Living the Life

We’ve been spending a lot of time on the Holy Spirit. We started out looking at who the Holy Spirit is, concluding that the Spirit is personal and the Spirit is God.  We turned to look at what the Holy Spirit does, and we discussed that it is the Holy Spirit who calls us, turning us to God, giving us the freedom to serve God, and even helps us to pray. The Holy Spirit is the One who seals our adoption as God’s beloved children and heirs, transforming us and equipping us to do God’s will, giving us spiritual gifts and growing within us the Fruit of the Spirit. Last week was a powerful service in which we were given the “good news” that the only way to defeat death is to die… and to be resurrected, and to daily die to self, emptying ourselves to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I concluded by reading from Robert Boyd Munger’s pamphlet My Heart – Christ’s Home, where he concluded that it’s not enough for the Holy Spirit to be a “guest” in our heart, but that our job is to sign over the deed to our lives.

Some of you realized that you had never signed over the deed, and others of you realized that although you have given over control, it was a good time to reaffirm your commitment to Christ, to reaffirm that He has the deed to your life.

The big question, then, is what happens next?

In his sermon “On the Holy Spirit,” John Wesley poses that we have to ask our hearts if they are able to admit the Holy Spirit, because though this is the path to life, it is a pathway of death, punctuated by martyrdom, Christian warfare, giving away material possessions freely, loving our neighbor “as heartily as if he were washed from all his sins” – in other words, we’re to treat the miserable wretch who has never had so much as a kind word for you as if he were a beloved saint.

(Well may a man ask his own heart, whether it is able to admit the Spirit of God. For where that divine Guest enters, the laws of another world must be observed: The body must be given up to martyrdom, or spent in the Christian warfare, as unconcernedly as if the soul were already provided of its house from heaven; the goods of this world must be parted with as freely, as if the last fire were to seize them to-morrow; our neighbour must be loved as heartily as if he were washed from all his sins, and demonstrated to be a child of God by the resurrection from the dead. The fruits of this Spirit must not be mere moral virtues, calculated for the comfort and decency of the present life; but holy dispositions, suitable to the instincts of a superior life already begun.

Thus to press forward, whither the promise of life calls him, -- to turn his back upon the world, and comfort himself in God, -- every one that has faith perceives to be just and necessary, and forces himself to do it: Every one that has hope, does it gladly and eagerly, though not without difficulty; but he that has love does it with ease and singleness of heart. John Wesley – Sermon 141 “On the Holy Spirit”)

If this sounds hard, it’s because it is. If it sounds impossible, that’s because it is. This goes against our nature – but not against God’s nature. And life in the Holy Spirit is life continually renewed and guided by the Holy Spirit.

In his sermon “How to Receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit,” John Piper pinpoints two things that characterize the experience of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The first characteristic is a heart full of praise.

In Acts 10:44-45, while Peter was preaching, God poured the Holy Spirit out onto Gentiles, and the disciples were amazed that God had given His Spirit to Gentiles. But in Acts 10:46, the Bible affirms that they knew it was the Holy Spirit because “they heard [the Gentiles] speaking in tongues and extolling (or magnifying) God.” As John Piper affirms, “speaking in tongues is one particular way of releasing the heart of praise. It may be present or may not. But one thing is sure: the heart in which the Holy Spirit is poured out will stop magnifying self and start magnifying God. Heartfelt praise and worship is the mark of a real experience of the Holy Spirit.”  (http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/how-to-receive-the-gift-of-the-holy-spirit)

The other mark that characterizes the experience of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is obedience. We aren’t naturally obedient; there’s a reason why toddlers learn to say “no” so early!  In Acts 5:29 Peter and the apostles say to the Sadducees who had arrested them, "We must obey God rather than men." Then in verse 32 he says, "We are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God gave to those who are obeying him." ("Gave" is past tense; "obey" is present, ongoing tense.) It is inevitable that when the object of your heart's worship changes, your obedience changes. When Jesus baptizes you in the Holy Spirit, and infuses you with a new sense of the glory of God, you have a new desire and a new power (1:8) to obey.”

So the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is marked by a heart full of praise for God and obedience to God. These things go against our nature – against the flesh, but they demonstrate that God’s nature has replaced ours.

