Empowered

Empowered

Acts 2 : 1-21
Pentecost

A family driving a large camper pulled up in front of the church just as the pastor started toward home. Desiring to be friendly, the pastor introduced himself and expressed his admiration for the camper. The man of the family told him rather proudly: "This camper sleeps eight people." Then he asked: "What is the capacity of your church, Pastor?" The beleaguered pastor replied rather glumly, "Oh, it sleeps about eighty."

It is embarrassing sometimes how little the modern day church resembles the church that first Pentecost when the Spirit came. The sound of a windstorm, tongues of fire, disciples speaking in different languages, thousands being added to the church and lots of excitement. Excitement everywhere.


We're more like a small town I heard about. A traveler stopped at a gas station in the town to buy gasoline. He asked if there was a place close by to get something to eat. The attendant answered, "No, there's just the cafe down the road and it closes at 6 o'clock."


"What do you folks do around here for excitement?" the motorist asked.


"Well," the attendant said, " ˜round here, folks don't get excited."

Such could be said of many churches. They are an indication that we have forgotten what the church is really about. If we go back to the Day of Pentecost, the day the church was born, we will see that God gave us the church to satisfy one of the great hungers of our time ” EMPOWERMENT.

Have you heard that word before? It is a current buzz word in our society. Everyone nowadays wants to be empowered. We want to feel that we have control over our lives. We want to feel we can take charge of our destinies. We want to know we can follow the dreams of our hearts. But many of us feel powerless. Some of us are held back by our lack of initiative. Others of us are held back by a deprived environment. Others by barriers in our society. Still, we hunger to believe we can pull ourselves out of the muck and the mire of a disappointing and dismal situation. And the church is the place where true empowerment takes place.

Can’t we see that that is what Pentecost is about, empow erment? A handful of farmers, fishermen, tax-collectors and housewives became so empowered that they turned the Roman empire upside down. That's quite an accomplishment. It may very well be the greatest single act of empowerment in recorded history. How did they do it?

The answer is quite obvious. And, if we study their example and pattern our lives after it, we will become empowered too.

IN THE FIRST PLACE, THEY OPENED THEMSELVES TO THE SPIRIT OF THE LIVING GOD. That is always the first step in any momentous victory. It is to place ourselves in God's hands.

Neil T. Anderson, in his book VICTORY OVER DARKNESS, tells a thrilling story about a little girl born with major health problems which left her crippled. She had a large, wonderful Christian family. But while her brothers and sisters enjoyed running and playing outside, she was confined to braces.


"Will I ever be able to run and play like the other children?" she asked her parents.


"Honey, you only have to believe," they responded. "If you believe, God through the Spirit will make it happen."


She took her parents' counsel to heart and began to believe that God could heal her. She practiced walking without her braces with the aid of her brothers and sisters. On her twelfth birthday, she surprised her parents and her doctors by removing her braces and walking around the doctor's office unassisted. She never wore the braces again.

Her next goal was to play basketball. The coach only agreed to let her play as a means of getting her older sister on the team. She was given an outdated uniform, but she was allowed to work out with the other players. One day she approached the coach and promised him if he would give her an extra 10 minutes of coaching each day, she would give him a world class athlete. He laughed, but seeing she was serious, half-heartedly agreed. Before long her determination paid off. She was one of the team's best players.

Her team went to the state basketball championships. One of the referees noticed her exceptional ability. He asked if she had ever run track. She hadn't. He encouraged her to try it. So after the basketball season she went out for track. She began winning races and earned a berth in the state championships.


At the age of 16, she was one of the best young runners in the country. She went to the Olympics in Australia and won a bronze medal for anchoring the 400meter relay team. Four years later in Rome she won the 100-meter dash, the 200meter dash and anchored the winning 400-meter relay team ” all in world-record times. Wilma Rudolph capped the year by receiving the prestigious Sullivan Award as the most outstanding amateur athlete in America. Her faith and hard work had paid off. (1)


In a sense, that is what Pentecost is about. People opened themselves to God's Spirit and God's Spirit empowered them to do things they never dreamed possible. That is what the church is about. It is to preach faith. It is to remind us that all things are possible to those who believe. It is to declare with St. Paul, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." It is to encourage us to open ourselves to God's Holy Spirit and let God do miraculous things with our lives. That's the first secret of the church on the Day of Pentecost ” they were empowered by God's Spirit. But they did not stop there.

