The Fire Spreads (09/Sep 06)
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ACTS M3 Sermon Notes C Sept. 6, 2009
Title: The Fire Spreads
Text: various selections from Acts 2
Big Idea: The work of God grows in an individual and through a community as people turn to Christ and the Spirit shines through them.
Do any of you wear Hush Puppies? Perhaps you think of Hush Puppies as a shoe brand for older people and for years they were. But then a small group of cool young people start to wear them to the clubs and bars of downtown Manhattan, then the cool kids copied them, and the less-cool kids copied them, and so on and in two years, sales of Hush Puppies had exploded by a stunning 5,000%, without a penny spent on advertising.
Malcolm Gladwell argues that for something to reach a tipping point, i.e., an unstoppable movement, it requires a group of people to get behind it with a rare set of social gifts which enable them to influence and persuade others.
We have begun a series at Tenth in the Book of Acts, and we have been asking the question: How did the early church spread like wildfire in the first century?
The early Christian movement was not led by a hip group of young adults who hung out at trendy night clubs of Jerusalem. It was led by a group of people, who were for the most part, uneducated fishermen who had no power, no clout, no money. And, the early church was just one movement in the first century in a world where there were hundreds of other mystery religions, philosophies, and political movements competing for influence, and yet it was the Christian movement that ended up revolutionizing the Roman Empire and creating a movement which today numbers 2 billion. The movement now claims one in every three persons out of a world population of about 6.7 billion people.
How did this happen?
Kenneth Scott Latourette who taught at Yale University, said of the early church movement:
The more one examines the factors which would seem to account for the extraordinary victory of Christianity the more one is driven to search for a cause underlying them all. It is clear that at the very beginning of Christianity there must have occurred a tremendous burst of energy virtually unparalleled in history without which the future course of the religion is inexplicable.
What was the tremendous burst of energy that empowered the early church to take off? The Book of Acts tells us that it was power of the Holy Spirit.
The presence of the Holy Spirit shone through those early followers of Christ, enabling them to bear witness to the reality of Jesus Christ… as they reflected the love and courage, the wisdom and power of Christ in their world.
Today, we’re going to look at what happens when the Holy Spirit begins to shine through a person, and then we’ll look at how to become a person through whom the Spirit shines (2x).
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Acts 2:1.
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: "Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, [b] 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"
The Day of Pentecost simply refers to the 50th day after the Sabbath of Passover Week, and it celebrates how God gave his people the law on Mount Sinai. Jewish people (and converts to Judaism) from around the world would gather in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost, and so Jerusalem is crowded with people from around the world who speak different languages in Jerusalem at this time. The setting is very international (not unlike Vancouver).
On this Pentecost Day the Holy Spirit is poured out on the followers of Christ.
We read in verse 3 that what seemed to be tongues of fire came to rest on each on the followers of Christ and they began to speak other languages (tongues) as the Spirit enabled them.
People who had gathered from around the world heard the followers of Christ praise God in their own languages (let’s say you were visiting remote village in China where no one spoke English. Suddenly a power came over someone enabling a person to praise God in perfectly English. That would be startling). They were amazed… some were perplexed and wondered if these people had had too much wine.
Peter responds to the charge that followers of Christ have had too much wine. Peter says it’s only 9:00 in the morning. Peter says what is happening here is a fulfillment of what the prophet Joel prophesied hundreds of year before (2:17): “In the last days God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy; your young men will see visions; and your old men will dream dreams.’”
In Joel’s day and in former times the Spirit of God might rest momentarily on a few people. But now, from the Day of Pentecost forward, the Spirit of God could now shine through all of God’s people.
When the Spirit of God begins to shine on person what happens to them?
According to Acts 2, at least 3 things happen: one is that the person who receives the Spirit also receives some kind of new power and capacity.
For these followers of Christ on this Day of Pentecost that new capacity was to speak in a language that they had never studied before. (When the Spirit of God comes upon person, one of the possible signs (though not the only possible sign) might be that a person is given a new prayer language, a capacity to praise God in a new “heavenly” language. In some rare instances it might different an earthly language, but it is more commonly some kind of heavenly language.
