Our Helper
Sermon
Turning Points
Sermons For Lent And Easter
There is an imaginary story in which the angel Gabriel asks the Risen Christ what is his plan for carrying the message of God's love to all the world. Jesus explains that he has asked Peter, Mary, John and Thomas and some others to carry that message wherever they go. As others hear and respond, they will carry the same message until the whole world knows of God's amazing love for sinners. Gabriel listens rather skeptically, and then asks Jesus, ''But, Lord, what happens if Peter goes back to fishing, or the disciples get busy with other things?'' And Jesus replies, ''Gabriel, I have not made any other plans. I am counting on them.''
That story reminds all of us of our responsibility to be witnesses to the grace we have received in Jesus Christ, but it leaves out a truth that Jesus emphasized again and again as he spent those final hours with his followers in the Upper Room. That truth is the help of the Holy Spirit! Said Jesus, ''You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and
Samaria, and to the ends of the earth'' (Acts 1:8). Jesus never intended that we should undertake such a mission without the resources of the Holy Spirit. From the beginning, he promised his followers that he would give them a Helper, one who would not only convict us of our sin, but would convince us of the truth of God's amazing grace.
Now this is no dead dogma, but a living truth about God! If we would understand the transforming power of God in human life, then we must be clear about the role of the Helper in the turning points of our lives. In the Acts of the Apostles is recorded the experience of one of the early church officers, a man named Philip, who with the Helper made possible a dramatic turning point in the life of an Ethiopian eunuch. The work of the Helper is evident in four ways.
1. Call
Philip finds himself on the road to Gaza in direct response to the call of God's Spirit. The early Christians resisted the temptation to gather in a cloister where they could meditate on the goodness of God in their lives. Instead, they responded to the call to go out into the turmoil and the conflicts of life with their life-changing message of Christ and his love. David J. Bosch in his book, A Spirituality For The Road,1 distinguishes between what he calls the Pilgrim's Progress Model and the Jonah Model of Christian discipleship. The Pilgrim's Progress model views the world as a threat and a source of contagion from which Christians must keep themselves untainted. To be saved in Christ means to be saved from this world. The Jonah Model, on the other hand, suggests that our calling is not a flight from this world, but rather a being sent by God into the heart of the wicked and godless city of Nineveh.
Jesus lived by the Jonah Model. Over and over again he uses those telling verbs to describe the mission he has entrusted to us: come and see ... then go and tell. That is our calling as well as that of the first disciples, and many of us like
Philip will have no peace in our hearts until we respond to that call. I remember a classmate of mine in theological seminary. He had been very successful in the business world, and resisted for years the call of God to leave his position in his company, and come to seminary to train for pastoral ministry. He said simply, ''I am here, only because God's Spirit would give me no peace until I answered that call.'' That is the work of the Helper in the lives of all women and men who follow Christ -- to call us to be Christ's witnesses in the world.
2. Communication
It is also the work of the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to communicate God's truth through us. This Ethiopian was obviously seeking a sense of purpose and meaning in his life. He had been to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship. No doubt, like many non-Jews of his day, he had been attracted to the moral law he found in the Ten Commandments of Judaism. But his heart hungered to know God in a personal way, so even as he rode in his chariot, he was reading from the prophet Isaiah. I hope someone else was driving the chariot! Do you remember the teacher who was telling the story of Abraham and Lot, and made a point of telling the children about what happened when Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. One little girl spoke up saying, ''I understand what happened. Yesterday my mom was driving our car, and she looked back, and she turned into a telephone pole.''
Now let us look more closely at how Philip is used by God's Spirit. Philip does not begin his conversation with this Ethiopian by delivering some set speech or sermon. Rather he begins right where the Ethiopian is in his understanding of God. Ours is not the task of convincing people to believe the Gospel! Our calling is not to approach people like door-to-door sales people hawking our wares! Ours is the task of letting the Helper, the Holy Spirit, shine through us, so that God can communicate with the heart that longs to hear. Beatrice Cleland has expressed in a poetic way this aspect of the work of God's Spirit:
Not merely by the words you say,
Not only in your deeds confused,
But in the most unconscious way
Is Christ expressed.
Is it a beatific smile?
A holy light upon his brow?
Oh, no -- I felt His presence while
You laughed just now.
For me 'twas not the truth you taught,
To you so clear, to me still dim,
But when you came to see me, you brought
A sense of Him.
And from your eyes He beckons me,
And from your heart His love is shed,
'Til I lose sight of you and see
The Christ instead.2
The Spirit, our Helper, is the one who communicates through us the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ.
3. Commitment
It is also the Spirit that enables a life-changing commitment to take place as it did in the life of this Ethiopian. Christianity is more than correct theology, devotional discipline, and moral magnitude. A person in Christ is expected to become a ''new creation.'' That means, a person will have new aims in life, new love to show, new directions in which to move. This change in a person is never simply human effort and strength. It is rather the work of the Helper bringing us to a whole new understanding of what it means to commit our lives to Jesus Christ.
