Beyond The Message: Wes Huff, Tongues, and Hearing God's Voice

Welcome to Beyond the Message, a midweek space where we continue the conversation from Sunday's sermon, unpacking context, exploring your questions, and growing as we listen, learn, and follow Jesus together.

Well, welcome back to Beyond the Message, where we go a little bit deeper into the message that was preached here at Windsor the Sunday before.

And I have the privilege of hosting today because Pastor Aidan Wivell spoke into week three of our Holy Spirit series this last Sunday.

So a little bit of a recap around that.

Aidan went into the passage that is very familiar to us, the day of Pentecost, that we see in the early chapters of Acts.

And your whole premise around that was the idea of how the disciples particularly waited, received, and then were sent by the Holy Spirit.

They waited, Jesus told them to wait for the Holy Spirit.

So seasons of waiting, what that means for us and how difficult that is for us.

The receiving and what that means, how that changes things.

And you use that really great example of uh Tim Payne, the New Zealand footballer, which is worth following with the FIFA World Cup kicking off this week.

And then the idea of being sent, how the disciples were sent, with that empowered by the Holy Spirit and the difference that they makes for them.

So the challenge, I guess, for us was identifying those seasons, seeing how they play out in our lives and how the Holy Spirit meets us in those places, and then the challenge to be thinking about well, what does that mean for us as far as the way in which we live our lives and not just as individuals?

You helpfully talked about how it is individual, the spirit comes to us as individuals, but the collective responsibility as a church and how that works out for us.

So as a church community, how does the Holy Spirit speak to us as a group through our own lives?

And as Baptists, of course, that's a really core part of who we are.

There is not one person that has more ability to hear from the spirit.

A senior pastor have no special ability to hear more from the spirit than any of you.

So how do we hear that together as kind of part of us?

So is that a fair summary of yeah, yeah, it was a great summary.

And I was just thinking, uh, we should uh one time we should get a listener to summarize the message.

Yeah, see if they could voice record a summary and send it into Tim and we'll use their summary.

So if you think you can sum up the message in three easy sentences, yeah, yeah.

I made it easy because I had a three-point sermon.

So wait, receive, go.

Aidan, you shared with me that the message ended differently, or the focus or the direction of the message changed for you in your preparation.

And part of our podcast is always to get to know our preachers a little bit more, get to hear a bit more of the story of the message, what God did in them and that preparation.

And so for you, this was one of these occasions where we often feel like we have a message and then we start thinking, praying, writing, and it changes completely.

Tell us a little bit about the process that you went through.

Yeah, so originally I was thinking more, I guess, a typical Pentecost message or or more focusing on receiving the Holy Spirit.

Uh but on the Wednesday before writing the message, I actually went with you and you you led a group of our Year 13s into the city to to kind of expose people to issues of homelessness and and to start conversations with people.

And I I tagged along because I try to get to know year 13s with my young adults role.

So that was in my mind, just the exposure to okay, the need that's in our city.

And then um coincidentally, I was actually staying in the city that weekend because it was Keeley's birthday, and we had childcare, and we we had, you know, a show to go to and we stayed in the city.

A staycation.

A staycation uh in the place that we just kind of walked through and seen the homelessness.

So it was quite a juxtaposition for me in that short space of time.

And then in the morning, uh I'd arranged for Keely to have, you know, some massage or something like that, and you know, birthday treat.

So I was in the hotel room by myself and just sitting, having some time to pray and looking out the window, and it was kind of in that space in the middle of Auckland City, having had the exposure to some of the needs around us, that's I think about the message, and I felt quite clearly that this needed to be more of a sending message, uh, which is not unfaithful to Pentecost.

Pentecost is very much that, but I wasn't going to go down that route.

But then it was, yeah, that idea that this is an opportunity to speak into mission.

Uh, what does mission look like in our city?

What is Windsor Park's role collectively, or what are we called to individually to be active in this part of the world, bringing about God's kingdom filled with the spirit, but not for us.

Uh, it shifted from, I guess, more of an internal focus to an external focus, which is why we do these kind of things.

So that's why I tag along on exposure trips with these young people.

It's great.

