Don't let the fire go out!

Sermon for May 31, 2009 Pentecost Sunday Text:  Acts 2:1-11 Title:  Don't Let the Fire Go Out! A.  There are certain events that happen so suddenly and so dramatically that everyone remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing at the time.  The destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11 was such event.  I bet there is not a person in this room who doesn't remember exactly what he or she was doing on that fateful day.  I was senior pastor at a church in Virginia Beach, and one of the staff secretaries rushed into my office to tell me the news.  I couldn't believe it!  I thought it was a hoax!  The entire staff sat glued to the TV that day, watching in a state of shock as the now all-too-familiar events unfolded.  Some of our members had family who worked in or near the World Trade Center, and there was a rush of cell phone calls to try to learn if their loved ones where OK.  One of our members was working on the side of the Pentagon where the airliner hit the building; he had walked down the hall for just a moment, and that walk saved his life.  I remember our senior staff planning a worship service that night, not having any idea what we should do and how we should do it.  In an instant, the history of that church (which had a sizable military population) was changed for months to come.   Sudden dramatic events can have life-changing consequences.  Although that first Pentecost shares little in common with 9/11, they both were sudden, dramatic events that changed the lives of a lot of people forever!    B.   Our Gospel reading this morning is John's version of the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles.  It differs in a lot of details from Luke's version, which is found in our reading from Acts, and which I want to concentrate upon.  John actually has the Pentecost gift of the Spirit happening on Easter Sunday night.  But as we have seen before, John is not so much interested in historical accuracy as he is with theological accuracy.  In the original Greek, the word for "Spirit", "Wind," and "Breath" are all the same word, so when Jesus breathes on the disciples, He is actually giving them His Spirit.  John wants us to know that the Spirit comes from Jesus, and is intimately connected with Him.  The Holy Spirit is the presence of the living Lord in our lives 24/7.    By contrast, Luke is interested in historical accuracy.  Luke tells us that the Resurrected Jesus appeared to His disciples on numerous occasions for a period of 40 days before His ascension into Heaven.  He instructed the disciples at that time to wait for the gift of the Spirit.  The disciples went back to Jerusalem, where they had shared a last meal with the Lord before His Crucifixion.  They waited for a week and a half until that fateful first Pentecost.  According to Acts 1:13-26, the gathering of the community numbering about 120 persons, consisting of the 11 remaining original apostles, the newly chosen Matthias and "certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers." When this scene opens, the newly formed Christian community was gathered together for the feast of Pentecost.  Pentecost was originally an agricultural festival marking the first harvest of the growing season.  Called Shevuot in Hebrew, a name that means "Weeks," it is seven weeks from Passover, or roughly the 50th day after Passover.  Pentecost, which literally means 50 days, marks the date 50 days after Easter.   Now according to this morning's Scripture reading, the Holy Spirit came in a mighty way upon the disciples of Jesus hunkered down in that upper room.  The description of the sudden infilling of those disciples with the Spirit is dramatic:   "Suddenly from Heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house…Divided tongues as of fire appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them, and all were filled with the Holy Spirit."  The arrival of the Spirit is at first pretty noisy.  It is a sound like a mighty wind from heaven.  It is so loud it fills the house where the group is gathered.  As we have already seen, since the word for "wind" and "Spirit" are identical, when we see wind, we should think Spirit.  Remember that the people of the ancient Middle East were not immersed in a culture that saw the world in scientific terms, but they were nonetheless keen observers.  They knew that the wind can't be seen, or controlled or predicted, but its effects can be felt, and so it is with the Spirit of God.  Likewise, whenever we see the word "Fire" in the NT we should think Holy Spirit.  Like a fire, the Spirit can consume that which is not desirable.  When tongues as of fire settled upon each disciple, the fire burned away the ungodly things in their human lives, and the tongues empowered their speech for the spread of the Gospel. At this point in the scene, it seems that we have shifted from a private setting (namely the house in which the community had gathered) to a public one (in the midst of the crowd which had come to town for the festival). We are also told that the Jews who had come to Jerusalem for the feast heard "the sound," and then heard the Christians speaking in various languages. It is unclear if they heard the earlier sound of the wind, or simply the sound of over 100 inspired people speaking in various languages that they then gradually began to sort out.  Tongue speaking is mentioned by Paul as a gift of the Holy Spirit.  Those first disciples demonstrated the presence of the Spirit by speaking in other languages.  But further, all these languages also symbolically represent the nations of the world, and how the Gospel message is for everyone.   But with all this symbolism, one thing is certain.  This gift of the Spirit transforms a person.  It turned those disciples from scared individuals, hiding behind closed doors for fear of discovery and execution, into bold communicators of the Gospel.  The tongues of fire set those disciples' tongues on fire, and the Gospel began to spread from Jerusalem outwards across the globe.  Peter, one of the leaders of the first apostles, the one who had denied his Lord three times, preached a sermon and 3,000 were converted.  Luke's point here is that it is God who has planned and who is now executing the salvation of the world through the preaching, teaching, and miracle working of his people.  If you want a one-sentence summary of the message of Acts, it is 'God is in charge, and He's got a plan'.  And it is God's Spirit whose infilling presence gives power to the actions of those who are yielded to the Lord.  We simply have to get out of the way and give ourselves to the power of God! Herbert Jackson told how, as a new missionary, he was assigned a car that would not start without a push.  After pondering his problem, he devised a plan. As he made his rounds, he would either park on a hill or leave the engine running.  