Bobby Schuller - The Tower of Babel And The Upper Room
Would you stand with me? We're gonna say this creed together as we do every week. Hold your hands out like this as a way of receiving from the Lord. Let's say this together. I'm not what I do. I'm not what I have. I'm not what people say about me. I am the beloved of God. It's who I am. No one can take it from me. I don't have to worry. I don't have to hurry. I can trust my friend Jesus and share his love with my neighbor. Thank you so much, you can have a seat.
Our world today is obviously, and especially in the United States, there is an inner desperation that people have. Many people are looking for ways to quench this inner thirst, to satiate this inner desire that all of us were born with. Within every man and woman, and I think even the older we get, the deeper an inner chasm is that can only be filled with God's Holy Spirit. But so many in the age that we're in look to everything else and oftentimes fall into some kind of sense of, like, nihilism, nothing matters. Or people chronically need, like, a movement, so weirdly people will try and ascribe to politics or something even good the ability to fill them, and then it doesn't.
People here in Irvine, which is an amazing city, have amazing careers and achievements, and so often come home every night thinking about quitting their jobs because even though they reached the pinnacle of success, something is wrong. This is not a modern question, and it doesn't have a modern answer. This is an ancient problem with an ancient answer. It's been written of and written about for a long time, but famously many have answered this, but I like Pascal's answer.
And you've probably heard, Blaise Pascal was a famous mathematician. If you study science at all, you probably studied some of his equations and things. But in theology he was important too, because he wrote this work called the Pensées, a theological work, and in it he's famously quoted as saying that "Inside every person there is a God shaped vacuum, or there is a God shaped hole". A vacuum means it has to be filled, and it has this sucking sound, you know, that inside of you there is this need, this longing, that is drawing whatever it can to itself, and it needs to be filled with something, but it's God shaped.
So that it does get filled with other things, but if that thing is not God, it corrupts. So, when we fill that hole with anything that's not God, even if it is really good, eventually can harm us and harm others, it's God shaped. But when we fill that hole, then everything else is blessed. So, Pascal said that, I know you've heard it before, but it's worth repeating, because it's easy to forget. When you're on the path to a successful career or when you're compulsively always reaching for your phone or the television or food or substance or you think a romantic relationship will fill that hole, it won't. There is one person and one person alone who can fill that void, and it's the Lord.
Saint Augustine said something similar. Saint Augustine of Hippo is one of the most famous and probably most important theologian in Christianity other than the Apostle Paul. Yeah, Saint Augustin was from Africa, he was a black guy, actually, and he famously said, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in him". Now, it's interesting that these famous quotes that answer this age old question, even though these characters are 2,000 years apart, that they have a very similar story. Both Blaise Pascal and Saint Augustine came to the Lord through reason. You know, through a mental exercise.
Blaise Pascal's reasoning is famously called the Pascal's Wager. I actually get bad reasoning, it's bad logic, but God can use bad logic or whatever. It worked, whatever. He basically said, Pascal, that the risk is in not believing in God, because if you believe in God and you're wrong, nothing happens to you, but if you don't believe in God and you're wrong, then something bad happens to you. This is kind of the way he thought about it, "I'd rather go".
And for both of them, the beginning of their conversion journey, for both Saint Augustine and Pascal, was that they came to God through thinking, and it wasn't enough. Both of them had this sort of what they called, I think it was Augustine called it a second conversion, conversion in the heart, where not all the thinking of the world wouldn't solve the problem. It wasn't until they were in real communion, or today we say a real relationship, with God.
Last week we talked about this, that so many believers, we eat constantly of the tree of knowledge, but never from the tree of life. And it's waiting there, blossoming in all of its glory, that the feast of heaven is laid before us, and we as starving people wonder, Lord, when will you bring the food? But there it is, laid before you with an open chair. Streams of living water to quench your thirst, and yet we look to so many other things. My friend, you don't have to wait any longer. Today you can eat of the tree of life, you can be in the Spirit, you can be full of God's power and full of God's life.
I always wondered why in the Resurrection story when doubting Thomas finally sees Jesus and he says, "My Lord and my God," why does Jesus say, "Blessed are those who believe without seeing"? That doesn't make a lot of sense. By the way, I like Thomas. I don't like that he gets called Doubting Thomas. He was just the wrong place at the wrong time. All the other guys believed because they saw it, too, you know? Thomas just happened to be out doing something important, I'm sure. In fact, when Jesus says, I'm going to go to Jerusalem, all of the Apostles say, "No, Lord, don't go there, they'll kill you". Thomas says, "Let us go with him and die with him".
