The Difference is God

Text: Acts 2:1-13, 1: 13-26

Focus: Man's strength vs God's strength

Function: To help people see what a difference God makes.

Form:

Intro:

Today we celebrate the birthday of the Church. We have been looking at the work and the power of the Holy Spirit as He is the one who gives all the power to the Church.

I love the disciples in this passage.

We read the last verses of Acts 1. Last week, we saw how God told them how only power of the Holy Spirit would make them successful.

At the end of Mark and at the end of Matthew, in both places, the apostles are given the order to go Galilee to wait for God. The command is for them to not get ahead of themselves and wait for the leading of God.

Do you ever find it hard to wait for God?

It is ever difficult for us to wait when it feels like we are in limbo with nothing to do?

In my morning devotions, I have been studying the book of 1 Samuel, the story of King David's beginning and the story of the failure of King Saul.

I want to draw a correlation between the beginning of the Israeli Kingdom and the beginning of the Kingdom of Heaven that is now here on planet earth.

I want us to see how they started out in their own power instead of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Saul was Israel's first king.

Saul was either an impatient man, or he was a faithless man. It seems that his problem was that he was more concerned with what people thought of him than with what God thought of him.

Either that, or he was afraid to trust in God's power and he resorted to taking matters into his own hand.

In 1 Samuel 13, right before a significant battle, Samuel, God's prophet told him to wait to go to battle until Samuel showed up, offered a sacrifice for God's blessing and then they could go do what they were called to do.

Except they were facing a large army. And the prophet delayed his coming. And while he was waiting for the prophet, more and more men from his army kept deserting him.

He kept looking at the size of his own army getting smaller and smaller and it didn't make sense to him to delay.

The Bible says that Saul waited 7 days for Samuel to show up. His army dwindled down to 600 men.

So, he thought to himself: “after all, I am a leader, called by God as well as Samuel, there is nothing wrong with me offering the sacrifice.”

And of course, as soon as the sacrifice was over, the prophet shows up and Saul makes an excuse.

The prophet tells him that he is wrong in what he has done, the explicit instructions were to wait for the prophet to arrive.

And Saul tells him he is sorry, but then he asks Samuel to bless him in front of the people. It seems that he wants to look good, but he doesn't really trust God.

Saul, I am sure, knew the story of Gideon who defeated an huge army with just 300 people. God had Gideon reduce the size of his army first from 30,000 men. God said, the army is too large and if they win, they will think they did it in their power, not mine.

So it was reduced from 30,000 men to 10,000 men and again God said it was too large. So it went from 10,000 men to 300 men and then everyone knew that it is in God's might and power we have success.

Saul knew this story.

But, can we judge Saul for his lack of faith? When I place myself in his shoes, and I think of how he must have felt when his army was deserting him, I see the temptation to take matters into his own hand.

Although he is not the prophet, he is a divinely appointed leader. He expects God to help him because God is the one who called him to this position.

I wonder if I can blame him? He didn't ask to be king.

If you know the story, he was just the son of a farmer. But a farmer who was pretty well off.

And one day, he was looking for a couple of runaway mules when he ran into Samuel and Samuel anointed him king of Israel.

Why did God do that? God didn't want them to have a king, not really, God's plan was for everyone to obey the law, be kind to each other, live in faith.

But the people, without a leader kept wandering away from God and so, they begged Samuel to ask God to give them a king.

The Bible says specifically that they wanted to be just like all the other nations. But God wanted them to trust in him.

And so, Saul is the one God chooses and Saul has one distinction, he is very handsome, and very tall. He is an head taller than anyone else in all of Israel. He is just the kind of people we want to follow. His family is well off. He is a man's man. I am sure that when people looked at him, they saw a successful person, someone who certainly would be able to move people and lead them well.

But that isn't the kind of leader God can use. From a human perspective, he was the perfect leader, but not from God's perspective.

