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Now when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire,

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and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

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And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven. Now, when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded because every man heard them speak in his own language.

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And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, "Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how here we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born. Parthians and Medes and Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judea and Cappadocia

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and Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia in Egypt and in the parts of Libya about serene and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretans, Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

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And they were all amazed and were in doubt saying one to another, what meaneth this? Others mocking said, these men are full of new wine. But Peter standing up with the 11 lifted up his voice and said unto them,

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ye men of Judea and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you and hearken to my words for these are not drunken as ye suppose seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel and it shall come to pass

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come to pass in the last days saith God I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams and on my servants and on my handmaidens will I pour out in those days of my spirit and they shall

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prophesy and I shall show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before that great and notable day of the Lord come and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on

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the name of the Lord shall be saved. May the Lord bless to us the reading and hearing of his holy word. [MUSIC - "SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE"] Spirit of the people, now born by the Lord,

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we need from her through all its possible hope, ♪ Look to my weakness ♪ ♪ My disdain ♪ ♪ And make me loving ♪

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♪ As I ought to love you ♪ ♪ I ask no profit ♪ ♪ Of the Easter Sea ♪ ♪ Oh, sudden re-ending ♪

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♪ Of the veil of day ♪ ♪ Oh, angel visited ♪ ♪ From the great sky ♪ ♪ I take the pen as a graceful hand ♪

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- Let me sing the fourth stanza, we may take our seats. (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music)

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(gentle piano music) (bells ringing) (bells ringing) (bells ringing)

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(bells ringing) (bells ringing) (bells ringing) (bells ringing)

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(bells ringing) (bells ringing) [Music] I want to invite our prayerful attention to a passage of scripture

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which is found in the book of Acts, the second chapter. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

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And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire and it sat upon each of them And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. The subject of the message, life in the Spirit, life in the Spirit.

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and they were all filled with the Spirit. On the Christian calendar today we celebrate Pentecost Sunday. When one thinks about Pentecost, there are certain ideas that immediately come to mind. In the life of ancient Israel, the Feast of Pentecost was a harvest festival.

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It came at the end of the harvest season. It was established by the Israelites after they had settled in Canaan. A feast is a celebration. It is a time when people gather together to have a good time.

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of harvest is a time of rejoicing. As we think of Pentecost in Christian history, it marks the birthday of the church, the time of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. But too often when we think of the word Pentecost, we think of Pentecostal groups.

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We think of those who are identified with the charismatic groups. I remember when I was a boy, we called the Pentecostal people who lived in our community and had a church not too far from where I live, holiness people. I would go there and watch them in their services as they danced, had their tambourines and

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they spoke in unknown tongues. And too often when we think of Pentecost, that's what comes to mind with many people. But the word Pentecost should be viewed in a broader way. Pentecost is a festival.

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It is a celebration. It is a feast. It is a feast of the Spirit. And that's what our world needs.

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The gift of the spirit is the sacrament of the kingdom. And the presence of the spirit is evidence of God's grace. It is proof of the fact that God has accepted us and we have accepted him. The fact that we have the spiritual presence in our lives, only that and nothing more.

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Not that we have our names on a church roll. Not that we have come up in a family that has been identified with the Christian faith. That and that alone is not enough. But the mark of identification of the people of God is that that dwells in them the spirit

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Spirit of God, Spirit of love, Spirit of compassion, Spirit of goodwill for others, that is what makes the difference. And so when we think about the Spirit, we are talking about that which is in the realm of mystery. We are dealing with that which is mysterious when we talk about the spirit.

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And this is why many people do not understand the working of the spirit because so often in our kind of society we want to be able to examine and we want to be able to place in a laboratory under a microscope and be able to say that this is this and we have analyzed it and we know this to be the case but we can't do

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that with the Spirit. So we cannot limit the Spirit and we can do all of the things that meet the letter. We can comply in our actions with the rules and and yet not have the Spirit. And that's what makes the difference, the Spirit.

