Pentecost, 4^th June 2017; All Saints; John 20:19-23; Acts 2:1-11; 1 Cor 12:4-13

“Power in the Holy Spirit”

I. Sailboats and the Wind

If you went down to Newport, Rhode Island, this afternoon and looked out over the ocean, you would see quite a number of sailboats on the water. They would be sailing in different directions, some going directly downwind, but most going across the wind in one way or another.  You might ask yourself, “How do they do that?”  If you were to go on board a sailboat, you could talk to the sailors and find out.  They would tell you about tacking and how to set the angle of the sails and the rudder to use the wind to go in the desired direction, even heading upwind.  It is a wonderful and enjoyable thing to harness the power of the wind.

A famous preacher of the late 1800’s, Dr. Henry Jowett, was talking with a sailor on a great sailing ship.  He asked the old salt, “Could you explain the wind to me?”  The seaman replied, “I don’t understand your question, sir.”  “What I mean is, how do you explain the wind that propels your ship?”  And the sailor answered, “I really don’t know where the wind comes from, but I can hoist a sail.”

Today is Pentecost, the day we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Church.  There is a lot we cannot explain about the Holy Spirit, but we can experience the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  As we see from our reading in John 20, the Holy Spirit is given to us not just that we as individuals can enjoy God’s presence, but also for a great task which God has given to his people: (Jn. 20:21,22)   “‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that, he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”  The Holy Spirit is given to we who follow the Lord Jesus so that we may fulfill the task he has given to us.  Today, I want to look at one way of “hoisting a sail” so that we enjoy the fellowship of the Father through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit – and so that we are used by God for the sake of his Kingdom as we are sent out into the world “to do the work [God] has given us to do.”

I know that All Saints is a parish that values the Charismatic Renewal.  This valuing of life in the Spirit was written right into the parish profile as the congregation began its search for a new rector over a year ago.  That’s an important reality for the parish and for the new rector.  It is a recognition that although we all have a variety of gifts and abilities, in order that these gifts and abilities be used for God purposes and God’s glory, we need the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.

I have a little 12-foot sailboat, an O’Day Widgeon, and once or twice when I have been out in the middle of a lake, the wind died down to nothing.  There I was, my sails raised, the tiller in my hand, all ready to sail, but going nowhere.  I do keep a canoe paddle in my boat, but I can tell you that, while it is possible to make some headway with a paddle, it is a LOT of tiring work for a very little progress.  It is possible to do things for the church through our own strength – but it is also exhausting, slow, and does little to advance God’s Kingdom or to show forth his glory.  A paddle does not do much for my sailboat – what I really need is for the wind to fill my sail.

I imagine that many of those who are listening to me this morning have had a powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit that changed the way you related to God, to his Church, and to other people.  That is a wonderful kind of experience to have; it makes a real difference in one’s life and often makes what had simply been a duty into a delight and an adventure.  However, we cannot simply depend on that one experience.  In 2 Cor. 4:7, Paul says that “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”  We are only clay pots; unfinished clay pots are porous, so water can seep out.  In addition, we tend to crack, and therefore to “leak.”  We are weak and fragile, even if we like to think that we are strong and constant.  We need a continual flow of the Holy Spirit into our hearts and lives.

This morning, I want to talk about three things we can do to raise the sail and catch the wind of the Holy Spirit, so that we may live in his power and not our own.  I’m going to talk about three spiritual disciplines that need to be part of our lives.  In talking about them, I do want to say that I am supposing that you already engaged to some extent in two other disciplines: reading the Bible and praying.  Regular personal study of the Bible and prayer are the two foundational spiritual disciplines that all Christians need to engage in.  Without them, any other discipline becomes far more difficult, if not impossible.

As I begin talking about these three disciplines, I want to let you know that I first heard about them at our clergy conference a few years ago in a talk by Bishop Bill.  He in turn got them from Dr Harold Ockenga, the founding president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, who summarized them in a little pamphlet called “Steps for the Prayer for the Release of the Spirit.”  Given that we always need to be led and empowered by the Holy Spirit in our life as Christians, I decided that these disciplines would be good ones to review on this Pentecost Day.

II. The Need to Confess Any Lingering Sin

On the evening of the first Easter day, the Lord Jesus breathed on his disciples and said to them, “receive the Holy Spirit.”  Over the next forty days, Jesus came to his disciples time and again, instructing them in all the Scriptures that he had fulfilled in his life, death, and resurrection.  They had not understood his teaching on these matters before his death and resurrection, but with the Holy Spirit within them in a new and different way, they grasped what Jesus had been saying.  On Ascension Day, the Lord Jesus departed to reign at the right hand of his Father, and told his followers to wait in Jerusalem for the power of the Spirit to come upon them so that they could do what he was calling them to do.  Over the ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost the followers of Jesus “devoted themselves to prayer,” as Acts 1:14 tells us.

