January 6th on the Western Church liturgical calendar is the Feast of the Epiphany. Epiphany comes from a Greek word that means “to appear, or to become visible.” Epiphany is among the oldest Christian feasts dating back to the 4th Century and traditionally commemorates the visitation of the wise men to the baby Jesus. In the broader sense it is the celebration of the “epiphany” or the manifest presence of Jesus Christ – the Son of God in human flesh – to the Gentiles.
The fact that God the Son took on flesh and bone is of supreme importance to us. One of the reasons Jesus became Immanuel – God with us – was so that we could experience Him. Or to use biblical terminology it is so that we could have fellowship with Him. It is what Jesus meant in John 15 when He instructed us to abide in Him. Christ came so that we could experience the manifestation or the epiphany of God in a very real, tangible way. And He returned to the Father so that He could send the Holy Spirit to us so that we would be able to experience the manifest presence of the Spirit in our lives daily.
John Piper spoke of the experiential reality of the Spirit, saying, “When you read the New Testament honestly, you can’t help but get the impression of a big difference from a lot of contemporary Christian experience. For them [the believers in the New Testament] the Holy Spirit was a fact of experience. For many Christians today it is a fact of doctrine… In Protestant evangelicalism [the gift of the Holy Spirit] is equated with a subconscious work of God in regeneration which you only know you have because the Bible says you do if you believe. It is easy to imagine a spiritual counselor saying to a new convert today, ‘Don’t expect to notice any difference: just believe you have received the Spirit.’ But that is far from what we see in the New Testament.”
I’m afraid we fall into that contemporary Christian experience category where the presence of the Holy Spirit is more an academic exercise than an experiential reality. And I hope you realize that. I hope you don’t think that we have arrived. I pray you begin to long to experience the Holy Spirit like they did in the New Testament, even if you are a little uncomfortable and are not quite sure what that would really look like.
Three Rivers, you are approaching a divide in the road. To the left is a well-worn path taken by most because it is easier, neater, more manageable, status quo, indifferent. That path is well-traveled and easier because it can be done on our own strength and with our own wisdom. But straight ahead is a narrow path with steep grades and cliffs on either side, but it is the path that leads to life. That path is impossible to negotiate without the epiphany, the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit at each step.
Can I just be real honest here? I’m tired – not of the ministry or the pastorate – I’m tired of apathy, of indifference…in my own life and the life of this church. I’m tired of 20-25% participation in connect groups. I’m tired of seeing a prayer ministry that only has 2 to 3 college students and has to be led by a college student because no one else is willing. I’m tired of not seeing older men and women not stepping up and teaching the younger men and women.
Have you ever wondered where the Jewish religious leaders were when Christ was born? They knew the prophecies; they saw the star; they knew where the Messiah would be born. (see Matthew 2:4-6) Isn’t it ironic that they were not in the stable worshiping their King? Instead, there were pagan astrologers who had traveled hundreds of miles and uneducated, dirty shepherds who gathered around the newborn God-man in worship. The religious leaders knew the scriptures, had all the knowledge, but they did not act on what they knew. They were indifferent; they were apathetic. Their knowledge had not transformed their hearts. (see http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-irony-of-the-epiphany)
A.W. Tozer wrote in The Pursuit of God, “We have been too blind to see, or too timid to speak out, or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied. To put it differently, we have accepted one another’s notions, copied one another’s lives and made one another’s experiences the model for our own…we have made the Word of Truth conform to our experience and accepted this low plane as the very pasture of the blessed.” (Chapter 5)
Frankly, I am growing weary of walking down this worn-down path of dry academic theology here in the Western church lined with cold stone walls that have chiseled in them the oldness of the Law, which can still be full of emotion, but it lacks real spiritual power. I’m tired of persuasive words of wisdom instead of the demonstration of the Spirit and of power (1 Cor 2:4). I want to begin walking in the newness of the Spirit. I want to begin experiencing Isaiah 30:20, that says, “[The Lord], your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. Your ears will hear a word behind you, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right or to the left.”
What if you woke up every morning longing to hear the voice of God? What if the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit was a fact of daily experience in your life? What if you trained yourself to discern the voice of God behind you, telling you, “This is the way, walk in it”? Many of you are uncomfortable with that. Good. I want you to be. I’m not going to explain that away and say, “Well, what Isaiah really meant was…” No, what Isaiah really meant was hearing the voice of God in our daily lives.
Now, there are some who think, “Well, you know Brad, Hebrews 1 says that in these last days, God has spoken to us in His Son. That’s past tense; He has spoken. Jesus is God’s final word to mankind.” And in one sense that is very true – but it is in the sense that final means ultimate, not finished. Because it is nonsense to think that God, the omnipotent Creator who spoke creation into existence, and who has communicated to mankind since the days of Adam, the One who said that man cannot live on food alone, but by every word that proceeds from His mouth, the One whose very name is The Word, should somehow have ceased to communicate to His people once the last word in scripture was penned. God is not just a God who has communicated; He is a God who communicates.
An integral part to the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is the use of spiritual gifts. What if we took Paul at his word and “earnestly desired spiritual gifts.” And then we began using our spiritual gifts in a way that edifies the church? I’m not talking about simply our talents or skills – those are of our own strength and wisdom. We trivialize the importance and uniqueness of spiritual gifts when we lump them in with talents or things we just enjoy doing. I’m talking about biblically-based supernatural Holy Spirit driven gifts for the building up of the church like prophecy, and helps, and administration, and healing, and tongues. See, I think Satan has done an amazing job at making spiritual gifts taboo in otherwise biblically sound churches.
Why are we content on just knowing that the Holy Spirit is with us instead of longing to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit in our church?
So before you take the bread and the cup of communion, I want you to pause – not to rest, but to consider: Are you able to drink the cup that Christ first drank, or to be baptized with the baptism with which He was baptized? (Mark 10:38) In other words, are you willing to pursue the manifest presence of God regardless of what lies ahead? Are you willing to say with Job, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.” (Job 13:15) If so, then drink deeply of His cup, and savor the richness of His bread. He died to bring you near to God. And He returned to the Father so that you could experience the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit in your life.
Father, forgive us of our sinful preoccupation with our own pursuits in our own strengths and with our own efforts. Holy Spirit, we want to experience You, we want to fellowship with You, we want to abide in You. We want to grow to discern Your voice telling us “This is the way, walk in it”. Now bless this cup and this bread, I ask, as we honor Christ’s death and eagerly await His return.
Three Rivers Church 