SPECIAL DAYS: Pentecost Sunday

June 8, 2003 - Lesson: Acts 2.1-11

SERMON TITLE: Wind and Fire

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INTRODUCTION:

Moses on His Walkie Talkie

Nine year old Joey was asked by his mother what he had learned at Sunday school.

"Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

"When he got to the Red Sea, he had his engineers build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely.

"Then he used his walkie-talkie to radio headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved."

"Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?" his mother asked.

"Well, no. But if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it!"

  1. Is this the way we respond to the extraordinary demonstration of the work of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost?

    1. A mighty wind

    2. Tongues of fire

    3. Foreign languages.

  2. It would appear so.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. We need Pentecost

    1. Why do we need such an event at the beginnings of what will come to be called, "Christianity."

    2. I was reading an article on christianitytoday.com.

The following article is from Today's Christian Woman magazine, and is located at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/2000/002/7.62.html

10 Objections to Christianity and How to Respond by Frank Harber

      1. Christians are hypocrites.

        1. Of course.

        2. This means two-faced.

        3. We are also legalists (casuists)

      2. What about the atrocities Christians have committed?

        1. This is true.

        2. More damage has been done by Christians to an acceptance of the faith than by any other source.

        3. Perhaps our government ought to become more concerned with its faith-based initiatives.

      3. Christianity is a crutch.

        1. Yes it is.

        2. What did Jesus say in Luke 5:29 through Luke 5:32 (NRSVA)

29Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. 30The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" 31Jesus answered, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; 32I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance."

        1. We are the sick, crippled, lame, deaf and blind.

        2. We need all the help we can get.

      1. It's narrow-minded to think Jesus is the only way to God.

        1. In this case narrow-minded is the right choice.

        2. This does not leave those who have never heard of Jesus out in the cold.

        3. God has a way of providing for their salvation.

      2. Being a good person is all that really matters.

        1. This is true.

        2. Be careful how you define "good."

        3. Only God is good.

        4. Through Jesus Christ, he shares his goodness with us so that we can be declared righteous.

      3. What about those who've never heard about Jesus?

        1. We took care of this is statement 4.

        2. God will provide for the needs of all his children.

      4. The Bible is filled with errors.

John 5:2 through John 5:6 (KJV),

2Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. 3In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. 4For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. 5And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?

        1. You will not find this attribution in the NRSV.

        2. It was a copier's comment that made its way into the text.

      1. If God is so good, why is there evil?

        1. Good question.

        2. The implications are staggering.

        3. God is not responsible for evil.

      2. Why is there suffering?

        1. Ask Adam and Eve.

        2. They started it all.

        3. They took a perfectly "very good" and beautiful world and turned it into the garbage dump of the universe.

        4. We are reaping what was sown and what we sow.

      3. If there's a hell, why would a loving God send people there?

        1. It all depends on your understanding of "hell."

        2. It may not be as we have been told that it was.

        3. It is necessary to finish the work of restoration and cleansing.

    1. So lets really load it up.

      1. So often Christians and Christian Communities are only going through the motions.

        1. Going through the motions (1)

Dean Reyonolds, Christ Church Cathedral, Houston, Texas, in a sermon June 11, 2000.

Near Marietta, Georgia, where I grew up, are Kennesaw Mountain and Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield, now a National Park and the site of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain which was a major part of the Battle of Atlanta in the Civil War.

There is a group - mostly men, though there may be women as well - who re-enact scenes and particular battles from the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. They have authentic uniforms and equipment. There are a lot of them, and they are organized into the proper formations of regiments and companies. They fire cannons and carry out the same maneuvers that were executed more than a hundred years ago.

And, there may be some value to that. It carries on a tradition and preserves a memory. It may provide a sense of tradition that gives us a feeling of firmness in our lives.

It is, of course, perfectly predictable. Each battle is always the same. The outcome of the story is already known. The victor must be victorious and the vanquished must lose. We re-enact it to tell the story - to remember it and to teach it to others, especially our children, so they can have the same traditio

Christian faith can become like that. It is sort of a re-enactment of ancient battles. The lessons are already set. We - the grown-ups - always know the outcome. We know the end of the story. We know how God is.

        1. Is there some flavor of this is our celebrations of the major holy days?

        2. I will leave that for you to decide.

      1. We so often fail to take the initiative.

        1. "There's an old fable about an angel who returns to earth and gets very upset at seeing all the tragic errors and suffering of human beings. When the angel is once again in the presence of God, she asks why God doesn't intervene and solve the problems of the world. 'Isn't there anything we can do?' she pleads. The answer comes back: 'We have given them everything they need. We have given them fire and love. Now it's up to them.'" (2)

        2. Now its up to us, okay.

    1. Wow! When you take all of the above into consideration it's a wonder that the church has survived.

      1. And that doesn't take into account all the fissures, fractures, and fragments that have divided and sub-divided the church, almost from its inception, until now.

      2. What in the world has kept the church together?

    2. What has kept it all together is Pentecost.

      1. Pentecost provided the presence, the power and the purpose.

      2. No matter what happens along the way that distorts or interferes with the work of Jesus, the Holy Spirit with the Pentecostal power keeps it all together.

    3. So on this special day let us recognize our need of the Holy Spirit's wind and fire.

      1. We need the Wind.

        1. We need the wind to blow away the cloudy darkness of confusion.

        2. We need the wind to clear away the cobwebs of uncertainty.

        3. We need the wind to clear away the debris of doubt.

      2. We need the Fire, the passion.

        1. The passion to acquire the faith that strengthens and sustains.

        2. The passion to assimilate that faith into the very fibre of our being.

        3. The passion to proclaim the faith through our words and our actions.

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    CONCLUSION

    1. We have all the tools.

    2. What is needed is the spirit. (3)

    A young man was apprenticed to a master artist who produced the most beautiful stained glass windows anywhere.

    The apprentice could not approach the master's genius, so he borrowed his master's tools, thinking that was the answer.

    After several weeks, the young man said to his teacher, "I'm not doing any better with your tools than I did with mine."

    The teacher replied, "So, it's not the tools of the master you need; it's the spirit of the master you need."

    1. We have the Spirit of the Master.

      1. Thank God!

      2. Amen!

1. Dean Reyonolds, Christ Church Cathedral, Houston, Texas, in a sermon June 11, 2000.

2. Unknown

3. As quoted in Paul J. Wharton, Stories and Parables for Preachers and Teachers (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1986), 21.

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