“I Believe in the Holy Spirit”

A Sermon Based Upon Romans 8: 9-17

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

March 12th, 2017, Series: Apostles Creed 11/15)

Today, have come to where the Apostle Creed says, “I Believe in the Holy Spirit”.   This short line reminds us that if you call yourself Christian---a part of the original, main flow, of Christianity---you must somehow surrender to this very mysterious, unexplainable, complicated, but also very original understanding, which says: At the same time we say God is one, we also say that God is revealed to us, as in the hymn:  “In Three Persons, Blessed Trinity.”  

Several years ago, a Jehovah’s Witness showed up at my front door.  He was somewhat aggressive in his approach.  Even after I informed that I was a Baptist preacher, which normally would make someone want to leave, he still wanted to convert me from ‘my faulty belief about the Trinity’.  

      “The “Trinity” was only established in the 4^th century AD”, he said. 

       My rebuttal began by saying that he was right to say that the Trinity did not become ‘official’ teaching of the church until the 4^th century, but there was no ‘official’ teaching of the church at all until that time.  I went on to remind him that even though the Trinity had only been around 1600 years, Jehovah’s Witnesses had only been around less than 100 years.   If authenticity was based on how long the teaching had been around, Jehovah’s Witnesses would lose against the Trinity, hands down!   Finally, after I got his attention, I explained that the teaching about the Trinity was never an attempt to create a ‘new’ doctrine about God, but it was the attempt of the early church to come to grips with their experience of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Spirit that that gave birth to the church. 

What makes this Trinitarian faith even more incredible than any argument is the fact that such a brain-teasing expression all started with unlearned, humble, ordinary fishermen who grew up as devout Jews, praying daily: “Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one.”  These are the very same people who gave the church the experience of faith in ‘one God’ who is also ‘three in one’.   We also can see how this Trinitarian faith was developing very early in Christian writings.  Notice how differently Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians concluded from his first letter.  His first letter concluded very simply, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.”  (1 Cor. 1:16).  A much more Trinitarian benediction had developed by his second letter: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. (2 Cor. 13:13 NRS).  Paul, along with the whole church, were putting into words not just what, but ‘who’ they had experienced by having faith in God, knowing Jesus as the Christ, and now, living their lives ‘with the Holy Spirit and power’ (Acts 10:38).

LIFE-GIVING POWER

While there are many Scriptures giving us instruction about what it means to ‘believe’ in the Holy Spirit as part of a ‘Triune God’ (The Trinity), Paul’s letter repeats the necessity of the Trinity in a very natural conversational way, telling the Roman Christians:  ‘But you are not in the flesh: you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.  Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.  But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, THE SPIRIT IS LIFE BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS (Rom. 8:9-10).”

GIVING LIFE:  There is, of course, a broader discussion going on here, expressing Paul’s understanding of the relationship between living under the Law and now, living this ‘new life of the Spirit’ (7:6).   Paul’s discussion of the Holy Spirit in Romans is greatly theological.  However, it is not meant to be theoretical, but is most practical.   Paul is talking about how we have life—full life.   Paul is talking about how God, who has fully revealed himself in Jesus Christ and the power of his resurrection (6:4) has now given believers ‘the free gift’ (5:16) of ‘grace’ and ‘righteousness’ (5:17) to be appropriated by ‘the law of the Spirit of life’.  It is through Jesus, that God has ‘set (us) free from the law of sin and death’ (8:2) in the ‘flesh’ (8:6).   Through Jesus, God ‘did what the law could not do’ (8:3) and now, through the Spirit, that is the Spirit of Christ, God ‘will give LIFE to (our) mortal bodies’ as we live ‘through his Spirit’ (8:11).

The coming of the Holy Spirit, then, is a story about ‘newness of life’ (Rom 6.4) both in the individual, and in the church; in this present life, and in the life to come (1 Tim 4:8).  The ‘newness of life’ was established through the life, death, and resurrection of God’s Son and was released into the world in the promised coming of the Holy Spirit.   In John’s gospel, Jesus says to his disciples: “…because I live, you also will live” (Jn. 14:19).  Jesus continues: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth….” (John 16:13).    Or in Acts, Jesus says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses… (Acts 1:8).   On the day of Pentecost the ‘promise of the Holy Spirit’ was ‘poured out’ (Acts. 2.33) to give birth and life to the church.   Those who experienced the Spirit in the preaching of Simon Peter were told to ‘repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ” so they would have their ‘sins…forgiven’ and in that same moment, ‘receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’ (Acts. 2:38).   This coming of Holy Spirit into the hearts and lives of believers was one of the ‘good gifts’ Jesus’ told his followers they should pray for: “If you…, who are evil, know how to give good gifts…, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 12:11:13).

