The Spirit at Work in Believers, Part 1

I am posting the sermon/response to the Word that highlighted the June 30 youth/young adult service at church. The final stories are in Laurie Kehler's book, "This Outside Life - Finding God in the Heart of Nature." They are summarized here for legal issues or are directly quoted in excerpts. I highly recommend this resource as a must have in your faith library.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Who is The Holy Spirit?

The reading from Galatians 5 tells us that the Holy Spirit produces fruit – love, joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, long-suffering and patience, faithfulness, self-control. We are commanded in this passage to live by the Spirit if we are to be successful in our faith walk. So, like, Who then is this Spirit? Who is the Holy Spirit? Briefly:  He is God, part of the Trinity, co-eternal and co-equal with the Father and The Son. He has always been God, is sentient, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. In the personhood of the Holy Spirit, God relates to believers intimately, living inside us. He gifts the Church, the Body of Christ with Himself to build it up and to empower the members of the Body to live for Christ. He further endows the Body with special gifts to glorify God, serve others and to bring Christ to others. The Holy Spirit is a ‘He’, not an ‘it’. God the Holy Spirit is the living personhood of God. He is not a ghost; older translations of the Bible refer to the Spirit as a ghost because in the 16^th and 17^th centuries the original Hebrew and Greek words for spirit were often translated as ‘ghost’ reflecting the common language of the time describing an unseen person. In modern English the meaning and use of the word ghost has  differing implications. Thus, the better translation is God, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is also called the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Jesus and/or Christ, which further confirms His Godhead. Holy Spirit God exalts the Son and teaches about Him and the Father as Jesus promised in John 14-16. He is life-giving – as Paul tells us in Romans 8, and Ephesians 2. His fruit described in Galatians is a picture revelation and description of the essence of God’s character. When we yield ourselves willingly to His creative power in us, the Holy Spirit endeavors to imprint that character in us as He works through us and in us to shape us into Christ’s very image. Without the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, it is impossible for us to be faithful followers of Christ as He says in Romans 8:9-11. 

Today, we want to share a some stories with you about how God the Holy Spirit living in believers, and poured out upon the Body of Christ works out God’s purposes and proves to be the Advocate and Helper for all who believe.

Thanksgiving

When I realize that Thanksgiving for a believer is a daily occurrence, then I'm never late publishing this message:

Reflections on Thanksgiving… God is here and has blessed us with His presence. We are not alone! Bless you all and may God give you grace to use the blessings you’ve received to be a blessing to others! -jo

1 Chronicles 16:34

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

³⁴ O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;
For His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Psalm 9

A Psalm of Thanksgiving for God’s Justice.

    For the choir director; on Muth-labben. A Psalm of David.

 ¹ I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart;
I will tell of all Your wonders.

1 Samuel 2

Hannah’s Song of Thanksgiving

 ¹ Then Hannah prayed and said,

   “My heart exults in the LORD;
My horn is exalted in the LORD,
My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies,
Because I rejoice in Your salvation.

Psalm 30:4

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

⁴ Sing praise to the LORD, you His godly ones,
And give thanks to His holy name.

Psalm 50:14

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

¹⁴ “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving
And pay your vows to the Most High;

Psalm 50:23

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

²³ “He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me;
And to him who orders his way aright
I shall show the salvation of God.”

1 Chronicles 16:8

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Psalm of Thanksgiving

 ⁸ Oh give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name;
Make known His deeds among the peoples.

Psalm 69:30

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

³⁰ I will praise the name of God with song
And magnify Him with thanksgiving.

Psalm 95:2

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

² Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving,
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.

Philippians 4:6

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

⁶ Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Colossians 4:2

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

 ² Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving; 

Lamentations chapter 3

Hope of Relief in God’s Mercy

¹⁹ Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.
²⁰ Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.
²¹ This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
²² The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
²³ They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
²⁴ “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
²⁵ The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.

Revelations 7

⁹ After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; ¹⁰ and they cry out with a loud voice, saying,

   “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” ¹¹ And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹² saying,

   “Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

Stewardship...What Kind of Steward Am I?

For many churches at this time of year - or within the next few weeks, the call will go out for financial pledges, flyers on ‘stewardship’ are put up on bulletin boards, posted to the church website, and/or mailed out with pledge forms. Scriptures are quoted to underline the importance of financial giving, such as the widow with two mites, ones that show that investing in God will bring you manifold returns on your investment (e.g. Luke 6:38). Google "Bible verses to use to encourage financial giving" and, oh my, all sorts of programs, lessons, and schemes are listed. Some sites sell their 'proven methods'. Sometimes churches will hire a consultant to work with the church to encourage greater giving, including partnering with retail stores so that a percentage of money spent by churchgoers returns to the church coffers. Given the recent financial times, not to mention increased interest in self and comforts, it is little wonder that for many churches, the Bible principle of ‘stewardship’ is diminished and mocked, referring chiefly to how much a person is willing to give to the church over the course of another period of time. This understanding of stewardship falls excessively short of what the Bible teaches, and can sometimes brink on being unscriptural or just Bible-flavored fundraising. Such misrepresentation may cause churchgoers and Christians to miss out on a wonderful and fundamental experience in their walk with God.

