42. Acts 2:1-13, 36-47 | Empowered - The Holy Spirit Empowers Believers

Join Adam and his Alison as they return after a five-month hiatus to discuss exciting life changes and dive into the Book of Acts. This episode covers the massive shifts in their personal lives, their evolving roles within their church, and the powerful role reversals seen in the Book of Acts. They discuss Peter's transformation from a timid disciple to a church pillar, Saul's (Paul) conversion from persecutor to evangelist, and the pivotal moments during Pentecost where the Holy Spirit descended upon the early believers. Explore the theological implications, historical contexts, and lessons gleaned from Acts, particularly focusing on the themes of unity, the Holy Spirit's empowerment, and living out one's faith in community.

00:00 Catching Up After a Long Break
00:15 Life Changes and Role Reversals
02:03 Introduction to the Book of Acts
04:06 The Author and Audience of Acts
08:52 The Day of Pentecost
20:03 The Significance of Wind and Fire
21:57 Speaking in Tongues and the Inversion of Babel
23:01 Galilean Accent and the Power of God
23:48 The Scandal of the Holy Spirit's Descent
25:56 Peter's First Sermon: A Message to All
26:35 The Prophecy of Joel and Its Fulfillment
32:22 The Call to Repentance and Baptism
36:09 The Early Church: A Community of Believers
42:46 Living as Citizens of a New Kingdom
47:04 Empowered by the Holy Spirit
47:52 Conclusion and Prayer

Music used in intro: "Hard Answers" by JK Productions

Transcript

Alison: 0:00

Adam, we're back!

Adam: 0:00

We are back. It has been, we were just talking right before we started. It feels like it's been a year and a half since we've done one of these.

Alison: 0:08

I know, and in reality, I think it's only been about five months? But a lot has happened in those five months. A

Adam: 0:14

ton has happened. You've gone through some massive life changing stuff that's taken place.

Alison: 0:18

Yeah, my daughter graduated from high school, so we're now in the college era.

Adam: 0:22

Yeah. I'm trying

Alison: 0:23

to, I'm learning some of the things that I did not teach her in high school, now that she's trying to do things on her own. Okay. No, McKenzie, you don't have to add water to the pot when you put The green bean can, the can of green beans in the pot. Okay. That's the text I got this week. That's funny. Yeah. But things are going really well. Yeah. And because he graduated from high school, I still have a little man at home. Yeah. And he's starting football and all kinds of sports, so that makes me anxious. He'll be

Adam: 0:47

there before you know it now, too. He will.

Alison: 0:48

So we're going to enjoy that. But then also, We, you and I have had a role reversal, like you've had some big changes, too.

Adam: 0:55

Yeah,

Alison: 0:55

I'm over helping in the youth.

Adam: 0:57

Yeah,

Alison: 0:58

because you received a well deserved promotion to associate pastor. Yeah, so our church is searching for a new youth minister in Lantz. My husband has taken a lead role over there and I've followed him. I'm in no way filling your shoes over there though. Lance is great with the kids. I am out of my comfort zone, but willing.

Adam: 1:19

And that, that's the conversation that we had this last week is I've worked in every facet of the church growing up. Except children's ministry. I'm so far out of my comfort zone. But within my new role I've had the opportunity to partner up with our children's director, Michelle and we're revamping some of the stuff that's going on out in our children's ministry, especially on Wednesday nights. On Wednesdays, I've found myself In a lime green t shirt volunteer t shirt and playing with little kids and it Yeah, i'm i don't think i've ever been as scared in my entire life

Alison: 1:50

I felt the same way with the youth which is funny because My experience has been with kids and your experience has been with youth So for whatever reason the lord has switched our roles for this season stretching and stretching us

Adam: 2:02

And you

Alison: 2:02

know, it's funny. We It, that really fits with the book of Acts. We see a lot of role reversals in the book of Acts. We're going to meet Peter who we left as like a timid disciple denying Jesus. And we're going to see him be just a pillar in the new church, old, and then we're going to meet Paul. Who goes from laying his cloak at the feet of the people who were, or watching the cloaks of the people who were steaming, stoning steaming. Stephen. Stoning Stephen. I can't get those words out. Stephen,

Adam: 2:33

stoning Stephen. Yes. That is hard to say. So in

Alison: 2:35

other words, he went from persecuting Christians to being a key player in the early church. Yeah. And those role reversals I think fit right along with kind of the, what we're going through in our life.

Adam: 2:47

Spoiler alert, if you're listening, we are this fall, we are going through the Book of

Alison: 2:51

Acts. Yeah, I guess I should have said that, huh? No they're,

Adam: 2:53

We have very astute listeners. In fact, so astute that they were, really starting to become very loud that we have not come out with a podcast episode recently. I

Alison: 3:02

loved that. It was funny because I had gotten a couple of questions like, are you guys going to do podcast again? And I think you texted me and you said, people are asking. So that really actually was encouraging to me.

Adam: 3:14

Yeah, it was.

Alison: 3:15

And I'm really glad that we can, and I always love chatting with you. And so the fact that we have some people who are pulling up a chair to the table with us from their own homes or wherever they are via podcast is just a cherry on top.

Adam: 3:28

Absolutely. So give us a little bit of an overview. What kind of things are we looking to glean from our Acts study? Are we going verse by verse? Are we gonna?

