The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on May 22, 1983. The title is, Explosion of Ministries, and the scripture references are Genesis chapter 11, verses 1 through 9, and the book of Acts chapter 2, verses 1 through 11. 

A reading from the book of Acts. the second chapter. When the day of Pentecost had come and 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.

And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.

And at this sound the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and wondered, saying, Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language?

Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphalonia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians. We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. It's no accident that our lectionary places the story of the first Pentecost in direct juxtaposition to the much more ancient story of the Tower of Babel. Whatever else was involved in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, it was certainly the reversal of the curse that God placed upon the language of men. The curse of confusion.

Lots of people seem very eager to dismiss that story as nothing more than a myth designed to account for the diversity of languages and tongues and dialects and accents throughout the world. They laugh at the idea that language could be changed in a moment by the direct intervention of Almighty God in the midst of His anger rather than evolving naturally over a period of centuries as tribes of people moved further and further away from each other and became more isolated and developed their own cultures and traditions. More than that, they ridicule the idea that God would be angry at the building of a tower that by today's standards would have been perhaps six or seven stories high.

Well, before we embrace skepticism too quickly, I want to say several things about that ancient story this morning. The first is that it wasn't the tower itself that was the problem, but it was the motives behind building it. The people said two things.

First, they said, let us make a name for ourselves. Notice, not a name for God. Let us make a name for ourselves.

The sin of pride in our own accomplishments. There's nothing wrong with taking delight in the things that you've been able to do so long as you recognize that it was the Lord Himself who enabled you to do those things in the first place. The world loves to speak of the self-made man or the self-made woman, but Scripture says there is no such thing.

after all nobody ever brought himself into being nobody ever gave birth to himself nobody ever gave himself intelligence or ability or imagination nobody cared for himself as an infant nurtured him into youth walked with him through adolescence nobody ever gave himself health or strength or opportunity Now, you may have done very well, or you may have done very poorly with the gifts that you started with, but the point is, they were gifts. The book of James says, every good and perfect gift comes down from heaven from the Father of lights. And you see, the problem was a sin of pride which takes no notice of the fact that it's God who's enabled us to do this.

It's that very same sin of pride that turned Lucifer, which means the light bearer. Did you know that Lucifer was originally created the most resplendent, the most glorious of the archangels, the highest of all God's creation? It turned Lucifer, the light bearer, into Satan, the adversary.

The sin of pride. that takes no notice of the fact that I got it all from God, and I'm to use it all for God. And interestingly enough, it was exactly this same sin that kept Moses out of the promised land.

Did you know that? Moses himself, at one terrible moment, forgot what it was all about. And he said to a congregation of murmuring, complaining people who were saying, what have you brought us out here into the wilderness for, just to die.

There's no water to drink. We're going to perish. And Moses said, Here now, you rebels, must we bring forth water for you out of the rock to drink.

You catch that? You see, for 40 years, he's been doing that. But it's by the power of God.

God will bring forth the water for you to drink. And for one terrible moment, in the midst of frustration and anguish and fatigue and being hassled, Moses said, I'm going to do this thing. Must we bring forth water?

And you know what God said? He said, Because you did not sanctify Me in the eyes of this people, you shall not bring them into the land which I have given them. And Moses died in the wilderness and Joshua had the privilege of leading the people in.

It was exactly the same sort of pride that God warned the Israelites against when they finally entered the promised land. He said, Beware, lest you say in your heart, My power and My might, the might of My hand, have gotten Me all this wealth. He said, If you forget the Lord your God, you shall surely perish.

That is a sobering reminder for our own nation, isn't it? So the people said, Let us build this tower to get ourselves a name. And God said, that's your first mistake.

And then they said, let us build this tower and this city lest we be scattered upon the face of the whole earth. But you see, that's exactly what God's will for them was. To be scattered.

To move out and bring the whole wide world under the dominion, under the sovereignty of God. That's why He cleansed the earth in the flood and wiped it clean and established a new covenant with Moses and his offspring so that they could multiply and scatter and subdue the earth. But God's people somehow have a way of always turning inside, turning inward rather than outward.

Jesus said, go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, right? And yet they sat around Jerusalem until persecution forced them out. We really like the fellowship.

We'll stick together here. God told the children of Shem, move out, subdue the earth, and they said, thank you very much, but we like it right here, and we're going to build this tower. And God said, that's your second mistake.

Now, I don't know how he confused their language, and I would point out to you that Scripture says nothing whatsoever about how long it took him to do it. But what I do know is that archaeologists have found the ruins of the ancient tower of Babel. Did you know that?

And more than that, they found among the ruins an ancient Babylonian tablet with this inscription on it. the building of this illustrious tower offended the gods in a night they threw down what men had built they scattered them abroad and made strange their speech their progress they impeded they wept hot tears for Babylon so you make up your own mind about the truth of scripture I want you to notice this God said men are able to agree. So long as they're able to agree in rebellion and in pride, so long as they're able to agree in evil, this is a quote, this is only the beginning of what they will do.

And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Do you know what the power of agreement is? You do understand that this is why Jesus said, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in Heaven.

The power of agreement. This is why Paul said to the Corinthians, I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. Do you understand the power of agreement?

