Pentecost
Nothing but fire kindles
fire
Pentecost Acts 2:1-21
Grace to you and
peace....
Pentecost is one of
the three great feasts of the church.
Of course, Easter is the greatest feast of the church; and
Christmas is a great feast of the church; but today we are
celebrating Pentecost, the third great festival of the church.
Today’s sermon is a Pentecost sermon.
Some years ago, I
discovered and learned three favorite quotations from theologians of
a generation ago (Brooks, Fosdick and Spurgeon), and these three
quotations penetrate the heart of Pentecost.
The first quotation is this:
“Nothing but fire kindles fire.”
The second: “If
you want to set someone on fire, you have to buuurn a little bit
yourself.” The third:
“A burning heart will soon find for itself a flaming
tongue.”
In today’s
sermon, you are going to help me. You need to be a chorus.
I will teach you a key part of each of those quotations.
During the sermon, I will point to you as a congregation, and
you are going to have to remember your part of the line.
So would you activate your brains and remember.
I will say to you, “Nothing but fire...” and you say “kindles fire.” (Repeat
it, once or twice to people learn it.)
The second quotation is this:
“If you want to set someone on fire, you have to ...burn a
little bit yourself.” You
say the second part: “You
have to burn a little bit yourself.” (Repeat it.)
The third quotation is this:
“A burning heart will soon find for itself a ... flaming
tongue.” Ready? (repeat).
So now let’s do all three quotations:
“Nothing but fire ...
If you want to set someone on fire, you have to
... A burning heart will soon find a ... You have to get into the mood of this sermon: Let’s
do it again. “Nothing
but fire... If you want to set someone on fire, you have to ...
A burning heart will soon find a ...
Good. During the
sermon, I will point to you and you need to be the enthusiastic
chorus.
The first Pentecost
was like this. One hundred and twenty people were gathered together in a
larger upper room. These
first Christians were waiting, waiting, waiting for something very
special to happen to them, and they weren’t quite sure what they
were waiting for. They were waiting for the Holy Spirit to come on them and in
them, but they didn’t know what that would mean. Then it was like a rush of wind into the room.
Like the Holy Spirit coming into their lives.
Like tongues of fire above them.
Like tongues of fire inside of them.
They felt the power of God inside of them, and they rushed
out of that building into the streets.
They went from street to street and home to home and neighbor
to neighbor and family to family and nation to nation.
... It was like
a prairie fire blowing across the Midwest.
Get a prairie fire in you mind.
Do you see a prairie fire?
It was like a prairie fire, flaming across the Midwest on
parched dry fields of grass. It was like a forest fire rushing up
the Cascade mountain range. Get yourself a forest fire in your mind.
It was like a forest fire, being driven by the wind, in a
very dry forest with tinder wood. It was like a fire on an oil slick on the ocean, flames
leaping across the water. That’s
the way it was in that first century of Christian expansion.
There are many books written about the decades after
Pentecost, and many of these books are titled, “The Spreading
Flame.” It was like the flame of Jesus Christ was spreading across
the whole world.
Why did that
happen? I know why it
happened. “Nothing but fire ... If YOU want to set someone on fire, YOU have to ...
A burning heart will soon find for itself a
... “
What happened is
that those Apostles first went to a village or town. Those first
Apostles planted a church, and then went to a second village or
town, and planted a church. They went to a third village or town and
planted another church. They
... whoops. We have to
go back to that first village or town and look more carefully.
We have to go back to that first village, because before the
Apostles went onto the second village, they left a group of people
in that village who were committed to Jesus Christ.
The Greek word is “laos.” They were called the “laos”,
which means, “the
laity,” “the people,” “the
people of God.” The
Apostles always left common and ordinary towns people and villagers
whose hearts were on fire, whose tongues were on fire, who hadn’t
gone to the seminary, who hadn’t seen Jesus face to face, who
hadn’t talked with him in the flesh.
These were not the Apostles.
These were not the twelve disciples.
These were the people of God in each village who spread the
Gospel from house to house, and neighbor to neighbor and friend to
friend and family to family. That’s the way it always is. That
fundamental principle is always true; it is the laity, the people of
God, who become inspired by the Holy Spirit. They are the ones, not the twelve, not the Apostles, not the pastors.
It is the laity, the people of God, who go about winning souls
to Jesus Christ and nurturing those souls into maturity.