WHO IS THIS SPIRIT?   Clearly, this “Spirit” who descended upon Jesus at his baptism (Mark 1.10) is the same “Holy Spirit” being promised to Christ’s followers by John the Baptist: “I baptize you with water; but he will baptize you with the “Holy Spirit” (Mk. 1:8).  The coming of the “Holy Spirit” upon anyone who believes was the fulfillment of the ‘the day of the Lord’ envisioned by the prophets, especially as expressed by the prophet Joel, who said that one day God would ‘pour out (his) spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.  Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit” (Joel 2:1, 28-29).  Joel’s prophecy is still being fulfilled every time anyone opens their own heart, agreeing to participate in God’s own life, experiencing God’s love as they ‘receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’.

LIVING IN THE SPIRIT:  One of the greatest imperatives of all the Bible comes in the the book of Ephesians, where it encourages believers, ‘not to be drunk with wine,…but be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18).    This is not any kind of encouragement to be an intensely religious person.  To be ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ is the encouragement of the believer to ‘live the life they have been called’ (Eph. 4:1ff)—the life of a Jesus-follower.   This Spirit-filled life is a ‘life’ lived and enabled by the gospel--- as Ephesians says, living ‘in one Spirit’ (4:4), not ‘grieving the Spirit’ (Eph. 4:30), but ‘being careful how you live…making most of the time…, understanding what the will of the Lord is…(Eph. 5:15-17),  singing…, giving thanks to God and living your life ‘in the name of Jesus’ (See Eph. 5:18-20).    Living in the Spirit following a new ‘law of the Spirit’ to gain ‘newness of life’ through Jesus Christ.

It is this same Spirit-inspired, Spirit-led, and Spirit empowered life that we are talking about when we say, ‘We believe in the Holy Spirit’.   To believe in the Holy Spirit is not to add anything else to God, but when we say God is Holy Spirit, we are saying something very  personal (holy) and practical (life-giving) about God and what it means to for us to allow his holy, loving, healing, and redeeming spiritual power into us.   When we are ‘led by the Spirit’ (8:14), Paul says, we ‘have received a spirit of adoption’ (8:15), which means that we have become ‘children of God’ (8:14).   Paul writes: ‘When we cry Abba! Father! It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,….heirs…,” which means ‘we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him’(8:17).  

I don’t think that there is any more spiritual, spirit-filled, spiritually alive people and place than the Ministry of L’Arche in Ontario, Canada.   L’Arche is a home for people with severe mental limitations.  It is a ministry that serves as a pure example, on the highest scale, of what it means to be a person who is filled with the Spirit, who at first, appears to have no life, no value, and no reason to live.  That is how most of us would view the people at L’Arche.  Most of us would not want go there, but according to those who have been there, and have worked there, that place is one of most lively and joy-filled ‘home places’ on earth.

The Ministry of L’Arche was created by Jean Vanier, a Canadian who had volunteered for the Navy is World War II.  After the war he felt lost.  A French priest told him to take care of two older men who were suffering from different kinds of disability.  That’s how L’Arche got started, as a home established for the mentally handicapped to ensure they would receive adequate care.  But the home is much more than a ‘care home’, but it is uniquely home that cares; it is a home that creates home, a home place where these who would be nobody to the world, are adopted, become friends, family and people living in the Spirit of Christ.   Jean Vanier explained his inspiration from the Gospel:  In John 14, the Spirit is ‘given to those who are lonely, in need of a friend; to those who are poor in spirit and cry out to God.’  The Holy Spirit lives in us to give us strength for each other.  This ‘Spirit’ inspires ‘nothing but love, to do the works of God by giving us friends who can help us do what we have been called to do.’  The practice of the commandments of love, to serve one another, to be in communion with one another, not to judge or condemn, but be ready to forgive.  This is how the Spirit lives in us, and gives life to and through us (Jean Vanier, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John (New York: Paulist, 2004, p. 260-263).

We invite and allow God’s life (Spirit) into us when we ‘lead a life worthy of the calling to which we’ve been called with all humility, gentleness, patience, bearing one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of Spirit in the bond of peace’ (Eph 4:1b-3).  We allow God’s goodness and grace into our lives because we have been ‘blessed’ with ‘the love of the Spirit (Rom. 15:29, 30) through each other.  It is this ‘love of the Spirit’ that fills us with ‘the Spirit of Jesus’ (Phil 1:19) and/or the ‘Spirit of God’ (Phil 3:3) and makes us God’s sons and daughters who are family with God and with each other.   The Holy Spirit, put simply, is about God the Father giving himself to us freely and lovingly through Jesus the Son, so that we can freely and lovingly, give ourselves back to God, who is our Father in Heaven.  This life lived in the constant communion of fellowship, love and grace mediated by the Holy Spirit, enables us to live our lives with new power and hope.