When the Spirit shines upon us, we may experience some kind of new power: it may be a new power to lead, a new power to discern, a new power to care for the hurting, a new power to overcome an addiction.
When the Spirit of God shines on us we also receive a new capacity (as we see in verse 11) to praise and worship God. One of the signs that the Spirit has entered us and is working in our heart is that we have a new love for God and a passion to praise him. Sometimes people have asked me, why is there so much focus on praising Jesus here? When the Spirit of God shines upon a person, he or she wants to praise Jesus.
A third sign that the Spirit of God is shining upon us is that we are become more inclusive and accepting of people who are different from us. Commentators have pointed out how God pouring out his Spirit and enabling people to speak in different languages in effect reversed the curse of the Tower of Babel. In Genesis 11 we read how human beings spoke a common speech, but they became egotistical and proud and thought that they could build a tower that reached to the heavens.... But God confused their language so that they were not able to understand each other and scattered them all over the earth. At Pentecost we see how God, causes his Spirit to shine down on people, transforms and unites them by enabling to speak in different languages.
When the Spirit shines down on us we have a new capacity to love people who are different from us. Religion in the first century tended to divide people along the lines of class, levels and ethnicity. The mystery religions catered to the rich and had high entrance fees, Greek philosophy appealed to the highly educated and culture, pagan deities tended to connect with nations and regions, but when people were filled with the Spirit of Christ they loved people across the lines of class, culture, and race. As I have quoted before, a pagan priest wrote to Emperor Julian and said, “The reason the Christians are growing so quickly is because Romans love Romans, Hebrews love Hebrews, Africans love Africans, Greeks love Greeks, but those Christians they love everyone.”
When Spirit of God shines through a person, they have a new power, a new love for God, and for other people. As the Spirit shines through a person, other people begin to wonder what they are missing and people are drawn to God. Thousands of people in Jerusalem see the Holy Spirit shining through the lives of the first followers of Christ. This sets the stage for 3000 people to be added for the church numbers and for the church to grow 26-fold.
Would YOU like to become a person through whom the Holy Spirit shines? A person who shines with a new power and love for God and people? Many long to be people who shine more with the Spirit of Jesus…
When I was 15 years old I attended the Firs, a Christian Conference Center on Lake Whatcom, in Bellingham (where we had our annual church camp earlier this year). There I met and spent time with our camp counselor from California whose camp nam was Bam Bam. He drove the ski boat that week, played basketball with us, and took us to a place where we rappelled down the side of a cliff. The love and joy of God shone through him, making me think, “He has something I don’t.” I was drawn to God through him.
How do we become a person through whom the love of God shines?
Peter explains.
He calls the people who gathered in Jerusalem and us to Christ and to experience his forgiveness and the filling of his Spirit.
Peter proclaims that Jesus of Nazareth was not just a carpenter, but the Messiah, the Savior figure that God had promised for the world.
In Acts 2 verse 22, Peter says: "People of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. “
Jesus was born in the tiny town of Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, another small, obscure village, he had no formal education, had been a carpenter…. And according to Isaiah, he had no outward beauty or majesty that would draw a person to him. But God did all kinds of miracles through Jesus—turning water into wine, opening the eyes of the blind—something that had never been done… even raising the dead.
Many of the people who hear Peter speak that day would have witnessed (or least heard about) the miracles that Jesus had done. Peter explains that these miracles were signs that Jesus was the Messiah, the long-awaited Savior-figure who had been promised by God…
In verse 23 Peter says: “This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”
The idea that the Messiah figure, the Savior of the world, had been crucified was a huge stumbling block for the Jewish people. The Jewish people regarded anyone who was nailed to a cross having been guilty of the crime and cursed by God. The scriptures say “cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree,” (Deuteronomy 21), but Peter explains that this was part of God’s purpose and plan. God intended Jesus to act as our savior by being crucified on a cross, bearing in his body our sins and shame--the curse we deserved for our sin--on the cross so that we could be forgiven and set free from our sins.
