I'm glad you're sitting on the back row. That's good. I'm talking to you on the front row here tonight, okay? Boy is disconcerting. It makes me feel very self-conscious that you would not want to get any closer to me than that. I don't get it. If you have a Bible, please turn with me please to Acts chapter 1, Acts chapter 1, and this weekend I was asked to talk about how to get on track with God in your head, your hands, and your heart, which means your whole person basically, and you may not know this, but our branch of the church has talked that way about the whole person that our faith involves the way you think with your head, it involves what you do with your body, your behaviors, and it involves your heart, your deepest emotions, your deepest loyalties, and things like that, and that's why we're doing what we're doing, and last night what I tried to do was to sort of shake you up a little bit, not by telling you something new, but just reminding you of just how radical Jesus was in saying to us, you've got to be ready to lose your life for this thing, you've got to be ready to do that, and everybody has to take up a cross, remember the line, Jesus said, I'll go first, but I'm not going last, and that's extremely important for all of us to do, and to understand, and if you were not here last night, I apologize for that, but it sets us up for what we're going to look at today, and that is how we manage life with that kind of faith, with that kind of Lord, a Lord who would tell us to take up our cross and follow after him, so let's take a look beginning in Acts chapter 1, we'll begin in verse 1, and we'll read through verse 11, In the first book of theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them after his sufferings by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God, and while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days from now. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And when he has said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight, and while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we delight in the fact that you are now in heaven at the right hand of the Father. We delight in this because it is our hope that from that position of authority, you are guiding all of history toward its great consummation when you will be acknowledged throughout the world as the Lord of all and that you will be able to give that glory and honor to the Father. We bless you for that, but now we come knowing that these were words that you spoke to your disciples 2,000 years ago, and we wonder, Lord, what you might have us learn from them tonight. We know that our efforts tonight are in vain unless Holy Spirit comes and anoints what we hear and brings it to our hearts and presses it upon us and empowers us to serve you and to obey you. And so we're praying now that you'll send Holy Spirit to us in ways that we're not used to having, that you'll send him to fill us, to fill this room, that we may love you, that we may be faithful to you, that we may bring you the honor you deserve. Amen.
You know, if there's one thing about Christian churches, it is this, they're all lopsided. They're all lopsided. I mean, I don't care what denomination you come from, I don't care what denomination you're a part of, I don't care what local church you're a part of, or which ones you've been in before, you know they're all different, but you know the reality is none of them are perfect. They're all lopsided, sort of like your body, have you ever noticed? Yeah, I noticed that when I was about 13 years old, that one of my ears was bigger than the other, it traumatized me. Just absolutely traumatized me. But that's true of everybody, my mother said, and so I began to look and I realized, say it is true of everybody, everybody one eyes bigger than the other, everybody one ears bigger than the other, wow, it made me feel much better about myself. Because it is true that what you can end up doing when you notice that churches like people are lopsided, not perfect in every way imaginable, is that it can be so frustrating to you that it traumatizes you and freezes you up, but if you can take a look at it and recognize that this is true of everybody, then you can sort of take a look at it and go, you know, that's okay. Because I'm a part of something much bigger and I can learn how to live my faith even from the things that are lopsided in me and in my church. Tonight we're going to talk about something that we typically, in our churches, practically ignore completely, that is so essential to our faith, that we could hardly measure just how important it actually is. And it's what this passage talks about and you might be surprised because it does talk about the Father and it does talk about Jesus, but the one that it actually focuses on is the unnamed, the unknown, the Holy Spirit. Now let me just tell you, if I were in a different kind of church, this sermon would be very different than what I'm about to give you. So I'm talking to people who have one ear that's really bigger than the other. And I'm going to be emphasizing some things here that I think are very important for all of us as we face the doldrums and as we face the difficulties of living the Christian life from what the apostles faced in this circumstance. The background of this is that Jesus has died, Jesus has resurrected, and he spends some time with them. And did you notice in the opening verses of this chapter, as Jesus speaks to them, he's teaching them about the kingdom of God. And the way that he describes this kingdom of God is found again in verse 5, listen to what he says in verse 5, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Now as soon as Jesus said those words to his disciples, their ears perked up. They knew that something very, very special was going to happen, that there was going to be this outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the earth in ways that he had never been poured out before. And they knew this because of Jesus' reference to the kingdom of God, but even more than that, to the fact that the prophets in the Old Testament talked about this outpouring