The Spirit – Galatians 5:16 & 25

Podcast

Welcome and Prayer: Jim Calhoun

Come Lord, join us here today
Lord, protect us from our
Bitterness
Rage
And resentments

Hold us safe from our
Fears and our
Desires to
Dominate others
To retaliate
To lay waste

Focus us
And refocus us on
The intrinsic worth
The unending value
Of each person we encounter

Let this community
Be a place where
We practice loving
Our brothers and sisters
In you
In all of our messy contradictions
And in all of our shame and need

And from this community
Let us be
Those known to love
Our neighbor
In all their guises
Of poverty
Of anxiety
Of illness
And of belligerence

This love from you
An endless gift
This life you have brought us to
For healing and repair
Bringing peace to ourselves
As we bring peace
into the world around us.

And our love for you
Rising like incense
Full of gratitude
We thank you
Amen

Morning Talk: chuck smith, jr.

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
“If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit . . . .” Galatians 5:16 and 25

Intro: For a few weeks we’ve been bouncing around in Scriptures

Next week we’ll settle into something more consistent,
– and I’ve chosen to hike through Paul’s letter to the Galatians
• but not today–
• my talk this morning will be another random meditation
– what I will say about this letter,
• Paul was not at all pleased with the churches in the region of Galatia
◦ he had introduced them to a life in God through Jesus
◦ but others had followed Paul with a “distorted gospel”
• so the Christian faith was represented by two different forms
◦ the distorted version emphasized a deadly legalism
◦ Paul’s version was a new life in the Spirit of God
“Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:2-3)
– I believe this letter identifies a problem that’s prevalent today

Paul keeps edging his readers toward a Spirit-infused life

We’ll learn more about what this means as we go along
– but in this chapter alone we learn that we read:
“through the Spirit” (v. 5)
“walk by the Spirit” (v. 16)
“the desires of the Spirit” (v. 17)
“led by the Spirit” (v. 18)
“the fruit of the Spirit” (v. 22)
“live by the Spirit” (v. 25)
“keep in step with the Spirit” (v. 25)
– a cliche entered our religious subculture maybe sixty years ago
• people started talking about “a Spirit-filled” life (or person)
◦ it was as if a believer could be “regular” or “spirit-filled”
• but the fact of the matter, there’s no Christian life without the Spirit
◦ the Holy Spirit is our new life in Jesus

We are dependent on the Spirit’s work in our lives

Like breathing, and eating, and movement, this is a real need
– and not only when we’re reading Bible, praying, or ministering to others
• in every situation of our daily lives
◦ whether I’m sick or in good health
◦ whether I have unpaid bills or I’m caught up on all of them
◦ whether the workload is overwhelming or I’m on vacation
◦ whether I’m walking on the beach or stuck in traffic

I wonder if we realize how busy the world keeps us
– having space for peace and quiet should not be a luxury, but the norm
• it is as important to our health as nutrition and balanced exercise
◦ our brains require a degree of tranquility to think deeply
◦ but our intrusive world won’t allow that;
◦ it’s always in our face and crowds out everything but itself
• the original purpose of cell phones was two-fold:
◦ convenience and emergency
(lots of people are conditioned to jump and answer their phone whenever it chimes)
◦ many of us think we need to be informed, minute-by-minute of every event as it develops
• or we have to be constantly entertained
◦ it’s too easy to plop down on couch, grab the remote, and get absorbed in whatever appears on screen
– so I ask myself,
“How can I become more aware of God’s presence?”
“How can his nearness be more real to me than each ‘breaking story’”?

A few years ago, a man walked into our meeting for first time

I introduced myself to him, and realized I knew who he was
– his wife had told me about him, and she was desperate to see him become a Christian
• he said,
“I’ve been practicing Eastern religions for thirty years and taken vows in a Buddhist monastery, but I’m looking for something more definite”
– I told him, “Jesus is definitely more definite!”
• you don’t get more definite than another human person
• I think “more definite” is a sincere spiritual need
◦ there will always be unsolved mysteries and wonders beyond our comprehension,
◦ but we also need solid footing for our walk of faith
– in English, the word “spirit” (if we’re not talking about “team spirit”)
• belongs in a dimension of intangibles and invisibility
◦ something insubstantial, vaporous like air or a fine mist that instantly evaporates
◦ to feel the presence of a “spirit” is spooky or frightening
• I wonder if the Spirit seemed more substantial to Paul than smoke or fog

How have you imagined the Holy Spirit?
– the biblical words for spirit are also used for breath and wind
• both the Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma) have the sense of “air in motion”
◦ it could be the air passing through your throat or stirring leaves in a tree
◦ Jesus also used the metaphor of “living water” for the Holy Spirit
• God’s Spirit is a vital force, a divine energy,
◦ present and active all the way back to when God created the heavens and the earth
– what Jesus made very clear, is that the Spirit is a person
• that “he” (personal pronoun) joins us, teaches us, and shares with us all that Jesus has for us
• how “real” is our conversation when we talk with someone on the phone?
◦ we can’t see them or touch them, but we don’t doubt their existence
◦ can it be like that with the Spirit? Can it be that real?

Something happened to me a few weeks ago

I had just set out for a walk,and turned my attention toward God
– I opened my heart and mind to God’s Spirit and presence,
• and suddenly I was aware of him–right there, in front of me
◦ he wasn’t visible, but he wasn’t ghost-like either
• the strong impression I felt from his presence is that he’s a person
◦ not a “universal mind” or impersonal “force”
– he is a rational person with whom we can interact as with other persons
• he was there and we could communicate with each other
• I felt he was there to listen to me and respond

Since then, I’ve experienced a keen awareness of his presence several more times
– but it isn’t constant – and it requires “priming” my heart and mind for his presence
• what I realize, is if encounters like this were a normal experience for me,
◦ I would find it much easier to follow Paul’s instruction to
“walk by the Spirit” and “keep in step with the Spirit”
– so here’s the question:
• How can we become more aware of the Spirit?
And more often?
Can walking in the Spirit become a normal activity?

Here is what I’m working on–so far

Close contact with the Spirit of God is something I need to feel
– I know there are people who react to this, but try to keep an open mind
• do you remember learning to ride a bike?
◦ the first time you were nervous and awkward
◦ what was it you had to learn?
You had to learn what it felt like to balance on a bicycle
• turning corners on a two-wheel bike requires leaning to the left or right
◦ it is not as much about turning the handlebars as shifting your weight
– it’s the same with skiing, swimming, tennis, etcetera, etcetera
• you have to feel your way into it;
◦ for instance the feel of swinging a bat and the feel of hitting the ball
• clumsy at first, but our brains create the necessary neural circuits to learn it
◦ and once you have learned to balance on a bike, you never lose it

Conclusion: One thing at heart of our Reflexion community,

Is cultivating a sense of God’s felt presence through silent prayer
Perhaps the most useful tool God has given us for this is our breath
We begin by taking control of it–slowing it, deepening it
We bring awareness to each breath,
allowing it to center our whole being in the here and now
Shifting our attention to the space around us,
our awareness moves from each breath to the presence of the Spirit
And since we take our breath everywhere we go, we can connect the Spirit anywhere, everywhere