Self-Indulging Experiences of God
VS
Seeing the Gospel Break Into Reality
When we first brought our attention to the church in Acts, something that really attracted us was how they experienced the reality and the power of God in their lives. They saw God in such powerful ways. So the next historical lesson I want to share about our church is our successes and failures when it comes to the charismatic gifts. Don’t worry about it if you haven’t heard of that word before, but it’s the technical name given to miraculous happenings like speaking in tongues, physical healing, prophecy, etc.
Long story short, we didn’t put much effort into discerning what we were being taught in regards to these things, but we retaught them to others here. People were taught as if these were the things that will make us more mature in Christ. And as our approach to these topics were challenged, faiths were shaken, and our lack of effort in discernment was exposed. It was a very difficult time for our community. For us leaders, it really was the spark that led us to stop just eagerly accepting whatever we were taught, but to spend effort discerning and seeking the voice of God for what we as His people should be like, and to teach this community to do the same.
This was was the pivotal event that really what got our church moving in the direction that I’m sharing about today. And I know talking about this spiritual gifts stuff is scary to some of you, and I as a leader don’t really want to talk about it because we messed up so badly, but I know God has redeemed us from it and we want to bring Him glory by telling you guys what He showed of Himself through it.
I’m gonna invite our dear sister Viv to share a little more about what transpired as we struggled through this stuff:
Chat with Vivian
Ken: What were you first experiences with the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit?
Viv: I think I started to recognize the tangibility of the Holy Spirit when I started seeing my family relationships being reconciled and restored. Specifically, I was angry with my dad for 6 years of my life. He left when I was 12 and I never talked to him since. But that was the first thing God worked on. It was through his Spirit that I was given a chance to forgive my dad before he passed away in that very same year. I mean this is something that God is still working on in the rest of my family, but since knowing God, He had definitely started changing a lot of my perspectives towards my family.
A place where I saw the Holy Spirit working powerfully was in the discipleship groups that I was a part of. I really saw a great deal of transformation and growth not only in myself but my other sisters in the group as well. All of us were experiencing breakthroughs, freedom, chains were being broken, lies were being revealed and gifts were being discovered. I actually received the gift of tongues during DG.
Ken: Before this I don’t think I ever actually heard the details of what happened in the disciple group you were in, tell us a bit more about that.
Viv: So, with our discipleship group, we were committed to meeting once a week. It was really hard to find a time for all 5 girls to meet since some of us were working and some of us were schooling, but we found a way and that was 5:30am in this room. It was tough, but I’ve never been so excited to wake up at 4:30am… ever. Each week would be different, but we’d all come prepared to share our deepest secrets, to pray for each other, to encourage each other, to worship together, to rebuke each other when necessary, and to see cool things happen. While all of that was exciting, in the midst of getting caught up in all the cool stuff that we were seeing, I think we forgot that the sole purpose of everything happening is because of Jesus.
So there was one meeting in particular where we were talking about spiritual gifts and the gift of tongues was something that came up. To me, I wanted it. I thought that it would somehow help mature me spiritually so that I could live up to certain spiritual “standards”. So that night, we all made the mistake of blindly receiving it without checking with the Word, without really checking with God. The week after, a sister rebuked us all. Many of us were really hurt and discouraged, some of them had left this church… actually I think all of them left.
Through this experience, I was pretty shaken up but humbled by God’s grace. I can’t deny that even through my selfishness, God was working and is still working. I actually stopped praying in tongues for a while, but it wasn’t until this past year that God has confirmed with me that He has blessed me with this gift.
Ken: In light of us learning from that mess, of your experiences with your family, JnF missions, etc, what has having the Holy Spirit working in and through your life looked like to you?
Viv: For me, having the Holy Spirit work in me and through me…means a transformation of my character. In these past 4 years, when I let God do what He does, He shines through, even if I didn’t know and naturally the fruits of the Spirit are produced: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Seeing God move during Jane and Finch missions stretched me in so many ways. I was scared going into it. I didn’t know how God was going to use me. Thoughts of being young in my faith made me feel like I was incapable of doing God’s work. But there was this one specific woman that I remember talking to during the missions trip and her name is Elizabeth. God used ME to bless her. She was a beautiful and joyful woman of God. She was born deaf. I was so encouraged by this woman. Her faithfulness was so inspiring; she couldn’t stop praising God despite the misfortunes life has dealt her. Through her, I saw God. Through her, I experienced the fruits of the Spirit. What I saw through this experience was God glorifying Himself. It was never about me and what I can do but everything about who He is and what He can do.
In hindsight, I confess that we had pursued those giftings, those displays of God’s power, with not much wisdom or humility, and not much purpose other than wanting to see cools things from God. And while wanting to experience God wasn’t in itself a bad thing, we missed the key purpose for God’s manifest presence, we missed the key reason why God would invade our reality.
Acts 4:27-31
27for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. 29And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus."
31And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
In the midst of persecution, in the midst of being outcasted, the early believers prayed that God would show up as they continue to proclaim God’s word boldly. They never thought of the gospel as simply an idea that was to be taught to people. They wanted it to be real, and God responded by being real to them right then right there.
That’s how the disciples view Jesus when he was on Earth too; they never thought He was just about spiritual things. Listen to Matthew talk about Jesus healing people in Matthew 8:16-17:
16That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: "He took our illnesses and bore our diseases."
The passage refers to Isaiah 53:4-5:
Isaiah 53:4-5
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
Matthew saw the fulfillment of the Isaiah passage when Jesus was physically healing people. The disciples didn’t see Jesus’ arrival as just spiritual healing and deliverance. And the church in Acts continued to view God this way even after Jesus returned to heaven, leaving us the Holy Spirit as His keepsake until He returns.
Looking back at Acts 4, for the original church miraculous signs and wonders isn’t just about strengthening themselves or blessing the church as it’s so often taught as. The Acts church prayed to show the world that God is as real as we claim Him to be, as we know him to be.
Now we’re definitely not going to claim we know everything when it comes to these charismatic gifts. We’re still discovering that stuff all the time, as we encounter the Word, and as we proclaim it boldly, and trusting in faith that God will teach us as keep our eyes on Him. But we will not write off these miraculous things as too far fetched or too dangerous to pursue because we want God to be real, we want him to be more than just an idea in our heads, more than a philosophy we bought into. We want to see the gospel break into reality.
Which leads us to the last thing I want to talk about today, just how real is God to you? Just how much do you believe, do you know, that Jesus is your God and saviour?
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