HOLY GHOST (PENTECOST 2015)

Sermon Summary “Holy Ghost” (Selected Verses from John and Acts 2) 

I grew up with the Holy Ghost (KJV), and I bet you did too.  John 20:22 would have been “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”  We still sing “Come, Holy Ghost Our Hearts Inspire.”  And, I grew up with Casper the Friendly Ghost (created in 1935!) who of course was looking for playmates, friends, but would too often scare them away.  But of course once friends, he was my friend, just mine.  You see, I grew up in the “All about me” time from too.  We still do.  Unfortunately we think of the Holy Spirit as “just ours” too.  Flowing from that too often comes a concept of a very personal faith that discards the social or community faith and from that a belief that we can be Christian with the church without community.  We want our own Casper.

I don’t think that’s what the Pentecost story in Acts 2 tells us, nor do the Spirit inspired stories that flow from Acts 2.  The Holy Spirit was God’s intentional plan for equipping and building up the church.  In Acts 1:8 Jesus says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  (The “you” is plural in the Greek)

People from all over the world gathered in Jerusalem, heard the power of the Pentecost sermon, received the Holy Spirit and returned to their towns, some to begin churches before Paul or Apollos arrived.  The Spirit was building the church.  Peter and John received gifts that built up the church.  Stephen received the power to witness.  The Spirit scattered the apostles who employed that power.  Barnabas was empowered to find Paul and then the two were commissioned by the Spirit, all to build up the church.

In John’s story of the gift of the Spirit (told for his non-Jewish audience in Ephesus), Jesus commissions (“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” (John 20:21); and then “breathed on them and says to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:22)  Just as Matthew commissioned the church and then said, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Promising his presence and power.  The Holy Spirit is Jesus’ intentional gift for building up the church.

O yes, were are individually gifted by the Spirit, but it is not for ourselves, but for the benefit of others to be used in building up the body of Christ for fulfilling the mission of the Church.

We can have Caspers as friends, but it’s our job to make our Caspers part of the body of Christ and a disciple of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  That’s Jesus’ plan.