Pentecost and Proclamation
Pastor Cameron's gonna come up. We're gonna pray for him, and he's gonna be continuing in our sermon series in the book of Acts. Heavenly Father, Lord, we ask that this morning as we open your word together, that you would speak to us afresh. Lord, we know that you have a word for each and every person here today, that you are calling us to know you more and love you more deeply. Lord, I pray that as Pastor Cameron here delivers the message that he has worked hard on, that he has submitted to you, I pray that
Speaker 2:you would
Speaker 1:fill him with your Holy Spirit, and that he would be in submission to your words and your will. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Speaker 3:Amen. Good morning, family. How are you? It's good to see you this morning.
Speaker 2:We had started last week a series through the book of Acts. Acts comes right after the four gospels in the New Testament of your Bible. It was written, if you remember from last week, it was written by Luke the apostle, the follower of Jesus, as kind of
Speaker 3:like a part two of the gospel that was that shares his same
Speaker 2:name. And it's a part two not only because he wrote it, but he kind of carries on his own experience, and what happens exactly after the ministry of Jesus. Like what do we do now as followers of Jesus? And so last week we began to look at that. Today, we're going to read probably the most, I would say, you could say the most important, you could say the most famous.
Speaker 2:There'd be a lot of words to describe the passage that we're going to read and study this morning from the second chapter of Acts, Acts chapter two, verses one. We're going to really study the whole chapter, but we're going to really look at at least the first 13 verses of Acts chapter two, which is the story of the Holy Spirit coming on the day of Pentecost. How many here maybe read the story before, familiar with the story, grew up listening to it, you know all about Pentacost, the pouring out of the spirit, okay? A lot of us do. We're going to try and walk at least these first 13 through, maybe helping to bring some clarity and some explanation to what can sometimes maybe be a confusing passage.
Speaker 2:But honestly, what I want to encourage you to do, especially if you were here last week and you remember what happened last week, is that Jesus, before His ascension, gave the disciples one final commission, what they were to do and what they were to be. They were to be his, where the Holy Spirit would come upon them, and that they would be witnesses, his witnesses, in Jerusalem, in Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. That even though they were afraid, even though they didn't know what it meant to carry out His mission and His ministry after He had been gone, that the Holy Spirit was going to come upon them, and that they were going to be empowered to do this thing, to carry the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ to every corner of the world. We come under, or we have that same promise. We are given that same commission as followers of Jesus, even in the fear, even in the unknown.
Speaker 2:And so, if we read, continue to read Acts chapter two, and the coming of the Spirit at Pentacost, in light of what Jesus has just told the disciples, what He has commissioned them to do, what He has called them to do, it helps us to kind of maybe arrange in our minds, or at least in our spirits and our understanding, what is going on here? Like, what is happening in this passage? Ultimately, some of the characters in the story ask the question that we often ask when we come to this. After the spirit comes upon these people, and they're speaking in other languages, and people are hearing their languages spoke through the power of the Spirit, they ask this really simple question, What does all this mean? They, even in that moment, having no understanding of what had happened there in that moment, asked the really obvious question, what does this mean?
Speaker 2:And we're kind of going to try to ask the same question this morning. What does it mean? So if you have a Bible with you, we're going to read Acts chapter two, starting at verse one through verse 13. We'll have it up on the screen for you as well.
Speaker 3:If you don't have a Bible, your own Bible, and you want a Bible, there's Bibles in the pews and in the rows around you. As long as it doesn't have anyone's name in it, take it. If it's
Speaker 2:got someone's name in it, they forgot it and don't
Speaker 3:want it anymore, take it. It's
Speaker 2:yours now. It's common law. Okay, let's read these 13 verses here. When the day of Pentacost arrived, they were all together in one place. This was all the disciples, the followers of Jesus after Jesus had ascended.
Speaker 2:They were all together in one place, and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven, and at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all those who are speaking Galileans? How is it that we hear each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontius in Asia, Figrea and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome, both Jews and Proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 3:all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? But others mockingly said, they are filled with new wine. They're drunk. Alright? So, what
Speaker 2:is happening here in this passage? Well, to locate ourselves in the story, the Jewish people, the Jewish nation, had several main feasts or celebrations that they would celebrate as kind of like religious ordinances. Pentacost was one of them. It's also called the Feast of Weeks, or the First Fruits, and essentially what it is, is it's a celebration and a sacrifice and a remembrance, back the first fruits of the harvest to God as a way of recognizing that God has provided all things, and that we, in an attitude of worship, give a portion of that back, the first 10% is what they gave back to him in the celebration of Pentacost or the feast of weeks. So it says they were all together in one place.
