John 16:12-15 (New International Version)

Trinity 1 (30 May 2010)
Text: John 16: 12-15

John 16:12-15 (New International Version)

 

 ¹²"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. ¹⁴He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. ¹⁵All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

 

Last week we looked at the promise of Jesus on the Holy Spirit.  We look especially at John 16:15 & 16 that say, “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever”.  

We know that Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is our gift from God but given to us on one condition: that we have love in our hearts.  And because we love God we obey his commandments.  And the result of that is he gives us his Holy Spirit.

I have to spend two Sundays talking about this issue because this is an area where many Christians are confused.  One reason why we often get confused is because we live among people of many religions, and we often think that the Christian faith is the same as other faiths.  And some Christians think that being good is good enough to earn then heaven because that is what people of other faiths believe in.

The Christian faith is different from other religions is because we believe in a Saviour – Jesus Christ.  We believe that we are saved through grace, i.e. we accept Jesus’ death on the cross as our means of salvation.   Second, we are different because we need the Holy Spirit to help us to live godly lives.   Other religions teach their followers to obey a set of rules or perform certain rituals in order to be holy.  Yes, we Christians have rules and rituals but we do not believe they can make us perfect and save us.  We see rules and rituals as something that helps us to live together and do things together.  But the rules and rituals are both static and predictable.  If you break the rules you must be punished. If you do good you must be rewarded.  Likewise, if you follow rituals they are predictable, e.g. as in the case of a Liturgy.  Things are done in proper order, and you know what is coming next. 

Rules and rituals are good because they help us to do things together and do them properly, but they cannot make us holy and perfect in the eyes of God because we follow what is written.  In fact, when we try to follow every rule that is written we can end up with “legalism” and “perfectionism” as what happened to the Pharisees.  We may follow the rules and perform the rituals rightly or perfectly but we end up doing them without love or even without thinking.  For example, you can recite the Lord’s Prayer while you may be thinking about lunch.  You may be saying, “Give us our daily bread” but your mind thinks about chicken curry for lunch.

Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit because we are also called to have spirit-filled lives, and not just to live good lives.  And to help us counter balance our lives of rules and ritual that often lead to legalism and perfectionism, we need the Holy Spirit so that we also have flexibility and spontaneity.   We don’t want to live just according to our set of rules and daily rituals, because they make life too predictable and routine; and it may even be boring.  That is why once in a while we need to be jolted out of place; and receive fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit.  And when the Holy Spirit wants to do his work, he may choose moments that we don’t expect. 

Remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:8?  He said, “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."   When the Holy Spirit does his work, you can’t predict what he going to do and how he is going to do it.  Sometimes He will use crisis and problems to manifest himself.  Do you know why the disciples and other followers of Jesus were in the upper room on Pentecost day?  They were hiding in fear of being arrested and killed by the Jews.  They didn’t dare to celebrate in the Temple or the Synagogues.  It was a bad time for the disciples but a good time for God to send forth his Holy Spirit. 

Having said these, I also want to tell you about some misconceptions about the Holy Spirit.   Some of us think that after we have received the Holy Spirit our lives will go smoothly and that we shall be free of troubles.  But Luke 4 tells us that after his baptism, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.  It is simple principle: if you sharpen your knife you will want to test whether it is sharp enough.  If you have studied something, you will be asked to sit for an exam, to test your knowledge.   After his baptism, Jesus was immediately tempted.   But because Jesus was filled by the Spirit, no temptations could overcome him.   Remember that when Satan realizes that you have been filled by the Holy Spirit, he even has more reason to tempt you and to make you fall.  But if we are truly filled by the Spirit, we shall be strong because we have the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is also given not just for our personal benefits.  The spiritual gifts are meant to be used for the Church.  If we seek to use our spiritual gifts to build ourselves up instead the body, we are abusing our spiritual gifts; and that is when we find many wrong things done in Church.

Paul, in 1 Corinthians speaks about the three functions of the Holy Spirit in the Church: (i) to guide the Church; (ii) to empower the Church; and (ii) to build the Church. 
Every spiritual gift can be grouped into one of these categories as its primary function. For example, the gift of prophecy and teaching is meant to guide the church. The gift of mercy is for the building of the church. The gift of leadership is for empowering it. 

But how do we determine whether or not something is “of the Spirit”?  A clear sign of the Spirit is when output exceeds the input.  When the result exceeds what we possibly could have accomplished, that is a very clear sign of God’s Spirit at work.  This means that life in and through the Spirit will have three signs: (i) power in the Spirit; (ii) growth in the Spirit; and (ii) joy in the Spirit.  A person that is living through and by the Spirit will have a supernatural power that is evident in his or her life. However, we have to be careful in this. This evidence will not be the same for every person, so you cannot expect people to have the same experiences or to behave in the same manner.  Paul tells us that not all parts of the body have the same function, so the work of working of the Holy Spirit is different in each person.  But they will work together for the common good.  If you are looking for signs of the Holy Spirit at work, I don’t want you to just look at outward miracles.  I believe that the more important thing is the inward changes in a person’s heart.  When the power of the Spirit is present, people are transformed - they will work, worship, and sing with such great joy and enthusiasm.  The presence of the Holy Spirit is marked by love and fellowship. 

