Isaiah 11:1-9; Ephesians 4:1-7; 1 Corinthians 12:1-13
We are in our tenth of twelve weeks of looking at the Six Streams of Living Water, the various traditions of Christian spirituality that have periodically renewed the church through the ages. We have looked at the Contemplative, the Evangelical, the Holiness, and the Social Justice traditions; we are in the midst of looking at the Charismatic tradition, and, in the next two weeks, we will look at the Incarnational tradition. If you have missed some of the sermons, or have let your mind wander or doze, as happens to all of us at times, all the sermons appear on this blog, just keep scrolling and clicking your way back until you can review all of them. One of the most important concepts to keep in mind is that the negative stereotypes associated with some of these traditions came about after they were split off from and isolated from other parts of the body of Christ that could have helped keep them in productive balance. Many of these splits took place in the mid-19th through the early 20th centuries, and those splits have weakened the church ever since. We need to recover the wholeness of the church and the wholeness of Christian spirituality.
Last week, in examining the Charismatic tradition we looked at a wide array of essential works that the Holy Spirit does in and for the church. Today our focus is narrower, on a part of the work of the Holy Spirit that is often overlooked, his giving wisdom to his church to find the path of unity in fellowship and vitality in mission.
A. In Isaiah 11, the prophet gives six characteristics of the Spirit-Filled Royal Son, the Messiah King: supernatural wisdom, understanding, and counsel are practically synonyms; and backed by supernatural might, knowledge, and the fear (or reverent awe) of the Lord, they provide the foundations for the peaceable kingdom. It is hard to avoid seeing that God’s wisdom imparted to his Royal Son is the core of the matter. The good news is that this same wisdom is available to us as we believe in Jesus and claim the promised Holy Spirit, so that we may view matters with the mind of God. Some people always act based on their heart. Some people always act based on their head. Some people always act based on tradition. Some people always act in rebellion against tradition. Some people always act based on their woundedness, trying to find comfort or consolation for what hurts. Some people always act on the basis of fear or anger or greed or ambition. None of those bases for action lead consistently to good results. Some of them lead pretty consistently to bad results. For our long run good, for the good of people around us, for the good of the fellowship and mission of Christ’s church, we need to get beyond our human habits, beyond what Paul calls setting our minds on the flesh, and, instead, we need to act on the basis of God’s wisdom, what Paul calls setting our mind on the Spirit. We need to take time to hear from God who always offers us the best approach for the long run. God doesn’t promise that his way will always be painless; there are costs to the fact that we live in a sinful world, and sometimes the sin comes against us not only from outside, but also from inside, and complicates our best efforts to hear and follow God’s wisdom. Sometimes, perhaps usually, because of the human complications, sacrifice is required. Nevertheless, God’s way will always be good, God’s way will always make us better, and God’s way will always give those around us opportunities to get better too. God’s wisdom is not worldly wisdom about how to get ahead and win, but God’s wisdom is always focused on opening up opportunities for redeeming and healing all that is broken. I am not saying that God’s wisdom leaves us as pushovers for every manipulative sad story that a human weasel or a human leech can dream up. Not at all. God’s wisdom can be tough and demanding. God’s wisdom can and does set boundaries. But God’s wisdom aims at offering real new beginnings for all who are truly open to them. Among all who share the focus of God’s wisdom, there is an opportunity for the work of peacemaking to be effective. Where God’s righteous faithful, redeeming, and reconciling wisdom is not the focus, unity is harder to come by. If our energies are organized around the wrong causes, God may not even desire unity for us until we get our priorities straightened out. There is no use in uniting around human folly. So, Isaiah’s point is that real peace is based on divine wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit.
B. In his Letter to the Ephesians Paul shows two more ways that the Spirit brings peace: (1) giving us spiritual fruit and (2) anchoring us in gospel truth. Let’s look at those in turn:
(1) Giving us spiritual fruit. Paul specifically mentions humility, gentleness, patience and loving forbearance. When qualities such as these are increasing in our lives, it is a sign that the Spirit of God is at work within us. Sinful human beings are not naturally like that. Elsewhere Paul lists some examples of the fruit of the Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He contrasts these to the works of the flesh, that is, the products of sinful human thinking. The works of the sinful human thinking include moral faults, spiritual faults, relational faults, and other behaviors that are harmful to ourselves and to others. The Holy Spirit leads us away from destructive behavior and into constructive behavior.