In order to be refreshed and renewed in the Spirit, we need to clear out the trash in our lives.  That is, we need to confess any known sins, particularly the ones that are what the Puritans used to call “besetting sins,” areas where we are particularly weak and have habitual sins.  This is the first of the three disciplines we need for continual refreshment in the Spirit.  As we begin our service of Holy Communion each week, we pray the Collect for Purity: “Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, so that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord. Amen”  If you want to confess your sins, that is an excellent prayer to use, asking God to reveal these sins to you so that you may confess them with knowledge.

It’s important to be thoughtful, prayerful, and honest in such a process.  It is very tempting to say about  some aspect of a failing that “It’s just the way I am; there’s nothing I can do about it.”  I remember using that excuse to a friend who had pointed out a major failing of mine and being told, “Don’t excuse sin!  It may be the way you are, but it does not honor God.  It hurts other people, and it hurts you.”  I trusted my friend, and took those words to heart.  My tendency to be snide, sarcastic, and defensive did not honor God, it did hurt others, and it hurt me because it prevented me from being the kind of person God wanted me to be and carrying out the kind of ministry God wanted me to do.  As I considered the words of my friend, was distressed, for my friend was correct.

I confessed my sin, and I examined my heart before God to see why those kinds of interactions were so tempting to me.  It is my conviction that all sin is an attempt to meet a real and good need, but in a way that ignores God and ignores the way that he wants that need met.  My sarcasm made people laugh, which I thought gave me approval and acceptance in their eyes.  Having others approve of you and accept you is a real need – but sarcasm is only funny to those who are not the target.  A snide and cutting remark may bring laughter – but it does not honor anyone and it demeans a person who has been created in the image of God.

So I confessed to the Lord that I was seeking a good thing in a very bad way, and asked for forgiveness and for transformation.  Being snide, sarcastic, and defensive was something that I had built up over years, and there was no way that I could change myself by myself.  Without the Spirit’s presence and power transforming me, I was hopelessly stuck.  Over time, God changed me – some major progress at first, and then small changes over time, which is usually how God works in our lives.

But growth in goodness takes its start with confession – recognizing where you have been ignoring or even defying the Lord, and then bringing that sin to the foot of the cross for forgiveness, mercy, and transformation.  Sometimes a person can do this by themselves, but it is also a process that may need a formal confession to a priest, or a conversation with a trusted, spiritually mature friend.  It’s the first step – clearing the air so that Holy Spirit has room to be present and to work in and through you.

III. The Need to Intentionally Bring All Areas of Life to the Spirit

The second discipline that needs to be practiced is consecration: intentionally setting aside each area of your life for God’s guidance and direction.  One of the challenges of living as a Christian is that, while it is easy to say, “Jesus is Lord of my life,” it is harder to put each area of our lives under his control.  Each of us is involved in a vast array of activities, some of which have to do with church, some with our personal spiritual lives, and some with things that are not clearly religious or spiritual – from our work, to our recreation, to our relationships in a variety of settings, to the dreams and hopes we hold.  The Lord of heaven and earth has told us that we should bring all these things to him to ask how we should act as his people within these various settings.  Jesus is Lord of our prayer lives and of worship, and that is obvious enough.  But he is also Lord of our lives at school, at work, at play, and in our neighborhoods.

C S Lewis once said that one of the greatest temptations that we have is to tell the Lord, “Lord, here is my life, and you may have all of it.  But don’t touch this one area – I want this area all to myself, without you worrying about it or telling me what I ought to do.”  Lewis said that was the hardest struggle of his life, for he continuously wanted to keep one little corner of his life as his very own, private place.

I grew up in the 1950’s and early 60’s, at a time when our culture was broadly and thoroughly informed by a Christian perspective.  That meant that to a large degree, the way one conducted a lot of life took God into account fairly easily.  I can even remember when I worked for the Virginia State Health Department in the early 1970’s that a meeting of the local chapter of the Virginia Lung Association opened its meeting with a prayer, by someone who obviously prayed a lot.  It was not unusual for a civic group to acknowledge the Lord and to appeal for his help in their work.

Over the last forty years, things have changed greatly.  A great deal of our culture wants to shove God into a corner and tell him to stay there and not come out to challenge the culture.  A great deal of our culture wants Christians to not practice their faith anywhere outside the walls of the church building, unless it is something like a food bank. a feeding program or, a thrift store.

