What does the Holy Spirit Do? Galatians 5: 16-26 Matthew 7: 15-20 Now, it is no secret by now that I really am not a great gardener, but I am great organizer and I like things tidy. I think that is why I do not enjoy gardening, it does not seem to be easy to have a tidy garden and plants do not always seem to do as they are told. Yesterday though we did some gardening in the graveyard and that was my sort of gardening. Hacking back, chopping down and a team effort! My brother in law on the other hand is a great gardener and he enjoys it so much he has got an allotment as well. Now I benefit from Bryn s skills as when he has a glut of tomatos, or spare chilis, or extra courgettes they come my way. Bryn has learnt how to nurture a healthy plant and he does all he can to tend it, water it and feed it so that it bears fruit, so that it produces something good. None of us wants to put all our effort into a plant that does not produce fruit. In our readings today we have heard about good trees bearing fruit and about the fruits of the Spirit. We are going to be thinking through these images some more today as we continue our sermon series on the Holy Spirit. Last week Jane looked at the fact that the Holy Spirit is a person, a being, part of the Trinity together with the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit has been around since before the beginning of the world and in the Old Testament the Spirit came upon particular people to enable them to achieve certain tasks. As we move into the New Testament we see that the Holy Spirit is a gift given to us by the Father and requested by the Son, Jesus.
The Holy Spirit is our counselor, our advocate, a truth teller and whilst last week Jane explored these ideas and more about his nature this week we are moving to look at what He does. Why having Him in our lives is really so very important. In John s Gospel Jesus says, I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but Spirit gives birth to spirit. You shouldn t be surprised by my saying, You must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. So the Holy Spirit s a bit like the wind: you can t actually see the wind, but you can see the effect of the wind. Sometimes people say, Well, I can t see the Holy Spirit. I ve never seen the Holy Spirit. But maybe you ve seen the impact on someone else. Like the wind: you don t see the wind, but you can see the impact. Maybe you ve seen the impact on your own life: maybe something s changing in your own life. We all need the Holy Spirit. Why though? Why do we need the Holy Spirit? First of all, he makes you a son or a daughter of God. In Romans 8:14. St Paul writes this: Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption. What Paul is saying here is this is the highest privilege or status that you can have in life: to be a son or a daughter of God. He was writing in the culture of Roman law. And under Roman law, when someone adopted someone as a child, that was regarded as the highest status that that person could have. And that s what the Holy Spirit does: he changes us. Every single one of us becomes a son or a daughter of the King, a prince or a princess. It s the highest status.
Then it s also the closest intimacy: By him that s by the Holy Spirit we cry, Abba, Father. Abba s an Aramaic word. It s untranslatable, that s why it s left in the Aramaic Abba. It s a word that s never used in the Old Testament of our relationship with God, but Jesus used it of his relationship with God. He called God Abba. And then this amazing thing: he says, You, all of you, can call God Abba. You can have this relationship of intimacy. This word, which is kind of like Dad, Daddy, it s very intimate, not childish but just really close, intimate relationship. And then it s the deepest experience. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God s children. That does not mean it is easy and the theory might sound great, but the reality can be tough. Not because being a child of God is hard, it is the best decision we will ever make. But, because understanding how much we are loved, how much our Father delights in every single one of us can sometimes blow our minds. Our own experience of parental love may cloud our understanding of the imagery of God as father loving us totally, unconditionally, in spite of our failings, our faults, our weaknesses. But, that is what the Spirit does. The Spirit transforms us from the inside, softens our hearts, opens our eyes to all that God has for us and enables us to draw nearer and nearer to God. Understanding that love and experiencing can be overwhelming. I remember when I first really experienced the Holy Spirit when I had a sense of God s presence with me and it was achingly beautiful and almost beyond words. But, that feeling can pass, we can forget the emotion of it, and the deep intimacy it created. Sometimes I am reminded of it all over again. There is a worship song called Good, Good Father and the song reminds me that I am loved by God and as I sing it back to my Father at the same time as praising Him I am allowing myself to be reminded of His love and to be loved by Him.
