Sermon 19th October 2014

From now until Advent, adults will ask, and discover answers to, questions on the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

One of our Honorary Ministers, Ben Hughes, continues our study - exploring answers to the question:

What about the Church?

 The reading is from Acts 2: 43-47

⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

What about the Church?

Well what about it you might ask!  People have real issues with the Church both worldwide and locally! And you do not have to go far in either direction from where we are today to find people who have a great deal to say about the Church and what goes on inside it! Both good and bad!

But let’s not be discouraged!   Many people and usually the silent voice in our society actually love and value the church – certainly its buildings, traditions and presence - even if they do not go every Sunday.

But whatever you viewpoint – the church is and remains a constant in our society and  to the critics irritation of course:  – As Ian Hislop once said – The Church is on its last legs and will be gone in a decade’s time. He added that was said in 1760 and we are still all here today. The Church of England is the longest standing on its ‘last legs organisation in existence’ and gladly and hopefully will not go away!

So now a few facts about the world wide Church:

Christianity is still the fastest growing Religion worldwide.

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2011)-

There are 360million Christians in Africa

There are 247 million Christians in North America and, in 2010, 45 million in the UK.

According to the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

34% of the world's population is considered to be Christian of whom a billion are Catholic

We often forget about our Eastern Orthodox brethren as well – they make up 260million and survived a century of communism and are still going strong today.

12.8% of the world's Christian population identify themselves as Pentecostals of which 304 million (14%) are Charismatic. Alleluia!

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2011)-

There are 1.31 million full-time Christian workers worldwide.

Approximately 78.5 million Bibles are distributed globally per year.

And sadly according to the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (2006)

An average of 159,960 Christians worldwide are martyred for their faith per year – a number which is going up as we speak!

So Christianity a spent force – not really!

And you just have to look at our Church here today!  We do not need to know people’s motives for attending church - that is theirs and God’s business alone – but then here we are! The 21st Century – the church alive and kicking in Herne Hill (and a brand new one at that) joining others both far and wide across the globe! The Universal Church of Christ

As a members of this Church in the parish of Herne Hill – yes we are just part a tiny small drop of a very big ocean but that doesn’t matter though – because Church is not really a ‘numbers game’ even if there are only two of you Christ is amongst us – we also share with others too - you see when Father McKenzie in the song Eleanor Rigby ‘writes  a sermon that no one will hear’ – what John Lennon failed to understand was that the Christ and the whole company of heaven were present listening anyway!  That’s the power of the truth of the ecclesia that is our church – the church omnipotent of Christ on this earth! His presence is among us and is determined by two people minimum.

And finally another more theological rather than purely statistical point to think about And I shall paraphrase and  quote from our Alpha study book “ To join the church is not just about joining the universal church across the globe but it is the church through the ages who profess and have professed  the name of Christ. These faithful brothers and sisters who have gone before us” The church stretches backwards and forwards in time you see! The church is past, present and future! We share and will participate in all three be then in the past – the  history, traditions the hymns we sing and prayers we use etc, now in the present here today and then tomorrow on this earth or otherwise

So friends we are all in excellent company, we should be proud of our heritage and have everything to look forward to.

And at this point an invitation - if you are not a Christian and feel that you are missing out and would like to join the church – then that’s not a problem either – people here are around to discuss further your search - over a coffee in the upper room after the service – or in the corner over there are people who will pray with you and help you facilitate a commitment to faith! 

I am now going to draw a quick picture if I may and to help us understand our need for the church and one another? (draw person)

This is a person like you and I in relationship with God – probably baptized and signed up in faith (draw vertical lines). Yes it’s very good to pray on your own to God, and to worship Him and read your bible – but can you do that on your own for the rest of your life?

But if we are to stretch out to receive and to give to others (Draw people either side of vertical line) we begin to move horizontally (draw horizontal lines).

What you can now see is the cross. Our vertical movement to God and our horizontal movement towards one another creates that cross - that really has to be at the centre of all Christian fellowship. We sing Jesus be the centre and what we mean is as this basic illustration shows. That a Church without Christ at its centre is either missing the horizontals and or the verticals.  We need to respond to God as individuals and then together to become the Church of Christ.

