The Spirit is the Power of God
Have you ever lost power? A couple of times in the last year we’ve lost power at our house for more than 24 hours. Why is power important? How does it feel to be without power? Helpless, frustrated, & it’s hard not knowing when you’re going to get it back. Food can spoil. Cooking is more difficult. Communication and getting information become more challenging. Our vision becomes more limited once it gets dark. We used fire – in the fireplace, with candles, and kerosene lamps while we were without power because fire is one of the most fundamental sources of heat, light, and power.
May 19, 2013
Acts 2:1-21, The Spirit is the Power of God
Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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How do we feel when power comes back? Happy, relieved, (in some cases disappointed because you have to go back to school) , but for the most part glad – to have heat, light, food, communication, and vision. There are a lot of positives to having power. What is true for our homes is true for us as individuals, we need power for living. That power comes from the Spirit of God. What’s true for our homes and our lives is also true for the church. The Church needs power. Today is Pentecost Sunday which is the day the church remembers and celebrates the coming of the Spirit which brings the power of God to the followers of Jesus. Listen to Acts 2 –
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”
This Sunday is Pentecost. For Jewish people it was one of the three major pilgrimage feasts – the other two being Passover and Tabernacles. The feast of Pentecost was celebrated seven weeks after the Passover feast and was also known as the offering of the first fruits. It was an early harvest festival. What sights and sounds there must have been as people from every district of Palestine and every nation in the area headed for Jerusalem for this annual religious holy day.
On the Day of Pentecost, the disciples are all together in one place, following the Lord’s instructions to remain in Jerusalem “until you have been clothed with power from on high.” While they wait they worship, share scripture, pray, interpret their own experiences in light of God’s word and take care of God’s work in a fairly orderly manner. That changes on Pentecost when the power and presence of the Holy Spirit comes to all who are gathered. When the Spirit came it was with a sound like the rush of a violent wind. Violent winds are anything but orderly. Unlike the destructive violent winds of the tornadoes that struck Texas this past week, the wind of the Spirit is a creative rather than a destructive force. Rather than scattering debris like a tornado, the Holy Spirit brings divided tongues as of fire and a tongue of fire rested on each of them. What is the nature of the fire that rests on each believer at Pentecost? John the Baptist had said (Luke 3:16) that the one who was more powerful than him (Jesus) would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Pentecost is the fulfillment of John’s prophecy that God’s power would be shared with God’s people and that power is symbolized by fire.
Fire has great symbolic meaning in the Bible. A perpetual fire burned in the Temple, and fire was used both for roasting sacrifices and for burning incense. Fire is a common symbol of holiness and in some cases of protection (Zechariah 2:5). God is described as ‘a consuming fire’ (Hebrews 12:28-29; Deuteronomy 4:24). Fire is God’s servant (Psalm 104:4; Hebrews 1:7), and God’s word is like fire (Jeremiah 23:29). Fire is a central element of God’s appearance at critical moments in Israel’s faith including: establishing a covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15:17), in the appearance of the burning bush to Moses (Exodus 3:2), the Lord led Israel during the Exodus with a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13:21-22), and appeared in fire on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:18). All are central moments in Israel’s faith story and all are marked by fire. This pattern continues in the New Testament as well. Christ’s appearance in the vision of John in Revelation is with ‘eyes of fire’ (Revelation 1:14; 2:18), and the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost is accompanied by ‘tongues of fire’ (Acts 2:3). Luke is describing in Acts 2 how once again God is appearing and blessing the people and marking a special event in the journey and development of faith with fire.
Why would God choose tongues of fire? Perhaps because fire does so many things: Fire warms what is cold. To the church in Laodecia in Revelation 3:15-16, the Risen Christ is trying to fire up the church’s faith and passion by saying, “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” The fire of the Spirit raises our spiritual temperature.
Fire illumines what is dark. As we know during a power outage, one candle can dispel great darkness. God led the people during the Exodus with the pillar of fire by night. Jesus is the light of the world that the darkness cannot snuff out. The fire of God is now on the followers of Jesus to be God’s light. If we feel like we’re living in the dark and need illumination we may need God’s Spirit in our lives.
Fire purifies what is impure. In Isaiah 6:6-8 the prophet sees the Lord high and lifted up. He says, “Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!” Just like with the prophet Isaiah, God uses fire to purify people for service to others.
Fire burns, consumes, and destroys. In the Bible fire is frequently a symbol of destruction associated with the judgment of God.
A chief quality of fire is its power to set something else afire. On Pentecost that something else is the believers who are set on fire for Jesus.
Fire releases energy and power in what it touches and changes it. We have a gas grill. If I just turned on the gas and put fish or burgers on – nothing would happen to the food. It’s when the gas is lit with a match that energy is released and focused for a purpose.
