The Holy Spirit and the Church

Recap series so far...

Looking at ancient confession of faith called Nicene Creed. Early church was facing confusion over what was essential to Christian faith, and in particular, challenges by a bishop named Arius that Jesus was created by the Father, not co-eternal with the Father. The Creed defined what Christians should believe at a minimum.

We still live in a time where there is still great confusion over what is “Christian” and what isn’t.

With the Nicene Creed, the early church has thrown us a rope that can help lead us back home.

Celebrated the Protestant Reformation this week. Things we still disagree over, but when both sides grab the rope it leads us back to the center and we realize that they are also our brothers and sisters.

This morning we start looking at the last section of the Creed - the Holy Spirit and the Church. It almost reads like two separate sections, but they wrote it this way bc it is the Spirit who gives birth to the church - this happened at the feast of Pentecost in Acts 2 - AND it is the Spirit who gives life and energy to the church. We shouldn’t talk about the Spirit without talking about the Church. BC what the Spirit has been doing for 2,000 years is building a church, forming a family of God. The Spirit and the Church are inseparable, and we get into serious error when we try and separate the two.

When we begin talking about the HS what comes to mind? I shared a few weeks ago that over 90% of evangelical Christians believe that God is a Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit. But 40% of these same people thought the Spirit was just an impersonal force and not a person.

I think at other times we think of the Spirit as a weird uncle. Do you have one of those? I’m probably one of those. I had a weird uncle - uncle Teddy. I don’t think I ever saw him that he wasn’t wearing short sleeve Dickies overalls. He had glasses that were so think they made his eyes look freakishly large, and his hair stood up at odd angles. He had a constant look of bewilderment on his face, like a absent-minded professor. And you never knew what he was going to say. He had a knack for saying the most inappropriate things at the wrong times. I didn’t really understand this as a kid, but I could see my aunt cringe every time he was about to open his mouth. Over time I just kind of learned to avoid him.

I think for some of us, the HS is that weird uncle. We’re not real sure what he’s going to do or if it will be good or make us feel embarrassed, so maybe it’s best that we just avoid him altogether. But who is the HS?

Before we get into this week’s teaching let’s recite the creed together?

Recite the creed…

Pray …

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In answering the question, who is the HS?, maybe it would be best to start by saying who the Spirit is NOT:

An element - like earth, wind, fire, spirit. He’s not ambivalent or indifferent.

A force - like gravity, or The Force for you Star Wars fans. He’s not nebulous or ambiguous.

Not a feeling - an encounter with the Spirit can involve our feelings, but he is not just a warm, fuzzy feeling

Who the Spirit is is a Person. Here is how the Creed says it:

“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.”

Let me start with some basic theology of the Spirit, and then we will get into who this matters for us. First,

The Holy Spirit is the “Lord”.

We saw a couple of weeks ago that in calling Jesus “Lord” it linked him to the name used for God in the OT. That Jesus is God in the same way the Father is God. Now the same word is used of the Spirit. He is also the Lord. The Spirit is God, just like Jesus is God and the Father is God.

So when you’re having your quiet time and praying, are you experiencing the presence of Jesus or the HS and the answer is ‘yes’. In fact, the NT sometimes refers to the Spirit as the Spirit of God, and at other times as the Spirit of Jesus. So we encounter Jesus through the HS, and we experience the love and power of God through the HS. The Spirit is the Lord.

The Holy Spirit is the “Giver of Life”.

Notice they didn’t choose to say the HS is the one who “gave” life. They could have said it that way - he gave life. But they said “giver”. They are saying that life wasn’t something the Spirit once did - it’s what the Spirit does. It is ongoing.

The word for Spirit - ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek - both mean breath or wind. The Spirit breathes into us to give us life. Jesus said it this way to Nicodemus:

“You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”” (John 3:7–8, NIV)

Jesus is saying the Spirit is like breathe that makes us born again, or like wind that fills us and pushes us out into the world to join God in his work.

The Holy Spirit inspired and illuminates the Scriptures.

The apostle Peter writes:

“Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.” (2 Peter 1:20–21, NLT)

It is the HS who inspired the writing of Scripture so that what we have is the reliable and authoritative Bible God wanted us to have. AND it is the HS that still speaks to us today by illuminating those scriptures to us so that we can understand their meaning.

This is how we are to think about the Spirit who is the Lord and Giver of Life and the Scriptures. He is a person.

