[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered on Sunday morning, the 8th of September, 2019 - Homecoming Sunday at Pilgrim Reformed Church. Look for the video of our services on our Vimeo channel: http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]
When we came in this morning, we found a nice, clean church home, didn’t we? For those who have been away for a while, isn’t it reassuring to know we still keep a tidy house for worship? We can thank Richard and Robin Beck for the great bulk of that. All of this is physical: this sanctuary, this building. And even though it requires a good bit of physical work, it’s still relatively easy to keep it clean.
But there is one home that isn’t so easy to keep clean, and that one is spiritual. It is the home of God’s Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, other spirits can move in too. Please listen and follow along to what Jesus tells us as recorded in the Gospel account of the Apostle Matthew, chapter 12, verses 31 and 32, 36 and 37, and 43, 44, and 45, and I’ll be reading from the New King James Version of our Holy Bible…
But there is one home that isn’t so easy to keep clean, and that one is spiritual. It is the home of God’s Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, other spirits can move in too. Please listen and follow along to what Jesus tells us as recorded in the Gospel account of the Apostle Matthew, chapter 12, verses 31 and 32, 36 and 37, and 43, 44, and 45, and I’ll be reading from the New King James Version of our Holy Bible…
31 “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
36 "But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. 37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.
43 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 44 Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.”
--Matthew 12:31-32; 36-37; 43-45 (NKJV)
Let us pray… Father God, You are willing to forgive us of any disobedience except for any grievous sin against Your most Holy Spirit. You will forgive us even if we speak out against Your Son Jesus, but any thoughts, words, or deeds against Your Spirit will not be forgiven. Father, Your Spirit lives within each of us that believes in Your Son Jesus and follows Him. Please help us keep His home clean. Help us be pure of heart, loving and forgiving as we are loved and forgiven.
Speak to us now, Father, through Your Spirit, with the message we need to hear this morning. Imprint Your words on our hearts as a sign to Your Spirit that reads, “Home, Sweet Home”. This we pray in the holy name of Your Son Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
In the 1800's, Charles Finney was an American Presbyterian minister and a leader in what is called the Second Great Awakening in the United States. Finney moved and spoke under divine inspiration and revelation, holding individuals and crowds under the power of his every word spoken as an authoritative prophet of God. He once wrote: "I received overwhelming baptisms of the Holy Spirit, that went through me, as it seemed to me, body and soul. I immediately found myself endued with such power from on high that a few words dropped here and there to individuals were the means of their immediate conversion. My words seemed to fasten like barbed arrows in the souls of men. They cut like a sword. They broke the heart like a hammer. Multitudes can attest to this. Oftentimes a word dropped without me remembering it, would fasten conviction."
But lest you think Finney to be boasting, he continues: "Sometimes I would find myself, in a great measure, empty of this power. I would go out and visit, and find that I made no saving impression. I would exhort and pray, with the same result. I would then set apart a day for private fasting and prayer, fearing that this power departed from me, and would inquire anxiously after the reason of this apparent emptiness. After humbling myself and crying out for help, the power would return upon me with all its freshness. This has been the experience of my life."
Finney spoke of the great power that God’s Holy Spirit would work through him. The Spirit would use Finney as His voice, His tool, to cut through to the very souls of people and bring them back into the light. But then, at times, the Spirit and His power would seem to disappear. Perhaps at those times Finney might have begun to think that all those convictions and conversions came from his own abilities, and not from the hand of God.
So the Spirit decided to let him actually try it on his own. And on his own, Finney failed. Humbled, the man turned back to God and prayed that the Spirit’s power would again work through him that others might be saved.
Family, this is a story of revival, of renewal. While Finney may well indeed have been a leader in the Second Great Awakening in the US, this is not about a national revival, but one of a much more personal nature. This is a man, humbled before the Almighty God, begging for revival in his own heart. Each of us needs this kind of personal revival, one that starts in our own hearts. From there it can spread, but it must begin here, within us.
Family, I’ve been emphasizing God’s Holy Spirit lately because He is the person of God usually given the least consideration and often the least understood. Yet He is just as important to us as God the Father and Jesus His Son.
Jesus sacrificed Himself for the atonement of our sins, forgiven us by the mercy and grace of God who adopts us into His family once we accept Jesus as Lord. But it’s the Holy Spirit who actually lives within us, within those who believe, who are members of the family of God. In this way God is always with us, helping us, guiding us, speaking for us when we can’t find the words. This is a great and wonderful gift that Jesus promised us just before He returned to heaven. Listen to what the Apostle John recorded for us in his Gospel account, chapter 14, verses 15 through 17…
15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever — 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you."
--John 14:15-17 (NKJV)
Give that a few moments extra thought… What we think, our most secret thoughts, are all part of the home of God’s most Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul speaks of this and issues a warning to us all, in his letter to the Romans, chapter 8, verses 7 through 11…
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.--Romans 8:7-11 (NKJV)
Fortunately for us, if the Spirit does indeed live within us, He will help us sweep out those worldly thoughts and do a little housecleaning. But we have to be careful to let Him completely fill every nook and cranny of our being. Otherwise we leave room for that evil spirit of worldly thought to come back in, and bring along his friends, like Jesus warned us in the earlier reading.
And Paul also points out a great side-effect of having the awesome power of God’s Holy Spirit living within us. Once our time on this mortal plane is finished, the Spirit will raise us to new life with God, just as He raised Jesus from the dead.
Today is homecoming at Pilgrim, and I hope we all do feel most welcome in this beautiful church family home and find it clean and inviting. But I can’t help but wonder... How welcome does God’s Spirit feel in His home? Have we swept out all the cobwebs, dusted all the surfaces, fluffed up the pillows and put out fresh flowers?
In other words, how clean are our thoughts, how pure are our hearts? How loving and forgiving are we towards others, even those who hate us and would do us harm? How closely do we follow Jesus in our day-to-day lives?
Let’s clean house, so the Holy Spirit can truly feel at home. In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Let us pray… Father God, You put the same power that raised Jesus from the dead right inside us when we accept Your Son as our Lord and Master. You make us the home for Your Holy Spirit, who joins with our spirit to give us renewed life. Help us feel the revival Your Spirit brings! Help us be refreshed and reawakened each and every day through Your Spirit within us. And Father, most of all, help us keep His home clean and tidy, free from the junk of this world.
Please hear us now, Father, as we come to You in the silence, speaking from our hearts, promising to turn from our disobedient ways, seeking Your forgiveness and Your help…
Lord Jesus, You promised to never leave us alone, to be with us until the end of this age. So You asked our Father God to send His Spirit to live within us and be our constant Companion, Counselor, and Guide, our ever-present Helper. Thank You, Lord, for loving us so much. Please help us to truly follow You in our daily lives, so that we might keep the Spirit’s home clean. This we pray in Your glorious name, Christ Jesus our Master and our Savior. Amen.
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