You've probably guessed we're going to start with a video clip
comes from a movie, one of my favorite movies called Chariots
of Fire. If you haven't seen it, I really
encourage you to watch it. It's free on YouTube.
You can watch the whole movie on YouTube.
Even if you don't have a YouTube subscription, you can watch it
on YouTube. And it's a true story of Eric
Little, who was a missionary to China and an athlete.
He played rugby and he was a track star.
And we're going to watch 2 clips from that.
Both are pretty short and they're both races.
And the first one that just is a setup is it's a quarter mile
race. And at this point in his life,
Eric is not only training for the mission field, he's also
training for the Olympics. He wants to compete in the 1924
Summer Olympics for the United Kingdom.
And, and this is a a race that is building up to that.
What you see is a dramatization, of course, but it really
happened. So let's take a look at Eric
Little running his race here. At this point I showed a clip
from the movie Chariots of Fire. The scene is of 1/4 mile race in
which Eric Little is not down early in the race but comes back
to win. I didn't include the audio here
because the clip is mostly visual and the audio alone
wouldn't have added anything. Now back to the sermon.
Finish this clip with the same question that John finished the
scripture reading with, which is what does this mean?
On the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came and, and all of
the folks, the Jewish folks from all over different parts of the
world were there in Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost.
Pentecost was a Jewish celebration before it was a
Christian celebration and they heard the gospel being shared,
each one in their own native language and they asked what
does this mean? We see Eric Little running a
very courageous quarter mile race in which he's knocked down
toward the beginning and comes all the way back to win.
And, and it's worth asking, when we're talking about the Holy
Spirit, what, what does this mean?
What does this have to do with it?
I'm going to bring it all together as we go here today.
But what I want to talk about very first is the fact that you
get this is our last Sunday on the Living the Easter Life
series and, and the Easter life is, is a life, not only a life
turned upside down, it's a life of service.
It's a life of love. It's a life empowered by the
Holy Spirit, a life empowered. But in this day and age, we have
to be clear when we talk about being empowered, about having
power, because there are a lot of different ways to look at
this concept of power. There's a lot of ways of talking
about being empowered. And the way that that's used in
the book of Acts, the way that it's used in the New Testament
is very specific and the best, the best way to explain it, I
believe. Apologize in advance, because
once again, Star Wars. All right, this time Star Wars.
By contrast, I love Star Wars. Star Wars movies are wonderful.
Some of my favorite movies of all time.
All right, But the Holy Spirit is not the Force.
The Force in Star Wars is this. Well, in the first few movies it
was a mystical, mysterious thing, and then it became
midichlorians. We're going to stick with the
mystical, mysterious, but either way, this force is a force
that's out there in the universe that some people, Jedi and or
Sith can access and they can control and use the force to
accomplish things they want to accomplish.
Whether that's good or whether that's bad, they can do, you
know, they move things with their mind.
They can run fast, they can jump far.
They can extend their lives. They can they can do all sorts
of things that they want to do. They use the force to do that
and to do things that no one else can do.
And that's one kind of power that is not the Holy Spirit.
That is not empowerment of the. Now again, I'm not trashing Star
Wars. This is just, you know,
definition. By contrast, 'cause we need to
see what it is. It means when Jesus said the
Holy Spirit will come on you and you will receive power.
The Holy Spirit will fall on you and you will receive power.
What's he talking about? He's not talking about the force
with the force. Jedi's control the force and
they use it to do what they want to do.
When Jesus said the Holy Spirit will fall on you and you will
receive power, he meant that the Holy Spirit will empower us to
do what God wants us to do, which is very different, very
different. It's not as if God is giving us
a, a, a power up, a big power boost and that that increases
our health points and our experience points and, and our,
and our, and our fighting and our defense points so that we
can go out and accomplish our goals in life and do great and
wonderful and marvelous things with the power and the help of
the Holy Spirit. That would make the Holy Spirit
our personal assistant. And the Holy Spirit is, is
definitely not our personal assistant.