I had a close friend who was a Presbyterian minister for 12 years. He served a church for that time as pastor, and in many ways, did a very effective job of preaching and caring for the needs of the congregation. But, within his own heart, there was no peace. He constantly struggled with his doubts,
and with the burdensome feeling that everything that happened in that church depended on him. After 12 years he was tired and weary, and so he left the ministry and took a job with IBM.
It was in his life as a lay person that he joined a study group who were reading about the work of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts. Suddenly, he discovered that what he had been missing in his walk with God was the empowering work of the Helper. He had worked so hard trying to convince people to believe in Christ, but he had failed to see that commitment to Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit, not human persuasion. The change in that man's life was dramatic, and his ministry now as a lay person is twice as effective as the work he did when he was a pastor!
Philip did not convert the Ethiopian. It was the Helper, the Spirit of God, that awakened within the Ethiopian's heart a response to Philip's telling him the story of Jesus and his suffering death on the cross for the sins of the world.
4. Community
The fourth aspect of the Helper's work in transforming life is to draw us into community. When Philip baptized the Ethiopian, that man became part of the community of God's people throughout the world. The Christian life was never meant to be a private affair ''between me and the Lord.'' God calls us into fellowship with one another, and in that community of faith we experience forgiveness, love, and all the fruits of the Spirit. Tradition has it that this Ethiopian went home and evangelized all of his country for Christ. If that is indeed true, then this man, like so many of us, simply found it impossible to keep from sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with others. It is the Helper that unites us with others who have experienced that same gift of amazing grace.
One of the most remarkable testimonies to this aspect of the Spirit's work was given by the Rev. Ernest Gordon, former Dean of the Chapel at Princeton University in his memorable
book Through The Valley Of The Kwai.3 He tells in a moving way about British soldiers imprisoned in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during the Second World War. The reader recoils at the appalling picture of human beings exploited, starved, tortured and degraded to the status of animals by the brutality of their captors. Reduced to skeletons, riddled with disease, these prisoners survived by the law of the jungle. They hated, they cursed, they stole from one another, and they watched each other die without even lifting a hand to help.
Then, Gordon describes a spiritual awakening that took place in that jungle hell. A few of the prisoners who had been studying Mark's Gospel, were inspired to build a church. It was not really a church in the usual sense, but a simple worship center in the jungle. There increasing numbers of prisoners gathered to worship as this re-awakening of faith brought about a miraculous change in the morale of the prisoners. Suddenly, people began to care for one another and to share what meager supplies they had. Gordon writes, ''Ours was truly a Church of the Spirit. It was the throbbing heart which gave life to the camp and transformed it from a mass of frightened individuals into a community of faith. From this community, we received the inspiration that made life possible. It seemed to be a literal in-breathing of the Holy Spirit that enabled us to live nobler lives and to survive in a place where human strength was simply not enough.''
The New Testament makes it clear that the identifying mark of the Church is not doctrinal correctness, or liturgical excellence, but rather the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. If the renewal of the Church is to happen in our time, it will come through a renewal of our understanding of the work of the Helper. It is the Helper that calls us to our involvement with a broken and needy world. It is the Helper that communicates God's saving truth to hungry hearts. It is the Helper who enables men and women to respond in commitment. It is the Helper that draws us into the community of faith and sends us forth to be Christ's witnesses to the ends of the earth.
1. A Spirituality For The Road, David J. Bosch, Herald Press, Scottsdale, Pennsylvania, 1979. Used by permission.
2. Ibid.
3. Through The Valley Of The Kwai, Ernest Gordon, Harper and Row, New York, 1962, page 174. Used by permission.
Discussion Questions
Acts 8:26-39
1. What is the relationship between divine preparation and human initiative in this story? Is it Philip who converts this Ethiopian?
2. How have you experienced God's call in your life?
a. As a still, small voice in my heart
b. As a call to service in Christ's name
c. As a trumpet fanfare to witness to God's love for sinners
d. Never really felt any sense of call from God
3. The Ethiopian eunuch was reading from Isaiah 53:7, 8. If you were Philip, how might you use these words to tell someone about Jesus' death on the cross?
4. What factor was most important in preparing the Ethiopian's heart to hear the Gospel?
a. His worship at the Temple in Jerusalem
b. A feeling that something was missing in his life
c. His reading from Isaiah
d. His willingness to listen to Philip
5. When it comes to telling others about Christ, I am:
a. A coward most of the time
b. Bold and direct
c. Okay when with good friends
d. Afraid to even try
6. What is the significance of Philip's baptizing the Ethiopian? How does baptism relate us to other Christians?
7. From reading this story in the Bible, I can now say:
a. Philip's meeting with the Ethiopian was purely coincidental.
b. Philip had a real gift for evangelism.
c. The Holy Spirit changed the Ethiopian's life without any help from Philip.
d. The Holy Spirit works through ordinary people like Philip to change human lives.
