Fire up the Chainsaw (#1 in the Holy Spirit series)

Scripture: Acts 2:17-21 In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

A prominent mzungu went to Builders Warehouse and asked for a chainsaw. The salesman took a chain saw from the shelf and commented that it was their “newest model, with the latest in technology, guaranteed to cut ten cords of firewood a day.” The customer thought that sounded pretty good, so he bought it right away.
         The next day the customer returned, looking exhausted. “Something must be wrong with this saw,” he moaned. “I worked as hard as I could and only barely managed to cut up one tree. I could have done it easier with my old-fashioned saw.” Looking confused, the salesman said, “Here, let me try it out back on some wood we keep there.”
        They went to the woodpile, the salesman pulled the cord, and as the motor went vvvrooommmm. The customer leaped back and exclaimed, “What’s that noise??”

Often, our experience of the Christian life is a lot like the mzungu’s experience with the chainsaw. We don’t know what to do with it once we have it. Jesus told his followers to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything he commanded them (Matthew 28:19-20). We’ve often focused on the baptizing part without teaching what comes next.

One summer I went to a Christian summer camp where every night we got enthusiastic evangelistic messages. Which was fine, except that the audience was already 100% Christian. But the problem is that this is frequently true in our churches as well. We’ve focused on “get ‘em to the altar,” but once we do, we leave them there!

I am convinced that most of the problems in our churches stem from this issue; we have considered the altar, where we make our decision for Jesus, to be the finish line, when it is really the starting line.

So if the decision for Christ is the starting line, how do we continue in the faith? What does discipleship look like? As Christians we have focused on correct behaviors. So does being a Christian consist of working really hard to get rid of all the sinful behaviors that were the hallmark of our life outside of Christ? Not really. Once I met a guy who trained dogs. His dog was really talented; not only could it sit and stay and roll over, but his master would tell it to say its prayers and it would rest its head on a chair and fold its paws over its eyes. He would say, “praise the Lord” and it would start to howl. It was great. We said, “That dog is almost human!” 

But guess what: that dog, no matter how smart he was, is still a dog. You cannot turn it into a person no matter how well you train it. And likewise, we can train ourselves to do and say all the right things, but when it comes down to it, even with all that training, we cannot change who we are at the root. This is why behavior modification doesn’t work in the Christian life.

So if the Bible calls us to live in a certain way, and if it really doesn’t work, then what are we to do? It kind of seems hypocritical, doesn’t it? God tells us to do something, and it’s not something that is possible… Does God really expect us to do what is impossible?

The answer is no.  And yes. Think about this: what if I told you that you had to run a marathon, 42 km? And I said don’t come back until you’ve finished. Some of you realize that I’m asking the impossible. But what if I said I would run it for you. Would you still insist on trying yourself?

When it comes to living out the Christian life, on our own, we are totally unable to comply. We just cannot do it. If it were possible, then Jesus came to earth and died a brutal death on the cross in vain, and if he did that in vain, why did God send him here anyway? So God requires the impossible, but God does not require us to do something that cannot be done. Did you get the subtle difference here? God requires the impossible, but God makes the impossible possible. The Gospel of Luke first introduces the Holy Spirit in Luke 1, where God’s angel comes to Mary, telling her she will give birth to a son, Jesus, who will be the Son of the Most High. She asked, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.” (Luke 1:35-37).

What makes it possible for us to live holy lives, something that is impossible for us? The question isn’t “what” but “who” and the answer is the Holy Spirit. I’m convinced that the one thing that most American churches are missing isn’t a thing, but a Person. With the right combination of personalities and strategies and hard work, any church can grow and can attract a crowd, but if the Holy Spirit isn’t in it, then it’s an exercise in missing the point.

When it comes to the Trinity, we seem to know God pretty well. Our culture really loves Jesus and we have been given the advantage that he came in the flesh and lived here on earth, demonstrating his character. But it seems that the Holy Spirit, as the third Person of the Trinity, is the God we hardly know. In Acts 19, Paul is making his first trip to Ephesus, and there he finds some disciples and he asks them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” (Acts 19:2)

I don’t think the African Church is as bad as the American Church, behaving as if they don’t even know there is a Holy Spirit, but sometimes it is as if we have a cartoon picture of the Holy Spirit, one who is present in signs and wonders and fire, but not doing what the Holy Spirit does in the Scripture.

The church without the Holy Spirit is like the person without the spirit – dead. I remember my sister and I saw this really awful movie about these two guys who had to pretend that their wealthy dead benefactor was alive. So they carted him everywhere, propping him up to go cruising in his convertible and for boat rides. A really ridiculous movie, to be sure.

But without the Holy Spirit, our churches behave like we’re in that movie. We try to do all the right things – we have our worship services, but they are devoid of any power. We offer altar calls, but nobody comes. In one church I served, I asked for stories of transformation for the district charge conference, and nobody had any.

Even though we look right and though we seem to be doing the right things, if the Holy Spirit is not in the center of all of it, even our most righteous acts are like filthy rags. We could feed every person in Matero, but if it’s not done in the Holy Spirit, we might as well throw that food away, because it’s all filthy.

So if we are going to be the church God has called us to be, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit. What might it look like if this church was filled with the Holy Spirit? It might look a little bit like the early church, which we see described in Acts 2:42-47: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All of the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Isn’t that an awesome description? And it doesn’t have to just be a historical account; it can be our personal experience. But we are going to have to get to know the Holy Spirit. If you are a Christian, you have been given the Holy Spirit – all of Him, not just part. But the issue is that you haven’t given Him all of you. In the coming weeks, we will continue by looking at the Person and work of the Holy Spirit, praying not just that He fill us, but that we accept His filling.