Once upon a time, in a quaint little town, a wealthy traveler happened upon a sight that took his breath away. It was a magnificent two-story building, and the second floor, oh, it was a thing of beauty! The veranda seemed to whisper promises of relaxation, and the roof design was like nothing he’d ever seen before.
The rich man just had to find out who had created this architectural wonder. He searched high and low until he finally found the carpenter responsible. “You!” he exclaimed, “You must come to my city and build me a second floor just like the one I saw. I’ll pay any price you ask!”
The carpenter, a man of few words, simply nodded and set to work. For a whole month, he poured his heart and soul into building the rich man’s dream. When the wealthy traveler returned to see the finished product, he couldn’t believe his eyes. There was the second floor he’d asked for, but wait… what was that underneath it? A first floor?!
The rich man was furious! He confronted the carpenter, shouting, “I asked for the second floor, not the first! Tear it down, now!”
But the carpenter, calm as can be, replied, “Sir, you can’t have the second floor without the first. It’s the foundation that holds up all that beauty you admire.”
The wealthy man wasn’t having it. “I’m not paying for something I didn’t ask for!” he huffed. “You’ll get your money for the second floor, and that’s it!”
The carpenter, a wise man, tried to explain, “The first floor is like the backbone of the whole building. Without it, the second floor would come crashing down. You can’t have one without the other.” (End of the story).
This story may sound silly, but it’s an ancient fable to enlighten those who want to ignore the foundation to achieve a higher goal. It resembles Jesus’ parable of building a house on the sand.
What is your higher goal? What’s your dream second floor you want to build? What’s your life mission? We all want our life count. What would he say if we asked God what we should do to make our three scores and ten most meaningful? I think Prophet Micah summarized it nicely, short and sweet:
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Mic 6:8).
The Lord has told us what makes life good and meaningful. As believers, we are called to follow in Christ’s footsteps, proclaiming good news, working for justice, and demonstrating compassion to a world in need.
Those are worthwhile missional goals, but they are our second floor. Many social justice warriors today fail to build the first floor. So, their social justice movement is like a castle in the air.
Without the first floor, social justice can be not only a failure but also destructive to society. For example, communism is a social justice movement without the first floor. As a result, it has brought more destruction than construction.
Today, we will explore Jesus’ mission, which is now our mission, and make sure we have the solid first floor as our strong foundation for fulfilling our mission and making our lives good and meaningful. Let’s begin!
The scripture lesson for today is from the Gospel According to Luke 4:14-21. [Listen to the Word of the Lord!]
14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk 4:14–21).
[Blessed are those who delight in God’s Word. Thanks be to God!]
Quoting Isaiah, Jesus declares his five-point mission:
1. to bring good news to the poor.
2. to proclaim release to the captives
3. to recover sight for the blind,
4. to let the oppressed go free,
5. to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
If you can adopt this five-point mission, that will make your life good and meaningful. In my recent message, I’ve discussed pleasing God by serving people. This gives us a good framework to serve people, and I am sure God will be well pleased, as he was with his Son.
However, this five-point mission is our second floor. We must not ignore the first floor. What is our first floor? What is our solid rock for building a house that will never crumble by storms and rain?
It is being filled with the Holy Spirit. Many people ignore it because they don’t know what it means. It’s like the rich man who cannot make sense of the first floor. Jesus was filled with the spirit before he started his mission.
“Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee.” (Lk 4:14).
Then Jesus himself said,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me.” (Lk 4:18a).
What does it mean to be anointed by the Holy Spirit? That’s a good question because our mission is like building a castle on the sand without knowing what this means. It’s like building the second floor without the first.
When Jesus says that the Holy Spirit has anointed him, he refers to his baptism. We covered Jesus’ baptism a couple of weeks ago. During his baptism, the Holy Spirit descended on him. Then, the Holy Spirit led him to the wilderness for forty days of fasting. Now, the Holy Spirit led him to return to Galilee.
The anointing of the Holy Spirit is simple. The moment you believe and get baptized, you are anointed by the Holy Spirit, meaning you are empowered to carry on Jesus’ mission to transform the world to make it a better place to live.
The problem is, that doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit automatically guides you to do what God wants you to do. For example, a king may be anointed to be the king, but if he goes around goofing, his anointment doesn’t take effect.
To better understand this, Paul said,
“Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit.” (Eph 5:18).
Don’t you find it odd for Paul to talk about wine and Spirit in the same sentence? It reveals the nature of the Holy Spirit can be similar to getting drunk.
Notice, it doesn’t say don’t drink. It says don’t get drunk. Last week, I discussed wine as God’s gift for us to enjoy responsibly. So, just in case you think I am contradicting myself, I want to make sure you read it right. It says, “Do not get drunk with wine”—not “Do not drink wine.”
When you are drunk, you are controlled by wine. That means you lose control of yourself. When you are filled with the Spirit, you are controlled by the Holy Spirit. That also means you lose control of yourself but in a better way.
