TRANSCRIPTION | Sunday, May 23, 2021 | What Shall We Do? | The Silent Divorce

 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

This morning, I get to launch a brand new series, and it's going to be entitled The Silent divorce, The Silent Divorce. And just because of that title and the subject matter of that series, per se, I'm gonna ask my wife, I thought it might be appropriate for her just to read the text this morning. And so Mandy is going to read Acts, chapter two, a section of that text, if you would.

 

Mandy Gilbert

Acts 2:37, “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the disciples, men and brethren, what shall we do?” Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.This promise belongs to you and your children and to all who are far off—to all whom the Lord our God will call to Himself.” Not the text that you were expecting, on the subject of silent divorce? We're going somewhere in Scripture this morning, I want you to pray with me. Thank you, baby. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Father, I ask you today just to help me to preach and to share your word and that Lord, this would be a moment that you would use for your glory. And that God we would all experience the provocation of your Holy Spirit to that next step in you whatever it might be, in Jesus’ name, and this church said, amen.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Acts chapter two, verse 37. I’m gonna take a section of that as an anchor text this morning. Mandy's given us some context for the overall perspective of where we're going in Scripture. I want you to look with me at it again, it says, “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter, and the rest of the disciples, men and brethren, what shall we do?” What shall we do? Let's get a little practice in for where we're going to land this message in a few moments. I want you to just look over at somebody and ask them, what shall we do? What shall we do? In John chapter three, verse number eight, Jesus gives us an analogy. And what he does is he likens the moving of the Holy Spirit in the earth unto the wind. Now, what he's doing is he's giving you a visual, is that in the same way, that you can see the effects of the wind, but you can't see the wind. Likewise, you will be able to see the effects of the Holy Spirit, though you may not see the Holy Spirit. So, Jesus has clearly told us that the Holy Spirit will move through the earth in a spiritual way, the way that the wind moves through the earth in a physical way. It was in commentary of this particular verse that one pastoral author offered these thoughts. He said, when Jesus said the Holy Spirit was like the wind, he was teaching us that Christianity is a bit like a sailing boat. And today, Christianity exists on a sea of trouble as the world grows darker, and the waves swell higher. More than ever, we need the power of the Holy Spirit focused on the truth of the Word so that we can safely get to the harbor that Jesus has waiting for us. I think that's some beautiful commentary. And I think it's very well said. And it's with that in mind that I'd like to build further on those thoughts. Because I believe we can think of it like this, that the church, or Christianity, is designed by God to be like a sailboat. And what that means is that we must have the wind to go forward, and that wind is the Holy Spirit. But when you begin to think about the mechanics of a sailboat, then you begin to realize that the only way that the sailboat can actually catch the wind and be able to advance forward is if it has sails. It is the sails that make it a sailboat. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And so if you're to think about the church, or you're to think about Christianity, what would be the sails? I believe the better question is, who would be the sails? And I believe the answer to that would be spirit-filled people. People who have decided that they are going to extend every aspect of their life and invite God to fill it with his Holy Spirit. And the result of that will be that his church and Christianity, ultimately his kingdom, will be advanced forward through the lives of those spirit-filled people. The question then becomes, well, how do you identify a spirit-filled person? I think there's a few markers. I think that a spirit-filled person is someone that has had an experience or is having an experience on a regular basis with the raw power of God. I think that they can testify of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. I think they utilize or they're familiar with the Holy Spirit's gifts, I believe that they believe in the power of God. They tend to excel at prayer and worship. They recognize the reality of spiritual warfare, they desire encounters with the manifest presence of God, they've usually seen healings, maybe even miracles, and they can detect, at a glance, dead church practices, spirit-filled people, the sails of God's church. I wonder, maybe, as you contemplate that, you're thinking, I'm a spirit filled person, or you're beginning to envision other people that you realize match that description, their spirit-filled people.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

It doesn't take much evaluation of a sailboat and it being filled, the sails being filled with wind, to begin to contemplate that there has to be something that gives direction to that sailboat. There has to be something that keeps it on course. There has to be something that keeps it away from navigational dangers. And the answer to that would be that every sailboat must have a rudder. And so when you think about the church, Christianity, not only having sails, but it's need for a rudder, then what would be the rudder? Again, the better way to form the question is who would be the rudder? Because the rudder is what keeps the boat on course and keeps it safe from crashing. I believe that in the church and Christianity, that would be the word people.