In the movie, Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood plays the role of a retired Ford factory worker and Korean War veteran, who still totes a gun. An Asian immigrant family, from the Hmong people, live next door. They have a shy young teen named Thao. Walt Kowalski, played by Clint Eastwood, develops a friendship with Thao, who calls him Toad.
Thao is pressured to join a local Hmong gang led by his cousin and they turn violent when Thao decides not to join the gang. The gang shoots bullets into Thao’s home, and they physically and sexually assault his teenage sister Sue. Thao is furious, and urges Walt, a war vet to take vengeance with him… Walt decides he will confront the gang by himself. Night falls and Walt walks up outside their home (warning I’m giving away the ending here—so you can cover your ears if you want). The gang members pull out their guns. With cigarette in his mouth, he asks the gang for a light, and then deliberately reaches under his jacket. The gang member riddles his body with bullets thinking he was reaching for a weapon. Walt falls dead to the ground; a lighter tumbles out of his hand…
The Asian gang members are arrested and imprisoned and Thao and his family can live in peace.
In at least one of the reviews of the movie, someone has written that in Clint Eastwood’s younger days, he thought that the best way to deal with evil was to confront evil with evil, violence with violence (a la Dirty Harry). Clint Eastwood now as an older man realizes that the only way to confront evil in a way that can destroy it, is through some kind of sacrifice, some kind of deep act of love where evil is absorbed.
This is what Jesus Christ has done for us. He has absorbed in his body our sins, so that we that sins could be forgiven and so that we could be set free from sin and become clean channels of the Holy Spirit.
The way that we know this actually happened, that Christ took our sins upon himself, as part of God’s foreordained plan, is that God raised him from the dead.
Peter points out in verse 24: “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” And in verse 32: “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.”
In Peter’s day, because Jesus had appeared over a period of 40 days to many people (and at one time to more than 500 people) many of his hearers would have known that Jesus had in fact risen from the dead…
We read in verse 37 that when the people heard this message they were cut to the heart.
Why were they cut to heart?
Peter had said in verse 23 that “God handed Jesus over to you and you, along with the help of wicked men, presumably the Romans, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” Yes, while it was the Romans had actually executed Jesus, but as Peter points out, his fellow Jews were complicit in putting Jesus to death and so he says you put him to death. And there is a sense in which each us put Jesus on the cross in the same way the Hmong family’s situation caused Clint Eastwood to die. Our sins required Christ to go to the cross, and when we realize that our sins put Christ on the cross, we are cut to the heart (like those first hearers)—we are convicted of our sins, but we are also comforted and healed. (When we are cut by Christ, we are not cut with an enemy’s sword, but the cut a surgeon’s scalpel. The cutting will ultimately lead to our healing.)
When the people ask, “What should we do?” Peter replies, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Peter says, “Turn to God.” Repent means turn from your sins and to God and you will receive the forgiveness of God and the Holy Spirit.
The Hebrew counterpart for the Greek word for “repent” is naham. It can mean to comfort one’s self. It indicates what we experience when we come to God.
When we come into the presence of God, we will be cut, cut over the fact that we have sinned before God, that our sins made Christ’s sacrifice necessary for us. But, at the same time, ironically, the very thing that cuts us is the very thing that comforts us--knowing that Christ died for our sins will convict us, but also comforts us like nothing else (It’s like finding out that a friend has paid off a debt of hundreds of millions of dollars for us—we are cut, but also comforted). When we come to Christ and are convicted of sins and then forgiven and comforted, we are in a place where the Spirit of God can shine through us.
There is a person in our community, Kevin Friesen, who has worked on our staff helping to manage our building and helping to oversee our custodial care here. At our staff retreat earlier this year we went kayaking together. He told me part of his story. I have asked him to come and share part of his story with us today.