Alison: 3:35

So we're not gonna go verse by verse. Acts is 28 chapters. And that would take a good while, although I think it would be totally worthy and enriching. I don't know that we're going to spend that long in Acts. I think we're going to spend about 10 weeks. And so we're going to highlight some really important passages in Acts and we'll take those passages verse by verse and we'll provide context too, because all of that is important to biblical literacy. We don't want to just pull out some verses in the book of Acts. And so I think we're going to probably, we're going to jump into Acts chapter two. But, to do what I said, give context let me introduce the book of Acts the things that we need to know before we begin jumping into any book, which is who wrote it.

Adam: 4:15

Perfect.

Alison: 4:16

And luke wrote the book of Acts. So we know Luke. I asked the kids, what do you know about Luke? Cause we're actually doing the book of Acts in youth. And I should say Lance is leading the teaching. But I did ask him like, what do you guys know about Luke? He authored Acts. And several of the kids were like, oh, he was a disciple. Luke actually wasn't a disciple, but he's such a key player. He has a gospel that he wrote that, we do think about Luke being a disciple, but he actually wasn't one of the twelve disciples. Yeah. The information from the gospel of Luke came because he interviewed first eyewitnesses. Yeah. To Jesus. He was actually a gentile. He was not a Jew. Which I think is really interesting that he that God would use a gentile, to write one of the gospels, which just fits right into his character. And we're gonna see, obviously the gospel reaching all kinds of gentiles in the Book of Acts. And he was very educated. He was a doctor. And we're, we know that although he didn't start out as one of Jesus original disciples, he was a key player in the early church. And we know from later in the book of Acts that he traveled with Paul during Paul's missionary journeys. Which I think is really cool that he was a doctor. And when we think about Paul's missionary journeys, He went through a lot. Can you think of some of the things that Paul went through? Yeah,

Adam: 5:36

he's in shipwrecks, imprisoned, beaten with rods. So

Alison: 5:40

the Bible doesn't point to this directly, but I would imagine that Paul would have used his gift of being a doctor to help minister to Paul. during those missionary journeys. So why don't you tell us about who, do we know anything about who the book of Acts is written to?

Adam: 5:57

In the opening verses of chapter one, just like the opening verses of of Luke, we see that the author himself is, he, one ascribes that This is a second part book in verse one. It says in the first book, Oh, Theophilus which is an unknown name. It could have been an individual from the past. It may have just meant a friend of God, a friend of believers. But he is writing clearly a second part to to, Someone that as far as that goes to, to believers who would be reading this in the Gentile world, in the Roman world and he's compiled together all of these different writings and some believe that he's used Mark as part of his His source material, and so he's writing to anyone and everyone. You can be Jew or Gentile at any point, but this will be a continued work that he's already continued, obviously when you look back at Luke. So Luke Acts is how scholarly works will categorize this work. It's not just the Gospel of Luke and Acts. John doesn't really exist in between Luke and Acts they're meant to be read together and thematically.

Alison: 6:59

And I love that you pointed out that it's a sequel and really in some ways, like you said, one book, and we don't know, like you said, who Theophilus is. People have ideas. I want to share one, one idea with you that I just particularly like, although we don't know for sure. Some people say that Theophilus may have been someone who was representing Paul as a lawyer because we see that the book of Acts, we're going to see it ends with Paul on trial in Rome.

Adam: 7:23

Yeah.

Alison: 7:24

And Luke and Acts, those two books together, almost could be looked at as if Luke was helping to present a defense for Paul for his trial in Rome, and Theophilus may have been someone who was going to represent him, a lawyer who was going to represent him. And like we said, we don't know if that's true, but it does make sense.

Adam: 7:43

They called it like an apologetic historical biography or something is how it's said, like in defense of. And actually one thing that I read about that I hadn't really thought about is the cost of writing something like this would have been astronomical in those days. So for, even for Luke in like modern times now, it would have cost him like, What did they say? 000 to have this Luke and Acts scribed in, in, in modern times. And so this was definitely something that was taken very seriously, that would have cost a lot. And Theophilus, one of the one of the theories was that Theophilus was one of these that was, heading up the financial part of that. So that might even fit into this narrative as well.

Alison: 8:22

Yeah, absolutely. And so the name of the Book of Acts I like that name because there's a lot of action in the Book of Acts. And sometimes people say that the Book of Acts is short for a full name that might be the Acts of the Apostles, the Book of Acts of the Apostles. And I could see how that would fit because God is sending out the Apostles and His church is multiplying and all those things. But I think the major actor in the book of Acts we're going to see is the Holy Spirit. And we're going to jump right into that today. But as we do, I really, one of the things that I thought about with the book of Acts is chapter 1. We're going to jump into chapter 2. So in chapter 1 Jesus is He's on earth after his resurrection, before his ascension. So after he's resurrected, he spends 40 days walking around. And he spends most of that time with believers. I think the Bible says in another part that he, appeared to over 500 believers. And he promises them the Holy Spirit. And then he tells them that they are going to be his witnesses. That key verse in Acts 1 8. That you're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you. And you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and on Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And then after he gives them that promise, he ascends into heaven. And for the very first time, the setting of the book of Acts, It's Christians without the physical presence of Jesus on earth. And for the first time ever, Jesus wasn't on earth and they were alone. Now they weren't alone though, and we're going to see that. The Holy Spirit was with them. But it was a different ministry than it was when they were probably physically following Jesus around. And I talked to the kids about that in youth. We talked to them about do they sometimes feel like they're in hard places alone? And it was really easy for them to name, on social media, at school, on certain sports teams like that. It can be a hard place to be a Christian. But Acts is so powerful because it's going to remind us and It was clear in New Testament times that although Jesus wasn't physically on earth anymore, believers are very much not alone and it's because of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And so do you want to read about that day when the Holy Spirit came down?

