Word of Salvation – Vol. 30 No. 17 – May 1985

 

The Spirit Establishes The One Holy Catholic Church

 

Sermon by Rev. H. De Waard on Acts 2:4-11

Scriptures: Acts 2: 1-21; Isaiah 56: 1-8

Suggested Hymns: 197:1-4; 235:6,2; 378; 404; 360:3

 

Dear people of God,

You have all experienced it!  You are together in a meeting, or in a Bible study group or even around the dinner-table.  There is tension, the atmosphere is strained even though no harsh words are spoken.  It happens in a marriage too.  There is no listening, no openness.  International relations are at breaking point.  There is a spirit of hostility, driving peoples and nations apart.  So often we express the wish: If only there were a different spirit!  There is.  Today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of peace, reconciliation and power.

Girls and boys, do you remember what happened on the day of Pentecost?  Not so easy to say, is it?  If I ask you about Christmas, that’s easy.  You will tell me about Jesus in the manger, about shepherds, angels and wise men from the East.  If I ask you about Easter, you will tell me about Jesus who came to life and rose from the grave.  But what about Pentecost?  It is hard to grasp.  No one has yet thought of something to make Pentecost more visible and concrete.  Jesus compared the mysterious work of the Spirit with the unpredictable movements of the wind (John 3).  The result of the Spirit’s work is clear however; the conversion of men and women and the establishment of the Church throughout the world.  It is that aspect of the work of the Spirit we want to highlight today:

THE SPIRIT ESTABLISHES THE ONE, HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH

There are three aspects we would like you to consider:

1.  the church is the recipient of the Holy Spirit

2.  the world is the extent of the Spirit’s activity

3.  Jesus Christ is the message of the Spirit-filled Church.

1.  Pentecost is the feast of mission.  It marks the beginning of the amazing expansion of the Christian movement.  Pentecost was the harvest festival in Israel but it was also the feast of the law-giving on Sinai.  On that day God’s people remembered how God made a wandering band of fugitives into His special people.  Precisely on that day, God chose to give birth to His new people, consisting of Jews and Gentiles of every nationality, race and colour.  The New Testament Church was born.  When Christ ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit descended to establish the universal Church of Jesus Christ.  Without the Spirit, the Church is unable to move.  That is why Jesus told his disciples: ‘Stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high’ (Luke 24:49).  The disciples waited, prayed, sang their praises and on Sunday morning, the Holy Spirit came upon them with the noise of a violent wind and tongues of fire.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Who were these people?  Were they some outstanding spiritual giants who had accomplished great things for God?  Were they unusually gifted men and women?  Or deeply pious perhaps?  Not really.  Actually they were an odd collection of people.  Among these 120 people there was one who had denied his Lord.  Another one was a person with a bad record.  There was a tax-collector and perhaps a political dissident.  Others we don’t know anything about.  They were united in their knowledge of and belief in Jesus.  Yet, they were told to wait for power.  As yet they were power-less for the task they were to accomplish.  In themselves they were not up to it.  They needed power from on high.  So they prayed: ‘Come, Creator Spirit…!’

