1 John 3:24, 4:9-16a Experiencing Fellowship with God. Michelle Drewitz June 11, Riverdale Baptist Church Whitehorse, Yukon

Transcription

1 1 1 John 3:24, 4:9-16a Experiencing Fellowship with God Michelle Drewitz June 11, 2017 Riverdale Baptist Church Whitehorse, Yukon

2 2 Like most of us, I did not grow up with a Baptist background. I grew up in a Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC) church in Kitchener, Ontario. My paternal grandfather was a pastor both in Pentecostal and Baptist churches. The German branch of PAOC in South-Western Ontario owned Bethel Park Bible Camp. It was here that every summer my family would go for a few weekends. As a teenager, I went to youth camp there. I remember playing volleyball and tennis, swimming in lakes, eating really good homemade German food, and attending worship services. The climax of this week was always Friday night: the altar call to come forward to accept Jesus Christ as personal saviour or to recommit one s life to Christ or to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit which was exemplified by speaking in tongues. All the right elements were in place for this night: an experienced band who had practiced their music, the strategic placement of pastors and youth leaders around the place with a posture of listening and attentiveness, and of course the preacher himself: gifted in public speaking whose voice had the power and emotion to draw you in, whether from fear or awe. Even the building lent itself for the experience: the windows and doors were open, allowing the humid Ontario air to blow through. I sat still in my seat, watching as one by one youth stood up and began to walk to the front. I noticed young men and young women going to the front, peers, friends and family members. I heard pastors and youth leaders praying and the quiet melodic sounds of the piano. The noise volume ebbed and flowed as shouts and whispers were heard. I saw pastors and leaders touch the foreheads of the youth and occasionally noticed that one youth would fall backwards, to be caught by the leader. I felt guilty for staying in the pew. And I felt guilty about walking to the front, now sure what it was I was asking for. I had already accepted Jesus as Saviour and been baptized. Many times before I had responded to an altar call by re-dedicating my life. But speaking in tongues? Well, I didn t have that yet and it sounded like I needed it to be a true

3 3 Christian. So I hesitatingly walked up to the front and mumbled something to the leader who asked me what I was there for. I had always been shy and this was out of my comfort zone. The leader prayed with me then we waited. The leader prayed again. Nothing happened. Had I failed? Had I done something wrong or did I not have enough faith? Why wasn t I falling to the floor or speaking in a different language? I left the church service very late, it was past midnight. I was confused, concerned, and ashamed. What I had learned indirectly or directly was that the way the Holy Spirit is evident in someone s life is through speaking in tongues. Thus, was I not really a Christian? Was the Holy Spirit not in me and so do I not experience fellowship with God? Today is Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Christian liturgical calendar. It is the Sunday where we celebrate the doctrine of the Trinity: the three persons of God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Biblical image of the Trinity is of God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - in communion and fellowship with one another. We get a glimpse of this image from Jesus words in John 14, when he speaks of the Holy Spirit and the Father: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever the Spirit of truth. ( ) You know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. ( ) On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Jesus, the Son, speaks of being in the Father and the gift of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus was baptized, we see a powerful image of the Trinity. At creation, the Trinity is evident. In fact, Christian artwork also helps us to think about the Triune God being in communion with one another. Behind me you will see the famous Russian icon from the 15 th

4 4 century. When this painting was created, the Trinity represented spiritual unity, peace, harmony, mutual love and humility. Just as the Bible presents an image of the Triune God in fellowship and in communion, so too does the Bible constantly speak of our fellowship with God, of our being united to God, of our being in Christ and Christ in us. From the beginning in Genesis, we read about God dwelling with His people. The Davidic Psalms give us an inner glimpse of a man after God s own heart who moves in and out of fellowship with God, in and out of noticing and feeling the presence of God. Psalm 63 is an expression of longing for the fellowship and presence of God: O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. Jesus prayer, the night before he was crucified deeply demonstrates the full picture of the fellowship within the Trinity and the fellowship believers have with the Triune God. Jesus prayer is recorded is John 17. Let me read verses 20-23: My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

