The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on May 30, 1982. The title is, Three Relationships with the Spirit, and the scripture reference is Acts chapter 2, verses 1 through 4. 

I want to think with you about three different relationships that any of us might have with the Holy Spirit of God. three different relationships with him the first two are mentioned in the last verse that I just read you from John chapter 14 Jesus said he is with you and he shall be in you he is with you he shall be in you I wonder how many of you know that the Holy Spirit did not arrive on Pentecost anybody know that? you're not too sure about that.

Thought that's what this day was all about, right? Well, think about it. We first meet the Holy Spirit in the second verse of the Bible.

Second verse of chapter 1 of the book of Genesis. The Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. He was there in creation.

He is there throughout the whole of the story, all the way through the Old Testament. We read of the Holy Spirit coming upon or anointing or inspiring or filling various folk. Primarily prophets, priests, and kings.

Primarily the leaders of ancient Israel. But others as well. Judges, warriors, singers, builders, instrumentalists, and various others for various ministries.

We read that the Spirit of God came upon Moses and anointed him for leadership. He came upon Joshua. God said, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.

A little bit before that, we read of a point in Moses' life when he was so overwhelmed with the responsibilities of leadership. He said, I can't go on. And God said, I will take some of the same Spirit that I've put on you, and I'll anoint elders to share that responsibility with you.

The Spirit of God came upon Gideon. He came upon David. He came upon Jeremiah and so on.

All the way through, the Spirit of God was active, inspiring, anointing, filling, coming upon leaders. You move into the New Testament, and the Holy Spirit fills Zechariah. He fills Elizabeth.

He fills John the baptizer while he's still in Elizabeth's womb. He comes upon Mary. The child wrought in her is conceived by the Holy Ghost.

He comes upon Simeon and Anna in the temple as they greet the little baby. The whole birth narrative of Jesus is woven into a tapestry of the Holy Spirit's action and filling. The baptism of Jesus, the Holy Spirit descends upon Him in bodily form as a dove.

Shortly we hear Jesus telling Nicodemus, the Holy Spirit is like the wind, blowing wherever He wishes. You don't know where He's coming from and you don't know where He's going. All you can do is see the effects of Him.

When he moves, things get stirred up. And the implication is, let him come blowing into your life, Nicodemus. Let him fill your sails.

Stop trying to tack against the wind. Let out your sail and go with the flow. That's really what he's saying to Nicodemus.

Flow with the Holy Spirit. As he's moving, you move. A lot of people don't seem to recognize it, but the biblical perspective is that we live and move and have our being within the dimension of the Holy Spirit.

He is with us. He has always been with us. He will always be with us.

You can fight it. You can deny it. You can scorn it.

You can resist it. But that's the way it is. The Holy Spirit is with us.

And really the first lesson of faith and the one that we've got to keep learning day in, day out is precisely this lesson of Nicodemus to let him flow, let him blow into our lives and begin moving with him. The Holy Spirit is with you, says Jesus. The disciples knew that.

Three years they've spent with this man watching miracles performed in the power of the Holy Spirit and in fact participating in those miracles. The Holy Spirit enabled them, just as Jesus said He would, to do even greater things. They went out and saw the healings of sick bodies, the raising of the dead, the exorcising of demon-possessed people.

They saw miracles and they knew the Holy Spirit was with them. But Jesus said, that's not enough. Knowing that the Holy Spirit is with you is not enough.

He shall be in you. He shall be in you, inside of you. I want you to look at a passage of Scripture with me.

And if you turn to John chapter 20, this is the account of Easter evening. I trust it's a fairly familiar story to you. Do you remember how that great day unfolded?

Mary Magdalene and various other women going early in the morning to the tomb to finish the anointing of the dead body of Jesus, only to find that it's gone. And Mary remains at the tomb weeping until a man comes over and speaks to her. She thinks at first he's the gardener until she hears his voice saying, Mary, and suddenly she realizes that she's in the presence of her risen Lord.

She rushes back to tell the apostles, Peter and John come to see for themselves. They get there, Peter looks in and sees the grave closed, and he doesn't believe it. Does not believe it.

John looks in and he's convinced. He's the only one who is. All the others think silly women, believing a resurrection.

Later in the day, a couple of disciples are on their way back to Emmaus. They're not members of the Twelve. They're just other disciples.

and lo and behold a man joins them and walks with them and they begin talking together and he begins opening the scriptures and sharing the fact that Messiah had to die, had to be buried, and had to be raised again. They don't recognize who it is until they get to where they were going and they pause for dinner and suddenly as he breaks bread in their presence they recognize the very one who's speaking to us is the risen Lord. And they'd turn around and they'd hot-foot it back to Jerusalem to tell the apostles, and where are these sturdy giants of faith hiding in an upper room with the door bolted, lest the Jews come and do the same thing to them that they did to Jesus.

