Acts 2.1-21; John 14: 8-17, 25-27
Introduction to first reading
Fifty days ago we celebrated Easter. Since then we have travelled with the disciples as they met the risen Lord Jesus and then seen him ascend into heaven. Now they have obeyed his command to go to Jerusalem and are praying and waiting for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Our reading describes that action on a day when the Jews had gathered again in Jerusalem for another feast, the feast of weeks. The town was heaving with people.
Sermon
The Holy Spirit. Third person of the Trinity. The Spirit of Truth, who guides us into the truth, reveals the truth about God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Truth. So let’s think about truth for a moment. I am going to say some statements and I would like you to tell me if you think they are true. Thumbs up for true, thumbs down for false.
The world is flat…. Of course it is flat. Every time i go for a long walk, I am not following a curve, I am on the flat. It’s obvious the world is flat.… anyone who has seen photos of the world from space, knows this is not true.
Clouds are made of cotton wool. ..Just look at their shape, they are solid, they have boundaries, you can touch them….Anyone who has climbed up a hill into a cloud will know this is not true.
I love you more than Freddie does… True or false? How do you know? What do I mean by love? How are you defining it? What parameters are you using to make your decision? Love - so difficult to quantify. To qualify.
God loves us more than we can love ourselves. True or false? True. How do you know this? Experience this?
We celebrated Easter 50 days ago and we exultantly cried out “Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, alleluia.” John wrote in his gospel: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.”
The act of Jesus’ death for us declares the enormity and the certainty of God’s love for us. But there is a danger that we do not embrace it, do not receive it fully for ourselves. And that is where we need the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, for he helps us to understand truth, to know the truth, to know the extent of God’s love for us.
In our collect prayer we prayed:Holy
Spirit, sent by the Father,
ignite in us your holy fire;
strengthen your children with the gift of faith,
revive your Church with the breath of love,
and renew the face of the earth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Such simple yet powerful words.
We have an open wood fire at home and occasionally during cold weather we will light it. It needs careful preparation of paper, twigs, small logs and then larger logs in order to build up enough heat to burn. Take away the flammable material and it will quickly die down. These metaphorical words - ignite in us your holy fire - bring images of God burning out the dross in our lives, our sinful habits and actions, the impure thoughts and attitudes. Come Holy Fire of God burn them out. We want to be pure and holy. The prophet Malachi spoke of the coming of the Lord, coming with refiners fire. John the Baptist said these words about Jesus: “After me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
My friends, Jesus died on the cross to cancel out our sin, to remove that which separates us from the Father. An awful death to achieve a wonderful reconciliation between us and God. Expect and welcome the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit within us and live it out in your life, displaying the fruits of the Holy Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Forgiveness, purification, fruits of the Holy Spirit are not all that there is. God wants a relationship with us. Going back to our collect prayer, the next line calls on God: “strengthen your children with the gift of faith.” Our relationship with God, our trust in him, in his provision and protection is his gift to us. Jesus trusted the Father to the extent that in obedience he died for us. Do we trust God’s plans in our lives? Whatever is happening? Individually, corporately, do we trust God? We need the Holy Spirit’s help to do this, to believe that God is in control.
Thinking about those of us who have children. Have you ever wanted your children to share with you in some activity? The baking of a cake? Walking up a hill with them? Teaching them to swim, sail or to drive - not always the easiest thing to do - it can break relationships! Helping them to enjoy reading, even physics or mathematics! …Seeing them grow, learn, develop, sharing responsibilities with them is one of the most pleasurable and fulfilling things we can do. God wants the same with us. God wants to share heaven with us, here on Earth. He delights to do that.
Chapter 12 of the first letter to the Corinthians lists the gifts of the Holy Spirit. God wants to share spiritual gifts with us, the same gifts that Jesus exercised during his three years of ministry. ..Christmas is 6 months away, so instead of a good summer reading book how about a summer holiday gift? Which spiritual gift would you like? Wisdom? Be as wise as Solomon. Professor of theology, philosophy, economics etc at several universities, sought after by leaders and politicians. Appeal to you? Wisdom is helpful even in small doses.
Gift of knowledge - given inside information by the Holy Spirit about an individual. This is particularly helpful when someone has a blockage in their relationship with Jesus. The Holy Spirit will reveal the blockage and as you pray through it, God will remove it.
Discernment of spirits? Able to know where evil is present and dismiss it. So valuable today when Satan is so active. What about prophecy? Given insight into God’s will for an individual or a church community. Or teaching? Be a wonderful teacher of the gospel. Drawing many to Jesus each week. Teaching them to be faithful disciples of Jesus. Or the gift of healing - Jesus healed all who came to him. Imagine having that same power of healing, whoever you touched would be healed - hospitals would be clamouring out for you, “Come and clear our wards for us, come into our clinics.” Or miracles? Feeding 5000 every day from 2 loaves and 5 fishes. You would be a God send in Gaza at the moment, never short of work.
Jesus had all these gifts and exercised them and he told his disciples, that they would do even more than he had, that includes you and me. But if we had them in the same amount as Jesus had, then that would be very exhausting and it would be easy to lose ourselves, our ego, in the demands placed upon us by others.
There have been many miracles and healings ever since Jesus’ time on earth and even today. God wants to share his authority and power with us, you and me, and that is available through the Holy Spirit. But beware. Jesus was always obedient to the Father’s will. Everything he did was with one accord with the Father and in faithful relationship with the Father. We need to be likewise. History is littered with people, starting with King Solomon, whose gifting led them away from God’s divine purposes and things went horribly wrong. Yes, desire spiritual gifts, and I am serious about that - ask God for a particular gift - but completely under the umbrella of full obedience and trust to the Father, a complete dependence on the Father. For God wants us to use spiritual gifts for the furtherance of his kingdom, his purposes. We live in a spiritual world, we are spiritual beings and we are not fully ourselves unless we operate in the spiritual realms. Without the gifts of the Holy Spirit there is always something missing.
Returning to our collect prayer. When we look around we see shrinking congregations, yet there is a movement of the Holy Spirit in parts of our country. Young men are seeking deeper meaning in life and coming to churches. Revive your Church with the breath of love, is our next line in the collect prayer. Revive means to bring back to life. Something that was once alive and has died, is now brought back to life again. Ezekiel was told to prophesy over the dead bones and the breath of God made them alive, and God applied that vision to the people of Israel saying that he would give them hope, fill them with his spirit and make them live. John wrote in his version of Pentecost that the risen Lord Jesus breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’. The breath of God, the Spirit of God, changes things, it brings life. But the collect prayer is not praying for a breath of life, but a breath of love. It is love that will bring revival. God’s love in us, shining out from our purified bodies, and minds, living in the truth revealed by the Holy Spirit, praying for and operating in the spiritual realm, with sacrificial love as the driver. That is what will attract people to our communities.
This seems a tall order. But remember it is God who takes the initiative. The disciples were told go to Jerusalem, to pray and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit came from heaven, from God himself, in a dramatic life changing way and 3000 people became followers of Jesus that day. The Holy Spirit at work.
In this Benefice we have started a vision forming process in which we are asking God to reveal to us his vision for our church communities here. It is both exciting and daunting, but what is so reassuring is that God is in it with us. The Holy Spirit will guide us through this process and that is wonderful. All of us need the Holy Spirit, in greater and greater measure.
Let us pray
Lord Jesus we thank you for the promise of the Holy Spirit. We praise you for His presence and action in our lives. Save us from being content with a little measure of the Spirit, a little amount of your light. Help us to seek more and more of you, teach us to go deeper with you, to trust you for everything. Amen.