Matt Chandler - To Your Advantage

If you have your Bibles, I hope that you already have them open to this passage, John 16:7-11. I’m excited to dive into this passage! Mason did an incredible job last weekend of moving us into the upper room discourse. The Gospel of John is speeding up; we are moving toward the cross, and this is during the last few days of Jesus’s life before the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. He is pouring into His disciples in this discourse, and I loved how Mason taught us last week. Again, what a gift of God’s grace he has been to the Institute and to our community of faith. Preaching on the weekends, teaching during the weekdays, God continues to bless the Village Church with ferocious men and women of God, extremely gifted, surrendered, and walking in step with the Spirit. Each time I hear one of our teachers preach, I’m just blown away by God’s faithfulness and goodness to us.

Now, in 1998, which was a long time ago, I encountered some things that rattled me, disorienting me. I had been a Christian for quite some time, several years more than that, and I had been saved, converted to Christ at First Baptist Church of Texas City, Texas. That’s down by Galveston Island on the coast. The church where I became a Christian was pretty much what you might picture when you hear «First Baptist Church of Texas City, Texas.» Texas City is a very blue-collar town surrounded by refineries. First Baptist Church of Texas City was a conservative, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving community of faith. It was in that place that I came to know Jesus Christ, and the entire trajectory of my life reset there at that church. The one thing I’m thinking back on is that the church in Texas City did something that ultimately put me in a bit of a tailspin in '98. There was some—I’m trying to think of a better word than animosity—maybe the better word would be skepticism, or harsh critique. I don’t know exactly the right word to be fair to them, yet I have to say that during my time there, there was serious concern about anything relating to the Holy Spirit. In fact, I remember not long after my conversion, there was a three- to four-week series on why the gift of tongues didn’t exist. Now I’m thinking about it: how would you take what the Bible says about tongues and make a three-week series on how it doesn’t exist? I’m saying this not because I’m going to discuss tongues in any way today, but I’m trying to give you my background.

In 1998, I got to go to India, and I saw some things there that rocked my kind of skepticism about the Holy Spirit. The things I had learned about what the Holy Spirit does and does not do were challenged. I witnessed supernatural, wild things that sent me back to the Word of God and led me on an adventure to discover what was actually true and what the Holy Spirit actually did. At that time, Lauren and I were dating and living in Abilene. I started going to every kind of charismatic revival I could find. If I had friends who were in that stream and they said, «Hey, we’ve got this guy coming,» or, «Hey, these miracles are happening,» Lauren and I went. I remember one night—I think I’ve told this story here before, but indulge me because I only have one life, and if I’m pulling from it, we’re 18 years into our journey together. Lauren and I went to this church, which I believe is still there and thriving—Emmanuel. A traveling evangelist had come, and from the second we walked in, it appeared to be chaos, at least through my lenses. I mean, we were singing like 32 songs in the room. There was one being led from up front, but there was a little breakout of worship over there. These people weren’t in the band, but they were kind of in the band; they all brought their own instruments. From my sensibilities, based on where I’d been in life, it was utter chaos. Then people started coming up to Lauren and me, saying, «Oh my gosh, look at the gold fillings in my teeth!» or, «Do you see the gold dust on my finger?» I was like, «No!» I did not see that. Yet the crowd was in a frenzied atmosphere I had never experienced before, other than maybe at sporting events. Then the traveling evangelist came out and preached, and I was surprised by how biblical his sermon actually was. I just had been trained to think that these people don’t value the Word of God, so I thought his message was good. Then they entered into ministry time, which was when the chaos I thought I perceived before escalated to a level I had never experienced before, and people started being slain in the Spirit, falling out.