Having said this, however I need to state that Spirit-filled life is not without problems.  You can have problems, including problems never experienced before. It is because Satan will be at work to undermine what God is doing in his Church.   There are five common problems caused by our misunderstanding or ignorance of the Holy Spirit.

First, we can have wrong focus.  Instead of focusing on the Giver we may pay attention to the gift or the person receiving the gift.   We must not pay too much attention to the demonstration of power: instead we must focus on the One who provided the power. No matter how good or how powerful the gifted person is, remember that he is only an instrument through whom the Holy Spirit does his work.  

Second, we can end up rejecting reason in favour of feeling.  Often we can seek the feeling that comes from the Spirit of God moving in power that we reject the intellectual and rational.  We cannot always explain everything God is doing, but that does not mean we stop thinking.  If some gives a prophecy or vision, we must ask whether it is true or not.  It is because living a Spirit-filled life involves both feeling and critical thinking; emotional expression and understanding.   

The third danger is that we may separate the gifts from the fruit of the Spirit.  This is what Paul was addressing at Corinth.  If God has given you some spiritual gifts, those gifts must grow along with your personal spiritual maturity.  If that does not happen, it can cause big trouble in church.   Let’s say you have a gift as leader, but if you don’t cultivate the fruit of the Spirit, which includes love and patience; you will create problems in your group.  That is why we find leaders in Church who are dishonest with money, or having relationship problems with some of their own members.   This is another area where the discipline of the holy life and the spirit-filled life has to complement each other.

Fourth, we can end up as a church or group that excludes others.  When we over-rely on the words (of visions or prophecy) of the leaders, instead of believing in something most Christians throughout history have accepted as truth. There are leaders who teach that their church is the only true church, and they will stop their members from mixing with other people, and they can end up as cultic group.  That is why we must not simply believe and any prophecy or teaching: we must check what is said with what is being taught in the Bible. Someone has asked me, “What is the use of reciting the Creed during service?”  The Creed is the statement of our faith.  It has the same purpose, to protect us against false teaching.

Finally, we can end up putting God in a box.  This is a common pitfall of Spirit-filled Christians.  Just because they have seen God doing certain thing in a certain way at some point in time, they expect God to do the same thing again at other times.  For example, we have heard cases of people being healed or receiving spiritual gifts through the laying on of hands. There have been cases of persons, who have hands laid upon them, but nothing happen; so other people suggested that they did not have enough faith, or that they still have some unconfessed sins.  That is not right.  God does not have to do everything the same way all the time. If someone falls to the ground when hands are laid upon him, but if nothing happens to you – don’t think that you are less spiritual.  Just because God heals someone, it does not mean that he must heal you; God may have a different plan for you.   

Our final question: What can we do to help cultivate the spirit-filled life?

First, we must ask.  We must not assume that it is enough to believe and know about the Holy Spirit.   If you have been wondering if something has been missing in your life, you must ask God to do something about it.  (This is what we shall do during the communion later on). Ask God to fill you. Stand or Kneel before God as your brothers and sisters in Christ lay hands and pray for you.  I know that this is a common Pentecostal practice, but the wonderful thing about the Anglican Church is that we are open-minded enough to incorporate other useful practices into our worship.  If you are feeling somewhat overloaded with problems, worries, or just plain tired, I want to encourage you to come forward and experience God’s anointing.  But you cannot receive it simply by staying in your pew.  However, if you feel nothing when or after hands have been laid upon you; don’t worry because God does his work in his own time and his own mysterious way.

Second, take up some responsibilities.  Every spiritual gift is needed and every part of the body is needed. No matter how small your gift is or how great it is, take responsibility to fulfill your part in the body.  Two Sundays ago Andrew spoke about a jigsaw puzzle, and I am sure our jigsaw puzzle set has many holes in it because some of us have not done our part. 

Third, accept your limitation.  You cannot do everything because no single person contains all the gifts of the Spirit.  Even if you think you can, don’t try to do everything by yourself because it dangerous and unhealthy for the Body of Christ.  We need to accept our limitations and trust that God has called other people to do the rest of the work.

Fourth, esteem others.  This is sometimes called the ministry of encouragement.  God has arranged it in such a way that no one in Church has all the gifts and that everyone has at least one gift body, so that we will always be dependent upon one another.  None of us can properly exercise our gifts apart of the community of God’s people.  So, we must make sure that we value everyone’s gift as important.

Fifth, maintain unity within diversity.  Even though we come from many different racial backgrounds, and have different personalities and gifts, we can still function as whole because we are linked through the blood of Christ to suffer and rejoice together.  

It is important that you understand this concept because it can make a lot of difference to your Christian life and your relation with Jesus.  There are many people who call themselves Christians, but they are missing a lot, simply because their lives are not led and controlled by God’s Spirit within a dynamic community of faith.  

Here’s question that we need to ask ourselves, “Is my life Spirit defined or Spirit denied?”   If someone looks at our Church, does he see the difference that Christ makes in us?  I am not saying that we must be perfect because we can never be perfect now.  But that does not mean we cannot each other to take efforts to make a difference in our personal spiritual lives.