When I was first saved in the 1980s, a popular worship song by David Hadden was ‘Awake, awake, O Zion.’ Its lyrics came from Isaiah 52:1-3:

³ For this is what the Lord says:

The water boiler at church which provides hot water for teas and coffees has been under scrutiny recently. It stopped working a few weeks ago, with the ‘ready’ red light flashing persistently but never stabilising and the water temperature never getting sufficiently warm as a result. The boiler is still under warranty, so the service engineer came out and fixed the problem. He mentioned that the boiler was getting very scaled up and so this week we have had it descaled.

This flurry of activity has provoked quite a lot of conversation. As we mused on how the water boiler works, we decided that it was rather an apt metaphor for the living water Jesus describes in John 7:37-39. The rivers of living water which the Holy Spirit provides are not meant to become stagnant pools in our lives. We receive living water from God and this overflows into the world so that we become His servants, offering this living water to all around us. Just as the boiler does not look particularly big and in a way can only hold a fixed amount of water, so we too don’t look anything special! (see 2 Cor 4:7) Nonetheless, because the water boiler is plumbed to the mains supply, there is a never-ending supply of water from which we can draw. So, too, if our lives are plumbed in to the Master Plumber, we need never run dry.

Then we got to pondering scale. Limescale is the hard, off-white, chalky deposit found in kettles, hot-water boilers and the inside of inadequately maintained hot-water central heating systems. In order to remove it, descaling agents (typically acidic compounds such as hydrochloric acid that react with the alkaline carbonate compounds present in the scale) are used. Then the boiler can function at its maximum efficiency.

Our lives can very easily run dry if we allow sin to entangle us and the weeds of this life (chiefly worry, anxiety, lack of trust in God and worldly attitudes) to choke the word of God in us. We have to be ruthless with everything that hinders us and the sin that entangles us (Heb 12:1) so that we can run the race God has marked out for us, so that His living water can flow freely from us, rather than trickling out in dribs and drabs.

We’re glad the boiler’s working again, but we’re also glad for the spiritual insights it has given us!

Continuing the series on ‘Everyday Church’, our everyday witness can only be done effectively if we know the fire of the Holy Spirit in our lives (see Acts 2). The disciples had been commanded by Jesus to wait in Jerusalem until they received the gift of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 1:4-5, 8) and this they did. Obedience and expectation are key; as Mark discussed last week, attitudes are crucial, and we need to understand the importance of gathered meetings (see Matt 18:20) as well as coming before God with expectation and anticipation. Hunger and thirst for God are essential if we are to receive all He has for us (see Ps 42:1-2, Ps 63:1), a longing which Paul expressed in Phil 3:10-14.

The Holy Spirit came to the disciples as wind and fire (Acts 2:2-3). Jesus talked to Nicodemus about spiritual birth using the metaphor of wind. (John 3:5-6, 8) Wind cannot be controlled or seen; in the same way, the Holy Spirit is God; we cannot control where He moves, how He moves, in whom He moves, when He moves. He gives life to people as He desires. He leads people in the ways they should go. He comes when He wishes. Fire, too, often cannot be controlled and can be devastating, but its purifying, cleansing force is needed in our lives. We often find this frightening and daunting, but we need to understand the sovereignty of God and be sure that the gifts He gives are for our benefit and good. A sense of unworthiness will always be our response to a vision of God’s majesty and holiness (see Isaiah, Job and John, for example), but God does not give us this vision to terrify us. He gives us His Spirit to empower us for service.

All of us need to be filled with the Spirit if we are to be witnesses to what Christ has done and to live the Christian life by the power of the Spirit rather than in our own strength (Eph 5:17-20, Gal 3:2-3) We should not be afraid to ask God to fill us (James 4:2 reminds us that we often don’t have things because we don’t ask God), for His will is that we should be filled with His Spirit.

On this day of Pentecost, Garry spoke from Acts 1:1-11, talking about how Jesus wanted to teach the disciples about the promise, power and purpose of the Holy Spirit, even though the disciples wanted to talk about the coming of the kingdom!

The Promise

The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was different to receiving the Holy Spirit at salvation (see John 20:19-22). The Holy Spirit was present in the Old Testament (see Num 11:24-30 and 1 Sam 10:9-11), but on these occasions, the Holy Spirit was given to selected people (70 elders or Saul) for a limited time. The Spirit rested upon people but did not dwell with them permanently. Joel’s prophecy (Joel 2:28-29) was different to these examples, since he prophesied that the Spirit would be poured out on all people and Jesus confirmed this in John 14:15-18, when He told us that the Counsellor would be with them forever.  Jesus had to be exalted before the Spirit could be poured out (John 7:37-39), but this promise has now been fulfilled and can be experienced by all God’s people.

The Power

The Holy Spirit brings power, strength and ability to God’s people, bestowing spiritual gifts on His church (1 Cor 12:7-11) which enable us to have wisdom and understanding (see also Num 11:16-17 and Ex 31:1-6). Bezalel’s skill was given by the Holy Spirit and we must acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is able to give power in many different ways.

