"An Opportunity to Talk about Jesus"

June 8, 2003 The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower

Family reunions can be very interesting. Is that true? Why is that? For one thing, there are these people you grew up with and had all these formative experiences with, be they brothers, or sisters, or parents, or children, or cousins, aunts, uncles. You know, you have all of these things in common and then, for some of us anyway, life just scatters people far, far, far, and wide and you gather back for a family reunion and sometimes discover that you feel like you have almost nothing in common at all, and that feels very odd. I was at a family reunion a few years ago. I was talking with my sister (I won't tell you which sister it was because we were having a disagreement about what God was like). Both of us, I think, were becoming a little bit frustrated in the middle of this dialogue and finally in exasperation she said, "Well, if God is gonna be like that [what I was saying] then I'm not going to believe in Him." And I said, "Oh, well that's going to really solve things."

I want, in our sermon time this morning to talk about those parts of the Christian faith that are subjective--like belief. And those parts of the Christian faith that are not subjective at all, that are objective, that are quite independent of whether you believe in it or not. Now, it is true what my sister was saying: If you choose not to believe--if I choose, if anyone chooses not to believe in God as He actually, truly is, the real God who is really there--there are some things that can be affected by my not believing. I will narrow how much God can be an influence in my life. I will reduce how meaningful participation in services of worship just like this are. There are a number of things that not believing changes. But it doesn't change God. It doesn't change who God is. It doesn't change what God is like. Do you understand?

So my sister saying, "Well, if God is going to be like that, then I'm just not going to believe in Him." Well, it doesn't matter, honey! I mean, God is gonna be who He is and what He is like. And there's a great deal of confusion among Christians and in churches just on this whole issue of what the subjective part of the faith is and the role that that plays and what the objective part of the faith is and the role that that plays. A great deal of confusion about that. The things that are subjective are the things that influence me and the feelings that I have about them, and they're very, very important. But I should never confuse my role in the subjective with God's reality in the objective.

And I want us to look at the original day of Pentecost, the birth of the Christian church. We have it recorded in Acts chapter 2. I want us to look at that and instruct ourselves about the subjective and about the objective, and about the importance of keeping clear which things apply to the one and to the other. We're going to look at Acts chapter 2. We're going to begin with just the early verses and then we're going to skip on down to verse 22 and we're going to see what Peter says about it.

But first let me set the stage for you. Pentecost, which is the Sunday that Christian churches have celebrated ever since the incident referred to in this chapter, before it was a Christian holy day, it was a Jewish holy day. There were three high holy days of the Jewish calendar year on which the Israelite males were called upon to go up to Jerusalem and to present themselves before the Lord at temple services, and Pentecost is one of those. It was referred to earlier by different names. It was first called "The Feast of Harvest" and then it became "The Feast of Weeks." But once the Greek language took over the Mediterranean world and became the lingua franca, the one language that was known everywhere, Jews began to call their holy days no longer by Hebrew names, but by Greek names. So before the time of Jesus, The Feast of Harvest (which was The Feast of Weeks) was called Pentecost. And Pentecost just means "fiftieth." Fiftieth, short for "the fiftieth day." What fiftieth day? Well, there was Passover and then seven weeks and one day--if we have seven weeks and one day, how many does that total up to? [Fifty] You guys are so sharp this morning! I want you to do my income tax! Yes, seven weeks and a day, fiftieth, so Pentecost is the Greek name for the fiftieth day.

