Dive In: from the High Dive

We went to Flatland with my mother and sis­ter Sunday. It was fun talk­ing about the ser­mon dur­ing lunch. Although my mother has heard Pastor Bart preach, my sis­ter hadn’t. To say the least, the ser­mon elicited some inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion. Yes, that is Pastor Bart stand­ing on the high dive that was on the plat­form of our church. And yes, it was shaky and needed peo­ple hold­ing it. And now, my ser­mon notes:

High dive requires a longer climb and a longer fall. It has more risks but you can do more and reap greater rewards. Where the low dive involves min­istry within the church the high dive is min­istry to the lost.

Less than two months after Peter had denied Jesus three times he is stand­ing before a huge crowd preach­ing and three thou­sand believe in Christ. Only weeks after being ter­ri­fied of being known as fol­low­ers of Christ we find them preach­ing Christ to the world.

We need to be will­ing to go off the high dive. It is what Jesus calls us to do, to full­fill his mis­sion, Luke 19:105 [show]ERROR: No pas­sage found for your query.

Get your friends — never dive alone. Act 1:12–13 [show]Acts 1:12–13 [12]Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s jour­ney away. [13]And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were stay­ing, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. (ESV)
the dis­ci­ples stayed together.

Next climb the lad­der — you need skills, courage, and a desire to climb the lad­der. It is often harder to make the deci­sion to climb it than it is to actu­ally do the climb­ing. It is the Holy Spirit who equips us and pro­vides us with the courage to climb the lad­der. Acts 2 [show]Acts 2 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. [2]And sud­denly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rush­ing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sit­ting. [3]And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. [4]And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utter­ance. [5]Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. [6]And at this sound the mul­ti­tude came together, and they were bewil­dered, because each one was hear­ing them speak in his own lan­guage. [7]And they were amazed and aston­ished, say­ing, “Are not all these who are speak­ing Galileans? [8]And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native lan­guage? [9]Parthians and Medes and Elamites and res­i­dents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, [10]Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belong­ing to Cyrene, and vis­i­tors from Rome, [11]both Jews and pros­e­lytes, Cretans and Arabians–we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” [12]And all were amazed and per­plexed, say­ing to one another, “What does this mean?” [13]But oth­ers mock­ing said, “They are filled with new wine.“ [14]But Peter, stand­ing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. [15]For these peo­ple are not drunk, as you sup­pose, since it is only the third hour of the day. [16]But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: [17]“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daugh­ters shall proph­esy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; [18]even on my male ser­vants and female ser­vants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall proph­esy. [19]And I will show won­ders in the heav­ens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; [20]the sun shall be turned to dark­ness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and mag­nif­i­cent day. [21]And it shall come to pass that every­one who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.‘ [22]“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and won­ders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you your­selves know– [23]this Jesus, deliv­ered up accord­ing to the def­i­nite plan and fore­knowl­edge of God, you cru­ci­fied and killed by the hands of law­less men. [24]God raised him up, loos­ing the pangs of death, because it was not pos­si­ble for him to be held by it. [25]For David says con­cern­ing him, “‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; [26]therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope. [27]For you will not aban­don my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see cor­rup­tion. [28]You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of glad­ness with your pres­ence.‘ [29]“Brothers, I may say to you with con­fi­dence about the patri­arch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. [30]Being there­fore a prophet, and know­ing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descen­dants on his throne, [31]he fore­saw and spoke about the res­ur­rec­tion of the Christ, that he was not aban­doned to Hades, nor did his flesh see cor­rup­tion. [32]This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are wit­nesses. [33]Being there­fore exalted at the right hand of God, and hav­ing received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you your­selves are see­ing and hear­ing. [34]For David did not ascend into the heav­ens, but he him­self says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, [35]until I make your ene­mies your foot­stool.‘ [36]Let all the house of Israel there­fore know for cer­tain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you cru­ci­fied.“ [37]Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apos­tles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” [38]And Peter said to them, “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. [39]For the promise is for you and for your chil­dren and for all who are far off, every­one whom the Lord our God calls to him­self.” [40]And with many other words he bore wit­ness and con­tin­ued to exhort them, say­ing, “Save your­selves from this crooked gen­er­a­tion.” [41]So those who received his word were bap­tized, and there were added that day about three thou­sand souls. [42]And they devoted them­selves to the apos­tles’ teach­ing and the fel­low­ship, to the break­ing of bread and the prayers. [43]And awe came upon every soul, and many won­ders and signs were being done through the apos­tles. [44]And all who believed were together and had all things in com­mon. [45]And they were sell­ing their pos­ses­sions and belong­ings and dis­trib­ut­ing the pro­ceeds to all, as any had need. [46]And day by day, attend­ing the tem­ple together and break­ing bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and gen­er­ous hearts, [47]praising God and hav­ing favor with all the peo­ple. And the Lord added to their num­ber day by day those who were being saved. (ESV)
. It took the Holy Spirit to get Peter to be able to preach to the crowd. The Holy Spirit empow­ers us to do things we would never expect to do or have the abil­ity to do.

