General Assembly is meeting in Louisville this Trinity Sunday. And as those elders and ministers pray, worship, gather and debate the crucial issues for this denomination each and everyone of them is seeking the Holy Spirit to present to the church God’s will. I want you to understand that the greatest issue facing our denomination is not the place of gay and lesbian believers within the Body of Christ. The issue is quite simply one of authority. Who is the authority when it comes to faith? What authority is greater than any and all others? And how does one interpret and understand that source of authority?
This ongoing struggle is taking place throughout all our society. Supposedly a Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times.” Well by that standard we should find it easy to feel cursed today in our times. Let me share with you some of the “interesting” things going on in our world. Surveys of Americans who identify themselves as “born again” believe in reincarnation. The percentage of people who think pre-marital sex is okay doesn’t vary from the non-church to the churched population. India is asserting Hinduism and demanding that Christians convert back. Afghanistan has demanded that non Muslims where distinct marks that mark them as non-Islam. Religious warfare has risen to the forefront in Indonesia, Fiji and elsewhere.
The response to such “interesting times” has been to be rather uncritical of most of it. We don’t want to seem judgmental toward others so we say, “well if that makes them happy” or “it doesn’t matter what you believe as you’re sincere” or other such nonsense. We find the label “spiritual” to be so all inclusive that we assume anything that has “spiritual” at it’s center can’t be bad or at least all bad. From this unwillingness to take a stand it becomes quite easy to fall into a sloppy theology where God is just a big, old, nice, doddering grandfather who pats all the grand kids on the head as they walk into heaven.
The other response has been to become vindictively combative when it comes to spiritual issues. Being so fearful and anxious over the open acceptance of such non-Christian viewpoints have caused some to define what is “of the Holy Spirit”. Boycotts, electing certain leaders, getting prayer back in public schools, and using the “right” Bible has been seen as being the “cure all” for these “interesting times”.
I don’t promise a simple answer to the issues we face either as a denomination or a culture but I hope that we can start to lay a foundation on which to build toward a place of understanding what it is we face. The Holy Spirit is the chosen vessel of the Godhead by which the Word of God is understood and through whom the Church lives out God’s ministry of reconciliation.
When Jesus speaks these verses it’s part of the last conversation he’s going to have on earth with his disciples before he’s executed. He is concerned about their ability to face his death. He’s worried about their ability to “put it all together” and so he reminds them earlier how this “comforter” would bring to mind everything Jesus had said to them. Building on that Jesus tells them that the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth.
John Calvin said, “The Holy Spirit brings no new doctrine, but teaches that which was uttered by Christ’s own mouth, and imprints it in our minds.” Our interesting times would like us to believe that truth is relative. This isn’t really that new. Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” before he had him killed. Relativistic truth means we don’t want what we think, do and believe messed with by God. We want to hold on to our bigotry, hatreds, sins and the like and claim they are part of God’s truth for us.
Jesus reminds us that the Spirit is truth and leads us into all truth. John seems aware of the danger when he seeks to close the circle: ‘he shall glorify me, because he shall take what is mine and declare it to you.’ John does not envisage a personality change between the earthly Jesus of his gospel and the risen Christ. There is an absolute consistency and therefore a sense of control.
Notice that the circle is only really complete when Jesus points to his oneness with the Father in 16:15. Just as the Spirit is not independent of the Son, but speaks of what he has heard from him, so the Son is not independent of the Father, but speaks what he has heard from the Father. It is a trinity of consistency. It is also a trinity of control; so that we can use it as a criterion for measuring whether what is claimed about the Spirit is true. To be truth, it must be consistent with the Son and with the Father. While there is a hierarchy here, with the God the Father supreme, it is in the Son, according to John, that we receive the vital information. The Son has made the Father known (1:18). In Jesus we hear and see God (14:8-9).
When it comes to us seeking the truth we discover that the Spirit participates in the task of communicating the revelation to the Church by virtue of His relationship to Jesus, just as Jesus communicated it by virtue of His relationship to the Father. This is very important for us as individuals and as the Church when we seek the truth.
First, we know that the truth lies in Christ. There are some who want to take this to extremes and have Jesus do and accept things we never see in Scripture. But the way we know Christ is by our experience with Him validated by His Word. Remember that. It is the written Word of God that is gives proof to what we believe we experience. If someone says they found Jesus told them that real worship takes place only while eating New York style cheesecake alone in your house we shouldn’t be caught saying, “well if it works for you.” We should be quick to point out that no matter how they experienced Jesus His Word says those who worship him do so in Spirit and it truth and as a Body of Christ gathered together. Yeah it’s stupid but so are many things passed off as “truth”.
The Bible is the document that we constantly come back to as we are led into all truth. Here’s something some of you may not like hearing me say but the reason for so much untruth being passed along is because of the fact that most of us don’t take time to read God’s word. I receive e-mails warning me of virus on my computer. In a couple of easy clicks of the mouse I can check out whether or not these are hoaxes or not. Yet the person who sent that could have just as easily checked it out and not forwarded it to a dozen or more folks. The same force is at work. We’re too lazy. Harsh? I don’t think so if we’re honest with ourselves. I spent a couple of hours reading a novel last week. Couldn’t I have spent an hour reading God’s word? What about you?
Secondly, the Spirit glorifies Jesus not itself. One of the signs of maturity taking place among those denominations and congregations who are Pentecostal is a growing realization that the Spirit doesn’t call attention to Himself but to Christ. Christ is the focal point of our life. Our worship of God is Christ centered and empowered by the Holy Spirit set free in our lives.
As General Assembly meets I challenge you to do a couple of things. Number one pray for the commissioners that they would be convicted of the truth. Ask the Holy Spirit to draw everyone there into the ‘Word of God’ not into some warm and fuzzy feeling time. Number two, is for us to evaluate our own lives and to look at the beliefs and thinking that assume are true without any reasonable belief. Make the time to read God’s Word and ask Christ to open your eyes to see His truth.
I don’t believe that in either embracing everything that is “spiritual” or in drawing around us an iron curtain is the way Jesus would have His Body face the interesting times we face. I think it’s only as we engage our world where it is, lost in it’s sin, with the truth of who Christ is, the very Son of God, can we hope to be instruments of our God.
