Warmed Hearts

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Acts 2:1-8; John 20:19-23

May 24, 2015 (Pentecost/Aldersgate Day) • Portage First UMC

Fifty days had passed since the world had changed. Fifty days since Jesus was raised from the dead. That day had rocked their world in so many ways, not the least of which was what happened on the evening of that first day of the week. He had shown up again in the midst of a locked room (they had to keep it locked in case the Romans came looking for them), and he had given some clarity to their mission. In the midst of their joy, Jesus had said he was “sending” them. In fact, he said he was sending them in the same way his Father had sent him. He had always been the sent one; now he was transferring that authority and his mission to them (Card, John: The Gospel of Wisdom, pg. 208). They were to be Jesus in the world, and their mission, he had said, was to announce the forgiveness of sins. They weren’t the ones to forgive sins; that was God’s doing. But they were to announce it and actively live as if people were actually forgiven. They were to warn the world that sin was deadly business but also let the world know that there was a cure to the death that sin brought (cf. Tenney, “The Gospel of John,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, pg. 193; Wright, John for Everyone: Part Two, pg. 150). And the way he did that was to breathe on them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (20:22).

Now, for John’s readers, that ought to remind them of something. John begins his story of Jesus by going all the way back to creation: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1). Now, here at the end of his Gospel, John takes us back to creation, reminding us how, in Genesis, God breathed life into the man and the woman, changing a pile of dust into a living being. Life came from the very breath of God. So, as Jesus prepares to leave his disciples, he, the Son of God, breathes new life into these dusty men, giving them the Holy Spirit so that they can fully live the way Jesus taught them to, so that they can announce forgiveness to everyone they meet (cf. Wright 150). The promised Holy Spirit is to be the presence of Jesus in the life of the believer.

Fifty days later, on the day of Pentecost, those same disciples would experience that in a powerful way. They were once again gathered in the upper room, the place where they had last been with Jesus before his death, and they had been praying for the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise for quite some time now. I wonder how many of us today would have the perseverance to keep praying for the same thing day after day for fifty days, but these folks did. They kept at it. They never quit believing God would come through on his promise, and they were determined to stay in this place until it happened—whatever “it” was. The book of Acts does tell us that they took care of one item of business during this time: they replaced Judas, who had killed himself after betraying Jesus. They elected a man named Matthias to be the twelfth disciple (Acts 1:26), and together the twelve, along with other friends, stayed and prayed and hoped and waited.

Pentecost was a big deal. It was an agricultural festival, held every year fifty days after Passover, on the seventh Sabbath after that big holiday. Traditionally, it had been the time when the “firstfruits” of the spring harvest were presented to God in hopes that such an offering would guarantee a fruitful “rest of the harvest,” but over time Pentecost had also become a celebration of God’s law, the Torah, given to the people. It was the annual renewal of their covenant with God—sort of like what we do at New Year’s with the Wesley Covenant Prayer. Because of that, it became one of the three great “pilgrim festivals” of Judaism; it was one of the times you were expected to make the journey to Jerusalem for the celebration (Tenney 269). And so Jerusalem is packed with people during this time. And the disciples are camped out in the upper room, probably on Mount Zion, near the Temple, where all of the celebration will be taking place. They’re praying and waiting, and then suddenly, it happens.

Listen again to how Luke describes it: “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” (2:2-4). I’ve tried to picture that in my mind, and movies and television shows have tried to portray it. The new show, A.D. had this take on it. VIDEO. But I doubt that we ever really are able to capture the power of what happens in that moment. What Jesus promised with his breath now comes in a rush of wind and tongues of fire. It shook the house and the fire rested over their heads without burning down anything. Wind and fire had long been signs of God’s presence (Longenecker, “The Acts of the Apostles,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, pg. 270), but now these symbols come to the disciples in a very personal way. No longer would God be distant; God had come, in Jesus, to dwell among them, each and every one of them. And he has called them each to a mission: to announce the power of forgiveness to everyone.

That is, after all, the reason for the primary gift they each received on that day. Luke says that when the Spirit came, these disciples were given the ability to “speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” (2:4). There are a couple of things we need to clear up about what happens here. First of all, this is not the same thing as the gift of tongues that Paul talks about later in his letters. What happens here is that the disciples are given the ability, supernaturally, to speak in other languages—specifically, the languages that were represented by the crowd in Jerusalem for the festival. They’re given the ability to communicate the Gospel and announce forgiveness to every person who is gathered there—in their native language. There isn’t any indication that the disciples retained that ability after this day; God granted them a gift for this particular time. Second, some claim that this gift is the primary and required gift, the true evidence of being “filled with the Spirit.” But Paul says otherwise. In fact, he says he would rather speak five words that people can understand than ten thousand words in a tongue (1 Corinthians 14:18-19). The real evidence of the Spirit’s presence in a person’s life is the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience and all the rest (Galatians 5:22-23). Remember what we talked about a few weeks ago: we’re all given different gifts, and no one gift is given to every person. But together, we’re given gifts for the building up of the church and for our witness to the world (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:27). It’s God’s choice to hand out gifts that will be useful in each context to help people hear the good news of the Gospel, the hope of forgiveness. That, I believe, is why Luke emphasizes this gift was given “as the Spirit enabled” (2:4).