And it's a great experience for our young people to start to learn that rhythm of hearing what the spirit might be saying to them.

This is why we do that.

But interesting that when you talk about how that changed for you, there was a degree of waiting.

You were sitting in a hotel, yeah, waiting for Keighley, I guess, or just doing your own thing.

Um, that process that we often do, I guess, as preachers and speakers, where we're like, okay, what do you want me to say?

And there is a certain degree of waiting that comes with that before we put things into words.

Yeah.

And one of the big topics of that passage, the day of Pentecost, is talking in tongues.

And in a couple of weeks' time, we're going to be talking about spiritual gifts.

But in the context of that passage, that gift, the ability to talk in tongues, is big and it's often a big topic for us within churches.

But the interesting thing in that one in particular is the talking was different people's languages as we were reflecting about it afterwards.

It would be like you all of a sudden in the middle of your sermon starting to talk in Polish.

We thought of someone in our church that speaks Polish and they they understand exactly what you're saying.

That was the context of that sort of talking in tongues, but empowered by the Holy Spirit.

You referred in your message to uh podcast by Wes Huff and some of the controversy that that has generated in recent times.

Firstly, tell us a little bit who Wes Huff is.

Uh, a lot of younger people will probably know that, but um older people like me and others might not and introduce him to us and just tell us a little bit about what's going on in that discussion that you've seen.

Yeah, so Wes Huff is a Christian apologist from Canada, and um he's increasingly come to prominence as a kind of younger voice in the apologetic space.

He he's pretty jacked, he's uh he's quite a big dude.

I think he can bench press like over 150, 200 kgs or something crazy, um, which has got him a lot of young male followers.

But he he's a brilliant apologist.

He actually came to New Zealand last year for Thinking Matters, so I had the opportunity to go and see him in person.

Um, but what's really brought him to prominence is he's been on the Joe Rogan podcast, I think the most listened to podcast in the world.

And um he's also been on the diary of Diary of a CEO, which is a kind of equivalence in the UK, so huge secular podcast, which has taken him to you know, massive secular audiences.

Uh so he's that's why he's kind of got so much attention, but he is an apologist and he's extremely gifted and a great communicator.

So a lot of people have kind of he's the pinup boy of apologetics at the moment, and then he was on Michaela Peterson's podcast, who's the daughter of Jordan Peterson, and in part of their conversation gave his opinion on the gift of tongues, and it was part of a longer conversation, but he in short that snippet raised some controversy because people took him to be saying that biblical tongues was only what we see at Pentecost, was only that speaking in other human languages.

But we've actually watched a clip, um, and when you actually look at it and you listen to what he's saying, he doesn't rule out the other type, he just says that's not been his experience, um, but that scripture does predominantly talk, I think, or mainly talks about speaking in other human languages.

So yeah, we thought we could maybe unpack that a little bit, but also to reassure people, because I actually do know people who think really highly of him, right?

He's a expert in the New Testament and in kind of church history.

And if if they were thinking that he's dismissing the gift of tongues as they know it, that could kind of like undermine someone's faith.

That could kind of shake some and go, Well, what about all these experiences that I've had?

What about my speaking in tongues that brings me so much life?

Is this person who I really look up to saying that it's invalid?

But when we watched it, we didn't hear him saying that.

Uh, just that it's kind of a both and there's the human languages and there's the angelic, but he majored on the human.

He said that's just kind of not been his experience.

Um yeah, I can say more about kind of my perspective as well.

Yeah, well, I think it's an interesting thing to talk about because it would be my experience that when we start talking about spiritual gifts and how the spirit gives them to us, because talking in tongues is one of those ones that ends up being highly controversial.

And I think the language that he used in that podcast around what he saw in scripture was that was the normative way that he saw it happen more in that way in the New Testament than speaking in the language of angels, perhaps a language that is a is a God language, we might say, or a spirit language, which is directed towards God.

And so he didn't preclude both, but it always challenges me that discussion because it can get quite controversial quite quickly and it becomes really problematic for us.

And sometimes an apologist, which is somebody that really uh I guess speaks on behalf of faith, uh, can be quite strict in their views.

