Listen to the Spirit

Listen to the Spirit

TEXTS:
Psalm 139:1-12
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Revelation 3:14-22

Okay, so we've begun our walk with Christ. We've made our initial decision, we've joined the church, we've gotten involved. We're learning, we're growing, we're involved in ministry of one kind or another. We've gotten our bearings in this new life, and we're settling in. We're comfortable with it. We're doing the things we think we're supposed to be doing. Everything's going along fine.

But somehow, the old fire doesn't seem to be there. There's a satisfaction, yes, but it seems we don't find ourselves standing there in awestruck wonder the way we used to. Our faith has become a part of our life, but that new life doesn't seem to be as eventful as it once was.

We all have times like that - when we feel sort of "flat" - and our emotions aren't always an accurate gauge of how things really are. But we do reach stages where it seems for the moment that our growth has paused and our enthusiasm seems to have lagged.

If you're anything like I am, at such times, Jesus' words to the church at Laodicea can be very difficult to hear. Jesus, speaking in John's vision, dictates letters to seven churches - seven groups of Christian believers - in Asia Minor (what we now know as Turkey). The church at Laodicea, in particular, is being taken to task for their lukewarm spirituality - their lackluster approach to life in the Spirit.

The city of Laodicea was an inland city, one of what was referred to as the "tri-cities" - Heirapolis, Colossae, and Laodicea. It was a regional capital, a center of commerce and banking, located on several significant trade routes. It was a medical center, noted for the treatment of eye diseases, and for a salve for the eyes that its physicians made from local volcanic ash and other chemicals found in the region. It was also an industrial center, noted for fine fabric and garments. (You may recall that Lydia, one of Paul's converts and a leader of the early church, was a dealer in fine purple cloth. Her home in Laodicea was one of the centers of the church in the area.)

Jesus takes them to task for being "lukewarm." It's an illustration that the Laodiceans would have understood immediately. The city did not have its own fresh water supply. Water was brought in by aqueduct from the hot springs at Heirapolis (about ten miles away), and from the cold mineral springs at Colossae (also about ten miles). But by the time the water from the hot springs reached Laodicea, it wasn't hot any more - just lukewarm and smelling of sulfur. And by the time the water from the cold springs at Colossae reached Laodicea, it wasn't cold any more. The Laodiceans got only lukewarm water - not hot enough for bathing, washing, or cleansing, and not cold enough to be refreshing - just lukewarm. And their church, says Jesus, has become lukewarm, too. The Laodicean Christians do not seem to have been persecuted the way Christians were in many other areas. They were an accepted part of the culture. They conducted trade, worked in the local industries, raised their families, pretty much like everyone else. They "fit in." They were comfortable.

But Jesus takes each of the city's strengths and one by one, turns them upside-down. These people who live in a center of banking and commerce are told that they are not "rich," but "poor." These people who live in this important regional capital are not "powerful" but "wretched, pitiable." These people who live in a city noted for treatment of the eyes are not "seeing" but "blind." These people who live in the middle of a thriving garment industry are not "finely dressed" but "naked." They have allowed their comfort level with the surrounding culture to lull them into a false sense of security - to blind them to their true spiritual condition. Jesus tells them that they need to come to him and buy "gold refined by fire" - a metaphor used throughout Scripture for righteousness refined by trials. They need "salve for their eyes" so that they can truly see their condition. They need "fine white robes" - symbols of purity and baptism - to cover their spiritual nakedness. Above all, they need to repent. Only then can they be truly rich - with "treasure in heaven." Only then can they be "finely arrayed" with righteousness. And only then can they "truly see" - seeing things through the eyes of God.

But Jesus doesn't leave them there. After taking them to task for their tepid faith, he offers them the solution to their dilemma.

It's significant to note what he doesn't offer them. He doesn't give them, as we might expect, a "to-do list," or a "Seven Handy Hints for Reviving Your Congregation." Solutions like this won't do it. "To-do lists" will change as tasks are accomplished or new ones are added, and "helpful hints" become outmoded as quickly as the surrounding culture changes. These approaches just don't go deep enough. What Jesus offers is the one solution that will always go deep enough. What Jesus offers is a call - a call to a deeper relationship with him. Many of you probably memorized this verse at one time or another, probably in a version like this:

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter, and eat with him, and he with me."

