Picture the scene: 1994. I went to a Christian youth camp on the Isle of Wight and had a great time. The last night we stayed up all night drinking coffee. The next day I came home feeling ten feet tall. Within 10 minutes of walking through the front door I had a row with my brother which ended in a punch up, then I had a row with my dad (unrelated matter) and then I shut myself in my bedroom and wept. Loudly.
Looking back I think it would have been smarter to sleep on the last night of camp.
At things like Back Packers and Intense you get soaked in God’s truth for a week. You hear the bible several times a day, you pray, the songs stick in your head, you’re surrounded by Christian people talking about God. It can really boost your faith, even if you aren’t a Christian yet.
But it’s also exhausting.
Most of you will get to the end of this week and flop because you’ve warn yourself out.
And for some of you, when you eventually wake up again things will feel different because every day life isn’t like Intense.
Have you ever tried living out the Christian life? It’s hard! I mean really hard to do every day.
And pretty soon you might start to wonder who am I?
Am I a child of God?
Or am I a child of the parents that I row with all the time,
or even a child of parents who neglect me or treat me with cruelty.
Am I part of the eternal Church of Jesus Christ that includes every Christian ever in space and time?
Or am I just part of a little church full of people and things that frustrate me?
Am I a citizen of heaven?
Or do I belong in the here and now, filling my time with TV, the internet, shopping, video games, anything trivial to hide the fact that everything around me will rot away to nothing.
If you think you’ve got it bad look at this:
Matt 28:16 – 20 & Luke 24:50 - 51
The disciples had the most extreme Christian identity crisis ever.
A couple of weeks before this, Jesus got arrested and most of them ran away.
Now he’s back and they are pretty much the only Christians in the world at this point. Then Jesus tells them to go and make more Christians,
then he leaves.
Heh? How are they supposed to do this exactly?
We’re taking about Jesus today because they did it. They succeeded.
The reason they succeeded was because God’s Holy Spirit was with them.
The key to understanding your Christian identity (who you are as a follower of Jesus Christ) is God’s Holy Spirit.
The key to living like a Christian every day is also God’s Holy Spirit.
If you have struggled with any part of the bible teaching you’ve heard at Back Packers or Intense or anywhere, God’s Holy Spirit is the only thing that will help you make sense of it.
We’re going to ask 2 questions together.
Who is God’s Holy Spirit?
Name in reverse order: God’s Holy Spirit
‘Spirit’ tells us it has no physical form that we can see or touch, it’s beyond scientific explanation, it cannot be harmed by conventional weapons.
‘Holy’ means different from us, good, pure, perfect flawless, slow to anger, rich in love.
‘God’s’ means that it belongs to God.
But it’s not an object that God owns. It is one of the three unique individual characters that make up the Holy Trinity, that make up God.
They are:
God the Father,
God the son (that is Jesus Christ)
and God the Holy Spirit.
All 3 of them are equal, all 3 of them are God. Get your head around that!
All of them have their own personalities; the Holy Spirit is not a bland characterless force like in Star Wars. He has likes and dislikes, he can experience happiness and sorrow.
In practical terms, the Holy Spirit is God’s power to do stuff in the world.
Everything God has ever done on planet Earth was done through God’s Holy Spirit.
What does he do?
(moves in) The second you become a Christian the Holy Spirit moves in. It shares your life, he inhabits your mind and your spirit. God is living under your skin.
Once he moves in, the Holy Spirit gets to work.
(teacher) He teaches us.
He will use every opportunity he can to teach you about God.
Sometimes people read a bit of the bible that they’ve seen before, but this time it really leaps off the page. You feel like you really get it. That’s the Holy Spirit at work. With me he’s used TV, films, music and conversations with friends to help me under stand what he’s been teaching me through the bible.
(tour guide) He leads us.
God cherishes your ability to choose so the Holy Spirit will never force you to do anything. But he will influence you for the best if you let him. If you are confused about something in your life (should you do this, should you do that ) and you ask God for guidance, it’s the Holy Spirit who will supply it.
(mirror) He shows us who we really are and what we’re really like.
Have you ever been totally sick of your self because you just can’t seem to stop doing the same bad stuff again and again? It’s the Holy Spirit who brings you to that point. If he didn’t you’d keep sinning away with out worrying about it.
There’s an important point here, The Spirit doesn’t weigh you down with guilt, the devil does that. The Spirit wants you to be more like Jesus so he brings conviction; conviction is where you know what needs to change. Guilt just makes you go
“I’m such a bad person, I’ll always be like this, it’s impossible for me to change. God can’t love me, etc”. The Holy Spirit doesn’t do that and he can help you out of that if that is how you are feeling.
Guilt makes you give up, conviction helps you change.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t just tell you what needs to change, he celebrates what’s really good in you. Best of all, he lets you know for sure that you are a child of God.
Romans 8:16
If you are a Christian and you don’t feel sure that you are a child of God, totally accepted into his family and loved by your father in heaven, ask the Holy Spirit for help.
(RSVP) He expects you to respond.
Eph 4:30 - 32
According to the bible the Holy Spirit grieves when you are bitter, selfishly angry, rude or aggressive. He grieves. That’s what people do when somebody they love dies. That’s strong language.
The Holy Spirit is looking for you to respond to him by becoming more holy yourself, by becoming more like Jesus. He will help you do it, and he grieves when you don’t take him up on his help.
In a moment we’re going to go into our groups to think about one last question.
“Where do I need more of the Holy Spirit’s help in my life?”
Just to answer that question we are going to need the Holy Spirit’s help. So I’m going to prayer for all of us now.
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