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I can remember when I was in seminary a number of years ago in Ohio, that there was a lady there who was the house mother and she was a person who reflected what I considered the mannerisms of a southern aristocrat. And there were certain things that I

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sort of resented about her, certain things that were repulsive. I was a waiter and I performed my task as a waiter. I was there on time, I served the tables I went through all of the motions that a waiter should go through and I remember she said to me one day Marvin I'm gonna move you from being a waiter

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and put you in the kitchen washing the dishes well that was a demotion and no no one likes a demotion like that. And it was sort of a blow to my pride. And I protested.

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I said, "Now, why are you moving me? Haven't I done my job? Haven't I been here and served the tables like I should?" She said, "Oh, yes, you've done all that."

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She said, "But I think this will help your spirit." And she put me back there. I'm really sure enough it did help my spirit. And I had a different attitude and I exemplified a different spirit and after a few months

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I was put back. Even when she had to discharge some of the others she kept me because of the spirit that I had manifested, a changed spirit. So we can get all of the knowledge that we may possess,

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though we be able to speak with the tongues of men and of angels that have not the right spirit within us, we cannot truly wear the name as being the people of God. And so the spirit makes the difference.

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Even though one sits in a sanctuary and you listen to a message, really what this message means to you and what it will do for you

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has to do with your spirit and my spirit. So we have many gadgets. We have great wealth as a country, but what we need most is spiritual help.

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America is a land of rich opportunity. We have material wealth and we boast of technological skills But what we need is the spiritual presence In the life of our nation

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Manifested in a marvelous way That's true of our institutions That's true of our Schools that's true of our churches

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We have entered for the most part into an era of unprecedented prosperity as far as the life of the church is concerned. But we still have a great distance to go when it comes to the spirit, the manifestation of the spirit of God in the life of the church. We see now a small group, small band of disciples, They have no building of their own. They have no budget. They have no skilled

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staff. They have no materials. They don't have any of these things. All they have is just a small band of people, just themselves, and here they are gathered in the upper room in Jerusalem. And they are waiting for what they need most, and that is the indwelling of the Spirit of God. Sure all of us get down in the dumps sometime.

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Sure we fret and we fume. Sure we are anxious about ourselves, we're anxious about our families, we're anxious about our future. What we need most is that spiritual help and we need that awareness of the spiritual presence and that's why we come here each one of us gather here that we might engage in what

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we call a feast of the spirit a feast of the spirit spirit of love spirit of concern, spirit of acceptance of one for another. That's what we celebrate today in the day of Pentecost, the Feast of the Spirit, Feast of the Spirit. Oh how we need that. Oh how we need that every one of us as individuals. Oh how we need it as a

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church, how we need it as a people, the feast of the Spirit. Be aware of the spiritual presence and that makes a difference. When you're speaking to an audience, all of them can be looking at you, but there's a different feeling when you know

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that there is that Spirit that runs from heart to heart and Breast to breast, so to speak. There's certain feeling tones that one gets from the Spirit. You can walk into a home, you can walk into an office,

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and people don't have to say anything to you. You can feel the Spirit. And that's the way it is where the people of God are gathered. There is a feeling of the Spirit there.

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that there is an awareness of the spiritual presence. That's what our fathers were talking about when they sang, "Every time I feel the Spirit "moving in my heart, I will pray."

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The awareness of the spiritual presence. Well, here they are in the upper room in Jerusalem, as I said, and the door is shut. If we would have the spirit of God in us and to have it dwell in us richly, there has to

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be something that we'll shut out. Some things must be shut out. You can't, we can't have our lives, our thinking, our concern, all of these things cluttered up with cares of the world. They have shut out the arrogance of the Pharisee.

