Calling on the Spirit
August 26, 2007
Acts 2:1-8
Have you ever received a gift you just weren’t sure you knew what to do with? Ties that make good presents for someone else. Perfumes and colognes that would rival a skunk for a worst smell contest. Maybe it was some picture or painting that would look great in the attic, garage or someone else’s home. When you receive them, we struggle with how to act. You know the routine, we smile, we say thank you, and we hope we can move on to the next present.
Speaking of gifts, have you ever received the gift of fire? Yup, it’s one of those unusual presents that we can receive, yet fire is fascinating. Children say they want to grow up to be firefighters. If you hear that there is a fire in the neighborhood, chances are you will go out to watch it. On a winter’s evening, we build a fire, not just for warmth, but for the chance to watch it do its work and to hear the wood popping. On a summer’s evening while camping or in our backyard, we enjoy gathering around a campfire, not for the warmth, but for the sheer pleasure of being near it, and making a few smores. Fire fascinates us and it scares us.
Now, combine those two thoughts: gifts and fire. I wonder what would happen if someone gave you a gift of fire. What in the world would it mean? Maybe the early Christians wondered, too. After all, that was part of the Lord’s first gift to the church on that great earth shaking Pentecost...FIRE and the HOLY SPIRIT.
The faithful remnant of Jesus’ followers had gathered in the upper room near the temple in Jerusalem. There were 120 of them. In Acts 1:4-5, Jesus told the group “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
They had been in Jerusalem, dutifully waiting for the gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift they really could not conceive of. What was the Holy Spirit? What would it do to them and for them?
For 10 days, they prayed together, they chose a replacement for Judas, they ate together, they just hung out and talked about life and faith and Jesus and what was to come. They were gathered in Jerusalem to wait for this gift, yet they weren’t quite sure what this gift was all about, nor what to do with the gift when the received it.
Jesus had told them about the Holy Spirit. During their meal with Jesus on the night before His crucifixion, He told them that it was necessary for Him to leave them so that He might send them a COMFORTER, one who would walk beside them, one who would ENCOURAGE them, TEACH them and EXHORT them. Still, they weren’t sure what Jesus was talking about. Still later, Jesus told them through the Holy Spirit, they would receive POWER, a supernatural power, and the Holy Spirit.
But what did it all mean? How would they receive this gift? Who would deliver the gift? UPS, DHL and Fed Ex had not been invented.
In a moment we are going to listen to a 3 minute piece of classical music. Whenever I hear it, I think of the Holy Spirit coming upon the early followers. It is a piece of music from the Edvard Grieg, called Peer Gynt. It is the section called “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” The music starts out slowly, just as if it is a typical day in the upper room, however, the pace picks up and intensifies, and I picture the Holy Spirit coming upon the disciples, and finally, they are excitedly dancing and praising God as never before, then it’s over. Then it’s time to work.
The group heard a noise. It sounded like a windstorm . . . a tornado . . . the sound of some tremendous force. But nothing was moved: no buildings destroyed, no doors slammed shut, not even a leaf rustled. As they looked around to see what was happening, they noticed that above each head was what appeared to be a FLAME. . . FIRE that simply sat there . . . the FIRE that would be Christ’s first gift to His church . . . the FIRE that was the Holy Spirit.
CLOSE YOUR EYES and LISTEN and IMAGINE THE SPIRIT COMING.
I always feel my body begin to race when I hear “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” I wonder if the disciples had any more idea what to do with a gift like this fire than we do? But to their eternal credit, and to our undying benefit, they did not think of possessing the gift; they let that gift possess them.
The fire was exactly as advertised. It proved to be a COMFORTER, an ENCOURAGER, an EXHORTER, a TEACHER. Peter was able to give the first sermon, and 3,00 people responded to accept Jesus. What a sermon. The only way Peter could accomplish this, was through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Peter probably did not understand it. I doubt that any of them did. The folks who heard him did not, especially when they heard the message of the disciples in the languages of their own homelands. That kind of power is beyond human comprehension. But, understand it or not, the power . . . the fire . . . the Holy Spirit . . . was there that day, and the fire is still here today in God’s church.
It is still the Lord’s birthday gift to the church. Unfortunately, we often treat it as we would one of the horrible ties or smelly perfumes or ugly pictures. We do not know what to do with it, and, quite honestly, we seem to live as if we would just as soon not have it.
I suspect we’re afraid of it. It’s almost as if someone had given us a caged beast. We would be terrified at what would happen if somehow that cage would be opened. We read the account of what happened to those early disciples at Pentecost; we see what a tremendous effect the coming of the Spirit had on them, what an unbelievable difference was made in their lives; and somehow we know that if the Spirit came to us in that way, if the fire would take hold of US like it did them, things would never be the same. Sometimes that scares us. . . doesn’t it? After all, what would God call us to do?
