5/23/21 Acts 2:1-21 “Do You Live in the Fog?”

21 May 5/23/21 Acts 2:1-21 “Do You Live in the Fog?”

5/23/21  Acts 2:1-21          “Do You Live in the Fog?”

It’s getting to be a few years ago now, but I used to take part in two baccalaureate services every May.  Sometimes it was even more exciting for me as I would give the sermon.

I remember one time when I know that the Lord was with me because my voice was almost gone after our regular services.  I couldn’t talk well before that Sunday night sermon and I couldn’t talk after but He gave me a voice to talk for Him during.  So, I know that the Lord was there in the Holy Spirit, but I also noticed that only about half the seniors were there.  Now many people came up after and said what a great turnout we had.  I had to think just the opposite.  What a low turnout of seniors!  I will grant that we might have had 2 or 3 with legitimate reasons for not being there but that still leaves a huge percentage that just didn’t bother.  So here is the question I have and some of you will not like this.  As a community are we raising our children so that half of them will be going to eternal darkness?  There are a few churches who do pretty well, but as a community and country we are doing a terrible job.  I know that people laugh and smirk at me because I know that Jesus belongs everywhere regardless of our stupid human laws.  And when I see only half our seniors in attendance at a service like this, I know that we really have a long way to go.  As I stated, we have been doing a fantastic job in a few places but there is still a huge job in front of us.  Today, we will be looking at the first Christian Pentecost from the book of Acts.  Let’s see if we can become empowered by the Holy Spirit to reach out more effectively to our neighbors and children.

I would like to begin with a story from Marilyn Murphree that I think I might have told before but it makes an excellent point so here it is again.  There was a Sunday school teacher who wanted her class to recite the Apostles Creed so she assigned each person to learn one phrase and together they would be able to recite all of it.  The children learned their parts and now they are presenting them in class.  It began beautifully.  “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” said Sarah.  “I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord,” chimed in Rachael.  Everything went along perfectly until there was a long pause.  Finally, a little girl spoke up and said, “Uh, the little boy who believes in the Holy Spirit is absent today!”  This illustrates perfectly why we were missing so many students in those baccalaureate services.  We are missing the Holy Spirit.

I think that if we are going to try to attack Satan in this world, we have to pay attention to what happened on that first Pentecost.  The first thing that the disciples did was listen.  They were all gathered in one place when the Holy Spirit came upon them.  He came upon them in the form of the sound violent wind.  They heard this and I would guess that they were a little startled.  It doesn’t say but I know that I sure would be.  Then they saw what appeared to be like tongues of fire that reached out and touched each one of them individually.  And when He got done, these disciples could speak in languages that they didn’t know.  They were speaking in tongues, one of the gifts of the Spirit.

This is the first part of their listening and now we come to the second.  They then went out and talked to the people who came from all over the Middle East.  Pentecost was one of the three big festivals of the year for the Jews.  There would have been hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem from all over the area.  The disciples went out and talked with these people and they talked to them in their native language.  These people who heard the disciples were amazed as they knew they were from Galilee and normally couldn’t speak their language.  So, everyone is listening and they hear the message.

Now here’s another question for you.  How many of you remember when the Holy Spirit first came upon you?  I can remember it like it just happened yesterday.  I knelt down by the bed and I asked Jesus to come into my life.  And He did through the Holy Spirit.  I got up and went straight into the living room and found a Bible and I sat down and I read.  I was in a state of euphoria for weeks after.  There is nothing greater than the memory of when we first believed.  There are hymns about this and it is mentioned in Revelation. If you don’t know Jesus yet, then ask Him into your life.  When you shed your old life, you get rid of a lot of trouble and sorrow.  You will finally be able to live as God wants you to live.  It is a feeling that you will never, ever forget.

One of the problems we have today is that people don’t want to listen.  I think that we have been very successful in raising a generation who doesn’t want to listen and we are in the process of raising one that could care less about listening.  I’m going to list some of the things that we have been doing and are doing to ensure that Satan will win this battle.  I am not picking on any person here today so please don’t get upset if the shoe fits you just a bit.  The first thing we do is we sleep in on Sunday morning and we don’t go to church because we are too tired.  We live in a world that is all about me and how I can satisfy me.  Therefore, I am tired so I’m not going to church.  I am not hurting anyone but me.  This is a very selfish and immature attitude.  Children see this and right away know that church isn’t important.  I mean, if mom and dad don’t give a rip about church, why should they?

Another huge problem we have is that we schedule all our activities for Sunday morning.  We have basketball, hockey, soccer and you name the leagues that play on Sunday morning.  When dad goes off and plays softball or golf on Sunday morning, what message is he leaving for the children?  When kids have their independent sport team tournaments on Sunday morning, what is the message?  Some of us do a fairly good job of staying out of this trap but I know that there is always temptation there.  We really need to begin to be better parents for our children and start to make church a habit for our kids to follow.  Even if we don’t have children of our own, the children are still watching.

I hope that you can begin to see the problem that we have.  And this is only the tip of the iceberg.  We have a government that tells us where we can talk about Jesus and where we can’t.  We have a president who doesn’t even mention God or Jesus on the National Day of Prayer.  Many also want to get rid of this day.  It won’t be long before this will be the only place, I can mention Jesus.  Even in church today, I’m not supposed to preach against things like homosexuality and abortion.  And then we wonder why is our country going downhill so fast?  We have been doing it all wrong.  We have been saying that Jesus doesn’t belong anywhere except here when we should be out there telling the people that He should be everywhere.  What we have today is just like at the first Pentecost.  We have all these people who don’t understand a word we are speaking because we cannot speak their language.  We need the Holy Spirit to come upon us so that they understand.  We need revival in this country or soon there will be no country.  And that, my friends and neighbors in Christ, is not what God had in mind at all when He started this country.

