This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Winsor Springs, Florida where Reverend Kevin Labby is our senior pastor. Today's message is by Dr. Steve Brown. It's taken from Acts 2 and is titled, Controlling the Wind. Now here's Steve with today's message. If you have your Bible, turn to the second chapter of Acts. Pentecost Sunday was a couple of Sundays ago, so I'm not going to go down that road. But I want to go back to the second chapter of Acts to teach you some principles that at first sound to be really down and negative, but can really change your life. Before we study the word, let's pray, Father, we're here, meet us in this place. May we hear the soft sound of sandal feet, Father, you know, every person in this room and you know the stuff that's hard, the roads that are long, the secrets we can't share, the demons that come in three in the morning, the sin we can't shake, we're here, meet us in this place. Father, as always, we pray for the one who teaches, forgive him his sins because there are many. We would see Jesus and him only, and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You've heard the quote from the line, the witch and the wardrobe, the beaver is telling Susan about the lion, Aslan, and when he mentions that Aslan's a lion, Susan said, I thought he was a man, I didn't know he was a lion, I don't feel comfortable around him. If he's safe, and the beaver said, safe, of course he's not safe, he's Aslan, but he is good, he's the king I tell you, I'm probably the most religious person in this room with a possible exception of our pastor. I spend all of my time doing religious things, I study the liturgy, I study the word, I study the theology books, and I teach students to do the same thing. And I've come to a realization of late that I want to share with you, that religion is the way we keep God safe. Let me read a great quote to you from Annie Dillard, if you're looking for a good book to read, I think she won a Pulitzer with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. But this is from her book, and it's the Holy Firm, and this is what she writes. The higher Christian churches, where if anywhere I belong, come at God with an unwarranted air of professionalism, with authority and pomp, as though people in themselves were an appropriate set of creatures to have dealings with a sovereign God. I often think of the set pieces of liturgy at certain words which people have successfully, successfully, addressed in God without getting killed. In the high churches, they saunter through the liturgy, like moulins, along scaffolding, who have long since forgotten the danger of doing it. If God were to come and blast the service to bits, the congregation would, I believe, be genuinely surprised. But in the low churches, you expect it at any moment, and this is the beginning of wisdom. I'm out of control, and I hate it. Sometimes I say things I didn't mean to say when I'm sober. Sometimes I make people angry, and sometimes after I've taught in the classroom or preached in a church, I think I don't believe. I said that, I'm out of control, and I've spent my whole life trying to get in control. I'm the adult child of an alcoholic, and if you walk down that road, you know that one of the issues you deal with is control. And then I must have been smoking pot when I made the decision to be a pastor of a church dealing with two things you can't control, God's people, and God himself. All my life, I've tried to be in control. I learned how to use words to move people. I teach communication. I know the power of words, and I did it because I can control with words. I have a deep voice, and when I stand before people, I like to project authority and leadership and power. Somebody who knows what he's in. The reason I do that is because I don't want you to know that I didn't sleep last night. I don't want you to know that the warrior is a child. I used to say to the elders of the church, and this is not a recommendation, guys, you don't know nothing about running a church, and I don't know nothing about running a bank. I'll stay out of your bank, and you stay out of my church because I'm the only one here who knows what he's doing. What was the hat? That was control. I've been the president of the debate societies. I've learned to push back harder than I was pushed. To be meaner than people are mean to me. I have learned to hold things tightly, and to make sure they don't get out of control. I remember at a worship service when a young man stood up after a guest preacher at preach in a church where I was the pastor, and he said, I sense that God is doing something in our congregation, and we need to go to prayer right now, and you know what I said to him? I said, sit down, son. There are people here that have things they've got to do. If you want to meet in the library after this service, then there will be people that will meet with you, and why did I do that? Because revival scares the spirit out of me because you can't control what goes on when the Holy Spirit begins to move. In the third chapter of John, and you're familiar with that passage because it's one of the most familiar in the Bible, Nicodemus comes to Jesus, and that's the passage where Jesus says to Nicodemus that he has to be born again, and then Jesus says something in that passage that almost seems like a non-sequitor. He says, it's like the wind. You can hear the sound of it. It blows, but you don't know where it comes from, and you don't know where it's going. And then in our text for this warning, in the second chapter of Acts, we get an illustration of the very thing that Jesus was talking about. I can't read that whole chapter because it'll take so long, so I'm going to read some selective passages, starting at the first verse. