Waiting on God's Fire
Acts 2:1-8, 12-13:
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?
12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”
Transcript
Please forgive any errors in this automatic transcript. Thank you!
Imagine if Jesus showed up to our Christmas Eve service and he was on fire. The coming of the Holy Spirit on the Jewish holiday of Pentecost would have been a little bit like that. Let me explain. They're off work. They're at. Well, not the church, but they're gathered as the as the people. And in this case, things are a little different because of the whole. Jesus rose from the dead and then ascended into heaven. But gathering for Pentecost was a typical thing for them. Everyone's off. Everyone's thinking about their God. And in this particular time, about Jesus. Just as when we're here for Christmas Eve, most places are closed, even secular. Most places are closed for Christmas Eve. People go to church who don't normally go to church. It's. It's a place where we're all gathered thinking about baby Jesus in that particular case. And we're all together and we light each other's candles and it's just this beautiful glow. It's one of my favorite moments, this beautiful glow as we celebrate baby Jesus. The coming of God to be on earth with us as a little baby who could not even hold up his own head. But imagine we're doing that. We're lighting the candles. I'm showing you how to do it correctly so we don't start a fire. Besides the little fires, that's all the fires we want. But then, through the front doors, Jesus comes in and he's on fire, but he's not consumed. This doesn't look like a violent, horrible thing that's come through our front door. It's just he's on fire, which makes it even weirder. It's. It would be this holy interruption of overwhelming presence in a moment. We did not expect it. Pentecost, I think, was a little like this. They were gathered for a holiday that they always celebrated, and this time they were waiting in Jerusalem, as Jesus had told them to. And then as they celebrated, the Holy Spirit came in like a wind. But instead of a rush of air, there was a rush of fire. And instead of burning, there was a filling of the Holy Spirit. Do you ever wonder what's up with all the fire in the Bible? Because this is not the first instance of fire in the Bible at all. Not the first instance. So I think it's important for us to dive in and see what is biblical fire and what does it mean. Now for this, I'm just going to we're going to pretend I have a foreign and almost two year old. We do a lot of pretending in our house. I'm going to pretend to take off my pastor hat and set it there and pick up my Professor Leah hat, just for a little while. And then I will switch back. I even have it in my notes highlighted so that I switch back to the Pastor Leah hat. But for now, welcome to Biblical Fire one hundred and one. Where else do we see fire in the Bible? Well, that could be a whole sermon series all by itself. But let's start with the burning bush. We're just going to talk about a few of them. The burning bush is one of one of the first instances of fire in the Bible. We've got Moses, who was in some ways a miracle baby, and that in his time, all the other baby boys were killed by Pharaoh. But instead he was rescued by Pharaoh's daughter. He became a prince. He had a serious identity crisis between his Hebrew, uh, his Hebrew identity and his adopted identity as a son of Pharaoh. Serious identity crisis led to the murder of an Egyptian man, which led to him fleeing the scene, starting a brand new life as a shepherd. He got married. He had kids. He did a whole separate thing. And then at eighty years old, he's in the desert and suddenly sees a bush on fire, which probably wouldn't be that unusual, but it was on fire and it was not burning up. And it is strange enough that Moses is like, I've got we've got to take a detour. I've got to see what's going on over there. And so he goes to this burning bush and he encounters God. The story of the burning bush tells us that the fire of God is God's presence. It represents God's presence with us. And then just a few chapters later, God has convinced one of the most reluctant leaders in the whole Bible that he really is going to bring these people out of Egypt, and they really are going to go to the Promised land. He finally convinces them that he really is the leader he wants. Moses is sitting there going, you want to do what? He did not think it was him, but he kindly convinced him. He got through to him. They did the all of the miracles and in many ways, horrible miracles that were involved in the plagues. And they are out of Egypt, and God is guiding them by a cloud, by day and fire by night, a pillar of fire by night. And so for those Hebrew people, the fire of God was the presence of God, yes, but was also the guidance of God. And then here's another one. Many, many books ahead. We've had kings at this point. Saul, David, Solomon have all come and gone. And now we are in a time