Pentecost

We're really blessed this morning to have a guest speaker with us.

It's the Reverend Aaron Imey from Australia via Jerusalem.

And he is part of CMJ, which means the Church's Mission Among the Jews.

Sort of vaguely, you know, CMJ, just think Christian Mission and Jews,

and then you've got, you know, the other little connector words can sort of figure themselves out.

And it's a wonderful ministry.

It's the Christ Church, which is part of that in the old city of Jerusalem,

the oldest Protestant church in the Middle East.

And Aaron serves there.

Lots of stories about evangelism and everything.

Next time he comes, hopefully it won't be the 9 o'clock service on the long weekend in May,

but it's just really wonderful to have him with us.

Aaron, how many kids do you have?

Three.

Three and one wife?

One wife.

Okay, good.

That's just...

In the Middle East, you can never tell.

Yeah, that's why I had to ask.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So one wife, three kids.

How long have you been in Jerusalem?

20 years.

20 years.

And so how well do you speak Hebrew?

Tell us.

Okay.

I'm dangerous.

A new miss will come.

What's that?

I'm dangerous.

I speak Hebrew dangerously.

Oh, you speak Hebrew dangerously.

Okay.

But you can speak it.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

People understand it.

Totally.

Totally.

And they're a bit surprised that a goy knows how to speak Hebrew?

Yeah.

I still have an Australian accent with my Hebrew.

I can't get rid of it.

Well, at least it sounds like an educated Australian accent,

not one of those, you know what I mean.

I won't say anything.

I've just put my foot in my mouth.

I won't say anything more.

It's the first time in my whole ministry I've put my foot in my mouth, actually.

At least the first time in the last minute.

So you're going to tell us this in your sermon,

but what's the Jewish feast that this all took place at?

It's called Shavuot.

Shavuot.

It's the Feast of Weeks.

So they still celebrate that festival in Jerusalem?

Yep.

Celebrating it right now.

Right now?

Really?

Right now?

Right now.

Oh, okay.

Yep.

Good.

Well, it's just a blessing to have you.

I'm just going to pray for him and for us as he opens the word.

And then after this, we're going to have a chance to pray for him and other things as well.

So let's just pray.

Father, it's your word, not ours.

Jesus is the Savior, not us.

You are God, not us.

We are really thankful for that.

Father, you wrote your word.

You know what you want to speak to us.

We ask for the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon Aaron,

that he might open your word to us,

that he might draw us to Jesus,

make us more open to the Holy Spirit,

and create within us a desire to glorify you, Father,

and bring you praise.

And this we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you very much.

I really enjoy coming here.

I like what you've done with the place.

You've made it look like a theater.

Did you know that?

And you have a great name,

Church of the Messiah.

So it's Pentecost,

and in Israel today,

it is Shavuot,

the Feast of Weeks.

Just from the story that we read,

Acts chapter 2,

Acts 2 · chapter mention

better set the alarm so I know when to stop.

It's Pentecost.

We see the Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

It's a very familiar story to us all.

We read it quite a few times.

I can tell you that I've actually celebrated this now

48 times in my life.

It's the giving of the Holy Spirit,

the start of the church,

and for me,

I get to operate in a mission

five minutes away from where all this happened,

which is a privilege.

And Acts chapter 2,

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Pentecost,

it's a great mission story for missionaries.

I mean, you get the Holy Spirit,

you have a captivated audience,

you preach a very short sermon,

and you save 3,000 people.

So it is a really good story.

3,000 in one day.

It's fantastic.

The book of Acts is sacred history.

It's the sacred history of the church.

2,000 years ago.

So how does it impact now?

How does it impact us now?

What does Pentecost mean for us now?

How does the Holy Spirit,

the giving of God's Spirit onto all flesh,

impact and motivate us now?

So Luke, who's writing this,

has one eye on Pentecost

and one eye on the Exodus,

the first Pentecost.

Because let's remind ourselves

when we pick up the book of Acts,

this has happened before.

In Hebrew, we call it Shavuot,

the Feast of Weeks.

So after we finish Passover,

we count 49 days,

seven sevens,

a week of weeks.

And on the 50th day,

we get together and celebrate another festival,

the Festival of Shavuot.

Well, initially,

this was an agrarian culture,

we celebrated the wheat harvest,

but we celebrated the idea

of us journeying out of Egypt,

coming to the footsteps of Mount Sinai,

actually meeting God

for the very first time,

which is a big deal.

What did we know about God

when we were in Egypt?