Only we can climb the lad­der. Our church can pro­vide us with all kinds of tools to help us climb the lad­der. But we have to climb the lad­der our­selves. It is through the spir­i­tual dis­ci­plines that we can.

Once we are up there we have to take the plunge.

The low dive relies mostly on our nat­ural abil­i­ties whereas the high dive requires the Holy Spirit.

So we need to receive the Holy Spirit, climb the lad­der once empow­ered, and take the plunge.

The high dive allows incred­i­ble things. So its time to climb that lad­der and take the plunge.

Several things came up dur­ing lunch. The first of course was Pastor Bart’s cloth­ing. My mother really doesn’t like to see a min­is­ter in blue jeans. I can appre­ci­ate her con­cern although I don’t share it. She wor­ries that peo­ple will not take him seri­ously. Of course I shocked her by say­ing I trust some­one in blue jeans way before I would trust any­one in a suit. I dis­trust peo­ple in suits. I won­der what they want to weasel out of me. From my per­spec­tive, peo­ple either wear suits because they are forced to or because they want to fool me into think­ing they are some­thing they may not be.

The sec­ond thing dis­cussed was based on the idea that we should not go alone into min­istry. My mother pointed out that there are times like at work where we may be the only Christian, but we are still called to min­is­ter to the lost there. I don’t believe pas­tor was say­ing we couldn’t or shouldn’t do min­istry solo. Rather, he was say­ing that we need sup­port. Others can encour­age us to face our fel­low work­ers when we are by our­selves. Others can rejoice with us when we see vic­tory or sup­port us when we face defeat. There is strength when there are two or more that just doesn’t exist when we are by ourselves.

You know, I can’t remem­ber what else we talked about but look­ing over my notes, there were a cou­ple things I thought about dur­ing the sermon.

I never had a prob­lem actu­ally climb­ing the lad­der to the high dive. But once up there, jump­ing off really scared me. It always took me a cou­ple deep breaths to get the nerve to get out on the board and jump. In the same way, some­times we rush into min­istry only to sud­denly be fac­ing the actual time to make the jump and it can be very fright­en­ing. At that point, only the Holy Spirit can help, encour­age, com­fort us to make that dive.

OH! I remem­ber one of the things that my sis­ter asked about, “What about Love? Don’t we have to have love for the lost to even want to dive in?” You know, I am sure in pre­vi­ous ser­mons our pas­tors have said some­thing like that but it really is impor­tant to point it out. We need to pray for God’s Love for the Lost, that John 3:16 [show]John 3:16 [16]“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that who­ever believes in him should not per­ish but have eter­nal life. (ESV)
becomes our rea­son as well. When we love the lost and desire to see them res­cued, it makes it so much more easy to be will­ing to climb that lad­der and take that long plunge into the pool.

