The Creed - One Spirit

Good morning, everybody. How's everybody doing this morning? Good, that's good. You hear that? Yep, my voice is breaking. That's good. I am so glad. This is my second official Sunday with you guys, my first official week. Exciting, exciting, exciting. I thought I'd give a little introduction. I think I've met a good majority of you guys, and at this point, it's probably redundant because we've been up here a couple of different times, and my young ones have been crawling all over the stage, even this morning. But I'm Zach Armfield. You can call me Zach, you can call me Pastor Zach, whatever you feel most comfortable with. I'm a Greensboro native, born and raised here in Greensboro. Something to celebrate! I was homeschooled all the way from K through 12 with my two siblings. Then I went away to Iowa at 18, single, by myself, and came back with my beautiful wife 10 years later. We moved back here in 2020 with just one child then, Isabella. I've got a picture to show you guys. I'm holding Isabella; she's four. Lillian is three, and Olivia is one. Yes, I have three daughters under five. As we say down here, bless my heart. My wife and I will be celebrating our 10th year of marriage this year in August. There is so much more I could and will tell you at some point, but I'm not going to go through my whole family history or my wife and I's love story or how we ended up here at Christ Wesleyan on this Sunday morning. If we have the honor and privilege of sitting across from each other at a table, sharing a meal together, I would love for you to remind me to tell you those things. I'm sure we will because we like to eat, from what I hear. Suffice to say, after about eight or nine years of a lot of preparation, a lot of liminal space of not really knowing where we were going, a lot of direction we thought was going in one particular path, the Lord shifted. A lot of wandering in the desert motif, we have seen the Lord's clear leading to end up here in pastoral work on this team with you all this morning. While all transitions come with challenges, it could not be more clear that we're supposed to be here, and it’s not any more rewarding to be here on this Sunday morning. The Lord is truly a very kind and loving Father. But enough about me, let's talk about the Holy Spirit.

First of all, I want to pray once more. I'm going to borrow liturgy for Pentecost from a prayer book that we have at our house that's been very influential and lovingly speaking into our lives, called the Celtic Daily Prayer. Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen. We've been going through a series lately on the Nicene Creed, as you might have noticed by the imagery, the creeds, which is a doctrinal statement, if you're not familiar, that affirms many, many years of church history and unity. By design, this shared confession of truth, we are landing today on Pentecost Sunday on the subject of the Spirit. Y'all are paying attention; y'all are sharp. One Spirit. Let's reread this particular portion of the creed today. We're just going to reread the part about the Holy Spirit: “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.” Amen. What a beautiful set of lines, shorter than other parts of the creeds for sure, but no less important or valuable as a foundation for us. The Holy Spirit is a wonderful person and a foundation within our faith that sets us up for following in the way of Jesus through the authority of our Father. He takes center stage in our text this morning. We're going to spend time in Acts 2. If you have a physical Bible or a digital one, you can turn to Acts 2. I will have it on the screen, but I love my physical Bible and reading it for myself. I'll be reading out of the NIV, and we will be camped out here for the majority of our time this morning as we look at this momentous day called Pentecost.

If you're physically able, I would love for you to stand for the reading of Scripture. Amen. 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, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and other parts of Libya near Cyrene, and 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.” Then Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice, and addressed the crowd. Skip down with me to verse 41: “Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about 3,000 were added to their number that day.” Amen. I heard y'all reading with me. I'm getting a little feedback; we all good? I think we're good. It's just the Spirit; He's really pumping up. What a moment. Y'all can sit. I'm sorry I didn't release you from standing. Y'all are going to stand the whole time. This is good; you're never going to want me to speak again.

What a moment. Could you imagine being there, present? I want to do something with us this morning. We're going to borrow something from our Jesuit brothers and sisters called imaginative prayer. We won't spend too much time here, but I want you to close your eyes and imagine. As you close your eyes, imagine you're in an upper room, much like the song we were singing talks about, however you want to picture that. You're with the early church, all of whom are your friends, your family, your community. Maybe you're seeing familiar faces from your own life. You're praying and singing, breaking bread, worshiping for this festival season in the Jewish calendar, enjoying a feast in a festival that is rich with heritage and beauty. It is a beautiful, festive, celebratory time. There's a lot of laughter, smiling. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, a wind starts to whip, rushing through the room indoors. There's confusion and a bit of chaos as people are looking around. Then you see them—little tongues of flame licking the air above everyone's heads. As if that wasn't strange enough, people you know and love confuse you to no end by speaking other languages, languages you know they don't know. Okay, you can open your eyes. What a scene. Could you imagine that happening in your intimate space, your home, or your friend's backyard for a cookout? You're with the people you love, and all of a sudden, a storm comes through your living room. I had that happen when we moved into our new house, but that was just rain coming through from a storm, not quite the same.