Nothing.

We didn't have a priest,

we didn't have a prophet,

we didn't have the temple.

But we get to Mount Sinai

and God reveals himself.

It was a really big event for us

as a people.

And God spoke to us

and he gave us the Torah.

And the tradition these days

is to sit around for the next 24 hours

and read the book of Ruth.

So Jewish people are gathering

in their synagogues

and the passage read,

obviously,

is not Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

It's the book of Ruth.

And there's lots of themes in there

that are amazing and powerful.

You've got themes

of Jews and Gentiles

coming together,

which is what you had

at the Exodus story.

Who came out of Egypt?

Yes, Israel did.

But who else came out?

The mixed multitude.

There were all kinds of people.

So you have Jews and Gentiles

in the book of Ruth

coming together.

You've got Redeemer figures.

People are engaged

in the act of redemption.

You even get a character

that appears called the Goel,

the Redeemer,

a type of Messianic figure.

You have converts,

these people who are actually

coming and embracing

the history of God

and the Jewish people.

And it's about a community

that was once excluded

from Israel,

the Moabites,

now becoming part

of the community.

So it's a great book

to start reading around

at the time of Pentecost.

For our context,

we have,

in the time of Acts,

we're under Roman occupation.

We have a distinct lack

of leadership

in the Jewish community.

We haven't had a good leader

for quite some time

when we get to the book of Acts.

We've got pretty poor shepherds.

And they're all fighting each other

over who's got the correct interpretation

of the Torah.

We've got Sadducees

who jealously guard the temple

and its environment.

We've got the Pharisees

who always point their finger

at how bad they are.

We've got these rabbis

who are always on the fringe.

We've got people

who are embracing Hellenism,

Greek theology

and assimilating

into that culture.

We don't have any prophets.

No one's speaking

into our community.

No one's getting up

delivering powerful sermons.

And we don't have

an independent nation.

For some reason,

that seems to be quite

an important thing

for some people.

So what are we left with?

We're left with the Bible.

We're left with the Torah.

And so we leap

into a study of the Torah,

the study of the Bible,

to try and find out God's will.

If we haven't got good shepherds,

we don't have a good temple structure,

if it's all gone corrupt,

if we don't have any prophets

speaking into us,

we don't have any kings

that can give us direction,

then where do we find our direction?

So for a couple of hundred years

prior to Acts chapter 2,

Acts 2 · chapter mention

we leapt into the Torah.

And we made

the giving of the Torah

a very special event.

So Shavuot,

the giving of the Torah,

when God actually came down

on the mountain and spoke,

that became known as

hachag,

the festival.

So when you read in the Gospels,

sometimes you'll see

Jesus went to Jerusalem

for the festival,

or for the feast.

But I won't tell you

what feast it was.

It's Shavuot.

It's Pentecost.

It even became more important

than Passover.

Like it was the big thing

because the Bible

became important.

It was how we discerned

from the will of God.

And we read

at the beginning of Acts

this sort of shaking

of nature,

of lightning,

of thunder,

of wind.

And the disciples

are together

and they're of one

accord.

And our passage

opens

and it stresses

that they were as one.

It stresses

unity.

This actually is

a Jewish insight

into the text.

They were united

as one.

They were not united

with the corrupt temple.

people.

They were not united

with the corrupt

religious leaders.

They were not united

with the Roman occupation.

What were they united with?

With each other.

They were a community.

Stopped fighting each other

about who was going to sit

on the right hand of Jesus.

Who was going to be the best

of the disciples.

They were of one accord.

One heart.

One mind.

Sharing their possessions.

Selling things

and making sure

that everybody

had enough.

Giving together

each of their material wealth.

Dividing up divisions

of labor

to make sure

that who could do

the teaching,

who could do

the serving,

who could be the warden,

who could do the music.

They were getting

themselves together,

meeting together,

praying together.

Acts says

that they were

getting together

for the prayers.

This actually

is a Jewish comment

because unity

attracts the presence

of God.

What was the purpose

of the Exodus?

Why did God

with a mighty hand

and an outstretched arm

reach down

into a nation

that didn't know

anything about him

that were slaves

and redeem them?

It wasn't,

the purpose

of the Exodus

was not

to get a bunch

of Hebrew slaves

into the Holy Land

because if it was,

God would have given

Moses better directions.

He would have said

when you get out

of Egypt,

you turn left.

When you hit

the Mediterranean,

you turn right

and you can't miss it.