HOPE-GIVING PRESENCE

Beyond what Paul says about the ‘life-giving’ Spirit, in the gospel of John, written after Paul’s death,  we have John’s account of Jesus promising the coming of God’s abiding ‘presence’ who named, Comforter (KJV), Helper (ESV), Advocate (NRSV, NIV), Counselor (RSV), or Companion (CEB).   These are some of the many attempts that have been made to translate the multidimensional meaning of New Testament name for the Spirit (Paraclete).  When I attempted to type this word on my computer, the spell checker came up with the correction, “Parakeet”.  Actually, that is not a bad mistake, because parakeet is a small parrot, which is a bird that can ‘talk’.  The German translation for ‘Paraclete’ is ‘Fursprecher’---that is, someone who speaks for you; an advocate who speaks in your behalf.    This life-giving ‘gift’ was realized by having God’s voice or presence to continue to be with, and for the disciples. 

This promised, abiding and advocating ‘presence’ is exactly what Jesus meant when he said, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate (Fursprecher) to be with you forever…  (John 14: 16).  “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you” (John 14:18).  Jesus even dares to say, before his death: “….I tell you…it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you…. (John 16:7)…He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you….(16: 14).  Then, the most hopeful words of all are spoken by Jesus to his disciples: “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me” (16:16).   This is the kind of saying that confused the disciples at first (16:17-19), until the Spirit came (Acts 2.33) and the church became the spiritual body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:17) in the world.

What it means for us, now, to have God’s promised spiritual ‘presence’ giving us the power for living our lives, no matter what we face, or are up against, is perhaps best understood in the simplest name ‘Helper’ (ESV).  As Paul writes again in Romans 8, “Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray…. (v. 26), so, he continues:  ”….that very Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words  (v.27).  In this graphic, but very spiritual or mystical image Paul paints is to show us how God’s Spirit communicates with God’s Spirit who abides in us, answering our need to have ‘hope’ and ‘patience’  so we will keep waiting (v. 25) and working for what is not yet seen (v.24-25).

DO YOU HAVE HOPE, NO MATTER WHAT IS HAPPENING TO YOU IN THIS MOMENT?   It is the Spirit of God, God’s presence in us, working within our spirit, counseling, comforting, advocating, and giving us the help we need to keep up hope.   With hope Paul says, ‘the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed…. (v. 18).  Then, right after this, Paul paints the most astounding, hopeful and helpful picture in this whole passage.  He says that the ‘creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God (v.19).   Stop and think?  What is the ‘creation’ waiting for?  What are we all waiting for?   Are we waiting on God?  Yes, but this text also says that God is waiting on us; on the ‘revealing of the children of God….(v.19) which gives hope of the coming ‘freedom of the glory of the children of God’ (v.21) already being revealed to us, and in us, ‘who have the first fruits of the Spirit’ (v. 23). 

‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Freedom’ already (2 Cor. 3.17).   Even while we don’t have full freedom or full redemption yet, we are already ‘seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed…from one glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18).  When Paul says ‘we wait….for the redemption of our bodies’ (v.23), he means that we wait in a ‘hope’ through the ‘first fruits of the Spirit’ (v. 23) which is already being to us, as we, by the power of living our life in the Spirit, overcome the ‘works of the flesh’ (Gal. 5:19) to live these ‘first fruits’ as ‘the fruit of the Spirit’, which is; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).  And I love how the King James Version concludes: “Against which there is no law” (KJV).  This is what it means to have the Spirit or to be guided by the Spirit:  It is to ‘crucify the flesh’ and ‘live by the Spirit’ (Gal. 5:24-25) so that God’s presence, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1.27, KJV) is alive in us now; this is what brings us hope, no matter what we face while we all must wait for that which is still to come.

In that great Hymn in “Love Divine, All Love Excelling”,  Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church,  wrote the brother’s strongly held belief, that the church of Jesus Christ should be more hopeful, even enthusiastically hopeful, because God’s ‘divine’ loving, gift-giving presence can be in God’s people now.   They first called the Methodist movement, the holiness movement, emphasizing the spiritual work of ‘perfection’ based upon human cooperation with the divine spiritual work of sanctification in our lives.  That great hymn is in our Baptist hymnal too, but most Methodist and Baptist sing right through it, not realizing what hopeful phrases are being sung, such as the last line concludes:  “Finish, then, thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be. 

Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee;

changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place,

till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise.”

LOVE-GIVING PURPOSE

What is being expressed in Charles Wesley’s great hymn is the same spiritual truth Paul is expressing in Romans 8.   The Spirit that comes to us is a life-giving Spirit, bringing God’s very life to us.  By giving us God’s living presence, revealed in us, through the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ (8.23) which is alive in us from the inside out, we possess a hope-giving presence; ‘Christ in (us), the hope of glory’ (Col. 1.27).   But now, Paul comes to what this life power, and hopeful presence means not only today, but tomorrow.  He expresses it some of the most memorable, comforting words of the Bible: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose (KJV, 8:28). 

