Ruby Slippers

This past Sunday, Kevin Rogers shared from Acts 2:1-13, the day of Pentecost, the powerful filling of the Holy Spirit, and the birth of the church. He said something very profound and probably a little controversial:

“Friends, let’s just pause here and recognize, that for these disciples, what they had anticipated, and now for the first time are finally experiencing, is our everyday experience. Or can be.”

The entire Old Testament history of Israel repeatedly hammered on the destitute condition of mankind, our separation from God, and our repeated failure to attain righteousness though given laws, sacrifices, miracles, prophets, kings and much more. All this repeated failure “tutored” us to Christ (Galatians 3:23-24). It begged a solution. It drove deep a longing in the hearts of the faithful for an eventual messiah, a savior:

    Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
        for he has visited and redeemed his people...
    that we should be saved from our enemies
        and from the hand of all who hate us...
    that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
    might serve him without fear, 
     in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. - (Luke 1: 68, 71, 74-75) 

The New Covenant, promised by the prophets (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 11:19) was to be that answer. The fullness of that promised covenant was what the 120 disciples were waiting for in that upper room... and it came! 

So why do I say Kevin’s statement may be controversial? Because of the hardness of life.

Those who have through faith repented and turned to God are given a new heart, freedom from sin, and the spirit of the living God dwelling within them, empowering them, granting them everything for life and godliness.  (2 Peter 1:3) It’s there. It’s real.

And then tomorrow comes, trial comes, and temptation comes, and we wonder - is there something more? These very painful experiences have been fertile ground for all kinds of beliefs, erroneous teachings, and false gospels over the centuries. It was present in the early church. It is present today.

It can reveal itself as elaborate doctrines or secret teachings such as: you need to wear this garment, worship in this place, have this experience. Or it may be as simple as the beliefs of our own hearts and minds... all the “if only’s.”

◦ If only I did not have that father;
◦ If only I married that person;
◦ If only I did not have that church experience;
◦ If only I could live in that place.

Let me be clear, the outworking of sin in the world is formidable, evil, devastating. There is not one tragedy or deprivation experienced by others that my heart does not say - “O Lord, have mercy!”

But for the genuine believer, the answer is not something they don’t currently possess. This was the New Testament writer’s argument again and again. No new gospel is needed. What is needed is a living of the gospel we have. Peter, Paul, James, the writer of the Hebrews all share: know what is theirs in Christ!

This so reminds me of Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers. At the end of the movie The Wizard of Oz, which has all been about a painful journey in pursuit of “going home,” Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, shares “You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.”

Now that process may not be...usually is not, as simple as tapping your heels together and saying, “There’s no place like home.” Sin’s power is real, and formidable. But the point, as Kevin shared, is that a believer has the slippers! We may need to learn how to use the slippers (teaching), help with working the slippers (fellowship),  even moments of epiphany that the slippers are real and work (prayer, the gifts of the spirit), but we have the slippers! Jesus died a horrific death and rose victorious to accomplish all of that. As Kevin said:

“The reason that you and I can make it, in whatever obstacles and challenges you may be acutely aware of this morning... whatever things going on in your life that may give you a sense that you are desperately in need of the power of God, that power is available to you this morning.”

May we progressively grow in our awareness, and appreciation, and exercise of those slippers.