Author: Dave Faulkner

I'm a British Methodist minister, married with two adult children. I blog from a moderate evangelical-missional-charismatic perspective. My interests include digital photography (currently using a Nikon Z8), contemporary music, and watching football (Tottenham Hotspur) and cricket. For my photography, please visit www.flickr.com/photos/davefaulkner

Sunday’s Sermon: Don’t Worry, Be Faithful

Matthew 6:24-34

Introduction
Petrol
prices up, up, up: a
barrel of oil has doubled in a year. Gas and electricity up. Food prices
up. And the official inflation figures? Not up very much at all. Of course,
governments never fiddle statistics …

I paid
my credit card bill this week, and it looks like we’ve just eked out the money
to the end of the quarter[1].
It had been an expensive quarter. I had needed two new pairs of glasses. The vacuum
cleaner had become so unreliable it needed replacing. My car required an
expensive annual service, not least because the garage discovered that the
front brakes were in advanced state of wear.

You
may well be able to write your own version of this – not least if you are on a
limited or fixed income. Financially, things are becoming tighter for many of
us.

And
in a world like that, we hear Jesus telling us not to worry about money, food
and clothing. ‘Don’t worry?’ we wonder, ‘How can we not worry?’

So
how can we receive Jesus’ words today? Is he hopelessly unrealistic, or does
his teaching here help us to face an uncertain and rocky world with faith and
hope? Well, there aren’t too many Christian preachers who will say Jesus is
unrealistic (there shouldn’t be any!). I think he helps us to face uncertain
times with confidence in him. He does so by giving us a mixture of challenges
and encouragement.

1. Loyalty
‘You cannot serve God and wealth,’ says Jesus (verse 24). God versus Mammon:
choose. Mammon seems to have been the god of wealth in ancient Carthage[2].
God versus wealth is a choice of gods: whom will we serve? Who will have our
loyalty? Only one can have our devotion, and to the extent, says Jesus, in
typically colourful Jewish language, that all else will seem like hatred.

If we
are to face financial matters with peace and not worry, the first thing we have
to do is settle the issue of our loyalty. If Mammon is our god, then our moods
will swing more violently than the stock market. If the Lord is our God, then
our trust is in the One called The Rock. God is dependable.

It’s
easy to see the ways in which the gods of wealth – modern-day Mammons – are worshipped
today. Remember Bill Clinton’s campaign slogan when he was first elected to the
White House: ‘It’s the economy, stupid’. But wealth is a created thing: if it
is worshipped in place of the Creator, then it must be an idol, a false god. It
should not command our ultimate loyalty.

Yet
do we get our loyalties twisted, too? In another context, I recently read a
book where the author was saying that one of the problems in certain sections
of the church was that people invited Jesus to be part of their story, when true
conversion was about saying we were becoming part of Jesus’ story[3]. Jesus
is no optional extra to be added to life. Jesus is Lord.

This
is not necessarily a call to take a vow of poverty, although God may call some
to that. We still need money. We should still be sensible with it. Nor is God a
spoilsport: he does allow us to enjoy good things from his creation, just so
long as we remain more attached to him than to things. For times will come when
our loyalty to Christ is tested by our attitude to finance. It may be about a
major purchase, or the expectations we have about our lifestyles. It may be
about what we budget for in our outgoings.

However,
it will be rare to find there is a biblical passage that explicitly tells us
what to do. No verse tells me what quality of car I may drive, how much I should
spend on a new computer or a reasonable amount to spend on a meal out with my
wife.

It’s
more subtle than that. The test of loyalty is a test of the heart. We answer it
by listening to the promptings of the Spirit, seeking advice from others and doing
that most difficult of things, listening to the true motives of our hearts. When
we can discern our motives, we shall know whether our desire is to please the
Lord or serve the idol of Mammon.

2. Value
If you’re anything like us, one of the things you’ll have thought about in the
current financial climate is your major outgoings. What is your biggest
expenditure, and where can you trim? Not having a mortgage, our biggest regular
expense is the weekly food bill. We try to be careful not to buy those impulse
purchases that bump up the bill.

Then
Jesus tells us not to worry about food, drink and clothing! Yet they are some
of our biggest expenses! And don’t worry about how long we might live – even though
our nation spends billions on the National Health Service. Isn’t this advice
financial suicide? It sounds like it.

It isn’t
when you consider why Jesus tells us not to worry about these things. He tells
us to look at God’s care for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. In
God’s eyes, we are more valuable than either of these is. The people who spend
their time worrying and striving after these things are ‘the Gentiles’ – that is,
in this context, those who do not believe in the Lord. (Verses 25-32)

Therefore,
it’s an action of unbelief to spend all our time worrying about money and
possessions. What is it we don’t believe? We don’t believe that God loves us. We
don’t believe that God values us like nothing else on earth.

So stop
for a moment and consider just how much God does love and value us. God is
love, and created everything in love. Human beings are the only part of that
creation to be made in God’s image. In love, God still sought us out when we
turned our backs on him. Ultimately, in love, the Father sent his Son. Jesus
was born in poverty and humility. He died a terrible death and was raised from
the dead to reconcile us to God. God then comes by his Spirit to dwell within
and among his disciples. God wants to be with us; God is with us! That is how
much God loves and values us.

When
worry and stress come our way, we tend to forget important things. It’s time to
remember that God has placed an extraordinary value upon us. No transfer fee for
a footballer can match God’s valuation of us. He values us by the life of his
Son. No riches or possessions can compare with the Holy Spirit of God dwelling
within us.

So am
I advocating a reckless attitude to money? No – and yes. No, because we should
still plan our income, our spending and our giving carefully. Yet however
wisely we do that, we may still feel the pressure. Then it is time to remember
the great love God has for us, and the enormous value he places on us. A God
who views us like that will give us peace; he will look after us and provide for
our needs.

But
yes, there is a sense of recklessness about this, too, because on top of everything
else, God may challenge us in prayer to do something with our finances or
possessions that may seem crazy. God may lead us to do something that humanly doesn’t
make sense. Then, even more, is the time to remember the value God places on us,
and the immense love he has for us. If God clearly leads us in an unusual
direction with our wealth, we can be sure he will provide. The missionary
pioneer Hudson Taylor
once said, ‘God’s will done in God’s way will never lack the mean or the means.’[4]

3. The Kingdom
If we have an unqualified loyalty to our Lord and we believe he loves and
values us immeasurably, then what should our attitude be? Jesus says that instead
of striving for money and possessions, we are to ‘strive first for the kingdom
of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to [us] as
well’ (verse 33). Put simply, commit yourself above all things to the will of
God and he will supply your needs. Here’s how that happened once for me.

As you
know, I have been to two theological colleges. I applied to my first college at
a time in my life when I knew God was calling me to something, but I didn’t
know what, so I couldn’t ‘candidate’ for the ministry. Trinity College, Bristol offered me a
place. I applied for a grant (this was before student loans), but my education authority
turned me down. The college gave me a deadline by which I could guarantee them I
had the funds for my first year, and I appealed against the decision the
education authority made.

Forty-eight
hours before the college deadline, I learned that I had lost my appeal. What now?
Had I misread God’s guidance? However, it was at this stage that things started
to happen. My parents rediscovered some old funds they had forgotten. A student
who had taken a gap year between A-Levels and college and had worked to save
money for a car gave those savings to me. Her boyfriend also gave me some
money. Two elderly women at church gave me large sums of money. One wrote a
covering letter. She said, ‘It seems that God is asking you to trust him to
supply your needs. He will supply ours, too.’

