just
like Jesus, and like Jesus He is fully and truly God. The Holy Spirit is a
person, not an impersonal thing, action or force! And if we are Christians He
dwells among us and within us. I think scripture is plain on this point.
We
are living in challenging times – but maybe this is always true for God’s
people. In every age, in every generation the baton of faith is passed and it
is our turn to run the race, to live the life that God would have us live, the
life of faith and hope and love. Our Lord Jesus said to us this: “Here on earth you will have many trials and
sorrows, but take heart because I have overcome the world”[7].
Today,
the challenges to our faith are real, for we live in a secular, atheistic
society that seems to neither know nor care about what we do in our churches.
We must not detach ourselves from the society in which we live because Jesus
wants us to remain as a light to the world[8].
But by in remaining in the world the danger is that we do not go on being
transformed by the Holy Spirit of God and that we become conformed to the
patterns of this world.
The
apostle Paul puts it like this “Don’t
copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a
new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s
will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect”[9].
Therefore “ .. letting the Spirit control
your mind leads to life and peace.”[10]
So
this is the heart of the challenge for us today. Are we to be conformed the
patterns found in the society around us or are we to be transformed by the Holy
Spirit of God to live the life that Jesus would have us live?
In
his book Discipleship, David Watson (1981), said this
‘the mood in our affluent modern society is that of
apathy, cynicism, frustration, alienation and increasing hopelessness. In our
spiritually bankrupt generation people are looking not for religion but for
reality. .. Unless God is manifest in our midst people have little time for the
Church. Unless we become the living, loving, caring body of Christ on earth why
should anyone believe in the saviour? The call of Jesus to his disciples was
absolute: they had to deny themselves, take up the cross and follow him – no
turning back.’.
We,
as a people here, are not just some club or society meeting together for our
own pleasure. We are called and chosen to be the people of the living God. We
believe and trust in the almighty, eternal, creator God. Even though we are
just like simple clay pots[11] we
have this precious presence, among us and within us, that world does not
understand. We have a connection with the eternal, this knowledge of the
infinite, this hope, this faith, this trust in the way of Love. We do not need
to copy the world’s ways, no. We need to redeem of our own true calling – the
ways of the living, creator, God. We need, like that prodigal son, to return,
repent, and reconnect with our Lord.
In
the Letter to the Ephesians chapter 5, Paul puts it like this,
“15So be careful how you
live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. 16Make the
most of every opportunity in these evil days. 17Don’t act
thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. 18Don’t
be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with
the Holy Spirit” (NLT)
Be
filled with the Holy Spirit, literally in the Greek, a present command. This is not a one time event - go on and on
being filled with the Holy Spirit. Yes, we have the Holy Spirit within us as Christians
but the scripture also says that we can put out the fire of the Holy Spirit,
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:19 “Do not
quench the Spirit”. If our brother or sister has some insight or blessing
or prophecy from God, let us encourage them as they try and encourage us. Let
us not try and put out their fire for God because of our own fears. In
Ephesians 4:30 Paul warns us not to fall into habitual sin, “do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God”. Let
speak the truth, one to another, in a loving way. Let us try speaking words
that are helpful not harmful. Both, a lack of truth telling and a lack of love
in our words grieve the Holy Spirit. Superficial politeness is not godly. If it
masks an uncaring and un-reconciled heart, it grieves God. For God requires
that our love for one another is honest. If we are completely alienated from
God we read in Acts 7:51 that it is possible to “resist the Holy Spirit”. Please never do this!
You
see, for some of us, at some periods of our lives, do not walk forwards. We
lose our way; we step backwards from a deep commitment to God. You see living
the Christian life is not easy; it is not easy and God understands this. We are
not people who are naturally attuned to the way of love, self-sacrifice and
putting other people first. We are born in a world that seeks to pull us
towards its own ways.
So
to avoid these dangers, we must “be
filled with the Spirit”, for “the
Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness” as it says in Roman 8:26. We must go
on and on drawing close to God – continually listening to the Spirit in prayer,
continually learning from the Spirit through the scriptures, continually walking
and living in the Spirit in our actions.
There
is much to learn of the works of the Holy Spirit and this sermon is only the
first in our series.