But they aren’t the only marks of our new birth. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul has been writing about spiritual gifts, and this chapter ends with this sentence: And now I will show you the most excellent way. Do you know what this “most excellent way” is?

He goes on in 1 Corinthians 13 to say, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

We often read this scripture at weddings, but that’s honestly using it out of context. The context is spiritual gifts and the church. Two weeks ago I mentioned that spiritual gifts are part of the whole package when the Holy Spirit indwells us. Every Christian has spiritual gifts. I have seen people who have spiritual-gift-envy where they look around and say, “Oh, so-and-so has all these cool spiritual gifts, but all I have is…” I’ve also seen the other side, where people go bragging on their spiritual gifts and get all puffed up because of them.

But Paul is saying that the gifts don’t matter at all if we don’t love one another. It’s like a gong or a cymbal – just a lot of noise and not much else. Not even the greatest spiritual gift can overcome a lack of love. Not giving everything away to the poor, not moving mountains, not even martyrdom. The clearest scriptural mark of the one who is full of the Holy Spirit is love.

A Pharisee, who was an expert in the law, tested [Jesus] with this question; “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” (Matthew 22:36). In other words, the Law has hundreds of do’s and don’ts and I want to boil it down to the most important thing. What is it? The Pharisee wanted to trap Jesus into denying part of the Law, and then they would have had reason to denounce him.

Jesus replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

If you’ve been in church for any time at all, you know this scripture. And perhaps you’ve really been working on it, and you have gotten to the point where you’re  thinking, “I’m pretty good at love.” Of course, then Jesus goes and ups the ante on love, saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute, you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than any others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48).

Jesus calls us to love unlovely people. I’m not just talking about the annoying neighbor who plays his music too loudly. I’m talking about people who persecute Christians. In case you didn’t realize it, there are parts of the world where it is not only illegal to be a Christian, but Christians are jailed and even tortured for their faith. I’m a big fan of the Voice of the Martyrs, an organization that not only raises awareness about Christian martyrs, but also supports Christians, especially pastors, in places where they are persecuted, and works to bring the gospel into closed countries. Before Richard Wurmbrand had founded Voice of the Martyrs, however, he was a prisoner himself, tortured for following Jesus. In Communist Romania, Wurmbrand was thrown in prison for failing to declare loyalty to the Communist regime, a regime which was dedicated to the destruction of religion. The jailers attempted to brainwash Wurmbrand and other Christians and tortured them with hot pokers, sticks, and truncheons. They even beat them and tied them to crosses.

Richard Wurmbrand had every right to despise his jailers, but listen to his attitude.

“And then the miracle happened. When it was at the worst, when we were tortured as never before, we began to love those who tortured us. Just as a flower, when you bruise it under your foot, rewards you with its perfume, the more we were mocked and tortured, the more we pitied and loved our torturers.”

Many have asked Wurmbrand, “How can you love someone who is torturing you?” He replies, “By looking at men… not as they are, but as they will be… I could also see in our persecutors a Saul of tarsus – a future apostle Paul. Many officers of the secret police to whom we witnessed became Christians and were happy to later suffer in prison for having found our Christ. Although we were whipped, as Paul was, in our jailers we saw the potential of the jailer in Philippi who became a convert. We dreamed that soon they would ask, ‘What must I do to be saved?’

“It was in prison that we found the hope of salvation for the Communists. It was there that we developed a sense of responsibility toward them. In Communist prisons the idea of a Christian mission to the Communists was born. We asked ourselves, ‘What can we do to win these men to Christ?’”(from Jesus Freaks: Stories of Those Who Stood for Jesus: the Ultimate Jesus Freaks. By DC Talk and the Voice of the Martyrs)

This is not the only story out there. There are so many, including Elisabeth Eliot, who went to minister to the very people who murdered her husband Jim. How can someone have such love that they not only want to pray for their torturers but actually want to see them come to Christ, to become brothers in Christ? We were created to desire justice, and instead, we see love, the kind that Jesus called for. How does this happen?

As Paul writes in Romans 5:5 it is because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. The only way we can have this kind of love is by the Holy Spirit.

Do you have this kind of love? You’re not going to get it by trying harder – that only encourages discouragement and breeds resentment. But the Holy Spirit is just waiting to fill you with supernatural love, the kind that Jesus shows, the kind that brings glory to God. Will you accept?