Acts: Thought on the Holy Spirit and Motherhood (Mother's Day 2018)

So apparently these people in this passage, it's one of those passages you could read right over and not think much about it, but apparently these people they came to belief in Jesus and still didn't have the Spirit of God in them, still didn't have the Holy Spirit in them.

So they believed in God's Son and yet didn't have God actually in their life.

So that's a problem.

Raises a series of questions.

Do I need something more from God than belief?

And how do I get that?

And what is that?

And when does that happen?

And how?

And who who gives it to me?

What's the process for that?

It raises the question: can I be a Christian and God not be in my life?

So now we're into a really anxious line of thinking, aren't we?

I mean, we're into the line of thinking of going, like, well, am I a Christian at all?

Or what makes me a Christian?

How do I know for sure?

Am I committed enough or surrendered enough?

Or did I commit enough?

Or did I surrender enough?

So we're gonna talk about that, and by the way, happy Mother's Day to everybody.

So, moms, for you this morning, I was gonna just like not talk about this and wait, and then I started to see how this can connect really, really well to a couple things I want to say to you as moms.

So it kind of will feel like part one, it'll feel sort of like a seminary class, and then we'll bridge over, and part two will feel maybe a little bit more like a counseling session.

So you'll probably want both of those.

I know you can hang with me.

So these people in Acts 8 received the word of God, and yet they didn't receive the Spirit of God.

It's what the text says.

And maybe you say Holy Spirit or comforter, holy comforter, or holy ghost.

I don't know.

Whatever.

It's the same thing.

It is the person of God we experience.

It's his spirit that resides in us.

So some people would look at this text.

There's basically two main ways people look at this text.

Some people would look at this text and say, Well, there is, obviously, you look at this text, there's a second receiving that you need.

So you have belief in Jesus, but then you need a second baptism.

You need to receive the Holy Spirit after you come to belief in Jesus.

And other people say, no, no, no, no, no, not at all.

They would react to this text and say, this was a unique time in history, and God ordained this time in history, this particular moment to connect the gospel movement in Samaria with the gospel movement that was occurring in Judea.

And then there's a third group of people that would say, I don't really care, I just came to church because my mom made me come to church on Mother's Day, and this is kind of painful.

Maybe you're the healthiest of all the groups.

I'm not quite sure.

But what is clear is this text has clear opposing text.

Okay, so another way to say that would be one passage of the Bible can contradict another passage of the Bible.

Okay, so hold on to that Acts A.

The people believed in Jesus and yet they didn't have the Spirit.

Hold on to that thought that Luke wrote, and then here's what Paul writes: 2 Corinthians 1, 21 and 22.

And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

So this reads as if Paul's understanding is that all this comes as one big permanent gift belief, salvation, the spirit in you.

And you go, well, the verse wasn't exactly completely clear.

Well, Paul makes it exactly completely clear in Romans 8 9.

You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

If in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

So, one text says a group of people believed but didn't have the Spirit, and then another text says, this is an impossibility.

So this is a wonderful moment where the Bible contradicts itself.

And so, what do we do with that?

Well, I begin to understand it.

I can think about when Christy and I were married almost 14 years ago at Snellville United Methodist Church, and I married her because she was my best friend, and she's beautiful and lovely and adventurous, and I knew she'd be a wonderful wife and mother.

And at our wedding, there were hundreds of people.

And then everybody, we drove across town to the big country club.

And we got to the big country club, and Christy's in her beautiful wedding dress, and I'm in this fancy tux that I'm uncomfortable in.

And as soon as we get in there, we sort of got stuck over like on a balcony porch patio area, and very quickly, like a long line formed, and nobody in that line were our friends.

It was people, I didn't even know these people, and we're shaking their hands and they're congratulating us as just one after the next.

And I can see like my friends over there, and I'm like, I just want to be my friends, and but we're just shaking hands of all these people we don't know, and we're hungry, but we're not getting to eat.

And so that's what's going on.

We're stuck there.

And then eventually the photographer he he grabs us, he breaks into the line, says, Well, we got to go do pictures out on this lawn.

So we go do these pictures out on this lawn, and he's a real cutting-edge photographer.

So at first we're doing the you know, the look over your shoulder shot, you know, and then he and then he started to really push it, really push the edge, you know, cutting edge stuff.

And he said, Hey, why don't you have Christy run toward you and you lift her up into the air?

You know, like as if this is something that we do all the time.

We frolic about, and I lift her into the air randomly in green pastures.

This is what we do with our lives.

Well, the second time, the first time wasn't good enough for the photographer.

Zero times was good enough for me, but the first time wasn't good enough for him.

