Come Holy Spirit: A Spirit-Filled Community

Welcome to an audio teaching from Windsor Park Baptist Church in Auckland, New Zealand.

If you would like to look at the message notes or see some questions for reflection that take their lead from today's teaching, head to our website windsorpark.org.nz and head to the online tab where you'll see services and series and you can download different resources from there.

Thanks for joining us and we hope you're encouraged by today's teaching.

Gilda, my name is Caleb, and welcome back to the final week in our Holy Spirit series.

Over this series we have been looking at who is the Holy Spirit.

We've been coming to understand him more in an intimate way, and we've been studying the arrival, his promise, and how he is to be the advocate and bring the Spirit's gifts.

We're wrapping up our series today as we embark on the second part of First Corinthians chapter twelve verses twelve to thirty one.

Just as a body though one has many parts, but all its many parts from one body, so it is with Christ, for we were all baptized by one spirit, so as to form one body.

Whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free, we were all given the one spirit to drink.

Even so the body is not made up of one part, but of many.

Now if the foot should say, Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to this body, it would not for that reason stop being a part of the body.

And if the f ear should say Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, it would not for that reason stop being a part of the body.

If the whole body were an eye, where would we have our sense of hearing?

If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?

But in fact God has placed all of the parts in the body, every one of them just as he wanted them to be.

If they were all one part, where would the body be?

As it is, there are many parts for this one body.

The eye cannot say that the hand that I do not need you, and the head cannot say to the feet that I don't need you.

On the contrary, those parts of the body seem to be weaker and indispensable, but the parts that we think that are less honorable we treat and with a special honour.

And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty.

While our presentable parts need special treatment, but God has put our body together, giving greater honour to the parts that lack it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.

If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it, and God has placed in the church first of all the apostles, second the prophets, third the teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, of different kinds of tongues.

Are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers?

Do all work miracles?

Do all have gifts of healing?

Do all speak in tongues?

Do all interpret?

Now eagerly desire the greater gifts, and yet I will show you the most excellent way.

At primary school, I remember having a science fair.

You know, you had to choose what the science experiment was that you were going to do and document and display the process.

I chose the memory experiment.

You were shown an image or a tray of objects for 60 seconds, and you would then have two minutes to write down after the fact how many things you could remember.

And I thought we could have a bit of fun with this today as we got started.

We're gonna do a slightly shorter version, but see how you go and see how many you can remember.

We're gonna put the slide up now and give you 30 seconds now.

So look, think try your best to find a way to remember as many of these items as possible.

You've only got a few more moments.

Okay, we're gonna take that down now.

What I would love for you to do is to grab a pen or a piece of paper and write them down, or even in your head or on your fingers, count through as many as you possibly can.

Take the time now and do that.

What were the items that you saw?

Now we're gonna put the picture up again in just a moment.

And I would love for you to reflect.

How many did you get right?

How many did you miss?

What were you surprised by?

As we put the picture up now, have a look.

Compare.

What did you get right?

What did you miss?

How many did you get?

The point of this exercise in relation to our conversation today is to remind us that as we are shown these items, these items did not change, nor does the God that we serve or his spirit.

It does not change.

However, we become very aware of how quickly we forget, how bad we are at remembering things.

And this is not just the images we've seen, but the spirit of God too.

We easily forget about him each day.

We easily forget about seeking him first or praying him in our daily life.

However, when we do take time to remember the spirit at work in our lives, how significant that can be for us.

We recently just spent time looking over the last 75 years of our church and how the story of God leading us, drawing us, surprising us as a community, from people who were faithful and stepped out to plant a church, a body of believers who started a mental health trust, the people who decided that they would follow the Spirit's leading and buy a pub and tavern to place us where we are now.

It's an exciting journey to remember what God is doing.

The list is far greater than that, too.

It's like I say to our high school leaders all the time, are we looking for where God is at work?

If we aren't looking for him, we may struggle to find him.

How then can we look forward into the future of our church or as a community in light of this series of the Spirit of God, understanding Him more and His role in our lives and how He might be calling us into the next seventy-five years?

I believe that today's passage is a fantastic response to that question.

We are the body.

It is very clear in this image that Paul paints to us.

We all have our part to play.

Heather encouraged us last week as we went on this journey of understanding and unpacking the spiritual gifts and how they are not in a linear format like we often think.

Do you know your own gift?

Have you taken time to seek that out?

Grant reminded us of acting in love as well the week before.

