17 minute read
My Pulpit Message Notes: God Who Gives
from TT 197
by TIMES TODAY
GOD WHO GIVES
My Pulpit Message Notes are transcribed and edited from the sermon preached at the Nairobi Baptist Church (NBC) Ngong Road on Sunday, 28th May, 2023. Preacher - Pastor Simon Kande, National Director, Fellowship of Christian Unions (FOCUS). Scripture: Luke 11:11-13. Topic: The God Who Gives
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Apparently the Bible refers to the Holy Spirit as a Gift. And we want to see this gift and the Father has used very strong words of how evil men give good gifts and how much will He give the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.
Three things for us to understand the gift of the Holy Spirit
1. The Giver.
2. The Gift.
3. The Condition.
The Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity most misquoted and misrepresented.
1. The Giver
He is Faithful
Luke 11 opens with the Giver of the Gift who compares Himself with other givers, earthly givers i.e the fathers. We need to appreciate who God is as we engage with the Gift of the Holy Spirit. The Giver of the Spirit of God, the Giver as said in Luke 11 is faithful in His promises.
He is not like few of us who make promises and don’t keep them. He is not a guy who changes his plans halfway. He is not someone who promises because of emotions because of excitement bonus has come who promises the children, ill take you out next
week then in the course of the week you pay the debt that you needed to pay and you change the story to the children.
God the Giver is faithful. When He says He will do it, He will do it.
Psalms 45 tells us, ‘He is faithful in all His promises. But you find that this Giver has promised the Holy Spirit in many other portions of the Scripture.
Acts 1:4 “On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.
Acts 2:33 “Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.”
He is Able
This Giver is also able. There are people who promise what they can’t deliver. The One who promises this Gift is able. He created everything.
He is Kind and Loving
As opposed to the earthly fathers, the One who promises He is kind and loving. He is more kind than the evil fathers who know how to give good gifts. He is a loving Father. It is that love and kindness that made Him send His only begotten Son to redeem you who sinned willingly in the Garden of Eden through you father Adam. He loves you so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die for you. So He is giving this Gift out of kindness and love.
In chapter 11, It is not just giving because others give, no. He loves you. The Gift is out of kindness and love.
As parents we know that our children give us gifts, but we would tell that many times it is because they will want something after that. There are people who give gifts because they want something in return. But we need to understand the Gift of God. He actually may not be needing anything in return from you. It is you who needs Him, so He is giving it out of love.
There is nothing good like a gift given in love. Those who are married know it. You can know when your spouse is giving a gift out of love, or when it is for saying sorry.
2. The Gift
You can talk about the Holy Spirit and people don’t understand Him. We must understand the Holy Spirit because He is out of the three persons of the Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
in my own assessment, He is the most misquoted, misjudged and misrepresented person of the Trinity. You find people have personal interests and the say, ‘It is the Holy Spirit who told me.’ In the ongoing case of Shakahola I suspect that in the whole experience the Spirit of God must have been invoked and said, ‘I was told by the Holy Spirit of God. You find that the Holy Spirit, most Christians are in extremes. We find those who everything for them is the Holy Spirit, even the dress to wear it is the Holy Spirit to tell them. The food to eat, it is the Holy Spirit.I have seen some among the students where even greetings is in tongues.
Then in the body of Christ there are those who are averse to the things of the Holy Spirit. They are on the extreme. Any mention of the Holy Spirit and they switch off. They are scared of the Holy Spirit and we find that extreme even in churches.
Who is this Gift who some put in the centre of everything they do, or some are completely averse to?The Holy Spirit is not power. The Holy Spirit is a person who gives power. He is God. He is equal is in dignity.
I find it a bit unique, and I find it in several texts that God calls the Holy Spirit a gift. Why is the Scripture talking about fathers giving eggs and fish to their children, then God instead of giving you material things in the same context is talking about the Holy Spirit, why? Acts 1:4 we read about the Gift of God that He promised. We see the same in Acts 2:38 “ Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
I know there are secessionists who are arguing the work of the Holy Spirit ceased then. No. The text says the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off and for all whom the Lord our God will call, those who are saved, this Gift belongs to them.