8. Have you ever experienced an empowering from God's Spirit in your life?
That story reminds all of us of our responsibility to be witnesses to the grace we have received in Jesus Christ, but it leaves out a truth that Jesus emphasized again and again as he spent those final hours with his followers in the Upper Room. That truth is the help of the Holy Spirit! Said Jesus, ''You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and
Samaria, and to the ends of the earth'' (Acts 1:8). Jesus never intended that we should undertake such a mission without the resources of the Holy Spirit. From the beginning, he promised his followers that he would give them a Helper, one who would not only convict us of our sin, but would convince us of the truth of God's amazing grace.
Now this is no dead dogma, but a living truth about God! If we would understand the transforming power of God in human life, then we must be clear about the role of the Helper in the turning points of our lives. In the Acts of the Apostles is recorded the experience of one of the early church officers, a man named Philip, who with the Helper made possible a dramatic turning point in the life of an Ethiopian eunuch. The work of the Helper is evident in four ways.
1. Call
Philip finds himself on the road to Gaza in direct response to the call of God's Spirit. The early Christians resisted the temptation to gather in a cloister where they could meditate on the goodness of God in their lives. Instead, they responded to the call to go out into the turmoil and the conflicts of life with their life-changing message of Christ and his love. David J. Bosch in his book, A Spirituality For The Road,1 distinguishes between what he calls the Pilgrim's Progress Model and the Jonah Model of Christian discipleship. The Pilgrim's Progress model views the world as a threat and a source of contagion from which Christians must keep themselves untainted. To be saved in Christ means to be saved from this world. The Jonah Model, on the other hand, suggests that our calling is not a flight from this world, but rather a being sent by God into the heart of the wicked and godless city of Nineveh.
Jesus lived by the Jonah Model. Over and over again he uses those telling verbs to describe the mission he has entrusted to us: come and see ... then go and tell. That is our calling as well as that of the first disciples, and many of us like
Philip will have no peace in our hearts until we respond to that call. I remember a classmate of mine in theological seminary. He had been very successful in the business world, and resisted for years the call of God to leave his position in his company, and come to seminary to train for pastoral ministry. He said simply, ''I am here, only because God's Spirit would give me no peace until I answered that call.'' That is the work of the Helper in the lives of all women and men who follow Christ -- to call us to be Christ's witnesses in the world.
2. Communication
It is also the work of the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to communicate God's truth through us. This Ethiopian was obviously seeking a sense of purpose and meaning in his life. He had been to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship. No doubt, like many non-Jews of his day, he had been attracted to the moral law he found in the Ten Commandments of Judaism. But his heart hungered to know God in a personal way, so even as he rode in his chariot, he was reading from the prophet Isaiah. I hope someone else was driving the chariot! Do you remember the teacher who was telling the story of Abraham and Lot, and made a point of telling the children about what happened when Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. One little girl spoke up saying, ''I understand what happened. Yesterday my mom was driving our car, and she looked back, and she turned into a telephone pole.''
Now let us look more closely at how Philip is used by God's Spirit. Philip does not begin his conversation with this Ethiopian by delivering some set speech or sermon. Rather he begins right where the Ethiopian is in his understanding of God. Ours is not the task of convincing people to believe the Gospel! Our calling is not to approach people like door-to-door sales people hawking our wares! Ours is the task of letting the Helper, the Holy Spirit, shine through us, so that God can communicate with the heart that longs to hear. Beatrice Cleland has expressed in a poetic way this aspect of the work of God's Spirit:
Not merely by the words you say,
Not only in your deeds confused,
But in the most unconscious way
Is Christ expressed.
Is it a beatific smile?
A holy light upon his brow?
Oh, no -- I felt His presence while
You laughed just now.
For me 'twas not the truth you taught,
To you so clear, to me still dim,
But when you came to see me, you brought
A sense of Him.
And from your eyes He beckons me,
And from your heart His love is shed,
'Til I lose sight of you and see
The Christ instead.2
The Spirit, our Helper, is the one who communicates through us the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ.
3. Commitment
It is also the Spirit that enables a life-changing commitment to take place as it did in the life of this Ethiopian. Christianity is more than correct theology, devotional discipline, and moral magnitude. A person in Christ is expected to become a ''new creation.'' That means, a person will have new aims in life, new love to show, new directions in which to move. This change in a person is never simply human effort and strength. It is rather the work of the Helper bringing us to a whole new understanding of what it means to commit our lives to Jesus Christ.
