When the bottom falls out, where do you turn? If we belong to Christ, God's promise to us is His presence and power in the Person of the Holy Spirit.

Living on Less and Liking It More (pt. 5 Maxine Hancock)
Friday, November 11, 2011

Angry protesters, riot police, arrests, the Olympic Torch relay has been long on conflict, short on glory. In Paris the flame was snuffed out 4 times by anti-China demonstrators. Eventually police had to put it on a bus. San Francisco decided to play it safe. At the last minute they switched routes and snuck it down empty streets. Both protesters and well wishers went home disappointed. The torch is making a global sweep of more than 85,000 miles. It’s supposed to symbolize the light of spirit, knowledge and life but this year it seems to symbolize just how powerless we humans are. We can’t generate real life or gain true knowledge. We need another flame, the one God ignited at Pentecost. We need the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus made that clear. He told us, “It’s the Spirit who gives life,” not just once on becoming a Christian but every day after meeting Jesus. Human effort accomplishes nothing and we should also not forget that Jesus said, “The very words I’ve spoken to you are Spirit and life.” I’m Charles Morris and welcome to Haven Today, telling the great story, it’s all about Jesus. This program is called “Living in the Space…Spirit Full People. A little later we’ll be joined by Maxine Hancock, author of the book “Living on Less and Liking it More”. We’ll also hear from 3 young Canadians and their “Hymn Project” but as we get started I want you to think about where you‘re going. What’s your final destination? The group is called This Hope. Listen to the words as we open in praise and worship.

