Pastor Rich's Sunday Sermon

Have you ever been accused of having too much wine?
Have you ever been accused of being drunk as the apostles were accused of?

Why not? Why does it seem that modern Christianity has lost the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the missing person of the Trinity. Someday I expect to find a picture of the Holy Spirit on the side of a milk carton with the caption "MISSING".

Why isn’t the Holy Spirit as evident in our churches as it was on Pentecost? When the apostles experienced the Holy Spirit in the rushing of winds and tongues of fire. When “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

Ron Susek tells the following story in his book God Will Answer. He was seated behind the pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit of airplane. It was a very stormy night and they were preparing for a landing in Calgary.

Snow sprayed across the windshield, deepening the gray wall outside. Nothing was visible more than an inch beyond the windshield. As he stared at the instrument panel he noticed a circular dial with a longitudinal line that moved from left to right. He inquired what is that instrument for?

The pilot explained, “There is a signal coming up from the middle of the runway. As long as that line is in the center of the circle, we’re lined up dead center with the runway.’

Next to this dial was a second one. This one had airplane wings that rose above and fell beneath a horizontal line. When he asked about that one he was told, “Coming up from the runway, there is a signal that gives them a rate of descent. As long as we keep those wings on that horizontal line, we’re descending at a proper rate for landing.”

Ron compared these two dials to the twofold work of the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” (Romans 8:26)

As the pilot trusts the instruments for a safe landing we are required to trust the Holy Spirit to do His work for us. The Holy Spirit aligns our heart, our lives, even our prayers with the center of God’s will and word.

Jesus said to the disciples

“I will ask the Father,
and He will give you another counselor
to be with you forever - the Spirit of truth.”

Jesus was promising them that the Spirit of God himself would come to care and to guide them. John chapters 14-16 reveal to us exactly what Jesus taught about the Holy Spirit. Jesus said:

The Holy Spirit will be with us forever.
He will live with us and is in us.
He will teach us.
He will remind us of Jesus’ words.
He will convict us of sin.
He will guide us in the truth.
He will show us God’s righteousness.
He will bring glory to God.

The Holy Spirit is a powerful presence of God working for us. The Holy Spirit gives a whole new way of looking at life to those who hear Christ’s Words and understands the Spirit’s power. It was this understanding that enabled Paul to say,

“I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me.”

Let us become drunk with the Holy Spirit. To do so we must pray that God will fill us with His Holy Spirit. That the Holy Spirit will blow in our hearts and in our minds. That the Holy Spirit will set our lives on fire with a passion and a hunger and thirst that will empower our lives and align our lives with the Word and Will of God.