Knowing The Holy Spirit May 15, 2005 Pentecost
The Spirit and the Church
Acts 1:1-11, 2:1-47
You may remember what I’ve been saying about how the Trinity is involved in the creation. How the Father and the Son work together to form the whole of creation, and how the Spirit, who is the breath of God comes and breathes life into the creatures and creation bringing the whole cosmos to life.
You can see the same thing happening as Jesus, with the Spirit and the Father, forms the church in the three years of his ministry. He pours his life into these twelve men, concentrating on three of the twelve. He teaches crowds, but at Pentecost there are about 120 disciples gathered. He has formed the seed of the church, just as Adam was the seed of all of humanity. And just as the sixth day of creation was Adam’s birthday, when the Spirit breathed life into him and he became a living being, Pentecost is the birthday of the church, when this body of people has the breath of God breathed into it and it becomes a living being.
Read Passage
Wait for the Spirit 1:4
I think that this verse may be the most important for our understanding of what gives the church life. What makes the church the church is the presence of the Spirit. Jesus tells the disciples to wait; “don’t do anything until the Spirit comes.”
Until the Spirit comes at Pentecost, the disciples are just a bunch of people with similar experiences of Jesus. Granted, they have all been touched by God in a special way, but If they went out and tried to accomplish all that Jesus had promised without the spirit, they would fall flat on their faces like a kite with no wind. At best, they would have all been immediately arrested, and killed, at worst they would have been successful in building an institution with no life in it.
We need the Spirit to breathe life into the church
John 3:6 “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” The things that we try to do under our own steam will not last, only the things that are birthed by the Spirit are spiritual and lasting.
What makes the church the church is the presence of the Spirit.
Things we use to judge a church
Truth
Morality
Community
Enthusiasm
Effectiveness
Outreach
All these things are a product of the Spirit’s work – the Sprit comes first, he is what gives the church life!
Truth
John 16:13
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
Morality
Romans 8: 5Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. 6If your sinful nature controls your mind, there is death. But if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace.
Community – he is the Spirit of Unity (Eph 4:3)
Enthusiasm – means en Theos – indwelt by God
Effectiveness – he is the life giving Spirit, without the Holy Spirit, there is a smell of death to every thing we do
“the effectiveness of the church is due not to human competency or programming but to the power of God at work. The church rides the wind of God’s Spirit like a hawk endlessly and effortlessly circling and gliding in the summer sky.” – Pinnock, p.113-4
Outreach – It is the Spirit who drives us out into the world.
John Stott’s commentary on the book of acts is called “The Spirit The Church The World” and the words in between the large words say, “The Spirit sends The Church into The World.”
I’ll say more on this in a moment.
While all of the things that we might want to see in a church are good, they all flow from the church being brought to life by the Spirit!
So, what did this birthday of the church look like?
The Coming of the Spirit
Wind 2:2
Born to be alive
Just as the spirit hovered over the deep and brought cosmos out of chaos in the beginning, the mighty wind of God comes and fills the house where they were staying.
Just as God breathes into Adam’s nostrils and he becomes a living being, the spirit comes upon the church and brings her to life!
The wind is not a soft breeze, Luke uses the language of a mighty tropical storm, a gale so to say – just as natural birth is violent for both the child and the mother, the birth of the church is violent – the power of God breathing his life into this group of people is born out in the very atmosphere!
Pentecost is a sign that God has brought us to life. The life of the Spirit is something that we must exude.
The sad thing is that it is often the opposite Nicky Gumbel quotes Robert Lewis Stevenson who once wrote in his journal, as if recording an extraordinary phenomenon, “I have been to church today, and am not depressed.” He also quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes who wrote, “I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not looked and acted so much like undertakers.” This should not be so! If we are filled with the Spirit, we it should be a strange event if we leave the service and we are not elated! Clergy, giving their lives in the service of this Spirit-filled body should look and act like the most alive people you have ever met!
