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Sunday, November 12, 2017

The Power of the Holy Spirit

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, November 12, 2017.  The Bible verses used are Acts 1:3-11.

            Today we end our sermon series on the earthly life of Jesus.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learned some things from it.  I know I have.  Looking at Jesus’ life in this way has shown me all kinds of things I’d never thought about before.  I hope it’s done that for you, too.  
We called this sermon series “From the Manger to the Cross”.  Actually, though, we extended it beyond the cross.  The last few weeks, we’ve been dealing with the appearances of the resurrected Jesus.
            Today, we deal with the last one.  We’re told that Jesus gave the disciples many convincing proofs he was alive.  He appeared to them over a period of forty days.  He spoke to the disciples about the kingdom of God.  He told them to stay in Jerusalem until the time they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
            We’re told that they asked whether, at this time, Jesus was going to restore the kingdom to Israel.  Jesus answered that it was not for them to know that.  Then he said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
            And then he was gone.  Did the disciples know Jesus was going to leave right then?  Did they know they would never see him on earth again?  Nothing tells us that they did.  In fact, the way they reacted, staring up into the sky, makes me think they probably did not.  They may have thought, or at least hoped, that Jesus would come back again.  But of course, he did not.  At least, not yet.
            It must have been a tremendous reunion in heaven when Jesus got back there, don’t you think?  I mean, try to imagine how Jesus would’ve felt.  The divine Son of God, finally free of his human body, reunited with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.  The three in one were truly one again.  That must have been something.  There probably was as much rejoicing in heaven at that as there’s ever been about anything.
            But meanwhile, the disciples were back on earth.  And they did not know what to do.  All they knew was that they were supposed to stay in Jerusalem and wait until they were baptized with the Holy Spirit.
            I wonder if they had any idea what that meant.  To be baptized with the Holy Spirit.  They knew what a regular baptism was, of course.  But what would it mean to be baptized with the Holy Spirit?  Did they understand?  Would we?  I mean, we talk about the Holy Spirit, but do we know what it would mean, what it would be like, how it would change us, if we were actually baptized with the Holy Spirit?
            Jesus did say one thing about it.  Jesus said they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them.  But of course, the disciples may not have known what that meant, either.  Jesus did not say any more about it.  It sounds cool and all, but what kind of power?  The power to do what?  They did not know.
            I wonder if we know, either.  I mean, we talk about the Holy Spirit in church.  We talk about needing to open our hearts so that God’s Holy Spirit will come in.  We talk about asking God’s Spirit to lead us and guide us.  
But we don’t talk very often about getting power from the Holy Spirit.  We tend to think of the Holy Spirit as a spirit of love or a spirit of kindness or a spirit of forgiveness and mercy.  And of course the Holy Spirit is all those things.  But the Holy Spirit is so much more than just that.  The Holy Spirit is all the things God is, because the Holy Spirit is God.  One of the persons of the trinity:  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  So anything we can say of God we can also say of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is perfect.  The Holy Spirit is righteous.  And the Holy Spirit is almighty and all powerful.
We make a mistake when we forget about the power of the Holy Spirit.  We don’t mean to--I’m not saying it makes us terrible people or anything.  But forgetting about the power of the Holy Spirit can keep us from truly following the Holy Spirit.  And that keeps us from serving God and showing love to God as well as we should.
            What’s one of the main things that keeps us from truly opening ourselves to God’s Holy Spirit?  Fear, right?  That fear can take a lot of forms.  It can be fear of the unknown.  It can be fear of having our comfortable lifestyle upset.  It can be fear of looking foolish.  But whatever that fear is, it comes down to the same thing:  we don’t truly trust God’s Holy Spirit.  And one of the main reasons we don’t trust God’s Holy Spirit is that we don’t think enough about the power that God’s Holy Spirit has.
            God’s Holy Spirit is all-powerful, because God is all-powerful.  That means that there is nothing God’s Holy Spirit cannot do.  And that means that there is nothing that we cannot do if we allow God’s Holy Spirit to work in and through us.
            Here’s an example.  We’ve been talking for some time in church about the need to reach the unchurched people of our community, especially the unchurched children and their parents.  And I know some of you have done some things to try to do that.  And I know sometimes you’ve succeeded at it.  So please don’t take this as me criticizing anyone or saying that no one’s doing anything.  I know a lot of people are doing things.
            But one of the things that keeps us from reaching these unchurched people--and I’ve heard this from a lot of people--is that we think we don’t know how to do it.  We say, “I don’t know how to get people to come to church.  I don’t know what to say.  I don’t know what to do.  I don’t even know how to start.  I just cannot do it.  I don’t know how.”
            Now, understand, when people say this, I think they’re being completely honest.  Because I can say the exact same thing.  I don’t know how to get people to come to church, either.  And you know what else?  I don’t think there’s anyone who does.  Believe me, I’ve been to a lot of seminars and workshops on reaching unchurched people.  I’ve read a lot of articles and books on it.  If there was somebody out there who had the magic formula for reaching unchurched people, if there was some program we could adopt or some five-step model we could use to reach unchurched people, everybody’d be using it.  And all the churches would be reaching so many unchurched people that we’d all have to hold extra services to fit them all in.
            But here’s the thing.  God does not expect you and me to reach unchurched people.  What God wants from us is to trust God’s Holy Spirit.  What God wants is for us to open ourselves up to where God’s Holy Spirit is leading us.  Where we go wrong--where I go wrong--is when I think I’m the one who has to figure out how to reach the unchurched people of our community.  I don’t.  All I need to do is rely on God’s Holy Spirit.  All I need to do is to be open to allowing God’s Holy Spirit to lead me and guide me.  That’s all you need to do, too.  If we do that, God’s Holy Spirit will give us chances to reach unchurched people.  And when those chances come, God’s Holy Spirit will show us what to do and tell us what to say.  That’s how much power God’s Holy Spirit has, if we’ll only allow God’s Holy Spirit to work in and through us.
            If you read further in the book of Acts, you see that God’s Holy Spirit worked in and through the disciples in all kinds of amazing ways.  They were able to speak in tongues.  They were able to heal people.  Most importantly, they were able to reach all kinds of people for Jesus Christ.  They really were Jesus’ witnesses in Jerusalem and in of Judea and Samaria, just like Jesus had told them they would be.  They reached thousands of people and started a movement that still continues two thousand years later.
            None of these things were things the disciples knew how to do.  Peter, James, John, all the rest of them--they were lost when Jesus left them and went back to heaven.  They did not have a clue what to do.  But when they allowed the power of God’s Holy Spirit to work through them, they were able to do all kinds of things they never dreamed they could do.  They were able to do things most people would’ve said were not possible.  And in fact, the disciples would’ve agreed that these things were not possible if they’d tried to do them by themselves.  They were only possible because the power of God’s Holy Spirit was working through them.  Because with God, all things are possible.
            A lot of times, when we think about reaching unchurched people, we feel like we don’t have a clue what to do.  But when we allow the power of God’s Holy Spirit to work through us, we can do all kinds of things we never dreamed we could do.  We can do things most people would say are not possible.  But they are possible if we allow God’s Holy Spirit to work through us.
            So let’s focus on opening ourselves to God’s Holy Spirit.  Let’s allow God’s Holy Spirit to work through us.  When we do, God’s Holy Spirit will work in and through us in all kinds of amazing ways.  Because with God, all things are possible.


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