They just aren’t getting it!
And it doesn’t just happen when you are visiting some foreign city, trying to tell some little old man that you really need to find a toilet or that you need to be at the airport because your plane departs in an hour and a half, using a muddled mixture of gestures and randomly remembered phrases strung together from your Lonely Planet Phrasebook. It can even occur in your own homeland—your very own city! The person you are talking to, in the language that you both share, just does not get it!
Perhaps you are trying to study the Bible with a young Millennial who has a ten-second attention span. Perhaps you are trying to explain to an atheist why God is not some moral monster, hell bent on devoting every innocent Amalekite in the land to destruction. Perhaps you are trying to convince an evolutionist that God really can step into this world and perform supernatural miracles, a whole week of them in fact, and that this is not just a fairy tale in the same category as Santa Claus, Snow White and Sinbad the Sailor. They just still aren’t getting it!
“Lord, will you at this time restore our kingdom?” When will You make me look good in front my colleagues? When will You vindicate me before those who make fun of me on the basketball court? When will You lead all of the Adventist youth in our area to flock to our church and restore our sense of vitality and success? When will You enable that bullish Board member understand that we should only have at most three announcements at the beginning of the divine worship service? Why does it seem that sometimes the Tower of Babel is being rebuilt and its confusion is being re-enacted right here in Sydney?
And yet the Promise is still available and the Gift remains wrapped. “As the disciples waited for the fulfilment of the promise, they humbled their hearts in true repentance and confessed their unbelief. Putting away all differences, all desire for the supremacy, they came close together in Christian fellowship… Sadness filled their hearts as they thought of how many times they had grieved Him by their slowness of comprehension, their failure to understand the lessons that, for their good, He was trying to teach them.” AA pp36,37 Lord, there are so many times when we don’t get it either!
“I pray that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” And as they made the conscious decision to pray together that Jesus’ prayer would become a reality, suddenly… Suddenly! The Promise was poured out. The Gift was unwrapped. The shockwave was felt throughout every building in Jerusalem, and everyone from around the world came running.
I get it now! It is all about Jesus! It is about what He wants to do in my life, in our church, in our city! It is all about Jesus and His kingdom. “They could speak the name of Jesus with assurance; for was He not their Friend and Elder Brother? Brought into close communion with Christ, they sat with Him in heavenly places. With what burning language they clothed their ideas as they bore witness for Him! Their hearts were surcharged with a benevolence so full, so deep, so far-reaching, that it impelled them to go to the ends of the earth, testifying to the power of Christ. They were filled with an intense longing to carry forward the work He had begun.” “The Holy Spirit did for them that which they could not have accomplished for themselves in a lifetime. They could now proclaim the truths of the gospel abroad, speaking with accuracy the languages of those for whom they were labouring. This miraculous gift was a strong evidence to the world that their commission bore the signet of Heaven. From this time forth the language of the disciples was pure, simple, and accurate, whether they spoke in their native tongue or in a foreign language.” AA pp46,40
I get it now too! I am cut to the heart. “The sword of the Spirit, newly edged with power and bathed in the lightnings of heaven, cut its way through unbelief.” AA p38 Please help me! What shall I do? Peter, with supernaturally gifted boldness, cut out the path before them: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
The thousands of people who gave their hearts to Jesus and the church community that resulted can only be described as the work of the Holy Spirit. Would you like to be able to communicate that powerfully, with that clarity, with that ability to transform broken, sinful hearts? “The lapse of time has wrought no change in Christ’s parting promise to send the Holy Spirit as His representative. It is not because of any restriction on the part of God that the riches of His grace do not flow earthward to men. If the fulfillment of the promise is not seen as it might be, it is because the promise is not appreciated as it should be. If all were willing, all would be filled with the Spirit… For the daily baptism of the Spirit every worker should offer his petition to God. Companies of Christian workers should gather to ask for special help, for heavenly wisdom, that they may know how to plan and execute wisely. Especially should they pray that God will baptise His chosen ambassadors in mission fields with a rich measure of His Spirit. The presence of the Spirit with God’s workers will give the proclamation of truth a power that not all the honor or glory of the world could give.” AA p50,51
Was the church in Jerusalem at the absolute pinnacle, though? Was it the end of the story? The amazing reality is that the Holy Spirit had an even greater vision in store for Jesus’ church! The church in Jerusalem was only a Level 3 church. The Holy Spirit was going to lift the church all the way up to become a Level 5 Multiplying Church, but for that you are going to have to continue journeying with us until 8 June and 13 June and beyond….
The book of Acts is drenched with the Holy Spirit. Reading it is like taking time to play out in the tropical rain! Read the full stories for today in:
Acts 2 ESV
Acts of the Apostles “Pentecost”
Acts of the Apostles “The Gift of the Holy Spirit”
Invite your friends to join this journey with you!
