Keep Worship Weird
Let me give you a little glimpse into the life and times of your friendly neighborhood pastor of a church that’s trying to do something a little different. We confuse people, they don’t know what to do with us. I don’t look like the standard cookie cutter pastor, I don’t act like one or talk like one or think like one either. Sometimes I wonder why God ever called me to do this.
I mean, I know why—at least I think I do—He wants me to reach people that Guy Smiley from preacher central casting would never reach. He wants us to be the kind of place that people with trust issues might be able to give the Gospel a chance.
So we started NewChurch and we’re trying to reach people that other churches might not be able to get to. We’re a weird church and that’s okay. Keep worship weird—that’s what I say.
One of the things I do to reach some of the weirdos that aren’t here yet is run ads on social media. I figure people are either going to like my face or want to punch it—might as well get that over with right up front.
So here’s how that usually works. I run an ad where I’m inviting people to NewChurch, and I get punched in the face.
Not literally but the internet is full of people who are more than willing to let me know what they think of me.
Things like: “You’re just another fake preacher trying to trick people with your man-made doctrine.” “How dare you play demonic music, lead people astray, what kind of church encourages people to drink? You’re creepy looking. Overweight. Bald. What is this, some kind of satanic cult?” People are the best.
Usually I just hide the messages and go about my day. But sometimes the same person will latch onto me like a rabid dog and post a bunch of comments. When they do that, I’ll send them a private message and try to reason with them. Go ahead and laugh. I try to assure them that we’re just some people who love Jesus and want to share His love and grace with those who don’t know about it. I try to be kind and gentle and non combative. But it never works. They always dig in their heels and just get more aggressive. Bite down harder.
Anyway, sometimes the whole thing leaves me feeling discouraged. Like, why do I even bother. What’s the point? I just want to help people feel closer to God, let them know they don’t have to feel isolated, that God sent Jesus into the world to save them and adopt them and let them know they don’t have to be an orphan, that they can be a beloved child of God. They don’t have to live in shame or fear or without purpose or meaning. They don’t have to be alone, they’re welcome to come follow Jesus with us. But so often I end up feeling like no one’s listening, people just want to argue and be jerks—that it’s all for nothing.
I don’t always feel like that but I’m just saying, sometimes I do. I’ll bet you do too. Maybe not exactly the same way, but you try to help someone and you end up feeling like it was a waste of time. No good deed goes unpunished, right?
Well, today’s Pentecost. It’s called the birth of the church. It’s the day when the church received the power to be the church. I thought it’d be good for us to know a little more about the story of Pentecost.
It’s one of the oldest festivals in the Bible. It’s also called the Feast of Weeks. It takes place fifty days after Passover. Seven weeks plus one day. In the Bible, seven is considered the perfect number. Seven sevens, seven weeks, it’s the ultimate perfection, and of course that’s 49 days—so 50 is one more than ultimate perfection. It’s like Spinal Tap when the amp goes up to eleven. It’s one louder isn’t it? So Pentecost is 50 days after Passover.
Passover is the celebration of when the Angel of Death passed over the houses that had the blood of the lamb on the door post which led to the children of Israel being set free from Egypt. It’s a big deal. Jesus was celebrating Passover when He instituted the Lord’s Supper. He’s the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. It’s His blood that makes us free from bondage to the world, the flesh and devil. At Passover, Jesus died for His people, on Easter He rose from the dead to offer eternal life to anyone who believes. It’s like our Exodus from Egypt.
So Moses and the children of Israel left Egypt—fifty days later they came to Mount Sinai. This is where they would be told what kind of people they were set free to be. Things like, they would be the kind of people who had no other God but YAHWEH. They would honor their mother and father. They would be the kind of people who set one day aside each week to keep it holy and worship the Lord. They wouldn’t worship any statues. They would keep the name of God holy and not use it for selfish purposes. God’s people would be the kind of people who didn’t murder, didn’t commit adultery, didn’t steal and didn’t envy the lives and possessions of other people—they would be thankful for what they had. At Sinai, God gave them two tablets of stone with these 10 commands—10 directions for what it was going to look like to worship God and love people.
Pentecost was the celebration of God giving them these instructions. If they lived according to these rules, they would be free. They would be blessed. Life would work better. It would click into place. If they didn’t, things were going to be hard for them. Miserable. Choose this day: walk toward life or walk toward death. Pentecost was the celebration of God giving them the 10 words of life.
The 10 Commandments are like the horizon. You walk toward the horizon and it gives you direction, you know where you’re going, you’re not going to get lost. But you never get to the horizon. The point isn’t to get there. You’re not supposed to make yourself miserable trying to get there.
No one is going to be able to keep the 10 Commandments perfectly. Well, no one but Jesus. The rest of us are supposed to be the kind of people who keep walking in that direction. Toward the horizon. Toward life.
