Unity over Uniformity
read time: 11 min, 07 secs
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”
Acts 2:1-13 NIV
I’m enamored by the story of Pentecost. Jesus promised them that they’d be a part of something miraculous if they just waited on Him. So the followers of Jesus are said to have been constantly committed to prayer. And I want to remind you that if you want the power Jesus promised, you must be committed to prayer too. Prayer was and always will be the prerequisite to a powerful Pentecost in your life, school, church, or world.
God has promised more than we can imagine in and through our lives, but prayer is what provides the platform for the impossible. Keep praying in preparation for what God is planning. Keep praying in preparation for what God is planting. The promise is sure. The prophecies are real. But prayer needs to be your primary preparation.
You may not know when it will happen, but suddenly, things will shift.
The Bible says they're all meeting together and, boom, it happens. The sound of a roaring, rushing, booming wind blows through the entire house. No inch is left out. No one misses it. Everyone is filled.
This section of the story can teach us a lot about what to expect when God shows up. We see that God's promise for power is sure. We recognize that a priority of prayer is the prerequisite. But I want you to notice something that may be more jarring.
The Divine is Often Disruptive
The story of Joshua and Jericho reminds us that victory is often accompanied by a shout. God showing up won't always be cute and quiet. Sometimes, Jesus coming to rescue you will look like a ghost walking towards you in the storm. Sometimes deliverance is disruptive. It’ll be an earthquake in a jail or plagues before an exodus. God's appearance won’t always look gentle.
The adjective used to describe this move of God is mighty, forceful, or violent. The disciples are minding their business in a prayer meeting when a violent wind shakes every inch of the house. Have you ever been outside during a tornado warning? Imagine that. Maybe you’ve talked to people who live on the banks of Lake Erie or know from experience that the weather team isn’t lying when they say to expect 60+ MPH winds. Y’all, I recently got a rental car, and they kindly upgraded me to a convertible. I thought it would be a good idea to speed down the highway with no roof or windows, and that experience of barely being able to hear, speak, or breathe let me know what a violent wind suddenly shaking my house would freak me out. Match this with the fact that the Bible says they saw what appeared to be tongues of fire landing on and spreading to each of them. Talk about scary.
Now, they had planned a prayer meeting, but God was planning Pentecost. Sometimes when God shows up, it won’t just throw out your expectations; it will force you to find comfort in the uncomfortable. The issue with many of us is that we’d try to reschedule or turn the volume down on Pentecost. It would be too loud and inconvenient for us to stomach. Many of us quench the Spirit we’ve been praying for because when He shows up, it feels too spontaneous. It wasn’t what we were expecting. We can’t box it in. But Jesus promises to come back with a shout. Holy can’t be held back. Our Lord cannot be put on a leash. Our King cannot be quieted. And that’s a good thing because the walls He tears down with a shout are a setup to our victory.
Attention Grabbing
Now the joke is that if there is a gunshot or a big noise, all the black people will run away without asking any questions, while others may stay by to investigate. But this moment is so miraculous that even the Egyptians, Libyans, and Cyrenaicans stay back to investigate! This move of God is so big and attention-grabbing that crowds in the city begin to come towards it. Do you see the setup here? I don’t think 3,000 people would’ve heard the message if God didn’t do something big to get their attention. Sometimes God has to literally rock your world to get your attention. Sometimes the biggest distractions, obstacles, and problems are really God trying to get your attention and the attention of the people around you. Maybe the next time God disrupts your prayer meeting to bring about Pentecost, you shouldn’t stop Him.
For the People
As the curious crowds converge, they hear something insane. Remember, people from various nations and countries had come to celebrate this festival together. God arranged for all these people not just to be in the same area, but for their attention to be drawn to the same place. Now He enables the disciples to speak of the goodness of God in over a dozen different languages to reach this audience. It’s the same message, but it is molded to meet its intended audience in a way that connects with them most. Same message but different messaging. Same location but different languages. The same message is being transported through the vehicle that works best for the hearer.
Notice, Pentecost shows us that God wants to use His messengers to translate His message into something that connects best to the people He is trying to meet. It’s so easy for us to want people to come to us and do what’s easy for us to receive Jesus, but God is showing an opposite paradigm. He wants us to take on greater responsibility. He wants to use us to go to them and be stretched as far as we can in order to connect to them in a way that works for them. We have to stop forcing people to learn our language before we give them Jesus and instead allow God to show us theirs. The good news is that as you seek to share the message, the Spirit will supernaturally support. But we have to go with the desire to speak the language of the person we are trying to bring the peace, purpose, or prosperity of God to.
Look what Paul says, “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings (1 Corinthians 9:19-23 NIV).”
Paul was so committed to preaching the gospel and making disciples that he would sacrifice his preferences for it. He’d act like a Jew in order to reach Jews. He’d act like a Greek in order to reach the Greeks. He wasn’t selfish or one-dimensional. He would walk their walk, talk their talk, and speak their language.
Paul was submitted. Submission is to recognize that your preferences and desires are subordinate to the mission. That means he may not have played his favorite music to reach someone who liked different music. He may not have served his favorite food to reach someone who liked a different food. He was committed and submitted enough to the mission to give whatever was necessary to help people experience what He had in Christ.
This isn’t to say he changed his values and principles. There’s no way you can say Paul didn’t stand on his convictions about Christ, but he was clear enough to know what was nonnegotiable and what was just preference and culture as he shifted his methods to preach the same message. Can we do the same?
