Read
Acts
2
OK, it’s Pentecost Sunday. We have
read the words that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
That’s Peter proclaiming words from the prophet Joel.
Those are words of assurance, but you
know all too well that Tom is going to find the message for those who already
believe and have taken
the yoke of our Master and are seeking to learn from him.
So, take comfort in the assurance of
your salvation but don’t unbuckle your seatbelt as we continue down the road of
discipleship. I will invade some comfort zones.
Last year we began working our way
through Psalm
25 as our memory verses. We took one
verse per month. The fourth verse set the tone for much of the rest of the
psalm
Show me your ways, Lord,
teach me your paths.
These words should be in our daily
prayers. They are in mine, but how do we learn his ways and walk his paths?
Obviously, prayer and study and the
counsel of other believers help. Is there anything else?
How many times have you heard me use
the phrase, put
his words into practice? How do we manifest that? Obedience, discipline—a word that is close to
discipleship, ritual and mantra? How do the
words of the Lord manifest themselves into action in our lives?
Some of you have probably had your
fill of me saying, take
his yoke and learn from him.
Is that more study and discipline?
What’s the trick that gets us to do things God’s way instead of our own.
Do you remember Nicodemus
coming to see Jesus at night? It was
the first episode of Nick at Night.
Jesus told him that he had to be born again—born anew.
Nicodemus was Israel’s teacher—a Pharisee
on the ruling council—but his response was so pedestrian that he could have
been mistaken for a pagan.
How can anyone do
that? You think that I can climb back into my mother’s womb? I’m kind of
sticking my neck out here coming to see you. You teach some interesting stuff,
but this talk is crazy.
That a bit of a paraphrase, but how
did Jesus address Nicodemus’s ignorance?
Consider the wind. You can’t see it
but you know it’s there. It’s the same way with God and his Spirit. If you want
to please God, you must be born of his Spirit.
How does that work? You must believe
in Jesus. He is the Son of God and once he has made the atoning sacrifice for
our sins and goes
to the Father in heaven, the
Spirit of God will come to those who believe. We can say all of that in the
past tense. It happened just that way.
Do you remember the encounter between
Jesus and the woman at the well in John
4? She does not want to talk about her life, but she knows that Jesus must
be a prophet or someone holy, so she decides to talk about religious things.
That might get him off his game and examining my life.
Where do we
worship? I heard the Messiah is coming. Let’s talk about anything but me and my
standing with God almighty.
Again a paraphrase, but how did Jesus
answer her?
God is Spirit.
A time is coming, in fact, the time is
already here, when true believers who want genuine worship will worship in
spirit and in truth.
How do we learn the ways of the Lord
and walk in his path?
How do we take his yoke and learn from
him?
How do we put his words into practice?
How do we live out what we say frequently
in our worship warmups?
I am crucified with Christ. Christ lives in
me.
How?
By the Spirit that lives within us.
Consider the apostles who were staying
close to Jerusalem as they were instructed by the Lord after his
resurrection and before his ascension.
He commission them to go
into the world with the gospel but knew they were not sufficiently equipped
yet.
But they would be. The Day of
Pentecost is not a New Testament thing. Pentecost occurred 50 days after the
celebration of the Passover. But on this day, the Spirit of God—the Holy Spirit—was
manifest upon and within these believers who were gathered.
The gospel author Luke described this
as tongues of fire coming upon those gathered. We don’t have any accounts of
burnt or roasting flesh, but the Spirit that came was noticeable in a unique
way.
The Spirit of God that came upon them
empowered them. These men who huddled together, often in fear of the Jewish
leaders hunting them down, were given power from above.
They emerged from the building and
began talking in languages not native to them but in the language of those
around them who had come from near and far to celebrate Pentecost.
The natural explanation was these guys
are drunk. It’s only 9 in the morning, but it’s 5 O’clock somewhere, right?
Let’s follow the science. In
college, my German class was 5 days a week. I worked 6 days a week, often out
of town and missed quite a few classes. I had a test one Friday morning and
hadn’t studied, so I went out for a few beers, thinking that was the best I
could do in the time allotted.
My science experiment failed
miserably. Alcohol consumption does not equate to foreign language fluency. Who’d
a thunk it?
These apostles were not drunk. That
presumption didn’t make any sense. They were filled with the Spirit of God. His
Holy Spirit took up residence in each of them.
Peter, bold but suffering from
recurring Foot-in Mouth Disease, launched into the most cogent discourse of his
life.
The Spirit had come and had taken up
residence in the Apostles.
Don’t you wish that God’s Spirit lived in you?
Some of you are thinking, but he
does, right?
Then where is our boldness? Where are
our incredible acts? Where is the evidence that the Spirit lives within us?
Not
quite a century ago there was a man named Clarence Crane from Cleveland,
Ohio. He made chocolates for a
living. A century ago, that was
something of a seasonal line.
Refrigeration wasn’t quite what it is today. Melted chocolates didn’t sell.
So,
Crane decided to sell a line of mints to keep his business afloat during the
warmer months. He didn’t want to re-tool
his factory so he contracted this line of mints out to a pill maker. The first batch arrived but they were
defective. The candies had a hole in the
middle. The pill maker was very
apologetic but Crane decided to give these defective candies a try. They looked
like little life savers.
Enter
onto the scene a man named John Noble from New York City. He sold ad space on trolley cars. One day he tried one of these mints and knew
that he had to sell Crane some ads so he headed to Cleveland. Crane wasn’t the least bit interested in
advertising, but he offered to sell the rights to the candy for a few thousand
dollars. He said that he would even
throw in the defective pill machine for free.