By the
deadline, I had three quarters of the money required for that first year. I phoned
the Vice-Principal. He said they would take me, and help me with applications
to charities and trusts when I got there. He didn’t know I’d tried that and got
nowhere.

I preached
a sermon at a church other than my own in my circuit where I told how God had
provided for my needs. I didn’t explain that I still needed some more money. Afterwards,
a friend invited me back to his flat for coffee. He explained that he had been
planning a big holiday to New Zealand to see his auntie, but she had since died
and he saw no point in going. He had exchanged his sterling for New Zealand
dollars. However, the dollar had since fallen in value against the pound and he
had held onto the currency in hope that the exchange rates would go back in his
favour. They had worsened, and the money was annoying him. Would I like to take
this annoyance off him? Into my lap he threw two plastic Thomas Cook envelopes.
They contained NZ$2310. At the time (1986) this was worth £741, and I realised
he had originally exchanged £1000.

Later,
a friend at church who was a bank manager set up an account so that anyone
could give anonymously towards my support. With that and other gifts, all my
needs were provided for three years at college.

It all
felt like something out of a paperback testimony. Yet I felt very ordinary. I was.
I still am. I was no superhero of the faith. Jesus meant it when he said, ‘Seek
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be
given to you as well.’

Conclusion
This morning we are offering prayer for healing during the intercessions after
the next hymn. However, healing is not merely about our bodies. It is about
every aspect of life. Perhaps your fear or anxiety needs a healing touch from
God. If so, then let me invite you – just as much as anybody else – to come to
the communion rail for anointing with oil. Come to declare your unqualified
loyalty to Jesus Christ, and find an assurance from him that God loves you and
values like nothing else, and that when you commit yourself to his will, he
will meet your every need so that you may fulfil his kingdom purposes in your
life.

[1]
Methodist ministers are traditionally paid quarterly, not monthly (although the
latter option may now be chosen).

[4] An
apology for the exclusive language, but Taylor was a man of his time.

0

Sunday’s Sermon: Don’t Worry, Be Faithful

Matthew 6:24-34

Introduction
Petrol
prices up, up, up: a
barrel of oil has doubled in a year. Gas and electricity up. Food prices
up. And the official inflation figures? Not up very much at all. Of course,
governments never fiddle statistics …

I paid
my credit card bill this week, and it looks like we’ve just eked out the money
to the end of the quarter[1].
It had been an expensive quarter. I had needed two new pairs of glasses. The vacuum
cleaner had become so unreliable it needed replacing. My car required an
expensive annual service, not least because the garage discovered that the
front brakes were in advanced state of wear.

You
may well be able to write your own version of this – not least if you are on a
limited or fixed income. Financially, things are becoming tighter for many of
us.

And
in a world like that, we hear Jesus telling us not to worry about money, food
and clothing. ‘Don’t worry?’ we wonder, ‘How can we not worry?’

So
how can we receive Jesus’ words today? Is he hopelessly unrealistic, or does
his teaching here help us to face an uncertain and rocky world with faith and
hope? Well, there aren’t too many Christian preachers who will say Jesus is
unrealistic (there shouldn’t be any!). I think he helps us to face uncertain
times with confidence in him. He does so by giving us a mixture of challenges
and encouragement.

1. Loyalty
‘You cannot serve God and wealth,’ says Jesus (verse 24). God versus Mammon:
choose. Mammon seems to have been the god of wealth in ancient Carthage[2].
God versus wealth is a choice of gods: whom will we serve? Who will have our
loyalty? Only one can have our devotion, and to the extent, says Jesus, in
typically colourful Jewish language, that all else will seem like hatred.

If we
are to face financial matters with peace and not worry, the first thing we have
to do is settle the issue of our loyalty. If Mammon is our god, then our moods
will swing more violently than the stock market. If the Lord is our God, then
our trust is in the One called The Rock. God is dependable.

It’s
easy to see the ways in which the gods of wealth – modern-day Mammons – are worshipped
today. Remember Bill Clinton’s campaign slogan when he was first elected to the
White House: ‘It’s the economy, stupid’. But wealth is a created thing: if it
is worshipped in place of the Creator, then it must be an idol, a false god. It
should not command our ultimate loyalty.

Yet
do we get our loyalties twisted, too? In another context, I recently read a
book where the author was saying that one of the problems in certain sections
of the church was that people invited Jesus to be part of their story, when true
conversion was about saying we were becoming part of Jesus’ story[3]. Jesus
is no optional extra to be added to life. Jesus is Lord.

This
is not necessarily a call to take a vow of poverty, although God may call some
to that. We still need money. We should still be sensible with it. Nor is God a
spoilsport: he does allow us to enjoy good things from his creation, just so
long as we remain more attached to him than to things. For times will come when
our loyalty to Christ is tested by our attitude to finance. It may be about a
major purchase, or the expectations we have about our lifestyles. It may be
about what we budget for in our outgoings.

However,
it will be rare to find there is a biblical passage that explicitly tells us
what to do. No verse tells me what quality of car I may drive, how much I should
spend on a new computer or a reasonable amount to spend on a meal out with my
wife.

It’s
more subtle than that. The test of loyalty is a test of the heart. We answer it
by listening to the promptings of the Spirit, seeking advice from others and doing
that most difficult of things, listening to the true motives of our hearts. When
we can discern our motives, we shall know whether our desire is to please the
Lord or serve the idol of Mammon.

2. Value
If you’re anything like us, one of the things you’ll have thought about in the
current financial climate is your major outgoings. What is your biggest
expenditure, and where can you trim? Not having a mortgage, our biggest regular
expense is the weekly food bill. We try to be careful not to buy those impulse
purchases that bump up the bill.

Then
Jesus tells us not to worry about food, drink and clothing! Yet they are some
of our biggest expenses! And don’t worry about how long we might live – even though
our nation spends billions on the National Health Service. Isn’t this advice
financial suicide? It sounds like it.

It isn’t
when you consider why Jesus tells us not to worry about these things. He tells
us to look at God’s care for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. In
God’s eyes, we are more valuable than either of these is. The people who spend
their time worrying and striving after these things are ‘the Gentiles’ – that is,
in this context, those who do not believe in the Lord. (Verses 25-32)

Therefore,
it’s an action of unbelief to spend all our time worrying about money and
possessions. What is it we don’t believe? We don’t believe that God loves us. We
don’t believe that God values us like nothing else on earth.

So stop
for a moment and consider just how much God does love and value us. God is
love, and created everything in love. Human beings are the only part of that
creation to be made in God’s image. In love, God still sought us out when we
turned our backs on him. Ultimately, in love, the Father sent his Son. Jesus
was born in poverty and humility. He died a terrible death and was raised from
the dead to reconcile us to God. God then comes by his Spirit to dwell within
and among his disciples. God wants to be with us; God is with us! That is how
much God loves and values us.

When
worry and stress come our way, we tend to forget important things. It’s time to
remember that God has placed an extraordinary value upon us. No transfer fee for
a footballer can match God’s valuation of us. He values us by the life of his
Son. No riches or possessions can compare with the Holy Spirit of God dwelling
within us.

