THE MIRACLE OF PENTECOST
ACTS 2:1-3
I believe that the miracle of Pentecost is the secret to meeting the deepest longings in the church today. The one thing I hear, again and again, is a plea for power to live the Christian life.
And what I hear from people today is not so much a disbelief regarding the Holy Spirit, but an aching, "I just don't know" - and a longing to understand who He is and how to live in the flow of His power.
The greatest longing in the church today, stated to me both directly and indirectly, is the search for something more than dull religion. I have to admit there are some who are perfectly satisfied with just that - a dull, boring, lifeless religion.
Because then they don't have to go outside of their comfort zones...they don't have to get involved...they don't have to be one of those ƒafanaticsƒ`...my definition of a fanatic Christian is one who is more spiritual than you. They are the ones out there doing what you know inside you should be doing.(Not taking about whack-o's)
But many are in need of the intimacy...the inspiration...and the driving power of the Holy Spirit. Answering that cry is the key to church renewal and prophetic preaching and teaching.
It is impossible to live the Christian life without the indwelling Spirit. We need the guidance and enabling energy of supernatural power. The church today, like the disciples in the Upper Room, is waiting on the edge of a miracle.
Pentecost was a miracle. I have used the word "miracle" very carefully. By it I mean the intervention of supernatural power that is in keeping with a higher spiritual law - that supersedes the law of nature.
Now, our talents and intellectual abilities are believed to define the limits of our performance. It is a miracle when a personality is transformed, or a person is able to think and act beyond the limitations of their capacities...
A higher power, exercising a higher law, has multiplied our human potential...and the impossible happens. The miracle of a changed personality results with supernatural gifts of intellect, emotional freedom... ƒaand a conviction that all things are possible.
We often quote the Scripture that says "With God all things are possible" ...but we really don't believe it. Sometimes we hope its true but how often can we say we really believe it?
That's the miracle of Pentecost...120 frightened, impotent, self-centered, willful, and discouraged men and women were transformed into new creatures...they were infused with supernatural power - intellectually, emotionally, and physically.
This higher spiritual law had been explained by Jesus long before Pentecost. He clearly revealed the higher law of transformation in His life and message...
He said, "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24). God is Spirit, and we are created spiritual beings. We were created for Spirit-to-spirit union and communion. Our spirit can be joined and empowered by His Spirit.
Jesus went on to say, "The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
The word for worshipers here means "to bow the knee, to bow in reverence and total openness." Our desire to worship is the evidence of His far greater desire to invade the spirit of men and women with His own Spirit...
When this happens, a miracle takes place. Our spirit is the port of entry for the divine Spirit. That's what happened at Pentecost. The higher spiritual law Jesus had explained was now made real: God's Spirit produced in His people a potential beyond human limitations.
WHAT JESUS HAD PROMISED WAS GIVEN TO HIS FOLLOWERS!
The greatest need in the church today is for a contemporary Pentecost. The ƒaneedƒ` in people today matches the mood of Jesus' followers waiting in the Upper Room.
The final hours before Pentecost were filled with the frustration of the impossibility of living Christ's message and equaling His life. How could this happen without Him?
Though He had said clearly that He would come and make His home in them, they didn't realize what He meant. And until it happened, the disciples waited on the edge of a miracle...
history's greatest miracle...the transformation of human personality and the beginning of a new person.
READ Vs. 2-4
The dynamics of Pentecost were wind, fire, and praise. Picture the disciples with expectation in the Upper Room...waiting, praying. Suddenly a wind began to stir the room, gently at first...then it grew stronger.
The followers of Jesus looked up from their prayers. Now the wind was rushing with a rumble like thunder...the wind that had been an emblem of the Spirit for the Hebrew people throughout the generations.
When the Lord spoke to Ezekiel in the valley of the dry bones, He told him to " prophesy to the breath, prophesy son of man, and say to the breath, `Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live" (Ezekiel 37:9).
The dry bones symbolized the defeated, dejected people of Israel in exile in Ezekiel's day. They needed the Spirit of life to come into them again...
Jesus used the image of the wind for the Spirit when He said to Nicodemus, "Do not marvel that I say to you, You must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:7-8)
Now in the Upper Room the wind was blowing...rushing with irresistible force. The Lord gave outward signs of His presence in tangible ways so they would understand.