The Holy Spirit empowers us to do what God wants.
Let's take a look at what Jesus himself said.
So the first passage here is from Luke.
It's on Resurrection Sunday, the day Jesus rose from the dead.
He travels to Emmaus, talks with some folks on the way there.
Then he comes back to Jerusalem and meets with his followers
that they're still in the upper room.
This is men and women gathered together in the upper room.
Resurrection Sunday still here. They've just heard the rumors
that Jesus might be alive. Some of the women have seen him.
Some of the disciples have seen him.
And now Jesus shows up and talks to him all face to face.
And one of the things he says to them is this.
Jesus says repentance for forgiveness of sins will be
proclaimed in his name. That is his own name, Jesus name
to all the nations beginning in Jerusalem.
The good news, the good news is forgiveness of sins is available
to all through repentance. That good news is going to be
shared starting here in Jerusalem where we all are at
this moment, and then to the ends of the earth several weeks
later. On the day that Jesus ascends
into the heaven, he's once again meeting with his disciples, this
time out in the countryside, up on a hill.
And again it's men, it's women. It's not just the original 12
who are now 11 because Judas is dead now.
It's a larger group, about 120 folks or so, male and female,
young and old, educated, uneducated.
And Jesus says to them at that point, right before He ascends
into heaven, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has
come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and to
the ends of the earth. Now he adds 2 locations between
that Judea and Samaria. But I want you to see the
parallel between what He said on Resurrection Sunday and what He
said on Ascension Day. You will be my witnesses.
You will proclaim good news starting right where you are and
to the ends of the earth. Now we need to remember who
Jesus was talking to. These were not highly educated
people. These were regular folks,
working class folks. The men would have had a limited
education. The women would almost certainly
have had even less education because of the way their society
was structured at that time. So they knew Hebrew.
They knew Aramaic, which is very similar to Hebrew, and they,
probably most of them, or at least some of them knew how to
speak or understand Greek. But ends of the Earth, there's
lots of languages to the ends of the earth.
Lots of languages, all of they knew because Israel is a very
the real one of the reasons why the nation of Israel gets
conquered by 1 empire after another for the past thousands
and thousands of years is it's, it is strategically located.
It is the crossroads and, and, and an intersection for great
civilizations, particularly great civilizations of that day
and that age. Now we're obviously discounting
the great civilizations that existed in what we now call the
Americas because they're on the other side of the world and
unknown to the folks in Israel at the time of the writing of
the Gospels. But, but they would have known
and experienced and encountered people from India traveling
through their land down to Africa, might have even known
some folks and encountered some folks from China.
They certainly would have encountered folks from Rome and
other parts of Europe and folks from the great civilizations of
of Africa at that time, Egypt and Ethiopia traveling N up into
other parts of the world. They would have known the
different that there were these all these different languages,
all of these different types of people with all these different
customs and all of these different cultures.
And they're supposed to be witnesses to everyone, to the
ends of the earth. We're just folks.
On top of that, traveling was expensive and extraordinarily
time consuming. What we can do, we can fly to
Europe in a day now, as opposed to spending months on a ship and
it would have taken weeks or months to get to the ends of the
earth, just the ends of the earth that they knew about, not
to mention the ends of the earth that they didn't know about.
Where were they going to get the money for that?
Where were they going to get the time for that?
How could they possibly be a witness to folks whose language
they didn't speak and who didn't speak their language?
How could this be possible? How can we do this?
Jesus has set us an impossible task.
But then Pentecost came. Let's see what happened on
Pentecost. It's the same exact parallel in
microcosm. It's in microcosm.
And then all of them were filled with and all of them is again,
it's men, it's women, it's young, it's old, it's educated,
it's uneducated. Gathered together in the upper
room where I believe we're told about 120 folks were there.
It was a big room where it was tight.
