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One night a wife awoke to find her husband standing over their infant's crib.

"I Love to Tell the Spirit's Story" January 30, 2011 Jack Keating

Cicero United Methodist Church Text: Acts 2: 1-4

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            One night a wife awoke to find her husband standing over their infant's crib. As she
watched him looking down at their first baby, she saw on his face a mix of emotions: ...
disbelief, doubt, delight, amazement, enchantment, skepticism. Touched by this unusual display and the deep emotions it seemed to have aroused, with eyes glistening she slipped her arm around her husband. "A penny for your thoughts," she said. "It's amazing!" he replied. "I just can't see how anybody can make a crib like this for only $89.95."

            Here lies his son, one of the greatest miracles in all of God's creation ... and all his
father saw was the crib. He didn't see what lay within.

            But he wasn't unique. I think many times people look at God's handiwork and only see
the outside view ... never the miracle that lies within. It works that way, I think, with lots of things, whether it's the miracle of the birth of a new baby or the miracle of the birth of a new Christian. There are so many who see only the outside framework and miss all together the miracle that lays within.

            Acts 2:38 promises us that ... "You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." And in
Ephesians we are told that God's Holy Spirit is the mark of God's ownership of us .... "And you
also were included in Christ when you heard the truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having
believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit." (Ephesians 1:13)

            There are those who believe that the Holy Spirit is some kind of inanimate object -
like the crib that held the baby - AND so they see only the crib ... not the miracle within. Oh, maybe theologically these people accept the idea that God's Holy Spirit can live within us, but they don't think that the Spirit does very much ... and so they miss out on the miracles of what the Holy Spirit can mean to us. And it's easy to see how this can happen. There seem to be a lot of churches that teach things about the Holy Spirit that are bizarre and unbiblical.. .. But we shouldn't allow bad teachings or any other distraction to cause us to forget the uniqueness that God's Spirit can have in our lives.

            In John 16: 7-8 Jesus says to his disciples .... "It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor (or Holy Spirit) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment." Jesus was saying here that when He left, He would send His Spirit in His place. The Spirit was to be His connection to us. His power is within us.

            The Bible tells us that the Spirit of God does many things within us
• helps us in our prayers

                        • helps us to understand the deep things of God's Word
• guides us

                        • teaches us

                        • AND empowers us

            BUT perhaps the most intriguing thing the Holy Spirit was sent to do is implied here in Acts 1:8. The text says first that they'd receive the Holy Spirit - and then they would be his
witnesses. The Holy Spirit came first - then witnessing. And that might seem kind of peculiar given the setting in which Peter was speaking. These people had been with Jesus throughout His entire ministry. They had been trained by Jesus, sat at his feet and absorbed his teachings and had even gone out into the surrounding cities to preach that the kingdom of God was at hand. But Acts 1:8 implies that they would become witnesses AFTER they received the Holy Spirit. Why should they have to wait? Why not just start witnessing right there and then?

            Well they probably could have ... but they would have lacked the power to effectively
witness. In other words they could have begun witnessing without the Holy Spirit, but it wouldn't have had the same power. It might have been like a person using a hand trimmer to cut their lawn, while they had a gas powered mower sitting in the shed. The job still would have gotten done, it would simply be more difficult.

            At a recent pastors meeting, our Bishop encouraged the clergy to accept three different goals for 2011. One of them was to bring one person to Jesus Christ in 2011. And while this sounds like a great goal, we have discussed how it will probably be very difficult to measure our success after accepting that goal. What really constitutes "bringing one person to Jesus Christ"? For some it might mean having someone become regular in their church attendance. For others it would probably involve a person becoming actively involved in the ministry of the church. For others it would require a public demonstration of a person developing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And while these are all good and proper outcomes, Everett and I have discussed how we'd probably spend so much time trying to figure out how the church would measure the outcome, we'd lose sight of the initial objective. So, we came up with the idea of reversing the Bishop's goal..     How about if we all tried to bring Jesus Christ to one person in 2011? What if we could encourage each person in our congregation to be the hands and feet of Christ for at least one person this year?

            And, as a result of those conversations, we now have a year long worship plan to try to help our church become even better at gladly and enthusiastically accepting the vision of our General Church "to make disciples of and for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world." And that will surely involve a lot of telling of our stories ..... or what Peter called, WITNESSING.

            And as much as I know this, there are certainly times when I feel frustrated in my attempts to witness. I tell people about Jesus and I invite them to church. But some people don't seem to listen to me. They politely put us off. They never come to church. They have other things to do. On any given day, on my way to church, I can drive by these same people working on their homes, doing garage sales, whacking a golf ball, or mowing their grass. And I admit, it can be frustrating .... Really frustrating.

            At times it might just be so much easier if I could just be like Lucy in the Old Peanuts cartoon. Lucy says to Charlie Brown, "I would have made a great evangelist." Charlie Brown answers, "Is that so?" She says, "Yes, I convinced the boy in front of me in school that my religion is better than his religion." Charlie Brown asked, "Well, how did you do that?" And Lucy answers, "I hit him over the head with my lunchbox."

