So we have been in a series, uh, this is the second week of our series on the book of Acts. And we're actually um going through the entire book of Acts uh over the next 19 weeks, including now. And we're looking through the book of Acts, which really captures the story of God, a story of the very first Christians, followers of Jesus. So if you want to like know an origin story, this is the origin story of the church. What happened after Jesus rose from the dead that we celebrate on Easter? And what was the impact that it had on his first followers, but really on the world. There's a verse in Acts where it talks about uh that these disciples, these people have changed the world, like turned the world upside down. And honestly, if you look through history since Jesus, the Christian movement has transformed so many things in the world. But in Acts, we don't just see history. We don't just see back and see these inspirational stories and go, that's so cool what they did, or how neat, or we get encouraged or inspired. They're not just meant to be moral lessons. Because when we think about the story of the Bible, we talked about this last week, we can think about the whole story of the Bible as a five-act play. And this came from uh Tom Wright, a scholar and theologian. He talks about the story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and even today, think about it as five acts. And what the book of Acts begins is the fifth act, the final act of the story. But the book of Acts is just the beginning of the fifth act. That's what we're gonna see is that we're actually still in this fifth act. We're still in the same act as these early Christians. We can often think that's cool for them 2,000 years ago, but it's actually an invitation to say this is the story that we're living in, not what happened, but what God is inviting us into now. That the book of Acts is going to show us that we've been given the same spirit and the same mission as the first apostles and disciples, these 120. But for many of us, I know, if you've been around church, we if you hear the Holy Spirit talked about and say, the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, for some of us, maybe we didn't grow up hearing a lot about the Holy Spirit, or the book of Acts was again, maybe just like a story that we read about, you know, ancient figures who did great things, myths, you know, like Hercules or something. And we go, that's cool, that's amazing. It's what, but for some of us, when we grew up, we didn't really hear a lot about the Holy Spirit. We heard about Jesus, we heard about God the Father, we heard about the Bible, but we didn't really hear maybe a lot about the Holy Spirit. If we did, maybe it was kind of mystical vapor, a power force, mysterious. And I think because the Holy Spirit, for a lot of us, we didn't grow up hearing about him, and maybe it feels like I don't really know what to do with the Holy Spirit, is that we can kind of ignore the Holy Spirit, especially in churches in the West. It's like for some of us, we don't understand him, and so we just kind of ignore him. Or for others of us, we kind of hear about the Holy Spirit and we go, that's just kind of for like the people who are like really enthusiastic, you know, like the whether Pentecostal or charismatic or or whatever label, like those are the people that are a little bit off the deep end. That's the Holy Spirit people. I'm really more of a Jesus person. You know, I want to keep it simple. But for the global church, that's not the case. For the church in Africa and Asia and Central America and South America, when they read the book of Acts, when they hear about the Holy Spirit, I was reading a book recently about this, and they see this story as telling their story. They see this as an invitation to a life that they're called to live or a life that they are living. So when when Christians outside of the West hear the story, the promise of the Holy Spirit coming to give power to be witnesses, to go everywhere they are to spread Jesus, and that they need the power of the Spirit to do the very things that they feel like God has invited them into, they're like, Yeah, we need that power. We need that. We need that. In America, in the US, we can get so comfortable, right? Because we can do a lot of things on our own. We can put together really good performances on Sundays. We can do really great work, and that's not bad, but we can do a lot of things apart from God. But in other places, there's this awareness of if we really want to see God move, we need him. And the reality is for us, that's us too. We're just kind of like we can be distracted and caught up in all the other things that we're doing. But again, we can fall into this trap of in America. So maybe it's that, but also that we just go, I just want Jesus. I just want scripture. I'm just about Jesus. That if we maybe if we get too focused on the Holy Spirit, another way to think about it, we get too focused on the Holy Spirit and we lose the main thing, right? Sometimes there's that fear of like, man, you're just gonna go off the deep end. Keep the main thing, the main thing. The Holy Spirit stuff is extra. It's kind of a bonus, or if it's for people who are more emotional or experiential, right? And we talk about how, you know, in churches it can be divisive. Churches can easily get divided over things. And so it's maybe like, hey, when we talk about the Holy Spirit, about like God doing like powerful things still or still speaking, it can find it can divide churches. So why let's just leave