– micro burst – macro burst
Fire 2:3
Born to be holy
Fire comes and sits on their heads without burning them – just like the bush that was on fire but did not burn up for Moses in the desert. It is another sign of the presence of God upon the church. It is a sign of the purifying presence of God – the refining fire burning away all the impurities and kindling the new holy life that we are to live.
This is the church’s birth day, and we are born for a purpose – to be a people, holy and set apart for God.
Often times we think that God has saved us so that we can go to heaven – he has, but it is much bigger than that, he has saved us so that we can live holy lives and reflect his holiness and glory to the rest of the world.
2 Timothy 1:9
(God) has saved us and called us to a holy life
Holiness has a negative meaning in that we stop doing the things that break our relationships with others, with God and his creation, and it has a positive meaning in that we begin to do the things that build our relationships with others, with God and his creation.
The Spirit burns away the dross, if we let him, and he grows with in us the fruit of the Spirit
Gal 5:16-23 speaks of this burning off of the weeds in our life and growing the good fruit….Life by the Spirit
So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.
The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
The church is born to be a holy people
Tongues (2:4)
Born to be supernatural
It is interesting that the first gift that the Spirit gives the church is the gift of tongues which is a supernatural ability to speak in a language you don’t know. It’s interesting because today we respond to this gift in two different ways – either by putting too strong of an emphasis on it and making it an entrance into the “real” Christian club, or by being embarrassed about it since it is hard to understand.
Other supernatural gifts are almost immediately evident in the church – gifts of healing, prophesy, words of knowledge. There are a number of lists of these gifts in the New Testament that give evidence that the church was born to have God’s character, and also God’s power.
Paul say to the church in Corinth:
1 Corinthians 2:4-5
My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
For some reason, many modern Christians are embarrassed by the supernatural side of our faith – things like tongues, healing, prophesy. We think that they should be regulated to the pages of supermarket tabloids. But no! We are born to be supernatural! We need to use the gifts of God in appropriate ways, especially in humility, but we need to use them. They are an affirmation that we are born of the Spirit.
Paul tells Timothy to “fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” – 2 Timothy 1:6-7
We to must fan into flame the supernatural gifts that God has given us – we were born for it!
Witness (2:14-41)
Born to Grow
With all of this supernatural action going on, Peter feels the need to explain what is going on. He does, and 3,000 people are added to the church that day. They go from 120 to 3,120 in a matter of hours! (we are probably about 140 today, can you imagine adding 3000 brand new Christians to our group by 2 pm?)
And they continue to grow. It is like an atom bomb hit that day in Jerusalem and the shock wave went out over the entire earth.
The Spirit drove them out on to the street – the house could no longer contain them. Later in chapter 4, Peter & John have been arrested and warned not to speak about their faith – the Christians are terrified at this persecution, so they hold a prayer meeting, and pray, not for protection, but for boldness! And for more signs and wonders! The Spirit comes and shakes the house they are in, and “they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”
Sometimes I think that we come to church hoping to have an experience of the Holy Spirit, like we think that church (the institution) holds the Spirit. But the Spirit is the one who drives his people out of buildings so they can go out and heal the sick, feed the poor, give sight to the blind, set the captives free and proclaim the good news that God forgives!
All the good stuff in the New Testament happens out on the street.
Fellowship 2:42-47
Born for intimate relationship.
Verse 42ff describe this intimate community that is brought to life on Pentecost. This is not too surprising. We are called back into the intimate circle dance that is the Trinity by the Spirit. We called into intimate relationship with God, but also with each other – we see how the early church did it by sharing material goods, buy worshiping together and eating together, and meeting with each other (this was before instant messaging) And we need to find our ways of joining with each other in this intimate friendship, but it is the call of the Spirit on the church – we were born to be together.
Conclusion
Happy Birthday Church!
The Spirit brought us to life 2,000 years ago, and it is only through him that we will truly live!
Pray Acts 4 over the Church – our situation is different, but we need the Spirit
“Tongues of fire, come and lick my brow, if I ever needed you, well, I need you now.” – Bruce Cockburn
“Now, Lord, consider (our situation) and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." – Acts 4:29-30