Now then, just one last little comment to set the stage. The followers of Jesus are all in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Now, that's not a surprise. The surprise is that they've been there from Passover until now. Jesus was crucified, was resurrected, He appeared in several different locals (sometimes to one person, sometimes to a pair, sometimes to a group of them). Jesus had these various appearances and He said, "Don't leave Jerusalem until the power from above has been poured out on you. Until you receive the power from heaven, don't go anywhere." Normally what would have been the case. They were mostly Galileans and they would have been down in Jerusalem on Passover, they would have returned home, and then they would have come back. But, no. They've been waiting, they've been meeting together, they've been praying. They didn't know what this "power from on high" was going to be like. They just knew that they had instructions from the Lord, "Don't go until you get it" so they've been meeting together, they've been praying, they've been waiting. And now we come to Acts chapter 2, verse 1:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now, notice what happens. We're going to skip the part, but what happens next is a crowd gathers because there are people there from all around the world, so a crowd gathers because they hear praises to God being spoken in their many, many, many different languages. And they go, "Oh! Hey! Cool! OK!" and they go over and they want to see who's talking in my language. Well, a crowd gathers and then Peter stands up and he preaches and this is what he says:

"You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know--this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law [Pilate and the Romans]. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held by its power [which is to say the power of death].

 

Now, Peter tells them about Jesus. He reminds them (they all would have heard and many of them were eyewitnesses of the things that Jesus did). Peter reminds them of the miracles that Jesus performed, the teachings that Jesus taught. He reminds them that this Jesus was crucified, but then was resurrected from the dead. Now notice he does not spend a lot of time talking about their experience, and he could have.

He might--you know, a big crowd has gathered and they're going, "Hey, what's going on?" Peter could have said, "Boy, do I feel good this morning! Let me tell you about how good I feel. And let me tell you how good all of us who are Christians feel. And let me tell you about the joy of the Lord . . ." He doesn't talk about "them" very much. He acknowledges the experience, he clarifies the experience by relating it to the prophecy of Joel, and then right away he says, "Now, you know what--the reason for this experience is so that we can talk about Jesus, because He's the one."

You see, there's the subjective and there's the objective. And Christians get confused about this all the time. If God has given you some terrific spiritual experience--and God can do that--it may not be so that you go around and talk about you and your experience everywhere you go. It might be because God wants you to talk about Jesus.

Whatever it is, whatever you've received, whatever the blessing, whatever the nature of the blessing is, you know, if the Bible is our model, it will not be so that you go around forever saying, "Let me tell you about me. Let me tell you about how I've been blessed. Let me tell you about what I've got. I bet you wish that you had what I've got." Me, me, me. Or us, us, us. No.

If the Bible is our model, then we can be grateful for our experience. I'm not saying never mention it at all. You can say, "Jesus Christ has changed my life. I once was lost, I now am found. Now, let me tell you about this Jesus that did that." It's very important that we get this reminder from time to time because we're fascinated with ourselves! We love talking about us! And sometimes it's not a good thing. Let me illustrate it in some different ways kind of taken from all over the Christian church.

Some of us remember from a few years ago something called the "Toronto experience." Nod your ahead if you know what I'm talking about. You see, if you don't know what I'm talking about you're going to think I'm crazy. There was a--let's call it a "revival" [in quotes]--there was a "revival" in Toronto (and I'm not denying right now that it might have been a legitimate revival. I'm just telling you what all of us heard). Now, this is the city of Toronto, famous now for the SARS epidemic, but famous earlier in some Christian circles for a dramatic thing happening at the Toronto Vineyard Christian Fellowship. Because people were flocking from all over Canada, from all over Canada and the United States, and even from all over the world. People wanted to go just a few years ago and get in on the "Toronto experience" that took place at their worship services. And what was it? Well, if you went and if you got the thing, you would be knocked to the floor and then you would bark like a dog or roar like a lion. Not a lot of Presbyterians are attracted to experiences like that . . . But some people are. And what I just want to submit to you is that I never heard anyone who had been affected by the "Toronto experience" in a way that they thought was positive--I never heard anyone talk about Jesus! I only heard people say, "Oh, my gosh, I went in and I felt something heavy land on me and I fell to the floor, I started barking and mooing and don't you want to come to Toronto with me so that you can have the Toronto experience?"

