Lent 05: The Creed 16: We believe in the Holy Spirit, Empowered by the Spirit of God

1 Corinthians 12:1–11 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

1 Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to dumb idols. 3 Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit. 4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. 7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

Idols, gifts/service and manifestation

What a God we have. As staff we’ve just come back from the New Wine Leadership Conference which was online and we all watched the sessions through the app, shared our immediate thoughts through what’s app and then met together over zoom for reflection and chat time.

I can say that I am really excited about the team of surfers which we have here at St Mark’s. As the wave the Lord prophesied he’d send as a move of his Spirits breaks upon us as a church and a community this year, we’ve got some skill-full surfers ready to follow the lead surfer, Jesus in negotiating the path across the wave.

And we are committed to Knowing Jesus - Loving Each Other and Caring for our Community. This can’t be done without being empowered by the Spirit of God.

In our passage Paul speaks about the Holy Spirit of God and contrasts Him against dumb idols.

1 Corinthians 12:2 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

2 You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to dumb idols.

When we didn’t know Jesus, as Paul puts it when we were Pagans, we were led astray by dumb idols.

These idols take all sorts of forms. literally images of humans or elements of creations, images of Buddha, folk Catholicism which in some parts of the world sees veneration of saints statues or pictures, other image based idols are our TV’s our games consoles and the unspoken silent addiction of pornography. Other destructive idols in our life are found in greed, whether its being seduced by gambling, alcoholism, gossip and slander. Sometimes our idols are more about a desire to be accepted due to our achievements or what we look like. Workaholism, working hard for acceptance rather than genuinely being over worked, Narcicism, being in love with our own image or abilities. And the list of modern day idols goes on.

Coming to know Jesus and being filled with the Spirit doesn’t immediately stop us returning, like the proverb says (26.11) a dog returns to it’s vomit, we often fall back into patterns of putting other things before Jesus.

But a life lived with Jesus, a life filled with the Spirit of God, leads us away from the temptations to return to our old God’s of power, sex and money. It’s a life of freedom as children loved by our heavenly Father.

And the Spirit brings this transformation

In a previous church, we had a friend who had grown up in a very difficult home with an abusive Father and where drugs and alcohol were a very real part of life. In her early 20’s she was infamous on the most deprived estate we worked with and it was only at the moment that her daughter was about to be taken off her, that she reached out to the local church. Encountering a church family who loved her and her daughter, a church community who would walk alongside her, even when she fell back into old habits and sought a fix for her addictions, she encountered the living God through the Holy Spirit of God as she saw Him at work in her new friends in the Church.

At her first New Wine conference it was a joy to hear a word from the Lord spoken by someone who didn’t know her from the main stage. Out of thousands of people in the venue, she was called out. She went forward and many people prophesied over her, speaking specific words of knowledge into her life with no knowledge of her situation. One woman even prophesied that her daughter wouldn’t be harmed by what she’d been through. And our friend hadn’t even mentioned she had a daughter. Within 3 years her life was completely turned around and she now shares her testimony regularly and what was really amazing was seeing the effect it had on the troubled local estate. Where we saw her friends and family completely baffled by what had happened in her. Some were sceptical, some confused, because our friend had completely changed, and she was the best evangelist I knew in church because she was honest, genuine and real and she wasn’t scared to tell her story.

She’d encountered the living God, she was filled with the Holy Spirit of God, and she was ready to share with anyone about her new friend.

What difference would we see in Haydock if members of the estates here were transformed by the Holy Spirit like that? Imagine the ripples.

The Holy Spirit is God. Fully. The Holy Spirit is the person of the trinity who is the presence of God on earth. As we’ve explored, God is one, and Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We have access to the Father, through the Son by the Holy Spirit.

Gifts and manifestation of the Holy Spirit

And the Holy Spirit equips us and manifests God’s presence around us.

Manifest means to appear or demonstrate, and when the Holy Spirit manifests, we are filled with His Spirit. We experience joy like we’ve never known before, deep forgiveness, sometimes we feel like we’re being blown over, and other times we feel really hot. And all of these are real experiences and good experiences. Sometimes we burst out with uncontrollable laughter, other times we burst into tears as God releases us from a burden or sin or as we experience his forgiveness, some people end up roaring as the Spirit releases their pain and for others they fall to the ground, feeling like they’ve been blown over. Images of the Holy Spirit in the Bible are a dove, gentle and light descending on Jesus, a rushing wind, powerful and invisible, an all consuming fire that burns away our sin and our shackles and releases us.