And Thomas is away we don't know where, and Judas has already gone out and hanged himself. But this is the story we read in verse 19. John 20, verse 19.

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. He had a real body, but somehow it was not subject to the same limitations that our bodies are. They're hiding behind a locked door and suddenly He's there in the midst of them.

And He says, Peace be with you. It's okay. It's alright.

when he had said this he showed them his hands in his side and the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord and yet their hearts you can just imagine are all aflutter and so he says again peace be with you as the Father has sent me even so I send you he commissions them to go out into all the world and when he had said this he breathed on them that's the verse I'm particularly interested in he breathed on them and said to them receive the Holy Spirit if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven and if you retain the sins of any they are retained he breathed on them and said receive the Holy Spirit he is with you and he shall be in you and on Easter evening Jesus breathed the Spirit of God into them. That's a deliberate play on words. You may know that.

That in Hebrew and again in Greek and as a matter of fact in Latin and various other languages the same word can be equally translated spirit or wind or breath. In Hebrew ruach spirit, wind or breath. Same word.

In Greek pneuma spirit, wind, or breath. He breathed on them the spirit. That could be translated, He spirited on them.

You remember what I said about Nicodemus? You see the wind. You see the effect of it.

You don't see the wind itself, but you see the wind in action. Play on words. You see the spirit, like the wind, blowing wherever He wishes.

Until this moment, I suggest to you the disciples, the apostles, though they had followed Jesus, though they had known Him intimately, though they had participated in His ministry, until this moment they were not Christians in the full sense of the word. Because until this moment the atonement was not complete. And that's the very center of it, isn't it?

That Jesus has done the work of bearing our sins in His own body, dying for us, being buried, and then resurrected again. That's what we trust when we put our trust in Christ. I trust the fact that my atonement has been accomplished by someone else.

And it wasn't complete until now, you see. Now it's complete, and now something altogether new is present for the first time in history. They were looking forward to it up until now, but now it's reality.

And now they put their trust in the accomplished work of Christ, and at that point, He breathes into them. He spirits into them. He shall be in you.

And now He is. Probably you hear an echo here of another story. You remember in the creation, it says the Lord God took dust of the earth and formed the man out of it.

formed the woman out of it, and then He breathed into them, and they became living souls. You remember that? He spirited into them.

Only that got terribly mutilated. Their relationship with God became destroyed in the midst of their sin. And because of that, we hear you need to be born all over again.

You see. So now they are. Jesus breathes into them, and makes them new creatures.

And He commissions them. He says, I want you to go out into all the world as the Father sent Me. I send you.

Take this good news that atonement has been accomplished and preach it to every creature. We have the same thing in the end of Matthew. We call it the Great Commission.

Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And lo, I am with you always. You remember that.

The point of this new life is not just that you would enjoy that, but that you would share it with others. And wherever you go and proclaim this Gospel, people are going to be entering into the forgiveness of sins. And if you fail to preach this Gospel, they're not going to know that wonderful experience of being forgiven.

He is with you. He shall be in you. And yet a very curious thing.

Turn over the page, just one page, to chapter 1 of the book of Acts. Starting with verse 4. And while staying with them, Jesus charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father.

Which he said, you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Now wait a minute, I don't understand this. Easter evening, he comes back from the grave.

He says, receive the Holy Spirit. He spirits upon them. He breathes into them the Holy Spirit of God.

He's now living inside them. They're new creatures in Christ. He says, as the Father sent me, so I send you.

Go into all the world and make disciples. But wait. But wait.

Don't leave Jerusalem. Until what? Until the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

He's already in me. Yes, He's with you. He shall be in you.

But don't move until He comes upon you. They don't understand this. At all.

They are totally confused by this. They say, what are you talking about, Lord? Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

He hasn't been talking about the kingdom. Hasn't been talking about Israel, right? He says, it's not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has fixed by His own authority, but here's the part that does concern you.

You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and then you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. The Holy Spirit is living inside you. And you've been commissioned.

But don't move until something more happens. And that same Spirit clothes you with power, comes upon you, and equips you to do the thing which I've commissioned you to do. You remember that Jesus appeared intermittently after the resurrection for 40 days.

Appeared to various groups. Sometimes two or three. At one point, more than 500 at a single time.

He appeared at all different times of the day under all different circumstances. One morning He comes and cooks breakfast for them while they're out fishing. And they come in and there's breakfast waiting on the side of the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

And then 40 days, He disappears up into heaven. The last thing He says is, Wait. Wait until you're clothed with power from on high.

I suggest to you that they had no idea what they were waiting for. All they know is that something more is going to happen to us. And Jesus said, Don't move until it happens.