The fire of the Spirit is a force for unity – all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not an impersonal force; it’s the life giving presence of the risen Christ. The Spirit is given as a gift by God to fill every believer so that our body becomes a temple of the Spirit. Worship is no longer about a fire burning on an altar in the Temple in Jerusalem. It’s about a spiritual fire that burns within the life of everyone who is following and devoted to Jesus. The Holy Spirit teaches us and reminds us what Jesus taught. The Spirit gives us power to witness to what God has done in Christ, power for living the Christian life, and power to draw different individuals together in unity. Unity runs throughout the day of Pentecost. The scripture tells us when the day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place (2:1). A tongue of fire rested on each of them (2:3). All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages about God’s deeds of power (2:4).
There were devout Jews from every nation in Jerusalem (2:5).
All were amazed and perplexed (2:12).
God pours out the Spirit upon all flesh (2:17).
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved (2:21).
Luke says All of them began to speak in other languages about God’s deeds of power. At Pentecost the diversity of languages in which people heard the wonders of God declared was a unifying, not a dividing factor, because everyone heard in their own language about the wonders God had done. No one was left isolated wondering, “What were they saying? I didn’t understand.” The word “together” appears at least five times in the first two chapters in Acts (1:14, 2:1, 2:44, and twice in 2:46) underscoring that a genuine work of the Holy Spirit brings people together in acts of reconciliation, worship, love, hospitality and affirmation of Jesus as Lord. When we’re full of the Spirit, we’ll have a passion for sharing with others what God has done in Christ in words and ways they can readily understand.
The world in which we live seems intent on breaking up along linguistic, ethnic, tribal, clan, class, religious, or political lines. It can be difficult for people to come together for the common good regardless of our differences, and this is what God is seeking to do through Jesus and the Spirit. Acts 2 says there devout Jews from every nation in Jerusalem. All were amazed and perplexed at what they were experiencing. Symbolically and strategically – people from all over the known world were present to witness the power of the Spirit and to be able to take the message of what happened back home to the people they knew. Peter had been too frightened on the night of Jesus’ arrest to tell a slave girl that he was with him. However, on Pentecost, filled with the Spirit, he has the power to courageously stand up in front of several thousand people in Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified and proclaims that God is fulfilling the promise made to the prophet Joel. God is pouring out the Spirit on all people without distinction – sons and daughters, young and old, slave and free, male and female. God is breaking down the barriers that inhibit unity and revealing the oneness to which we’re called as God’s people. Don’t miss what a radical statement this is that Peter is making; the church has been trying to catch up to and live fully the truth of what the Peter declared almost 2,000 years ago and the church still isn’t there yet.
The Pentecost story ends with the invitation that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Not just a few chosen individuals; everyone who calls on the Lord. We all have the opportunity to repent and be baptized so that our sins may be forgiven and we also will receive the gift of the Spirit. The gift of the Spirit unifies the church and gives the church its fire and power. Pentecost is about equipping the church to carry out its mission. On the morning of Pentecost there had only been 120 women and men gathered in a room, 3,000 were added to their number that day. We are Spirit-filled, Spirit-led people. As one person (Leslie Newbigin) noted, “The resurrection of Jesus Christ means new life for Jesus and his disciples. This life is life in the power of the Spirit.”
I had a great time at the Festival of Homiletics in Nashville this past week. I got to worship every day, heard a lot of good preachers, as well as lectures and workshops about preaching, and especially a lot of great musicians. Interestingly, to live in the city of Nashville a person has to be able to sing and/or play the guitar, piano, or fiddle. I flew Southwest Airlines and on Friday standing in the jet way, I noticed a Southwest poster that had the words: New Starts, New Chapters, New Adventures, More Destinations. Welcome Aboard. That sums up what happens on Pentecost Sunday. The power of the Holy Spirit comes upon those who are followers of Jesus. It’s the beginning of a New Chapter for them and for God’s work. As the Book of Acts unfolds, the Spirit will lead them to New Adventures, and More Destinations. All are welcome to come aboard and join what the Lord is doing. The same is true for us today. When we commit to being Christ-centered people, it is a new start, a new chapter, a new adventure, and God will lead us to more destinations as we travel through life as ambassadors for Jesus in the power of the Spirit. Let’s pray:
Powerful God, help us realize that the Spirit which gives us power for living is received not grasped. Remind us how at the end of Peter’s sermon he said to those who had gathered to see what was happening, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” (Acts 2:38-39)
Heavenly Father, we thank you that you give the Holy Spirit to all those who ask. Spirit of God give us the power to live our life as You intend as followers of Jesus.
Blessing:
As the prophet Joel anticipated the age of the Spirit,
So may we have a great vision for the future.
As the Apostle Peter spoke with bold effectiveness,
So may we be able to articulate our faith.
As the early believers were baptized with the Spirit,
So may we be empowered by God’s presence within us.
As the Spirit gave gifts to the church of the first century,
So may that same Spirit give gifts to the church in the twenty-first century.
As the Spirit produced the fruit of love, joy and peace in the early church,
So may the fruit of the Spirit be evident in us today and always.