The previous post covered the history and Old Testament foreshadowings of Pentecost. This week I’d like to discuss their application within the contemporary body of Christ.
Recap
The Lord appeared in a storm on Mount Sinai and gave Moses the Law. Holy Spirit was given amidst a rushing wind in Acts 2. The very same people groups whose language God confounded at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 had their communication and understanding restored at Pentecost.
We discussed that the people in Genesis 11 were in one accord. They aimed to make a name (Shem in Hebrew, pronounced Shame) for themselves. Shem is reputation, fame, and glory. In a word, they had unity in their community rooted in glorifying self.
In contrast, the believers in Acts 2 were in one accord. Their unity was rooted in collective obedience to the commands of Jesus.
And while staying with them he ordered 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 you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
Acts 1:4
When God restored communication and understanding in Acts 2, they declared,
we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.
Acts 2:11
Simply put, the correct view and starting point is always God centered and leads to more consecration and holiness. The errant view is increasingly self-centered, albeit in Jesus’s name, and leads to heresy, sin, and falling away.
Given that one of our goals in choosing to study the book of Acts, in our Acts 17:11 Bereans Bible Study, is to examine the original function and purpose of the church and then grade ourselves on how we are doing today.
So How Are We Doing?
If your first response is, “Wonderful! Just look at the baptisms, and the worship, and the community!…” I say, “Maybe look again.”
It’s probably no coincidence that I am reading my grandmother’s book from when she was on the mission field in China. I haven’t actually read it in at least fifteen years. One thing that sticks out to me all the more this time around is the fear of God in which she was raised. She had an incredibly loving Christian home. Her family’s walk with the Lord emphasized the importance of self-discipline and character. Doing everything unto the Lord because He is always watching builds character.
She pursued her long-standing call from God to the China mission in 1929 as the Great Depression hit. Millionaires turned paupers were jumping off skyscrapers and Mission donations and funding had dried up. But God provided all she needed and more.
Meanwhile, Charles, my grandfather-to-be, was attempting to court her at the time. I guess he was hoping the China mission would never come to fruition. They were the best of friends and my grandmother was torn between marrying him or fulfilling her call from God. Obedience rooted in character triumphed. She broke the news to him on what Episcopalians call Whitsunday. Whitsunday is Pentecost. My grandmother wrote,
Whitsunday is a good day for re-consecration, and a good day to make a new beginning. Charlie must forget. I’m sure that somehow things will turn out all right with him too.
-Francis Jenner Gray-
I can only imagine how my grandfather must have felt at the time. Apparently, his perseverance remained undaunted. The recurring motif among all the speakers at his funeral was the memory of his endurance.
My grandmother was forced to return home when Japan invaded China. My grandfather had prepared a place for the woman he knew was his bride-to-be.
My grandmother listed the characteristics of a Christian given in a sermon by a Mr. Day based on The Sermon on the Mount, on that Whitsunday. They are as follows;
A consciousness of spiritual needs, sympathetic understanding of others, a consciousness of one’s own failings, a constant and earnest effort to improve, courage, the ability to nip evil or unworthy thoughts in the bud, honesty, sincerity, complete trust in God, unselfishness, perfection, never being satisfied with less while there is something higher to strive for.
– Mr. Day – The Teachings of Jesus-
One thing I have noted in my grandmother’s writings is the absence of any emphasis upon self. It got me to thinking more about our contemporary approach to identity. I never noticed or saw any emphasis or even the acknowledgement of an individual “identity in Christ” in any Christian writings before Todd White made it a buzzword within the stream where I was first saved. So I did some research.
As it turns out…
Thomas Merton first mentioned “identity in Christ” in the 1950s. Yet it wasn’t until the integration of psychology and theology became popularized in the 1980s that “knowing your identity” in Western Christianity, as it is commonly understood today, became a core tenet of the faith within evangelical and charismatic streams. I used to read Thomas Merton early in my walk. His willingness to merge Christian teachings with Eastern mysticism in the context of what he called Contemplative Prayer made Christianity more palatable within seeker-friendly circles. Ironically, the most anti-psychology ministers like Todd White became the most dogmatic regarding identity as doctrine.
It would seem that Western culture has become so narcissistic by default that we can not grasp the idea that we might be worshiping the very self that Jesus commands us to deny. Mat 16:24 Don’t believe it? Try counting the number of times I, me, we, us, etc. are mentioned in any contemporary Christian song. Then contrast it with the number of times God is mentioned. If the Lord is mentioned it’s usually in the context of what He thinks and feels about
“Us! Us! Us!”
Why am I harping on identity again? Because it is a modern Tower of Babel. Believers at the first Pentecost did not proclaim their identity. They proclaimed the good works of God. Acts 2:11 Paul acknowledged that all who are in Christ Jesus are new creations. That’s a fact. The problem isn’t that people don’t understand their identity. The problem is that people with one foot in the world don’t want to deal with that foot.
But regarding himself Paul called himself the least of the Apostles, not even worthy to be called an Apostle. He referred to himself as the offscouring of all things. He admitted he had the most worldly reasons to boast. Yet said he would boast in his weaknesses so that Christ’s power would rest upon him. Nowhere in the Bible do we find anyone proclaiming the need to know one’s identity in Christ. Knowing your identity is like knowing your name. Nursery school children know their names. Rather,
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Colossians 3:3-4
Identity is part of the future fulfillment of God’s promises. It is a fact. We accept it and believe it in faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. In the meantime, we see as in a dark glass. We cannot and will not fully understand our true identity in Christ until He returns. Mathew 24:29-31. In the meantime, we are commanded to deny self.
Deny – aparnéomai –To utterly disown, abstain, to affirm that one has no acquaintance or connection with someone, to forget one’s self, lose sight of one’s self and one’s own interests.
– Strongs Concordance –
We all have our Towers of Babel that tempt us with which we must contend. What are these exactly? Anything that causes us to focus on ourselves, emphasize ourselves, gratify ourselves, justify ourselves, or rationalize our self-centeredness is a good place to start. It could be found in the praise of man or the lack thereof. It could be within a hesitancy to share what we have. It could be in the praises we receive from others for giving so much. It could be in our refusal to raise our hands and jump up and down during worship in the name of our imagined dignity. It can be found in the amplified histrionics of those who notice the camera is pointed their way during worship. At the end of the day, the modern Tower of Babel is anything that results in our mistaking the rush of dopamine into our synapses as the manifest presence of God. Watchman Nee called it The Latent Power of the Soul. Hence the modern name for the Tower of Babel is addiction, the root of which every successful recovering addict understands is the obsession with self. True freedom is freedom from the bondage of self. As it says in the third step prayer,
“Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will.”…
– AA Big Book –
Are you obsessed with self? The truth is that we all are to some degree. Hence, Jesus’s first requirement for those who would follow after Him. We are to utterly disown, abstain from, have no acquaintance with the unholy trinity of ME, MYSELF, and I otherwise known as,
