The Spirit filled, missional people of God
Readings: Acts 2. 1-21, Romans 8. 14-17
What do we see as we look at not just our passage from Acts, but the rest of the book too? The people of God, empowered by the Spirit of God, for the mission of God.
Go, but wait. Those are the final words of Jesus to his disciples. You’re to go into all the world and be my witnesses, passing on the Gospel message of the forgiveness of sins through Christ and his death and resurrection. But wait, wait until you have received the Holy Spirit. In some ways it feels like a contradiction but it’s not. Because this task isn’t to be done through our own efforts, our own skill and ingenuity, but by the power of the Spirit. I was reading a satirical news article by the writer and comedian James Carey last week. It was written as an interview with the Apostles right after the Ascension, and it was headlined ‘Disciple reckons Great Commission “just about possible, as long as Jesus sticks around and… WAIT, WHERE’S HE GOING? COME BACK!”’
And it stuck with me because in so many ways it hits the nail right on the head. Here’s this little group of Galilean fishermen and tax collectors and others, yes they’ve been following Jesus for 3 years, yes they’ve witnessed so much, learned so much, changed so much, but at the end of the day they’re still just 11, well, now 12 again, ordinary blokes along with a group of ordinary women from different walks of life. And Jesus has tasked them with telling the whole world about him, to share the Gospel to the ends of the earth. That is ambitious. That will be a stretch. And then Jesus leaves. Well, it was ambitious before, it feels impossible now, where do you even start? Wait, Jesus says, wait.
And as they’re waiting the world starts arriving in Jerusalem, people from across the Greek world start pouring into the city for the approaching festival. As they’re waiting and praying, God is bringing the world to them.
And then the day of Pentecost arrives, the day of the festival, and as the celebrations are going on that little band of disciples are still in that room praying when suddenly the Spirit falls. Suddenly the promised one, the gift Jesus had promised, is given. They are filled with God’s Spirit, and now they’re no longer just an ordinary group of men and women, fishermen and tax collectors and others, now they’re the Spirit filled people of God, empowered for his mission.
And out of the house they pour and start telling people about Jesus, and a crowd starts to form because everyone is hearing the Gospel in their own language, and that’s rather strange, they’re all from Galilee, where did they all learn these languages? But some of them decide that actually they’re all just speaking gibberish, they’re drunk, ignore them.
And then Peter gets up, Peter who folded under pressure just a few months ago and denied he even knew Jesus, Peter who was hiding with the others out of fear after Jesus was killed. Peter stands up and addresses the crowd. Big moment. First sermon of the church. How’s he going to start it? ‘Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning!’
We’re not drunk, that’s how he starts it, not sure that’s how I’d have opened if I’m honest. But we can see here the Spirit at work, not overriding Peter, but working through him. It’s still definitely Peter speaking, who speaks first and thinks second, we’re not drunk. But as he starts speaking, the Holy Spirit is at work, he starts unpacking the prophets of old and how they pointed not just to the Spirit coming, but to Jesus and all that he said and did. And if you carry on reading those gathered are cut to the heart and ask what they should do. And he tells them to turn from their sins, to trust in Jesus and to be baptised. And 3000 people come to faith.
From we’re not drunk to 3000 added to the church. From it’s too early, the pubs haven’t opened yet, to this explosion of people putting their faith in Jesus. That’s the Spirit’s work.
Acts 2, and the rest of the book, shows us what the church is. The people of God, empowered by the Spirit of God, for the mission of God.
Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, through our faith in him God has made us his people. As we heard in that portion of Romans this morning, the Spirit, given to us when we became Christians, testifies that we are God’s people, his children. And that same Spirit empowers us to carry out Jesus’ commands. The Spirit empowers our witness to the world. And we find it time and time again in the New Testament. The Spirit ensured that Philip ended up walking beside a chariot carrying a eunuch from Ethiopia who happened to be reading one of the prophecies about Jesus and they strike up a conversation and the man ends up being baptised. Paul writes that he’s a terrible public speaker, and we know he’s not being modest because Acts chapter 20 records someone literally falling out of a window because they fell asleep during one of his sermons and yet his preaching and writing brought thousands to faith in his lifetime and millions more in the centuries since. It’s not about them, or us, our skill, our ingenuity, our popularity, our brilliance, God invites us to share in his work, but not so that we shoulder the burden, plough on in our won strength, but so that we might rejoice in his work with him as he works through us by his Spirit.
We may think if Paul was here, if Peter was here, if St David was here, if Cranmer was here, if Wesley was here, we’d be alright, they’d sort everything out, turn the church around. But that’s never how it’s worked. We look back at the spiritual giants of the faith and perhaps think weren’t they amazing, but what we’re really looking at is faithful women and men empowered by the Spirit of God to speak about Jesus. The people of God, empowered by the Spirit of God, for the mission of God. That’s not a select group of heroes of faith, that’s us. You and me and the person sitting next to you. Ordinary people filled with the lifegiving power of God, sent to share the hope that we have, in the Spirit’s power.
Which means all the strategy in the world won’t help us. The mission statements and the tag lines and the mission action plans. They’re not bad things but so often what were trying to do is manufacture growth. Trying to do the right things, find the right formula which will be the golden ticket to turning things around, to people coming to faith. But instead what we find time and time again is that it’s not about that. When it comes down to it, it’s all about prayer and faithfulness. Prayer, an utter reliance on God, his moving, his empowering, working in his strength and not our own. And faithfulness, going and telling, sharing our faith, passing on the Gospel.
If the church spent half as much time as it does on action plans and strategies and new initiatives in prayer, if we spent half as much time as we do doing stuff for the church, instead in prayer as individuals and together, what would we see? What might God do with that. An off the cuff sermon from Peter and 3000 people were added to the church, 3000 people who then went back home, scattered across the Roman world, empowered by the Spirit to share their faith, you can’t plan that. What might God do with us, with our prayer, and our faithfulness?
My brothers and sisters, we in our day are the people of God, empowered by the Spirit of God, for the mission of God. So let us draw closer to one another as one people. Devote ourselves to prayer, and doing God’s work, keeping Jesus’ commands not in our strength but through the strengthening power of the Spirit. And let us go out, empowered by the Spirit to speak to where people are at with the good news of Jesus. For that’s what the Holy Spirit is truly about, he’s all about Jesus. So moving in his power, may we too be all about Jesus and the hope and forgiveness and new life that he brings.
Amen.