Music Past
We moved to Memphis twice. Some of you moved from somewhere else to Memphis once. We moved to Memphis twice. And not only did we move to Memphis twice. We moved to Memphis twice from the exact same city. Twice we moved to Memphis, TN from Las Cruces, NM. Once as a student to attend school at Harding School of Theology. Once as a preacher to begin working at Highland.
The first time we moved to Memphis Kendra’s parents helped us move. The second day after we arrived, with our tiny apartment at Harding School of Theology filled with boxes yet to be unpacked, Kendra’s mom said, “Come on, let’s go!” And we all went and spent the day at Graceland. Kendra’s mother is a huge Elvis fan. So we spent our second day in Memphis not unpacking boxes but touring the home of Elvis Presley. I think that’s why she volunteered to move us to Memphis! It was an excuse to get close to Graceland.
For many people, that’s what Memphis is about. For many, Memphis is about a music past. Elvis Presley. Johnny Cash. B. B. King. Memphis is a place to come and remember some of the greatest music and musicians ever. In fact right now Country Music Television is filming a TV series right here in Memphis about some of those past musicians. Music and musicians who only live on in our memories.
And that’s a pretty big deal. Graceland alone welcomes 500,000 visitors every year. Places like Sun Studios and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame also draw many visitors. Many cities would love to have tourist attractions like these.
But what if that’s all Memphis was about when it came to music? What if Memphis’ only music claim-to-fame was that was the place of music past? What if there was no current music to experience in Memphis? What if the only music Memphis boasted was music from musicians who were long gone?
Faith Past
That’s certainly an idea that people may get about Christianity. People may get the idea that Christianity is only about faith past. Some people may get the idea that Christianity is only about a book that was written in the past by people who all lived in the past. It’s only about events that happened in the past. It’s about a person, Jesus, who lived in the past.
And all we’re doing here is just preserving the past. The church is just a museum and we are curators of that museum. We just preserve the past and we carefully pass that past on to the next generation.
Now, let’s acknowledge just how good that past is. There are no ancient words more important than the ancient words of Scripture. There are no ancient events more important than the ancient events which form the past of our Christian faith. Everything, and I mean everything, hinges, on the past words and past events of the Christian faith. The fact that we have a faith with a past like ours is incredible. It’s a past worth preserving. It’s a past worth passing on.
But our faith isn’t just something just locked in the past. It’s something that is living and active. Something that is present. Something we experience here and now.
Music Present
It’s that present experience that also drives people to Memphis isn’t it? Because Memphis isn’t just built on music past. It’s also built on music present. Memphis is built on a music present, not just a music past. Just consider this year’s Beale Street Music Festival. It’s live entertainment from some of the biggest names in music: Paul Simon, Meghan Trainor, Jason Derulo, Yo Gotti, Bastille, Los Lobos, Mavis Staples, and others. People come to events like this and venues like the Levitt Shell and the Fed Ex Forum and Beale Street because Memphis isn’t just music past. It’s also music present. It’s not just a city built on great music and great musicians from the past. But music is taking place in the here and the now in Memphis. People don’t just come to Memphis to read about music and musicians that happened a long time ago. They come to Memphis to experience music in the present.
Faith Present
It’s that present we long for in faith as well. As good as our Christian past is, I’m not certain that’s going to satisfy us. I think what we long for, what we hope for, is something even more–a faith that’s not just faith past but also faith present. And that’s what we find in Christianity. Christianity isn’t just faith past. Christianity is also about faith present. It’s something that is living and active. It’s something we experience for ourselves here and now.
That’s what this series on the Holy Spirit is about. The longest teaching on the Holy Spirit comes from Jesus and is found in the Gospel of John, which Eric and I have been teaching from all year long. This sermon on the Holy Spirit is found in John 14-16. In particular, Jesus uses the term parakletos in these three chapters to describe the Holy Spirit’s work in the lives of his followers. We want to explore that term and Jesus’ use of it as he shows how the Holy Spirit is that part of our everyday experience. Through the Holy Spirit we experience the presence and work of Jesus in the present day rather than merely reading about it in the past.
This morning we explore Jesus’ teaching about the parakletos or Holy Spirit and his role as our present-day teacher (the word “Helper” is our word parakletos):
25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (Jn. 14:25-26 ESV)
12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16:12-15 ESV)
Jesus makes a simple yet profound promise to his disciples: The Holy Spirit teaches and declares. The Holy Spirit will teach things to Jesus’ disciples. That word “teach” is used elsewhere in John’s Gospel of the teaching ministry of Jesus. And, the Holy Spirit will “declare” things to Jesus’ disciples. That word “declare” is also used elsewhere in John’s Gospel of the teaching ministry of Jesus. These two words which are used to describe what the Holy Spirit does–teach and declare–are also used to describe the teaching ministry of Jesus.
In other words, what Jesus has started doing–teaching and declaring–the Holy Spirit will continue doing. Some of this content will be old–the Spirit will remind the disciples of things Jesus has already taught or declared. Some of this content will be new–the Spirit will reveal things they do not yet know but do need to know.
Jesus will soon leave. He will die, be resurrected, and will ascend to the Father’s right hand. But in his place he will leave with them, he will leave with us, his Holy Spirit. And his Spirit will continue the teaching ministry of Jesus. Just as Jesus taught and declared, the Holy Spirit will teach and declare.
