Theme: The Holy Spirit is Christ’s gift to the Church
Text: Acts 8:5-8, 14-17; 1 Pet. 3:15-18; John 14:15-21
The word Church does not refer to a physical building composed of wood and stone. It refers to the building of God composed of believers as living stones. It is the Holy Spirit who makes believers living stones and without the Holy Spirit there can be no living Church as it is the Holy Spirit that gives it life. A Church without life - that is without the Holy Spirit - is like a radio without batteries or without a connection to electricity. It could not serve any meaningful purpose, as you would not be able to listen to it. It would only serve as a mere decoration. There is a story of a young man who left home to live on his own. The first thing he did was to buy a refrigerator and stock it up with all his favourite drinks and food. The next morning he opened it and reached for a drink. It was warm and looking in saw that all his favourite food was spoilt. He was really annoyed and called the store to complain. “Just open the door and see whether the light comes on?” the store assistant asked politely. “No it does not” he angrily replied. “Put your ear up close to the fridge and tell me if you can hear the hum of the motor,” the assistant again asked politely? “No” he again replied angrily. “Go to the back and look for the cord and see if it’s plugged into the energy source?” The man realised he had not plugged in the cord and after a long pause he came back to the phone and said “considering the amount I paid for the fridge it should have worked anyway.” The Church without the Holy Spirit is like a fridge without electricity or radio without batteries or electricity. It does not really matter how nice or how expensive the appliance may be it will not work unless it is connected to an energy source. The same is true about our Spiritual Life. Unless we are connected to the Holy Spirit and His power, our Christian life just won’t achieve anything. It is the Holy Spirit who empowers the Church and without Him our lives would seem senseless and empty and fulfil no purpose, least of all please God. God knows how much we need a helper and the Holy Spirit is God’s gift to the Church.
Christ did not save us and then leave us alone as orphans. He gave us all that was necessary for a successful and victorious spiritual life. He gave us the Holy Spirit. It is only as we are empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit that we will produce what our lives were supposed to produce. The Holy Spirit is God’s precious gift to the Church and indwells every believer the moment he or she receives Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. The Holy Spirit is an integral part of the Church and His presence identifies believers as genuine children of God. The body of a child of God becomes a temple for the Holy Spirit who is the evidence of God’s seal of ownership on our lives. He testifies that we no longer belong to ourselves, but that our lives have been given over to God. This means that anyone contending with us is actually contending with God.
The Holy Spirit is God’s supernatural gift to give life to the believer. He is the heart and soul of the Christian faith and the victorious Christian life, and with no connection to Him we will continue to experience defeat after defeat. The Christian life is a supernatural life. It is the life of Christ lived out in every believer by means of the indwelling Holy Spirit who should guide everything we say and do. Many believers are not enjoying the supernatural life because they continue living in the flesh and not in the spirit. It is very easy to distinguish a true disciple of Christ from the people of the world. This is because the true disciple keeps Christ’s word. The keeping of God’s Word is the supreme distinguishing feature, which marks out the disciple of Christ from the rest of the world. Second, the keeping of God’s Word is the supreme test of the disciples love for God and the supreme cause of God’s love for the disciple. Third, it is through God’s Word, as it is kept and obeyed, that Christ manifests Himself to the disciple. Fourth, it is through God’s Word that the Father and the Son together come into the life of the disciple and establish their enduring home with him. Only the Holy Spirit can make us keep God’s Word. He is always present and ready to offer His help. He was the One who guided us to Christ in the first place by revealing the truth about sin, and reminding us that we had broken God’s commandments. He was the One who convicted us and led us to salvation. He is the One we continue to need if we are to grow to spiritual maturity. It is only the Holy Spirit that can make us feel what Christ feels and see what He sees and know what He wants. Unfortunately we often seek from the world those things that can only be given by God. Although God has given us the very best we at times settle for far lesser substitutes.
The Holy Spirit reveals the words and life of Christ to the Church. It is a life dictated by love. If Christ so loved us that He gave His life for us ought we not also love one another? Just as Jesus Christ revealed God to us being the expression of God in human form so are we also to reveal Christ to others being the expression of Christ. The expression of Christ in us is seen when we love the way Christ loved. Jesus said, “If you love me, then you will obey my commandments.” In other words, love produces obedience, or obedience to Christ’s command is the result of genuine love. It is this love that makes an impression on unbelievers as it acts to free them from bondage to sin. The Holy Spirit enables us to impact the lives of sinners through our love, the Word and prayer.
The Holy Spirit is necessary to make sure that our knowledge about God is transformed into an experience with God. Love is produced by obedience or love flows out of obedience. Here in Ghana some people fail to obey traffic lights when the police are not around. But as soon as they see a policeman they become law-abiding citizens and obey the rules. This does not mean that they love the policeman. In the same way it is possible to obey Jesus’ words and not love Him, but it is impossible to love Him and not obey Him. All of us who are parents know that our children will obey us for many different reasons. I know there have been times that my children have obeyed to get something that they wanted. At other times they have obeyed because they were afraid of being punished. Sometimes we have actually forced them to obey us. But the best feeling parents can have is to know that their children obey them simply because they love them. In the same way there are some people who obey Christ because they are hoping to get something out of it. Their obedience is linked to a reward and they expect God’s blessing or a “divine allowance” because they have been good. There are others who obey God because they are afraid of punishment and do not see Him as a loving father who cares for His children. There are still others who give themselves no choice because of their self-righteous attitudes. But there are also those who obey the Lord because they really love Him. Do we obey Christ because we love Him? Or do we obey Him because we are looking for a reward? Do we obey Him because we are afraid of being punished or because of a self-imposed self-righteousness like the Pharisees? Let our obedience to Christ be the result of our love for Him as our Saviour and Lord.