If we would be one, if we would be absolutely one, the world had better duck. This is why the principle of unity is absolutely central to the whole Christian enterprise. Why?

Because it cuts either way. Agreement in the cause of Christ unleashes the power of God to win the world. And agreement in the cause of evil stops it.

and so God said I'm going to confuse their speech lest they agree in rebellion and isn't it interesting that the net result was that they were scattered they were scattered all over the earth only not in joyful obedience to what God had called them to do but in growing alienation and separation and suspicion of each other over differences of language and culture in geography and custom and tradition. Now that's the background. Do you understand what Pentecost was?

Do you really understand what Pentecost was against that background? It was a visible, audible demonstration of the fact that those differences of culture and tradition and language that are part and parcel of our rebellion are no longer able to separate us from each other. That in Jesus Christ, we have more in common than we have in conflict.

We sing in Christ there is no east or west, in Him no north or south, but what? One what? Great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth.

William is my brother. Do you understand? That's what Pentecost says.

All the differences that separate people from each other are dissolved. And you know what I particularly like about this story is the way that God did it. You see, He could have given them a single language again.

But He didn't. Instead, by the empowering of the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues, He enabled each person to hear the Gospel in his or her own language. There's tremendous respect there, isn't there? You see, the English don't have to learn French to get in on it.

The Germans don't have to learn Dutch to get in on it. You understand what I'm saying? The Ugandan doesn't need to become an American or vice versa.

You follow what I'm saying? God showed tremendous respect. He said, I'm not going to amalgamate you into one sameness, but I'm going to bring you into unity in the midst of all your wonderful diversity.

Because you matter. You count just the way you are. Now I want to tell you something.

There are three conclusions I want to draw from this. And the first one, I believe, is revelation knowledge. There are still some folks, and there may even be some here this morning who get very nervous about the gift of speaking in tongues.

I mean, they really don't like that sort of thing. People around them start singing in the Spirit and all that oochie-goochie stuff. I would really urge you to try to get used to it because let me tell you what the gift of tongues is.

It's preparation for heaven. it's preparation for heaven let me put it to you this way when we get there we're not all going to speak Hebrew and I don't know about you but I'm not going to wait until those who do speak Hebrew get done before I start praising Jesus alright and I just bet you William isn't going to wait either that means we're going to be speaking in tongues. You follow it?

All at once. And the Holy Spirit is going to turn what would have been, what might have been a cacophony of noise into a symphony of praise. Here's what John saw in the book of Revelation.

He said, After this I looked, and behold a great multitude which no man could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, and crying out with a loud voice, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God and to the Lamb forever and ever. Amen. And I believe that what the Holy Spirit is going to do is enable us to understand whether it's in French or German or Swahili or Hebrew or Dutch or English or whatever it is, and it's all going to fit together and it's going to be a symphony.

So you might as well get used to it. It's preparation for heaven. Second thing is this, that it would be hard to find a more appropriate day on which to celebrate the opening up of our expanded building, because our prayer from the very beginning has been that the Lord would use this place not to make a name for us, but as a place where His own name might be still more greatly glorified.

Let us be reminded, let us be reminded that we're here to celebrate not our great accomplishment, but the Lord's faithfulness. He did it. He did it.

It's to His glory. We don't take pride in the numbers of folks that come or the size of the budget or the ministry. We take pride in Jesus.

Praise You, Jesus. This building is Yours, Jesus. And thirdly this, that the whole point of Pentecost is not the empowering of the Spirit.

Do you know that? But it's the purpose of the empowering which is that you might be My witnesses. It's the purpose of the empowering.

Don't just delight in the gift. It's what the gift is for that you might be My witnesses in Fairfax and in all of Virginia and throughout the United States and to the ends of the earth. We come to the end of the service and what do we pray?

Send us out to do Your work, to love and serve You, to be witnesses of Christ. This has been a year of tremendous attention to detail and some would say distraction as we've attended to the building. And yet the building itself is just a tool in the hands of God for the equipping of His people.

And I'll tell you what I believe as this church expansion project draws to a close. I believe I'm convinced that what the Lord has in store for us is literally an explosion of ministry. I believe that.

And that He's calling each one of us, each one of you, to wait upon Him to know where and in what way and how you're to be a witness for the Lord Jesus. And He's going to call some of you, literally, to go to the ends of the earth. And He's going to call every one of you to ministry and to witness wherever you are, be it on the job or in the neighborhood or in your family.

And that's the point of the whole thing. That's the point of the whole thing. Everything we're about is that we might be equipped with the Holy Spirit to bear witness to this Lord Jesus Christ.

so happy birthday family of God happy birthday church of the Lord Jesus Christ let's bow our heads together Lord we offer you this building not for our name's sake but for yours not lest we be scattered but so we might be scattered as Your witnesses to the very ends of the earth. And this day, right now, we would ask afresh that You would pour out Your Spirit on each one of us and that You would distribute gifts of Your Spirit the gift of languages or any other gift that would equip us to bear that witness to the Lord Jesus that would honor Him and win others to the cause of the Gospel. For we ask it in His name.

Amen. Amen.