The word people. Now, we talked about defining spirit-filled people, how would you define word people? Maybe one way you could do it is to understand that word people also tend to understand purpose. They're very intentional about remaining scripturally focused, they're hesitant to embrace any new doctrine. They excel at understanding theology and their doctrine. They know their Bibles, and they know what they believe in Scripture, and they can detect heresy. They even know a lot about church history most often, and they seek to follow God's instructions obediently. Word people. So it would become very easy to think, okay, it's great to celebrate the sails being filled with the wind, but we also must have rudder people who can help keep things on course, so that we don't hit the rocks, so that the storm doesn't prevail against us. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And so I want you to envision it, there's this sailboat called The Church, or called Christianity, and Jesus is the captain, and he is standing at the helm. And he is giving ultimate directive of how the sails should be extended, and how the rudder should have its direction applied. And that is who you are meant to be. And maybe right now you're like, well, I think I'm one of those spirit-filled people, or I think I'm one of those word people. There’s a lot of people who view it that way, whether they've ever realized it or not. Because some churches are sail churches, and some Christians are sail Christians. And their whole focus in their relationship with God is just wanting to be filled by the Holy Spirit and see things propelled forward by the manifestation of the things of the Spirit. But then, there are some churches that are rudder churches, and there are some Christians that are rudder Christians. And their whole focus is just making sure nothing gets into heresy, nothing gets into false doctrine, that everything's taught right, everything's preached right. What I've noticed is that, more often than not, sail churches and sail Christians tend to be very critical of rudder churches and rudder Christians. At the same time, more often than not, rudder churches and rudder Christians tend to be very critical of sail churches and sail Christians. The problem with that is that what we're now saying is people who put emphasis on the moving of the spirit are critical of people who put emphasis on the Word.

And people who put emphasis on the Word are now critical of those who put emphasis on the Spirit. And I think all of this contention and all of this criticism has led to some kind of a silent divorce. A silent divorce. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

You do realize that there is a conscious connection and an unconscious connection between Word and Spirit. Here's what I mean by that. When it comes to Word and Spirit, nobody can separate what God has put together in regards to Word and Spirit as a part of his heavenly being. That's the unconscious aspect of it. But on the conscious side of things, we are all exercising our personal faith in individual ways. We're even exercising the things that we're disciplined about in individual ways. And so even sometimes, unintentionally, we make a conscious decision to pursue more of the Spirit than we do of the Word, or to pursue more of the Word than we do of the Holy Spirit. The issue with that, and I wrote this this week in prayer, and I'd like to share it with you, is that I believe we must consciously desire and seek after the manifestation of both the Word and the Spirit in our lives and churches. The thing is denominations and worship preferences have divorced Word and Spirit in practice and experience. So we have reserved deeply spiritual encounters for the Pentecostal and charismatics, and we have set aside mainline denominations as the place to house those who have and will become studious in the Word.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Think about it. Like even when we begin to talk about something like this, we begin to envision people that we know that are really sensitive to the Holy Spirit, or people that we know that are really knowledgeable of the Word. And more often than not, when you really begin to lean into those personality types, it seems like there's this kind of constant, even if it's not spoken, this unspoken tension towards I got it figured out, I'm the rudder, I'm keeping everything on course. No, no, I got it figured out. I'm the sail, I'm moving everything forward, ain't nobody going anywhere if it wasn't for me. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Now, in my personal experience, I have fallen in love with the Word of God. Like I mean, it's something that I crave. It is something I have an appetite for. It is something that I visit multiple times every single day. It seems like I can't learn enough about it. Like I'm just madly in love with this book, because I realize it's a living book. At the same time, I have a heritage. And by most definitions and the terms that are used in modern church, I'm a fourth generation Pentecostal.