I imagine it to be that same moment where, when you go out and there's a storm brewing up in the summertime, the wind is starting to really pick up. You can feel that rain coming, and you know it's going to be a lot, but it hasn't quite come yet. It's that warm current that's whipping and tearing at what you see in movies, like laundry flopping everywhere. That really warm breeze that's whipping trees back and forth—that's what I feel like it would feel like. Wild, untamed, powerful, cosmic feeling of something bigger than you whipping through the scene, heaven meeting earth. That is by design because Luke, the author of Acts, is a historian dictating what happened, but he's also a really good narrator, helping us feel the emotion of the scene and telling us what is happening in powerful ways. There's also another powerful behind-the-scenes thing happening that we, because we don't come from the same situational context, are a little absent to. For this particular group of followers of Jesus who come from the Jewish line of faith, their whole heritage, they would have also seen the establishing of a new temple via the presence of the Lord. Let me explain with a quote from the Bible Project, an organization that seeks to help people see the unified story of Jesus throughout the Bible. They have an article that talked about this: “In the Hebrew Bible, mysterious windstorms with fire or lightning are consistently associated with two things: God's presence and the formation of a temple. The divine fire has previously rested on Yahweh's temple spaces.” So where does it rest in this scene? Let's read Acts 2:1-3 again: “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.” So it's a temple made of people. People will meet with God, not in a geographical place or constructed space, but in connection with those who choose to trust and follow Jesus. In this sense, Pentecost marks the beginning of a whole new world.

What an even more rich picture now is at play. Not only is this a powerful moment of the felt presence of God, but it is one of empowering, equipping, embodying, and establishing. Let me say that again: this is a moment of God empowering, equipping, embodying, and establishing. He is empowering His people in this moment, these followers of Jesus, with supernatural strength, power, abilities, and giftings, as we know later on with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He is equipping them with the Helper, the ultimate Helper, the guide, the friend to journey with them within them—the Holy Spirit. He is embodying His temple in these people for the first time as now His embodied representatives by choice of following Jesus. Everyone in this room and in this world is an image-bearer of God; every single person is made in the image of God. We believe that very strongly. But there are also name-bearers, those who choose to follow Jesus and become name-bearers of Christ—Christians. He is establishing His new temple spaces of sacred worship and interaction between heaven and earth in the form of humans, of people, of a community, of a body, of a family. This is huge. God just established His new temple and picked ordinary people to do it. He called out fishermen, tax collectors, and sinners to embody His sacred space. The temple is no longer something far away due to its holy nature but is close, embodied, and shown through daily actions of love via these followers of Jesus by the authority of the Father through the presence of the Holy Spirit—heaven meeting earth.

So then, what do they do in the story? They go out and preach the good news of the kingdom. They act as priests in this new temple system and bring the presence of God for people to experience right then. They take their newfound roles of mediating and meditating on the Spirit and share the story of Jesus out into the festival happening around them. Remember, this is a huge festival. Pentecost, while we celebrate it within the Christian tradition, already existed within the Jewish calendar. It was a time of pilgrimage. People from all across the world, Jewish people, would come and pilgrim their way to Jerusalem out of exile, as we see in a lot of the old prophets like Ezekiel calling the exiles back to Jerusalem—a very powerful, symbolic festival. They're journeying back for a time of celebration. So when the disciples come out speaking to everyone in various languages, they are predominantly speaking to their fellows, to Jews that speak other languages from various countries. Growing up, I always assumed they were speaking Egyptian to an Egyptian, but no, they're probably speaking to Egyptians there, but they are speaking to their fellow countrymen. When they share the good news of the Messiah and His coming, so many are added to their number because these Jews heard the good news of the Messiah that is fulfilled throughout their Old Testament—well, they just called it the Bible; we call it the Old Testament—and they accepted it to be true. They stepped into an invitation to believe, join, and celebrate that Jesus Christ is the risen Messiah, and their wait was over. Peter walks them through Old Testament stories, prophets, and their shared history to show them the story of Jesus woven through Scripture. He invites them in; he doesn't exclude them. He doesn't say, “We now have this powerful thing, and you missed out; you could have been there, but you weren't.” No, he says, “Come, take, eat, participate in the resurrection.” He includes them. Something extremely beautiful in this moment is that it is, in fact, a very missional moment. Remember, these are Jews from all over the globe. Now, some of them may have stayed because the next verses go into how they poured themselves into the apostles' teaching, into prayer, into fellowship. Growing up, I just assumed these were all people from Jerusalem, right? But they're not; they're from all over the world. So what did they do? Did 3,000 people just say, “Well, we're done, no more living where we used to live”? No, they went back home, taking their newfound faith with them. We don't get the stories of those faithful men and women that were made and added to that number and what they did afterward, but if they're from another country, they probably went home to their home, taking Jesus's name with them. They came to Jerusalem to draw near to God via the temple and left Jerusalem as the temple with God inside of them. What an insane image. For all their life, they have had to approach from a distance, and this is a crazy flip of the script. How much rejoicing would that have been that they don't have to now journey because they are excluded just by being in another country, weeks and weeks of being on a camel to get to the temple, and now the Holy Spirit is inside of them.