it alone? Let's just leave it alone, leave it over there. It's kind of a just a bonus. But here's the thing: what we see in the book of Acts, and what we see about the Holy Spirit in the Bible, is that we can't just say, I'm just a Jesus person. We can't say I'm just like just a Bible person, because here's the deal Jesus in the Bible won't let us say that. It won't let us just say, I'm not a spirit person. I that's not really for me. Because Jesus says, Don't leave Jerusalem until you wait for the Holy Spirit. We talked about last week. Don't wait, leave Jerusalem, but wait for the Holy Spirit, wait for power to come. Why? Because we need God's power, we need God's spirit. And we talked about this last week again, but with all that Jesus invested, there's 120 people that he's talking to. Many of them would have spent years with him, would have heard him teach and do miracles. They would have seen him resurrected from the dead. Like they were invested in in so many deep ways. And Jesus is saying, all the mentoring you receive from me, all that you've seen, all that you've been able to do up to this point, you need more. You need power from me. You need my spirit in you to change you, to form you, to empower you. Because Jesus says, I'm sending you as witnesses into your neighborhood, into your cities, to the people that you would have never imagined yourself going. So when Jesus gives that command, like we looked at last week, what do they do? Well, in Acts chapter 2, verse 1, what we're going to look at today, it says this when the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. When the day of Pentecost came, anybody know what today is? It's Pentecost. Today is Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost is 50 days. So essentially, uh in the Jewish calendar, there's a festival called Pentecost, where they would celebrate the first fruits of the harvest and it's 50-day, uh, it was a 50-day celebration. Today is the day that uh the church has celebrated Pentecost. And so on this day, like today, 120 uh followers of Jesus were gathered in one room together. There's probably children as well, too, certainly men and women. There's not child care, so I'm sure it was loud, it was noisy. They were together. He doesn't say what they were doing necessarily. And they had seen a lot already. You got to remember, again, these people have seen Jesus' miracles. They've seen his power, they've seen his surprising death on a cross. They didn't expect that to happen. And then they experienced this paradigm-shifting resurrection that he rises from the dead that no one imagined what would happen. Jesus had already flipped upside down their expectations and done the impossible. And so here they are, and they've been waiting for 50 days. Now, for some of them, they're like, there's no way, I'm sure. They're like, I'm holding on tight. Like, I just saw a person rise from the dead. Like, I can wait 50 days. Other people, maybe their faith was waning. It doesn't tell us actually. What it tells us though is they were all together. They were all together. And here's what comes next, and it's incredible. Acts chapter 2, verses 2 through 4. It says, suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. If you notice, it doesn't say they felt a wind. It was a sound like a wind and it was powerful. I imagine, like when people talk about hearing a tornado, and it sounds like it's a locomotive coming or something. I don't know, maybe it was that sound that filled the room. It was powerful, and everyone in the room could hear it. And it says they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on them. Again, it doesn't say actual fire, but something like fire. Something like fire, and then the promise. The promise that they've been waiting for, promise that had been made hundreds of years before in the Old Testament. The promise of God's Spirit coming close, of Him dwelling in their hearts, of giving them new hearts, of writing God's law and God's desire in them, where they become different people and empowered. This is the moment. And it says all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. So they're filled to overflowing. It's not just like a light pour, it's a heavy pour of the Spirit all the way in them. And when that happened, suddenly they began to speak in languages, in tongues they had never learned. Things they didn't know. It wasn't like, hey, I'd studied up on my French, and like I'm just gonna choose to speak in French right now. No, this is languages they didn't know. It was supernatural, it was a miracle. And these three things the wind, the fire, the tongues, the languages. Here's uh just a quick aside, the spirit, what the spirit brings, and we talked about this last week. The spirit brings power when he comes. The spirit brings purity because fire in the Bible often represents purity and refining and then tongues speaking another divine uh language, another language miraculously, that when the spirit comes, God speaks to people and through people. Can you imagine what that experience would have been? As much as you might uh believe in the resurrection of Jesus, if you consider yourself a follow of Jesus, like and go, I got my mind around that, but this is like a crazy experience. Like suddenly you're in a room, you've been promised something's gonna happen, you don't know what's gonna happen, and all of a sudden, this like locomotive sound comes in like a tornado, and then you see this thing that looks like fire, and then all of a sudden you're enabled to like speak languages