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For years I have driven cars with power steering. It’s just standard now. But I few years back I visited New Zealand and had to hire a number of cars - and one of them did not have power steering. I don’t know if you can remember what it felt like to drive without power steering. But if you have been driving for years with it, and suddenly you have to drive without it, its very hard work.
As Christians we are constantly tempted to do things in our own strength. To be honest as I write this sermon I feel really rough. My auto immune disease has been playing up and I have been feeling quite ill for the last few weeks. There is a part of me which thinks I have to write the perfect sermon - Pentecost is such an important day in the church’s year. If I don’t write the best possible sermon the whole parish will fall apart. Except that that is the exact opposite of the message of Pentecost.
We can do that as individuals, We can also be tempted to do it as communities. There is a lot of evidence nationally that there has been a bit of a revival during lockdown. That people who have never engaged with god before have started to show an interest in Spiritual things during lockdown. Perhaps you have found that when you have zooming relatives or friends? Yet instead of rejoicing in the amazing things God is doing, its very easy for us to go “yes but our hall hasn’t been let out for five months - how will we pay our bills?” which is the exact opposite of the day of Pentecost.
The story of Pentecost is the story of a gaggle of frightened failures turned around. Look on Good Friday - Peter creeps around denying he has ever known Jesus, the rest of the 11 with exception of John run away. They hide in an upper room “locked for fear of the Jews”. Fifty days later Peter with the rest of the 11 is out there preaching to a huge crowd - and on that one day alone 3000 people have converted. And it begins with a supernatural act by God. The Apostles and Jesus’s brothers and sisters and Mary and the other women are in the upper room praying when the Holy Spirit supernaturally came upon them. Luke describes it as being like being in an earthquake with the room shaking or like there was a violent wind and something like fire descending on people’s heads. All those medieval pictures you may have seen of people sitting round calmly with neat identical tongues of flames sitting pristinely a centimeter above their heads - it was nothing like that. Then they come outside and they are speaking these weird words of praise and everyone who hears can understand them. They don’t understand them - they are just opening their mouths and uttering whatever sounds of praise God gives them - but the people who hear them somehow understand it.
And through no power of the disciples - 3000 people are converted that day.
I remember back in the 1990s there was a move of the Holy Spirit called the Toronto Blessing. There is a lot of questions to be asked about it and some people wonder if excesses went on. But one thing is sure. Overnight the church of Holy Trinity Brompton (associated as a centre of this blessing) suddenly found they had people queuing up to enter their services. They had to ticket the services and they had to start an extra evening service to fit everyone in. It wasn’t because the Clergy of HTB suddenly started working harder. It wasn’t anything they did. It was the Power of Pentecost, the work of God.
So if I start to worry - what if my sermon isn’t good enough because I’m poorly; or if you start to worry what if I try doing intercessions and people don@t like them… perhaps its just best if I don’t do them because I am shy; or we as a church worry what if we haven’t let the hall out for so many months… God sends us back to this passage from the book of acts. It is not down to us doing things. It’s not down to our strength. It’s down to God doing things. If he can convert 3000 people in one day, think what he will do if we let him?
In 1962 Pope John XXIII famously prayed for God to send a new Pentecost on the church. He has no idea what he was praying for - but almost immediately the Charismatic Renewal appeared which transformed Catholics and Protestants alike. And the fastest growing churches in the world are ones open to that renewing of the Holy Spirit.
There was a preacher who wanted to impact South Korea for Jesus Christ. And so he started a church in his friend’s living room. For a long time the Church was tiny. The preacher worked really hard but nothing happened. One of the parishioners was paralyzed. And so one Sunday, the pastor went over to her, laid hands on her and prayed fervently. And she was healed! Suddenly the Church started growing. For years they had worked hard and nothing happened - but then when God moved the Church exploded into Growth. The Power of Pentecost. By the mid 1960s, they had 3000 people.
But one day, as the pastor was baptizing several hundred people, he collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. He was rushed to the hospital where he had major surgery. You see - even in the midst of an amazing revival like this - a part of him had thought it was down to him and he become a workaholic - till he collapsed.
Then in hospital God showed him Exodus 18:18 . It said this: "The work is too heavy for you. You cannot handle it alone. You will only wear yourself out." The pastor set up a new structure where volunteers would work with him pastoring groups of people. It was much less about him . And exploded into growth. It (Yoido Full Gospel Church) is now the largest church in the world with over a million people worshiping at it. Something equally incredible happened 2000 years ago. On the day of Pentecost a small group gathered for prayer. They were nothing special. But the power of the Holy Spirit was present. 3000 people came to Christ in one day and the church was born. (1)
In the 1920s Mr Ira Yates purchased a farm in West Texas in the United States. In many ways he was like a lot of other ranchers and farmers. He had a lot of land, and a lot of debt. He wasn’t able to make enough on his ranching operation to keep up with his monthly mortgage payments, so he was in danger of losing his ranch. With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on a government subsidy. Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. In 1926, on a hunch, he invited a seismographic crew from an oil company to investigate whether there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and Ira Yates signed a lease contract. At a depth of 340 metres they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well produced 80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were twice as large and 30 years later the government tested one of the wells.
It still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day. Sixty years later in 1985 the one billionth barrel of oil was produced; and as at 2009 it was estimated that there are another 1 billion recoverable barrels of oil available; and Mr Ira Yates owned it all. The day he purchased the land he received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he’d been living on government hand-outs. He had been a multimillionaire living in poverty. The problem was that he didn’t know the oil was there even though he owned it.
We - you, me, us - can be like Mr Yates. We are sitting on this immense riches, we are sitting on this immense power. At Baptism God has put his Holy Spirit in us. But we have to open the taps and let the Spirit out(2)
Life can seem daunting - just like it seemed daunting for the disciples when Jesus died or agains as it seemed daunting for them when having only just come back he was taken upto heaven and they had no idea what would follow. Life seemed daunting and then the Holy Spirit came. And if we open ourselves he will come to us as a church today.
(1) Sermon by Pastor Brian Matherlee on this site
(2) Sermon by Fr Warner Pidgeon on this site
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