How do the laity do
this? Do they do this
by their own enthusiasm? By their own intelligence?
By their own seminary training?
I kid you not. Do
you know why the laity are able to do this?
I’ll tell you why. “Nothing
but fire ... If YOU want to set someone on fire, YOU have to ... A
burning heart will soon find for itself ... ”
Well, that’s what
happened in that first century.
The first century was a great century of Christian expansion.
The Church went to Ephesus, Rome, and was going onto Spain
within thirty years. From
farm to farm, from village to village, town to town.
It was absolutely incredible, spreading across the whole
known world. It was like a spreading flame.
The year is now
1998, and the flame of Jesus Christ is
still spreading. It
is still spreading like
wildfire. The spreading
flame of Pentecost is greater
in this century than in the first century.
I want to repeat that so you clearly hear it. The spreading flame of Pentecost is greater in this century than in the first century. The spreading
flame of Jesus Christ is spreading more rapidly in the twentieth
century than in the first century.
The spreading flame of Jesus Christ is greater in
this century than in any
other century of Christian expansion.
The twentieth century has been the greatest
century of Christian expansion.
You and I have lived in this time, this great era of
Christian growth.
Let
me give you several examples of this spreading wildfire on our
planet today. I will ask you some questions:
today, on the average, on earth, how many people were
baptized today? 63,000!
Yes, 63,000! How many congregations are born every day on our planet? How
many new congregations were formed today? 1600 new
congregations were formed on the planet Earth today. Last Easter Sunday, how many people were gathered together in
worship to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ? How many people were gathered together worshipping Jesus
Christ as their Lord? More than one billion people.
25% of the Earth’s population.
This flame of Jesus
Christ is spreading all over the Earth like wildfire.
Let’s talk about Africa.
Africa is rapidly becoming a Christian continent.
Namibia, for example, down in the southern tip of Africa; 50%
of the people in Namibia are Lutheran
Christians. 85%
of black Namibia is Christian. That’s more churched than
Minnesota. That’s 20% “more Christian” than good old USA.
Tanzania. Madagascar. These are Christian nations. The flame of
Jesus Christ is spreading all across Africa.
When I was in Tanzania, I met David Simonson, the famous
Lutheran missionary there. They were baptizing 3,140 adults that
coming Sunday. It was
going to take them a week
to baptize all those people. How
did it happen? Because
a missionary went to their village?
Don’t kid yourself. Two chieftains came from their village
across the Serengeti Plain. These
two chieftains came to the pastors; gave their lives to Jesus
Christ; they got themselves educated about the basics of
Christianity; and these two chieftains went back to their tribe and
villages. When the
missionaries arrived, they had 3,140 people ready for baptism.
It wasn’t the missionaries, seminary educated from the USA,
who were the primary catalysts for conversion.
... It
is forever true. It is
fundamentally true. Every
pastor and missionary knows this.
Whenever the flame of Jesus Christ is spreading across
village to village and town to town and city to city, across all of
Africa, we know why: “Nothing
but fire ... If YOU want to sent someone on fire, YOU have to ... A
burning heart will soon find for itself a ... ” It’s always
the same. It’s always
the laity who are moving in the great missionary expansions in every
century.
Let’s move south.
Let’s go to South America.
Let’s go to Brazil. Let’s
go to Sao Paulo, Brazil. It
is one of the largest cities in the world, seven million people,
soon to be twelve million people.
That great city is heavily Roman Catholic, and the Roman
Catholic community is very much alive. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, there are more than 80,000 Base
Christian Communities. What
is a Base Christian Community?
It’s like a home group Bible study;
it’s like we have in our church and you have in your
church. There are
80,000 home group Bible studies, and is there a pastor in any of
them? No!
There is a layperson who is a lay Bible study leader who is
head of each of these 80,000 Base Christian Communities.
It is a movement led by the laity.
It’s across all of Brazil and South America. It’s spreading like wildfire.
So are the Pentecostals.
They too are spreading like wildfire across all of Latin
America.
Let’s
go to another continent. Let’s
go to Asia. Let’s be
more specific; let’s go to Korea.
A generation ago, Korean was 99% Buddhist.
Today, 1998, it is 20% Christian...within one century!