The purpose

of the Exodus

is to bring

the people

to Mount Sinai.

The purpose

of the Exodus

is so that

they can hear

the voice

of the Lord.

The purpose

of the Exodus

is for God

to reveal himself

and to become king.

And so if that's

so important,

why did it take

50 days?

If it was

so important

to get the children

of Israel

to Mount Sinai,

why does it

take them so long?

What's the issue?

And so for Jewish people,

Jewish commentators,

they read through

the Bible

and they look

at every word

individually

with a little

minutiae looking

and they discover

that every time

Israel wanders

around the desert,

the verb

to camp,

yachanu,

is in plural.

They camped,

a group of them.

That's actually

good grammar.

But then all

of a sudden

in Exodus 19,

the verb

switches

to singular,

which is grammatically

incorrect.

But it's in the Bible.

And they go,

that shouldn't be there.

What does it mean

that they were camping

as one

person?

And then they say,

wow,

unity

attracts

the presence

of the Lord.

We were

so concerned

about

whose camel

was stepping

on who else's camel

and whose tent

was too close

to everybody else's tent

and who was getting

a bigger share

of the manna

and the water resources.

But all of a sudden

we said,

no,

we're together

in this.

And God came down.

And when they

read the text,

they discover

that when God spoke,

you could actually

see it.

When you read

Exodus 20,

Exodus 20:18

verse 18,

it says

in Hebrew,

Vokol Ha'am

and all

the people,

well,

who are the people?

Remember,

Israel is now

made up of

Jews and Gentiles.

When they leave

Egypt,

there are Jews

and

Egyptians

came with them.

They are together.

Kol Ha'am,

all the people,

not

Kol Ha'udim,

Kol Israelim,

not all the Israelites,

all the Jews,

Kol Ha'am,

Ro'im,

they saw

et

Hakolot,

they saw

the voices.

Now,

in my English translation,

it says,

all the people saw

the thunder and flashes

of lightning.

But the actual Hebrew

says,

all the people

saw

the voices.

The,

very next word,

the et

ha'lepedim,

and

the torches.

what did they see

when God spoke?

They saw fire.

They saw fire

and they heard

lots

of voices.

And they heard

et

kol Ha'shofar.

They heard

the sound

of the shofar,

the big horn

that

signals

and invokes

the presence

of the Spirit

in Jewish tradition.

You go to Israel

and you get all these

Christians coming along

blowing shofars

all the time.

Completely inappropriately,

just so you know.

You don't blow

shofars

whenever you feel

like it.

It has a particular

purpose.

It's designed,

you blow it

to invoke

the Spirit

of God

and to wake you up.

When you read

the Psalms

that said,

sleep or awake,

you were supposed

to blow the shofar.

Wake up!

The Spirit

of God is here,

we've got to do

something.

So they saw

the voice

of the shofar,

the Edha

Hashem,

and the mountain

of the smoke,

and the people

were afraid,

and they

kind of

retreated.

It was a bit

scary for them.

And you see

the very same

thoughts.

That's why Luke's

got one eye

on the Exodus

because that's

exactly what happens

again

when we have

Pentecost.

we have

the Holy Spirit

coming down,

we have the sound

of the shofar

where the church

is woken up

and there were

tongues of fire.

You could see it

and you could

hear it.

So the Torah

that was given

to the people,

those same people

were now being

given the Spirit

of God.

And oddly enough,

this was declared

in a prophet,

the prophet Joel.

He had actually

said this before.

He said that this

was going to happen,

that the Spirit

of God was going

to be poured out

on all flesh.

One of the

beautiful things

about reading

the Psalms

and reading

the prophets

is we actually

discover that

God is the God

of the world.

For God so loved

the world,

not just the Jews,

salvation was

always going

to be universal.

When God was

going to pour

out His Spirit,

He was going

to give it

to all flesh.

Males,

females,

old,

young,

rich,

poor.

This is

frightening stuff

for totalitarian

dictators and kings.

There was going

to be no difference.

God was going

to give His Spirit

to everybody

and what were

they going to do?

They were going

to roll over

and bark like

dogs.

No.

They were going

to prophesy.

Somewhere along

the line,

we've switched

that word

because we've

now just so

busy concentrating

on the tongues

aspect that

that's only like

halfway through

the Acts 2

passage.

It keeps going.

Stuff happens.

People get

saved.

The community

starts to act

in a certain

way.

That's where

the bit

I'm going

to get to.

But the

prophet Joel

says,

I'm going

to pour

out my

Spirit

on all

flesh

and you

all

prophesy.

