Why Church: We Need God—Acts 2: 1-21; John 20: 19-22
Last week we heard of an unfinished story. Jesus was blessing his disciples, then suddenly, he was caught up into heaven and gone. Jesus was gone, so now what were they supposed to do? The story was not finished. My Nana was a great storyteller, but childhood attention span and the need to actually accomplish things left many of her stories unfinished. God is also the God of unfinished stories because God is still working in and through so many of us. But God also has masterful way of writing the story, and that is found in this week’s conclusion to our sermon series. God writes our stories with the guiding power of the Holy Spirit.
Since Jesus was gone back into heaven, the disciples needed something, some kind of direction. I understand that need for some guidance. I stay so busy that holidays are often hard for me. From the moment I wake up on a day off, there is this overwhelming sense of, “I should be doing something.” The disciples were also struggling with this. They knew a mission was coming, but they didn’t yet have the tools to do accomplish it. They needed God in their lives in order to accomplish this holy work of sharing Christ’s teaching of love and grace and redemption.
What they got was the Holy Spirit. And I think it was far more powerful and overwhelming than they could have possibly imagined. Think about the scene in their room. Out of nowhere is this roaring sound which Acts says sounds like “a mighty windstorm.” It was powerful, deafening, overwhelming all at once. Then they see flames settling on each one of them. It’s nothing short of miraculous and amazing. From that point on, they were completely changed people. They needed God to show up in their lives again to make this change.
What we hear is that this Holy Spirit gave them a voice to speak. Not only did they speak the truth of God’s love with conviction and power, they also spoke it in languages that all who were assembled there could understand. These were fishermen and laborers. They weren’t linguistics experts, scholars, or probably even very well educated at all. Yet they trusted in God and God gave them a voice and spoke through them. That voice within them spoke with courage that they didn’t have before. That voice spoke of peace which they had been missing. And that voice spoke words of hope, which was something lacking in their lives.
What the assembled groups saw that day was the very presence of Christ now with these disciples as the Holy Spirit. Jesus had gone from “Christ with us” to “Christ in us.” And that Spirit spoke with power, conviction, and boldness to the people, testifying of all the grace Christ could offer. The prophecies of old had come alive and were now being lived out.
For us the struggle is that we are a bit headstrong. Unlike the disciples, we are educated, connected to the news, digitally woven together on phone, tv, and internet in ways life has never seen. All that connectivity and information makes us feel a bit independent. We don’t always make time for or feel that we need this presence and Spirit of God to show up in our lives. We try to figure it out instead of seeking God’s wisdom. We rely on our knowledge instead of discerning God’s calling. We google instead of praying. And here I say, “Chief of sinners, though I be.” Prayer and faith are meant to be part of the journey from the very beginning. The disciples ministry truly took off an flourished when they received that Spirit of God and leaned into God’s guidance.
When we go our own way, shut out God, and shut out those who can help and walk with us, we end up with emptiness, loneliness, and we lose our connection to that faith which helps us to get through. In Mark 5, Jesus tells the importance of this faith, saying, “Your faith has made you whole.” And when the wind and rain came, Jesus said to the disciples, “O you of little faith.” There is power in having faith from start to finish of any trial or struggle and combining that with the wealth of wisdom and knowledge in the world today. It’s almost like it takes both to finish the story in our lives.
But sometimes we still wonder, “Do I really pray over everything?” I saw a comic the other day that asked whether we were supposed to pray over leftovers. The character said, “Dear God, it’s me again with this spaghetti. It’s the third time this week, so I hope it’s really good and blessed now.” But the truth is, yes, prayer should be a consistent part of our lives. That Spirit of God is always with us, speaking, encouraging, and nudging us along as we need.
But this departure from God’s Spirit has also affected our churches. A friend sends me these video clips of “Sermons You Can’t Unhear.” They range from churches engaging in meanness, to hatefulness, to the sin of bigotry, to outright ridiculousness. Churches should not be mean to people, even when holding them accountable. Preachers should not try to stay relevant by reclaiming some modern slang. Don’t talk about being a thirst trap for holiness. It’s ridiculous. The Gospel of love and grace preaches itself if we live it in this world.
Our communities of faith should look like the early church. They should be places of healing, prayer, and fellowship. They worshipped in the synagogue, but communion was held in someone’s house with a full meal to feed the faithful. Broken lives were healed and the lost and lonely found a place where they were welcomed and empowered in Christ’s name.
Like the early church, which was filled so fully with God’s Spirit, when we come in faith to God’s House, we should find ourselves in a place where God’s presence is cultivated in us and a loving truth is spoken. When Jesus appeared to the disciples, he said to them, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” The story was finished—Christ’s work of love and redemption was done, but at the same time the story was not over yet! We are still being sent out in Jesus’s name on a mission of love and redemption. That message gets lost sometimes, but it’s still the holy calling we have from God.
On this final part of our Easter series, if we ask “why church” the answer is very simple: because we need God. We can have everything ever wanted in life, and we will still need God. At some point, life will be too hard otherwise. I once heard a sermon where the preacher said, “Even if you have nothing left in life, if you have your faith in Jesus, you still have everything.” And that is the kind of hope that will get us through tough days in this world.
The story is now finished. For seven weeks we’ve covered why we still need church in our world. The story is finished. Christ came to earth, redeemed us from sin, called us his own, and gave us the Holy Spirit to guide us. But even as we think the story is finished, the truth is it’s not. The story is also still unfinished because the question we have to answer is what will we do with all of what God has given us now and in the days and weeks to come? Trust God, and trust that God’s Spirit is with you. As we trust, we will know that every day is a new opportunity for the Spirit of God to fall afresh on us, to lead us, and to guide us.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/134950842924761