The Spirit Tells Us We Are All<\/u> Children of God<\/strong><\/p>\nThe prophet Joel wrote, \u201cIn the last days, God said, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.\u201d Luke quotes him and implies that with Pentecost we have entered the last days and now God\u2019s Spirit has been poured on us.\u00a0 In Luke\u2019s account, Peter, standing among the other eleven apostles and speaking for all, declares this.\u00a0 It\u2019s an insight Jesus had opened their minds too on his last night before his ascension. At that time Jesus had told them to stay in Jerusalem until they were furnished with heavenly power.\u00a0 Now that heavenly power has arrived and we immediately see its impact on the disciples.<\/p>\n
The quote from the prophet Joel is filled with dramatic images that point to a transition from one way of being human to another that is bigger than anything we can imagine.\u00a0 Luke wants us to feel the importance of Pentecost in our bones.<\/p>\n
Imagine this: \u201cYour sons and daughters will prophesy.\u201d\u00a0 What do they see that we do not?\u00a0 What do they teach us about the world and how it works that lies beyond our awareness?\u00a0 What do some of the young people at our church \u2013 Alex, Austin, Chenequa \u2013 and all those in the next generation have to teach us? We know there is a yearning for peace among them.\u00a0 The inconsistencies and contradictions wear heavily on their souls.<\/p>\n
After the Spirit is poured out \u201cYour young will see visions.\u201d\u00a0 What are these visions? When we talk to them what do they say? \u00a0Pentecost has opened up possibilities.\u00a0 Our young are seeing that we are all<\/u> children of God.\u00a0 Even the people they find themselves shooting at in wars they find themselves caught in are children of God. They know that intuitively. The Spirit working in history has revealed this to them.<\/p>\n
Seeing this seems to make the world better and worse at the same time.\u00a0 It certainly doesn\u2019t make for calm.\u00a0 For example, in India women are no longer willing to absorb the pain of their culture, a pain they have born for centuries.\u00a0 In the Middle East the young have caught a vision for a better world where they are not trapped in poverty, despair and powerlessness. No one knows how these struggles will end.\u00a0 But we do know \u201cThe sun will be changed into darkness, and the moon will be changed into blood, before the great and spectacular day of the Lord comes,\u201d imagery of profound change in history that must happen before we learn that all are children of God.<\/p>\n
The Spirit that knows all are children of God is a powerful spirit that causes \u201cwonders to occur in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and a cloud of smoke.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s the same Spirit that poured out upon those gathered in Jerusalem.\u00a0 They were surprised, amazed and bewildered as they heard the mighty works of God in their own language.\u00a0 Some asked each other, \u2018What does this mean? Others jeered at them, saying, \u2018They\u2019re full of new wine!\u2019\u201d Were they afraid something was going out of control?<\/p>\n
What happens when God\u2019s Spirit is poured into a culture and people start seeing each other through eyes that have been opened? When this happened in Jerusalem Peter spoke up and said \u201cJudeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words! These people aren\u2019t drunk, as you suspect; after all, it\u2019s only nine o\u2019clock in the morning! Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people\u2026.Even upon my servants, men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.\u201d\u00a0 What is this Spirit that the suffering of Christ and his rising in three days set loose?\u00a0 What happens when even servants, both men and women, no longer are willing to see themselves as second class and begin claiming they too are children of God? Could this have anything to do with what we see happening in the world today?\u00a0 Maybe when Jesus poured himself out for us on the cross, when God poured himself out for Jesus raising him from the dead, when the Spirit poured out upon the world, when the sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house, something of a world changing dimension happened. Pentecost was not a religious event, simply marking the beginning of the church, it was far more.<\/p>\n
Witnesses to the event said they saw \u201cwhat seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak.\u201d\u00a0 Aren\u2019t we learning to speak in a new language? \u00a0A fire seems to have been lit and it\u2019s spreading.\u00a0 All people seem to be impacted by it, both those upon whom it is burning, and those who see it and think it a sign of drunkenness.\u00a0 Could this be the fire of discovering we are all<\/u> and each<\/u> children of God?\u00a0 All the old divisions that kept us ordered with some who are in and some who are out, some being up and some being down is being challenged.\u00a0 How do we live in a world where all<\/u> are children of God?\u00a0 We must find a new way.\u00a0 This is the challenge before us and it is earth-shaking.<\/p>\n
The Apostle Paul was among the first to catch the full import of the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost.\u00a0 In Romans he wrote, \u201cAll who are led by God\u2019s Spirit are God\u2019s sons and daughters.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children.\u201d Those upon whom the Spirit has descended know themselves to be the sons and daughters of God.\u00a0 They have a Spirit-engendered new knowledge about themselves. They refuse to think of themselves as any less than God\u2019s children.\u00a0 They have been adopted and this has changed how they see everything.\u00a0 Now they know there is no accusing finger saying you are less than others because you are black, or brown, or white or gay or not gay, male or female, servant or slave.\u00a0 You are no longer slaves to these definitions.\u00a0 You have been set free because now you understand all of that is human-made.\u00a0 Jesus showed us this in his suffering and God showed us this in his raising Jesus up on the third day.\u00a0 Pentecost brought an awareness of our true station through the Spirit that has been spreading in history since that day.\u00a0 These are the last days of the old regime because the new has come.\u00a0 What is the new?\u00a0 It is the earth shaking knowledge that we are all<\/u> children of God.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children.\u00a0 With this Spirit, we cry, \u2018Abba, Father.\u2019 The same Spirit agrees with our spirit, that we are God\u2019s children.\u201d\u00a0 What is the Spirit really? \u00a0It\u2019s a feeling of being loved rather than accused.\u00a0 But it\u2019s more than that. It\u2019s a person that God sent among us to tell us who we are and who we can look to.\u00a0 This person tells us that we are children of God.\u00a0 This God-person within speaks with the same words Jesus spoke before his Ascension.\u00a0 The Spirit tells us no pointing finger exists to accuse us.\u00a0 The accusing finger has been exposed and shown to be false.\u00a0 It\u2019s the finger of accusation and fear that has kept us in bondage all our lives but has now been revealed as a lie.\u00a0 We have awakened from that nightmare and the awakening happened at Pentecost, or at least that\u2019s where it began.\u00a0 Now we know \u201cWe are God\u2019s heirs and fellow heirs with Christ, if we really suffer with him so that we can also be glorified with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Being fellow heirs with Christ does involve suffering.\u00a0 Like Jesus we see the world and it\u2019s suffering for what it is and know there is another way.\u00a0 With Jesus we suffer because the world won\u2019t see it and we wish it would.\u00a0 Our suffering is a mark of our identity.\u00a0 It shows that someday we will be glorified with him when he is glorified.\u00a0 \u00a0Ah, the day he is glorified, that great and spectacular day of the Lord when we will all know we are children of God.\u00a0 May it come soon!<\/p>\n
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