Open to the Spirit

Opening Prayer

Let’s open with prayer. If you have a prayer concern, just offer it up out loud in this space. It can be a situation, a need, a family member or friend. When I sense we are finished I will close out our prayer.

Lord, grow us to be people open to your Spirit and ready to answer your call. Amen.

Introduction

Intro series: Seven Practices that Shape Us...

This morning I want to talk about the third practice that I believe is foundational to the Christian life, and which I hope our church will be built on. I call it being Open to the Spirit. Trying to explain exactly what it means to be open to the Spirit is a little like trying to tell someone what it feels like to be in love. It’s hard to describe, but when you experience it there’s no doubt. So it is with being open to the Spirit.

Vineyard people are Spirit-people. We see ourselves as having a sacred trust to guard that with the Spirit has deposited into our movement. We are those who are both evangelical AND charismatic, who both love the Scripture AND love the Spirit. We call ourselves people of the presence of God. I shared on social media this week a quote from John Wimber, the father of the Vineyard movement: “We don’t seek God’s power, we seek His presence. His power and everything else we need is always found in His presence.”

What Wimber describes is what I call being open to the Spirit. It’s not a one-time event; it is a posture. It is a habit. It is something that is cultivated over the course of our life. I could go over a dozen different passages this morning about the HS and his work in our life. But I wanted to show you an example. I think I taught this passage several months ago looking at the Ethiopian eunuch and how the Spirit breaks down barriers that keep us from God. This morning I want to focus on Philip, and what being open to the Spirit looked like in his life.

Context

To give some context, Philip is one of the seven men who were selected in Acts 6 to resolve the issue of some of the widows being overlooked in the daily distribution of bread. He is described as a man full of wisdom and the Holy Spirit. He apparently has the gift of evangelism, later being called by Luke “the evangelist”. Most importantly, what I want you to understand is that Philip is a normal person. He’s not an apostle. He’s just a dude who knows Jesus. Yet, bc of this, the HS used him in mighty ways.

The HS wants to use you too. He’s not looking for superstars. He’s looking for people who will be open and responsive to him. So what did it look like for him to be open to the Spirit? How can we use his example to become more open to the Spirit ourselves?

Cultivate attentiveness

People open to the Spirit cultivate attentiveness. They learn, through trial and error and time, when and how the Spirit speaks. We read accounts like this and it seems so concrete how the Spirit spoke to Philip: an angel of the Lord said this, then the HS said that, and it all sounds like there was complete clarity. But was that really the case? Remember, Luke is compiling this account years, decades, after it happened, when those who are relating the stories have the benefit of hindsight. Is it possible that Philip was actually unsure in the moment if he was hearing the Spirit or not?

I think so. I think that, just like for us, the Spirit most often speaks in whispers and gentle nudges - things that we can easily ignore. We might think, why can’t he just speak clearly, but the truth is that if he were to do that he would obliterate your free will. He does not want automatons. And so maybe Philip was like, “I think I’m supposed to go walk down this road today.” And again, looking back, I think Philip could see a pattern emerge because he was being attentive: he went down this road and he just happened to run into an Ethiopian official, who just happened to be reading the Bible, which just happened to be one of the most prophetic passages about the Messiah in Isaiah, which Philip just happened to hear him reading… That’s a lot of happenstance, but people who are open to the Spirit see these chains of happenstance that confirm they are on the right track.

However it happened, what we see first is that people open to the Spirit have learned over time to put up their antennas in such a way that they are receptive to discerning the Spirit’s leading. Their sails are up so that, if the wind blows, they will be able to fill their sails. Learning attentiveness is a crucial first step to being open to the Spirit.

Practice obedience

The next thing, that springs from this, is that People open to the Spirit practice obedience. However Philip heard the leading of the Spirit, in the end, he got up and went. Here is an element of risk. In this case, it wasn’t much risk. If he didn’t hear correctly he was just taking a long walk for nothing. Sometimes there’s more risk involved. We can end up looking foolish. But Philip would rather look foolish, than to miss what the Spirit might be doing.

Tell about not sharing the word to Effie “You will be a great mother.”

I’ll go so far as to say that it is better to err on the side of being too obedient than not obedient enough - within reason of course. It would be better to look silly in the desire to be obedient than to preserve your dignity at the cost of obeying the Lord. I’ll add that I think the Spirit speaks, and speaks more frequently, to those whom he knows will obey. Those who won’t obey will likely find the Spirit speaking less and less. Wimber used to say that faith is spelled R-I-S-K. But I think it is also spelled “obedience”.