Now
let us consider the text from John’s Gospel chapter 20. What a week the disciples
had been through, they had witnessed the highs of Palm Sunday and the
triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. It almost seemed that all the Jewish
people and the whole world were going to accept Jesus as the Messiah. And then
that Friday, oh no they must have thought, it was too terrible to remember. All
their fears were realised and their hopes crushed. You see our faith, this mere
Christianity, is always present in the darkest and most bleak settings – when
it seems as if there is no hope, no faith, no love, when everything is lost,
the miraculous God turns up. Our faith in Jesus is real and honest and true, so
it does not seek to avoid unpleasant times, times of despair and death – no,
God has a way of bringing life out of even death - for nothing is impossible
with God. On that Sunday morning, what hope was there left for the disciples?
None, yet Jesus rose from the dead, and came back to life. – Hallelujah.
It
was Mary that saw him on that first morning, and let those who question the
role of women in his Church meditate on this fact. It was to a woman, Mary Magdalene,
that Jesus appeared first after the resurrection. And it was to this Mary that
Jesus gave the first commission to speak, to tell, to proclaim His resurrection
and ascension. This is the same Mary who at one time was so complete messed up
in her mind and heart and spirit that she was possessed by seven demons! Does
this not tell us something of the way God works? As Isaiah reminds us “’.. my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither
are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD”. (Isaiah 55:8)
The
disciples listen to the testimony of Mary but presumably they could not fully
accept it as they were still bound by fear. Listen now as I read from John’s
Gospel.
19On the
evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with
the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among
them and said, “Peace be with you!”
Our
God is a God of peace, a deep, abiding, heartfelt rest and comfort. Jesus says
to those disciples “chill – it’s ok” - “be at peace I understand your weaknesses
and failures and we are at peace because I forgive everything. Jesus knew all
they needed was this “shalom” – this peace and forgiveness of God. Is this not
true for us also? If you have fears and
troubles let the peace of God comfort your heart today. And when you know this
comfort bring this comfort to others – let us learn to say one to another “Peace be with you”
20After
he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed
when they saw the Lord. 21Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As
the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22And with that he
breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone’s sins, their
sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
The
word I want us to dwell on here is “breathed”.
The Greek word (emphysáō) used for ‘breathed’ is the same word used in the most
ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament. Listen to Genesis 2:7 which
reads “the Lord God formed man of the
dust of the ground, and breathed (Hebrew: Ruach) into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
(Genesis 2:7).
God
forms man’s body out of the dust, and it’s a body with no life until he
breathes into it. Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones put like this
‘Jesus had finished his work and presented himself and
his blood in heaven, and is now head of the church and he come to these
disciples and apostles to make it clear to them that they are his body. He
breathes his Spirit of life in the body, in this extraordinary parallel with
what happen in man’s creation at the very beginning’
The
breath of God brought life, literally creating mankind. Now Jesus breathes on
his disciples saying “receive the Holy
Spirit” and this was also an ‘act of creation’. I believe this ‘act of
creation’ is the beginning of the Church. The commission of the church is given
in the following verses 21 and 23 “As the
Father has sent me, I am sending you .. 23If
you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them,
they are not forgiven.”
As
His church we are sent to preach peace and forgiveness, literally to declare the
facts that God. This is our primary message. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’ (John
3:16). Because of Jesus death on the cross all our sins can be forgiven. He
exchanged places with us, he took everything that we have done wrong and its
punishment in his death on the cross. We have this sweet exchange, he died for
us that we might know peace and forgiveness. Because of His resurrection we
know this is true. Those who confess, repent and believe that Jesus rose from
the death shall not perish but find life eternal, an abundant and full life.
This
is the message of reconciliation that we have as Christians. It is the power of
God. It is the way of love, we have this great commission from Jesus to
proclaim that we can be reconciled to our loving Father God and that we can
also be reconciled one to another. Let us learn and re-learn the way of peace
and forgiveness.
The
‘breath of God’ was a one time event. We are born again only once, the church began
only once. But the work of the Holy Spirit is not just with beginnings,
remember Pentecost, Acts chapter 4 and rest of the New Testament. He is with us
for the whole journey of faith[12]. Let
us not “quench” his work in our lives
or his church, let us not “grieve”
him, pray God let us never “resist”
him. But rather let recommit our ways to him, let us let go of our complacency
and fear and “be filled” afresh day
by day with the Holy Spirit of God – that the glory and love of God may be more
fully know to us and to the world. –Amen
Ask
and you shall receive, come to Christ Jesus, believe, repent and be filled with
His Holy Spirit of Peace and forgiveness.
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