Reading, Sermon and Prayers for Pentecost

READING: Acts Ch 2 v 1 – 21

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Now there 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. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs – we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: “‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

SERMON: Pentecost

The son of a wealthy man expected to receive a sports car following his graduation.

Instead his Dad called him into his study told him that he loved him and handed him a wrapped-up present. When he opened it, he found it to be a box containing leather bound Bible, with his name inscribed on the spine.

Angrily the young man tossed the box on his father’s desk and stormed out saying: “With all your money, all you can give me is a Bible!” And they never spoke again, despite the fact that the young man’s father tried hard to contact him.

Years later, he got a call to say his Dad had died, leaving him everything. As he was going through his father’s belongings, he found that Bible still in its box.

Curious, he took the Bible out of the box and opened it. The page fell open at a passage his father had marked. And as he looked at the page, he noticed that his Dad had underlined Mt. 7:11, “If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father give what is good to those who ask Him.”

And as he read it, a car key fell from inside the Bible. It had a tag with the dealer’s name on it – for the sports car that he had wanted years earlier.

On the tag beside his graduation date were the words: “Paid in full love Dad.”

Pentecost is the season when we remember God’s great gift to us following the death of his Son in our place on the Cross. It is the Gift of the Holy Spirit.

Yet so many Christians reject the gift of the Holy Spirit – for fear often of being “happy clappy” – missing out on a wonderful gift from God himself to invigorate our lives and our ministry.

But the power of the Holy Spirit, given to the Church at Pentecost is more than simply an emotional form of Worship. It is the power given to the Church to fulfil the Great Commission.

There are, in my opinion, only three major celebrations in the Church Year.

Christmas when we celebrate the Birth of Christ
Easter when we celebrate the Death and Resurrection of Christ and
Pentecost (or Whitsun – for us Anglicans!!) when we celebrate the birth of the Church as recorded in our reading this morning from the Acts of the Apostles

Now, I want you to do something very strange this morning and it comes with a health warning, it may even be uncomfortable for you but I want you to think of someone who is sat close to you.

Take your time for a moment and then ask yourself this question; do I know what gifts that person has? Do they even know what gifts that they have?

Then ask yourself another question… Has anyone ever asked them to use their gift for the work of the church? What’s more have they ever offered because they do not or are even aware themselves of what gift they have?

Everyone has a gift it just needs teasing out, opening up and for the rest of us to appreciate that gift and use it for the mission work of the church.

The church is not and never should be about one person or a small band of people. The church is a rich colourful tapestry and a kaleidoscope of talents and gifts waiting to be set free.

The sad thing is that we in the church do not probably look for the gifts of others and so we just let the same people carry on doing things.

Every year we celebrate Pentecost that great day when God poured out his Holy Spirit upon all flesh as he promised through the prophet Joel.

But it strikes me that for all our talk about the gift of the Spirit and how it creates, upholds, and sustains the church as a whole, we often miss the full significance of what God has given us.

We often miss the significance of God’s gifts because we fail in all our talk and in all our listening to ask ourselves:

“How has God gifted me? What gifts do I have to offer?”

Each and every one of us has been given by God our own special day of Pentecost. A day on which God imparted to us the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Indeed it is this indwelling, this personal day of Pentecost, which we pray for as a church over every believer when we lay hands upon them and with the sign of the cross and anoint their heads with oil on the day of their confirmation.

What God gives us when he gives us his Spirit is more than strength and support and teaching and comfort, those things we normally identify with God’s presence, he gives us more too than joy, and peace, patience, and kindness, those things which we call the fruit of the Holy Spirit, he also gives a set of gifts that are designed for the building up of the body of the church, and for the individual ministries to which we are called, and for our spiritual life.

The prophet Joel, in his prophecy of the last days, mentions some of the gifts that have been granted by God through his Spirit: gifts of vision, gifts of dreams and gifts of prophecy.

Peter, in his sermon on the day of Pentecost speaks of the gift of tongues – of languages both angelic and human – to those assembled there so that they will not think that the disciples are drunk or mad.

And Paul, who in the long run was the most experienced of all the apostles with the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives, lists some of the gifts that God gives and explores with the Corinthian congregation how those gifts can be used and abused.

Gifts of the Spirit of which some of them are the gifts of teaching, discernment, exhortation, hospitality, intercession, wisdom, prophecy, faith, administration, helping and the gift of mercy.

Each of these gifts are spiritual gifts. Gifts that are to be distinguished from the natural talents we are born with. They are gifts that can transform any person into someone who has a remarkable ability to minister and take Gods mission to others.

They are gifts which are given to each and everyone us, not just for a few to undertake, but for us all to use the gifts that have been given us.

So I ask again what gifts do you see in others and what gifts do YOU have?

What gift or set of gifts has God poured out upon you so that you might love and serve your God and your neighbour in the way God has intended especially for you?

If you take nothing else from this sermon I simply ask that you think about your gifts. To try to identify within yourself what God has given to you to use in his work.

It is a profitable exercise because it forces us to think about what God wants to do through us. It forces us to pray and to read the scriptures and to think about what God has done through us in the past and where we feel he is leading us now. And when we do that we can activate the Spirit within us because we bring its power to the forefront of our lives.

So I ask one more time what gifts has God given you?

For you all have individual gifts. And every one of us to use our gifts and play out the beautiful tune of our God and his son our saviour Jesus Christ.

For they are the gifts to be used in the work of God, a work to which we are all called, and which, when we all serve as we are intended – transforms us, transforms our church, and our world into what God intends us to be.

May God Bless each and every one of you as you recognise and have your gifts endorsed and therefore make clear the sweet music of our Lord. Amen

PRAYERS

Let us now take a time of silence to reflect on what we have just heard, think of our and others gifts and prepare for prayer……. (Allow a few minutes to listen and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in the silence)

In the power of the Holy Spirit that we have received by grace, let us pray…..

Grant to the Church strength, wisdom and judgement through the Holy Spirit

Release in your people the power of a living witness to the whole world, fulfilling your command to those who seek to follow you in in truth.