Pentecost was an amazing experience that sent these disciples out to share the good news. If you read on through the chapter, you’ll see Peter preaching the good news, as others did undoubtedly, and the report is that 3,000 people became Christians that day (2:41). Three thousand people who responded to a single sermon because the disciples had been filled with the Spirit and had their hearts warmed with God’s grace. Can we imagine such a response today?

You know, that kind of experience and that kind of preaching is a part of our heritage. The founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, had his own Pentecost experience, and it happened on this day, May 24, in 1738. Wesley had been a missionary to what we know as the state of Georgia but he had been a dismal failure there. He ran into several problems while trying to be a pastor to the colonists, not the least of which had to do with a woman. He fell in love with Sophie Hopkey, and she loved him as well. But Wesley was not interested in marriage, while Sophie was. So Sophie began a relationship with William Williamson, became engaged to him and then married him. When the two came to worship, Wesley barred them from receiving communion because he was so hurt by what had happened. People were already frustrated with Wesley’s strict way of practicing his faith, and this little incident just ignited a firestorm which led to Wesley fleeing the American colonies by night and heading back to England. He returned home convinced he was an utter failure.

Wesley already had doubts about his own salvation and his faith in Christ, and his experience in Georgia just increased those doubts. He had seen the faith of a group called the Moravians, a faith that stood strong in the midst of storms, and he envied that sort of faith. But John Wesley, preacher’s kid and ordained clergyman, had serious doubts. Yet he kept preaching, even when he felt so little faith within him. Then came May 24, 1738. That evening, he was invited to what we might call a small group or a FISH group meeting where…well, actually, let me read you Wesley’s own description of the event, because as good Methodists, these are words you ought to know. Wesley wrote about it this way:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart.

While someone was reading from a commentary—and I don’t know much more boring reading anywhere—written by a monk-turned-reformer from the 16th century, Wesley felt his heart “strangely warmed,” and it wasn’t from the pizza the night before. Scholars debate what exactly happened in that moment, whether this was Wesley’s “conversion” moment or whether he finally had a “feeling” of salvation. But to me, it’s clear that what happened was at least a confirmation of Wesley’s call. In that moment, he had the feelings he had longed for for so long, and he was able to preach the Gospel with new strength. A similar experience had happened to his brother Charles just three days before, and out of those two moments, God sparked a revival that saw the power of the Holy Spirit spread like fire across England and around the world. Because of May 24, 1738, men and women were sent around the world to fulfill their call and share the good news (Hamilton, Revival, pgs. 62-70).

One of the hallmarks of the Methodist movement has always been the warm hearted experience, that there is more than just knowing about Jesus. We can know Jesus, personally. But our faith is about more than just knowing Jesus; it’s also about sharing Jesus. That’s why the three statements we repeat here most often are, “Love God, Love Others, Offer Jesus.” That’s more than just something that looks nice on the wall or on our stationary. It’s meant to be our way of life, our calling. It’s not just something the pastors do or the lay leadership does. This is the calling of every single person who claims the name of Jesus, who wants to follow Jesus. All are called, and that belief and practice is rooted all the way back in Biblical times. As I mentioned, in the latter part of Acts 2, Peter stands up and begins to preach to the crowd. And in the midst of that impromptu sermon, he quotes the Old Testament prophet Joel, using these words: “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” (Acts 2:17-18). That was a revolutionary idea, even in Peter’s day. First of all, the Spirit is promised to all people. Not some. Not special people. Not just priests or kings or prophets. The Holy Spirit fell on the disciples but wasn’t just promised to the disciples. The Spirit is promised to all. And not just men. Peter seems to emphasize that the day for segregation based on gender is over. Men and women alike were to receive the power and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Let me put all that in simpler terms: everyone is called. The Spirit calls everyone who wants to follow Jesus to be involved in the ministry of forgiveness, to share the good news that forgiveness is possible.