Speaker 2:Remember, Jesus had told them earlier in chapter one that He wanted them to stay put. He didn't want them to go anywhere. He wanted to wait until the moment that the Holy Spirit would come upon them. And it says then in verse two, Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the room. Now, there
Speaker 3:may have been some confusion at the time about what was happening. There may even be some confusion now as we read this,
Speaker 2:like what is this, the Holy Spirit coming, something coming suddenly, like the rushing of a violent wind, and people speaking in languages that are not their own, some confusion even in our own minds and understanding, some confusion in their minds and some understanding of what was happening. But one thing that I think we often miss when we're reading this passage is that there was no confusion in Luke's mind about what was happening, or where this was coming from. He was very clear to understand what it was that was happening in this moment. He didn't say something like, We had no idea where it came from, we had no idea if it was good, we had no idea if it was a bad spirit or a good spirit, we had no idea what was happening at all, we were all terrified and afraid. He was really, really clear.
Speaker 2:Suddenly, a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven, and it filled the room. There was no confusion about where it came from for Luke. It came from heaven. It was not something that was environmental. They didn't window leave open.
Speaker 2:They didn't have the ACs on, right? There wasn't a wind in some explainable way, with some explainable value to it. Oh, like, yeah, we understand why this room now is filled with this rushing wind. It was miraculous in nature, and Luke wanted to make sure that the readers heard that and understand that. The blowing of a violent wind came suddenly and it came from heaven.
Speaker 2:Now, I don't know about you, never been to heaven, plan to go there someday, excited about that trip. What I do know is that there is there's nothing there that's going to disappoint. I believe that, but I'm not gonna get there and be like, man, the lines are so long. Everything's more expensive than I thought it would be. Right?
Speaker 2:Like, there's this sense of understand, that we understand, understand, right? That anything and everything in heaven is good, displays the glory of God, encapsulates with awe and wonder his majesty and his glory. Right? And so when Luke says, hey, listen, whatever this sudden thing came was, whatever this blowing of a violent rushing wind was, it came from heaven, immediately our minds should switch from skepticism and doubt to glory and awe.
Speaker 3:What is coming from heaven? Whatever it is, and however it comes, and whatever it does, man, I want a piece of it. I want more than
Speaker 2:a piece of it. I want a chunk of it. I want all of it. How? Lord, let me Whatever it is, I don't get it, I don't know, but whatever it is,
Speaker 3:I want it. It's from heaven, it's good.
Speaker 2:It encapsulates the glory and awe and wonder of God, And he goes on to say that it wasn't just a blowing of a violent wind that filled the room. He says in verses three and four,
Speaker 3:he said, And divided tongues of fire appeared and rested on each one of them.
Speaker 2:Now whether or not Luke saw this in his mind's eye and in his spirit, if it was a vision that he received, or whether he was visibly seeing it with his own two eyeballs. Right? We can make conjectures about both of those, but what is clear here is that the presence of fire entered the room, and at some point, one, like, I don't know, fireball separated, it says, and rested on each one of them, is what Luke says. Each individual comes in and rests on each one. Now, this is not abnormal for if you read the Bible at all, especially if you've read the Old Testament at all, the presence of fire in a holy moment is not really that novel.
Speaker 2:In fact, in many, many places, especially in the Old Testament, the very presence of God was recognized as fire. As for instance, last year we preached all the way through the book of Exodus, right? And how many times in the book of Exodus do we see that the presence of God was signified by fire? When Moses met with God first out in the wilderness, God appeared to him how? In a burning bush, right?
Speaker 2:A bush that was on fire, but was not being consumed. And so, is We can recognize that it was God's very presence that was now in the room in this moment.
Speaker 3:And especially significant here is that when those tongues of fire begin to rest on each one of them, that Luke did intend to say and did say that there was essentially no one in the room that was left out from this experience. Right?
Speaker 2:That those tongues of fire or those flames of fire rested on each one of them. The spirit of God that was now in that room, in the presence of fire, did not discriminate between one person or another. It didn't skip over me to get to you. It didn't skip over your friend to get to someone else. Everyone was filled in that moment.
