Empowered by the Spirit to Offer Christ to the World

Text: Acts 2:1-21, 36

A few years ago in Shesksna, Russia, one of the young Russian pastors asked out mission team, “How many chapters are there in the book Acts?” We agreed that Acts has 28 chapters. She said, “Wrong. It has 29. You are writing the 29th chapter here in Russia.” The four times I have been with our mission teams to Russia I have experienced most powerfully what the early church in the days of Paul must have been like!

The Book of Acts is the Story of the Holy Spirit filling the disciples with the presence and power of the living Christ. It’s the story of the birth of the church and its early growth through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the 2nd chapter, our text today, the disciples were gathered in the upper room as Jesus had instructed them, “Go to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit.” This story is called Pentecost as it occurred five weeks after the 1st spring harvest in Israel, on which the Jews celebrated the Feast of Weeks. In this story we can identify three movements of the Spirit.

The first movement of the Spirit is within us. Each of us is created by God to long for Him. Saint Augustine wrote “Our hearts are restless, and they will not rest until they rest in thee.” Each of us is on a spiritual journey ordained by God, which is life-long, seeking for God who also yeans for us. The prophet Jeremiah spoke of God’s longing for us, “If you seek me with all of your heart, I will let you find me.” This moment of God meeting us individually is not told in Acts but it is assumed by the story. Pentecost begins with the gathered disciples but their stories began before the upper room. Each disciple had had an experience with Jesus or the risen Christ, or had been moved into the community by someone who had.

Now how does a person come to know Jesus? My New Testament seminary professor, George Stroup, introduced me to a powerful understanding of conversion called “Theology of Story.” It gives us a clue. According to Theology of Story, the Bible has two levels of material: Facts or Knowledge and Narrative or Story. Facts and knowledge are important, but underneath and more important is narrative or story. That’s the premise. If I really want to know you then I must listen to your story. The facts about your life are not as important in getting to know and understand you as is the story of your life. And if you want to really know me then you must listen to my story. We must listen deeply to each other’s stories if we are to come to know and understand each other and to make genuine human contact.

The Biblical witness is this way also: the primary material of the Bible is not as much its facts or its knowledge as it is its stories of people of faith and of God in Christ reconciling the world to him. The primary material of the Bible is the narratives. We must listen deeply to God’s Story in the Bible if we are to come to know and understand God and to have a personal relationship with God.

Now conversion in Theology of Story is this: when the story of the Gospel collides with my story, I am converted, I am a Christian, and my life story becomes part of the ongoing story of God in Christ. His Story becomes My Story. For some this is a collision. For others God’s story is intertwined with the story of their life along. That’s the way it was for me, growing up in my warm-fuzzy Christian container, Central Christian Church.

The first movement of the Spirit is within us, and the second is the movement of the Spirit is among us. “When the Day of Pentecost came they were all together in one place.” Even though the Spirit moves within us, and that’s where each of us as separate persons encounter God, our stories of faith always take place in the context of a community of believers. It’s in a community of believers where His Story becomes Our Story, where each of us reflects upon our experiences with Christ and share our stories with each other.

I can imagine the 120 or so disciples gathered in that upper room where Jesus had shared the last supper with the twelve; bubbling over with a combination of excitement and fear and trembling, sharing their stories of their encounters with Jesus with each other, and reflecting with each other what it meant!

Every generation must reenact this 2nd movement of the Spirit if His Story is to continue to be told and received. Last week we had such a moving service for our confirmands and for our congregation. In our confirmation process we teach the faith to our young Christians, but even more importantly we mentor them. Each has a Christian mentor who is on fire for their faith, for we understand that faith is caught more than it’s taught!
 
Where is your community of believers, your circle of friends where you gather to reflect and share your stories of faith with others and encourage each other in your walk of faith? Sunday School? Emmaus reunion group? A Bible Study group? A sub-group of the church, like the Choir, or on a mission trip? Wherever it is, it’s an essential part of what’s necessary for us to experience the living Lord and be empowered to offer Christ to the world. Now is the time to consider signing up for one of the many Christian Education courses being offered in the fall. Realize that the value of these courses is less about the content and more about the community which circles together to study, discuss, share and pray together.

And then the disciples began to pray. Jesus had told them, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…and suddenly from heaven there came a sound like a rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house.” The gift of the Holy Spirit in the gathered community ignites the 3rd movement.

The third movement of the Spirit is through us

“A tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak…as the Spirit gave them ability.” Peter stood and gave the first Christian sermon, linking the story of the crucified Jesus with the story of the resurrected Christ, the Messiah and Lord. There were devout Jews from every nation celebrating Pentecost in Jerusalem. They were bewildered because each one heard and understood in their own language. His Story now became Their Story. Over 3,000 responded that day by repenting and receiving the Holy Spirit.

Now Pentecost must be understood in the context of another story, the story of the Tower of Babel. It’s the third movement of the Spirit to which Babel applies. Babel is an earlier story in the Old Testament which answers the question, “Why do people speak so many languages?” According to the story all the people of the earth were working together building this huge tower which they wanted to reach all the way up to heaven so they could reach God. The problem was they wanted to reach God on their own without God’s help. They didn’t need God’s help, they thought! They could do it on their own! God didn’t like this. God has never liked empire building and humans taking too much pride in themselves and in their own accomplishments without recognizing their dependence upon God for every gift. God was not pleased. In order to disturb their ambitious, self-seeking plans, he confused their languages and separated them into many tribes. That’s why people speak so many languages and why people are so divided, according to Babel.
The story of Pentecost is the antidote to the story of Babel. Whereas humans were divide at Babel by language and tribe, at Pentecost God brought people together through the power of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost those from every tribe on the earth were able to hear in their own language through the Spirit which unites rather than divides. Holding Babel and Pentecost together there’s
something else we must not miss if we are to tell His Story right.

His Story is not a story about a king who builds a mighty empire. His Story is not about a mighty warrior ruler who comes down from above to kick people around and straighten them out. No. His Story is about a father who cared so much for his children that he joined them; coming to them as a vulnerable baby, living with them like they lived in their ordinary lives, identifying with their hurts and sorrows, their disappointments and grief’s, and who loved them enough that he took the form of a servant and suffered and died for them on a cross.

The Lord and Messiah which the disciples proclaimed that day was the resurrected living Lord, the same Lord who had walked with them as Jesus and whose Spirit now filled their community. This Jesus was gentle and kind, lowly and humble. So when we tell His Story we must not just get the content right, but we must also tell His Story in the same Spirit as Jesus. When we share His Story we need to follow the advice of Peter who said, “Always be prepared to share the reasons for the hope you have, but do so with kindness and humility.”

Today we’ve looked at the story of Pentecost in the book of Acts. It tells the story of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the moment when the gathered disciples became the church. The movement of the Spirit is revealed in this story in three ways; the movement of the Spirit within us, the movement of the Spirit among us, and the movement of the Spirit through us.

We are writing the 29th chapter of Acts when through the power of the Spirit we are enabled to be the church!

Let us pray.

Lord by the power of your Holy Spirit empower us to offer your Christ to the world in a manner which is pleasing in your sight. Amen.