Power

Pastor Robarge’s Sermon
Sunday, June 26, 2011

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Picture for a moment standing in a room, a good-sized room, filled with people and as you’re all there waiting for a celebration to occur, some men stand up. They begin to talk. The thing is you’re vaguely familiar with these men. These men are normal. They’re normal everyday guys. They have normal jobs. They have normal families. And yet, who’s given them the power to stand up and talk?

But even as you’re going through this situation, most of those thoughts seem to dissipate as their words continue to cut you to the core. You don’t know what it is. You don’t know how they’re doing it, but there they are.

The disciples gathered on that Pentecost. Jews gathered in Jerusalem for a feast day and as they were there, they heard the disciples and they came in to listen. You see, the disciples were given a mission. What Jesus says, when He was leaving them, when He was ascending into heaven, He says to His disciples, “Wait here in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit will come to you so that you will be my witnesses here in Jerusalem, Samaria, to the ends of the earth.”

Look at that job that’s set before them. Is there any bigger job in all of the world? They’re saying to these disciples that only know Jerusalem and these surrounding areas, “Guess what? You are going to be my witnesses to all the earth.” Maybe a little overwhelming? How are they ever going to do that? It’s not by their power.

Pastor Burcham, four weeks ago, started this series of messages with a campaign that he heard of which one girl was a part. It was called “Save the Worms.” Anybody else a part of that organization today? I guess it didn’t catch on. Well, if you didn’t hear the story, it was a little girl and her mission in life was to save the worms. She saw these worms and the worms would creep out of the ground and they would go onto the cement and when the sun would come out, they would be paralyzed and they would end up dying. And then somebody said, “Alright, it’s over. What are you going to do?” So she said every morning, every time it rains, she would spend a little bit of extra time. She would go out and she would flick the worms back into safety. She didn’t want to touch them. And when she was posed with the question, “Well, there are probably thousands that are right around your house, not even to mention all of the millions that are around the world. How do you expect to save all the worms?” She said, “I just can’t watch them die.”

Pastor Burcham also addressed in that message, he gave you a figure here in Polk County, a figure that’s probably much bigger than it was back in 2000, of around 200,000 individuals living with no church home, no religious affiliation at all. We too can feel overwhelmed. How is it that we ever expect to make a change, an inroads to our culture and community when there are so many of them? Because 200,000 are just in Polk County.

How many in the State of Iowa? How many in the United States? How many around the world are living without a relationship with Jesus Christ? Do you see the problem? It can be very overwhelming when we think of the sheer numbers that are involved here. And yet, there is the mission before us. When Jesus says, “You are going to be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Samaria and to the ends of the earth,” it’s a mission that’s set before us, too.

So if we’re to be witnesses in this world, how do we do it? Some may set out with a vision in mind. “I can do this. I have my own power. I have my own strength. I have my own abilities and I’m going to go out and I’m going to try to make a change in this culture and community.” I have to say, it may work on a small scale.

But you see the problem, when we rely merely on human strength, power and ability alone, we receive human-sized results. And I don’t know if those are the ones that God is calling us to make. When we think about 200,000 people here in Polk County, it’s going to take more than just our power, more than just our strength and ability to go out and change a culture, to change people’s hearts because we can’t do it on our own. But the Spirit of God gives us the power.

I want to take you back in the gospel of John because we really need to understand a little bit more about what it is that Jesus was talking about with the Holy Spirit and giving it to these disciples so they would have the power to go out and change their community. This is even before Jesus was crucified, before He was resurrected. Back in John 16 when He first promises them the Holy Spirit, this is what He says in 16:5, “Now I am going to Him who sent me and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth and it’s to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you but if I go, I will send Him to you. And when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment.”

There are a couple of things that are significant here that Jesus is telling His disciples. First, He is going away. And He says, “I can understand that your hearts are broken because of that.” The disciples have been following Him for three years, listening to Him, seeing what He’s been doing, touching hearts of people around those villages and communities of Jerusalem. And now He says He’s going away. What are they going to do? What’s it going to look like? How are they going to go on? And yet, this is the amazing part that Jesus doesn’t just say that. He says it’s going to be for your advantage that He goes away. How is it to our advantage? Don’t we want Jesus standing next to us, side by side everywhere we go? No matter what conversation or who we interact with, Jesus is standing next to us. But He says, “No, it will actually be better for you that I’m not here.”

And as He goes on, He says, “Then this spirit, this counselor, this comforter, this guide will be with you but His job then is to convict the world of sin, to speak about righteousness and judgment.” There’s a specific job here that’s pointed out for the disciples but it doesn’t just stop there because once Jesus is convicted and tried and crucified, for three days He’s in the grave and He comes back and He speaks to the disciples. He shows Himself to them.

This is significant. We know about the resurrection, but I think often times we move too fast beyond this. It’s significant because the power of the resurrection is where everything comes from. The power of the resurrection. If you can imagine a loved one, maybe it was a mom or a dad or an aunt or an uncle, a grandma, a grandpa, whoever it might have been, imagine a loved one who has passed away. You went to their funeral and you heard the pastor speak some nice words and you heard some eulogy and other people lifting up nice words about your loved one. You miss them extremely bad. But you go to the place where they’re going to be buried and there, you see them put in the ground and there’s a lot of sorrow. There’s a lot of sadness and you go home and you’re mourning.

Three days later, let’s say you walk downstairs and you see your loved one sitting at the table. Doesn’t that change everything? How is that possible? You see, there’s only one person who’s ever raised Himself from the dead. It’s happened before with prophets in the Old Testament. The prophet, Elijah, raised somebody from the dead. Jesus raised people from the dead. Paul and Peter raised somebody from the dead, but it wasn’t without the power of God.

