Creekside Church, Sunday, January 14, 2024
Are You Open?
Locations & Times
Creekside Church
660 Conservation Dr, Waterloo, ON N2J 3Z4, Canada
Sunday 9:00 AM
Sunday 10:30 AM
Creekside Church Kitchener
1356 Weber St E, Kitchener, ON N2A 1C4, Canada
Sunday 9:00 AM
Sunday 10:30 AM
Creekside Church Chatham-Kent
20 Merritt Ave, Chatham, ON N7M 6G9, Canada
Sunday 10:00 AM
Creekside Church Online
Sunday 9:00 AM
Sunday 10:30 AM
Are you open to the spiritual?
Many people today are not open to the spiritual, they prefer a material explanation of things. Example, breathing.
Is this all that's going on?
Can you be breathing and not be fully alive?
“Is it no easy task to walk this earth and find peace.” – Ronald Rolheiser
We all have unrest. What do you do with your unrest?
What kind of world are we living in?
Is the material world all there is or do the desires and longings we have point us to there being more?
---
The Christian tradition and narrative of the bible invites us into a world that is soaked in the spiritual.
Genesis 1:1-2
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Spirit = Ruakh = Wind, Breath
Spirit brings new possibilities – order - beauty
God’s energetic presence
Psalm 104:27-30
27 All creatures look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
28 When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
29 When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
30 When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
Exodus 31:1-5
31 Then the Lord said to Moses, 2 “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— 4 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, 5 to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.
Joel 2:28-29
28 “And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
29 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
---
Jesus was filled with the spirit. It's how he did everything.
Isaiah 11:1-3 (prophecy about Jesus)
1A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
Acts 10:37-38 – Notice how Peter emphasizes that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and power and connects this to doing good and healing because God was with him.
Luke 4:18 – “The Spirit of the Lord is on me…”
This is Jesus' opening sermon in Luke's gospel. Notice what Jesus chooses to emphasize about himself and the foundation of his ministry.
Matthew 12:28 – By the Spirit Jesus drove out demons
John 1:32-33
32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’
"Jesus would have an ongoing filling of the Spirit and would go around plunging people into the same Spirit filled life." - Scot McKnight
If Jesus needed the Spirit how much more do we?
---
Thornton Wilder’s play "Our Town"
Emily: “We don’t have time to look at one another (starts crying). I didn’t realize. So all that was going on we never noticed…Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it – every, every minute?”
Stage manager – “No. The saints and poets, maybe – they do some.”
---
Jesus says that the life he came to bring us would be one where we walk with the Spirit like he did.
In John 4 Jesus meets a woman at a well. Part of their conversation revolves are what Jesus calls "living water". Notice how in John 7 Jesus reveals that this living water is actually the Spirit.
John 4
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
John 7
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
---
Are you open to the Spirit?
Have you become a materialist?
Have you become a purely cerebral Christian?
Have past experiences scared you away from the Spirit?
Do you want to be full? Fullfilled?
"To allow God to “touch you like an artist who is making something beautiful with your life?" – Don Postema (paraphrase)
Do you want the peace that so illudes you?
---
Pick 3-5 times each day where you will slow down and open yourself to the Spirit of God.
Say something like, "Spirit, I open myself to your presence and your peace."
And then just breath deeply a few times.
Then ask, what do you want me to see that I'm not seeing?
What do you want me to do?
Help me to follow your lead.
Isaiah 30:15-16
“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.
You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’
Therefore you will flee!
You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
“We are more busy than bad, more distracted than nonspiritual, and more interested in the movie theater, the sports stadium, and the shopping mall and the fantasy life they produce in us than we are in church.” - Ronald Rolheiser
---
John 4:28
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people...
She left her water jar.
What a picture.
She leaves the old behind because she has found something more.
Many people today are not open to the spiritual, they prefer a material explanation of things. Example, breathing.
Is this all that's going on?
Can you be breathing and not be fully alive?
“Is it no easy task to walk this earth and find peace.” – Ronald Rolheiser
We all have unrest. What do you do with your unrest?
What kind of world are we living in?
Is the material world all there is or do the desires and longings we have point us to there being more?
---
The Christian tradition and narrative of the bible invites us into a world that is soaked in the spiritual.
Genesis 1:1-2
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Spirit = Ruakh = Wind, Breath
Spirit brings new possibilities – order - beauty
God’s energetic presence
Psalm 104:27-30
27 All creatures look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
28 When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
29 When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
30 When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
Exodus 31:1-5
31 Then the Lord said to Moses, 2 “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— 4 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, 5 to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.
Joel 2:28-29
28 “And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
29 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
---
Jesus was filled with the spirit. It's how he did everything.
Isaiah 11:1-3 (prophecy about Jesus)
1A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
Acts 10:37-38 – Notice how Peter emphasizes that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and power and connects this to doing good and healing because God was with him.
Luke 4:18 – “The Spirit of the Lord is on me…”
This is Jesus' opening sermon in Luke's gospel. Notice what Jesus chooses to emphasize about himself and the foundation of his ministry.
Matthew 12:28 – By the Spirit Jesus drove out demons
John 1:32-33
32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’
"Jesus would have an ongoing filling of the Spirit and would go around plunging people into the same Spirit filled life." - Scot McKnight
If Jesus needed the Spirit how much more do we?
---
Thornton Wilder’s play "Our Town"
Emily: “We don’t have time to look at one another (starts crying). I didn’t realize. So all that was going on we never noticed…Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it – every, every minute?”
Stage manager – “No. The saints and poets, maybe – they do some.”
---
Jesus says that the life he came to bring us would be one where we walk with the Spirit like he did.
In John 4 Jesus meets a woman at a well. Part of their conversation revolves are what Jesus calls "living water". Notice how in John 7 Jesus reveals that this living water is actually the Spirit.
John 4
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
John 7
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
---
Are you open to the Spirit?
Have you become a materialist?
Have you become a purely cerebral Christian?
Have past experiences scared you away from the Spirit?
Do you want to be full? Fullfilled?
"To allow God to “touch you like an artist who is making something beautiful with your life?" – Don Postema (paraphrase)
Do you want the peace that so illudes you?
---
Pick 3-5 times each day where you will slow down and open yourself to the Spirit of God.
Say something like, "Spirit, I open myself to your presence and your peace."
And then just breath deeply a few times.
Then ask, what do you want me to see that I'm not seeing?
What do you want me to do?
Help me to follow your lead.
Isaiah 30:15-16
“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.
You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’
Therefore you will flee!
You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
“We are more busy than bad, more distracted than nonspiritual, and more interested in the movie theater, the sports stadium, and the shopping mall and the fantasy life they produce in us than we are in church.” - Ronald Rolheiser
---
John 4:28
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people...
She left her water jar.
What a picture.
She leaves the old behind because she has found something more.