Pastor Rick Allen’s sermon on Sunday, December 2, at the Black Rock - Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut) focused on understanding the Holy Spirit as a helper and supporter in our daily lives.

Existence itself is the Mind of God, God’s Word, eternal truth, towards which we can make our Pilgrim’s Progress with the help of the Holy Spirit.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. (John 1:1-4)

Existence, the Mind of God, Truth, is not a “thing” that can be touched, weighed, or analyzed in the manner of purely worldly things that are the subject matter of chemistry and physics. Focusing exclusively upon the materiality of our physical world is scientific, but it is only a small part of Truth. The laws of physics, chemistry, and quantum mechanics are merely subsets of the Mind of God, whence come those laws of science.

Divine existence is the source of our being, and we are simultaneously part of that existence. Opening the human soul to transcendent illumination is the only way to approach the Truth of our existence. It is the only path to right order of our individual lives and thence to political and social order.

Eternal truth is an experiential phenomenon; the search itself is the real deal.

To begin to understand those assertions necessitates a personal dedication to following Jesus’s commands. And that is a purely spiritual quest that should reform and redirect our personal lives. Emphatically, as Jesus told the pharisees, it is not alone a matter of mechanically following rituals of the Mosaic law and its manifold rabbinic interpretations. Nor is it alone a matter of regular church attendance or Bible reading. We must open our souls to the Word of God.

In the effort to follow Jesus, to seek the Truth, the Holy Spirit is a personal counsellor for each of us.

Jesus tells his disciples in John 14:15-19:

If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.

How do we know if we are on the right path in our spiritual quest?

If we truly seek to follow Jesus, the fruits of the Holy Spirit will become manifest in our lives.

The Apostle Paul tells us:

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. (1 Corinthians 2:4-5)

However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him,” but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:16-18)

But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. (Galatians 4:4-7)

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, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:13-14)

The role of the church, as the body of Christ on earth, is to help us listen to and follow the Holy Spirit. God didn’t leave us alone to face the evils of the world. We are joined by the Spirit into a community.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. (Ephesians 4:4-7)

Listening to the Holy Spirit, following Jesus is not the same for everyone.

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12:4-7)

The quest for Truth, listening to and following the Holy Spirit is difficult, but it leads to the highest pinnacle in earthly existence.

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:15-17)

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:3-7)

Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.

Attorneys with ADF to assist Gouverneur man in criminal case

GOUVERNEUR, N.Y. — Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund have agreed to assist a New York man cited by his town for displaying a gospel message on a trailer on his private business property. Town of Gouverneur officials have not issued citations against other types of speech, such as commercial messages, displayed on private property along area roads.

“Christians should not be treated as second-class citizens,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “The U.S. Supreme Court gives special protection to speech on private property. It has distinctly ruled that the government cannot give commercial speech on private property more rights than non-commercial speech on private property. And it does not allow towns to ban religious speech just because some may consider it ‘offensive,’ as this town’s permit scheme allows. Gouverneur officials were wrong to issue the citation.”

Daniel Burritt placed the religious message on the side of a trailer on his business property on U.S. Route 11. Town officials issued Burritt a criminal citation, saying that a local ordinance requires him to have a permit to display his message; however, the town has not cited local businesses that are displaying commercial messages along local roadsides.

ADF-allied attorney Jim Trainor of Malta has appeared as counsel on behalf of Burritt in the criminal case against him, People of the State of New York v. Burritt. An arraignment is scheduled in the Town Court of Gouverneur Thursday.

ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.www.telladf.org