Acts. Chapter Two, we're in Acts. Chapter Two, I'm looking at verses one through 13 this morning.
Before we read it, let's go to the Lord again in prayer, asking for his blessing upon his worship. Let's pray, Lord. We do come to you now and we confess we believe in the Holy Spirit, and that is our hope right now, that by the power of your Spirit, you would give life to that which is dead, Lord. We pray that by the power of your Spirit, you will give us eyes to behold the Lord Jesus Christ, that you'll give us ears to hear of him who is born, who is crucified, who is risen and reigning and coming again, and Lord, by the power of your Spirit, you will help us to receive Christ, that you will burn within us a yearning and a longing for our Savior, grant us the gift of faith that we might rest upon him, give us ears to hear we pray in Jesus' name. Amen, People of God here this morning, the word of God from Acts chapter two, beginning in verse one, When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.
And at this sound, the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished saying, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes, Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytites, Cretans and Arabians - we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others mocking said, "They are filled with new wine." He who has ears let him hear the Word of God, please be seated.
The church is constantly wrestling with power and influence. How do we get people to come to church and believe the gospel?
It is Star Wars day after all.
And couldn't we have drawn more people in if we had a Star Wars theme today, if I had dressed up, maybe in a Darth Vader costume, and elder Dan and I battled it out with lightsabers. Wouldn't that have been fun and entertaining?
I mean, after all, people love Star Wars, and Disney has certainly shown us that people are willing to at least watch mediocre Star Wars series. So why not come here and watch a little Star Wars as well? Maybe they would be willing to do that. The church needs something, doesn't it? The church needs some, something powerful to draw people in.
If it's not Star Wars. Well, where else can the church look then, for power and influence.
If we don't do that, what can we do?
I think sometimes we feel like just, just like Mary in John chapter 11, if only Jesus was here, if only Jesus was here, we'd still have power. If Jesus was with us, if he was among us, then people would listen.
But Jesus is ascended, right? He went up to heaven. The disciples just saw him, and the previous text, ascend up to heaven, and he's he's not here, right?
So now, what do we do?
And what our text actually reminds us this morning is Jesus is still here. He is still with us. Jesus is still Emmanuel.
That is God with us. And Jesus, in fact, is with us in a better, more powerful way right now, through the power of the Holy Spirit, His Spirit and the same power that God.
To add the power to raise Jesus from the dead is the very power that God has given to His people. Right now this day, we have this power, but we often forget it, and we often seek power, the power of man, rather than the power of God, which our text reveals to us, and our text, reminds us what Paul Miller calls the power train.
The power train is the people are praying. If you remember, they have gathered together.
They are praying. And through prayer, the spirit comes as Jesus sends it. And the Spirit directs us to Jesus, directs them to Jesus. And through Jesus, that is the power of God and the salvation.
So what we see here is they were prayerfully, praying that the Spirit of God would illuminate the Word of God about the Son of God, that we might be reconciled back to the Father God. These are all ordinary yet infinitely powerful things.
Did Jesus say he would send his spirit?
Yes, he did. And our text begins with this statement, when the day of Pentecost arrived, and that is a small little statement, but it's also just another hint to you, whatever Jesus says is going to happen, whatever he says he's going to do, he does it. It has arrived. Jesus says, I'm going to do something the day of his that that he said it's going to happen. It's happening. The day of Pentecost has arrived.
And Jesus has never been wrong.
Every word that he says comes true and the ascending of the Spirit happens, not so coincidentally, on the day of Pentecost.
And Pentecost literally means 50th. The celebration of Pentecost comes 50 days after the celebration of the Passover.
So you remember Jesus in His death and resurrection that was happening right around Passover.
Do you remember the pat and he made himself the Passover lamb, pushed the Passover lamb off the table, put himself, gave the Lord's table. So after he rose from the dead, He showed himself to his disciples for 40 days before ascending up to heaven, and then the disciples were then praying for 10 days before the day of Pentecost. So you have 40 days plus 10 days. I'm not very good at math, but at least I'm that good at math that that's 50th so the 50th day. So this is the 50th day, the day of Pentecost. Pentecost was a celebration, though, however, not just for the New Testament church, but for the Old Testament Church. Pentecost in Exodus, chapter 23 was sometimes referred to as the Feast of the harvest or in Exodus. CHAPTER 34 sometimes called the Feast of Weeks, and it was one of the three great annual Feast of Israel that you had to travel to Israel to celebrate. The other feasts and celebrations you could stay at home and do but the celebrations of Yom Kippur of Passover and Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks or the harvest, everyone would be drawn together to Israel to celebrate now the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, was to celebrate the first fruits of the harvest. We celebrate a Strawberry Festival. They celebrated a wheat festival. But their celebration was an anticip, anticipatory celebration of the first fruits.