Song: Where the Spirit Is – Chris Tomlin – And If Our God Is For Us

But if, for a moment, you look at the scriptures horizontally what could you say it’s all about? From that perspective, horizontally speaking the Bible is the story of Spirit filled people. Now unless you’re in a charismatic church you probably don’t talk about or think too much about the third person of the Trinity. And on this program we don’t take a stand one way or another on the gifts of the Spirit but I don’t want us to miss out on the power of the Spirit in all our lives, if we are Christ followers In fact, one scholar has said that too many Christians practically binitarian and not Trinitarian. In Ephesians 5:18 Christians are told to not get drunk on wine but to be filled with the Spirit. For the most part it remains true that our thinking about the Spirit is more vague and undefined than our thinking about any other part of the Christian faith. It’s easy to think definitely about God. The very word “father”, God the Father, gives us a clear picture of the mind and heart of God. It’s still easier to think of Jesus the Son for we have the vivid pictures of the Gospels to make Jesus come alive before our eyes but when we think of the Holy Spirit our thoughts are usually much more vague and impersonal. Too many Christians, including myself have referred to the third person of the Trinity as “it” and I think that’s a pity because it shows a lack of understanding. It shows how we read and study the scriptures and pass over what’s there before us. We meet the Spirit of God in the very first words of the Bible, in it’s opening sentences. Genesis 1:2, “The Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters.” Here is something on which the Old Testament lingers more than once. Elihu says to Job, “The Spirit of God made me and the breath of the Almighty has given me life.” The psalmist said it in Psalm 104:30, “When you send your Spirit (capitol S) they are created. And you renew the face of the ground.” It’s the Spirit of God that brings existence out of nothingness, order from chaos, beauty out of great formlessness, but the Spirit of God in creation is also the Spirit of God in re-creation. History may be the record of the mistakes of follies of humanity but it’s also true that God made all things good. Into the beauty of his creation there came ugliness though and that’s the product of human sin. The recreating, the restoring power is the power of the Spirit. The prophet Isaiah picks up on this in Isaiah 32:14 and 15 –
The fortress will be abandoned, the noisy city deserted. Citadel and watchtower will become a wasteland forever, the delight of donkeys, a pasture for flocks, till the Spirit is poured on us from on high and the desert becomes a fertile field and the fertile field seems like a forest.
But we mustn’t forget the recreating power of the Spirit also works its way into recreating men and women. We need to be made new. We need new hearts, as Jeremiah puts it and that can only be accomplished by a transforming action of the Spirit, the Spirit has created the Spirit is recreating and we need to be part of that.
We’ve been talking about the Old Testament and the Holy Spirit. In the New Testament the Holy Spirit comes more into focus. We learn so much more. Jesus said even before dying on the cross and then later his resurrection, “I’m going away but I won’t leave you as orphans. I’m going to send the Comforter, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit to be with you, to live in the space of time after I’ve ascended and before I return again and that’ll be far better than my being with you.” Remarkable statement. After Christ’s resurrection and before his ascension, Jesus told his disciples to not leave Jerusalem, “Wait,” he say, “wait for the gift of the Spirit before you go out, before you start following this Great Commission I’ve given you to carry out. You can’t do it alone. You need the power of God with you, inside you.” Well, just as the Spirit is in the beginning of the Bible he’s there in the end, in the book of Revelation. I think we find the clearest teaching of the work of the Holy Spirit in the final book, 4 great functions. First, the Spirit is the giver of the vision. Four times in Revelation John is “in the Spirit” when visions are given. Second, it’s the Spirit who brings the message. It’s there in each of the seven letters to the 7 churches, hearers and readers are urged to hear what the Spirit is saying. The words of these letters are the words of the Risen Christ but the bearer of the words is the Spirit. The Spirit is Christ Jesus’ messenger to people. Third, the Spirit guarantees the promise. Revelation 14:13 makes this clear, “’Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. Blessed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors for their deeds follow them.’” First there comes the statement and then there comes the guarantee of the Spirit. It’s the Spirit within our hearts who assures us that the promises of God are true. Fourth, the Spirit brings the invitation. Final words from God’s final word, Revelation 22:17, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’” The bride is the church and Spirit and the church unite in bringing the invitation of Jesus Christ. The vision, the message, the promise, the invitation, all conveyed to us by the Holy Spirit. Now that’s definition. It’s theological, what I’ve been speaking about. But the Spirit is a person and in the New Testament we also begin to understand more of how we are to relate, how we are to be Spirit-full or Spirit filled people as followers of Christ Jesus. The Bible is clear, Romans 8:29, “All believers receive the Spirit” and yet Jesus taught in Luke 11 in his model prayer that included the words, “Give us this day our daily bread,” later in the same passage he clearly teaches that by asking for this bread, “ton, arton,” he means the Holy Spirit, “Please God, give us this day, every day our measure of your Spirit.” Luke 11:13 makes this very bold and very clear. It’s sense of pleading, begging “Lord I need your presence. Give me more of the Spirit and would you give me more today?” Now at the same time I’m emphasizing our great need for the Spirit, I must mention the Holy Spirit does not draw attention to the Spirit, the Spirit points to the other members of the Godhead, especially Jesus Christ. I can’t think of a place in the Bible where this comes through more than in the passionate words of Paul to the church in Philippi. In the opening words of the letter Paul refers to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of Jesus Christ”. Philippians 1:19, “I will continue to rejoice for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.” And as Paul likes to talk about more than once, we need to live or walk in the Spirit. Keep in mind what was going on at this point of his life. He was in chains, prison chains for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ yet he could still rejoice and have joy because believers were praying for him and he had daily help from the Spirit living in him. We need the Spirit to live for Christ. The Spirit points to Christ. Listen to Paul just a little later in the great passage of Philippians chapter 2 –
Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united in Christ, any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like minded, having the same love, being one in Spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others. In your relationship with one another have the same attitude of mind that Christ Jesus had who, being in very nature God didn’t consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.
That’s the Word of the Lord, Philippians chapter 2 verses 1-11, don’t neglect the Spirit and the Holy Spirit will lead you to Christ. In fact, take all of Philippians, read it aloud like my wife Janet and I did together a few days ago. Four little chapters, one easy sitting, read it aloud and be blessed. This little letter invites us into the events of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. It points us to Christ both for now, living in the space and forever. Christ Jesus is the Gospel. Christ is Savior and Lord, thus Christ is our life. Christ is our way of life, Christ is our future. Christ is our joy. As Paul also says in Philippians, “To live is Christ, to die is gain.” More Christ here on Haven Today, “Living in the Space…as Spirit Full People”. I may not know what you’re going through right now but I can urge you to pray and ask for God to give you your daily bread, give you a new and fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit to live your Christian life. My friend Maxine Hancock and her husband Cam literally lost the family farm but just like you can learn in whatever you’re going through right now, Maxine and Cam learned in a deeper way how to depend and pray for the Spirit as their daily bread. She’s written about what her family went through in her wonderful book “Living on Less and Liking it More”. God provides spiritually and praise God, he also provides materially. A couple of days ago I was talking with Maxine on the telephone about Philippians and God’s provision through thick and thin. I asked Maxine what it was like as she and Cam and their young children were going through their time of literally losing the family farm.
MH: One of the things that a friend drew to my attention during the time that we were experiencing real hardship on our Canadian farm at a period of time where we had lost money both in the cattle market and also through crops that froze before they were harvested, and we were going through an extremely difficult winter. A friend of mine said, “You know I’ve been reading in Philippians and Paul says, ‘I have learned to be content,’” and she said, “you know even Paul, with all that he knew about the Spirit of God and all the revelations that he had about the Risen and Exalted Christ, he still had to go through a process of learning to be content.” And I’m thinking that that is one of the biggest lessons that we learned through hard times was learning to be content and to be restful in a little and to live in a day to day trust. And our affluent culture, that most of us have lived in for most of our lives and perhaps, are just now finding out that it does have a bottom to it, sometimes robs us of the chance to learn what it is to say, “It is enough, thank you,” and to live in a joyful contentment. So I think what Paul’s says that he can do all things through Christ knowing the abundant supply of God by the Holy Spirit to meet his heart’s needs he’s also talking about being able to be content in, and he speaks about, variable circumstances, that he is able to be content when things are lean and mean and he’s also able to be content when he is in times of abundance and living both of those states of life as gifts from God and as all under the providence of God’s loving care, the kind of care that Jesus spoke about in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, “You’re not to be anxious about the same things as everybody around you is anxious about because you have a Heavenly Father who knows you have need of these basic things.” And living in that constant awareness is something that hardship puts us up against and in some ways it checks our hearts out. It helps us to realize how much of our time we spend desiring, coveting, longing for things that are way beyond our needs and how little time we spend really in thankful, grateful contentment. And I suppose if all of us come through the current economic downturn with a deeper spirit of having learned how to be content in whatever circumstance God allows us to be we will say these are good times when all is said and done.
CM: Thank you Maxine, Dr. Maxine Hancock, author of “Living on Less and Liking it More”.
SONG – Come Down Oh Love Divine
Living on Less and Liking It More and we have her book. It’s a wonderful book, available to you as a thank you for your gift to Haven Today. And I also pray that this book will help you go through whatever you may be going through right now. Well, here’s our internet address, you can go there and you can see Maxine’s book, “Living on Less and Liking it More”, you can read about the book and then you can also make your gift and order a copy. That internet address is haventoday.org, h.a.v.e.n.t.o.d.a.y, haventoday.org. You can also call us and our toll free telephone number in North America is 1-800-654-2836. I’m Charles Morris and thanks for being with me and Maxine Hancock. Would you come back again next time when again we get to share Jesus and we get to share him, I pray, in the power of the Spirit and we’ll do it together here on Haven Today.