Speaker 2:Each one of them, it says, was filled. I think this may be an important stopping point for us, or just point of reflection, because often what we see, maybe what we've been led to believe, maybe what we hear, maybe for whatever reason, that the reception of the Holy Spirit, or the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life, in your life, in that person's life, is all predicated upon just how serious of a Christian they are. Like the Holy Spirit comes to the really serious Christians. The ones that they're taking extra steps in the faith. Yes, they've believed in Jesus, they've repented of their sins, they've received forgiveness, they are walking in new life with Him, but they just haven't gotten to that point yet where we can really call them spirit filled.
Speaker 2:They're more like diet Christian, right? They're not like full fat Christian. It's like kind of diet. And there will come a point in time, maybe, I'm mature enough, I learn enough, I do good enough, I have enough understanding, I read the Bible enough, I ask the right questions, I say the right words, I pray the right prayers, then, and only then, will the Holy Spirit come upon me. We really get no indication whatsoever in scripture that the Holy Spirit is something that only really serious Christians get, and that less serious ones have to build up to receiving His presence.
Speaker 2:Especially in the book of Acts, there are many, many different ways that Luke describes the We'll call it the activity of the Spirit upon the new believer. Someone who comes to Jesus by faith, who makes a profession of faith, and it says then the Holy Spirit comes upon them. There's many ways in which Luke talks about this. I'm going give you a few of them, but what is clear here, and I want to be really clear about this, is that from this point in Acts, from the second chapter of Acts moving forward, the reception of the Spirit upon a believer's life is what is considered the normal experience of becoming a follower of Christ. The Spirit becomes a normal experience of becoming a Christian.
Speaker 2:The receiving of the Spirit becomes not something that must be reserved for just the most serious amongst Christ followers, but amongst all those who profess faith in Jesus Christ, repent of their sins, and believe by Him in faith. Now, like I said, there's many ways in the book of Acts that this is kind of described or talked about. For instance, in chapter nine verse 17, it says that Saul, who would later become Paul, was to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Right? Maybe in Acts chapter two, it was the spirit rested on each one of them, or filled each one of them.
Speaker 2:But there's many ways that it's talked about in Acts. Be filled in nine seventeen. Sometimes it said they were baptized in the spirit. Acts chapter one, verse five, Acts chapter 11, verse 16. Sometimes it's the language is used as that the spirit is poured out.
Speaker 2:Acts chapter two verse 17, again, Acts chapter 10, or the spirit comes upon someone. We see some of that here, and we see it in other places in the Scripture, or that someone has received the Spirit. Peter's going to talk to the crowd here in his sermon after the day of Pentacost, and he's going to say, Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the Holy Spirit. Right? So there's a reception aspect to that.
Speaker 2:Listen, all of these instances refer to new believers and point to the spirits coming in various ways, but not always or exclusively signified by the same sign as we see here in Acts chapter two, which is in
Speaker 3:the speaking of different language. That
Speaker 2:the Holy Spirit comes on people or is filled or they are received or they are baptized, but the evidence of that is not always exclusively in scripture the demonstration of what is called speaking in tongues. It can also be kind of distinguished, we should distinguish it from other references in the book of Acts and in the rest of the New Testament, where someone who has already professed faith in Jesus Christ, already received the Holy Spirit, has another kind of like what we could call or describe as a secondary or subsequent filling, meaning like this experiential, in the moment empowerment of the Holy Spirit, where the Spirit comes upon someone who has already been filled by faith in Jesus Christ for the purposes of whatever experience they are in there in the moment. A good example of this would be in the stoning of Stephen. Stephen, who was a spirit filled man, we see that in Acts chapter six, we're going to talk about that in a little bit. Later in Acts chapter eight is stoned.
Speaker 2:He's martyred for his faith. It says there in that moment that as he was preaching, he was filled with the Holy Spirit for boldness to preach. And so there's many ways that the scripture, especially the book of Acts, references the coming of the spirit upon people's lives. It's not unidimensional, there's not just one way that it's communicated, and there's not just one way to think or talk about it. But what we see as it continues on is like probably the thing that we have the most question on is verse four, And these tongues of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them, and they were filled, there's what happened, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance.
