Rev.
Debbie Cato
Joel
2:23-32 and Acts 2:41-47
Fairfield
Community Church
June
2, 2024
Let us
pray: Gracious
Savior, you have the words of eternal life. As the Scripture is read and
preached in this hour, empower us to hear it with humility and openness, so
that hearing it, we may respond with courage and conviction. Amen.
Cut to the Heart
Two weeks ago, we celebrated Pentecost Sunday
–the coming of the Holy Spirit. We celebrated
the birth of the Christian Church; the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Jesus’
disciples and their companions. We read
how a violent, roaring
wind filled the room and how tongues of fire rested on each of the believers
that first Day of Pentecost. We talked
about how the gift of the Holy Spirit empowered the 120 believers to speak
other languages – languages that the thousands of Jews from many nations that
were gathered in Jerusalem for a religious festival could understand.
People in the crowds were amazed that these people from Galilee were speaking in languages they understood. “How can it be that we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own language!” They exclaimed, asking one another, “What does this mean?”
Often our teaching around the Holy Spirit stops here. We spend one Sunday a year – Pentecost Sunday talking about the gift of the Holy Spirit and then, that’s sort of it. Our red paraments are gone. Most of us mainline Christians leave the Holy Spirit for the Charismatics. Yet, we claim that we believe in a Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Interesting, isn’t it?
Something incredibly important happens after the disciples receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. They don’t just go about their day as usual. No. Peter – a fisherman - stands up and in front of thousands of people, he preaches a sermon. The first sermon ever preached!
Peter hadn’t ever preached before. He hadn’t gone to seminary. He hadn’t taken any preaching classes. In fact, in the past when Peter spoke it was generally with his foot in his mouth! He misunderstood Jesus’ mission. He promised things he couldn’t follow through on. Three times he even denied that he knew Jesus. But filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter stands up and preaches a sermon. The words he speaks – the Word of God - is so convicting that 3,000 people believe that Jesus Christ is LORD and they are baptized and are filled with the Holy Spirit. 3,000 people! Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit speaks the truth to a crowd and 3,000 people believe. Wow! The Christian church is born because an uneducated fisherman uses the power of the Holy Spirit to speak the truth.
Can you imagine what this would have been like? Imagine this church without chairs; without furniture actually. People standing shoulder to shoulder packed into our sanctuary and into our fellowship area. People crowding into the basement, into the kitchen and hallway. Every room filled with people, straining to hear Peter speak. There’s no room to move. People spilling out the doors, standing outside. People are crowded into the street, the parking lot, spilling into the neighborhood. And everyone is listening to the gospel being preached for the very first time. It gives me chills.
Peter starts with Old Testament scripture; he starts with the prophet Joel, and he tells the story of God. The Jews in the crowd know the story of God. The Jews know what scripture says. Peter gains credibility; the Jews continue to listen. He tells them about Jesus the Christ – the Son of God. He explains the crucifixion. He tells the people that Jesus had died and been buried – for three days. He tells them that Jesus rose from the dead. The disciples were witnesses to his resurrection. They saw him, they talked to him; they saw the wounds on his hands, in his side. Peter tells them that Jesus ascended into heaven but before he did, he promised that His holy presence - His very Spirit would fill them and never leave them. He tells them that the wind, the tongues of fire, even the ability to speak in other languages came through the power of the Holy Spirit when it descended on them that day. Peter tells them all these things.
Standing among a crowd of questioning people, some cynical, some merely skeptical and some truly seeking, Peter lays out the best formulation of what we cannot really comprehend. He does not rely upon his own ability to devise an interpretation that will convince the crowd. Instead, he offers God’s truth, a story that has captured his own heart and mind. Peter’s story is an account that describes not so much what we can understand, but rather that God understands us and provides for our salvation. Three thousand people listen to every word Peter the fisherman has to say. And how do they react? “They are cut to the heart.”
The Greek word that’s used here is actually stronger than cut – it means to be pierced or to be stabbed. The words they hear Peter say stab them in the heart. They are convinced by the evidence Peter gives them. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus the Christ is LORD. And they are convicted of their sin. They are cut to the heart. Something changes in them. Something happens. They are different. And they ask the only question they could ask, “What shall we do?” What shall we do with this good news?
After Peter is done talking, people don’t go home. They can’t. The Word of God has cut them to the heart. All these Jews – 3,000 of them - accept Christ as their Lord and Savior, they repent of their sin and their prior way of being and they are baptized. On the spot. And like the disciples and their companions, these 3,000 new Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit. They are cut to the heart and they make a decision right then to change their life.