It might

be great

to speak

in tongues.

It might

be wonderful

to roll

on the ground

barking like

a dog,

but that

is not

the point.

That is

not the

final

conclusion.

And everyone

in the world

was going

to get it.

And the

world,

let's be

honest,

is a

very hostile

place.

It's hostile

to the

gospel.

It's hostile

to the

church.

It's hostile

to the

truth.

It's just

like the

wilderness.

It's dry.

It's dangerous.

It's the

abode of

demons.

And yet,

that's where

God calls

his heroes.

He doesn't

say,

I'm going

to get you

saved.

You're going

to become

my disciple.

Let's

sit under

a really

nice tree

by the

lake of

the

Galilee,

chew some

gum,

and wait

for the

rapture.

He takes

his heroes

out into

the desert.

Abraham's in

the desert.

Isaac's in

the desert.

Moses is in

the desert.

The people

of God are

in the desert.

The prophets

will run to

the desert.

Jesus goes

to the desert.

John the

Baptist says,

I will prepare

a place where

in the wilderness,

that's where

God's going

to speak.

That's where

he's going

to encounter.

That's where

he's going

to meet

his people.

He's going

to meet

them in

the world.

He's going

to meet

his people

in the

world.

For God

so loved

the world.

It's hostile.

It's dangerous.

But God

is going

to make

it better.

He is not

going to

leave it

dry.

He is not

going to

leave it

barren.

He's not

going to

leave it

alone.

He's going

to come

and leave

heaven.

He's going

to come

down and

dwell.

He's going

to make

it better.

Anyone who

calls on the

name of the

Lord is going

to be saved.

This actually

should wake

us all up.

This really

should motivate

us.

The Holy

Spirit isn't

given to

us so that

we can have

goosebumps,

as nice as

goosebumps might

be.

It's not

given so that

we can have

eschatological

experiences and

then write

them on

Facebook.

It isn't

so that we

can just run

around and

learn mystical

languages.

As nice as

that is, it

is given for

mission.

And I'm

going to say

that not just

because I'm a

missionary.

I'm going to

say it because

that's what God

gave it for.

So that anyone

in the world

who calls on

the name of

the Lord will

be saved.

The Holy

Spirit is

given to

the people

of God,

to Jews and

Gentiles,

for the task

of making

the world a

better place.

For the

task of

going out

into the

world and

sharing the

love of God.

To transform

the wilderness

into something

that's bright,

cheerful,

colorful,

full of

flowers and

beautiful.

A place that

would all

like to live.

It's to put

the will of

God into

practice.

That's why we

get the Holy

Spirit.

It is

given as

a gift so

that we give

it away as

a gift.

And so we

actually have

to hear that

shofar too.

And if we

had one, I'd

say let's blow

it today.

Okay?

And I would

say sleeper

awake.

We the

church, we

need to wake

up.

We need to

make sure that

we take today,

we take, we

retell the story

of Pentecost

every year.

We're supposed

to get

ourselves

reanimated

and reexcited

and remind

ourselves, I

mean that

really is the

job of

preachers, to

remind us of

the story that

we already

know.

To refill

ourselves with

hope and

vision and

remind us that

we're supposed

to be having

dreams and

visions, that

we're supposed

to be engaged

in this world,

not alone.

I do it with

you and you

and I get to

do it together

and we

have the

Holy Spirit,

the presence

of the God.

It was a

really good

prayer that

George said

this morning

where he

said, Lord,

you know,

somehow it

was better

that Jesus

went away

and the

Holy Spirit

was given.

I don't

get it.

And it's

so true.

It would

be really

nice to

keep Jesus.

But for

whatever reason,

and he knows

the best plan,

he gave us

the breath

of God

himself.

And this

is not

something we

take sitting

down.

It is

not

something

that we

take and

keep it

in our

little prayer

closets.

It's

something that

we get

motivated.

We are

all supposed

to be

motivated.

You,

me,

our families.

There is a

world out

there that's

hostile and

God wants

to make

sure that

when we

go into

it,

we are

safe with

him,

we are

protected

by him,

but we

have

something

that can

help us

through all

the

challenges.

So,

brothers and

sisters,

Pentecost,

the readings

that we

read this

morning,

our prayers,

they challenge

us to

hear the

shofar,

to see

God speak

in action,

to put it

into practice

so that

everyone,

everyone

who calls

on the

name of

the Lord

will be

saved.

And that's

good news.