The Spirit as Comforter: Challenge from Pentecostals

Transcript (edited for readability).

It's a great pleasure to be here today, in this lovely setting, and to see so many familiar faces. A whole lot of Doxology groupies here, I can see, and some new faces too. There are some people who say that I should be certified. The topic I want to speak to you about is the Holy Spirit as Comforter, and the challenge that we face from the Pentecostal movement. Now, this is going to be broad-stroke stuff, and there's probably going to be a lot that needs to be filled in.

I don't know if you're like me, but I'm easily embarrassed. And I'm embarrassed in three different ways. I am embarrassed physically — that's common to us all as human beings. I'm dressed here, covered up, and all of us are easily, physically embarrassed. We are also emotionally embarrassed in certain circumstances, and that's part of our humanity. Then, thirdly, there is spiritual embarrassment, and I think that's a problem that all of us face — in the present context, and particularly in the challenge from the so-called Pentecostal movement.

You see, all of us, if we have any sense whatsoever, if we have any sense of what is real and unreal, true or false, are embarrassed about our spiritual state. No, I'm embarrassed about my body, but I'm much more embarrassed at my spiritual state — my spiritual ignorance and hardheartedness, my spiritual failure, my spiritual weakness. I know that spiritually speaking, I'm not the kind of person I would like to be. My guilt, my shame makes me feel embarrassed about myself, because I'm not the kind of spiritual person I should be. And I'm embarrassed, therefore, by people who come to me and say, "Are you a born-again, Spirit-filled believer?" I'm embarrassed by people who seem to be much more spiritual than me — you know, the super-spiritual high-flyers who seem to live on spiritual cloud nine. And the reason for my spiritual embarrassment is that I have a bad conscience before God, and Satan plays on my bad conscience in order to embarrass me — not just to accuse and condemn me, but also to embarrass me.

So I feel it's my fault that I am missing out on something. I see people who are more spiritual than me, I'd like to be like them, and I feel it's my fault — it's my sin, my inadequacy that makes me such. So I hear somebody preach a good sermon, and instead of rejoicing in it, I think, "I should — I'd like to preach that kind of sermon," and I feel bad because I don't preach as well as that person. Now, Satan gets hold of our natural sense of embarrassment — and it's right that we should be embarrassed, because none of us, however spiritual we should be, at least not this side of eternity — that's a given. But Satan gets hold of that in order to silence me, so that I'm not bold in confessing my faith, praying, praising, witnessing to Jesus. I'm too embarrassed to do that. And worst of all, my embarrassment then paralyzes me. Instead of getting on and doing the next thing, I feel I'm no good, and there's no point in me doing anything, because I can't do anything, and everything I do is not good enough. Have you been there? Do you feel like that ever?

Well, let me tell you that the Holy Spirit is the Comforter, and the work of the Holy Spirit is to deal with that embarrassment. On the other hand, Satan is the great embarrasser — he not only accuses and condemns us, but he wants to shame us and embarrass us. Spiritual embarrassment, and overcoming spiritual embarrassment — the whole church has been challenged very, very severely, in a new way — at least in a way that hasn't had a parallel for the last, well, five thousand years — by the Pentecostal movement. You all know it. It originated here in the USA, and seems to be most powerful here in the USA, and it spread all around the world very, very quickly over the last fifty years. I've seen it happening in my own lifetime.

Now, you don't get a movement in the church, my great teacher Dr. Zahrnt said, and he's right in this, unless there is something that is being neglected or ignored in the mainstream church, and that's so with this. If you look at the history of the church, maybe over the last two hundred years — the last hundred years — mainstream denominations have neglected the third article of the creed, the teaching on the Holy Spirit. So, just as a little indicator — when I did dogmatics with the man who was a very good teacher, we never got to the third article. So just as the Pentecostal movement was hitting the church, we had no dogmatic teaching on the Holy Spirit.

Now, the neglect of the Spirit comes in a number of different ways. The liberals confuse the Holy Spirit with the human spirit — they focus on the fatherhood of God the Creator and the brotherhood of all men as his creatures, so they focus on the first article. And those of us who are Protestant and Evangelical tend to focus on the second article of the creed — Jesus and the Bible as God's Word. And one of the things that's happened — only recently, in the last fifty years or so — is that Lutherans have tended to neglect the teaching on sanctification, which is everywhere in the Scriptures, Old and New — the life of faith, living by the Spirit.