where the profits are the main leaders. There's kings sometimes when they're not conquered. But mostly, if you want to know what gods do when you look to the prophets in these times. And that was Elijah. Elijah was challenged that or Elijah and the worshippers of Baal were having a conflict. They were saying that Baal is real. Elijah's god is not. And obviously Elijah was saying the opposite. And so Elijah says, let's do a test. Let's build an altar to God, each of us to our gods. And we will pray and ask him to send fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice. And we'll see what happens. And they agree to it. They think that sounds pretty good. They really do believe in their God. And so they build these sacrifices, and the people start praying to God, and they start doing all of these rather horrible things to themselves to try to get their gods God's attention cutting themselves. And nothing's happening. And Elijah, who maybe in this moment reminds us that even the prophets weren't fully sanctified the whole time of their lives, started making fun of them. Maybe your God is. I'm going to use the four year old language because that's what we use in my house. Maybe your God's on the potty. That's actually that's a paraphrase, but that's actually what it says. Uh, he just starts mocking them. And then Elijah takes as much water as he can and he soaks his sacrifice. If you've ever tried to start a fire with wet wood, you know, it's, it's a bit challenging to get anything going. And for it to stay lit, he soaks it and then he prays for God to light this fire. And God sends fire from heaven that consumes everything on the altar. There wasn't even water left at this site after God's consuming fire came down and destroyed it all. So in this moment, again, God's fire is presence. He showed up when Baal couldn't. But it's a powerful presence. God's fire is a powerful presence. So just from these three stories, the nature of fire is a holy, guiding, powerful presence of God. It's a massive supernatural display for a moment of God really is here. God really is real. And fires have a continued tradition in the church, not necessarily in Scripture, but built throughout these two thousand years. For instance, these two candles that are acolytes light every Sunday represent Jesus. They represent God's presence here with us. We're on Christmas Eve. We have our advent wreath and we take the light from the Christ candle. And I light my candle. And then it goes out and we light all of our candles from the Christ Candle, which also represents Christ's real presence and ending of the waiting season of advent. And finally, Christmas is here. Jesus is born. God is with us. And so this idea of fire as God's presence continues on. So Pentecost fire, then, is the real presence of God, just like Moses experienced at the burning bush. The Pentecost fire is also a guiding, this time not through the wilderness, but a guiding towards others and their ability to speak other languages. They were able to communicate with people who they wouldn't have been able to talk to and communicate what Jesus had just done for them. It's a guiding and it certainly is a powerful presence, a powerful presence that had a huge reaction from the people who were there. And as promised, I just came across my yellow highlighter. So we're going to take off the professor hat and put back on the pastor one. What does this mean? What does this mean? How is this relevant to the early church? How is this relevant to us? Besides just the fact that it's good to know some biblical history? Let's come back to the text. All of the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit. I've said before that we as Christians are not the aisles of Christianity. We're the body of Christ. We're meant to be together. And we get this image here where each individual believer had a tongue of fire resting on them, but also the whole place had a tongue of fire. It was a corporate experience. It was a new form of God's presence on earth, God's real presence on earth in this church, both individual and corporate. And indeed, it is the powerful presence of God enabling them to speak in other languages. If God chose to give me the gift of tongues, even I would be able to to to understand whatever it is God wanted me to understand or speak. He showed up in a wild way. I imagine that many of the Christians, the followers of Jesus at that time, they weren't called Christians yet, but the followers of Jesus. You know, they were probably expecting God to do something because Jesus had told them, wait in Jerusalem, and they were doing that so they knew God was going to do something. But I bet this whole coming of the Holy Spirit, you're now a tabernacle of God situation was maybe even more than what they thought. But the people who were not followers of Jesus, who were just there for the typical Jewish celebration and saw what had happened, they literally could not believe it. Like, how in the world can these people supposedly