So am
I advocating a reckless attitude to money? No – and yes. No, because we should
still plan our income, our spending and our giving carefully. Yet however
wisely we do that, we may still feel the pressure. Then it is time to remember
the great love God has for us, and the enormous value he places on us. A God
who views us like that will give us peace; he will look after us and provide for
our needs.

But
yes, there is a sense of recklessness about this, too, because on top of everything
else, God may challenge us in prayer to do something with our finances or
possessions that may seem crazy. God may lead us to do something that humanly doesn’t
make sense. Then, even more, is the time to remember the value God places on us,
and the immense love he has for us. If God clearly leads us in an unusual
direction with our wealth, we can be sure he will provide. The missionary
pioneer Hudson Taylor
once said, ‘God’s will done in God’s way will never lack the mean or the means.’[4]

3. The Kingdom
If we have an unqualified loyalty to our Lord and we believe he loves and
values us immeasurably, then what should our attitude be? Jesus says that instead
of striving for money and possessions, we are to ‘strive first for the kingdom
of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to [us] as
well’ (verse 33). Put simply, commit yourself above all things to the will of
God and he will supply your needs. Here’s how that happened once for me.

As you
know, I have been to two theological colleges. I applied to my first college at
a time in my life when I knew God was calling me to something, but I didn’t
know what, so I couldn’t ‘candidate’ for the ministry. Trinity College, Bristol offered me a
place. I applied for a grant (this was before student loans), but my education authority
turned me down. The college gave me a deadline by which I could guarantee them I
had the funds for my first year, and I appealed against the decision the
education authority made.

Forty-eight
hours before the college deadline, I learned that I had lost my appeal. What now?
Had I misread God’s guidance? However, it was at this stage that things started
to happen. My parents rediscovered some old funds they had forgotten. A student
who had taken a gap year between A-Levels and college and had worked to save
money for a car gave those savings to me. Her boyfriend also gave me some
money. Two elderly women at church gave me large sums of money. One wrote a
covering letter. She said, ‘It seems that God is asking you to trust him to
supply your needs. He will supply ours, too.’

By the
deadline, I had three quarters of the money required for that first year. I phoned
the Vice-Principal. He said they would take me, and help me with applications
to charities and trusts when I got there. He didn’t know I’d tried that and got
nowhere.

I preached
a sermon at a church other than my own in my circuit where I told how God had
provided for my needs. I didn’t explain that I still needed some more money. Afterwards,
a friend invited me back to his flat for coffee. He explained that he had been
planning a big holiday to New Zealand to see his auntie, but she had since died
and he saw no point in going. He had exchanged his sterling for New Zealand
dollars. However, the dollar had since fallen in value against the pound and he
had held onto the currency in hope that the exchange rates would go back in his
favour. They had worsened, and the money was annoying him. Would I like to take
this annoyance off him? Into my lap he threw two plastic Thomas Cook envelopes.
They contained NZ$2310. At the time (1986) this was worth £741, and I realised
he had originally exchanged £1000.

Later,
a friend at church who was a bank manager set up an account so that anyone
could give anonymously towards my support. With that and other gifts, all my
needs were provided for three years at college.

It all
felt like something out of a paperback testimony. Yet I felt very ordinary. I was.
I still am. I was no superhero of the faith. Jesus meant it when he said, ‘Seek
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be
given to you as well.’

Conclusion
This morning we are offering prayer for healing during the intercessions after
the next hymn. However, healing is not merely about our bodies. It is about
every aspect of life. Perhaps your fear or anxiety needs a healing touch from
God. If so, then let me invite you – just as much as anybody else – to come to
the communion rail for anointing with oil. Come to declare your unqualified
loyalty to Jesus Christ, and find an assurance from him that God loves you and
values like nothing else, and that when you commit yourself to his will, he
will meet your every need so that you may fulfil his kingdom purposes in your
life.

[1]
Methodist ministers are traditionally paid quarterly, not monthly (although the
latter option may now be chosen).

[4] An
apology for the exclusive language, but Taylor was a man of his time.

0

Gardener’s Gospel

I am no gardener. I hate gardening. But my writer friend Fiona Veitch Smith loves gardening, and is writing about it from a spiritual perspective. Why not surf over to her site and read some of her ‘Gardener’s Gospel’ posts? Oh, and leave her a comment to encourage her.
0

Gardener’s Gospel

I am no gardener. I hate gardening. But my writer friend Fiona Veitch Smith loves gardening, and is writing about it from a spiritual perspective. Why not surf over to her site and read some of her ‘Gardener’s Gospel’ posts? Oh, and leave her a comment to encourage her.
0

Gardener’s Gospel

I am no gardener. I hate gardening. But my writer friend Fiona Veitch Smith loves gardening, and is writing about it from a spiritual perspective. Why not surf over to her site and read some of her ‘Gardener’s Gospel’ posts? Oh, and leave her a comment to encourage her.
0

Sermon For Trinity Sunday: The Holy Trinity In Ordinary Time

2 Corinthians
13:11-13

Introduction
‘It’s the end of the festival season,’ said a friend of mine the other day.

The end, I thought? But it’s only mid-May! The mud bath that
is the Glastonbury Festival hasn’t happened yet, let alone all the other summer
music festivals.

Then I realised. He wasn’t talking about that kind of festival.
My friend is an Anglican priest, and he was talking about the festivals of the
Christian year. We began with Advent and Christmas, we went to Epiphany (and
Candlemas for the enthusiasts). Then it was on to Lent, followed by Easter,
then Ascension and last week Pentecost. Today is Trinity Sunday, and it’s the
end of the festival season. From now on, everything until Advent is what we
call ‘Ordinary Time’. Trinity Sunday leads us into Ordinary Time. The festivals
are over, and it’s time to live out our faith in the ordinary seasons.

And it’s that faith in the Trinity that enables us to live
the life of disciples in ‘ordinary times’, when there are no festivities or
dramatic events, when everything is reduced from saturated colours to shades of
grey. I want to do some exploring this morning of what faith in the Trinity
means for us on those plain vanilla days. I’m going to use the familiar words
of ‘The Grace’, which form the very last verse of 2 Corinthians, as a
foundation for this.

So you won’t get an explanation of the Trinity this morning.
I once took a series of sermons to scratch the surface of that! There will be
the odd hint about it, but I can recommend a book[1]
that is not aimed at academics, if you want deeper exploration. What you will
get is some sense of the work of the Trinity, from which we deduce the
doctrine.

Off we go, then. I wonder if you can guess how many points
the sermon has today …

1. The grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ
A friend of mine called Colin had been a missionary in the Far East when he was
single. He had stayed with a Christian family. They had one daughter. Her name
was Grace.

Colin once asked if Grace had any middle names. ‘No,’
replied her parents, ‘because – as the Scripture says – grace is sufficient.’

The grace of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ is what is
sufficient for us. It is more than sufficient to bring salvation. Grace is a
gift of God. It is well summed up in the old acronym that G.R.A.C.E. stands for
‘God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense’. That is, through the suffering of Jesus, we
receive blessing upon blessing. It is more than the idea that we don’t get what
we do deserve as sinners (mercy): grace is the flip side of the coin, where we
receive many things we don’t deserve.

So grace is a gift. It is the gift of God in Christ. It is
the mercy of the Cross, the new life of the Resurrection and the power of
Pentecost. It is the generosity of the Holy Trinity, where the Father lavishes
his blessings upon us through the Son, by the Spirit.