If you're interested in following this up, and you have sufficient time, I'd urge you to get a highlighter and go through the Book of Concord and underline — I don't know what the color of the Spirit is, I'd say it's blue — just get a highlighter and highlight all the references to the Spirit in the Book of Concord, and you will be astonished how frequently it occurs. In fact, the Lutherans, like Melanchthon and Luther and others, said that one of the problems of the Catholic Church was that they don't teach us how we receive the Holy Spirit. So the Reformation was, from one point of view, very much about the reception of the Holy Spirit, but we've forgotten about that.

What we've had in the church is a form of Unitarianism — Unitarianism means we focus on one person of the Trinity. So liberals on the first person, Evangelicals and Lutherans on the second person of the Trinity — and then you get the reaction. What's the focus in the Pentecostal movement? Not on the first article, not on the second article, but on the third article of the creed.

Now, as you all know, and as you've all experienced, we've been challenged by the Pentecostal and charismatic movements. Now, I can't give you a detailed history, but you need to understand what's going on if you're going to pass it on to your people. You need to see the difference between Pentecostalism, old-style Pentecostalism, and the charismatic offshoots, and the offshoots from the charismatic movement.

Now, one of the good things about the Pentecostal and charismatic movements is that it was part of a rediscovery of the supernatural nature of the Christian faith. So, for example, when I was first a pastor, it was embarrassing to talk about miracles. Now nobody bats an eye when you talk about miracles, even outside the church. It was embarrassing to talk about angels, or demons, or Satan — now it's no big deal, nobody argues about that. Except some Lutherans. And with the Pentecostal movement came an emphasis, a rediscovery of the work of the Holy Spirit, and, positively speaking, a very important teaching that had been neglected — that we are empowered to live a Christian life. We're empowered to believe and to love and to hope by the Holy Spirit. Apart from the Spirit, none of us can live a godly life.

But with that came a number of misleading and even false teachings. The first one was the teaching on two baptisms. There's water baptism — now, for most Protestant people, water baptism comes after conversion. It's not the same as conversion — first you're converted, then you are baptized with water. That's stage one in your spiritual life. And then comes stage two in your spiritual life, which culminates in baptism by the Holy Spirit. This way of thinking is not Lutheran, it's not Catholic, it's not Orthodox — it comes out of Methodism. Two stages in our spiritual life: stage one, the stage leading up to conversion and water baptism; and then comes stage two, which culminates in being baptized by the Holy Spirit and being empowered by the Holy Spirit. So there are two stages in your spiritual life, and be aware of it, because many Lutherans have bought into it without realizing what's going on. Remember, the creed says there is only one baptism for the remission of sins, not two baptisms — that comes from Ephesians.

Now, what's the proof, what's the evidence that you have been filled with the Spirit? In classical Pentecostalism, it's speaking in tongues — the initial evidence, and the confirming evidence, that you have been filled with the Spirit. So the proof that you are a spiritual person, a Spirit-filled person, is that you have spoken in tongues, even if you don't continue to speak in tongues. And the result of that is that you are able to perform mighty deeds, miracles — once you're Spirit-filled, you're empowered to perform miracles, not just the miracle of speaking in tongues, but prophesying, healing, and performing exorcisms.

And in this scheme, worship is understood differently, in a way that was not previously the case in the church. Worship has to do with praise singing. So for people who have been filled by the Holy Spirit, worship is the singing of praises. I'll come to what the importance of praise singing is in a minute — that's the result of being filled with the Spirit. So being filled with the Spirit means that you speak in tongues, you join in the praises of the Lord God, you are able to prophesy, you are able to heal, you are able to drive out demons. And the goal of worship, which is praise singing, is the ascent from earth to heaven by the power of the Spirit. So, if you like, praise is the heavenly ladder — Jacob's ladder — that takes you from earth to heaven.