Same Lord, Different Language
The disciples preached the message in a method that worked for their audience, and were called to the same thing. They were unified in message but not in unison regarding method. What’s the difference?
In music, there’s a difference between unison and harmony. Unison is when two or more people or instruments sing or play the same pitch at the same time. But harmony is when multiple pitches are intentionally played or sung by multiple people or instruments at the same time to produce a richer, complementary, layered sound. A good unison is good. But a good harmony is great.
The disciples were unified in their message, meaning they had the same message and mission, but they were in harmony regarding their method. They all said the same thing in slightly different ways to combine for a richer, clearer, more layered presentation of the gospel.
Many of us fall into the trap of thinking the method is sacred. We seek to teach Africans how to worship God like Europeans because we think the method is sacred, instead of teaching Africans and Europeans, through their different languages and cultures, to worship God because the message is sacred. People don’t have to look or sound like you when they worship God. The goal isn’t to unify their method. It’s to communicate the message.
The Bible says that we all have different gifts, given by the same Spirit for the same purpose. My gift may look different than yours, but we both use ours to work together for the same goal. I want to go further and say God doesn't just give different gifts, He gives different experiences, families of origin, skills, cultures, professions, platforms, and perspectives for the purpose of giving the body everything it needs to go about the work He has called us to.
We’re a body, and each part is unique and necessary. If we cut off everyone who doesn’t look, act, or sound like us, we cut off the body's ability to reach those we can’t reach and do what we can’t do. Old people, the young people may be flighty, but without them, we can’t speak every language. Young people, the old people may lack openness, but without them, we can’t speak every language. We need each other!
People Won’t Get It
If we can actually prioritize prayer, submit to the mission, and listen to, learn from, and love people enough to learn their language and spread this message of hope, God is doing something amazing like He did on Pentecost. But the text says that while most were amazed, some made fun of the disciples and accused them of being drunk. They didn’t understand using different methods to communicate the same message. They belittled the movement they didn’t understand and scorned what they were afraid of. I want to warn you because the same should be expected when you allow God to use you. It’s to be expected that a rushing, roaring, unstoppable, multigenerational, multilingual, and multiplying movement will frustrate those who don’t wanna get on the train. Following God instantly puts you on the scouting report for the devil's defense.
Jesus said that if you follow Him, they’ll hate you as they hated Him. But that means that ridicule says you’re on the right track. Jesus said in John 16 that the reason He prophesies and tells us what to expect in the future is so that we will have peace and trust Him when it comes. Not everyone will like it when God spurs Pentecost-style moments in His church. Remember, the divine is often disruptive. People were counting on it failing. But the push back reminds you that you’re in purpose.
Here are some things to look for to know you’re on the right track:
People are scared because God is moving differently than they expected. Following God forces you to trust Him and not rely on yourself. Feeling forced into this can send people into a type of panic that pushes them to fight those who are following. Just look at the Israelites on their way out of Egypt. Following God is scary. They’re just scared.
Some are sad because God doing something new pushes them to grieve the old. The Bible says that when the foundations of the new temple were laid, crying and cheering mingled together into one noise. Some were excited for what God was doing, while others mourned what He had done before. Have sympathy.
Some are losing control. The Pharisees were one of Jesus’ biggest opposers because they profited from what He was saying was free. The Sadducees built a religion based on the belief that there was no resurrection. Belief in Jesus took away all their power. Some are against what God is doing because it frees people from the oppression they’ve benefited from. It breaks up their monopoly. It takes away their control.
And some feel convicted. I’ve noticed that some of the biggest opposition when doing something for God comes from those who’re also supposed to be doing it. Sometimes your faith journey screams proof that what they’ve been trying to say is impossible isn’t. Your growing church will accuse the church that has convinced itself that stagnation is spiritual. Your thriving marriage will anger those who gave up. Your worship will prove that their idols have no power. It’ll prove that the God they’ve abandoned is the only way. Boldly walking in the promises of God forces people to see what they’ve been ignoring or hiding from. Sometimes Pentecost simply proves it’s possible, and that reality angers those who are holding on to unbelief.
Don’t let the naysayers stop you from moving forward. Moses, don’t let their complaints stop you from going to the promise. Daniel, don’t let your coworkers' jealousy stop you from prophesying. Joseph, don’t let your broken family stop you from saving the country. Your faith may scare, sadden, convict, or take away control from the very people you’re called to help save.
Prioritize prayer. Allow God to be disruptive. And submit to His mission enough to sit with people and listen to them, enough to learn their language. Learn how to communicate this message in a method that connects with the people who need it. That’s how God supernaturally spurs a multigenerational, multicultural, and multiplying movement.
Questions to Consider:
How has the divine been disruptive in your life? How did God show up in a way you didn’t expect and couldn’t ignore?
Have you become what’s needed to reach people, or been expecting them to change and come to you? What does being all things to all men mean to you?
What is a method of ministry that you appreciate that others may not? What language may not be being spoken?
Have you seen opposition when you start to follow God? How did you respond?
We have been able to reach close to 2,000 people each week with this ministry and have had dozens choose Jesus through baptism thanks to your giving. If you want to partner with what I am doing through this ministry, please donate through the donation link on this website or CashApp, $ThoughtsByPace. Your donations truly mean the world.