So, you got this big courageous heart. But when Thomas finally sees and believes, Jesus said, "Blessed are those who believe without seeing". What is that all about? Can I tell you I know from personal experience exactly what he means? I have believed by seeing before. I've told you our experience that we've had on missionary trips, things we've seen in this church, utter miracles. Even myself, I was kinda healed, not kind of, I was actually healed in my left ear of near deafness overnight. It was a strange thing. My mother-in-law prayed for me. And yet there's something about relying on miracles to believe in God, that over time you think, well, was that really enough? Did that really happen? Was it really like that? How did that really go?
And it's weird how memories over years, they sort of change, and you wonder. You can't, if you know God personally, if you walk with him every morning and every night, if you talk to him every day and you hear his voice, you don't need any miracles. That's why it's a broken and adulterous, a corrupt generation that asked for a sign. That's a people that doesn't know God. They don't know God, so they got to see a sign. But if you claim to know the Lord and ask for a sign, how can you know the Lord? If I'm sitting across from the table with my wife and I say, "Are you really my wife"? She would say, "You are a broken and adulterous husband," wouldn't she? "I'm right here having dinner with you".
So, the Lord, when we're in deep relationship with him, we don't even want to, we don't ask for miracles. Miracles are there to help people because they're sick. God is just bringing his kingdom as he promised he would, healing the sick, raising the dead, bringing life to new bones, turning people to repentance, and we don't need it as a sign. We know it as God's good healing work, just what it is, plain as day. And so, today I want to say, let us have life in the spirit. Let us drink from the rivers of living water.
Let us stop wondering what is the next thing that will make me feel happy, and know that there's only one thing that no matter what's happening in my life will bring me joy and put a smile on my face when things are not goin' always so well, and that is the Lord God Almighty living in my bones, breathing in my lungs, working in my hands and feet, seeing through my eyes, and maybe most importantly speaking through my mouth. Let us run to the Lord. If you're thirsty, there is only one place to find a drink from which you will never thirst again.
Maybe you say, "Bobby, tell us, where can we get this drink"? No, it's not at the bar down the street. It's from the river of living water which is being poured out on this building, on your house, right now to those who would believe and drink freely. You are God's temple, and let us never have contempt for that. That you were made, made as a thing that holds the life of God, the very life of God. And if that life, if you are made into a temple and the Spirit has left the house, you're no longer a temple, you're a tomb.
So, may we open up our lives and our bodies to the Holy Spirit of God that people would see and feel Jesus Christ wherever we are. That's you, that's what you're missing if you're missing anything. That's where the joy and the life and the passion comes from, it comes from the Holy Spirit. Well, Pentecost, we're studying from multiple scriptures today, but especially Acts chapter 2, which is the story of Pentecost. Pentecost is not a Christian holiday, it's a Jewish holiday. Pentecost is the Greek way of saying 50, and the reason that holiday was called Pentecost to the Greek Jews is because Shavuot, which is the Hebrew holiday for Pentecost, is the feast of weeks, or it's 50 days after Passover.
This is traditionally the date in which the first ripe grain of harvest for wheat is celebrated in the Hebrew year. They still celebrate Shavuot today, but it also celebrates, traditionally, the giving of the Torah. So, that God gave, traditionally they believe, the Torah to Moses on also the day that God gave the first grain of wheat. So, that the idea was that the Word of God was like bread to the soul. And in fact, it's in the Torah that it was originally said, "Man cannot live on bread alone". It was spoken by God when the law was given to Moses. "Man cannot live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God".
That's interesting, we'll come back to that. But Shavuot or Pentecost celebrates the giving of the Torah, and most importantly the first wheat. Now, I believe, I have to look this up, but I believe Pentecost or Shavuot is the only Jewish holiday that falls on a Sunday instead of Sabbath. And you'll see that it's a temple celebration in Jesus's day, and you would've had hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Jews coming from all over the world to come to the temple to celebrate Shavuot, which began at 9 a.m. And I just want to pause here for a minute, trying to get your mind into the body of a 1st century Jew. This temple in their view and in truth was an amazing place. They never called it the temple, they called it the house.
