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[323.00 --> 328.34] Let us, therefore, make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification. |
[329.34 --> 332.94] Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. |
[332.94 --> 337.22] All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. |
[337.56 --> 342.64] And you see the work of the Spirit, that righteousness, that peace, that joy, but you see it played out |
[342.64 --> 343.88] relationally. |
[345.92 --> 346.94] Somehow there's… |
[347.50 --> 349.26] You're working around conflict. |
[349.90 --> 351.88] You love the person. |
[352.14 --> 356.82] You're trying to make things so that there is more peace, more joy, more righteousness. |
[356.82 --> 367.72] If you and me are to help build God's kingdom in our lives, then we don't want to put stumbling blocks or hindrances in a way. |
[368.02 --> 373.64] And sometimes I see that happen in Christian community where, you know, the issues become the thing. |
[374.96 --> 376.84] And we're always fighting about something. |
[376.84 --> 383.68] And the Holy Spirit is bringing something else. |
[384.42 --> 390.64] And I'm not saying there isn't a place to be debating and to try to understand what is God's will. |
[390.66 --> 392.00] I'm not saying that. |
[392.26 --> 394.82] I'm just saying our attitude sometime. |
[396.12 --> 396.24] Right? |
[396.30 --> 401.84] I'm putting a stumbling block that's different than we're talking together because I love you and I just want… |
[401.84 --> 404.02] Let's wrestle with stuff together out of love. |
[404.02 --> 407.02] There's this idea, you know, I'm going to win this argument. |
[408.34 --> 410.64] And I don't care about you in the process. |
[412.10 --> 413.82] That is not the work of the Holy Spirit. |
[418.66 --> 422.98] As I said, Paul was referring to rules around what we can and cannot be eaten. |
[423.30 --> 424.28] That was a big issue. |
[425.40 --> 432.88] The kingdom of God, he says, is not a matter about eating or drinking, but righteousness, peace, and then joy in the Holy Spirit. |
[432.88 --> 436.88] So, if your brother is grieved by… |
[436.88 --> 440.46] And these were the food laws, but you can put other issues in there if you want. |
[440.70 --> 442.42] You are no longer walking in love. |
[443.56 --> 446.92] You are no longer walking in the Spirit. |
[447.80 --> 451.38] Because that person is one whom Christ died for. |
[451.58 --> 454.68] Do you still see that when debating the issues? |
[454.68 --> 465.28] What the kingdom produces through the work of the Spirit is something deeper and larger than your liberty to eat all the things you want to eat. |
[465.74 --> 468.04] And I don't care about anybody else. |
[469.70 --> 473.72] And so, your relationship with each other best displays the work of the Spirit. |
[473.72 --> 476.74] Then we'll see the evidence of the peace and the joy and the righteousness. |
[477.12 --> 480.56] Evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in you. |
[484.58 --> 488.28] A practical, lived-out righteousness that leads to peace and joy. |
[489.06 --> 491.16] With the Holy Spirit, we are made more peaceable. |
[491.34 --> 495.16] We're made more joyful and more desirous of righteousness. |
[495.90 --> 500.00] Paul says, that's the kingdom of God at work through the work of the Holy Spirit. |
[500.00 --> 503.52] The reign of God is exercised through the Spirit in that way. |
[504.06 --> 512.68] And then, our selfishness and our pride are conquered and replaced by Christ-likeness, even and especially in our relationships. |
[515.42 --> 520.66] So then, Holy Spirit, then what we read here in Hope Community Church, in verse 19, it says, |
[520.86 --> 524.60] Then let us pursue what makes for peace and mutual up-building. |
[525.14 --> 526.34] We pursue it. |
[526.34 --> 530.04] Kingdom-building is building into the lives of others. |
[531.36 --> 534.70] Now, let me say something that probably sounds a little strange. |
[536.04 --> 538.44] The Holy Spirit is not a life hack. |
[541.04 --> 545.86] It's not a shortcut to avoid responsibility. |
[546.94 --> 547.98] Let me illustrate. |
[547.98 --> 557.70] I read an article about a court case in the United States about whether a juror in a criminal trial was allowed to wave aside evidence |