But there is more:

‘In Paul’s usage, grace
is most characteristically action and gift … and in these words Paul prays for
a continuation and deepening of what has already been done and given in Corinth.’[2]

Grace is an action as well as a gift. That is where it comes
into play in ‘ordinary time’. In ordinary daily life, we need grace to be
action as well as gift. As disciples of Jesus, we already know the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ as a gift – and yes, of course, we often need reminding of
that gift. But we also need grace as action. That is, we who have received the
gift of grace in Jesus need to express it in our actions.

Corinth was a messed-up place, where the powerful threw
their weight around, discriminated against the poor and against those who didn’t
have an impressive appearance or charisma (Paul included!). Relationships were
damaged and broken as a result. They were a group of people constituted by the
fact that they had received the gift of grace. Now they needed to act in grace,
if they were to be the community Christ wanted them to be. If relationships
were to be repaired, they needed grace in action.

It’s the same for us in our ‘ordinary time’. People hurt one
another. They don’t consider one another’s feelings. One person’s ambition
means others are trampled. Somebody blows a short fuse. It’s time to turn the
gift of grace into the action of grace. It’s the call to practise the
discipline of forgiveness. And yes, I do mean discipline of forgiveness,
because much of the time we won’t feel like doing it, but we need to.

So if we have received the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ as
a gift, let us turn it into an action.

2. The love of God
To those of us used to normal Trinitarian formulae, it seems strange that Paul puts
Jesus before God. ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ’ is followed by ‘the love
of God’. But this is important. Behind the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is
the love of God. Jesus brings grace because God is love. It is not that Jesus
has to persuade God to love us: rather, it is as Paul said earlier in 2
Corinthians, ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’.

And it’s more than the love of God. Why does God love us? He
loves us, because that is his nature. The most fundamental statement about God
in the whole Bible is this: ‘God is love.’ Now love is something that must be shown,
so how could God be love before he had creation to love? The answer, surely, is
that within the Trinity mutual love is expressed.

But then, love that is within a relationship has to go
beyond those in the relationship to others. In the love of man and woman in
marriage, the conventional way this happens is in children – perhaps biological
children, or adopted children, or maybe fostered children. When I prepare a
couple for marriage and I discover they do not plan to try for children
immediately, I challenge them to find a way of putting the love they have for
each other to work in serving the community, or in helping the needy. Love cannot
be turned in on itself forever.

So with God: the love within the Trinity burst out in the
loving act of creation. Then, in the light of sin and brokenness, the love of
God became salvation – ultimately, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If the love of the Trinitarian God is like this, what does
it mean for us in the ordinary time of routine life? It surely means that if God’s love is shared
among us, it cannot be contained within us. The church or Christians who experience
God’s love will share God’s love.

Does that mean doing something scary or dramatic, like
travelling to fearsome places to show the love of God? It will for some. In the
meantime, we need to start where we are. Where has God placed us? Those are where
we begin to share the love of God. For Debbie and me, the location of our manse
and the ages of our children place us at particular school and pre-school
gates. There we are available to people. Unconditionally, we help anyone in
need if we can. It may be the family split apart by alcoholism, or the little
girl whose mother’s behaviour towards her is deeply worrying. We hope and pray
people will realise we do this because of God’s love, and that the
opportunities will come to share just how much more God has done for them in
Christ.

Where has God placed you? That is the location to begin
showing the love of God beyond the boundaries of the church.

3. The fellowship of
the Holy Spirit
Paul’s final prayer here amounts to this:

‘Paul wishes for his readers a ‘continuing and deepening’ of
their participation in the Holy Spirit.’[3]

This is tricky. Participation in the Holy Spirit is a
slippery thing. Why? Because one thing we learn about the Holy Spirit in
Scripture is that the Spirit never points to himself[4],
but to Jesus. The Holy Spirit is the self-effacing Person of the Godhead.

If that is the case, then participating in the Holy Spirit
isn’t just about welcoming all the ways in which the Spirit works. It is also
about the manner in which we immerse ourselves in the Holy Spirit.

What does this mean? I think it means we welcome all the
gifts the Holy Spirit wants to give us. Anything from God is good. But how do
we use them? We cannot use spiritual gifts to enhance our own name or reputation.
If we truly are deeper and deeper in the Holy Spirit, our passion will be the
name of Jesus. There are times I have had this right in my life, and other
times when I have had it badly wrong.

One time I got it wrong was in 1997. I had been invited to
be a seminar speaker at Spring Harvest. It was the fulfilment of a prophetic
word given to me in 1980 that I would speak at conferences. The speakers that
week (including one Nicky Gumbel, by the way –yes, I have laid hands on him in
prayer, not that he would remember me!) could gather in a team lounge when not
on speaking duty. We would be expected to attend one of the evening celebration
meetings. One night, I was asked if for the rest of the week I would be
seconded from the one I attended to a children and family celebration that
friends of mine were running. I agreed.

A day or two later, I heard that in the team lounge while I was
at the family celebration, the Spring Harvest leadership had announced some
social evenings after the celebrations each night that the speakers could go
to. This would be a chance to mingle with the great and good of the evangelical
world. Hearing it second-hand later, I asked the people who hosted the team lounge.
‘No, it isn’t for you,’ they said. So I never went.

On the penultimate day, I discovered they were wrong. They had
mistaken me for someone else. I could have gone, but now the social evenings had
finished. My chance to get to know these people – and get known myself – was gone.

Then I realised that my motives were all wrong. When I had
heard about the social evenings, I had been too concerned to promote my name,
and not that of Jesus. I wonder whether that was why God allowed the
misunderstanding so that I didn’t go.

The next year, I had learned my lesson. I was running a Saturday
conference at a church for people involved in contemporary styles of worship. At
the evening worship celebration, an elderly man from one of my churches hadn’t
been able to attend. But two women from that church who did make it felt such a
fire in their hands during prayer that they were sure the Holy Spirit wanted
them to go and see this man after the meeting and lay hands on him. When they
did, he was healed. The next morning, he was in church, giving his testimony to
what happened the night before at a baptism service with many non-Christians
present.

I circulated the story on an email list on the Internet.
Back came a reply: ‘David, you mighty man of God!’ it said. (I mean, honestly,
you could tell he didn’t know me!) I was quick to reply and say it wasn’t I who
had laid hands on the man, but the two particular women, and in any case, it
was the work of God. That, I believe, is to participate more deeply in the Holy
Spirit – to welcome his gifts and make sure God gets the glory and no one else.

Maybe those two stories don’t easily qualify as mundane ‘ordinary
time’. But the principle remains. The gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit are
for everyday, not just Sunday, for the street as much as the church. In all the ways we participate in the Holy Spirit’s
ministry, our part is to ensure the glory goes to the God of love whose grace
is made known in Jesus Christ. If we do, then we will imitate that God by
acting in grace to heal the wounds of the world, and showing God’s love to
those beyond our spiritual family. May the Holy Spirit enable us to do so, to
the glory of God.

[1] Darrell W Johnson, Experiencing
The Trinity – which I used for the aforementioned sermon series.

[3]
Ibid.

[4] Or
should that be herself? Can anyone remember the N T Wright comment from about
twenty years ago, where (in a Bible study at General Synod?) he said there was
a feminine personal pronoun in Romans 8 referencing the Spirit?

