It is All Good!

Church in Chiang Mai Church January 2015 First I would like to share a story with you from Africa…. The story is told of a king in Africa who had a close friend with whom he grew up. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) and remarking, "This is good!" One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off. Examining the situation the friend remarked as usual, "This is good!" To which the king replied, "No, this is NOT good!" and proceeded to send his friend to jail. About a year later, the king was hunting in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took them to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake. As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone that was less than whole. So untying the king, they sent him on his way. As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend. "You were right," he said, "it was good that my thumb was blown off." And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. "And so I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this." "No," his friend replied, "This is good!" "What do you mean, 'This is good'? How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?" "If I had NOT been in jail, I would have been with you." I just told that story to my congregation last week. It is a story that fits our situation – but I think that the story has a universal truth that applies to all of our lives. We are all asking God why – Why are these things happening to me. In life there are things that happen – we say – I am a good person – but where is the good in my life? How is the the suffering that I am going through a good thing? Well the good new of Romans 8:28 is that when we are Christians- that all things work for the good of those who are Christians and put their life inside of Christ. Even bad things will turn out for good. The book of Romans is one of my favorite books of the bible. If someone wants to learn what it means to be a Christian and why christ is important – I would tell them to read the book of Romans – specifically Romans 8 It tells you all that you need to know about faith and Christ. Romans 8 contains 8 key promises for our lives. The first word of Romans 8 is Life through the spirit – there is no condemnation for those who live in christ. 1. For is – If God has forgiven you then no one else has a right to condemn you. 2. God’s Spirit – the spirit of Christ is always inside of you - helping you go through every situation 3. If God’s spirit is in you – then you are a son or daughter of Christ. 4. When we suffer, it is God’s glory that will give you hope 5. The spirit comes to us in our weakness, when we do not have the words to express our pain or pray – we can trust the spirit to speak to God on our behalf. The last three are the good one Verse 30 says - God thought about you before you were born. God called you to be a Christian. If God called you - then he justified you – he sanctified you – he cleaned your spirit and made you holy. If you have been chosen by God – you are a rightueous person so god can be glorified. 7, We are not just put on this earth to muddle through life. We are more than conqueres. The spirit of God inside of us is stronger than any circumstance in our lives. God created you to be a winner! The last promise is the best. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Read the rest of Romans God is not going to walk away from you – you don’t even have to walk away from God. In some of the toughest times in the lives of people in my congregation. I remind them of the promises of romans 8. When my sister died 2 years ago – I read Romans 8 to my family. There was a professor who gave his students a test on romans 8:28 – we know God works all things together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called together according to his purpose. He told them to remember that verse for the test. Well the test was supposed to be the next day – but the professor got into an accident. His wife was killed and he was badly injured. A month later – when the professor got out of the hospital – the students wanted to know whether Romans 8 was still true for him. Did the professor still believe it was the most important verse. Yes it is – says the professor- God is still with me. When Christ lives in our hearts – he gives us hope, Hope that everthing is gonna be okay. A young boy was suffering from an illness that would killhim. The doctor told him we was going to die. The young man burst out in tears. The doctor took away my hope. The woman listening said, if someone takes your hope – then you need to find a new one. Christ is our hope for everything. What do you do in a hopeless situation – find christ. If you are a Christian – then he is inside of you. My last story, I gotfrom one of my church members yesterday. She posted it on her facebook page. Her husband is very sick with a disease where his muscles are shutting down. An aging master grew tired of his apprentice’s complaints. One morning, he sent him to get some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master told him to mix a handful of salt in a glass of water and then drink it. “How does it taste?” the master asked. “Bitter,” said the apprentice. The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake.” As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the master asked, “How does it taste?” “Fresh,” remarked the apprentice. “Do you taste the salt?” asked the master. “No,” said the young man. At this the master sat beside this serious young man, and explained softly, “The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake.” Bitterness when our pain is held in the world. But we should hold our pain in Christ. Christ is the lake where hope is in abundant supply! Put your hope in christ – doesn’t take our suffering away – It just makes it so much easier to deal with. Amen