Yet when we hear stories of the elections, COVID, global conflicts, politics, all of that, it seems like our love goes out the window, but the Spirit of God encourages us to be intentional.

We listen to sermons about this and then we quickly forget when the topic of war or politics comes into view.

We forget that we are all made in the image of God.

We forget that that person has value.

I had a local student come from one of the high schools around us and interview me on Monday.

He came asking questions of what we thought of poverty in New Zealand and what was my response or our response as a church.

What was really interesting is I saw undergirding the whole conversation as I tried to take all of the Christian jargon out and really communicate the message of who we are, what we believe, and what our faith is all about.

As soon as you bought the idea of faith in, this kid didn't understand.

He was like a deer in headlights.

I would say, you know, we believe that it's our responsibility that we're all made in the image of God, that we're called to build stronger communities by putting our faith into action.

And, you know, this is what God calls us to do.

And he just in another world didn't understand.

The world around us is what this shows me is that the world around us is not going to encourage us to listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit and his gifts.

We must realize the importance of staying and encouraging one another in what Paul describes here and how we spur one another on in this space.

The same is true in the church of Corinth.

The church is thriving, the Spirit of God is leading and moving.

But when people forget, people forget the goodness of God.

And Paul has to come and remind them, and he reminds us today too, that we all have a purpose, we all have a part to play, and God's heart and desire that we would lean in and be a body of Christ.

The line that I think is pivotal in this is actually what builds into chapter thirteen at the end of chapter twelve.

Now eagerly desire the greater gifts, and yet I will show you the most excellent way.

Paul is modeling in this statement the heart and character of Jesus.

The greater gift that he is referring to is love.

It isn't just about the other gifts that were listed last week in our conversation.

He is not only describing it, but he is showing it too.

Paul goes on in the following chapter to talk more.

Love is patient, love is kind, just as we heard Grant share about a couple of weeks ago.

The question is: do we eagerly desire the Spirit of God to come and fill us, shape us, mold us by his kind of love?

It's not easy, it may not be comfortable, but it is transformative.

It requires us to submit to him.

What does it genuinely look like for us to be a body of Christ together, eagerly desiring the gifts of the Spirit, and to practically engage with the mission that he is allowing us to be a part of, to change the world around us?

A live story that is going on and unfolding over the last few months, the last year even.

It continues now as my wife Rachel and I felt this Spirit of God calling us to support one of the local guys who is sleeping rough, experiencing homelessness in the local bays around us.

Rachel and I initially wanted to connect with him, and she would connect as she would go for walks.

It began with a hello and extended right through to him sharing his story and what had been going on for him.

And we began to pray for him, intentionally seeking God, saying, Lord, how can we respond?

What is it that you are asking us to do?

In conversation, we learnt that he was wanting to turn his life around, a real desire to get a job and to overcome some of the challenges that he had been facing.

We didn't have the skill sets to equip him in that space.

And after a failed opportunity of inviting him to church and an opportunity of trying to invite him around for dinner, uh, he was receptive for us to say, hey, we'd love to link you up with somebody.

And in that process, we were able to connect with him, get him uh together with someone who helped him to write his CV.

That same person got him involved in the accommodation, and a range of different things have started to really click for him and helping him to turn his life around.

All of that stemmed from the fact that Rachel had simply put a post on our Facebook community as a church saying we are in need to be able to support this individual.

How cool is it that we can see and that we can be encouraged, that we all play different parts.

It doesn't require just one person, but as a body of Christ, we all are honored together.

We are all as important as one another.

The Spirit does not just move in one specific linear way.

So my question to you is who do we want to be as a church?

Are we really willing to put our faith into action, to listen to the bleeding of the Holy Spirit in our lives?

Will we give room to Him individually and collectively?

We've come to a greater and a deeper understanding over the last few weeks of who the Spirit is.

Listening to the Spirit of God doesn't just stop there.

It does require intentional action.

It's not just about seeing people that are in need on the street.

We have people in our community like Tamani who's writing music and creating a clothing brand label to glorify God.

People like Phil who have just been made lifetime members of icons for faithfully serving the younger generation.

Right through to on a Sunday, those from our creation care team who wash and dry the cups, or the person who chooses to vacuum that mess in the spaces where nobody else wants to.

Here at Windsor Park Baptist Church, you will often hear us say we build stronger communities by putting our faith into action.

We are Christian, biblical, growing, innovative, and generous.

These are all ways in which the spirit can move and change and transform us.

