Sermon: "People of the Spirit"

Delivered May 31, 2009 (Pentecost) by Rev. John Schmidt.
Sermon Text: Acts 2:14-21

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Well, if you would take a seat and join me for a moment in prayer.

Thank you, God, for your work in our lives. Thank you for your Word. Thank you for the opportunity to worship. We pray that you use this time to open our eyes, strengthen our faith, and cause us through the power of your Holy Spirit to follow you in Jesus Christ. For it's in his name we pray, Amen.

Well last week, I got an unexpected e-mail. I got an e-mail from a guy named Ron... use to call him Ronnie back in the day. Ron and I haven't connected with each other in 35 years. Ron is a special guy in my life because he's one of those people that God used to speak just the right thing at the right time to help me move forward as I was a seeker, in grappling with what it meant that there was really a God and that God loved me.

What happened was... I mean there were several interactions I had with Ron, but the one that is strongest in my mind... God really used it... .is Ron and Jeff were sitting at the table in the school cafeteria (this is at LSU), and I use to banter a lot with people. I guess that is a surprise to some of you. So I walked up, and I figured I'd, you know, make a joke. And so I walked up to the table and said... they were in Tiger Band and I was in Tiger Band as well... and I said to them, "Uhm, what is it like to be the two guys with the best-looking girlfriends in Tiger Band?" Because they did!

And I can still remember Ron saying to me, "You know, John, you know I got to admit I agree with you on that, but that's not the most important thing right now going on in our lives. The most important thing in my life right now is that I know God, and I know God loves me, and I'm learning to live with him."

I didn't believe in God yet, but I was wrestling at that point. And that really meant something to me that he answered me that way, and I told him that. You know? I said, "You know, a few weeks ago, I might have laughed at you if you said something like that to me, but I'll think about that." And I did. And one of the things that I realized is second in my life to wanting an attractive girlfriend, I was attracted to having a sense of purpose in my life.

Before I believed in heaven and hell, I was so attracted to Jesus because here was a Person that died so that I could be forgiven, that I could have a relationship with God, and I could live now in this world with a sense of purpose, joining God in what he was doing so that when I got to my old age, I'd be able to say it was worth it every step of the way. I'm motivated by purpose.

I think Central is a church that is motivated by purpose. We're not a bunch of people who gather together every week because we like to do just what we did last week and do it one more time, and spin the wheel, and come back again next week and do the same thing. No, I can feel the energy at Central when we talk about our purpose, when we talk about what God is doing in the world and joining God. I can feel the energy in your life as you resonate with that.

The Church universal has had a purpose since the resurrection of Jesus Christ when he gave a commission to us to make disciples of all nations. And Pentecost, what we celebrate today, was the moment when the church was equipped to fulfill this purpose.

So I'd like to read to you, but I'm going to go just through the verses and then I'll talk about them. So we won't read the whole passage all at once, but where we'll be is in the book of Acts, the second chapter, and I'm going to begin at the fourteenth verse.

"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. These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel.'"

I'm going to stop there. First of all, you have to imagine what is going on there. The people had assembled to pray. The Holy Spirit came down upon them. There were tongues of fire on their heads. They started speaking in languages they didn't know, and people from surrounding countries were hearing the mighty acts of God proclaimed in their own language. It was a totally chaotic moment, and so Peter had some explaining to do.

And so the first thing he tells them is, "No, we're not drunk. I know some of you out there think we're drunk; we're not." And then he says, "No, what is happening right now is the fulfillment of something that God promised long ago through one of his prophets, the prophet Joel." And so he uses the prophecy of Joel to interpret what God is doing at that moment through the Holy Spirit. And that prophecy, the part he points to, begins by saying,

"In the last days, God says, I'll pour my Spirit out on all people."

The first thing that Peter is saying here is that we're in the last days. The Old Testament always looked forward to a moment when God would start to begin to end history, when he would make his rule known to the world, his justice, and his salvation to the very ends of the earth. That was called the Last Days, and it ends in a time of judgment. And what Peter says is that we are now in the Last Days. The Old Testament looked forward to this, and we're now living in it. Jesus has come, and the last stages of history have begun, even if it proves to be thousands of years long.