Now, the result of this is that we find everywhere across the whole world — not just North America or Australia or Europe, but also in the Third World, in Africa and Asia — a new order of worship, a new kind of worship, a new generic Protestant order of worship, based on a three-step ascent into the heavenly realm.

Now, the basic theology that lies behind this is that God the Father is where? Up in heaven. Jesus came down from heaven to earth for thirty-three years, and then he returned to the Father, and he left the Spirit behind. So the Father's up in heaven, the Spirit is here on earth, and it's the role of the Spirit to bring us from earth to heaven. It's a very simple theology of worship, and that happens in the divine service — that happens in worship, that happens through the singing of praises.

And coming out of the Pentecostal movement, through to the charismatic movement, and now you have the generic Protestant sort of "awed" praise-singing orders of service — they tend to fall into three parts, three main essential parts, that correspond to the three parts of the tabernacle and the temple. You remember that the tabernacle was divided into three parts: there's the outer court — the so-called court of the women, where you had to be a clean Israelite in order to enter — and then there's the inner court, with a gate leading from the outer court to the inner court, where the altar was. And then you had the tabernacle, the temple with the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. So you go from the outer court, to the inner court, to the presence of God in the heavenly sanctuary. You with me? So: outer court, inner court, Holy of Holies.

Those three steps then correspond to three different kinds of praise, and this is taken from Psalm 100, where we are told to enter — not "his courts with thanksgiving," but "his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise," and then it goes on, "give thanks to him and bless his name." Now this corresponds to three different kinds of singing that you'll find everywhere — at least that I've found everywhere across the world — in this new order of worship. You begin with exuberant praise, thanksgiving for what God has done. Then you go to praise for what God is doing in your own life. And that then leads to adoration, blessing God. And that third stage, when you go from thanksgiving, to praise, to blessing and adoration, is the moment when you finally stand in the heavenly places, before the throne of God the Father. You get me?

But can you see what's missing? The Holy Spirit, through the singing of praise, brings you from earth to heaven, to the presence of God the Father. What's missing? There's no intermediary. Where's Jesus in the picture? Jesus is only past tense — you praise God for what Jesus has done, but he has no role to play in present worship.

Now, what's the purpose of this ascent? How are we going? There are four different reasons that were given. Initially, in the Pentecostal movement, the praise singing led to speaking in tongues. Now, speaking in tongues was understood as praise together with the angels — angelic praise. So if you are engaged in tongues, singing praise, praising God together with the angels, it's proof that you are aware you are in heaven — you're standing before the throne of God, you are in the heavenly sanctuary. So that was the initial purpose of praising — the speaking in tongues.

Then, added to that, and very quickly out of that, and very closely connected with it, was that you not only entered the heavenly realm in order to speak in tongues, praising God with the angels before the heavenly throne, but you stood there at the heavenly throne to receive heavenly empowerment, heavenly spiritual gifts, charismata, to do mighty works — such as to prophesy, to heal, to cast out demons. For the rest, you entered, went up to heaven, to receive heavenly gifts for your work here on earth.

However, that was old-fashioned Pentecostalism — those two. Now this has morphed into something that is much more socially acceptable to baby boomers, and particularly to the post-baby-boomer generation. The dominant sort of Pentecostal-charismatic neo-Protestant order of worship is exemplified in Australia by Hillsong — I don't know if you know any of their music, it's immensely popular with young people. It's a form of praise singing. Now, if you go to a Hillsong church, which is basically most Pentecostal churches and charismatic churches now in Australia, you ascend on the ladder of praise into God's presence to present your tithe before the Lord. And as you know, from the book of Malachi, if you offer your tithes to the Lord, then the floodgates of blessing will be open for you here on earth. So you go, and before God the Father, you present your tithe to God the Father, in order that the floodgates of blessing will be opened for you here on earth, and that God will prosper you materially. And some churches, in fact, have two sorts of heavenly ascents — the first is to present your tithe, and the other is to present yourself, to commit yourself to God's plan to prosper you. That's very close to the Joel Osteen kind of stuff, I think, that you have over here.

