The Greatest Resource, Often Goes Unused

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Acts 17:22–31
1 Peter 3:13–22
John 14:15–21

These days we often hear about conserving our resources.  Stay with renewable resources.  Only use what we have the most of and conserve the rest.  When God created the heavens and the earth, God gave dominion over the earth to humanity.  This was first to Adam and Eve but later to their offspring, and the entirety of humanity.  Have we actually used what God gives us for all of earth, for all of humanity that resides here on this world that God created?

This week, like many of our Sunday readings has so much meat to them.  I am glad that the pews are so comfortable here; because there is so much that the Spirit is calling me to speak about.  Oh, don’t worry, I will not get to everything that I want to, but there are some highlights today that I just need to speak about.

The Holy Spirit is something that often Lutherans but I think you all are an expectation, have some hesitation about speaking about.  The Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit, Wind, Pneuma, Breath are all words to describe the Spirit of God, Christ. If the Spirit is here, present, now.  Why do we not call upon the Spirit, as Jesus tells us, so that what we ask will be answered?  It was in last week’s Gospel reading when tied to this weeks reading that we hear that we need only to ask of the Spirit and it will be granted.  From John 14:12-13; 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. [1]

This week’s reading, promises us that the Spirit of Christ will be sent to us.  Is the Spirit difficult to grasp, because we cannot feel, cannot see, does that causes us to not comprehend it?  It is in the groping for the understanding that we become strongest with this resource given to us.  This Spirit, we are told abides in us, is in us and in Christ and God the Father.  We are one with Jesus the Christ, who is one with God the Father and therefore, we are all in each other.  We hear this, we are promised this but what does this mean to us?  Just what the heck do we do with this? The Spirit of Christ is is our greatest resource in the world.

It is in our baptisms, that we invite the Spirit to be present.  No, as an infant, we cannot do this but that is what the parents and godparents do on our behalf.  Some of us actually were baptized as adults so, we did ask for this, myself included.  Although we ask this, the Spirit of Christ is already present in each of us, waiting to be seen, waiting to be recognized.  It is in John that Jesus tells us that the Spirit is Truth yet some will not recognize this.  But those who are open to the truth, see and recognize the Spirit as Truth, The Way and The Life.  The greatest resource is the Spirit.

Is the Spirit so close that often we do not see the truth?  Maybe that is it, we don’t see the truth in the ignorance of the proximity of the Sprit to us and to God.  But we can trust in the promise of Christ when He says that He will send another, which is the Sprit, of Himself.   Some might say as children we are ignorant of what the Sprit is and can do, but are we?  Maybe it is in the childlike faith, as adults, we need to call upon the Sprit to give as we have been promised.  Children get it, a greater power, that when called upon can and will do for others and us.  Call upon the resource that Jesus promised the Father would send and do wondrous things through us in the world.

The childlike faith in baptism, the trust that an infant puts in their parents is also extended to the godparents.  What an opportunity to be there for the child being baptized.  To be the one that has the responsibility either as parent or godparent to raise a child with the scriptures, with prayer and so much more.  The Spirit is close, so close that we cannot see, cannot sometimes even feel the Spirit of Christ, but we can call upon It.

The Spirit is the resource waiting for us to call upon and use for humanity.  The Spirit is there for the parents, the godparents and all who call upon the Spirit of Christ.

At confirmation time, the confirmand has the opportunity to now take full responsibility of following the scriptures and every responsibility that the parents and godparents took on for the baptized.  This does not mean the responsibility ends for parents and godparents just a change in seasons.  Even then and for those of us that have been confirmed for a week, a month, a year or many years, one thing has not changed.  The Spirit is so close sometimes we cannot see nor touch.  The Spirit is embedded tightly in us, all the way down to the atoms that make us, the atoms of creation that God placed together to bring life.  God has put the Spiritual Resource there for us to use in the world, tightly integrated so we cannot run out of the Greatest Resource in the world.

Do we need our eyes to see the Spirit or the Truth of what has been told us by Christ Jesus, in order to see in faith?  We have hope, hope in the promise of God in Christ.  This hope confounds the non-Christians, hope in something that cannot be seen; hope in the reality of the creator, God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Spirit.  The Spirit is powerful, yet unseen and often unused.  The people of Athens in our reading were confronted with multiple gods and today, we are to, different religions, different ideas, money, power, friends, all sorts of things that take away our focus upon the life giving Spirit of God.

Often when I do reading and research for my sermons, I play music.  This week was no exception.  Over this last week, I kept getting hit by the same song over and over.  I believe the Spirit was sending me a message about the Greatest Resource ever, the Holy Spirit.  The song is by Matthew West and it is called Do Something.  It goes like this:

I woke up this morning

Saw a world full of trouble now

Thought, how’d we ever get so far down

How’s it ever gonna turn around

So I turned my eyes to Heaven

I thought, “God, why don’t you do something?”

Well, I just couldn’t bare the thought of

People living in poverty

Children sold into slavery

The thought disgusted me

So, I shook my fist at Heaven

Said, “God, why don’t you do something?”

He said, “I did, I created you”

If not us, then who

If not me and you

Right now, it’s time for us to do something.[2]

 

It is with the Spirit that all things are possible.  When Jesus says another will be sent, it is His own Spirit and through this Spirit, greater things can be accomplished then when Jesus walked the earth over 2,000 years ago.  The Spirit is the Greatest Resource, given in abundance, to all that call upon the Spirit.  It is estimated that there is over 7.2 billion people in the world.  Imagine what all these people can do with the Holy Spirit.

Let me leave you with this thought today.

An American with an English gentleman was viewing the Niagara       whirlpool rapids, when he said to his friend: “Come, and I’ll show you the          greatest unused power in the world.” And taking him to the foot of Niagara         Falls, “there,” he said, “is the greatest unused power in the world!” “Ah, no         my brother, not so!” was the reply. “The greatest unused power in the  world is the Holy Spirit of the living God.

—A. J. Gordon[3]

 

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Jn 14:12–14.

[2] “MATTHEW WEST LYRICS – Do Something,” accessed May 23, 2014, http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/matthewwest/dosomething.html.

[3] Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc., 1996), 555.

One Comment

  1. Jane

    I’m glad I was able to listen to this again. I meant to pick up a copy to reread after church. So many truths!

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