Received the Holy Spirit. Now What?

OT Lesson: Numbers 11:24-30 (NIV)

So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and made them stand round the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but did not do so again.

However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. A young man ran and told Moses, ‘Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.’

Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ assistant since youth, spoke up and said, ‘Moses, my lord, stop them!’

But Moses replied, ‘Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit on them!’ Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.

NT Lesson: Acts 2:1-21 (NRSV)

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Sermon

Introduction

Good morning. We had a guest preacher last Sunday. I hope you enjoyed his sermon. Yesterday I went to Hutcheson’s house with Bess. The house was very pretty, the garden was so beautiful. And the grass was very healthy and good looking. Well, I have a horrible grass. It is newly planted but looks ugly with lots of bald spots. I have not really watered the grass. But I found that my neighbours water their grass a lot. Even during the rain storms, their sprinklers are watering the grass. My back yard is kind of too dry and ugly, so I decided to water the grass. I bought and connected the hose and sprinkler, but somehow the hose connector leaks too much. I tried many things in vain so far. The other day I was plucking the weeds out with my bare hands, and I got a splinter stuck on my palm. It was very small that I can barely see it, but I can feel it. It was very painful. I tried to remove it with tweezers but could not because it was very small. It was amazing that such a small thing which you can barely see can cause so much pain. Well, I guess gardening is not my thing. I need someone to teach me how to make the lawn healthy. Back to the splinter, I eventually removed it. One of the things the internet suggested me was to use glue. So I put some gorilla glue where the splinter was, waited until the glue dried out, and then peeled the glue out. Voila, the splinter was gone! Getting smarter everyday. And now I began to wear garden gloves. I got even smarter.

Pentecost

Today is Pentecost when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on the believers. Ten days after Jesus ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit came down on all the disciples and followers who were gathered and praying in the upper room of Mark. Mark’s father was rich and he had a big house. I’ve been to his house and it was big enough to hold hundred and twenty people. This is what Pentecost means historically. Then what does Pentecost means literally in Greek? You all know what penta- means in Greek. It is five as in Pentagon. Pentecost (Πεντηκοστή) is fifty days or fiftieth day because it is the fiftieth day after the resurrection of Jesus which we call Easter. Pentecost is fifty days in Greek. Then what do you say forty days in Latin? That is quarantine. During the Black Death Plague in the Medieval Europe, the authorities isolated foreign ships for forty days before entering the port. This is where the word quarantine came from. I was glad that during this pandemic, the quarantine was not literal forty days but just two weeks.

Shavuot

Anyway, the Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit was actually revealed to us. As you may already know, all the feasts and events in the Bible were carefully planned and coordinated by God for the right timing. Last Friday was the Jewish festival of Shavuot (שָׁבוּעוֹת‎). It is, according to the rabbinic tradition, when the Ten Commandments were revealed to Moses. This Shavuot occurs on the fiftieth day after Passover. And the Pentecost occurs on the fiftieth day after the resurrection of Jesus. The revelation of the Ten Commandments is the revelation of the Word of God, and the Word is God the Son as John testifies, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So the Shavuot was the divine revelation  of God the Son on the fiftieth day. And the Pentecost was also the divine revelation of God the Spirit on the fiftieth day. This timing cannot be random or coincident. It had to be planned carefully.

Holy Spirit

When it comes to the God the Spirit, many people think that the Holy Spirit appears just a little bit in the book of Acts, and that the OT is all about God the Father, and the NT Jesus the Son. But actually the Holy Spirit is not rare in the Bible. The Holy Spirit has many names: sometimes just the Spirit, sometimes the Holy Spirit, sometimes the Spirit of God, sometimes the Spirit of Christ, sometimes the Spirit of the Lord, and sometimes the Advocate, sometimes the Spirit of Truth, and so on and on. The Spirit in Hebrew is רוּחַ and in Greek Πνεῦμα. Both mean Spirit, wind and breath. 

In the creation, the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. When God formed a man, God breathed into his nostril the breath of life and the man became the living being. The breath of life was the Holy Spirit. After Adam and Eve sinned, there was a breeze, a wind in the garden, and Adam knew the presence of God because the wind he felt was the Holy Spirit. Ezekiel saw a pile of dry bones filling a valley, and then the breath came into them, and they lived. The breath was the Holy Spirit. After the resurrection, Jesus breathed on His disciples and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Jesus breathed on them, that is, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit and said to them to receive the Holy Spirit. There are so many Scriptures about the Holy Spirit. And of course today’s NT lesson is the most famous one.