Now, the fourth, which is closely related to this, and is, in fact, what many young people find and experience and look for in this kind of worship, is that it fills you with a sense of well-being, euphoria — you just feel good about yourself. It doesn't give you a good conscience, but it makes you feel good about yourself spiritually. That, in practical terms, is why it attracts so many people. This new kind of theology is basically being pushed by a new order of worship, focused around praise singing. And you know how much your own church — parts of your church — has been influenced by so-called contemporary worship and praise singing, which is connected with that. This is where it comes from.

Now, what's the problem with this kind of worship — not just from a Lutheran point of view, but from an Orthodox Catholic point of view? What's missing? It's not all wrong, and that's the problem — there are some things here that are right and true. Basically, it's not Trinitarian, and it's got things back to front. Because, as you all know, in the divine service, we don't go up the heavenly ladder into heaven — but the ladder comes down from heaven to earth, and God the Father comes to us through his Son to give us the Holy Spirit. That's the basic classical orthodox pattern of worship.

Now, what's missing in this generic Protestant liturgy, as I call it? Well, just look at the things that are missing. There's no confession of sins, and there is no absolution. Now, that's telling — there is no absolution, and that means that people who are exposed to it over a length of time have more and more guilt heaped on them, and that guilt drives them more and more. So there's no absolution.

Secondly, there's no communal intercession for the church and the world and people in need. There's praying, but the praying tends to be for me, and for this particular community. Sometimes they might hold prayer retreats, or special meetings to pray against abortion or something like that, but instead of praying regularly for the whole church, the world, people in need, sick people, or whatever — that's the exception.

Thirdly, there's no communal confession of faith in the triune God — it's not credal.

The next two are the biggest absences. Sure, there is preaching — well, it's not really preaching, because it's teaching. There's a lot of teaching, and a lot of biblical teaching, and a lot of Lutherans are hoodwinked, because Pentecostal preachers do a lot of teaching, and it's very practical teaching, because that's what it all is — it tells you how to live a godly life. Even if it means that you've got to take on a Daniel diet in order to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. Do you know the Daniel diet, promoted by Willow Creek? That's the diet that Daniel — it's a vegetarian diet following Daniel and his companions. There is preaching, but it is law preaching, basically. There is no proclamation of the gospel, except accidentally and incidentally. In fact, usually there are no scriptural readings — the pastor chooses a particular passage that's relevant to his people, for his teaching. He reads one passage, it doesn't matter where it comes from, and he preaches how to lead a godly life. Now, incidentally, there's much there that's of value. But there is no proclamation, no enactment of the gospel.

And worst of all, Holy Communion is an appendix to the real worship. So the worship is praise singing, you attach some teaching to that, and there's another appendix to that, which is Holy Communion, which is celebrated occasionally as a memorial meal, in typical Zwinglian fashion.

Now, our Lutheran people are confronted — but not so much by this theology of worship, but by this practice of worship — and they find that they are embarrassed. They find that they are embarrassed because it seems to be so successful. In what way is it successful? It gets people in, and particularly younger people. And now the people who seem to be leaving the church, the people whom we seem to have little or no success with in winning and keeping — they draw in the young people, and so we're embarrassed at our failure, and we think that if we're going to win, gain, retain young people, this is the way we need to go. And so there's an immense sense of embarrassment in Lutheran circles at the apparent failure of our classical worship. You all know that, you don't need me to tell you that.

The problem is that when Lutherans adopt this particular kind of praise singing, they don't do it properly. It's neither fish nor fowl — anybody who has been steeped in Pentecostal or charismatic worship — say, young people — they say "yuck." They need to learn how to do this. It just doesn't work. You can't sort of cobble that onto our Service of Word and Sacrament.

Now, what's Christ's remedy for our spiritual embarrassment? What does Christ do about our embarrassment — not just our embarrassment at Pentecostalism, but all our spiritual embarrassment, at our lack of success? Well, Christ anticipated this with his disciples. At the very end of Luke's Gospel, Jesus appears to his disciples, and he opens the Scriptures to them, and he tells them that repentance and the forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, and they are to be witnesses — the twelve apostles, or eleven apostles — are to be witnesses to Jesus in the world. And then he adds something that's very significant. He says, "And I am going to send you what my Father has promised, but stay in the city" — that is, the city of Jerusalem — "until you have been clothed with power from on high."