you've never learned. And here's the crazy thing is that it must have been in a place where either all the windows were open, it was pretty densely packed in Jerusalem. So whatever's going on, other people can hear it. Other people can hear what's happening. And it's this major Jewish festival, which means people from all over the world that were Jewish would come to Jerusalem from different nations. They had lived in, they knew different languages. So they would have come into the city for Pentecost. So when the 120, not just the apostles, by the way, everyone there, so not just men, but everybody there began speaking in tongues and other languages, and everyone could hear them. And the people said when they heard this, they said this in verse uh 7 and 11 and 13, it said this, utterly amazed, these people, the crowd asked, Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans? In other words, they're all from the same kind of area, they would have the same dialect, spoke the same language. We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, What does this wit mean? Some, however, made fun of them and said, They've had too much wine. And this is a miracle. There's no way the disciples knew all the languages that were spoken in that city. There are people from all kinds of countries. They wouldn't have any idea how to speak this. Only God could have done it. And for most of the crowd, they have the response that you would expect. They're amazed and perplexed. They're like, first, they're like, this is incredible. Also, what in the world is happening? Like, what the what I you're just like kind of dumbfound. Which seems to be the way a lot of us would respond, right? We're going, that's crazy. Also, how is it happening? Most people were wanting to know more, but not everybody. Some people just mocked them and said they were drunk. I don't know about you, but I have not seen many drunk people that all of a sudden learn new languages. Like, you know, like, hey, let's drink a lot and then I'm gonna master Duolingo or Rosetta Stone. That's a language learning, by the way, for those. So, like, don't try it, because I don't think that's what the Bible's saying. You're like, man, we're going on a bender to learn some languages. Um, that's not what I'm saying today. Um but it's crazy that this miracle happens. This miracle happens, and some people just find another way to explain it. You know, we talk about in the Bible, maybe you've heard this phrase signs and wonders, and in a kind of a short way of talking about it, it's like these are signs that make you wonder. But for some people, signs don't make people wonder. Because first, the point is signs and wonders don't create faith, they create opportunity for faith. When God does a miracle in your life, maybe there's something crazy that happens for you, and you're like, I know this is God. And then you share it with somebody, and some people go, that's amazing. And other people go, Okay, cool. Thanks for sharing. Let's move quickly on to the calves lost again. Uh we all have there's different responses. When something happens in your life and you share it, it's not always gonna be received as the miracle that you experience it like. And that's because signs and wonders don't create faith, they create opportunities for faith. When you share your story of a miracle that's happened for you personally, maybe it's overcoming anger, maybe it's a relationship that was healed, whatever it might be, an addiction, you share it with people. Some people it's gonna build faith, and some people will just write it off. That doesn't make them bad people, it just means that they just they're not in a place to receive that. So then Peter stands up and he says this. He says, This, what you're seeing right now, he says, Hey, by the way, we're not drunk, it's only like nine in the morning, which evidently he's never heard of day drinking. But uh, but for Peter, he's like, This is not happening. And so he says, This is the promise of the spirit. In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams, even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And if you see that, in the first line it says, in the last days. What's Peter talking about? Peter's not talking about, hey, in a few days it's gonna be the end of the world. It's gonna be the end of all time. What this is actual uh an understanding, it's a season of time, an epoch of time, where the last days are the time between Jesus when he ascended to heaven and when Jesus comes again. So we're living in the last day. So if you hear someone say that, maybe they do mean they think Jesus is gonna return this week, uh, which we can't know. But if you look at the Bible and read about the last days, it's a season between Jesus coming for the first time and coming again. And it's the time that we're living in. This is the time when God has given his Holy Spirit, his very presence. Then the Old Testament just certain people had at certain times. We're given this opportunity to have God live in us, come close to us, speak to us, hear his heart for us, hear his heart for other people. And the major theme in the in the prophecy I just read from Joel is this that everyone who trusts in Jesus can hear from God. He says, young people, you'll hear from God. Old people, you'll hear from God, men and women, you'll hear from God. Poor, rich, you'll hear from God. God wants to speak to all of you, not just speak to you, but speak through you. Here in the vineyard, we talk a lot about that. We say, let's get quiet and let's see if God