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there came from heaven the sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them, and rested on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And then dropped down, if you will, to the 14th verse, where Luke writes as follows. But Peter, by the way, the crowd that was there, heard what was being said in their own language, and they were from all over the world. And some of them said, you know, these disciples are weird. They've been out debauching. They are plastered, and then in the 14th verse, but Peter's standing with the 11. Listed up his voice and addressed them, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my word. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. And then dropped down to the 37th verse, Peter preached an absolutely magnificent sermon on the gospel, and God did some mighty things. Look at the 37th verse. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter, and the rest of the Apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you too will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself. And with many other words, He bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourself from this crooked generation. So those who received His word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls. And look at what's happening in the church. And they devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and of prayers, and awe came up on every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the Apostles. And all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings, and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God, and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Oh my, nobody expected what happened. It was a normal day, in a normal place, in the religious city of Jerusalem. It was the festival of weeks when God gave the law to Moses, and the covenant people of God celebrated, a normal worship service, on a normal day, in a normal place, and then God showed up, and scared the spit out of everybody. God came, and he was not what they expected, and they responded, and they didn't do what they were expected to do. In the seventh verse of the first chapter of that, Jesus tells His disciples, go to Jerusalem and get prepared, and I didn't say that, go to Jerusalem and make plans for taking over the world. No, I didn't say that. He said, go to Jerusalem and be still, don't do anything, wait for the power, and the power came, and then you ought to note that some exciting things happened, and nobody expected that either. I love our pastor more than I can possibly tell you. I love to hear, and I hate it when I preach, because I don't get to listen to him preach. But let me tell you something, if he preaching here, and 3,000 people come to know Christ as a result of his sermon, it's not heaven. God is doing something mighty, and something special amongst his people. I've been working on this sermon all week. Do you know I've rewritten it four times, and I'm still uncomfortable with it, and while I was working on it in the third time, Eric Gussman, who's our vice president of communication, wanted me to come in and record some short bits that are played on talk shows around the country. And so I picked up the material I've been working on, thinking I could get some bits out of this, and I brought it into the studio and blew it time after time after time. Eric sent a little glass booth, and he's looking at me funny. And finally he says, Steve, do you mind if I preach to you? I said no, go ahead. He said, do you know what the problem is? The problem is you're trying to do what you're preaching against. You're trying to control it. You're trying to make it perfect. You're trying to make it fit in a box. You're trying to make it stand up and salute, and you don't have the power to do that. So go back to your office, smoke your pipe, sit down, give it to God, and come back in here, and we'll do it again, and this time, God will use it. I hate it when people preach to me that way, and I hate it when they're right on. And that's exactly what happened. But in the process, I learned some things, I'm going to teach you, and they don't sound very good. In fact, this sounds like a downer, but in fact, it's the source of the power of the Christian. Three principles and then a technique, okay, and then we'll be finished. The first principle is this. When you stop trying to control a sermon, yourself, everybody else and God, then the real God shows up. That's what's happening at Pentecost. They had it all planned, the liturgy was laid out, the prayers were there. They had always been said, they were traditional, and they were right, and they were what Dillard said about people who are like mohawks dancing on the scaffolding, forgetting about their danger, and then somebody heard a noise. The rush of a mighty wind, and I can see the people who had gathered saying, what's that? And then the fire, and then the smoke, and then the tongues coming from the disciples, it happened in a way they did not expect it, and they could not control it. The late Ben Hayden was a very close friend of mine. When you're my age and you quote people, they're almost all dead. Ben died a couple of years ago, and I still miss him a lot because he taught me a lot. He taught me how to be a strong leader. He said, see, people will think of you the way they think of God, and that's wrong. And if they can manipulate you, they will think they can manipulate God. I remember in the church that I served where Ben had been the pastor previous to my pastor in that church, he was having trouble with the church