speak each other's languages and understand each other? Is this evil? Is that what's happening? Or are they just babbling? In fact, the question was, are they drunk? This is one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. This is because I think it's hilarious. After this passage we read Peter begins this beautiful Pentecost sermon and he begins it with, these people aren't drunk, it's only nine in the morning, which I just think is a really funny thing to be in the Bible. But they did. They were just totally convinced like that. That must be the most Obvious solution, which goes to show when you if you've said it or you've heard people say, I just wish God would give me a neon sign and then I'll believe it. No you won't. God shows up in these incredible, powerful ways all the time. I mean, maybe it's rare, but it does happen. And every time there's somebody who's like, nah, I don't think so. That doesn't make any sense. And if I'm honest, I am a naturally skeptical person. There would probably be times I would be in that camp, too. But when we expect God to be smaller, when we expect God to be small and containable, then when God does something uncontainable, massive, we can't believe it because it has shattered our expectations. It reminds me of when people think too little of fire. Unfortunately, we know that South Georgia just had a rough go with that. And it was so dry up here that we even had a little, little fires popping up too. Even in our neighborhood, actually, someone started a fire in their backyard. That would have been fine in any other situation, except there is a reason there was a burn ban. And so I get on Facebook and I'm just scrolling through and I'm like, which neighborhood controlled? Okay, which house is this? I don't okay, how close is this to mine? Expecting too little from fire when there's a burn ban is a dangerous thing. But then in South Georgia, they had all those fires, and it took a long time to get them contained. And the firemen worked hard to fire. Women worked hard. But it was the rain ultimately, that finally put a stop to the growing fire. We needed that rain. Just the little thing in the right circumstances can become uncontrollable, and God's fire certainly cannot be controlled by us. Now, it's not a destructive fire like my examples. It's a beautiful fire that spreads God's love, that shows other people that God is really with us. Remember, fire is God's presence. God is with us in unimaginable ways in a burning bush, in a pillar of fire. There's even a story of Elijah going to heaven in the chariots of fire. And a fire that comes down and even soaks up all the water. That fire of God's presence is uncontainable. And yet it's so easy to think that it could be contained or to act like it is. We go about our lives thinking I'm just me. I'm just me. I live in Harlem. Smallest town I've ever lived in. I'm just me. I'm just here. You live in Thompson and Warrenton. Norwood. Other towns I've missed. I'm just me. I'm just here. What can God do in me? Well, God took a small group of early believers, lit them on fire in the spirit. In two thousand years later, most of the world at least claims to be Christian. God let that little fire spread throughout the whole world. So what can we do instead of underestimate ourselves? And it's actually really simple. It's watch and wait. Watch and wait for where the. The wind of God's fire is blowing and go over there. When you feel the spirit pushing you towards somebody or to do something, even if it's unexpected. Do it. I saw a story today where the question was, what's the craziest thing the Holy Spirit's ever done for you? And this I believe it was a high school student said I was just really struggling, having a really bad day. And I said, God, if you're real, would you tell me that you love me? And as he's walking down the hallway to his next class, a girl that he's not even friends with walked up to him, gave him a hug and says, God loves you. A high school student, I love it. I love those stories. And whether she knew it or not, she was watching and waiting too, and when she felt the spirit move her, she went. And she spread that fire to that boy. God's presence is already here. We're not waiting on the spirit to come like they were at Pentecost. The Spirit of God is already here. That same Spirit of God who showed up this fire for that church lives in you and me and us. Remember individual and corporate both. Whether we know it or not, we've all had a Pentecost moment where the spirit filled us. It might be when you first became a Christian, you started to realize something was different in yourself, that something's changed, and that is the presence of God in you. Or maybe it was later I had several. I had made my profession of faith at seven years old, but I've had some moments since then where I could tell the spirit was doing something deep in me. My desires are becoming more of God's desires. What I loved was becoming more of what God loves. I wanted to spend