0

Welcome To Todd World

(And for those of you who don’t get the reference in the
title, you don’t have children who watch CBeebies.)

Last week I read with interest some of the posts on Richard Hall’s blog
regarding the possible ‘revival’ in Florida associated with the ministry of Todd Bentley. At the time, it was just
interesting reading. On Monday, it became more important for me to grapple with
this for myself. I received an email from my friend Peter Balls, the pastor of Chelmsford Community Church,
a church that has a wonderful heart for the community surrounding the school
where it meets for worship (see, for example, Our Cabin). Peter has invited a number of
local church leaders to meet next month and pray about whether we could do
something together for the kingdom of God in Chelmsford, in the light of the
Florida happenings. I am free on the date he suggests, and will attend.

So I watched one of the YouTube videos that Richard had
posted. What struck me first was the similarity to watching clips of the
dreaded Benny Hinn. The associate with the hand-held radio microphone tells the
big name the story of the person who has come onto the stage to testify. Big
Name then briefly interviews, and then prays, expecting the person to fall
under the power of the Spirit. I started comparing and contrasting this with
what I witnessed in 1995, when I visited the Toronto
Airport Christian Fellowship at the height of the ‘Toronto Blessing’. I
thought this would be instructive, because some supporters and opponents of
Bentley seem to have been making connections.

Here’s what I thought: yes, in Toronto, people could offer
testimonies with the hope of being selected to share it on the main stage
during one of the evening renewal meetings. Yes, they would be interviewed and
prayed for. They normally fell under the power of the Spirit. However – I never
had any worries while I was there that they were being pushed in order to fall.
Sometimes I was sitting quite close to the stage: I think I would have noticed
anything that would have made me suspicious. Furthermore, the person leading
the meeting changed from night to night, and so no personality cult developed.
Not only that, the vast majority of prayer ministry there happened at the back
of the auditorium. It was not a show. (You can legitimately debate the way they
asked people receiving prayer to stand on lines marked ten feet apart, with
‘catchers’ behind them. Their reply was that in a culture that resorted quickly
to litigation, they had to protect themselves, and they preferred to risk the
charge that they were suggesting people should fall. Every night I was there, I
accompanied one of their team who was praying for people, and at close hand, I
never saw anyone pushed.)

However, with Bentley, I’m less convinced. Naturally, I have
only the evidence of the YouTube videos. That is inferior to the close personal
observation I was able to engage in at Toronto. However, it looked to me as if
there was movement of the hand and arm as he laid his hand on people’s
foreheads. At least one man in the video didn’t go down to the floor
immediately, and Bentley laid his hand on him two or three times until he did.
Strictly, I’m not offering conclusive proof, but I am disturbed enough about
it.

If that’s what happened, what might it mean? I have no doubt
that falling under the power of the Spirit is a legitimate experience of God.
It has happened to me some times, and it is a feeling that the body cannot cope
with the presence of God. (By the way, I don’t call it being ‘slain in the
Spirit’. That’s an awful term, and as far as I’m concerned, the only people who
have ever been slain in the Spirit were Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter
5.) But if you asked all the responsible church leaders who were heavily
involved in the ‘Toronto Blessing’ at least in this country, they would have
said that the outward manifestation was not itself the proof of the Spirit’s
work. Certainly, that was the line I heard David Pytches hold. The
evidence of the Spirit’s work is the fruit. Outward signs at the time may be
commentary on the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit, or they may be
‘fleshly’ human responses.

If that were the case, why would anyone push someone to the
ground? One possibility might be insecurity. Certain immature charismatic
cultures want to see ‘falling under the power’ as the clear sign that God is at
work. Suppose Bentley or others felt they needed to ‘prove’ they were men or
women of God: they might then find it tempting to do something like that. I
don’t know the man, I’m just speculating. But I do know that many Christians,
leaders included, get their sense of security from the wrong source. There is a
great pressure to show results (and not least in elements of North American
Christianity). Does Bentley feel he has to prove he’s getting results? Were
that to be the case for anyone, the antidote is to know that our security is in
the Triune God, and in grace. God has made us in his image; in Christ, he has
redeemed us in love at immeasurable cost; the Holy Spirit indwells us. Results
don’t make us loved and accepted by God: grace does. Someone not acting out of
grace is capable of unintentionally hurting people.

However, it could be worse. It could be a show of power.
‘Look at me and my power.’ If someone takes that attitude, then s/he is trying
to stand in the place of God. Of course, in Bentley’s case he is quick to
attribute the healings to God. However, that falls by the wayside is the rest
of a person’s demeanour is of the ‘Look at me’ variety. While I don’t believe
the nonsense about just being channels for God (it’s rather like ‘worm
theology’ – ‘O Lord, I am just a worm’) and I believe that God uses
personalities, I believe that in every way we must be quick to give the glory
to God and deflect it from ourselves. It comes back to the old Corrie ten Boom quote
about compliments. She said that when she received a compliment, she saw it
like a bunch of flowers. She enjoyed the perfume, and then said, ‘Lord, these
are yours.’

Then we have the question of the healings. Richard referred
in one of his posts to the Gospel story of the ten lepers, where Jesus tells
them to go and show themselves to the priests. I have long felt this is an
important test of healing. Some months ago, a friend of mine was diagnosed with
cancer. At one point, after prayer, he believed he was healed. I understand he
came off his medication. A month or two ago, I attended his funeral. I believe
that God can and does heal in response to prayer (just as I also believe he
gives grace when healing doesn’t materialise). However, if God has done
something like that, it is verifiable. Rushing someone up to testify before
there has been time to test the claim is dangerous. There may be other
explanations for short-term improvements or remissions. In that respect, I
think the Toronto church made mistakes. Clearly, Bentley does, too. If God has
done something, it sticks. It doesn’t matter if we have to wait awhile before
that person gives public testimony. It is probably better for the Gospel that
they do.

Other issues to consider include finances and politics. With
regard to politics, I found the Toronto church was dangerously interested in
Christian Zionism. That isn’t just a question of politics, it’s also the desire
to feel part of God doing something amazing today, but that desire does lead to
a lack of discernment, and hence to a cultural captivity to a kind of politics
that doesn’t always favour the well-being of individuals, especially the poor.
If we care enough about someone’s physical plight to pray for their healing,
then it seems concomitant to me that we care for their social needs, too.
Unfortunately, many Christians don’t make that link. I’ve yet to hear any
connection with ministry with the poor and social justice from Bentley, and –
if he fits the rest of the stereotypes – I’m not expecting to hear anything.
Perhaps I do him an injustice: I hope so, but I suspect not.

Then, what about the issue of finances and the handling of
money? Billy Graham led the move towards financial accountability of
evangelical Christians in the States, especially after the TV evangelist
scandals of the 1980s. I couldn’t find Fresh
Fire on the Evangelical Council for
Financial Accountability website. That may be because FF is a Canadian
organisation, not American, but since Bentley seems to work a lot in the
States, I would have thought he’d have had an official US operation. Maybe
someone who knows the North American scene better than me can offer an
explanation, but it initially looks worrying.

