This past Sunday, May 22, 2016, I preached form John 16:12-15. Just for reference, here is how Eugene Peterson's version, The Message shares these words from Jesus: "I still have many things to tell you, but you can't handle them now. But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won't draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said. He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you. Everything the Father has is also mine. That is why I've said, 'He takes from me and delivers to you.'
I knew it would be a busy week so I carved out time for sermon prep and writing. I usually wait till later in the week but this week I did all of that on Tuesday. I reviewed the sermon Saturday, not in depth but making sure my sentences made sense in my manuscript etc. So Sunday comes....and so does the Holy Spirit. Okay it wasn't Pentecost. That was the week before. But God came to me as I was preaching. I was excited that the revelation came but it took all I could to contain myself. Why? Well after the United Methodist General Conference I was feeling down. I had read from plenty of people I trusted in ministry some of what was going on. I was having trouble balancing the words that shared how inspirational worship was and on the other hand the nastiness, entitlement, and deep divide which was clear. All I could think was Lord I know this is not what the church is supposed to look like. While I know people were sharing their zeal for the Lord, it hurt to see how broken and hurting the leadership of our Church was. Let me be clear this isn't just about th issue of human sexuality. There was so much more. Celebrations around the United Methodist Women and the ordination of women got lost in all of it. Don't misunderstand me I know the UMC is doing good in the world in many ways. But all this brokenness overshadowed it in my mind.
Here is some of what I said in my message on Sunday:
 In John as Jesus is preparing to leave he shares that the Holy Spirit will come and share from him to them all they need to know. But he cannot not share all of that right now. Jesus is calm. My guess is that the disciples were a mess. But out of Jesus' calmness he leaves his disciples with what they can handle at the moment and need for the present. Yet he is also telling them that when they need more from him, the Spirit is the “mechanism” who will provide it. As Jesus explained it, “he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is; He won’t draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said. He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you.”
Jesus continues to speak to us today through the Holy Spirit. and not just with things he already taught 2,000 years ago and are recorded in Scripture. He speaks to us with new revelations that help us navigate a world a world that is quite different from the world the original disciples knew.
God did not stop speaking when the Bible was complete, and Jesus did not stop speaking when he ascended into heaven. 
So we should look to the Bible as God’s Word for our lives,  but our surface understanding of the Bible is not necessarily his last word on everything. The Spirit takes the things that Jesus wants us to know today, and communicates those to us through many channels. Sometimes it’s through new insight on the Scriptures we thought we already knew, but the Spirit also speaks through the power of inspiration, insight, revelation and personal experience, especially as we seek to listen prayerfully.
The second valuable thing that Jesus’ words about the role of the Spirit tell us is that not one of us understands all at once all that Christ has for us. Oswald Chambers, in the classic devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, cautioned Christians against thinking of uncertainty in this life as a bad thing. “The nature of the spiritual life,” said Chambers “is that we are certain in our uncertainty...
The spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what he is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God,” Chambers explained, “life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, ‘…believe also in me’ (John 14:1), not, ‘Believe certain things about me.’ Leave everything to him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how he will come in but you can be certain that he will come.”
I may not know why the church I serve is where it is or the whys of some things happen that happen here. I may not know why the UMC didn't just split and why things happened there the way they happened.
But what I do know is there are some things as Jesus said I cannot hear right now. Things that will through his word to the Holy Spirit I will understand in time. His time. Maybe if we stopped hating and arguing and firing bible bullets at each other long enough, we may hear the Spirit and get a glimpse of what God has for us even if we don't understand what is happening right now. We need to listen prayerfully. Period. If what we believe is in conflict with the Spirit, maybe the revelation is not from the Spirit. Again the only way to know is to listen prayerfully. And even then...it may not be time for us to hear it. I may not like waiting but I can  wait knowing the One who was, is and will be again continues to speak today...and not just the red words the Bible.