Sections:

GOD’S SEAL

SIN CREATES A TRENCH

FIRST BRIDGE RUINED

GOD BRIDGES TRENCH

SPIRIT OF CHRIST’S PRESENCE

PROMISED SPIRIT

CONCLUSIONS

THIS MORNING I’m talking about the Holy Spirit. I‘m not talking about the Holy Spirit as the Comforter. I’m not talking about him as the giver of spiritual gifts. I'm going back to basics.

GOD’S SEAL ON THE BELIEVER
Everything I've been saying about our salvation is capped off by the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 1:13 we read that the Holy Spirit is the guarantee that we will receive everything that Jesus Christ our Lord has led us to hope for. He’s God’s “down-payment” that we will receive the lot on the day of reckoning.
It says,

13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

This is vastly different from what we were seeing a few weeks ago. Didn’t we see our hopelessness, our entire separation from God? Yet here we have, through Christ, an assured relationship today and a guaranteed hope tomorrow.

We saw that God really loves us, really desires and plans the best for us. Never forget that fact. I have met many atheists and agnostics in my time, and the common feature is not that they don’t believe in God, but that they are enraged that God didn’t seem to come through for them in a crisis.It often happened when they were children, still stuck in the age when they believe that, if God had a son, it would be Harry Potter, when they think that God can just magic nasty things away. Nevertheless, God does love us.

Yet there is a great gulf between him and us, a gulf of alienation, a gulf of separation, a gulf which tears the creature from his Creator. That’s why we miss out on the joy of fellowship with our heavenly Father.
The spark of God within us is extinguished. As the Bible says,

The soul that sins shall die.

OUR SIN CREATES A TRENCH
I was thinking of how friendship builds. It grows from nothing into one of the strongest things in the whole universe.

You meet someone, you find that you each have something in common. You work in the same business. You come from the same town.
Most people I get on quickly with remind me somehow of my own family — not always in looks, but something about them makes them fit into my kind of family.
Or you might share a common interest. I have a friend who has eaten Guinea Pig. He might have some affinity for other people who have eaten Guinea Pig.
Each of these common strands is like a straw running between the two people. But one or two straws is not enough. It only takes a little thing to break so few strands.

But you listen to each other, and each time that adds another straw of grass to the bridge. You do good for each other, and it adds more straws. You support each other in crises, and lay down more straws.
Finally, you have a strong bridge between the two of you, a bridge of a million weak straws. Together, they are enormously strong.

GOD’S FIRST BRIDGE RUINED — BY US
Think about the bridge that God built. He thought of you at the very creation of the world. That's a straw between you and God. He planned for you while he was making starts and galaxies. That's another straw between you and God. He arranged your conception. He guarded you as you grew in the womb. He gave you family, friends, encouragement.Those are more straws between you and God.

The evil we have all met, our far from perfect families, the abusive teachers, the bullying classmates — they were all real. We experienced deaths, griefs, losses. Yet God was still there, still caring, still restraining the worst; always drawing us forward through many dangers, toils and fears. He cemented those straws into a strong, flexible, almost unbreakable brdge betwen himself and you.

But you have seen how the best of bridges can break in a moment.

I knew a professional man, married for many years, a basically sound relationship. He consulted from home, his wife worked away.
A teenaged girl, 17 or 18, called around for a professional consultation with him. She wasn’t working, she didn’t have strong family ties, she was bored, and she came back the next day, and then a few days later. He enjoyed the company, the attention.
Finally their relationship became sexual. My friend’s marriage was destroyed in a day. His work crumbled around him. He went from being a highly respected professional, someone notable in his field, to being a bus driver for a charity and a casual cleaner when he could get the work.

It only takes a spark to set a fire going,
— as the song says.
But that fire can as easily burn down a bridge as sweep and purify the land.

And we abandoned God’s love. We abandoned the bridge which God had set in place between us. It didn’t take milennia. It took a bite of fruit, a small act of rebellion. Which of us has truly kept the bridge intact between us and God?
God built it... you and I severed it in a day, the first day we failed to give God the glory due to his name.

GOD BRIDGES THE TRENCH IN JESUS
Yet God could not stand to see that vast chasm between himself and us. If you know what it is to be betrayed, to lose a friendship, to be cast off because you are no longer interesting, then realise that God has been there with you. He understands rejection. And God shows that his love is never defeated, it never ends.

That is why he had to send his one and only Son, his beloved. There had to be someone — someone who could live on both sides of the trench. God’s plan was to send someone whose natural home was with the Allies, with Good, with the Community of Divine Love. But he also had to be human, at home on the Dark Side, able to live the life of God in the world of men.

In Christ, God bridged the gap again. As we read in the Bible,

God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.

And, as I pointed out last week, there is only one way to respond to this, and that is the way of faith, of trust, of simple dependence on the Christ who gave himself for us.
So that's where we come to today.
In our passage, we found Peter setting out the way to receive the Holy Spirit.
Think it over. God doesn’t just want to keep on being “God out there”. He wants to be right in the midst of his people, like the guest of honour in the best party ever. He is the God who sings over his children with joy, as we read in the Bible. He is the God who partied with tax gatherers and prostitutes.
the Lord Jesus showed what God is like in everything he did while on earth.