treasure, don't we all? And he called the church treasure into his study, and he got a key, and he locked the door, and he put the key in his pocket, and Ben said this to the treasure, we're going to talk. We can't both run this church, and when this meeting is over, one of us is going to resign. You need to know, and it's almost unnecessary to say it, it wasn't Ben who resigned after that meeting. I don't know about that. It's a good methodology of leadership, but I do know that God says something like that to us, we can't both be God as far as your kids are concerned. We can't both be God as far as your job is concerned. We can't both be God as far as your church is concerned. We can't both be God in terms of your reputation. So when this meeting is over, either you're going to let me be God, or I'm leaving. It happens all the time. You know, we press materials or crazy butts because we think we have God in our back pocket. That theology answers all questions about the God of the universe. We have Calvinist, and this is true, who believe that after God finished giving us the scriptures, he shut up and he never spoke again. That's from the pit of hell, and it smells like smoke. We have everything so bad and so together that if you vary one little bit, then you're not talking about the real God. I would suggest that it is just the opposite. Do you know what I did this morning? I drank coffee from a mug, given to me by Charlie and Ruth Jones, and you know what it says? Gourmet, Presbyterian coffee, brewed decently and in order. That's scary. Because sometimes you listen for the sound of sanded feet, and they're not there because we can't all be God, and you can't do that in your own life. The sixth chapter of Isaiah is a magnificent passage. Isaiah was working in the temple. He was probably a priest, maybe a janitor, but we're not sure who he was. The passage opens in the sixth chapter of Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died. It was anchored in history, and Isaiah was polishing the candlesticks in the temple, and then the God of the universe showed up and scared the spit out of him. His cry is the cry of everybody who has ever encountered the real God. Whoa, it's me, I'm a man of unclean lips, I'm a woman of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. It is the normal response of normal Christians to the reality of God when He shows. Let me take them. That you ought to remember. Whatever you think God is doing in your life right now, he's probably not. Let me face something else. If you've never stood before God and been totally confused, totally blown away, without the foddiest of what he's doing in the world or in your life, you've been worshiping an idol. God is bigger than you think, and he's bigger than you can think, and from Genesis to Revelation, the revelation of the God of the universe is that he's big, and he's eternal, and he's infinite, and he's omnipotent, and omnipresent, and omnipotent, and he is scary, and he is in charge, and you don't get about, don't you hate it? And so when you, and I've given up control, it may be just because I'm old, I'm not sure, but it may be God. All my life, I've been trying to control God's people, keeping them from sinning, and they keep sinning. All my life, I've tried to control myself to be a really good person, to be as spiritual as people thought I was, and I can't pull it off anymore. All my life, I wanted Aslan to be tame, and I did all the things to make sure he was. I was repented up. I memorized the scripture. I wrote religious books, I did religious broadcasts, and then I gave it up, and the real God of the universe showed so quick, and there's something else that goes on here, too, when you give up, trying to control a sermon, trying to control your friends or your family, trying to control your church, trying to control your own life, and trying to control God. Not only does he show, he shows as the real God with a message that you never, ever expected. The cool thing about Pentecost is not the tongues, it's the sermon. The cool thing about Pentecost is the number of people who listened and said, that doesn't make any sense, but I'm tired of doing it myself, and they repented, and they ran to Jesus, and 3,000 of them were saved. Once you quit doing it, then God can do something also, I was on an airplane and went through some horrible turbulence, I almost became a Christian. This had been a good while ago. I mean, it was like God was shaking the airplane, it was awful, I'm always scared on an airplane, and I spend my life on airplanes, but this time was the worst turbulence I've ever gone through, and I knew I was going to die. That was bad enough, except the woman sitting next to me was found asleep, and that was bad enough, too, but she added to it by snoring in the midst of all of this turbulence, and I'm holding on, I'm irritated with her, I'm cussing and spitting and repenting at the same time, because I know I'm going home right now, and then we landed, and we were safe, and she woke up, she stressed, and she smiled, I said, lady, you almost slept through your death, you don't want to sleep through your death, and then she smiled at me and yawned one more time and said, I can't fly this plane, and I thought, oh, I never thought of that. You know why people get so angry at the gospel? Because we really want to take credit for some of it. They went to Martin Luther, and they said to him, Dr. Luther, do you mean that we bring nothing to the table? He said, you must have misunderstood, or I must have misspoken. Of course we bring something to the table, we bring our sin, and we bring our helplessness, and we hate that because we're Americans. I want some credit