And the defining thing that God does here is he pours his Spirit out on all people. He pours it out. It's a generous image. It's an abundant image. When Jesus talks about our experience with the Holy Spirit, he talks about rivers of living water coming from within us. It's not a trickle. He pours his Spirit out, and he pours it out on all people, not just on prophets and priests and kings. Those were the offices in the life of Israel where people expected the Holy Spirit to be at work in people.

But no, it comes upon all people, and ultimately we realize it's not even just all people... not just Israel... but all people everywhere who call upon the name of the Lord. So it means it's not just on ordained people. It's not just on Sunday school teachers. It's not just on small group leaders. All people receive the Holy Spirit who call upon God's name.

And then he goes on to use this prophecy and says,

"Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams." Verse 18, "Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy."

Verse 17 mentions prophecy, and verse 18 ends with this issue of prophecy. God pours out his Holy Spirit so that we might prophesy. We talked a little bit about what prophecy meant last week. One way of understanding it is to boldly tell God's Word to the world... to tell the world of his plan, to tell of his purposes, to tell of his promises, and to teach humanity how to respond to the love of God. That's something that prophets always did, and now the Spirit of God comes upon the entire church so that we might prophesy.

Sons, daughters, young men, old men, men and women... age is not an issue; sex is not an issue. All of us are equipped to tell the world around us about God. That is what it's telling us here. This is our purpose as Christians. When Jesus told his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, Pentecost was the start of that fulfillment. Sending the Holy Spirit was God's method, and this is the way God equips us to do it.

And so everyone is given the Spirit of God to present Christ to the world. That means to first experience God, to know God, then to be growing in our faith, then to serve as Jesus served, and then to share the good news of God's love with the world. That's what the Spirit is doing in us right now.

Peter ends with three verses. Verses 19 and 20 talk about

"the wonders in heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness, the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord."

And then verse 21,

"And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Now some of the events of the last days haven't happened yet; some of them have. So the Holy Spirit has come. The last days have begun, but the signs that are talked about in verses 19 and 20 have not been fulfilled. And so we are living in a time when some things are already true, and some things are not yet true. But what is important for us today as we live in this time of waiting and experiencing what God is doing in the last days is we understand what God's ultimate desire is, and that is verse 21. That everyone who calls on the name of the Lord would be saved.

This is what is on God's heart that people would hear about his love, about his provision in Jesus Christ, and that they would respond to this, and then escape the judgment that is going to come upon the world at the end of the last days. That this time is a time of grace. It's a time of outreach. It's a time of good news. And that's why he gave the Spirit.

And so all we see in the book of Acts, all we see in the rest of the New Testament, what we see in the history of the church, what we see around us right now is a result of what begins here on the day of Pentecost. And God gave his Spirit to equip us to do this. A pour, not a tiny sprinkle. So why does it only feel like a trickle in our lives sometimes? If God has poured out his Spirit, why is our experience of God the Holy Spirit so poor that we feel like it's only a trickle in our lives?

I think there is a theological reason behind that, and I think there is an emotional reason. Even if we want to serve God, even if we're trying to have faith and trying to obey, I believe that we don't experience God more because we don't pray more. And I'd like to explore the theological reason behind that and the emotional reason.

First the theological reason. And I'm not talking about the theology we write down. We can write down very balanced stuff. I'm talking about what we live out. The ideas about God that is behind the way we actually act, what our behavior is like. The ideas behind what we actually expect from God. Every church is called to a balance where we understand things about God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and live into the fullness of what God has revealed about himself. But the fact is most churches end up stronger in the part of their life than in others.

And so I'd like to call up on the screen an illustration we've often used here at church that talks about the members of the Trinity and how that there are certain characteristics that come into our lives or churches as we emphasize one over the other. If we lived in the center where everything is balanced, that's great maturity. But usually we drift in a certain direction.