Verse 3:20 is often quoted in the context of our original decision to accept Christ, and it certainly applies in that case. But I think that if we restrict our understanding of it to that context, we lose much of its power. After all, the church at Laodicea certainly wasn't in the "initial decision" phase of their spiritual walk. By this time, they were almost certainly starting into their second generation of Christian believers.

The call is to "open the door" - to allow Jesus in as an intimate part of our lives - a call to "go deeper." The image of eating together, of sharing a meal, is an image in that culture of an intimate relationship. Sharing a meal was about the most intimate thing you could do with a friend, with anyone other than spouse and immediate family. You might feed a traveling stranger, but you shared a meal only with the closest of friends. These people have already "let Jesus in," in terms of the initial decision to accept Christ. Now they're being asked to open the door to a deeper and more intimate relationship. "Let me in" - into all of your life - into the parts of your life that you didn't even know were there before. Go deeper. Go on to the next level. Allow God to lead you to become more like Christ. Because, "To the one who conquers I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches."

But how do we enter into this deeper relationship? What does "opening the door" mean in terms of what we do on a daily basis? How do we know what God wants us to do?

Study of the Scriptures is part of it, of course. Scripture study is one of the ways in which we learn more about the nature of God. But simply knowing more stuff about God is not the same as knowing God better. If we're truly to walk with God, to make God a part of our daily lives, we need to have more than just a lot of facts. We need the experience of God acting through us.

Prayer is another of the things that is a part of our walk with God, and spending time in prayer is one of the ways in which we can listen for God's voice. But we quickly find that if we're not acting on what we hear, our prayer life will become flat and unsatisfying as well.

We need to have experience with God - which means listening for the ways in which God speaks to us, and acting on what we hear. Our walk is deepened through obedience - obedience to God's leading, through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

This is what the prophet Jeremiah is talking about in our Old Testament reading this morning. "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be my people." What was promised in Jeremiah, what Jesus promised his disciples, and what we celebrate at Pentecost, is the presence of God in our lives in the person of the Holy Spirit. It's through the actions of the Spirit in our lives that we get to know God better, that we hear the voice of God speaking to us in particular - through what is sometimes referred to as the "prompting of the Spirit."

One of the more valuable experiences I've had was to be a part of something known as a "covenant discipleship group." These were small groups, modeled after John Wesley's concept of small groups or "classes" of Christians, which met weekly for the purpose of encouraging one another in the faith, and sharing experiences in our walk. One of the aspects of a covenant group is that you hold one another accountable for those things that you have agreed, or covenanted, to do. Each group was encouraged to write their own covenant, but one of the things that just about every group had in their covenant was a line which said, "I will listen for, and obey, the prompting of the Spirit." What we were promising was to actively, purposefully listen for the many ways, large and small, in which the Spirit might be prompting us to action - and then to act on what we heard.

The prompting of the Sprit can be as simple as the little voice that we hear, in the back of our minds, when we're driving down the road and see a man on a street corner, holding a sign that says, "Will Work for Food" - and the voice says, "do something." Give him something, do something for him, but don't just pass by.

The prompting of the Spirit can also be a call to a ministry. If you find yourself, time and time again, being brought up against one particular need, one particular concern, you may be hearing a call. We sometimes resist - we think we're not prepared or qualified, or that it's not our place. Sometimes, like Jonah, we run away, and say, "I don't want to go there right now." We can lose ourselves in the noise and the din of the day and allow it to drown out that voice. But when the noise of the day subsides, it's still there - ready to pop back into our thoughts at the first opportunity. That's one of the ways that we can recognize the Spirit - God is persistent. If you find that kind of thing happening to you on a regular basis, it may well be that somebody's trying to get your attention.

But how do we differentiate the prompting of the Spirit from any other random thoughts that come into our heads? That's where the Scripture study and prayer come in - the more we understand the nature of God, the more we learn to recognize the voice of God when we hear it. John Wesley affirmed something known as the "Quadrilateral" as a means of examining our beliefs, and it works well for discerning the prompting of the Spirit as well. The Quadrilateral - meaning "four parts" - is Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. If we look at them one at a time:

Scripture - If something is truly of God, it will be consistent with the nature of God as revealed in the Scriptures. The particular concern or area of ministry may or may not be specifically mentioned in Scripture, but it will be consistent with the types of things that we learn that God cares about.

