On one occasion Osteen was having
a meal with Ravi Zaharias and his wife.
Joel explained to Ravi that he
had been talking with a leading Muslim scholar and had been amazed at how much
they agreed on. Ravi says that his wife
almost chocked on her food with shock.
So, Ravi looked at Osteen and asked,
‘they don’t have the Bible (thinking that the New Testament is lost); they
don’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God; they don’t believe that he died on
the cross; they don’t believe that he rose again from the dead; they don’t
believe that he is coming again as king, do you think that there is a
difference between what they believe and we do?’
Ravi later pointed out that in Osteen’s
book, ‘Your Best Life Now’, there is not one mention of the cross.
If our message doesn’t centre on
the cross of Christ, then we will inevitably become confused about the good
news of God. The Holy Spirit will cause
us to speak about Jesus.
The Holy Spirit will cause us to
speak about Jesus
The risen Jesus had told the
apostles to wait in Jerusalem until he sent them the Holy Spirit. Then he ascended to heaven on the day of
Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out on a hundred and twenty disciples with
tongues of fire. Peter now stood up to
address the people of Jerusalem.
“Fellow Jews and all you who live
in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you
suppose. It is only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken through the
prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all
people. Your sons and daughters will
prophesy, your young men will see visions, you old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I
will pour out my Spirit in those last days and they will prophesy’ (2:14-17).
Peter tells his listeners that a
new era has arrived. These are ‘the last
days’. But these last days have not come
out of the blue. Hundreds of years
earlier God had promised a time when he would pour out his Holy Spirit on all his
people. In the Old Testament some of
God’s people—like certain prophets and kings—had were given the Holy Spirit
some of the time, but now all of God’s people are given the Holy Spirit all of
the time.
There is some debate among
Christians about the idea of being baptised in the Holy Spirit. Is baptism of the Holy Spirit something that
happens when you become a Christian or is it a secondary experience? Good people disagree on this issue. My understanding is that baptism of the Holy
Spirit happens when we become a Christian.
While the initial one hundred and twenty disciples were Christians first
and then received the Holy Spirit as a later experience, I think that their
experience was unique. There are a
couple of similarly unique experiences elsewhere in the Book of Acts and we
will look at them each in turn. You see,
the hundred and twenty had become Christians before the Day of Pentecost. But from the Day of Pentecost on, it seems
that people are baptised in the Holy Spirit when they become Christians. Peter seems to say this to the crowd in
Jerusalem when tells them, ‘Repent and be baptised, 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’ (2:38). Baptism in the Holy
Spirit seems to be associated with being converted. Similarly, the apostle Paul speaks of baptism
of the Holy Spirit as something that every Christian has experienced,
explaining that we were all baptised with one Spirit so as to form one body (1
Corinthians 12;13a).
This baptism in the Holy Spirit
is about God’s presence within. In Eden,
Adam and Eve had enjoyed God’s presence, but that was lost when they rebelled
against him. God’s presence was with his
people in the cloud and the fire as he led them in the wilderness. His presence was signified by the descending
of the cloud of the Shekinah glory in Solomon’s temple. Now Christians are temples of the Holy Spirit
(1 Corinthians 6:19). We have God’s
presence within us.
The Holy Spirit within us is a
missionary. He causes us to speak. He causes us to prophesy. In the book of Acts we will see people with
an amazing gift of prophecy, that enables them to foretell events about to take
place in the future, but that was not given to everyone (1 Corinthians 12:29). So the prophecy that is spoken of here seems
to be a reference to a more general proclaiming the good news about Jesus. Like we see in verse eleven, when the hundred
and twenty disciples were declaring the wonders of God. Unless we are quenching the influence of the
Holy Spirit in our lives, he will cause us to speak about Jesus. The Holy Spirit will cause us to speak about
the cross.
The Holy Spirit will cause us to
speak about the cross
Having explained about the
pouring out of the Holy Spirit Peter now teaches Christ-crucified. ‘Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by
God to you by miracles, wonders and signs … This man was handed over to you by
God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men,
put him to death by nailing him to the cross.
But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death,
because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him’ (Acts 2:22-24).
Peter uses the Old Testament to
show that Jesus is the Messiah who had to die and rise from the dead. The story of the cross stretches from
eternity past to eternity future. In a
later letter the same Peter will explain that Jesus was chosen to be our
redeemer before the creation of the world (1 Peter 1:20). In heaven the redeemed of God worship the
lamb who was slain (Revelation 5:12). In
his gospel, Luke shows the risen Jesus showing two of the disciples on the road
to Emmaus that the Old Testament had foretold that the Messiah would suffer and
rise from the dead on the third day (Luke 24:46). It was this crucified and risen Jesus, now
exalted to the right hand of God, had received from the Father the promised
Holy Spirit and poured it out on the Day of Pentecost (2:33).
In his book, ‘The Cross of
Christ’, John Stott writes, ‘it was by his death that he wished to be
remembered. There is then, it is safe to
say, no Christianity without the cross.
If the cross is not central to our religion, ours is not the religion of
Jesus.’
What do your friends think you
believe? Why not ask them to give you
one sentence that sums up Christianity? They
may talk about being a good person and doing your best. It is cross-less Christianity. It is only when the cross is examined that we
are confronted with the holiness of God, the awfulness of sin, the beauty of
God’s self-sacrifice and the how God can show mercy to wicked people without
compromising his justice.
The Holy Spirit draws people to
repentance and faith
Look at how the crowd respond to
the preaching of the cross.
When the people heard this, they
were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “brothers, what
shall we do?’
Peter replied, “Repent and be
baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus christ for the forgiveness of
sins. And you will receive the gift of
the Holy Spirit. The promise is of you
and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God
will call’ (2:37-39).
On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy
Spirit was not only working among the one hundred and twenty, he was working
among the three thousand who were being brought to faith. Jesus promised that when the Holy Spirit came,
he would convict the world about righteousness, judgement and sin (John 16:8). He is the one who raises the spiritually dead
to life.
Ask the Holy Spirit to convict
your friends of their sin (John 16:8). Ask
the Holy Spirit to give you the words to say (Luke 12:12). Ask the Holy Spirit to enable them to
understand the message of the cross (1 Corinthians 2:13). Ask the Holy Spirit to raise the spiritually
dead to life.
Conclusion
So, last week, as I was writing
this sermon, I decided to look through Joel Osteen’s tweets, to get an idea of
what he preaches.
This is what I found:
I
was thirty-seven tweets in before I came upon a reference to the cross. I was
thirty-seven tweets in before there was any mention of Jesus. There was no
mention of the Lord's return or life beyond the grave. The only sin he seemed
to be concerned about was that of talking negatively to yourself. If Osteen was
all I had to go by, I would have to assume that the only reason Christ died for
me was to show me how special I am.
What
he did emphasis was a superstitious fear of the power of words. He said the God
tells me I am strong and talented (I am having trouble finding the Bible
reference for that one). He seems to think that God's greatest concern is that
we would fulfil our destiny (with no reference to what that destiny is). It is
all about fulfilling your potential.
I have to conclude that Osteen is
either culpably ignorant of his Bible, both Old and New Testaments, which point
to the cross, or that he really doesn’t care about the eternal well-being of
his hearers.
Compare that with the apostle
Peter, who is not ashamed to speak of that day when ‘the sun will be turned to
darkness and the moon to blood before the glorious day of the Lord’
(2:20). Peter warns and pleads with his
hearers to ‘save yourself from this corrupt generation’ (2:40). He holds out the gracious promise, ‘everyone
who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (2:21).
May God give us the same clarity
and love as we hold out the Word of life.
No comments:
Post a Comment