And this is perhaps one of the challenges that we start to encounter when we start looking at the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit works out in our lives and in the church, is how do we balance some of these different views?

And when it comes to talking in tongues, there would be some that would today say that to talk in tongues is the evidence that you are saved.

Now, I don't say that, I don't believe that, and but I could give my reasons for that, but some do believe that.

How do we work this out from your side?

I guess in a younger generation, uh younger people that are maybe starting to encounter things of the spirit more, seeking things of the spirit more, which is great, but the different viewpoints that we have, like when a weshof says something and yeah, you know, blows up because it's so controversial and people start getting, you know, a bit grumpy.

Um how should we work that out, do you think?

Uh yeah, read your Bible.

Yeah, yeah.

Read read your Bible for yourself.

And uh I I say that kind of jokingly, but I I I think the the more familiar we are with God's word for ourselves, um, not relying on you know Pastor Grant's interpretation of a passage or Aidan's or Al Wes Huff, but actually being familiar with you know 1 Corinthians 14 for yourself, you know, could read that today uh and see Paul talk about tongues and prophecy.

Uh and obviously we need help with that.

We need to speak to others about it, we need to read commentaries, we can um listen to other experts' opinion on it.

But at the end of the day, we believe that all all Christians are filled with the Spirit, are able to um understand Scripture for themselves.

So I would say get familiar as possible with God's word as it is written, because that helps you to then discern when somebody's you know doing something, or it's you just it helps you to discern if you know what God's voice sounds like through scripture, you'll be able to better you know hear him through others, uh, and you can have that kind of internal sense of like w what's God's perspective, and you're not shaken by different views here and there.

But I I I advocate for kind of like an open discernment.

So um it doesn't mean that you go, Well, I know the truth and I've worked it all out, I've read First Corinthians by myself, that's the view that matters.

It's be familiar with it, but also be open to to other ideas.

But being open without any of your own knowledge, you know, it's how we say stand for something or fall for anything.

If as a Christian you have not much to stand on biblically, you can be taken in by any kind of teaching.

But if you have that balance of my own study of scripture, whether that's you know, for you reading the Bible or you like to listen to it, or you like to you want to go and do a course at Kerry or or do further learning, I would just encourage all of that to have that balance of my own faith and the ability to be in community and interact with people who who read things differently.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's possibly one of the greatest challenges for us as Christians is learning, as we would say, I guess, spiritual rhythms and practices in our own lives.

I know that when I started asking questions, I approached them with an openness.

I would listen to an apologist, or in fact, back in the day there was no internet for me, but listening to I guess teleevangelists on TV.

And I remember in my mid-late 20s, just starting to ask myself the question, do I really believe what they are saying?

And what do I believe about this?

And for me, it started the inquiring mind.

Yeah, what does scripture say?

But not just reading that scripture because it might say something slightly different, a different translation.

What do I really believe around what this is saying about God?

That was, I guess, my process.

I shouldn't have started asking those questions.

It led me to be a pastor in the end, um, and still to be asking the questions.

Um, but you know, having an open mind, but these days, with the advance of technology, being able to listen to multiple views and saying, what do I sense about this?

What do I believe about this?

And I think one of the challenges is giving some time for that and allowing the spirit to speak to us, allowing other people to speak into us.

And I always talk about holding dynamic tensions.

There are maybe two views or more, three or four views around different things, and tongues is one of them.

Yeah, there is multiple views, so being able to hold them delicately and sense where we might land on that and how it plays out in our life, but also accepting that other people will view it differently.

So I think Whiz Huff, um, where might someone go if the the names that you mentioned, where might people find some of these podcasts?

Um, yeah, the like Joe Rogan.

Yeah, Joe Rogan, Wiz Huff.

Or in terms of like learning Michaela Bible, Michaela Michaela Peterson.

Yeah, I haven't actually listened to her podcast.

Um Joe Rogan, I don't listen to.

I listen if someone goes on that I'm interested in.

I kind of like Joe Rogan's not a specifically Christian podcast.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

This is the biggest podcast in the world.

Okay.

Um secular.

I think he's a former wrestler.