On the other side of the coin, there is still that natural fascination we have with fire, with POWER. We think, “Wow, what great things could happen in us and through us if we would open ourselves up to the Spirit like Peter and the rest did! What a witness we would have! What a church we would have!” And it is true - we would be given such power that things would never be the same again.
Do we want that kind of power here? Or are we afraid of it? Do we want the fire of Pentecost to burn in Alexandria? Or are we worried that it might ask us to do more than we want to give and disrupt our comfortable lives?
A Texas rancher named Ira Yates was a farmer before the depression. Like many others, he didn’t earn much money. His income barely paid the bills, and he was in danger of losing his ranch.
An oil company came and asked permission to drill some oil wells on his property. Yates signed a contract and in October 1926, at 992 feet underground, they struck a huge oil reserve. By the end of 1929, they were producing over 41 million barrels of oil per year.
Mr. Yates owned it all. He’d been a multimillionaire living in poverty. The problem? The oil had been out of site, stuck under ground. – Bill Bright, "How to Be Filled with the Spirit" (Campus Crusade publication) {http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/YY/doy1.html}
As Christians we can live impoverished, weak lives devoid of the Spirit’s power. If you are a Christian, a believer in Jesus, then the Spirit of God lives within you. But is there evidence to the world, that the Spirit is alive and well.
If we want it we can have it. We can have it by preparing for it in the same way the early disciples did. First, they had a personal relationship with Jesus. They had learned to trust Jesus and to worship Him. They had learned to follow Him and be obedient to His commandments. Second, they lived with a sense of expectancy. Jesus told them to go to Jerusalem and WAIT, without doubt one of the most difficult commands He ever called them to obey. But they obeyed, and they waited . . . with a sense of real anticipation. And, they prayed . . . not just for a moment or two; they prayed and hung out together for 10 solid days. And then it happened . . . the Lord’s first birthday gift to the church . . . the all-powerful Spirit of the living God. We can have it too.
I want us to be Biblical ‘fire - starters’. People who call on the Holy Spirit, that is already within you. The Holy Spirit is kind of mysterious, we don’t fully understand what the Holy Spirit is, and what it is all about it. And things, especially . . . things we cannot see, things we cannot explain, things that don’t work off of logic can really bother us.
Yet, that does not have to be the case with he Holy Spirit. Look at the Spirit as a gift from God to me and you. It is a gift that is supernaturally placed within each of us when we proclaim that Jesus is really the Christ, that He is the Son of God, the Messiah. When we proclaim this from our heart, God mysteriously sends the Holy Spirit to come into our heart, soul, mind and entire bodies.
The Spirit helps us make the right decisions, the Spirit helps us to pray, He encourages us, comforts us, and leads us. The Spirit of God is nothing to fear, in fact it is something to crave and seek. And once we have the Spirit, do we hide it within ourselves, afraid others may look at us a little differently; or do we say, “THANK YOU . . . GOD!!”
The Holy Spirit can be quenched, it can be put out, we can be like firefighters, and put out the fire, or we can be the kind of people who help keep the fire lit.
The same Spirit that changed chaos into creation, turned the Red Sea into a highway of freedom and brought salvation from the “yes” of a young, Jewish virgin. The same Spirit that invades body and soul, and makes us more than we ever imagined we could be. The same Spirit that disturbs . . . delivers, and lifts up. The same Spirit that makes the old feel young and brings life from death. The same Spirit that touches our lives today touched the lives of the disciples and the world was never the same.
Are we Pentecost people -- on fire for Christ? Or are we firefighters -- dousing the flames, making sure that, whoosh, this doesn’t get out of hand?
Will we treat the Spirit as a gift we would just as soon do without? Will we simply be fascinated by the Spirit as we watch others set on fire? Or will we pray, “Lord, give US that fire.” That is MY prayer for First Baptist Church - Alexandria . . . and I hope . . . . . . it is yours.
Pentecost people acknowledge that the power of the Spirit can be frightening, but they enter into it, they take the risk, they embrace the unknown and the unseen. Pentecost people boldly share the good news of Jesus Christ.
Pentecost people go from being believers to being proclaimers and go from thinking about themselves to thinking about others . . . healing, forgiving, serving, loving.
We can immerse ourselves in the Bible and get involved in the church. We can invite others to come with us. We can tell our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers what it is that makes our lives so wonderful!
We can build and fix houses, help refugees, teach English as a second language, care for children, serve meals, take people to the doctor, help shut-in’s get their groceries, pray for one another, worship together, share all that we have and all that we are, and praise God with joy and abandon! And the Spirit will give us everything we need to do this!
But let me tell you something, when we are really Pentecost people this could get out of hand! But, wouldn’t that be great!