So now we come to us, sitting here in North Carolina in 2025. What does this mean for us? What does it mean for Pentecost today? Because that was a beautiful heritage that we don't share in as strongly. Our Pentecost heritage comes from the Christian tradition. Well, for one, it's still our story, our heritage of unification through the Spirit. The same Spirit—think about this—when I had y'all do that imaginative prayer moment, that same Spirit that you imagined coming as fire that we sang about is the same Spirit that's inside of you, the exact same one, which is just bonkers to me. I don't think I properly grasp it because if I did, I would probably be crying a little bit more, not just now but forever. I just walk around on a daily basis with a bunch of fire inside of me that I don't access as often as I could. The same unifying Spirit lives within us and works just as it did in Acts 2. Someone who understood this very deeply was the founder of the Wesleyan movement, John Wesley. Winfield Bevins, in his book Marks of a Movement, says this about Wesley: “For Wesley, the Spirit was not an abstract concept but a living reality, a person to be known and experienced. Wesley believed that being filled with the Spirit was the defining mark of scriptural Christianity.” Everyone who truly follows Jesus as their Lord and Savior, teacher, rabbi, as someone who structures their life around the salvation and restoration of relationship found through Jesus Christ with their Creator, is unified with the same Holy Spirit. We see this in Ephesians 4:3-6, which is written by Paul, another apostle: “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.” Does that sound a little familiar, like the creeds we have been proclaiming, confessing as truth? This is part of the Scripture they pull from. That unification we share is not some distant reality but a very intimate one. Paul himself prayed that the church would be unified in Philippians, another letter he penned, in verses 1 and 2 of chapter 2: “Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in Spirit and of one mind.”

How many of us don't live into that reality on a daily basis? Not because we don't want to. I don't think any people who follow Jesus and have the Holy Spirit are actively saying, “You know, I'm getting my keys, my wallet; I just don't really need the Holy Spirit today.” It's more that our brains are constantly going on so many levels that we just forget that we are constantly companioned by the Holy Spirit. My wife and I share our entire lives, but when I go to work, she doesn't come with me. As much as I wish my little daughters would come with me—and I'm just kidding, sweeties, I love you—they don’t. But we have the Holy Spirit, someone who companions with us. This is not just a small thing. Angels are powerful; having a guardian angel is powerful. However, this is part of the triune God—God Himself companioning as you live under the name of Jesus as a Christian under the authority of the Father. I don't know what is more beautiful than that. How many of us have been somewhere else, not home, whether that's another city, state, or country, and you bump into someone from your home? In the olden days, you’d call them a countryman: “I've met my countryman,” someone you have a shared identity with. If you're in another country, maybe that's the familiar sound of English or whatever your native language is. If you hear that in a space where it's not the predominant language, your ears perk up because you realize, “That's someone I share identity with.” If it's another state, maybe you hear a keyword like Four Seasons Mall or an accent, and you're like, “Whoa, wait a minute, are you from North Carolina?” Or maybe you're at the beach or in the mountains, and you hear someone say they're from Greensboro, and suddenly you're like, “No way, I'm from Greensboro!” There's a kindling of spirits, a sudden, quick intimacy of a shared place and space, and sometimes experiences. “What school did you go to? Oh, I live off such-and-such road near Grand. I live near Grand! Man, I used to live in Four Seasons Mall when I was in high school. Gate City Boulevard—that used to be called High Point Road. I can't believe they changed that.” See, I'm not as old as y'all think; I remember High Point Road. Suddenly, the formality and distance shrink, and we are united, if just for a moment, by a shared history and culture.