Adam: 10:39

Yeah. Yeah do you want to read 1 through 11 or?

Alison: 10:44

Sounds great. Chapter 2 verses 1 through 12.

Adam: 10:47

13. Okay, 13. Sounds good. 1 through 13. Okay. 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 of fire appeared to them, and rested on each one of them. And they were 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 the heaven. And at the sound of this multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one of them, 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 one of us in our own native language? Parthians and Medes, Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea. Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphiglia, Egypt, and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, the visitors from Rome, both Jews and Proselytes. Cretans, Arabians, we hear them telling their own tongues with the mighty works of God. And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, What does this mean? But others mocked it, saying, They are filled with new wine.

Alison: 12:06

Awesome. I'm glad that you volunteered to read all the way down to 13 because those are some I think it was voluntold there. Voluntold. Okay. I've called that after I've read it. I did that because I realized you don't have a cold. That's true. Thank you for doing such a good job. So we so we see at the very opening of this chapter that we're at the day of Pentecost, and so we know because of the Jewish calendar, the Jewish feast, the day of Pentecost was one of the three feasts that required Jews. It was a pilgrimage feast, so it required Jews to come to Jerusalem. The Jewish men were required to come to Jerusalem for feasts three times a year, and Pentecost was one of those. And we know that Pentecost is 50 days after Passover. And so that makes this 10 days after Jesus ascension. Because Jesus ascended into Heaven 40 days after He, after Passover. And so now this is an additional 10 days. And what do we know about Pentecost? Is it relevant that the Holy Spirit would come down on the day of Pentecost?

Adam: 13:05

You tell me. What do you think?

Alison: 13:06

I think that it's really relevant. Because Pentecost celebrated the first fruits. And what that meant was that Jews brought the first fruits of their wheat harvest to the temple on the day of Pentecost. And the wheat harvest was from what I've read, the most profitable harvest for the Jews. It was the most economically advantageous harvests that they produced. And when they brought the wheat, they would bring two loaves of wheat on the day of Pentecost. That was their offering. And it wasn't that all of their wheat was in yet. So it was the first fruit. So the wheat harvest was, the full wheat harvest was going to actually follow Pentecost. This was the very beginning of the wheat harvest. And so when they brought those two loaves, it was almost like a sacrifice or an offering to say, Lord, we're trusting you for the rest of the harvest. We're trusting you to bring the rest of the wheat harvest. These are our first fruits. And Ephesians actually describes the Holy Spirit in a very similar way. Ephesians 1. 14 says the Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance until the redemption of the possession to the praise of His glory. And I think that obviously everything that the Lord does is intentional, but we can see intention here in the Holy Spirit fulfilling the purpose of that. Fe Festival of that feast in us recognizing that he is the promise of all of the inheritance. Yeah. And we have already received him if we have placed our faith in Jesus.

Adam: 14:46

Yeah. So Leviticus 23 is gonna lay out a little bit of the idea of the different feasts that we're talking about, but Leviticus pre Leviticus 23, we are told of the first, experience in which Pentecost will be begin to be established on. And that was at the foothills of Mount Sinai in Exodus. And in Exodus 19, we're going to see a specific testing that will take place for Israel. This is right after the Red Sea crossing. They've wandered in the wilderness. This will put us numerically in the right spot and at the foothills of Mount Sinai, they're going to look up at this mountain and they're going to see the presence of the Lord rain down basically onto the tops of the mountain. And they're going in, it's going to be in the appearance of fire and smoke and a loud loud noises. And they're called at that point. It's a very confusing and really fun story we could get into at a different time, but they're called not to touch that. And they all go up on that mountain until they hear hear the trumpets blast, and then they're supposed to go up on the mountain. They don't. They get afraid and they tell, they ask for Moses to become an intercessor for them. And so that is a, that's a pivotal thing to understand because of what, what's experienced here on the day of Pentecost will be that same thing, but instead it's coming to the people and instead of on to the Holy mountain, Mount Sinai, it's now wherever the people are here, it's going to descend upon them, each of them. Which I think is an interesting insight into why this had to occur on Pentecost, because it's inverting what took place at Mount Sinai, which will be the setup of the Pentecost feast.

Alison: 16:15

So that, that event that happened on Mount Sinai, that would have coincided with the giving of the law, right? And so that's probably why in Jewish tradition a lot of people also believe that on the day of Pentecost Yeah. That God gave the law to Moses, and you so eloquently pointed out that God redeems or inverts everything that we're incapable of doing on our own, right?

Adam: 16:35

Yeah.