KEVIN’S TESTIMONY
In 1993 I joined the military. I thought I would live the adventure. I learned a lot in military, how to obey an order, how to polish my boots and how to drink excessively. When I got out I moved to Vancouver with high hopes of becoming a stunt man. Through stunts I fell in love with the art of acting. Actually it was many years before I would fall in love with the art of it, back then I was in love with the thought of being rich and famous. So I did what most aspiring actors do, I served tables. This led to bartending which led to bartending in the clubs. These choices affected who I was hanging out with and what kind of drugs I would do. While I was only a mild alcoholic when leaving the military I found myself, a short few years later, a raging one, with a strong addiction to pot and cocaine. I had done acid, mushrooms and ecstasy to name a few. I don’t really know when it happened but I went from being a young man with loads of potential to a young man so far-gone there wasn’t much hope left. I found myself in a place of total despair. I didn’t really have a reason to live. That’s when I started asking some pretty big questions like: Why am I here? What is the point to all of this? Is there a God? I was in the worst point of my life, totally addicted to drugs, asking questions that I was pretty sure had no answers. I was checking out many different Gods at that time, Buddha, Hari Krishna, Dalai Lama, whatever I could find or come across. I was trying these meditation things, checking out my horoscope daily, just trying to find some sort of answer to why I exist. But nothing, there was no answer and I just kept killing myself with drugs every night. I was raised as a roman catholic and when my mom finally gave me the choice to go or not go, I was outta there! I never thought to look this God, to Jesus as the answer, I mean why would I? I knew that God as a kid, or at least I thought I did, and he doesn’t exist right? Wrong. One night after throwing loads of coke up my nose and smoking a few joints I really started to trip out. I went up into my room and closed the door. I was so out of it that I ended up standing right behind the door as I closed it and didn’t move. I just stared at the back of the door for along time, until, Whap! The door opened and hit me in the face. It was one of my room-mates. He asked me why I was standing behind the door in the first place? I looked at him kinda dumbfounded and said “ I don’t know”. He asked me if I was alright? I said “No”. He then just left the room. He didn’t say another word, its like he knew something was going on that was bigger than him. When he left I looked up and cried out “Jesus, if you are God, then you need to save me.” At that moment I felt compelled to kneel beside my bed and ask for forgiveness. I began to weep. As I prayed to Jesus through my tears of pain, I recall saying “Jesus if you save me I’ll even give up smoking.” I guess I felt that I needed to bargain with him. I then got up on my bed and continued to cry and cry. Then the light above me began to get brighter and brighter. I felt as if though God himself was in the room. He began to say to me “Everything is going to be ok, everything is going to be ok.” Then he just held me like I was an infant in his arms and repeated that same line over and over again. My tears turned to tears of joy and I lay back in his arms and went to sleep, completely sober and completely loved. When I awoke the next morning at 8am, something you just don’t do when you’ve been high on coke the night before, I felt amazing. I felt like I did as a teenager, before I had ever even done any drugs. I jumped out bed and clapped my hands. This was going to be a great day, I said. I went and tried to get anyone of my room-mates up to go out and enjoy the day with me, but I was met with the same response from each one of them. I’m sure you can figure out what was. So I left. I don’t remember too much about that day other than it was the best day, I said hello, to a lot of people and was met with many smiles that day. I will always remember that there was so many smiles, it was like God was saying he loved me in every smile that I passed. I was clean. I moved out of the drug house I was in within 2 weeks. I quit drugs, cold-turkey, no withdrawal no side-effects. It was like it never happened, except that it did. One of my room-mates, the one that hit me in the face with the door, in fact, also left that house with me. He too quit drugs and re-dedicated his life to God. Turns out he was a Christian that walked away from God. There was five of us in that house, 3 of us made it out alive and free from drug addiction thanks to the power of Jesus Christ. That was over 10 years ago now, and believe me, it doesn’t even feel like it ever happened. No matter the situation, Jesus is the answer, I’m living proof of that.
When Christ comes to us, as he came to Kevin and to those people on the Day of Pentecost, we will feel cut by Christ--convicted of our sin, and called to repent, i.e., to turn from our sins and to God. But we will also feel comforted knowing that we are forgiven by God…
When are forgiven by Christ we will also find like Kevin that Holy Spirit is now shining through us, radiating more of God’s power and love in the world….
But it all begins with coming to Christ, letting him cut and comfort us… forgive and fill us with His Spirit.
Prayer of commissioning for Dan and Carla.
