Acts 2:1-4, 14-19 QUIET POWER 30/5/04S&C
4:10,13,14
There is a story about a sunken ship that illustrates the quietness of the Spirit, but at the same time, His Power in our lives.
"Several years ago engineers building a new bridge over the East River in New York, discovered that the wrecked hull of a ship, sunk many years before, lay right where the center piers were to be built. Powerful machinery was brought in to remove the ship, but it would not budge.
Then one of the engineers had an unusual idea-why not have the tide raise the ship!! Some strong cables were attached to the hull when the tide was low. The other ends were fastened to the barge above. As the tide came in, the barge gradually lifted the sunken ship. It was then towed out into the ocean and sunk at a spot that would not cause future problems."
God’s Holy Spirit is sometimes like that tide; it comes quietly; it comes in slowly; but it comes to us with enough power to change us so that we might do the job God has called each of us to do.
For you see, the power of the Holy Spirit is not just for salvation, it is for transformation-- a process that could be immediate, or slow and gradual. The difference might look like this: you can release a tremendous amount of power and energy by just dropping a lighted match into ten gallons of gasoline; that would make a dramatic, one-time impact. But there is another way to release its energy. If you put it in the fuel tank of a Honda, the power in that gasoline could be used to take four people, and their luggage, over 400 miles. Explosions may be spectacular, but the sustained, controlled burn has a lasting impact. God doesn’t want us to be just a flash in the pan; He has invited us to join Him for the long haul, and to make a difference in this world on our journey.
As long as we think that Christianity is something that WE do, we are missing the point. It is not about what we do, but what God does in us. Being a Christian is not doing the right thing, or believing the right doctrines; it is knowing the right Person. It is not about being a member of the church or saying prayers. It is not about baptism or communion, although those are important parts of our life together. It is about surrendering my life, my body, my mind and my heart to Jesus Christ, and asking Him to come and live in me. It is about confessing my sin, and turning from it. It is about banking everything I am and have on God.
Many churches faithfully preach about salvation and the necessity of new birth. In fact, that is what you hear almost every Sunday. The scripture changes, but the message is basically the same: “You need to be born again.” And that is good as far as it goes. It is a necessary first step. But if our faith only consists of a single event where we repent of our sin and come to Christ, then it is an incomplete faith. What if a baby was born and we all celebrated the new life, but the baby never ate, never grew, and never developed. As wonderful as its birth was, it would not survive. Paediatricians call it “failure to thrive.”
If you think that the Christian life is only about being born again, think again. It is not just about salvation; it is about transformation. To hear some people talk you would think that once we come to Christ, we just wait around to go to Heaven. We are just putting in time until Jesus comes. If that is the way we think, we will never experience Pentecostal power. We will never understand that Jesus Christ has come to establish His Kingdom “on Earth, as it is in Heaven,” and we are His agents through whom He works to make that happen. We are to grow in holiness, and be salt and light in a tasteless and dark world. We are to become transformed on a daily basis, through the work of the Spirit in our own lives, and then become agents of transformation in the world.
We find in Exodus 3, that when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush—it meant that Moses was in the presence of God. It means the same thing here in Acts 2. The very Spirit of God was among them with His moving van, and was about to take up residence in their hearts. They actually saw the fire come to each of them. They saw that God was there, and was about to anoint them to do the work of the Church. The Spirit came in power on the Day of Pentecost, and everyone saw it.
You don’t want the Holy Spirit to just save you for Heaven; you want Him to use His power to transform your life. You want Him to use you in this world for Kingdom purposes. The Kingdom is not far away in time and space; it is here and now. And to be a member of this Kingdom, you need the power of the Holy Spirit operating in your life every day. The apostle John, in the Book of Revelation, talks about all the things we go through in this world and says, “This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus” (Rev14:12).
But not everyone does, even though they call themselves ‘Christian”.
Chuck Colson reports that columnist Jonathan Rauch believes that America has made “a major civilizational advance” in recent years. Colson says, “Rauch, a long-time atheist, is thrilled about a phenomenon he calls ‘apatheism’ [apathetic theism]. It’s not that people don’t believe in God anymore, Rauch writes in the Atlantic Monthly — the majority will still say they believe. . . . On the whole, the people Rauch describes haven’t been putting much thought or effort into their faith. They’re looking for comfort and reassurance, not for a God who asks anything of them. Hence the rise of ‘apatheism,’ which Rauch defines as ‘don’t care all that much about their own religion, and care even less about other people’s.’”
Colson goes on to talk about writer David Brooks who noticed a trend a few years ago, and coined the term flexidoxy [flexible beliefs]. Flexidoxy describes the form of religion practiced by many educated young North Americans as opposed to orthodoxy. Basically, it means that people have become flexible in their belief system and look at religion as a giant buffet from which they can pick and choose the beliefs that most suit them. They become the center of their own faith, and adapt it to what they see as important.
You may have heard or read about 27-year-old Aaron Ralston who had his right arm pinned by an 800-pound boulder in a climbing accident. He had gone hiking in Bluejohn Canyon, adjacent to Utah’s Canyonlands National Park. He was an experienced climber, for he had already climbed 49 other peaks in Colorado which were over 14,000 feet. He thought about what it would be like to die on the mountain, and have his family find his body, or perhaps never know his fate. Ralston, a former engineer for Intel, and an avid outdoorsman, thought about his options. After five days of being pinned, and having run out of food and water, he decided to apply a tourniquet and amputate his arm below the elbow with his pocket knife. He then rigged anchors, and rappelled to the canyon floor with his one good arm. He walked downstream until he was spotted by a Utah Public Safety Helicopter.