They would just a little big beginning of the harvest, just a little bit, but they were anticipating and looking forward to that God was going to provide a much bigger harvest. That was the Passover celebration, the the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of the harvest. And now you're maybe starting to get a hint of the connection of why God sends His Spirit on Passover the Feast of Weeks. Because what we'll see is just a beginning a little gathering of the first fruits that's going to anticipate a much bigger harvest that you indeed are a part of that harvest by sitting here and hearing and receiving the gospel.
So what happens? And then, why does it happen? And then what's the response to the happen?
That's what we're going to look at this morning. What happens here is they're all gathered together, and as we remember that they're praying together, there's they have submitted themselves to the word of their Lord Jesus, who has told them to wait in Jerusalem. They have done just that, and they have been praying fervently, diligently with one mind together for 10 days. And then verse two, they were told. Then suddenly, it's not gradually, not slowly, but.
But suddenly and immediately, there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And if you've ever been near a tornado, and maybe even here in Florida a hurricane, you know the sounds of mighty winds, it sounds like a freight train that is right outside your door, and also not being too far from MacDill, you might have had the opportunity to hear the sounds of F 20 twos or F 30 fives or F sixteens. And as we say in the military, that indeed is the sound of freedom, because it is someone say, Amen, that's right, because it's powerful, isn't it?
It's mighty. And what we have here is a mighty rushing wind.
And that is indeed what we hear in this text, the very sound of freedom, mightier than F 35 or F 22 this is the sound of strength and of power, but it's not outside your door.
This sound that they hear is inside. It's inside the house, and it is filling the house.
Just imagine having an F 22 parked here and it starts turning its engines on. That's going to be a blast of sound, a blast of wind and of noise. That is what's happening in our text.
There's a mighty sound and a mighty wind that is happening within their midst at that moment. And it's also interesting here. This wind is actually a symbol, and it's a symbol of the Holy Spirit. And it's interesting that the spirit comes as a wind or breath here, because the Greek and Hebrew word for spirit is also the very same word for wind or breath. So the spirit comes in the form of wind with a wind actually means spirit or breath.
And this is all pointing us to other things and other instances of the spirit and the wind and breath. This is a symbol that is we often see in the scriptures.
Many of us we can know remember maybe even the first verse of the Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, but maybe not so familiar with the second verse. It says, The earth was without form, and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God, the breath of God, the wind of God, was hovering over the face of the water. And then we might think, Well, what does that mean? What does that mean for the spirit to hover over the face of the waters. Well, even all the way there, back in Genesis, the Spirit's presence, the the wind, the breaths, presence is signaling that life is about to come.
And that's what happens. We see in Genesis, right? We see light and life. It all comes because the spirit is there. It's a Spirit who gives life. It's a Spirit who gives breath. This is exactly what Jesus told Nicodemus in John chapter three.
He said, Nicodemus, you need life. You need breath. In fact, what you need, Nicodemus, you need the Spirit of God. You must be born again. You have to be born of the Spirit.
You go back to Ezekiel and and God tells Ezekiel to go to this valley of dry bones and start preaching. And then we see that breath comes into these bones, and they lived and stood on their feet and were exceedingly great. Breath comes upon them.
Life comes upon them.
The spirit, breath wind here is signaling to us at a new creation was beginning, bringing life to those who are dead.
That's the first symbol that we see happening here is this wind, but also at fire is another symbol we see here in our text.
Fire is another common symbol throughout the scriptures. When Moses met with God on Mount Sinai, he appeared as what as fire, right fire in the bush.
The the the bush wasn't being consumed, but the God's presence was there in the fire. When God led the church out of Egypt and through the wilderness, he did so as a pillar of fire. When Solomon finishes his prayer in the temple dedication, God comes down as fire and fills the temple. Fire is a picture of God's holiness and His consuming presence. So why is it that fire then comes upon these people, but yet they are not consumed by it? Well, it's because of Christ.
Christ took their sin away and His atoning death on the cross, so that they might now have the very presence of God, not only with them, but within them.
