[Worship Drama—Speak Up!]

     Have you ever had one of those days when EVERYTHING happens at once?  You know how you try to spread things out so that life comes at a “normal” pace, but it ends up being like a Nationwide Insurance Commercial—“Life comes at you fast?”  Well, here today it’s one of those days.  It’s Mother’s Day.  It’s Pentecost.  And we’re in the seventh of our nine-part Back to Basics Series focusing on the Fruit of the Spirit.  As we’ve just seen in our worship drama, the first Christian Pentecost was an incredible day!  120 believers had gathered in a house to pray and wait for Jesus to send the Holy Spirit as He had promised to do, just before He rose up into heaven.  The believers had been there for ten days.  Imagine that! Ten days of waiting and praying, praying and waiting, and NOTHING happening, or at least nothing seeming to happen!  What’s the longest period of time you’ve ever invested in prayer?  Ten minutes?  An hour?  Two hours?  A day?  Has anyone here ever prayed for ten days straight? 

     Actually, the book of Acts tells us that the 120 found the task a bit much themselves.  While they were waiting and praying, Peter, the apostle who had never really been known for being good at waiting, decided they needed to elect a replacement for Judas among the apostles.  After discussion and prayer, they nominated two men for the task:  Joseph and Matthias.  They prayed and cast lots and Matthias was selected.  The interesting thing about Matthias is we never hear his name mentioned again in the New Testament.  However, there is this other man named Saul, who later changed his name to Paul, whom God selected, and we hear about him a great deal.  My point is that it’s awfully challenging for us to stay focused on waiting and praying—even if Jesus tells us that we must.

     As we saw in the drama, the conclusion of the waiting was an amazing event—the Holy Spirit came to the house, and “fell” on all 120 believers.  The sound like a rushing wind made the believers aware that something was happening, and then they saw “tongues of flame,” that descended and rested on each of them.  After that each believer was given an incredible ability—the ability to speak a language he or she had never learned.  They ran out of the house and began telling everyone about Jesus.  The city of Jerusalem was full of people, because of the Jewish celebration of Pentecost. Jews had come from all over the world to celebrate.  As the believers ran through the streets people from dozens of different countries, started hearing the message of salvation through Jesus in their own language!  Wow!  Talk about life coming at you fast!  As the crowd became more and more interested, confused or simply concluded that the believers were all drunk, Peter stood up and set the record straight.

     Acts 2:14-21 tells us how Peter’s Pentecost message began.  Let’s stand and read it together:  ¹⁴Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. ¹⁵These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. ¹⁶No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel:

     ¹⁷‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.  ¹⁸In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants—men and women alike—and they will prophesy. ¹⁹And I will cause wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below—blood and fire and clouds of smoke.  ²⁰The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and glorious day of the LORD arrives.  ²¹But everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.’   Acts 2:14-21 NLT  Let’s pray….. Amen.  (Please be seated.)

     ^17’In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy.  Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams.’  If you’ve attended church for any period of time at all, you’re familiar with this experience of the early church.  In fact, it is this experience that is often called “The Birthday of the Church,” because on that day the Holy Spirit came and filled His people, so they could be and do God’s work in the name of Jesus.   If you’re not familiar with this account, the key is to see that something totally new and different had taken place.  God had come as the Holy Spirit into a whole group of human beings, not just one special person as happened in the Old Testament days with Moses, Samuel, and King David, for example.  All 120 believers had received the Holy Spirit.  We know from Acts 1 that those believers included men AND women.  Mary, the mother of Jesus was in the group.  Here’s what we read in Acts 1:14-15:   ¹⁴They all met together and were constantly united in prayer, along with Mary the mother of Jesus, several other women, and the brothers of Jesus. ¹⁵During this time, … about 120 believers were together in one place.  Acts 1:14-15a NLT The actual word that the New Living Translation translates as “believers” in Acts 1:15 is “adelphon” – “brothers.”  You see why the New Living Translation reads “believers”? Because we don’t usually call women “brothers,” do we?  Although in those days the word “brother” could refer to both men and women, just as the Spanish word “hermanos” can refer either to brothers or brothers and sisters.  Anyway, the point is men AND women received the Holy Spirit, which fulfilled the Scripture from the prophet Joel that Peter quoted to the crowd. 