puts an impression on our hearts. Or maybe you've received prayer before or on the prayer team and you wait to see, maybe there's an impression God wants to put on my heart. He wants to nudge me. It doesn't usually sound like an audible voice. But what we see here is when the promise of his spirit comes, it's God saying, I just want to talk to you. I just want to be close to you. I just want you to hear me. So in that passage, we see prophecy listed twice, which is God speaking in some way, prompting our heart to us and us sharing that. He talks about visions, where like in our mind's eye, or we see something, it's like a way that God's communicating through pictures and images or dreams. What happens when we're dreaming and God may want to speak to us. But there's a really interesting thing that the apostle Peter does. So he's quoting from Joel chapter 2, which he would have known this. It would have obviously been memorized. He didn't like open a scroll and say, Hey, let me read from this. It was memorized. But Peter doesn't actually quote the prophet Joel accurately. He actually changes it, he actually interprets some of it. So here's what he says. I got both of them listed up here. So in Acts 2, when Peter's standing up, he's saying what I just read earlier. But then you look at the end in verse 18. He says, I'm going to pour my spirit out to prophesy, visions, dreams. I'll pour it my spirit and they will prophesy. And so essentially Peter's saying, all of these things I'm talking about fall under this umbrella of God speaking to us and us being able to share it with others. But Joel, when Joel says it, he doesn't have that at the very end. Why do you think that is? Peter wants to communicate to you, like and communicate to us. This is a way, and I've already said it, I don't want to like beat a dead horse, but you need to know, we need to know is that God wants to speak to us and through us, so much that Peter gives an addendum on this and saying, they will prophesy. So it's not just a gift, it's not just, it's not the greatest gift, but it's not just something that special people get to hear these impressions from God or to sense from God. It's not just special people that when they read the Bible, things jump off the page and it's God speaking to you. This is what God's Spirit wants to do for all of us. Now, if you've been here long enough, you've heard me say this, but if not, I just want to be clear. We at the vineyard believe that God's word is the clearest way he's spoken through. So if anyone ever says, I had this impression from God, I had this nudge from God, God's leading me to do this thing, and it contradicts what God has said in scripture or in the character of Jesus, then we would say, Let's go back and listen again, because that's not Jesus. God's word is uh the clearest way that he's spoken, but we believe that God is still speaking through his spirit. So God doesn't just want to relate to special people like he did in the Old Testament. He wants to be with us, he wants relationship with us. This is the gift of Pentecost, is God's Spirit coming to be with us and close to us. Everyone gets to hear from God. But again, I want to come back to what we talked about at the beginning that for some of us we can land in this place where we go, spirit stuff, that's good, but I really just want Jesus. I'm gonna focus on Jesus. But watch what Peter does. So Peter's been talking about the gift of the spirit. There's this crazy supernatural stuff that happens in the upper room. They're speaking in other languages. He just came and said, God wants to speak to all of you. You might think then he's gonna keep on this route of experience and in the supernatural in these ways. But instead, Peter pivots from the Spirit to Jesus. And in this sermon, in his first sermon, he spends more time talking about Jesus than he does the Holy Spirit. But what Peter is doing, he's not doing what we're saying we that some of us want to be cautious against, is like making the spirit secondary. He's actually doing the opposite. Because the spirit's whole purpose is to come to reveal Jesus. The whole purpose of the Spirit coming is to reveal Jesus and to empower us to do what Jesus did. So when Peter focuses on Jesus, he's showing us the Spirit's target. And can I be honest with you? I grew up uh in a church that was really, really wonderful. Um, but from probably from my middle school years on, there was uh we talked a ton about the experience of God and the in the spirit of God and the way we can experience him and hear him and feel him, and it was so good. I didn't grow up thinking the Holy Spirit was extra or a bonus. I prayed for more of God's Spirit. I wanted to hear him speak, I wanted to experience him. But there was always something that felt kind of like lacking that was missing for me. Because here was my mistake, and it's a different mistake than what I'm talking about today. But I found myself like kind of leaving Jesus and in the cross and the resurrection, not on purpose, but kind of to the side. I'm like, I just want to hear you, God. I just want to experience you God. And it was never on purpose, but I found myself so focused on the experience, the feeling, the power. I thought I was running straight for God. I didn't even know what I was missing. And it wasn't until all this desire for the Spirit and to experience God's Spirit and His power got merged with the incredible power and beauty and grace of Jesus on a cross for me and his power of the resurrection that he didn't stay dead, but he gave new