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Looking at God
Pentecost: linked up to the power! Your worship and your money Discipleship in Today’s World: ‘What are we doing here?’ SERMON NOTEBOOK: ‘Location, Location, Location’: Jordan What was happening at Pentecost?
Pentecost: linked up to the power!
Fifty days on from Easter Sunday the Church celebrates Pentecost. It marks the coming of the Holy Spirit on the disciples and believers who were gathered in an upper room in Jerusalem. The event is recorded in Acts 2 and it tells of the Spirit coming with dramatic signs; a sound like a rushing wind, the appearance of flames of fire and the ability given to the apostles to preach the Good News in languages they had not learned.
When Jesus had earlier spoken to his disciples about the coming of the Spirit, he emphasised spiritual power. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you” (Acts 1:8). And that promise was marvellously fulfilled. When the Spirit came on that Pentecost morning, the apostles began to witness boldly. They preached salvation in the name of the risen and ascended Lord Jesus (Acts 2:37-42). On that day some three thousand men and women believed in Jesus as Lord and Messiah and were baptised (v.41).
Later it is recorded that the apostles gave testimony to Christ’s resurrection ‘with great power’ (Acts 4:33). All through the book of Acts we see the Christian church preaching and witnessing, suffering and serving with great spiritual power. Even their enemies spoke of them as ‘turning the world upside down’ (Acts 17:6).
At this Pentecost season we need to recapture the power of the Spirit. Perhaps our lack of power is because something has gone wrong with our spiritual connections. Maybe we are not ‘linked up’ to the Spirit as those early Christians were. I recall an event of many years ago that illustrates the importance of being ‘linked up.’ I had returned home from college during the summer holidays to the farm in Northern Ireland where I had grown up. Some months earlier electrical power had come to that part of the country for the first time.
One evening in late August, I visited one of our neighbours. His farm lay next to ours and I was talking with him in one of his fields. Across his farm and ours there had been installed a line of wooden poles. These poles supported the electric cables. We were standing near one of these poles and it carried a notice stamped into an aluminium plate. It warned that some 33,000 volts of electric power were running through the wires. As we stood there that summer evening, we could hear the current humming in the wires. An hour later I was in my neighbour’s home – and it was lit with oil lamps! He had 33,000 volts of electric power passing over his farm but he had none in his house. He was not ‘linked up’ to the supply.
Often in the church we are like that. We have the services, the programmes, the plans, the personnel – but not the power of the Spirit that convicts sinners and brings them to faith in Jesus. There is little danger that we will turn even the parish upside down, much less the world! This Pentecost celebration is a time to get ‘linked up’ to the Holy Spirit.
Dr Herbert McGonigle is Senior Lecturer in Historical Theology & Church History, Nazarene Theological College, Manchester.
Your worship and your money
By Elizabeth Goodridge and Ian Yearsley
Worship is what we give to things that matter to us, things to which we assign worth and value. To the writers of scripture, money ranked high in their concerns. Despite the fact that many transactions were by barter or mutual service, there are more than 2,000 references to money in the Bible.
Money can be used or misused; Jesus threw the moneychangers out the Temple, yet many of the Biblical metaphors are based on money: redemption, wages of sin, ransom, debt, treasure in heaven, pearl of great price. They saw money as a means of exchange, yet today most money transactions are about money making money out of money.
And Christians who talk of being 'biblical' frequently choose to ignore the twelve clear prohibitions on usury (the giving or taking of interest) in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Nehemiah. They do so despite church leaders' warnings; Pope Benedict spoke about the "false ways" of usury as recently as last November.
Islam has similar prohibitions but takes them more seriously; Islamic banking based on profit-sharing rather than interest is now available in this country and Christian as well as Islamic scholars are trying to work out a whole system of money that could reclaim the vision of the world's three great religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They face an uphill task: like Herod's Temple the world's temples of moneychanging are solidly built over many years.
Money becomes a false god when we worship it as an end in itself rather than as a means of exchange. So Christians need to explore creatively the questions posed by Islamic banking. We may be deeper than we realise in the worship of money, and God is capable of overturning our tables of moneychanging just as Jesus overthrew those in Herod's temple.
Some key scripture references are Exodus 22: 25; Leviticus 25: 35; and Deuteronomy 23: 29. A resource is the Christian Council for Monetary Justice, 21 Bousfield Road, London SE14 5TP, email: Peterchallen@gmail.com. Pope Benedict's references to "false ways of life" based on usury and debt were in his 2 November 2005 general audience in Rome.
Discipleship in Today’s World: ‘What are we doing here?’
‘What are we doing here?’ is a question that we’ve all asked ourselves at some point.
For the exiled Jews in Babylon during the sixth century BC it was a challenging question. Jeremiah writes urging them to engage with the surrounding society and culture: “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:7).
As ‘exiles and strangers’ (1 Peter 2:11) ourselves, we are called to engage with the society in which we live, in order to make disciples and transform it. This will bring the peace (i.e. ‘wholeness’) that Jeremiah is talking about, when aspects of society reflect God’s values and standards.