If we then link everyone together and form a ring and keep weaving our crosses overlapping and entwining then we become a crown of thorns (draw illustration)

You see the crown of thorns is vital because Church is a broken church too – not broken like it’s useless or abandoned – no -  it’s broken because Christ has suffered to make it so. The church in this world has to be broken because it has been designed that way because it is where we need to go to get fixed. There is nowhere else in the world that can fix sin – the only place is the cross - because Jesus died there for us and instead of us. And the Church is the haven in the storm where we can go and receive the grace of heaven which is the means and vehicle of the fix.  If you look to the church for perfection then you will and should be disappointed – Church has to be a place where those who feel isolated and lost in life can find hope. If the Church is proud and inaccessible - then the fragile and disheartened will be scared away. The Church has to have a welcoming, warm and visible presence in the community and has to be a place where good and lasting friendships can easily develop. The church is where people can meet with God and He with them. If the building, the music styles of worship as two examples get in the way of such then we need to think again about what we are doing. We do not ‘do’ church to please ourselves. We go to Church to serve God and others. Amen.

Now you might all be thinking at this point! Is the Church a building? Looks like one to me! I am sitting here now! Well the answer is both yes and no? Churches are buildings made from bricks, mortar stone, wood and paint! I cannot deny that. But precisely speaking it is really a building within a building - or if you want to be more poetic it’s a – giant Cathedral squeezed into a tiny hut - Tardis style! - How’s is that possible you might ask? Well Christ uses the metaphor of ‘buildings’ a number of times in the Gospels - describing himself as the corner stone and us  Christians – as the living stones. In this way become the bricks, windows and parapets- the putty in the glazing and so on…. and in this way  God’s Church becomes  us – inhabited by His Holy Spirit growing up wards and outwards as more are added to the number!  The physical building such as we are in cannot be Holy but the people who use it and worship in it allows God to make it Holy. It’s the action of people in response to God that brings Holiness to a place! That is the church. And using St Paul’s example of the body of Christ - Like any building – no part  is more important than another. The pane of glass cannot say to its frame - I do not need you. The light switch cannot say that he or she is more important than the junction box! The flooring staple – believing itself more important than the carpet it secures.  We as living stones - all have our roles and are interdependent on one another. So we must cut out lofty status and vain hierarchies that some of us like so much! And remind ourselves that we are here to serve and that we all equal in Christ - as our reading from the epistle describes.   And quite a bit of any building is unseen as well-  often the most important - the footings and foundations, the damp proof course ,  the floor joists flagstones, airbricks and the pipework etc - Jesus uses the image of a house built on rock and the ancient church fathers talk about Christ being the one sure foundation. Jesus reminds us that unless we build our lives on him –our own building attempts will crash and burn, and leak and clatter to the ground when the storms come! Unless the Lord builds the house the workers labour in vain!

And why is this? Why do we need Jesus Christ as our rock – Well when Christ gave up his spirit on the cross the temple curtain was torn in two – this illustrates the old order gone and the new one ushered in. His body is the new temple and all are welcome – No curtains, steps, walls or doors remain to stop God getting out.  The great cathedral is now Christ’s body ‘rendered unto thee’ that we remember and celebrate in a moment. Any church is now a vessel and temporary container and a place of shelter for the collective activity of the love feast to take place. The permanency and life is in Christ’s inhabitation of the worship. Jesus is alive and has replaced the great rock pile that was Herod’s temple! Christ’s body is the New Jerusalem and any attempt to hold or contain Christ otherwise is like the shacks that the disciples wanted to build when they saw the transfiguration!  You cannot keep God indoors anymore! The cat is out of the bag - And we need God in our lives because we need his help, protection and love in our homes and community which is where he wants to be not in some leaky church down the road. That is the new order you see and the new way! Christ alive in our lives today

So yes the buildings that we build and call churches are important but should never be the reason for what we do. They are there to serve the body of Christ which is the greater force and a force that represents God in the community, in our homes and where we live and work

So we are people are the Church, the family of God – we are prepared to use the resource of the church to serve Christ. What can we learn about how we should act towards one another as living stones? As Christian brothers and sisters!

