I haven't seen many of you since Christmas. I hope you had a good Christmas.
Yesterday, I took all my Christmas decorations down. This is the first year for a long time - maybe ever - that I've had my Christmas decorations up for the whole Christmas season - from the beginning of Advent right through to Epiphany, which was yesterday.
Epiphany is when we celebrate the visit of the wise men to Jesus with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. It's the day when some sections of the Christian church give their presents, instead of on Christmas Day as we do. Sort of makes sense.
When I looked at the Lectionary readings for today, I found that they were talking about another gift: the gift that Jesus promised he would send all of his followers after he returned to Heaven. In John 14: 16 he said, "I will ask the Father and he will send you another to be your Advocate ( also called Counsellor/ Helper/Strength-giver) who will be with you for ever."
In our reading today from Luke, John the Baptist said that Jesus will baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Fire in the Bible seems to be often associated with the presence and power of God. Can you remember stories like that? Moses and the burning bush comes to mind. And Elijah, calling on God to pour fire down on the altar that had been doused in water, to prove that his power was greater than that of Baal.
1 John 4: 16 tells us how we know who is truly a Christian and who isn't. It says, '… if a person acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him/her, and he/she dwells in God.' It is God, the Holy Spirit, who comes to dwell in us when we acknowledge that Jesus is God.
The Holy Spirit himself is the marvellous gift that Jesus gives us.
Why is the Holy Spirit such a marvellous gift? Let me tell you why I think so from my own faith story …. And then, if I haven't talked too long already, I'll go on to a few other things.
Many of you know I was adopted at around 18 months of age. I believe that was evidence of God's grace at work for me. My natural family was disjointed and not believers. He put me with a family who believed!
Early bedtime stories I remember where either 'The Old Woman who couldn't Get over the Stile" - or whatever that folk tale was called - read by Dad, or the Gospel of John, read by Mum before I went to sleep. The words, 'verily, verily, I say unto you' still bring me a nice warm cosy feeling.
I remember the day I was baptised. I was probably around 2 ½, I think. Although I was obviously too young to understand the significance of baptism, I did know it was something very important. I can still 'feel' the water on my forehead, and I remember going down to the back fence to tell the lady next door all about it.
As a child - a 'lonely-only' - God was very important to me. He was a friend who was always there. I used to talk to him and sing to him, sometimes in a special made-up language of my own. Now that I know more, I wonder if I was actually singing in tongues? But I didn't know anything about that then. It was just a way I talked with my friend.
Throughout my life I've had what I guess you'd call 'spiritual growth spurts' when I've come to understand more about God - usually through various people I believe he sent to teach me new things.
Over the years, I've belonged to the church and I kept coming to church most Sundays - but not because I found it a fun thing to do. My kids used to complain, "Mum, church is boring." And I agreed with them! There were lots of things I'd rather do on a Sunday morning than sit in church where to me the service always seemed to be the 'same old-same old' What kept me coming for many years was the friends I had at church and the personal support and encouragement I received from those friends.
For me, mostly God was someone we heard about and sang about in church but didn't seem like a 'real person' in my life. Some people said that the way to grow close to God is to read the Bible every day and have a daily prayer time. No doubt they were right. But somehow it was too hard to organise time to do that.
When George's Mum first got cancer about 37 years ago and came to stay with us while she had her treatment at Peter MacCallum, she became interested in what she called 'God-centred healing' and she introduced me to books about the Holy Spirit and the charismatic movement. These were an eye-opener - or a mind-opener - to me. In more than 20 years of being part of church life, I couldn't remember ever being told about the work or the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Maybe as a result of reading some of that literature, I was developing a hunger to be closer to God - wanting to be aware of his presence in my life. I read anything I could find in easy-to-read form about the Christian life, one of those being the little 'Guideposts' magazines that we have on our bookshelf in the meeting room in the other hall.
In the 1970s I began to go to Gladstone St. Uniting Church on Sunday evenings. That's when John Blacker was minister there. I saw healings, heard people speak in tongues and prophesy, and saw evidence of the Spirit at work. I enjoyed the singing and the worship. It was there that I first experienced a filling of the Holy Spirit.
That was just over 20 years ago. I think God must find me hard work, because I didn't immediately become a perfect Christian and I still haven't! But in these past 20 years I've grown much, much more as a Christian than I did in the previous nearly 40 years before I allowed the Holy Spirit to get cracking in my life. The filling of the Spirit for me was definitely a turning point in my spiritual growth. It was sort of like fertiliser! What's that fertiliser they make out of *chook poo?… Dynamic Lifter! The filling of the Spirit was like the 'dynamic lifter' of spiritual life for me.
(* for non-Australians, 'chook' is Aussie slang for 'chicken')
At first I felt a much greater desire to read and study the Bible, and a sense of inner contentment and joy, and an increased daily awareness of the presence of God.
As time has gone on I've found it easier to make the time to read and study and Bible study has become more interesting and exciting. So, I've gained a better understanding of my faith. I've also realised from time to time that there are differences in my attitudes; some more of those fruits of the Spirit have developed in me. You remember those fruits mentioned in Galatians 5 - love, joy, peace, patience, and the rest. Some still haven't developed in me and some have only partly grown - they're still green fruit. But some have definitely started to grow. I know they're fruit of the Spirit because they're not attitudes that come naturally for me. I've also discovered some special gifts that God has given me to help me do his work.
Mind you, there's still a long, long way to go (So, I suspect, I might live to a ripe old age!) You've seen the bumper sticker which says, "I'm not perfect. God hasn't finished with me yet." It's true.