ACTS M3 Sermon Notes C Sept. 6, 2009
Title: The Fire Spreads
Text: various selections from Acts 2
Big Idea: The work of God grows in an individual and through a community as people turn to Christ and the Spirit shines through them.
Do any of you wear Hush Puppies? Perhaps you think of Hush Puppies as a shoe brand for older people and for years they were. But then a small group of cool young people start to wear them to the clubs and bars of downtown Manhattan, then the cool kids copied them, and the less-cool kids copied them, and so on and in two years, sales of Hush Puppies had exploded by a stunning 5,000%, without a penny spent on advertising.
Malcolm Gladwell argues that for something to reach a tipping point, i.e., an unstoppable movement, it requires a group of people to get behind it with a rare set of social gifts which enable them to influence and persuade others.
We have begun a series at Tenth in the Book of Acts, and we have been asking the question: How did the early church spread like wildfire in the first century?
The early Christian movement was not led by a hip group of young adults who hung out at trendy night clubs of Jerusalem. It was led by a group of people, who were for the most part, uneducated fishermen who had no power, no clout, no money. And, the early church was just one movement in the first century in a world where there were hundreds of other mystery religions, philosophies, and political movements competing for influence, and yet it was the Christian movement that ended up revolutionizing the Roman Empire and creating a movement which today numbers 2 billion. The movement now claims one in every three persons out of a world population of about 6.7 billion people.
How did this happen?
Kenneth Scott Latourette who taught at Yale University, said of the early church movement:
The more one examines the factors which would seem to account for the extraordinary victory of Christianity the more one is driven to search for a cause underlying them all. It is clear that at the very beginning of Christianity there must have occurred a tremendous burst of energy virtually unparalleled in history without which the future course of the religion is inexplicable.
What was the tremendous burst of energy that empowered the early church to take off? The Book of Acts tells us that it was power of the Holy Spirit.
The presence of the Holy Spirit shone through those early followers of Christ, enabling them to bear witness to the reality of Jesus Christ… as they reflected the love and courage, the wisdom and power of Christ in their world.
Today, we’re going to look at what happens when the Holy Spirit begins to shine through a person, and then we’ll look at how to become a person through whom the Spirit shines (2x).
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Acts 2:1.
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: "Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, [b] 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"
The Day of Pentecost simply refers to the 50th day after the Sabbath of Passover Week, and it celebrates how God gave his people the law on Mount Sinai. Jewish people (and converts to Judaism) from around the world would gather in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost, and so Jerusalem is crowded with people from around the world who speak different languages in Jerusalem at this time. The setting is very international (not unlike Vancouver).
On this Pentecost Day the Holy Spirit is poured out on the followers of Christ.
We read in verse 3 that what seemed to be tongues of fire came to rest on each on the followers of Christ and they began to speak other languages (tongues) as the Spirit enabled them.
People who had gathered from around the world heard the followers of Christ praise God in their own languages (let’s say you were visiting remote village in China where no one spoke English. Suddenly a power came over someone enabling a person to praise God in perfectly English. That would be startling). They were amazed… some were perplexed and wondered if these people had had too much wine.
Peter responds to the charge that followers of Christ have had too much wine. Peter says it’s only 9:00 in the morning. Peter says what is happening here is a fulfillment of what the prophet Joel prophesied hundreds of year before (2:17): “In the last days God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy; your young men will see visions; and your old men will dream dreams.’”
In Joel’s day and in former times the Spirit of God might rest momentarily on a few people. But now, from the Day of Pentecost forward, the Spirit of God could now shine through all of God’s people.
When the Spirit of God begins to shine on person what happens to them?
According to Acts 2, at least 3 things happen: one is that the person who receives the Spirit also receives some kind of new power and capacity.
For these followers of Christ on this Day of Pentecost that new capacity was to speak in a language that they had never studied before. (When the Spirit of God comes upon person, one of the possible signs (though not the only possible sign) might be that a person is given a new prayer language, a capacity to praise God in a new “heavenly” language. In some rare instances it might different an earthly language, but it is more commonly some kind of heavenly language.