And they are not consumed by God. They have the righteousness of Christ. Their sins have been washed away, and they've been given the righteousness of Christ, received by faith in the presence of God. Is there now with them, as Jesus told them in Matthew 28 I am with you always, not just my divine nature, but even now, in terms of His Spirit, Jesus is now with them, and God will continue to lead his people and even purify his people by His Spirit. That's another picture of fire, isn't it, that God purifies through fire, and he's doing this now all through his people. Israel is is being re established. It's being reformed through these apostles who are going to now carry out the word of God. Why is all of this happening? We have the wind. We have the fire.
And then I'm sure some of you are asking, Well, what about Earth? Right? Maybe not. Maybe none of you were asking that question. I was, well, that's actually why this is happening, because the gospel is about to go out to all the earth. God has promised, if you remember going back to Genesis, that the snake Crusher would come.
He told Abraham that through him, the nations would be blessed. And then throughout the Old Testament era, we see sporadic fulfillments of that pledge, even as we just looked at Jonah the Ninevites, there's they're being blessed, but they're not Israel. They're out there. They're part of the Gentiles, but yet, we see them receiving the gospel. They're they're actually being blessed.
If you can imagine that this kind of what's happening here, imagine that the Hoover Dam, and it's holding back, as it does, trillions and trillions of gallons of water, but there's also a small little opening that allows for some water that's able to pass by to nourish a small amount of people.
The idea with that illustration is that little stream that's flowing off of the major dam was Israel, and a small group of people is being nourished by the Holy Spirit. Many of their eyes and hearts were opened through signs and symbols of the Old Testament, the sacrificial system, pointing them to the Christ, to the Messiah, and the Holy Spirit was already working in many of those people there.
And then Jesus comes. He's born, he lives, and he dies, and he takes away the sins of His people, and then he rises again from the dead, and then he ascends up to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. And then what happens then on this day at Pentecost is the flood gates of the dam are lifted, if you will, and it's no longer just little Israel that's going to be fed and nourished by the power of God in His Spirit, the flood gates are open forth, and now the spirit is going to not just go to Jerusalem. It's going to start there, but it's going to now flood out through the entire world. That's what's happening here. The spirit is now going to the entire world with the gospel, this is a fulfillment of Psalm 87 where it lists all these nations from around the world.
And it says, from among those who know me, I mentioned Rahab and Babylon. And behold, Philistia entire with cush. This one was born. Here they say, we have listed the enemies of Israel. We have listed the farthest lands from Israel, but it's saying they are children of Zion. That's what's happening here. The Spirit's going to go forth to bring in not only people of Israel, but now the Gentiles from the very farthest corners and those who were once enemies with God will now be reconciled to God through the gospel.
There's a miracle that happens here in verse four. They are filled with the Holy Spirit, and they begin to speak in other tongues. As the Spirit gave them utterance, they were able to speak the gospel in known languages of people all around the world, so that people understood it. And we have there a list of nations being represented all over from all over the place. It says nations from all over under heaven.
And what we see there that they're able to understand the gospel as it's presented to them. And the sense, there's a bit of a reversal of the curse that we that happened in Babel.
Remember, the people are unified in culture and language in Babel, and God disperses them throughout and separates their languages. But what's interesting here is that God doesn't make them all speak the same language. So.
Hear the works of God in their own language. Their language and their culture is not what unifies them. What unifies them is the Gospel we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.
In each of their own tongues, they are all hearing the mighty works of God, and that is what is unifying them. That is what is unifying these nations.
Now, the giving of the spirit here, the outpouring of the spirit here, it would be tempting to make this text about the spirit and to focus simply on the significance of the spirit, but what does the spirit enable the apostles to do here?
What does the fire fall on? It falls on their tongues, and for what purpose to proclaim the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, Christ. Jesus even said, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, and we'll get there next week. But as Peter will then begin to stand up and preach, Peter doesn't get up and preach about the Spirit.
The Spirit is God. The Spirit is significant. But what does Peter, by the power of the Spirit, begin to preach about the Lord Jesus, Christ, the Spirit's work here is to glorify the risen and ascended Lord and to bring people through faith, through Christ.
Now we shouldn't expect another Pentecost. This isn't a repeating action, just like we wouldn't want to repeat the birth of Christ or the crucifixion or resurrection of Christ, the flood gates have already been opened. The Spirit of God has gone forth, and the gospel is going out through all the world now, Israel is being brought together, unified true Israel under one King, the Lord Jesus Christ and Peter's sermon that day we we see 3000 people come together, and those first fruits of the harvest being gathered, but the this anticipatory of The harvest yet to come, and that is us.