The symbols of Pentecost are the symbols of when God met Moses on Sinai and gave him the 10 Commandments, which in the original language are actually called the 10 Words.
God showed up on Sinai with thunder and lightning and smoke and fire. There was rushing wind. God spoke the ten words. The marching orders for the people of God.
So in the 2nd chapter of Acts, it’s been fifty days since Passover and the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus has ascended back to heaven. The followers of Jesus were in some Upper Room in Jerusalem, praying and praising God. People from all over the Roman Empire were in town to celebrate Pentecost.
All of a sudden there was the sound of a rushing wind. It doesn’t say there was any wind. Just the sound. Everyone starts looking around wondering where it’s coming from. All the followers of Jesus who were in that room praying and praising God—it’s like flames of fire burst over their heads. They all look like the burning bush in Genesis, they’re burning but not being burned up. They are now the presence of God in the world. The text calls them “divided tongues of fire.” They start talking about God using words they didn’t know. People heard what was said in their own language.
This is all supposed to remind us of Sinai. God shows up as fire, in thunder and wind, He gives His Word on two tablets—like the two tongues of fire on each believer.
At Sinai, there were also 70 elders, 70 leaders, who went up the mountain with Moses. When the Spirit of God showed up in a cloud and rested on them, they all started to prophesy—they all started speaking the Word of God. It says it was a one time thing and never happened again.
Now here we are after the resurrection. After the Ascension. And it’s happening again.
Jesus said if He went away that He would send the Holy Spirit to give comfort and power. He told the disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait for it. Pentecost is when it happened. Just like God gave the 10 Commandments to Moses on Sinai—with fire and wind and words—now He was giving His people the power to be the church.
But what was the power for?
In Genesis, God created Adam from the dirt, but he didn’t become a living creature until God breathed life into him. The divine breath of God is what made Adam alive.
The word for breath is the same word for Spirit. It’s the same word for wind. In both Hebrew and Greek—Ruach in Hebrew and Pneuma in Greek. God breathed life into Adam and made him a living creature.
After the resurrection, Jesus showed up to the disciples and it says He breathed on them. The divine breath. The Holy Spirit.
This is what’s happening to the rest of the followers of Jesus at Pentecost. The rushing wind fills the new Temple of the Holy Spirit. The church is the new Temple of God. The people of God. He was giving them Divine life. Comfort and power.
Power to tell people about Jesus. To proclaim the Gospel. To bear witness to the Lord. The resurrection. To testify about the promises that God has given us in Jesus. Wind, fire, words. Power to live holy lives. Power to walk in the Spirit. Just like God gave Moses the message of the 10 Commandments on Sinai to be the defining characteristics of the people of God—this new Pentecost is the direction and marching orders for the church going forward.
He doesn’t save us to sit still.
Wind is always in motion. Fire is always in motion. The church is to always be in motion. The church is to always be bearing witness to the promises of Jesus. To the Gospel. By our words and by our actions.
Remember what Peter said at Pentecost:
In the last days ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
...and everyone who calls on the name of the LORD
will be saved.’ Acts 2:17-21
We live in the last days Peter was talking about. The days between when Jesus went back to heaven and when He comes back again. These are the days of the church being the presence of God on the earth. The Spirit of God has been poured out on us. The power of God has been poured out on us. We have been given the power to speak His Word to everyone in the world. That’s what it means to prophesy—to speak the Word of God. Who are the sons and daughters Peter was talking about? He’s talking about all the generations of believers that would come after them. He’s talking about you and me.
We have the power of the Holy Spirit to talk about the hope we have in Jesus. The life we have in Jesus.
Because everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved. That’s what Pentecost gives us the power to do. To tell people that. Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.
To prophesy just means to tell people what God has said. I’m prophesying now. You might not be listening but that’s on you. I was prophesying when the internet troll was punching me in my social media face. I’m prophesying every time I tell people what God has said in His Word.
You have the power to prophesy, too. All Christians do. Every time you say what God has said to someone, that’s what you’re doing. When you tell people that if they call on the name of Jesus, He’ll hear them. If they believe in His promise of grace then they’ll be saved.
Man, that’s what this is all about!
That’s the message we have for everyone in the world: if they call on the name of the Lord, they’ll be saved.
I don’t think it’s everyone’s job to go door to door selling Jesus. But I do think it’s every Christian’s job to be ready to share the hope that we have in Him with everyone we ever meet. To be ready to answer then when they ask.
Pentecost means we have the power of God’s Word and we’re always in motion. Always ready to say what needs to be said.
Always ready to tell people about the hope we have in Jesus. The Gospel. That’s what needs to be said. That’s how faith is created.
It says in Our job is to help people hear the Gospel and receive faith.