And this same Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of Jesus, empowers us. He gives gifts to the children of God.

Supernatural gifts.

Whether it’s a sense to call someone who we find out is really struggling, which we call the Spirit’s prompting.

Whether it’s a specific word from God, where we pray for someone and he gives us a word of knowledge, and insight into their life which we couldn’t possibly know. I was praying for someone from the conference and shared what I felt God was saying to him, and he was really surprised that I’d spoken that to him as it spoke directly into a situation he was wrestling with.

1 Corinthians 12:7 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.

Each of these gifts are given to the Church for the common good. We are not given these gifts to be misused, which is why when we hear a prophesy or a word of knowledge, or we feel God’s given us a picture or vision, we test it, and we offer it. We never say ‘The Lord says’ or ‘God says you must’, because we do hear him wrongly often. But what we do is we offer these to the individual we’re praying for, or the person we feel God wants us to share it with.

It’s amazing to see what God does when we’re courageous enough to share what he’s given us. Like when we speak to a neighbour or a friend and say, “you know I’m a Christian and I pray for you. I was praying earlier in the week and I think God was saying that he’s holding you in this time. I had an image which I felt he gave me for you, and it was...”

God speaks to all of us, but it takes us a while to learn to hear Him. If you’re hearing this this morning and think “God never speaks to me”, I assure you he does, but I gently ask how long you spend quietly listening. Our Lent course has helped with exploring ‘practising the presence of Jesus’ hanging out with Him and hearing Him speak. We as a Church are here to help you listen to God, so just ask and I and we have many in church who would be willing to help you hear from God.

Coming out of the New Wine Leadership Conference, what I’m really struck by is that we’re in a unique opportunity, it’s a moment when more people than ever are ready to engage with the good news of Jesus, it’s a moment when the gods of society have let us down.

Did you know that

May 2020 - 12.5 million people attended church

August 2020 - half of all 18-34 year old’s said they’d been attending church in the past 6 weeks.

Feb 23% of adutls in this country are estin=mated to have attended online church services

all 18-34 year old’s said they’d been attending church in the past 6 weeks.

2 and a half million people have been viewing without any church experience and the majority are people who have a nominal faith or would say their sympathetic to the church.

What an opportunity to reach people. At St Mark’s I’m confident that we’ve kept the majority of our weekly worshipping community based on the viewing numbers across zoom and YouTube. In fact throughout the year we’ve seen more attendees than usual. A number of people locally stop me in the street and say they’ve watched us online, which is so encouraging and the reach of St Mark’s is growing.

So what do we do going forward? Well, I’ve had some exciting conversations with about 20 people either leading minsitries in St Mark’s or who are passionate about being part of the next steps of the Church, and we’re now discerning in 3 areas.

Food provision, perhaps through a food pantry

Financial support - perhaps through money courses or some level of debt advice

Pastoral support across the church for both congregation and the local community

But there’s more

as we reopen, our kids work on a Sunday and mid-week will be kicking off again. We could do with helpers across our children’s ministry

And the same is true of Youth. Josh and I will be hosting the first Youth prayer meeting next Sunday at 7.30pm on the usual zoom for anyone who would like to pray into the coming Youth Work. We’ll need to build a team to engage with young people

TANGO is also broadening it’s scope with a dog cafe, and we particularly want some volunteers who’s roles are around welcome and ready to offer prayer to those who would like it

St Mark’s is a place where everyone has a role and a part to play, and so I wonder where God is calling you to do.

There are many active roles about to restart, but for those who are shielding or housebound, we have a massive need for regular pastoral phone calls to be made.

The same Spirit who gives us His gifts also calls us each to a different act of service and works. Not to earn His love, but to show His love to those around us. That work will be in your workplace, your social groups, you family, but it is also here within St Mark’s.

So I wonder, where is God calling you to serve as we come out of the restrictions we are living under, and how is the Holy Spirit equipping you to serve Him this week and in the months ahead?