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They have shut out the hypocrisy of the Herodians and so they are prepared. They are waiting for the gift of the Spirit. So they're gathered together. Here they are the circle of believers. You know what they're different. They belong to different races. There are barriers which separate them. The greatest human barrier

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that we have is race. It is the thing that separates us. As W.E.B. Du Bois has said that the great problem of the 20th century is the color line and we make such a great difference because of race and because of nationality and here these people are different races nationalities different backgrounds

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different experiences different lifestyles and that's enough to separate us because we're so quick to sort of categorize people and put them in this class and that class well we say this is the lower class this is the underprivileged class this is the upper class and this is the middle class and we deal with people according to that

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But here they are with all of these differences gathered together and something miraculous happens, something strange, something mysterious. There comes a mighty rushing wind that shakes the house. That is the manifestation of the Spirit.

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You see the Spirit is like the wind. This is a symbol of the coming of the Spirit. like the wind. You don't see the wind. You know the wind is out there but you don't see it. The wind blows and we see the leaves dangling and the limbs of the

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trees being blown here and there. We see signs of the presence of the wind but we really don't see the wind but we see the effects of it. The wind shakes the house and what is this happening it is an invasion of the Spirit the Spirit in fades it comes into the lives of those who are gathered there it comes there

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giving new life to those who wait for the Spirit creates new life and community among people there they become infused with the spirit the disciples become new people because they let the spirit in they have their individual differences they have they have their uniqueness but there is a sense of

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community it was togetherness in the spirit it was a feast of the spirit and And so there is a mighty rushing wind that fills the house and all that are in it. There is an awareness of the presence of the Spirit. And then there is a manifestation of the power of the Spirit.

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There was a song that was popular many years ago that says, "When the spirit hits you, you'll holler, 'Yes, indeed.'" When the spirit is manifested in one's life, it makes a difference. It has a way of changing our behavior.

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cannot act as if nothing has happened when the Spirit reigns in our lives. Thomas Chalmers puts it this way when he says that those disciples who were gathered in the upper room who received the Holy Spirit were possessed with the explosive power of a new affection. The explosive power of a new

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affection. They became new people because they had new life. Something happened in them that they suddenly discovered that they had explosive power. Explosive power. I remember when I was in college that we had a boy there we called him skin down. Skin down was a football player and we didn't have much regard for most

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football players they many of them seem to have been trying to get through college just playing football not getting that work and he was in that number. Skin down was just there trying to get through he wasn't trying to do his best in courses and the like and I met him a few years later on a highway

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and we stopped and we talked and he had gone on, finished college, he had dropped out of college for the war and I didn't see him anymore after that. He had come back to college and finished, got on not only his bachelor's degree but he got his master's degree and he got his PhD and I said, "Skendal, what happened to you? How did you do all that?" He said,

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well I just got myself together and I determined that I was going to be what I could be and what really happened is he had a new spirit and this explosive power of a new affection and a new approach toward life changed him and he became a new creature. He wasn't the same old skin down that I had

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known before he's a new skin down a new person he has a new spirit a new determination a new hope a new life that is set before him he had the same body I recognized the same features but he was a new person because he has a new spirit and so that's what life in the spirit does someone has said of Pope John the

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23rd during his period as the head of the Catholic Church, although it was brief, someone said that what really happened is that the Pope came into a church that had been somewhat stale and the windows had been shut down. That what happened that he raised the windows and let some fresh air into the church. Well

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that's what we often do in our homes. We raise the windows and we let some fresh sharing and that's what we need to do in our lives we need to raise the windows and let the spirit in we need to raise the windows of our lives the windows of our souls and let the spirit in let the spirit in spirit comes to bless us

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Spirit comes to give us new life. Spirit comes to give us new hope, new possibilities. Let the Spirit in. Spirit comes to guide us, to lead us safely and gently through the jungles of this world. Let the Spirit in. The Spirit will give us eyes to see. The Spirit will set our visions free. Let the Spirit in, I say. Let the Spirit

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in and give the world new sight. Let the Spirit in. Give us ears to hear words of hope that are so near, let the spirit in, so that we may go forth to spread the good news all around and give the world a new sound. Let the spirit in.

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