I wonder what it was like for you, singing the song we sang earlier?

“I’ve got the Spirit…without doubt.”

Sing and shout, turn about…words all rhyme…Spirit in your feet, with the beat…

With some of those examples, it might be you STARTED the song without any doubt about the Spirit, but ENDED full of all kinds of doubt! “No rhythm here!”

We’ve been looking at kids’ questions about God this summer, and today’s is a classic: “I don’t feel the Holy Spirit…am I saved?”

In some ways, this is two questions for the price of one. The first question is, what does it mean to feel the Spirit? Is it supernatural rhyming, dancing, singing? Is it hearing voices? Is it speaking in tongues? Is it feeling peaceful? Seeing miraculous things happen? What does it mean to feel the Holy Spirit, and what does it mean if I don’t?

The other part of the question is that word “saved”. What does it mean to be saved? How can I know for sure I am?

I’m taking the simple approach today.

I can’t pretend to have all the possible answers to the many ways your thoughts might go in regard to this question. I’m stuck going the places my mind goes.

So if I don’t get anywhere near where your itch needs to be scratched, drop me a line and we can talk more over coffee. Or maybe better yet, find somebody else and talk through it for yet another perspective. But I would encourage you to do what I want to do today, to find places in the Bible that speak to the questions that come to your mind.

Jo Lewis read for us earlier from Titus chapter 3. It’s one of the places in the Bible that does just what this question does: it connects the Holy Spirit with our salvation.

And just in case you want the bottom line right up front, I’ll give it to you.

Salvation isn’t focused on us. It isn’t based on how we feel or what we do. It is God’s gift to us. The Holy Spirit is a part of the gift of salvation, and God is a generous giver, not a miser. The gift of salvation is sure, because it is based on Christ’s death and resurrection…and that foundation never changes.

I’m guessing most of us have been exposed in some way to quite a wide variety of ideas about what the Holy Spirit does, and what the Spirit feels like.

We’ve seen healings on tv, perhaps heard people make prophetic statements about the future, maybe been told you aren’t saved unless you speak in tongues.

We talk about being led by the Spirit, changed by the Spirit, comforted, convicted, taught, and overwhelmed by the Spirit.

Some are slain in the Spirit, laugh in the Spirit, moved to tears by the Spirit.

What if none of that seems to happen to you?

I’ll be honest about the hardest thing for me today.

I feel like there’s a sort of tightrope that I have to walk. This is an honest question that many people have. Why don’t I feel God, why don’t I feel the Holy Spirit like other people say they do? I want to do everything in my power not to add to a sense of anxiety, to a fear that “something is wrong with me” by what I say today.

At the same time, I really do believe that God is alive and active today through his Spirit, and didn’t lock himself in the pages of the Bible and history. I don’t want to make people feel like they are missing out on something, but I also don’t want to lower the expectations of what God can do.

So let me try some general statements.

Number 1, the Holy Spirit can act in our lives without our feeling or noticing it.

In other words, sometimes when we don’t feel the Holy Spirit, it’s because we’re looking for something spectacular, and we miss the mundane ways God is active in our lives. We may look for writing on a wall, like the Persian king in the book of Daniel, and miss the way God speaks through our best friend.

We may be concerned with an answer about our career, wondering why God isn’t doing something about it, and miss how God wants to change our relationship with a family member.

Not “feeling” the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit isn’t at work. As Elizabeth (Lisby) Rogers said, in our human relationships, we could ask “I don’t feel loved…am I loved? Naturally, you say yes…so what does it mean for this question?”

Number 2, there isn’t a particular way the Holy Spirit must be expressed to “prove” we are saved.

Several places address this in the Bible, but 1 Corinthians 13 is one of the most powerful: “If I speak in human or angelic tongues…If I have the gift of prophecy…if I have faith that can move mountains…if I give all I have to the poor…but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

God’s love for others in us is a far better indicator of his work in us than “special” Holy Spirit activities.

Number 3, God does not reserve the Holy Spirit for a few special people.

The Holy Spirit is, as Paul says in several places, “a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” It’s part of God’s down payment on us, a promise that God is with us now, and will be with us forever.

