Access All: Pentecost Power

Access, it's our biggest concern, at least was my concern this morning when we arrived to this building, and hoped that the number we phoned on the door actually found the security guard.

We were pleasantly not surprised, but we found a lovely bloke who helped us out in every way.

Access.

I first enjoyed the thrill of the crowd at the SCG when I was eight years old.

We sat on the southern stand looking out at Australia, played the West Indies in the 70s.

And I remember I had a T-shirt with Dennis Dilley's face on.

I was a fast bowler, and I loved Dennis Dilley, and they chanted, Leerlie, Leerlie.

And I watched the Mexican Wave for the first time go around the ground at the SCG, and went all the way around.

Wow, this is amazing.

I came around, and what happened?

I got to that left side there, and no one went up.

And it came again.

The Mexican Wave went around.

It stopped.

And I found out later on that the members are there, and they don't take part in such tomfoolery.

And later on, I went, a few years later, I was 11, and I was on the hill with some other friends, and I discovered what it was like to be with the hooligans on the hill with full cans of beer before there was regulation of not taking in projectiles like that.

And it was all fairly dangerous as they got fuelled up with alcohol.

Once again, Australia were getting smashed by the West Indies, and I noticed over on the other side, in the members' pavilion, none of that stuff was happening.

They were sitting very calmly, enjoying the cricket.

In fact, when we walked out leaving, I saw this members' title above one of the doorways, and I thought, hmm, I'll look in there, and inside there, where the members could go, you could actually watch the players practising in the nets, and in fact, you might even rub shoulders with a few commentators.

You could never get in there.

A bit later on, 20 years ago now, at the church that we were at, there were some mad keen sports lovers that had membership to all the stadiums.

And they said, would you like to go and see a test match?

I'd love to.

So they gave me their members' card, and I rang up my dad and said, do you want to come and sit in the members?

He'd never done that.

So we drove in with that special access card.

We drove up to the members' card park, we flashed the card, I said, come on through, sir.

With all the BMWs and Alexis's, we drove on through and then we wandered up to that gateway that I could never enter.

We flashed the access card.

Come on through.

And we walked all the way through past the training nets, and we saw some of the players warming up, and we came up to the hallowed turf or ground of the men's pavilion.

And we walked in there and up, and you're looking out from a different perspective, and down below you've got the players coming out.

It was so civil, only because we had this car that gave us the power of access.

When God poured out the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, He gave access to power.

Amen?

Couldn't access it before.

It's in the members' revilience, in the members' section.

But with the Spirit of God, through the blood of Christ and the empty tomb, we as Christians have access to the very same power that raised Christ from the dead.

And I guess the reason I feel like I'd like to look at this, even though we did look at Pentecost not that long ago, as we step out on this journey, this adventure as a church, I hope we're aware of the power that is available to us.

That's beyond the normal things a club can do.

There is a power in the kingdom of the heavens by the grace of God that later enables us as Christians to do more, to do things that we could never do without the access to that power.

Now, we've heard those amazing words read out to us, Acts chapter 2, verses 1 to 21.

And we're reminded that no matter what your gender, your age, your social status, your race, you can have access to God through Jesus, through His work of the cross and the resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So, I want to clarify a little bit about Pentecost.

If you were in Ethiopia and you were not part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, you'd be called a Pente.

Everyone's a Pente.

So you're either in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, if you name Jesus as Lord, then you are a Pente.

If you're a Pentecostal in Sydney, you would identify yourself as a certain brand of Protestant Christianity.

They're normally quite sort of vital and vibrant and focus on the victory science of their faith.

But you know, I want to encourage us all today to acknowledge the fact that we're all Pentecostals.

We're all Pentecostals in that.

If we don't celebrate Pentecost, we don't have much power.

Amen?

We just don't have power.

And Pentecost is for us.

It's awesome.

It was the promise that God had given the people of Israel from way back in their history.

In fact, Pentecost didn't even start really at the first century, or certainly the beginning of last century, when the holiness movement Pentecostals began.

To see where it began, we need to go back all the way to the people of Israel, who actually, way back in the Old Testament, celebrated a feast that the Greeks later called Pentecost.

And it was the feast that celebrated the first sheaf of wheat, which was seven weeks after Passover.

