Scripture: Acts 2:36-47
Introduction
- One of the things that I have had to come to grips with in this role is overwhelming feelings.
- I believe the Holy Spirit talks to me on occasion and He touched me powerfully recently.
- How many of you have seen the movie Jesus Revolution?
- Leslie and I just saw it Tuesday night and it really reached me emotionally.
- I think what really gets to me is the whole image of the Holy Spirit moving visibly.
- I get that feeling around here quite a lot – it’s really pretty exciting.
- Sometimes, I get a little carried away and get overly enthusiastic, but I’m harmless.
- If you haven’t seen the movie, I suppose I should give you the back story.
- The movie is based on a book by the same title that was written by Greg Laurie.
- Everyone knows about the hippie movement of the late 1960’s.
- Psychologist Dr Timothy Leary was pushing LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs as a way “to expand the mind.” His mantra was “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”
- The hippie movement was a counterculture who thought themselves to be “hip” or “cool” as opposed to old fashioned traditional people they called “squares.”
- Young people in the 1960’s were a product of rapid industrialization and modernization.
- Their parents had survived World War II and the Great Depression and now there was rapid growth and materialism.
- Young people were unfulfilled and rejected their parents ideals and morals.
- Churches were struggling that clinged to tradition and rejected people who were different
- This environment proved to be the perfect canvas for the Holy Spirit to drive change.
- The movie is positioned right at the intersection of unfulfilled, lost people and a powerful religious movement fueled by the Holy Spirit and they called it the Jesus Movement
- There is a timeless truth about this Jesus Movement that covers 2000 years ago, Almost 60 years ago, and TODAY:
- A lost generation
- Jesus freaks
- Revolution
1. A lost generation
- Turning back 2000, in Acts 2 we see Peter speaking at Pentecost 50 days after Easter.
- We will revisit Pentecost and the first half of this chapter in detail on May 28th.
- Peter has just told the predominantly Jewish crowd in no uncertain terms:
Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.
- This convicted the crowd in a powerful way and marked the turning point for the people.
- When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
- They now realized that they were lost!!
- Just like in the late 1960’s when the people realized that drugs and sex and rock and roll weren’t enough!!
- The Jesus Movement had people realizing they were LOST: Turning on to Jesus, tuninge in to the Holy Spirit, and dropping out of drug using.
- And fast forward to today when AGAIN people are realizing that they are lost.
- According to the Barna Group study State of the Church 2020:
In this report, we explore data collected among 96,171 surveys over more than 20 years, giving us powerful insight into the changes happening in terms of faith practice, such as church attendance, Bible-reading and prayer. What emerges is a nuanced portrait of people trying to figure out what faith means in the 21st Century and the role of Christianity in their lives.
- What they found out is several key metrics are slipping now:
Practicing Christians Now, just one in four Americans (25%) is a practicing Christian. The share of practicing Christians has nearly dropped in half since 2000. Barna definse practicing Christians as those who “agree strongly that faith is very important in their lives and have attended church within the past month.”
Attendance Especially after 2012, weekly attendance declined significantly and has been hovering around three out of 10 adults attending since then. In actual numbers, 36 percent fewer Americans attended church weekly in 2020 than in 1993. 2. Jesus freaks
Prayer From 1996 to 2010, there was no statistical difference in the percentage of Americans who prayed, with the number hovering around 83 percent. Over the last 10 years, however, there has still been a steady, if slow, decline, with just under seven in 10 Americans (69%) affirming they pray weekly.
Bible reading Nearly the same percent of U.S. adults today report reading their Bible weekly as did in 1993 (2020: 35% vs. 1993: 34%)I think one of the things about the movie that got me so excited was the similarities to today.
In Faith for Exiles, Kinnaman and his coauthor, Mark Matlock, get to know the one in 10 young Christians for whom they’ve coined the term “resilient disciples.” “From a numbers point of view,” Kinnaman says, “10 percent of young Christians amounts to just under four million 18–29-year-olds in the U.S. who follow Jesus and are resiliently faithful. In spite of the tensions they feel between church and everyday life, they keep showing up.”
- Here are some of their comments:
I want to find a way to follow Jesus that connects with the world I live in.
God is more at work outside the Church than inside, and I want to be a part of that.
I want to be a Christian without separating myself from the world around me.
Just like in 1968, the setting for the movie and the Jesus Movement, the harvest is ripe.
2. Jesus Freaks
- The Holy Spirit speaking through Peter answered the people’s question about what to do:
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.
- And how do you think the Jesus movement started – look up here at the screen.
- What you see is a picture of Chuck Smith and hippie, Lonnie Frisbee baptizing thousands at Pirate’s Cove California – Repent and be baptized – so they did!!
- 2000 years ago, those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
- com writes in 2017:
Fifty years on seems a good time to reflect on a movement which leading scholar Larry Eskridge estimates saw at least 250,000 people become Christians. The Jesus People Movement has been dubbed the last great American revival
- With many other words Peter warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”
- Again from com:
It was 1967, the year of the Summer of Love and the hippy movement was in full swing. Four years earlier, JFK had been assassinated. Protests were raging against the Vietnam War. The Beatles had just released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – the garish myriad of personalities of the album artwork a snapshot of the social upheaval of the era.
- And now here we are today, 55 years later, facing a very similar dilemma.
- Rampant corruption, runaway drug abuse, a global pandemic, high suicide rates.
- According to the CDC: Suicide is a serious public health problem.
- In 2020, suicide was among the top 9 leading causes of death for people ages 10-64.
- Suicide was the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-14 and 25-34
- We now have a new national emergency hotline number 988 and many TV advertisements about reaching out to others to check on them.
- As for me, Im proud to have become a Jesus Freak and it’s brought me to here so far.
- This song from Christian rap group DC Talk sums up how I feel about it:
What will people think when they hear that I’m a Jesus freak? What will people do when they find that it’s true? I don’t really care if they label me a Jesus freak there ain’t no disguising the truth
3. Revolution
- We see a revolution in Acts that happened 2000 years ago in the following:
- They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching
- They devoted themselves to fellowship,
- They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread
- They devoted themselves to prayer.
- Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the Apostles.
- All the believers were together and had everything in common.
- They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who 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,
- They praised God and enjoyed the favor of all the people.
- And what happened? The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
- As the movie does a nice job illustrating, history repeated itself in the 1960s.
- There was another revolution coming in the nexus of the Jesus Movement that persists to this day.
- Chuck Smith, the pivotal senior pastor from Calvary church, is no longer with us.
- But, the Calvary Church he planted in 1965 in Costa Mesa California has grown to 1800 churches in 2022. Some of these churches have 15-20,000 members
- Greg Laurie, a now popular evangelist and talk show host, remains pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship, a Calvary Chapel church, that has weekly attendance of 14,560 people and 4 campuses in different cities.
- In 1982 John Wimber, along with a Calvary Chapel minister left to affiliate with a network of churches that would become the Association of Vineyard Churches
- The Vineyard Association has 2,500 churches in 95 countries in 6 continents.
- Lonnie Frisbee was the hippie preacher that helped ignite the Jesus Movement through the Calvary Chapel and Vineyard Movement.
- The exciting and emotionally moving part of all this is: could we be a part of the next big revolution?
- I believe that this church is well positioned to thrive in such a revolution – just like Chuck Smith’s tiny church in 1967 – if it be God’s will.