time with God. I wanted to share the gospel. There was this deepening where I and I would call those maybe my own Pentecost moments. We've all had them. In fact, today is also Aldersgate Day, which, if you don't know, that's the day that John Wesley had his heart strangely warmed. What an appropriate metaphor for. For Pentecost. His heart strangely warmed and he calls that the day of his conversion. Even though he had been doing ministry for a long time, including the ministry in Georgia. All the statues you see in Savannah, especially. This was before Aldersgate Day. But he had that moment where his heart was strangely warmed, warmed, and he knew that God really loved him and that changed his ministry and it changed him. The fire of God. If you're a believer, is already in you. Now we have to be careful not to judge how well we're letting the spirit work through us exclusively by the opinions of others. Because there were two main reactions to this. Some believers or some of the early Jews did become Christians. They became believers. They thought, wow, this really is God working. This is this is God here. And it says that three thousand were added to their number that day. So a lot of people believed. A lot of people said, wow, that is the presence of God. This is what God's doing, I believe now, but then you have the people on the other side who already mentioned who are like, I think they're drunk. Pretty sure. And it was the same situation. It just struck the two groups of people very differently. And so if you are genuinely doing the work of God, you will have people who say you are doing a great job. Keep it up. Something that you did for me just really spoke to my spirit. And I just, I feel so blessed. But then you're also going to have people that are not impressed. Just why would you ask to pray for me? We are in a grocery store. That's really weird. Why would you invite me to church? I don't even know you. Why would you come up and tell me that Jesus loves me? Who are you? That doesn't mean you were wrong. That's not a sign of. Oh, I guess I shouldn't have said it. In fact, it might be a sign that God is working on their heart. And their first reaction was, uh, uh, not going to do it. Kind of like Moses at the burning bush. So don't let the reactions of others determine if you interpreted the Spirit's message correctly? Because let me tell you, even if you're not sure if it's God or yourself saying go pray with somebody, I can assure you God is fine with you listening to your own voice to go pray for somebody. If you feel prompted to read your Bible, pick it up. It doesn't matter if it's you or the spirit, because it's probably the spirit. But even if it is you, the spirit's going to be really fine with that. If the spirit prompts you to go talk to somebody at work and offer them an encouraging word. Just do it. What's the worst thing that's going to happen? You've become known as a Christian. You become known as somebody that when they do decide, maybe I do need God, they know they can come to you because you already came to them. And as always, none of this is work harder, do better. This is just new words on a phrase we've been saying in a variety of ways. Consecrate yourself. Stop and submit. Give yourself to God and look to him and say, where is your spirit blowing today? How can I be a part of it? Make me aware. It's often in the moment when you're aware. It's almost like you're clocking in with God. Clocking in, telling him, I'm here. What are we doing today? We are the church. You and me. We are the church. We go out and make a difference in all our communities. We already talked about one example today of making a difference just in your day to day life. And you do that because the spirit is in you, not because you're working harder to try to do better, be a better Christian. Know you're giving yourself to God and you're doing what he prompts you to do. Watch and wait. Stop and submit. Or I think my favorite still consecrate, consecrate, give yourself to God. He will transform you, perhaps into a fire that doesn't burn up, but is a beautiful light of God's presence to those around you. Expect the spirit to be prompting you to be moving around you and those around you in your life and those around you, and prepare yourself to be that fire, that presence of God to those in your midst. Expect it. He's waiting. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you that you sent us Your Spirit. That Jesus came to this earth to be God with us. And then the spirit indwelt us, and suddenly we are God's presence on earth. What a responsibility, because we also know the ways that we're still sinful and we're fighting between our new nature or our old nature. So God. We just give ourselves to you and ask that in all of the situations we face this week, we would recognize when you're prompting us, when you're your holy fire of your presence wants to show up in someone else's life. Help us respond in faith and trust and encourage. In Jesus name, Amen.