Um yeah, he has all sorts on the um, but in terms of thinking biblically, uh, I actually don't podcast for that, but I think the Bible Project have a really good podcast.

Bible Project are excellent.

Yeah, I don't I listen to sometimes their podcast if we're prepping for a series on Luke, uh, but it's not a regular rhythm for me.

Personally, uh I there's a bit different to scriptural study, but I love Lectio 365.

Yeah, the prayer app.

Um that's more of like a devotional use.

And then like learning, I'm I have a study Bible and commentaries.

Um, do you have any podcasts around scripture?

I th there is one, I can't think of the name.

I'm not a great one of remembering the names, but if maybe we should share our libraries of podcasts, and then that would be an indicative of what we listen to.

Yeah, yeah.

I often say to people, if you really want to know someone that listens to podcasts or music, just get them to screenshot their Spotify playlists and share it with each other, and then you'll really see what people are.

See what people listen to.

Yeah, well, they Spotify do that wrapped thing as well.

So we can get wrapped for podcast version.

Hopefully, we can get some people to have beyond the message in their top five at the end of the store.

Well, no doubt it is.

Yeah.

For me, it's if I was to screenshot my podcast, it'll be a little mix of some history podcasts, uh, which I'm always interested in, some biblical ones as well.

I interested in kind of apologetic topics or the way in which God forms us.

So sometimes listen to that, but anyway, maybe that's for another day.

Yeah, mate.

Aiden at the end, you talked about hearing the spirit leading us.

And a question that a lot of people often say is, how do I know it's the spirit leading me?

Yeah.

I might have a prompting to be thinking about something, I might be wanting to hear God speak, I'm not sure if that's God.

And we talk about the Holy Spirit leading us, empowering us.

And you mentioned as we are trying to see where God might be leading us as a church when it comes to global mission, or in particular, who might He be prompting, yeah, who might want to respond to that, yeah, and perhaps go, what would you say to somebody who might ask you the question?

So, how do I know it's the spirit speaking to me?

Yeah.

How do I move into that process in my life?

Yeah, I think the closest I can relate to is kind of my own call to pastoral ministry.

Um, so it's if someone was sensing a call, hey, maybe I'm called to this kind of missional field, the closest I can relate to is kind of that transition process to kind of become and start training for ministry, which I definitely had to discern and trying to figure out like, is this the spirit or is this just me, or is this just kind of the grass is greener kind of thinking?

Uh so for that for me uh a few things that were really helpful.

Um one thing for me is not rushing.

Uh I think that you can take your time with some of these things, unless like God writes on a billboard exactly what he wants you to do.

I think it's okay to take your time.

I think it's wise to do that.

Uh and that time can involve speaking to others.

I I spoke to you, I spoke to to other pastors that I know to kind of go, hey, I'm thinking about this.

Do you resonate with that?

Do you think could you see me doing ministry?

Do you think I have character for it with training?

Um, so if it was mission, then I would be speaking to people who who maybe have that experience.

So who have served overseas if that's what people are feeling led to, or you want to do some certain type of community work, go and find people who have already done that, who you can process with.

Um so speaking to others is really important.

But I'm also an introvert, so I kind of spend a lot of time speaking to myself or speaking to God in the form of journaling.

So I journaled heaps during that season to kind of get my thoughts down on paper, and that's been so helpful because I can look back at that and see myself wrestling with is this you, God?

Is how do we work this out?

How is this going to look for our family?

And the increase in clarity that came over time.

So I find journaling that because you may sense something during Grant's sermon or during listening to this podcast.

Write it down and talk to somebody about it.

That's like two really practical things that you can do.

Um, and then the other thing it would be kind of get some exposure.

So if it's again overseas mission, is there an opportunity to do a short-term experience, an internship, uh, something that will get you closer to that environment because it's the idea of doing it is very different to the reality, I imagine.

And same as is the idea of becoming a pastor is different to the reality.

So good to get some experience in short-term spaces.

So don't rush and in that time, you know, journal, pray, speak to other wise counsel, uh, and try to get some exposure and experience along the way.

Do you want to add to that?

Yeah, well, I think you're entirely right.

Uh, I'm the opposite to you.

