Acts 2:1-11
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
[READING - Acts 2:1-11]
1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. 5 Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 “And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? 9 “Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.”
[PRAYER]
[ILLUS] Back in the heat of the Summer one of our deacons couldn’t get the church’s riding lawnmower to run. He had planned to mow the grass up front but I watched from my air-conditioned office as he got the mower started, drove it across the parking lot only to have it shutoff as soon as he got close to the grass.
Sipping an ice-cold Coke, I watched him push it under the drive-thru to diagnose the problem.
If memory serves, he thought it might have been the brake, so with sweat in his eyes he worked but the mower still wouldn’t run.
By that point, I was really interested, so I pulled my chair close to the window and got another Coke as I watched.
I watched as he ruled out the brake and then thought it might have been the cutoff-switch under the seat.
Feet up in the window seal, I watched as he ruled that out.
Finally another deacon asked, “Does it have gas in it?”
It turns out that the brake was fine; the cutoff-switch worked like it was supposed to; but a lawnmower that isn’t filled with gas doesn’t do much.
The same is true for Christians who aren’t filled with the Holy Spirit.
[CONTEXT] In Acts, Luke opened by telling Theophilus about Jesus who had given orders to His chosen Apostles by the Holy Spirit.
Then Luke said that Jesus ordered them to stay in Jerusalem until they were baptized with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit was the promise of God the Father.
The Apostles had heard of the promise of the Spirit from Jesus Himself.
Jesus said, “John baptized with water, but (His Apostles would) be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from (then).”
When we come to Acts 2, the day of baptism has arrived.
[CIT] Acts 2:1-11 describes the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to empower His Apostles to testify about Him beginning in Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
[PROP] As we go along this morning, I hope we see that Jesus is still empowering us by His Holy Spirit to testify to Him to the ends of the earth.
[TS] There are three PARTS to this passage that I want us to focus on this morning…
MAJOR IDEAS
MAJOR IDEAS
Part #1: The Holy Spirit Comes (Acts 2:1-4)
Part #1: The Holy Spirit Comes (Acts 2:1-4)
1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
[EXP] Pentecost was one of three major feasts on the Jewish calendar. Passover was fifty days before it, and the Feast of Tabernacles was four months after it.
Pentecost was also called the Feast of Weeks because it was celebrated seven weeks (i.e., seven sabbaths plus one day) after Passover.
Because the weekly sabbath was from Friday evening until Saturday evening, this means that Pentecost took place on a Sunday.
In my way of thinking, we Christians have good reason to gather for worship on Sunday.
First, Jesus is our sabbath rest.
Secondly, Jesus was raised from the dead on a Sunday.
Thirdly, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit on a Sunday.
Pentecost was also called the Feast of Firstfruits because it celebrated the beginning of the harvest when people would gather their firstfruit offerings for the Temple.
As we get to the end of Acts 2, we will see the firstfruits of a harvest of souls gathered to Christ Jesus.
By this time in Acts, Pentecost had also become associated with the Law of Moses being given to God’s people approximately seven weeks after the Exodus.
And, yes, here we see the promised the New Covenant fulfilled, a promise that including God’s law being written on the very hearts of his people.
But there they were, likely waiting in the upper room when suddenly the Holy Spirit came from heaven.
The Holy Spirit came from heaven because He is God and because He is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of Christ, Christ who ascended to heaven.
The coming of the Holy Spirit sounded “like a violent rushing wind” and appeared as “tongues as of fire.”
Both of these descriptions remind Old Testament readers of God’s presence.
The Spirit “rested on each one of them,” likely referring to each of the 120 persons in the upper rooms.
The Holy Spirit was for all believers.
The Apostles would be empowered as Jesus’ primary witnesses, but other disciples would be empowered as His secondary witnesses.
“They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.”
These were not ecstatic utterances or “the tongues of angels” as some claim. These were real languages understood by people in other nations as the rest of the passage proves.
[ILLUS] When I was in college, I went on a short mission trip to Mexico. While in Mexico, I tried to buy a 24-count disposable camera in a little shop. (This was in those olden days before we all had cameras on cellphones in our pockets.)