And come He did!  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.  Not just the twelve, not the apostles only, but all the 120 believers.  The Pentecostal blessing is not for a select few; it is for the whole people of God; for men and women, young and old, rich and poor, educated and ignorant, office-bearers and members.  The whole Church receives the blessing of the Holy Spirit as had been prophesied by Joel (Acts 2:17-18).  So I must not regard the Holy Spirit primarily as a personal, private possession which I need for my devotional life and to help me overcome my problems.  Rather, as a member of the Church, I share in the gift of the Holy Spirit who enables the Church to carry out the purpose of channelling the peace of Christ to the world!  Let no one among us therefore say: ‘I am only an ordinary member.  There is not much I can do.  Others are more talented.’  Maybe you do not have 10 or even 5 talents, but as part of the Spirit-filled community of God’s people, you share in that power.  There are no ‘ordinary’ members in the New Testament Church.  All receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and that makes the Church very special.  I believe this fact needs to be underscored in a time when so many people think so little of the Church.  The Church as an institution is ridiculed and regarded as irrelevant in modern days: Stalin of Russia spoke for many when he was warned of the opposition of the Church to his policies: ‘The church?  Ha, how many divisions does it have?’  He could not see the power at work in the church.  What he failed to see is that spiritual forces shape history more than mighty armies.  When Jesus outlined the evangelistic programme in Acts 1:8: “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”, it seemed an impossible programme.  Yet, through the power of the Spirit, the Gospel had reached the centre of the mighty Roman Empire before the book of Acts was finished.  And in a few more centuries, Christianity became the religion of the Empire.  Throughout the centuries, the propagation of the Gospel has been due largely to ‘ordinary’ Christians, men, women, slaves, uneducated, testifying to the peace which Christ brought through the death of the cross and the amazing grace shown to the people of God.

What happened on that first Pentecost day was unique.  It cannot be repeated.  But what is valid for all time is the presence and the power of the Spirit at work in and through the Church.  The Church is the base or launching pad from which the Holy Spirit takes the Church on His mission to the world!  When the Church loses that vision and instead becomes a breeding place of strife and contention, God’s plans are sabotaged and the Church is rendered powerless.  So we may well ask ourselves on this Pentecost day: where is our concern for the advance of God’s Kingdom?  Where is our evangelistic zeal and concern for people lost in sin?

2.  Clearly, the Church must look beyond itself.  The action of the Holy Spirit is not limited to the 120 believers.  For as soon as the Holy Spirit was poured out they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.  It seems pointless to discuss whether this was a miracle of hearing or of speaking.  It was a miracle of communication!  “Many Jews from the dispersion had come to Jerusalem for the Passover feast.”  Many of them no longer knew Aramaic or Hebrew as spoken in Palestine (You can compare this with our situation where many migrant children no longer speak the language of their parents).  Apart from these Jews of the dispersion there were proselytes, that is, non-Jewish people who had joined themselves to the Jewish religion and culture.  All kinds of nationalities were represented; Romans and Greeks from Europe; Egyptians, Libyans and Arabs from Africa and the Middle East; Medes, Parthians from Western Asia.  Whether their native language was Greek, Latin or Persian, they all understood the message of the apostles.

Here we see the counterpart to Babel (Genesis 11).  Babel brings confusion of tongues; Pentecost unites different peoples into a common understanding of the Gospel.  Babel meant a scattering of people.  At Pentecost, Christ begins to bring together the scattered children of God and makes them into his new fellowship (John 11:52).  From Babel comes no blessing.  At Pentecost the New Testament Church emerges, filled with the Spirit of the Living God bearing the message of God’s peace to the world.  Paul expresses this very clearly in Ephesians 3: 10: ‘His intent was that now, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms…!’  God’s purpose of peace is realized in the world through the Church.  Have we caught that vision?  The Church does not exist for itself.  It exists for the world.  There is a battle to be fought.  There are principalities and powers out there.  There are demonic forces that influence and pervert the structures of society.  These must be exposed and overcome through the proclamation of the Gospel of peace (Ephes.  6:15).

When the disciples were filled with the Spirit, the first thing that happened was that the Word of God was proclaimed.  The Spirit and the Word are inseparable.  As a matter of fact, the Bible is called the sword of the Spirit (Ephes.6:17).  If we are to be channels of the grace and peace of God, we must be proclaimers of the Word.  For it is the Bible that makes people wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus.  That is why the Holy Spirit has moved the Church through the ages to translate, distribute and proclaim the Word of God.

