What Does It Mean? (Acts 2:12)

Today’s Readings: Jeremiah 15-17; Acts 1:15-2:13

Sounds, flames, different languages, bold preaching from uneducated men. What does this mean? It’s Pentecost! Pilgrims from all across the Roman Empire gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate this important day, the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai to Moses. Something extraordinary happens in the room where Jesus’ disciples gathered to pray. They obeyed His command to stay until they “received power from above.” They didn’t understand how it would come. They didn’t know what it would be. They didn’t really know what it meant. But when it came, there was no mistaking it.

The sound of a mighty, rushing wind…with no wind blowing. A flame pouring into the room then splitting apart and resting on each person’s head. And each person speaking a language they didn’t know, but languages others would understand as they left the room and share the message of Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection to the crowd in the street. Luke lists at least thirteen different languages in his narrative. Thirteen languages these uneducated fishermen, tax collectors, farmers, shopkeepers, and everyday men and women should not know. Yet as they spoke, those who heard them understood every word.

Does this kind of miracle still happen today? I think it does…if we allow God to use us as He wants. He hasn’t changed since the beginning of time. I think what has changed is our willingness to really commit everything to Him in full obedience to His will. We say the right words. We use the right language and dress up nice, but do we really give ourselves to Him lock, stock, and barrel? Too often, the answer is no. Too often, we say a little prayer, cry a few tears, then pick up where we left off and go about our lives as if nothing happened.

The disciples, 120 of them, spent ten days together in intense prayer and fasting. Luke says they came together “in one accord.” I think that means they got over themselves. They ironed out every disagreement between them. All the trivial junk that seems to plague our relationships, they figured out just that, trivial junk and they put it all behind them. They got down to business with God and decided that whatever He wanted, they were willing to give up everything for Him…everything.

Only then did the Holy Spirit come on the scene in such a miraculous way. Yes He came in a way that could never be forgotten partly as a celebration of this new era, this new dispensation…the birth of the church. The Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate would now live in us as Jesus promised. But that empowerment, that extraordinary presence, that ability to do things like we read in Acts, is it still around today? Yep, I think so. But are we willing to pay the price? Are we, like the apostles and those early disciples, willing to give everything to God and say yes to Him in every circumstance? That’s what it means!

Join me next time, won’t you?

Richard

Order in Worship

Today’s Readings: 2 Samuel 23-24; 1 Corinthians 14

Paul gives us his thoughts about the place of tongues in worship and the necessity of interpreters whenever tongues are spoken so the church may be edified. He also speaks of the importance of prophecy so that unbelievers may know God is present in our churches. The real key to both issues is order in worship, not confusion. It only takes a glance at our universe to see that God is a god of order. Everything works together to keep worlds in place. Our planet Earth is in the perfect spot to sustain life. The gas giants in our solar system are also in the right place to keep the comets and asteroids and other major disasters from careening into the inner planets. We saw it happen with Comet Shoemaker in 1994. No doubt it has happened many times in the past and will happen again in the future.

Astronomers tell us the Earth is moving at a snail’s pace of 67,000 miles per hour around our sun. The sun and our solar system is traveling at about 486,000 miles per hour around our Milky Way’s center. The Milky Way, our home galaxy, is hurtling through space at roughly 1,330,000 miles per hour. It seems pretty incredible that all that happens because God spoke into place. Some will say it’s just happenstance – just an accident of nature. I’m awed by their faith in chaos. It’s much easier for me to believe in a Creator.

Paul recognized the order of things around him and recognized God put that order in place. He recognized that without order nothing would happen the way it was supposed to and saw that if God was a god of order, then He appreciated it in worship as well. Chaos does not bring Him joy or He would not have laid out the law that governed worship for so many centuries. A new covenant was born in the sacrifice of His Son, but it did not usher in chaos, it only fulfilled the law and brought us closer to Him.

Does that mean we are inflexible and everything must be planned to the minute? No, we need to make sure we leave room for God to break through in any way He chooses,  but we should also not go into worship haphazardly and without purpose anymore than we would go into the office of (name the CEO or government official) without purpose or focus.

Join me next time, won’t you?

Richard