The Purpose

The purpose of the Spirit’s coming is that we should be witnesses to all Jesus has done (see John 14:24-26). The gifts of power He distributes are not for decoration or to focus attention on us, but to show God is here and working in our midst. As God works by His Spirit, He wants to fill us all, giving us new purpose to declare His goodness.

The Bible study on 1 Cor 2:6-16 continued looking at Paul’s exposition of the differences between human wisdom and God’s wisdom. Human wisdom can only reflect human knowledge and perspectives, which will focus on temporal matters only. God’s wisdom (which may be described as a ‘mystery’, but which does not mean that it is only accessible to some kind of esoteric elite; simply, that it has now been revealed through the death and resurrection of Christ) is cross-centred (see 1 Cor 1:22-24, Col 1:19), eternal (see Jer 10:12), intended for our good (for our glory) and supernatural. It was not understand by the rulers of the day (or they would not have crucified Christ!) and indeed cannot be understood in any experiential way by those in whom the Spirit of God does not dwell. 2 Cor 4:4 reminds us that the god of this age has blinded the eyes of unbelievers and ‘the person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.’ (1 Cor 2:14, see also Acts 17:18, Acts 18:15)

Those who are mature (growing spiritually because they are being transformed by the renewing of their minds) are aware, however, that spiritual truths – even the ‘deep things of God’ – are revealed by God’s Spirit, because He knows the purposes and will of God, just as a person cannot ever be fully known by another, but only by one’s own spirit. Because of this, we are attuned to spiritual matters and can make spiritual judgments. This does not mean that we can arrogantly pontificate on all kinds of subjects, but rather that our value judgments are moulded by God’s word rather than by our own thoughts. Paul does not mean to imply we are above judgments, either: later in this letter, he commands believers to judge the flagrantly disobedient in their midst (1 Cor 5:3-5), to evaluate those who claim to bring words from the Lord (1 Cor 14:29), and to examine themselves to see if they are behaving appropriately enough to take the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:27-32). Here, he is talking of being unjustly evaluated by non-Christians (or by Christians employing worldly standards), who have no authority to criticise believers for their misbehaviour, since they themselves do not accept the standards they employ in making their judgments.

God has clearly prepared amazing things for His people! (1 Cor 2:9-10) These verses are often used at funerals to indicate the glories awaiting us in heaven, but Isaiah (quoted here) was referring to present-day blessings. Eph 1:3 reminds us of the many spiritual blessings God has poured out on us: salvation, forgiveness, redemption, eternal life, hope, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, to name just a few. These blessings may not be prized (or even acknowledged) by the world, but to those in whom Christ dwells by His Spirit, they are real and ever more precious and form the basis of our ongoing instruction and walk with God.

I like films that make me think (as well as ones when I don’t have to think at all…!)  Last night I watched the 2014 film ‘Calvary’, wondering whether this would be yet another film which lambasted the Catholic church over paedophile priests and denigrated faith.

The film is not easy to watch in parts and does indeed deal with difficult situations, including sexual abuse, drug-taking, violence and attempted suicide. But it portrays these things not simply to criticise God or the church, but to show us a fallen world and how people grapple with suffering and pain. Brendan Gleeson plays an innocent man, a good priest, in the aftermath of Ireland’s devastating sex abuse scandal. ‘A late vocation, a widower with a troubled adult daughter, he’s surrounded by people he knows better than they know themselves, characters ripe with indifference, resentment and cynicism, sprinkled with just enough courtesy to mask their contempt,’ Archbishop Charles Caput writes. The film begins in the confessional, when a man, the victim of clergy rape as a child, tells the priest that he will murder him in a week’s time, not because he is a bad priest, but precisely because he is a good priest, and to kill a good priest might shock the church into considering the effects of sexual abuse.

The rest of the film charts the priest’s day-by-day life for the rest of that week, showing us how he deals with his parishioners, all of whom are deeply troubled and scarred individuals, as well as with his daughter, who has not coped well with the death of her mother and her father’s ‘abandonment’ to a religious vocation. There are no magic cures, no happy endings, no ‘perfect’ priest, but along with the darkness are moments of true faith: the priest’s kindness to an ageing writer friend; his love for his daughter; his humour and positive relationship with a young altar server; his sensitivity in dealing with a young French woman, widowed in a car accident while on holiday in Ireland. Far from giving us a black and white film about right and wrong, the grey areas of faith are discussed and in a telephone conversation between the priest and his daughter filled with mercy, reconciliation and forgiveness, we see the hope that God can bring even into desperate situations.

Faith is lived out in far from ideal conditions by people who are far from perfect. A recovering alcoholic, the priest does not always cope well with the pressures upon him and is by no means sinless. He is, however, portrayed as a men of integrity who believes that there is “too much talk of sins and not enough of virtues.” In offering forgiveness and hope even to those who would despise and reject him, he reminds us of a Saviour who ‘when they hurled their insults at him, did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.’ (1 Pet 2:23) Food for thought indeed.