And the largest Christian congregation in the whole world is
found in Seoul, Korea, with a membership of more than 500,000
members. Some people think that our congregation is getting too large.
Those people meet in home Bible studies, in these cell Bible
studies, much like the Base Christian Communities in South America,
much like our home Bible studies in our congregations.
Many of you are like home Bible study leaders who become like
pastors to your small group. ... This flame
is now spreading to Indonesia, and the Philippines, and of all
places, to Japan. The
Koreans are now sending missionaries to Japan.
The
flame of Christianity is spreading all across Africa, all across
Latin America, all across Asia.
25% of the Earth’s population was in worship on Easter
Sunday. Why? Why
is the flame spreading so rapidly in our century?
It has to do, not with the Apostles, but with the laos, the
laity, the people of God, common and ordinary people like yourself
who understand that ... “Nothing but fire ... If YOU want to set
someone on fire, YOU have to ... A burning heart will soon find for
itself a ...” Who
not only understand in their heads but burn in their hearts with the
power of Pentecost.
Well,
that’s the good news. Now
I have to share with you the bad news.
Let’s talk about England.
40% of the people in England belong to the Church, primarily
to the Church of England. Only
16% of their members bother to go through the education necessary
for Confirmation. On
Easter Sunday, 4% of the members of the Church of England go to
worship. Is it possible
that the flame of Jesus Christ that was spreading during the time of
the Wesley brothers is going out, so that there are very few
flickering flames left? Yes!
Let
me give you some other examples.
Today, where do you find the most irreligious place on Earth?
Where you go and ask the people such questions. George
Gallop, Jr. does. He
asks people around the globe: “Is your religion very important to
you?” What is the
nation in which the smallest percentage answer “yes” to that
question? The answer is
Japan. Is your religion important to you? The Japanese say:
“Nope.” George Gallop, Jr. continues to ask this question
around the globe, “Is your religion important to you?”
The answer is “no” or “not very much.”
Which countries are the most irreligious in the world, second
only to Japan? Norway,
Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. The
mother countries of the Lutheran Church.
These Scandinavian countries have the State Church, and the
State Church has been deadly on the Pentecostal passions of the
Spirit. Only 23% of the
people in Norway say that their religion is important to them.
You see, it is possible for one’s faith to grow cold to the
Spirit of Pentecost. That’s
what the Book of Revelation is all about. In Revelation, the Church
in Ephesus had grown cold and indifferent to God’s purpose in the
world.
Let’s
talk about the good old United States.
No let’s talk about the West coast.
No, let’s talk about the State of Washington where we live,
work and do ministry. The
state of Washington’s population during the 1980s grew 17% and has
continued to grow vigorously in the 1990s about 13%.
So how much did the Lutheran Church grow in the l980s in the
State of Washington? In the 1990s? 17%?
15%? 12%?
7%? 4%
1? Shall we go
in the minus figures? The
population grew 17% in the 80s but the Lutheran church declined
during these booming years of population in the State of Washington.
How is that possible? The
important question is: is
it possible for the laity to no longer be on fire by the power of
Jesus Christ? Is it possible for a church to gradually become a
self-contained unit that has lost all sense of evangelical fervor? The answer to that question is a tragic “yes.”
Where
we live in the State of Washington, the population surrounding us is
65% unchurched. We are more unchurched than Tanzania, Madagascar,
and Namibia. We are very unchurched, with thousands of unchurched people
living around us. The
big question for our congregation is this: Do
the laity understand, not only with their heads but with their
hearts, do they truly understand, that for us to be a missionary
church in the State of Washington, that “nothing but fire ...
If YOU want to set somebody on fire, YOU have ... A burning
heart will soon find for itself a ... ”
The
question before us today is this:
Do these evangelical principles that I have been discussing
with you, these principles that have been found to be true in the
first and twentieth centuries of Christian expansion, that have been
found to be true in Africa, Asia, and South America;
that have been found to be true where we work and live in the State of
Washington; are these principles
still found to be true in (your location, situation) at the end
of the second millennium and the beginning of the third millennium?
...Is it true for you and your congregation, in your life
situation, where ever you may be as a Christian, in whatever your
situation or setting that ... “Nothing but fire ... If YOU want to
set someone on fire, YOU have ...
A burning heart will soon
find for yourself a ... It
is always the laity
empowered by the Holy Spirit that make the difference.
Amen.
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