Now, Passover is a hugely important event that happened in Israel.

I imagine most of us are familiar with it.

The people of Israel were in captivity to Egypt, and God finally said, I'm going to send the angel of death, and it will cure the firstborn of all living things, unless your doorpost of your house is covered with the lamb's blood, the unblemished lamb's blood.

And it was a picture pointing us to Christ, and that was Passover.

The angel passed over, and there was terrible death all over the place, but the Israelites were spared by the blood of the lamb.

That's Passover.

So Pentecost for an ancient Israelite was a celebration of the first sheaf of wheat, which pointed them to a much more glorious harvest ahead.

So it was the beginning of a harvest.

It was also a celebration of 50 days after the first Passover.

Moses had led the people, about 2 million plus, through the Red Sea, through the wilderness, to Mount Sinai, and in that time, 50 days later, he went up the mountain, into the cloud, met with God, and came back down with what?

The law, the Ten Commandments.

So, he went up and came back down 50 days after Passover.

He disappeared into the presence of God, and came back down with the law.

So two big things that Pentecost means.

A celebration of the beginning of a glorious harvest, and also the time when God's representative went to God and brought back truth to guide his people how to live.

So, you zoom forward hundreds and hundreds of years, and you come to the Pentecost of the first century.

And once again, we have a celebration of the beginning of a harvest.

Is that fair to say?

The unleashing of the Spirit of God on the earth, in a new special way living inside people by faith.

That is the picture of the beginning of a new glorious harvest.

Yes?

Is that fair to say?

But it's also 40 days after Jesus died at Passover.

He ascends to heaven into a cloud.

Just like Moses did.

Went up in the middle cloud.

And then he sends back down the teaching, the law of God, 50 days after the Passover, 10 days after the ascension.

He sends the Spirit of God to put the law where?

In our hearts.

You see this beautiful parallel.

The Old Testament and the New Testament.

Pentecost is about a celebration of a glorious future harvest, and also God's grace giving us teaching about how we can live.

Ezekiel 36, 26 is a beautiful memory verse.

God promised, I will take away the heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit inside of you, and teach you how to walk according to my statutes.

So that's what Pentecost is about.

The spirit of God coming inside of a believer by faith, and showing us how to live.

Now we happen to be lucky enough to have the Bible, the Bible in our hands, and the spirit will guide us through the spirit-inspired word of God.

Sometimes I think we can lose our dependence on the spirit, and think it's only this.

But we have to understand, now it's the spirit that inspired the word, and it's the spirit that came at Pentecost, and it's the spirit who we need guiding us now, as we step out in an adventure as a church.

We have to remember that.

So what did Jesus say about the spirit who would come at Pentecost?

I'm going to read from John chapter 16.

Jesus said in verse 7, Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send him to you.

And then verse 13, But when he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.

He will not speak on his own, he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

He will glorify me, because it is from me, that he will receive what he will make known to you.

And that's through the Word of God.

But some people in this world don't have to even have access to the Word of God, so the Spirit has to prompt them even without that.

All that belongs to the Father is mine, that is what I said.

The Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.

So Jesus promised before he died, that he would go away and send the Holy Spirit so that the believers would have, what?

Access to power.

Access to the power of truth, guidance and authority.

So can you take this Pentecost act that happened in history and sort of apply it now and think, well, we're all expecting Pentecost.

Personally, I don't think so.

It was a once and for all historical magnificent event.

Jesus died, rose again, and tongues of fire came down and arrested on people.

We're not looking for tongues of fire.

Yes.

To think that Pentecost is only that, is only some sort of theological idea that we talk about in history, is like studying a hurricane only from the meteorologist's lab, and saying, oh yes, there's always nice little curves that the hurricane gives.

It's very different to saying, oh I experienced a hurricane, yes?

And somehow as a church, we have to guard ourselves against talking about the power of the spirit in a believer's life, like, yes, yes, I learned about that a long time ago, and now I go along with my boring humdrum life as a Christian.

I mean, it can't be right.

Life is mundane.

We get that.

But as a Christian, if it's only ever mundane, and you think, well, I don't feel like I have any access to any power more than any other human being, I would put it to you, something's wrong.

Something's wrong.