Well you know what? People are not saved by you and your experience. People are saved by Jesus Christ. So sooner or later we need to give up on "Let me tell you about me and my experience" and we need to go over and talk about Jesus. Now, OK. That's charismatics, but I've got to tell you charismatics--God bless every charismatic here this morning--charismatics are not the only ones that are guilty of this.

Let's talk about the Reimagining conference. (That was not very charismatic!) If you remember that one from a few years ago, ultra- ultra-liberals from parts of the church gathered together. It was women. It was radical-feminist women wanting to worship the god Sophia. And why did they want to worship the god Sophia? It was "because we're women, we've got our own experiences of spiritual things, and so we want to reimagine God in a way that's appropriate for us and our spirituality." And the speakers literally (and, again, if you don't know this you're going to think that I'm lying to you, but it's true). The speakers literally said, "We don't need a Savior who dies on a cross." They just repudiated that. "That's unnecessary for us. You see, we have our delightful spiritual experiences so we're going to reimagine God and we don't need blood shed for the remission of our sins. We don't need a Savior who dies on a cross." So, I mean, it's not just charismatics.

And let me bring it closer to home and talk about something near and dear to my heart. And, forgive me, I'm going to talk about Campus Crusade for Christ now. Not because I've got it in for Campus Crusade (because I love Campus Crusade for Christ). But I just want to illustrate that this tendency to miss the point can be found anywhere that there is religion whatsoever. When I was in college, I was very, very active in Campus Crusade for Christ. I still love it to this day. I still carry in my wallet the first copy of "The Four Spiritual Laws" that I ever received. That's no lie. But I started noticing something. Back in those days the headquarters of Campus Crusade was not where it is right now. It was in Arrowhead Springs, California. So we would go down--everybody wanted to go down and get the "Arrowhead Springs experience." If you went down and you got the Arrowhead Springs experience, then you would be invited to stand up at the College Life meeting at the end of that weekend and talk about your experience. And I started noticing something. Nobody ever came back and talked about Jesus! Nobody ever came back and talked about God. Nobody ever came back and talked about repentance of sin. Instead it was, "Oh, my gosh, the chandeliers were just beautiful! And, I mean, there was so much silverware I didn't even know which fork to use. And there were two swimming pools, plus a diving pool, plus . . . " and they'd talk about the facility. After a while, I was thinking there's something not quite right about going away for a spiritual weekend and coming back and not talking about anything spiritual, but just talking about the place that you went, and just how impressive it was, and the tan that you got!

I cite all of those because the Bible has a better way and a different way that every one of us--charismatic or not, liberal or conservative or not--every one of us needs to be reminded that the Bible has something different for us than what we would normally, naturally do with the spiritual experiences that come our way.

The normal, natural human thing to do with the spiritual experiences that come our way is to talk about me and my experience. That's not what Peter does. What Peter does is he acknowledges the experience and then he says, "Now, let me tell you the reason for the experience. The reason for the experience is so that you guys would all come running over here so that I could remind you about that Jesus who worked wonders (and you saw them), who was crucified (and you know that He was), who was resurrected by God. That Jesus is the Savior, the Messiah, Christ the Lord. And God wants you to repent of your sins."

And there was an incredible founding of the Christian Church on this particular day because Peter didn't dwell on him, on his experience. Peter talked about what is saving.

You and I should be very, very grateful for whatever the wonderful things that God sends our way might be. Let's remember that hearing about those things doesn't save anybody. Jesus does. Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you that yes, indeed, you did send us a Savior, your Son Jesus Christ. Lord, we confess that like everyone we are tempted. When given an opportunity to talk about Jesus, Lord, we're tempted to talk about anything and everything but Jesus. Lord, we ask that you would empower us anew today. And it's in the strong name of Jesus Himself that we pray. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower

Interim Pastor

Faith Presbyterian Church

Minnetonka, Minnesota

[Transcribed from an audiotape of the worship service on June 8, 2003.]