So if we drift towards the green, towards the truths about God the Father to the exclusion of other truths, what becomes more important to us is wisdom. The realities of creation and manipulating creation. Understanding is real important to us. The thinking, the mind. And it becomes more and more as a church to be correct in our doctrine than anything else. In other words, the accuracy and the purity of that becomes very important.

Now if we drift towards the red, commitment is what is front and center. Sacrifice, labor, doing, things that involve our effort. These are the people who organize things.

If we drift too much into the blue, we focus on power, gifting, praying, dependence. Now I'm not talking about too much, I mean, all of these things are just characteristics of these areas. We can get too much. This is the part of the life of the church that expects the miraculous.

So, if you are primarily a green-type person, right now you are thinking, "Pastor John, after the service I want to talk to you about this tool because it's not exactly correct. You know, I think we can sharpen it up." If you're red, you're thinking in your head, "How are we going to use it?" If you're blue, you're saying, "Okay, get on to the prayer thing because none of this matters if we're not praying."

If we're not balanced, we tend to fall into some characteristic problems. If we're too much in the green, ideas get too important to us, and we start viewing our ministry as criticizing the truth in other people's lives or in other people's statements of faith, and we grow into irrelevance. If we're too much in the red, we go into hyperactivity, and we feel pressure and frustration all the time. If we live too much into the blue, we get into introspection, inaction, and indecisiveness. We're always waiting for something to happen and never engaged ourselves. None of these are good.

So where does Central fit in all this? I honestly believe after living with you and after actually giving a test to a number of people here in to the church on staff and otherwise, we're a red church. Have a strong green border, but we're basically a red church. Running ahead and doing a lot, over busy, pressured to get something to happen, frustrated when it doesn't work like we planned.

So one of the reasons that sometimes we experience a trickle of the work of the Holy Spirit is that we don't live enough into the blue. Dependency, expectancy. Expectancy and dependency is going to be primarily shown in our prayer lives, so if you want to know whether you're strong in the blue, look at your prayer life. If you want to know whether you're an activist, look into your prayer life. How strong is it?

We need to pray. The events that happen in this passage happen after 10 days of praying. Despite the fact that Jesus hand-picked these disciples and trained them himself, they weren't ready to serve God and fulfill their purposes until they prayed. Then God acted. Then they were ready. Are we any better?

The second reason we might not be ready, and we might not be experiencing the fullness of what God is doing is emotional in origin. We're scared and depressed, and so we stop praying. We're in a spiritual war, and there's an ebb and flow. And sometimes we feel like we're getting overwhelmed by what's happening. In fact, there are certain cycles that come through our life. And what's on the screen right now is one of those cycles. And we see it very clearly in the book of Acts, and you can trace this over and over again happening in the life of the church in the book of Acts, a cycle of prayer.

It begins with prayer. In Acts, chapter 1, the church gathers to pray. In Acts, chapter 2, something happens. Power is given. Power is given by God for life and witness. He pours out his Spirit. And in chapter 2, verses 1 to 4, we see the effects of that. When the power of God is given, it results in something. So the third part of it is prosperity. We prosper in spiritual growth and outreach. And that happens at the end of chapter 2 in the book of Acts. We see the church having thousands come in, and they have a life that is healthy, and they all are concerned about one another.

But it's not the last part of the cycle. Fourth part is persecution... resistance by the world and fears inside of us. And we see that happen in chapter 4 of the book of Acts. We see another cycle happen right at the end of the cycle in chapter 4. When persecution comes, there is a new cycle that begins in chapter 4 of prayer, power, prosper, and persecution.

Now, if persecution doesn't push us into prayer, we interrupt the cycle. In fear and discouragement we become passive. We opt out, we stop praying, we stop trying, and we go into a death spiral. No matter what we've experienced from God before, we draw back and the work of God in us dries up to a trickle.

So I want each of us to kind of reflect about our own lives right now. We're each in a different place. Think about where you are right now. Are you experiencing right now the river of living water in your life? If so, praise God. If you're experiencing a healthy part of what God wants to do in you and through you, then thank God, but be aware that challenges are going to come. But when they come, keep on with God. Live into the power of Pentecost.

