Breaking Down Barriers:
God's Heart to the World

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

 Sunday, May 27, 2007

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

This past week, I was talking to my daughter’s boyfriend one night after dinner and I suppose as all 17-year-old males, the conversation turned to cars. Now that’s okay by me because I have four daughters in my household so most of our conversations deal with Barbies, shoes, and what somebody said at school that day. So to talk about cars with someone who was actually interested in the subject, it was refreshing.

So he starts to tell me about his dream car he wants to get someday and that’s okay. And then he tells me something interesting, at least it was interesting to me. He said the Big Three in America are kind of going retro. They’re going back in time to the muscle cars of the 60's and 70's. Now maybe he figured I would know the muscle cars and he’s right. I do. I remember them. So anyway, he’s telling me how they’re going back in time and going retro and bringing them back. First of all, there’s going to be the Challenger that’s going to come out and a little bit after that, there’s going to be the Camero that’s coming out. And they’re doing it on the 40 th anniversary. They’re using the anniversary date of when they first introduced the car to the market to bring it back. But now the catch is this. They’re not bringing it back just in name only. They tried that before with the Mustang but no, no, no, no. They’re actually going retro and bringing back portions of the original styling, also the original intent of the car so it has all the muscle and gas-guzzling horsepower of the original car. They’re reaching back to the original spirit and intent the car had and they’re using the 40 th anniversary to reintroduce into the market.

Well, as I said at the beginning of this service, this weekend really is an anniversary of sorts. It’s the anniversary of the church. It’s our birthday, if you will. It wasn’t 40 years ago but it was 2,000 some odd years ago that really we point to the beginning of the Christian church. We call it Pentecost, 50 days after Easter. And on this day, the Holy Spirit Jesus had promised came upon the disciples in a powerful way and filled with the Holy Spirit, they started speaking in other languages and thus began the evangelization of the entire world because they started talking about the salvation that could only be found in Jesus Christ. So this is our anniversary weekend.

My challenge for us on this anniversary weekend is that we go retro. Let’s go back in time. Let’s reintroduce to the church the original passion, the original zeal that was there on that first Pentecost Sunday. Let’s feel the power and the original intent that was there at the church as those disciples boldly stood up in Jerusalem and preached the message to the crowd. Let’s go retro on this anniversary and let’s resurrect and recapture that passion and that zeal for God’s church.

Jesus was very clear to us, very clear on what the church is supposed to be about. He told it to us on numerous occasions but maybe the best and most distinctly is for us at the end of the gospel according to Matthew, 28 th Chapter, “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.’” I always have to pause after reading that because you can’t miss it. Nowhere else in scripture does Jesus preface His words that way. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” I think we better listen. “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” So Jesus gives the commission to the church. He says, “Church, this is what you’re to be about. You’re to go and make disciples of all nations. You use the word and the sacraments to do it. You baptize them when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. You teach them from the word of God so they can come to faith and grow in faith.” He says, “Church, this is your mission. This is why you’re here. Go and make disciples of all nations.” He reiterates that but with a little bit different angle in the 1st Chapter of the Book of Acts. Moments before He’s taken up into heaven, He says these words to the disciples, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” Now did you notice what He said? He said, “You will be my witnesses.” There’s not a choice in the matter. There may be a choice on what kind of witness we would be but you will be my witnesses, Jesus says, and He tells that to us corporately as a church. He says, “My church will be a witness to me.” He also says it to us individually. He says, “Your life will be a witness to me.” He says, “It starts here on the home ground.” So for us, the western side of Des Moines. It spreads out from there, maybe to the State of Iowa and to our nation but it reaches to the ends of the earth, maybe to Uganda and to China and to Honduras. But we are to be His witnesses to the whole world so Jesus is clear. This is what His church is to be all about, to make disciples, to be a witness of everything He has done for mankind.

And so it’s our job then, our responsibility, our privilege to spread the news of Jesus Christ and salvation in His name. Acts 2 is the practical application of Jesus’ command. On that first Pentecost day, we have spelled out for us this is how we’re to go about doing it. This is how we’re to go about speaking the message that Jesus has entrusted to us. As I read through that original account, I can find four things. If we want to return back to capture the passion and zeal of Pentecost church, there are four things we can notice on this. This first thing is this: We need to speak in the vernacular, not just the language of people but in the everyday language of people. It’s hard to pick up in the New International version translation. It says here, “When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment because each one of them heard them speaking in his own language.” Well, technically true but not a real literal translation. A real literal translation would say they heard them speaking in their own proper dialect. Now dialect is different than just a language. You can have a language group but there are various dialects that go underneath that. Maybe it’s geographically. There are certain sayings down south that we don’t use here in the Midwest. There is maybe professionally. People have different dialects because they have their own lingo they speak. Maybe it’s even age group that they have their own dialect they speak. So here on the first Pentecost, God goes beyond language and He gets down to the dialect. He gets down to the everyday language the people speak. He removes all barriers so they could hear the message. That’s why they were utterly amazed, even perplexed at what was happening. They weren’t just speaking their language. They were speaking their everyday language. If we’re going to recapture the Pentecost church, then we have to learn the dialects of today. We have to speak more than just the language of the people. We have to go beyond English or Spanish or whatever. We have to get down to the dialect so we can speak to people in their everyday language.

