Announcements:

Today on the Church calendar, we celebrate Pentecost.

Pentecost marks the day that God unleased the Holy Spirit on all flesh. It’s a day where we celebrate that anyone open to this gift will FREELY receive it and be forever changed.

Take the ball of dough Sean made and stand in front of the congregation and say:

To illustrate, you see this small ball of dough?

I’m going to sprinkle it with a little yeast. This will be our picture of the way God released the Holy Spirit on the first Christians.

At first you don’t see anything happening.
But it is working.

• Invisibly.
• Unstoppably.

Transforming from the inside out.

We’ll come back to it later in the service.

Prayers of the People

Prayer is such a powerful and effective weapon.

I just returned from a multi-city trip and couldn’t help to notice the poverty and addiction in each city.

In Vancouver BC I saw streets lined with homeless sojourners including a man sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk with his face planted against the concrete as if he had just dropped from the sky.

And if that wasn’t hard enough to see,

there was the man openly smoking crack in a busy tourist spot as everyone…….including me, passed by and gawked.

As I passed by, a sense of guilt weighed on me.

Then, this morning, at 5am I was at a train stop in Seattle, and a young man approached me. His name was Angelo.

His eye was swollen shut. He was desperate. He wanted help.

He asked if I would call an ambulance, which I did.

Before he walked away, I asked if I could pray for him. I took his hand and we prayed together. He lifted a hand to the sky and rebuked whatever power was over him.

I let him know that he was loved, valuable and seen, and that there was a higher power, a person, that could save him.

I informed him that I was Christian and I had once been caught in addiction myself and that I saw a bright future for him.
He is just 21. This kid could have been me in my younger days.

When the medics arrived, he thanked me with joy and gave me a hug.

He walked away with hope. PAUSE

Are there any of you out there desperate. Hurting. Needing filled with hope.

Needing to know you are seen and that you are loved?

Or maybe you just want to express thanks that it’s not you so doped out that you woke up today face planted on the concrete. Maybe you’re thankful for the bed you have to sleep in, even if it is in a cell.

Just raise your hand and we will pray for you.

Sermon

On Easter and Palm Sunday, I gave messages based on wisdom found in the Book of Leviticus.
                  We learned that the Hebrew name for the Book is Wayyiqra,

• Which means: The Lord Summons or God Calls.

• And God is still calling, still summoning.

We learned that Leviticus is a book about formation. About the way God builds and strengthens the ones He calls to become holy…. Pure, undefiled…… beyond corruption.

• And God is still calling
• still forming
• still purifying

We also learned that the whole book of Leviticus points to Jesus,

• from the sacrifice,
• to the feasts.

We talked about

• the Passover,
• the Feast of First Fruits,
• and the Day of Atonement.

We learned how the Sacrifice of Jesus is THE event that achieved our righteousness with God.

• That we don't earn God's favor through our own acts,
• that God granted His favor through the work Jesus accomplished.

I know many of you are waiting for another kind of freedom. But that freedom, the peace of knowing, without a doubt, what your eternal condition with God is, that’s unlike any other freedom this world can offer.

I spoke with one of you a few weeks back. You told me how prison is the place where you found true freedom.

• Freedom from your bondage to the world.

Being locked up helped you find a deep sense of inner peace. Imprisonment gave you no other option than to find your peace in God. That when you were free to pursue the great American dream, you chased after things that couldn’t satisfy.

And speaking of freedom, and the American dream, this weekend our nation honors those who gave everything, service members who sacrificed their lives so others could live free and pursue their dreams. They made it possible for anyone to live in comfort and abundance.

We visit their graves and leave flowers and momentos.
We grieve their loss and remember their role in our lives.

Let’s take a pause and remember them. If you’ve lost a loved one to conflict, or just want to call out the name of someone you’ve lost who was special to you. I will pause for that now.

PAUSE

Lord, we honor all who served. All who were special to us and now find their home in the grave. We trust that you are close to them.

And we ponder the sacrifice that made all other freedom possible, the one NO grave could contain. We look forward to the eternal life promised to us through our risen Lord, Jesus.

We bow in wonder that because Jesus walked out of that grave, everyone who calls on His name can have that same assurance of eternal freedom.

But there’s an even deeper truth. Jesus didn’t just rise and ascend to heaven. He sent us a comforter. The Holy Spirit.

And today we celebrate Pentecost which is another holy day linked to Leviticus. It’s the day God unleashed the Holy Spirit upon anyone with a heart turned to God.

• The Israelites knew it as the Feast of Weeks.

