For You and For Your Children
And Peter said to them, “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.
Acts 2:38
Acts 2:1–13 – Acts
Pentecost – May 31, 2020 (am)
We’re missing a blessing about this time every year. How many of you even know what makes this Sunday special?
This day is Pentecost Sunday on the church calendar. Pentecost was another name for Israel’s Feast of Weeks the celebration of the first wheat harvest. It was one of the three annual feasts for which the nation would gather in Jerusalem. And it took place fifty days after Passover, which is why it was called Pentecost, ~fiftieth day (L-N).
But now we think of Pentecost as the day God’s Spirit was first poured out in fulfillment of the promise of the new covenant. Act.2 is the passage. And we rarely receive a gift like this!
In Gen.2:7 … the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature—the gift from the Father, natural life.
In Joh.3:16 … God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life—the gift of the Son, a Savior, to reconcile us to God.
And it is God 2Co.1:22 … who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee—the gift of the Spirit, spiritual life, unending with God in heaven!
Pentecost is the Day in the Church Year that ought to stand right next to Christmas and Easter in our celebrations! And the Day the Spirit was given is our text this Pentecost Sunday.
Let’s look at Acts 2:1-13, which we’ve now read in its entirety. John Stott (60) opened his commentary on this passage saying: Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible. There can be no life without the life-giver, no understanding without the Spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the Spirit, no Christlikeness of character apart from his fruit, and no effective witness without his power. As the body without breath is a corpse, so the church without the Spirit is dead. In Act.2 we see the work of the Spirit (1-13), the work of the gospel (14-41), and the work of the church (42-47). But the Spirit of God, the giving of the Spirit, is the power that enables it all.
At this feast of Pentecost, Jerusalem was full of visitors. In addition to celebrating the beginning of wheat harvest, this festival was associated with the renewal of the covenant made with Noah and then with Moses (Marshall 73). By the second century ad, the Jews celebrated it as the very day on which the law was given at Sinai! (Ibid.). On this day, the 120 (cf. 1:15) received and were filled with the Holy Spirit of God. Fire came down from heaven just as it did at Sinai (Exo.19:18). 1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
They spoke in other languages not because speaking in other languages is somehow a pinnacle religious experience, but because people who spoke other languages needed to hear the gospel! That, after all, was the purpose of the gift of tongues. It was a sign to unbelieving Israel that the era of the Gentiles has come (1Co.14:21)—to get their attention! It was also in some senses a neutralization of Babel (Gen.11), not a reversal because there are still many languages in the world and there will be even in heaven (Rev.5:9; 7:9). But a temporary overcoming of this obstacle was one more indication not only of the universality of the gospel, but also of its power to save—anyone, anywhere! (39)
And it did its job! The people were amazed and astonished (7) at what they saw and heard! They also struggled to describe it! The best they came up with was drunkenness! (13) So, what does this suggest? The believers were controlled by some alien power. It wasn’t natural! And in that they were exactly right! What was being done here could not have been manufactured under any kind of normal circumstances. It could not have been learned by sitting around a circle with others who had learned how to do it. And it was not just people walking around having normal conversations in other languages.
Pentecost was a supernatural event, sent by God to His people in fulfillment of His promise and for the accomplishment of His purpose. With this dramatic demonstration, the new covenant community was born, an unmistakable act of God! Peter explained that as he stood and preached on that day, quoting new covenant promises from numerous OT passages. We’ll dig into that sermon another time. But with the remainder of our time this morning let me offer some applied insights on Pentecost. Let’s reflect on the presence and power of the ministry of the Spirit among us here.
We’ve been making interesting discoveries about ourselves during these days of COVID-19. Our corporate gatherings mean a whole lot more to us than we previously understood, and in quite different ways than we ever imagined!
Why do you suppose this is so?
Who’d have ever thought that there would be really good, important reasons to stay away from church, but that we’d be hammering on the door to get back in? And right now!
Why do you suppose this is so?
Who’d have ever thought that before the end of the school year we’d be jumping into the car with our families to drive around in caravans just to encourage other members of the body at their homes—adding an evening or weekend event to our schedules at our own choosing?
Why do you suppose this is so?
Who’d have ever thought that this whole body would figure out together how to use Zoom, and that one of the most meaningful church gatherings we’ve ever attended would be a virtual one to grieve with a family over the loss of their precious teen-aged daughter?
But all of these examples are just situational. Let’s think biblical and theological for a bit. Who’d have ever thought that each of us, both you and I, would care about one another so much that we’d feel an irresistible impulse welling up within us to love one another, earnestly, from a pure heart, to be truly [joyful] rather than complaining? Who’d have thought that we could actually know peace to the point that we’d fight to live there even if it meant giving up on other longings and desires? Who’d have thought we’d prize patience as highly as we do—kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control as highly as we do? (Gal.5:22-23) Why do you suppose this is so?
