Hi everyone, sorry I have not been adding sermons here lately. I have decided not to post the texts of my sermons any longer on the web. I have always found reading a sermon to be a bit awkward as so much is lost in the transmission.
Also, my church has started to podcast my sermons, and I think listening to them is so much better.
You can find them here.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. ” (Acts 2:42–47, NIV)
A while back my nephew was really interested in our family relationships. He was about 4 or 5, I can’t really remember his exact age, but he was just starting to put all of the various ways that we are connected together.
Whenever he met one of us, he would immediately start to list all of the ways that we were connected to the others in our family.
"Hi, Uncle Chad."
"Hey buddy."
"You are my Uncle."
"Uh,… yeah."
"And Mummy’s sister, right?"
"Yup."
"And Auntie Amber’s brother."
"Yes."
"And Daddy’s brother-in-law, and Grandpa’s Son, and Grandma’s Son, and …"
He was so interested in the family connections, because he wanted to figure out where he fit into this thing that he called his family. He started to identify who he was, by who he was related to, by who his family was.
As we age we begin to define our identities with other things, our group of friends, our careers, our boy-friend or girl-friend, our experiences, the things we own, the way we look.
There are things that shape us, and change us so much that we take every opportunity to tell others about them.
When Sherilyn and I first moved back from England we had been profoundly impacted by the experience of living in a different culture for a whole year, and it came up in virtually every discussion. But after a little while I began to notice something.
No one else cared.
And that really hurt.
When I started to talk about something that we did there, and people’s eyes started to glaze over (you know, that look where people are looking at you, but in their heads they are making up a shopping list) I started to feel rejected.
There was this heaviness in my gut that made me want to lash out, or completely ignore that person for the rest of my life.
How many know what I’m talking about?
It hurt because I had placed my identity in that experience. In essence I was saying, "I am, at the core, someone who has lived in London for a year, and if you do not care about that, then you do not care about me."
I had shrunken my identity to a certain experience.
When you go to a party with a group of people that you have never met before or haven’t seen for a long time and want to make a good impression, what do you do? What do you say?
The thing that you want to make sure these people know about you is where you get your identity.
In our individualistic culture, we identify ourselves less by what we are a part of than the ways in which we are distinct from others. We are constantly searching for ways that we can distinguish ourselves.
Often we get our identities, not by being a part of something, but rather by being distinct from a certain group, or some other person. We isolate ourselves, claim things for ourselves, cordon ourselves off behind fences, long driveways, and big houses.
The problem with this, it that we were not made to be in isolation. In fact, when God is creating the world, the first thing negative thing he says about creation is that it is not good for man to be alone. This is not just limited to a marriage relationship, either. We were made to identify ourselves with others, not opposed to them. We are made for relationship.
We were made for community.
A community like that of the early church.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ” (Acts 2:42–46, NIV)
This is the kind of community that we long for. This is the kind of community we deeply want to be a part of. This is the kind of community we seek to belong to.
Linkin Park, a secular rock band, has a song called "Somewhere I Belong" that expresses this desire.
"I want to heal.
I want to feel.
What I thought was never real.
I want to let go of the pain I’ve held so long.
[Erase all the pain 'til its gone.]
I want to heal.
I want to feel.
Like I’m close to something real.
I want to find something I’ve wanted all along.
Somewhere I belong."
Somewhere I belong.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. ” (Acts 2:42–45, NIV)
Often when we look at this picture of the early church, the first thing we notice is the economic arrangement. We notice how people are keeping everything in common, how they are selling off their assets and giving the money to those who have need, and our first reaction is, "Well, that wouldn’t work."
But the economic arrangement is really a small part of the description of this community. It is a symptom of something else, rather than the cause.
The defining characteristic of the early Christian community is NOT their economic arrangement. After all, as the story continues, this arrangement doesn’t seem to travel with the gospel message. The defining characteristic of the early Christian community was not the economic arrangement, but the closeness of the community.
They were a part of a new community, and they devoted themselves to it.
