“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions…And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. A very blessed Pentecost Sunday to all of you! Today marks the 50th day since Christ’s resurrection on Easter, Today is the day we celebrate the coming of the promised Holy Spirit in a way that had not been seen before. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit fell on certain individuals whom God had chosen prophets, priests, and kings. But today, on the Feast of Pentecost, we see God pouring out His Spirit on all His people; young and old, rich and poor, people from every tribe and tongue and nation. The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost transformed those gathered in that Upper Room from a beleaguered group of people hiding out from the authorities into divinely empowered and bold group of men and women who went out into the Greco-Roman world boldly proclaiming the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ, living a life of radical discipleship, and turning the world upside down with their lives and their message of love and truth. This new humanity redeemed through Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension is what we call the Church. The Church born on this day at Pentecost was and is a living organism where every member has a vital and important role to play in the building up of the Body of Christ and in the spread of the Kingdom of God. This Church was so powerful and alive that nothing could stop the spread of the Gospel. As we read in the Book of Acts, persecution of the Church in Jerusalem led its spread to Judea and Samaria. Persecution in Judea and Samaria caused it to spread to the wider world; to all the places mentioned in Acts Chapter 2: Rome, Cyrene, Crete, Asia, Pontus, Cappadocia, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Iran. The British historian Edward Gibbon, writing in his magisterial work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, credited the spread of the early Church to the power and authenticity of its message and common life. Through the Church’s ministry of healing and deliverance ministries, through its universal message of salvation through Jesus Christ, it appealed especially to those of the lowest parts of society. It took just 300 years for Christianity to spread throughout the Roman world and displace paganism as the official religion of the Empire. Today, the Church is a worldwide movement with Christian communities existing in nearly every country and nation in the world. All this was set in motion when the Holy Spirit fell on that small group of people in the Upper Room on Pentecost. Sadly, we Christians here in the West seem to believe that the power and zeal of the early Church is lost to us. We’re not seeing the growth. We’re not seeing lives transformed. But that power and zeal is not lost to us. Growth and a harvest of souls is still possible. My friends, the Holy Spirit is still here and He is at work. The Church that Christ established and that was born on Pentecost has the same power and authority that it had in those early days. We need to open the eyes of our faith and we need to surrender to the love and power of God. When I was the Chaplain at the Union Gospel Mission in Fort Worth, we ran an adult Christian discipleship class called the Alpha Course twice a year. At the conclusion of each Alpha Course, we would have what was called the Alpha Celebration in the main chapel on campus. It was a time to give thanks and celebrate what the Lord has been doing during the just completed Alpha Course. We would sing songs and hymns and I would give out certificates to residents and volunteers. I would also administer the Sacrament of Baptism to those who asked for it. I would then close the evening with a time for people to stand up and give testimony how the Lord had been working in their lives. What I discovered during my time at the Union Gospel Mission was that every time we gathered to thank God and to worship Him, lives were touched. At the Alpha Celebration last May, four people came forward to be baptized and six people came forward to rededicate their lives to Jesus Christ. A woman who was baptized declared that Christ had freed her from 30 years of addiction. A 9-year-old boy who was also baptized testified that Jesus Himself appeared to him in his dreams and that Jesus was calling him to preach salvation to others. There were tears of joy and a celebration of God’s great and mighty works. It's not just happening at the Union Gospel Mission, but it’s happening all around the world. People are coming to Christ in places like Iran and Nepal and China. In Africa, it’s not Islam that is on the move, but Christianity! “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions…And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” The prophet Joel wrote these words five hundred years before Day of Pentecost. He wrote them to the people of God suffering in exile in Babylon, waiting for the day when they could return home and wondering if God had forgotten about them. Joel gave them these words of hope and encouragement to remind them and assure them that God had not forgotten about them, but He had great and wonderful plans in store for them, plans that were greater and more wonderful than they could imagine. As we gather on this Pentecost Sunday, it feels like we are exiles and strangers in our own land. Our country has changed in many ways over the past 60 years. The Church has experienced significant decline during that time; congregations have shrunk, churches have been closed. But that is not the final word. Today’s celebration is a reminder that the same God who sent His Holy Spirit to us on Pentecost, the same Holy Spirit who inspired the Prophet Joel to write those words, is the same Holy Spirit who is here and at work among us today. Will you yield to the Holy Spirit and let Him have His way with you? He wants to transform you and make you an instrument of His love and His power so that the Kingdom of God is advanced, and so that God will be glorified in our lives. +In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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