Acts 2:1-7, 14-17        Who is the Holy Spirit?        May 31, 2009

        All week long, these candles are asleep on this communion table.  They are filled with oil and the potential of fire.  And yet, they remain unlighted.  They remain asleep. Only when our acolytes walk down each week with the fire do these candles come to life, awaken with flame, fulfilling their purpose. 

Well, the majority of humanity is also asleep.  We have great potential and yet we are not awake.  We do not see.  We do not hear.  We do not know.  Only when the Holy Spirit of God lights the candle within us, within our spirit, do we come awake to know who we are and who God is.  Ephesians 5 says, “Once you were in the darkness but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of the light…Awake o sleeper.  Arise from the dead.  Jesus will shine on you and give you new life.”  

  Do you ever feel like you are living your life half asleep?  I have to say that as I go about day to day looking at people around me, it certainly seems that most folks are just asleep.  They do not have a clue.  But by the Holy Spirit, God wants us to wake up.   This is His purpose for us.  In fact, the whole biblical message is about awakening.  Now our modern goal in America is about accomplishing something.  Many of us feel like we are nobody because we have not accomplished some great success.  We have not reached the American dream of riches.  We have not performed as well as our friend and we feel like a failure.  But God’s message to us is not about our performance.  It is about our realization.  God’s message is not about my doing something but about being and becoming someone.  The Holy Spirit wants to wake us up to realize who we already are as the children of the King of the universe. 

 Now who is this Holy Spirit?  We often hear sermons on God as Father and on Jesus the Son.  But in Mainline Churches, we hear little about the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is God and is the power of God come to live within us.  Romans 8 says the Spirit is life. John 16 says the Spirit is Truth.  Hebrews 10 says the Spirit is grace.  Romans 1 says the Spirit is Holiness.  First Corinthians 2 says only the Spirit knows the very thoughts of God.  John 14-16 says that the Spirit comes to counsel us and to teach us about Jesus Christ.  And to guide us in all things.  First Corinthians 3 says that the Holy Spirit lives and dwells in those who believe in Jesus.  

  In our scripture today, the disciples received the Spirit into their lives.  They were awakened most completely.  But we saw just a week ago that the disciples were still worrying about when God was going to make their nation great again.  They were still focused on a history lesson about the past.  Perhaps they still wanted to have the best seats and the ruling positions when the new kingdom came.  Perhaps they still wanted to be important and successful, good looking and famous.   But Jesus for the hundredth time told them those things were not what mattered to God.  Jesus told them that what they needed was a direct personal experience of God in the now.  Today, we see in this scripture that the Spirit comes and they have this direct personal experience.  And Peter, James, john, and all the others were never the same again.  

  Listen.  Each of us needs that direct personal experience of the Spirit of God.  Now some of us squirm when I say that.  We worry this means we are going to jump up, speak in tongues, go crying to the altar, or some other emotional experience.  Well, those things do happen to some people.  In John Wesley’s time in the early Methodism of the 1740s, people filled with the Spirit passed out, fell on the ground, sang, cried, and had emotional upheavals.  But other people in early Methodism had quiet experiences.  They simply felt God move upon them in a powerful and firm commitment.  They had no outward emotional sign, but inwardly, they knew that they had come to a new point in life.  Something had awakened in them.  In fact, as the revival went on for years into the late 1740s, there were less emotional outward signs and more firm inward commitments to follow the Lord in a changed life.  But in every case, there had to be a direct personal awakening.   Look.  No one else can wake up for you.  In the morning, as you lie in bed, someone else can call to you and help wake you up on time.  But you, individually and personally must wake up, come out of your sleep, and begin your day.  In the same way, others may help, the Bible may speak to you, your pastor can tell you some things, but you yourself—personally, individually, and directly—you yourself must come out of your sleep, wake up, and begin to live your life.  Jesus stands at the door and knocks. He says it is time to get out of bed.   You must open the door.

   What does the Holy Spirit do once we are awakened?  The Holy Spirit comes to guide us to follow Jesus.  The great mistake of Mainline Christianity is that we have ignored the roll of the Holy Spirit.  We do not teach enough about the Spirit.  However, the great mistake of many independent churches is that they focus endlessly on and talk only about the Holy Spirit.  The fact is that the Holy Spirit does not want such attention.  The Bible says the Spirit came to awaken us and to point us to Jesus.  For many of us, the first thing we want to see when we wake up in the morning is that cup of coffee.  Well, the first thing the Holy Spirit wants us to see when we wake up spiritually is Jesus of Nazareth.   

I remember coming to church one evening and thinking about Jesus’ words concerning the Holy Spirit.  John 16 says “He will glorify me.”  As I pulled in, I saw the building lighted inside and floodlit outside.  I saw the beautiful cross design at the front.  And I realized something.  When floodlighting is well done, the floodlights are placed so that you do not see them.  In fact, you are not supposed to see where the light is coming from. What you are meant to see is just the building on which the floodlights are trained. The intended effect is to make it visible and to maximize its dignity by throwing all its details into relief. This is the Spirit's role.  He is the hidden floodlight shining on the Savior.  The more we are awakened and enlightened by the Spirit, the more we see Jesus.  The more other people will see Jesus in us.

 This morning, what is one new insight you have gained about the Holy Spirit?  Think on that for a moment.  Now in what area of your life do you believe the Holy Spirit needs to shed more light?  Maybe you need an awakening today.  You can pray that God will begin to bring you out of your sleep.  Or perhaps you have long known the light of the Spirit in you life but there is still this back room that you keep locked with the lights turned off.  Can you open that door and let the Spirit do His healing work?  I pray you can come fully awake and live in the glory of the Holy Spirit.   Amen.