God is Still Speaking, Are We Listening?

Text: John 16:12-15

Focus: The Spirit of God’s leading

Function: The fact that the Spirit of God is still speaking and has made several changes in culture.

¹²“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

We are still focusing on the theme of Pentecost and the moving and the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers.

I enjoyed the time I spent in both Bible College and Seminary. Besides the lectures that the professors gave us, we spent a lit of time in discussion among ourselves, guided by our professors as we learned to search out and study scripture for ourselves and try to do our best to discern the meaning of the scripture in light of what is going on in the current social/spiritual/political climate.

The discussions were lively, engaging and meaningful to me. I helped me to understand what the Holy Spirit was teaching me in my preparation for ministry.

All this happened during the height of the Charismatic movement.

The subject of today, the power of the Holy Spirit as He/She comes and moves in our lives was very controversial during the movement.

And one of the Scriptural manifestations of the Holy Spirit was the gift of speaking in tongues. For many Charismatics, it became a sign for who was actually in and who was out in the kingdom of God. They believed you had to have it.

Of course, 1 Corinthians 12 tells us that there are believers filled with the Spirit who do not speak in tongues. So, the movement became very divisive. And that was sad, because the Spirit of God is given to bring us together and make us love each other.

I was in the middle. I’m a mystic and I believe in tongues and practice it regularly. But I don’t believe that you have to do it. As a matter of fact, the proof of the Spirit of God in our lives is not the manifestation of the gifts of God but the love of God evident toward others.

I defended the gifts, but I preached against the division that it was causing. Pride is what causes that kind of sin. And pride is the sin with which we saints are the most affected.

And. Sinner that I am, I was more proud of the fact that I understood both sides and had praise and criticism for both.

I thought I was better than them.

And that is sin.

Now, what does that have to do with our scripture?

Jesus said, I will send my Spirit and he will reveal to you more truth. I don’t see and end to this promise. As a matter of fact, Jesus promises to be with us, leading us by the power of His Spirit until we get to heaven. Praise God!

It is the Spirit of God that leads us into this kind of revelation that keeps us humble and loving others as much as we love ourselves.

It isn’t easy at times because we have to forgive and make exceptions for people whom we do not understand because they are different from us.

But we are called to love them like Jesus loves them.

So God is still speaking and the question is, are we listening?

It is important for me to remember that at times God’s voice has spoken and the whole world trembled.

I am speaking symbolically here when I speak of the way the Holy Spirit worked in the hearts of men like William Wilberforce, Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglas and a myriad of abolitionists who worked to abolish slavery worldwide. It was a move of God, let by the Holy Spirit and it was exactly what Jesus was prophesying in this passage as He tells His disciples to expect God to keep on moving in their midst.

How do we know the Spirit is leading? I believe that the Spirit will always lead us to love Jesus by loving others.

I don’t know how to explain this it, except for me, it seems to happen deep down in my Spirit.

Prayer is a big part of the leading of the Spirit in my life. I find this during prayer, God changes me. God, in a still small voice or by a gentle nudging of thoughts in a certain direction, by the power of the Holy Spirit always leads me to love others and to try to see their side of things and understand the sincerity of their actions.

Prayer changes me to love and forgive and that always seems to release the power of the Holy Spirit in my life.

And conversely, when I feel the heavens are as cold as brass and my prayers seem useless, I have to stop and examine myself. Why does the life giving source of the Holy Spirit seem dried up inside of me?

And the answer is almost always a place of unforgiveness.

The Spirit of God is leading and we need to continue to listen to He/She speak to us.

And it isn’t just a personal conviction that God’s Spirit fosters on a society. I already mentioned how God’s Spirit changed the times and seasons when God’s Spirit lead the Church to abolish slavery worldwide.

God is still speaking and I would be remiss not to mention what I believe to be the next great move of the Spirit.

Tony Compolo has been an inspiration to me all my life. He was ardently against the idea of same sex marriage.

And he describes a journey similar to mine of how God, by the Holy Spirit helped him to see the humanity of the LGBTQ community and eventually in his passion for social justice, include them in the picture of people whom God has redeemed.

So, Jesus promises the Holy Spirit to always be with us and to lead us.

When the Spirit leads, He/She changes hearts in order to change cultures and bring about the justice and love for our neighbor that Jesus preached.

So, the Spirit is leading, are we listening and open to the changes God wants to bring to redeem our culture?