Ex. Lloyd J. Ogilvie suggests that many of us today are faced with the same dilemma as that, facing the small band gathered in the upper room in Jerusalem—“the anxious frustration of the impossibility of living Christ’s message and emulating His life” without possessing the spiritual power to do so. This spiritual impotence results from misunderstanding a single small preposition, which Ogilvie calls “the encouraging preposition of true Christianity.” The remedy is to be “in” Christ and to know that the Holy Spirit dwells “in” us. Christ lives “in” me and I have the mind of Christ “in” me! Our transformation from seekers to disciples matures as we realize and live our witness “in” Christ, and there is no greater miracle promised to any person than to become a new person “in” Christ. Pray that someone in our worship today will experience the power of Pentecost in his/her own life. (Michael Kirkindoll [Source: Lloyd J. Ogilvie, Acts in the Communicator’s Commentary (Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1983),

As I think of the most influential persons in my faith journey, among them are several special woman, my mother, my grandmother, and my great aunt all played very special rolls in my faith formation along with some very important men. Let’s look at our text for today and realize as you listen that the early disciples included many men and woman of faith!

Read text here: Acts 2:1-21

Introduction: Today is Pentecost Sunday(you all thought I was going to say Mother’s Day didn’t you? Well it’s that too!), a day we remember and celebrate when the Holy Spirit was first given to Jesus’ disciples. For the past few years, every time Pentecost Sunday has rolled around, a particular memory has come to my mind. It’s something that happened years ago when I was a young, naďve pastor, still wet behind the ears so to speak. It was Pentecost Sunday, and I was offering the pastoral prayer in worship. It went something like this: “We thank you today, O God, for the gift of the Holy Spirit. We thank you for sending it among us.”

After the service a well meaning parishoner pulled me aside and said, “The Holy Spirit is not an ‘it.’ The Spirit is a person of the Trinity to whom we relate. We pray to the Spirit; we love the Spirit; we commune with the Spirit. You can say ‘he’ or ‘she,’ I don’t care, but don’t say ‘it.’ ” I’d never thought about that before. His words caused me to reflect a long time on my relationship with the Holy Spirit. To be honest, the fact that I called the Spirit “it” showed the distance I felt from the Spirit and ultimately from God. I never prayed to the Spirit. I never thought about loving the Spirit. And I certainly didn’t think of the Spirit as being as important as God the Father and God the Son. In fact, I rarely thought about the Spirit at all.

I.) The truth is many of us in the church today are baffled by the Holy Spirit.

A.) We may gather on a Sunday morning and recite the creed together, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”

1.But how often do we really talk about or to the Spirit?

2.Sure, we have our vague notions about how the Spirit works.

3.When we think of the Spirit, we think of the comforter.

4.We think of divine nudges, soft whispers, gentle presence even the “still small voice” within us that the scriptures talk about.

5.And all of that is true.

B.) The Holy Spirit is our Comforter and our Advocate before God.

1.In fact, this morning my message is about that very thing: how the Holy Spirit is not just loud and fiery, like the Spirit was on the first day of Pentecost.

II.) The Spirit is often quiet, gentle and subtle, in fact easy to miss.

A.) We don’t all have to be fiery to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

1. In reading the story in the second chapter of Acts there’s no getting around it in the story.

2.The Holy Spirit is loud, fiery, and earthshattering.

Ex. Listen to how Dr. Luke recounts the story of Pentecost: “Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house . . . divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.” Did you hear Luke’s words? “Suddenly,” “rush,” “violent wind,” “fire.”

B.) There’s nothing subtle here.

1.The Holy Spirit arrived loudly and dramatically.

2.And the Spirit sets the disciples on fire.

3.They were never the same after this, and neither was the world!

III.) The Spirit brought about radical change.

A.) In that moment on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit transformed a ragtag gathering of Jesus’ follower into the body of Christ, the church.

1.Peter the impulsive, James and John the competitive, Mary the meek, Thomas the doubtful—everyone in that room that day was changed.

2.Some became prophets, some healers, some preachers, some care-givers—some would travel the world preaching, others would stay behind-the-scenes caring for the poor—but all of them were set on fire and would willing give their lives for who they believed in.

3.With the power of the Holy Spirit, they changed the world.

IV.) Now, here we are today—the church of the twenty-first century.

A.) Up and down our street this morning there are churches celebrating Pentecost and Mother’s Day.

1.Some that I have heard of will have birthday cake to celebrate the birth of the church.

2.Some will have red and white balloons.

3.Some will ask their members to wear red.

4.Some will have liturgical dancers waving red banners.

5.We know very well how to celebrate Pentecost.

V.) But, the story of Pentecost raises to us the question: “Where’s the fire today?”

A.) When we invited the Holy Spirit into our worship this morning, did we really know what we were asking for?

1.Yes, we want the Comforter.

2.We want the Advocate.

3.We want to come here and feel the gentle presence of the Spirit.

4.We wouldn’t even mind a little nudge or two.

5.But do we really want the fire?

6.We like the Holy Spirit to be warm . . . but hot?

7.Do we really want to be changed?

8.Would we call upon the Spirit if we knew it meant that we’d have to live and love differently, perhaps even risk our very lives for the cause of Christ?

9.Do we realize what we’re doing when we call upon the Holy Spirit?

B.) When those first disciples were anointed with the Holy Spirit, it was a pretty wild scene.

1.People on the street thought the disciples were drunk.

2.The disciples were so excited, so fired up, so full of the Spirit that people thought they were crazy.

3.Do people on the street ever look at us Christians and think we’re crazy?

4.Do we look different enough from the world that people notice us at all?

5.Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we’re necessarily called to be “shoutin’ Christians.”

6.We don’t all have to be fiery and loud.

Ex. I’m not talking about that kind of heat. What I want to know is, are our hearts really on fire? Is God really at the center of our lives? Do we love in a way that is radical? Are we extravagantly generous? Do we forgive the unforgivable? Do we reach out to the least and the lost? Are we so loving, so compassionate, so giving, so humble, that the world thinks we’re crazy?

Ill. On a membership Sunday in our church, when someone is baptized among us, we all pray for the Holy Spirit to work within that person. Do we take that prayer seriously? Do we really want the Holy Spirit to fill these persons lives with power from God? But I feel led to say something else. What I really want to say is—Watch out! If you really want to take this step, if you really want to take this journey with Christ, if you really want the Holy Spirit to work within you, then put on your crash helmets. Get ready because the Spirit can set a fire in our hearts.

C.) Our relationship with God in the Spirit is not just another good activity to keep us busy.

1.It is the most important thing in this life.

2.It is everything.

3.And if we really want to say yes to God, then we had better be ready.

4.The Spirit will make us do crazy things like loving our enemies.

5. The Spirit will make us reach out to people who are outcasts.

6.The Spirit will make us spend our money differently.

7.The Spirit will make us cry for the suffering of others.

8.The Spirit will make us want to change the world.

Conclusion to message: We as a church must let the Spirit do the Spirit’s work. We dare not try to quench the fire. We dare not cool down the message of the gospel. Let us not teach how to be sensible and moderate. Let’s not teach how to fit in. Let’s teach instead to be drunk with love for God, crazy in compassion for others, unreasonable in our faith, extravagant in our kindness, and radical in our commitment to God and God’s people. And let’s do more than that. Let’s teach how to stir up a little trouble in the world. May we teach them not so much with our words as with our lives.