Quietness of the Holy Spirit
Acts 19:32-41
Last week, I read about several commotions of our community that took place in various places, and one particular story from our ranch meeting was very vivid to me. The act of sharing about each of us commotion in the community shows that the Holy Spirit intervenes to calm it. Today, lets think about quietness of the Holy Spirit.
First, it is needed because of the chaos of the mob. In the text of last weeks sermon, the citizens of Ephesus heard Demetrius agitation and were angry that the followers of Paul were ignoring Artemis, the idol of Ephesus, and took them to the theater to punish Pauls colleagues Gaius and Aristarchus. However, in todays text, it says, 'They did not know why they were gathered together.' Luke, the author of the Acts, called the crowd gathered in the theater ekklesia, which today has the same meaning as the parliament or parliament, and is also used to describe the church characterized by one heart and one mind. So, no matter how good a place or the name is, if there is no God at the center, there will only be riots, and in the end, it will come to a point of chaos where it is impossible to understand why they gathered. Like this, even if you go to church, if you dont have biblical values, you do what is right in your own opinion. Because each persons opinion dictates whats sin or not, the fight will never stop. Likewise, when Paul did not know Jesus Christ, he destroyed Christians according to what was right in his own eyes, but after meeting Christ, he regarded everything as waste and never gave up his life as a witness. Because he was living a real life, not a theater actor, he clearly knew why he was living and what he had to walk for, even when he suffered hardships. If you dont know the kingdom of God, you will live a life where you cry out loudly on the stage of a play, and end up saying, I dont know why we got here. When Paul preached the kingdom of God in the crowd, Aristarchus and Gaius, as well as a small number of Asian officials, returned to help Paul and they have changed mankind for two thousand years. One person you change will change the world by becoming the protagonist of the expansion of the kingdom of God in the generations to come.
Second, we must be wary of crowd psychology. At that time, the people of Ephesus believed that Judaism and Christianity are the same thing, so in order to explain to the crowd gathered in the theater that Judaism was a different religion from Christianity, Alexander, a coppersmith, took the lead. However, they refused to listen to Alexander, instead, beckoning him, and as soon as they knew he was a Jew, they cried out, 'Great! Artemis of Ephesus!' The slogan that repeats this idiom over and over again is crowd psychology. They didnt want to hear what the Jews said, whether its Alexander or anyone else. They cried out all they needed was only Ephesus and Artemis, nothing else. When they gathered as a crowd, their own judgment was paralyzed, and they were swept away by the unknown energy of the crowd, expressing only their blind likes and dislikes that they want to kill someone or hate someone unconditionally. Gustave le Bon once said that people are bound to be governed by crowd psychology when in the crowd even if individuals subjectivity is clear. The problem is that crowds judgment, emotion, or attitude can be very wrong. Even if something is very wrong, if you justify it and repeat it over and over like a broken recorder, the public will eventually believe you. In this way, there is always a possibility of constant chaos and disturbance in any group, and if there is no God in the center, the group will face destruction at the end. Because ones own opinion is the opinion of a sinner, we need the Holy Spirit to calm down the mob, and without the quietness of Holy Spirit, there is no way to avoid strife. It is faith to acknowledge that me and the crowd to which I belong are beings that will inevitably cause disturbance and chaos. Only when I believe in God can I admit that my life is about to end in chaos. If there is any kind of disturbance in your life right now, it is because the Holy Spirit is crying, 'Here I am! Find me! Rely on me!', the sign that you need the quietness of Holy Spirit.
Third, you must follow the rules. The most important thing to calm down the commotion is order. Order, in which the womans head is the husband, and the husbands head is the Christ, is truly the catalyst that calms down the commotion. Jesus also came to this earth and was baptized by human beings, and obeyed order until the end by dying on the cross. Keeping order in this way is like bearing ones owncross. In order to calm such strife and establish order, the general secretary persuaded the citizens as follows. He said, All our citizens know that the statue of Artemis is great. So be calm and dont do anything dangerous. Theres no need to get excited about Gaio and Aristargo. This is because there is no direct wrongdoing against the statue of Artemis. If you want compensation for damage, formally file a complaint with the civil society.' It is not known whether he was a Christian, but the important thing is that he was sent to these people as a person responsible for calming the strife. And he was faithful to his role and did his job. On the other hand, Demetrio only instigated fire and went into hiding and took no responsibility. We hate commotion and love calming down. However, only when there is a commotion, the cover of the pretense that hides your true identity will come off and you will be able to repent. To follow the rules, we need to do QT every day and then belong to the small groups to ask on a daily basis. No matter how strange the leader of the group is, God will have mercy on us just because you ask. Because our groups are not the gathering that seeks profit, God will work. Dissolving illegal gatherings is the limit of what the secretary can do, but the quietness of Holy Spirit aims to bring forth life.
Let me share a story of the 5th grader of an elementary school. This child wrote a happy birthday card to her grandmother, who was struggling because of her aunt. He said, Happy birthday, thank you for cooking delicious food. I really hope you go to our churchs married couples ranch meeting, but his grandmother said no. He was hurt by this rejection, so he received comfort and sympathy at his own ranch meeting. In this way, the calming of the Holy Spirit not only ends the commotion, but also gives birth to life.
Let me conclude todays sermon. When our disturbances become the disturbances of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit comes to us, and life can be born. I do pray that you do not regard QT as a trivial thing, but instead enjoy the quietness of the Holy Spirit, and that you watch out crowd psychology and enjoy the joy of giving birth to life by observing Gods rules.