Everybody say, the house. The word in Hebrew was bayit, the bayit, the house of the Lord. And it was here in that little room in the middle that you could say to your kids if you're in a pickle, let's go see God. We know where he is. He's in Jerusalem, in his house, the temple. He's there, he's there in the Holy of Holies behind those beautiful doors, and he's there. And if maybe we yell loud enough, he'll hear us. And we can go there. And so, the idea was that God's literally there, like, he's there. Like, it's just like hey, let's go to heaven and talk to God real quick and come back. It was very similar for them, and it's where many miracles happened.
And to think that anytime you're in a pickle, you can say, let's go to the temple. I need atonement for my sin. I need help with my problem. I need to give to someone in need. Or I need hope or encouragement or prayer, let's go to God's house and gather there. So, quite literally God in the Jewish mind has an address, 777 Jerusalem Way. Well, you know, that's where you go, and you will find God. And it is there, by the way, that the Christian holiday of Pentecost happened. Now, if you grew up in church, you might have a little ping, like, a little, "Wait, hold on Pastor Bobby, I don't think that's it. Wasn't it the Upper Room"?
So, if you don't know we're talking about, Pentecost is a Christian celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit through the miracle of speaking in tongues, and it's traditionally taught that that gift was given in what people called the Upper Room, which is mentioned in the first chapter of Acts where the disciples gathered. This is where they picked Judas Iscariot's replacement, and a lot of times people believe that it happened there, but it didn't. It actually happens in the temple, you can see it just plainly in scripture, but scholarship supports this. Some things you can look at is the beginning of chapter 2, it says, "And the house," or sometimes it says, "And the whole house". Well, what does that mean?
Now, to us, we read the house, the Upper Room, but for Jews the house is the temple. They would have, with somebody else's house, they probably would have said whose house it was. But they say the house. It says, "And the crowd". There was this crowd that forms around them. Well, how is a giant crowd of thousands of people gonna form around, you know, John's basement or attic or whatever is where they were supposedly meeting? That wouldn't work. And actually at the end of Acts chapter 2 it says, "Every day they continued to meet in the temple courts," which is a hyperlink saying that this whole time it's been in the temple courts.
So, I don't know if you really care, it's maybe not that important to most people. It's important to me though, because when you think about Pentecost happening actually in the temple rather than happening in an upper room, and it says that the whole house was full of the Spirit, it gives a little more life and meaning to the story. First of all, it makes sense that the disciples were at the temple on Shavuot, because Shavuot is a holiday that happens at the temple. That's where all good Jews would go. And they still, you'll see through the beginning of Acts, they continued to meet at the temple over and over. And there is the scripture, listen to this, there are four scriptures.
So, imagine the temple full of people, the Bible says, at 9 a.m. Now, there's a reason they tell you 9 a.m. 9 a.m. is when the scripture reading happens in the temple for Shavuot. And 9 a.m. you would have a priest who would get up, and he would read four scriptures. One of the scriptures that he would read is from the chapter of Ezekiel. Can I read it to you? Okay, this is just at 9 a.m. in the temple. He would read from Ezekiel, from the Old Testament. "I looked, and lo, a stormy wind came sweeping out of the sky. A huge cloud and a flashing fire filled the courts. And then the Spirit carried me away, and behind me I heard the roaring sound of a mighty wind, and the Spirit seized me, and there was fire that filled the courts".
Now, I just like to pause for a moment and say that was absolutely being read at 9 a.m. in the temple courts, and at that moment, I hope, I hope it's on that scripture, seems like it'd have to be, the Holy Spirit in reality fills the temple, not where the Holy of Holy is, but where those disciples are somewhere else in the temple courts, fills them with power and fire, and they began to speak in these languages of all of the pilgrims that are visiting the temple for this high holiday.
Visitors from Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, or, you know, the north in Asia Minor somewhere, and they've all come here, and they're hearing the gospel being preached in this language from the tiny little village that they're from that there's only, like, 300 people that know that language. It's an amazing story, and it's God's fulfillment of his promise. And on the day that's normally celebrated of the giving of the law becomes for believers the day of the giving of the Spirit.