Speaker 2:So the word tongues here is a pretty ambiguous word, and it can mean many different things. It of course can mean just like your physical tongue, the organ in your body. It can also mean a type of language, like the language that you speak. We use the term, what's your mother tongue? They're not asking you about the organ that's in your mom's mouth, They're talking about language.
Speaker 2:Right? Like what is the language that you speak? And even within that, there
Speaker 3:is like dialects of language
Speaker 2:that can be spoken. So the word tongue could and can be pretty ambiguous, like what does it mean to speak in other tongues? Well, need to keep reading in order to understand what exactly Luke is referring to here, or what happened. Now, in verse five, we begin to see there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. They were in town to celebrate Pentacost.
Speaker 2:Jews from all over the world had come into Jerusalem and were celebrating this celebration of first fruits. So there are some scholars who would say that the Pentecost celebration was bigger than Passover, That it brought in people from more parts of the known ancient world into Jerusalem. And it says that there were people from every different part of the known world, staying from every nation under heaven. And they came together, in verse six, in bewilderment, the multitude came together, and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. This is something that I want us to miss here, because I think this is the key to kind of understanding and putting into context this passage on Pentacost.
Speaker 2:The tongues that were being spoken in this moment were not just some ambiguous ecstatic tongues, but Luke switched the word here from just ambiguous tongues in verse four to a very specific word in verse six that literally means language or dialect, and is not ambiguous in translation at all. Tongues can be ambiguous and can mean several different things. Language, this particular word, does not have many meanings. It has a very specific meaning, and that meaning is dialect or language, spoken known language. What happened here in this moment then is this blowing of a violent wind, this sudden thing that came from heaven, the spirit filling people and them speaking under tongues was a listen, it was
Speaker 3:a miracle of sudden and immediate fluency
Speaker 2:in a known language.
Speaker 3:So I don't know, I know there's several people in this room
Speaker 2:that are bilingual, right? I don't know anyone in this room who has become suddenly bilingual.
Speaker 3:Like just woke up one morning and be like, Man, I can speak French perfectly.
Speaker 2:Right? Sudden fluency does not happen. Some people learn languages quicker than others, can assimilate into different languages and cultures more easily than others, but what we're experiencing or seeing here is not some ancient people who are like, Well yeah, I kind of know how to speak Arabian, but I can muddle my way along. It that, it was sudden and miraculous fluency.
Speaker 3:And it was fluency not about like, Where is the bathroom? Right?
Speaker 2:You know? It's like the it's not like sudden fluency that was ambiguous in nature or had nothing to do with anything that would help us understand the context. But if you notice here, as we read, you'll see exactly what actually were they saying? Was it just gibberish? Did they know what they were saying?
Speaker 2:It says in verse seven, They were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? How is it that we hear each of us in his own language? Parthians, Means, Elamites, Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontius, Asia, Figrea, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, visitors from Rome, Jews and Proselytites, Cretans and Arabians, and then he says this, what do they hear? What do they hear these Galilean followers of Jesus, these young men and women who have been scared to death of the Roman government, who have just lost their teacher, their Lord, their savior, what do they hear them saying in their own native language? We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.
Speaker 3:They were declaring by supernatural, miraculous, Holy Spirit filled enablement,
Speaker 2:the truth of the gospel to the nations of the world in their own individual languages. It was like, you ever seen the United Nations, everyone's got
Speaker 3:the headsets on? Right?
Speaker 2:And everyone is like the one everyone's got their own translator in their head. Right? They can hear the message that the one speaker is saying. This is like the Holy Spirit version of the United Nations headphones, where in a moment there was immediate fluency, but why? So that every nation under heaven that was gathered there on that day could receive in their own tongues the declaration of the gospel,
Speaker 3:so that they would be given opportunity to believe and carry that message to the rest
Speaker 2:of the world, which was part and parcel of the mission that Jesus just gave them in the last chapter. Go and be my witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth who are here in this room right now. Let's preach the gospel to them in their own language.
Speaker 3:And they're all like, What does this mean? There was really no explanation, even themselves, of it in that moment. What does this mean? Peter is like, I'm going to tell you what it means. He answers the question for them.
Speaker 3:And we
Speaker 2:didn't read these sections, and I'm not going to read all of it because it's almost 40 verses long, right? But we're going to hit a few of it, right? Because it's not something I think, we can't skip over this section.