This comforting word is perhaps the most spiritually empowered words we could ever hear.  Put simply, it means that no matter what happens to us, because God’s Holy Spirit is at work in us,  God’s love for us, and our love for God,  with our heart’s desire to answer God’s call and live into God’s purposes, means that everything will ‘work…for good’.   This, of course, does not meant that everything that happens is good, nor is everything that happens something God has planned for us in the short run of things.  But it does mean that in the long run and long view of things, ‘in all things God works for the good of those who love him’ (NIV).   

Retired Methodist professor at Duke Divinity, Stanley Hauerwas, tells that he worships often with a congregation whose baptistery is in the form of a large cross.  This makes possible a baptism by immersion.  To be under the water in baptism intimates death because in that moment, we are unable to breathe.  That kind of Baptism signifies all of the mystery of God’s saving work in us, as we die to the world and come alive in Christ, no matter what method of baptism.   Even more interestingly, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,  that church has determined that when a member of the congregation dies, the body is brought to the church the day before the funeral and the coffin is placed on the baptistery.  Members of the church then stay with the body through the day and night before the funeral.  This prayerful and loving action of abiding presence, makes concrete the spiritual truth that death does not defeat us.  Even as God brought us through the waters of baptism to life in Christ, so shall we be brought through the waters of death. Through the Spirit, even when our life ends, we have been made part of God’s purpose.  Hauerwas, Stanley. The Holy Spirit (Kindle Locations 1142-1150). Abingdon Press.

This all testifies to what John Wesley himself said in hope, and love:  “Our people die well.”

That God ‘works for the good’ and accomplishes his loving purpose for us, is what I only came to understand through my own suffering, hurt, and struggles in my own life.  That God loves and that God is at work ‘in all things’ is not something I take lightly, or quote flippantly.   It is not a blanket statement that helps me explain everything, but it is a faith statement; a confession of faith made in light of the life-long relationship of knowing the goodness and grace of God’s love as revealed to me in Jesus Christ and made known through his ‘the love of the Spirit’.  

Only in ‘the LORD Jesus’ and through ‘the love of the Spirit’ (Rom. 15:30) would Paul have ever dared to make this promise that ‘all things work for the good of those who love God’.   In other words, only because, only when, and only if, everything in this life finally moves in God’s love and toward God’s grace, mercy, and justice can we be sure that there is a ‘purpose’ in everything that happens.   This is exactly where Paul is headed, when he makes his final point, which ends up at the same place he started by saying, ‘There is therefore, now, no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus…. (Rom. 8:1).  Now he ends:  “If God be for us, who can be against us? (v. 31)…  “Who is the one who will condemn? (v.34)…”Who will separate us from the love of Christ?  Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword (v. 35)? …No… For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”(Rom. 8:38-39 NET).

This is perhaps, the most concrete expression of what it means to believe in the Holy Spirit, as it relates to the practical living of our daily lives.  In the face of human suffering, unanswered questions, and in the eventually approach of our own death,  “Nothing will separate us from the love of Christ!”   How can we know this?  How can we be sure of this?  We can only know this because the Holy Spirit is giving us life now, giving us his hopeful presence now,  and giving us his unconditional, purposeful love, now.   This is how we know that is “God is for us, nothing is against us!”

Most interestingly, the Holy Spirit will end his work, right where he began.   In the opening moments of the creation story, we read that ‘the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water (Gen. 1:2, NET).  When Jesus was baptized and came up out of the water,  he saw ‘the Spirit descending on him like a dove’ (Mark 1:10).  When the church was born, we read how ‘…Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind...(and)… All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit….(Acts 2:4).   And finally, in the closing verses of John’s vision of Revelation,  ‘The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”  And let every who hears say, “Come.”  And let everyone who is thirsty come.  Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift (Rev. 22:17, NRS).  All this means that the life in the Bible is the eternal, everlasting life being offered to you, and to me, through God’s Spirit, that rested on the earth, descended upon Jesus, set a wind of fire in the church, and now, finally invites us all to ‘drink’ from God’s gift of ‘the water of life’.   This Spirit over the water is the same Spirit in the water, when we ‘come’ to receive ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rev. 22:21).   If you say you believe in the Holy Spirit, and now that you know that the Spirit is thirsty for finding a body, a person, or a place to indwell and rest, will you ‘come’?  Will you open your heart to this power, this presence and this loving purpose, that is only found in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?  Will you come, gain God’s power, know God’s presence, and join in God’s purpose, by letting the Spirit come to rest in you?  The Spirit and Bride still say come!  Amen.