Now, here's another hyperlink on this day. In the very bizarre and hard to read modernize of the Torah, when God gives the law to Moses on Mount Sinai, do you remember what the people do because he's taking too long? They create for themselves a golden calf, and they begin to worship it, and they say, "This is the God Baal who brought us out of Egypt, not Yahweh". And when Moses comes down, he draws a line in the sand and says, "Are you with me, or are you with Baal"? And all of those who said, "We're with Baal," Moses tells the Levites, "Put your swords on and go and kill them".
And on that day, do you remember how many people died? Any Bible nerds here? The number was 3,000, 3,000, okay, were killed. On Pentecost, on Shavuot, which celebrates that same day of the giving of the law to people, God gives his Spirit, and this great miracle happens, and on the day of harvest thousands of people come to rely on Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Do you remember how many people were given life on that day, how many came to faith? Any Bible nerds, anybody wanna give a shot at this? Three thousand. The law gives death and judgment, the Spirit brings life, life. And what God did on that day was fill the intent of the law in the life of the Spirit by transforming the person in the will. They don't need the law anymore. They just simply love what is good and hate what is evil. They simply became like Jesus through his cross, resurrection, and filling of his Spirit.
And, finally, the last cool hyperlink of the story, this is also a link to Babel, the tower of Babel, when God wanted to do a sorta reroll because creation became so evil. After the flood Noah's children and posterity generations, they become another, like, evil people, and they begin to build for themselves in Babylon a tower, and it says that in the land they all spoke one language, and because they all had one language, they could mobilize in such a great way, people have been so obsessed with the story, there's so many other fun things to talk about in the story, but the most amazing thing that's said in the scriptures about this, you know, ancient story is God says, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them".
Jesus repeats this phrase, you remember? "Nothing will be impossible for those who believe". It's the same phrase, and in the giving of the language, God inverts the story. Instead of breaking them all up into different languages and splitting 'em up, he brings them together under the language of heaven. It's a sign that now because they're full of God's Spirit that nothing will be impossible for them. Nothing's impossible for you if you're full of the Spirit of God. Nothing is impossible for those who believe and trust in the Lord Jesus. And on that day when the Holy Spirit filled those believers, that temple found a new address. No longer 777 Jerusalem Way, it's you.
In the same way that a Jewish family would have looked at the temple and said, "Wow, God lives there," I can look at you and say, "Wow, God lives there. He's right there in that person who believes in Christ crucified and raised from the dead". When you were baptized and trusted your life to Christ, you made a covenant that he would live in you forever. But you also in a way ascribed yourself to understanding that if the Spirit leaves this place, it's not good. When a temple loses the Spirit, it no longer remains a temple anymore. It becomes a tomb, a sarcophagus, a mausoleum, a crypt. It's a beautiful building, on the outside it looks great, but on the inside it's dead and cold. "Maybe you say, I'm a Christian, I look good on the outside, feel dead on the inside".
My friend, eat of the tree of life. It's in season. Here in California when strawberries are in season, you buy strawberries. They're amazing, and they're cheap. Tree of life is free to anyone who would eat from it. You're not gonna find anything else. If you're a temple, you need the Spirit, you need the Spirit inside of you. So, come boldly before the throne of God. And if you haven't become a Christian, repent, make a decision today. Why wouldn't you? Make a decision to commit your life to God today, you'll never be the same. I had a friend once that said, "What does it mean to live in the Spirit, to have the Spirit"?
Well, so much of it, you know, if you feel empty and we feel exhausted, I understand, life is hard. We go through disappointments and challenges and betrayals and hard luck, health problems, money problems, things we didn't plan on, things there's no way we could have been prepared for. You get enough of this in your life, you tend to feel a little tired sometimes. Some of you even have children. That's also hard. And in life, you don't always feel the Spirit on the inside. And God's not about feelings, but sometimes you really would like a nice feeling, you know? Can I just tell you, the Lord gave me this revelation, I was talking to my friend who asked this question.
When you're baptized, it's sorta like God puts a pilot light inside of you. You know what a pilot light is, it's in your fireplace or some of you have it in your stove, it's a little blue, almost invisible light. You almost need a light to see the light, you almost need a flashlight to find it. It's a little blue flame that never goes out, hopefully. It's not supposed to, anyway, just in this analogy it doesn't, okay? Never goes out, it's always there, doesn't give any light hardly at all, doesn't give any heat at all, but it's always there, all it's waiting for is for you to just turn the gas on. The flame's there, you gotta turn the gas on. You don't have the pilot light, you turn the gas on, nothing will happen.