In other words, the teaching ministry of Jesus is not chained to the past. As amazing as it is to have the words of Jesus in red in the four Gospels in our Bibles, the teaching ministry of Jesus does not end with those ancient words from the past. Jesus’ teaching ministry continues into our present day. We get to experience Jesus’ teaching ministry even in our day. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are filled with a Spirit that can teach you and declare things to you on an ongoing basis.
We see this promise fulfilled in the book of Acts. Repeatedly, the followers of Jesus are guided in the present by the Holy Spirit. Again and again the Spirit speaks, teaches and declares:
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The Holy Spirit Speaking in Acts
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Now, it’s important to note that Jesus is making this promise to his original disciples and that there is a degree to which this promise applies to them that it doesn’t apply to us. The Spirit would inspire them and teach them to a degree he would not inspire us and teach us, simply because the entire Christian faith rested squarely on their shoulders after Jesus ascended to the Father. But, much of this promise still applies to us. How do we know? Because years later, Paul would use this same language when writing to us “average” Christians:
15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might (Eph. 1:15-19 ESV)
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:14-19 ESV)
Paul is writing these words to all Christians, people like you and me. He’s saying that there are some things about God that we will not know unless the eyes of our heart are enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Things we will not know simply by reading the Bible and its ancient words.Things we will only know when the Spirit teaches and declares these things to us in the present, in the here and now. He’s saying there are things about the love of Christ that exceed our ability to understand until we gain understanding by the Holy Spirit. Things we will only know when the Spirit teaches and declares them to us, right here, right now.
Here’s the reality of the Christian faith: The Holy Spirit has something to say today. It’s not just that God and Jesus and the Spirit said some things in the past and we’ve recorded them and preserved them and we never ever get to hear from them again. But it’s that through the Spirit God and Jesus continue to communicate with us. Continue to reveal to us who they are and what they want for our lives. Now, to be clear, the Spirit will never say something to us today that is going to contradict something that’s already been said in Scripture. But this Christian faith is living an active. It’s a living relationship. And the Spirit has things he wants to say to you today. If you’ll listen, if you’ll be open, the Spirit has something to say you today.
Sometimes this happens we least expect it. For example, the other day I was driving Jacob to school at Harding. It’s a thirty minute drive I make every morning and have for more than a year now. But that morning I just happened to look to my left just as I passed the driveway to Harding School of Theology and I just happened to see Allen Black’s car pulling up to HST. He’s the Dean and he arrives at about the same time I drop Jacob off at school. And this thought clearly came into my mind: “After you drop Jacob off, you need to stop and talk to Allen.” I attributed that thought to the Holy Spirit. I followed that promoting. After I dropped Jacob off, I pulled my car around and parked it near HST. I walked up and found Allen just getting out of his car. And I told him I believed the Holy Spirit had prompted me to stop and talk to him. And it turned out that Allen and I had something important to talk about.
I wish I could say I that I always hear the Holy Spirit and I always obey when I hear. I don’t. And I don’t. But the reality is nonetheless the same. The Holy Spirit has something to say today, and everyday.
Listen Up
And that’s one of the real challenges of the Christian faith. The real challenge is that we are often not listening. My brother Jeff is a surgeon in Albuquerque, NM. One night he was called to the ER. A man had walked in complaining of severe pain. But the man was exhibiting no external symptoms. Those on duty in the ER examined him but couldn’t find any problem. They couldn’t see why he was in so much pain. My brother Jeff was the doctor on call. So they paged him. Jeff came in and began to examine the man. Within seconds he smelled something no one else had smelled. He smelled blood. Not just blood. He could smell old blood. And Jeff realized by the smell of old blood that the man was probably bleeding out inside and had been bleeding out for quite awhile. He immediately contacted an anesthesiologist and said if they didn’t open this man up quickly he was going to die. Sure enough, he was correct. The man’s intestine had somehow twisted and a piece of it had died and the man was about to die of internal bleeding.
When my brother told me that story, I was struck by one thing. That man’s body was communicating to all of the medical personnel in the ER. It was sending a signal about what was really wrong. What was going on. That signal was available to everyone in the ER. But no one in the ER had developed the skill and the sensitivity to hear what that man’s body was saying. My brother Jeff was the only person with the necessary sensitivity to receive that communication and respond appropriately.
The same thing is true with the Holy Spirit. There are things being communicated today, perhaps even right now, by the Holy Spirit which are available to any follower of Jesus. But we have to develop an ability to discern what the Holy Spirit is communicating. We have to become sensitive enough to hear the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has something to say every day. The Holy Spirit is teaching and declaring every day. But we often miss out on it because we have not developed the skill, the sensitivity, needed to hear what he’s saying.
We don’t have the time this morning to really develop that thought. So let me just end with this encouragement. As a step toward increasing your own ability to hear the Holy Spirit, I want to urge you to do one thing every day this week. Now What? End each day by reflecting on this question: What did the Holy Spirit say today? One way to begin building some sensitivity is to simply start asking this question. Did the Holy Spirit speak to me today through some Scripture? Through some person? Through some situation? Through some inner prompting? Perhaps I missed it at the time. But perhaps now, in the asking and answering of this question I can hear it belatedly.
