Have you ever been given an assignment to do that was unachievable because you didn't have the resources? I have seen more than one committee that was given responsibility but not given the authority. It's members either resigned in frustration or stayed on and just went through the motions. This is one of the worst situations. A task without the resources to accomplish it is a failure. Congress is constantly doing this. They pass laws setting up tasks but don't appropriate the funds to carry them out. Businesses do this. They meet and decide on lofty goals, but they won't change people's duties to be in line with the new goals. Success only happens when the means are matched to the ends. And if this is true in business, it is true a hundred-fold in our spiritual lives. In our sermon text today, we are going to see what amazing things can happen when the means match the ends, both for our personal lives and for God's work in the world.
We began our sermon series on the book of Acts last time with a look at the first chapter. There we saw that the story of the church is framed by the resurrection of Jesus on the one hand and his eventual return on the other. We have faith in this life because of the resurrection and we have hope for the future because of his promised return. What happens between the resurrection of Jesus and his return is the spread of his gospel to the ends of the earth. In chapter 1 he gave them the charge. He defined for them what the mission ways. In chapter two they are given the means to do it. He gives him his Holy Spirit, which really marks the beginning of the church.
We pick up the story after Jesus has ascended into heaven after the resurrection. Listen now to God's Word to you.
1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" 13 But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."
This story marks the key event in the history of the church and one of the key events in the history of God's dealing with his creation. In the Old Testament God would give his Spirit on an occasional basis to people in order to accomplish a specific mission. But this gifting of the Spirit is of a whole different order. First, the Spirit is given on a permanent basis. Second, the Spirit is given to every one who follows Jesus Christ. If you are in Christ, then you have God's Spirit living in you. That is a promise. As we shall see, it is quite a powerful promise.
The giving of the Spirit, we are told, occurred at Pentecost. This is certainly significant. God could have poured out his Spirit at any time but it was particularly on this holy day. Therefore, the meaning of Pentecost should tell us about the meaning of the Spirit in our lives. Pentecost was an ancient Jewish holiday that was known as the Feast of Booths. It was originally a harvest celebration, like our Thanksgiving. They would gather around and eat turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy. Ok, not really. The important thing is that by Jesus' time the holiday became centered around the law. It celebrated the day when God gave his instruction, the Torah, to Moses and his people. The law was seen as a great gift because it showed the people how to live in relationship to their God, whose name was Yahweh. It told them what they should do and what they shouldn't. We all know that life can be confusing. It surely was for them as well, but now they had a handbook for life.
Over the course of their history, though, their relationship to the law changed. It began as a roadmap for them. But they were unable to follow it. They continually broke it and were faithless to their God. It became more a source of judgment upon them as it continually reminded them of the sins and failures. What they really needed was to be able to keep the law. This was the task.
The question, then, is how does Pentecost help us to understand the meaning of the Spirit in our lives? A hurricane will tell us.
There is a woman named Norena, who lives in South Florida, whose home was severely damaged by a hurricane. The elderly woman received an insurance settlement, and the repair work began. However, when the money ran out, so did the contractor, leaving an unfinished home with no electricity. Norena has been living without power ever since.The astounding part of this story is that the hurricane was not Katrina, but Andrew. Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992. Norena has been living in that dark, unfinished house for 15 years. No heat when the winter chill settled over South Florida. No air conditioning when the mercury climbed into the 90's and the humidity clung to 100 percent. Not one hot shower.Without money to finish the repairs, Norena just got by with a small lamp and a single burner. Her neighbors didn't seem to notice the absence of power. Acting on a tip, the mayor of Miami-Dade got involved. It only took a few hours of work by electrical contractor Kent Crook to return power to the house.CBS News says Norena plans to let the water get really hot, and then take her first bubble bath in a decade and a half. "It's hard to describe having [the electricity]…to switch on," she said. "It's overwhelming."
KUTV, "Woman Turns Lights on After 15 Years in the Dark," KUTV.com (2-17-07); submitted by John Beukema, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
Can you imagine living years and years without power? You have appliances in your house -- air conditioner, refrigerator, heater, stove, and lights! There is electricity available. The lines to your house are full of power. Nevertheless, you are doing without.
This is a great metaphor for how so many Christians live their spiritual lives -- without power. Without power all of the passages that teach us about how to live moral lives become heavy burdens. The practice turns into legalism.