I one of those two, I hope they had their deodorant.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak
in other tongues, other languages as the Spirit enabled
them. Now they were staying in
Jerusalem, God fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.
When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in
bewilderment because each one heard their own language being
spoken. The Holy Spirit came and these
regular folks started telling the good news of the story of
Jesus Christ, and people from all over the world heard the
good news in their own language and Jesus disciples could go.
The Holy Spirit came with power so that we could do the work
that God has given us to do in microcosm right here.
We've got a sampling of the world right here in Jerusalem
with us. Now.
How much harder can it be for us to get to the ends of the earth?
But however hard it is, we already know that the Holy
Spirit will give us the power to do it.
The Holy Spirit came to empower them to do the work that God had
for them to do, to do the service that God had for them to
do. The Holy Spirit empowers us to
do what God wants, not what we want.
The Holy Spirit did not come so that we could live our best
lives now. The Holy Spirit did not come so
that we could fulfill our personal dreams and ambitions.
The Holy Spirit did not descend upon us so that we could.
We could be great or wonderful or mighty or awesome or popular
or any of those things. The Holy Spirit descended upon
the Church so that we could do what God wants us to do and will
empower us to do that always and everywhere.
The Holy Spirit, however, does not empower everyone to do
exactly the same thing. The Holy Spirit is empowered in
play. The piano.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Not me, not me, not me. I tried my my piano teacher
moved out of state after teaching me for six months.
I too choose to believe those two things are not related.
But you never know. The Holy Spirit does not empower
us all to do exactly the same thing.
And This is why I want to talk about this ordinary,
extraordinary example of Eric Little.
Extraordinary, because what Eric Little did was extraordinary.
And by his own words, his own explicit acknowledgement, he was
empowered to do that by the Spirit of God.
Ordinary, because this is what God offers all of us.
Ordinary, extraordinary. I, I, I get struck with that
ever. You know that you're a unique
individual, right? You've ever heard that you're a
unique, you're a unique individual.
You're, you're a unique, No one in the world has ever been like
you. You are a unique individual just
like everyone else, right? It's extraordinary, but it's
also ordinary because everyone's extraordinary.
And so it's an ordinary thing to be extraordinary.
And this is what Eric Little is for us, an example of ordinary
extraordinary. Eric Little was in training.
He had been spent time in mission field already.
He was in more training and his sister thought he needed to give
up all of this silly sports stuff and just focus on the work
that God had called him to do to be a missionary to the people of
China and in the course of their time.
And we see it in the movie where Eric is talking to his sister.
He's explaining to her why he's still running and why he's doing
what he's doing. And we're going to hear an echo
of that in his mind as we watch the next clip.
We're going to hear Eric Little's voice restating some
things he said earlier in the movie earlier in his life and,
and, and what Eric did. Well, let's just watch and then
we'll then we'll talk about it together.
This is the 1924 Olympics. The story is long and it's
complex. I encourage you to watch it.
Eric qualified for the 100m race for the Olympics.
He's now, instead of running the 100 meters, he's running the 400
meters in the Olympics. He's already, this is, you know,
old days they were, they were not as gracious then as they are
now. He's running the medal round.
He's already run 2 heats the same day.
They didn't wait a day between heats.
He's run 2 heats already that day.
He's running another 400 meter heat for the medal round.
And this is what happens. What's the deal with this guy,
little coach? Your problem.
No problem. He's a flyer.
He's had two races today already.
He'll die. Just swing along, you guys and
wait. After 300 meters, rigor mortis
sets in. You'll pull him in on a rope,
John. Canada.
Canada. #4 good. Luck.
Watch out for a little. Coach, there's no problem.
He's got something to prove, something personal, something
guys like Coach will never understand me in years.
Says in the old book, He that honors me, I will honour good
luck, Pacsun shows. So where does the power come
from to see the race to its end from within?
Jenny, I believe God made me for a purpose.