Pour out your Spirit

May 26, 2013 Act 2:1-21 Romans 8: “Pour out your spirit” Celebration of Pentecost Year C Aldersgate and Pentecost We know that John Wesley is the founder of the United Methodist Church. But especially in the black church we don’t know a whole lot about his life. ….. And many of us have never heard of Aldersgate. Aldersgate date was this past Thursday. WESLEY’S CONVERSION John Wesley become a priest in the Church of England before he had become a Christian. His conversion story is very interesting: Not long after the first Moravian missionaries came from Germany, Wesley had left for the West Indies, Wesley found himself on board a ship with a group of Moravian Christians on 25th January 1736. That day the weather was rough. Three storms had already battered the boat, and a fourth was brewing. Wesley scribbled in his journal, "Storm greater: afraid!" But the Moravians trusted God so simply and so completely that they showed no signs of fear. They even held a service at the height of the storm. In the middle of their singing, a gigantic wave rose over the side of the vessel, splitting the main-sail and covered the ship. Water poured between the decks like water pouring over the Niagara Falls - "as if the great deep had already swallowed us up," Wesley wrote. The English passengers shrieked as the ship lurched and pitched between towering waves. A terrified Wesley clung on for dear life. But the German missionaries didn’t miss a beat. Wesley, awestruck by their composure, later went to the leader and asked, "Weren’t you afraid?" "I thank God, no." "Weren’t your women and children afraid?" "No," replied the man. "Our women and children are not afraid." Wesley was so struck by their faith that he spoke to one of their main leaders, Peter Boehler, when they arrived in London. Wesley wrote in his journal, "Peter Boehler, whom God prepared for me as soon as I came to London, affirmed of true faith in Christ...that it always has two fruits with it: dominion over sin, and constant peace, from a sense of forgiveness. I was quite amazed, and looked upon it as a new Gospel." Peter Boehler went on to share a passage with John Wesley, "The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God." (Romans 8:16) He then persuaded Wesley into attending a meeting with Boehler’s Moravian Church one evening. Wesley continued on in his journal: "In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a Society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ; Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." Wesley as we know was the founder of the Methodist Church and became a famous evangelist and social reformer. But he himself was won to Christ by a small group who knew that they were children of God because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives. (My thanks to Michael O. Silva Beyond Repentance July 23, 2006 for the story) We don’t get to talk about aldersgate and Pentecost, even though they were similar events. I want to use the aldersgate story as an example of the importance of Pentecost. Pentecost is the fulfillment of God’s promise of the spirit. Isaiah said that the day would come when God poured out his spirit on his people. Joel predicted that the day would come when the visions of God would be available to any one. Peter was a witness that the day came – when te spirit was available to everyone. And the spirit of God spoke in any language- so that all would have the chance to be saved. To understand the voice of God for themselves. With all that we are up to, I didn’t want us to pass up this chance to stop and take in the lessons of Pentecost. The spirit of the Lord comes upon us as the spirit came upon those on that day which was the birth of the church. Pentecost is not just the culmination of a promise, Pentecost is the mark of the new beginnings. In order for us to truly serve God, we have to make sure that we have the spirit with us. and that we rely on the power of the spirit in all that we do. The poet William Blake wrote a poem about Pentecost. Part of the poem says: Unless the eye catch fire, God will not be seen. Unless the ear catch fire, God will not be heard. Unless the tongue catch fire, God will not be named. Unless the Heart catch fire, God will not be loved. Unless the mind catch fire, God will not be known. Staff, www.eSermons.com This year as we think about Pentecost, I want us to think about the power of God in us. The outward signs of the spirit are important. Being able to witness to who God is, and to celebrate God in our lives. But before we can have an outward celebration, we have to have an inner realization. Our churches today need to be a spiritual house. Many times our churches have become a social house where as one old preacher said: We traded our upper room into the board room, the fire of the Holy Spirit for a warm heater, our prayer meetings for chicken dinners, and we have become as weak as our tea, cold as our soup, and dead as the chicken we eat. John Wesley had been a Christian his whole life, he never thought of being anything else but a minister, and yet in order for him to continue his work – he needed to have an experience of renewal. John Wesley - Heart Strangely Warmed In May of 1738, John Wesley wrote in his journal: "In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate.Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." John Wesley went to a bible study where the Moravians were studying the book of Romans. The same verse that we study today. Chapter 8 reminds us that there is a difference between letting the flesh rule our lives and our decisions, and letting te spirit rule our decisions. Pentecost is the day that the spirit comes into our lives. And take control. Romans 8 says that we have been adopted into the family of God. When we recognize the spirit within us – we become children of God. Where we would make our own decisions, we learn to let God make our decisions, where we rely on or own strength we learn to rely on the power of God. Things start to change, not because we want, because a new spirit of god lives inside of us. QUIET STRENGTH There is a story about a sunken ship that illustrates the quietness of the spirit, but at the same time His Power in our lives. "Several years ago engineers building a new bridge over the East River in New York, discovered that the wrecked hull of a ship, sunk many years before, lay right where the center piers were to be built. Powerful machinery was brought in to remove the ship, but it would not budge. Then one of the engineers had an unusual idea-why not have the tide raise the ship!! Some strong cables were attached to the hull when the tide was low. The other ends were fastened to the barge above. As the tide came in, the barge gradually lifted the sunken ship. It was then towed out into the ocean and sunk at a spot that would not cause future problems." God’s Holy Spirit is like the tide, it comes quietly, it comes in slowly, but it comes to us with enough power so that we might do the job God has called and led each of us to do. SOURCE: Tim Zingale in Pentecost Sunday on www.sermoncentral.com. There is a quiet strength and confidence that makes a difference in the world. When we learn to live as children of God. John Wesley said… “Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on Earth.” ― John Wesley Conviction Conviction is when the Holy Spirit shines His flashlight on a dark area in my heart. --Kent Crockett (Kent Crockett's Sermon Illustrations, www.kentcrockett.com ) Therefore, if Christ abides in you, then there is no condemnation, past, present or within. Which leads us to ask the question, how does this affect the way I live today? IV. Well, Wesley gave some practical suggestions… First, we do not live as people with “little faith.” Just as the disciples woke Jesus because of the storm which they faced, we too may face life without fear of condemnation. As the Scripture tells us, “Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God alone who justifies. Who is able to condemn?” All the sins that we have committed from our birth to this very hour have been swallowed up by God’s grace. Through our confession, our transgressions gone, they are absent, they are remembered no more. Wesley said, “Away with your fears! God does not call you to fear; God has give you ‘a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.’ Under- stand your calling! Rejoice in God your savior, and give thanks to God your Father through Christ!” “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do let them be afraid.” We can live as a people with great faith. Wesley ended his sermon by saying, “We have nothing to fear. ‘Fear that has to do with punishment’ we have no need of it. When we love the One who loves us, it is enough. More love produces more strength. And it’s when we love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength will be “mature and complete, lacking in nothing.” When we realize that we are children of God, we realize that We have the power of God within us. We can do anything that god calls us to do. Pentecost is the day when our spirits learn to accept the presence of God. What spirit of god do you possess today? a spirit of optimism, of caring, of anxiety, of fear. Romans says that with the spirit of god inside of us, there is nothing to fear. God has taken over, God forgives, God cleanses, God lead our souls from deep within. Finally, when we hear the story of the Pentecost, we focus on the fact that the gospel was spoken in many different languages. – but the point of the story is that God was able to speak in ways that we were able to understand. God spoke to each person in the crowd in an outward way – but the message was intended to be personal – the miracle of Pentecost was not in the speaking it was in the listening. Listening to the message intended just for you. In a language that you understand. They say that as death approaches – those who may have spoke in another language, can only communicate in their native tongue. In all of the new testament, the words of Jesus are recorded in greek, and yet his last words are distinctly Aramaic – the language of his homeland. In death, in prayer, in times of solitude, in times of deep