Alison: 16:35

How cool is it that He would pour out the empowering, enabling, equipping Holy Spirit on the same day that He gave the law that we were unable to keep on our own? It's

Adam: 16:46

not the only thing He's inverting here, either. If you're astute to reading scripture and you understand that those who are writing it are still often versed in the Hebrew scriptures, he's inverted another very specific event that took place early in the book of Genesis. And I'll give you clues real quick. Okay, first in verse one, they were all together in one place. Okay. They verse three, they had divided tongues or divided languages. Okay. Verse four, they were speaking in other tongues. Verse five, there were men from every nation, and they were all, came together, and they were all hearing one language.

Alison: 17:25

Okay.

Adam: 17:25

Did any of those clues point back to anything in the Old Testament?

Alison: 17:29

So it sounds like God's inverting the Tower of Babel.

Adam: 17:31

Yes. So if you are looking looking for the clues, what you're seeing is that there's another inversion taking place, and that, that is the division that takes place in Genesis where men were all together in one place, they had all things in common, they all spoke the same language, and they were they were trying to put themselves in the place of God in this narrative, and God comes down and separates them and segments them across the world. And confuses their language. So the theological implication here is that God is continuing his work and he's bringing all things back together and he's he's uniting languages in through the work of the Holy Spirit, the acts of the Holy Spirit throughout this book, what you're going to see is now These chosen individuals like what would follow the Babel account would be the choosing of Abram and Abraham will, and his mission, now these chosen individuals will go out into all those segmented and spread out lands and and begin the inversion ministry of what took place at Babel.

Alison: 18:27

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about that event. You touched on it with the tongues of fire, and the wind, and everything that happened that day. So we see in verse chapter two, verse two through, about four, is that a sound like a violent rushing wind came, and it filled the whole house, and then they saw tongues like flames of fire resting upon them. That's basically the description of the what they experienced when the Holy Spirit came down. This wasn't their first interaction with the Holy Spirit. It's not like the Holy Spirit just began existing on this day. The Holy Spirit is God. He has always existed. But He's going to come to believers in a new way. At this point in redemptive history and forward. And you The way he came is he sounded like a mighty wind. It's not that wind blew in the room. It's that he sounded like a mighty wind. And that tongues like fire appeared. And I think one thing important to point out, when I imagined this for a long time, I imagined this happening to the twelve disciples. But the Bible says that this actually happened to a hundred and twenty, around a hundred and twenty believers who were all gathered together. We know that from Acts 115. There were a hundred and twenty of them in the room when this happened. And I think that The wind and the fire were really important indicators for them because they'd been waiting a while, right? They'd been waiting. Jesus had promised right before He ascended ten days before this. And they were just all waiting for the fulfillment of the promise. And so this was an important indicator that it had arrived. What do you think makes the wind such, such a poignant picture?

Adam: 20:09

This is such a nerdy insight. But. Wind in the Hebrew scripture, so this would have been written in Greek, not in Hebrew, but they would have been well aware of how wind worked in the Old Testament. So in the Greek, the spirit is the word pneuma, but in the Old Testament, the word for wind is ruach. And Ruach has multiple meanings all layered into one. And one would be wind, but the second one would be spirit. And so the first time we see that is in Genesis 1 1, when God created everything that was up there and everything that was down here, and there was nothing. 1, 2 says that the Ruach of God was hovering over the waters. And so from that point forward what we're going to see is that the spirit will show up in a mighty way and it'll be portrayed as wind this parting of the Red Sea in Exodus came from an Eastern Ruach, right? And multiple ways if you keep looking, but so for the author to choose to describe this event as a wind coming in. It clearly has multiple meanings tying to that Hebrew scriptures of the spirit of God coming in the personal presence of God in this earth and coming as a wind and breathing new life into his believers like only God the creator could do.

Alison: 21:21

And then fighters mentioned a lot in the Old Testament too, right? The one that comes to mind in particular is, I think we see in the Old Testament times when God shows His special sacrifice pleasure on a sacrifice by sending down fire from heaven to light it Himself. That is a picture that I get of Him just being especially pleased.

Adam: 21:39

It's that idea of what's dangerous to man with God becomes powerful. It's Abednego in a fiery furnace that could be judgment, but God is protected.

Alison: 21:50

Yeah.

Adam: 21:50

It's the glory, the dangerous glory of God. Yeah. Yeah.

Alison: 21:53

Absolutely. Oh, I love that. Dangerous glory. Yeah. That's good. Then we see them beginning to speak in all these different languages, like you pointed out, which definitely, you pointed out, does an inversion to Babel, it's such a, when God does something, He doesn't do it like halfway. I love that the scripture points out that the people's reaction who heard them, so there were 120 people speaking in different languages. We don't know exactly where this room was that they were meeting, but we think it was probably pretty close to the temple. It would have had to have been a large room for 120 people to have been staying there for 10 days. Yeah. And we know that the temple would have been extremely full at this time because, like we pointed out, Pentecost was one of those three feasts where Jews were required to go. And the Jews from all over the world who had come to celebrate Pentecost, and who may have even been in Jerusalem for other reasons, began to hear these Galileans, and the scripture points that out talk in all these different languages. And We know from Matthew 23, I think it's verse 76, 73, excuse me, Matthew 26, verse 73, that Galileans have an accent,

Adam: 22:59

a

Alison: 23:00

very distinct accent. And historians have also lended credibility, not that, obviously not that the Bible needs any credibility lended to it, but there's also historical proof. That Galileans had an accent, but in Matthew 26 verse 73, Peter has just denied Jesus. He's denied that he knows Jesus. He's denied that he had anything to do with Jesus. And the Servant Girl said, Yeah, but your accent betrays you. You're one of those Galileans. And so now we see these Galileans amazing everyone with their ability to perfectly speak all these different languages. Yeah. And I think that just points to just the greatness of God. That, he just doesn't do anything halfway. And that this wasn't something that they were doing in their own power.

