Pastoral Letter 120
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Grace and peace to you all.
This Sunday our service is dedicated to Pentecost Sunday, which is one of the three major celebrations in the church calendar. Pentecost is the day when the Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples, who were gathered obeying Jesus’ instruction given to them at the Accension. Filled with the Spirit they dedicated their lives and went out to do what they were supposed to do, as the body of Jesus Christ.
If you will not be able to join us at our face-to-face service, you can worship with us at home. Please light a candle, have a small roll of bread and small cup of wine or juice for Communion and follow the attached Order of Service.
Be safe and well, continue to pray, remembering those who need care, support and love and let us know if any member of the congregation that you know of needs our help and prayers.
Here are some more prayer points for this week:
- Pray for the government elected asking God to bless them and give them wisdom.
- Pray for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, the struggling and the stressed.
- Pray for those who are unwell and struggling with different kinds of medical issues.
- Pray for those who are impacted by wars, violence and mass shootings.
- Pray for the churches in the Lower North Shore Zone, as we wait the recommendations coming from the Life and Witness consultations.
- Pray for world peace and ask for God’s blessings.
- Pray for the hope that God gives.
Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.
Best Regards,
Krikor
MESSAGE
The Spirit of Life and Mission
Acts 2:1-21
Today we celebrate one of the three major celebrations of the church, Pentecost or the Coming of the Spirit, according to the church calendar. The whole world celebrates the Birth and the Resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ at Easter and Christmas, regardless of whether they believe that Jesus is the Son of God, who came to this world to save the sinners.
But what is Pentecost or the Coming of the Spirit?
Why should we regard it as one of the three major celebrations of the church?
First, we have to say that Pentecost is one of the changed Jewish celebrations, because according to the New Testament, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promise. He is the lamb of the Passover, which changes the Passover dinner to the Communion Table. The Passover, as a Jewish celebration, symbolises two things.
It is the first harvest of the summer fruits, 50 days after Passover, which prepares the Autumn harvest. Later Pentecost also was presented as the Memorial Day of the giving of God’s Law through Moses on Mount Sinai. The people praised the Lord for these commandments, and by obeying those commandments they were and are justified. The giving of these Commandments corresponds to the building of the Tower of Babel, when God confused all those who tried to reach heaven and mixed their tongues. God, by the giving of His laws, wanted to established order.
Second, on Pentecost the Holy Spirit of God came down upon the disciples who were gathered in one place. The Church, as the body of Jesus Christ, was born. Fifty days after His resurrection and ten days after His Ascension, Lord Jesus poured on them His Spirit, according to what He has promised earlier. That day, 3000 were saved. They were the first fruits of the harvest that was promised. Similarly, by the coming of the Holy Spirit, God wrote His commandments on the tablets of human hearts, as Apostle Paul says: “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2. Cor. 3.3). Unlike the Tower of Babel, every man was able to hear about God’s salvation plan in the language he or she understood. God wanted to touch their hearts. The Holy Spirit came with tongues of fire and in a sound like the blowing of a violent and rushing wind.
The coming of the Spirit shows God’s boundless love for us and makes us the temples of His Spirit so that we feel ourselves near Him; He in us and we in Him. This should be the understanding of our Christian life. The Holy Spirit is the life of the Church. Without the Spirit, there is no life. The Spirit fills us according to our capacity and by surrendering to God’s will, we receive His blessings. This blessed life starts by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us and making us the Church. Today, let us allow for the Holy spirit to live in us and give us life.
Therefore, Pentecost is not a teaching, but the reality of being filled with God’s holiness, which transforms and renews our lives, as well as the flow of our history. The almighty God comes to live in us, and we become the Church. God should occupy the central place by the indwelling of His Spirit. When the Holy Spirit lives in us, it makes us “one heart one spirit”. The Holy Spirit is the only real power that brings us together and makes us one. Without the Spirit, the church cannot be the Church. Let’s accept the Holy Spirit in us.
This is the real meaning of Pentecost. For that reason, we consider it one of the three big celebrations of the church.
Years ago, someone asked Dr. Billy Graham why he is trying to take the church back a hundred years. Dr. Graham answered saying, “Sorry, not a hundred years, I am trying to take it back two thousand years”. If we want to be people, churches or associations on a mission, we will see that we are already late and we need to look back two thousand years to when the Lord Jesus gave His command to carry on His mission.
Acts is the story of those men and women, who took seriously the command of Jesus Christ and began to spread the good news of His resurrection. It presents the birth of Christ’s church and its amazing growth. This book’s 1.8, 1.14 and 9.31 verses mention that the Christ’s church is unique. The first two chapters of Acts are the foundations of the events mentioned in the following chapters. But it is important to know what the foundational reasons for the success of the church in its holy mission were.
How it was possible to spread the good news of the Gospel to many people?
How did the church grow from 12 to 120, to 5000 and then to 10000 members?
As an answer to these important questions, here are three important points:
1. They prayed
In the records of Luke we read these words: “They prayed” and “when they were praying” many times. In the first chapter, the theme of prayer starts and continues in the rest of the book. It is very clear that the first church was a praying church. They prayed for themselves and for others, their leaders, the sick, the needy and even their enemies. They prayed in the Temple, in homes, in streets, on ships, on roofs and on the seashore. They prayed on the ninth hour, at midnight – basically, always. They prayed alone and in small and large groups.
We ask: “How did the church grow?”. The answer is simple and clear. They prayed ceaselessly for everything. They prayed for their leaders, for the weak and for their own strength.
2. Prayer brought unity
All the believers were in one place. They prayed in unity because they believed in Jesus Christ. It is not possible to believe in Jesus and not come together to pray. Today many “believers” and even churches have difficulty coming together for prayer. It is surprising. It is good and important to believe in those things that the church accepts, such as the authority of God’s Word, the Sacraments and the Second coming of Christ. All these are important. But it is more important to believe in the salvation through Jesus Christ and the possibility of eternal life. This faith can bring us into unity. The unity of a church should not be founded on its preacher or minister, programs or upon the buildings. The ministers come and go, programs can come to an end or change, even after many years and the building can come down, be it deteriorated or sold. If the church believes, prays, teaches and preaches that Jesus is the Christ, it will succeed in its mission.
3. Unity brings results
“And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). It will be easy to say that Peter’s sermon or for this or for that reason their numbers grew. If this is our conviction, God could be too far from us. We can have groups, marvellous programs, buildings, organisers and activities. All these are good and helps us to move forward progressing in our service. But they are not those things that we need. We need prayer, unity and results. The church prayed, grew and became big. Also, it had “spiritual fear”. Fear towards God and one another.
The praying church unites, grows and fills with God’s fear.
This is the secret for the church’s success.
Today, on Pentecost, let us as well be such a church and continue to proclaim the Good News and be His Church filled with His Spirit to live a life that brings honour to God and do the mission we are called to do.
Amen!