They were a part of a new family, and they looked out for one another.
They were a part of a new humanity, and they lived as though they cared for each other.
The defining characteristic of this new humanity that has been created in Jesus the Messiah, is that we all belong.
That we are part of one body.
When these girls professed their faith in this ceremony this morning, they were essentially saying that they want to be identified as a part of this community. Profession of faith is simply us standing up and saying, I want to be a part of this.
I want to be a part of this new movement.
I want to be a part of this new community.
I want to be a part of this new humanity.
“Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. ” (Acts 2:46–47, NIV)
The church is not primarily an institution, or a building, or a place to be married and buried. The church is primarily a community. A collection of forgiven sinners, called to be holy, dedicated to service, and saved by the patient grace of God.
Rob Bell puts it this way in his book Jesus Wants to Save Christians.
"A church is the new humanity on display.
She’s in graduate school, and he’s in his nineties;
and one couple has a million dollars, and another doesn’t have enough money for dinner;
and he arrived in this country three years ago with a small suitcase, and they’ve never been out of the country;
and they have a son fighting in the war, and their going to a war protest later today;
and he’s got serious doubts about what he was taught growing up, and she’s just decided that God might even exist.
All of these people – who are divided, who never sit down and listen to each other – in the new humanity, in the church, they meet, they engage, the interact, the begin to feel what the other feels, and the dividing wall of hostility crumbles.
In the new humanity,
them becomes us,
they becomes we,
and those become ours.
…
The beautiful thing is to join with a church that has gathered and find yourself looking around thinking, "What could this group of people possibly have in common?"
The answer, of course, would be the new humanity.
A church is where the two people groups with blue hair – young men and older women – sit together and somehow it all fits together in a Eucharistic sort of way."
This is the place where we really belong.
This is the place where we can be real with one another.
Where the masks can fall. Where we can help and be helped. Where the divisions which keep us lost, separated, alone have been removed.
The new humanity is one in heart, mind, and purpose, because we are one in Christ.
Apparently there are a whole bunch of people all gathered together somewhere in Jerusalem during this time called Pentecost; Jesus’s disciples, some women, Jesus’s mother and his brothers, Suddenly it sounds like a 747 has parked in their living room and little flames of fire move around the room and land on every single one of them. Then, they are filled with the Holy Spirit, they all start speaking in foreign languages and spill out into the street were the crowds accuse them of being drunk.
Pentecost was actually an ancient Jewish festival that went all the way back to Mt. Sinai.
Pentecost marked the time when the Israelites received the covenant.
Remember, Israel had been enslaved under Pharaoh in Egypt, and God had sent Moses to help liberate his people. The night that the Israelites left Egypt, they were told to celebrate this special meal, called the Passover. They were to slaughter and cook a perfect lamb a certain way, and spread some of its blood on the door posts. When the Angel of Death saw that blood he would pass over that house and not enter that house. That night Pharaoh decided to let them go, and a new chapter started in the history of Israel.
Turn with me a minute to Exodus 12
"The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you." (Exodus 12:1-2, ESV)
The first month.
The Passover marked the new beginning for Israel.
They started a new life.
They were freed from oppression because of the blood of the lamb they had spread on the door post.
Then, the Israelites leave Egypt and head out into the desert. They miraculously cross the Red Sea and wind up in the desert of Sinai.
A wasteland of rocks and dust and mountains.
50 days after they celebrated the Passover, the Israelites stood before Mt. Horeb in the desert of Sinai and met with God.
It is here that God meets them and gives them an amazing promise. It is here, in the desert, that God gives them their new identity.
In Egypt the Israelites were defined by how many bricks they could produce, by what they could achieve. But here before the mountain, they had only to receive this covenant that God was giving them.
Look at Exodus 19
"You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.” " (Exodus 19:4-6, ESV)
The Israelites stood there before the mountain and heard God promise that they would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
This is what is celebrated at the time of Pentecost.
So the followers of Jesus were gathered together in one place, celebrating Pentecost, reading the stories of God appearing with fire, and thunder, and trumpets on Mt. Sinai.
