Spiritual Power, Part 2
Spiritual Gifts and the Mission of the Church
28st August 2010
What's your experience of reaching the lost with the wonderful Gospel of Jesus Christ? What's your experience of church growth? My own belief, garnered both from scripture and from experience, is that evangelism and church growth are impossible. And only God can do the impossible. We may be able to persuade people to come along. Perhaps we can get people to midweek clubs or even to specific "evangelistic" events. But you or I cannot bring someone to faith. Only God can do that.
I pray for the sick, and sometimes they recover in a way that medical science cannot explain. When this happens, it's wonderful. But it's not me that makes them better, it's the Holy Spirit of God.
Increasingly, I also understand that my ability to encourage other Christians to actually live like Christians is pretty limited, too. If I have the ability to preach in such a way as to help people to make godly choices, that ability is God-given. More than that, it needs the Holy Spirit to speak in the heart and mind of the listeners, if they are to take a step towards living God's way.
We need the Holy Spirit both to equip us for mission and to motivate us to mission. We need the Holy Spirit to work in us to make us into people of gentleness, love and faith, who can communicate the message effectively without our sin polluting it beyond recognition. We sing "make me a channel of your peace" and we pray that God makes us a clean channel. And, as we saw last week, 1 Corinthians 12:7 says:
Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
I want to be the best Christian I can be. I want to be increasingly free from sin. I want to speak to the lost in ways that help them to find faith. I want to encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ to love and serve our Lord. I want to help them to find the healing of body, soul and spirit that they need to enjoy life with God to the full and to glorify Him. To do any of this, I need the power of the Holy Spirit.
Many of us are comfortable with the Holy Spirit so long as He is not manifest. We're happy to believe that God works in our characters to grow the fruit of the Spirit, described in Galatians 5:22-23 as:
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control
But God knows when to work in the secret places of our hearts, and when to give us the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. And we must trust Him.
A word of prophecy can change a person's life. A gift of healing can mend a broken body. A word of knowledge can open up a situation for effective prayer. A miracle can inspire us to greater depths of faith. A "tongue" - or prayer language - can help us to grow closer to God. If we're serious about mission, we must allow God's Holy Spirit to work in us in whatever way He chooses, to make us effective.