Well families of human brothers and sisters do not always get on and may not see one another for long periods of time. To be realistic, people in Church do and will occasionally fall out. I have seen it and to my shame have been part of such things. It is an easy thing to happen and it’s important to be on one’s guard.  What do we do when it happens? …Jesus prays regarding his disciples in John 17 11 – ‘may they be as one’ – so prayer is essential!  St Paul says in Ephesians ‘Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit’. So we are to endeavor to always seek unity. How do we do that, well it is in Christ and Christ alone that we become one – symbolised in the sharing of the communion. The Holy Spirit makes the connections. And if we are still upset and angry with our brother or sister - then we might  look to our leaders and elders to help us when we struggle with our differences. And it is helpful to remind ourselves that in the big picture of the glory to come – much of what we fall out over in church – will become like the details in a landscape that fade away as we take off into the sky! St Paul is good on advice here and in particular his letters to Timothy where he offers guidance for Church and ministerial leadership.

And now - how can the family of God we call the church help us better live our lives!  Well as my illustration hopefully revealed – you cannot really be a church of one! That is too hard – you will lose heart – we need the support of one another and the presence of the Spirit and the Lord to help us along. It’s the minimum of two rule!

Nicky Gumball describes three levels of Church that we can participate in – like the three bears – large medium and small.  This is helpful and I think can act as a blessing for us here because we do all three very well in Herne Hill. He calls the first the ‘ gathering’ – this is the big services where we all congregate together, weddings ceremonies etc -  perhaps when both St Paul’s and St Saviours join such as Christmas or Easter. Next he says the medium type which are the ‘assemblies’ – these are smaller events – and enables more intimacy -  like all the children churches going on in the school hall or the back and upper rooms. Usually a bit New Testament style – informal, friendly and a bit ad- hoc – that is the Spirit of the assembly and St Saviours does this type really well.  Finally Nicky Gumbal describes the ‘cell’– the small groups – like our home group that meets fortnightly at James and Suzanne’s. Really worthwhile and precious - where you can be more intimate and share worries and blessings – you might study and discuss the bible and so grow together in faith.

Like a healthy diet – a balance of all three is good and I encourage everyone to get a slice of each. See Gill for home groups and get involved with your gifts in the assemblies because the informality makes them inclusive and accessible and all are welcome as you know -  Music coffee, chairs, children’s church use your living stones gifts as God has called you to – there is a role that fits everyone I am sure.  The big gatherings are the parties and should be fun and is where we evangelize and look outwards into the world.

In all three - we build lasting friendships – and who can think of a place where people of every race, creed background can meet and get on so well – I cannot really think of one can you?

And a really good tip for those that travel – when your away –find a church –one that looks warm and friendly – go in share you faith – you will see a part of the country or place you visiting in a totally different way! Nothing but faith can cross boundaries of language, class and culture than the church!

So to end – have you heard the joke that if you find the perfect Church then you better leave it before you spoil it – Well hopefully nobody here wants to leave here – but if you do – perhaps - because you are burnt out or broken by the church – disappointed- disillusioned or feeling rejected or things are not how they used to be – or whatever then the truth is – talk to Gill or Cameron or a prayer friend – share how you feel. Pray about it. The truth is – if you are feeling a bit rubbish about the church then I believe that you are the people that the church really needs - you are the ones that God can work in – you are the people that God can grow the church through because you know your need of Him – on the other hand - if you are feeling comfortable and pleased with what you are doing in the church then of course - well done! There are many of us that work hard and sacrifice in the service of the Church and you know your rewards in faith will be great - that is guaranteed (but that is not why we do it of course)!!  – If you are feeling like that – do give yourself a pat on the back – but pinch yourself too – at the same time if you can! Remind yourself that Church has got to be slightly uncomfortable, if it’s going to be a place where God can do His bidding in you!  If your pew is too comfortable get up walk about and find another more uncomfortable pew to sit on!

So wherever you are whatever your pew or seat – in the font back or middle of the Church or even outside on the park bench!  – Let’s come together now in the Unity of Christ, sharing our communion together with the whole company of heaven one in Christ and Christ in one.

Sermon 12th October 2014

From now until Advent, adults will ask, and discover answers to, questions on the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

One of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, continues our study - exploring answers to the question:

How can I be sure of faith? 