Speaker 3:What was Peter's answer when they asked, what
Speaker 2:could this possibly mean? Peter's first answer is that, well,
Speaker 3:I will tell you that this is a fulfillment of prophecy that has always existed, or has existed for a
Speaker 2:long time. Look at it in verse 14 of Acts chapter two, But Peter, standing with the 11, lifted up his voice and addressed them, Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let it be known to you and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it's only the third hour of the day. That'd be 9AM. Okay?
Speaker 2:But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel, he says, in verse 17, and in the last days it shall be that God declares that 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 see dreams. Even on my male servants and on my female servants, in those days I will pour out my spirit and they will prophesy.
Speaker 3:And so in this very moment, right, Peter's like, We told you. We could have told you. Or even back into the prophecy of Joel, knew that in the last days the spirit of God would be poured out for the purpose of prophesying to the wonders of God.
Speaker 2:But perhaps what is most significant here about this moment is kind of what happens next. And it's not necessarily the details of what gets said, although it's very powerful, But it's the way in which Peter's demeanor and posture
Speaker 3:changes from that moment through the rest of history until he ends up being killed. Remember, Peter was the man who, not long ago, was like, Jesus? Never heard of him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I don't know. I've never been his follower. Me? Not me, nope, right? After he has spent years telling Jesus, I will never abandon you, and everyone else leaves, I'm going to be by your side, when he got all aggressive in the
Speaker 3:garden, trying to cut off the servant's ear.
Speaker 2:Right now, in a moment of fear and panic, he denies even knowing Jesus. And it says in our resurrection accounts from Easter that Peter's, like with the rest of the disciples, hiding in some room for fear of the Jews when Jesus Himself is resurrected from the dead, and Mary has to go tell them what happened. And so we have this guy who promised all these great things, but then fell flat on his face in a moment of failure,
Speaker 3:and in fear is hiding, and now, after being filled with the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 2:being empowered for the mission that God had called him to, and that Jesus said he was going to do, he stands up in front of the very people who killed Jesus and said, I got some news for you. This Jesus whom you crucified, God has made him both Lord and Messiah. What the Holy Spirit did through the supernatural fluency to the nations of the world, the Holy Spirit was now going to do through Peter specifically in a bold and miraculous way. Peter's sermon here, the rest of the chapter, starting at verse 14 and going all the way through,
Speaker 3:is a bold witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Peter tells them, verse 21 of Acts chapter two, It shall come
Speaker 2:to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And he gets into these later chapters, or these later verses of Acts chapter two. It says, verse 32, This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured this out that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. So Peter even is saying, hey, look, you want to know where this spiritual power has come from? You want to know what these tongues of fire have been?
Speaker 2:You want to know what the sudden rushing violent wind is? Peter's proclamation was that Jesus himself has done this. This is because of Jesus, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He, meaning Jesus, has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and
Speaker 3:hearing. That the coming of the Holy Spirit and the power that's exhibited there in the day of Pentacost in that room
Speaker 2:is something that Jesus has done. It has come from heaven.
Speaker 3:Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him, Jesus, both Lord and Christ, verse 36, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now, 37 is the response of the people to Peter's bold preaching, and they say, after Peter has
Speaker 2:been filled with the spirit and boldly came with the message of Jesus Christ as Lord, they say this.
Speaker 3:Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?
Speaker 2:What think is just awesome about this, and very telling about this, is that there is nothing significantly insightful or different in what Peter preached than what Jesus himself said, or that what had already been proclaimed. So it's not like these people were getting this fresh information, this new message, this insightful knowledge that Peter somehow had stored away in him, and then it just came out, and the scales of their eyes came off,
Speaker 3:and now they believed in the message. It wasn't about Peter at all, and that's
Speaker 2:the point, is that the Spirit, the filling of
Speaker 3:the Holy Spirit took a man who was a coward, who denied Jesus, who had failed, and when Peter said yes to the filling of
Speaker 2:the when the Holy Spirit came into him, he was empowered to bring a message that the Holy Spirit then used to cut right down to the heart of those people. And Peter's response was really simple. In verse 38, says, What
Speaker 3:then shall you do? Well, repent. Repent of your sins and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:You will be partakers in the life of God, and in the mission of God. What shall you do in response to this? Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the Holy Spirit. So what we see here is that in verse 41, we see what happens when they do. So those who received his word, there's an assumption that some did not repent and believe and receive, but some did, and so those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls.