Adam: 23:48

There's also a big theological statement that's being made here that would have made this scandalous to those in Jerusalem who are not that far from the temple, because what we're seeing is we're watching a scene that we've seen take place at least two other times in the Old Testament, and that was the consecration of the temple in the tabernacle, which during this time once they prepared and built the house of God which would be considered the temple fire would come down and would fill up the Holy of Holies. And it, that would be, that's where that dangerous glory would dwell, in, in the midst of men. But what is what is being laid out here is that they're not in the temple. They're in the vicinity of the temple, but they're not in the temple. And so for them to sit there and say that the Holy Spirit has come down and consecrated himself or itself in the midst of the believers where those believers are, that would be very scandalous to the temple at the time, and to the leadership of the temple, because they're basically saying Yeah, they don't, we don't even need you guys anymore. We don't need that building anymore because now the Holy Spirit has consecrated us here wherever we are in a gathering. And that honestly becomes a massive scandal which causes a dispersion, which causes a inversion of Babel but obviously with God's sovereignty turned good, in a scattering of the believers who will go to the edges of the earth to spread the gospel, the good news.

Alison: 25:09

So Peter takes this opportunity where lots of people are hearing in their own heart languages, and I love that God did that. I actually was reading somewhere that most of these people in this area would have spoken the common language of Greek. It may not have been necessary. for them to receive the message that Peter is going to receive in their own language. It's possible that they could have spoken in Greek and really captured most of the people's understanding. But there's something about your heart language. And we've learned that doing missions that if you can learn a little bit of a person's heart language The gospel just, God wants to plant his word in your heart, using your heart language. And I love that he does that from the very beginning here with Peter. But, so Peter takes this opportunity and he takes the audience whose attention he has caught and he preaches to them. In fact, this section of my Bible is called Peter's First Sermon. Yeah. What does he tell them? He tells them.

Adam: 26:11

Do you want me to read it or just summarize it? Peter's standing, starting in verse fourteen. That, that's where you want me to start, right?

Alison: 26:17

Am I voluntolding you? No, I'm good with that. You want to voluntold me back? No, I'm

Adam: 26:20

good with that. Okay. Verse fourteen, it says, But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and he addressed them, Men of Judea, and all who dwell in Jerusalem, this, let this be known to you, give ear to my words, for the people are not drunk, as you suppose, since this is only the third hour of the day. This was what was uttered through the prophet Joel, and that he's gonna quote Joel chapter two here. And in the last days it shall be God declares and 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 even on male, my male servant, and female servants. In those days, I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy and I will show wonders. In the heavens above, and signs on the earth below, blood and fire, vapor and smoke, the sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day, and it shall be, it shall come to pass, that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Do you want me to keep going?

Alison: 27:16

Why don't you stop there? Maybe we can talk about that and you can summarize the rest.

Adam: 27:20

Yeah.

Alison: 27:20

So he's referencing back to the book of Joel. And I think drawing their attention to the fact that this was the day. In many ways that the Old Testament prophesied, right?

Adam: 27:31

Yep. Yeah he also leaves a little bit of a, an already, but not yet. So this is the function of prophecy. Is that there's this idea that there's something that comes. Jesus will come and fulfill most every part of it, but there still seems to be even a small portion of it that is a not yet. And what he leaves off in that passage is the final verse of that says, And it shall come to pass that in Jerusalem there shall be those who will escape. And the Lord has said and among survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. And so he leaves off this like second part where all the earth is going to come to Jerusalem, the might, the holy mountain, but then there'll be those who will escape and those who will among the survivors and those who God will call. And so he leaves that portion off, but he starts to talk about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the people, which is actually Joel is also, Playing off of something that Moses says all the way back in numbers 11, when numbers 1129, Moses makes a plea that the spirit of God would be dwelt dwelling in and amongst all of his people. And it's an obscure passage of, depending on what's going on in numbers, but it's that little tiny glimpse of there's a foreshadowing of a plan that God has that all people will be dwell in dwelling and dwell with the Holy Spirit in that this is a come to play here in front of us in this day at Pentecost, during Peter sermon.