When the Spirit shines upon us, we may experience some kind of new power: it may be a new power to lead, a new power to discern, a new power to care for the hurting, a new power to overcome an addiction.
When the Spirit of God shines on us we also receive a new capacity (as we see in verse 11) to praise and worship God. One of the signs that the Spirit has entered us and is working in our heart is that we have a new love for God and a passion to praise him. Sometimes people have asked me, why is there so much focus on praising Jesus here? When the Spirit of God shines upon a person, he or she wants to praise Jesus.
A third sign that the Spirit of God is shining upon us is that we are become more inclusive and accepting of people who are different from us. Commentators have pointed out how God pouring out his Spirit and enabling people to speak in different languages in effect reversed the curse of the Tower of Babel. In Genesis 11 we read how human beings spoke a common speech, but they became egotistical and proud and thought that they could build a tower that reached to the heavens.... But God confused their language so that they were not able to understand each other and scattered them all over the earth. At Pentecost we see how God, causes his Spirit to shine down on people, transforms and unites them by enabling to speak in different languages.
When the Spirit shines down on us we have a new capacity to love people who are different from us. Religion in the first century tended to divide people along the lines of class, levels and ethnicity. The mystery religions catered to the rich and had high entrance fees, Greek philosophy appealed to the highly educated and culture, pagan deities tended to connect with nations and regions, but when people were filled with the Spirit of Christ they loved people across the lines of class, culture, and race. As I have quoted before, a pagan priest wrote to Emperor Julian and said, “The reason the Christians are growing so quickly is because Romans love Romans, Hebrews love Hebrews, Africans love Africans, Greeks love Greeks, but those Christians they love everyone.”
When Spirit of God shines through a person, they have a new power, a new love for God, and for other people. As the Spirit shines through a person, other people begin to wonder what they are missing and people are drawn to God. Thousands of people in Jerusalem see the Holy Spirit shining through the lives of the first followers of Christ. This sets the stage for 3000 people to be added for the church numbers and for the church to grow 26-fold.
Would YOU like to become a person through whom the Holy Spirit shines? A person who shines with a new power and love for God and people? Many long to be people who shine more with the Spirit of Jesus…
When I was 15 years old I attended the Firs, a Christian Conference Center on Lake Whatcom, in Bellingham (where we had our annual church camp earlier this year). There I met and spent time with our camp counselor from California whose camp nam was Bam Bam. He drove the ski boat that week, played basketball with us, and took us to a place where we rappelled down the side of a cliff. The love and joy of God shone through him, making me think, “He has something I don’t.” I was drawn to God through him.
How do we become a person through whom the love of God shines?
Peter explains.
He calls the people who gathered in Jerusalem and us to Christ and to experience his forgiveness and the filling of his Spirit.
Peter proclaims that Jesus of Nazareth was not just a carpenter, but the Messiah, the Savior figure that God had promised for the world.
In Acts 2 verse 22, Peter says: "People of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. “
Jesus was born in the tiny town of Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, another small, obscure village, he had no formal education, had been a carpenter…. And according to Isaiah, he had no outward beauty or majesty that would draw a person to him. But God did all kinds of miracles through Jesus—turning water into wine, opening the eyes of the blind—something that had never been done… even raising the dead.
Many of the people who hear Peter speak that day would have witnessed (or least heard about) the miracles that Jesus had done. Peter explains that these miracles were signs that Jesus was the Messiah, the long-awaited Savior-figure who had been promised by God…
In verse 23 Peter says: “This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”
The idea that the Messiah figure, the Savior of the world, had been crucified was a huge stumbling block for the Jewish people. The Jewish people regarded anyone who was nailed to a cross having been guilty of the crime and cursed by God. The scriptures say “cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree,” (Deuteronomy 21), but Peter explains that this was part of God’s purpose and plan. God intended Jesus to act as our savior by being crucified on a cross, bearing in his body our sins and shame--the curse we deserved for our sin--on the cross so that we could be forgiven and set free from our sins.
