Spirit Led, Spirit Fed

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

This is what we are created to produce. This is our purpose, this is what Christ wants from us, this is what we are made for, the Holy Spirit helps make it possible for us to bear this fruit in the world, God does God’s part so that it is possible for us to bear good fruit, but we do have to do our part, you don’t just buy a farm and expect a big harvest to appear.

So all this leads me to ask you: have you produced the fruit you were made to produce? Is your life fruitful—Is there evidence of the Spirit’s work in your life: are you loving? Are you joyful? Are you peaceful, do you regularly experience peace, do you practice peace? What about patience, are you a patient person? Are you a kind person? A generous person. Are you faithful? Are you gentle? Do you have self-control?

Spirit-Breath

Religion without the power of the Holy Spirit is dead…religion without the influence of the spirit is dead, religion without the discipline to listen to God’s guidance and direction is dead…the people of Israel exist, they exist but they are existing as people who are dead, they are a dead sect, they are dry bones.

Do you sometimes feel like you are dry bones? That you are existing as one who is already dead, that you are going through the motions…or that parts of you are slowly dying.

What this passage says, what our faith says is: you can live, you can come alive again. You don’t have to live like dry bones.

So how does that happen? 

The spirit of God. The spirit of God has the power to bring you to life again—and—and here’s what’s even more remarkable. It’s not just that God has the power to bring you to life again, God has the desire to bring you to life, God wants you to come alive again.

You Can't Stop The Beat

You can’t stop the beat. You can’t stop the Spirit sweeping over the waters. You can’t stop the new thing God is doing making all things new. What is to prevent the beat? Absolutely nothing.

What I know for sure is this: there is this dance party of grace and justice and joy going on all the time and you are invited to come and dance. Yes, you. 

You who have been to the dance party before and you who have never been or never thought you couldn’t come, come and join in the party, you who think you are too old to dance, or too out of shape to dance, come to the party…

You who have been watching everyone from the sidelines, come to the dance floor, come all you saints and all you sinners, come all you who don’t know a thing about dancing and you who thought you knew but are learning new steps, come: the lord of the dance invites all to this dance party of grace and justice and joy and I don’t want you to miss it.

What is to prevent you from being a part of the movement of the spirit in the world making all things new, including you?

Absolutely nothing. 

Holy Boldness

Holy Boldness

The people who stand in the gap between where we are and where God wants us to be are resisters. They are disciples who have prayed for and received the power of the Holy Spirit...and the Holy Spirit leads them to speak and to act in the name of Jesus...what these first disciples understood, what their witness has taught generations of followers of Jesus since, is that not speaking the truth and standing up for what is right is not an option. You simply cannot be a faithful Christian and sit in silence on the sidelines while atrocities occur.  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor in Germany when the Nazi regime took over and he was one of the few faithful leaders who used his voice to speak out and organize against the Nazi movement. At the time most church leaders in Germany refused to openly oppose the Nazi regime, they remained silent about the Nazis and criticized Bonhoeffer for speaking out, so he had it coming at him from all sides, but he continue to speak with boldness. He said: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” 

Listen To This Good News

Listen To This Good News

"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness...now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

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This large crowd has gathered because of the spectacle that has taken place, which is known as Pentecost, if you were here last week, we celebrated Pentecost, it is when the disciples receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and they are suddenly able to talk in all of these languages, so they can communicate the story of God's grace with everyone, and all these people gather together and they start hearing the good news in their native languages...

You see how God through the Holy Spirit is trying to reach them, each of them, trying to speak to them in a way they will understand, but they have these noise cancelling headphones on, they can't hear it, the word cannot be placed in their ear, it just bounces right off and instead of hearing the disciples' teaching about God's power--you know what they hear?  Drunk people. That's what they say to each other, they say: oooh these people must be drunk! They try and write off what is happening because it so goes against everything they have ever heard about God--yes, these people must be drunk--because that is the explanation that fits in with what we know.

There is no way of telling people that they are shining like the sun...when they have these noise cancelling headphones on...so Peter stands up in front of the crowd and the first thing he says is enotizomai, he says: take off what is preventing you from hearing and let me put the word of God into your ear. 

It is quite practically the first thing we have to do to hear God's word for us, Peter knows this firsthand, he saw Jesus constantly starting his teachings this way, telling people to listen and to hear: in fact the number of times Jesus says to the disciples and the crowds: "Listen!" or "hear!" is quite remarkable...and when Jesus is baptized the voice from heaven says: "This is my beloved son, Listen to him!" Of all the things God could have said or instructed the people to do, God says: listen. God says: take off whatever is preventing you from hearing so my word can be placed in your ear. It starts with listening. Transformation starts with listening. 

The Holy Spirit...Here...Now.

Seventh grade football games are fascinating! You can see which athletes have great talent and some who will need a lot of work. The great challenge of a middle school coach is to teach the athletes to love the game. The same is true for the next generation of our church. The best way we can fulfill the vows we take at baptism as a congregation is to set a heart on fire - and the best way to do that, is have your own heart set on fire.