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Acts 2

“God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”  When they heard this, they were cut to the heart.  They asked, “What must we do?” (Acts 2)

The beginning of the church, as recorded in Acts 2, will be the final Scripture passage in our Holy Spirit: Presence, Purpose and Power series.  Over these past weeks we have been invited to get to know God the Holy Spirit more deeply.  We have encountered the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth, the Spirit who energizes the life and mission of the church and of individual believers, the Spirit who relentlessly points to and leads to Jesus, the Spirit who is Comforter, Advocate, Counselor, Companion, Strength-Giver and Friend.  And much more.

When the Spirit empowers Peter to proclaim to the crowd “What do these things mean?”, he proclaims a kingdom message.  The Good News is that God’s Kingdom has come, in and through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Messiah.

The bad news?  “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus … whom you crucified.”

They were cut to the heart.

The Holy Spirit is also the Convictor.  Let’s exercise great care here: the Spirit does convict, but never condemns.

Condemnation is global (“You are terrible, awful, a failure, no good, that’s all there is to say about you!”), endlessly accusing, shaming and hopeless.  It produces fear, rejection, isolation, despair – and it can “flip” into a kind of arrogant, controlling (condemning!) self-righteousness.  Condemnation sentences us to life imprisonment without parole, and keeps us locked up and locked in an ever-narrowing cell of self.

Condemnation never comes from the Holy Spirit.  But conviction does.

The Spirit’s conviction is clear, clean and, despite the pain, filled with hope.  “God gave you the promised Messiah,” Peter tells the Pentecost crowd – “and you crucified him.”  When God fulfilled his promises, you looked the other way, pretended not to hear.  When God came, in person in Christ, you said, “Away with him—we will not have him as our King!”  When God offered you his very life, you put him to death.  When God gave you the Kingdom, you opted for Caesar instead.  This is deeply painful for us to face, but the Spirit of truth, the Spirit who is Comforter, Companion and Friend loves us enough to do the necessary surgery on our souls … that we might live.

Conviction asks, “What must we do?” because there is hope, there is something that can be done, even when we don’t know what it is.  Conviction asks, “What must we do?” and conviction answers: Repent – don’t merely “feel bad,” surrender to the King of Love. Don’t chase superficial change, open up your inmost places to the God who already knows everything that’s in there, and will love you into wholeness despite it all.  

Believe the Good News – Yes, you contributed to Christ’s crucifixion, we all of us did and we all of us have – but God raised him from the dead.  There is something far deeper, far greater and far better at work in Jesus than the mere sum of human dreaming, scheming, striving, and failing.

Receive the gift of the promised Holy Spirit – the same Spirit who is Comvictor is also our Healer and our Helper, the Christ-revealing, Christ-forming, Christ-expressing Spirit of truth.  He only convicts in order to clear deep soul space for grace.

What’s one thing that struck you?  What’s your next step?