I've seen some stuff. And it's as a result of that heritage and those experiences that I had with God, even as a child, that I believe in the power of God. I have seen God use his gifts to do mind-blowing things that coincidence would never be able to take the credit for. I believe in the manifest presence of God and his desire to give you a power and a boldness that the world doesn't know what to do with. And so what has kind of happened in me by default, is there's this hunger to be both Word and Spirit. Do you realize that Jesus exemplified that when he took on earthly form and came to the earth. Jesus was beginning his ministry and before he really launched out into doing much publicly, he went into a water of baptism, the Jordan River, and there he is described in scripture as being the Word made flesh. So it's all about the Word, and the Word stepped out into the water to be baptized. And the Bible says the heavenly father started speaking from heaven. And at that moment, the Holy Spirit descended down on the life of Jesus, and there was a cataclysmic collision. There was a divine intersection, a divine appointment, a kingdom connection. In Jesus’ own life, Word and Spirit became one.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And so if you're a little more drawn to the Spirit, you need to be very careful criticizing anyone that's really drawn to the Word. You may need their rudder in your life. And if you're a Word person, you need to probably be careful about being overly critical of someone who's sensitive to the Holy Spirit, because you may need a little more power in life in what

you got going on. You do realize that's what's happened that's been the problem. Because what would happen is that there would begin to be some move of the spirit in the Pentecostal environment, and then people would get disconnected from the Word, they would get more caught up in the manifestation than anything else, and they get crazy and wreck the thing.

At the same time, there have been movements that became all about the Word, and we're going to hermeneutically, homiletically, exegetically, evaluate it to the point that now it's a, we're going to homiletically bestow upon you a hermeneutical eschatological evaluation of….And so now you got a six-foot icicle standing behind a so called sacred desk, and everybody's counting the time until he's finished. I can't get no help on a Sunday morning. And what God really intended is that he could find men and women who would embrace his Word. And then they would lift their hands like the sails that they were meant to be and receive the enduement of power, and the wind of the Holy Spirit would propel that forward in something that wasn't going to wreck, something that wasn't going to crash, and it was going to stay the course until heaven became our harbor. And so I can tell you for 3trees Church, we love the Word and we love the Holy Spirit, and what we desire to be is a Word and a Spirit church. Word and Spirit. We're looking for sails and we're looking for rudders. And I believe that God is calling many of you, as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus, to begin to say, I want to be full of both Word and Spirit.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Today is the day of Pentecost. Did you know that? Penta kinter just means 50. It’s all itl means, now we’ve made it mean a lot more than that. It literally means 50. Why? Because the day of Pentecost is considered to be 50 days after the cross of Jesus. The cross of Jesus aligned on the Jewish calendar with the Passover feast. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit, in Acts chapter two, aligned on the calendar with the day of Pentecost. And so the way it worked is Jesus came to the earth, and he lived a sinless life. And then he died for our sins. He was buried. He resurrected, and Scripture tells us he spent 40 days with his disciples, further opening scriptures to them, teaching them things that they had not yet learned. On the 40th day, he calls about 500 followers together, according to our interpretation of Scripture, and he says to them, I must go away. I am going to the right hand of the Father. I'm going to extend a sin to the throne room of heaven. But I want you guys to go, and I want you to tarry, and I want you to wait in an upper room in Jerusalem. And at an appointed time, the promise of the Father, the gift of the Holy Spirit is going to be poured out on the earth, but you've got to be in that room. And you gotta be waiting when it happens. As we understand what seems to have happened, about 380 people drifted away. They waited for 10 days. On the 10th day while they're praying, while they're handling regular church business, the Bible says 120 of them are in this upper room and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. There that word is again. And the Bible says it filled the whole house, and cloven tongues of fire sat down upon each one of them individually. And the Bible says they begin to speak in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them the utterance. Well, this is happening at this Feast of Pentecost. And what that means is people have come in from the north, the south, the east, and the west, there is an international gathering happening in Jerusalem. So while these people are in the upper room, and they begin to speak in these languages that they would have never been able to speak in if the Holy Spirit wasn't helping them, these people outside they begin to hear it. And they don't know how these people know their language. But what they are hearing is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and preached to them in their native tongue, and their minds were blown. That's the day of Pentecost. That's how it went down. That's how it transpired. But the Bible gives us a picture of it. And what it tells us is in Acts chapter two, verse number 13, when all this rowdiness first got started. I mean, the Holy Spirit came in the room like a mighty wind. If a mighty wind comes in, stuffs gonna move around. And stuff started getting moved around, stuff in that room started getting shook up. And evidently, they got a little expressive with their worship, to the point that people who were looking in and seeing this ask this question, according to verse 13, it says, “are those people drunk?” They look crazy. They look like they've lost their minds. Are they drinking new wine and they're over here speaking in these languages that they would never have known how to speak? What is going on? They're mocking it. They're ridiculing it. But in verse 37, the Bible tells us that Simon Peter got up, went to a balcony and began to preach the Gospel using the Old Testament. The Old Testament Word of God, and he began to quote the Prophet Joel out of chapter two. And he said, if you're wondering what's going on inside this room, this is that. That God would pour out his Spirit on all his sons and daughters, and his old men would dream dreams, and his young men would see visions, and he's preaching the Word of God to them! And when he begins to preach the Word of God, verse 37, goes on to say that they were cut to the heart. Well, they were ridiculing it. They were mocking it, as long as they were just seeing a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. But when somebody started preaching the Word and explaining why the Holy Spirit was doing what the Holy Spirit was doing in the lives of these people, now these people stop mocking, they stop ridiculing, they are cut to their heart. They're convicted. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

