The Village atheist was not a bad man, he just didn’t believe. He was not interested in church…and there was only one in the village. It was cold and dead—a social club, with nothing really going on, no impact on the community at all. One day the church building caught on fire, and the whole town ran toward it to help extinguish the flames…including the village atheist! Someone hollered out: “Hey, this is something new for you, the first time we’ve ever seen you running to church!” He replied, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen the church on fire!”
This is Pentecost Sunday, the day the church was born. On that first Pentecost, there was fire a plenty.
Let’s read our passage today: Acts 2:1-21
Now by that first Pentecost of the church, critical things had already happened, all of which find a place in our annual celebrations. The incarnation had occurred.
At Christmas we celebrate that God became human in Jesus Christ. Jesus had grown and taught all about the Kingdom of God. // He had been arrested, tried, convicted, beaten, scourged and murdered on the cross. That’s Good Friday, or Holy Friday. Jesus rose from the dead. That’s resurrection Sunday or Easter. He dwelled on earth and was seen by hundreds after His resurrection. He ascended to the Father. That’s Ascension Sunday.
But before He returned to God the Father, Jesus made a promise. A promise that He had hinted at throughout His 3 years of public ministry. He promised that He would send power from on high. That He would send to the disciples the Holy Spirit.
And so in our passage today we find the disciples together. They’ve been told by the resurrected to Jesus to wait in Jerusalem to receive power from on high. So they’ve been waiting, together.
Today when you picture people waiting together you might imagine each one in their own little world, talking to someone who’s not there on their cell phone, texting or playing on their smartphone. Doing anything but ‘being together’ in one place.
Mercifully the disciples had no such distractions. So they were together doing what followers of Jesus do when they get together. Encouraging one another. Listening. Praying. Worshipping.
2:1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
This is a powerful passage, all the more when we realize that this is the moment in time when the church was born. Notice all the ‘they’ and ‘them’ words in this passage. The church has been, since this moment in history, the organism through which God seeks to bless the world and to bring the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost world.
Whether it’s Carny loving people at work or Agnes sharing her faith in the foyer of her apartment building or Ruth encouraging folks in the community or when she works at the reception desk here at the mission, all those individual acts are ‘the church’ at work in the world.
When God speaks and acts, it’s for the benefit of many. It is for the ‘they’ and the ‘them’, never just for us. There’s something in our culture that encourages a nearly radical independence, a ‘me focus’.
I’ve told the story of the YSM staff member who returned to Toronto and the mission recently after being in Mozambique for just three weeks. Her struggle returning was with how disconnected life is here compared to how everything that happens in Africa which is all based on relationships.
We’re in a bubble here, so we don’t realize how isolated we normally are.
For many going to church on Sunday or throughout the week is one of the only times we connect meaningfully with other people, the only time they’re with others who are doing the same thing with similar interests. That’s not the way we’re intended to live.
The house gathering that we do that meets every other Thursday at either Lee and Helen’s or Maryellen’s home is a place and time of blessing.
Since we gather just for the purpose of being together, we don’t meet with a structure in mind for the evening. So the conversation goes all over the place and lately always comes to rest on the Scriptures.
We hear testimonies of God’s gentle but really impressive miracles. We share our struggles. We ask our questions of one another. So we listen and learn and grow and experience God together. We pray. New people come.
The group grows. It is, for me, a picture of what we’re called to as believers. We’re called to be committed to each other.
To take the time to gather, to prioritize getting together as the body of Christ.
It’s one of the most enjoyable and meaningful things we do as a church.
It is not a ‘me’ thing. It is an ‘us’ thing.
You know, I wonder what would have happened if the disciples had not done as Jesus commanded. If they had not assembled together in one place.
Would they have missed the blessing of that day? Would they have been otherwise occupied or distracted and simply unavailable to God for this miracle to occur?
But they were together, and God showed up. They were together, perhaps praying or worshipping or just sharing their story, and the Holy Spirit showed up in power.
Some kind of huge wind-sound enveloped them all, getting their attention. God first got their ears to pay attention. Then something like tongues of fire separated and came to rest on each one. God then got their eyes to pay attention.
At this point nobody is thinking about going shopping after the service. Nobody is wondering what the hockey score is. No one is nodding off. Not your typical gathering of Christians.
And then each of them is filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s what matters in this passage. The particular manifestation is
that each one began to speak in other tongues, tongues which we soon gather were given so that those among them from all different regions and dialects and languages could understand what was being said by the disciples – they were declaring the wonder of Gods in their own tongues. At least 14 different tongues are listed there.
That’s a lot of languages and dialects being spoken by people who didn’t speak those languages and dialects. That’s a miracle.
And when miracles happen, they are often misunderstood or, frankly, bothersome to those who wish they hadn’t happened.
Some of the folks who witnessed Jesus’ miracles either complained that they had occurred on the wrong day of the week or they plotted how to get rid of the miracle worker. Talk about missing the point!
On this day, rather than accept that what was happening was indeed a miracle, we read this: 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?" 13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine." 14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.15 These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning!
I’ve always found this amusing and telling. Some beheld the miracle and understood that something amazing was going on. So they wondered aloud to each other.
