Tongues of Fire

Intro:

honor Matt and Traci, Scott and Britt, Mike Coons

explain that I am a daughter of the Rock

explain job

Hot Ones bit

Paul challenges us to be all things to all people, and I was afraid my premature martyrdom would come at the hands of playing Hot Ones in Fayetteville Tennessee

get to heaven and during heavenly superlatives (supurr-la-tives) they would be like “dumbest and most unnecessary martyrdom goes to Sherei trying to keep up with the boys”

I’m Puerto Rican, so I get it, the assumption is that I like spicey things and can handle it.

In reality, Puerto Rican food is very bland. Yellow Rice. Empanadas which my husband describes as basically like a cozy fried chicken pot pie. We are basically the Irish of the carribean.

We are spicy in speech and personality, not food. If we also had Spicey food and kept the spicy personalities it would be like loki meeting himself in the multiverse. The world would break.

Honor Pastor Christian, who is the real one who got me out of this by saying that women lead the church differently then men. That’s true. Here’s some sweet tea.

Ironically, I do need to talk about spicey tongues today….

SLIDE ONE: TONGUES OF FIRE

PRAY!

Tongue the pen of a ready writer

Say this with me. I am. What his word says I am. I can do what his word says I can do. I can be what his word says I can be. So right now I will hear his word, I will receive his word, and I will obey his word, because I love his word.

SLIDE 2: Stand for the reading of the word:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

2 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

STORY TELLING:

imagine that you’ve been on this journey for three years.

emotionally whiplashed

trying to trust, leaning in

you look around, and you’re surrounded by women. some rich, like lydia, who funded a lot of the ministry. Mary is so poor, but she’s there. She still cries every time she whispers his name. Mother is there. So poor. Nicodemus is there, and though you know he helped pay for the burial, you’re trauma response is wondering if he’s a spy wondering, still a sanhedrin looking to kill more followers of Jesus. Some of the samaritans have joined. Half-breeds. Joseph is there, he’s so weathly. Should we greet him, he might help fund whatever comes next. Jesus’s brothers are there, next to Mother. You see their faces and remember their rejection.

Yet Scripture says they were in ONE ACCORD. Why?

SLIDE 3: PROMISED SPIRIT

advocate

The world’s sin is that they refuse to believe in me

SLIDE 4: JEWISH CONTEXT

Deut 16:9–12“You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there. You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.

Jewish Tradition holds:

mid june, harvest is FULL

Israel leaves egypt at passover, then they become so explicitely dependant on him through the MANNA

timing is that when God give TORAH and forms a COVENANT people - they have the law written….

So they have been playacting and remembering:

freewill offering, love offering

sons and daughters, male and female servants, sojourner, fatherless…EVERYONE

TO MAKE HIS NAME DWELL THERE

Suddenly you remember:

we are gathered in one accord

Jesus said he was sending the advocate, for what? to proclaim

It’s happening again, only this time…

SLIDE 5: First Pentacost:

firstfruits of a worldwide harvest

writing his will upon their hearts

fulfilling the abrahamic promise

SLIDE 6: Appointed Time

present passive infinitive, the day of heaven being fulfilled,

arrive: to be full (time) — verb. to be or become at a peak or culminating point; especially used of time.

First pentacost after Jesus’ died.

SLIDE 7: HEARING GOD IN YOUR OWN LANGAUGE:

the advocate comes, like a rushing wind, sitting down on the diverse church, to speak in heart language (so that the law might be written across our hearts)

When you hear your own language

when I saw in the heights on the big spring, I couldn't stop crying. I heard my heart language.

I studied arabic for 5 semesters and the only word I really picked up was 'shocran' - But I could pick it up

scottish accent story

leaning on a fence speaking in tongues story

"why did God give us accents" story?

unity is not a call to flattening

The headlines reinforce Babel (division, scattering, comparison, strife), but we are in Pentecost (every tongue, every nation)!

Pentecost promises unity without erasing difference. 

disciples of Jesus shared a common and undervalued cultural background. They were recognizably Galileans before and after Pentecost (Acts 2:7).

SLIDE 8: UNITY AND PROCLAMATION

so when our tongues are used to divide, we deny the work of pentacost

we should grieve over disunity because it is anti-spirit

disunity destroys the work of the church

our tongue is the very place of spiritled power

to break chains

to adopt

to proclaim the gospel

We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.

What are those mighty works?

deliverance

healing

his incarnation (God came and lived among us)

the creation of heaven and earth and all things

The sending of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sin

authority over creation: he calmed the storm

he raises the dead. What if Jairus’s daughter was there, and Lazurus, speaking in persian, latin, and arabic about god incarnate raising them from the Dead

WAY OUT:

grieve over your disunity

where have you used your tongue to kill, steal, destroy, undermine members of this body?

where have you used your tongue to bear false witness?

Unity doesn’t mean you don’t have questions. In that upper room, there were questions. Recent hurts. tension. offenses. But they chose siblinghood. They chose to set their eyes on Christ, and to see eachother at brother and sister.

believing your gifts, theology, group, class, race, or background makes you more important than others (Romans 12:3–5; 1 Corinthians 12:21).Pride:

dismissing, mocking, stereotyping, or refusing to listen to another person (Romans 14:3–4). Contempt:

forming camps around personalities, loyalties, or secondary convictions—“I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos” (1 Corinthians 1:10–13; Galatians 5:20). Factionalism:

using another person’s failures as social currency instead of pursuing restoration (2 Corinthians 12:20; James 4:11). Gossip and slander:

preserving the grievance because reconciliation would require humility, confession, or relinquishing the right to retaliate (Ephesians 4:31–32). Unforgiveness:

protecting your own comfort, status, or preferences without considering the good of the whole body (Philippians 2:3–4). Self-interest:

dividing the church according to wealth, ethnicity, sex, social standing, or cultural familiarity (James 2:1–9; Galatians 3:28). Exclusion and favoritism:

avoiding difficult conversations in the name of “peace,” while resentment and injustice deepen beneath the surface (Matthew 18:15–17; Ephesians 4:15). Refusing necessary truth:

speaking correct things without love, patience, or any desire to restore the other person (1 Corinthians 13:1–2; Galatians 6:1). Weaponizing truth:

making personal preferences or secondary doctrines conditions of belonging when Christ has welcomed the person (Romans 14:1–15:7).Demanding uniformity:

way out: evangelical

English Standard Version Chapter 16

You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes