A Pentecostal Worldview

THE PARK AVENUE PULPIT!

Volume 1

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Garry E. Milley

“A PENTECOSTAL WORLDVIEW”

ACTS 1-6-11 ESV

6So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" 7He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has ?ixed by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

9And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

10And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."

ACTS 4:23-31 ESV

23When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, "Sovereign Lord, who made the

heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, 25who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, "'Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain?

26The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed'— 27for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. 29 And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus." 31And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all ?illed with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

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A PENTECOSTAL WORLDVIEW!

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“While you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

The early church faced many challenges. The greatest at ?irst was the opposition from the leaders who controlled the religious life of the people.

They made it dif?icult for the apostles and the young Christian community to be heard properly. The young Christian movement was misunderstood and persecuted. They were threatened and charged. They were commanded not to speak in Jesus name.

In the story we read today, the apostles went to their friends and told them what happened. They “lifted up their voices together” in prayer. Their prayer was based on Psalm 2.

God had set David as King over a large piece of conquered territory and his rulership was being opposed by the nations. The poet couldn’t understand this. “Why do the nations rage?” Why don’t the nations recognize that God anointed the king to rule? His rule is to be a godly rule. Why the opposition?

The early church believed that Jesus, the Son of David, was meant to rule the world forever. He was the promised king whose kingdom was coming and whose kingdom would have no end.

That’s the point of the Messianic prophecies. The Messiah is a kingly title.

The Greek word Christ means the same thing—the anointed one who is chosen

by God to reign.

The early church saw the resurrection of Jesus as the beginning of his reign. They could not understand why

so many people could not accept it. Their frustration is re?lected in their prayers.

“Why did the Gentiles rage . . . Against the Lord and against his anointed?” Their prayers were informed and shaped

by Scripture. What the Scripture said, the Holy Spirit said. Did you notice that? Did you notice that when they read the Scripture they heard the Spirit speaking?

Jesus Will Return!

All around them was confusion and opposition.

Yet, they knew they were living in a bigger story than their own.

They knew that all the terrible things that were happening were happening somehow within a greater plan of God. In their prayer, they didn’t do crazy things like “rebuke the enemy” or “repent for sins of previous generations.” They didn’t even ask the Lord to protect them. They didn’t interpret the events as the results of a generational curse. They didn’t come up with strange prophecies about seeing into a spirit realm. Nothing like that at all! They said, “look upon the threats” but grant us courage to witness boldly.

“While you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” I love that prayer. “Lord the problems are all around us, but keep us faithful to the task of proclaiming the truth about Jesus.” Every generation needs to do that. And we need to do it in a balanced way.

“and they were all ?illed with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.”

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A PENTECOSTAL WORLDVIEW!

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“Pentecostalism is one way of being a Christian. It isn’t the only way, but it is the way I know best.”

Verse 31 says, “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all ?illed with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.”

The shaking was not done by loud pulsating music. It was not produced. It was not engineered by people trying to get an effect out of the crowds. It was the presence of the Holy Spirit that shook everything to the core and turned them all into powerful and bold witnesses. That’s the kind of ?illing we need today. The emphasis was on the ?illing of the Spirit and the resulting witness.

I am a Newfoundlander by birth. I am a Christian by the second birth. I am a Pentecostal both by experience and conviction. I am, what is called, a “classical” Pentecostal. That means one who sees his spiritual roots going back through Azusa Street to the Day of Pentecost. Some may think of a “classic” as an old car in need of a paint job and a total overhaul. Really it means that the roots of how I understand being Pentecostal go back all the way to the ?irst wave of the modern revival. I can trace the beliefs we hold and the spiritual disciplines we practice to the Azusa Street revival of 1906‐1909 and back to the New Testament itself.

I hold the position that the

modern Pentecostal/charismatic renewal got its impetus from the Azusa Street movement. The ?irst wave contained the core elements; it contained the heart of the revival. As the revival faced challenges of opposition, false doctrine and sinful lives, it developed a balanced and integrated approach to spirituality. It was not extreme. Pentecostalism is one way of being a Christian. It isn’t the only way, but it is the way I know best.

I struggle to be a balanced middle of the road Pentecostal. I seek to avoid the ditches on either side. It isn’t easy. Someone has said that the middle of the road is a bad place to stand because you are sure to be knocked down by whatever is coming along. What I mean is obvious. I do not want to be identi?ied by extremes on either side of the revival.

We have some Pentecostal churches so upset with some of the current expressions of the revival that they have left their Pentecostal roots altogether and have become liturgical like the Episcopalians.

Others have said the “classical” Pentecostals are ancient history. God is “done with us,” they say, because we hesitate in accepting some of the newer things. Some want to embrace whatever is new on the market and they leave their traditional Pentecostal church for any number

of independent churches.

I have friends who are involved in both these extremes. I love them dearly and they love me.

But, both sides can’t seem to understand me. Each side wants me to endorse them. But I want to remain in the central position, the middle of the road, if you please.

I am not saying that I know best, as if I were the expert on everything. I’m not. But I want to be a good soldier for the classical position. We have our faults. We are not perfect. But over the past 100 years, the classical position has proven to be the less damaging to people. We have learned some things from our experience. We have learned to be balanced. Blessed are the balanced for they will remain standing up for Jesus longer than everyone else has fallen over!

I believe God wants to bless his people but I am not a health/ wealth preacher. I believe that God still works miracles today, but I will not promise you a miracle in order to get your money. I believe that God speaks to us through his Word but I do not believe that God yammers to us every moment of the day.

I believe that the gift of prophecy is for the edi?ication, exhortation, and comfort of the church. I do not believe that every

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A PENTECOSTAL WORLD VIEW! positive thing I can imagine is a prophecy for the whole church.

I believe God guides us daily through his Word, the wise counsel of friends, and through prayer. I do not believe you need to phone in to your personal prophet and make a faith pledge in order to get guidance.

I do not believe that a prophet ought to tell you to leave your spouse in order to ful?ill your spiritual destiny.

I anoint people with oil for the healing of the sick as we are instructed in James. I do not believe in sending away for Miracle Spring Water and now, recently, New Enhanced Miracle Spring Water. I do not believe that you ought to be sending $1000 to a TV evangelist so that you can have your name put on the side of his private jet. I do not believe you ought to send another $1000 to have you name placed on the other side of the private jet!

These were things I encountered last week! These examples are not invented or read about; they are actual situations that I have pastored recently.

I am not a “line ‘em up; knock ‘em down” pastor. I do not put on a big show for you each Sunday. I cannot compete with the slick productions that media people can produce. We are humble people here at Park Avenue. But we believed in the moving of the Spirit. We have had an experience and an encounter with God that have left us shaken to the core. We are doing our best to be a balanced Pentecostal church. We are not a high church and we are not a low church. We are not a cathedral and we are not a storefront. We are a group of people from all walks of life being brought together by a powerful and deep move of God.

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As a “classical” Pentecostal, and one who has taught our history for years, I tend to evaluate the current movements and emerging doctrines by asking, “Have we, as a movement, been here before?” “Have we seen these doctrines or practices before?” “Is this new thing really new or is it an old error repackaged somehow?” “Are sincere people being misguided away from the simplicity there is in Christ?” “Are we seeing distortions of the Pentecostal faith in our times?” These are fair questions. They are not motivated by meanness. There is no intention to hurt anyone. The intention is to caution you to evaluate things carefully and prayerfully. The Bible encourages us to test everything but hold fast to that which is good.

prayer. We seek to be sensitive to the Spirit in the midst of our daily experiences. We are trying to discern the Spirit in the midst of life. We are trying to walk in the Spirit and yet live in this real world. These things are integrated for us. So, prayer, worship and study are parts of each other. I seek to hear God speak as I study, pray and live. When we fragment these or tear them apart, we get into trouble.

A number of years ago I had the privilege of studying with Dr. Steven J. Land who wrote a book, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom. He was teaching us that, for Pentecostals, spirituality is more than a certain kind of experience. Spirituality is connected with our theology. Theology for us is not just something that happens in our heads. It is not just “thinking” about God. It is not just a way of describing God or the place where we get to use our brains or our reason.

Dr. Land made an interesting comment. For Pentecostals the core theological discipline is living spiritually; the core spiritual discipline is living theologically. That is why, for the classical Pentecostal, the Bible informs the head, the heart and the life at the same time. They are integrated. Everything is to be judged by the Word. What we teach must line up with the Word. What we experience must line up with the Word. How we live and behave must line up with the Word.

For Pentecostals theology is a re?lective action as we seek prayerfully to discern God in the context of our spiritual experiences.

We want to know the difference between the moving of the Holy Spirit and our emotions. Today, spiritual experiences are a dime a dozen. There are all kinds of courses available. Some of them are not even Christian. But theology, for us, is spirituality done in the context of

To isolate the study of the Word to a university or college library, to isolate praise to a concert, or to isolate prayer to a personal mystical experience, is to run into problems. Pentecostals are at their best when the Word, praise and prayer are integrated.

We don’t want to be just intellectual. We don’t want to be just sentimental. We don’t want to be just a good works focused church.

The question is how do we become integrated and not fragmented in our spiritual life? How do we hold all these things together?

Some churches are more or less intellectually focused on the Word.

Others are just sentimentally focused on the emotions. Still others seem to

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A PENTECOSTAL WORLDVIEW! be focused on social justice and works of mercy. How do we best integrate these things, which are all proper, in balance? If we were to integrate them, what connective tissue do we use?

In the text we read, there is a reference to shaking and to the fullness of the Spirit. Today, we see people trying to ignore the fullness of the Spirit and focus on the shaking or some of the other physical manifestations.