A man went to buy a parrot. The pet shop owner pointed out 3 identical parrots and said, "The parrot to the left costs £10,000." "Why does that parrot cost so much?" the man wondered. The owner replied, "Well, it knows how to use a computer." The man asked about the next parrot.  because it can do everything the other parrot can do, plus it knows how to use the latest Windows operating system." Naturally, the startled customer asked about the third parrot. "That one costs £50,000."  "And what does that one do?" the man asked. The owner replied, "To be honest, I've never seen him do a thing, but the other two call him Boss."

Would you call yourself a Christian? That might seem a ridiculous question to ask in a church, but I’m sure that while some of us would say “yes”, some would say “maybe”, or “on a good day” or “ish...”Perhaps some of us would be honest enough to say “not really”.

How confident are you about God? How confident in your faith? How confident are you that God loves and accepts you, the real you with the good, the bad & ugly? How confident that God hears your prayers? And how confident that you’ll be with him for all eternity (whatever that looks like)?

Today we’re looking at how we can be sure of our faith. We all go through times when we doubt God, whether he really exists, or maybe whether he is really interested in or loves us. How can we be confident, how can we be sure?

The New Testament makes it clear that it is possible for us to be assured that we are Christians and that we have eternal life. In that Bible reading we just heard, it said  “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

So that you may KNOW...

How can we know that we are a Christian, that God loves and accepts us, and that we have eternal life?

Just as 3 legs support a camera tripod, or a 3 legged stool, the assurance of our relationship with God stands firmly on 3 things: the word or promises of God in the Bible, the work of Jesus on the cross, and the witness of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let’s look at each in turn.

If you asked me how I know I’m married, one answer I could give would be to show you a particular document, my marriage certificate. And if you asked me how I know I am a Christian, one answer I would give would be to show you a document, the Bible.

The first leg of the tripod is the Bible. Our knowledge of God is based on the promises in the Bible. It’s based on facts, not feelings. If we were to rely only on our feelings, we could never be sure about anything. Our feelings go up and down depending on all sorts of factors, including the weather and what we had for breakfast, at least mine do! They can be changeable and even deceptive. But the promises of God in the Bible,  do not change and are totally reliable.

There are many great promises in the Bible. One verse that can be particularly helpful

when we think about being sure of our faith, is in the last book of the Bible, Revelation. In a vision, St John sees Jesus speaking to different churches. And to one of them he says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them and they with me.” Revelation 3:20.

The Pre-Raphaelite artist Holman Hunt was inspired by this verse to paint his famous picture The Light of the World. (Hold it up)The top of it is on the front of our service sheet, you may well recognise it. We have a small connection  with Holman Hunt here in the parish, as at St Paul’s Church Hunt unveiled at memorial there to John Ruskin in 1901.Long before that, in 1854 John Ruskin had written to the Times explaining the painting’s symbolism and describing it as “one of the very noblest works of sacred art ever produced in this age or any other age”.

In the painting, Jesus stands at a door, which is overgrown with ivy and weeds. The door represents the door of someone’s life. The person has never invited Jesus to come in to their life, and Jesus is standing at the door & knocking. He is waiting for a response. He wants to come in and be part of that person’s life. Apparently, someone said to Holman Hunt that he had made a mistake. They told him, “You’ve forgotten to paint a door handle.” “Oh no” replied Hunt, “that is deliberate. There is only one handle, and it’s on the inside.”

In other words, we have to open the door to let Jesus into our lives. Jesus will never force his way in. He gives us the freedom to choose. It’s up to us to decide whether or not we open the door to him. If we do, he promises, “I will come in and eat with them and they with me”. Eating together, in those days in the Middle East, and for us now, is a sign of the relationship that Jesus offers to everyone who opens the door of their lives to him.

Once we have invited Jesus to come in, he has promised that he will never leave us. We begin a relationship with Him and Father God that goes on forever. Which leads us to another wonderful promise of the Bible, that of eternal life. What the New Testament calls eternal life is a quality of life that comes from living in relationship with God through Jesus. It starts now, when we begin our relationship with God, when we invite Jesus into our life.

And this eternal life, this relationship, carries on after we die, when we live with God under his love, joy, peace and justice forever! There will be no more suffering, no more pain, no more sin and evil, just delight and joy that goes on forever. Heaven!