5 5 Our text from 1 John also reminds us that we are united to God. 1 John 3:24 says this This is how we know that he lives in us: we know it by the Spirit he gave us. And, again, in 1 John 4:13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. So our confidence or assurance of being in fellowship with God is through our experience of the Holy Spirit. But what does this fellowship look like? And what is our experience of the Holy Spirit, if not speaking in tongues, that assures us of being in God? Over the past two weeks, I have done some study about the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. A preliminary note before I share with you some of what I ve learned. It is important, when reading the Bible, that we take into consideration the context of the stories. For example, we must remember that most of Paul s letters are to churches, not individuals. In his letters, he was addressing certain issues, mostly problems, that were facing that particular church in a specific environment and context. We cannot ignore the social, political, economic, and cultural realities of that time. What we know about 1 John is less than what we know about Paul s letters. We do know that John is writing to the church to the community of Christians and addresses the serious threat of false teaching from those who were once within their Christian community. Here s one of the reasons why it s important to remember, or learn, the background information of Biblical texts. It has been my experience that the questions Biblical authors seek to answer are not necessarily the questions that I am asking, in the 21 st century, in Whitehorse, Yukon, as a white female pastor. We must take care to not read into the text something which the Biblical author never intended to say. In other words, we need to be careful to not read what we want to read or what we don t want to read. This takes great humility and obedience to the Spirit within us.

6 6 So if our Biblical authors and Jesus all speak of being in fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit, how then do we experience this? To respond to this, I ll look at both John and Paul s writings. In John s letter, his main argument to counter the false teaching is to remind the church of the role of the Holy Spirit in their lives. John assures the church that what they were taught about Jesus, or in other words, what the Holy Spirit revealed to them about Jesus Christ is indeed true. It is this knowledge and assurance of the incarnate and divine Jesus on which they must stand. Though our cultural context is much different from thousands of years ago, the church still faces hostility on this issue. Was Jesus really born of the virgin Mary? Was Jesus really crucified? Did he really physically rise from the dead? How we answer these questions reveals the presence of the Spirit in us. We know these to be true because the Holy Spirit has revealed it to us. In other words, we know and trust that the Holy Spirit is in us because of our belief in Jesus Christ. Thus, in the first letter of John, the primary role of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to the truth about Jesus. We know God lives in us because we have believed the testimony of the Holy Spirit about Jesus Christ. The Bible is clear that it is the Holy Spirit which reveals the truth about Jesus Christ to us. It means that our experience of the Spirit must be centered in Jesus Christ; in the historical act of God s selfdisclosure in the person of Jesus Christ. Our experience of the Spirit means that there will be no new revelation that is not already found in God s Word. This is why we ought to never stop reading God s Word.

7 7 With this in mind, I believe our first personal experience of the Holy Spirit is that initial moment of belief, of conviction, of faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Messiah, Saviour and King. It is the moment where, in the face of criticism, doubt, lack of concrete evidence that our post-enlightenment world desires, there is enough faith and belief. It is the moment where belief becomes a declaration and a proclamation that though we have not seen we do believe. For many of us, it was that moment with our mother or father or grandparent or family member or pastor where we said I believe, repented of our turning from God and committed our life to serving Him and following His commands. For me, it happened as a young girl before going to bed one night. My parents were in my room, saying good night and we began talking of Christ and the Christian faith. With my declaration of I believe we prayed together. Nearly every night for the next few weeks and months, I wasn t too sure if Jesus had heard my prayer because nothing felt or seemed different so we needed to pray again just to be sure! This is how the Holy Spirit is visible and needs to be celebrated whenever someone makes a confession of faith because it is the Holy Spirit which bears witness to the truth and revelation of Jesus Christ. But conversion, I believe, is not a singular moment. Salvation is not a one-time confession and proclamation of belief. It is an on-going process. I am saved, I am being saved, I will be saved. Thus, the Holy Spirit is continually at work in me: revealing the mysteries and truths about Jesus and the Father. This is what Christian formation and maturity are about. This initial experience of the Holy Spirit working in our minds and hearts to bring us to belief in Jesus Christ as Son of God and Saviour never really goes away.

