After the Noise 1974

Every once in a while, the embarrassing question is asked, if it's really the Holy Spirit who's inspiring all these groups around the city, how come there isn't more unity? How come there's so little concern for one another? So few kind words, even. If it's really the one Holy Spirit of God, surely he's going to bring us together in his love. Certainly he's going to gather us into some kind of harmony inside our fellowships and across the city.

How can we talk about the Holy Spirit moving and see all this chaos and division? There was this church in Corinth where the Spirit of God was obviously moving. People were getting healed. Miracles were almost commonplace.

Marvelous supernatural utterances were breaking out in meeting after meeting. And yet, this same church was divided into factions, torn by strife, polluted by believers living immoral lives. And the result was that while indeed the Holy Spirit was there, the work, the ministry which the Spirit of God had given that church wasn't getting done.

Tremendous energy of God was pouring down upon these people, and then it was being dissipated by the uncrucified human heart. These people were making plenty of noise, joyful noise, and praise God for that. But they were bearing very little fruit.

So when Paul writes to them, he doesn't deny that the Spirit of God is there. And he thanks God for the gifts of the Spirit that are operating in their midst. And yet he very clearly calls them a carnal church.

He says, while there's strife and jealousy in your midst, are you not in the flesh? You're behaving like ordinary men, not like men and women of God. And so until there is some kind of unity in that church in Corinth, until those divisions are healed, until that strife is removed, the ministry which God gave that church to accomplish will not be done. These people must be brought to the place beyond where they are.

They have to come up from being noisy spiritual children to the point where they are solid, dependable, unified, Spirit-led men and women of God. Now contrast with the picture you get when you read 1 and 2 Corinthians, the picture that comes to you when you read a book like Ephesians, Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Now in this letter, we see no reference to anything supernatural on the surface, at least.

Of course, there's no doubt that people were getting healed and they were also prophesying and doing all these things. And yet there's very little reference to this because he gets at things that are even more important. Here it's quite clear that he's talking to a group, not of babies, but of men.

And he says, I thank God for you because of your faith in Jesus Christ and because of your love for all the saints. Here was a church where the walls have come down and where the childish things have been put away so that they are really in unity around Jesus. And the work that the Lord has given these people to do is really getting done.

Fruit is being born. So when you read Corinthians and then read Ephesians, it's like looking at two stages. The first is the childhood stage, you know, where there's plenty of noise, but not too much power and real strength.

And the second is the adult stage where there is less noise, but much more power. And we see this all through scripture. Take, for instance, the apostle Peter, when Peter first meets Jesus.

And for the first three and a half years after that, all kinds of bluster and racket coming from this man, but very little real strength. Then comes Pentecost. And the Peter we see from there on is much more settled and yet much stronger, obviously, as a strength now that he never had before.

When Ezekiel is given the vision of the dry bones, there are two prophecies he has to make. First, he prophesies to the bones. And you know what happens? The bones begin to come together and there's a tremendous noise, a rattling and a shaking as these bones come together and form bodies.

But the bodies are still dead. He has to prophesy a second time to the wind. Now, the only sound that could be heard, if at all, is the sound of the spirit of God rushing into these dead bodies, bringing them to life.

And the bodies stand up on their feet and they become an exceeding great army. They're unified. Or take the time Elijah flees from Jezebel way down into the Sinai Peninsula to Mount Horeb to have it out with God.

And Elijah is surrounded with all kinds of noise again. But the noise that surrounds him is the echo of the racket that's going on in his own soul. A wind, fierce wind tears the mountains and breaks up the rocks.

But God is not in the wind. This is followed by an earthquake rumbling of the earth that makes you feel sick in the pit of your stomach when you hear it. But God is not in the earthquake.

This is followed by a roaring fire. But God is not in the fire. And after this comes the voice of a gentle stillness.

And Elijah wraps his face in his mantle because he knows that this is God. In our fellowships, there's a certain amount of noise. And really, we praise God for that noise.

Same way that you praise God when the newborn child begins to cry, sign that he's breathing. Thank God, praise God when a man begins to shout with joy after he's been healed. Or a woman praises God at the top of her lungs when she's found Jesus or been filled with the Spirit.