In the movie, Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood plays the role of a retired Ford factory worker and Korean War veteran, who still totes a gun. An Asian immigrant family, from the Hmong people, live next door. They have a shy young teen named Thao. Walt Kowalski, played by Clint Eastwood, develops a friendship with Thao, who calls him Toad.
Thao is pressured to join a local Hmong gang led by his cousin and they turn violent when Thao decides not to join the gang. The gang shoots bullets into Thao’s home, and they physically and sexually assault his teenage sister Sue. Thao is furious, and urges Walt, a war vet to take vengeance with him… Walt decides he will confront the gang by himself. Night falls and Walt walks up outside their home (warning I’m giving away the ending here—so you can cover your ears if you want). The gang members pull out their guns. With cigarette in his mouth, he asks the gang for a light, and then deliberately reaches under his jacket. The gang member riddles his body with bullets thinking he was reaching for a weapon. Walt falls dead to the ground; a lighter tumbles out of his hand…
The Asian gang members are arrested and imprisoned and Thao and his family can live in peace.
In at least one of the reviews of the movie, someone has written that in Clint Eastwood’s younger days, he thought that the best way to deal with evil was to confront evil with evil, violence with violence (a la Dirty Harry). Clint Eastwood now as an older man realizes that the only way to confront evil in a way that can destroy it, is through some kind of sacrifice, some kind of deep act of love where evil is absorbed.
This is what Jesus Christ has done for us. He has absorbed in his body our sins, so that we that sins could be forgiven and so that we could be set free from sin and become clean channels of the Holy Spirit.
The way that we know this actually happened, that Christ took our sins upon himself, as part of God’s foreordained plan, is that God raised him from the dead.
Peter points out in verse 24: “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” And in verse 32: “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.”
In Peter’s day, because Jesus had appeared over a period of 40 days to many people (and at one time to more than 500 people) many of his hearers would have known that Jesus had in fact risen from the dead…
We read in verse 37 that when the people heard this message they were cut to the heart.
Why were they cut to heart?
Peter had said in verse 23 that “God handed Jesus over to you and you, along with the help of wicked men, presumably the Romans, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” Yes, while it was the Romans had actually executed Jesus, but as Peter points out, his fellow Jews were complicit in putting Jesus to death and so he says you put him to death. And there is a sense in which each us put Jesus on the cross in the same way the Hmong family’s situation caused Clint Eastwood to die. Our sins required Christ to go to the cross, and when we realize that our sins put Christ on the cross, we are cut to the heart (like those first hearers)—we are convicted of our sins, but we are also comforted and healed. (When we are cut by Christ, we are not cut with an enemy’s sword, but the cut a surgeon’s scalpel. The cutting will ultimately lead to our healing.)
When the people ask, “What should we do?” Peter replies, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Peter says, “Turn to God.” Repent means turn from your sins and to God and you will receive the forgiveness of God and the Holy Spirit.
The Hebrew counterpart for the Greek word for “repent” is naham. It can mean to comfort one’s self. It indicates what we experience when we come to God.
When we come into the presence of God, we will be cut, cut over the fact that we have sinned before God, that our sins made Christ’s sacrifice necessary for us. But, at the same time, ironically, the very thing that cuts us is the very thing that comforts us--knowing that Christ died for our sins will convict us, but also comforts us like nothing else (It’s like finding out that a friend has paid off a debt of hundreds of millions of dollars for us—we are cut, but also comforted). When we come to Christ and are convicted of sins and then forgiven and comforted, we are in a place where the Spirit of God can shine through us.
There is a person in our community, Kevin Friesen, who has worked on our staff helping to manage our building and helping to oversee our custodial care here. At our staff retreat earlier this year we went kayaking together. He told me part of his story. I have asked him to come and share part of his story with us today.