But Jesus Christ Himself raises Himself from the dead. He’s the only person who’s ever done that, and it’s significant. When the disciples see the risen Lord Jesus, they say, “Now we know for sure that this isn’t just some good prophet with a moral message. He’s not just some good teacher who’s come to bring about some new moral code. This is God Himself and we’re going to listen to what He has to say.”

It extends from the power of the resurrection and that’s why when we reach the Acts text, when we see that first part when Jesus is ready to ascend back into heaven, these disciples are leaning in and hearing every word that Jesus has to say. And when He says to them, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come to you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth,” they don’t say, “Well, how is that possible?” They simply say, “The power of the resurrection, the power of God speaking to us in His very words, we know it in our hearts that this somehow, even unimaginable to us, is possible in our world.

And so there they prepare, there they wait, they pray. They find another apostle. There they’re waiting just as the Lord had said and then they go out and they began to teach.

It just didn’t stop at the Pentecost. These disciples helped 3,000 people come to Jesus that day, but they didn’t stop there. They didn’t just say, “Wow, well, there’s 3,000. Is that what Jesus was talking about? We can stop?” No, they continued.

Right after the Acts Pentecost story, we find the disciples headed out and they heal a lame man. Peter preaches again and brings others to Christ. They didn’t just stop with an event. They continued to carry it out, but it wasn’t by their own power. It wasn’t by their own strength or ability. It’s in the power of the Holy Spirit.

In the Lutheran Church, we don’t spend a whole lot of time talking about the Holy Spirit and maybe it’s because we’ve looked at how some people have abused it and we don’t want to become like them, but we need to recognize the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

I want you to think of a time right now, right off the top of your head when you have been walking through and journeying through your life. When was a time when you could say, “That was the work of the Holy Spirit working in my life.” Sometimes, we might have trouble thinking of times because we don’t know necessarily what the Spirit looks like. We don’t know what those works are supposed to feel like. We don’t even recognize what’s happening. But maybe it was when you were down, if you had some hopeless moments in your life and you picked up the Word of God and you went to a familiar passage, one that you’ve been reading, one that maybe you even had memorized but this time, when you read it, something was enlightened. Something spoke to your heart. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit.

Maybe it’s when you’ve been sitting and worshipping and praising God by singing a hymn and something in the hymn speaks to your heart, it’s God’s Spirit that’s working in you. Maybe it’s when you’ve been amongst other believers and words of encouragement are shared, words of encouragement that somebody else didn’t even know you needed to hear. Maybe it’s a telephone call that you make to a friend that you haven’t talked to in awhile, maybe a family member and they tell you, “You’re exactly the person who I needed to hear at this moment.”

These are all works of the Holy Spirit. He promises to His believers, He says, “These are the things that are going to happen in the life of a believer, the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control.” Those are all the fruits that the Holy Spirit has provided the believers and when those things are displayed in the life of the believer, that’s the work of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes, we’re just not willing to see it. We’re not willing to say, “I don’t know if I want to be a part of these. Maybe you’re a little bit afraid because you’ve asked in the past about the Holy Spirit and you haven’t seen any work. Maybe you’re afraid if you do ask, God’s going to do something that you’re not willing to do.

This idea of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit working through lives of believers has been going on for generations and generations. Paul speaks about it a number of times with churches in his letters. I want to take you to a couple just so you can experience and know that what we experience today is the power of the Holy Spirit, it’s nothing new.

Paul in his letter to the Corinthian Church. Corinthians had some major issues going on in their church. Paul is addressing them but in this first part, 1 Corinthian 2, Paul’s putting very plainly what he wants the people to know. He says, “And when I came to you brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling and my speech and my message was not implausible words of wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and in power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

There were things that were happening amongst these believers. They started to trust in their own power and in their own wisdom and they started to say, “We may not need the power of God.” Now I don’t think it was verbally spoken, but it was probably acted out in the lives of even these believers at the Corinthian Church.

Do we see any of that going on today? Do we see any people trying to carry out their life with their own power, with their own strength and their own ability? Yeah. But it doesn’t end there. As Paul talks to the young pastor, Timothy, in Chapter 3, he identifies exactly what’s happening in their culture and circumstances. He says, “Understand this, that in these last days, there will come times of difficulty, for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous without self control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power.”

I don’t think believers ever set out with a goal in mind of rejecting the power of God. But when we start to go along in life and then we start to see maybe some prosperity, maybe some progress, we think, “Well, of course, God must be leading me that way.” But then do we start to cut out the power of God? Do we become like Paul is speaking to this Timothy? Do we become arrogant? And lovers of everything except for God Himself?

The very thing we start to see is the Holy Spirit and the power that is at work, the power that is at work in accomplishing things that are way beyond our imagination. There are going to be man-powered objectives and you will receive man-sized results, but in the power of the Holy Spirit and in God’s power Himself, He says, “You will achieve things that are beyond your imagination, things that are supernatural.”

Are we willing to see God act in a powerful way? I know most of you say, “Yeah, I really want to see God act in a powerful way.” Well, then we have to be willing and available when God’s power, when His Holy Spirit wants to use us, work through us, to be available to say, “I want to achieve supernatural results.”

We see it in the lives of the disciples as things could have easily become very overwhelming. But by the power of the Spirit, they carried out the mission in their world. We can’t go and deny the power of God and expect to achieve supernatural results. When we see the Spirit of God at work today, we can start to identify those times when He’s working. And I would even encourage you to start sharing those stories of how the Holy Spirit has been working through you. Share them with me. Share them with one another. Share them so people can see and celebrate what the Spirit is doing. I’m not saying we should go back to an apostolic church or a pre-church but understand that the power of God is still working through the lives of believers today and the power of God promises to be with each of His believers. Trust in that power. Amen.