We're really blessed this morning to have a guest speaker with us.
It's the Reverend Aaron Imey from Australia via Jerusalem.
And he is part of CMJ, which means the Church's Mission Among the Jews.
Sort of vaguely, you know, CMJ, just think Christian Mission and Jews,
and then you've got, you know, the other little connector words can sort of figure themselves out.
And it's a wonderful ministry.
It's the Christ Church, which is part of that in the old city of Jerusalem,
the oldest Protestant church in the Middle East.
And Aaron serves there.
Lots of stories about evangelism and everything.
Next time he comes, hopefully it won't be the 9 o'clock service on the long weekend in May,
but it's just really wonderful to have him with us.
Aaron, how many kids do you have?
Three.
Three and one wife?
One wife.
Okay, good.
That's just...
In the Middle East, you can never tell.
Yeah, that's why I had to ask.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So one wife, three kids.
How long have you been in Jerusalem?
20 years.
And so how well do you speak Hebrew?
Tell us.
Okay.
I'm dangerous.
A new miss will come.
What's that?
I'm dangerous.
I speak Hebrew dangerously.
Oh, you speak Hebrew dangerously.
Okay.
But you can speak it.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
People understand it.
Totally.
And they're a bit surprised that a goy knows how to speak Hebrew?
Yeah.
I still have an Australian accent with my Hebrew.
I can't get rid of it.
Well, at least it sounds like an educated Australian accent,
not one of those, you know what I mean.
I won't say anything.
I've just put my foot in my mouth.
I won't say anything more.
It's the first time in my whole ministry I've put my foot in my mouth, actually.
At least the first time in the last minute.
So you're going to tell us this in your sermon,
but what's the Jewish feast that this all took place at?
It's called Shavuot.
Shavuot.
It's the Feast of Weeks.
So they still celebrate that festival in Jerusalem?
Yep.
Celebrating it right now.
Right now?
Really?
Right now?
Right now.
Oh, okay.
Yep.
Good.
Well, it's just a blessing to have you.
I'm just going to pray for him and for us as he opens the word.
And then after this, we're going to have a chance to pray for him and other things as well.
So let's just pray.
Father, it's your word, not ours.
Jesus is the Savior, not us.
You are God, not us.
We are really thankful for that.
Father, you wrote your word.
You know what you want to speak to us.
We ask for the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon Aaron,
that he might open your word to us,
that he might draw us to Jesus,
make us more open to the Holy Spirit,
and create within us a desire to glorify you, Father,
and bring you praise.
And this we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thank you very much.
I really enjoy coming here.
I like what you've done with the place.
You've made it look like a theater.
Did you know that?
And you have a great name,
Church of the Messiah.
So it's Pentecost,
and in Israel today,
it is Shavuot,
the Feast of Weeks.
Just from the story that we read,
Acts chapter 2,
better set the alarm so I know when to stop.
It's Pentecost.
We see the Acts chapter 2.
It's a very familiar story to us all.
We read it quite a few times.
I can tell you that I've actually celebrated this now
48 times in my life.
It's the giving of the Holy Spirit,
the start of the church,
and for me,
I get to operate in a mission
five minutes away from where all this happened,
which is a privilege.
And Acts chapter 2,
Pentecost,
it's a great mission story for missionaries.
I mean, you get the Holy Spirit,
you have a captivated audience,
you preach a very short sermon,
and you save 3,000 people.
So it is a really good story.
3,000 in one day.
It's fantastic.
The book of Acts is sacred history.
It's the sacred history of the church.
2,000 years ago.
So how does it impact now?
How does it impact us now?
What does Pentecost mean for us now?
How does the Holy Spirit,
the giving of God's Spirit onto all flesh,
impact and motivate us now?
So Luke, who's writing this,
has one eye on Pentecost
and one eye on the Exodus,
the first Pentecost.
Because let's remind ourselves
when we pick up the book of Acts,
this has happened before.
In Hebrew, we call it Shavuot,
the Feast of Weeks.
So after we finish Passover,
we count 49 days,
seven sevens,
a week of weeks.
And on the 50th day,
we get together and celebrate another festival,
the Festival of Shavuot.
Well, initially,
this was an agrarian culture,
we celebrated the wheat harvest,
but we celebrated the idea
of us journeying out of Egypt,
coming to the footsteps of Mount Sinai,
actually meeting God
for the very first time,
which is a big deal.
What did we know about God
when we were in Egypt?
Nothing.