It cannot all be great emotional highs though and nor is the Holy Spirit about one powerful experience at the start of our relationship with God that is so powerful it can sustain us through every trial and tribulation for the next twenty or thirty years. That is why the Holy Spirit helps us to develop this relationship. He doesn t just bring us into the relationship of being a son or a daughter of God; he helps us to develop it, to grow in it, to grow closer to our Father in heaven. He helps us to pray. Through him, through Jesus, we both, all of us, have access to the Father by one Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us access access is an amazing word access to the Father. You have access to the Father through the Holy Spirit. You can talk to him. And the Spirit helps us to pray. The Spirit also helps us to understand the Bible, this book. He opens our eyes to understand. We are told that sometimes when we cannot pray then the Holy Spirit can intercede for us, in other words, pray on our behalf with sighs and moans too deep for words. The Holy Spirit takes those things, which we feel we do not have words for to our Father in heaven. The Holy Spirit takes us into the presence of the Father when we feel we have nothing to say and nothing to give. When I used to teach I used to love looking at the teaching of someone called St Anselm. He was part of a tradition called the Faith Seeking Understanding tradition. St Anselm said, I believe in order that I may understand. In other words, we do not have to have all the answers, know the Bible inside out, understanding everything about God and how this faith thing works in order to believe in God. We have faith, we believe and trust in God and the Spirit of God gives us understanding. He helps us to develop this relationship so that we can understand more and more about the Father who loves us.
And then the Spirit of God brings about the family likeness. He makes us more like Jesus. It s obvious, isn t it, that children very often look like their parents. What s amazing is that they often look like both parents, even if both parents look completely different. But what is stranger to me is how sometimes husbands and wives grow to look like each other, just because they spend so much time together! And even dogs and their owners sometimes grow to look like each other! So the Spirit changes us to become more like Jesus. What does it mean, more like Jesus? Moving on, to our reading from Galatians 5:22 23. This is what it means to become more like Jesus. This is what the Holy Spirit does to bring about the family likeness in us: But the fruit of the Spirit is love that s the first and most important fruit of the Spirit: love. Love is the greatest thing in the world, and the Spirit wants to make us more loving.... joy... Joy is different from happiness. Happiness is about what happens to us. Happiness can be quite superficial; joy is very deep. It s not dependent on what happens.... peace... Isn t peace amazing! Isn t it amazing to experience peace in a world of anxiety and fear and guilt and all this stuff! To be able to experience a deep peace, like the ocean current beneath the surface, even if it s rough on top. The peace of God which is beyond all understanding.... patience... That s something that s taking quite a long time to develop in my life!... kindness, when we act for the good of others regardless of what they are doing. We do something without expecting anything in return. generosity, this is often translated as goodness, but it is about being selfless, about going above and beyond what we might want to do or even feel
comfortable doing. God is extravagantly generous towards us; this is about us trying to reflect that towards others. faithfulness, committing to something and upholding our promises, whether that is in marriage, friendship, or to our faith. It is keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus and not wandering away. Gentleness, treating others with care, not passing judgment and forgiving people self-control over ones actions and ones thoughts and we know which can be harder sometimes. Now, there will be elements that each one of us needs to learn to develop. We will all bear different fruits, but we will all have areas where we are not so healthy at all. Our role is, according to Paul, to live by the Spirit and if we are to do that then we are to be guided by the Spirit. If we allow that to happen then we will bear these fruits and we will become more like Jesus, we will bear more of the family likeness. Jesus himself in our reading from Matthew said good trees bear good fruit and bad trees bear bad fruit and that we will know them by their fruits. In other words, whatever is on the inside of us will eventually be visible on the outside of us. No matter how hard we try to hide things and bury things, they will eventually show through, we cannot live created lives forever. Whatever image or role we create for ourselves eventually we will grow tired or let our guard down and the reality of us will show through. That happens even when we are trying really hard, even when we are walking closely with God. Think what you are like when you are at your most tired, your most stressed, the day when your to do list seems never ending, the day when all your family are demanding different things from
you. What happens when your patience goes, or you lose control of your self-control? I am not saying we will ever lead perfect lives; fortunately that is not God s expectation. He knows we are fallible. What he wants us to live though are fruitful lives where we try and he does not expect us to do it alone. We have the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit helps us to bear fruit which helps us be more like Jesus. The Holy Spirit has other roles too, He brings unity, power and spiritual gifts but we will come on to all those things in future weeks. Now though we are going to stop, to pray and then to listen. I am going to play a song and it includes the words: Holy Spirit You are welcome here Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere Your Glory God is what our hearts long for To be overcome by Your presence Lord I love this song; I often use it for the start of a prayer time. I sit with my hands outstretched and listen to the words and give them back to God as my prayer, my offering, my worship and that is what I invite you all to do this morning. To sit and to listen, to read the words on the screen, to sing along quietly if you wish. However you want to be, but most of all I invite you to make that prayer or that offering to God and say this morning Holy Spirit you are welcome here. Amen