I mean, you've got to be kidding — here are these guys who have seen Jesus, and they're fired up, and Jesus says, "Wait. Stay. Don't go — don't go until I've given you the Holy Spirit, sent you the Holy Spirit." What's the role of the Holy Spirit — to clothe you with power from on high? Now, notice here the picture of clothing. Okay, why do I wear clothes? Well, there are a number of reasons. One is to keep warm, but the main reason is to cover up my embarrassing body. I mean, if I was parading before you with my genitalia hanging out, it would be embarrassing to you, but even more embarrassing to me. Clothes cover our nakedness, and that's happened since the fall. We are not just embarrassed at our physical nakedness, but we're embarrassed at our weakness, our failure, our sin, our guilt. We are embarrassed at ourselves, because we are not the people we could be, or should be.

Now, the picture here is that Jesus clothes his disciples — notice the picture — with power. So not earthly power, not human power, but heavenly power, the power from on high. And the word that's used here for "power" is an interesting Greek word — there's a whole number of Greek words that cover this kind of idea, but the word used here is dynamis, from which we get "dynamite," but don't go down that road — dynamis is the ability to do something. It's always practical ability — it's the ability, the capacity to do something. Okay? Now, what Jesus gives to his disciples is the capacity, the power, to do God the Father's work together with him here on earth.

Now, can I say that again? Because this is very important: God the Father empowers, energizes, his disciples, so that they can work with him — not apart from him — in doing God the Father's work here on earth. And what are they called to do? Well, the apostles are called to preach — to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all the nations of the world.

Now, this power that comes to us from the Holy Spirit is not something we possess. It's not like the battery in my watch, which is charged, and once it's charged, then it possesses the electricity until it runs dry. We don't possess the power of the Spirit — we don't possess heavenly power, but we're clothed with it, it's put on us, we receive it from Jesus. And it's the power of the Holy Spirit that makes up for and supplies everything that we lack. Which means something strange — which people are most open, from a human point of view, to being empowered by the Spirit? Is it the spiritual high-flyers, the charismatic superstars? No — it is those who are weak, those who are deficient. Remember what Paul says: "When I am weak, then I am strong." His power is made perfect — that's the power of the Holy Spirit — made perfect in human weakness.

So, we, then — Jesus — we then are empowered by the same Spirit that empowered Jesus in his earthly ministry. Remember what happened when Jesus was baptized? He was clothed with power from on high, and then, only from that time onward, he began to do his work — preaching, healing, helping people — by the power of the Holy Spirit. And it was that power that enabled him to endure and suffer death on the cross, and it was that power, the power of the Spirit, that raised him from the dead and made him to sit enthroned at God's right hand in the heavenly places. So the same power that God the Father gave to Jesus in his baptism, he gives to us in our baptism, to work together with Jesus in doing the Father's work here on earth.

Well, what's the role of the Holy Spirit in all this — let's see, how's time going — how does the Holy Spirit work to help us overcome our right embarrassment? It's right — it's right that I'm embarrassed about the fact that I cannot generate life, that I cannot generate spiritual power, that I cannot generate the energy that I need as a pastor out of myself. It's right that I lack those things, because I need to be clothed with them, I need to receive them. And just as I put my clothes on every morning, so I need to be clothed with the Holy Spirit every morning, in order to do the work that God has called me to do — and that's not just my work as a pastor, but it's the work of being a Christian mother or father, or whatever station or vocation God has called you to.

Well, what's the role of the Spirit in overcoming our spiritual embarrassment, our embarrassing weakness? Well, the Holy Spirit, Jesus says in his farewell speech, is the Paraclete — the Comforter. Now, it's a very rich word, because it has a whole number of nuances to it. "Paraclete" can be "Comforter." Now, "comforter" doesn't mean so much a consoler — the word "comforter" comes from Latin, fortis, which means "strong" — it's the one who makes you strong, the strengthener, who strengthens your faith, who strengthens your hope, who strengthens you to do the work of God. So he is the Comforter, the Strengthener. He is the Encourager. He is the Helper — that's the way it's usually translated, but can you see that's a bit thin? So, paraklētos — para means "next to," "beside"; klētos means "being called." So he's the one whom God the Father has called to stand alongside of me, and to cover for me. So he's the one who comes to me in my weakness, my helplessness, and he stands with me there, he stands beside me there.