Why is the Holy Spirit a gift? The way we long for gifts, why don’t we long for Him the same way? Three things that help us appreciate why the Holy Spirit is a gift that we should all long for, and should ask God, please allow me to have this gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Indwelling Presence of God
John 14, the whole chapter talks about the presence of the Holy Spirit, because at this point Jesus is leaving and going to the Father and He says, I will not leave you as orphans, I will send you a Helper, the Holy Spirit, the promise of the Father that Peter talks about and Jesus is talked about and Paul equally.
What does it mean indwelling presence? God is promising to render the heavens come stay with man. The Holy Spirit is God. He is one of the three persons of the Trinity. And as Jesus is going back to heaven, He is simply saying, I will give you a gift to have God stay with you. That is a gift. Imagine God staying with you.
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit used to come momentarily and go back, He would for example come and empower Samson, he does his things and goes back. But this promise now, God is saying, I will come stay with you 24.7. Wherever you’ll be, I will be with you. No wonder He is saying create room for me. I want to dwell in your body which is My temple.
Imagine God, the creator of the heavens and the earth coming to stay in this poor, wretched Simon Kande, 24.7. That must be a gift from God. Imagine that person who you long so much to be your mentor, imagine them saying I want to spend one month with you, I’ll pay the bill, we’ll be together. How will you feel and it is only a month?
Now God is saying, i want to stay with you, not for a month, but forever, inside you, the indwelling presence of God.
Godly character
The Holy Spirit is the One who helps you have the godly character. He produces and manifests godly virtues and character in a believer. The Holy Spirit as a person in the Holy Trinity, His work is to bring conviction of sin, righteousness and judgement according to John 16:8. When He is with you, He will convict you even those digital lies, e.g. on phone and WhatsApp, you are telling people you are in Mombasa, yet you are in Kisumu.
He will help you develop a godly character. I know in the world we are in, we emphasise more on the gifts of the Spirit and we need to because they are given to us for the work of the ministry. But we seem to like the gifts more than the fruit of the Spirit. It is the same Spirit, the One who gives the gift of prophecy, of working miracles, speaking in tongues and we need them, He is the same One who produces fruit found in Galatians 5:22. How come this fruit of the Spirit is so scarce even amongst the men of God today? The fruit of the Spirit according to Galatians 5:22 is so scarce even in our marriages, in our families. Joy is scarce. Peace, where is peace in the world? Patience - we are becoming more impatient with each other. Kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and the last one, the most important, self-control.
We need self-control against simple gadgets like the phone. You want to pray, but you can’t because a WhatsApp message has come, or a Tiktok message, reel. Some of us pray when the phone is near. You need self-control to keep the phone in the next room. Actually it is more easier to fast nowadays from food than from phone.
Some of us cannot control ourselves against money/ mammoth. You are in that position of working in an office somewhere and any money you see, a tender, you start thinking of how you can eat and eat. Even if you had money to build ten houses, how many can you sleep on in a night. If you want to sleep in all of them you wont because you will be travelling from one house to another. Even if you can afford all food and chicken in the world, how many can you eat. Actually the more money you, get, the more doctors tell you what you cannot eat. That is the irony of life. When you are poor, people tell you eat everything. The more I can afford red meat, I am told I should not eat it, etc.
Divine Empowerment
The Holy Spirit is a gift because He gives divine empowerment. God knew, these disciples of mine will be worked on by Satan and unless I empower them divinely. They are in a world that is not there’s. They are passersby, sojourners. That world there is an enemy there, and He says, I will give you a gift who will empower you divinely.
The Holy Spirit is a gift and a gift Giver. When you allow Him into your life, He will empower you, He will give you gifts. We see in the Old Testament, He give gifts, some of them unique. I know the Pentecostals today specialise on a few gifts, but they are many. There are gifts of leadership, skills and wisdom, found in Numbers 27:18. There is even the gift of artistic skills, given to a guy called Bezalel in Exodus 31 in the construction of the Tabernacle.
In the New Testament He gives gifts and many of them starting with Jesus who said in Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.” Anoint to preach. We need it today. Most christians are not preaching today. They cannot even preach to their children. What will happen to their roommates if they are in campus, or to their workmates if they are working?