As CS Lewis put it at the end of his Narnia books: “The term is over; the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning... all their life in this world... had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning chapter 1 of the Great Story that goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

So, to the question how do I know I’m married, I could show you my marriage certificate. I could also point you to an event that happened on 5^th May 1984, our wedding. Similarly, if you asked me how I know I am a Christian, I could point to an event in history, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The second leg of the tripod is what Jesus did. The good, the best news ever is, that our confidence in our relationship with God and in eternal life is based not on what we do or achieve, but on what Jesus has done for us in his death on the cross. We thought about this in more depth a few weeks ago; you may remember or can see the sermon on the parish website, called Why did Jesus die?

In a nutshell, our wrong doing, our self centredness, our failings, what the Bible calls sin, has consequences, and get in the way of a relationship with God. And on the cross, when Jesus died, he took the weight and consequences of all that sin & wrong doing, on to himself, so that we might be forgiven and freed from it. So that we can relate to God, now and for eternity. That forgiveness and that relationship is now on offer, as a gift, thanks to Jesus’ death on the cross. We can’t earn it, it’s a gift. We can only accept it with gratitude.And we receive this gift through what the Bible calls repentance and faith.

What is repentance? Repentance means not only being sorry, but deciding to live differently, turning round and going in a different direction. Being willing to turn from everything we know to be wrong and choosing to do right in future.

CS Lewis said repentance was like “laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising you have been on the wrong track and being ready to start life over again

from the ground floor up.”

That’s repentance. And what is faith? There’s a story about Charles Blondin, a famous acrobat and tightrope walker in the 19^th century. Large crowds watched him, especially when he crossed Niagara Falls. His act began with a relatively simple crossing using a balancing pole, then he’d throw the pole away and amaze the onlookers going across without it. On one occasion, the story goes, a royal party from Britain went to watch him perform. He crossed the tightrope on stilts, then blindfolded and then he got out a wheelbarrow and wheeled that across! The crowd loved it, including the royals. Apparently Blondin approached them and asked, “Do you believe that I could take a man across the tightrope in this wheelbarrow?” “Yes I do” said the Duke of Newcastle. “Then hop in!” Blondin replied. !!!But no, the duke would not accept his challenge. No one was willing to volunteer until eventually an old woman stepped forward and got into the wheelbarrow, and Blondin wheeled her all the way over and back. It turned out the woman was Blondin’s mother, the only person willing to put her life in his hands.

Faith is “hopping in” to the wheelbarrow. It’s not just an intellectual exercise of belief;

it involves an active step of putting our trust in Jesus.

When we repent and believe,  we can be sure of God’s forgiveness and know our guilt has been taken away. We can be sure that if we accept God’s offer of forgiveness and to come into our lives as in the promise in Revelation illustrated by Holman Hunt, we will have a relationship with him that goes on forever, eternal life.

To prove that I am married, as well as a document and an event, I could also point to the experience of 30 years of married life.

To show that I am a Christian, I can point to a document (the Bible), an event that took place in history in Jesus’ death, and third, to an experience, of the work of the Holy Spirit. When someone becomes a Christian, God’s Holy Spirit comes to live in them. The Spirit of Jesus, when we open the door of our life, to use that image again. There are (at least) two aspects of this experience that help us to be sure of our faith.

First, the Holy Spirit changes us from the inside out.He helps us become more like Jesus in character. We heard about this last week from Simon when he preached on what’s known as the fruit of the Holy Spirit. That is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self control. These are the ways in which we begin to grow as a Christian, over the years, becoming more loving, more joyful, more peaceful, more self controlled, and so on. It’s a long term thing, and others may see the changes in us & our behaviour more easily than we can!

There can also be an inner sense of getting to know God through Jesus, as the Holy Spirit brings a personal conviction that we are forgiven, loved and accepted by God.

My children are 19 and 23, both now at university since John left 3 weeks ago. I miss him! But – as I sometimes say to each of them – just knowing you are, knowing you’re my child, knowing you’re out there being you, even when I don’t know what you’re up to, the fact that there IS a Sarah and John, simply knowing that gives me joy, makes me happy! Because I love you! I love you THAT much! Yes I know you mess up sometimes like we all do, but that doesn’t change my delight in you being you.

AND THAT’S HOW GOD FEELS ABOUT ME! And them! AND YOU! Only much much more!The love of God for each one of us is far greater than the love of human parents for their children.