Secondly, the term "paraclete" was the term for an advocate in a court of law — a person who sticks up for you, who defends you when others accuse you. So when Satan accuses you, gets stuck into you, the Holy Spirit is your advocate — he speaks up for you before God the Father. Jesus is your advocate beside you; the Holy Spirit advocates for you inside you.

Thirdly, he's the one who helps us to get what we need from God the Father by pointing us away from ourselves, to Jesus. You see, I have nothing in myself — I have nothing in myself spiritually, I lack everything spiritually. Everything that I need, I need to receive from God the Father, through Jesus, and Jesus is the one who supplies me with everything that I need to believe and to live a life of faith.

I've tried to think about what are some comparisons — you know, what is the Spirit like? He's a bit like a good life coach, or a spiritual trainer. Now, a lot of people know that exercise is good for you, but you all know that if you try to undergo an exercise program, it's pretty hard to sustain it over a period of time — you need a lot of willpower, a lot of strength to do so. It's much easier if you have a regular appointment with a coach, a lifestyle trainer, who keeps you on your toes, who models stuff for you, and will grade the exercises so that you build yourself up gradually, in a way that is sustainable, and you're answerable to that person. That person assists you to become fit and healthy. The Holy Spirit's a little bit like that — it's much more than that, but he comes, joins us, helps us to do what we can't do for ourselves.

I'm going to skip the next section, because I want to have some time for questions and reactions, but I want to go down to section C. The deepest cause of my spiritual embarrassment is that I'm embarrassed about myself, and my own status, my own identity, as a sinner. Well, what does the Holy Spirit do? He comes to me, and he comes inside me, and he assures me of my baptismal identity. When I look at myself in the mirror, I see the old John Kleinig — and it gets older and older, every day and every year, and gets weaker and more decrepit, week by week, month by month, year by year. What I don't see is who I am in Jesus. I don't see that I am a royal son of God.

Okay, what does the Spirit do? He gives us the gift of assurance about who we are. Listen to what Paul says: "All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." Now, there's a lot of talk, particularly here in North America, about being led by the Spirit — usually it is people saying, "Okay, the Spirit told me to tell you this," or "the Spirit told me to study medicine," or "to cut off my friendship with my girlfriend" — this kind of internal prophecy, guidance by the Spirit, being led by the Spirit. Now, look at what Paul says about being led by the Spirit. He says, "Everyone — all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." Now, how are they led by the Spirit of God? He adds, "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery, to fall back into fear." A slave — which means towing the line, needing to have directions, no freedom — you need to be told what to do, every step of the way. "You did not receive the spirit of slavery, to fall back into fear" — in case you didn't do the right thing — "but you have received the spirit of adoption," or sonship. "As sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba,'" which means "Father." "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs — heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ."

So what is the mark that you have been filled by the Spirit? What does the Spirit lead you to do? The Spirit leads you to pray. And not just any kind of prayer, but what kind of prayer? Praying to God the Father, as if you were who? Jesus. Just think of that. What does the Holy Spirit do? The Holy Spirit leads you, guides you, directs you to pray. And so the answer to our spiritual embarrassment is prayer — whatever I lack, I can seek and acquire and get from my Father in prayer. Can I say it again? The Spirit leads us to pray to God the Father, as if we were Jesus — feel like standing in the shoes of Jesus. And "as if we were Jesus" means that we are not only sons, but we are heirs of God the Father. Just think — everything that God the Father has, he wants to give to who? To the church, to each one of you.

This is funny, because — let's say I'm a farmer, and I have four sons, and I have a thousand acres of land, for my sons to inherit my land, I've got to chop it up, and each son gets a quarter of the estate. But here, you get sons who each one receives the full estate. We all inherit everything that belongs to God the Father — everything that belongs to God the Son is promised to us, and we receive that from God the Father as if we were Jesus, and we do so in prayer. So the work of the Spirit is to lead us to address God the Father as if we were standing in the shoes of Jesus.