We’re gonna be tempted to be like the internet trolls, though. To think we’re doing God a favor by throwing the 10 Commandments at people like a spear. To beat people over the head with the perfect standard of God’s law—we’ll be tempted to think that’s the same thing as sharing the Gospel. Tell them what they’re doing wrong. To confuse telling people they’re going to hell with telling them about the kingdom of heaven that’s offered to them in Jesus.
When we get this wrong, we make God look like a jerk. Over the years, the church has messed this up a lot. Pointing our fingers at sinners and saying “shame on you.”
We’re supposed to be saying the opposite. Not “shame on you”—”grace on you, forgiveness on you.” Believe in Jesus and be saved.
Look, God is holy. He hates sin. That’s why He sent Jesus to save us—it’s all about how deadly and dangerous sin is. I’m not making light of sin. But, the only time we should be laying the law on individual people is when they’re a brother or sister in our local church, someone we know and love, someone we have a relationship with and we find out they’re in unrepentant sin. Then we’re supposed to go to them privately and talk about it. Try to get them off the road of self destruction.
In every other situation, with all the people outside the church, our job is to find a way to share the love and grace of God that’s only found in Jesus with them. Can we call out evil in society overall? Sure. But the only individuals we should be calling to repentance are brothers and sisters in the church that we have a relationship with.
Can we call out the evil of both racism and police brutality? Can we call out the sin of apathy as well as the sin of lawlessness and rioting? Absolutely. All those things lead to death and destruction. But we need to speak with even greater clarity and perseverance to offer people the words that bring life.
Maybe I’ve overstated what I’m trying to say but the church needs to be more about love and light and forgiveness and grace and peace than laying more guilt and condemnation on all our friends and family and neighbors who don’t know Jesus and don’t have hope.
Peter said some pretty heavy things to the crowd at Pentecost. He told them they killed the Son of God—it cut them to the heart. He didn’t soft peddle anything. But he didn’t leave them there. He reminded them of the resurrection and offered them hope. Said the Spirit was poured out so they could be a witness to the life that’s found in the resurrected Jesus and have the power to offer it to other people.
Wind and fire, The Holy Spirit giving supernatural power to the Word of God. Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved. This is the message of Pentecost. It all points to Jesus.
Some churches read the 2nd chapter of Acts and get excited about the wind and the fire. They want to recreate a big, exciting, chaotic experience, some kind of emotional event. They want to feel the Spirit. Ecstatic tongues. Delirious praise. It’s like they want to feel the presence of God, so they set the church on fire—the pews, the walls, the carpet, their hair—they have no interest in building a fireplace. Set it all on fire!
Other churches build elaborate fireplaces with marble mantles and fancy engravings—but they want to just stand around and admire the beauty of it, they’d never even consider actually lighting a fire. That’d be too messy, too dangerous.
We all know both kinds of churches, right? In both cases they’re making it all about themselves. One group wants to drum up excitement so they can feel the warmth and the heat, and the other group doesn’t feel comfortable losing control and making a mess, so they make sure everything’s cold and dead.
That’s part of what makes us such a weird church. We’ve got a nice little fireplace with the way we do our worship liturgy and readings and prayers, but we also leave room for a raging fire to fill it up with life and heat. It’s too much fire for some people and too much fireplace for others.
There has to be structure and order if there’s going to be freedom and life. We don’t control the Spirit of God. We don’t control the Word of God. We surrender to it. When we give God control of our lives, we get freedom in return. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.
Pentecost was a celebration of the 10 Commandments. At first it seems like they limit our freedom. We want to be in control of our life. But the truth is, when we ignore the way God tells us to live, we lose control of everything, we become slaves to whatever sins we give ourselves over to. There’s no freedom in sin.
That’s why we need to call on the name of the LORD. That’s why we need to be saved.
So, when we get discouraged. When we wonder why we even bother to do this church thing. This weird little church that some people aren’t going to understand. We wonder what’s the point. Remember that it’s not just about us. It is for us, and we love to come together and gather around the promises of Jesus. But it’s not only for us. It’s also for all the people who don’t know about God’s love and hope. But it’s His job to make the miracles happen. He provides the wind and the fire. He provides the words. He makes the things we say to each other have the power to heal and save and forgive. His are the words that give life.
You want to feel closer to God, you don’t want to feel isolated. God sent Jesus into the world to save you and adopt you and let you know you’re not an orphan in this world, you’re a beloved child of God. You don’t have to live in shame or fear or without purpose or meaning. You don’t have to be alone, you’re welcome to come follow Jesus with us.
This is who you are now. You are filled with the divine breath of God. You are a living creature. And you have the power of the Spirit of God. You are the presence of God in the world—wherever you go. The world needs what you have. Pentecost means that when you say the words of life and peace and hope that God has spoken to you—He’s gonna provide the power for those words to be understood and to make a difference. Both for you to live your life walking toward that horizon, and for others to call on the name of the LORD and be saved. AMEN