life. And when it all came together, and it was like, oh, this is this is the fullness of what God came to do in Jesus by giving his spirit. We're not meant to be divided between Jesus people and spirit people. We just want all of God. And this is what Peter is doing here. In Acts verses 22 to 24, he says this. He says, Fellow Israelites, listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you. In other words, you guys have all heard about what Jesus did. So many of you saw what Jesus had done. This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge. So there's a sense of Jesus coming, and it was God's plan. It was Jesus' willingness to give his life for us. And then, but it's not just God's plan, but also with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. So it wasn't just, oh, it's God's plan is going to happen anyways, but in the evil of humanity, put him to death. But it doesn't end there. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. Peter is summarizing the story of Jesus. He talks about Jesus' life and what he's done is death. Surprisingly, though, he doesn't spend very much time on the cross. But what he's going to spend the rest of his sermon on is the resurrection. He's going to spend the rest of his time on Jesus being raised from the dead. And it's so interesting because in this talk and this pouring out of the Spirit and these incredible experiences and these uh this power being poured out and miracles, Peter doesn't want to just offer more experience. He wants to root all of this in an historical person in an historical claim. Why? Because the Christian faith and everything that the Spirit has come to do, it hinges on the reality of the resurrection. The Spirit coming and being poured out on everyone is possible because Jesus, he came and he, when he died, he defeated sin and the enemy. And when he rose from the dead, he defeated death. So everything that separated us from God, for the from this relationship with God that we were created for, was removed. And so now God's spirit can be with us and in us. That's why it says we're temples of his spirit. Because everything had been removed. But if he hadn't been raised from the dead, then we'd still be in our sin. We'd still be dead. The apostle Paul would say this later in 1 Corinthians 15, 19. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. That's a bold statement. At times you're looking powerless, even though you're choosing to serve, you're showing up in the world, it looks like you're being weak. All these things, why would you do them? If it wasn't because Jesus really is who he says he is, if there really is victory over death, that in the end, this is not the final word that we see in the world. So Peter wants to anchor all this experience and all this power, the beauty of Pentecost and what we're invited into. He wants to anchor in the resurrection. And so for something that significant, there has to be evidence, right? There has to be evidence. Let me give you some. Let's start with historian Gary Habermas. He spent decorate decades of his career just cataloging all the scholarly work written by Christians and those who would not be Christians or be skeptics of the resurrection. And he catalogs all the scholarly work that's been written about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And here's what he says: these are the minimal facts that even skeptical scholars, so people that would say, I don't believe the resurrection happened, okay? But everyone would agree these are the facts of what happened is that Jesus died by crucifixion. Okay. The best scholars, Christian and not, his disciples sincerely believed they saw him risen. Like they believed it. Now, scholars might say they were wrong, but they believed it. Third, Paul, who was Saul before he was persecuting Christians, Jewish persecuting Christians, he was converted somehow. Four, Jesus' brother James, was somehow convinced that his brother rose from the dead and was the son of God. Says let that sit for a little bit if you have siblings. Like that's a bad that's a that's a lot. My brother is great, my brothers are great. Don't think I could land there. And then finally, the tomb was empty. The tomb was empty. All the scholars agree on that. The tomb was empty. And that there's never been any, they've never found the body would be the other part of that. These are all things that scholars, Christian and not, say they agree upon. This is some pretty good evidence. Now, it's not the kind of evidence that says, like science that says, hey, this is absolutely proven. But it's some more like the evidence you see in history or in a court of law. It's testimony where you say, Here are the facts that we have. Where does this lead us to believe? Seeing the transformation of people. In the Bible, it's written that the first eyewitnesses were women. If it was a made-up story, we talked about this so many times. Back then, women weren't considered credible witnesses. Now, absolutely, clearly we do. But back then it would have been a poor choice to say that, hey, by the way, the first people to see Jesus raised from the dead was a woman. The empty tomb, the body was never found. Here's another one that all of a sudden the Jewish people who believed in Jesus, they went from worshiping on Saturdays to moving it to Sundays. Why? Because the resurrection happened on a Sunday. There are these things that changed and shifted. Why does it all matter if Jesus rose from the dead or not? Well, Tim Keller, one of my favorites, he said this if Jesus rose from the dead, you have to accept everything he said. Like if he actually rose from the dead, which and is still alive, which no one's ever done, uh you have to, if not, if he's if he if he didn't, why worry about any of it? If Jesus did what he said he did, then we need to believe it all. Everything that he said. If not, why worry about any of it? So Peter goes on in verse 32, and he says, God had raised this Jesus to life, and we're all witnesses of it. He was raised, but not just raised. And in verse 33, it says, Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. The wind, the sound of the wind, the what looks like fire, the languages. It's not just an abstract uh spiritual experience. This is the exalted Jesus pouring himself out, the spirit out on all people. So Peter drives it home. He says this in verse 36. Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah. In other words, the man you killed is the king God has promised. So who is the spirit that King Jesus has given to people is poured out? Well, look at Paul in chapter in Romans chapter 8, the Apostle Paul, he's talking about the Spirit. And it's it's wild what he does here. In verse 9, he says, the Spirit of God lives in you. And then verse 9 and 10, he talks about the Spirit of Christ is in you. And then in verse 11, the Spirit of Him, that being God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead. It's the same Holy Spirit Paul's talking about. Three ways of talking about him. What does that mean? It means the spirit isn't separate from Jesus. In the sense of it is, there's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, but the Spirit isn't a different like personality to get to know. It's like when we see Jesus, we see the Spirit, we see the Father. If we experience the Holy Spirit, we're experiencing Jesus. We're experiencing the Father. When we pray, come Holy Spirit, we're not just asking from some disembodied power. We're saying more of the Spirit is more of Jesus. More of the Spirit is more of Jesus. Say more of the Spirit is more of God the Father. And this is important for us to know. I don't know about you, because here's the here's the thing. Growing up again in a church that talked a lot about the spirit, it was like spirit didn't have a face for me. It was like power, just some kind of mystical ghost thing. But it was like when I began to go, oh, this is this is the same Jesus, spirit of Jesus. It's like, whoa. The one that like I feel like I can kind of understand a little bit, because I see how he talks to the woman caught in sin. I see how he invites people who don't belong to follow him. I I see how he reaches out to the outcast and says, follow me. I see how he speaks truth to power. That spirit, that same one, we're saying, would you come close? Would you speak? So then Peter continues, well, and Peter finishes his sermon. And then everyone listening who's in awe and perplexed, here's what they do in verse 37. It says, When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart. They were convicted. Have you ever had someone share something and you're just like, oh, that's me. Oh my gosh. Like that's like, even if they weren't talking directly to you, you hear someone else tell their story and you feel it because you're like, oh jeesh, I gotta apologize to somebody now after this. They were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? Peter replied, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about 3,000 were added to their number that day. You can just leave that up for a minute, Donna, for a while. What do we see here? We see the life and the story of Jesus shared, witnessed to. And the people who heard it, they heard this and their hearts were, that's me. Even though most of them would have had nothing to do actually with the crucifixion. They wouldn't have been there when they declared Jesus to be guilty. They might even have even seen the crucifixion. But there was a sense in Peter's preaching going, Yeah, that's me. I what I heard about Jesus, I rejected him. What I heard about Jesus, I put it off. I said, That's not God. That can't be. And all of a sudden, they become aware of the truth. That God, I've I've said no to you. I've said no to Jesus that you sent, who is the Messiah, the King we waited for. I rejected him. And so they're cut to the heart. Their defenses came down, and the truth came in, and they realized they were guilty. And then what happens next? They repent, which means they agree. They agree with what they're sensing in their heart and they go a different direction. They go a different direction. Repent means to go the other way. Just say, I was I was opposed to Jesus, but now Jesus, I say you are who Peter just preached you are, that you're king and Lord. And then Peter says, be baptized. Why? Because baptism is this for the Jewish people, by the way, this is a big deal. Because for the Jewish people, like the only people who are baptized historically were people who were not Jewish who were just entering into the Jewish faith. And so some people were baptized with John the Baptist earlier, because John the Baptist said, Hey, be baptized like for the repentance of your sins. But the Jewish people, this would have not been something like, oh yeah, yeah, I'm gonna get baptized. It's like this is something that only non-Jews normally had to do. And so they're being baptized, repenting of their sins, in whose name? The name of Jesus. That before their preaching, they would have thought he was just some guy. I don't really know what he did, but he's just somebody. And