Now, I can't emphasize this enough. I've been ministering to quite a number of people who've been badly sexually abused, or abused in many different ways, and the result of abuse is shame, and a loss of a sense of worth, a loss of face. And they feel ashamed and embarrassed about themselves, not just before other people, but before God. What I remind people who have been abused, again and again, is that they have been baptized, and because they've been baptized, they have put on the Lord Jesus Christ. They've dressed up as if they were Jesus — or better than that, they've dressed up as Jesus, they impersonate Jesus — so that when they come before God the Father, he doesn't see them, their inadequacies, their shame, their guilt, but what does he see? The beauty, the holiness, the righteousness of Jesus. All he sees is Jesus. Which means, then, he receives their prayers as if they came from the mouth of Jesus, and he responds to their prayers as if it comes from the mouth of Jesus. In fact, it does come from the mouth of Jesus. And that's the proof — the proof positive of your status as a child of God — that's the proof that you have the Holy Spirit.

Can I put it that way? What's the proof that you have the Holy Spirit? It means you have the Holy Spirit because you pray to who? Not just to God up there in heaven, but you pray to God the Father, in the name of Jesus, together with Jesus. You pray to the Father, you come to the Father. And in this way, the Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you are what — children of God, sons of God, that you share in the sonship of Jesus. And if sons, that means that you work together with God the Father — everything that belongs to God the Father belongs to you. It means there's no reason for you to be embarrassed before God, there's no reason for you to be embarrassed with yourself, there's no reason for you to be embarrassed with other people. It means also that you don't lack anything — but, on the other hand, you possess nothing, and yet you possess everything. You are weak, and yet you're strong. You're a sinner, and yet you are a son, a daughter, of God the heavenly King. And that means that there's no reason for fear — the fear of being embarrassed, the fear of being called out, the fear of failure, the fear of inadequacy. Fear disappears. Fear leads to rigidity, legalism — "I need to be told what to do, I'm so scared I'll do the wrong thing that I'm looking for a hotline from God to tell me whether to brush my teeth or not." I don't know if you know those kinds of people, who look to God for that kind of relationship — the hotline which tells them what to do, and they won't do anything unless they feel that God directs them every step along the way. Well, we have the spirit of sonship, which is the spirit of freedom. The Father doesn't tell us everything we do — we act as sons in freedom in the presence of our heavenly Father.

If you want to embarrass Lutherans and Christians, just ask them about their prayer life — that's even more embarrassing than asking people about their sex life, their prayer life. Because here we confront the strangest paradox of our human condition. On the one hand, all of you know that you should be people of prayer, and all of you want to be people of prayer. But you also know something else — that the more you try to pray, the harder it gets. And if there's one area in your life that is characterized by the embarrassment of failure, it is prayer. You fail in prayer more than you fail in preaching, in leading your congregation, in being a good father, a good mother, a good husband, a good wife. Our most obvious failure, from a human point of view, is our failure to pray as we ought — even to pray for ourselves, let alone pray for others, let alone pray for the world and people in need. We know the importance of prayer, we know that we should pray, and yet we don't seem to be able to do it.

Well, it's at this point that the work of the Holy Spirit as our Comforter is most obvious, because the Spirit steps in and takes over. Just listen to what Paul says: the Spirit helps us — how? Not in our strength, but in our weakness. "For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." We have a double weakness — there's not only our spiritual deficiencies, our guilt, our shame, all the things that we don't do, as well as all the bad things that we do, but we are not able to pray as we ought. Notice that — as we must, we know we should pray, and yet we don't. It's not because we don't want to, but because we somehow can't do it. And it's at that point that the Holy Spirit steps in — Jesus prays for us, and the Holy Spirit takes over and intercedes within us. Paul says, "with groans too deep for words" — the Holy Spirit takes our sighs, our groans, and turns them into prayers. He's the one who prays within us.