[557.70 --> 561.38] and rely totally just on what the Holy Spirit told them. |
[563.88 --> 565.96] Kind of a strange case, isn't it? |
[567.06 --> 573.50] A strange case to be sure, but it raises the question about what the Spirit-led life looks like. |
[573.50 --> 580.60] And too many Christians, I feel, have come to think of the Spirit as kind of an ultimate life hack, |
[580.86 --> 587.12] a means of avoiding pain, of eliminating difficulty, of assuring success. |
[587.12 --> 596.78] And then believers become more absorbed in their own experiences and less concerned about the brothers and sisters around them. |
[600.30 --> 606.82] Jacques Ellou, a Christian philosopher, argues that the Spirit does not coerce or control us, |
[607.06 --> 610.98] but frees us and empowers us to live wise, caring lives. |
[611.20 --> 612.90] That's why I like that passage in Rome, right? |
[612.90 --> 616.74] It leads to peace and joy in relationships. |
[617.88 --> 624.86] The Spirit enlivens our conscience, allowing us to discern God's will, preventing us from taking refuge in ignorance. |
[625.02 --> 628.14] The Spirit makes us fully responsible. |
[630.72 --> 637.98] You know, we saw that in Acts 2 with Peter and the disciples declaring the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. |
[637.98 --> 646.30] And so there they were at that incredible day of Pentecost and people wondering what was going on and all that stuff. |
[646.42 --> 648.90] But years later, there's Peter. |
[650.08 --> 655.02] And they're struggling with Jews and Gentiles. |
[655.68 --> 658.02] They're still struggling with that stuff and the food rules and all that. |
[658.02 --> 660.96] And years later, Peter has a vision from God. |
[661.70 --> 667.02] And the sheet's coming down and on that sheet is a bunch of food and all that food is unclean food according to Jewish law. |
[668.24 --> 669.22] Old Testament law. |
[670.68 --> 672.90] And a voice says to Peter, |
[673.68 --> 674.02] Eat! |
[675.26 --> 677.30] And Peter says, I can't eat that stuff. |
[677.42 --> 678.80] It is unclean. |
[678.80 --> 687.42] And then God says, don't call anything impure that God has made clean. |
[688.98 --> 702.30] Peter is invited to take flight with the Holy Spirit into an uncharted world where the distinction between holy and unclean have been fundamentally upended. |
[703.56 --> 706.46] At least according to the way we often define. |
[706.46 --> 711.84] God, and we go on here from Will Jennings, he said, |
[711.94 --> 716.80] God works in and from tight spaces, intimate settings of family and close friends, |
[716.94 --> 720.22] to change wide open spaces of peoples and nations. |
[720.54 --> 723.60] Peter is now caught up in the revelation of the intimate. |
[724.28 --> 728.88] God has pushed him over the line that separated Jewish bodies from Gentile bodies, |
[729.34 --> 732.26] holy bodies from unholy ones. |
[732.26 --> 745.64] And you see where Peter had gotten caught up in the rules of food at the expense of relationships with people. |
[747.64 --> 753.40] The kingdom is being built through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. |
[753.40 --> 756.54] And we don't always know what that looks like. |
[757.06 --> 758.74] But we are being led. |
[760.28 --> 767.20] We who live in the Spirit will be free for responsibility, not free from it. |
[769.36 --> 774.16] Brothers and sisters will matter more to us than winning an argument. |
[774.16 --> 779.94] And we are free in the Spirit to nurture the common good and care for our neighbors. |
[781.34 --> 785.50] Gordon Fee talks about heaven coming down, not in a spatial sense, |
[785.78 --> 789.36] but as a foretaste of a promised future that we're going to have. |
[789.92 --> 798.02] And in all its wholeness and beauty, this heavenly invasion has invaded planet Earth by means of the Holy Spirit. |
[798.02 --> 804.52] And the church is the arena in which that heavenly invasion plays itself out. |
[805.82 --> 807.92] Do you see the church that way? |
[809.22 --> 811.06] Or is it just a Sunday thing? |
[814.42 --> 817.82] And this isn't about becoming so heavenly minded that we're of no earthly good. |
[818.04 --> 819.88] Actually, the very opposite of that. |
[820.22 --> 825.82] The very power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to us. |
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