of the Holy Spirit when the end times came, when all things were reaching their climax, when the kingdom of God was going to come. So they understood what Jesus was saying here, and that is we're at the end of the show. We're coming to the last chapter, and the Holy Spirit is going to be poured out on this earth like you would not believe. And when you read books like Isaiah chapter 44, you find out the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in those latter days is something that's going to be throughout the entire earth, is going to take a dry and desert place, and like rain falling from the sky make the whole world turn into paradise. It's the way in which the world is going to be reshaped, just like it was in the beginning when the Spirit of God hovered over the deep to bring the initial order to this earth. Holy Spirit is going to be poured out on this earth and radically transform the entire creation. That's what you would have believed too, had you known the Bible as well as they did. Had you gone to synagogue like they did. Baptism of the Holy Spirit, that's going to be unbelievable. And so the disciples asked Jesus a question, verse 6. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? They knew what he was talking about. Baptism of the Holy Spirit is the time when God pours out his spirit on the entire earth, and at the front of the line is Israel. The people who had been crushed, the people who have been oppressed, the people who have been driven from their land and under foreign tyranny for centuries by this time. They knew that when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the earth, that they would rise up and be the leaders of the entire world leading all of the people of God throughout the world into the presence of God. They understood that, so they assumed that since Jesus says, soon you're going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. It was only natural that they say, oh okay we've got it. So this is the time, right Jesus? This is the time. Right Jesus? But Jesus says some very disappointing words to them as they ask that question in verse 7. Listen to what he says to them. Jesus said to them, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. Oh, something that you could never have expected, having read the whole Old Testament about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the earth. Jesus now tells them, he says, look, nobody knows when the Kingdom is going to come to this earth as it is in heaven. Nobody has any idea. Yes, I've been talking to you about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, but now let me tell you what that actually is going to be. The Holy Spirit is not going to be poured out on this earth like rain. That will bring life to the entire planet and turn it into the paradise. It was originally designed to be. Instead, what's going to happen is the Holy Spirit is going to be poured out on you. We don't sense what disappointment this was to the disciples. This is what they lived for. The hope that Holy Spirit would be poured out by the Messiah and that they would be victors over the entire world. And so when Jesus says, I'm sorry, but that's just not what's going to happen. They were terribly disappointed. Now, you know, disappointment in the Christian life is not something that belongs only to the apostles at this moment. It's something that stayed with them throughout their entire lives. And it's something that's been true of Christians in every century and every millennium. And it's something that's true of you too. Have you noticed that? Have you noticed that all those things that you thought were going to be so wonderful because you came to Jesus, and he saved you from your sins, that they haven't turned out quite the way you thought they would? What are those kinds of things? We all know what they are. When I was a child, I hate Christmas as an adult because of the way Christmas always was for me as a child. I hate to say this. I love my parents and they took good care of me and they were wonderful people in so many different ways. But this is the one thing that made me hate Christmas. Every Christmas was a huge disappointment to me because they never got me the presence that I really wanted. So Richie, what do you want for Christmas? Well, I'd go to the catalogue, this here's Robuck catalogue, do you remember that? Show them the picture and they would always get something like that, but it was never that. So every Christmas was a severe disappointment to me at a time when I'm supposed to be celebrating and having all this giddy time. And I'm looking at the present and I'm embarrassing my friends over and show it to them because it's not quite what you're supposed to have. Well, I think sometimes that's the way it is for us as Christians, isn't it? Because as Christians, especially as young adults, you know how you live your life. You're looking for a God to send just the right man into your life or the right woman into your life and you think, you know, now that's going to be great once I get married. We're going to have little children, white picket fence. We're going to raise them up. They're going to love us and adore us. They're going to be us. They're going to become followers of Jesus. And they're going to go out and do things that are going to be magnificent and our lives are going to be good and happy. We're not going to have any problems after all. We love each other so much. And Jesus has. Jesus has brought us together and we're both Christians. And you get into this thing called marriage in three or four years and you suddenly discover that just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you're freed from the problems. I wish I could tell you that the rate of divorce among evangelical Christians is different than it is among the world out there, but it's not. We have the same kinds of problems and the Christian life becomes a disappointment. Oh, so you go to church and you think, you know, I'm going to change churches because if I go to that church and that's a really good church and it's really going to be great and you get in there and it goes well for a little while. But then it becomes like your family, big disappointment. So you slog your way through and hope you can find another church to jump ship and go to that one. This is just the way it is in the Christian life, one disappointment after another after another after another. So how in the world can you stay on track with your heart and your head and your hands for Jesus and serving Him willing to give your life for Him when your faith is so terribly disappointing to you? Now, I know there's somebody in here saying, I'm not disappointed. