I wonder what you think of when someone mentions God. You may think about God the Father, the creator of the universe, the one who watches over everything we do, who protects us, who sets the standards by which we live, who in his love sent Jesus to live and die and rise again for us. Or you might think of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God; God in human form. You might think about the person who walked and talked here on earth all those years ago, who chose the 12 apostles to go and tell the world about him, who was a human being like us and yet who was at the same time truly God; and who’s now seated at the Father’s right hand in heaven.
But I wonder, if I were to ask you what you think about when I mention God, how many people would straight away mention the Holy Spirit. I think we all find it easier when we’re thinking about God to picture the Father in heaven, or the Son who appeared in human flesh than we do to picture the Holy Spirit.
I mean we’re all aware of the Holy Spirit but he’s hard to pin down isn’t he? Do you remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus when he began to talk about the Holy Spirit. He said he’s like the wind: "The wind blows where it pleases and you don’t know where it’s come from or where it’s going" (Jn 3:8). The Spirit is invisible, intangible, incomprehensible. There are signs of his presence: a dove, the sound of a mighty wind, tongues of fire, laying on of hands, words in strange languages. But nothing remains, no footprints, no echoes, nothing we can see or touch.
So what picture does the Holy Spirit generate in your mind? Do you imagine a wisp of mist floating through the room like something out of Ghost Busters? Do you imagine an invisible presence whispering good ideas into your mind? An invisible friend who goes with you wherever you go?
Well, Jesus used the picture of the wind. That’s because the Hebrew word for spirit was also used for wind. But that’s because that carries with it something of the idea of what the spirit is like.
For example, wind or air and life are closely connected. We can’t live without air. Your last breath signifies the end of life.
There’s the idea of power. Kim and Matthew will benefit from the power of the wind when they go to Darwin later this year. You may remember, if you’re old enough, that 30 years ago this Christmas Cyclone Tracey came along and knocked down roughly 70% of Darwin. Geoff remembers it because he was involved in the reconstruction program that followed. So the image of the wind reflects the power of the Holy Spirit.
But still, the Spirit is in so many ways incomprehensible to us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t know something about what he’s like and certainly what he does. So let’s think for a moment about what the Bible tells us about the Spirit
The Old Testament
Creation
The Spirit appears in the very first chapter of the Bible. He’s there as creator, as the one who brings order out of chaos. The earth begins as formless and empty. All there is is the waters, swirling around in chaos. But there, moving over the waters is the Spirit of God. And God speaks and the world comes into being as we know it.
Life
Then in Gen 2 as the story begins again from the point of view of the creation of human life, God takes the dust of the ground, forms it into a man, and what does he do? He breathes the breath of life into his nostrils. This is a parallel idea to the statement in Gen 1 that God made them in his own image. God breathes into them the stuff of life, his own life; that is, his Spirit; just as Jesus does to his disciples in John 20:22.
Ministry
Then as the story of God’s people unfolds we see the Spirit being poured out on individuals to empower them for ministry. The judges are raised up by God to rescue his people. How do they happen to be the people to lead the nation? The Spirit of the Lord comes upon them and they go out and lead the people to victory (or some variation of that idea). Similarly, God’s Spirit comes on Saul to empower him to be king, then when he repeatedly fails to obey God, God’s Spirit leaves him and David is given the Spirit instead. And so it goes on. The Prophets arise and they too have God’s Spirit leading and empowering them so they do amazing things. They prophesy God’s words to the people, telling of what God’s going to do and warning the king and the people not to forget the things God has done for them.
New Life
In particular they begin to prophesy something new that God is planning. He’s going to send a Messiah, a king who will save his people. And when that happens God will begin to change people’s hearts. That’s what we read in our first reading today. God promises regeneration for his people. And how would he do it? Ezek 36:26-27: "I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances." Jeremiah puts it like this: "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." (Jer 31:33) The prophets, prophesying by the Spirit, tell of a time when that Spirit of God will be poured out on all flesh. The prophets foretell their own redundancy. Jer 31 goes on: "No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more." And that brings us to
The New Testament
Here we find the Spirit poured out first on Jesus, then on the whole church. And here we begin to see the full power of God at work.
Power for Jesus’ earthly ministry
At Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove as a sign that God is with him, empowering him. And straight away we find the Spirit leading him out into the wilderness where he’ll be tempted by the devil. So the Spirit is active in Jesus’ life as God in human form, as he begins his ministry, just as he’s now active in our lives.
New birth
In Jn 3:3 Nicodemus comes to see Jesus because he’s observed God’s presence with him. But Jesus quickly moves the conversation to address the issue of how one can be part of God’s kingdom. The answer he gives to that pressing question is enigmatic - "You must be "born from above." You must be born of both water and the Spirit. Well, Nicodemus doesn’t understand even though he’s a teacher of Israel, much to Jesus’ surprise. Surely Nicodemus has read the Scriptures!