THEY WERE ALSO EMPOWERED BY THEIR ASSOCIATION WITH ONE ANOTHER. They ate together, they prayed together, they sang together, they had all things in common. They built each other up in the faith. That's the way the Christian community was designed to regenerate itself. We are to build one another up, encourage one another. There is power in such encouragement.

A study was done by psychologist Dr. Henry H. Goddard, on energy levels in children. He used an instrument he called the "ergograph." How he ever got some children to stand still long enough to connect them to the machine is a mystery. But he did, and his findings are fascinating. He found that when tired children are given a word of praise or commendation, the ergograph shows an immediate upward surge of new energy. When the children are criticized and discouraged, the ergograph shows their physical energy take a sudden nosedive. (2) My guess is that those results could be duplicated in adults. When we are praised our energy levels go up. When we are criticized our energy levels go down.


What, then, is one of the most helpful roles that we can play in one another's lives as Christ's body? It is to praise one another, encourage one another, pray for one another. That is energizing, enabling, empowering.

Chuck Swindoll says that in the Marines he was taught you should dig a hole big enough for two when preparing for combat. There's nothing quite like fighting a battle all alone. There's something strengthening about having a buddy with you that keeps you from panic. We all need someone to lean on. We all need another's show of support.


Professional speaker Joe Larson once said, "My friends didn't believe that I could become a successful speaker. So I did something about it. I went out and found me some new friends!" There's some wisdom there. Many of us can think of times when encouragement from a friend made all the difference in the world. Especially when that friend was a person of deep spirituality.

A Harvard University professor once sought an interview with Phillips Brooks, the beloved preacher of another generation who wrote “O Little Town Of Bethlehem.” The professor had a serious problem and needed help. He spent an hour with Phillips Brooks and came out a changed man. Later it dawned on him that he had forgotten to ask Brooks about his problem! He says, however, "I did not care; I had found out that what I needed was not the solution of a special problem, but the contagion of triumphant spirit." (3)


I like that phrase ” "the contagion of triumphant spirit." A triumphant spirit is contagious. That was the spirit with which Simon Peter stood up to address that large throng on the day of Pentecost. Three thousand souls were added to the church that day. And daily more souls were added by the contagious spirit of the community of faith which was the church. That's the kind of contagious spirit I dream for First United Methodist church Of Del Rio! There's is no limit to what we might accomplish if we were empowered by God’s Spirit and empowered by one another.

FINALLY, THE CHURCH ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST WAS EMPOWERED BY THEIR WILLINGNESS TO SERVE OTHERS. If they had kept the Good News to themselves, their excitement would have withered quickly.


Leighton Ford, in his book THE CHRISTIAN PERSUADER, tells about the time his little girl, Debbie Jean, was lost. His wife had left Debbie Jean and her four-year-old brother with Leighton while she went to the store. Suddenly Debbie Jean was gone. A neighbor's child saw her heading toward her school which was only a few hundred yards away. They looked at the school, and no Debbie Jean. While his wife checked the shopping center across the street, Leighton Ford went to the principal and they looked through the class rooms. There was no sign of her. Panic gripped his heart; he remembered stories about men picking up little girls. He wondered if he ought to call the police. He walked up and down the road calling her name.

Half an hour later when he had all but reached the end of his rope, the little girl came around the corner of the school smiling. The explanation was simple but hard to take. She had gone to the candy store just beyond the school, met a friend, and had gone on to her friend's home a half mile away.


Later (after the thunder and lightning and tears were over), Leighton Ford reflected on the incident. During the nearly two hours that Debbie Jean was missing, nothing else mattered. In his study were books to be read, letters to be answered, articles to be written, planning to be done. But all that was forgotten. He could think of only one thing ” his lost little girl. He had only one prayer and he prayed it a thousand times: "Oh God, help me to find her." (4)

May I say to you that the church of Jesus Christ will never be what God intends it to be until we have that kind of passion for reaching out to the world outside these walls. When we have the passion that the early church had for introducing boys and girls, men and women, to the Man from Galilee, we will discover a power we never dreamed possible. Offering Christ Today For Tomorrow Program. Start New Churches and Reach the lost for Christ!


Pentecost is about empowerment ” a small group of folks turned the world upside down. May we, like they, be empowered by God's Spirit, by our life as the community of faith, and by our love of a world for which Christ died.