He also made me fast and when I run I feel his pleasure.
There are two things that Little says that we hear in his
reflections as he's running that race. 1 is, is that where does
the power come to run the race? And here we hear it just says it
comes from within. But earlier, as he's talking
about the race and comparing the life of faith to the race, the
full quotation as he's quoting himself here is that it comes
from within. It comes from God within us, and
he explicitly identifies the powers coming from God.
And then as he's talking to his sister, he's trying to get him
to give up this silly athletic stuff and and settle down and
get about the work that God has given him as a missionary.
He says God has made me for a purpose.
God has made me for China. I believe that.
But God has also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his
pleasure. My question this morning is,
what do you do that lets you feel God's pleasure?
What is it in your life that when you do it, you feel God's
pleasure? That's what Eric that was part
of his understanding of how the Holy Spirit worked within him,
of God working through him that he could feel.
Eric did not win that race because of his running form.
His brilliant running form, that how they show him in the movie,
is how he ran. He would at some point in the
race, turn his head back, close his eyes and flail his arms.
I can tell you, I don't know if anyone's ever run track.
I was never on a track team. I can.
I will bet my next 10 paychecks that there's no track coach in
the world that will tell one of their athletes to imitate Eric
Little's running style. But he won a gold medal at the
Olympics, not because he was a brilliant athlete, but because
he was empowered by the Holy Spirit.
And he knew it was the Holy Spirit because when he ran, he
could feel God's pleasure. What is it that you do that when
you do it, you feel God's pleasure, whatever that is, do
that and keep doing that. Whatever else anyone may say
around you about it, that thing that when you do that, you're
going. I just got his.
Keep doing that and it's going to be different for different
folks. For some folks it might be
sports, some athletic or or some music, some other types of art,
some maybe teaching, some healing, some, you know, working
with children, some building, some growings.
Whatever it is, whatever it is, find that thing, if you don't
know it already, that when you do it, you feel God's pleasure
and keep doing that. Keep doing that.
That's God working in you. That's God working through you
and empowering you to do what God wants you to do.
Now God calls different people to do different things, so it's
going to be different. Don't make someone else do what
you may give just because you feel God's pleasure.
Don't make other people do that same thing just 'cause it makes
you feel God's pleasure. Let them do their thing where
they feel God's pleasure. You do yours, the Holy Spirit
will empower you to do whatever God calls you to do.
Whatever that thing is, God will give you the power to do it.
Now there are some things that are common the Holy Spirit does
in everyone that is a follower of Jesus, everyone that will
receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will empower and
produce certain things in all folks.
We hear that in Galatians. Paul says this, the fruit, the
Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives.
This is for everyone. Lovejoy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
self-control. There is no law against these
things. In fact, I would argue that when
you encounter these in your own life or in the life of someone
else, wherever you encounter those, that is God working in
you. That is God working in that
person. That is a sign of the Holy
Spirit in their lives. When you meet someone and you
know what, this person, I just feel the love.
I just know it. They're or they just bring peace
into every situation that they enter into, or my goodness, they
are so good even when it costs them greatly or they are
faithful. They're faithful day in and day
out. All of these kinds of things.
When we see them in another, that's evidence of the Holy
Spirit in their life producing that fruit.
Now there's some things on the flip side of that that means
that we won't encounter, that we won't see growing us or
continuing to grow in US, or things that that we need to sort
of, well, as Paul says, crucify in US.
Let's not become conceited. Let's not provoke one another.
We're jealous of one another, conceit, pride, jealousy.
These things wreak havoc in the world around us.
That provoking one another, that is very that's online.
The trolling that happens, the rage baiting, the click bait I
used. I used to play those games.
I this is one of those parts of my life that I'm ashamed of.
But I, I long before the Internet, I enjoyed rage baiting
people. Oh, I love to say things that
would make people mad. Oh, and I, I could, I could
figure out what would make people mad and I would find the
right button and I would press it and I just watch them go and
I loved it. Not good.