Speaker 2:Someone asks you know, people have asked before, like, well, why so many and how so many and where in that moment? I I tend to read this also in context of what Jesus had asked the church to do and be about. Yes, is there a miraculous outpouring of salvation and revival all around the world all the time, all throughout history? Absolutely, 100%. Jesus bring 3,000 people to faith in Him in Jamestown, New York today, right now, in this moment, without any preaching happening?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, He absolutely could. The point here is not necessarily about like, Well, how do we get that 3,000 influx here? That would be really awesome. That's not the point of the passage. The point of the passage is to show that in the moment, the Holy Spirit was pouring out Himself and His presence upon the people, and building for Himself a church that would carry on the mission that Jesus had already given to them.
Speaker 2:There was only 120. Now there was 3,120 spirit filled Christians ready to take on mission of the message of Jesus Christ. Now what does this mean for them, and what does it mean for us? The same spirit
Speaker 3:that filled the disciples then is filling Jesus' disciples now. The very same spirit who brought boldness and empowerment to disciples then is the same spirit that brings
Speaker 2:boldness and empowerment for the mission of God now. Now, we may not all The spirit will empower the message to be carried to the very ends of the earth. The plan and purposes of God will not be denied. The spirit will ensure its success. Now you and I, we may not suffer from a language fluency issue with modern technology, right?
Speaker 2:If I meet someone that speaks a language that I don't know, I can pull up Google Translate on my phone and we can have at least a passable
Speaker 3:type of conversation. So we may
Speaker 2:not suffer from a language fluency issue with modern technology, but many of us, I know, are asking questions regarding people that we know and love, like,
Speaker 3:what can I do, or what can I say,
Speaker 2:or what needs to happen in order for their eyes to be open to Jesus? There are people in our lives where we're like, man, just gotta, I gotta figure out what to say to
Speaker 3:them. I gotta figure out how to get through to them. I gotta figure out, I gotta figure out. I gotta figure out what's going on. And maybe we've tried in the
Speaker 2:past and it just feels like, honestly, like we're speaking a foreign language to them. Like, there's just like, la la la la la. Like, we might as well be speaking Aramaic. There's no sense of listening or comprehension, we're not connecting with them emotionally at all. And so we strive and we strive, and sometimes out of fear and out of a lack of control, what
Speaker 3:do we do? Sometimes we push and we push. And that pushing and pushing and pushing pushes them right outside of our sphere of influence anymore. Right?
Speaker 2:We push them right out of our influence because in our desire to control their response to Jesus through our own human intellect and words and good argument or whatever, we
Speaker 3:we push them right off the table,
Speaker 2:so to speak, where instead, listen, we can walk and live in proximity to them in the confidence that it is ultimately the empowerment of the Holy Spirit upon their lives that will draw them to Jesus, and that you and I stand as simply a faithful witness to what Jesus has done in us and what Jesus can do in them.
Speaker 3:You do not save anyone ever. You couldn't even save yourself.
Speaker 2:You needed Jesus to do that. You can't save anyone. You are not clever enough. You are not smart enough. You are not holy enough.
Speaker 2:You are not insightful enough. Your holiness isn't great enough. We you do not save anyone. I have never saved anyone in my entire life. It has always been the Holy Spirit drawing them to the feet of Jesus that has been the saving power for their lives.
Speaker 2:And that's how it will always be. So we should remember that both as a church, but also as individuals. When we're praying for, living with, in relationship with people whom we are praying would come to Jesus. Holy Spirit, draw them near. Holy Spirit, draw them near.
Speaker 2:One of the main questions that's often asked about this, we're almost done here, I know, we're shocker, right? Stolling along. One the questions that often brings up in this passage, and I do promise that some point this year we have a couple sermon slots we can still put together that we will maybe come back, we'll come back to this issue in a little bit. But the question often is, well, okay, I know that what you just said is that these were known languages for a specific purpose of taking the mission of the God, or the message of the Gospel to the far reaches of the world as Jesus wanted to do in Acts chapter one, but is this in Acts chapter two the same thing as Paul is talking about later in one Corinthians when he talks about speaking in tongues and the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues? Does this differ?
Speaker 2:Does Acts chapter two differ from that? It's my contention that it is one in the same spirit that empowers believers at the moment of salvation for a mission like happened at Pentacost. It is one in the same spirit that does that, that fills them and gives them spiritual gifts. So we're not talking about two separate spirits that work in two separate ways, but we are talking about two different functionalities of that. Does it differ from the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues from what we saw in Acts chapter two?