All are called. You are called to something. The Spirit has given you gifts and will give you power for particular ministry. For some of you, that might be in the occupation you are currently in. For others, it might be a ministry that is outside of your regular work. And for others, it might even be something that leads you to some sort of full- or part-time ministry. And for some, that call might come in a blinding flash of light or a clear, unmistakable voice from God. That was not the case for me. I’ve said God had to work extra hard on me because I didn’t get it right away. He had to gradually lead me along the path to where I am today. I grew up in the church, and my family was there, it seemed, every time the doors were open. I was the kid who, with two or three friends, would sit on the left hand side of the congregation, near the front, and we would use our new, really cool digital watches to time the pastor’s prayer. And Pastor Amos could really pray—sometimes 10 minutes or more! But church was a very comfortable place for me, and I gave my life to Jesus early on, then tried to be involved in various places at my home church.

I very clearly remember my mom asking me one day if I had ever considered becoming a pastor. And since I had no idea what a pastor did other than preach on Sunday morning, I remember telling her no, that would be much too boring a job for me! Now, Mom has always had a keen sense of the way things ought be; she even claims that she pointed me in Cathy’s direction, but we dispute how that all happened. Anyway, once I went to Ball State, I got involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, where I was asked to lead a small group Bible study and, by my sophomore year, to be the president of the chapter. God was helping others see leadership gifts in me that, at that time, I certainly didn’t see in myself. But it was in InterVarsity that I began to see worship as something other than an hour on Sunday to be endured. Worship became very important to me as we gathered as college students on Thursday evenings on campus for worship, and I actively sought out worship in a local church on Sunday morning despite not having a way to get there. No car on campus. And I found I really loved preparing for and leading the Bible study that met in my room on the second floor of Swinford Hall.

It was over Christmas break in 1987, when I attended a missions conference in Urbana, Illinois, that I can say I first really felt a call to ministry. On the final night, Tony Campolo preached the communion service, and at the end, he asked everyone who sensed God calling them to some sort of ministry to stand. Without much thinking about it, Cathy and I both found ourselves on our feet. I had no idea what that meant at that point, but it seemed right. In that moment, I thought God was calling me to work with InterVarsity as a campus minister. That was the world I knew, and so I began to make plans to follow that career path. Except there was the little matter of marriage. InterVarsity, wisely so, wouldn’t let your first year on staff with them coincide with the first year of marriage, as they believed that was too much stress and change all at once. So I made plans to get married and go to seminary for a year, to see if they knew anything, and then I would go on staff with InterVarsity. And I think God was up there chuckling all the time, because he kept calling and directing and wooing us—me, in particular—toward pastoral ministry. Cathy and I hadn’t been married very long when, one evening at dinner, I told her I was sensing perhaps God calling me to be a pastor. And, at that moment, she smiled and said, “I’ve been hoping you would realize that.” Yes, husbands, our wives are often wise far beyond us, but the really wise ones allow we husbands to think that we came up with that idea all on our own!

And so, that fall, we moved to Wilmore, Kentucky, where we spent four wonderful years in seminary. God used that time to clarify and refine my call and place within me a deep love for the local church. He also used that time to confirm my call to pastoral ministry through a number of people, not the least of which was my home church as well as the church I was working in at the time. You see, we believe in our tradition that God calls people into various kinds of ministry, and the church confirms. In the United Methodist Church, we have a lengthy process for getting to ordination, and while sometimes some of it seems like mere busywork, the point is at least supposed to be helping each person clarify their call. That’s the question that is most often asked of each person who wants to pursue ministry: tell us about your call. Because God is the one who calls, and this is not just a job with good benefits. In fact, I remember my first senior pastor, Tom Rough, driving me around Muncie when we arrived to begin serving at High Street Church, and out of all the things Tom told me that day, one thing still remains with me: “You’d better be called to this work or it will eat you alive.” He’s right. And there are many times I’ve had to go back to that sense of call in order to keep from being eaten alive. God calls, the church confirms, and the Spirit empowers.

Because we’re all called. God has a ministry for each and every one of us. For every person in that Upper Room, God had a ministry in mind. Some of them we know about from the Scriptures, and others only from tradition. The stories of Peter and Paul are written down, but from church history we know that James (son of Zebedee) went to Spain, Nathaniel went to Armenia, Matthew went to Ethiopia and Thomas went to India (cf. Kalas, The Thirteen Apostles). They went wherever the Spirit led them, seeking to be faithful to the God who called them. John Wesley rode all over England, preaching outside in any location he could even after being turned out of most of the churches. But he never let that rejection stop him because he had this overriding sense of God’s call on his life. His heart, once strangely warmed, never cooled. He was determined to preach Christ’s forgiveness wherever and whenever he could.