I had a close friend who was a Presbyterian minister for 12 years. He served a church for that time as pastor, and in many ways, did a very effective job of preaching and caring for the needs of the congregation. But, within his own heart, there was no peace. He constantly struggled with his doubts,
and with the burdensome feeling that everything that happened in that church depended on him. After 12 years he was tired and weary, and so he left the ministry and took a job with IBM.
It was in his life as a lay person that he joined a study group who were reading about the work of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts. Suddenly, he discovered that what he had been missing in his walk with God was the empowering work of the Helper. He had worked so hard trying to convince people to believe in Christ, but he had failed to see that commitment to Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit, not human persuasion. The change in that man's life was dramatic, and his ministry now as a lay person is twice as effective as the work he did when he was a pastor!
Philip did not convert the Ethiopian. It was the Helper, the Spirit of God, that awakened within the Ethiopian's heart a response to Philip's telling him the story of Jesus and his suffering death on the cross for the sins of the world.
4. Community
The fourth aspect of the Helper's work in transforming life is to draw us into community. When Philip baptized the Ethiopian, that man became part of the community of God's people throughout the world. The Christian life was never meant to be a private affair ''between me and the Lord.'' God calls us into fellowship with one another, and in that community of faith we experience forgiveness, love, and all the fruits of the Spirit. Tradition has it that this Ethiopian went home and evangelized all of his country for Christ. If that is indeed true, then this man, like so many of us, simply found it impossible to keep from sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with others. It is the Helper that unites us with others who have experienced that same gift of amazing grace.
One of the most remarkable testimonies to this aspect of the Spirit's work was given by the Rev. Ernest Gordon, former Dean of the Chapel at Princeton University in his memorable
book Through The Valley Of The Kwai.3 He tells in a moving way about British soldiers imprisoned in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during the Second World War. The reader recoils at the appalling picture of human beings exploited, starved, tortured and degraded to the status of animals by the brutality of their captors. Reduced to skeletons, riddled with disease, these prisoners survived by the law of the jungle. They hated, they cursed, they stole from one another, and they watched each other die without even lifting a hand to help.
Then, Gordon describes a spiritual awakening that took place in that jungle hell. A few of the prisoners who had been studying Mark's Gospel, were inspired to build a church. It was not really a church in the usual sense, but a simple worship center in the jungle. There increasing numbers of prisoners gathered to worship as this re-awakening of faith brought about a miraculous change in the morale of the prisoners. Suddenly, people began to care for one another and to share what meager supplies they had. Gordon writes, ''Ours was truly a Church of the Spirit. It was the throbbing heart which gave life to the camp and transformed it from a mass of frightened individuals into a community of faith. From this community, we received the inspiration that made life possible. It seemed to be a literal in-breathing of the Holy Spirit that enabled us to live nobler lives and to survive in a place where human strength was simply not enough.''
The New Testament makes it clear that the identifying mark of the Church is not doctrinal correctness, or liturgical excellence, but rather the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. If the renewal of the Church is to happen in our time, it will come through a renewal of our understanding of the work of the Helper. It is the Helper that calls us to our involvement with a broken and needy world. It is the Helper that communicates God's saving truth to hungry hearts. It is the Helper who enables men and women to respond in commitment. It is the Helper that draws us into the community of faith and sends us forth to be Christ's witnesses to the ends of the earth.
1. A Spirituality For The Road, David J. Bosch, Herald Press, Scottsdale, Pennsylvania, 1979. Used by permission.
2. Ibid.
3. Through The Valley Of The Kwai, Ernest Gordon, Harper and Row, New York, 1962, page 174. Used by permission.
Discussion Questions
Acts 8:26-39
1. What is the relationship between divine preparation and human initiative in this story? Is it Philip who converts this Ethiopian?
2. How have you experienced God's call in your life?
a. As a still, small voice in my heart
b. As a call to service in Christ's name
c. As a trumpet fanfare to witness to God's love for sinners
d. Never really felt any sense of call from God
3. The Ethiopian eunuch was reading from Isaiah 53:7, 8. If you were Philip, how might you use these words to tell someone about Jesus' death on the cross?
4. What factor was most important in preparing the Ethiopian's heart to hear the Gospel?
a. His worship at the Temple in Jerusalem
b. A feeling that something was missing in his life
c. His reading from Isaiah
d. His willingness to listen to Philip
5. When it comes to telling others about Christ, I am:
a. A coward most of the time
b. Bold and direct
c. Okay when with good friends
d. Afraid to even try
6. What is the significance of Philip's baptizing the Ethiopian? How does baptism relate us to other Christians?
7. From reading this story in the Bible, I can now say:
a. Philip's meeting with the Ethiopian was purely coincidental.
b. Philip had a real gift for evangelism.
c. The Holy Spirit changed the Ethiopian's life without any help from Philip.
d. The Holy Spirit works through ordinary people like Philip to change human lives.
8. Have you ever experienced an empowering from God's Spirit in your life?