(2) Anchoring us in gospel truth: one God, one Lord, one Spirit, one faith, one hope, one baptism, one body (the church). A church cannot be united unless it knows what holds it together. If we think that it is our church culture and traditions that hold us together, how we do things, then we will always be fighting for control with people who have different ideas of how we do things or of how we ought to do things, but if what holds us together is a living faith in one God, one Lord, one Spirit, one faith, one baptism, one church, and might we add, one mission of representing the redeeming and reconciling love of Jesus Christ offering hope for new beginnings to the people of the world, then there is a chance that we might get our minds on things that count, things that actually make a difference in the world and in the lives of people around us, things that make a difference for Jesus and his mission, and we might not care so much about who wins the preference contests. In fact, the preference contests might just disappear because we will be too busy trying to make positive differences in the lives of people to focus on trivia that has very little to do with Jesus.
So, while Isaiah speaks of divine wisdom, Paul speaks of spiritual fruit and solid faith, all from the Holy Spirit.
C. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul gives us two tests for discerning whether the spirits that offer to move us are from the Holy Spirit: (1) Is it consistent with the fact the Jesus the crucified is reigning Lord? (2) Does it help build up the church with love and mutuality in both fellowship and mission? Let’s read:
1 Corinthians 12:1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
Paul begins by saying that we do not have to be Christians to have strong spiritual experiences. Non-Christians have what they take to be ecstatic experiences, revelatory experiences, miraculous experiences, and so forth. Spiritual experiences prove nothing. Paul believes that there are deceptive spirits at work in the world capable of encouraging much counterfeit spirituality, of pulling the wool over the eyes of the naive. Paul implies that going through the motions of joining a Christian church does not free us from being influenced by demonic forces in the world. Even church members need methods of discerning the difference between the work of the Holy Spirit and the work of the Deceiver.
Method One: Paul asserts that a person who truly believes and professes that Jesus the crucified is Lord of the universe is, at least that far, led by the Holy Spirit. No one can truly believe and profess that Jesus the crucified is the Lord of the universe unless the Holy Spirit helps him or her come to that conclusion. The best evidence that the Christian faith is true is that nothing about its central foundational events—the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ--appeals to a merely human mind-frame. If God through the Holy Spirit did not help us believe that, we simply would not, could not, believe it. Of course, we could just accept it because some trusted authority figure told us that it was true--a parent, a grandparent, a brother or sister, a teacher, a preacher, a friend, a celebrity—but that is not really believing it ourselves. Until we have faced with full force the questions raised by the dead, mutilated body of Jesus being taken down from the cross and have come to the foundational mind-blowing conviction that God reigns even over suffering, shame, and death, we are not yet Christian because we have not yet believed with our hearts that Jesus died for our sins and that God raised him from the dead. We are not yet Christian without that faith, because we have not yet seen that Jesus has defeated every evil power and principality that could otherwise influence us. We are not yet Christian without that faith because, until we believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, we are driven by our own worldly convictions about what power is, our worldly desires, our worldly fears, our worldly securities, but, if Jesus has overcome the world and we know it, then we are free to be children of God living for the praise of his glory. Paul tells us that only the Holy Spirit can help us make that transition, to begin the process of setting us free from worldly thinking. And since the Holy Spirit is the only one who can convince is that a crucified man is the most powerful figure in the universe, and who can enable us to live in that conviction, becoming people of self-giving love in a way that only a person who believes in resurrection power can, then if we hold and live that faith, it is evidence that the Holy Spirit is indeed at work in us.
Method Two: Paul asserts that a person who truly has the Holy Spirit will show humble love within the fellowship of faith, will respect and participate in the mutuality of spiritual giftings that characterize the body of Christ, and will seek to build up the church in love. The Holy Spirit is not about ambition, self-importance, status games. The Holy Spirit is not about winning every contest. The Holy Spirit is about strengthening the church, its mission, its fellowship. Just one chapter over from today’s sermon text, right in the middle of three chapters about spiritual gifts and spiritual discernment, that Paul says, 13:4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. Please be clear. Paul is not a romantic or a sentimentalist. The love he is talking about is the steadfast covenant love of God, a love that is committed, a love that gives of itself for the well-being of present and potential children of God. That foundational commitment to self-giving love in action marks the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives. When that kind of love genuinely exists, the Holy Spirit is present, because that kind of love is not a natural product of unredeemed humanity.
So hen we are talking about the charismatic tradition, these are the things we most want to see: 1. God’s own wisdom that results in peace and unity, 2. solid, foundational faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, 3. spiritual fruit, especially self-giving, upbuilding love for Christ’s church and its mission of redeeming outreach to the world, 4. Christians being guided and empowered for redeeming missions that bring new hope for children of God and for would-be children of God. Those things cannot be without the Holy Spirit. Where those things are happening, the charismatic tradition is accomplishing its reason for being. May it be so among us!
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