This is all requiring us to listen to the spirit, not to do it in our own strength, not to think I can nail this by myself.

In the creation account, the only thing that is considered not good was that humans were not to be alone.

We are one body.

No part is more important than another.

No part can survive on its own.

My calling as a pastor is no greater than your calling as a teacher, an engineer, a CEO, or a stay-at-home mum.

The greater calling is to eagerly desire the greater gift, love of what He, the Spirit, gives us.

So as our series concludes, what are our opportunities as a community to respond?

We are to seek the Spirit of God.

Allow him to transform us, to give us wisdom, to give us grace, to give us the right words to say.

We've got our serve day coming up.

For those of you that are local, you're welcome to come and be a part of that or to be a part of the naturally supernatural space.

What's my response?

I've been working on this over the last few months.

As I walk home from work, reading and reciting Galatians 5 to myself, this fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.

Against these things there are no law.

I repeat this time and time again.

Then I go through again and I say the fruit of the spirit is love.

Okay, what does love look like as I enter my home today?

The fruit of the spirit is patience.

How am I patient?

Where are the small things that I can be patient in?

It's moments like this where we invite the spirit to come be the lens by which we view our whole life, and that changes everything.

How could you seek him eagerly desiring the gifts that he has given you?

Let us stop and let us take a moment to actually invite the Spirit here and now to reveal to us, to speak to us.

Let's pray.

Spirit of God in this moment, Lord, as we take a breath in, we stop and still ourselves and we invite you to speak to us.

Where are the moments in our daily life that we we could invite your spirit to lead us, to guide us?

Whether it's serving somebody in our local community, whether it's going over and above for somebody else, whether it's simply asking you to challenge us, convict us as we read scripture and allow it to transform the way that we interact with our families or our co-workers.

Lord, we ask you'd give us wisdom of how we can practically go and apply this.

Speak to us, reveal to us now.

Father, we we thank you for your words.

Would you continue to invite us on that journey, we pray.

Father, we thank you for this.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

As we close today, as we close this series, I believe that we must continue now and in this ongoing manner, return back to surrender, surrendering ourselves to the Spirit, surrendering ourselves to God.

And so we're gonna sing and listen to this song, re-surrender.

Surrender to His will, surrender our desires, not our own thoughts, yours.

Removing these barriers is what surrendering does.

It removes the willingness of our own to become His.

And the words in this song, I love this, and encourage you to just really let them speak over your life.

We are your people.

You are our God.

We are your temple.

Make us holy like you are.

Or in the bridge, it says, mark your people with your presence.

Make us a place you delight to dwell.

Would those be words that you would pray and that you would believe and live out in your life as you go this week?

As the Spirit draws closer to you and as you invite him in, say, Lord, mark me with your presence.

Mark me with your Holy Spirit.

Would your Holy Spirit delight to dwell in my life?

If anything's been stirred for you today as we listen to this song and after our message, we encourage you, would you take time to reach out to us?

We would love to support you and whatever that may look like.

Be blessed as you go this week.

You're turning over tables and coming for return to our lives upon the altar, the things we did at first.

You're cleaning up the temple.

You're cleaning up the start.

We're doing the temple.

For every moment matters in eternity, we are your people, you are our God, we are your temple, make us holy like you are, we are your children, set us up high, God for your glory, make us holy like you are keeping with your press make us a place where you delight to dwell, may we heat your hands' correction?

Oh Lord I shepherd, you do all things well, your love as far as it is enough.

Your love is perfect and your judgment should as we run to rester.

You will restore what we return to you.

You are restoring as we love you.

We are your people, you are our God, we are your child, make us hold you, we are your children, get us, come for your glory, make us hope to do it, your calling, we're coming, we're not walking, we're running, God, we need resurrender, so we resurrender, your calling, we're coming, we're not walking, we're running, God, we need resurrender, so we resurrender, your calling, we're coming, we're not walking, we're running, God, we need resurrender, so we resurrender, your colleague, we're coming, we're not walking, we're running, God, we need resurrender, so we resurrender your colony, we're coming, we're not walking, we're running, God, we need resurrender, so we resurrender your colony, we're coming, we're not money, we're running, God bring me, we surrender, we surrender.

We are your children, you set us up hard.

God for your glory, make us wrong your home, we're coming, we're not walking, we're running.

God, we need resurrender, so we resurrender, your calling, we're coming, we're not walking, we're running.

God, we need resurrender.

Thank you for joining me.