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. Some of us were even in the disciples position of thinking that when we first became Christians that Jesus was going to come back before we died. Whoops. Everybody's dying. Can't come back yet. That's been the way it has been for 2,000 years. Disappointment is a huge factor of the Christian life. And if you don't understand and don't embrace the disappointment, then it probably reflects that your hopes are not very high. That your expectations of what Jesus is going to do are not very high. Because the reality is this, you and I have settled for what we think Jesus will give us a lot like Buddhist settle for what they think that their religion can give them. Basically, help you out as you live your life, then you die, and then you have eternal life. Well, that's not what the Jews hope for, it's not what the disciples hope for, and it should not be what we hope for. But you know how it goes. Most Christians think that the best thing they're going to get out of their faith is the ability to, by the skin of their teeth, make it into heaven, receive a golden harp and play it forever. But that's not what the disciples hope for, and it's not what Jesus has told us to hope for either. What Jesus has told us to hope for is the transformation of the entire creation, and that you and I will be kings and queens and priests serving God and enjoying the new creation forever. And you know, you have glimpses of what that could be like, because you know that even in this world of darkness and sin and disappointment and failure, you have moments when you know what the joys of living on this planet can be. Like when you have your first child, when you see that sunset, when you hear that concert that you never heard before, and you go, oh man, life is good. You know what those moments are like. Now imagine all of life like that. Imagine the whole world like that. Imagine a world with no disease, no hunger, no pain, no suffering, no disappointment, all wonderful and delightful, and you're on top of it all. That's the hope you ought to have, and if that's your dream, if that is something you've embraced, then you look at your life and you go, hmm, it doesn't match up with that. So how do we live with this reality? That's the question. So the disciples are disappointed as they hear Jesus talk about what's going to happen. But it gets even worse than that before you get some good news in this, because Jesus continues, and he says to them, these words beginning, let's say in verse 8, listen to what he says in verse 8. He says, but you will receive the power of the Holy, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Now that sounds very hopeful, doesn't it? That sounds very cosmic way out there. Oh yeah, don't worry, we're going to cover the entire world, but you need to set yourself again in the position of these disciples, and hear what Jesus is saying to them. He's saying to them that they are not going to be victors, not that they're going to be kings and queens over the world, not that they're going to rule, but rather that they're going to be witnesses. And this word, witness in the Greek text is the word from which we get our word martyr, which does not mean martyr, the witness is not necessarily martyr, but it became so connected to death and suffering and pain that we actually take the word witness, and we now turn it into those that have suffered and those that even have died for the faith. So think about it this way. Jesus says, you know, you're going to be my witnesses, you're going to be those that testify of me in Jerusalem. Okay, well we're there, we can handle that. In Judea, okay, we've got to go that far, I guess we can do that too. In Samaria, oh my, you know, those Samaritans, they're still not very nice, but okay, they've kind of got it together, at least we have something to work with. But then he says, to the ends of the earth, and you need to understand that the ends of the earth represented all the pagan nations that were out there that had turned against Israel, turned against the people of God, the nations who were under the deception of the forces of darkness, the nations of the world who were actually prone to and determined to destroy the word of God in this world. And so what Jesus is actually telling them is, your whole life is going to be devoted to being my witnesses to the worst kinds of people you can possibly imagine in this world. Well gee, thanks, that's really not what I had in mind. Because when I became a Christian, what I thought I was going to get was salvation. And now what you're telling me is that not just that I have to be a witness to people that I have some common ground with, my next door neighbor, the people around me, even people that have some religious connection with me. But I have got to be a part of the witness to the enemies of God, my enemies, those who would want nothing more than to see me die and see my faith eliminated from this planet. That's exactly what Jesus was saying to them and it's exactly what he's saying to you. So it's not just disappointment on the one side with the fact that Jesus says, you know, you just can't really know when I'm going to set things right. But it's also this unbelievable difficulty that Jesus lays before his disciples telling them that their lives are to be devoted to the spreading of his word to the worst kinds of people that you could possibly imagine. Now thanks be to God that they took that up and they did it because most of us come from the lineage of those worst people in the world. Unless your background