I often feel that I could and should do better, that I let people down, that I fail again and again. Yet God forgives, accepts and loves us simply because he loves us. Not because we’ve earned it. As you may have heard quoted before, “There is nothing you can do to make God love you more, and nothing you can do to make God love you less.”

We can know this personally because the Holy Spirit shows it, both objectively through an ongoing change in our character, and subjectively through an inner conviction that we are beloved loved children of God.

So in these 3 ways, the promises of God, the work of Jesus and the experience of the Holy Spirit, those who believe in Jesus can be sure of their relationship with God and have eternal life. It’s not arrogant to be sure! Because it’s not based on anything we do or deserve. It’s based on what God has promised, what Jesus died to achieve, and on the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. So we can be confident about our relationship with God,

his forgiveness and love.

I wonder if some of us are unsure about whether we have ever really believed in Jesus, ever hopped in the wheelbarrow,or have ever really opened the door to him like in the picture.For some people, becoming a Christian is a clear cut step that they can identify and put a date on. We’ve probably all heard stories of dramatic conversions. For others, it’s a gradual process, saying yes to God, to Jesus, increasingly over time. The important thing is that we can now be confident that He is in our lives, at our invitation, our opening of the door, and that we’re growing and developing in our relationship with him.

If you’re unsure about whether you’ve ever really believed in Jesus, or opened the door to your life to him & started a relationship with him and God, here is a prayer that you might like to pray: So let’s pray, as we sit:

Lord Jesus Christ, I am sorry for the things I have done wrong in my life... ... please forgive me. I now turn from everything I know to be wrong.Thank you that you died on the cross for me so that I could be forgiven and set free. Thank you that you now offer me this gift of forgiveness and your Holy Spirit. I now receive that gift. Please come into my life and be with me forever. Amen.

If you’d like to speak to me or one of the other leaders, afterwards, with any response or questions, I’d be very happy to chat with you, or email or call in the week. 

Sermon 5th October 2012

From now until Advent, adults will ask, and discover answers to, questions on the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

One of our Lay Readers, Simon Brindley, continues our study - exploring answers to the question:

Did Jesus rise again?

The Bible passage is from Luke 11: 5-13

The Holy Spirit

  

Good morning and welcome to church this morning as we carry on with our series on the fundamentals of the Christian faith. The series is based on the well-known Alpha course and this week we are asking ourselves who is the Holy Spirit and how does he affect our lives today?

Before we unpack all this I am going to summarize it up front that the Holy Spirit is good, not weird or scary…good and powerful… and the way God wants to meet us and live with us in our deepest and most real experiences.

We are always mentioning the name of the Holy Spirit in church. “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen” would be a familiar line in so many traditional church services. But it’s probably the case that for many or most of us God the Holy Spirit is the least well-known, in the sense of the least pictured, the least thought about, member of the Christian Trinity.

In fact there is so much about the Holy Spirit in the Bible that sometimes on Alpha courses, groups will go away somewhere for an entire weekend to look at this topic. We obviously can’t manage that this time but it does mean that my task is to try to fit a weekend’s worth into the next 15 minutes or so! So let’s see how far we can get in the time available. Who is the Holy Spirit? What does the Holy Spirit do? And how can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?

Who is the Holy Spirit?

First, who is the Holy Spirit? When I was a child you’d hear in church about the Holy Ghost but I don’t think that language works at all well today. The Holy Spirit is in fact not a ghost but a Person who, according to the accounts in the Bible, thinks, speaks, leads, comforts, strengthens, empowers, lives, encourages, guides and so on. He is sometimes described as “the Spirit of Christ” or “the Spirit of God” and the more you read the Bible, the more you realise that the Holy Spirit is pretty much everywhere you look! And here are just a few of many, many examples:

It is clear from the Book of Genesis that the Holy Spirit was involved right at the beginning, in creation,

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” is Genesis Chapter 1, verses 1 and 2.

The work of the Spirit of God here – however precisely it actually happened - is to bring new physical things into being and to bring order out of chaos.

A new promise

And as we move through the Old Testament it is possible to see a building expectation of the promise of a gift of the Spirit from God. This is picked up by the prophet Ezekiel, where this promise from God is recorded,

“I will give you a new heart and a new mind. I will take away your heart of stone and give you an obedient heart. I will put my spirit in you and I will see to it that you follow my laws and keep all the commands I have given you…..you will be my people and I will be your God.”