We’re all called, but some people live their entire lives and never prayerfully consider God’s call on their life, or where it is God is calling you to share the good news of Jesus’ love and grace and forgiveness. This morning, I want to invite you to do that. Where is God calling you? As I said, for many of you, that may very well be in the place where you currently work. We need Christian teachers and accountants and mill workers and secretaries and lawyers and doctors and nurses and—well, I could go on and on because the truth is, we need Christian everything. We need folks who will shine the light of Jesus and spread the good news about forgiveness into the midst of a world that is often unforgiving and very, very broken. Has God called you to the place you are in for this time, this day? And what ways can God use you there? You may not be preaching at the water cooler, but there are innumerable ways and unnumbered opportunities for you to share your faith and point others toward that message of forgiveness. What if, each morning as you went off to work, you prayed something like what Frank Laubach used to pray: “God, what can you and I do together today?”

But there may be, in fact, some of you called to specific ministry, maybe even to pastoral ministry. I’ve got, maybe, twenty years until retirement, and so I know I’m past the halfway point in my ministry (though, in my heart, I’m still one of the “young clergy”). That’s about where most of our ordained clergy are today. The average age for a United Methodist Elder (which is what I am) is 55, the highest it has been in our history. Not only is our denomination aging, so are our clergy, and we’re not doing well at replacing ourselves. The number of “young elders” (defined as under age 35) has dropped from over 3,200 in 1985 (when I graduated from high school) to under 1,000 today. If the church is going to move forward, we need people to prayerfully consider if God might be calling you to full-time ministry. If you feel that nudge, I encourage you to talk to me, or to Pastor Deb, and let us help you discern where that call might lead you. We’re all called, and some are called to specialized ministry.

But it’s also true that the church is called to announce the message that forgiveness and salvation found in Jesus Christ. As one author puts it, the church is “an instrument of service, called by God to take up the mission formerly entrusted to Israel” (Longenecker 271). That’s what happens in Acts 2; the church, through the disciples, answers its own call to do what God called Abraham to do centuries before, to recognize that they are blessed to be a blessing (cf. Genesis 12:2-3). They are to bless all the nations of the world. They’re called—we’re called—to help the people hear the good news in their own language. That language might be the language of technology, or the language of music, or the language of writing books and teaching lessons and standing up for justice issues. The church is called to be God’s visible kingdom on earth, to call the world to repentance and new life. For our church, in this challenging time of transition, it’s a good time to reassess if we are hearing God’s call and if we’re answering it fully as a church. Where is God leading us from this point? What is God’s future for us as a church? Those are the sorts of things I want to encourage you to be thinking about and praying about, especially over the next month, and then share those things, the call God brings to your heart, with Pastor Mark when you gather in your cottage meetings. God has called him here to lead you into the future, to help you hear the call for the next stage of ministry here. Be listening. Have an open heart and open ears for God’s call.

Those first disciples on that first Pentecost did that, and the Spirit took them literally around the world as the church saw explosive growth. God’s Spirit may not take you around the world, but where in your world is God calling you to step out, take a risk, share the message of forgiveness in a language the people around you can understand? Where is God calling you to make a difference for his kingdom? It’s great to think about it here on Sunday morning, but what will you do when you step out of here? What will be your first step? One of the disciples, Peter, is a case study for what can happen. Peter was never afraid to speak up, but he didn’t always engage his brain before opening his mouth. And yet he, I believe, desperately wanted to serve Jesus, even to the point that when he and the rest of the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water, he wanted to do that, too. And when Jesus invited him to come, he didn’t hesitate to step out on the water. Of course, we tend to focus on the fact that he took his eyes off of Jesus and he sank, but we forget the first part, and that is that he did it. For a few brief moments, he actually walked on the water. Empowered by Jesus, he did it because he was willing to take that first step (cf. Matthew 14:22-33). In fact, it’s my belief that, after the resurrection, when the disciples have all gone back to fishing and Jesus appears on the shore, the reason Peter puts his clothes on before jumping into the water (cf. John 21:7) is because he’s thinking, “This time I’m going to do it. I’m going to walk on the water the whole way back to shore” (cf. Card, The Parable of Joy, pg. 249). Of course, he doesn’t, and his clothes get wet. But Peter is determined to serve Jesus is whatever way he can, and he’ll always be willing to take that first step. Even on the day of Pentecost, Peter is the one who speaks up, who preaches what is, essentially, the first Christian sermon. All because he took that first step. And when he sank, he later still took another step. His heart was warmed by Jesus, and he couldn’t help but share that news with others. So what will you do with your warmed heart? How will you respond, outside of this place, to Jesus’ call? Let’s pray.