To some people, all that I have written so far will elicit a
reaction of ‘So what?’ It’s all obvious stuff on one level. However, what if
Bentley is dubious? On the other hand, even if he’s perfectly genuine, we need
a lot of reflection on the question of why such people flourish. Yes, there is
what my blogging friend Kim Fabricius calls on one or Richard Hall’s posts
‘gullibilitus’, but why are people gullible? I’ve already mentioned two
paragraphs above that people want to believe they are part of something epic in
the purposes of God. Some believe so in the light of the ‘prophetic movement’
that often speaks in large, visionary terms about what is going on in the
world. Days of small things are despised.

In addition, there is the whole ‘Touch not the Lord’s
anointed’ problem. This mantra has been repeated for decades in certain
Pentecostal and charismatic circles. In its rightful original context in
Scripture, it captures the humility of the fugitive David in the days before he
was King of Israel, while his predecessor, Saul (ironically, a classic example
of someone who practised spiritual abuse) was hounding him. It is never in
Scripture a reason to accept everything a certain person says uncritically, and
surely it is highly unflattering to be compared to Saul! Nevertheless, ‘the
Lord’s anointed’ gets elevated. David was very aware of Saul’s frailties and
sins. In our day, ‘Touch not the Lord’s anointed’ is misused to build up people
who ought instead to be removed by church disciplinary procedures.

Worse than that, it is used to create a climate of fear.
‘Woe to you if you speak against the person the Lord has chosen.’ That is
unhealthy and dangerous, creating the conditions for abuse.

‘Touch not …’ is also used as the trump card against
cynicism. Yes, we need to guard against that in the church, although we should
always remember the saying that a cynic is a failed idealist. What needs
recovery is the gift of discerning spirits. Discernment is vital in the church,
and a valuable part of church leaders’ gifts. When someone doesn’t permit me to
weigh things carefully like the Berean people of Acts 17, I have every right to
be worried.

This post has started with Todd Bentley, but has spun off
onto wider issues that may or may not be relevant to him. On Bentley himself,
the jury is out, although I have seen enough to be concerned and need
convincing. He could be a holy man. He could be a charlatan. He could be a
mixture of sincere Christian and someone with dangerous weaknesses. And which
one of us doesn’t have a major weakness? However, unresolved weaknesses are the
fuel for spiritual abuse. As Marc
Dupont argued ten or so years ago in his book ‘Walking
Out Of Spiritual Abuse’ (and see also his more recent ‘Toxic
Churches’), it is not downright evil people who tend to cause spiritual
abuse: it is those with unresolved ‘baggage’. If Bentley’s behaviour stems from
serious insecurities, then watch out: danger is coming. We must not inhibit a
sincere and open process of discernment. No peer pressures should be allowed to
militate against that.

Before I wrap this up, let me put in a good word for a book
I am reading at present, ready to review for Ministry Today. Rob McAlpine knows a lot about spiritual
abuse in charismatic circles. His ‘Post-Charismatic?’
looks like it will be essential reading on topics like this.

27

Tomorrow’s Sermon: The Meanings Of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21

Introduction
Yesterday morning, we held a coffee morning at Broomfield. We wanted to support
our missionary charity for the year, the Mission
Aviation Fellowship. You could make paper aeroplanes, take them to the
balcony and throw them in the direction of the communion table. Whoever got
their paper plane the nearest to the front would win a prize.

Mark, our three-year-old, got into the spirit of it,
especially after someone took him to a table and made him a paper plane. Then he
said, “Daddy, I want to play aeroplanes!”

I knew what that meant: with his hands, he would hold my
hands. Then he would run around me faster and faster, and would lift off. I whizzed
him around, and he flew with great joy and abandon. I put him down, and he
laughed. As I stood there dizzy, everybody laughed at me. Jim said, “Quick, get
a camera. I want a picture of the minister looking inebriated!”

“They are filled with new wine,” sneered the cynics at
Pentecost, witnessing the disciples who had been filled not with spirits but
the Holy Spirit.

It’s easy on Pentecost Sunday to be hung up on the
particular manifestations of the Holy Spirit described in Acts 2. Depending on
your personality or your style of faith, you may either loathe or love the
violent wind from heaven, the tongues of fire and the speaking in other
languages. In other sermons and articles, I have examined these things, but
today I want to concentrate on what Pentecost means.

1. After Easter
Pentecost was called so, because it was the fiftieth day after Passover in the
Jewish calendar. For Christians, it therefore comes after Easter. You may think
I have plumbed new depths in stating the obvious, but there is something
important here. Some Christians would like to stop with the joy of Easter
morning, but our journey must also take us through Ascension to Pentecost. As
Ben Witherington III says,

Throughout Acts, the presence of the Spirit is seen as the
distinguishing mark of Christianity – it is what makes a person a Christian.[1]

It isn’t just the question of speaking in tongues, it’s more
fundamental. The Holy Spirit enables us to confess Jesus as Lord[2].
Hence, Peter quotes Joel here:

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
(Verse 21)

The Holy Spirit shows us who Jesus truly is. The Spirit shows
how sinful we are and us how wonderful Jesus is. But the Spirit’s work doesn’t
stop there. The Holy Spirit shows us our need of God’s grace, and reveals to us
the saving work of Jesus in his Cross and Resurrection. Believing savingly in
the Easter events requires the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. To see the
glory of Jesus and worship the Father through him means we need the Holy
Spirit. Neither worship nor evangelism are fundamentally human activities: we
need the Spirit to be at work in order for them to happen.

That’s to put it a challenging way. More positively, if you
have met Jesus, found the forgiveness of sins in his name through the Cross,
begun following him as a disciple and worshipping him as Lord, then the Holy
Spirit must have been at work in your life.

So, assuming we care about worship and evangelism as
Christians, we need to embrace a post-Easter faith, a Pentecost faith. It is a
faith that says, ‘Come, Holy Spirit. Be more at work in us, through us, ahead
of us and beyond us.’ Pentecost faith like that is grateful for all the past
signs of the Spirit’s work, but is hungry and thirsty for more.

2. Harvest
We have a lot of fun at Hatfield Peverel at harvest-time. As well as the Sunday
service and bringing offerings for good causes such as Harvest For The Hungry, we
have our Harvest Supper and Auction. The produce that cannot be given away is
auctioned off, and the proceeds given to our cause for the year. We have great
fun bidding against each other for tins of soup, home made jam and everything
else. Last year, Liz Ward and I enjoyed a ridiculous bidding war against each
other for a pineapple.

Now why am I talking about harvest in May? Well, our Jewish
friends so enjoyed their festivals and celebrations that they had two harvest festivals each year. One was
equivalent to our regular harvest festivals. It was the ingathering of the
crops at the end of the summer. But they also celebrated the arrival in late
Spring of the first fruits. They did this at Pentecost, or to give it its more
Jewish name, the Feast of Weeks, that happened seven weeks after Passover.[3]

Spiritually speaking, we look forward to the great
ingathering harvest at the end of the age, but we have plenty to celebrate in
the meantime. We have our spiritual first fruits. The gift of the Holy Spirit
is the first fruits of God’s harvest. The Spirit is the sign that shows us what
is coming. The Spirit is the first instalment of God’s kingdom in our lives. Here
is the foretaste of all that is to come.

Paul has a similar analogy in two of his letters, where he
describes the Holy Spirit as like a deposit[4].
Just as we pay a deposit on an item, intending to pay the remaining balance, so
the Holy Spirit is God’s initial deposit on us. He has begun his work of
salvation, and – as Paul says in Philippians – he will complete it[5].
If you think of the old Magnus Magnusson catchphrase from Mastermind, “I’ve
started, so I’ll finish”, the gift of the Spirit is God’s promise that he has
started his work in our lives, and he will finish.