Alison: 28:52

Yeah. And and that's cool because when the tongues like fire came down, they rested like one for every person, right? It didn't just rest one on the group. It's more of an individual indwelling for all of those who place their faith in Jesus. I love that. And so Peter goes on and he, one of the things I love about Peter, he gives the good news and he points to the fact that Jesus is the fulfillment of these prophecies. He's not shy about that. But he also isn't shy about pointing out the fact that the people, his audience, those with whom he was speaking, were responsible for Jesus death. And that might seem a little bit harsh, I think that's part of the good news. Because here's the thing. If we know in our hearts, we know we're sinners. We know we need a Savior. We know we don't have it all together, even if we pretend. And so the fact that we can hear you're in need of a savior. You're responsible for messing up for doing things that are not right, that's part of the good news, because if we have a God who's just going to lie to us and say, we're fine, just like we are before we're saved. Then that's not a God I can trust because I know in my heart that is not true. And and so Peter's not, he's not shy about saying, verse 36, he says, Let, therefore, all the house of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and King. And that whole verse is good news to me, and I think all of Peter's message is good news in the way that he's not shy in letting them know their culpability, but also the fact that Jesus still saves them. Out of their mess, right out of their culpability.

Adam: 30:32

One more, one more nerdy aspect of Pentecost being that it's the feast of first fruits and stuff like that. So much of their culture would be rereading and re committing out loud the Hebrew scriptures. The first. instance that you're going to see this term first fruits comes in a story early in Genesis as well. And the first fruits are offered by the eldest brother Cain of Adam and Eve. And and then Abel gives the first of his flock, right? The first point of his flock. And then, if you know the story, what happens is Cain's jealousy because of the Lord's favor of Abel's flock he murders his brother. And when you're looking at that microcosmic story between Cain and Abel, and the murdering of a brother, and the blessings of God still bestowed upon both who would control their sin but watching Cain be submissive to that sin here now in the macro picture, we're seeing that Israel is enacting their The story that they're literally reading and learning about in Pentecost, that they were that brother, the first fruits that would kill their, kill the the favored beloved son Abel. That is Jesus. But in doing so, God's protection and will and favor will be passed along into the into those who would choose to follow Jesus's good news. What Jesus did by conquering death, what Abel could not ever do. Which was conquering that death. It's just fun to see all these, like every line of the, of this book, especially it's just inverting themes that would have been really deeply rooted in each one of these ancient Israelite Jew, Jewish thoughts.

Alison: 32:02

Yeah. And they're not abstract inversions. They're very concrete ways that God redeems his people. And I think that's really poignant. So I've volun told you to read a lot, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna read the next section. Let's see what happens after Peter gives this sermon, how the people respond. Are they gonna stone him, or are they gonna, let's see. When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles brothers, What should we do? And Peter replied, Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call. With many other words he testified and strongly urged them, saying, Be saved from this corrupt generation. Those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about 3, 000 people were added to them. So if you preached with 3, 000 responding to the altar call, that'd be a good day, Adam?

Adam: 33:01

I'd be happy with three. So 3, 000, that's, that is life changing. That's insane. That's amazing.

Alison: 33:08

So I noticed, some of the things I noticed about how this worked out is one of my favorite things actually about this is, the Bible says that Peter replied with, Many other words. We are dealing with many other words. Have you ever been in one of those services where it's last point, right? And then the altar call goes like 45 minutes long. And then a guy

Adam: 33:31

falls asleep in a window and falls out and dies. Oh, I think

Alison: 33:34

that might happen. I'm thinking this was like a really long altar call. It's like urging, but that's good because 3, 000 people responded. And he's really specific to point out that not only are they going to be saved and their sins are going to be forgiven, but they're also going to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit upon their salvation. And that's how we, you and I, believe the Holy Spirit comes upon conversion, upon receiving the gift of salvation. It's not a separate dispensation. Now, That doesn't mean that at times you may not feel more empowered by the Holy Spirit, more aware of His presence during maybe persecution, or times where God's requiring boldness of you. There may be times when you're really more keenly aware of His presence, but you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit when you place your faith in Jesus. And Peter makes that pretty clear here.

Adam: 34:25

I think I want to challenge our listeners as we go through this passage, if they're reading Acts as well throughout this series, to really challenge this on and what it looks like for the new kingdom of God that Jesus would often preach about being established here, because that's kind It's taking place without really, during this church service and numbers being added to them daily. As you begin to see this, what you're going to start to see is a new kingdom that's taking place in the midst of where they are, wherever that may be. And this book is going to, it's going to follow the path of Jerusalem, Judea, all the Samaria not to the edges of the world. It'll end in Rome. But it's just a fun thematic look at what's taking place and what it means to live as a a citizen to a new kingdom, even if you exist in a current kingdom. It doesn't mean that you can't live as citizens of this new kingdom. And that's really what's taking place here. And there's a new kingdom, there's a new temple. Paul will play off that temple is not a stationary one, but it's a mobile temple now, and it will empower and embolden, those believers to live what it looks like. To exist allegiance to this new king.

Alison: 35:33

Yeah, I was going to say that brings me back to what you taught us in the spring when we ended our last series of podcasts. I know, I

Adam: 35:39

slept so many times with him.

Alison: 35:40

I remember because it was such a great point. You taught us that. Salvation in a lot of ways is like pledging allegiance to a new kingdom, to a new king. And so that's, the way you described this section really speaks to that truth. That we are pledging allegiance. I'll

Adam: 35:56

plug a book, because that's not my own thoughts. Matthew Bates wrote a book called Salvation by Allegiance Alone. And the title's meant to cause you to go, what? But it's pretty good. You should, if you look for extra books, You can read that. It's pretty good. I

Alison: 36:08

love that.

Adam: 36:09

Yeah.