     The Church is the body of believers who live in the power of the Holy Spirit. On the morning of the first Christian Pentecost that group consisted of 120 people.  By the end of that day—3,000 more had been added to the Church.  Peter’s message penetrated the hearts of those who listened.  They saw the truth of His words, because they heard the message in their own language!  God’s presence and power proved His message through Peter.  In that early church the Good News of Jesus spread like an infection—but a good infection.  Every, single day new believers were added to the Church.  Salvation came to individuals and communities daily, because the Holy Spirit was at work.  Now, here is the $64,000 question:  Is the Holy Spirit still at work today?  How we answer that question makes all the difference.  Some say, “Well, yes, the Holy Spirit is still sort of at work today.  He’s basically our conscience.  He helps us to know the difference between right and wrong.  Beyond that, it’s pretty much up to us.”   The question I would ask in response to those who think that way is: Where does the Bible tell us that the Holy Spirit’s work came to an end?  I know the answer some give.  At the end of 1 Corinthians 13 we read these words:  ⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 NIV So, someday prophecy, tongues and knowledge—all gifts of the Holy Spirit will come to end.  Those who believe the Holy Spirit is no longer active in empowering the Church for such miraculous activity believe that time has already come, that it came at the end of the “apostolic age.”  With all due respect to such a viewpoint, as you look around does it seem to you that PERFECTION has already come?  Prophecies, tongues, knowledge, and the other gifts and workings of the Holy Spirit will end when PERFECTION has come—when Jesus returns.  In the mean time, the Holy Spirit is still working.

     That brings us to our focus for the day in our Fruit of the Spirit series:  Faithfulness.  Let’s read the list of outcomes in our lives when the Holy Spirit is filling and controlling us from Galatians 5:22-23.  We’ve been reading the list together for seven Sundays now:  ²But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Galatians 5:22-23 NLT  When the Holy Spirit is active in our lives, we live lives of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  We have now taken time to focus on the first six aspects of that fruit:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and goodness.  With each of these aspects we’ve emphasized that only by God’s presence in us through the Holy Spirit are we able to live that particular aspect daily.  When Peter preached on Pentecost, he said that in the last days God’s Spirit would be poured out on a few thousand people, right? Wrong.  He said that in the last days God’s Spirit would be poured out on ALL people.  We are living in those days.  They started on that Pentecost so long ago, and they continue until Jesus returns.  When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatian Christians he pointed out how they would know that the Holy Spirit was empowering them.  They would bear or exhibit the Fruit of the Spirit.

     Here’s the key:  Either the Holy Spirit is still at work empowering and gifting His people, and thus giving us the ability to live the Fruit of the Spirit, or He is not still at work empowering and gifting His people, and thus we are unable to live the Fruit of the Spirit.  You know which of the two I believe.  I wouldn’t be standing here this morning or any morning, for that matter, if I didn’t believe the Holy Spirit is still at work empowering and gifting His people, and thus giving us the ability to live the Fruit of the Spirit.  That’s because I believe what I said last Sunday: There is no good in us apart from God’s presence in us.  When the Holy Spirit came to the Church on that first Christian Pentecost so long ago, He unleashed God’s goodness in people.  He unleashed the power to live God’s love with one another, and even with those who reject that love. 

     Today’s focus point: faithfulness is seventh on the list, of characteristics of those who live in the power of the Holy Spirit.  I have always believed—although I have no way of proving it—that faithfulness seventh on the list for a reason.  In the Bible, the number seven frequently symbolizes completion, wholeness, perfection.  All nine aspects of the Fruit of the Spirit are vital.  Love is listed first, because it IS first.  Of all the qualities we exhibit as followers of Jesus love is one of the three that will remain forever---faith, hope and love remain—and the greatest is love.  That’s not my opinion.  That’s God’s word from 1 Corinthians 13:13.  Faithfulness is seventh on the list of aspects of the Fruit of the Spirit.  It is one of the three abiding qualities of the Holy Spirit’s presence and work among us.  We will exhibit faith and faithfulness in HEAVEN—along with hope and love.  In our lives here and now faithfulness is the quality that defines us as those who love God.  I’ve quoted Dale Milligan’s statement many times over the years about what it means to love God.  Here it is one more time:  “To love God is to trust God enough to obey Him.”  --  Dale Milligan  

     Faithfulness is trusting obedience.  Faithfulness is trusting God enough to obey Him.  As we go about each day as followers of Jesus, our faithfulness or lack of it tells the world whether we love God and whether we’re living in the power of the Holy Spirit.  As a collective group, Christians aren’t doing very well at being faithful in America today.  Study after study shows that Christians divorce at the same, if not at a higher rater, than non-Christians.  Christian students cheat on tests at the same rate as non-Christian students.  Our lives don’t reflect the power of the Holy Spirit as a group.  How can it be that we can follow Jesus, or claim to follow Jesus and yet our lives show no difference when compared with those who make no such claims?  It comes down to this:  Is the Holy Spirit in control, or am I?  Too much Christianity in America amounts to either functional Islam or an absolute reversal of the Biblical meaning of grace.  Muslims believe that good works gain one’s entrance into heaven.  In fact, Muslims often live “better lives” than their Christian counterparts.  Young men in America are finding Islam attractive because it requires discipline, control, effort.  Muslims around the world look at the decadence in our culture and say it demonstrates the failure of Christianity.  Some Christians in an effort to counteract the seeming lack of difference between Christians and the world, are making a renewed called to discipline, control, and effort, as if good works are the answer to ineffective works in our lives.  It sounds right, but as we’ll see it isn’t.