I believe that the people, by asking for a king were telling God that following Him would be easier if someone could take their place and do it for them.

Now listen, leadership is important. But the leader has to follow God. The leader has to trust God. The leader cannot get in the way of what God is doing.

God gave them a perfect human leader, who tried his best to lead in human principles. But what they needed was a leader who refused to get ahead of God, who refused to do things his own way, who was willing to wait on God and not get ahead of the Holy Spirit.

So, what does this have to do with Acts 2:1-13, the day of Pentecost?

I don't think the apostles sin in the rest of Acts 1, after Jesus tells them that the only way they are going to succeed is if God, by the power of the Holy Spirit is involved.

So, in the rest of Chapter 1, the apostles are having an hard time waiting for God.

They believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. Last week we saw that we are off track if we are busy looking at the skies instead of doing the work.

So, they decide to get busy. They didn't want Jesus to think that they were being lazy. So, they elect an apostle to take the place of Judas the betrayer.

There is no command from God to do anything but wait for God's Spirit to empower them.

I don't blame them for wanting to be busy. But what real good did they do?

It is like we have a contrast, in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. In Chapter 2, God does it all. In Chapter 1, at least they were busy, but they weren't getting anywhere.

Sometimes I ask myself: “Is it important to be busy? Or is it important to be following God?”

And then, I go back to the story of Saul and the reason why God gave them a failure as a king.

When they asked Samuel to give them a king, God comforts Samuel.

Up until this time, there was no king, but they had a leader. For the last 400 years, all through the book of Judges, God would give them a prophet, a spiritual leader and that prophet's role was also to be the judge. He settled legal disputes between the people and kept the people faithful to God's word.

But the people wanted a King. If they had a king, then they had a person for them to focus their hope on to.

So God tells Samuel, “It isn't you they are rejecting, but it is me.”

And God's point is that it is very difficult for us to trust in what He is doing. They wanted the power and success that the nations around them had.

But God wanted them to be a unique people. God wanted them to be a people who had no other claim to success than God's Spirit at work.

Saul didn't work out for them and yet, he was the son of a prominent family, with leadership in the genes, he was tall, handsome, he was everything they thought they would get with a king.

But unless God is behind the work, we really don't get anywhere.

This happened to them in a physical sense in the OT and in a Spiritual sense in the NT.

But none of this is to judge the apostles for what they did.

The neat thing is this: In spite of what they did, right or wrong, getting ahead of the game or not, God didn't chide them for it. Instead, God sent the Holy Spirit and started the Church.

We have a lesson to learn from this. God does it. God has not abandoned His Church. God has not abandoned this Church.

I do not want to get ahead of what God is doing in the Church.

I appreciate the fact that Peter wasn't lazy and I appreciate the fact that he was chomping at the bit to get busy carrying on the work that Jesus called the Church to do.

But look at the difference in the work when the Holy Spirit got involved.

The apostles called Matthais to replace Judas the betrayer. But Matthais is not listed in any of the lists of the 12 apostles. His appointment amounted to nothing. In the book of Acts, later on, the Apostles appoint deacons to do the work of caring for the sick, and managing the church. And these deacons did some pretty tremendous things by the power of the Holy Spirit, but this is the first and the last that we hear about Matthais.

However, in Chapter 2, when we read about what happens when the Holy Spirit comes, and the Church is working in God's power and not its own, in one day 3,000 people are added to the church.

This is our birthday. This is a day for us to commit again to believing in God's power for us.

There is really only one catalyst for this great move of God in Acts 2. The scripture says that they were together praying, and there was no division among them. They were still the same people who could have had grudges, but because of their mission, they refused those grudges.

I appreciate the fact that they were not lazy. Peter tried something to do to lead them when he convinces them to appoint Matthais as Judas' replacement.

It didn't amount to anything. And, they didn't hold it against him.

Instead, the Bible says the Church began its growth when they were in unity, praying together. That is when the Holy Spirit came.