He used this procedure for two years to get around.  Eventually, ill health forced the Jackson family to leave that mission station, and a new missionary came to replace him. When Jackson proudly began to explain his arrangement for getting the car started, the new man began looking under the hood.  Before the explanation was complete, the new missionary interrupted, "Why, Dr. Jackson, I believe the only trouble is this loose cable." He gave the cable a twist, stepped into the car, pushed the switch, and to Jackson's astonishment, the engine roared to life. The power was there all the time.  Only a loose connection kept Jackson from putting that power to work.  C.   This passage in Acts makes it clear that the Church as the people of God is only Church when the Spirit is present.  Oh, you can have a "Church" without the presence of the Spirit, but such a group is more a club than a church.  The Spirit empowers believers for mission and ministry.  Now, we need to make a distinction here.  God's power through the Spirit can work in two ways, either dramatically or subtly.  Obviously, the divine fireworks that were seen on that first Pentecost prove that the power of the Spirit is real and active.  But the power of the Spirit can also work behind the scenes, working out God's Will in quieter ways.  Think of the energy contained in ten gallons of gasoline.  This energy can be released all at once, explosively, by dropping a lighted match onto the gas.   Or that same 10 gallons of gasoline can be channeled through the engine of a car in a controlled burn and used to transport people many miles.  The Holy Spirit works both ways.  In the passage of Scripture we just read, the Spirit exploded onto the scene. Thousands were affected by one burst of God's power.   But He also works more subtly over the long haul. We must avoid mistaking the subtle workings of God with God not being present at all.  There is no mistaking that God was present at that first Pentecost.  And today, when we see divine healings and other miracles we have little doubt that God is present with us.  But what about those times when the hand of the Lord is less obvious?  God is equally present with us at both times, but it is the times where the only way we can be sure that God is present is through the vision of 20/20 hindsight that test our faith. Years ago I served as an associate pastor at a church in Arlington.  Besides sharing pastoral duties with the senior pastor, I was also charged with the responsibility of designing programs that would draw new people to the church.  The Spanish speaking community was growing rapidly around the church at that time, and soon it became apparent that the Church was being called to speak the Gospel to this large group of people.  But we had no idea how to go about doing that?  One Sunday morning, I was speaking with the head usher – a fellow by the name of Roy Heinbuck -- at the front door of the sanctuary.  While we were talking, a young Hispanic fellow walked up the front steps of the sanctuary and tried to get our attention.  He could speak no English and neither one of us spoke Spanish, so we didn't make much progress understanding him.  While all this was going on, another member of the congregation named Lynn Epps walked up to us from the other side of the sanctuary.  She listened to the young Hispanic man, and then responded in perfect Spanish.  He smiled, thanked us, and left.  Roy asked her what the fellow wanted.  "Oh, he was looking for a Spanish-speaking Church service, so I sent him to the Mormon Church up the street.  That's the only church I know that has a Spanish service."  Well, that infuriated Roy, who thought God Himself had to be Methodist.  He went back to his Sunday school class, a group of about 50 adults, and told them what had happened.  They took a collection, and asked me to use the money to do something to reach out to the immigrant community.  We started an English as a Second Language Program, which now, some 20 years later, teaches ESL to 3,000 people in 27 churches each year, and has spun off a Spanish language congregation. The Spirit of God empowers our ministry, and our lives, so that the word of God can be spread to those who need to hear it.  It's not always clear when and how God is at work, but it's always obvious when we look back, and see how events and decisions have been gradually nudged in the right direction by the finger of God.  And God oftentimes picks the unlikeliest people to do His work.  Think about it; what corporation today would want that first bunch of disciples running their business?  They were uneducated fishermen and other common folk; but when they submitted to the Spirit by letting go and letting God, miracles happened.  God gives us the gifts we need to do the job He has for us to do.  The NT describes over two dozen different spiritual gifts that God gives the Church to enhance the life of the congregation and individual believers.  We've already talked about the gift of tongues.  There are also the gifts of administration, teaching, preaching, miracle working, healing, serving, prayer, evangelism, encouragement, and a variety of others.  One is no more important than another, and it takes them all, working together, to make a church.  God gives a variety of gifts to a specific congregation to be used to enhance the ministry of that particular church.  It's up to us to figure out what those gifts are, and how God wants us to use them. The bottom line is that God doesn't call us to be a club; He calls us to be a Church, to receive the anointing of the Spirit so we can do what God calls us to do.  God calls us to action; He doesn't want us to sit on the sidelines once we get our marching orders to proceed.  And God will transform us by the power of the Spirit, from what we are to what we need to be to respond to what we are called to do.  I stand before you this morning as living proof that God can change and renew us.  Two years ago needed such a renewal.  I needed time to pause and rest and heal.  I needed to re-orient my life back to God, and to allow Him to equip me again for ministry after a very difficult time in my life.  Thank God that this faith community was God's instrument for doing just that in my life.  My friends, God isn't done with any of us.  If we pray for the Spirit, we will receive Him.  God will transform us over time, and equip each of us for unique ministries in the Kingdom, all with the goal of spreading the Good News, and helping others find a relationship with Christ.  We can be healed, restored, and made right with God.  And God will bring joy and purpose into our lives, by empowered us to reach out to others in our own way and in God's own time.  Amen. Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA  20177 703-344-3569 almond_keith@yahoo.com