Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Filled with The Power of the Spirit

Sunday was Pentecost Sunday and a great day to celebrate in church. Here are some excerpts from my message:


One of the fun things about going away to college was visiting other churches. I went to college in Birmingham, AL, and finding baptist churches there is like finding sand at the beach.

One weekend a friend in the dorm asked me to go to church with him. He’d seen that a former Hell’s Angel was giving his testimony. Well, we loaded up and went to hear him one Sunday night and his testimony was extraordinary; it was astonishing; it was spectacular - everything you would imagine from a former Hell’s Angel turned Evangelist.

That next week a few of us were talking about what we’d seen and heard and I remember thinking, I’m not so sure I should ever tell my testimony…compared to what I had heard, I sounded about as adventurous as Lawrence Welk or Al Gore!

Let’s consider Jesus’ first recorded public statements in the Gospel of Luke. Now, he’d been ministering and healing throughout the land, but he has come home to Nazareth to worship.


Unrolling it, Jesus found the place where it is written: "The Spirit of the LORD is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor." Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

Luke 4.14 -21


News of Jesus’ ministry had spread, so when he got up to read Scripture in worship, people paid close attention. As Jesus read this Scripture everyone related, as they considered the oppression and lack of freedom they experienced under the strong hand of Rome.

And Jesus said, Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Today, right in front of you, God has come into the world. Today, God is delivering.

As Jesus quoted from Isaiah…we are reminded that Jesus had come bringing the Good News that God so loved the world. And Jesus had come to share this good news with the poor. And I believe he meant to share not just with people who had few material possessions or little means, I believe he came to the poor, the person who’d sold herself to her own will and had made her own desires and whims and inclinations her chief aim in life. As she chased her desires and put her wants over everything else, she had been left bankrupt and impoverished. Jesus came to deliver Good News to the poor.

This week I talked with a minister who’d spent ten years as a prison chaplain. One interesting thing he said as he reflected upon that ministry was this: When a person is in prison, he is not the only one in prison. His wife is in prison; his children are in prison; his extended family is in prison, too.

I believe Jesus was not just talking to the prisoner. He was speaking to the person who’d been held captive by his own sin or the sin of a loved one. The solution for sin, the way to break the shackles of sin, is and always will be a vibrant and active faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus has come for imprisoned of all sorts.

Jesus also came for the blind. And here lack of vision is not just limited to the physically impaired. Jesus came for the people who’d lost sight of what life was to be about. God has a plan for your life. God knows you. God loves you. God calls you to participate with him in this world.

Some were blind because they focused on the wrong things. Take the Pharisees, for example. They knew their Bible better than we do. They fasted. They prayed every day. They followed God’s law in their life even when it was inconvenient. Yet, they missed Jesus Christ right in front of them – at least many of them did.

Some, like Judas, were blinded by their greed or blinded by their expectations of a Messiah who’d free them from Rome. As they looked for a Messiah, they looked for a political solution to life’s problems. Instead, Jesus offered a life greater than the freedom of citizenship of any nation could ever offer. (The poor, blind, and prisoner ideas inspired by Alexander Maclaren.)

In the synagogue that day they heard Jesus’ words, yet they didn’t hear his message. And a few verses later, they drove him out of town. Matthew and Mark record similar occurrences in the Synagogue. Mark says, He could not do any miracles there because of their unbelief…And Jesus was astonished at their lack of faith. (Chapter 6)

Let’s consider two things: The first one is this, Is it possible that our doubts and suspicions and unbelief effect the ability of God to work in our lives or in the lives of our family or in our neighbor’s lives? Jesus could do no miracles there because of their lack of faith. Mark said so.

Pentecost should remind us that God does great things when his people faithfully gather in prayer together. Where two or three are gathered, there I shall be, Jesus says. There should be no such thing as an ordinary or average Sunday. My prayer is that we will learn to come into this place with great expectations anticipating the wonderful things God is doing and will do!

The second issue involves a question. What does it mean, what will it look like, what will be the result when the Spirit of the Lord is upon you (and me?) (Thank you to Walter Shurden’s May 2010 Preaching Journal for this question.)

Some would say, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because I am excited to be here. Some would say, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because I ‘feel’ something powerful. Some would say that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us because we draw big crowds and our people are excited. Is the Spirit of the Lord upon me because my testimony is spectacular? No. Some would say, The Spirit of the Lord is upon us because we jump up and down and shout and sing and dance.

But, what did Jesus say?

The Spirit of the LORD is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor."

Jesus’ call is into a life of deep conviction, strong compassion, endless grace and eternal mercy.

We are to be his witnesses. Now, ask any judge, do they want witnesses to be fancy or creative, embellishing the story for the sake of courtroom drama? No, the judge wants someone to simply tell ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

Jesus said, You are to be my witnesses. And my Spirit is in your midst. You are not alone. Go. Tell. Be my disciples. The world needs you to tell them about me. Amen.

Do you have comments? I’d like to hear: ande.myers@gmail.com