Alison: 36:09

So let's look at a picture of how they lived initially, right after this great giving of the Holy Spirit and this great turning to Jesus. 3, 000. So it's probably, it's more than 3, 000 right at this point now. Because we had 120. Who received the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so we've got a pretty big growing church. And in verse megachurch already. You're a megachurch, okay. So in verse 42 says, They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all as any had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people every day. The Lord added to their number of those who were being saved. So when I read this, I almost feel like it's a honeymoon period, I guess in some ways for the church. I don't know if that's a good way to describe it, but this is some pretty magnificent things going on. Probably my favorite thing I can imagine being a part of would be to be there when the Apostles are telling the stories of Jesus, right? Because the New Testament hasn't been written yet. And when we read this book and we look at how we can apply sitting under the teaching of the Apostles, we're thinking about studying the New Testament. But at this point the New Testament hasn't been written. And so I think that they are literally just sitting with John and sitting with Peter and sitting with Mark and hearing The stories of the New Testament that are later going to be written down. And so how cool would that be? And I wonder if they added any details maybe that didn't make it, into the final canon. But also, I think it's a cool thing that is a way that God preserved His Word. Because we know that the How long were the Gospels written after Jesus? Was it about 30

Adam: 38:05

to 50 years. Okay, 30 to 50 years.

Alison: 38:07

John, I think, was the last one written. And so we think about, I've thought about, like, how did they remember all these details? And obviously the Holy Spirit inspired them, so that's the ultimate answer. But one of the ways that the Lord could have used it is just by them telling the story over and over again. And I can relate to that because my family and I have a ministry to hate Christ. And the way, the story of how God called us to help there and things that He has done while we've been in that country are stories that I've told over and over again to dozens of churches and groups who have asked us to come and speak and who donate and things like that. And they're stories, I can tell you, I usually begin the story by saying, When Mackenzie, who we talked about just graduated from high school, when Mackenzie was four years old, she was curled up on the side of our couch watching a show on Nickelodeon about Haiti. Now, I wouldn't normally remember that detail, right? Yeah. But it's a story that I've told over and over again. And as part of our ministry. And so I think that it's cool that this could have been one way that God preserved all of those details and that people just sat around the apostles listening to the stories of Jesus.

Adam: 39:08

It's a much more personal way of really teaching and spreading the word, yeah. I think I there, I wanna give another book, a recommendation. Okay. Because this book was really eyeopening for me to see what it looked like to be a, an attendee of like a house church. Much we see laid out here. And I was trying to look it up real quick, but I, my internet's not working, but I'm pretty sure it's called letters letters to per. And the premise is, it's a story that's unfolding through correspondence between two individuals. One is, I think it's Luke, if I remember correctly. Luke is writing back and forth to this guy who's in Pergamum. He's like an official, not a believer of the way of God. But and in this you it's it's written about, he ends up getting connected with this house church and he's like this, these people are so interesting there's no no rank of people there anymore. Everyone's equal, the slave is there with the, high ranking officials and they're all eating bread together. They're all enjoying dinners together and community together and worshipping together and it's just so weird and then it just grows from there and there's a really cool ending to it. But I highly recommend it because it's a good, it's a good, I think picture into what a first century church gathering was. Because when we think of church, we think of a building that we go to, and a time per week that we go to. But even that model, the first known building for gathering a gathering of the body of Christ that was built simply for that wasn't until the late third century B. C. And so for the first, 150, 200 years, this is what the church was. It was communities. It was people in houses. It was family gatherings. It was story time told about Jesus in worship together. It was. Selling things when there was need and raising money for those who were in need and taking care of those who'd lost people and that kind of thing. And there's something, I don't know about you, but I read this and I long for that. I just long for those, moments. I just like how sweet of a gathering the church was back then. And it makes what we experienced today more corporate feeling. I think there's good in it. I'm not trying to just downplay all that, but I just, I look at this and I'm jealous, cause I love that family aspect of really what this feels like.

Alison: 41:18

Yeah. And I think we, we do get some tastes of that. Although I think sometimes we may sell ourselves short and limitations because we're busy and we choose other priorities of being able to get together with the body of Christ as often as we probably would benefit from. But, there have been times in my life that I have thought. If it were not for the body of Christ, I wouldn't be making it through this season, or at least not this successfully. For example, when my mother in law was experiencing cancer the ladies in our church just surrounded us with food and child care because she, Mackenzie was a baby and she was my child care and she got sick very quickly and I lost, Being able to keep, I needed to work, all the things, so it's like they just really became the hands and feet of Jesus just ministering to us in so many ways. And And I'm so thankful for that. And your own family has done that and are like actually you did that so recently for me because my computer crashed and everything and just, everything on it is gone. You tried to save it because Adam's so good with the computer. He has two in front of him right now. I'm just

Adam: 42:20

dangerous enough with it And I have zero in front of me right now.

Alison: 42:24

But you gifted us a computer. Huge.

Adam: 42:27

Only because it was gifted to me first. This is not, I don't want you to build it up more than it is. But it was a huge deal for

Alison: 42:33

a person who just lost their computer. It was a really big deal. It really met such a real need for us at that time. And I definitely think that there, there are so many benefits to being family with your body of Christ. One of the parts of this This passage, though, that just I'm not sure about how this would work in our time, is it said in verse 45, they sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all as any had need. So do you think that is a prescriptive verse for believers of all times? Meaning, is that instructions of how the church ought to act today?