So do you see the signs that the Holy Spirit is at work in
your life? Has the Spirit led you to saving faith in Christ? Does the Spirit increase
your vision of Jesus and your love for him, so that you want to worship God and
share God’s love? Is the Holy Spirit slowly making you more like Jesus, even if
you know there are still too many ways in which you are not like him? Does the
Spirit give you the courage and the words to be faithful to Christ under
pressure? If so, these are the first fruits of God’s harvest in you. One day it
will all come to complete fruition. These signs are the deposit God is putting
on your life. One day God will complete it.

3. Law
Like many homes, a weekday morning is frantic in ours, even though I work from
home. Getting one child ready for school and another for pre-school is a mad
rush. It is made even more so by the fact that Rebekah is a dreamer and that
ten minutes before we are due to leave, she and Mark know that their favourite
TV programme starts. Yes, it’s their Spanish language course. (Otherwise known
as Dora The Explorer.)
We are one of the closest families to the school; we are usually one of the
last to arrive. At points of great frustration, we tell Rebekah that if she is
late for school, a police officer will come and tell Mum and Dad off. We have
to try some way of scaring her into obedience! We pull out the same ‘policeman’
line in the car, if she doesn’t want to put on her seat belt or she dares us to
drive too fast.

We are used to ‘law’ as a list of rules, with some enforcers.
There was an ancient Jewish tradition that also associated Pentecost with the
giving of the Law at Sinai. And the Jewish writer Philo, who predates Luke,
wrote:

Then from the midst of the fire that streamed from heaven
there sounded forth to their utter amazement a voice, for the flame became the
articulate speech in the language familiar to the audience.[6]

It makes Sinai – where the Law was given – sound very much
like Acts 2. Pentecost is the Law of the Spirit, rather than the letter of the
Law. Pentecost fulfils Jeremiah’s vision of God’s new covenant, where God will
not write his law on tablets of stone, but inside the hearts of his people[7].

It is what Paul (again!) talked about when he wrote to the
Galatians in his famous words about the fruit of the Spirit. He tells his
readers that if they live by the Spirit, they will not spend their time
gratifying the full range of sinful desires, from immorality to the occult to
rage, envy and drunkenness. The Spirit, however, produces fruit: love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
And his punch line? ‘There is no law against such things.’ Furthermore, ‘If we live
by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.’[8]

In other words, if you want to please God and fulfil his
law, the Holy Spirit enables you to do so. It isn’t just about following a set
of rules, but becoming the kind of person God wants to be. The law of the Spirit
isn’t just about outward compliance, but inner transformation. When we try to
keep the rules in our own strength, we fail miserably, and fall back into
self-centredness. However, Pentecost brings the gift of the Spirit, God’s new
law. Not only does the Spirit lead us to the actions that please God, the Spirit
also enables to do that will of God and bring pleasure to God. If we want to
please God, we need to be open to the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion
I hope the things I’ve described about Pentecost are things for which we all
long in our lives as disciples of Jesus. I hope we long for a post-Easter
Pentecost faith, where the Holy Spirit is always enabling us to respond to
Jesus in repentance, worship and witness. I hope we also have a ‘first fruits’
faith, in which we can see signs of the Spirit’s work, but long for more,
before the final harvest. And I hope we have a love for God’s law that goes
beyond outward conformity to inward renewal, depending on the power of the
Spirit, not our own feebleness, to enjoy pleasing God.

But what to do about it? It’s easy to preach a sermon about
this and leave people feeling condemned. ‘You’re not doing enough of x, you
should do more of y.’ Here’s an alternative way of approaching it.

I came downstairs the other day, and could hear a noise. “Is
the tap running?” I asked Debbie. Sure enough, in the downstairs loo, the cold
tap hadn’t been turned off. Mark can wash his hands after going to the toilet,
but he struggles to turn off some of our taps. If he’s also managed to put the
plug in, the overflow saves us from disaster.

All the blessings of Pentecost are about the overflow of the
Spirit – the rivers of living water flowing from us to others. The disciples
don’t speak in tongues to the crowd:
the crowd overhears. It is an overflow. Pentecost is not the time to beat
ourselves up about our failures. It is the time to seek an overflow of the
Spirit, for then all the other things come as a natural consequence.

This Pentecost, let us ask God to soak us with the Holy Spirit
– not for the sake of spiritual self-gratification, such an ambition is a
contradiction in terms. But let us rather ask God to saturate us with the
Spirit so that we may more truly be worshippers, witnesses, holy people and all
the other things he longs for us to be.

[2] 1
Corinthians 12:3.

[3] If
Passover was day one, this was celebrated on day fifty, hence Pentecost in
Greek.

[4] 2
Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:14.

[5]
Philippians 1:6.

[6] Quoted
in Witherington, p 131.

[7]
Jeremiah 31:31-34.

[8]
See Galatians 5:16-26

0

Tomorrow’s Sermon: The Meanings Of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21

Introduction
Yesterday morning, we held a coffee morning at Broomfield. We wanted to support
our missionary charity for the year, the Mission
Aviation Fellowship. You could make paper aeroplanes, take them to the
balcony and throw them in the direction of the communion table. Whoever got
their paper plane the nearest to the front would win a prize.

Mark, our three-year-old, got into the spirit of it,
especially after someone took him to a table and made him a paper plane. Then he
said, “Daddy, I want to play aeroplanes!”

I knew what that meant: with his hands, he would hold my
hands. Then he would run around me faster and faster, and would lift off. I whizzed
him around, and he flew with great joy and abandon. I put him down, and he
laughed. As I stood there dizzy, everybody laughed at me. Jim said, “Quick, get
a camera. I want a picture of the minister looking inebriated!”

“They are filled with new wine,” sneered the cynics at
Pentecost, witnessing the disciples who had been filled not with spirits but
the Holy Spirit.

It’s easy on Pentecost Sunday to be hung up on the
particular manifestations of the Holy Spirit described in Acts 2. Depending on
your personality or your style of faith, you may either loathe or love the
violent wind from heaven, the tongues of fire and the speaking in other
languages. In other sermons and articles, I have examined these things, but
today I want to concentrate on what Pentecost means.

1. After Easter
Pentecost was called so, because it was the fiftieth day after Passover in the
Jewish calendar. For Christians, it therefore comes after Easter. You may think
I have plumbed new depths in stating the obvious, but there is something
important here. Some Christians would like to stop with the joy of Easter
morning, but our journey must also take us through Ascension to Pentecost. As
Ben Witherington III says,

Throughout Acts, the presence of the Spirit is seen as the
distinguishing mark of Christianity – it is what makes a person a Christian.[1]

It isn’t just the question of speaking in tongues, it’s more
fundamental. The Holy Spirit enables us to confess Jesus as Lord[2].
Hence, Peter quotes Joel here:

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
(Verse 21)

The Holy Spirit shows us who Jesus truly is. The Spirit shows
how sinful we are and us how wonderful Jesus is. But the Spirit’s work doesn’t
stop there. The Holy Spirit shows us our need of God’s grace, and reveals to us
the saving work of Jesus in his Cross and Resurrection. Believing savingly in
the Easter events requires the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. To see the
glory of Jesus and worship the Father through him means we need the Holy
Spirit. Neither worship nor evangelism are fundamentally human activities: we
need the Spirit to be at work in order for them to happen.