What the news did not say much about was that this honours graduate of Carnegie Mellon University credits his faith in God for ability to do what he had to do. He is a deeply committed Christian who often played the piano in the United Methodist Church in Greenwood Village near Denver, Colorado. Because Aaron wanted to live, he was willing to cut away everything that was holding him back. It is that kind of commitment and zeal that will enable us to experience Pentecostal power—the power of the Holy Sprit. When you are willing to cut away everything that is holding you back, and walk out of the canyon of bondage, then the Holy Spirit will come to you in new ways, and you will know a life that you did not know was possible.
The Bible says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us” (Hebrews 12:1, NLB ). The apostle Paul did this, for he wrote, “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:13-14).
"A young man was apprenticed to a master artist who produced the most beautiful stained glass windows anywhere. The apprentice could not approach the master’s genius, so he borrowed his master’s tools, thinking that was the answer. After several weeks, the young man said to his teacher, ’I’m not doing any better with your tools than I did with mine.’
The teacher replied, “So, it’s not the tools of the master you need, but the spirit of the master.’" The Holy Spirit works constantly with our spirit to transform our lives into something beautiful.
Think about this. The Spirit of the Master-- the Holy Spirit—came, and entered the souls of those people on Pentecost, and collided with their own spirits. Each of us has a spirit which drives us, empowers us, embarrasses us, frighten us, and causes trouble for us. It is a spirit which wants only what is good for me, myself and I. Our spirits are naturally defiant, taking pride in themselves, wanting to be independent, and always in control.
It is those spirits within us that the Holy Spirit comes to, and wants to change.
God’s Spirit came to the 120 on that day of Pentecost, and collided with their spirits. He is the same Spirit who collides with our spirits for control of our lives, day in and day out. As we submit to Him, and begin to grow as Christians, we experience His power to comfort, to deal with temptations, to care about others, and to tell them about Jesus.
If the Holy Spirit is so wonderful, why don’t we embrace Him, and welcome Him into our lives? I really think we are afraid of power. Most folks I know (myself included), are afraid of power that is beyond ourselves. We are like that Forest Ranger down in New Mexico who wanted a "controlled burn", but got a wildfire instead. At some level, we know that the fire of the Spirit is not just a controlled burn, but a wildfire – and wildfires change more than we had in mind. That’s why we are cautious about really inviting the Spirit into our lives.
But as we look at the disciples on this day when the Church was born, what do we see? A hundred and twenty people were gathered together, waiting, as Jesus had told them to do. What were they waiting for? None of them had any idea. Jesus had ascended to Heaven ten days before, and I wonder if some of them were even getting a little impatient. There was Peter; it seems he was often impatient. Less than two months back, he had denied even knowing Jesus. The others had all run for fear of what would happen to them, but here they were—waiting together, “in one accord” as Luke says. And the Spirit arrived!
He came in style—on a whirlwind that filled the whole house. Tongues of fire appeared and sat upon each of them, but instead of fainting, as you might expect, they all began to speak in other languages as the Holy Spirit filled them. Well, it caused quite a stir, as you might imagine, but the biggest thing that happened was not in another language, but in the local language, Aramaic.
Peter the Chicken stood up and preached with such power that 3,000 people responded and were baptized into the Church. Notice that the speaking in tongues stopped when Peter began to speak. The Spirit doesn’t bring confusion, and He was now using a different medium to communicate. What Peter said was, basically, “Let’s have a Bible study.” And they looked at a prophecy from Joel about the ‘last days’. The Spirit and the Word always work together. Next, Peter and John healed a lame man outside the Temple and Peter preached his second message that brought 2,000 more believers. For this, Peter and John were jailed, and the next day preached to the Jewish Rulers, the Sanhedrin, and accused them of murder. This was the same group that had recently convicted Jesus, but suddenly, it didn’t matter to Peter. He was fearless. See (4:10,13,14)
This was the match in the gas can, but it didn’t end there. A great unity was seen amongst all the new believers; they even sold lands and houses and shared the proceeds with the needy. This would never have happened a week before. They were as self-centred and stingy as anyone ever was. You know that the Jewish reputation for being shrewd and thrifty was well-deserved. This was the ‘controlled burn’—the gas in the Honda—that has continued more or less ever since.
A closing story tells it well:
A mother, wanting to encourage her young son’s progress on the piano, took her boy to a Paderewski concert. After they were seated, the mother spotted a friend in the audience, and walked down the aisle to greet her. Seizing the opportunity to explore the wonders of the concert hall, the little boy rose and eventually explored his way through a door marked, "NO ADMITTANCE."
When the house lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat to discover that the child was missing. Suddenly, the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the impressive Steinway on stage.
In horror, the mother saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."
At that moment, the great piano master made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in the boy’s ear, "Don’t quit. Keep playing." Then Leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon, his right arm reached around to the other side of the child and he added a running obligato. Together, the old master and the young novice transformed a frightening situation into a wonderfully creative experience.
The audience was mesmerized."
When our spirit works with the Holy Spirit, our world will likewise be mesmerized by the gentle, but persistent power of the MASTER!!!
Amen