The Holy Spirit is God's presence and power within us which allows us to obey. It empowers us to be about to fulfill his commands. It gives us the power and self-control to do his will. Trying to live the Christian life without the Holy Spirit turns Christianity into any old religion, that just piles on the do's and don'ts. This is what happened to the Jews. They had the law, the obligation, the responsibility, but they didn't have the power to fulfill it. On Pentecost, we got that power. The Spirit is the new way to God. By his power, our relationship with God is preserved and maintained. The Spirit leads us into the truth and enables us to understand it. The Spirit leads us in the right paths and enables us to follow them. The Spirit is the fulfillment of the law.
Does the Spirit still fall on us today in such a powerful way? Or, was this just something that happened millennia ago?I want to tell you that I know that it still happens, because it happened to me.It was the summer after my sophomore year in high school. It was a year earlier when my parents announced to my younger sister and I that their marriage separation was going to be made permanent by a divorce. The next year was accompanied by an inescapable feeling of being unsettled and adrift. It was a feeling that I had tried to escape however I could. But toward the end of that year, after finding no other solace, I admitted to myself where the answer was -- in turning back to God. I began going to church with my mother at First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs. I got in a Bible study with other high school students led by the youth minister. One week he challenged us to pray a simple prayer every day for the next few weeks. The prayer went, “Lord, reveal yourself to me in a new way.”And so I prayed that prayer whenever I thought about it.Two weeks later, as I sat again in his living room for Bible study, I had the most amazing experience. God met me there and did reveal himself to me in a new way. If I tried to describe the experience, I would say that I became less and less aware of the people in the room and more and more aware of God's presence in that place. It was like being lifted up into heaven without leaving the living room. It was a powerfully emotional experience. I felt like God had met me in my point of need and pain. I continued to feel God strongly present in my life. I no longer felt adrift, but instead I felt grounded and secure. It was at this point in my life when I first began to think about going to seminary.
From this I say that the Spirit is still strongly at work in the world and in the lives of people. My experience is not the standard for everyone, because the Spirit works differently in each person's life. But, I do know that experiences like this are more common that we usually talk about. As I look back on that summer, I realize that God met me in a way and at a time that I really needed it. God has not met me in such a dramatic way since then, even though I still have a strong sense of his presence.
The see that Spirit makes God powerfully present to us and makes God personal in our lives. But this is not the end of the story. The Spirit also makes God present in the world through us.
On Pentecost, the Spirit descended. It's coming was marked by wind and fire. These were two elements associated with God's Spirit in the Old Testament. But this wasn't the amazing part. The amazing part was that the apostles started speaking in other languages. They went out into the courtyards of the temple and they spoke to the Jews who were gathered there to offer their worship to God. And these Jews, many of whom had retired to Jerusalem, had spent their lives in other regions. The regions listed are spread out as far as present-day Iran, through Egypt and Turkey, all the way to Rome. They would represent a wide-array of different languages. Nevertheless, each of them hears their own language. They hear the apostles speaking about the God's powerful deeds in their own language.
This demonstrates one of the main purposes of the Spirit in our lives. The Spirit comes into our lives to give us power and to enable us to follow Christ and to feel his presence in our lives. But that is not the only reason. The Spirit also comes to make us into witnesses for him. The Spirit is one who gives us power and self-discipline and courage to share Jesus with others. And it takes courage to do that. It takes courage to admit to other people that your life belongs to Jesus, that you rely on your faith to get through times of darkness and doubt, that God is the center of your life.
Do you think that it was easy for the disciples? If so, read the last verse of the passage...Some people who heard them sneered at them and accused them of being drunk. In other words, they thought that they were religious wackos. They would have no problem if they just were quiet and kept their religion to themselves. There is no problem when faith is this hidden thing between a person and God. But the disciples would have none of that. They had to speak. They were experiencing the new life brought on by the Holy Spirit. They just couldn't keep it to themselves and so they exposed themselves to ridicule and embarrassment.
I want to close with this question: Do you have the Spirit in your life? What do you think? According to Scripture, if you have Christ in your life, then you have the Spirit. That's the same Spirit that indwelt the apostles 2000 years ago. The same Spirit that empowered them to be bold in the face of fear and to reach out and meet other people's physical and spiritual needs.
If you don't have Christ in your life, then this is the starting point.
If you do have Christ, but don't feel the Spirit, then you are like the house without electricity. It is available to you, you just need to make the connection. If you would like to know this power in your life, then I encourage you to adopt a new prayer in your life. Whenever you think of it, ask God to be real to you in a new way.