Supernatural insight

Then we see that People open to the Spirit receive supernatural insight. We see that, as Philip hears what the Ethiopian is reading, he is able to interpret it for him. Maybe Philip had never made this connection before, but in this moment the HS put it together in his mind so that he could him its meaning. This is one operation of a word of knowledge.

People who are learning to walk in openness to the Spirit often find themselves having insights about a person or situation that would be impossible to know by natural means. I’ve had many occasions of praying for someone where I was led to pray in a way that wasn’t what the person had asked for, and yet by their body language I knew my prayer was addressing a deep need - maybe even one they hadn’t been able to articulate. The Spirit is a spirit of revelation, and as we learn to walk in openness toward him, he delights to reveal that which is hidden. Never in opposition to the Word, but in conjunction with.

Jim getting direction to work with sister...

Witness transformation

People open to the Spirit witness transformation. Because Philip was open to the Spirit, a eunuchs life was changed forever. A person who thought he would forever be an outsider is now made part of the new family God is making. The transformation we see may not always be salvation, but the Spirit wants us to be open to him because he wants to work through us to change lives. This is how it’s done. The Spirit doesn’t have another plan if God’s people decide to remain closed off.

But when we take a risk, when we open ourselves to the Spirit, we may just find ourselves in the middle of incredible stories of transformation.

Being open is hard work

I could go on to talk about the power encounters people open to the Spirit have. Philip gets supernaturally whisked off to another place. I could mention that people open to the Spirit leave a spiritual legacy. We find out in Acts 21 that Philip has 4 daughters who were prophets. Being open to the Spirit is not rocket science. To be aware of the Spirit’s nudges, and act on those nudges, isn’t all that difficult. What’s difficult is that the Spirit often works at cross-purposes with our flesh. In his flesh, Philip might have rather stayed home. The Spirit might have interrupted him during dinner, or when his favorite football team was on TV. Being open to the Spirit can be inconvenient, bc the Spirit often leads us to people and situations we’d rather stay out of. I came across a very honest prayer by John Levison, one of the world’s foremost scholars on the HS:

Holy Spirit,

I’m not so fond of transformation.

I’m not so hungry for adaptation.

I’m not so keen on modification.

“Leave things as they are.” That’s my earnest prayer.

I think he articulates what many of us feel if we were to be completely honest. Being open to the Spirit is messy. Just a glance through Acts, which really should be called the Acts of the HS, you see what happens to those who are open to the Spirit:

They are accused of drunkenness.

They are arrested and beaten for preaching.

They have to go to Samaria, their dirty 2nd cousins, to proclaim the good news.

Then worse, they have to go to the Gentiles.

They inadvertently start riots.

They are compelled to travel to foreign lands, being away from friends and family for long stretches, facing hardship, persecution, bandits, and even death.

And Paul got bit by a snake!

One can’t really blame Levison for his prayer. Our default is to maintain the status quo. Except the status quo is no more. And no matter how much we want the status quo, now everything has changed. We can go through life as if nothing is different, remaining intentionally blind - planning our own life, making our own decisions. We can live as if the Spirit hasn’t changed everything. This maintains our comfort. This preserves our sense of control. It protects our own sovereignty over our life. But its living a lie, bc something has happened by which nothing can ever be the same again.

Christ has risen from the dead. He has ascended on high. He has poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit. And that changes everything. Listen to the rest of Levison’s prayer:

But how could I ask you for this?

And how could you possibly answer this prayer?

What could I be thinking?

How little could I know you?

You’re torrential.

We’re sopping, sodden, soaked.

Caught in the downpour of your craving

to transform us from the inside out

and also from outside in.

Amen.

The Spirit is now at work making all things new. We are those who, by faith in Jesus, have been born of the Spirit, indwelt by the Spirit, empowered with the Spirit. How can we act as if nothing changed?

The truth is, we can. We can go through life, secure in the knowledge that God loves us and will welcome us when we die, and do nothing with the incredible power that lives inside us.

Or…we can be open to the Spirit.

What will you do?

Communion

Let’s be open to the Spirit now. If you feel God put a word on your heart for the body, or for an individual, speak it out. If the Spirit is prompting you to pray for someone, or to come forward for prayer, do that. Maybe the Spirit will just lay on your heart some things he wants you to pray about as you sit in silence. However he moves, let’s practice openness. In a few minutes I’ll lead us in receiving Communion.

Join me in the kingdom prayer Jesus taught us...

The Lord’s Prayer

Words of Institution