So what Scriptures is he thinking of? Clearly Ezek 36 and Jer 31 would have been high on the list, wouldn’t they? "I will write the law on their hearts." "I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27I will put my spirit within you." God’s Spirit is that which gives life to dead hearts. Paul takes up the same idea in Eph 2: "4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ -- by grace you have been saved." And how did he make us alive? By putting his spirit within us. Breathing new life into our dead bodies.
Power for conversion
Which leads to the next thing the Spirit does and that’s conversion. I think there’s some confusion about how conversion takes place. Some people think that being converted is a sign of our worthiness to receive the gifts of God. But that’s to misunderstand what’s involved. Conversion isn’t something we work at. It’s something God does for us. He’s the one who first turns our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. Some people think "I’m not good enough for God. How could I become a Christian?" Or they say "I can’t become a Christian because I’d never be able to keep it up. I’m too weak." But again that’s to ask the wrong question. The question we need to ask is this: "Is God powerful enough to change me?" "Is God able to give me a heart that will love him and want to obey him?" When you ask it like that, well, of course God can do that. Nothing’s impossible for God. Jesus said it was even possible for God to bring a rich person into his kingdom, even if it was like a camel passing through the eye of a needle.
Power to convict
Of course if you’re feeling unworthy, that may be the Holy Spirit working in you already. Because one of his roles, as we saw in the John reading, is to convict us of sin (Jn 16:7-11). It’s good that we understand that we’re unworthy, that we need Christ’s death on our behalf because that helps us turn to God for help rather than relying on our own efforts to be good enough.
Power to Live and Grow
And here’s the amazing thing. When we acknowledge our helplessness, when we acknowledge that we’re dead in our sins, God gives us his Spirit to bring us to new life. You see the Holy Spirit who made the world alone has the power to change me. And he does. He gives me new life then he begins to change me.
How do I know when the spirit has begun to change me? Well, there are a number of answers aren’t there?
We’re told the spirit within my heart is given as a pledge of my salvation (2 Cor 1:22, Rom 8:15-16). That is, I begin to sense that God is with me right now. Not in as complete a way as I’ll experience him in heaven, but nevertheless I do experience God’s presence in lots of little ways. It might be simply a lightening of the spirit as I think about something that happened to me during the week. It might be a sense of God’s presence when I come into the fellowship of believers here on a Sunday or in a small group during the week. It might be something I read in the Bible or a prayer that someone says that suddenly rings a bell. It might just be the awareness of another Christian who understands and cares about how I’m feeling at the moment.
Paul in Romans 8 tells us that when we pray to God as Father it’s a sign that the spirit is at work in us: "When we cry, "Abba! Father!" 16it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God." Who do you pray to when you pray? Do you pray to some remote being up there? Or do you pray to your heavenly Father? If you pray to your father we’re told it’s a sign that God’s Spirit is at work in your heart.
But it goes further than that. We’re also told the Spirit gives us power to change - to grow into holiness. What we find is that we begin to grow in our faithfulness to God. We begin to grow more Christlike in fact. This is what’s commonly called sanctification - becoming holy. Now it’s probably true that the longer someone has been a Christian the more Christlike they should be. I’m not sure it’s always the case, but it should be. But even the youngest Christian can see subtle changes that have begun to take place, changes of attitude, of behaviour. Perhaps a heightened awareness of sin and temptation in their lives. And again that’s the work of the Holy Spirit, changing them to be more like Christ.
Power for disciples’ Ministry
Finally, the Spirit is given to empower Christ’s disciples to serve him. In John 14 Jesus promises his ongoing presence through the Spirit whom he’d send as a counsellor or a comforter, and who would enable them to do far more than if he’d remained with them. (Jn 14:25-26)
When Jesus returns to the Father in Acts 1:8 the disciples are told to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit is given to them. Then they will receive power - what for? - to "be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." And we see that power exhibited in their preaching of the gospel, in healing and miracles that are described as works of power and in the various gifts that God gives them for ministry.
God continues, to this day, to empower his church for ministry. He continues to pour out on us a variety of gifts and fruit. We find various lists in the New Testament of the gifts and fruit God gives the church: 1 Cor 12, Eph 4, Gal 5:22ff, etc. These are given to enable us to continue God’s work of proclaiming the gospel to the ends of the earth.
But of course we need to use those gifts if they’re to grow. You’ll remember the parable of the gifts that Jesus told. Remember how it was those servants who used their gifts who saw them grow. The one who simply stored it away for safe keeping, in the end wasted it and was rebuked by the master for his laziness. God wants us to use our gifts in his service to the best of our ability so his kingdom will grow.
God is at work in us right now, not just through his creative word; not just through the saving work of Jesus Christ. He’s at work in us more immediately through the indwelling presence of his Holy Spirit who gives us life, convicts us of sin, changes our hearts of stone to hearts of flesh, changes us and helps us grow into Christlikeness and then empowers us to serve him in sharing the gospel with others and growing new disciples to maturity in Christ.
Let’s pray that we’d be aware of his presence in our lives and that we’d be working with him to bring about growth to maturity both in our own lives and in the lives of others.
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