We didn't have a priest,
we didn't have a prophet,
we didn't have the temple.
But we get to Mount Sinai
and God reveals himself.
It was a really big event for us
as a people.
And God spoke to us
and he gave us the Torah.
And the tradition these days
is to sit around for the next 24 hours
and read the book of Ruth.
So Jewish people are gathering
in their synagogues
and the passage read,
obviously,
is not Acts chapter 2.
It's the book of Ruth.
And there's lots of themes in there
that are amazing and powerful.
You've got themes
of Jews and Gentiles
coming together,
which is what you had
at the Exodus story.
Who came out of Egypt?
Yes, Israel did.
But who else came out?
The mixed multitude.
There were all kinds of people.
So you have Jews and Gentiles
in the book of Ruth
coming together.
You've got Redeemer figures.
People are engaged
in the act of redemption.
You even get a character
that appears called the Goel,
the Redeemer,
a type of Messianic figure.
You have converts,
these people who are actually
coming and embracing
the history of God
and the Jewish people.
And it's about a community
that was once excluded
from Israel,
the Moabites,
now becoming part
of the community.
So it's a great book
to start reading around
at the time of Pentecost.
For our context,
we have,
in the time of Acts,
we're under Roman occupation.
We have a distinct lack
of leadership
in the Jewish community.
We haven't had a good leader
for quite some time
when we get to the book of Acts.
We've got pretty poor shepherds.
And they're all fighting each other
over who's got the correct interpretation
of the Torah.
We've got Sadducees
who jealously guard the temple
and its environment.
We've got the Pharisees
who always point their finger
at how bad they are.
We've got these rabbis
who are always on the fringe.
We've got people
who are embracing Hellenism,
Greek theology
and assimilating
into that culture.
We don't have any prophets.
No one's speaking
into our community.
No one's getting up
delivering powerful sermons.
And we don't have
an independent nation.
For some reason,
that seems to be quite
an important thing
for some people.
So what are we left with?
We're left with the Bible.
We're left with the Torah.
And so we leap
into a study of the Torah,
the study of the Bible,
to try and find out God's will.
If we haven't got good shepherds,
we don't have a good temple structure,
if it's all gone corrupt,
if we don't have any prophets
speaking into us,
we don't have any kings
that can give us direction,
then where do we find our direction?
So for a couple of hundred years
prior to Acts chapter 2,
we leapt into the Torah.
And we made
the giving of the Torah
a very special event.
So Shavuot,
the giving of the Torah,
when God actually came down
on the mountain and spoke,
that became known as
hachag,
the festival.
So when you read in the Gospels,
sometimes you'll see
Jesus went to Jerusalem
for the festival,
or for the feast.
But I won't tell you
what feast it was.
It's Shavuot.
It's Pentecost.
It even became more important
than Passover.
Like it was the big thing
because the Bible
became important.
It was how we discerned
from the will of God.
And we read
at the beginning of Acts
this sort of shaking
of nature,
of lightning,
of thunder,
of wind.
And the disciples
are together
and they're of one
accord.
And our passage
opens
and it stresses
that they were as one.
It stresses
unity.
This actually is
a Jewish insight
into the text.
They were united
as one.
They were not united
with the corrupt temple.
people.
They were not united
with the corrupt
religious leaders.
They were not united
with the Roman occupation.
What were they united with?
With each other.
They were a community.
Stopped fighting each other
about who was going to sit
on the right hand of Jesus.
Who was going to be the best
of the disciples.
They were of one accord.
One heart.
One mind.
Sharing their possessions.
Selling things
and making sure
that everybody
had enough.
Giving together
each of their material wealth.
Dividing up divisions
of labor
to make sure
that who could do
the teaching,
who could do
the serving,
who could be the warden,
who could do the music.
They were getting
themselves together,
meeting together,
praying together.
Acts says
that they were
getting together
for the prayers.
This actually
is a Jewish comment
because unity
attracts the presence
of God.
What was the purpose
of the Exodus?
Why did God
with a mighty hand
and an outstretched arm
reach down
into a nation
that didn't know
anything about him
that were slaves
and redeem them?
It wasn't,
the purpose
of the Exodus
was not
to get a bunch
of Hebrew slaves
into the Holy Land
because if it was,
God would have given
Moses better directions.
He would have said
when you get out
of Egypt,
you turn left.
When you hit
the Mediterranean,
you turn right
and you can't miss it.
The purpose
of the Exodus
is to bring
the people
to Mount Sinai.