That’s to put it a challenging way. More positively, if you
have met Jesus, found the forgiveness of sins in his name through the Cross,
begun following him as a disciple and worshipping him as Lord, then the Holy
Spirit must have been at work in your life.

So, assuming we care about worship and evangelism as
Christians, we need to embrace a post-Easter faith, a Pentecost faith. It is a
faith that says, ‘Come, Holy Spirit. Be more at work in us, through us, ahead
of us and beyond us.’ Pentecost faith like that is grateful for all the past
signs of the Spirit’s work, but is hungry and thirsty for more.

2. Harvest
We have a lot of fun at Hatfield Peverel at harvest-time. As well as the Sunday
service and bringing offerings for good causes such as Harvest For The Hungry, we
have our Harvest Supper and Auction. The produce that cannot be given away is
auctioned off, and the proceeds given to our cause for the year. We have great
fun bidding against each other for tins of soup, home made jam and everything
else. Last year, Liz Ward and I enjoyed a ridiculous bidding war against each
other for a pineapple.

Now why am I talking about harvest in May? Well, our Jewish
friends so enjoyed their festivals and celebrations that they had two harvest festivals each year. One was
equivalent to our regular harvest festivals. It was the ingathering of the
crops at the end of the summer. But they also celebrated the arrival in late
Spring of the first fruits. They did this at Pentecost, or to give it its more
Jewish name, the Feast of Weeks, that happened seven weeks after Passover.[3]

Spiritually speaking, we look forward to the great
ingathering harvest at the end of the age, but we have plenty to celebrate in
the meantime. We have our spiritual first fruits. The gift of the Holy Spirit
is the first fruits of God’s harvest. The Spirit is the sign that shows us what
is coming. The Spirit is the first instalment of God’s kingdom in our lives. Here
is the foretaste of all that is to come.

Paul has a similar analogy in two of his letters, where he
describes the Holy Spirit as like a deposit[4].
Just as we pay a deposit on an item, intending to pay the remaining balance, so
the Holy Spirit is God’s initial deposit on us. He has begun his work of
salvation, and – as Paul says in Philippians – he will complete it[5].
If you think of the old Magnus Magnusson catchphrase from Mastermind, “I’ve
started, so I’ll finish”, the gift of the Spirit is God’s promise that he has
started his work in our lives, and he will finish.

So do you see the signs that the Holy Spirit is at work in
your life? Has the Spirit led you to saving faith in Christ? Does the Spirit increase
your vision of Jesus and your love for him, so that you want to worship God and
share God’s love? Is the Holy Spirit slowly making you more like Jesus, even if
you know there are still too many ways in which you are not like him? Does the
Spirit give you the courage and the words to be faithful to Christ under
pressure? If so, these are the first fruits of God’s harvest in you. One day it
will all come to complete fruition. These signs are the deposit God is putting
on your life. One day God will complete it.

3. Law
Like many homes, a weekday morning is frantic in ours, even though I work from
home. Getting one child ready for school and another for pre-school is a mad
rush. It is made even more so by the fact that Rebekah is a dreamer and that
ten minutes before we are due to leave, she and Mark know that their favourite
TV programme starts. Yes, it’s their Spanish language course. (Otherwise known
as Dora The Explorer.)
We are one of the closest families to the school; we are usually one of the
last to arrive. At points of great frustration, we tell Rebekah that if she is
late for school, a police officer will come and tell Mum and Dad off. We have
to try some way of scaring her into obedience! We pull out the same ‘policeman’
line in the car, if she doesn’t want to put on her seat belt or she dares us to
drive too fast.

We are used to ‘law’ as a list of rules, with some enforcers.
There was an ancient Jewish tradition that also associated Pentecost with the
giving of the Law at Sinai. And the Jewish writer Philo, who predates Luke,
wrote:

Then from the midst of the fire that streamed from heaven
there sounded forth to their utter amazement a voice, for the flame became the
articulate speech in the language familiar to the audience.[6]

It makes Sinai – where the Law was given – sound very much
like Acts 2. Pentecost is the Law of the Spirit, rather than the letter of the
Law. Pentecost fulfils Jeremiah’s vision of God’s new covenant, where God will
not write his law on tablets of stone, but inside the hearts of his people[7].

It is what Paul (again!) talked about when he wrote to the
Galatians in his famous words about the fruit of the Spirit. He tells his
readers that if they live by the Spirit, they will not spend their time
gratifying the full range of sinful desires, from immorality to the occult to
rage, envy and drunkenness. The Spirit, however, produces fruit: love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
And his punch line? ‘There is no law against such things.’ Furthermore, ‘If we live
by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.’[8]

In other words, if you want to please God and fulfil his
law, the Holy Spirit enables you to do so. It isn’t just about following a set
of rules, but becoming the kind of person God wants to be. The law of the Spirit
isn’t just about outward compliance, but inner transformation. When we try to
keep the rules in our own strength, we fail miserably, and fall back into
self-centredness. However, Pentecost brings the gift of the Spirit, God’s new
law. Not only does the Spirit lead us to the actions that please God, the Spirit
also enables to do that will of God and bring pleasure to God. If we want to
please God, we need to be open to the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion
I hope the things I’ve described about Pentecost are things for which we all
long in our lives as disciples of Jesus. I hope we long for a post-Easter
Pentecost faith, where the Holy Spirit is always enabling us to respond to
Jesus in repentance, worship and witness. I hope we also have a ‘first fruits’
faith, in which we can see signs of the Spirit’s work, but long for more,
before the final harvest. And I hope we have a love for God’s law that goes
beyond outward conformity to inward renewal, depending on the power of the
Spirit, not our own feebleness, to enjoy pleasing God.

But what to do about it? It’s easy to preach a sermon about
this and leave people feeling condemned. ‘You’re not doing enough of x, you
should do more of y.’ Here’s an alternative way of approaching it.

I came downstairs the other day, and could hear a noise. “Is
the tap running?” I asked Debbie. Sure enough, in the downstairs loo, the cold
tap hadn’t been turned off. Mark can wash his hands after going to the toilet,
but he struggles to turn off some of our taps. If he’s also managed to put the
plug in, the overflow saves us from disaster.

All the blessings of Pentecost are about the overflow of the
Spirit – the rivers of living water flowing from us to others. The disciples
don’t speak in tongues to the crowd:
the crowd overhears. It is an overflow. Pentecost is not the time to beat
ourselves up about our failures. It is the time to seek an overflow of the
Spirit, for then all the other things come as a natural consequence.

This Pentecost, let us ask God to soak us with the Holy Spirit
– not for the sake of spiritual self-gratification, such an ambition is a
contradiction in terms. But let us rather ask God to saturate us with the
Spirit so that we may more truly be worshippers, witnesses, holy people and all
the other things he longs for us to be.

[2] 1
Corinthians 12:3.

[3] If
Passover was day one, this was celebrated on day fifty, hence Pentecost in
Greek.

[4] 2
Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:14.

[5]
Philippians 1:6.

[6] Quoted
in Witherington, p 131.

[7]
Jeremiah 31:31-34.

[8]
See Galatians 5:16-26

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