is Jewish, if you're a pagan like me, what were your ancestors doing in the days of the apostles? You were the enemies of God. You're those who were opposed to his ways, but because somebody was willing to put their life on the line, somebody was willing to put their priorities toward people like you, you are now worshiping the king of kings around the world. We, pagans, can you imagine such a thing as wonderful as that. But in retrospect, it looks wonderful, but in our day as we look at it prospectively, we think about what that means for our lives, we have to admit to ourselves something that's just terribly hard to admit. We don't want to do that. What I want to do more than anything else in this world, at least tonight, is to be left alone to live my private life. Do you know how bad it is for me? I have a deal with Jesus that when I get on airplanes, if the person sitting next to me doesn't talk to me, I don't have to talk to them. We've got this deal going, and so, you know, gets rid of all the burden I have of trying to share my faith with the person next to me. And of course, inevitably, the person next to me will start talking to me. And of course, you know the first thing they always ask, right? What do you do? Well, I run a nonprofit, that's what I do. Oh really, is that right? Yeah, shut up, leave me alone. What kind of nonprofit? Well, it's an educational nonprofit. Now, leave me alone. Well, what kind of education do you like for elementary school? You know, and you know where it goes from there. And that's just the way my life is, and I do not want them to ask me those questions. A lot of times people will look at pastors like Chip or me or other ministers and they'll say, well, you know, you can talk to us about all this stuff of meeting our enemies and dealing with people we don't like. Because that's easy for you to do. Is it easy for you, Chip? Of course, he says. Easy for you? Eric, is it easy for you? No. That stuff does not come any more naturally to us than it does to you. And in fact, when we pour our souls out for people like you, it makes us want to retreat away from the world even more. Just let them leave me alone. And I think all of us in this room understand that great temptation because the challenge that Jesus puts before His disciples here is so enormous that it's absolutely unthinkable. But we want to do is protect ourselves, protect our children, protect our families, protect our church, from the infiltration of all those bad people that are out there, from the influence of all those bad people that are out there, from all the harm that they can bring to our lives and all the discomfort they can bring to our lives, we want to protect against that as much as possible. And so we just simply don't embrace the call. We don't embrace the call to go to the people who are the worst enemies of God that you could possibly imagine. That's who we are. But now I mentioned that the disciples did that. In fact, the Book of Acts is written to demonstrate something. Do you know what is written to demonstrate? Is written to demonstrate that the apostles of Jesus actually fulfilled this commandment in their own day. I don't mean by that that they reached every single geographical spot on the planet, but that they had reached the three main families of the human race. Do you remember what those three families were? Good Bible question, isn't it? Good, the three sons of Noah, ham, shem, and japheth. And when you take a look at the Book of Acts, you can find how the Book of Acts tells us that the apostles actually planted the gospel with all three groups. Are you with me on that? Why do you think we have a story about the Ethiopian? Well, where'd that come from? That's ham, you understand. Where do you get Paul going off to Rome? Well, that's japheth. That's the Europeans. And of course the shemites are the ones that are there already gathered and even at Pentecost. So the Book of Acts is written to tell us not that it's impossible, but to tell us that it's actually quite possible. In fact, the Book of Acts ends with the apostle Paul preaching about the Kingdom of God, like Jesus did at the beginning of this book, freely and openly. Right in the capital city of the evil empire of the world in that day, Rome. They actually did it. So the question for us is this, how was that possible? And this is where the hard part comes for you and me. Did you notice in this passage, how many times it mentions the third person of the Trinity? John baptized with water, verse five, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Again, in verse two, that he gave commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles. And then in verse eight, he says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and then you will be my witnesses. Holy Spirit? Who's that? One of the fascinating things about our faith is that we began, our tradition, our branch of the church began with John Calvin who was known in the Reformation as the theologian of the Holy Spirit, isn't that interesting? And yet in our circles, it's difficult to hear him mentioned at all. What is it about Holy Spirit that makes it so very difficult for us to pay attention to him? The Father, you can pay attention to him because he's up there. He predestines everything. He controls everything. He's sort of way up there. He's the big guy. Jesus, okay, we can even get him because he's the leader. He's the Messiah. He's the king. Okay, we got that. These guys are more or less fairly predictable. What's the problem with Holy Spirit is the problem that Jesus said to Nicodemus. Holy Spirit is like the wind. You never know where he's coming. You never know where he's going. Never know what he's going to do next. And that scares a Presbyterian to death. Our slogan, of course, is all things decently in an order, right? So we close our windows, nail them shut, to keep the wind from blowing in. Because if the wind blows in, if the Holy wind blows in, it might actually mess things up and surprise us. And that's scary. In the Book of Galatians, when the Apostle Paul is dealing with one of the most critical issues that took place in the