Speaker 2:I believe yes that it does. See, in the Corinthian passages that talk about this, Paul is clearly addressing a more ecstatic praise language in the midst of worship that is edifying to the individual tongue speaker, but not necessarily the whole church. We see this in one Corinthians fourteen:one-five. It was generally meaningless or un understandable to others outside of the presence of someone who also had the gift of interpretation. Now, what happened in Acts needs no person with the gift of interpretation, because it was clear that the tongues being spoken were known languages spoken by others and were recognized in the moment.
Speaker 2:And so while they are connected and come from the same spirit, they are not one in the same thing
Speaker 3:necessarily. See, tongues in both Acts and one Corinthians is something that, this is my, I don't want say it's my personal opinion, but it kind of is my personal opinion.
Speaker 2:You get it. Right? You get it. When it comes to the gift of tongues and the presence of tongues in the life of the believer, whether it's in the book of Acts, as the normative experience for all those who receive faith in Jesus Christ, or whether it's like the book of one Corinthians, where it is a gift given to specific believers for the sake of their edification.
Speaker 3:No matter what it is, it is something that we must approach with awe and wonder, not skepticism and doubt. Okay?
Speaker 2:If we are going to say that it is a
Speaker 3:gift of the Holy Spirit, that it is something that comes from heaven, listen, I don't understand it all, I don't get it all, but if the Holy Spirit of God, the one who was present for eternity past and eternity present,
Speaker 2:the one who hovered over the surface of the waters in creation wants to give me something, I don't care if I understand it or not. Yes, please, sir, may I have some more? Okay? And so even when we approach something like this, we're like, man, this seems strange and weird, and I don't really The approach is, but in awe, and in wonder, and humility, and glory, Lord, I receive everything that you would have for me, everything that you would have for a brother or a sister next to me. I do not approach it with skepticism or doubt, I approach it with awe and wonder and faith.
Speaker 2:See, skepticism and doubt assumes that we must understand something in order to believe it.
Speaker 3:And I don't listen, this becomes a very slippery slope for those of us who want to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because I don't understand that either. But it is it is the central pivot point to all of our faith. So
Speaker 2:if we are only willing to
Speaker 3:engage with that which we understand,
Speaker 2:we're going to find ourselves in a wasteland of Christian faith, because we will take the resurrection right out of the center of what we believe. And what do we
Speaker 3:have then, Paul says? Nothing. Not a thing. Nothing. So here's what I'm asking.
Speaker 3:I'm asking that the Lord would expand our faith
Speaker 2:to receive from God the wonders and awe of the Holy Spirit's presence, both as individual gifts should He see fit and in His will, but also in the spirit of Lord, we need your Spirit's power to carry on the mission that you have given us to be a witness in Jamestown, in Warren, in Chautauqua County, in Western New York, in the Northeast, and to the rest of the world. We can't do this on our own. We don't want your spirit, Lord, just for signs and wonders, but we want it for power. Power that fulfills the mission and vision of bringing glory to Jesus, to declare to the world the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would expand and build our faith.
Speaker 2:Lord, even in the midst of maybe that which we do not understand, Lord, would you replace our skepticism and doubt with awe and wonder? Father, we thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the very presence of God Himself.
Speaker 3:Lord, and we ask in these moments that you would pour out your spirit in this place like you promised in Joel. That your young men, Lord,
Speaker 2:would see visions, your old men would dream dreams, that on all your people, men, women, and children, spirit would be poured out that we might declare the wonders of the God that you are.
Speaker 3:Lord, as a church, I pray that you
Speaker 2:would not withhold your spirit's presence, That you would fill us, Lord, and give us every gift necessary, both for our edification and the fulfillment of your mission. Lord, we surrender ourselves to you and give ourselves to you in complete and utter consecration. Lord, whatever it is you need or desire from us, Lord, we offer it freely. Fill us with your spirit in Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaker 2:For this reason, bow my knees before the father, from whom every family in heaven on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being. So that may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints. What is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of god. Now, to him, who is able to do far more abundantly than we can ask or think. According to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever.
Speaker 2:Amen. Amen. Conduit, you are loved. Have a great week, and we will see you next time.