As I have spent a long time thinking about this (I still have much to learn) I have come to the conclusion that the connection between our thinking about God, our experience of the Holy Spirit and our obedience in a life of discipleship is made in Pentecostalism by an apocalyptic or eschatological worldview. Now I’m going to explain that for you. We discussed this in our Wednesday midweek a short while ago. These words refer to the end‐times.

In Acts chapter one, the disciples saw Jesus go into heaven.

They heard a promise that he would return again. Jesus promised to return. That note was never silenced in the early church. The early church lived in a worldview dominated by the sense of expectation for the Lord’s return.

The early Pentecostals lived in the light of the second coming of Christ, too. If you read the hymnals used in our history many of them were full of Second Coming songs.

The motive for personal holiness and evangelistic mission was that the door of grace was about to close and Jesus could return at any moment.

This kind of apocalyptic and

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eschatological self‐understanding was at the very core of what it meant to be Pentecostal. That belief penetrated everything. It was connected to our witness. (There isn’t much time. We have to win the world for Christ. Soon the time for weeping will be over, soon we gather to our harvest home.). It was connected to our daily avoidance of worldliness (Be ready with your garments unspotted). It was connected with our understanding of suffering in this world (This world is not my home. I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop). Living in the light of the second coming was the seasoning in our faith and in our experience of the Holy Spirit (It was a foretaste of heaven. Oh, this is like heaven to me. I’ve crossed over Jordan to Canna's fair land.) It was the air they breathed. All their beliefs were held in that atmosphere, held with the awareness that they lived in the last days; they were the “last days” people. They lived with heaven in view. That understanding affected everything. It was a worldview.

motivated people to get out and witness. Pentecostals became known as the missionaries of the one‐way ticket. They didn’t expect to return from the mission ?ield because they expected Christ to come at any moment. It made them walk softly before the Lord in holiness.

That core element, that integrating connective tissue is still the way I understand our Pentecostal faith. It’s the way I have received the Christian faith. I am still there. We must learn to live in the light of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

I am afraid of two extremes.

One, I do not want to sing just the old hymns to keep the people my age and older happy. It dates us and makes it appear as if the true experience of God was limited to the ?irst or second generations. It makes it seem as if we think God is not at work at all today, only in the past.

The other extreme is that we gravitate to only the most recent styles of music to satisfy the tastes of people who are generally younger than I am. Either of these two extremes is a ditch that can easily become a rut. I want to recapture the true essence of what it means to be ?illed with the Spirit. And, when that connective tissue is there, it doesn’t really matter whether the song is

When this core element is missing something happens to the spirituality. For example, speaking in tongues was once a sign of Christ’s soon return. After people had received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, after speaking in tongues, the ?irst words, in the native language invariably was that the Lord was coming soon. It was a sign that the gospel was to be proclaimed throughout the whole world. It

But once the experience of the Holy Spirit’s fullness got separated from the imminency of the Lord’s return, speaking in tongues no longer functioned as a sign of worldwide proclamation or a sign that Christ’s coming was close at hand. The connection with witness and proclamation was lost. The experience, rather than being focused outward on mission, became focused inward on personal renewal.

Speaking in tongues became a technique for personal prayer and the “prayer language” function was highlighted more than the second coming or the power to witness. I am not saying that this is totally wrong, only that it is a different emphasis than at ?irst and we lost something.

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A PENTECOSTAL WORLDVIEW!

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“Fill us again with the Holy Spirit that we may continue to speak your word with boldness.”

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, THE SON & THE HOLY SPIRIT. AMEN. new or old.

The church needs to learn how to discern the moving of the Spirit without being blown around by every wind of doctrine. We must never assume the grass is greener in someone else’s back yard. We need to dig again our own wells. We need to recover a deep prayer life, a prayer life that is bathed in the atmosphere of the promise of our Lord’s return.

He is coming back. “He’s coming. He said he would. He’s coming back again. Oh praise his holy name. He’s coming back again. He’s coming. He said he would. He’s coming back again. He’s coming to earth once more.”

That expectation causes you to see the problems of life in a new

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light. You don’t spend your time begging God to take the problems away as if he were a Santa Claus. You pray like the apostles prayed in Acts chapter 4.

“And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus." And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all ?illed with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.”

Prayer: Lord, I pray that you will free us from selMish prayers and grant us a boldness to proclaim your word. Let us see you stretch forth your hand to heal. We want to see it. May signs and wonders be done through the name of Jesus. We want to see them. Fill us again with the Holy Spirit that we may continue to speak your word with boldness. Prepare us for your soon return. Help us to live as if your returning was just moments away. If it is a long way off, grant us the strength to endure until the end and walk worthy, witness faithfully, and live expectantly in the light of the promise of your return. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Lord, hear our prayer.

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