And we praise God even for the excessive noise and sometimes the disorderly noise that comes when believers begin to experience these things. How much better is that racket of noise than this dead silence that went on before? But the power that we need to do the job which God has given us to do at this hour is not in the noise that we make. But rather, it is in the unity that spreads over the body when we really submit to the Holy Spirit.

And it is to this unity that the Spirit of God is calling the church. At this hour. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the cunning of men and by their craftiness and deceitful wiles.

Rather, speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. From whom the whole body joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied when each part is working properly makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love.

This is where the power is to get the job done. And what we need to learn, each of us needs to learn is that the responsibility for unity in the body begins with me. Each has to see that.

See that it's no longer that brother over there or those flaky sisters over there or these slobs who never fit in. But it's me. Am I, and each has to ask this honestly before God am I an agent of unity in the body or am I an agent of division? Where is my heart when it comes to the unity of the body? Where is my mouth? Do I minister peace to brothers and sisters or does my rattled, shaking, unsettled, glory-hungry spirit leave behind in a trail of strife everywhere it goes? Do I honestly draw near to my brothers and sisters in love or do I remain aloof from all except those from whom I want something? The spirit of God is calling all of us at this hour especially at this hour as never before to practice unity in the name of Jesus in three areas.

And the first obviously begins in the local assembly. You know, among these people that we know so well and that know us so well or are getting to know us and we're getting to know them. You know, these are the ones who can irritate us.

You know, and aggravate us and misunderstand us and misquote us and ignore us and neglect us and walk on us and do all these things to us. And we are called to see these very people who do all these terrible things to us. We're called to see them through the eye of Christ and think of them with the mind of Christ and to do nothing from selfishness or conceit but to regard the others better than ourselves and when I catch somebody else not living that way before I murmur about him in my heart or talk about her or rebuke him to his face.

What about me? What about my attitude toward him? Is this man regularly in my prayers? See, God puts us in this body, this fellowship primarily to teach us how to forgive. You want to know why you're married to that man or that woman? That's one of the reasons. How in the world are we going to go out there and tell these people in the streets about the forgiveness of God on the cross of Jesus if our hearts are loaded with attitudes and hard thoughts toward brothers and sisters? What peace and what power will begin to surge across the fellowships across the city and the earth when we yield to the call of the Spirit to start to forgive and really be one.

Now, the second area in which we are called to practice unity and we're all pretty new at this one is across the city. The church, praise God, does not begin and end with our fellowship. See, and when my concern is only with my fellowship and perhaps a couple others in our particular chain, then it's very likely that I'm caught up in a religious thing, kingdom of my own, rather than in the kingdom of God.

What about my thoughts and my attitudes toward those brothers and sisters on the east side or the west side or the north side? Do I think of them as brothers or do I think of them as half-brothers? Do I really weep when they weep and rejoice when they rejoice? Or is there buried in my heart a secret tinge of jealousy? And the Spirit of God now is really getting exacting with us in these things. When he finds us with these attitudes toward that other fellowship or raising up walls around the city or sowing seeds of mistrust everywhere or jealous or despising those people in our hearts, they're a bunch of slobs, he begins to deal with us. If there is a problem with that other fellowship, then let's solve it.

And if there's misunderstanding with this fellowship over here, let's get it right. And if there's a need for reconciliation, let's begin it. Let's do it.

Because the church in the city is one, not many, one. And it extends far beyond our own little circle. And the third place where we need to learn to practice unity is with believers across the earth.

We see the Macedonian Christians sending material help to the believers in Judea, whom they never saw. And usually when we hear about needs in Cleveland or Nairobi or Santiago, now we say, we got enough problems around here. We can't even handle the ones around here.

Why should we help them? But if we're truly listening to the Spirit of God, he begins to wipe away the miles and shows us that these are our problems. And he says, send them some help. And this is going to be happening more and more as the end draws near.

Look at those brothers and sisters. We have brothers and sisters in China who desperately need our prayers. And maybe we've got some brothers and sisters in Bolivia who need some material help.

And we need to fit in. We, for our own good, need to learn to fit into these people. There has never been a time since the day of Pentecost where the power of God has more evidently been present in the church than right now.

But for that power to accomplish what it was sent to do, we must be really in unity. We must practice the unity God said we have. May the Spirit of God show us exactly what this means for us.

Not for the other guy, but for me. And help us to get on with doing what needs to be done, starting right now. And it wouldn't be a bad idea for us to begin right now by doing some repenting before God.