KEVIN’S TESTIMONY
In 1993 I joined the military. I thought I would live the adventure. I learned a lot in military, how to obey an order, how to polish my boots and how to drink excessively. When I got out I moved to Vancouver with high hopes of becoming a stunt man. Through stunts I fell in love with the art of acting. Actually it was many years before I would fall in love with the art of it, back then I was in love with the thought of being rich and famous. So I did what most aspiring actors do, I served tables. This led to bartending which led to bartending in the clubs. These choices affected who I was hanging out with and what kind of drugs I would do. While I was only a mild alcoholic when leaving the military I found myself, a short few years later, a raging one, with a strong addiction to pot and cocaine. I had done acid, mushrooms and ecstasy to name a few. I don’t really know when it happened but I went from being a young man with loads of potential to a young man so far-gone there wasn’t much hope left. I found myself in a place of total despair. I didn’t really have a reason to live. That’s when I started asking some pretty big questions like: Why am I here? What is the point to all of this? Is there a God? I was in the worst point of my life, totally addicted to drugs, asking questions that I was pretty sure had no answers. I was checking out many different Gods at that time, Buddha, Hari Krishna, Dalai Lama, whatever I could find or come across. I was trying these meditation things, checking out my horoscope daily, just trying to find some sort of answer to why I exist. But nothing, there was no answer and I just kept killing myself with drugs every night. I was raised as a roman catholic and when my mom finally gave me the choice to go or not go, I was outta there! I never thought to look this God, to Jesus as the answer, I mean why would I? I knew that God as a kid, or at least I thought I did, and he doesn’t exist right? Wrong. One night after throwing loads of coke up my nose and smoking a few joints I really started to trip out. I went up into my room and closed the door. I was so out of it that I ended up standing right behind the door as I closed it and didn’t move. I just stared at the back of the door for along time, until, Whap! The door opened and hit me in the face. It was one of my room-mates. He asked me why I was standing behind the door in the first place? I looked at him kinda dumbfounded and said “ I don’t know”. He asked me if I was alright? I said “No”. He then just left the room. He didn’t say another word, its like he knew something was going on that was bigger than him. When he left I looked up and cried out “Jesus, if you are God, then you need to save me.” At that moment I felt compelled to kneel beside my bed and ask for forgiveness. I began to weep. As I prayed to Jesus through my tears of pain, I recall saying “Jesus if you save me I’ll even give up smoking.” I guess I felt that I needed to bargain with him. I then got up on my bed and continued to cry and cry. Then the light above me began to get brighter and brighter. I felt as if though God himself was in the room. He began to say to me “Everything is going to be ok, everything is going to be ok.” Then he just held me like I was an infant in his arms and repeated that same line over and over again. My tears turned to tears of joy and I lay back in his arms and went to sleep, completely sober and completely loved. When I awoke the next morning at 8am, something you just don’t do when you’ve been high on coke the night before, I felt amazing. I felt like I did as a teenager, before I had ever even done any drugs. I jumped out bed and clapped my hands. This was going to be a great day, I said. I went and tried to get anyone of my room-mates up to go out and enjoy the day with me, but I was met with the same response from each one of them. I’m sure you can figure out what was. So I left. I don’t remember too much about that day other than it was the best day, I said hello, to a lot of people and was met with many smiles that day. I will always remember that there was so many smiles, it was like God was saying he loved me in every smile that I passed. I was clean. I moved out of the drug house I was in within 2 weeks. I quit drugs, cold-turkey, no withdrawal no side-effects. It was like it never happened, except that it did. One of my room-mates, the one that hit me in the face with the door, in fact, also left that house with me. He too quit drugs and re-dedicated his life to God. Turns out he was a Christian that walked away from God. There was five of us in that house, 3 of us made it out alive and free from drug addiction thanks to the power of Jesus Christ. That was over 10 years ago now, and believe me, it doesn’t even feel like it ever happened. No matter the situation, Jesus is the answer, I’m living proof of that.
When Christ comes to us, as he came to Kevin and to those people on the Day of Pentecost, we will feel cut by Christ--convicted of our sin, and called to repent, i.e., to turn from our sins and to God. But we will also feel comforted knowing that we are forgiven by God…
When are forgiven by Christ we will also find like Kevin that Holy Spirit is now shining through us, radiating more of God’s power and love in the world….
But it all begins with coming to Christ, letting him cut and comfort us… forgive and fill us with His Spirit.
Prayer of commissioning for Dan and Carla.
posted by Shigematsu at 3:37 PM
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