The new promise of the Holy Spirit seems to be about a good change from within.

Then the prophet Joel, a few books further on in the Old Testament, affirms that this promise is available to all when he proclaims from God,

“I will pour out my spirit on everyone. Your sons and daughters will proclaim my message; your old men will have dreams and your young men will have visions. At that time I will pour out my spirit even on servants.”

It seems the promise of the Holy Spirit really is to be available to all, regardless of their gender (sons and daughters), regardless of their age (old and young), regardless of their status in society (those who serve as well as those who are served).

I reckon that would probably cover all of us…..

And by the time we get to the accounts of the birth of Jesus, almost everyone concerned is described as filled with the Spirit of God. In Luke’s gospel the angel says to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, who was to prepare the way for Jesus, that “from his very birth” John “will be filled with the Holy Spirit”; Mary the mother of Jesus is told that “the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”, Elizabeth herself is “filled with the Holy Spirit”, his father Zechariah, is “filled with the Holy Spirit” and so on.

And then during his own ministry, John the Baptist famously proclaims, when asked if he is the Messiah,

“I baptise you with water, but someone is coming who is much greater than I am. I am not good enough even to untie his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

And then Jesus himself, throughout his ministry, is described in the gospels as full of the Spirit, led by the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit.

On one occasion Jesus was in Jerusalem at the time of a great feast, looking back to a time when the Israelites were in the desert and Moses brought water from a rock. He spent some time teaching in the Temple and, according to John’s gospel, on the last and most important day of the feast, he stood up and said in a loud voice,

“Whoever is thirsty should come to me and drink. As the scripture says, “Whoever believes in me, streams of life-giving water will pour out from his heart.”

And John in his gospel goes on to say that when talking about this life-giving water, Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit, which those who believed in Jesus were going to receive, but at this stage the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been raised to Heaven….

This is a picture of the Holy Spirit as good and powerful, living water filling up and pouring out of the hearts of God’s people….

That is..out of your heart and out of mine..

And then, just before he ascended to heaven, right at the end of his time on earth, Jesus is recorded in the Book of Acts as promising to his disciples that “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” and then after Jesus’ resurrection, you may be familiar with the story of the disciples waiting in a room, afraid and with the door locked, when there is a sound like a violent wind and the disciples are filled with the Holy Spirit, which appears like flame over their heads and they speak in a variety of different languages or tongues.

And Peter goes out and explains to the crowd what has happened and that they have seen that promise of the prophet Joel fulfilled in the pouring out of God’s Spirit and he exhorts the crowd to repent and be baptised and to receive God’s gift of the Holy Spirit.

What does the Holy Spirit do?

We have touched on aspects of this already as we have reminded ourselves of the Holy Spirit at work in the Old and the New Testaments.

But, if being a Christian is essentially about having a relationship with God, the work of the Holy Spirit is essentially about starting, growing, developing and empowering that relationship.

A man called Nicodemus came to see Jesus because he was obviously impressed with all he had seen and heard. Jesus said to him,

“I am telling you the truth. No-one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. A person is born physically of human parents but he is born spiritually of the Spirit. Do not be surprised when I tell you that you must all be born again.”

This is a well-known passage in the gospels, partly because the expression “born again” has unfortunately become a bit of a cliché and sometimes, gained a bad press. But don’t worry about that this morning because what Jesus means at its heart is true and that is that when any person becomes a Christian they are reborn spiritually, into a new relationship with God the Father.

And just as physical birth is the start of a new human relationship, so spiritual birth is just the beginning of a new relationship with God. And so the Holy Spirit helps us to develop our relationship with God, bringing us into the presence of the Father, helping us to pray, guiding us and helping us to understand what God is saying to us.

I have only got time to share, at this point, one thought that I have often had about the way the Holy Spirit guides us. Jesus once described the work of the Holy Spirit as like the wind, which blows where it wants to. You cannot see it but you can see its effects. I don’t know if you have ever been cycling into a heavy wind? I can tell you from experience that if the wind is against you there is nothing worse.

