A Fantastic Idea

I don’t know of anyone who likes conflict or enjoys being caught in the middle of a controversy.  I think Minnesota has more conflict-adverse people because of our long winters.  Who wants to be shut in with a cantankerous person on a cold winter’s night?

The Early Church faced a controversy that needed to be resolved.  Acts 15 tells of this controversy and of God’s way for resolving it.  Two groups were questioning if it was necessary to do religious things first (such as circumcision) before becoming a Christian?

This was big for the Early Church.  The champion for resolving this question was the Holy Spirit.   

Acts 15:28 starts out, “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden. . .”  How often do we think of the Holy Spirit as a person who speaks, directs, and resolves conflict?  Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth (John 16:13).  Both of these verses link “the Holy Spirit and us” together.

All too often we are hesitant to listen to the leading and the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  We suspect that our emotions are not to be trusted and thus we bypass the Holy Spirit.  But our Triune God is Three Persons – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  Just as you can have a personal relationship with God and Jesus, you also can have a personal relationship with God the Holy Spirit.

In the Early Church, the Holy Spirit was the champion.  God sent His Son.  The Son sent the Holy Spirit.  And the Holy Spirit empowers us as ambassadors of Christ and sends us into the world.  If we listen to the Person of the Holy Spirit in light of Scripture and the wisdom of “us”, conflict and controversy yield to love, joy, and peace.  This starts with us saying, “Holy Spirit -- I’m listening.  Lead me. Guide me.  Fill me with Yourself.”

Without question, the Apostle Paul was a champion of the Holy Spirit.  He wrote, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you” (Romans 8:11).  Paul’s strategy for winning others to Christ was to be led by the Holy Spirit.  He knew what it meant to be a Jew and to live under the law of Moses.  He also understood what it meant to live under the lordship of Jesus.  His relationship with Jesus was joyful, life-changing, transformative, and filled with the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

Have you heard the expression, “Nervous as a bunch of cats in a room filled with rocking chairs”?  We don’t have to be nervous when we talk about the Holy Spirit.  He is a perfect gentleman.  Get to know Him.  The Early Church had a fantastic idea: “Since the Holy Spirit is here, let’s take the Gospel to our neighbors and friends and then let’s take it to the whole world.”