There is a second thing happening in our reading.  We have the disciples and all these people listening and believing.  First of all, we have the disciples who were told to wait and they did.  The Holy Spirit came upon them here and they would never be the same.  They believed.  They in turn went out to the people gathered for this huge celebration.  When people heard them talking in their language, many of them knew that something was up.  Notice that there were some who thought that they were drunk.  These are the people who will probably never believe even if they have a miracle in front of them as they did in our reading.  Anyway, Peter addresses this crowd of people and as a result 3000 come to believe.  These people see and hear something fantastic and they believe.

Our world isn’t a lot different.  We have many people who think that I am drunk because I love Jesus.  There are many pastors in the UMC who think of me like this.  This is why we need the Global Methodist Church.  Anyway, they are a tough lot and I’m not going to spend a lot of time trying to save them.  I will let the Holy Spirit work on them and when and if I am needed, I will help.  There are too many people in our world and community who are really seeking the truth for us to be spending a lot of time on those who have very hardened hearts.

Our attention has to be on those who just don’t know anything about Jesus, those who are confused about Jesus and those seeking Jesus.  Confusion is easy to see as we look at all the places where God cannot be present.  Again, God cannot be in our school or government.  God cannot be any place where He might offend someone.  It seems to me that we think these things are more powerful than God.  I think I’ve used this word before.  Balderdash!!  Again, God belongs everywhere and in everything.  It is time we start to obey God’s law over our man-made laws.  It is time we start to try to reach these people so that they can have a chance at believing.  It is time to start a revival and it is time to get right into the face of the enemy.  This is a war, a spiritual war.  We can have results just like Peter and Paul did but it takes us to get up and make it happen.  This is why I when I see a church doing well in one service, I have to ask, why not have two services.  At our present rate we are leaving at least half of our children in the hands of the devil.  This should be enough to scare us into action.

So far, we have ourselves in the state of listening and believing.  None of this will do any good unless we follow.  Today’s passage doesn’t tell us much about the results of these incidents.  We read later that 3000 came to believe.  We read later where the disciples had to leave Jerusalem for their safety and they spread the Word even more.  We read where there became so many followers that the Jews had to cast them out of their religion.  The Romans had to persecute them because they had a King, God, who was more powerful than Caesar.  We can even read farther ahead to find the Christianity later becomes the official religion of Rome, not too many years after Rome had been slaughtering them.  This came under the Emperor Constantine. So, it is pretty easy to see that we had a whole bunch of people follow and obey the teachings of Jesus in the early times.

So how do we do with following in today’s world?  If we take a look at the big picture, we find that Christianity is growing rapidly in Africa and Asia.  The underground church and the home churches are flourishing in many countries.  Even in the deteriorating United Methodist Church we find that places like Africa will soon have more members than we have here in the United States.  I think that this is great.  We are reaching the world and making followers.  So, my next question is why isn’t this happening in this country?

I think that there are many reasons for this.  We have become complacent.  We have bought into the idea that there are other gods in our lives.  We feel that we don’t need God.  I really don’t know where to begin here so I won’t begin at all.  What I will say is that we can turn this around.  When we see people worshipping false idols, we can say something.  Nothing will ever get started unless someone first steps forward.  When we see that only half of our children are going to church, we can say something.  We can be more inviting to our neighbors.  We can be the love of Jesus Christ in our schools.

There are many other ways to show your love for Jesus.  But the most important way is to be a role model for our children.  There may be some of you who will be absent from church for most of the summer.  Don’t be afraid to be a role model and go to church on Sunday morning where ever you happen to be.  God doesn’t take vacations or summers off so neither should you.  More importantly we just need to keep in the front of our minds, what would Jesus do in my situation?  We may not like to ask this question because we don’t like how we might have to answer it.  Let’s see if we can start rebuilding our communities just like the disciples did so many years ago.  Let’s help people to the light.

Here’s a great illustration from an unknown source.  Many years ago, a group of surveyors were sent out to make a new map of a mountainous and remote region.  They went out every day to collect data and returned to their base camp.  They were always met by an old shepherd who liked the company of the men in the evening.  They would swap stories and have a good time.  One evening the shepherd insisted that he go with the surveyors the next day so they wouldn’t get lost.  The surveyors didn’t think this was necessary but the old man was insistent.  He told them, “I must go with you for I know the mountains like the back of my hand.  If I don’t go, you will get lost.”  The surveyors replied, “We have just made this map so we don’t need you to come along.  We can do it ourselves.”  So, the shepherd replied, “Yes, but there is no fog on your map.”  The next morning 2 experts went up the mountain by themselves for more mapping.  It wasn’t long before a thick, heavy fog surrounded them.  Soon they lost track of where they were and they became hopelessly lost.  They wandered and wandered on the mountain and became exhausted.  They were ready to give up when the old shepherd appeared beside them and led them home through the fog.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, there is a dense fog surrounding some of our families, some of our best friends and neighbors, some of our churches.  Help them to listen, believe and follow.  I praise the Lord that Jesus Christ is for everyone and not just for a select few.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.