8 8 In this one aspect our conversion, our salvation, our confession, our proclamation of faith and belief, we experience the fellowship of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We experience the love of God, as John explains it in his letter. His love for his creation the world and everyone in it is received when we understand, or believe, his work of redemption, restoration, and forgiveness. We experience the grace of Jesus Christ through his death and resurrection and the invitation to be part of the new creation. We experience fellowship with the Holy Spirit through the testimony of Jesus. During my adolescence, I had serious doubts about the presence of the Holy Spirit in me, as promised in the Bible. Was God in me and I in God? Was the Holy Spirit in me? How do I know? These questions lingered particularly because I did not have a dramatic encounter with God. Rather, my belief has been the steady, slow, incremental kind. But for John, the role of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to the life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. It means that my belief in Jesus Christ is the assurance that the Holy Spirit is in me. Paul offers some more insight into the church s experience of the Holy Spirit. It is clear from Paul s writings that the Christian life cannot be understood without the presence of the Holy Spirit. But here again, I urge you to consider and remember the context of Paul s letters. Paul writes letters to the churches in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, Thessalonians. Thus, his instruction, exhortation, counsel, and teaching are to the church, the physical gathering of the people of God. Yes, his instruction is to the individual believer but in the context of the collective believers. Paul s writings about his personal life and private experience of the Spirit are few. His letters describe how the church the gathered people of

9 9 God experience the Spirit. After all, the gift of the Holy Spirit is for the benefit of God s people the church. Does this perhaps mean that our experience of fellowship with God and our experience of the Holy Spirit is incomplete without the church? In other words, do we miss the full experience of the Holy Spirit when we are disconnected from the church? For Paul, the Holy Spirit is the identity marker which distinguishes the Christian community from the world. Jesus death and resurrection inaugurated God s Kingdom on earth. Jesus death and resurrection brought about the new covenant, the new creation. Thus, the Christian community exemplifies God s Kingdom a Kingdom defined by peace and order, love and humility, grace and mercy, righteousness and holiness. In a world full of disorder, the church brings peace. In a world full of darkness, the church bears light. In a world full of confusion, the church listens. In a world full of independence, the church is community and fellowship. For Paul, what distinguishes the church from other social organizations is the Holy Spirit. When we begin to understand this, then we can identify the role of the Holy Spirit in the church s life. In looking at Paul s writings, there are a few ways that we, the church, experience the Holy Spirit. I won t discuss them all but I will point out a few. First, we experience the Holy Spirit as a reminder that we are the eschatological people of God. To understand this, we go back to the promise between God and Abraham. This is the promise that Pastor Greg reminded us about last week around the communion table. It is the promise that we would be a light to the nations. Consider, for a moment, whom God was saving in the Old Testament. God was saving Israel

10 10 the nation called to be His people. God is always concerned about saving a whole people. This hasn t changed with the new covenant. God is still saving a whole people, a united group, a diverse group to be called children of God. To be sure, as individuals, we must accept the gift of salvation. But the goal of salvation is not my individual eternal life in Heaven. Rather the goal, as described by the promise of God is that there would be a people not individual persons but a people who embody the Kingdom of God. It is about a people for God s name. And it is among these people that God dwells. So it is in life together, not just on Sundays but throughout the week, not just throughout the week but especially on Sundays, where God s life and character, the Kingdom of God is reproduced and demonstrated. The Spirit is experienced so we remember that we are living in the here but not yet. The Kingdom of God has been inaugurated but not fully consummated. That tension of here but not yet is nowhere felt more strongly than in the face of tragedy, of evil, of pain and suffering. The news is our daily reminder that although God is King, Satan still has great influence. And in such experiences of despair, of loss, of brokenness, of heartache, it is the Spirit which reminds us who we are in Christ and the promise on which we can stand. About a year ago, there was a tragic accident in Calgary. After youth group, eight youth decided to go to Calgary s Olympic park and take their own sleds down the bobsled track. Twin sons, Evan and Jordan, were among the group. Evan was on the first sled and Jordan was on the third. Both Evan and Jordan died that night because their sleds hit a barrier with the luge track. As Jordan was pushing the second sled down the track, he prayed the Lord s prayer. The father of these boys has said that his faith in Jesus Christ is what has helped him through his darkest moments.

