I had planned to write a little about the place of Word and Spirit side by side in the coming move of God, but as I thought about it I realised that I needed to write first about Holy Spirit.
This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday when believers remember and honour that day when Holy Spirit first poured Himself over the first believers after the death and resurrection of Jesus. The result was powerful, radical, long lasting and eventually the effects were felt all over the known world.
The believers were all inside a house when suddenly (that means out of nowhere, they were not expecting this) a sound filled the whole house. The sound sounded like a violent wind. It filled every part of the house. Then they saw something. The best description they could put on it was that it looked like flames of fire that appeared, and then separated into individual fires that came to rest on each person. Holy Spirit filled each person there with His Presence, and the effect on each persons spirit was so powerful that they spontaneously began to speak out in languages that they did not know and had not learnt. In this case these were human languages recognised by the crowds who gathered (drawn by the noise). The crowd was made up of people from many nations, there for the festival of Passover and Shavuot. At this point the Bible says “Then Peter stood up… (Acts 2 v 14) and the rest is history. Peter spoke, 3000 people became believers that hour.
Here’s the question. Is Pentecost Sunday a memorial, or is it a renewal of our personal invitation to Holy Spirit to pour Himself over us and fill us?
If it is a Memorial, then we have missed the point. If it’s an invitation to Him, what does that invitation look like? Is it any of these invitations?…
- Please will You come and fill our meeting
- Please come and bring Your gifts (healing, prophecy, tongues etc etc)
- You’ve been powerfully present in our meetings before and we could feel it – some were shaking, some were overcome with joy and laughter, some were crying …… will You come and do that again?
- Will You be so present that our church grows as people come to see what’s happening
The problem with all these invitations is that they specify what we want to happen.
If we are not careful we fall into the trap of trying to use Holy Spirit as our servant! We confuse the gifts with The Giver, and we turn the effect of His Presence into the reason for Him being there, or worse still, a sign of validation over what we do.
It would be odd if we had a friend who called and brought with them a bunch of gifts for us, and we said “that’s fine, leave them on the table and I’ll sort through and see what I want; you can go now”. Odder still if later on we called our friend and said “come back, and bring some gifts”.
It would be odd too, if we had a friend who, when they were around, brought a sense of peace, brought laughter, brought wisdom and so much more; and we only called them to come over when we were feeling down or a bit lost, rather than wanting to hang out with them just because they are our friend.
The Church has been rather good at curating things – like they do in museums. The dictionary definition of ‘to curate’ is this: To curate something is to carefully choose, arrange and present different items in order to get a particular effect”. [Collins English Dictionary]. It seems to me that sometimes that is what we do with what Holy Spirit brings.
It is interesting that the result of the first outpouring of Holy Spirit was that the believers went outside and acted – and 3000 people were saved that hour. It is interesting that as we read the book of Acts, the continued effect of the unrestricted presence and action of Holy Spirit was mainly outside and the result was the world outside turned upside down.
This first outpouring was at the Festival of Shavuot – a festival to celebrate the beginning of harvest. Every detail matters in the Bible. Holy Spirit was celebrating the beginning of a great Harvest. Harvest is still what He is pursuing. That is why He works so intensely outside.
It is interesting that the Church never retreated back indoors expecting the world outside to follow them. Neither is there any record of them going back inside to have Holy Spirit Rushing Wind meetings or Holy Spirit Flames of Fire meetings to replicate a previous event. They were too busy outside in the real world keeping up with what Holy Sprit was doing through them out there. The Church was literally out there.
And yes, I am absolutely sure that when they met in homes together the presence of Holy Spirit was powerful in many different ways. But, as Robby Dawkins said once (check him out) “if we want power in our meetings we need to sow the seed for that outside”. We need to be moving in Holy Spirit power outside, praying for healing outside, getting prophetic words for people outside etc etc. That sows a seed for what happens when we meet inside. BUT we do the stuff outside because that is what Holy Spirit is after – not to manipulate Him to come to our meetings. Actually outside is the priority and church flows out of that.
There is only one key. “What do you want to do Holy Spirit?” We are here for Him, not the other way round. The moment that we try to set the agenda we end up going stale and irrelevant in a cul de sac.
At present we are having a series of worship meetings at the Mart in Hexham. They are once a month and the next one is next Thursday 9th June. People ask me what the plan or agenda is. Really I have no idea except thatI felt Holy Spirit said to draw people together from churches but particularly from small groups and those estranged from church to do one thing – Worship King Jesus. What He does with this is entirely up to Him, and I don’t want to ‘run’ or ‘control’ it. There is only one key. “What do you want to do Holy Spirit?”
So when we come to Sunday this week which we call Pentecost, let this not be merely a Memorial for the past, but make it a completely unlimited invitation for Holy Spirit to do what He wants, and be aware that His priority is outside our meetings. That is where He is intent on going. It’s time to take time, to get to know Him. It’s time to get to know and understand His heart. It’s time to go where He has set His heart on going – outside.
Church is out there 