June 2 sermon - communication - Acts 2

An elderly pastor was searching his closet for his tie before church one Sunday morning. In the back of the closet, he found a small box containing 3 eggs and 100 $1 bills. He called his wife into the closet to ask her about the box and its contents. Embarrassed, she admitted having hidden the box for their entire 25 years of marriage. Disappointed and hurt, the pastor asked her, "WHY?"The wife replied that she hadn't wanted to hurt his feelings. He asked her how the box could have hurt his feelings. She said that every time during their marriage that he delivered a poor sermon, she had placed an egg in the box. The pastor felt that 3 poor sermons in 25 years was certainly nothing to feel bad about, so he asked her what the $100 was for.She replied, "Each time I got a dozen eggs, I sold them to the neighbors for $1.

Great communication huh. Maybe they needed to sit down and have a talk a little sooner. Have you noticed how bad communication can change everything.

Email is one of the worst, and before email it was the phone. No body language, no voice inflection in email. If you put a comma in the wrong place, watch out.
Well you have the disciples sitting in a room alone and a great rushing wind comes from heaven and fills the whole house. Tongues of fire fall on each of them. Then they start speaking in other languages.
The first thing we need to get out of the way is that they were speaking in different languages. They were not speaking gibberish, uttering incomprehensible words, shaking on the ground, barking like a dog, strutting around like a chicken, or doing anything out of their control.
The scripture tells us they spoke in different tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Did you read all the different people who were there. Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia,
Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Egyptians, Romans, Cretens, Arabs……wow. All these different people, yet they were hearing the disciples praise God and proclaim the saving life and death of Jesus Christ in their own language.
I think that is how heaven will be like. When we get there, we will be a cornucopia of skin color and language. Yet we won’t have to learn a special heaven language. I think we will automatically speak in the language of the person we are speaking too. No interpreters. No funny looks.
Every note we send will auto correct itself when you send it and email will be exactly the same way. No more miscommunication.
Before I left Dell, (not looking back, running as fast I could), I sent an email out to all my long time customers. I wanted to tell them they would be getting a new account manager and also I wanted to spread the Word of God.
I put in my notes that I was going to be a pastor full time. I have a website online that I post my sermons and other thoughts and put that in the email too.
I got some of the usual responses back. “Good to hear your doing what you want” “Wish you well” “Thank God we finally get someone else”.
But I also got some other emails back. One of my customers told me of how he was a missionary in the UK for 2 years. Another told me of how his daughter is a missionary in Croatia. One of the responses I got back really hit the nail on the head.
He said “I wish there was a way for casual or even longtime business associates to identify one another as Christians. What an opportunity for fellowship that we miss by not making it clear to each other.” He is exactly right.
At one time I was putting scripture on the bottom of my emails at work. None of my customers complained, but HR saw it and got upset. To get around that I would put spiritual sayings that someone famous would say. I have had quotes from Lincoln, Churchill and others. Things you don’t hear about in history class in school.
Back in the early centuries, there was much persecution against the Christians. How would they be able to identify each other? I’m sure you have seen the fish symbol on the back of cars.
The fish outline is a logical symbol for Christians because of all the references in the bible. The most notable is “I will make you fishers of men” from Mark 1:17.
There is also Jonah and the great fish, the fishes and loaves that Jesus multiplied, and the fish Jesus ate after his resurrection.
The Greek word for fish is “ICHTHUS”. This is an acrostic for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. Each of the letters represents one word in the saying.

Back to the persecution. The Christians didn’t wear crosses like the one I wear around my neck. They didn’t have the fish symbol branded on the rear of their donkey. But they did use the symbol for a password. If two strangers met and were unsure if the other was a Christian, one would draw half the fish in the sand.

If the other man was a Christian, he would complete the other half, forming the outline of the fish.
There is great symbolism in this passage from Acts. Remember in Genesis 11 the people all got together and started building a tower. They wanted to be up in heaven with the Gods.
But there communication was changed and all had different languages. The Spirit comes in Acts and lifts that curse. There were 120 men in the room when the Spirit came. The numerical symbolism is 10 people from each of the 12 tribes of Judah.
The thought is that here is the true Israel ready to expand. God is taking a remnant of his people to spread the Word. Although there are many different languages being spoken, realize it is true Israel.
All the people listening are Jews. This is God and God’s people together. They were not speaking one language per se, but they were of one mind. They were of one mind so they were focused on one thing…Jesus. Theology seemed to be simpler then.
They were not worried if you had been dunked in the water at baptism, they were not worried if you looked the same or talked to same as everyone else in the group. They were focused on Jesus. Do you have a saving faith in the only one who can save.
Some people on the ground said “hey…they are drunk”. I want you to notice something. There were two sets of people down there listening. Those that were actively seeking God, and those that were…. acting.

Scripture tells us that if you seek God you will find him. Now the unbeliever will yell out loud “I want to see you God. Come to me.” God can’t be controlled. Neither can the Holy Spirit. Don’t believe everything you see on TV. Those who earnestly with all their heart pursue after the creator God, He will reveal himself to them.
So back to the people. Many were amazed and perplexed. What can this mean they said. These people were of one mind like the disciples. They wanted to know God. But the others there mocked the disciples. “They are just drunk”. These people didn’t want to meet God. They were like the Pharisees and only going thru the motions.
They were like the pew warmers or C&E worshippers who go to worship out of some duty. They are not looking to connect to the one knows every hair on their head.

Those who believed what the disciples were saying and who listened to Peter after that and believed were baptized. There were 3000 in total. Can you imagine. 3000 people came to know Christ that day.

But it wasn’t because of the preaching. It was because of the Holy Spirit and because they were seeking God and wanted to know the truth.
The Spirit worked thru the disciples to touch those 3000 men. The Spirit could have done the job alone. Tongues of fire could have come down on the people in the streets and THOSE men could have been converted instantly. But he chose to use the disciples.
And he does that today to us. God uses each of us every day to preach to others. Sometimes it’s verbally. Sometimes it’s not. Every day we are called to walk the walk of Jesus. Every day we are called to share the truth of Jesus. Shout it from the roof tops or whisper it at bed time.