need – the spirit of God comes to us. the spirit speaks to us in ways that only we understand. The spirit calls us home, to ourselves- to who we are and who God intends for us to be. The day our hearts are strangely warmed – is the day we decided to listen. Let that day be today, as God pours out his spirit upon us and our mission. Let us pray…. I went to a conference this past fall. The pastor leading the conference challenged us all on the first day. He convicted us all by asking us three questions. I was sitting in the back near the side so I could see everyone’s body language. The pastor asked, “Those of you who have kids or grandkids, do you love them?” You could see everyone’s heads nodding. Then he asked, “those of you who have kids or grandkids, would you die for them?” There was a slight hesitation but then their heads again were nodding. Then he convicted us. He asked, “Those of you with kids or grandkids, if it would help them to know Jesus more intimately, it it would be beneficial for their faith, would you change the music that you play in church?” You could see everyone’s shoulders slump and see their heads bow. We realized that we have been selfish. We have not always looked out for the interests of others. We haven’t done all that we could to make the church a place for our children and the unchurched people in our community. Pentecost was originally an Old Testament festival, the only festival for which no specific date is given in the Bible, it is called the festival of weeks. Leviticus 23:15 however instructs the people to count 7 weeks from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering.” "The history of missions is the history of answered prayer. From Pentecost to the Haystack meeting in New England and from the days when Robert Morrison landed in China to the martyrdom of John and Betty Stam, prayer has been the source of power and the secret of spiritual triumph." M., Zwemer, Sameul A children’s catechism class was learning the Apostles Creed. Each child had been assigned a sentence to repeat. The first one said, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” The second child said, “I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son…” When he had completed his sentence, there was an embarrassing silence. Finally, one child piped up, “Teacher, the boy who believes in the Holy Spirit isn’t here.” Gordon Brownville's Symbols of the Holy Spirit tells about the great Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, the first to discover the magnetic meridian of the North Pole and to discover the South Pole. On one of his trips, Amundsen took a homing pigeon with him. When he had finally reached the top of the world, he opened the bird's cage and set it free. Imagine the delight of Amundsen's wife, back in Norway, when she looked up from the doorway of her home and saw the pigeon circling in the sky above. No doubt she exclaimed, "He's alive! My husband is still alive!" So it was when Jesus ascended. He was gone, but the disciples clung to his promise to send them the Holy Spirit. What joy, then, when the dovelike Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost. The disciples had with them the continual reminder that Jesus was alive and victorious at the right of the Father. This continues to be the Spirit's message. A young artist was trying to copy Raphael's "Madonna and Child," one of the most beautiful pictures in all the world. He went to Florence and gazed on it, then got his easel. Sitting down in front of it he began to copy it. As he looked at it his picture became a thing of beauty, too. But suppose that, instead of only copying, the spirit of Raphael could have come upon that young man: what a difference it would have made! When we come to the Lord Jesus He gives us His Holy Spirit to help us live as He would have us live, and the more the Holy Spirit controls our lives, the more like Him we grow. Do come to Him now, if you have never come, and ask Him to give you His Holy Spirit.—Intermediate Young People. Holy Spirit ________________________________________ The Word and the Spirit "If you have the Word without the Spirit, you'll dry up. If you have the Spirit without the Word, you'll blow up. If you have both the Word and the Spirit, you'll grow up." --Derek Prince ________________________________________ Filled with the Holy Spirit You have probably been in a restaurant where the waitress has asked, "Can I warm up your coffee for you?" The cup may be half-full and cold after sitting on the table for a while. When she pours the new coffee in, she refills and warms up the cup. Maybe you are spiritually cold and empty. It doesn't have to stay that way. Quit trying to live in your own power and strength. Ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit right now. (Kent Crockett, The 911 Handbook, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003, 93) ________________________________________ Those annoying people The thing that aggravates you may be the Holy Spirit convicting you of an attitude that needs to be changed. (Kent Crockett's Sermon Illustrations, www.kentcrockett.com