early church, that was splitting the church in Galatians through that whole region where they were dealing with the issue of Gentiles coming in and whether or not they need to be circumcised, and Christians were turning against each other. The Book of Galatians gives us a solution to the problem there that the people of Galatia on both sides of this issue need to walk in the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, have the fruit of the Spirit, all through the New Testament. What we discover is that the solution to the problems, the offered solution to the problems that the church faces is not Jesus in heaven, not the Father in heaven, but the Holy Spirit who is here now with us. So when you ignore Holy Spirit in your life, it may bring some order to your life, but then again your life in a coffin is very orderly too, but it will not give you the resolution to the problems, and it will not give you what you need to deal with the disappointments and the difficulties that are on both sides of this passage. Jesus says this, don't you dare begin to go out there and be my witnesses until something happens. Don't even think about it. You just sit there and wait, and what is it that needs to happen? The outpouring of Holy Spirit on these men that they could be his witnesses throughout the world. What does it require for you and me to come to the point that we actually want the Holy Spirit to be involved in our lives? What will it take? Will it take you being disappointed in the way things are turning out, much like the apostles were disappointed in these days? Will it take you embracing the difficulties of life, the challenges that are beyond your ability like the apostles were dealing with in their day? For me personally, the only thing that ever drives me to seek the Holy Spirit in my life, the only thing that ever drives me to Him, is the realization that I'm absolutely incapable of dealing with the disappointments and the challenges of my life without Him. Jesus said, I'm going to go to heaven, but don't worry, I'm not going to leave you as orphans, I'm going to send Holy Spirit to you. And here He says, Holy Spirit will be the power in your life to give you success everywhere you go in this challenge of kingdom witness. What will it take for you to start praying that Holy Spirit will be active in your life in ways that you can't attribute to anything else? What will it take to happen in your life, to where you'll be so broken down, so weak, so incapable of dealing with the disappointments and with the challenges and difficulties ahead, that you will actually seek His comfort, His hope, His life breathing in you? Will it take wayward children? A lot of you have that already. Will it take the hardship of your own personal moral failure? A lot of us have that already. Will it take disappointment in the way your country has gone within your own lifetime on your watch? Well, all of us in here have that on our minds, don't we? Will it take the mediocrity of the Christian faith as we're seeing it in this country today? Well, we have it. So rather than all the time turning to those things that feel very secure in your faith, feel very comfortable, feel very predictable, like turning to the Father, like turning to Jesus, it's time for you and me to take the nails out of the windows and open them up a bit and seek for the Holy Spirit to empower our lives in ways that we could never have imagined Him doing that before. He is the comforter, He is the advocate, He is the one that stands beside us and He is the one who gives us the power to do what Jesus has called us to do. I began by saying that all of us are lopsided and that's true of churches as well, but it's time for you and me now to do the very difficult thing that we have to face. And that is that subjective, inward, unpredictable, intuitive ministry of the Holy Spirit in your heart and living according to His ways, walking in the Spirit and by the Spirit so that we do not fulfill the desires of the flesh and so that we can be His witnesses to the ends of the earth. So you say to me, Richard, how can I do that? It really does get down to this. There's not a formula because, again, this is the wind. How do you catch the wind? You can't, right? But what it amounts to for you and me is a willingness to seek the Holy Spirit's presence in our lives in ways that we never have before, not being satisfied with things the way they've always been, not being satisfied with reducing our faith to a rule book. But having a living, vibrant relationship with God in Holy Spirit that will actually take you to places that you've never been before. Are you willing to risk that much? Are you willing to open yourself up to Jesus that much and to trust Him in the Holy Spirit to lead your life and to transform your life? That's what this passage challenges us to do. Our heads, our hands and our hearts can be given and serviced to God only when the Holy Spirit is filling us and leading us in that way. Let's pray together. Our Lord Jesus, we are a people who do not know from deep experience what it means to be led by your Spirit, to be filled with your Spirit, to be empowered by your Spirit. Oh Lord, we're not total failures. You're working at us. We know that and we bless you and honor you for it. But our lives are just full of disappointment. When we hear the challenges that you set before us, they are so large that we just know we cannot do them in ourself. But we confess to you that rather than going to the person of the Trinity that we need the most in this situation, we ignore Him for fear of what He might do in our lives. And so Jesus, as you said to Nicodemus that day, you have to be ready for the Spirit to do what He will do in the ways that He will do it. And as you said to your disciples on that day before Pentecost, when Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will receive power to do what I've commanded you to do. We pray now that you will make us a people who seek the presence and filling of your Spirit in ways that we have never done before. And as you do that, we will give you thanks for it and we will delight in you. Amen.