It says drunkenness is debauchery, which means indulgence in sensual pleasure. It leads to poor judgment, moral corruption, excess and wastefulness, and broken relationships. King Solomon said,
“Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.” (Pr 20:1).
Here, it says one is not wise when “led astray” by it. It’s another way of saying that someone has lost control of themselves and let wine control them. It is not wise! It lowers your IQ.
There are other verses also in the Bible indicating your IQ is lowered by getting drunk. You do stupid things.
Now, understanding the nature of drunkenness, we can understand why Paul compares it to being filled with the Holy Spirit, which produces the opposite effect. Just as drunkenness lowers your IQ, being filled with the Holy Spirit raises your IQ. The Book of Acts says,
“Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task.” (Ac 6:3).
There are also other verses in the Bible, indicating the filling of the Holy Spirit is associated with wisdom. So, again, wine lowers your IQ, and the Holy Spirit raises your IQ.
Paul was using getting drunk as an analogy. It means anything that controls you to debauchery, indulgence, or any opposite direction of the Holy Spirit is unwise.
It gives us a clue about what it is like to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Just as wine warms your body, the Holy Spirit also warms your body. Paul said,
“Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.” (Ro 12:11).
The word “ardent” is translated from Greek, ζέω (Zeo), meaning “burning hot.” It seems humans rely on wine to replace their thirst for the heat they need from the Holy Spirit. So, wine becomes an inferior substitute for the Holy Spirit. Maybe that’s why Paul compares drunkenness with the filling of the Holy Spirit, telling us to choose the right kind of heat.
Now, let’s see how we can be filled with the Holy Spirit to optimize our IQ and make our mission possible.
The first way to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to breathe the spiritual breath. Spirit, in both Hebrew and Greek, means “breath, wind, or air.” We all know there are waves in the air, carrying different signals. That’s why we can tune into different radio waves in the air. Jesus transmitted the Holy Spirit through his breath into the air.
When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (Jn 20:22).
How do you receive the Holy Spirit that Jesus has transmitted through his breath into the air? Simple, breathe with faith! When you breathe with faith, you tune into the channel of the Holy Spirit. It’s like praying and meditating with your breath. Then, you will feel your body gets warm and the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Paul also gave us three additional methods,
“be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Eph 5:18b–20).
Three things can trigger the filling of the Spirit: singing spiritual songs with others, making a melody to the Lord in your heart, and giving thanks to God. That means when you come to church, worship, and sing together, you are getting filled with the Holy Spirit. When you are alone, you can sing quietly in your heart. The third way is to give thanks. These three activities will trigger a spirit-filled state.
What do these activities represent? It represents setting aside your ego so that the Holy Spirit can enter. The ego is the main obstacle to getting filled with the Holy Spirit.
Without the Holy Spirit, our mission is ego-driven and human activism. That’s why many social justice movements, like communism, failed and brought severe destruction.
Now you have built the first floor, and you are filled with the Holy Spirit, the second floor becomes mission-possible. This is our social justice mission:
1. to bring good news to the poor
You might wonder why God wants us to bring good news to the poor instead of helping them. We need to do both, but the good news is more important. Some people are poor because they are misinformed. Good news empowers people with the Holy Spirit. It’s like teaching them how to fish rather than just giving them fish.
2. to proclaim release to the captives
Again, this is also physical and spiritual. The captives are like prisoners of war. We physically negotiate the release of the POW. Some people are mentally or spiritually captive, and we set them free by the good news.
3. to recover sight for the blind
This is also physical and spiritual. Our church provides eye surgeries worldwide, but opening people’s spiritual eyes is more important.
4. to let the oppressed go free
In the first century, the Israelites were oppressed by local dictators and foreign occupiers. Jesus’ death and resurrection teach them how to set free from the inside out.
5. to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
“The year of the Lord’s favor” refers to the “Year of Jubilee,” a special year in the Jewish calendar that occurs every 50th year, as described in Leviticus 25. In this year, the government is required to release everyone’s debt, liberate all slaves, return property (e.g., those who pound their property for loans will get it back), and give farmland a rest.
That serves as a metaphor for God’s grace: forgiveness of sins, freedom from spiritual bondage, reconciliation, and eternal rest. This was made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Many movements in history tried to accomplish this mission without God’s help—without the Holy Spirit. We have seen that not only did they fail miserably, but they also destroyed nations and civilizations. Due to humans’ Total Depravity, we can’t save ourselves, thinking we can build the second floor with the first.
We will take on this mission the right way, as Jesus did. We will do it by building the first floor and declaring, as Jesus did,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me” to make the impossible mission possible. Let us perform Spirit-led Social Justice!
Until we meet again, keep your light shining brighter and broader, harvesting the fruit of felicity, freedom, and fulfillment.
Amen!
Bye now!