11 11 Amidst all the other anxieties and confusion of the tragic death of his boys, the father has said he has never worried or wondered where his boys are they are with Jesus. On Canada Day, when our youth team will be in Calgary, there is a public event that includes music and stories sharing about faith in God, light in darkness, hope in despair. It is ultimately an event which testifies to the work of the Spirit. For this is the work of the Holy Spirit: reminding us of our place in time we are living in the here but not yet reality; we live with comfort in our sorrow, hope in our despair, grace upon grace in our desperation and brokenness. If the first experience of the Holy Spirit can be described as empowerment empowering us to believe in Jesus Christ and to be the eschatological people of God; then our next experience of the Spirit can be described as transformation. How this plays out, in our day to day life, can be summed up in a word: ethics. It means that the objective manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our Christian life has to do with our conduct. The way we objectively know the presence of the Holy Spirit has to do with our personal behaviour and the church s behaviour. It has to do with how we treat one another and how we bear witness to Christ to the watching world. Paul stresses throughout his letters that the role of the Spirit to maintain unity and diversity, to bring righteousness and right character or living. Righteousness is understood as God s character, which is evidenced in people s attitudes and behaviour. The goal of Torah was to form a righteous and holy people, a people like God. But the Torah is a list of rules of conduct, easily followed or broken. The Torah makes someone religious, not righteous. Only the Holy Spirit can make someone righteous.

12 12 When we look at how Paul describes living by the Spirit, we don t see a list of rules of conduct. We see a list of character traits. It means that Christian conduct is not always dictated by black and white rules of behaviour. Christian living isn t about rules since those can, more or less, be regulated and performed without the empowerment or work of the Spirit. Christian living is about ethics, empowered by the Holy Spirit. This is one of the reasons why it s challenging or impossible to present a list of to do s. Remember that the goal of salvation is the formation of God s people such that God can dwell among us. It means that the goal of the Holy Spirit is to transform us into God s people through ethics: our attitude, thoughts, behaviour, conduct. Notice that when Paul speaks of Christian ethics, it is always in the context of community, of the life of the gathered people of God the church. To be in fellowship with God through the Spirit is about the ethics of the community of faith. The ethical life is about relationships with one another. This makes me wonder what a non-believer would notice if he or she visited RBC. How would a stranger describe our ethics? Would our conduct, our way of relating to one another, reflect righteousness and holy living? Would they notice patience with one another, as we are all on different points of our Christian formation and maturity? We see evidence of the Spirit at work when we are patient with one another, slow to anger, abounding in love. We see evidence of the Spirit when we truly listen to one another. Though Paul spoke a great deal about the Holy Spirit in the churches, he did speak a little bit about the experience of the Holy Spirit in his personal and private life. As individuals, we

13 13 experience fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit through prayer. Paul reminds us that the Spirit cries out Abba Father and groans for us when we have no words. The exclamation of Abba Father is evidence of the Spirit testifying to us of the revelation of Jesus Christ. Have you ever been speechless for words, not knowing what to pray or how to pray? I remember October 5, 2016 when my 33-year old sister was at the Chicago Hospital for an 8-hour heart surgery to remove her pericardium. I was anxious the whole day and kept my cell phone near me awaiting news. The surgery was extremely risky, the first of its kind to deal with a rare heart problem. On that day, I did not know what to pray. When emotions are charged and logic fails, when you feel completely helpless and powerless, I believe it is the Spirit which petitions on our behalf. Thankfully, my sister s surgery went well and her recovery has steadily been improving to the point where she and I will participate together in the bike relay on Saturday! As a teenager I doubted the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life because of my lack of speaking in tongues. Now, as an adult, I am assured of the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life because of my belief in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit reveals the truth about Jesus to me, to you, to the world. I experience fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit as I participate in the local church be being the eschatological people of God, the here but not yet people. It is the Holy Spirit in us that brings hope and light. I experience fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit as we are being formed into God s people righteous and holy. And when my soul cries out Abba Father, I am in communion with my Saviour. Amen.