There are all kinds of dialects that are surrounding us. There are even dialects of the new technology that is here upon us. A new dialect I’m learning over the last year, I don’t have it down yet, is the dialect of text messaging. Yeah, some of you have had to learn it too, haven’t you? Yeah, a whole new thing for me. That’s how I communicate with my daughter now. I thought we’d just pick up the phone and call. Oh, no. We text message one another, okay? But text messaging has its own dialect with it. Let me give you an example. Here would be a typical type of message from me: “Liss, how were classes today? How about dinner tonight? Planet Sub. I will buy. Dad.” Notice there is capitalization and punctuation. You’ll see why that’s important. This would be a usual response from my daughter. “Class not too gr8 cuz of test. . . grrr.” I guess that’s frustration. “Dinner sounds gr8. U sure about buyin’ I could... lol.” That must be lots of love, right? No, it’s laugh out loud. “CU soon.” See, sometimes when she texts me, I have to text back and say, “What was that?” I need to get my Alyssa to Dad dictionary so I can figure it out. But my point is this. Both of us are speaking English, kinda, but there’s a different dialect there.

If we’re going to be the church of Pentecost, we have to learn the dialect. We have to speak the vernacular. We can’t let anything, even language, be a barrier for us. We have to learn the culture around us even if it’s different from our culture and we have to speak to that culture. We have to speak in relevant and meaningful ways so there’s nothing holding back the gospel message getting out. Maybe that means we need to rethink some of our church and religious language or at least do a better job of translating that for people so they understand what it means. If we’re going to be the church of Pentecost, we have to go beyond language and speak to the people in their dialect. We have to speak the vernacular.

We also have to speak with a sense of urgency. You look at the disciples and the urgency with their message. They were afraid and held up in an upper room for how many weeks? But then when the Holy Spirit comes on them, there’s no holding them back. They go out to the ends of the earth boldly standing up for Christ and all He had taught them. Even in Peter’s sermon here, Peter has a sense of urgency in speaking to the people even noting the prophecy he quotes. He starts out, “In the last days, God says I will pour out my spirit on all people.” In the last days. He’s talking about judgment day here. He’s talking about when God comes back. And he says, “In the last days before God returns where He takes some to be with Him for eternity and those who have rejected Him have to be cast away into eternal punishment.” He says, “In the last days just before that comes,” he said, “I’ll pour out my spirit.” Well, upon Pentecost, he pours out his spirit and if those are the last days and that was 2,000 and some years ago, what does that make today? Where does that put us today 2,000 years later if those were the last days? How much closer are we? And the real question is where is the sense of urgency? Where is the sense of urgency in God’s church to reach out to those who don’t call upon Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? Where is the sense of urgency for us here on the western side of Des Moines when we know that 50% plus of the people in our communities do not claim a church home? They claim no affiliation to a church, not say, “Oh, yeah, I’m a member someplace but I haven’t been there in 20 years,” I’m saying they have no affiliation to a church home. Now maybe they have faith in their heart. I can’t judge that but certainly they’re claiming no affiliation to a place where they can go and have that faith nurtured where they can be fed through the Word and the Sacrament. And certainly I have to believe that a percentage of them do not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Where is the sense of urgency, Church? We have to regain that Pentecost spirit. God says it’s His desire that all people would be saved, even the 50% out there that don’t have a church home. He wants all people to be saved. A Pentecost church has a sense of urgency in getting the message out, of reaching people and speaking to people in their language.