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That being said, how does the Spirit continue to give life to the church. What does that mean for you and I personally? There are three ways that we lean into this at the Vineyard - we talk sometimes about our “pillars” - what our church is built on, and we use the words Presence, Formation, and Mission. I want to use these three words to look at three ways the Spirit gives life to the church.

The Spirit and Presence.

By presence I’m talking about a personal encounter with God.

“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”” (Romans 8:15, NLT)

The Holy Spirit gives us the experience of God’s presence. Primarily, that experience is the deep assurance that you are a child of God. A deep experience of his love for you.

Did you know God wants you to experience him? I think sometimes we have a very detached view of God - like he’s up there and we’re down here. Every once in a while he might pop in down here, but mostly he just leaves us to ourselves.

But that is wrong. God wants you to know him experientially through the Spirit. Imagine you enter into marriage with someone, not bc you love them or they love you, but bc you both want to gain the tax advantages of being married. So you get married and sign the contract, but you never live together or do life together in any meaningful way. You’re married, but you’re not experiencing marriage.

Sometimes we can do that with the Spirit. We come to God in faith and repentance. We’re born again by the Spirit. But we can treat that relationship like a contract. I said I was sorry for my sins. I believe in who Jesus is. I did my side of the contract, and now God does his side by forgiving me and giving me eternal life. We have a transaction, not a relationship.

But God doesn’t make contracts; he makes covenants. And his covenant with us is his self-giving love demonstrated at the cross. And he wants to enter into full relationship with you where you learn to enjoy his presence as a regular experience.

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The second way the Spirit gives life to the church is to talk about

The Spirit and Formation.

Paul writes this about how the Spirit forms us.

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22–23, NLT)

The Spirit works to form us in and through community. Everything we offer at the Vineyard - Sunday morning, kids church, small groups, occasional courses or seminars, prayer and reading guides - everything is designed to help form you in partnership with the Spirit. We are not just doing them bc we’re a church and we need to offer you a set of programs or somehow justify our existence. It’s so we all together become a people formed into Christlikeness - people who manifest the fruit of the Spirit in their lives. Or as we say every week during announcements, we want to embody the love of Jesus to our neighbors.

How do we become these kind of people? Word and Spirit. John Wimber used to say a church with the Spirit but no Word will blow up, a church with the Word but no Spirit will dry up, but a church with the Word and Spirit will grow up. I think that’s pretty good. We need both.

Illustrate with 8 vs 96 crayons… Can make a much more elaborate picture with 96. If what you know of God in scripture is like 8 crayons, what kind of picture can you draw? It will be OK, but how much better picture can you draw if your knowledge is more like 96?

Some just want to focus on the Spirit. I don’t really like to read the Bible. It’s hard to understand and boring. I just like to get into the HS feels. Others are like, I’m a Bible person. I don’t really get into the Spirit-thing, but I memorized the whole book of Matthew last month. That’s awesome. But in the very DNA of the Vineyard we are a Word and Spirit church. This is how the Spirit forms the the church - the Spirit working through the Word.

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The last way I want to talk about how the Spirit gives life to the church is

The Spirit and Mission

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”” (Acts 1:8, NLT)

You may of heard me say this before, but the word “witness” in this passage is related to the words for martyr. Jesus is telling his disciples that they will need to be prepared to face death in advancing his mission. And they won’t have the power on their own to do that. But he will give them that power through the HS.

The great Pentecost theologian, Gordon Fee, call the Spirit “God’s empowering presence”. The Spirit is God’s presence, but it his presence for purpose. To empower us to do what we could not do in our own strength or ability.

How do we understand this empowerment? Sometime I think we think the power of the Spirit is like a flashlight. We have our flashlight, and we talk about going to church to get our batteries filled, and then we go out into the world with “this little light of mine” and we’re shining our light, and then Sunday comes along and we go back to church to get our batteries recharged. In that scenario, we have the power source within us and we just need the Spirit to juice us up occasionally.

But I think a better illustration is this lamp. I think life in the Spirit is learning to remain plugged in. This lamp has no power on its own. It has no power unless it’s connected to the source. You and I have no power unless we’re connected to the source. This isn’t something that is an option for super-Christians. This is for everyone, bc Jesus said without him you can do nothing. But the Spirit wants to fill you and propel you for mission outside the church.