How much more when we meet someone else who is a Jesus follower, who is embodied by the Holy Spirit, who claims the name of Jesus as their Lord and Savior? Then, as the psalmist says, “Deep calls to deep,” and we recognize the Holy Spirit as we have it within us and in the other person. One of the most uncanny things that happened to me was in 2017 or 2018. We had come back, didn’t have kids yet, and were sitting in a coffee shop downtown, just visiting my family. My family’s from here. We were sitting there, had gotten our coffee, and my wife and I were looking at each other like, “There’s just something in the air, a spiritual connection we can’t put our finger on.” We started getting analytical: “Do we see any signage, like this is a Christian space? Is the music instrumental Christian music? Is it the barista who served us?” We never really found out. We left the space, but years later, we moved back in 2020. A year goes by, and in 2021, we visit a place that was then called United City Greensboro, now one of our sister churches down the street called Church. Who is playing the drums but the barista we saw at the coffee shop? My wife elbows me and says, “That’s that guy, the one from years ago that we said there was just something about him. He felt like Jesus.” We had this moment of hearing the Holy Spirit, deep calling to deep. Sometimes it’s very obvious—you see someone literally sharing Jesus, being His hands and feet, verbally saying things, and you’re like, “I know you follow Jesus; I also follow Jesus; let’s talk about that.” Sometimes you just get a taste of heaven through a peace-filled presence of someone deeply following Jesus. While the latter is one we can’t lean into—we can’t just hope people accidentally catch Jesus—we can’t deny that someone who lives peacefully is a much-needed, powerful part of witnessing for Jesus. Both verbally being His hands and feet and being someone so peace-filled with the Holy Spirit that the air around them changes. I sat next to my friend Robbie, that barista, just this past Friday and talked with him over coffee while preparing my sermon. He’s the same; I love him to death. I told him, “You were someone we knew. There was something about you.” And it was the Holy Spirit. We are ambassadors of peace by living in Jesus’ name, in tune with the subtle promptings and leadings of His Holy Spirit—heaven meeting earth.

So, what is Pentecost for us? Is it a celebration, a festival? Is it a day of renewal, like our video and songs talked about? A day for worship, like what we’ve been doing? I would say yes, all the above. But the thing I want to leave us with is that Pentecost is an invitation. It is an invitational day and space that exists every day of the year. Just as we mark things with celebratory times—we mark birthdays, anniversaries, we celebrate Christmas—we also celebrate the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s a day of invitation to follow Jesus, a day of celebration, not an exclusive club called the church, not an elite group called the body of Christ—that might sound a little strange if you’re not a churched person—but an invitation to be involved in Jesus’ kingdom and work, to be a part of His body and to belong to the family of God. We say that here at CWC: a place where you belong, a place to belong. How much more true is that of the arms of our Father? We have an invitational God. I’m going to quote Henri Nouwen, who said, “Celebration belongs to God’s kingdom. God rejoices and invites others to rejoice with Him. God does not want to keep His joy to Himself; He wants everyone to share in it.” So, no matter where you are in your journey, spiritually speaking—whether you’ve been following Jesus for years or this is the very first time you’ve heard that there is a man who was more than a man named Jesus, who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless and holy life, and then willingly died and rose again in order to restore you to a relationship with your Creator—the invitation is an open one. It’s an invitation of new life, of renewal, of a new temple system, of a new space and place of worship, of an embodied life and a fresh start with God Himself. It’s all through the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus Christ.

Today, you have been invited to be renewed, reestablished, reacquainted, and reformed into God’s image—renewed into a relationship with our Creator and Lord, reestablished as a son or daughter of His, reacquainted with the true Father and Creator of the world, and reformed into the image of Christ, not deformed into the image of this world that ultimately will crumble you to nothing. All of that is through the power of the Holy Spirit. I invite you to reflect for a minute on your story, no matter if Christ is a part of it or how long He has or has not been a part of it. Where are you now? Where is Christ in your story? Where do you feel His invitation this morning? Maybe it’s to begin your journey of following Him, and if you feel that, there are many people here who would love to talk to you about that. Maybe it’s a deeper invitation to clean up various areas of your life. The Holy Spirit has been poking and prodding and cleaning and pulling on His own, and He wants you to be a part of the active process of that, intentionally formed rather than accidentally formed by whatever happens to come at you throughout the day. All of it is an invitation to see heaven meeting earth. As a church, we are called to show Christ as a unified body so that no one can doubt who we are. They will know we are Christians by our love. We do that by being unified in the Spirit, by prayer and supplication, and spending time listening to the Spirit communally as individuals. This is a call to pursue holiness by listening to the calm presence of the Holy Spirit, who is within each one of us on good days, bad days, happy and sad days. It doesn’t matter because the Holy Spirit doesn’t leave; He is your companion. So, we can always rely on Him for guidance to be more like Jesus in every circumstance. Accepting that call on your soul by the Holy Spirit and leaning into Him, His truth, His love, His light, accepting who Jesus is, and having the Holy Spirit be your fire within—I promise you will not stay unchanged if you do. Heaven continues to meet earth in the Holy Spirit working through His body.

To close my portion of our time here, I’m going to read another prayer for us from an author I’ve really come to love, named Phyllis Tickle, who wrote a prayer that talks about the power of the Spirit as name-bearers of Christ and image-bearers of God through the unifying power of the Spirit: “Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit. Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”