The purpose
of the Exodus
is so that
they can hear
the voice
of the Lord.
The purpose
of the Exodus
is for God
to reveal himself
and to become king.
And so if that's
so important,
why did it take
50 days?
If it was
so important
to get the children
of Israel
to Mount Sinai,
why does it
take them so long?
What's the issue?
And so for Jewish people,
Jewish commentators,
they read through
the Bible
and they look
at every word
individually
with a little
minutiae looking
and they discover
that every time
Israel wanders
around the desert,
the verb
to camp,
yachanu,
is in plural.
They camped,
a group of them.
That's actually
good grammar.
But then all
of a sudden
in Exodus 19,
the verb
switches
to singular,
which is grammatically
incorrect.
But it's in the Bible.
And they go,
that shouldn't be there.
What does it mean
that they were camping
as one
person?
And then they say,
wow,
unity
attracts
the presence
of the Lord.
We were
so concerned
about
whose camel
was stepping
on who else's camel
and whose tent
was too close
to everybody else's tent
and who was getting
a bigger share
of the manna
and the water resources.
But all of a sudden
we said,
no,
we're together
in this.
And God came down.
And when they
read the text,
they discover
that when God spoke,
you could actually
see it.
When you read
Exodus 20,
verse 18,
it says
in Hebrew,
Vokol Ha'am
and all
the people,
well,
who are the people?
Remember,
Israel is now
made up of
Jews and Gentiles.
When they leave
Egypt,
there are Jews
and
Egyptians
came with them.
They are together.
Kol Ha'am,
all the people,
not
Kol Ha'udim,
Kol Israelim,
not all the Israelites,
all the Jews,
Kol Ha'am,
Ro'im,
they saw
et
Hakolot,
they saw
the voices.
Now,
in my English translation,
it says,
all the people saw
the thunder and flashes
of lightning.
But the actual Hebrew
says,
all the people
saw
the voices.
The,
very next word,
the et
ha'lepedim,
and
the torches.
what did they see
when God spoke?
They saw fire.
They saw fire
and they heard
lots
of voices.
And they heard
et
kol Ha'shofar.
They heard
the sound
of the shofar,
the big horn
that
signals
and invokes
the presence
of the Spirit
in Jewish tradition.
You go to Israel
and you get all these
Christians coming along
blowing shofars
all the time.
Completely inappropriately,
just so you know.
You don't blow
shofars
whenever you feel
like it.
It has a particular
purpose.
It's designed,
you blow it
to invoke
the Spirit
of God
and to wake you up.
When you read
the Psalms
that said,
sleep or awake,
you were supposed
to blow the shofar.
Wake up!
The Spirit
of God is here,
we've got to do
something.
So they saw
the voice
of the shofar,
the Edha
Hashem,
and the mountain
of the smoke,
and the people
were afraid,
and they
kind of
retreated.
It was a bit
scary for them.
And you see
the very same
thoughts.
That's why Luke's
got one eye
on the Exodus
because that's
exactly what happens
again
when we have
Pentecost.
we have
the Holy Spirit
coming down,
we have the sound
of the shofar
where the church
is woken up
and there were
tongues of fire.
You could see it
and you could
hear it.
So the Torah
that was given
to the people,
those same people
were now being
given the Spirit
of God.
And oddly enough,
this was declared
in a prophet,
the prophet Joel.
He had actually
said this before.
He said that this
was going to happen,
that the Spirit
of God was going
to be poured out
on all flesh.
One of the
beautiful things
about reading
the Psalms
and reading
the prophets
is we actually
discover that
God is the God
of the world.
For God so loved
the world,
not just the Jews,
salvation was
always going
to be universal.
When God was
going to pour
out His Spirit,
He was going
to give it
to all flesh.
Males,
females,
old,
young,
rich,
poor.
This is
frightening stuff
for totalitarian
dictators and kings.
There was going
to be no difference.
God was going
to give His Spirit
to everybody
and what were
they going to do?
They were going
to roll over
and bark like
dogs.
No.
They were going
to prophesy.
Somewhere along
the line,
we've switched
that word
because we've
now just so
busy concentrating
on the tongues
aspect that
that's only like
halfway through
the Acts 2
passage.
It keeps going.
Stuff happens.
People get
saved.
The community
starts to act
in a certain
way.
That's where
the bit
I'm going
to get to.
But the
prophet Joel
says,
I'm going
to pour
out my
Spirit
on all
flesh
and you
all
prophesy.