     At the other extreme are those who say, “God’s grace means we’re forgiven for whatever we do, so it doesn’t matter what we do.  At the end of the day, whether we obey God or not, He is going to give us a ‘pass’ into heaven.” 

     It isn’t works, and it isn’t a lack of works that get us into heaven.  Jesus gets us into heaven, but once Jesus is truly LORD—Master--of our lives then we’ll seek to live in faithfulness to Him.  We’ll do that in the power of the Holy Spirit or we’ll fail!  Faithfulness, as every other aspect of the Fruit of the Spirit cannot be “worked up” or “worked out” or “worked at” in our lives.  It must be GIVEN by God and then LIVED by us.  When we go out of here today, we go to a world that’s filled with extremes: Zealots of all types and varieties fill our television and movie screens; the newspapers, books and magazines we read, and the message the Church gives is often “moderation.”  Not too much, not too little, just right. That’s the way to live. Like Goldilocks!  Did Jesus live a life of moderation?  Did Peter, or Paul, or any of the early believers?  Moderates aren’t generally put to death, as Jesus was and all but one of the original apostles.  The difference in their lives, and the lives of so many extremists down through history, though, was they weren’t living for a cause, a political viewpoint.  They lived in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  Their lives were changed radically by God’s presence in them.

     Here’s TODAY’S CHALLENGE:  I will live in faithfulness to God, not by my effort, but by the Holy Spirit in me.  That may not seem like much of a challenge, but it’s an amazing challenge if we actually do it.  The difference between living in faithfulness to God by the power of the Holy Spirit in us, and seeking to live in faithfulness by our own effort, is ALL the DIFFERENCE in the world.  The Apostle Paul told us long ago that our struggle in this world is not against flesh and blood—It’s not against each other, or ourselves, or our “enemies” whoever they may be.  He said our struggle is against spiritual forces of darkness.  The only “weapon” against such forces is the Holy Spirit.  He alone empowers us to be faithful when it just doesn’t seem possible.  By our efforts we will fail. Or worse, we will seem to succeed, and then we’ll grow proud and independent.  When that happens, we no longer depend on the Holy Spirit.  Remember the challenge: TODAY’S CHALLENGE:  I will live in faithfulness to God, not by my effort, but by the Holy Spirit in me.   …not by my effort.  Let me conclude with an illustration of this challenge from my own life, actually, it’s from my Mom’s life, I just happen to be part of it.  When I was fifteen, and had decided that the church was filled with hypocrites and that I wasn’t going to participate anymore, my Mom was faced with a difficult choice.  She could force me to go—which is what I probably would’ve done as a parent--or she could entrust me to God’s keeping.  I’d told her that I still loved Jesus,  that I would read my Bible daily, and tell people about Him.  I just didn’t want to be around the hypocrites.  I wasn’t rejecting God at all.  I was rejecting the local church where I didn’t see Him active.  She released me to God’s care.  She prayed for me.  Then when a new pastor, named Andy Weigand, came to our church who was young, energetic, and Spirit-filled, she started inviting Him over to our home for dinner.  He was single, so it seemed natural for him to be there, because my Mom was always inviting “stragglers,” strangers and misfits to our home.  I didn’t know that she’d asked him to develop a friendship with me, to invest in me, because – well, because she was my Mom AND -- because she believed God had plans for my life.  Over time as many of you know from hearing other parts of this story, Andy’s integrity, His love of Jesus, and His commitment to the local church that I thought was filled with hypocrites, helped me to see that while no local church is perfect, we need to be part of the body of Jesus Christ, and to build it up by the Holy Spirit’s presence and work in us.  I didn’t find out for a lot of years that my mother had asked Andy to invest in me.  Her “plan” worked.  But think about the “plan” for a minute.  When she entrusted me to God’s care, Andy wasn’t our pastor.  She simply prayed that God would work in me.  God provided Andy, and used Andy to draw me back into the local church.  If she had tried by her own effort, given my personality, the likely response would have been an even greater resistance.  Instead, she lived in faithfulness to God, and over a period of a couple of years—not days or weeks, but years—her faithfulness in the Holy Spirit’s power brought very practical fruit.  Her son came back to the body.  How much more is accomplished by faithfulness to God, not by our efforts, but by the Holy Spirit in us, than can ever be accomplished by our efforts alone!  When Peter and the believers let the Holy Spirit lead the result was salvation for 1,000’s.  When we live in faithfulness to God with the Holy Spirit leading, the result will be the salvation of many.  Salvation is God’s gift and responsibility.  Faithfulness in the Spirit is ours!  As we live that faithfulness out there (point outside)—whether we’re mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, whatever—not seeking to live by our effort, but by the Holy Spirit’s presence in us lives will changes—ours and theirs.  That’s the point after all.  That’s the point.  Let’s pray…. Amen.