The Holy Spirit and the task of the church. The two march together hand in hand. We can’t talk about them apart. Despite what you might think from some excited talk in the last generation about new spiritual experiences, God doesn’t give people the Holy Spirit in order to let them enjoy the spiritual equivalent of a day at Alton Towers (like Disneyland). Of course, if you’re downcast and gloomy, the fresh wind of God’s Spirit can and often does give you a new perspective on everything and, above all, a sense of God’s presence, love, comfort and even joy. But the point of the Spirit is to enable those who follow Jesus to take into all the world the news that he is Lord, that he has won the victory over the forces of evil, that a new world has opened up and that we are to help make it happen.
Equally, the task of the church cannot be attempted without the Spirit. I have sometimes heard Christian people talk as though, having done what he’s done in Jesus, God now wants us to do our part by getting on with things under our own steam. But that is a tragic misunderstanding, and leads either to arrogance or to burnout, or both. Without God’s Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God’s kingdom. Without God’s Spirit, the church simply can’t be the church. – N.T. Wright