Tradition - The traditions of the Church represent the accumulated experiences of generations of Christians who have come before us. If the call that we're experiencing is from God, chances are that there will be traditions of similar ministry on the part of other Christians. Again, the specifics of our particular concern may differ, and the exact details of our response may need to be different, but the concern itself will resonate with the experiences of Christians past and present.

Reason - If what we are hearing is truly from God, it will make sense when we look at it in the light of rational thought. God is faithful, and does not contradict Himself. We will not be told one thing through one channel, and the opposite through another channel. If something is from God, it will stand up to rational analysis.

Experience - By "experience," Wesley meant our own personal experience of God in our lives. As we begin to listen for, and respond to, the prompting of the Spirit, we begin to write our own story of God's love and power, and the ways in which God has led us. As our own store of this experience increases, we will find it increasingly easy to recognize the call of God when we hear it.

Our experience of listening for the call of God, and of responding in obedience when we hear it, is the way in which our relationship with God is deepened - the way in which we learn, day by day, to rely on God. Because we will be led into areas we haven't dealt with before, and that can be a little scary. It's always a little frightening to take that first step. But as our Stewardship Campaign slogan of a couple of years ago put it, "If you want to walk on water, you've got to get out of the boat." And getting out of the boat is scary. You've got to put that first foot out there, and trust it with your weight, before you can see what's going to rise up to meet it. But as you take that step, you find out that there is something there to meet it - and what is there to meet it is God. And as we take that step, and then another, and another, and we find out that God is there to meet us, our faith increases, our knowledge of God increases, our relationship grows deeper.

And that call, that experience, is corporate as well as individual. We are all, individually, called to service and ministry, but we are also called as a body - as a congregation, as a denomination, as the Church - the body of Christ on earth. One of the most gratifying experiences for me over the past several years has been to serve as a member of our Church Council, and to see us, as a group, come together to answer the question, "What do we believe God wants us to do?" It's been amazing to watch God at work in that group. Not that there aren't differences, because there are; and not that there aren't concerns, because there are. But when we come together and keep that question - "What does God want us to do?" - as the primary one - when we keep the main thing the main thing - it's thrilling to see what God can do.

In fact, over the years, I've had the privilege of seeing any number of Christian groups, from churches to campus ministries, to high-school ministries, to Christian businessmen's groups - and of seeing how they approach things. Some of these groups were absolutely vibrant with the Spirit of God - you couldn't be in the room and not sense it. And there were others that seemed, frankly, sort of lukewarm. Invariably, the ones that were alive and vibrant were the ones that began their decision-making process with the question, "What does God want us to do?" - and then stayed focused on that question. They didn't begin with a predefined idea of "this is who we are and this is what we do." They didn't begin with "Here are the resources we have, and what do we want to do with them?" They began with "What does God want us to do?" And if they began with that question, and kept it as primary, an interesting thing would happen - they would not fail for lack of resources. The resource question would have to be addressed, of course - but it wasn't the most important question. As long as they stayed focused on the most important question - "What does God want us to do?" - a way would always be found to answer the other questions. So as we sit here this morning, are we listening for the prompting of the Spirit? Are we listening for the knock at the door - and are we ready to open the door and let Jesus in? What is the Spirit saying to us this morning?

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock."

Knock, knock!

How many people in this area have not heard the Good News - about the God who loves them enough to come and die for them?

Knock, knock!

How many people, out of those immediately around us, will face the loss of a loved one, or their job, or their health, or their life, without the faith in a loving God to carry them through?

Knock, knock!

How many people in the Seacoast area are living in abusive relationships and need a place of love, shelter, and safety?

Knock, knock!

How many people in the Seacoast area slept in a car last night?

Knock, knock!

What must I do for my life to serve as a signpost, pointing the way to the love of God?

Knock, knock!

Are there areas of my life in which I have not yet fully opened the door and let Jesus in?

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter and eat with him, and he with me... Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches."

Knock, knock!

Are we listening?

Amen.

© 2003, Bill McWilliams

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