His spirit fills us. Beloved, how beautiful, those words! We feel so full of so many things. Sometimes, it’s fear. Sometimes, it’s anger, resentment. Sometimes it’s love, yes, that’s true, too. And sometimes we just feel confused, full of confusion. Then there are times when we feel so empty, lonely, sorrowful. Then, suddenly, miraculously, there’s God, and we are filled. His Spirit fills us, and we are saturated with grace, drenched with mercy, feasted with love. The power of God, sisters and brothers—the power of God to change what seemed unchangeable: our loneliness to sacred friendship, our sorrow to joy, our despair to hope, our doubt to faith.

Paul’s encouragement of Timothy is encouragement for all whom God has called to serve. In Christ, every one of you has been called to serve. We don’t serve in the same ways, we know that. We don’t have to; we can’t. What we must do is grow in the ministry which God has appointed for us, even if it’s “only” the ministry of prayer in the long, quiet hours.

Ministry requires gifts. Paul lists three indispensable gifts for any ministry, any calling, any disciple. He doesn’t mention special knowledge or training, did you notice that? Paul lists three requirements for living as a disciple: power, love, and self-control or self-discipline. We don’t will these in ourselves; they are not ours by nature. These are given to us by God, by the Spirit, who comes to those who have faith in Christ.

I’m not going to spend time developing thoughts about these three gifts or tell you how to use them or tell stories about how others have used them—that’s for you, for you to live and to reflect upon what God gives you in Christ. Beloved, He gives you power. He gives you love: the capacity, the ability to love beyond your limitations and beyond the limitations of others. God gives you, in the Holy Spirit, the gift of self-control—how necessary, how blessed, that gift!

God has also given us the Sacrament of this meal, this bread and juice set before us this morning. Those of you who grew up Presbyterian, or who came to the church fifty years ago or so, may well recall when the Lord’s Supper was celebrated four times a year only. The hope, even the hope of John Calvin, was that the Lord’s Supper would be celebrated weekly, as in the Catholic mass, but weekly celebration seemed too Catholic to many, and with the Reformed emphasis upon preaching the Word, the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, while never belittled, ceased to be the focal point of the typical worship service.

I’m not sure that we’re ready to observe this Sacrament weekly. I’m not sure we need to. This Sacrament is a great blessing, as we know, and a great mystery. As we receive it, in faith and only in and by faith in Jesus Christ, we do receive, we are, in a manner of speaking, infused with the Spirit of power, love, and self-control about whom Paul writes. By faith, by grace, by God, as we receive this bread and this juice, we have every assurance, solemn, sacred assurance, that we taste the power of God, that we are filled with the sweetness of His love, and that we are given the nutriment we need for growing in self-control, that self-discipline apart from which we never will make progress in our discipleship. The bread doesn’t give these gifts to us. The juice doesn’t. Rather, Christ gives us these precious gifts as he gives us himself, spiritually, mystically, truly, in a bite of bread, a taste of juice. Absurd? Faith, beloved. Faith for life.

          We need what Christ gives us. Paul knew (and Timothy would come to know quickly) that to devote ourselves to the Good News, to pledge ourselves to Christ for life, comes with a cost in this world. We can’t imagine being imprisoned for professing Christ, but the true prison has no bars and no walls: the real prison is sin; this fallen world is our jailer.

It’s risky to be a Christian: how easily we forget! There are careers and professions—lucrative careers, respected professions—where you will not advance if it gets out that you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. In the interests of one interpretation of the meaning of the phrase Equal Rights Under Law, the government seems determined to make it increasingly more difficult to live according to the orthodox faith, the faith of the apostles, the faith Paul urges Timothy to hold onto, hold onto for dear life. Government by its very nature is at odds with Christ. This may be perceived in government’s founding assumption that Law will make us free and that more laws will make us more free. Pharisees, anyone? If you believe that Law will make us free, brothers and sisters, I implore you to read this book and reflect carefully and prayerfully upon what you read there. Law does not make us free. Law does not make us good. Law does not save us.

To live for the Gospel is to suffer for the Gospel, and that’s too much, for some. Remember, cherish this—God will give you the strength to endure, to hold fast. This little bread and this little juice are pledges, signs, reminders for us to see, to smell, to touch, to taste, of this mystery of power, love, and self-discipline which God reveals to us, and gives to us, in Christ Jesus—physical signs of spiritual truths for physical people being made alive in the Spirit.

“He saved us and called us to be His own people, not because of what we have done, but because of His own purpose and grace” (1:9). God pulls out from under us the rug of our pride, our self-sufficiency, our supposed innate goodness: don’t you really believe, deep down in your heart, that you are basically a good person? Isn’t that what we’re taught to believe, what society teaches us to believe? Eternal life and joy are the reward for good people, right? God pulls that drapery away and we see ourselves in the mirror of His Word. What a sight! What a fright! What have we done? Why don’t you review, on your own time, or even now, before you take the bread and the juice, before you receive the body and blood, the grace of Christ Jesus? Saved because of what we have done? Called His own because of what we have done?

Blind arrogance, frankly. It’s the Spirit that causes us to be candid with ourselves, and by that candor we recognize both our peril and the hope we have in Christ—who came to us, gave his life for us, and rose for us for God’s own purposes and grace. Beloved of God, it’s not about us. It’s all about God. That reality is set before us not only by this Word that I have read or this Word that I have preached, but supremely by the Sacrament set before us, which comes alive in us only by faith, only by that Spirit whom God alone can give, whom God in His abundant mercy and love, does give.

Paul speaks of “the faith and love that are ours in union with Christ Jesus” (1:13). Jesus is the embodiment of faith and love. In him are Faith and Love, complete, whole, transforming, sealing, keeping forever, beautiful, glorious, in him. How do we get in him? By wanting him to get in us. Here he is. Receive him.

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.