PENTECOST SUNDAY
DATE: 31st May, 2020
THEME: THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT
SCRIPTURE READINGS
Numbers 11:24-30
Acts 2:1-21
John 20:19-23
Psalter: Psalms 104:24-35
INTRODUCTION
“Pentecost” means “fiftieth” and it refers to Jewish feast held fifty days after second day of Passover. Called Feast of Weeks, Ex. 34:22; Deut. 16:10, and Feast of the Harvest, Ex. 23:16. Pentecost is a day of thanksgiving to mark the end of the grain harvest. Two loaves of bread made from the new wheat and two yearling lambs were waved before the Lord as a thank offering. Praising God for His grace in giving them a good harvest. People were expected to attend this feast and are required to offer a free will offering to the Lord.
On this day, set aside to praise the Lord for giving His people a great harvest, the Lord began to harvest the lost souls of this world through His church. The church would never be the same! The world and the church were changed forever.
BODY
- “PENTECOST: A DAY WHEN THE WORLD WAS SET ON FIRE”
At Pentecost the Holy Spirit introduces explicit signs of God’s grace.
In Numbers 11, we find the intriguing story of Eldad and Medad, listed among the elders of Israel, to whom the Lord gave the gift of prophecy. When this extraordinary phenomenon was reported to Joshua, he suggested to Moses that he stop them. This is Moses’ reply, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”
Well, it has happened. Moses’ wish becomes prophecy fulfilled. When God unleashes his Holy Spirit upon his people on the day of Pentecost, all prophetic tongues break lose and there is no stopping. All the Lord’s people do indeed become prophets and his Holy Spirit is placed on every one of them.
Gone are the AGE BARRIERS. Gone are the GENDER barriers. We may add: gone are the SOCIAL barriers, the EDUCATIONAL barriers, and the RACIAL barriers.
The Holy Spirit includes and calls all God’s people,
▪the RICH and the RAGGED,
▪the SCHOLARS and the UNSCHOOLED,
▪the BROWNS and the BLACKS,
in his dynamic mission of “declaring the wonders of God” in wherever strategic position he places them.
- THE GIFT OF EXCITEMENT
It is indeed the Holy Spirit who ENERGISES, INSPIRES and STIRS us up for mission. But he is not a gift to make church a place of excitement in the sense that we go to church for entertainment.
There is something intensely boring and lifeless about institutionalism in the church.
When the Holy Spirit of God is energizing and exciting the institution of the church, it is, by definition, a LIVELY place to be.
But when the Holy Spirit of God is excluded and people just cling on to structures for the sake of structures, then the institution is sold out for the sake of institutionalism which, by definition, is LIFELESS and BLAND.
The Holy Spirit excites and energizes: not so that we can be entertained but so that we can be a mission-oriented church both structurally and in terms of the activities we undertake.
- THE GIFT OF POWER
Jesus had promised that: “When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you shall receive power.” But there is appropriate and inappropriate power with regard to the church.
▪The power the church has is power that is born out of BROKENNESS, not STRENGTH.
▪The power that the church has is a PROPHETIC INFLUENCE, not a DICTATORIAL ROLE.
And so it is appropriate, in the Holy Spirit, for us to seek power: not the power of domination or overt influence but the type of power that shows the way of the cross as the way to life.
- THE GIFT OF THE WORD
The Holy Spirit is the gift of the message to proclaim. One of the central images of the Pentecost event, is the fact that the silence was broken and the believers began speaking in tongues.
Those who were there heard the Gospel message being proclaimed in their own tongue. It was the Holy Spirit who gave the Church something to say…
The church has a message. ‘Go forth and tell…’ and that command to go and tell others the Good News of Jesus Christ is not something that we do in our own strength but in the strength and power of the Holy Spirit, who gives us the words to say. The gift of the Holy Spirit is ultimately a gift, not to the Church, but to the whole world.
▪Yes, we are energized and excited: not so we can be entertained, but so we can fruitfully engage in mission.
▪Yes, we are empowered: not so that we can rule over society, but so we can draw people, by our example, to the cross.
Ultimately through the Holy Spirit, we are given a voice and a message to proclaim so that the whole world will hear and receive the good news of Jesus Christ.
▪We want to be a ‘HOLY SPIRIT Church’: a church that is empowered and structured for mission, a church that is broken for mission, a church that has a prophetic word to bring to the world.
That is the Spirit of Pentecost we celebrate today – and that is the Spirit we are called to embrace in all our activities: the Spirit of energy, the Spirit of power, the Spirit of prophecy. The Holy Spirit of God.
- THE GIFT OF JUGEDMENT AND GRACE
Note that the Holy Spirit not only introduces explicit signs of God’s GRACE. He also introduces explosive signals of God’s JUDGMENT.
It is interesting that Peter not only quotes Joel 2:28-29. He also quotes Joel 2:30-32. “I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.” All of this smells more of judgment than of grace. This whole passage resembles Moses’ speech to the Israelites about the curses and the blessings found in Deuteronomy 28.
Peter wants to communicate on this Day of Pentecost that the Holy Spirit comes both in judgment as well as in grace. The wind, the fire, and the tongues not only illustrate that the Holy Spirit has powerfully invaded our humanity with the Lord’s prophetic word of grace; these signs also offer a prelude of the Lord’s coming in judgment.
The Holy Spirit has come! Now there is hope for the seekers, to those who inquire, “What does all of this mean?” For the earnest seekers, Pentecost means: grace has broken in upon you!
▪You too will become part of the mighty movement of this age of the Holy Spirit. ▪You too will prophesy, see visions, and dream dreams.
CONCLUSION
The meaning of Pentecost is God equipping His church with the power of His Spirit so that He will be glorified among the nations.
The POINT of Pentecost is MISSION, and the GOAL of MISSION is that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the Sea” Hab 2:14.
Stay BLESSED
Stay PROTECTED
Stay SAFE
PREPARED BY
VERY REV DR SAMUEL YAW DUA DODD
CALVARY METHODIST CHURCH
ADABRAKA-ACCRA