He communicated in a way that would be identified immediately. And what the wind does when it blows like that...so also the Holy Spirit was doing in their souls...blowing out the cobwebs of fear and the layers of uncertainty.
The presence of the wind outwardly was soon an inward rushing of new thought...new emotion...a new will. The Lord's people were being stirred up and brought back to life because He had come.
The second sign was also an outward sign of what was happening within. John the Baptist's prophesy was being fulfilled. Luke wrote in his gospel, "I indeed baptize you with water...but one mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loosen. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Luke 3:16).
Fire and the Spirit of God are as synonymous as wind and Spirit in the O.T. With all the passion and enthusiasm of an O.T. prophet, John explained what this new fire from heaven would do...
In Luke 3:17 it continues..."His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.
What sounds like a fierce purging is also a great promise. The Spirit's fire burns out the chaff in those who have survived the winnowing process.
The wheat of the Lord have chaff in their minds and hearts which the Spirit burns away. The gift of His Spirit is that also He burns out anything in us that would cripple us in His service.
HIS SPIRIT WAS GIVEN FOR THE CONTINUATION OF HIS MINISTRY.
** We hear and sing a great deal about the peace and comfort of the Holy Spirit, but it is amazing how far our words have drifted from their original meaning!!!...
Peace is what He gives AFTER reconciliation and a surrendered will. The word peace means harmonious relationships between God and us, and also between us and others.
Many of you at one time had a harmonious relationship with God at one time...but what have you done with God and for God lately??? Where is that intimate continual relationship with Him that is necessary for us to have peace?
How is it with others??? Are there problems in your relationships with others that block your prayers...your communication with God? It is only after reconciliation and a surrendered will, that peace will come.
When the Spirit comes into us, He is companion and friend through all of life's challenges, but He also loves us so much that He'll burn away that which would prevent us from fully becoming the persons we were meant to be.
But the fire of the Holy Spirit does so much more than burn away...He refines us. The dross is burned off and the pure metal is left. What a great promise! We don't have to stay the way we are.
We get a character transplant...The indwelling Lord makes us like Himself
He's only begun with me. I'm not what I used to be...nor all that I'm going to be. And that leads to another effect of the fire of the Holy Spirit.
He kindles enthusiasm, warmth, and spontaneity. Just as the wind of the Spirit gives us new thought...the fire of the Spirit set the followers of Jesus on fire with emotional intensity.
The visual evidence of the fire over the heads of the people was another outward sign that became an inner reality. The miracle of Pentecost was that the followers of Jesus became capable of warm, inclusive love.
Even though each person was unique, they became free of the limits of their own personality...I believe the extrovert was deepened and the introvert released...
They were free to love each other and they were also given an unquenchable love for people in the world. We all need the fire of the Holy Spirit to convince us of the fact that we are loved without qualification and we have been released to love in the same way.
I think it is fascinating to note that nowhere in the gospels do we read that the disciples expressed love for Jesus or each other. At no point do they say, "We love you Lord." And yet Jesus constantly told them of His and the Father's love for them.
Even when pressed with the direct question in John 21, Peter side-stepped Jesus' use of the word "love" and responded that the Lord knew he was His friend.
Twice Jesus asked, "Do you love me?" and each time Peter responded with an affirmation of his friendship. The third time Jesus used Peter's word for friendship, and once again Peter spoke of his loyalty and affection.
The miracle of the Pentecost fire produced the ability to love the Lord and others.
(Agape' and phileo)
The point of this explanation of Greek words is simply to emphasize the fact that prior to the experience of Pentecost and the infilling of the Spirit, the disciples were incapable of profound love.
The closest we have is Peter's verbal expression of friendship, and that had to be asked for.
The problem of impatience with people...difficulties in forgiving and forgetting...and reluctance in giving away ourselves freely to others is a constant contradiction to your faith in Christ as Savior.
Christ's quality of love is inseparable from Him. He is agape' and that cannot be fully experienced apart from His Spirit residing in us in all its fullness.
When we are filled with the Spirit there is no more of that "I'll love you if you do what I want" stuff. It will set us free to love ... unconditionally and without reservation.
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