Wind, Fire and Words

May 31, 2009
Wind, Fire and Words
Acts 2
Romans 8
Year B
Pentecost


what images do they think of when an insight suddenly strikes You? Some will say a light bulb coming on. Or an electric shock.
Perhaps a billboard, a text message, a whack on the head...
But none of us would think of tongues of fire, or gusts of wind.
These are the images for the story of Pentecost.
The Pentecost story is clearly metaphorical an image. The biblical text
itself says, _like_ a mighty wind; tongues _as of_ fire...
Metaphor is like the sacraments – defined by Augustine of Hippo as
"a visible sign of an invisible reality." Tragically, our society has lost its
sense of the metaphoric. We distrust metaphors and analogies. We expect facts.
Yet we still speak of getting fired up. Burning with passion.
Suffering burnout. We refer to spirited horses, team spirit, blowing out the
cobwebs, feeling a fresh wind, a storm of change...
Those are all metaphors – a way of expressing something that would
otherwise be inexpressible. Because the Holy Spirit was not a thing, to be
measured and dissected. It was a feeling, an attitude.

For the early church, it was a realization that what they had been waiting for all along had finally come to them.

Research says that in the year of the Pentecost, this was the first year that many of the jews who had been in exile were first able to come to Jerusalem for the celebration of the gift of the word of God. They came from Meds, Pamphlyia, Cappodicia – places all over the middle east. They came speaking their own languages, and abiding by their own customs. But some how they all got along, they all understood one another, they all witness the same heavenly event, the presence of the holy spirit.
That is the gift of the holy spirit – unity where there is no unity. It was the beginning of the work of the church.
Like all gifts of the church, this story means different things to different people and traditions. For instance, for some the gift was speaking in tongues, for others it was the gift of speaking in different languages and being able to be heard. But the main point was that they knew that God was with them in a very special way. They did not have the words to describe it, but they had the hearts to feel it.
As a matter of fact, sometimes I think it is our words that get us in trouble. We can speak the same language, and sometimes not be understood. Because even though we use the same words- they don’t mean the same thing.
Sometimes it is words that makes thing worse. One Christian remembers the time she was looking for a parking space, she waited patiently for this couple to leave, and it seemed that a van pulled up in front of her out of nowhere, and took the space. She had a few words for the driver of the van and none of them nice. The van driver was so sorry that he pulled out and gave her the space. At first proud, she had to go home to pray to God. Her words totally betrayed whom she was as a Christian.
That is the point of the babel story – that a group got together for a common cause. They went into the project speaking the same language. They finished speaking different languages and accomplishing nothing.
Imagine how much chaos is present in the world because people misunderstand one another. Sometimes the best way to create an argument is to use words. The more you talk , the more you realize that there is disagreement.
Karl Barth says always preach the gospel sometimes even use words – but more importantly use who are you in Christ.
Romans states that the whole world is in birth pains. I feel that there seems to be chaos on every level of life. Everyone is hurting, and everyone is lashing out. And no one seems to understand what is really going on. Yet we are to hope – hope for things that we cannot see. And not worry if we have the right words to say- to just make sure that we trust in the spirit – who will interpret everything we say. The bible has been interpreted in ever language in the world. In one African village, they were looking for a word for the holy spirit – until the noticed that whenever a group had to carry a heavy load – there was always one man who went with them, but carried nothing himself. They explained that when someone gave out from exhaustion, this was the man who always took his place, so that the journey could continue.
They had their word for the holy spirit - the one who carries our burdens to God for us, when we are too weak to travel. The one who prays on our behalf.

In our obsession with the concrete, we’ve even made the Holy Spirit
a noun. We capitalize it, like a proper name. But in truth, it was more like a
verb – just as “faith” in Hebrew, mn, was a verb, best translated as “to

trust.”
Likewise, God does not describe godself as a noun, as a static thing, but as a verb, to moses God said not I am who I am, But I will be, who I will be. The spirit of God is always on the move in the world, making a difference.
Our greatest witness to the presence of God is to move in a static world. To be who we are and not to get caught up in definitions of who we were just yesterday.
The greatest image of the holy spirit for the world today in chaos in pain, are the be the people who trust in God. No words needed, just our hearts.