And they celebrated it 7 weeks AFTER the Feast of First Fruits. And so we celebrate Pentecost 7 weeks after Easter.

It’s a rich celebration.

At the Passover, and during the Feast of Firstfruits, the Israelites aren’t allowed to eat leavened bread.

To put that in perspective. Leaven, or yeast, is what causes dough to rise. It’s sprinkled into the dough, and once it enters, it spreads through changing the dough, invisibly, unstoppably.

Think about that, have you ever had a cracker, it’s kind of dry and boring, but a good slice of airy and moist bread, so much better. The cracker is hard and breaks easy, but the bread, it’s soft and flexibile. It doesn’t crumble under pressure.

And so, at Pentecost, in place of the dull and boring bread wafers, the Israelites got a real treat, risen loaves of bread!

God commanded the priest to take two loaves of bread and rise them before the congregation.

This picture of dough being transformed from something flat and dull was just a glimpse of what God would do when He released His Spirit upon all believers. And once that Spirit is released — you cannot contain it.

I’ve seen it at work, I’ve been serving this ministry for a decade now, and I’ve witnessed the change people experience when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in them.

Like Angelo this morning who I prayed to be filled with the Spirit, they come as troubled souls. Faces downturned. Hurt and sad.

But as the Spirit works in their life, an indescribable joy overtakes them. Their faces look up; a smile replaces the sadness as they rise to a newness of life. Full and overflowing.

So, let’s turn to hear about the day Holy Spirit sprinkled from heaven. It’s recorded in the Book of Acts.

Some call it the Acts of the Apostles because it tells the story of the first Christians as they miraculously spread the faith.

Other’s title it Acts of the Holy Spirit because, the Apostles are empowered by the Spirit. They are changed.

Peter, once timid and cowardly, the one who turned his back on Jesus when things got real, Peter becomes bold and outspoken, and even gives his own life for the cause of the gospel.

But he didn’t do it with his own power, he had received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And this brings us to our Scripture reading.

For context,
this reading comes just after Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to many.

He then told the disciples to wait in the upper room and said that “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” and “will receive power”.

Then Jesus ascended to heaven, leaving them waiting in a bit of a daze and confusion.

PAUSE

I bet a lot of you know the feeling of waiting. Waiting for the unknown. Waiting to go home to be with loved ones.

• Waiting for something bigger.
• Something better.

To stop being defined by your past and to receive power over parts of your life where you are currently powerless.

Now, hear Acts 2:1-13

2 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5 Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked,

“Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”

12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

The word of God for the People of God

Thanks Be to God!

And, if there wasn’t already a lot of confusion, now there was more.

So, in response, "Peter stood up in that crowd and told them exactly what they were witnessing. He pointed them back to the prophet Joel who wrote, 'I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.' “

Notice Peter, now bold, says not just some flesh. Not worthy flesh. Not clean flesh.
                   Not flesh without a record. He said All flesh.

That's the most inclusive thing God ever said. And He said it to a room full of people who had no business being in the same room together.

• People had been waiting 800 years for this to happen.

You see, like the dough I sprinkled with leaven. Good things take time… often more time than we want. We want instant answers

• But you cannot contain what God has promised, you can’t force it into Your timeline.

But, because of that first Pentecost, all of us in this room are able to receive it.

• I’m certainly not worthy, not clean and without a record.

I know what it feels like when something gets into you and takes over.

I think back to my younger years. That accusation of being drunk too early in the day, there was a time I might crack one open at noon and start getting wasted.

As the alcohol entered my bloodstream, it took a grip on me. I’d loosen up. Then lose good judgment.

My words would slur and my speech became more confident, bolder, defiant.

It didn’t stop there.

I did a lot of dumb things while I was intoxicated. Like that man I saw laying in the middle of the sidewalk, I’ve been passed out cold in some awkward places.

But something strange happened 10 years ago. Something new entered me, a different kind of Spirit than the spirits I had been consuming,

• And it consumed me!

You see, I had been a skeptic of Christianity for quite some time. If anyone brought up the Bible, I’d sneer and accuse the believers of being full of something.

But one day, a friend invited me to come to Crossroads. As I sat through the service, I was really impressed with what I saw.

• I thought this is what Jesus came for.

Then at the end of worship, a young man was asked to come up for a laying on of hands.

They asked others to come up and surround him.

• A power took over and I leaped out of my seat.

That night the Leaven got in me.

A slow process started. Something had taken a grip on me
……………..it started spreading through me until I became some thing fully brand new.

