The Realities of Pentecost

Wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about (Acts 1:4b).

These are among the opening words of the history book of the early New Testament Church. They declare the foundational understanding of what Jesus came to earth to accomplish in the Incarnation.

This is the restoration of the kingdom of God, first promised in its initial expression in Genesis 3:15.

This is the fulfillment of what God intended when He created Adam.

This is the mission for which He called Abraham.

This is the promise of the deliverance of humanity from the dominion and power of sin, a deliverance made possible by the suffering death and resurrection of Jesus. The Law, given through Moses, written on tablets of stone, may now be written on our hearts.

This is the declaration of Jesus to His disciples: The kingdom of God has come.

This is how the work of the Holy Spirit is to be understood in His sanctifying activity in the life of the Church and in the life of the believer.

The purpose of the work of the Spirit in your life and in mine, in your church and in mine, is to transform all of us into living, breathing representations that the kingdom of God has come. Jesus is the King. He is the Sovereign Lord. All other sovereignties on earth are but a poor imitation of His ultimate sovereignty.

In the Church of the Nazarene when we talk about “Making Christlike disciples in the nations,” this is what we mean. The kingdom of God has come, and we invite everyone everywhere to join this kingdom.

Christlikeness—this is inner moral transformation—is made possible by the Holy Spirit filling the life of the believer.

This is what Jesus intended the disciples to understand when He made these incredible promises to them. These are our promises, to which we may make a certain and undeniable claim.

1. The Promise of His Presence

This promise has a context (John 7:37-39). Late in His ministry, Jesus had gone to Jerusalem for the Festival of Tabernacles. As the Gospel of John relates it, “On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified” (John 7:37–39).

During the evening before His betrayal, Jesus said to His disciples, “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).

He had promised them, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18).

Now the Resurrected Christ has gathered His disciples for His final instructions to them. He had spent 40 days following His resurrection instructing them, assuring them, calming their fears. In His final words, He reminded them once again of His promises, which they had heard Him speak about (Acts 1:4-5).

On the Day of Pentecost, the 120 were gathered in the upper room. It is reasonable to assume that this is the same room where Jesus gathered with His disciples on the evening before His betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion. It was in this room where He had promised them that after He had gone away, the Father would give them the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the One who would be in them. They were in that room. Then the sound of a violent wind began to blow, the flames came to rest on each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

Do you remember who was in that upper room on the day of Pentecost? The list is given in Acts 1:13-14.

Luke, the author of the book of Acts, tells us with particular emphasis that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was there.

When the Holy Spirit came in that stunning, confusing, unprecedented moment of wind and fire, I am confident that many of those who were present were not quite sure what was happening. But I believe Mary was among the first to know. In that divine chemistry that we may never understand, Mary may suddenly have thought, “I know who this is—this is Jesus! My son is here.”

He was there—no longer just with them. He was now in them.

That was His promise—and He kept His promise.

As a follower of Jesus—whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever your circumstances—you are not alone. He is with you. In the midst of your service, in the face of uncertainty, or in the moment of crisis, you are not alone.

But with the promise of His presence we also have this promise.

2. The Promise of His Power

We love to talk about the power of the Spirit—and appropriately so. But we are not always clear in what we are describing.

Sometimes we are tempted to rely on political or military power to legitimize or defend the right of the Church of Jesus Christ to function or even to exist. No other power on earth is needed to legitimize or protect the Church of Jesus Christ. We live by the power of the Holy Spirit, whether the conditions under which we serve are favorable or unfavorable. Every government, however favored toward the Church or opposed to it, is temporary. When all governments are ended and the final trumpet call is sounded, the church will be alive and well, living in the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is not the power of overwhelming force. This is not the might of military machines or political forces. This is the power to live victoriously. This is the power to love transformingly. This is a different way of being human.

We do not live like the world around us. In the kingdom of God, we live as participants.

We are living, breathing, actual representations of the kingdom of God.

• This is the power of suffering love.

• This is the power of holy love.

• This is the love of God shed abroad in our hearts through the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit.

• This is the power to love God.

• This is the power to love our neighbor. (“There is no commandment greater than these” Mark 12:31.)

• This is the power to love our enemy.

• This is the power to forgive our brother or sister.