And it's not just with groans — this is taking just one particular example of it, I could speak for hours on this, and you need to reflect on this — but I know one point where this came home to me in a dramatic fashion. It was the first year that I'd graduated from seminary, and I was thrown off the deep end of the cliff. I had not been prepared — I was expecting either to go to the mission field or to a parish, but I was sent, at the last minute, to be chaplain at a church school, at a high school where there had been trouble with the previous chaplain. I really didn't want to go, and it was just an act of obedience that I went — I had no choice, I went there. And I was overworked — from a human point of view, I was exploited. I had the second-highest teaching load of any person on the faculty and staff. My teaching program was arranged so that the only spare times I had, I was free to be a chaplain to a university and to students nearby. Once a week I would supervise the boarders for study. I'd take sport two nights, sports practice two nights after school. And I had a very heavy role in chapel, leading worship, preaching maybe two times a week in chapel, and then, in the roster, every second Sunday I'd preach.

And I still remember one occasion when a crisis hit, and I'd barely gotten any sleep — my whole evening was lost dealing with this crisis. I got to bed very, very late, and the alarm woke me up, and I dragged myself, faint, into the shower, and I had to hold myself on a handle we had there — I hadn't prepared for anything the next day, and I had a full day's program, utterly unprepared for what I was going to do. And I was just breathing deeply to stop the panic — you know, when you get panic, it shortens your breath — so I was deep-breathing to stop the panic, and holding on to stop from collapsing, and then, all of a sudden, out from nowhere, it was: "Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy." I didn't pray it — something was praying within me. And that gathered and picked me up. And you know what? What I thought would be a disastrous day was brilliant. Why? Because the Spirit came and interceded within me. Helped me in my weakness, so that I received power and strength to do what God called me to do — and it was not from within me, but it came from without me.

The power of the Holy Spirit is manifested, most of all, in our weakness, and it comes to us in and through prayer. It's in prayer, and through prayer, that we are empowered by the Holy Spirit. So that's why Paul prays this prayer in Ephesians chapter 3: "I bow my knees before the Father, that he may grant you to be strengthened with power" — notice that — "for you, may be strengthened with power, through his Spirit, in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength" — notice that, "second," word — "to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." Wow. "That you may be filled with all the fullness of God" — where is the fullness of God? It's in Jesus. And he prays, therefore, that the Holy Spirit, through faith, would empower the Christians, so that they may be filled with all the fullness of God in Christ Jesus.

Let me close, and then I just have a few minutes for questions or remarks. You know that your houses have electrical systems that are potentially very dangerous — they could start a fire, or, if you're not careful, give you an awful shock, or perhaps even electrocute you. So if there's a shorting of the circuit in your house, there used to be a fuse that would burn — do you still remember those fuses that would burn? Now you have circuit breakers. Now, the purpose of a circuit breaker is to make sure that the power, the electrical power, is not misused — that instead of doing good, it does bad, causes great damage, hurt.

Now, I'd like you to put yourself in Christ's shoes. You've trained your disciples for three years, you've died, you've risen again, you're about to ascend into heaven, and you're going to call and send out your disciples to continue your work here on earth — not apart from you, but together with you. You are going to call your disciples to do heavenly work, together with you, here on earth. Now, from a human point of view, that's impossible. Look, I find it very hard to do the earthly things that God's called me to do — just to be a good citizen, a good husband, a good father, a good son, a good grandfather — the earthly work. And God says, "Okay, you've been pretty poor at doing this, but let's just up it a bit — now I've called you to do not only your work, but you're supposed to do my work." Now, if we're going to do God's work, we need supernatural power — that's self-evident, isn't it? You can't do God's work with human power, human strength, human ability — we need the power of God.

But there's a problem that Jesus faces. If he gives his Holy Spirit, which is God's supernatural power, the power that created the universe, the power that empowered Jesus in his ministry — if he gives his disciples the Holy Spirit, that power, there's an enormous potential for them to abuse it. What if they use that power to do evil — black magic, sorcery? And that's always a temptation — there's a potential to abuse the power. So Christ's dilemma is: how can he share his power to do God's work in such a way that it can only be used properly, and if it is seized by those who shouldn't take hold of it, that power won't be used for evil purposes, but can be used only for good purposes, and that power will be used to actually turn them from God's enemies into God's friends?

What's the answer to that? Jesus makes his power available to his disciples in and through faith, in and through prayer. Which means that if somebody prays for the Holy Spirit who's not a believer, what will the Holy Spirit do? Turn them from being unbelievers into believers.

Thank you.