My Day of Pentacost

Pentecost is the day that Jesus promised would come when he was ending his time on earth. Pentecost is the day that the Holy Spirit came to everyone. The Holy Spirit is a gift from God for each one of us.

Jesus tried to explain what was going to happen in John 16:7-13a (NKJV). Jesus tells us: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth;”

There are moments in our lives that define us. For Peter, it was on the day of Pentecost. Peter was not a very eloquent speaker. In fact, he did not like to speak at all. The people of Jerusalem thought that Peter must be drunk to be speaking so boldly on that day. Peter was not drinking, but instead Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit in a new and powerful way.

Here’s the story from Acts 2:1-21: When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, "Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs--we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God." So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "Whatever could this mean?" Others mocking said, "They are full of new wine." But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the Lord Shall be saved.'

I’ve experienced a day like the one that Peter had on the day of Pentecost. I love to preach in Africa, but it was not always easy for me to preach. I went on my first trip to Africa to listen and learn. I only preached once on that first trip. I’ve learned over the years of preaching on my mission trips that the Holy Spirit will help me if I seek out his help and support.

I want to share my personal testimony. I preached for the first time on my first mission trip to Ghana. It was just me. I didn’t realize that God could help us preach, teach, or serve God. In 2005, I must have written a hundred pages of sermons. I wrote every word that I was going to preach. The next year, Pastor Yaw asked me to trust God to provide the message that I was going to preach. I asked a lot of questions. The key question was “What happens if God doesn’t show up? What if God forgets to send me a message? What do I do if God doesn’t give me the words to preach?”

Those were tough questions. They were questions grounded on doubt instead being grounded in faith. Do you remember the scene in the Last Crusade when Indiana Jones had to cross a bridge that he could not see? He had to take the first step without the assurance that the bridge was there. Indiana Jones had to take the first step on faith. Pastor Yaw was asking me to take the first step toward inviting the Holy Spirit to help me preach. I had never walked on the bridge of faith that connects us to God.

John 15:26b-27 says: "But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.” The helper described in John 15 will help us bear witness to Jesus Christ and the gospel.

The strength that was found on Pentecost by Peter is available to all of us. We just have to decide whether we will find the bridge of faith. The Holy Spirit on Pentecost also united people with different languages and cultures. I learned that God can unite us regardless of the language that we speak or the background that we had growing up.

Each of us has a soul. I believe our souls are made up of two parts: the physical part and the spiritual part. Most of us rely mainly on our physical mind and body. We don’t explore the spiritual half of our soul. We are more comfortable in our physical body and the strength that we have in our own arms and legs. We have so much more if we use the spiritual part of our soul as well. It takes time to learn about the spiritual half of our soul. Our spiritual part of our soul is the connection that interacts and talks to the Holy Spirit within us. Our spiritual part of our soul is inside each of us. We just have to free our spirit to tap into the full power of the Holy Spirit.

Ok. Let’s get back to the story of how I started to open my soul to the spiritual half of me. I would pray and look at the Bible before I preached, but I didn’t write a sermon to preach. I was very nervous the first time that I had to step off the ledge onto the invisible bridge. God showed me when I trusted God that He would be there.

I started preaching every chance that I could in a new way. At first, it was hard. My instinct was to go back to relying totally on me for the message, but I slowly trusted God to give the words to preach. It was the Gospel of Jesus Christ that I was trying to preach. Why not let Jesus use his own words?

In the scripture of Romans 8:22-27 it says: “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” God and the Holy Spirit will even help us pray if we do not know the words. We have to search our hearts to be tied into the power of the Holy Spirit.

Let me explain what it is like when the Holy Spirit fills me while I am preaching. The first thing is that my voice gets stronger and louder. My voice is able to carry without a microphone. The next thing that happens is God provides the right sermon for his people. I become the messenger of God’s words. It is my voice, but not my words. My skin starts to tingle. I feel a power throughout my body that is not physical.

I began to experience God as I preached God’s words in a whole new way. I learned that God could tell his story much better than I could. The day that reminds me of Pentecost was in a town called Nalarigu in 2006. We had a big mission team that year in Ghana. We asked the local mosque to announce our service. We decided to preach in the middle of town near the marketplace. It wasn’t a real big area to have an outdoor church service, but we thought it would work. We normally preached at night because people were finished with their jobs and work on the farms. That night, I was so concerned about the rain that I didn’t bring a camera or a video camera because I didn’t want the cameras to get wet. Rain clouds were all around town. As we traveled to the place we were going to preach, the sky darkened and the wind picked up. I felt like we were going to be rained out that night. I wasn’t sure many people would come out to hear us preach with the weather turning bad.

Some of the mission team was praying as we were preparing for the service. I remember Pastor Yaw praying on a mound of dirt above our place of worship as we were getting started. We started the service with praise songs to prepare the place for worship. It became time for me to preach. I didn’t have an idea what God would give as the message that night. As I started to preach, the rain began to fall and the wind was circling around us almost like a whirlwind.

At that moment, God gave me the words to preach. I said “It will not rain while we are preaching God’s word.” Immediately, the rain stopped in mid-air and the winds died down. The storm was gone. I continued preaching. The night in Nalarigu would be different for me. This time, God took over the message completely. I don’t remember the sermon because the spiritual part of me connected perfectly with the Holy Spirit. My physical body and mind were overtaken by my spiritual body. I didn’t remember the sermon because it was completely from God. I remember what happened after I said “Amen!” I remember praying for people in need. I also remember anointing a pastor who wanted the power of the Holy Spirit in his ministry and his life. I prayed for him and received the power of the Holy Spirit in such a powerful way that night that he was almost afraid. He did not realize that God was so powerful.

The next day, the people of Nalarigu were talking about the amazing service they experienced the night before. They were Muslim, but they saw the power of God firsthand. I haven’t experienced a day of Pentecost like that again yet. I hope that I will be filled completely with the Holy Spirit again like that night in Nalarigu.

I believe God’s plan for our lives was to have our spiritual half be completely in charge. Our physical half of our soul was supposed to take orders from the spiritual half. Instead, mankind somehow lost connection with the spiritual side of us. We rely solely on our physical body, mind, and strength. We are wasting so much amazing experiences by not inviting the Holy Spirit to take charge of our lives and to give us a power that does not have any limits.

It took a lot of faith to rely only on God to provide a message in West Africa. I had to gradually gain enough faith in God to allow God to deliver the message through me. I have to admit that as a Methodist lay pastor, I haven’t had the nerve to rely on God here at home. Methodists believe in being methodical. That means having the message typed and written ahead of time. I believe the Holy Spirit is working through me as I type, but I miss walking completely on faith to learn what message God wanted his people to hear out of my mouth when it was time preach.

I hope that my personal story of Pentecost will help you to make the Pentecost story in Acts 2 come to life. The story in Acts 2 is so special to me because it talks about the people coming together in one accord. There is a unity from being in one accord. In the Acts 2 story of Pentecost, it was not just Peter who was impacted by the Holy Spirit. All of the people present that day in Jerusalem felt God’s power and presence. God translated the message into the language that the people could understand. God enabled everyone to understand what God wanted them to hear. We can understand today what God wants us to hear if we open our hearts to the power of the Holy Spirit. We must align the spiritual part of us to lead our physical body. We need to listen to the Holy Spirit and allow the Holy Spirit to help and counsel us as we serve God. The first step is to believe that the gift of the Holy Spirit is a present for all of us today and every day. Amen!