It's meant to be access to a power that enables us to live the way Jesus said we could live.

We need to get out and experience the hurricane.

What's it like?

And I would suggest that when you experience a type of Pentecost, fresh, new, untamed, when you encounter the tangible truth, and it is tangible, it's not just sort of in a library, it's a tangible truth.

Jesus said, I am the truth.

Truth is a person.

When we get a hold that truth became a man, lived a perfect life in the Lord Jesus Christ, died for the sin of the world, rose again, ascended to heaven, and sent his spirit to make his people filled with himself, we encounter access to power, and it changes us.

And what does the power give us?

I think it gives us the power to experience true spiritual freedom, physical and emotional freedom, the power to experience and utilize authority, God's authority on this earth, because the spirit of Jesus is meant to link us to authority, to the authority of Jesus, the power to know God, the power to know God, and to walk with him intimately.

Now, I could throw that out there and we all sort of look a little bit sleepy.

Maybe it's the warmth.

It's so nice to be in an electric blanket at church and not freezing like the other one.

I'll just whistle down for you all if you snooze.

To know God is an awesome truth.

That's the offering that we have through the Spirit of God, that we could live each day knowing God.

But it happens when the Spirit of God is manifest in a group of people.

To know God and walk with him.

So we had it read out to us.

I just want to have a look at what it tells us.

Verse 1.

If you have a Bible there, it would be good because it's not on the screen.

Verse 1 of Chapter 2 says, They're all together.

They're all together.

Is it true that the Spirit unites?

Isn't it funny?

In church circles, the Spirit often does the opposite.

I've heard so many people say, Oh, the Holy Spirit.

Oh, look at the Holy Spirit.

That's those weirdos.

It's a tragedy.

It's a travesty that the name of the Spirit might make people go, Oh, that's scary.

He knows where he is.

The Spirit brings unity.

They are all together.

And then verse 2, the wind comes and it fills the whole house.

Not part of the house.

The Spirit comes and fills the whole house.

Hebrew scripture says that Adamar is the Hebrew name for dust.

And God took the mud and the dust, the Adamar, and he breathed his ruach, the breath of God, into the dust and created Adam.

And this is another picture that if you want to see something that's living and a reproducing living thing, it's got to be started by the breath of the living God.

And that's the church.

That's why Pentecost says, a wind came, and the Hebrew word ruach means wind, breath, and spirit.

And the breath of God came and filled the whole house and started a new creation.

And Pentecost came and the believer was filled and living like a second Adam.

And verse 3, it says fire, which represents the presence of God came down and rested on how many of them?

The scripture says all of them.

And that's a powerful thing to us to know and remember.

It doesn't say, and the power of God, the fire came and rested on a priest, or the minister who'd been and done his clergy training, or one person who knew all the religious systems.

No, though, that the heart of God was to empower the people.

And this is what Baptists believe.

The priesthood of all believed it.

That the Spirit comes and empowers us all in unique ways.

Verse 4, they were filled with the Spirit and they began to speak in tongues.

Now we know it's not a mystery.

There are two types of tongues.

1st Corinthians 12 and 14 talk about them.

There are tongues that are special heavenly language tongues.

And they edify and build us up.

And if we need to say them to a group, then there would be an interpreter.

Or there is a spiritual gift of tongues where you can speak in other languages.

And that's what happened here in the 1st century.

They spoke in other languages because God's heart was always for the nations.

Abraham was promised that he'd be blessed, so he'd be a blessing to all nations.

So when God's big promise came and filled the believers, it wasn't so that it was just for them.

Isn't that a magnificent picture of what God's heart is?

Here's the power, the biggest outpouring of power you'll ever see.

Jesus, it was better than not have Jesus there physically.

He said, I need to go so the Spirit can make you all like me.

But when the Spirit comes and makes us all as a church like Jesus, they spoke in the tongues of the nations.

God's saying, don't miss it.

My heart's not just for you.

It's not just for the Greek speakers.

It's not just for the Hebrew speakers.

It's for the nations.

The people say we hear them speaking in our tongue.

That's the heart of God.

As we step out and we pray in groups for the power of God, do you think God's power is for us just here?

Obviously not.

It is for the nations.