In order for this to take place, we have to be like the yeast in Jesus’ parable: “the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough” (Matthew 13:33). Just as a small amount of yeast is needed to affect the whole lump, so the Christian church (7.5% population goes to church or 1 in 13 people) is big enough to make a difference!
Currently there are lots of encouraging experiments and refection on new forms of church for the twenty-first century. However, we mustn’t forget that the key issue is not the form that church takes, but whether the community is engaging with the surrounding culture in order to make 24/7 disciples. After all, we’re here to help one another to be fully engaged in living, applying and sharing the difference Jesus makes wherever he has placed us.
Why not think about the following questions: Where is God calling me to be an ‘agent of transformation’? How can the church more effectively help and support me in this role?
SERMON NOTEBOOK:” Location, Location, Location” Jordan: 2 Kings 5
It was at the River Jordan that Naaman, commander of the king of Syria’s army, was healed of leprosy. His healing from this disease, with its associated physical and emotional scars, illustrates the ways in which God can bring healing and renewal to our lives.
Naaman thought he could bargain with God Naaman approached this healing like any other problem. He assumed that his credentials would impress Elisha and influence the king, along with the money he brought them (4-6). However, he failed to understand that neither God nor his prophets can be manipulated or bought off, as God’s salvation (i.e. wholeness) is always a gift. In what ways do we try to get God to do what we want?
Naaman took offence at God’s methods When Elisha sent a messenger, telling him to wash in the Jordan seven times, Naaman was not at all impressed (9-13)! He had his own ideas as to how God should work. However, knowing Naaman’s inflated sense of his own importance and spiritual pride, God chose this method to show Naaman that only HIS power could heal him. How has God worked in our lives contrary to our own expectations?
Naaman finally surrendered to God It was Naaman’s servant who got him to do what Elisha had told him. He pointed out that if he were prepared to do great things to achieve his goal, why not agree to do lesser things. This enabled Naaman to overcome his pride and receive God’s healing, as he submitted himself to God in faith (13, 14). In what circumstances has obeying God enabled him to work afresh in our lives?
Naaman’s story demonstrates how God’s purposes for our lives are not only beautifully simple, but also simply beautiful!
What was happening at Pentecost?
Was it an extra dimension, on top of following Jesus and being born again?
Not exactly. Pentecost, rather, is the thrilling fulfilment of Christ’s earlier promise of the New Birth and the Spirit’s indwelling power – on an international scale. Luke’s Gospel ends with Jesus pledging, “I am gong to send you what my Father has promised” (Luke 24:49). Luke’s book of Acts was to be the exhilarating sequel.
Supposing the book of Acts had been lost? We would have found it almost impossible to explain the phenomenal power and boldness of the early Christians. For the book opens with the historic gathering of Pentecost; with the sound of the rushing mighty wind, the flames of fire that settled on the disciples, and the miracle with which the amazed listeners heard the Gospel being announced to them – each in their own language. (Acts 2:1-13). Pentecost gave the Gospel of the New Birth an international platform! It was a unique event, a universal event and a saving event.
All this had been prophesied in the Old Testament – as Jesus explained when teaching Nicodemus about the New Birth. He had taught his disciples that the Holy Spirit, “another Counsellor”, would come and indwell them (John 14:16-18). Not a different Counsellor, but, as the New Testament Greek implies, a second Counsellor or ‘Helper’ who would be the ‘other’, unseen presence of Jesus himself, accessible to believers in China, the Americas, or Africa…
We can illustrate. Picture a pop star coming down the aeroplane gangway at Heathrow. A thousand fans are waiting eagerly – just for a glimpse. Maybe four or five might get an autograph? However, the contact can only be disappointingly limited. After a few minutes the celebrity steps into a car and is driven away. But later that evening comes the explanation: there on the screen, in the TV concert, is the same familiar celebrity – now made accessible to millions of fans, by another medium.
Christ was taken away from the few, in order to become accessible to the many – to believers on every continent. Through ‘another Counsellor’ (the third Person of the Trinity), the very presence of Christ himself is brought into your home, but (better than a pop star) right into your heart and life.
When we have become Christians, been ‘born again’ into God’s Kingdom, we sense that ‘Christ has come into my life’. That is true. Christ has become real to us, as our Lord, and ever-present companion. However, technically speaking, it is the Holy Spirit who, as Christ’s ‘other self’, has taken up residence.
It is because the Spirit magnifies Christ (John 16:14), that there is a certain anonymity about the Counsellor. A Spirit-filled person is, inevitably, a Christ-centred and Christ-aware person. The Spirit is the Executive of the Godhead. He comes to accomplish IN us all that Jesus came to do FOR us at the Cross – making forgiveness and the Lord’s friendship a personal reality, all our days.
From The Top 100 Questions by Richard Bewes (pub by Christian Focus)
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