NOTE: I am putting my weekly sermons on the church website. It will be on for two weeks (usually posted on Friday) and then placed in the Archives area by date. You can download in a matter of seconds.

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766

Sunday, May 19, 2002
Pentecost Sunday
Sermon: "Like the Rush of a Violent Wind"
Acts 2:1-21
Reverend Larry Gerber

The mighty wind power of the Holy Spirit wants to electrify the church, but
first we need to scrape off the pesky insects that clog our spiritual
turbines.

Pentecost was a high-energy event.
You've got your flames of fire, and some fierce winds ripping through the
area. And whenever you have unexplained sources of energy, you're going to
attract a lot of attention.

The search for energy is a history of humankind. So important is energy to
human survival that myths were written to explain how we came to have it
(Prometheus and fire); to have energy is to have power and control - a truth
that seems self-evident in the current geopolitical climate of Middle Eastern
diplomacy.

That's why we're always interested in alternative sources of energy - whether
biomass, geothermal, nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, or even the methane gas
produced by cow manure. The cow pies dropped globally in the pastures of the
world produce millions of metric tons of methane gas, but research does not
appear to have an efficient method of converting this energy from cows to
our homes and automobiles.

Speaking of wind, however, reminds us that many communities, especially in
the western United States, are farming wind to harvest an unexpected source
of energy. These wind farms appear as miles upon miles of large wind
turbines, not unlike windmills, installed on farmland where there is a strong
and steady breeze. The rotor blades of these turbines spin in the wind and
generate electricity for homes, businesses and utilities, and they do so in
an incredibly clean and efficient manner without disturbing the agricultural
use of the land around them.

The potential of these turbines is staggering. Wind energy may be able to
supply about 20 percent of the nation's electricity, and this energy is
everywhere - wind resources useful for generating electricity can be found in
nearly every state. North Dakota alone is theoretically capable of producing
enough wind-generated power to meet more than one-third of U.S. electricity
demand.

Of course, there are still a few bugs to work out. Quite literally. Workers
at wind farms have long noticed that electricity-generating wind turbines are
plagued by strange and unexpected fluctuations in their power output. The
reason was unknown, until scientists at last identified the mystery
substance: smooshed bugs. Insects accumulate on the turbines' propellers,
adding aerodynamic drag and siphoning off up to a quarter of the windmills'
energy production each year.

Go back now to the upper room of Pentecost and the special effects that went
with it. The church is also a wind farm, powered by the Spirit which blew in
on that first Pentecost "like the rush of a violent wind" (Acts 2:2). The
Holy Spirit filled the gathered apostles and gave them the ability to speak
in other languages, which they used to preach the gospel to all the peoples
of the world.

What's more, the Spirit inspired Peter to stand before a hostile crowd and
preach with newfound courage and conviction. He promised that "everyone who
calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (v. 21), and within minutes
this news spread like electricity through the mob. Jolted by this offer,
3,000 people quickly repented and were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
Wind-generated church growth.

The wind of God is a powerful thing - it's a Spirit that can fill and teach
and inspire and convert people in any age and in any nation. But like the
large turbines on wind farms today, we American Christians of the 21st
century don't always make good and efficient use of this holy power. We don't
move smoothly and swiftly when we feel the breath of God. We don't allow the
Holy Spirit to flow at full power into our community of faith.

So, just what is it, that is clogging up our turbines and preventing us from
making full use of the wind power of the Holy Spirit?

First, there's the bug of comfortable Christianity.

This bug doesn't want to put time and energy into learning the languages of
the Parthians, Medes, Elamites and the residents of Mesopotamia. Creatures
like this aren't comfortable with the cultures of the Eastern Europeans, the
Middle Easterners, the Asians or the South Americans. These insects don't
even want to venture outside their narrow comfort zones and speak to
Americans of other races, age groups or political orientations - they want to
deal only with people who look and act and think like themselves. As a
result, the gospel goes nowhere, fast.

Then there's the bug of intellectual laziness.