I am not an introvert, I'm an extrovert.

So I'll just talk to a thousand people and people that I trust, if I have some idea that comes to me, something that I think might be of the Holy Spirit, and I always kind of test that and say, what's the motivation behind it?

Is this ultimately going to grow God's kingdom?

Is that the intent of what my thought is?

And I often pray in my own prayer life, God, if this is not of you, then take it from me.

Let me think about some other things.

So my internalizing is more based around that.

I I'm not a journalist like you, but I love to talk to people that I trust and say, This is what I'm thinking.

What do you think about that?

And if it's not good, just tell me.

Just be up front.

But I always feel that if ideas or something you know about my life keeps coming to me, and that can be correction as well, because the Holy Spirit can sometimes want to correct me.

And I'm like, if this is not of you, take it away because it's definitely about you, Holy Spirit says.

It's like, okay, I I need to sort this.

Yeah.

Um, so our resonance with the spirit for me is important.

Important and with the objectives of the kingdom and you know what the word of God is saying to me about that.

Um so I guess my my history would be yeah, testing a lot, um, thinking, praying, um, talking a lot for me.

It's really important.

Had the example on Sunday when somebody came up to me after church and said, I don't know if this is God speaking to me, but I'm thinking about this and perhaps wanted to get involved in that.

And the particular context of what they were saying to me was actually the subject of a meeting that I was in the week before with a range of other people on that exact subject.

Wow.

And I said, Well, I don't know if this is God either, but during the week I was in a meeting talking exactly about what you are talking about, and so I'd love you to link, be linked into some of these people, and I think he felt, oh, this is scary.

Yes.

Might actually be the spirit because it's in line with the purposes of God and with other things that are going on as well.

And so I I love those discussions.

I love it when people come up and say, I think God might be saying something to me about this, what do you think?

Yeah.

Um, and then there are other things that have happened that sort of just line up.

Yeah, yeah, that's a great example and a great posture to come into a conversation with.

But like that person could have sat on that and kind of not done gone and spoken to you, and then kind of work gets busy and you forget about it.

So vocalizing it, but not saying, you know, 100% God has told me we will do this.

It just, hey, this might be God, and just sharing that sense with you.

Yeah, that's awesome.

And and the other thing I would say on just general discernment is similar to what I said about the Bible and not being swayed by other it's just the closer we are to God to in our relationship with Jesus.

You know, Jesus or said that, you know, my sheep will know my voice, and the more familiar in relationship we are with Jesus, the more confident that we can be that we will know his voice.

So if you're trying to discern a mission or call, because that's what we're talking about, um the very the best thing you can do is just be as close to Jesus, be you be in the word, be in prayer, be in life group, be in worship, because the closer you are to him, the more likely you're gonna sense his his voice.

So kind of staying in the moment and staying with him, trust him to lead you.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's so important.

I I mean, writing down, I'd say I don't journal, actually.

You reminded me during church on Sunday and listening to you.

I felt God say something to me about a situation that I wrote down, an idea that has been in my head for a little while, and I have no clue how it's gonna work out.

It's expensive, it feels out of the square, but I felt the spirit saying to me, just remember this.

And so I wrote it down.

People, if you look at me on a Sunday, I'm often writing little notes.

No, I thought it was a performance review.

It wasn't your performance review, no, no.

I'm always writing little notes of what the spirit maybe I feel saying to me, or you know, little things that I've thought of.

I always come back on a Sunday with a little bit of paper of things that I have to follow up on.

And I'm like, I still don't know, you know, days later, I still don't know how this is gonna come about.

Um, I feel it's of the spirit, and I'm gonna, I guess, try and test that a little bit, but it also is trusting him.

We don't always know how things are gonna work out.

We don't know what the future holds, we don't know what tomorrow holds, but yeah, recognising that voice, I guess I'm old.

Um, I've learned to recognize that voice more effectively than you know, I did when I was young, probably.

I've learned to discern it a little bit better, and so the waiting and the timing, the receiving, it the then going is is a process for us all.

Totally.

Yeah, yeah.

Aiden, wrapping this up, we're talking about the day of Pentecost, everything changed.