In the last chapter of Luke's Gospel, the very last paragraph, it says this. He led them out as far as Bethany. That's on the other side of the Mount of Olives.

It's about two miles from Jerusalem. And lifting up his hands, he blessed them. And while he blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven.

Here's the ascension. And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they were continually in the temple blessing God.

It's a funny sort of never-never land here. A funny little parenthesis in history. Where these apostles know that Messiah has come.

Know that the atonement has been accomplished. Know that the Holy Spirit is living inside of them. Know that they're members of the new covenant.

And yet they're behaving as Jews. They're going every day continually to the temple. They're participating in all of the temple worship.

They're going through all of the actions. They're observing the paraphernalia of worship. They're seeing all of the ritual gestures and so on, all of which is proclaiming Messiah is coming.

And here they are, and they know He's already come. And they're waiting. For what?

They're not sure. Power on high. And ten days more go by.

And during the last seven of those days, pilgrims are coming into Jerusalem from all over the known world. Why? Because God commanded that three times a year, every male is to go up to the house of God.

Go up to Jerusalem for the three great festivals, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The day of Pentecost is coming. And so they're to come up to the house of God, come up to the temple.

Of course, the problem is that for about six centuries now, the great majority of Jews have not lived anywhere near Jerusalem. For 600 years, they've been scattered all over the place. They were driven out by the Assyrians, and then they were driven out by the Babylonians.

And so they've scattered, they've intermarried, they've moved out into all these various lands and cultures and languages, and they're still Jews. But there are also Medes and Parthians and Elamites and Cyrenians and Libyans and dwellers in Mesopotamia and so on. And they speak the various languages of those cultures.

And because they couldn't regularly come and worship God in the temple, what they began to do was form little communities, little assemblies. That's what the word synagogue means, is an assembly. Usually they'd go down to a riverside, and that's where we get that chorus, down by the riverside.

They'd go down to the river where there was water running for the various ritual washings. And after a while, they'd build a building, and that building would always be pointed toward Jerusalem so that at least their attitude was toward the temple, toward the center of things, toward the holy city, toward the house of God. But whenever they could afford it, the synagogues would send representatives to the three great feasts.

Can you imagine what an honor and a privilege it would be to have your assembly gather up its money and send you as its representative to go and be there, actually in the house of God. Everybody else is saying, next year in Jerusalem. And you get to go, right?

And so from all over the known world, people are coming into Jerusalem for this great day of Pentecost, which basically was a Thanksgiving day. It was Thanksgiving for the spring harvest. They were very much dependent upon the fruit of the land.

And if the spring harvest was good, it suggests that all the rest of the harvest is going to be good. And they come to praise God for His faithfulness. And so we come to chapter 2.

When the day of Pentecost had finally come, They were all together in one place, and suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. Now I want to ask you a question. If the apostles, told by the Lord Jesus to wait, and they're not sure what for, are sitting around the city of Jerusalem, and they are continually in the temple, right?

And now comes the great festival day when God Himself says every able-bodied man who can be there must be there. And people are coming from all over the world to be there. They're commanded by God to be in the temple.

Where do you suppose the apostles were that day? You always see this pictured in Christian art as a little group up in some upper room somewhere. I can't absolutely prove it, but I don't doubt for a minute they were in the temple.

Of course they were. Where else would they be? The word house can mean residence, but it also can mean a number of other things.

Jesus said, I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. I've already said several times the temple itself is called the house of God. Or it might mean a smaller section of it, like Solomon's porch, where we know from the book of Acts they typically gathered together as a group.

The temple area is huge. Thousands of people could fill Temple Mount. And the ancient records tell us that the day of Pentecost began with celebrations at 6 a.m. Please don't tell me I'm preaching too long, okay?

They were already at it for three hours before we even get to this story. Three hours they've been celebrating this great festival service with thousands of pilgrims from all over the place and all of a sudden they hear the sound of a mighty rushing wind. Now that is not That's Whoever's leading the service is absolutely drowned out at that point.

It sounds like an express train through a tunnel. It sounds like the space shuttle taking off. And everybody does this, you know.

And they look up and the whole heaven is filled with flame. If you'd been there, do you think it might have captured your attention? And then, in a moment, the flame begins to break up and it comes into individual fires and it lights upon the heads of 120 people.

Out of all the thousands of pilgrims, 120 become living torches. Remember the story of Moses in the burning bush? He says, I'm going to turn aside and look at this.

I never saw anything like it. Here's a bush that's on fire and yet it's not getting burned up. Here are people who are on fire and they're not getting burned up.

and out of the bush God spoke to Moses well out of these people God also begins to speak and again undoubtedly you've been told that what they did was they began preaching the gospel to all these other folk I don't think that's what it says at all it says what they were doing was extolling the mighty works of God they were saying the sort of thing that you read in the book of Psalms. Blessed be God. Exalted be God.