for what God has done. I want to at least ascend to what God has done. I want people to know how spiritual I am, and how hard I've worked at it, that I'm controlling it, and God wants the machinery was in place, and I put it in place, showed up, and God will have none of it. I can't fly this plane, and the older I get, the more I realize I can't. I really thought that I would be better by now than I am. I really did. I've done it all right, and I thought if I keep added, and if I'm faithful, and if I work and I read the scriptures and I pray, that I'll get better and better in every way every day, and folks, I think I'm worse. I really thought that I could fix my family and fix my friends if I could be kind enough and nice enough and wise enough, but they're worse than I am, and I can't fix them either. I thought I could fix the churches where I served, and I'm not a half-bed bastard. I'm not wonderful, and I'm not as good as Kevin, but I'm not half-bed. The churches grew a little bit. People listened to my sermons. There was some growth, and there was some maturity, but we never saw revival, and we never saw awakening. You know why? Because I can't fly that plane. Once you realize it, then God comes, and He does stuff in your life that you can't do yourself. Don't you hate the debt we have in this church? We've made a good nip in it. Some good things are happening, but boy, we still owe a lot of money. That's bad. No. That's good. Because when it's paid off, we're not going to get a bit of credit for it. I don't know what the doctor told you last week, but I suspect that there's some of you here who have been told some bad news by your doctor. That's bad. No. That's good. You're coming to the end of yourself. Some of you have kids, and they're driving you nuts. All kids who will have nothing to do with a church, or with Jesus. That's bad. No, that's good. Because God is bringing you to the end of yourself, and when God moves and He will, when God acts as He did in acts to then, then He'll get all the credit. And then there's one other thing that I noticed when you give up trying to control the sermon. You're trying to control your friends and your wife and your husband and your family and your kids. When you give up trying to control the church, and when you give up trying to control God, there is amazing power that flows through the life of the believers. I love the end of acts to who would have thought it. They were all cowards, they all ran at the moment of Jesus' greatest need. The ones who stayed fell asleep. None of them had been to a seminary. None of them knew theology. None of them knew anything they were fishermen, and members of hell's angels, and rebellious followers of Jesus. And look what God did through them. I have a friend who wrote a book. It's not a great book, but the title is wonderful. It's called Turtle on a Gate Post. And the theme is this, when you see a turtle on a gate post, you know that turtle didn't get there by himself. I use that in a sermon illustration once, and somebody in Iowa killed a turtle. Stuffed him, put him on a gate post, and sent it to me. He thought I would be really pleased, and it would remind me, and I decided I'm not going to sit in my study looking at a dead turtle for the rest of my ministry. So I called in to you faster, and you know what he said? Way cool, and he took it down to his office, but I think of that a lot. When you see a turtle on a gate post, you know he didn't get there by himself. And then I've got one other thing, and I'm finished. You've been listening to what I've been saying. You're probably thinking, you know, I understand what needs to be done, but I don't know how to do it. I'm going to give you a technique, and it's not very good preaching, but it's good advice. Most every morning of my life, I get a piece of paper or open a file on my computer, and I list the things I'm trying to control. I'm at the top of a list. My wife Anna is on that list. The ministry I serve is on that list. My reputation is on that list. My goods are on that list. The places where I go are on that list. My schedule, and I wouldn't do it for anybody, but Jesus, is on that list. The people that I love who are sick are on that list. My demons are all on that list, and then I pray, oh God, I give it all to you. And because I'm now a living sacrifice, and you know the way I am, how a living sacrifice keeps crawling off the altar, I ask in Jesus' name that you make this a formal contract. It's yours. And then regardless of my feelings and regardless of how much I try to take it back, begin to conform my heart to this contract. Then you know what you do? Nothing. For God's sake, nothing. You're still. And you wait, and you watch a couple of weeks ago, and Kevin was there. We interviewed Sally Lloyd Jones. You probably have seen her best-selling children's Bible, that Jesus' storybook Bible is so good. But she's written a new book, and we were talking to her about the new book. It was poor, dorine, a fishy tale. And Kevin in the interview said to her, said, look, where did this story come from? Where did it come to you out of the blue? And she said, oh no, it was my story. And it was perfect, and I had it together, and I sat down to write it. And then this crazy fish showed up, and things went haywire, and it wrote itself. If you're willing to give it up, and if you listen to what I taught you, be still. And this crazy God, who's never safe, who's always scary, and who loves you, will show. And write the story for you. You think about that? Amen. Hello Creek Church is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America. Our website is www.willocreekchurch.org, and our phone number is 407-699-82-11.