The best that some of the others could do with the same data was assume that the answer to the miracle was too much booze! Peter’s defense is kind of funny too. “It’s too early for them to be drunk”, as opposed to defending the holiness of what was going on. Amusing.
16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:17 "'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.19 I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.20 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. 21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'
Here Peter reaches back to the minor prophet Joel who prophesies about the pouring out of God’s Spirit. He does this as an explanation of what is going on among those gathered.
This ancient prophesy very much expresses the spirit of what is going on, on this the birthday of the church.
Whereas it could be said that the Holy Spirit was only sparsely referred to in the Old Testament, under the old covenant, the presence of the Spirit of God was to become ubiquitous, found everywhere.
God’s Spirit being poured out would lead to people living in vital connection and relationship with God.
It would not be uncommon for average people, male and female to prophesy, or tell the wonders of God. It would not be uncommon for believers to receive visions from God, dreams from God. And, the most important difference of all.
Before Jesus came the promises of God were limited to the people of Israel. The Hebrews were entrusted with the very words and revelation of God.
Now…EVERYONE who calls on God, who professes the name of Jesus, who lives life honouring the name of the crucified One, will be saved.
The result of all of this was earth-moving. The disciples had been witnesses of Jesus’ life and teaching and resurrection.
They had personally been touched by and impacted by Jesus. They were commanded to go and make disciples of all people. But you know, that wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t enough for them to know the truth about Jesus. It wasn’t even enough to have the personal experience of Jesus. It wasn’t enough because what they had experienced wasn’t for them alone.
They were entrusted will making sure that EVERYONE heard the good news, that everyone, had the opportunity to know about the love of God expressed so perfectly in the sacrifice of Jesus.
Knowing all of that wasn’t enough, and so as He promised, God sent His Holy Spirit so that the disciples would be equipped to do all that they were entrusted to do. And you know, God gives His Holy Spirit to all believers.
When you first repented and trusted that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was for you, when you believed and received Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, that’s when you actually received the Holy Spirit.
There is, though, an amazing thing that God does. I recall the first two years I was a Christian really struggling to understand the implications of the gospel for my life.
I had come from a background of believing in nothing, so it took some time to both fully embrace the Christian faith and, necessarily, reject other things I had been taught that denied the existence of God and even the possibility of God mattering in a life.
And so about 2 years after I was saved I remember going to a service when they were preaching about receiving the Holy Spirit afresh as a believer.
Ever the skeptic, I resisted as long as I could and then I finally went forward to the front to worship and pray and I asked God to fill me afresh with His Spirit. And you know, He did.
There was the particular immediate manifestation of tongues, which was weird and cool. But much more importantly, at that moment I knew that I knew that I knew that I belonged to God. I was completely committed to His purposes.
I would go where He wanted me to and I would live as He wanted me to.
The other cool thing that happened is that whereas before that night, I had been struggling on and off with doubts and questions and hadn’t fully settled into this new identity as a Christ-follower, after that night, I had no more doubts about God, about the gospel.
So I really connect with this passage of Scripture, because I received power that night and an infilling of God’s Spirit that has never wained because God has replenished me continually. I am so thankful.
Many of you know what I’m talking about. You have some similar or perhaps very different experience with God, but it’s all God’s sovereign work.
Here’s the thing. God delights to fill us with His Spirit. He delights in our joy at being filled. But as in all things, He doesn’t bless us for our consumption, for us alone. He pours into our lives so that He can overflow out of our lives in to the lives of others.
I often tell people when I do training for those in ministry that it’s not like God fills our cup and then as we serve our cup gets drained and we get drained. That’s a prescription for burnout if there ever was one.
What God does is fill us with His Spirit, and give us, I believe, the choice to continually be filled so that our cup is always running over, and we serve others, we serve our King Jesus out of the overflow, out of the abundance of His blessing in our lives.
That’s one of many reasons why in order to be effective servants in God’s Kingdom we need to do any and all things to be filled…read the Bible and fill our hearts and minds with His Word, fellowship with other Christians so that we are built up and encouraged and so that we can build up and encourage others.
We need to worship regularly with the body of Christ in a local congregation that affirms the supremacy of Christ in all things.
When we do these things we are ready to be representatives of Jesus to this lost and hurting world.
The year was 1930, and it was the year of the Naval Conference in London. King George was to address the opening session. Radio was in its infancy, but through this media the king’s message was to be carried around the world.
Just before the king was to go on the air, Walter Vivian, a young engineer of the Columbia Broadcasting Company, discovered a broken wire in the transmitter. This was tragic!
There was no time for repairs, and the world was waiting to hear the message of the king. The young engineer discovered what to do:
He took a piece of broken wire in one hand, and a piece of broken wire in the other hand, and for fifteen minutes Walter Vivian took two hundred and fifty volts of electricity through his body that the king’s message might go through.
The day the church was born, the Holy Spirit came in power to fill those early Christians to overflowing, so that each one would be ignited in their faith, set ablaze in their passion to witness to the transforming love and grace of Jesus Christ.
May each of us here today also be filled. May each of us here today receive afresh the Holy Spirit of God, and may all of us stand in the gap as the way in which the message of the gospel is transmitted as
God reaches out to love, to heal, to bless and to save our community, our city, our world. Amen.