We are the harvest that is still yet to come, and there's still some yet to come until Christ returns.
So we've seen what has happened.
We've seen why it has happened, but there's a response to what has happened.
They verse 12. They were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? But others mocked and said, they are filled with new wine.
Some who hear they are amazed.
They are that there's something more that's happening in them than simply just hearing.
Their hearts are being opened.
People are beginning to understand the gospel, understanding the Lord Jesus Christ, understanding that in their own sin and misery, they deserve God's wrath and judgment, understanding that their only hope is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. And no man comes to the Father apart through me, they are understanding that their only comfort in life and in death is that they do not belong to themselves, but belong wholly through their faithful Lord, Jesus Christ, and they are being challenged by this. They are being amazed by it. They are being stunned by this.
And so at our church here, you won't hear sermons about just how to have a better relationship or Star Wars, but my prayer is that by the power of the Spirit, you will hear a sermon today about Jesus and be cut to the heart. And just as they are filled with a sense of fire within, what must I do to be saved? And that you would believe in the Lord Jesus Christ this day and be saved. And that's really the significance of this passage. The spirit is always directing us not to himself, but to look to Jesus again, to look to his word again, and see Jesus again, and that we, as a congregation here, would have that sense of fire within.
As we are stirred by the truths of God's word, as we see Christ empowered by His Spirit, and that we would long for it and love it and seek it and declare it by His power, because what we proclaim is not ourselves, but the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are others who hear, but they really don't hear. And this is very possible. This could be you, you're hearing the gospel, you're hearing the word proclaimed, you're hearing Christ, but you're really not hearing. And so what it was with many who were here, and so they don't believe. What they do is mock. They're just filled with wine. They're drunkards, and they do not hear the spirit does not change their hearts. And those are really the, the two options, those are really the the two responses to the word being proclaimed by the power of the Spirit is either belief or mockery.
And if you are a Christian this day, it's because the spirit has empowered you. It's because of the gift of Pentecost. It's gone forth to the nations like yourselves that you might be gathered into the harvest. And if you're a Christian, you have the very spirit of Christ within you, who's with us now, and we have the word of God, and we can encourage each other with that. That's how the Spirit works, as we'll look next week.
What do they do with the Spirit of God? The Spirit comes upon them in a mighty way, and what do they do with it? They proclaim the Word of God. And what do? What should we do with the spirit that we have? We should proclaim the Word of God.
Ephesians says, Be filled with the Spirit and then do what?
Well, address one another, and psalms and hymns and spiritual songs remind each other of the words of God, of Christ. That's what we do with the Spirit.
That's what the Spirit does.
The Spirit doesn't just innate.
Just doesn't come and they're just babbling to one another. It doesn't do that. It's proclaiming to people that they might know, that they might understand who Christ is.
But if you are not a Christian, Jesus says you have to be born again.
Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.
And I would plead with you that you would pray this day, that the Spirit of God would open up your eyes to behold the Son of God, that you might be reconciled to God, and if you do, God will give you the same power that raised the son from the dead, and you too will have LIFE, true life, eternal life, and the presence of God will come to you and rest upon you.
And even as Jesus continued to tell Nicodemus, For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life, eternal breath.
This is the power of God. This is what should motivate our church. We don't have to be creative to come up with some fancy dress thing of Star Wars. This is what we need. We need the Spirit of God. We need prayer, and we need the word of God that goes forth, and it is that through that that changes and directs our hearts.
And this is exactly what we see the New Testament church doing.
And this is what we are called to do, you who are part of the new harvest that God is now using you to now draw others and calling you who are empowered by His Spirit, to speak the words of Christ, to gather the nations in, and we will continue to do that until one day the harvest is over and all the elect have been drawn in, and Christ will come and carry us home with much joy and delight, call on the Name of the Lord this day and be saved.
Rest in the spirit. Have much joy in what Christ has done for us, Gentiles, the nations who are gathered together this day.
Christ has done it through his presence, through His Spirit, call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. Let's pray, Father, we, thank you for giving us your word Lord. We, thank you for this celebration of Pentecost that we see happening here as they were celebrating the first fruits of the wheat harvest. Lord, you used it to give of your spirit to celebrate the.
First fruits of the gospel going to the nations. And Lord, we thank you that you are continuing to draw people in.
And I pray Lord, that You would continue to draw us closer into you and use us for the building of your kingdom. Lord, nourish your people. Feed us. We pray.
Let your spirit rest upon us in Jesus's name, Amen.