But if the wind is behind you, there is nothing like it. You are cycling along wondering where all this power is coming from. I’ve even been blown up a steep hill on a bike cycling in Cumbria. And if the wind is absolutely right behind you, you can’t even feel it. You just know from your speed that it is there. So it can be with the Holy Spirit. When you just know that something is God’s will, that it is the right thing to do, then sometimes, you start flying along, all the doors open in front of you and you sometimes wonder how on earth you got from A to B….

And as our relationship with God grows, as we spend time in his presence, the Holy Spirit’s work is to transform us into God’s family likeness. As Paul wrote to the church in Corinth,

“All of us, then, reflect the glory of the Lord with uncovered faces; and that same glory, coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit, transforms us into his likeness in an ever greater degree of glory.”

Paul writes also that the fruits of the Spirit, if you like what the Spirit produces by way of transformation in the lives of believers, are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are the characteristics – and did you spot any bad ones on the list?? - that the Holy Spirit develops in our lives. It is not that we become perfect immediately but over a period of time there should be a change.

Looking briefly at just one of the fruits of the Spirit on Paul’s list, joy is not dependant on outward things but comes from the Spirit within us, experienced perhaps in prayer or perhaps in worship. Yes, it is possible to experience heavenly joy in church! I don’t feel that every week but there have been many occasions when my spirit has felt lifted heavenwards during church services, even with children crying in the background and the imperfect efforts of myself and my fellow human beings going on around me.

And not only in church. There are many accounts of Christians able to experience joy even in desperate circumstances.

And finally, for today, in terms of what the Holy Spirit does, the work of the Spirit is to give gifts to those who are in the body of Christ, to be used by each person for the benefit of all. Every Christian is different, each has a different contribution to make, each has a different gift. In his first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul lists nine gifts,

“The Spirit’s presence is shown in some way in each person for the good of all. The Spirit gives one person a message full of wisdom, to another a message full of knowledge. One and the same Spirit gives faith to one person while to another the power to heal, to another the power to work miracles, to another the gift of speaking God’s message, to another the ability to tell the difference between gifts that come from the Spirit and those that do not, to one person the ability to speak in strange tongues and to another the ability to explain what is said….but it is one and the same Spirit who does all this.”

How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?

So, finally, to the question of how it is possible to experience or even be filled with the Holy Spirit.

On this question I would just like to share a few thoughts in the brief time we have left this morning.

I would say that anyone who feels led to put their faith in Jesus Christ is being led by the Holy Spirit and that anyone who puts their faith in Jesus Christ and experiences any of what we have summarised in our churches before as forgiveness for the past, new life for the present and hope for the future is experiencing the work of the Holy Spirit.

And that anyone who feels the guidance of conscience, the voice telling them that something is wrong or that they really should do something because they know it is the right thing to do, is likely to be experiencing already the work of the Holy Spirit.

And that anyone who experiences inside for themselves anything of the joy, peace and love of God is likely to be experiencing the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes these experiences can be gentle and peaceful. Sometimes in the experience of some Christians they can be very powerful. I’d say for myself that in the last 40 years I have had a few fairly powerful spiritual experiences – once for example some years ago a vision when I was praying with a friend, of the enormity of the living water which Jesus describes and which I felt in the vision compelled just to touch with my lips. I felt I was actually touching the fundamental power of good in the universe and I saw it sweeping through the Earth and making everything new. And  just twice, some years ago now when I was desperately concerned first for a member of my family and secondly for a friend who was in really serious difficulty the experience of praying in words which come from God, what the Bible calls speaking in tongues, when I simply had no adequate words that I knew to express what I needed to say.

But whatever our experience of God moving in our lives, I am convinced from my own experience that the Holy Spirit works in a way that is not wild and fearful but loving and good, a way that builds up and can be tested because it is constructive and helpful, a way that is powerful but does not force itself on anyone.

One danger for all of us in this country certainly is that we tend to see our world as self contained – supermarkets, schools, healthcare, work, entertainment, holidays and so on - but God’s challenge is for us to open our hearts and minds to Him, to ask and to receive.

The way Jesus put it was to say to his followers that you just need to ask. And if you do you will receive.

He said you just need to seek and if you do you will find.

He said that you just need to knock on the door. And if you do, the door will open for you.

And I reckon that means us..

The Holy Spirit is still there for those who are open and who ask, because God is a loving heavenly Father who longs to give good things to his children.