            It's my belief that part of my frustration in witnessing comes when I forget the pivotal role that the Holy Spirit can play in helping us share our faith. Jesus said: "It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you: but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment." (John 16: 7-8)

            One of the primary jobs of God's Spirit in this world is convicting people of their sin, of their need for righteousness and the impending judgment. In other words: you and I don't have to convict people or change their hearts with regard to their salvation. That's the Spirit's job. According to Acts 1:8...we are witnesses.

            In a court room, there's a judge, a prosecutor, a defense attorney, a defendant and witnesses. Who gives testimony in a court room? The witnesses do. Do the witnesses prosecute the defendant? Do the witnesses convict the defendant? NO! Witnesses ..... witness. And in doing so they do their very best to give honest and true testimony because they realize that the verdict may hinge on how well they witness. But their only job is testifying.

            And while that's not our only job as witnesses today, it is the first and perhaps, most important job. It is the task that will lead us to become the agents of transformation for the world. And that task is best accomplished when it is fed, led, and inspired by the Holy Spirit.

            In my own life, I will remember until the day God calls me home my first experience
with the Holy Spirit. It was a moment like John Wesley's, in which my heart too was "strangely warmed." It occurred at a camp in Angola, NY during a youth gathering of teenage Episcopalians. It was there in Pohlman Hall that a visiting pastor shared with us the true story about what Jesus endured for each of us on that Good Friday on Golgotha. It was interesting, then painful and finally downright terrifying as I listened to his explanation of those events. The pastor then went on to talk about how God couldn't and wouldn't leave the world at Good Friday but would instead complete the transformation of the world on Easter. And it was right then and there that tears were flowing and suddenly, for the first time, I could understand the love that the Father has for me personally. Never again would I wonder about my significance, my worth, my value in God's eyes. And, no matter how I tried, I could not suppress the emotions that boiled to the surface that evening. And I decided right then and there that these tears were, as many of you have heard me testify, "The Holy Spirit in liquid form!" And in this place or any worship setting, I have steadfastly encouraged people to .... "Let 'em flow" as a gift from and a testimony to God's grace.

            The teaching that night was almost the same as I had heard many times previously and many times since. But that night, I am convinced that the Holy Spirit of God opened my heart to hear, for the first time, how much it was that God really loved me. And my life has never been the same since!

            The Holy Spirit gives us boldness in our witnessing, you see. I read that D.L. Moody
walked down a Chicago street one day and observed a man leaning against a lamppost. The
great evangelist gently put his hand on the man's shoulder and asked him if he was a Christian. The fellow raised his fists and angrily exclaimed, "Mind your own business!" "I'm sorry if I have offended you," said Moody, "but to be very frank, this IS my business!" Moody was very bold that day and most days as he went about his life taking the story of Jesus Christ to people all along his journeys. I suspect this boldness came from his spending time in prayer before he went out on that street. Prayer in which he invoked the Holy Spirit to give him the words he would need to witness to the world. Now many of us aren't that bold ..... especially when we're faced with rejection and anger. And yet, the Holy Spirit can give us the boldness to witness in just the right way in any situation.

            In Acts 4 we're told of Peter and John just having been arrested, beaten, and released - being severely warned to never preach about Jesus publicly again. They returned to meet with the church and they prayed: "Now lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly." (Acts 4: 29-31)

            And likewise, if we let Him, the Holy Spirit not only can give us boldness, but can help give us creative ways to witness. I read the story of a woman in the Salvation Army who was informed by a policeman that a local ordinance would not allow her to ring her bells to invite contributions. And the next day she was right back out on the street corner doing an even brisker business than ever before as she waved one sign and then another in the air. The signs said, "ding" and "dong". And if we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us .... We too can overcome any obstacle in our way.

            A skeptic promised British preacher Alexander Maclaren that he would attend his church for four Sundays on which Maclaren would be presenting the main tenets of Christianity. The skeptic arrived and listened intently to Maclaren's sermons. After the fourth message he presented himself for church membership, saying he had received Christ as his Savior. Maclaren was delighted and could not resist the impulse to ask which of the four sermons had brought him to his decision. The skeptic replied, "Your sermons, sir, were helpful but they were not what finally persuaded me." He said that after church one Sunday, as he was helping an elderly lady on a slippery walk, she looked up into his face and said, "I wonder if you know my Savior, Jesus Christ. He is everything in the world to me. I would like you to know him too." It was a single comment, but with the working of the Holy Spirit, it changed the skeptic's heart as no power-filled sermon could do.

            So as I sit down, and this power-filled (or not so power-filled) sermon ends, you are the ones who go forth into the world to tell stories of our faith to all who would listen. And, thanks be to God, you take the Holy Spirit as your companion and guide on this journey. Together we can fulfill the command to "makes disciples of and for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."

            May it ever be so!      Amen!