Now some of us are activists in this room right now, and we're feeling all kinds of pressure to perform and frustrated that we're not more effective. And if we're in that place, let's learn from our brothers and sisters here. Raise our eyes, lean on God, and pray. You are the junior partner in what God is doing in the world. Let's lean on God. Rest in the One who bring the power of Pentecost.

And maybe you're the one who is kind of drawn into yourself right now, passive, because you're discouraged and beaten up. You feel body-slammed by life. There are roadblocks all around you. If you're in that place, then don't give up. Don't opt out. There is more grace. There is more power from the One who forever is going to bring the power of Pentecost to the church. And particularly if you're in that last category, the answer that God brings you may not be what you expect. He might not release you from your suffering. He might work through it.

Let's think about the Apostle Paul for a moment. First of all, the Apostle Paul is called in one of these cycles of prayer. There is a guy named Stephen who is a leading person in the church. There is all kinds of fruit in his ministry. Then there is a moment when persecution comes. Stephen prays for the people around him, asking God to work. One of the people in the group is the Apostle Paul. He is not an apostle yet. He is one of the ones throwing stones to kill the Christian.

Then the Apostle Paul experiences the great, powerful work of the Holy Spirit confronting him with Jesus Christ on the Damascus Road. And then out of Paul's life comes an incredible ministry. And then Paul goes to prison. Now let's think about Paul in prison for a moment. He says to himself, "God, you've called me to reach out to the Gentiles, and this? I'm in prison. I can't reach these people. You've put these people on my heart. There is a whole world out there."

And I know Paul was praying about that. How did God answer? Well, eventually he does get out of prison. But God keeps him in prison a lot longer than I would have expected. But what happens while Paul is in prison is that we get the letters that become most of the New Testament and becomes the Word of God to us in this church for thousands of years.

What God does through you may not be what you expect. It might not be the answer, but we have to trust him despite the fact we don't understand. So wherever you are right now, we're going to give you a few moments to deal with God, to work through wherever you are in this prayer cycle, to work through whether you're an activist, passive, or whether you're in experiencing abundance right now. Let's just spend a few moments to wrestle with God and invite God to help us experience not a trickle, but a flood.

And when we do that, we're just going to have some music up here. I'm going to also invite the prayer ministers to come forward. And so if during that time that the music is going on you want to have somebody pray with you, please go up to the front and pray with these folks. That might be what God wants to do to help you at this moment in your life. So let's just have a few moments now as we come before God.

Song: Captivate Us

Your face is beautiful and your eyes are like the stars.
Your gentle hands have healing there inside the scars.
Your loving arms, they draw me near, and your smile, it brings me peace.
Draw me closer, O my Lord, draw me closer, Lord, to Thee.

Captivate us, Lord Jesus, set our eyes on you.
Devastate us with your presence falling down.
Rushing River, draw us nearer, Holy Fountain, consume us with you.
Captivate us, Lord Jesus, with you.

Your voice is powerful and your words are radiant bright.
In your breath and shadow I will come close and abide.
You whisper love and life divine and your fellowship is free.
Draw us closer, O my Lord, draw us closer, Lord, to Thee.
Captivate us, Lord Jesus, set our eyes on you.
Devastate us with your presence falling down.
Rushing River, draw us nearer, Holy Fountain, consume us with you.
Captivate us, Lord Jesus, with you.

And let everything be lost in the shadows of the light of your face.
And let every chain be broken from me as I'm bound in your grace:
For your yoke is easy, your burden is light!
You're full of wisdom, power and might, and every eye will see you.

Captivate us, Lord Jesus, set our eyes on you.
Devastate us with your presence falling down.
Rushing River, draw us nearer, Holy Fountain, consume us with you.
Captivate us, Lord Jesus, with you. (x3)

Lord, captivate us. Draw us to yourself. Wherever we are in our journey, help us to experience more deeply the reality of who you are through the power of your Holy Spirit working within us. For we ask all of...

© 2009, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org