Joy of the Holy Spirit

When the Holy Spirit came down on one hundred and twenty disciples and followers of Jesus, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak in tongues. That is one of the things we do when we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Apostle Peter cited the message of prophet Joel that God will pour out the Holy Spirit upon all flesh. With the fullness of the Holy Spirit, our sons and daughters will prophesy, our old men shall dream dreams, and our young men shall see vision. In 1 Samuel 10 when prophet Samuel anointed Saul as king but before he became the king, Saul left Samuel and on the way he met a band of prophets. Then the Bible says that the Spirit of God came powerfully upon him and he joined in their prophesying. And in today’s OT lesson, seventy elders of Israel were filled with the Holy Spirit and they all began to prophesy. So when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you may speak in tongues. You may prophesy. You may see visions. You may dream dreams. It is not all. There are more gifts of the Spirit: wisdom, knowledge, healing, miraculous powers, distinguishing between spirits, and interpretation of tongues. You may or may not have those gifts when you are filled with the Holy Spirit. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you all have the joy—the divine joy. King David sang a song in Psalms, not to take away the Holy Spirit but to restore the joy. This joy is so good that you do not want to leave. You want to stay. On the mount of Transfiguration, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here. Let us make here three tabernacles’ so that we can stay here forever. Peter and other disciples liked it so much and they did not want to leave.

We Need to Leave

But the thing is we need to leave. Peter asked Jesus to build houses and stay there forever, but Jesus did not allow him. Jesus and the disciples went back to the normal life. When I received the Holy Spirit first time, you all know my testimony, I was in trance for a week. I was full of unspeakable and indescribable joy. All I can say was that I was like walking literally on the clouds for seven days. The overflowing joy was too much that I do not remember at all what happened in real life for those seven days. I did not want it to end but God ended it and sent me back to the normal life. When Saul prophesied for a while he stopped prophesying, and went back to his normal life. But it was not that the Spirit of God left him. The Holy Spirit does not easily leave us. Some days we may not feel the presence, but the Holy Spirit is with us, and in us. The Holy Spirit was with Saul until Saul tried to kill young David. Then the Bible says that ‘now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.’ So at the moment when Saul stopped prophesying, he was still filled with the Holy Spirit. But God had let him stop prophesying and sent him back to the normal life. In today’s OT lesson, all the seventy elders were filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. But the last verse tells us that they all returned to the camp, that is back to their normal life. All the people in the Bible who were filled with the Holy Spirit, no matter what they did—prophesying, speaking in tongues or whatever—they all went back to the normal life, without any exception. Even apostle Paul who were in trance many times and went up even to the third heaven, had to come back from his trance to the real world and normal life. But going back to normal life does not mean that we go back to our previous estate. With the Holy Spirit and by the blood of Jesus, we are washed and changed. We cannot go back to the past. We go back to our normal life, changed, renewed, and with the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion

Friends, on this Pentecost Sunday, we celebrate and commemorate the coming of the Holy Spirit, both historically and individually. The Holy Spirit came down indeed two thousand years ago onto the believers. But we also individually received the Holy Spirit. If you have not, I pray that you will receive the Holy Spirit fully, so that you can also experience the indescribable spiritual joy. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we ask, ‘now what?’ As Peter said to Jesus, we want to stay at church. At least I did. But Jesus always tells us to ‘go ye into all the world.’ With the Holy Spirit, we may or may not have all kinds of gifts of the Holy Spirit. If you do not have the gift you want, that’s OK because our goal is not the gifts of the Holy Spirit but the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The gifts of the Holy Spirit is like flowers. It gives us great joy but we do not need them in heaven. The flowers fade away, and then it takes time to bear and ripen the fruits. So friends, let us go back to the normal life changed, renewed and with the Holy Spirit. Let us take time to bear and ripen the fruits of the Holy Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And let us also show those fruits and our good works to our neighbours so that they may praise our Father in heaven. Amen.