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I made a joke about our nervousness about the Spirit comparing him to a weird uncle. I grew up in churches that were either ignorant of or dismissive of the HS. I was taught to be very leery of anything too HS. Those people were either making it up or were self-deluded. We talked about Pentecostal preachers just pushing ppl over when they prayed for them. My aunt wanted to speak in tongues and during an alter call a woman just knelt beside her and told her some words to say. And plus, have you ever noticed charismatics? They’re weird. They do weird things.

So I had a healthy, or unhealthy, however you want to think of it, suspicion of the Holy Spirit. At least so far as the Spirit doing anything outside the ordinary. But I also knew that my experience with God was dry. Like, is this all life with God is? Reading my Bible and trying not to sin. That seemed very unsatisfying. And, the thought that 300 million Pentecostals world-wide could ALL be deluded seemed impossible. I began to desire an experience with God beyond my salvation.

By God’s grace I discovered the Vineyard. And the last 20 years has been this process of learning to live in the tension of being a person of the Word and Spirit. My natural inclination is to just be a Word guy. That’s neat and orderly and controllable and predictable. I like that. But alone it can also be lifeless. And some of you may be coming from the other side.

But the real question for us this morning is, How much of the Spirit do you want? Do you want only part of the Spirit or all the Spirit - even the parts you don’t feel good at or that make you feel uncomfortable? The Spirit is the Lord, and he wants to give you ALL of his life.

I’ve been on a sailboat one time - what I learned is that if you want to make any progress you have to put the sail up. When it comes to the Spirit, we have to put our sail up to catch that wind. We often might say we want more of the Spirit, but I wonder if the Spirit isn’t saying the same thing - that he wants more of you. The wind is blowing, but you have to put your sail up.

This morning I want to give you the opportunity to be filled - or filled afresh - with the Spirit. Some of you are already thinking, oh no, what’s about to happen? I have had the opportunity to run a lot of Alpha HS retreats where we invite ppl to be filled with the Spirit at the end. Here’s what I can tell you almost always happened:

Some ppl experienced a deep assurance of God’s love or peace

Other’s felt God bringing healing to a wound - often an emotional one - tears were often involved.

Some ppl feel God’s power coursing through them with feelings like heat, tingles, or slight tremors

Many experienced a great sense of joy and releases in laughter

And on a few occasions people were released to pray in tongues

The Spirit isn’t going to make you do that or anything else you don’t want to do. So chill out. Here is what I can say with absolute confidence: no one who ever experienced the filling of the Spirit was sorry afterward.

Invite them to stand, maybe open their hands in a receptive manner, relax. Share that I’m going to invite the Spirit to come, and then we’re just going to wait. We won’t linger. Here’s what we know: when we ask the Spirit to come, he comes. You may feel something, you may not. You may experience something later. But if you ask in faith, refuse to believe that nothing happened.

Pray...

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Invite people to stand. Ask for worship, ministry, and Communion team to come down.

Every Sunday we close our time by receiving Communion together. This symbolic meal reminds us of Jesus’ sacrifice. It proclaims the gospel that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again. It is the source of our spiritual nourishment. We believe Jesus is present with us as we receive his body and blood.

We think Jesus invites everyone to this table. If it’s your first time, or you’re not even sure yet where you stand with Jesus, we think he would welcome you here. If you would like to participate, after I pray step into the nearest aisle. Someone at the front will take a piece of bread dipped in wine and offer it to you as the body and blood of Jesus. If you prefer not to have wine, close your hands together and that will be the sign for them to give you a sealed container with grape juice and a wafer.

What is the Spirit doing this morning?… Pray specifically for people to be filled with the Spirit

As we go into our time of Communion let’s prepare our hearts to receive by confessing our sins together:

Merciful God, we confess we have sinned against you, in what we have thought and said, what we have done, and what we have failed to do.

We haven't loved you with our whole heart, and we haven't loved our neighbors as ourselves.

[Take a moment to confess any sins you’re aware of.]

We are sorry and we repent.

For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us, so we can follow your will and live in ways that honor your Name. Amen.

Thank God for his forgiveness. For his patience in our struggles. To move us deeper into a life of faith with him.

Thank him that through the blood of his cross he has washed our sins away. Through his victorious resurrection he has guaranteed us eternal life. Through his ascension and the outpouring of the Spirit he has made us one with you.

We remember Him who for us and for our salvation, on the night that he was betrayed...

Come Holy Spirit and overshadow these elements. Let them be for us your body and blood so that we can participate in your redemptive work for us. May we find mercy, healing and salvation through the finished work of the cross. Amen.