|
DATE |
CHURCH |
SUBJECT |
PREACHER |
BIBLE
REF. |
|
31.05.09 |
St Mary's |
The Work of the
Holy Spirit |
Patricia Higton |
- |
|
INTRO
Many Christians feel the Holy
Spirit is rather mysterious – they can understand the concept of
God the Father, and of God the Son as their Saviour. We can
also understand how that relates to our own lives – the Creator
God caring for his children like a Father; the incarnate Son
dying in our place to take away our sin, and rising from the
dead to give us that sure and certain hope of eternal life.
But the Holy Spirit is like the
wind – we cannot tell where he comes from or where he goes – so
how does he help you and me?
Fortunately, the Bible gives us
plenty of teaching about this – far too much for one sermon. So
I’ll just pick out four words –
Comfort, Fruit, Gifts, Power.
The common theme to them all is
that Christianity is not a DIY religion – try your best, get on
with it, try to live a good life, sort yourself out – get to
heaven by your own efforts. No, that’s just the opposite of
biblical teaching and the Holy Spirit more than anyone else is
there for us.
COMFORT
Jesus was very concerned for the
disciples – he knew he would be ascending into heaven and wanted
to reassure them that they wouldn’t be abandoned – so we have
this wonderful teaching in John’s gospel that he would send the
Holy Spirit as their Paracletos - which has been translated as
Comforter or Counsellor or Advocate. Basically it means ‘the
One called alongside’. He is the One who makes us aware of the
presence of Jesus, he is the one to guide us and give us wisdom
to know what to do when we pray – he is the one who helps us in
our prayers. He is the One who strengthens us when we feel
unable to carry on in our Christian life, when we have doubts or
fears, when we are finding it difficult to resist temptation.
Comforter is a strong word – it does not just mean he is
sympathetic but it has the ending ‘Fort’ which carries that
sense of protection. And all we have to do is ask him to help
us! These are just some of the blessings of being a Christian
which the world does not understand,
FRUIT
This is the word which St Paul
uses in Galatians about Christian character – love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
self-control. Basically this is a description of the character
of Jesus and is what we should all aim to be. But we do not
arrive as ready-made Christians – off the peg, ready and
complete. We are bespoke – we have to be specially formed by
God and adapted and fitted. This takes the rest of our lives,
until we arrive in heaven – and it is one of the tasks of the
Holy Spirit to help us. So think of that list – and as I read
it slowly ask yourself, which are the two qualities which I lack
more than most. Then ask the Holy Spirit to help you in those
areas. It is his job to make us more like Jesus so that we are
ready to meet him one day.
Love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
GIFTS
There are much longer lists in
the New Testament of the Gifts of the Spirit – and they are all
free - they are there on offer and at the very least one of them
is just for you. They vary from administration or hospitality
to teaching or healing or giving words of wisdom to counsel
others. Some people have many gifts and some have leadership
gifts, but all have at least one God-given gift. We may need to
ask a Christian friend what that is if we don’t see it for
ourselves. It may be different from the way we were trained for
our jobs, it may even be different from so-called natural gifts
such as being a very organised person or a very musical person.
The gifts of the Spirit are all about being used by God to serve
him and other people. If we tell God we are willing to do that,
then he will show us the gift or gifts the Spirit has for us –
but we will only see them operating when we actually use them!
Many of you are used in various ways in the church – but
sometimes gifts change and God wants to use us in new ways.
POWER
This is the scary bit. Comfort
is helpful and Fruit or character and Gifts are wonderful
blessings from the Holy Spirit. But there is more to the
Christian life than that. I suggest you take time to read
through the Book of Acts in a modern translation, at one
sitting. It won’t take long. Notice the supernatural level on
which the disciples operated – yet before the Spirit came they
were a bunch of cowards who ran away when Jesus was arrested.
The Spirit came to them as a rushing, mighty wind, with flames
of fire. Perhaps we need that aspect of the work of the Holy
Spirit in St Mary’s. We have Sunday at 10 and we have the Café
church – but what if the Holy Spirit wants to stir us up here at
St Mary’s and breathe new life into us, so that we rise up as
was described by Ezekiel in the reading we had about the dry
bones. We may shy away out of tradition or fear of change or
wanting to be cosy – but none of those things describe the
ministry of Jesus whom we follow. He was radical and
challenging – why? Because he had come to win the world, to
change it, to bring people back to God. Christianity is partly
about our own salvation and comfort and blessing, about making
us more like Jesus and about serving him in the church and being
ready for heaven . But it is also about winning the world.
Look what a mess we are in as a
nation – we have turned our back on God and his ways, on the 10
commandments and the fruit of the Spirit. We have run after
other gods and adopted immoral ways and even some of our MPs are
stealing from the people they claim to serve. But we should not
just moan but be instruments of change – and we can only do that
with the help of the HS.
Sometimes we can only pray – but
that prayer can be powerful if inspired by the HS. Sometimes we
can witness. Or we could look at out church and think how can
we improve things so that we can invite others in.
In all these things we need the
help of the Holy Spirit – who is also at work in the world to
draw people to Jesus – and above all he in the one who gives the
new birth, who remakes people into beings who are eternal, so
that we go on beyond the grave to be with our Lord forever. |