Let us magnify the Lord together. Praise be to Thee, O Lord. Be high and lifted up.

Be magnified in our midst. Hallelujah to You. They were so overcome with the reality and the presence of God that they couldn't keep it in.

They were saying, Hallelujah! Only remarkably, They were saying it in all the languages of all these different people from all these various places. And as all the others heard this, they said, what in the world is that?

We hear them telling the mighty works of God in our own languages. And it's at that point that the preaching begins. Peter gets up and explains it He says, you know the promises.

You remember what Joel said? Joel said that there's a day coming when I'm going to pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your old men are going to dream dreams.

Your young men are going to see visions. Your young men, your old men, your young women, your old women, even men's servants and maid's servants. That's what's happening.

God is pouring out His Spirit. And we can't keep it to ourselves. you remember that there was a moment in the book of Genesis where a group of people got together and said let's build a tower that we can climb up to heaven and God it says saw their pride their arrogance their vain glory and he said no way are they going to do that I'll come down and confuse their speech.

You ever wonder why? I mean, was it that God didn't like the Empire State Building? Doesn't want the New York World Trade Center?

Doesn't like the Sears Building in Chicago? No, it's not that. It's because the attitude behind the building of that tower was the exact opposite of what biblical faith is all about.

We don't climb up to heaven by our own effort. We put our trust in a God who stoops down to earth in His mercy. It's not a matter of my attainment.

It's a matter of trusting Him utterly in His mercy and in His forgiveness. And God says we're not going to have anybody climbing up to heaven by His own attainment. I'll confuse their speech.

And we call it the Tower of Babel. Do you see what Pentecost is? It's the reversal of the Babel.

now heaven himself steps down and reverses the confusion ok and there are two things when you see this you can understand Pentecost there are two things going on one the Holy Spirit comes upon this band of 120 and while everybody else all these thousands of pilgrims were there for religion they got reality. And it's as if God Himself says, I've had enough of this. No more religion as usual.

Now reality. And the Spirit of God comes upon them and they are so overwhelmed with His presence, with His reality, with the joy of knowing Him that they can't keep it to themselves. I don't know if you've ever felt that way.

I know some of you have. Some folks come to church and it's religion as usual. Says it's time to sing a hymn, so we'll get up and we'll sing a hymn, or at least we'll look like it.

No, they are so overwhelmed. They cannot help but praise God. They are bursting forth with the reality of God.

That's one thing. And at the same time, God equips them to break through every barrier that would separate folks from each other. That's what Pentecost is all about.

That God's Spirit would so come upon us that we cannot but sing His praises. You know what they were doing? They were psalming.

They were psalming His praises. We cannot but psalm His praises. But notice, it's not just for ourselves.

it's also the equipping that we might in fact be what He called us to be, what He commissioned us to be, His witnesses to the ends of the earth. Not just for our private enjoyment, but that same reality would be such that we could share with other folk. And God would make disciples through us of this Lord Jesus from every tongue, every nation, every race, because of the power of His Holy Spirit.

So, three relationships. The Holy Spirit is with you. He is with absolutely every one of you.

And you may need to know that. Some of you need to recognize that the Holy Spirit is with you and begin to yield to Him. Begin to go with the flow.

Begin to let the Holy Spirit blow into your life. And He shall be in you. Some of us need to come to the point of saying, Lord Jesus Christ, I trust Your finished work of atonement on my behalf.

And at that point, He breathes His Spirit into us. And we become living creatures. And He shall come upon you.

and equip you with power to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus Christ, we thank You for the Holy Spirit of God.

We thank You that He's here in our midst this morning, that in fact He's been with us all our lives and ever will be. Lord, cause us to be more responsive to Him. Let Your Spirit blow into our lives this day.

Let us yield ourselves to the promptings of His activity. And Lord, if there be some among us who have never previously said, Become my Lord. I would trust You this day.

Lord, we pray that they might be moved by that same Spirit to do so just now. And that as we yield to You as Lord and Savior, You'll breathe Your life-giving Spirit into us. But Lord, we're greedy for more than that.

We want absolutely everything that You have for us. We don't want to settle for anything less than Your best. And so we pray in Your mighty name that that same Spirit of God would blow through this place.

That You would light upon us. That You would equip us with power. That we wouldn't be able to hold in our joy.

That we would psalm Your praises. And that You'd make us Your witnesses. In Fairfax, in the district, throughout Virginia, to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Here's my life, Lord. Empower me for service. Equip me with the gifts of Your Spirit.

Use me as You see fit to the praise of Your name.