I have wonderful memories of being a young child in kindergarten. I loved story time the best. We all sat on the floor in a semi-circle and listened to the teacher read to us. She would hold the book open so that we could see the pages. I loved being read to. I don’t think I would move a muscle. I couldn’t wait to hear what happened next in the story. I couldn’t wait to see the next picture in the book. I was fully engaged and I didn’t want the book to end. I always wanted her to read one more book. Just one more book.
This is what I think of when I read that after they are baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit, these 3,000 people - these first Christians don’t go home. They stay in Jerusalem. They are changed people and their lives reflect it. They devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching.
We could probably say that the Holy Spirit opened a school in Jerusalem that day; its teachers were the disciples and there were 3,000 pupils in kindergarten! I can picture them sitting at the disciples’ feet, hungry to receive instruction, fully engaged eager to learn all they could. These 3,000 converts soaked up knowledge about Christ. They soaked up knowledge about scripture and their new faith. They weren’t satisfied with only what Peter had taught them. They wanted to know more. The Holy Spirit brought a yearning – a hunger to learn about Christ; to know Christ.
Being filled with the Holy Spirit caused these first Christians to live a radically different life. It changed the very core of their being. Filled with the Holy Spirit, these first Christians devoted themselves … to fellowship – to Koinonia. These first Christians spent time together. The Holy Spirit caused them to care about one another in new ways. If someone was in need, they shared what they had with one another. They took care of one another. They broke bread in their homes together – sharing a meal together in fellowship as Christian brothers and sisters.
Fellowship is an important part of Christian living. When God saves us, He puts us together physically with other Christians called the Church. He puts us together to experience Koinonia. We are united in our faith, and we are united through the power of the Holy Spirit that fills us individually and dwells in our church. God calls us to live out our faith in community and the presence of the Holy Spirit makes it possible. None of these things comes naturally – or easily. But these are all things that we are able to do because the Holy Spirit – the very Spirit of God lives in us giving us the ability to care for one another with the love of Christ. The church is called the Body of Christ because we are called to be in community – called to live out our faith in community.
But they don’t just spend time together in fellowship. It doesn’t stop at caring for one another, relationships with one another. Filled with the Holy Spirit, these first Christians spend time praising God. As a community, they devote themselves to praising God.
These new believers are focused on a relationship with Christ; being in communion with God. They are described as having glad and sincere hearts. Everyone is filled with awe. They bow down before God in humility and wonder and reverence. They worship God with joy. God is in their midst, and they know it.
They don’t worship because it’s Sunday and that is their custom. They look for opportunities to praise God. They worship God because they are in awe of God. They are amazed with what they hear; with what they learn. They are amazed by the wonders and signs being done by the apostles. They are filled with joy that they – people from all over the known world – can have unity in the Spirit and have everything in common. They worship God in the temple and they worship God in their homes. They worship God because they have been cut to the heart.
The Jews who gathered together for the Festival of Harvest got more than they expected. They heard a fisherman from Galilee preach a sermon that cut them to the heart and it changed them forever. These Jews gathered from “every nation under heaven” believed the message of the Gospel, confessed their sins, were baptized, and filled with the Holy Spirit. And as changed people, they stayed together in fellowship and unity, they devoted themselves to the apostles teachings, and they spent time praising God. And the Christian church began and grew in number – “and day by day, the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” This is our beginning. This is our story.
What about you? Why did you come to church today? Were you expecting to find God? To hear good news? To be changed? Did you come with a sense of awe and reverence and joy? God is in our midst – right here, right now. You see, we really shouldn’t be much different from that first church in Jerusalem.
Even though we weren’t in Jerusalem that first Pentecost, even though we didn’t hear Peter speaking to that crowd of 3,000, we have the benefit of his teaching. It’s called the Bible. We can and should be cut to the heart by the Word of God. We can and should be transformed - our lives changed by the teachings of the Holy Scriptures.
The Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost over 2,000 years ago and has never left her church. We can live each day confident in the power and authority of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God lives in us. Does the presence and power of God’s own Spirit make a difference in your life? In the life of this Church? It made a difference in the lives of those 3,000 new Christians 2,000 years ago.
Peter’s first sermon is a proclamation of a set of beliefs about Jesus that grew out the experience of the emerging Christian community. This set of beliefs — Jesus was crucified, died and was buried, God raised him from the dead and he is now exalted — form one of the earliest creeds of the Christian church. Let’s stand and together, as the Body of Christ, let’s say the Apostle’s Creed with conviction and let’s allow these words to cut us to the heart.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and was buried;
He descended to the dead.
On the third day He arose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand
of
God the Father Almighty;
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost;
the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the
forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life
everlasting. Amen.
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