How might people discover, I guess, more of a Pentecost experience in their life?

We often describe it as being it was a day of Pentecost, and then you talked about it.

It's an ongoing refilling of the spirit.

It's not something that happens once for us.

Um, it's something that we should be, I guess, striving for on a regular basis.

How might how might somebody go about that?

Yeah.

Um, continually being filled by the spirit.

So it's just like I I like posture, you know.

So like I I think just arms open, like I I'm open to receive more of you.

Um like as a metaphor for how you live your life, that that that kind of person would then pray in such a way, come, Holy Spirit, you know, like at the start of the day.

It could be a simple breath prayer, like um breathing out, come breathing in, Holy Spirit, and and and doing that for a couple of minutes.

We can't force the Holy Spirit to do anything, um, but we can posture ourselves to receive and we can provide space, like that kind of waiting.

Because when I framed that up, it was like wait, receive, go.

Receiving is kind of the only one that we can't make happen.

We we can wait and we can choose to go and do stuff, but receiving is kind of up to God.

So the posture of um being ready to receive, arms open um in prayer, in worship, in looking for God in your everyday.

Um yeah, I I think for me, like I find that I I'm most open to receive God in in times of prayer, in times of worship, and I guess being open for Him to do things that I don't expect.

So um and I guess letting go of fear as well, um, like trusting God, like come Holy Spirit, there might be fears that come with that, because it's like, well, what if he tells me I'm called to Kolkata?

You know, like that that could be quite scary.

So I think um maybe if if we're if we sense some hesitance to say, Come, Holy Spirit, have your way in my life, fill me with your spirit, lead me in your mission, what are those barriers?

Um, and then working through some of those.

So um so we can posture ourselves, say, have your way in me.

Um yeah, I really like how you talk about a posture and and everything that you've said that just highlights how different we are because you like your posture as imprudent and worship.

I'm like, I have that posture when I'm in the middle of a full basketball game.

Um, like you know, today is like an NBA game three of the NBA finals.

Uh I might have it on in my office just a little bit later on, but I'll have a posture of like, what are you saying to me while I'm watching basketball?

Uh I mean really walking down Queen Street when it's really busy or being in a mall or being in crowds, that's when I really feel the spirit speak to me.

Wow, yeah, because I I just I'm energized around people, yeah.

So we're so different.

Yeah, it is because it's like Kolkata, right?

Like the noisiest place, like if you think Queen Street's busy, it's like go to Kolkata.

Yeah, and um, I was like trying to tell myself while I'm there, the Holy Spirit is just as present as he is with me at Midangi Bay in front of the calm beach.

And I'm like, theologically that is true, but I can't experience it.

But obviously.

Yeah, wow, yeah, and that's awesome.

Yeah, so I love I love that we're so different because we are all different, and I guess that's what we're trying to say when it comes to this series Come Holy Spirit.

We're wanting the spirit to be present with us, and that's something for us to keep learning, to keep asking for, to keep posturing ourselves for.

Together we are better, as you know, you said again on the weekend.

So together we hear the spirit speaking to us, we should be encouraged by that, we should share it with each other.

Yeah, we should keep praying for each other, supporting each other, and just learning the different ways in which he speaks to us as a church community.

And I think that's the beauty of Windsor.

We are hugely diverse, and that makes uh a wonderful example of how the spirit could be present with us.

I guess that's where I'm heading this Sunday.

I'm carrying on this series.

I'm looking at the great wedding passage, 1 Corinthians 13.

So I'm going to talk about weddings, but it's actually not about weddings.

There's something much more deeper and much more important in that passage for us when it comes to the uh exercise of spiritual gifts that we'll be looking at the week after that.

So we continue to sort of talk about the enabling of the Holy Spirit, the posturing to be receptive to the Holy Spirit, what that means to live in that place, what does that mean to do the gifts, what does it mean to be us as a community?

That's kind of the trajectory we are hitting on in this series.

Sounds like a great series, I wonder.

I like it.

Who wrote it?

I like it so far.

Thanks, Pastor Aiden, for putting that structure together.

Sounds like a great message.

So until then, may God continue to shape us as we listen, learn, and follow Jesus together.