Finally, back to some of my thoughts. Pastor Bart pointed out that min­istries that are like the low dive can allow us to rely on our own skills and abil­i­ties but the high dive type min­istries require the Holy Spirit because they stretch us way beyond our own abil­i­ties. I don’t believe he was say­ing we don’t need the Holy Spirit to min­is­ter to do even the lit­tle things. He knows 1 Cor 12–14 [show]1 Corinthians 12–14 Now con­cern­ing spir­i­tual gifts, broth­ers, I do not want you to be unin­formed. [2]You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, how­ever you were led. [3]Therefore I want you to under­stand that no one speak­ing in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. [4]Now there are vari­eties of gifts, but the same Spirit; [5]and there are vari­eties of ser­vice, but the same Lord; [6]and there are vari­eties of activ­i­ties, but it is the same God who empow­ers them all in every­one. [7]To each is given the man­i­fes­ta­tion of the Spirit for the com­mon good. [8]For to one is given through the Spirit the utter­ance of wis­dom, and to another the utter­ance of knowl­edge accord­ing to the same Spirit, [9]to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of heal­ing by the one Spirit, [10]to another the work­ing of mir­a­cles, to another prophecy, to another the abil­ity to dis­tin­guish between spir­its, to another var­i­ous kinds of tongues, to another the inter­pre­ta­tion of tongues. [11]All these are empow­ered by one and the same Spirit, who appor­tions to each one indi­vid­u­ally as he wills. [12]For just as the body is one and has many mem­bers, and all the mem­bers of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. [13]For in one Spirit we were all bap­tized into one body–Jews or Greeks, slaves or free–and all were made to drink of one Spirit. [14]For the body does not con­sist of one mem­ber but of many. [15]If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. [16]And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. [17]If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hear­ing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? [18]But as it is, God arranged the mem­bers in the body, each one of them, as he chose. [19]If all were a sin­gle mem­ber, where would the body be? [20]As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. [21]The eye can­not say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” [22]On the con­trary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indis­pens­able, [23]and on those parts of the body that we think less hon­or­able we bestow the greater honor, and our unpre­sentable parts are treated with greater mod­esty, [24]which our more pre­sentable parts do not require. But God has so com­posed the body, giv­ing greater honor to the part that lacked it, [25]that there may be no divi­sion in the body, but that the mem­bers may have the same care for one another. [26]If one mem­ber suf­fers, all suf­fer together; if one mem­ber is hon­ored, all rejoice together. [27]Now you are the body of Christ and indi­vid­u­ally mem­bers of it. [28]And God has appointed in the church first apos­tles, sec­ond prophets, third teach­ers, then mir­a­cles, then gifts of heal­ing, help­ing, admin­is­trat­ing, and var­i­ous kinds of tongues. [29]Are all apos­tles? Are all prophets? Are all teach­ers? Do all work mir­a­cles? [30]Do all pos­sess gifts of heal­ing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all inter­pret? [31]But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excel­lent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clang­ing cym­bal. [2]And if I have prophetic pow­ers, and under­stand all mys­ter­ies and all knowl­edge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove moun­tains, but have not love, I am noth­ing. [3]If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain noth­ing. [4]Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arro­gant [5]or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irri­ta­ble or resent­ful; [6]it does not rejoice at wrong­do­ing, but rejoices with the truth. [7]Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [8]Love never ends. As for prophe­cies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowl­edge, it will pass away. [9]For we know in part and we proph­esy in part, [10]but when the per­fect comes, the par­tial will pass away. [11]When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I rea­soned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up child­ish ways. [12]For now we see in a mir­ror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. [13]So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the great­est of these is love. Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spir­i­tual gifts, espe­cially that you may proph­esy. [2]For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one under­stands him, but he utters mys­ter­ies in the Spirit. [3]On the other hand, the one who proph­e­sies speaks to peo­ple for their upbuild­ing and encour­age­ment and con­so­la­tion. [4]The one who speaks in a tongue builds up him­self, but the one who proph­e­sies builds up the church. [5]Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to proph­esy. The one who proph­e­sies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless some­one inter­prets, so that the church may be built up. [6]Now, broth­ers, if I come to you speak­ing in tongues, how will I ben­e­fit you unless I bring you some rev­e­la­tion or knowl­edge or prophecy or teach­ing? [7]If even life­less instru­ments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give dis­tinct notes, how will any­one know what is played? [8]And if the bugle gives an indis­tinct sound, who will get ready for bat­tle? [9]So with your­selves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intel­li­gi­ble, how will any­one know what is said? For you will be speak­ing into the air. [10]There are doubt­less many dif­fer­ent lan­guages in the world, and none is with­out mean­ing, [11]but if I do not know the mean­ing of the lan­guage, I will be a for­eigner to the speaker and the speaker a for­eigner to me. [12]So with your­selves, since you are eager for man­i­fes­ta­tions of the Spirit, strive to excel in build­ing up the church. [13]Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to inter­pret. [14]For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruit­ful. [15]What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. [16]Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can any­one in the posi­tion of an out­sider say “Amen” to your thanks­giv­ing when he does not know what you are say­ing? [17]For you may be giv­ing thanks well enough, but the other per­son is not being built up. [18]I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. [19]Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct oth­ers, than ten thou­sand words in a tongue. [20]Brothers, do not be chil­dren in your think­ing. Be infants in evil, but in your think­ing be mature. [21]In the Law it is writ­ten, “By peo­ple of strange tongues and by the lips of for­eign­ers will I speak to this peo­ple, and even then they will not lis­ten to me, says the Lord.” [22]Thus tongues are a sign not for believ­ers but for unbe­liev­ers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbe­liev­ers but for believ­ers. [23]If, there­fore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and out­siders or unbe­liev­ers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? [24]But if all proph­esy, and an unbe­liever or out­sider enters, he is con­victed by all, he is called to account by all, [25]the secrets of his heart are dis­closed, and so, falling on his face, he will wor­ship God and declare that God is really among you. [26]What then, broth­ers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a les­son, a rev­e­la­tion, a tongue, or an inter­pre­ta­tion. Let all things be done for build­ing up. [27]If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let some­one inter­pret. [28]But if there is no one to inter­pret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to him­self and to God. [29]Let two or three prophets speak, and let the oth­ers weigh what is said. [30]If a rev­e­la­tion is made to another sit­ting there, let the first be silent. [31]For you can all proph­esy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encour­aged, [32]and the spir­its of prophets are sub­ject to prophets. [33]For God is not a God of con­fu­sion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, [34]the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not per­mit­ted to speak, but should be in sub­mis­sion, as the Law also says. [35]If there is any­thing they desire to learn, let them ask their hus­bands at home. For it is shame­ful for a woman to speak in church. [36]Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? [37]If any­one thinks that he is a prophet, or spir­i­tual, he should acknowl­edge that the things I am writ­ing to you are a com­mand of the Lord. [38]If any­one does not rec­og­nize this, he is not rec­og­nized. [39]So, my broth­ers, earnestly desire to proph­esy, and do not for­bid speak­ing in tongues. [40]But all things should be done decently and in order. (ESV)
as well as I do and that is all about the gifts of the Spirit for min­istry within the Body of Christ. Peter in his first let­ter says sim­i­lar things.

No mat­ter what min­istry we are involved in, we need the empow­er­ing of the Holy Spirit to do that min­istry if we want to be effec­tive for the Lord. And that is our chal­lenge for this week. To seek the Holy Spirit and His power that we may become more effec­tive in all we do for the Lord.