The Holy Spirit’s focus is only on Christ and He reveals the wisdom of God and enables the believer to understand God’s revelations. Without the Holy Spirit the believer cannot make anything lasting out of the opportunities that life offers. The Holy Spirit also enables the believer to live according to God’s revealed will. The Christian life demands relying on God for each step we take. It demands knowing His will and doing it. It demands finding out His will and using our time and opportunities to fulfil it. It demands praying according to His will so that what God has willed takes place.
The will of God is for believers to be like Christ and the evidence is our love for Christ and our obedience to His commandments. God wants us to be a tree of life to others because He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. The tongue is very important if we are to enjoy this abundant life. God, the Creator has a purpose for everything that He does. He has designed the human head with two eyes, two ears, and two nostrils but with only one tongue and this He safeguards with the teeth and the lips. For me this simply means that it is not all that we see, hear or smell that we should speak about. We should guard our tongue properly for as the Scriptures declare, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue”. If we use our tongue properly it will be a tree of life. But if we use our tongue improperly, then the result is death. What we say with our tongue gives us an indication of our true spiritual condition. There is a direct connection between the heart and the mouth and Jesus refers to the heart as the tree and to the words that come out of the mouth as the fruit. The nature of the tree inevitably determines the kind of fruit. In the same way when we see the kind of fruit, we know the nature of the tree. When you see an orange you will know that the tree is an orange tree and if you see a mango you will know that the tree is a mango tree. The tree is the heart and the fruit is the mouth. The kind of words that come out of the mouth indicates the condition of the heart. If the heart is good, then out of the mouth will come words that are good? But if the heart is evil, then out of the mouth will come words that are evil. You cannot have bad fruit from a good tree, nor can you have good fruit from a bad tree. Each one of us eats the fruit of our own tongue. If the fruit is sweet, we will eat sweet fruit. If the fruit is bitter, we will feed on bitter fruit. We may deceive ourselves about the state of our heart with all sorts of ideas about our own goodness, purity or righteousness, but the reality is what comes out of our mouth. If what comes out of our mouth is corrupt, it means then that the state of our heart is also corrupt. In the words of Jesus “you cannot have bad words out of a good heart. You cannot have good words out of a bad heart”. It does not matter how religious we may claim to be. We may attend Church, sing hymns and do all the other things that are expected of religious people. All these are good but if we do not keep our tongue under control, our religion is worthless and unacceptable to God.
James goes to the extent of saying that if we can control our tongue we can control our life. The tongue can influence our life in the same way as a bit in a horses’ mouth controls the whole animal. James also compares the tongue to the rudder of a ship. Although small and invisible because it is under the water, its use determines the whole course of the ship. If the rudder is used properly the ship will arrive safely where it is going. If it is not used properly the ship is likely to be shipwrecked. In a similar way, the tongue controls the course of our lives. If it is used properly we will make it safely to our destination. If not we will be shipwrecked. James also compares the tongue to a fire. Just like it only takes a spark to start a bush fire so a wrong word can destroy something of tremendous value and size. The tongue can also be likened to a poisonous element that poisons the whole course of our lives. We determine our destinies by the way we use our tongues. We need to be very careful of what we say. One area where we are often ignorant is that in singing we are also making pronouncements with our tongue. We come to worship and sing “All to Jesus I surrender” and then when we give the offering we give him what to us is small change. God holds us accountable to the words we speak in His presence. The root of every problem affecting our tongues is in our hearts. This means that in order to deal with problems affecting our tongues we must first deal with the root problems in our hearts. The first step to deal with the problem is to acknowledge that the problem is sin. God is the God of Truth, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth and so God will only deal with us on the basis of truth.
Those who love Christ will obey His commands simply because it is Christ’s word spoken to them. Whether it is the spoken commandment of Christ in scripture, His teachings, the Old or New Testament scriptures inspired by His Spirit, or the still small voice of His spirit speaking to the heart those who love Him will obey Him. Our desire should be to obey Christ and serve Him only. If our obedience is because of convenience or our own personal beliefs, then we are serving ourselves and not Christ. If our obedience is the result of pleasing those in authority over us, then we are serving men and not Christ. It is only when we wholeheartedly respond to Christ with a willing heart that we are truly serving Him. If we love Christ we will do whatever He asks whenever He asks. We are not free to pick and choose what or when we want to obey. Love should make us want to obey Christ willingly and without question. The Holy Spirit empowers us to live a life that is filled with love, compassion and care. He is the only One who can change us to become what God wants us to be – a people who demonstrate the life and character of Jesus Christ. Let us make an impact on our world as the Church of Christ by allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us into fulfilling God’s divine purposes. Amen!