Adam: 43:06

So this is a theory. It's called like the poverty how do they call it? The poverty gospel or something. In other words you're not, you can't truly be a true Christian unless you are basically without money. That you've sold everything and that you and I don't think that's what this is at all. I think what this is just showing that God has blessed certain individuals with money and certain individuals not with money. He's sovereign and understands those kind of things better than I could ever imagine. And I don't think your money is is meant to necessarily make you less godly or more godly. I think what it means is that it makes us dependent upon each other more. So where I may be MacBook rich at the moment Realistically, it was just, I had an extra one that was laying around that was perfectly good, and I saw a need and understood at that moment how painful it is to just have, a decade's worth of work just disappear, in a spinning wheel. And so for me, I think it's less about a prescription for poverty and more about a recognition of the ways that God has treated us. Put us all together to help create a more completeness in the body. So where one lacks, the other can carry. And where that one lacks then in return, the, this, the original one could carry, and I think it just becomes more of an opportunity to help complete and bring fullness in and amongst the broken body itself. Yeah,

Alison: 44:34

I really like that. And I think the other thing that I've thought about this could also be a picture to go back to your idea of allegiance to God's kingdom, for so long, I think it was the Jewish mindset under that Abraham's covenant that God was going to promise them a name, a people, group, and land, right? And land was just so important to, to them with regard to how they felt God was going to bless them. And and it was like actual land, right? In Israel very concrete. In fact, that was the whole idea behind the Kinsmen Redeemer, right? If a woman's husband died and their family was at risk of losing their land, then a kinsman redeemer could come and buy it so that it stays in the family. So it was just really tied to the blessing of God. And then we see these believers just selling their land and recognizing that land on this earth.

Adam: 45:23

Yeah.

Alison: 45:23

Isn't the answer to God's blessings because God fulfilled that it was a picture of what God wanted to do all along. That the true promised land is. Is eternal life, right? Is God's kingdom. One day when he makes all things new.

Adam: 45:37

That brings to mind one of the connections that you make in Acts chapter one is during the ascension, Jesus is described in his ascension into the clouds in a certain way to parallel that of Elijah in the old Testament and second Kings. And Elijah is taken up in a chariot of fire in the midst of Elisha and What's interesting is if you're going to parallel those two stories, then what we're going to notice is that Elisha will go on to do double the amount of work and he'll take double the portion of acts that Elijah the prophet was able to do. So he goes on to do even greater and more. Even though I feel like Elijah, because of the way he ends gets all the credit. If that's true, if we're meant to parallel those two narratives together, then what we're seeing is that Jesus is ascended to heaven and his body is left behind to do double the amount of works that that Jesus himself did. So he's empowering us to do that, which Elijah would do in the Elisha story. And when you look at that when the calling of Elisha. Elijah has all of this, all these riches and has like a bunch of oxen and stuff like that. And Elijah walks up and puts his cloak on him and Elisha burns everything to the ground and follows him. In other words, like all the earthly possessions meant nothing to him. It was just the fact following the will of God as a prophet. And so here we're seeing the same thing take place is that they're showing more prescriptive of What they're, where their heart lies rather than in who their allegiance is rather than being wrapped up in the earthly possessions, they're ready to go do double the amount of work now,

Alison: 47:04

and I think Jesus even alludes to that or says that doesn't he say you're going to do even greater things. When he's speaking with the disciples before his crucifixion and and you know what, we're going to, we're going to see some evidence of that. And it's not that the disciples or the church is greater. Are greater than Jesus. It is that Jesus is empowering. Like you said it's his hands and feet. It's the body that's doing the work through him. And so we're going to see the Holy Spirit doing some amazing things, enabling some amazing role reversals in people's lives. And we're going to continue on, I think, with that next week.

Adam: 47:37

That sounds great. We did it. We took a two year break and now we're back.

Alison: 47:44

We've grown and matured. Yes. And that's five months. Maybe, I don't know.

Adam: 47:48

I've grown, just not up.

Alison: 47:50

No, I don't know about that.

Adam: 47:52

Would you close us out in prayer?

Alison: 47:53

Dear Jesus, thank you so much for your death and your resurrection that provides salvation for us. And I thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit that seals us and is the guarantee of our inheritance of what's to come, dear Jesus. I thank you for the Holy Spirit coming now and being in each and every believer. And I And just helping us to understand your will for us, giving us the courage to tell others about you and helping us to live in ways that please you, Lord. And I just pray that as we study the book of Acts over these next several weeks and we see how you worked and enabled and empowered believers to do things for your kingdom, that God, you would help us to understand that we have that same Holy Spirit. Spirit. And dear Jesus, that you also call us to new places and to new people. To be, to do real things for you that have eternal impacts. And I just pray that that would encourage us. And it also encourages us to know that we are not alone for the first time. These believers in the book of acts were on earth without you, dear Jesus. And we're still in that time right now until you return, but you have not left us alone. And in many ways you have left us the Holy spirit who you say is even better than you being here with us physically. And so help us to just really. Benefit from that gift walk Lord. And I just thank you for that. In Jesus name. Amen.

Adam: 49:17

Amen