My 2018 Resolution.
Acts 19: 1 – 7; Mark 1: 4 – 11
What is in the heart is more important than what is in the head.
It’s Resolution time. Have you made any ‘NY’ resolutions? I did. I know when I was young ‘NY’ resolutions were quite a big thing. Of course keeping them was another matter, let alone remembering them. In my sermon-preparation this week I felt encouraged to have a special focus in 2018. I stopped and had a chat with God. I felt the Spirit’s affirmation. The inspiration came out of my reading and reflection on our texts. I resolved to make 2018 a year of the Holy Spirit. That’s my resolution for 2018. Naturally as your minister you will come on the journey or at least watch it unfold. I do hope you will join me.
Why, you may be asking? Why the Holy Spirit? Well the Spirit plays such an important role in God’s purposes. Nothing happens in the Bible without the Holy Spirit’s action. Moses was so aware of the Spirit in the prophets that he wished all the people were prophets [Num 11:29]. The prophet Joel sees a day when God’s Spirit rests on all and says that our sons and daughters will prophesy [Joel 2: 28].
Last week’s sermon showed how Luke recognised that nothing of eternal substance happens without the work of the Holy Spirit. The Lectionary texts set for the first Sunday of 2018 pick up on the theme of the Spirit. Mark, who doesn’t focus as strongly as Luke does on the Holy Spirit, nevertheless makes it quite clear that Jesus will baptise us not with water but the Spirit. Mark also tells us that when Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist the Spirit descended upon Jesus [Mk 1: 10]. Jesus, when he was soon to be crucified, said to his disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit to be with them to guide, strengthen and empower them for service [John 14, 15 & 16]. Jesus told his disciples that the Spirit will tell you about me [John 15:26] and that the Spirit will bring glory to me by taking my message and telling it to you [John 16:14]. So there is ample reason for focusing on the Holy Spirit, and not least because the Spirit is so often not well understood by us.
The Holy Spirit is very important to our lives, to the well-being of the Church and the proclamation of the Gospel. So Paul’s conversation with a few disciples in Ephesus is not surprising. When Paul meets these people who are following the Christian Way he asks them; “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” [Acts 19:2]. ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit?’ Paul doesn’t ask what they believed when they were baptised, or what was their theological understanding of Jesus, but did they receive the Holy Spirit. Paul’s question is not about what is in the head but what is in the heart. The question about receiving the Spirit goes to the heart of the matter. Paul does not see Christianity being about what we believe but what we do.
I appreciate that what we believe is as important as what we do, because what we believe should lead to what we do. But Paul with his question drills down immediately to what is important for the new believer. Did you receive the Holy Spirit? Their reply and their response demonstrate the relevance of Paul’s question. They reply that they hadn’t and didn’t know about the Holy Spirit. When they are baptised into Jesus name the Spirit came upon them and they prophesied. These few disciples are now Spirit filled, Spirit directed and Spirit empowered. Wow! They no longer are a group who are following a new way. They have become a small band of Holy Spirit directed and empowered people. Their faith has moved from the head to the heart, and we know that a heart driven person is an energised person. This doesn’t mean we no longer have to use our brains, it just means we have a new enthusiasm for what we are doing.
Oh, that word enthusiasm: do you know its derivation and what it originally meant? It is derived from the Greek terms – en theos; that is, God in us or more colloquially, inspired by God. The early Methodists were condemned by the formal Church of the day for being ‘enthusiasts’. Enthusiasm is wonderful, but those who don’t share the enthusiasm fear it. I accept that enthusiasm has to be moderated but not squashed. (Oh, for the problem of an enthusiastic church!) So receiving the Spirit will lead to God being within us and we becoming enthusiasts.
Secondly, notice that all they had to do was ‘receive the Spirit’. God has given the Spirit to us. The Spirit is given to us in our Baptism and in our turning to and following Jesus. But like all gifts we have to receive the Spirit – open the gift up. Let me illustrate what I am saying. Have you ever been in that embarrassing position with some electrical equipment that won’t work? You just can’t get it to function. So you ask some one to help you. (You know where I am going?) They come look around and then switch on the power at the powerpoint. You feel so, so silly. Something like that we have all experienced. (I’ve got to put my hand up on this one.) The equipment won’t work until it is switched on. And sometimes we need to be shown how to switch it on.
I want to share with you the testimony of some great servants of God and what happened when they received the Spirit. You will see that the Spirit works with us individually and that the sign of the Spirit dwelling in us is not expressed in the same way in each case.
R.A. Torrey tells how the Holy Spirit came upon him after he had been a minister for years. “I recall the exact spot where I was kneeling in prayer in my study. (He says) It was a very quiet moment, one of the quietest moments I ever knew. God simply said to me, not in any audible voice, but in my heart, ‘It’s yours. Now go and preach.’ He had already said it to me in the Bible in 1 John 5: 14,15; but I did not then know my Bible as I know it now, and God had pity on my ignorance and said it directly to my spirit. I went and preached and I have been a new minister from that day to this. Some time after this experience (I do not recall just how long after), while sitting in my room one day I suddenly found my self shouting (I was not brought up to shout and I am not of a shouting temperament, but I shouted like the loudest shouting Methodist, ‘Glory to God, glory to God, glory to God.’ I could not stop. But that was not when I was baptised with the Holy Spirit. I was baptized with the Holy Spirit when I took the Spirit by simple faith in the Word of God.” [Torrey, The Holy Spirit, pp. 198f.]
D. L. Moody writes of his experience of the Holy Spirit saying: “I was crying all the time that God would fill me with his Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York – oh, what a day! I cannot describe it and I seldom refer to it. It is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke of for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went preaching again. The sermons were not different. I did not present any new truths and yet hundreds were converted. I would not want to be back where I was before that blessed experience even if you should give me all the world.”
Watchman Nee writes; “The outward manifestations that accompanied Moody’s experience did not tally exactly with Joel’s description, or Peter’s, or Torrey’s, but who could doubt that Moody’s experience was not genuine.” [The Normal Christian Life, p. 96]
Charles E Finney’s experience was different again. “I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit without any expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me, without any recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through my body and soul. No words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in my heart. I wept aloud with joy and love.” [Finney’s autobiography chapter 2]
There are two things I love about the gift of the Holy Spirit. Firstly, we are given the Spirit but the Spirit does not impose herself on us. We have to receive the Spirit. In other words God doesn’t impose upon us his love and power. Instead we are left free to take responsibility to ask and receive. That leaves us with our dignity and all our faculties of feeling and thinking. Secondly, the gift of the Holy Spirit empowers us and enthuses us. We are not left alone. We are not only not left alone, but we are strengthened and empowered. My Christian companions embark on this journey this year and deliberately seek to receive the Holy Spirit.
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Peter C Whitaker, Leighmoor UC: 14/01/2018
/ www.leighmoor.ucaweb.com.au
New Years benediction
May the God who gave us this year
and the Saviour who walked at our side each day
and the Spirit who filled us with life abundant,
grace the coming year with peace and hope and joy,
Amen.