Lately he's been prompting in me a new conviction of the need for prayer, both in my own life and in the life of the church. I've discovered an increasing desire for more 'alive' worship where there's an open expression of joy and enthusiasm for God. I've had a little experience if it at the Emmaus Walks and at the Alpha Conference Bev and I went to. I find I want more of that kind of worship because, to me, it's a reflection of the alive and exciting God we worship. All that my kids found in church was boredom. So they've never got to know what an exciting and interesting person God really is.
I sometimes wonder how many other people are sitting in St. Philip's week after week only because of the friendship of the other people at this church, just as I used to do. Friendship and caring for people is really important. It kept me here long enough for me to grow and develop - and it keeps me here when I often find our worship services frustrating.
I wonder how many more here feel a need to be closer to God every day? There may be someone who's sitting there thinking, "It's all right for her. But I'm not the spiritual type. I'm not the type of person to get close to God." If you're thinking like that, let me tell you that there's never been a human being in this world - except Jesus himself - who's been a spiritual enough person to be close to God. The Bible tells us in Romans 3: 10-12 and again in verse 23, that no-one is good enough to be close to God. But the exciting news is that, whether you think you're not good enough or not spiritual enough or not that kind of person, GOD DOES!!!!! For some reason only he understands, he loves all of us and wants all of us to be close to him. He aches for us to be close to him.
I learn a lot about faith from my dog. I only need to sit down for a moment and he's there, wanting to get onto my knee for a snuggle. Lately, with the cricket on TV, I've been getting away from it by going in onto the bed to read in the afternoon and there he is, almost plastering himself to my side in an effort to get as close as he can. I think God wants us to be like that - wanting to do anything so we can get close enough to him. And he went to a lot of trouble to make it possible for us to do that, didn't he? That's what makes me believe he wants us so badly.
I wonder how many need, as I did, to be filled with the Holy Spirit (or baptised in the Spirit, or however else you'd like to call the opening up and use of that gift of power and 'fire' that Jesus gave each one of us when we first called him 'Lord') Just like we open and use the Christmas gifts people give us, so surely, we should use this precious gift that Jesus has given us and not allow the Spirit to stay closed up within us?
As Christians and followers of Jesus Christ, shouldn't we be wanting to be as much like him as possible. I believe that's what we are called to be. Humanly speaking, that's a difficult thing to do - much too hard for me. The human Jesus was the person who was the closest to God that any human being has achieved. What examples did he give us to help us be the same? He knew the Scriptures well, he prayed often. Our reading from Luke today told us that the first thing he did after his baptism was to pray and he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He was then led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he was tempted (Luke 4: 1,2) and then he came back 'armed with the power of the Spirit' (Luke 4: 4) If it was good enough for Jesus, surely we should want to be armed with the power of the Spirit too! And the good news is that we can!
In our reading from Acts we heard about how Peter and John were sent to Samaria to check out the story that people there had become Christians. When they found that the story was true and that people had been baptised, did they say, "How wonderful. We'll go back and tell the Christians in Jerusalem all about you. Make sure you go to church every Sunday, read your Bibles, and join the Ladies Fellowship or Friendship Group! And be kind to each other"? No. They asked whether the new converts had been filled with the Holy Spirit and when they found that they hadn't, they laid hands on them and prayed until those people were filled with the Spirit. It seems as if the early church considered this very important.
| These early followers of Jesus were dominated
by their experience of the Holy Spirit at work among them. At the
very beginning they gave little thought to the problems of organizing the
infant church. It never occured to them to appoint officials or write
a constitution. Nor did they find it necessary to establish an army
of bureaucrats to direct their worldwide mission from some central headquarters.
They believed they already had the only organizing force they needed, in
the guidance of the Holy Spirit himself.
The Spirit told them what to say in their preaching, and gave them the boldness to say it. (Acts 4: 8; 5: 32; Acts 4: 31) ....... When the church at Antioch in Syria sent Paul and Barnabus off as missionaries (Acts 5: 9), it was acting on the instructions of the Holy Spirit, who spoke directly to the congregation through certain Spirit-filled individuals within it. And this sense of dependance on the Spirit's guidance is perhaps the main characteristic of Paul's work, both in the stories of Acts and in his won writings. This emphasis is so strong in Acts that some readers of teh New Testament have preferred to regard it not so much as the 'Acts of the Apostles', but rather 'The Acts of the Holy Spirit'............ ........ And as individual disciples experienced the compelling power of teh Holy Spirit for themselves, they were drawn together in a fellowship of love and friendship - love for God, love for one another, and love for the non-Christian world. .... They were bound together as a group not by the fact that they all belonged to teh same organization but because they were all inspired by the same Holy Spirit...... |
We are taught through stories, TV shows, film, to think of 'spirits' and ghosts as, at best creepy and scary, and at worst, evil. I think we need to get past these images. The biblical word for 'spirit' also means 'wind' or 'breath'. Wind can be a refreshing breeze or it can be a powerful force. As a church or as individual Christians, are we harnessing that spiritual wind enough?
If you, like me, feel that we're not, all we need is to want to be close to God and to be willing to allow him to fill us with his power - to allow the Holy Spirit within us to get to work in our lives.
Will you join me in this prayer:
Holy Spirit, I open my heart, my innermost
being to you.
I turn from my sin and self sufficiency
and ask that you fill me
with you love, power and gifts.
Come, Holy Spirit.
Let's sit quietly for a few moments so those who wish to can continue praying for the Spirit to fill and empower us.
Holy Spirit,
I open my heart, my innermost being to you.
I turn from my sin and self sufficiency and ask that you fill me with your love, power and gifts.
Come, Holy Spirit.