That task has not been completed as yet.  By 2000AD it is estimated that only 16% of the world population will be Christian.  Many people whom God has destined to obtain eternal life have yet to be confronted with the Gospel.  Throughout the communist world there seems to be an increasing demand for the Bible.  Every week the Back to God Hour is beamed to the Islamic world of the Middle East.  The Holy Spirit is opening Muslim hearts.  One convert by the name of Subhan has written his testimony in a booklet called: How a Muslim Found His Lord.  He had been taught that Jesus was not crucified, but that Judas had been crucified instead of Jesus.  Then he read the New Testament story.  He came to the words: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me…?  He was puzzled.  Only a good man would ask this question.  A bad man would know why God had forsaken him.  Judas was a bad man, so he need not ask why God had forsaken him.  It must have been Jesus who was crucified on the cross.  He is Lord!  It was the Word that brought conviction.  And the Church is to be a herald of that Word.  It is interesting that at Christmas there was a choir of angels.  At Easter there are more angels to proclaim that Jesus is risen, but at Pentecost there are no angels.  At Pentecost the people of God are promoted to be angels.  People must tell the message.  ‘Stop, and let me tell you what the Lord has done for me.’

Many people in the world are ready to hear the Gospel of hope and peace.  There is a terrible disillusionment about mankind.  We just can’t make the world go right.  Many are searching for better things.  Might this not be the opportunity for the church to proclaim the gospel of reconciliation and hope?  If only we would.

We feel so powerless.  How can the power of the Spirit become more evident in our lives?  Are we sensitive to the Word and the leading of the Spirit?  Jesus said: “Whoever believes in me… streams of living water will flow from within him.” (John 7:38).  By this he meant the Holy Spirit who would be poured out on the Church.  Once a person is filled with the Spirit, he will rejoice; his heart will become a flame and his tongue a fire.

3.  The Holy Spirit, once received, cannot be contained.  What did all these visitors in Jerusalem hear?  They heard the disciples declaring the wonders of God!  The wonders of God.  From Peter’s sermon which follows we understand clearly what that means.  We could sum it up as follows:- the new age foretold by the prophets in the Old Testament has come at last.

–  this new age is founded on the suffering and death of Jesus Christ;

–  raised from the dead, Christ was exalted to the right hand of God as the Lord of the new Israel;

–  the existence of the Church is the proof that God has given the Holy Spirit;

–  as we are moving to the final day of judgment when this present age will come to a close, God calls you to repentance;

–  Repent, believe and receive forgiveness of sin and the gift of the Holy Spirit!

In short, the wonder of God is Jesus Christ.  That is the message of the Spirit-filled Church.  God’s amazing grace has been shown in Jesus Christ.  Christ Himself is our peace (Ephes.  2:14).  What a wonderful confession in a world which is anything but peaceful.  Christ breaks down the barriers and builds bridges of fellowship with God and man.

And it does so at great personal cost.  It was a peace sealed by His blood shed on the cross (Col.1:20).  He was the sacrifice of the sinless one for us the sinners.  He, the just One had to suffer that He might bring us to God.  In His own person He carried the weight of our sin on the cross.  Our life depends on His life poured out.

One writer put it this way:

The cross is a declaration that there is no violence so horrid, no despair so comprehensive, no mindless brutality so thorough-going that it is beyond the pale of God’s peace.  The cross is the more excellent way.  The cross with all its horror becomes in fact our hope.  God wills His peace and the world cannot contradict it.  The cross – irony of ironies – is the consummation of the angelic song, peace on earth.

The message entrusted to the one, holy catholic Church is the message of the great deeds of God in Jesus.  The Holy Spirit does not have His own private message.  He does not draw attention to Himself.  He bears witness to Christ.  And so must we.  If we are truly impressed with the wonders of God, if we are a Spirit-filled Church, the message of the Gospel cannot be contained within these four walls.  No one can possess or be indwelt by the Holy Spirit and keep the message of God’s wonders to himself.  Where the Spirit is, there the message of the wonders of God flow forth and Jesus Christ is exalted.

May the Word and Spirit inspire us all to tell what God has done for us in Jesus Christ so that the one, holy catholic Church may grow and increase.

Amen.