Bug buildup with this pest creates a situation in which the Christian, while
interested in studying the Word of God, never seems to get around to it. When
the church is populated with people whose intentions are only pretensions,
the windmills of the faith are going to come to a slow, but grinding halt.

We don't know Abraham from Andrew, Daniel from Dorcus, Matthew from Mark, and
because of this would never realize - as Peter did - that the coming of the
Holy Spirit on Pentecost was nothing less than a fulfillment of the
prediction of the Old Testament prophet Joel: "In the last days it will be,
God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh" (v. 17).

There's also the bug of the individual only.

Here, a person's personal faith or spirituality is a strictly private affair
not to be complicated by faithful connections to a community of any kind.
This is a subtext of the "I believe in God but have no time for the church"
syndrome. Jesus and the apostles do not make community an option. It is very
difficult for a Christian to grow in isolation. The practice of the early
church is clear: The early Christians "devoted themselves to the apostles'
teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers ... . Day
by day, as they spent much time together in the temple" (vv. 42, 46).
Fellowship, the breaking of bread, much time together in worship - without
these aspects of community life, the Christian faith just isn't complete.

You also run into the bug that neglects to pray, to lift up our joys and
concerns and requests to God in prayer.

The early church was a praying church (v. 42), lifting up pleas for healing,
as well as prayers for boldness. Just imagine praying today as the first
apostles did, saying to God, "grant to your servants to speak your word with
all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders
are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus" (4:29-30). We just
might find the walls of this place beginning to shake, as they did around the
first believers (4:31).

And then there's the bug of "me first" or selfishness.

In the church of the apostles, "All who believed were together and had all
things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute
the proceeds to all, as any had need" (2:44-45). Nothing was more important
to these Christians than the well-being of the community, nothing was more
critical than meeting the needs of their brothers and sisters in the faith,
and so church members who owned lands or houses sold them and donated the
proceeds to the church. As a result, "There was not a needy person among
them" (4:34).

Finally, and most crippling of all, there's the bug of "absent faith," or
unbelief. Too many of these bugs, and the church fails to respond to the
power of the Holy Spirit, and can't follow the Spirit's guidance, inspiration
and control. Like turbines that are thoroughly caked with bug buildup, they
don't necessarily disapprove of the power of the wind - it's just that they
can't free themselves to move along with it.

This bug creates serious problems, because it attracts the wrong kind of
attention. It looks lifeless and stuck, like a wind farm turbine that isn't
spinning in the breeze. "The last thing we want," observes Christian educator
Josh Hunt, "is for people who are not filled with the Spirit running around
telling people about it. God is not excited when the church appears to be a
gummed-up, stuck and lifeless place, unresponsive to the movement of the
Spirit.

Now that we have identified the bugs, how do we irrdicate them, and how do we
become the electrifying church that we were called to be?

In terms of actual wind farms, scientists have tried a variety of approaches
including the application of a Teflon spray, and dismantling the vanes,
cleaning, and reassembling them.

With bug buildup removed, we can move like the wind. And when we're spinning
with the Spirit, we're an electrifying church.

What are the bugs tht keep us from being the church we are called to be?

1 - Comfortable Christianity (content with being where I am -
no challenge)

2 - Intellectual Laziness (interested in Word, but does not
study)

3 - Individuality (I believe, but it is a private affair, keep
to myself)

4 - selfishness (me first - I wll give of my access, my extra
pocessions)

5 - Absenteism (I believe, but I don't move with the flow)

Most of us fit into at least one of these categories from time to time. The
challenge from the Gospel lesson is to remove all 5 of these bugs, and allow
the Holy Spirit to permeate us, and then spread to the person next to us, and
then outside the church, and then throughout the community, and around the
world.

Are you a wannabe Christian, but can't let loose of the bugs that hold you
back. Clean off the turbine of you life, clear out the bugs that slow you
down, or hold you back from being the full person that God intended you to
be, and "Like the rush of a violent wind, you could change the world.

Let us pray..........

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766