It is that we would be a mission-hearted church that is passionate about the name of Jesus and his renown and go into all the nations.

It has always been God's heart.

Peter gets up and starts quoting scripture from the Old Testament.

It's a fulfilment of the promise.

And he has power.

Peter, the scaredy cat, stands up and preaches, and there's an amazing outpouring of the Spirit.

Matthew 28 said that Jesus will be with them always, and he was.

In Acts chapter 1 verse 8, Jesus says, Don't try to do it on your own.

Stay in Jerusalem until you are empowered from on the high, because the power of the Spirit comes for witness primarily.

We need it.

We need the power of the Spirit for witness.

Did you look at the timeline of this church?

Did you get a bit of a look at it?

Some of us wrote stuff down.

It's incredibly encouraging and also sad.

So when I looked at it, I was looking up the history and from talking to people, it would seem to me that our peak as a church was about 78.

Certain glory days back then.

I'm doing the maths and thinking that's 40 years.

Well, that's a significant number at least.

38.

I'm thinking 40 years is a long time, with all the blessings that we have in understanding and wisdom and resources.

I mean, Sydney has gone through a couple of property booms that have made a lot of us a lot wealthier in 40 years.

But this church has gone ultimately backwards.

There's been peaks of them.

May we feel the weight of the burden that when we say God, give us a chance to do something significant, and God by His mercy and grace says, here, look, I'll let you do like a $50 million development, and give you a church worth $12 million and see what.

Like, that cannot be just for us.

His heart is for witness that we would grow, that we would see the giftedness coming up, and the passions and different people we saw on last Sunday night.

We said, pray for what you're passionate about.

You should have heard the different things of this church we were praying for.

Oh, God, we want to reach the poor in the area.

We want to speak out for justice and others.

We want to do family ministry well and someone else's well.

We want to have vibrant worship.

And I'm like, wow, this is the Spirit of God.

Because we're passionate about different things, and that's what the Spirit does.

You know, the most common command in the Bible is don't be scared.

Because as human beings, we get scared easily.

It's the natural place we get to.

Be courageous.

The Spirit of God makes us stand up firm on strong knees and have courage.

Amen.

That's that.

It's hard to witness.

It's hard to step out and do what God wants for us.

I want to just tell a few stories about people in history as an encouragement to us.

John Wesley, he was an ordained Christian minister.

He traveled to America with his brother Charles on a mission.

Charles Wesley wrote all those hymns.

And they were quite unsuccessful back in the 18th century.

And on the way back, they're coming back by boat, and they ran into a guy.

Did you want to know what his name was?

Council.

Von Zinsendorf.

Zinsendorf.

Count Von Zinsendorf was from where?

Moravia.

And they got chatting.

And John Wesley, who some of us have heard his name at Wesley Mission, he became one of the great evangelists of history.

But something happened to him before.

He went from a relatively unsuccessful clergyman to a man who was used by God.

Well, something happened.

He ran into someone who had an access card.

His name was Count Von Zinsendorf from Moravia.

And this guy who had an access card to the power of God said, oh, look, we just, we pray and see God.

In fact, in Moravia, we've had a prayer meeting going for 100 years.

And John Wesley went, oh, that's weird.

I struggle to get people to turn out to a wince.

They're not praying many once a month.

They pray, in fact, the story says they pray 24 hours a day, 100 years.

They say we're seeing amazing power, the power of God.

So John Wesley got together with a couple of mates, and they started praying.

And the funny thing is, John Wesley, if you know anything of the theological history, he's sort of on the left side of Protestant theology.

And you've got a guy like George Whitfield on the right side of Protestant theology.

They're both praying together at a place called Aldersgate.

And they were praying at Aldersgate.

And on May the 24th, 1738, John Wesley, in his journal, says, I felt my heart strangely warmed.

And he was filled with the spirit in a new way.

Something happened to him.

He accessed power.

God touched him.

And it was like an experience of Pentecost.

And it changed him.

He started preaching outside the churches.

They banned him from every pulpit.

He said, England is my parish.

And he went out and he started the opening preaching, did most of his preaching off the back of a horse.

Preached thousands of days, amazing ministry.

But in his testimony of his life, he says, there was a point in my life that I humbled myself and sought God with some friends, and God touched us in a Pentecost-like moment.