One of the greatest mistakes in the last 200 years in the modern day church is that when the Spirit would begin to fill a room, and he would begin to move in the lives of spirit-filled people, it was an egotistical, arrogant approach that said, if you don't like it, get in or get out, I'm not going to take the time to explain it to you. Because the scriptural model is that even on the beginning of the Holy Spirit being poured out, there needs to be scriptural explanation for anything that's happening in that moment. I can't….See what just happened is all the rudder people clapped, and all the sail people were like...Here's the thing. I'm being humorous with you. But this is what happened. They're mocking it. They're ridiculing it. And then somebody started giving them Scripture, and they're not mocking it and ridiculing it anymore. Now they're cut to their heart. And here's what happens. This is why we chose the anchor text that we chose this morning. Because then what they did is they began to ask a question, they looked at Peter, they looked at his fellow apostles, and they said, “What do we got to do to experience God this way, as well?” Wow. Isn't that the question that we all long to hear from unbelievers? Isn’t that the question

you want to hear from your child? Dad, what do I have to do to experience God the way you do?

Isn't that what you want to hear at your workplace? When you walk in and God just sorts through all the business. Somebody who's been observing you and being impacted by your influence, and you weren't even aware of it, perhaps finally looks at you and says, what do I have to do to experience God the way you do? Isn't that what we long for as a church when it comes to the community? Even if somebody has mocked you or ridiculed you for your faith that at some point they would be so impacted that they would say, “what do I have to do?” “What do I have to do to experience God like you?” You do realize that there's another element to this. They started with ridicule, they heard the Word, they were cut to the heart. They said what do we have to do to experience it? And then verse 43 says, “The fear of the Lord fell on everybody.”

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

In case you haven't been noticing lately, the world has lost its mind. Do you know why the world has lost its mind? Because the Bible says in Proverbs 9:10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom and all knowledge. I don't care how many degrees you have, or how much life experience you have, if you do not start with reverential awe for God, you do not possess wisdom and you do not possess knowledge. That's the Word of God. And so what the world is missing is the fear of the Lord reverential awe for God. But the reason the world has no concept of it is because the church has settled for a silent divorce. And as a result of divorcing Word from Spirit sail from rudder, we have disconnected ourselves from the ultimate move of God in our midst, which would bring reverential awe. Because that is exactly what happened in Scripture. There was no manifestation of the fear of the Lord, reverential awe, until the Word and the Spirit, the sails and the rudder, both went to work in the same atmosphere. And I'm telling you right now, if God can find some people who will be the sails and the rudder, if he can find some people who will say God, let the Word and the Spirit become one in this place in my life, in my influence, in my family, I believe we will begin to see a revolution, a revival of reverential awe for God. It is prophesied. Habakkuk chapter two says that before the end will come, that God will bring the knowledge of his glory to the whole earth. It literally means God will bring the fear of the Lord to the whole earth. Anybody want to be a part of reverential awe being made manifest in your community and beyond? Wouldn't you just love to see entire nations have reverential awe for God? 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

The Bible tells us, Genesis 35:5, that Jacob came back to Bethel, got right with God.

And then it says, a terror, a fear of the Lord, fell on every city that surrounded him. One man got right with God, and the fear of the Lord fell on entire cities. The Bible tells us in 2 Chronicles 17:10, there's a man by the name of King Jehoshaphat. He and his priest got right with God. The fear of the Lord settled, and Scripture says that all of the kingdoms and the land surrounding his entire region were impacted by the fear of the Lord. And here we are, on the day of Pentecost, looking at Acts chapter two, and I've already pointed out to you that all of these nations, there was an international assembly around that upper room, and when the Word and the Spirit, when the Church got right. You do understand that when Scripture says rightly divide the Word of God, it doesn't mean stop at the Old Testament, start at the New Testament.