So the second time, Christy runs toward me, and right as I lift her up, I step on the edge of her dress as I lift her up, and her dress rips right at the seam of her waist.

That wasn't great.

So the two wedding uh planners, they whisk us away into the ladies' locker room of the country club.

And we're in there, it's the two ladies, and they're sewing up the dress, and I'm sitting there in my uncomfortable tuxedo, and it's these two ladies, and it's Christy, and it's me, and it was wonderful.

There was no line of people I don't know to shake hands.

I'm not frolicking on a green pasture doing things I'm very uncomfortable with.

It was my favorite moment of the entire reception.

Now that's how I would tell you that story.

Now, Christy would tell that same story quite differently.

She would tell you about how elated she was to wake up that morning and get dressed up in her wedding gown and to wear it that day.

To be fancy and beautiful all day, how wonderful that was.

And the the joy of saying hi to all of these people, how wonderful that was when that line formed, and to be on that, be on that patio and outdoors in this long line who wants to, we get to say hi to everybody.

This is a wonderful moment.

And then we get to have our pictures taken on this beautiful lawn down to this pond, and the photographer's so talented and creative, and then her moron new husband steps on her dress, and then we're stuck in this locker room, and how embarrassing that is.

And my point is the same day, the same event, experienced side by side, in the same time, and you would get two completely set of details, memories, and lessons.

Of course, the Bible disagrees with itself.

One author focuses on one thing and another, prefers to focus on another.

One author says one thing and another, flat out, disagrees with them.

It doesn't mean the text is imperfect.

The text is perfect even while there are complexities and disagreements occurring within the text.

So you can't just know one text or know one book of the Bible.

You gotta know it all.

And not only that, you gotta know the context and the time and the authors.

It is incredibly complex.

Usually, when we don't understand something in the Bible, it's not the Bible's fault, it's our ignorance.

It's our ignorance to context of authors and place and time and culture.

The Bible was written by ancient people in a certain context, in a certain time.

So you're sitting on your porch and you're having your leisurely scripture reading, or you're listening to a podcast, the birds are chirping, you're nodding along, you're journaling, you're having wonderful moments, and then you hear a contradiction, you read it, and maybe you'd never seen it before.

But it's there, it won't go away.

And so either you can act like it's not there, or you can send this contradiction through a couple filters.

And this is not like a prescriptive plan of how to solve apparent contradictions in the Bible.

This is just sort of when I run in, I'm just giving you like my personal way of handling when I run into a contradiction where things aren't matching up, how do I handle this?

So I'm nerding out a little bit with you right now theologically, but I want you to know you don't have to walk away from the Bible.

The first filter that I run it through is what I call the gospel trajectory filter.

So the entire Bible is an honor to the trajectory to and response of Jesus for us.

God is love, and in that love, he incarnated in the person of Jesus, taking our sin upon himself.

His righteousness is given to us, so we are redeemed and restored and accepted and absolved and forever his beloved by his work and not our work.

Now that is the trajectory of the Bible, and everything is in response to that work.

So whatever is not in alignment to that good news, well then I have to place it in some category of going, well, this in some context of ancient times, I don't quite know it yet.

I don't know it.

It's not necessarily the fault of the Bible.

It a lot of the times it's my fault that I don't understand yet.

But in this case, this actually doesn't entirely get solved.

This Acts 8 doesn't get solved by this.

So the second filter I like to use, and maybe you have more than I do of these filters, you can fill me in on how you handle these, but the second one I call it the average and art filter.

So I average up all the teaching in my mind, I think through all the teaching of what is said about this issue and what is best understood about this issue, and I consider it with the arc of the entire scriptures.

And now, if you do that with this issue, you have to side with Paul.

You have to side with Paul.

If you average up all the teachings about the Spirit and belief and when that comes into a person's life, then you average that up.

You consider the ark of the scriptures and that we are sealed by the Spirit, and you go, you know what?

Belief, the Spirit comes in when we place belief in Jesus, and it is permanent, and it is there, and it is forever.

And what's going on in Acts 8, that might be a little bit of a mystery, or it might be unique in history, but it is not something that we can model or should think is occurring over and over again in life.

And what it means is that you are never without God's Spirit in you if you're a believer.

Which brings us to Mother's Day.

This week I was sitting with a mother who's now a grandmother and a great-grandmother.

She's in her 80s, and her daughters had been in and out of the room, and we were talking about what the weather, we're talking about her husband who was sick, and then her daughter would leave, and then it would just be me and her sick husband and her.

And as soon as her child left, right?

Like as soon as the child left, she would begin to talk about her kids.

Like right away.

That's all she would talk about.