Noble
negotiated a price of $2,900. He only
had $3,800 to invest from his savings, so now he was left with $900 to produce
a run of this new candy and market it.
And he did just that. He made a batch
of Life Savers and put them in every candy store in his area.
But
the candy didn’t sell. In fact, it grew
stale on the shelves because it was sold in a cardboard roll. The candy store owners were not happy with
Noble.
Noble
solved the problem of keeping the candies fresh by means of a foil wrapper,
replenished the stocks of store owners at his own expense, but the candy still
did not sell. And so, a few years after
the invention of the Life Saver, it died a slow death and was never heard of
again.
Or at
least that’s the way the story should have ended. Noble had spent all of his money. Everything that he made in advertising was
now going into his Life Saver Company but the little candies did not sell.
He
decided to give it one more try, but not in the candy stores. He went to restaurants, bars, barbershops,
and other establishments. He met with
owners and they agreed to place the candy next to the register and always make
change that included a nickel. The price
of the candy was a nickel and there was a box set in front of each display.
People
would get their change from the cashier or bartender or barber and impulsively
throw a nickel into the box and take a roll of candy.
Whether
you like Life Savers or you don’t, most of us probably don’t have much love for
John Noble. He was the father of impulse
buying and selling. Take a look at the
checkout lines at the grocery store or Walmart or Target or the counter at the
convenience store that sells you gasoline.
All of this comes from the story of the Lifesaver.
The story that I want you to remember
is that John Noble saw value in these tiny mints and he kept trying. He
succeeded. I don’t know how many billion Lifesavers have been sold over the
past century, but it’s a bunch. The number was 55 billion before the turn of
the century.
Now, know this. The Spirit of God came
to live inside of you when you believed in Jesus and professed him as Lord.
The Spirit is within you. Now, stop
throwing in the towel every time something does seem to work.
Know the Spirit of God is within you.
Know that the Spirit gives you power in this world. Know that you will do
greater things that Jesus did. That’s what he said.
But,
I don’t see any results yet. I’m
frustrated.
John Noble could have thrown in the
towel as well, but he didn’t and he became very successful selling little
candies with a hole in the middle.
But, I don’t see any results yet. I’m frustrated.
The Lifesaver story is not a story of
the Holy Spirit. It’s just a story of trying one more time.
But, I’m not seeing it. I think God
skipped me with his Spirit. Does he expect me to keep trying even when I can’t
see the results?
That’s insanity, right?
Let’s try this definition instead.
Now
faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
When you believed, God’s Spirit came
to live inside you. Will you trust him?
Or do we trust the Spirit of the
world? Do we rely so much on our own
understanding?
God’s Spirit is living in you. Trust
God. Seek that quiet voice within you that is of God and will lead you to great
things and step out in faith.
Do you think that Peter had been spending
all of his time preparing what was a masterful sermon? Had the other apostles
been sequestered in an immersive language study program?
The Spirit prompted them and they
acted.
Grow deaf to the spirit of fear and
doubt.
Ignore the voices that say, stay in
the boat.
That’s some good figurative language
there, Tom, but how about something more tangible.
My Dad or my Mom
always did it that way.
It just runs in
the family.
Me and Hank Jr. are going to sing Family
Tradition here in a moment. Yes, I know it should be Hank and I, except in
country music.
I’ll just wait
until I have some more information.
Let’s not jump
into anything.
Have I talked about inertia
before? I know I have, and you might be
tired of hearing that a body at rest tends to remain at rest.
God loves me just
the way I am.
There are plenty
of people in this world to do God’s work. It doesn’t have to be me.
While both statements may be true;
they both serve to make us deaf to the voice of the Spirit that lives within
us.
Our own understanding and our desire
to hold on to it over the voice of God’s Spirit makes us ineffective. It is a
drug that numbs us to the Spirit that lives within us.
Reject all that doubts the word of
God.
The Spirt of God lives within you, and
you will do the great things that God has called you to do.
Some of you might say that I know that
God’s Spirit is within me because I can have peace in a tumultuous world.
That’s good but not sufficient. That’s
being a consumer of the benefits of God’s blessings but hardly ventures into
discipleship. God’s Spirit is within you so that you may do the things God has
called you to do and bring glory to his name.
Imagine those Apostles having received
the Holy Spirit on Pentecost saying, “At last, I can have peace.” Then just going about their lives business as
usual.
The curse of modern Christianity is to
acknowledge God, acknowledge Jesus died for our sins, and acknowledge that the
Spirit lives within us and then live unchanged lives because we hold our own
understanding in such high esteem.
God’s Spirit lives within you. Stop
selling the Spirit short.
Do the work of an evangelist!
Put the words of our Master into
practice.
Be known by your love!
Bring glory to God!
Know that God’s Spirit lives within you!
The book of the Bible from which we
get this account of the coming of the Spirit is titled, Musings of the
Apostles. It’s about their thoughts, meditations, and things they considered
doing.
Right?
Actually, mine is titled, The Acts
of the Apostles, for once the Spirit came, these men who followed Jesus for
three years suddenly stepped into action.
We have attached some words to our
little body here. They are God’s Love in Action. Is there any fidelity
between that motto and who we really are?
Does the Spirit prompt you to action?
Don’t remain a body at rest. Take
action based upon the leading of the Spirit that lives within you.
Give eviction notices to the spirits
of fear, doubt, and inaction that are living rent free in your hearts and
minds.
The Spirit of God that lives within
you prompts you to action. We are called to continue the acts of the
apostles. We are to do even greater
things!
Amen.