Doesn't matter how much gas you have. That little pilot light, you just turn the gas on, you just eat from the tree, you just drink from the river, it's like makin' a glass of chocolate milk. You ever make some chocolate milk? Make a little chocolate milk, and all of a sudden you realize I forgot to bring the trash cans out, and the trash truck is coming down the street, and you take your glass of milk, put it in the fridge, 'cause you want it to stay cold, and you bring your trash cans out.
This is a real story, actually, and you put the trash cans out, you get busy doing something else, and then you come back, and you open the fridge looking for something to eat, and you're like, oh, the glass of milk, what happens to it? Chocolate on the bottom, milk on the top. Ain't no problem, that's no problem. What do you gotta do? Just stir it up, baby, just stir it up. Stir up your faith, stir it up. See hunger, the hunger, the insatiability you feel in life as a good thing. It's a thing drawing you to God. You might think it's a thing wanting you to turn to all that other compulsive behavior that's messing up your life, going back to that relationship that messed you up or going back to that job that you hate, you know you're not supposed to be at, or whatever substance or entertainment or whatever it is, and you just feel it drawing you back, that is a hunger for God.
I've learned to become a person that likes being hungry, actually. It's a weird thing, I was talking to someone else about this once, but somebody asked me about discipline, and I think I've become a person that has been a gift for me that I don't like being neutral. I like either being hungry or full. I had this experience, I realized this when I was in college, I think, because, let's face it, we all like hot tubs. We may not agree on theology, but this is the one thing that the whole church can come together on, a hot tub or a nice bath.
And I remember once I was in the snow all day doing random things, and you come home, and it just doesn't matter, you just feel cold to the bones. There's very few feelings in this world that feel better than being in the snow all day and then getting in a hot tub. Can we all say that hot tubs feel better when you're cold? Food tastes better when you're hungry. Sleep feels better when you're tired. Vacation feels better when you're workin' hard. The hunger you feel in life is a hunger that's drawing you to something better, so eat of the tree of life or just stay hungry. But eat of the Lord, and learn to know that the hunger that God has put in you is drawing you to something better.
And finally remember that of all things you are symbolically and literally a temple, the Holy Spirit's house. You're the house, you're the house. The Holy Spirit lives in you. And I have seen in disciples, especially older Christians, that something happens when an older person especially abides in the Spirit long enough that it's just plain as day that the life of God is in and all around them. And they quite naturally draw people to them. There's many people in the church that are that way. Maybe you're thinking of someone that's that way right now, maybe you're that person.
And I wanna encourage you that part of the reward of abiding in the Spirit and never leaving the Lord's side and understanding that hunger is a drawing to the the meal of the Lord, to the tree of life, to the river of life, is that someday there will be people that don't know the Lord or that they'll see you the same way a 1st century Jew would've seen a temple in Jerusalem. When they're going through a hard time and they need hope, when they need love or they need encouragement, they'll say, "There's a place I can go. There is a place I can go where I can find God". And you know what they're gonna think of? They're gonna think of you. So, let us all pray that the fulfillment of God's promise that we would be a temple of the Holy Spirit would be made true in you. Lord knows our hurting world needs someone like you full of the Spirit, and you are.
So, Father, we ask you in the name of Jesus to fill us with your Spirit which provides an abundance to those around it, common grace of love and joy and peace and patience and all sorts of good things that are made available to a hurting, hungry, and thirsty world. With all that's going on in this world, Father, we know that you've got the whole world in your hands. We don't have to worry today. Lord, help us to love our neighbor, that's all you ask of us, and to love you with all our heart and all of our soul and all our strength. And we ask this in the strong name of Jesus, amen.
Way to go. You went to church today. You know, you are the church all the time, but you gathered with God's people. Most people today just rolled over and went back to sleep, had a bowl of cereal, watched TV, and today will be like every other random day off, and it'll just blend into nothing. You made a point today to put God first, and maybe you don't always feel like it, but you came, and I just wanna say way to go, proud of you. You put God first today, I think your week's gonna go better.
And now the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift his countenance upon you and give you his peace. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.