Mildred Bangs Wynkoop wrote about this love:

God in Christ tells us what this love is; it is forgiveness. Forgiveness is taking all the hurt given by an “enemy” (even in the form of our friends) without demanding reparations. The cost is all on the one who offers the forgiveness. It is accepting the one who had delivered the blows, or the injustice, as if he had never transgressed against us. Reconciliation costs the reconciler more than it can ever cost the one to whom reconciliation is offered. It is an aggressive confronting of a situation in which humiliation . . . of the transgressor is made impossible. It lifts the “sinner” to his feet and treats him like a person worth loving (A Theology of Love, Mildred Bangs Wynkoop).

This is what Jesus was talking about to His disciples. In those promises was another promise:

3. The Promise of His Purity

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you . . . I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws . . . you will be my people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:25–28).

In these wonderful words from the prophet is the promise that our hearts may be made clean, pure.

• He desires to purify us from a stubborn, resistant, self-oriented heart.

• He desires that we surrender completely to the will and purposes of God.

• He desires to so purify us that we will consistently walk in obedient, proactive, willing love and forgiveness.

This love—this perfect love—may come to so characterize us that it becomes the operating principle of our lives.

Such purity is made real as the Holy Spirit in us enables us to demonstrate in this world the fellowship and the love that exists between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

This is what it means to live out the present reality of the kingdom of God. This is what it means to reflect the holy character of God in the midst of a broken and confused world.

When the power of the Holy Spirit pours out of our lives, we become a refreshing source of sweetness made possible by the holy love of God.

We live out that love and purity in a magnificent demonstration of His presence.

Then we can understand and embrace this promise.

4. The Promise of His Mission

“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

This is the natural result of being filled with the Spirit. It is the result of His power at work in us when we are surrendered to Him, we are walking with Him, we are living in consistent and growing obedience to Him. It is natural; it is normal for us to be His witnesses.

It flows out of the character of the Father. It flows out of the mission of the Son. It pours out as one of the benefits of Pentecost.

It is not so much a command as it is a promise.

You will be my witnesses.

You are on a mission.

I began to understand Luke 15. Jesus talks about lost sheep, lost coins, and lost sons. I have a new appreciation for what Jesus was telling us about the character of God, about the passion of the Father to find His lost children.

Those broken, confused, addicted people around us are God’s lost children. They are the reason Jesus came to earth.

Those happy people who have no time or room for God, riding all the rides in the “park” don’t even know they are lost. But they are the reason we are here.

During His ministry Jesus said that He did not come for the righteous. He came for sinners. He did not come for those who are well. He came for the sick (Mark 2:17). He did not come for the found. He came for the lost (Luke 19:10).

I have a new understanding of what Jesus was telling His disciples about Pentecost. When the Spirit comes, we will be His witnesses. We will seek His lost children. It is His promise.

Therefore, it is our mission.

The sanctifying Spirit pours himself upon us, comes into us intending to produce in us a radical Christlikeness—that is, a radical compassion, radical humility, radical forgiveness, radical unselfishness, radical suffering love.

Through the people of the Church of the Nazarene, I have seen that love at work around the world. I have seen it in the villages of Bangladesh where our people have established child development centers. Children with no hope of learning or access to education have found love, nourishing meals, and are told the wonderful story of Jesus. Families are being transformed. Whole villages are coming to Christ. A nation is being impacted.

In 2010, I joined three of my colleagues as we ordained 193 elders—the largest ordination class in the history of the Church of the Nazarene. Thirty of those ordained were women, the first women in the history of Bangladesh to be ordained into the Christian ministry.

I saw that love at work in the highlands of Papua New Guinea where several people from one of our churches carried 50-pound bags of coffee beans for three days over rugged mountain trails in order to get their coffee beans to the market. They wanted to get cash to pay their World Evangelism Fund in full. The pastors brought the cash to the assembly and presented it to me because they were determined that others would hear the life-transforming story of Jesus, just as they had heard it.

We commit ourselves to our mission, bringing everybody we can find to that Great Feast, because God has kept His promises.

We celebrate the coming of His kingdom and the anticipation of His glorious coming again.

This was Jesse Middendorf’s Sunday morning sermon, his farewell message, at the 2013 General Assembly in Indianapolis. It has been edited for space.

Jesse C. Middendorf is general superintendent emeritus in the Church of the Nazarene.

Please note: All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of original publication but may have since changed.