This week, we continue to explore the Fruit of the Spirit promised to us in the life of faith and we focus on JOY! We will think about how joy is worlds apart different from happiness, though both of which are lacking in our post-pandemic world. Yet we are called, no matter the circumstance, to be a joy-full people! How do we do that? What does that look like? What difference does it make? And finally, how is joy connected to our central faith story of God’s amazing grace?
This week begins a new sermon series that will take us through the rest of this summer! It is called “Never Stop Growing” It will explore in depth the fruit of the Spirit promised to us in Galatians chapter 5. These fruits are signs that Christ and the Holy Spirit are living and active in our lives, but none of us is perfect. Because of the Spirit, we never stop growing: in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. What would our families, workplaces, friendships, and sense of our place in the world look like if we focused on growth in these things? How does our world define them and maybe how would God invite us to redefine them in the life of faith?
Link to this week’s sermon: readable PDF
This is a bridge week sermon: it is the last sermon in a more general series asking “Who is the Holy Spirit?”. But it also is helping to introduce the series we will dwell in for the rest of the summer focused on the fruit of the Spirit. This week we ask ourselves the questions that Paul was attending to in Galatians:
How do we know we are Christians? How do we know God is at work in us? How does the world know? How does this fruit actually grow in our life and what will it look like?
In weeks to come, we will explore each fruit more in depth, but for now, let us consider how our openness to the Spirit’s work helps us to grow in ways we never could on our own.
This week we explore Paul’s writings to an early church, torn up by competition and divisions among them. Paul tells them that although they are different, each one of them is filled by the Holy Spirit and so is given different spiritual gifts in order to build up the community for the better. He urges them to think of themselves as the BODY OF CHRIST, an image that is powerful in helping us understand the kind of unity we are called to as Christians. We are not called to be the same or even to always get along and agree. We are called to a relationship with fellow believers where we are committed to continuing our shared life together. In these divided and polarizing times, what can we learn from a message like this? How can the church be profoundly countercultural in living out this challenging unity?
On this Father’s Day, we acknowledge the important role of fathers and father figures in our prayer. But we also continue our focus on the often overlooked third person of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit. We have discussed how She is the literal breath of God filling us with life. We have discussed how She is our Advocate and Helper; a gift from Jesus, knowing He could not be with us in the flesh forever. And this week, we revisit the story of Pentecost, where the Spirit birthed what we now call the Church. What was this new thing that God was creating? What was the Spirit’s role in that? What is Her role in our church in bringing us together today, with all the unique challenges of 2021?