And there was something different about our lives.

Stephen Oldford, anyone have heard of Stephen Oldford?

He's an old English Baptist preacher.

He wrote this, get this, of praying with Billy Graham, young guy Billy Graham.

Who's he?

William Graham?

Handsome young cove.

This Oldford English preacher says, this is him writing, I gave Billy my testimony of how God completely turned my life inside out.

An experience of the Holy Spirit in his fullness and anointing.

This is Billy Graham before he's a well-known evangelist.

So Stephen Oldford says, as I talked and I can see Billy now, those marvellous eyes glistened with tears, and he said, Stephen, I see it.

That's what I want.

That's what I need in my life.

Oldford suggested, they prayed this through, and both men fell to their knees.

I can still hear Billy pouring his heart in prayer out of total dedication to the Lord.

Finally he said, my heart is so flooded with the Holy Spirit, and we went from praying to praising, and we were laughing and praising God, and he was walking back and forth across the room, crying out, I have it, I'm filled.

This is the turning point in my life, and he was a new man.

History says he went on, and they had a crusade in England, it was the biggest crusade he had ever had.

Now, if you know theology, I'm not trying to push some barrow that it's all about second blessing, baptism, the Holy Spirit.

I'm not saying that at all.

That was my personal experience, that I was saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, but it was at Kaya Ridge.

I was on my face in the dust, crying out to God, repenting properly for the first time in my life, and the Spirit of God touched me, and I couldn't put down the Word of God.

I couldn't put it down.

I finished the New Testament in about 2 weeks, and from the age of 1920, when that happened, something changed in my life, and I had this burden to preach the Gospel for the rest of my life.

Please, that's not a bonus.

This is just what happened to me.

And I've talked in ministry to people saying, you know, you need like a second blessing, and it hasn't taken on.

It's okay for me.

I've met people that I respect with all my heart, and they say, no, I had everything I need, but when I first became a Christian, there was no second blessing, and I don't know.

It's a mystery.

And I just want to mention that from these guys in history, not to push the church down any path.

It's weird.

But just to say, there is more than a humdrum, sort of somewhat boring existence as Horned with the Baptist Church.

And I know we don't all have that, but I know some of us do.

Because I feel it at times.

It takes an effort on behalf of each person to come to a gathering and say, Lord God, by faith, I believe there's something more than an RSL club meeting today in this meeting room.

Amen?

And we need you to do something.

And I want to encourage you that night last Sunday night, I think it was, when we had the cross and some candles and communion and a timeline, and we just, the leaders got together and we knelt around the cross, the deacons and elders that were there, and we confessed our sin and we said, God, don't let us go on from here carrying on yuck baggage, ways that we treated people in the past that are no good.

Help us to become the people you want us to be.

And then people start praying.

And many of us felt like, wow, this is what we want as a church to be a praying church with passion.

We're going to have our first church prayer meeting down at King Road this Wednesday night.

If you make it, you're fantastic.

And we'll pack in there and see how we go.

Today is symbolic of a fresh start for us as a church.

First service at Barker.

The old church is about to be knocked down.

It's a significant time.

I just want to encourage in Jesus' name to use the symbol of what's going on and just sing the Lord in prayer and say, Lord, is there anything you want to tear down in my life that I've just let become an idol?

I just want to know you, God.

Help me.

You know, normally you need someone else to travel that journey.

So, sometimes it's good to pray, Lord, I want to know you more.

Can you give me some friends to do it with?

Good place to start is 6am down on Tuesday or 9am, or pick your own time.

Just pray with people.

Remember, that's what George Wheatfield and John Wesley did.

They called it the Holy Club.

They just went together.

When you see revival, Brian Chatfield is going to talk about revival in a couple of weeks.

Revivals happen when little groups of people get together and pray.

Let's decide we're going to pray.

Little prayer triplet.

We're going to pray.

We're going to pray for the spirits to be poured out on this church and do something special that no one else could do other than God himself.

So today we're believing and praying that the only wise God, immortal, invisible, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving, might graciously lead us in power right here and now, in this unimportant church, in this unimportant suburb, in his universe, because of the access he has promised to us through his spirit poured out on the day of Pentecost.

Let's pray.

‍