The Holy Spirit empowers us. The early Christians were empowered to do miracles and the same is needed today. And friends where in a level today, the levels of atheism, critics of faith, secularism is on the rise, we cant keep talking of miracles that can’t be verified, e.g. stomach aches it is only you who can verify if you had a stomach ache or not. I am looking for a miracle where a critic of faith cannot refute, where there was no leg, the leg has grown, everyone has seen it growing. That one you cannot argue. I am talking of this because there is taking of advantage especially of tele-evangelists if only they had worked some miracles behind the scenes.
There are real miracles and we need it because arguments will come to an end. Some of these guys are very smart, you start arguing about some very difficult things, ‘why is pain on earth?’ It becomes very difficult and you tell God to perform a miracle, let this blind man see, then scientifically if they cant prove it they will believe.
He empowers us to preach the gospel with boldness and power. Acts 4:8 we have lots of depth in the Scripture, when the Spirit of God came, they did not just speak in tongues, but spoke the word of God boldly. This gift is needed today. We are becoming more mild about our faith. We are becoming like chicken rained on. God is the big God. Our young people can’t stand up and say I am a believer in Jesus and unashamedly Christian. People come to their workplace and they are not known as believers.
Prayer
The Holy Spirit empowers us for prayer and makes it effective. Romans 8:26 “We do not know how to pray, but the Holy Spirit empowers us. When the Holy Spirit is upon you prayer will be sweet.I discovered it. No one will force you. The more I get filled with Him, the more I want to pray, the more I want to walk with Him.
Overcome Spiritual Opposition
The Holy Spirit empowers us to overcome spiritual opposition. In the preaching of the gospel and God’s work, Jesus said in Matthew 12:28 “If by the Spirit of God, I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” I joke that some of us are being terrorise by demons on internship. Tiny demons who are trained to harass Christians, they are messing your life so much and actually they are being trained. What about Lucifer himself, what if he lands on you? And you have been a Christian for long. When the Spirit of God is upon you, and you take the Word, Ephesians 6 becomes real. The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. You will not fear any demons, you will not fear Satan, and in Africa, I think we need to be taught that more.
3. The Condition
To get this gift of God there is a condition;
a. Ask - This is the easiest of all conditions. Luke 11:9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you.” But I see an aspect there which was read earlier of boldness in asking, consistency in asking. Jesus said, because of the boldness of this friend who went to his friend at night, he was given. Luke 18 talks about that boldness of a widow who was consistent.
b. Faith - Have faith. By faith we shall receive the promise of the Spirit. Galatians 3:14. This gift of the Spirit we receive it by faith. It is not gymnastics. It is pure faith to receive the Holy Spirit.
c. Obedience and holiness - repentance is critical. Acts 2:38 Peter says, repent so that you can receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. I find that the Holy Spirit and yourself is like water and oil. They can’t be together. You have to kill the self for the Holy Spirit to get space in you. No wonder Romans 8 says It is by the Spirit of God put to death the cravings of the sinful nature.
d. Personal choice and willingness. The Holy Spirit does not force Himself to you, or to the people. He can be resisted. In Acts 7:51 Stephen rebuked the Jewish leaders, ‘You are always resist the Holy Spirit.’ You can resist the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t force. He is not like a bouncer who comes to your life by force and gets you by the throat and tells you I’m coming. No. He is gentle. Allow Him.
As we pray and ask the LORD to give us this Gift, I know there are many theological debates out there about how and when does one get filled with the Holy Spirit, I did not want to dwell too much on that, but I pick a critical verse in Ephesian 5:18 which simply says “Be {continually} filled with the Holy Spirit.” This is in present tense imperative verb, which can be translated, be continually filled with the Holy Spirit. It is not a one time event. Even if you were filled in the seventies you can be filled again. We see in the book of Acts over and over again in the day of Pentecost, Peter and the team they were filled, but after that in chapter four we see again when they were praying they were filled again, and again. You can be filled again. You can never be full of the Spirit and say that I don’t need any more. Every time we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit as you work on the flesh and create space for Him.
Like I said, the Spirit and your flesh is like water and oil. They don’t mix. Either one is away or One is present. That is why you need to work on that self and create space, let that be the temple of the Holy Spirit and let the Spirit of God, that is God Himself come and dwell in you.