There's a whole sermon series you can preach on what it means to rightly divide Word and Spirit. When the Church got right, the fear of the Lord fell, and nations were impacted because of it. Anybody want a piece of that action? Come on, give God. What came on the other side,

of Word and Spirit becoming one. What came on the other side

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

They are going to play some music softly, and as they do so, these people, they simply said,

“what do I got to do?” What do I got to do to experience God like you? What do I have to do? I want to experience God like that. Only once Word and Spirit were one. I think that there's people in your life that are disconnected from God that are waiting for a Word and Spirit moment that you may get to be a part of orchestrating in their life. Here's the great thing, if you ever hear that question, you've already got the answer. The answer to “what do I got to do?” Because Simon Peter presented it that day for you and I to utilize in our own moments when we're answering the question. It’s Acts 2:37, “what shall we do? And then Peter said to them, Repent.

And let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.

And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For this promise is to you, and your children, and to all who are afar off, all the Lord God will call.” You want to experience God? It starts with repentance. And if that's an initial work of repentance where you're having that first moment of Jesus, I need to be forgiven of my sins, I want to be born again, I want old things to pass away, I want everything to become new. then the next step for you, according to this passage, is to go public with your faith through baptism. That that is actually a part of your repentance of saying, hey, God, I want to let the whole world know I ain’t who I used to be. But what Scripture goes on to say is that you not only repent, you receive. And you can receive it the moment you start repenting, receive the remission of your sins. All the record books get blotted out, all the mistakes, all the failures. Old things pass away. The whole record book is new.

Scripture even says, this is such a big deal as you become born again, new creature, heaven gives you a new name that he writes in that book, that records your place in heaven. But that's not all you can receive, but that's where a lot of people stop. Like, awe, thank God, I'm going to heaven. Thank God, my sins are taken care of. But Peter went on to say, you need to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so if you're saved, the Holy Spirit's already working in your life, in

many ways, probably even leading you. But there's this opportunity to not just have God for you, and have God with you, but to have God in you. And God wants to be in you. He wants you to lift your hands and surrender your life as sails under the Holy Spirit and say, God, do it in me. Go to work in me. God fill me with your Holy Spirit. I don't want to go through life powerless. I don't want to go through life weak, I don't want to go through life, all beaten up by the stuff the storms of this world. God, I want to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And then it talks about that you need to realize this is not just for you, it's for your kids.

Think about that for a minute. Isn't that an incredible promise? That God’s saying he's not just going to do this for you, but he wants to do it for your kids. If you got kids, you ought to say amen. He wants to do it for your kids. But if you keep just on this pattern and taking life this direction, and you never have that moment where you receive that gift, you're holding off your entire family from seeing you wet their appetite with the question “what do I gotta do to experience God like you?” Says to me this, you repent, you receive, and then you just reach out. It’s the number one reason the Holy Spirit came was to make you a witness for Jesus, and who greater than your kids, and ultimately the uttermost parts of the earth which the Scripture went on to say in Acts chapter two. So I want every head bowed, every closed. I want you to take a minute, I want you to get real with God. Like do you need to repent today for the very first time? Like do you need a I got to get saved kind of moment? Like old things that's been ruling your life and has led you up to this moment of like, God, I feel an unction of the Holy Spirit, led by the Holy Spirit, convicted by the Holy Spirit. I need to repent Jesus. If so, just begin to confess your sins to the Lord. Don't hold back in that confession. Here's the way it's gonna go. As a part of your repentance, ask Jesus to forgive you. Believe that he is willing to forgive you.

Confess all those sins you've been harboring and then declare to anybody and everybody the decision that you've made in the experience with salvation that you've had. It can be your moment with God today. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

If you're already saved, you would already say hey, I follow Jesus, that's awesome.

Have you ever just lifted your sails and said, God fill me? You can't do this by might nor by power. Some things only come by His Spirit. Lift your sails today. Might even be so far as for you to lift your hands before God and just say God, I receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus talked about the gift of the Holy Spirit. He said it would be like a baptism of fire. Well, the Bible says God is a consuming fire. What he was probably saying is that the presence of God is going to get on you and in you, with a new fire to live for God, to witness for God.