“And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them." (Acts 2:2-3, ESV)
The pouring out of the Spirit marks the fulfilment of the new covenant Jesus promised in his blood.
This crowd gathers because they hear this sound, and these 120 people prophesying and telling of the mighty deeds of God. They are all wondering what in the world is going on, so Peter stands up to tell them.
“Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! ” (Acts 2:14–15, NIV)
We’re not drunk. This is the fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel.
“No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: “ ‘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, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” (Acts 2:16–21, NIV)
We don’t really know much about the book of Joel. We know his father was Pethuel, but that’s about it. We’re not really sure when it was written, either, but it seems likely a post-exilic book. It was written by Joel to the people in and around Jerusalem after the return from exile. Written in response to a drought and a plague of locusts.
Joel saw in this event a metaphor for the Day of the Lord, that great day of return when God would come to fully redeem his people.
“Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your forefathers? Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts have eaten. Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine; wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips. ” (Joel 1:2–5, NIV)
"Wake up," says Joel, "look around us. We are not free from the effects of judgement. We do not get a free pass just because we are a part of a certain people group, because we grew up in church and have attended with some regularity, because we give a little bit of our time and money to Christian ministries but keep the rest for ourselves, because we spend some time reading the Bible and trying to live a moral life."
God’s primary desire for us is not some code of behaviour. His primary desire for us is that our relationship with him is renewed.
““Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing— grain offerings and drink offerings for the LORD your God. ” (Joel 2:12–14, NIV)
"If you turn to God," says Joel, "with more than just a surface behavioural change, then he will leave behind a blessing for you."
“Then the LORD will be jealous for his land and take pity on his people. The LORD will reply to them: “I am sending you grain, new wine and oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations. ” (Joel 2:18–19, NIV)
But the blessing doesn’t end with a reversal of the drought and plague of locusts. God promises a deeper renewal.
““And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the survivors whom the LORD calls. ” (Joel 2:28–32, NIV)
Joel leaves the people with a promise that God will not only carry them through their physical trials, but he will reconnect with them in a way he had never done before.
He would pour out his spirit on all people.
Turn back with me to Acts 2:21ff.
“And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ “Men 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. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 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. ” (Acts 2:21–24, NIV)
Then he explains from the scriptures that this was all according to God’s original plan, and in verse 36 gets to the central point of his message.
““Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” ” (Acts 2:36, NIV)
As Peter stands up with the other apostles he is surrounded by all these people who have come to Jerusalem to celebrate and remember the giving of the first covenant on Sinai, a covenant that emphasised behaviour, a behaviour none of us are able to keep fully, he takes this prophecy of Joel, this promise of a new and closer connection to God than had ever been offered, and says that it has been fulfilled in Jesus.
“And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” (Acts 2:21, NIV)
“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” (Acts 2:36, NIV)
God, through Jesus, has completely rescued his people. In Jesus’s death and resurrection our separation from God has been removed. We have been reconciled to God, and the proof of this is that the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, has been poured out on his people.
“When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” ” (Acts 2:37–39, NIV)
We join this new community that God is rescuing from slavery to sin, and the tyranny of our own desires by believing this proclamation that Jesus is Lord and Christ, or Messiah.
Repentance is not primarily a change of behaviour. Repentance is a recognition that we have been living without God, and expresses a desire to return to him.
Repentance is a change of heart.
God’s primary desire for us is not that we follow a code of behaviour.
God’s primary desire for us is that our relationship with him is renewed.
That through Jesus we have been reconciled to him.
That through Jesus we, as a community, have been brought back into full fellowship with him.
God’s primary desire is to dwell with us. To make us into a temple, a place where he can dwell.
This is why Peter calls us God’s people.
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. ” (1 Peter 2:9–10, NIV)
May you open yourself the work of the Spirit in your life.
May you accept the offer of new life provided in the Holy Spirit.
May you be assured of this, God has made this Jesus, whom we crucified, both Lord and Christ.