all of a sudden their hearts have been turned and they say, Oh, I'm I'm dying to my old life. I'm being united with Jesus in this baptism. And friends, if this is you, if you're like, hey, I want to say yes, we would love to baptize you, you can fill that out on one of the cards or talk to me. Baptism is the outward sign of this new life that Jesus gives. And then finally, to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter doesn't offer Jesus without offering the Spirit. He doesn't offer Jesus without offering the Spirit. It's not one or the other. It's like we believe that when you say yes to Jesus, you know, there's that scripture verse that talks about Jesus says, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone invites me in, I'll come in. How does that happen? It's by his spirit coming in us. And that same gift offered to the 3,000 that morning is the one offered to us. This is a pattern, a symbol, a process of how you can respond to Jesus today. If you've never said yes to Jesus, it's where we begin is that their hearts were cut to their hearts. There's conviction and owning and saying, This is me. This is me. And they go, What do we need to do? What do I need to do? Peter says, repent. Admit that it's true, that you've sinned against God, you've pushed him away, you've tried to live life your own way. And say, God, I'm sorry. I need your forgiveness. And then the next chance we have, we'd love to baptize you. And then today to say, God, I want you to fill me. Fill me with your spirit. I would encourage you that day, that morning, 3,000 people gave their life to Jesus and said, I want to start following him. And if that's you today, you don't have to do anything fancy. You just need to talk to him. So this morning, if that's you, it can be a simple prayer. And I just want to make a moment, actually. We can just all close our eyes. If you feel comfortable doing that. And if that's you, if you want to say yes to Jesus, new life with him, you can pray this simple prayer after me. Say, Jesus, I want to follow you. I'm sorry. I need you. I'm turning to you. Please forgive me and fill me with your spirit. And in a moment, we'll have our prayer team come up, and I know they would love to pray with you. We'd love to connect with you if you prayed that prayer. But for I know for a lot of us in this room, you would say, I've given my life to Jesus. Maybe for a lot of you you've been baptized as well, too. Let me share a story with you about a well-known uh Christian preacher back in the 1800s. His name was D.L. Moody. And in the 1870s, he was one of the most famous preachers in America. And he had given his life to Jesus as a teenager. And he was leading really large meetings where he would preach and share and teach. And people would come to hear him all over. And people would give their life to Jesus. And in his church that he was preaching at, there were two women in his church who would keep telling him, Mr. Moody, Mr. Moody, you need the power of the Holy Spirit. And let's be honest, here's this guy, D.L. Moody, who's like preached to thousands of people, seeing all kinds of cool things happen through his life. And here are these older women who are coming, like, you need the power of the Spirit. You need more power. You need something more. And he'd say something like, I've got Jesus, I'm preaching, people are getting saved. What more do I need? But they kept praying for him. And then in October 1871, you guys ever heard of the great Chicago fire? That's when it happened. In some of his church, it destroyed his church in most of the city. So a few weeks later, he's walking down a street in New York. And the way he tells us is that his spirit, the Holy Spirit, uh all of a sudden came on him and encountered him. So heavenly, so so much so that he found a friend's house. And he's like, Can I go into a room? And he just went into this room and asked, not be disturbed. And there, the way he says it, he says, God revealed himself to me so much, and I had an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand. In other words, this experience of God's spirit and his presence was so much that he said, God, I can't take any more. This is so, this is incredible. He had to ask God to stop. And after this experience, Moody goes back to preaching. He used the same Bible, he would have preached the same sermons. But where he used to see dozens of people give their life to Jesus, suddenly there were hundreds of people that were giving their life to Jesus when he would preach. And for him, and Moody, by the way, is not considered to be a Pentecostal or a charismatic, uh, if you that's not it, him at all. But what he would say is this was Jesus. This was more of God's Spirit, that God did something to fill him again. And we see the New Testament of new New Testament Christians being filled with God's Spirit again by the Holy Spirit. And so for all of us this morning on this Pentecost Sunday, there's an invitation. For some of you, it might be the invitation of the 3,000 who were cut to the heart and said, God, I need you. Jesus, I believe you. I give my life to you. I need forgiven. I want to live my life for you. And that would be the invitation for you. And that God wants to give you his spirit. He wants to come into your life. For others of us this morning, it's the invitation like Moody had, where, man, God's spirit's already in you, like you're his, you're his daughter, you're his son. But he says, I want to fill you again. I want to fill you again, maybe more than you've ever experienced before.