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,

he said to Philip.

But now Jesus has risen. Now Jesus has ascended into heaven. He is sitting at God’s right hand. One day he will return to judge the living and the dead.
How can he be in the midst of his people and also waiting in heaven for the Day of his appearing?

THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST’S PRESENCE
It’s simple. He sends the Holy Spirit to indwell each of us who believe. It is the Spirit of Christ — God’s Spirit — who is implanted in each of us when we receive Christ.
I suppose I have to mention the promise of the Comforter.
Jesus said,

I will ask the Father, and he will send you another Comforter to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth.

This Comforter is another of the same kind. That’s what the Greek says. Allos, not heteros. Another just like Jesus. There is no confusion here. The role of the Holy Spirit since Jesus returned to heaven has been to continue and expand the role of Jesus in the world.
If we are to know we are sealed with God’s guarantee; if we are to experience the continuing work of Jesus in our hearts, if we are to know God within us, bridging the trench and uniting us again with our heavenly Father through the death and resurrection of Jesus, it must be through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

I sometimes speak in tongues, but I have never told you or anyone to do that. I have prophesied a few times under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration. I have been given pictures of the demonic powers in a couple of people’s lives.

Some of you might say, “Wow! What a super Christian!”
So I don’t talk too much about those things. I am no super Christian. My prayer life gets sloppy. I can read the Bible every day — but only to plan what to preach about. I am not very successful with family or other important relationships. I am prone to depression and to losing my joy. I am no super Christian.

But I have the Holy Spirit within me, and I want you to be sure that you have the Holy Spirit in you, too.
This is vital. It’s not an optional extra. The Bible says very clearly,

If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he doesn’t belong to Christ at all.

If you have the Holy Spirit, you are a true believer, marked with God’s seal and guarantee; if you don’t have the Spirit, then you haven’t even begun wth Christ yet.

THE PROMISED SPIRIT
Peter explained to the crowd,

Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and all who are far off — as many as the Lord may call.

Here’s the promise. Fulfil the simple requirements, and you receive the Holy Spirit.

Repent. It means more than just acknowledging sins. I think one of the weaknesses of today’s church is that we have encouraged people to confess and to reform themselves. Most people will fairly readily say, “I've done a lot of wrong things.” They will probably even specify what some of those wrong things were. And,being keen for change, many people will give up smoking or drinking alcohol or swearing.
God wants people who will go deeper, who will understand the sinfulness of sin.
The trial of a corrupt policeman has nearly ended this week in Sydney.
The Judge who heard the case praised the man. He said he was one of the most truthful people to have come before the court, even though telling the truth could send him to gaol.
This man’s wife has left him, his income has collapsed, people won’t even trust him to mow their lawns any more. But he acknowledges his faults. He said that seeing the hurt on the faces of the people who felt betrayed by him showed him the true cost of taking bribes. He said, “I decided I had to stand up and be a man, whatever it cost.”
That’s repentance.This man will not re-offend easily. He’s a changed man.
Repent! says Peter

Then, “Be baptised.” It’s not the act of being dunked under water that really counts. It’s the whole meaning of it. My old life has ended, a new life has begun. When Brian contacted me about baptism, he spoke about “being born again.” We don’t usually tie that expression directly to baptism. We say you are born again by faith in Jesus, and you are baptised to express that faith.
But, when I talked a little further, I saw that Brian wasn’t saying anything different from that. But he was seeing a point: that baptism is a very definite and unmistakeable sign that everything is different from now on.
When it’s baptism “...in the name of Jesus” there can be no mistake: from now on I belong to him, not to the systems of this world.
This means that my sins are remitted, they are paid back. The death of Jesus is effective for me!I can only be acceptable to God, the trench can only be crossed, if I am clothed in white robes given me by Jesus, to replace the garments stained with sin.
“Be baptised in the name of Jesus for the remission of your sins,” says Peter.

What is the consequence?
“And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” It’s never about achievements. It’s never a matter of working for it, or of getting the feeling, or of some super–spiritual routines. Here’s the promise — receive it!
But are you included? Look: you are here.

The promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

Were you far off? Did the Lord call you? Then the promise is to you. Believe it, receive it, and be settled that it’s true!

CONCLUSIONS
I want to conclude with a few remarks on what this all means.
If you know you have repented, then you can know that the Holy Spirit is in you. If you have doubts, go back to God. Confess. Ask for grace to repent, and do it. Let the Holy Spirit show you your sin and apply the cleansing blood of Jesus to it.
Be baptised, if you are not already. Do everything to fulfill all righteousness.
And just give thanks that the Spirit is yours. Let him fill you today, let him enter every part of your life, even the dark places, even the hurt places, so that he can shine Christ’s light there, and apply his healing touch where it’s needed.

If you know you haven’t yet begun that journey, today is the day to begin. Just as I told everyone just now. Repent. Be baptised in the name of Jesus for the remission of your sins. And the gift is yours: receive by faith, because you are receiving Jesus’ own Spirit.

May God bless us all very fully and freely this morning. AMEN