My interest in Christianity, took a 180. I started reading books and researching everything I could. I had entered a new country, and unlike the people in Acts, I did NOT understand the language.

One of my favorite books, the Promise of the Spirit, theologian William Barclay gives a vivid definition of a Spirit filled Chirstian. He says:

“The verb to baptize is baptizein, which ordinarily means to dip. There is a vivid picture here. The Christian is a person who is dipped in the Spirit.

The verb baptizein can be used of dipping garments to dye them.

• The Christian is a person who is dyed through and through with the Spirit.
• A person whose whole life is soaked in the Spirit.
• A person who has the whole color of their life changed by the Spirit.

The Christian is a Spirit-anointed, Spirit-dipped, Spirit-saturated, Spirit-dominated person.

And the drabness of life, and the inadequacy of life, and the futility of life, and the earthboundness of life, which characterize so many of us, all come from the failure to submit to that baptism of the Spirit which Christ alone can give.”

Reading those words still makes my head tingle. It’s like a fresh sprinkling of leaven.

• "Spirit-anointed, Spirit-dipped, Spirit-saturated.”

That is a person who cannot be contained.
And when that kind of person shows, the walls start coming down.

This room is full of people from different backgrounds.

And that’s what I love about this ministry, it brings together a wide pool of people and walls can’t stop the Spirit from getting in.  

And that’s exactly what we find in the crowd from our Scripture.

It was a diverse group. People of all walks of life. Old and young, man and woman. Friend and enemy,

I bet you know what it's like to be categorized, sorted, labeled, and excluded.

I know it well myself. I was an awkward kid. I grew up in a diverse neighborhood at a time when diversity wasn’t pushed from every level of society.

The most hurtful thing I was labeled as a kid is: wigger.

I was ostracized by my own race and made fun of from all sides. I was beat up a few times simply because of the tone of my skin.

But even all that is being redeemed. Like Peter, now that the Spirit has consumed me, all that hurt is being redirected for God’s good.

It’s what gives me comfort to minister in the way I do. To see beyond the containers that society places people in. To see through the façade of color and character, and instead see people’s hearts and hurts and to help them in their need.

It’s what gave me courage to take Angelos hand and pray with him this morning.

And that was going on right there in that Act’s scene from our scripture, the very Spirit of God revealing a deep truth about diversity. The Spirit has never respected the walls we build. Not then. Not now. And not in this room tonight.

Looking back to that first Pentecost, the crowd contained people who would never have eaten together, never trusted each other, possibly never have been in the same room.

And right there, in the midst of all the people who divided themselves into this group and that, the Spirit crossed every line humans had drawn and performed an uncontainable miracle.

And once that Spirit crosses into you, you can't keep it to yourself.

• Yeast can't stay in one corner of the dough — it spreads through the whole loaf.
• The disciples couldn't stay in the upper room — they spilled out into the streets.
• The fire didn't land on one person — it rested on each of them.
• The sound didn't stay inside the house — it pulled the whole crowd.

That joy looked like drunkenness because it was overflowing, spilling out, because you cannot contain the Spirit of God.

This is what Pentecost is. Uncontainable. PAUSE

And Jesus himself told us this was coming. In John 7:38 he said, "Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them."

Not a trickle. Not a puddle. Rivers.

From within.
Uncontainable.

This isn't a new idea. God has been doing this since the wilderness.

While I was preparing to preach, I moved on from Leviticus to the book of Numbers.

The Hebrews knew the book as “In the Wilderness” because after God formed them at the foot of Mt. Sinai, He then sent them toward the promised land, through the wilderness.

In Numbers 11 we find the one the whole nation bringing their  problems to Moses. There must have been a million of them. He couldn’t handle it all. So God called to Moses and told him to gather 70 elders. And He tells moses

Numbers 11:17

I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people along with you so that you will not bear it all by yourself.

And this is a picture of the purpose for the Gift of the Spirit. It’s not given just to empower us for a better life; it’s given so that we can share God’s power with the world.

It’s given to turn us into the kind of people who able to bear the burdens of others. It’s given So that we don’t go alone as we trudge through this wild world.

The Spirit is still spreading. It is still uncontainable. And it’s looking for somewhere new to go.

Maybe that somewhere is you.

You don't have to clean yourself up first. You don't have to understand it all. I didn't. I just leaped out of my seat. And that night, the leaven got in.

If you're ready for something new to get in you — something that spreads, something that changes the whole color of your life, something that won't let you stay quiet or stay put — then open your hands and receive it.

The Spirit of the Living God is here. And He is uncontainable.