Hopefully by now you recognize that all the qualities I just listed are ministries of the Holy Spirit to the people of God—the fruit of the Holy Spirit within us (Gal.5:22-23). He is the Member of the Trinity by Whom we are born again to a living hope (Joh.3:8, cf. 1Pe.1:3). We’re regenerated as the Spirit of God makes us alive in Christ by faith (cf. Gal.5:5), as He [delivers] us from the domain of darkness and [transfers] to the Kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son! (Col.1:13) It is by the Spirit that we confess that Jesus is Lord! (1Co.12:3, cf. 1Jo.4:2) The Holy Spirit unites us as one family, as one body in Christ (Eph.3:14-4:6, cf. 1Co.10:17). He enables our obedience and empowers our walk with the Lord (Gal.5:16-26). The Spirit is the One by Whom we’re transformed to look like Jesus (2Co.3:18). And all of this transformative work is just the down payment on our future inheritance in heaven! All of this comes to us in the Person of the Holy Spirit! (Eph.1:13-14)
But until that Day, it’s the Spirit Who strengthens us when we’re weak, and Who helps us when we pray, and indeed, Who [groans] in prayer on our behalf in perfect conformity with the will of God (Rom.8:26-27). And despite this ministry from the Spirit, despite the fact that a piece of heaven and a Person of the Godhead have come to live in us, we ourselves still groan inwardly as we wait for the full delivery of our inheritance in Christ (Rom.8:23). We long for that Day to the very core of our being. And that longing is both initiated and stoked by the Holy Spirit within us. And these groanings that spill out of us as we wait are not just empty lament. We’re called to be making a difference in this world while we wait and our groanings move us at a heart level to do that, to love this world for Christ’s sake!
They press us to bear witness to family and friends of what Jesus has done to reconcile us to God.
They press us to give an account of the fallenness of this world when people don’t understand it. Where do things like COVID come from? If there’s a good God out there, why does He let these things happen? Why do we ever have to have a funeral for a sweet young eighteen-year-old? Jesus said the Holy Spirit will give us words to answer these questions (Mar.10:11), and He will!
The Holy Spirit can give us words for any sort of person in any sort of circumstances—words that speak the love of God and the peace of Christ and the freedom of the Spirit—words that offer hope to men and women, to adults and children, to rich and poor, to black and white, to conservative and liberal.
The Holy Spirit can give you words that cause the polarized Republican/Democrat divide to dissolve for just a few minutes as your Holy Spirit-enabled expression of the love of God moves center stage—as you speak to one or to the other in ways that they can’t even tell which Party you support!
The Holy Spirit can give you words to lament the tragic racial tensions that are just shreding our society right up to the present day—horrific occurrences like those involving Ahmaud Arbery in south Georgia, and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, and this past week George Floyd in Minneapolis. Such tragedies unmask the depth of the ugliness that resides in the human heart that only the Spirit of God can possibly resolve! Please don’t get trapped in conversations where you’re inclined to defend these actions! And please don’t cheapen human life by any sort of suggestion that these outcomes were unavoidable! Let them stand as the catastrophes they are! Such incidents do nothing but illustrate yet again the depth of our depravity in this world because of our sin. They illustrate our desperate need for rescue by an alien Power that’s entirely beyond ourselves and every single one of our governing officials—federal, state, and local. Indeed, they illustrate our complete helplessness and hopelessness in any scenario except the one in which the Holy Spirit of God makes us alive by faith in Christ and unleashes in our hearts a God-glorifying love for Himself and for our neighbor!
In short, my friends, as we celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit of God this Pentecost Sunday, we’re celebrating not only the fulfillment of the long-promised arrival of our new covenant relationship with God, and also the down payment on the glories of life in the new heavens and new earth, we’re celebrating the only hope of experiencing freedom and victory over the deep and desperate divides that destroy any hope of trans-ethnic peace and harmony in this present world.
And just so we’re clear I will repeat myself. Yes, what I’m saying is that the only genuine hope of political peace in this world, the only genuine hope of racial peace, the only genuine hope of any and every expression of peace from global to personal, can only be achieved as the Comforter of the new covenant invades our hearts and minds and lives and words in this world, all the time, every day! If you’re looking to find or to foster some kind of peace and prosperity through political action, or economic development, or community service, or even relational reconciliation that doesn’t find its power in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ enabled by the ministry of the Holy Spirit—please listen—you’re wasting your time, and also the time of each and every person you’re trying to help!
I don’t want to turn this into a message on politics and culture. I just want to let you know that a message on the Holy Spirit is not complete until it has extended all the way into the realms of politics and culture. A central part of the ministry of the Spirit is to establish a whole new political and cultural environment. And we will not be a part of the truest most real political and cultural world until we’ve been born again and indwelt by the Holy Spirit!
Now may 2Co.13:14 [t]he grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.