As soon as the child left the room to just talk about, and she would say to me, she had to have said it to me ten times in the last week, the greatest thing we did was raise those kids, that sentence, over and over and over again.

And she'd talk about how great they are and what they're doing in their lives and their kids and the grandkids and where everybody's at.

And then she'd begin to talk about the things she's concerned about with each of them.

Now, isn't this amazing?

We're in a hospital room.

She's in her 80s, she's a grandmother and a great-grandmother, and she's still mothering.

She's still loving, she's still caring.

And maybe that sounds wonderful, maybe that sounds like a curse that doesn't end.

I know that's possible as well, right?

But isn't that wonderful?

And here's what I want to say to moms.

And I know Mother's Day can be painful, not always celebratory, because maybe you lost your mom.

Maybe a relationship with your mom is difficult.

So I know Mother's Day can be complicated, but I do want you to hear this if you're a mother.

Number one, you are a mother, but you are more than a mother.

Mothering is a role, it is not an identity.

You are the beloved of God, whole, loved, his, apart from your role as a mother.

You are a mother, but you are more than a mother.

Now, now, when you understand your identity as a child and a daughter of God, now you can go mother with a freedom that you didn't have before.

That's number one.

You are a mother, but you are more than a mother.

Number two, you are not alone.

This is where it ties into Acts 8 and the Holy Spirit in us.

Maybe you feel alone, maybe you don't have great support, maybe you're a single mom, maybe your parents, you're wishing you got more grandparent support going on.

Maybe that's all true, but you are never alone.

The Spirit of God is always in you as a believer.

Maybe you just hit these moments with your kids when you're unsure whether to exert grace or discipline.

Anybody know that moment?

Happened this week.

Christy was out of town, so I'm pulling dad, complete dad duty.

Usually Christy handles the stuff in the middle of the night, and so it means I'm handling the stuff in the middle of the night, and the little one shows up at my bed in the middle of the night once, twice, three times.

By the third time, I am furious.

I'm fuming.

Is this a moment to exert grace or is this a moment to exert discipline?

I won't tell you what I did.

Maybe I'm not proud of those moments.

Do you lend a listening ear in a given moment, or do you teach something?

Where do you send your kid to school?

How much should you work?

Are you spending enough time with your kids?

Do they have enough freedom?

What classes will challenge them but not crush them?

What school would be good for them?

What friends are good for them?

How much freedom should you give your child and at what rate?

How long do you keep them on your insurance?

When do you cut them loose?

What happens if they marry that guy you don't like?

What happens when they get a divorce?

What happens when they get sick?

And you need to know you're not alone in any of that.

I mean, listen to Jesus praying at the end of his life, and I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper, that he may abide with you forever.

The helper is the counselor, it's the Holy Spirit.

God in you.

Jesus goes on to say in John 15, 26, when the counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.

So the Spirit of God that lives in you, he will tell you about the goodness of Jesus' work for you, so you can free you, so he can free you from you trying to use your own merit, including your kids, as your righteousness or your value.

So you're a mother, but you're more than a mother.

And the Spirit is in you and speaking to you.

John 16, 8, when he comes, he will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment.

So the Holy Spirit will convict you of your sin.

Amen.

Do we need that?

I mean, nothing like parenting to bring out sin in us.

Anger, impatience, selfishness.

And then in John 16, 13, when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears.

He will also declare to you what is to come.

So the Holy Spirit that's in you is a spirit that is speaking, speaking about sin and speaking about Jesus, and speaking about truth.

What I have found is usually it's in a quiet moment.

It's usually as you quiet your heart before the Lord, you start to hear the Spirit that's always speaking.

Last point, point number three, you have what it takes to mother well.

You already have what it takes to mother well as the Spirit of God resides in you, because the Spirit of God resides in you.

My brothers and sisters, you will not be perfect.

You will not be a perfect mother, but even better, you will be redeemed and you will be gracious.

And Jesus is perfect for you.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your goodness and your grace, which we need, and thank you that you do convict us of our sin.

There's nothing like parenting or even being a child that shows us our sin, our impatience, our selfishness, our greed, our anger.

And for that we need to repent to you, and we need to have sweet moments of confession to our children.

God, would you help us to believe more that we are not our roles in life?

But we are the secure identity of your children earned by Jesus' word for us.

Would that bring great freedom to the mothers in this room?

Whatever stage and season they are in of mothering, would that bring great freedom?

Holy Spirit, we ask for you to continue to speak to our mothers in the quiet moments of their days.

Would you speak to them about their sin that they might live in a great repentant and confessing and freeing life before you?

Would you speak to them about Jesus and the great work of the cross that gives them freedom?

And would you guide them to all truth that is good for them and for their children?

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.