The Pentecost church also speaks the whole word of God. It doesn’t hold back. It speaks everything that God’s word has to say. And if we look at God’s word, there are two messages there. At one point, God’s word can convict us and at the next point, it convinces us. It will convict us of our sinfulness. It will convict us that we’ve fallen short of the expectations of God and how He created us but then it will convince us, convince us of the salvation that we have in Jesus. You see that in Peter’s sermon. Let’s go just a little bit further in his sermon. We probably should have read the whole thing. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the greatest sermon ever preached. I wish I could preach as good as he does. Now he’s speaking to the Jews in Jerusalem. He says this, “Men of Israel, listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did among you through Him. As you yourselves know, this man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge and you with the help of wicked men, put Him to death by nailing Him to a cross.” Did you catch that? He’s saying to them, “You’ve all seen Jesus of Nazareth. Maybe you’ve heard His teachings. He was attested to you by the miracles He did, the signs that were accompanying Him, and He was sent here with God’s set purpose and what did you do with God’s servant? With the help of wicked men, you nailed Him to a cross.” He is convicting the crowd but he doesn’t stop there. Now remember this is Peter who was holed up in a room scared of everybody else. He says, “Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.” Now maybe that doesn’t have the impact on us as it would of them. He says, “This Jesus of Nazareth is Lord and Christ.” He’s saying He’s the Messiah, the one who was promised to Adam and Eve, the one who was promised to Abraham and his descendants, the one who Moses foreshadowed as he brought the people out of Egypt and into the promise land, the one who was foretold of by Isaiah and all the rest of the prophets, “The Messiah you have been waiting for over hundreds of years and thousands of generations,” he says, “He was here and you crucified Him.” Those words convicted the crowd.

The next thing that is recorded, “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what should we do?’” That’s the purpose of God’s word of conviction. It isn’t to instill guilt. It isn’t to make people feel bad. It’s to bring people to the realization that we’re lost without God, that we can’t do anything on our own, that we’re cut to the heart. It’s the same message you need and I need. We need that message, that conviction. Scripture says all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All of us need to be cut to the heart and say, “God, what can we do? We are lost.” That opens the door for God’s word to convince us, to convince us that God has done everything for us, that God has such a great love for us that He sent His Son into the world, that He lived and He died for us and He rose again for our forgiveness and for our salvation. That’s really what Peter said to them. Peter replied, “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.” He immediately tells the people, “Your sins are forgiven in the name of Jesus Christ.” Immediately, their guilt and their shame is removed from them. This is the message our world today needs to hear and it needs to hear it powerfully. We can’t back away from God’s word where God is clear, whether it’s politically incorrect or not, whether people want to hear it or don’t want to hear it, whether it makes them comfortable or uncomfortable, we need to speak the whole message of God and we need to understand that it will convict hearts because that’s what God’s word does so it brings them to the point where they’re open. It opens up their hearts so we can convince them through God’s word that there is a God who loves them, there is a God who died for them, there is a God who will change their life, who will change their eternity.

Pentecost church. Let’s recapture that. Let’s speak the whole word of God and we speak it in the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s the only way. It’s only through the power of God’s Holy Spirit that we can accomplish this task, Church. Only through that. The apostles are scared and held up in the room until the promised Holy Spirit comes. Tongues of fire, speaking in different languages, but all of a sudden, this ragtag group of men stand up and start preaching the gospel message. You have everything from zealots to tax collectors to fishermen. Scripture describes them as ordinary, unschooled men and yet God turns the world upside down by them. He changes all of history. In fact, for millions of people, through them He’s changed an eternity because through them and their humble beginnings, the Christian church has spread for some 2,000 years and you and I are here today as a result of the preaching of these men, all because they were empowered by the Holy Spirit.

And the one thing maybe we don’t realize or we forget, the same spirit lives in us. The same spirit is still here in God’s church. What did Peter tell the crowd? He says, “Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. You will receive forgiveness of your sins,” and what else? “The gift of the Holy Spirit.” Kennah, she received it this morning, gift of the Holy Spirit. All of us have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. In our baptism, God comes to us, He brings us to faith, He washes away our sins, and He implants His Holy Spirit in our hearts and that Holy Spirit lives there to empower us, to encourage us, to motivate us, that same spirit is here today. That same spirit lives in your hearts. It lives in my heart. That same spirit is a part of God’s church, just as much today as it was 2,000 years ago and it is the same spirit of power that it was back then. St. Paul when he writes to a young pastor named Timothy talking about this spirit, says, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, no, but a spirit of power and of love and of self discipline.” It is a spirit of power that lives inside of you. It is a spirit of power that lives in God’s church. Yet today, we marvel at the first Pentecost, of tongues of fire and people speaking in other languages. We marvel at the fact that 3,000 people came to faith that day but, My Friends, the same power that was there on the first Pentecost is here today on Pentecost. It hasn’t changed and the same miraculous awesome deeds that happened in the early church can happen yet today. We have to recapture it. We have to realize the gift God has given to us and recapture that passion and zeal the early church had.

The challenges today on our anniversary is for us to go retro. Let’s go back in time. Let’s not just be a church in name. Let’s go back to the original intent. Let’s go back to the original power and passion of the early church and let’s have that kind of church today. And not just in the church universal but how about the church here at Gloria Dei? Let’s recapture and become a Pentecost church, the same passion and the same zeal. Because, My Friends, we have the same spirit. Amen.

Copyright 2007 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church