The Holy Spirit does a work in every person who believes in Jesus Christ: the Spirit cleans us up and gives us new life, a new kind of life now that will move on into eternity.

The passage from Titus that Jo read for us teaches that plainly and clearly, in Titus 3:5 & 6: “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously though Jesus Christ our Savior.”

God isn’t stingy, hoarding the Holy Spirit like some precious treasure! No, God pours the Spirit out generously on all of us.

Which begs a question for many of us, I suppose: If that is true, why don’t we all “feel” the Spirit more?

I’m not completely sure, but I’ve found two responses to be the most helpful.

One, look for the Holy Spirit at work in everyday things. Years ago here at NFC, we did something called the 40 day adventure. Part of that experiment was looking for a “God-sighting” every single day. The material we were using was really good at helping us see how the Holy Spirit is evident in creation, in others’ words, in our thoughts…in so many ways, not just the “big” things we sometimes look for. Look for the Holy Spirit at work in the every day things.

Two, if you’re willing, tell God in prayer you are open to new experiences of the Spirit in your life. This is the other part of the tightrope I mentioned earlier. God’s Holy Spirit really is real, and really is the same powerful Holy Spirit we read about in the book of Acts. In the last five or six years, I’ve asked God to remove the limits I unconsciously place on him. I’ve told him I’m willing for the Spirit to work in me however God wants. And as I’ve prayed that, new experiences HAVE caused me to feel the Holy Spirit more. Not because I’m special, not because God finally decided to act in my life…but because God helped me to see new facets of himself.

Time to tackle the second part of the question, the “Am I saved?” part.

And rather than talk about all the possible different definitions of “saved”, I want to take us back to Titus 3. [READ 3:3-5a]

Salvation here is not just salvation from a future hell, a future punishment. This is the recognition that in this life, in the here and now, we are people who “were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.” Malice, envy, and hatred were a part of our relationships, and we needed something to get us out, to rescue us from that kind of living.

Who is God in this? A God of kindness and love. What does God do? He appears to save us! He saves us now from a harmful way of life, and that gives us hope of eternal life as well.

There are some major dividing lines in the different denominations of God’s church.

As Friends, we fall on a side that goes by many names: Wesleyan, holiness, Armenian. The holiness emphasis does a beautiful thing: it calls us to live a different kind of life now, because of God’s activity within us.

One of the dangerous side effects is that we sometimes think if we don’t get it right; if we don’t live differently, if we don’t feel the Holy Spirit in us…we might be in trouble.

When we’re experiencing that side effect, we need a good dose of the Calvinist/Reformed antidote. Salvation ain’t you at all, sister, it’s all Jesus. It’s all God’s work. There is nothing we can do to bring our salvation, and there is nothing we can do to mess it up.

Titus 3 is one of those places that has both sides of this coin. We’re saved now, to a different way of living now, that sets aside foolishness and being enslaved by passions and hatred and malice. But it’s not our doing, our lists, our legalism, our will power. No, verse 5: “He saved us…not because of righteous things WE had done, but because of HIS mercy.”

It’s all God!

It’s not us, our actions, our feelings one way or another. It’s God’s choice to provide salvation for us through Jesus Christ. It’s all God!

Our faith, our belief, our relationship with God is based on something much more sound than our feelings. It is based on God’s action in Christ. You and I can’t mess that up!

Now, we can’t take this too far, and make faith just a belief.

Isn’t it amazing how we can get ourselves off base in so many ways? Too far one way, and we base everything on feelings, and ride that roller coaster up and down. Too far the other way, and we don’t allow God to actually work in our lives, but just make him be something we believe in. Faith can’t be all in our heart and emotions, and it can’t be all in our heads.

I’m joining with Paul in Titus 3 to speak the truth about God. We do have things in our lives from which we need saving. God’s kindness and love led him to act in Jesus Christ, and he saved us because of his mercy and love.

God generously pours out the Holy Spirit on all who believe; it’s not just rationed out to the chosen few. Whether we feel it or not, God is at work in us, changing us, and giving us the hope of eternal life.

“This is a trustworthy saying.” This is the heart of the good news of the gospel. So you and I, as it says in verse 8, “may be careful to devote [ourselves] to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.”