That's not God. That wasn't God working through
me. And by the grace of God, I
believe I do less of that, significantly less than I used
to, and less and less all the time.
Since we're living by the Spirit, Paul says we need to
follow the spirits leading in every part of our lives.
Whatever we're doing, we do it with love.
Whatever we're doing, we do it with gentleness, with kindness,
with patience, with self-control, trusting that God
will bring joy into it, even into hard tasks, even in the
difficult tasks, even in the painful tasks, There can be joy
found in those things. I want to give you a personal
example as I'm wrapping things up here, and this is from Amy
and my, from our own life. And, and we might know how many
of you know already. I think I've shared before that
Amy's mom, her name was Phyllis, lived with us for three years
with Alzheimer's and then for the final year for life.
We, we moved Phyllis into an assisted living center because
the, IT became her needs became more than we could manage on our
own. It was just beyond our skill and
our abilities, but she lived with us.
And I'm going to tell you a little bit about Phyllis.
And and Phyllis would not be mad if she were here.
Phyllis was a too much information kind of person for
as all the years I knew her. You could have a 15 minute
conversation with Phyllis and you would know things about her
that only your doctor knows about you.
She was very happy to share about her own life.
So I don't think she will mind me sharing these.
Phyllis was hard to get along with before she got Alzheimer's.
And, and there was a point and, and, and even I were just
talking about this the other day in our lives.
We're in our dealings with Phyllis and in her dealings with
us and with our kids. And we looked at each other
after one of those interactions and we said together in perfect
agreement, she will never live with us.
Whatever happens to her in her old age, she will never live in
our house. And, and then we also remember
both of us vividly, the day we were sitting and talking with
Phyllis and the evidence of the Alzheimer's was undeniable.
And at that moment we looked at each other and we said she needs
to move in with us as soon as possible.
And we meant it. And that was not our will.
That was not our determination. That was the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit empowered us and enabled us to care for her
for three years. She had some health issues,
including an an ostomy bag that when you forget how to take care
of your own ostomy bag, things get tough.
And Amy cleaned up after her mother time after time after
time. And, and, and it was hard for
me. It was harder for Amy, But God
gave us what we needed to do that, as long as we needed to do
that. And one of the things, and Amy
will tell you the same thing, that that throughout that
process, we felt the power and the pleasure of God.
We knew beyond the doubt that taking care of Amy's mom was
exactly what God wanted us to be doing.
Whatever else was going on in our lives at that time.
And again, it's not because we are good people.
We, our decision was never, we'll never do this.
And God said, shut up, do what you're told and I'll help.
And we did what God said and God helped.
And we felt through the heartache, through the pain,
through the tears, through the struggle, we felt the pleasure
of God as we cared for Phyllis. And by the way, God wasn't doing
that for our benefit. Phyllis had been through a lot
in her life and had suffered a lot in her life and and she was
far from perfect, just like I'm far from perfect.
But I'm convinced that God put that in Amy and I to honor
Phyllis for her faithfulness to him throughout her life and
through her struggles to give her family to live with for as
long as possible. At the end, not to honor us, but
to honor her, God gave us that. The Holy Spirit empowered us to
do what God asked us to do, and what God asked us to do at that
point was to care for Phyllis. That's a life empowered by the
Spirit. I can't say that I live every
aspect of my life in this way. What part of what was noticeable
about those four years with Phyllis's disease was that that
how much I don't hollow the Holy Spirit and a lot, it's a lot.
I'm just like, I've got a long way to go, but I've tasted it.
Like the psalmist says, I've seen that the Lord is good.
And I'm not unique in this. Amy's not unique in this.
This is the promise God makes all of us.
Be about the work that I've given you to do and I'll give
you the power to do it and you will experience my joy, my
pleasure, as you do the work I've given you to do in Jesus
name, Amen. Amen.