In some ways, that is a dreadful thing.  Our culture is becoming more and more opposed to God and to acknowledging him.  But in other ways, that is an opportunity for us to think, pray, and grow in ways that we might not otherwise do.  We have to work harder to evaluate what is going on around us, and to ask ourselves, “If I am involved in this, where will it challenge my commitment to follow God?”  We can no longer take for granted the idea that activities and organizations we or our children are involved in will support godly perspective and godly values.

So, in order to be filled with the Spirit in order to fellowship with God and to have power to serve him, we need to consciously look at our lives, review the various things that make up our lives, and tell God about each one, “This area of my life is YOUR area – I commit it to you for your guidance and leadership.”

IV. The Need to be Obedient to what the Spirit Says

There is a third discipline that one needs to exercise to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and that is the discipline of obedience.  If the Lord tells you to do something, do it!  At the beginning of my sermon, I said that the three disciplines I was going to elaborate on took two other disciplines for granted – the disciplines of regular Bible study and of prayer.  Regular Bible study and prayer are the major ways in which the Lord will guide and instruct you in what you should do.

In college I was a member of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, and I later volunteered for them for several years while I worked for the health department.  Sometime during those years, I remember hearing a speaker at a conference say, “If you want to know God’s will for you, read the Bible and do what it says.  The more you do the things that are clearly directed by the Word of God, the more prepared you will be to know the direction God will have you to go when you come to decisions that the Bible does not directly address – which career to choose, which job to take, who to marry, and all those other questions where we struggle to make choices.”  Living in obedience to what God has made clear, and praying every day, means that when you come to matters that are less clear, your mind and heart will be prepared to see the choices clearly and to make the choice that God intends.  God’s will in the unclear things is made clear by choosing to do what God has already made clear, for we understand God better when we do what we see in Scripture, when we open our hearts to his presence and commit to his will, and when we spend time with him before his throne in prayer.  People can hear the whispers of the Holy Spirit as they fill their hearts and minds with his Holy Word and as they open their hearts to his presence and guidance in prayer.

V. Filled With And Empowered By the Spirit

If you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to be useful to God, then these are the three things you can do to be prepared for such a filling of the Spirit: confess your sins, consecrate your life in all its dimensions to the Lord, and commit yourself to obedience to what God reveals to you.  It’s easy to say those things in just one sentence, but this is not a matter of “Three Easy Steps to a Profound Spiritual Experience.”  There is indeed joy and delight in being filled with the Spirit – but such joy and delight is a by-product of confessing your sins that stand in the way of fellowship with God and which hamper serving him.  Such joy and delight is a by-product of offering all of your life to the Lord.  Such joy and delight is a by-product of committing yourself to obey what the Lord tells you to do.

Even if the joy and delight are by-products, they are deeper and richer than anything the world has to offer apart from God.  When we practice these disciplines, we are not earning God’s favor and acceptance, for acceptance comes through the work of Christ on the cross, and it something we can never earn or deserve.  These disciplines are ways in which we prepare our hearts and minds to know God and to love and welcome him.  When you get a telephone call from someone you love, you turn off the radio or TV, or go to a quiet place, so that you can hold a conversation without interference.  The disciplines I have been speaking about are like turning off the distracting sounds so that you can enjoy the one you love.

The joy and delight we know when the Holy Spirit is present in his love and in his power comes because the more we prepare our hearts and minds to hold fellowship with God, the more we are becoming the persons God wants us to be – we are becoming who God intended for us to be, who we truly are.  There is much in this life that is pleasant and good – enjoying a summer Sunday afternoon, good books, a job that is enjoyable, sports, and many other things.  But as pleasant as any given activity may be, there is no joy, no fun, as great as knowing God and becoming the person he designed you to be.

Today is Pentecost.  It’s a day known as “the birthday of the Church,” because the Church was empowered on the first Christian Pentecost to become witnesses to Jesus Christ and to proclaim him throughout the world.  We still need to be filled with the Spirit and his power in order to continue the same ministry of being witnesses to the mercy, grace, and glory of the Lord Jesus.  I invite you, therefore to offer your hearts anew to the Lord this morning as you receive communion, with a willingness to confess your sins, consecrate your life, and follow the Spirit’s lead.  You will rejoice, and as we all seek to be filled with the Spirit, the Lord will not only fill us with his presence and power as individuals, but as a whole congregation, so that together, we may honor, glorify, and serve him, to our joy and to his praise.

To the Lord who delights to dwell in our hearts be praise and glory, now and evermore.  AMEN.