It might
be great
to speak
in tongues.
It might
be wonderful
to roll
on the ground
barking like
a dog,
but that
is not
the point.
That is
not the
final
conclusion.
And everyone
in the world
was going
to get it.
And the
world,
let's be
honest,
is a
very hostile
place.
It's hostile
to the
gospel.
It's hostile
to the
church.
It's hostile
to the
truth.
It's just
like the
wilderness.
It's dry.
It's dangerous.
It's the
abode of
demons.
And yet,
that's where
God calls
his heroes.
He doesn't
say,
I'm going
to get you
saved.
You're going
to become
my disciple.
Let's
sit under
a really
nice tree
by the
lake of
the
Galilee,
chew some
gum,
and wait
for the
rapture.
He takes
his heroes
out into
the desert.
Abraham's in
the desert.
Isaac's in
the desert.
Moses is in
the desert.
The people
of God are
in the desert.
The prophets
will run to
the desert.
Jesus goes
to the desert.
John the
Baptist says,
I will prepare
a place where
in the wilderness,
that's where
God's going
to speak.
That's where
he's going
to encounter.
That's where
he's going
to meet
his people.
He's going
to meet
them in
the world.
He's going
to meet
his people
in the
world.
For God
so loved
the world.
It's hostile.
It's dangerous.
But God
is going
to make
it better.
He is not
going to
leave it
dry.
He is not
going to
leave it
barren.
He's not
going to
leave it
alone.
He's going
to come
and leave
heaven.
He's going
to come
down and
dwell.
He's going
to make
it better.
Anyone who
calls on the
name of the
Lord is going
to be saved.
This actually
should wake
us all up.
This really
should motivate
us.
The Holy
Spirit isn't
given to
us so that
we can have
goosebumps,
as nice as
goosebumps might
be.
It's not
given so that
we can have
eschatological
experiences and
then write
them on
Facebook.
It isn't
so that we
can just run
around and
learn mystical
languages.
As nice as
that is, it
is given for
mission.
And I'm
going to say
that not just
because I'm a
missionary.
I'm going to
say it because
that's what God
gave it for.
So that anyone
in the world
who calls on
the name of
the Lord will
be saved.
The Holy
Spirit is
given to
the people
of God,
to Jews and
Gentiles,
for the task
of making
the world a
better place.
For the
task of
going out
into the
world and
sharing the
love of God.
To transform
the wilderness
into something
that's bright,
cheerful,
colorful,
full of
flowers and
beautiful.
A place that
would all
like to live.
It's to put
the will of
God into
practice.
That's why we
get the Holy
Spirit.
It is
given as
a gift so
that we give
it away as
a gift.
And so we
actually have
to hear that
shofar too.
And if we
had one, I'd
say let's blow
it today.
Okay?
And I would
say sleeper
awake.
We the
church, we
need to wake
up.
We need to
make sure that
we take today,
we take, we
retell the story
of Pentecost
every year.
We're supposed
to get
ourselves
reanimated
and reexcited
and remind
ourselves, I
mean that
really is the
job of
preachers, to
remind us of
the story that
we already
know.
To refill
ourselves with
hope and
vision and
remind us that
we're supposed
to be having
dreams and
visions, that
we're supposed
to be engaged
in this world,
not alone.
I do it with
you and you
and I get to
do it together
and we
have the
Holy Spirit,
the presence
of the God.
It was a
really good
prayer that
George said
this morning
where he
said, Lord,
you know,
somehow it
was better
that Jesus
went away
and the
Holy Spirit
was given.
I don't
get it.
And it's
so true.
It would
be really
nice to
keep Jesus.
But for
whatever reason,
and he knows
the best plan,
he gave us
the breath
of God
himself.
And this
is not
something we
take sitting
down.
It is
not
something
that we
take and
keep it
in our
little prayer
closets.
It's
something that
we get
motivated.
We are
all supposed
to be
motivated.
You,
me,
our families.
There is a
world out
there that's
hostile and
God wants
to make
sure that
when we
go into
it,
we are
safe with
him,
we are
protected
by him,
but we
have
something
that can
help us
through all
the
challenges.
So,
brothers and
sisters,
Pentecost,
the readings
that we
read this
morning,
our prayers,
they challenge
us to
hear the
shofar,
to see
God speak
in action,
to put it
into practice
so that
everyone,
everyone
who calls
on the
name of
the Lord
will be
saved.
And that's
good news.