I remember when this truth was driven home to me several years ago, when I began to catch a glimmer of what God’s Word truly teaches on stewardship. One of the members of my congregation testified one Sunday – praise God for the courage and encouragement that the Holy Spirit had on this comparatively new believer! – that he had lost his job, yet he had not lost his faith in God’s promises! He believed God to be the true provider for himself and his family. While the job loss and reduced income required adjustments in spending, he said he could not see himself still not giving God one-tenth of his income. He testified that God had not changed – just his own personal circumstances, and he believed that God would honor his faith in Him to continue to bless his family’s obedience in this regard. Not only did he get new employment, but it is employment that brings enough to sustain the family and allows him to engage in evangelism work through the faith communities to which he belongs.

See, he was teaching us this: Stewardship is founded on love of God, a trusting relationship with Him, leading the believer to express gratitude, faith; he does not see stewardship as merely a ‘financial’ thing. God gave us stewardship of the earth, of our lives and faith, of the relationships within the body of Christ so that as faithful stewards grounded in the sacrificial love of Christ, we see ourselves as what we are – purchased for Christ by His blood and no longer our own (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). We see our very lives and existence as coming from God, and that without Him and His grace we are dead spiritually and separated from Him. We owe Him ourselves. As such, all of our life and lifestyle pivots on stewardship of the faith God has given us (Hebrews 12:2), stewardship of the temple of the Spirit  - our physical bodies and how we use them to God’s glory, stewardship of the relationships God brings us to, stewardship of the secular and spiritual work that He brings us to – everything in our lives that we encounter call for us to exercise the stewardship role that God has bestowed on us. The joy and wonderment of this is that we are partners with Christ in our stewardship responsibility, we share with Him, we serve with and abide in Christ throughout the remainder of our earthly lives and beyond (John 15; Romans 16:3,9; Romans 8). The rewards of our stewardship can be experienced in this life and in the life to come (Matthew 25:14-30). We are commanded to give ourselves to His kingdom work, which includes proclaiming the good news to our friends, family, coworkers, and others, and making disciples of ourselves and others, and to serve one another in Christ.

Yes, our financial giving is but one aspect of our stewardship, and yet all of our stewardship responsibility is predicated on the same love, thanksgiving, and gratitude, and faith. Our financial giving, though, is an indicator of how we see ourselves before God. Do we believe God is who He says He is? It’s funny – we will give/dedicate our babies and children to God and ask Him to do with them as He wills, yet we are stingy or reticent with our money and will not give to God the one-tenth He asks. Some excuse themselves from the tithing by saying that this was a part of the old Mosaic law and doesn’t apply to Christians. Why not? Tithing is not introduced in the Bible through the Mosaic Law; it was already a standard of giving relative to worship; read Genesis 14 to confirm this. The Mosaic Law given to Moses by God used that existing standard (which was God-authored hundreds of years before); it also included special standards of giving for the Levites, which were twice as high as the general tithe offering. Thus, Jesus’ first coming did not obliterate the general giving standard, nor the principles of the law, in which the giving of one-tenth of ones' incurred wealth and/or possessions (whether money or goods) was a standard in worship and obedience to Yahweh. Such giving back to God serves to remind us of what God has done for us, what His grace has provided, and that He is sovereign over all things.  Jesus' coming - His first advent - fulfilled the redemptive plan of the law. Jesus upheld the principles of the law and expounded on them in the Sermon on the Mount – particularly in Matthew 5. The law pointed to Christ, yet it also underscored the Jews' accountability to God, as it does so for us (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Compare Paul’s inspired account in 2 Corinthians 8 as he identifies the source of the giving by the Macedonians. (In the next chapter in verse 7, Paul uses the word 'cheerful' with respect to the believers' attitude towards giving. The Greek word used here is a derivative of the word for 'hilarious' or 'hilarity' - when was the last time you wrote a check to church which had you falling out of your seat laughing hilariously?) Malachi 3 is not a part of the Mosaic law, and believers are commanded there to bring one tenth of their income into the ‘house of the LORD,’ i.e., we have the supreme privilege of honoring God through our material goods, service and our active faith. 

As we look at ourselves through the perspective of God’s Word, we each need to ask ourselves: What kind of steward am I? Do I believe in God’s Word and promises? Have I pledged allegiance to God through the blood sacrifice of Christ and accepted Him as my Savior, Lord and Master – not in word only but through a real transfer of my rights to Him? Have I accepted the honor of partnering with Christ in stewardship? Do my works and actions agree with my answer? (2 Corinthians 13:5)

How does your church approach stewardship?