The person behind the counter didn’t speak any English and I—despite a couple semesters of Spanish in college—didn’t speak any Spanish that a Spanish-speaking person could understand.
I kept pointing to the camera and saying twenty-four in Spanish and person behind the counter kept asking me something in Spanish, but it wasn’t working.
The cashier didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand her, so I didn’t get the camera until a translator arrived to help.
There were no language barriers like that at Pentecost. As the Spirit gave them utterance— i.e., the ability to speak—they spoke of Jesus in other languages, ones they had never known before.
[APP] They spoke of Jesus.
Some folks read Acts 2 and focus on the wrong things.
Some folks focus on being filled with the Spirit, but those filled with Spirit speak of Jesus.
Some folks focus on speaking in tongues, but the gift of tongues—i.e., the gift of speaking in other languages—was so that they could speak of Jesus.
Some folks focus on the Holy Spirit, but even the Holy Spirit speaks Jesus.
[APP] J. I. Packer was walking to church one evening were he was to preach on the Holy Spirit, specifically the words of Jesus concerning the Holy Spirit in John 16:14, “He will glorify Me.”
He said he was trying to think of a good picture of those words when he saw the church building floodlit as he turned a corner. He then realized that this was exactly the illustration his message needed.
He said, “When floodlighting is well done, the floodlights are placed so that you do not see them; in fact, you are not supposed to see where the light is coming from; what you are meant to see is just the building on which the floodlights are trained. The intended effect is to make it visible when otherwise it would not be seen for the darkness, and to maximize its dignity by throwing all its details into relief so that you can see it properly. This perfectly illustrate(s) the Spirit’s new covenant role. He is, so to speak, the hidden floodlight shining on the Savior.
The Spirit’s message to us is never, ‘Look at Me; listen to Me; come to Me; get to know Me,’ but always, ‘Look at Him, and see His glory; listen to Him and hear His word; go to Him and have life; get to know Him and taste His gift of joy and peace.’”
One way to determine how filled we are with the Holy Spirit is to determine how focused we are on Jesus.
The more we are filled by the Spirit, the more we are focused on Him.
The more we are filled with the Holy Spirit, the more we speak of Him.
[TS] That’s Part #1: The Spirit Comes. Let’s look at…
Part #2: The People Hear (Acts 2:5-8)
Part #2: The People Hear (Acts 2:5-8)
5 Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 “And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born?
[EXP] The Jews living in Jerusalem were living there temporarily as they observed Passover and then Pentecost more than a month later; or they were living their permanently as those who returned to the ancient city after the Diaspora—the scattering of Jews from the Promised Land to other nations, which began with the exile.
These were devout men or else they wouldn’t have been there celebrating Pentecost.
They were there from every nation under heaven, which was Luke’s way of saying there were Jews there from everywhere.
They converged on this group that had been filled with the Holy Spirit because they heard the sound—the sound of the Gospel of Jesus Christ spoken in their own languages or dialects.
I think this refers to what some call a heart-language.
[ILLUS] Back when we were just a young engaged couple before we were beaten down by the world, Cheryl and I had the opportunity to go to Bali, Indonesia, on a mission trip.
The missionaries there said although the people of Bali spoke Indonesian and sometimes English, the best way to tell them about Jesus was in their own heart-language, Balinese, the language of their island.
I think these devout Jews living in Jerusalem each heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ in his heart-language on the day of Pentecost.
It would have been the language he spoke in his hometown, the language he spoke with his wife and children at home, the language he grew up speaking—or as v. 8 puts it, the language to which they were born.
[EXP] Notice though that they were amazed and astonished, not only because it was unexpected, but also because the Galileans spoke all those languages.
Jesus was known as the Galilean, and Galilean accent was distinctive.
When Peter tried to deny being a follower of Jesus as Jesus went to the cross, he was outed because of his Galilean accent.
Some say that these folks in the grand city of Jerusalem would’ve looked on Galileans as “backward boorish dolts.”
Some say that Galileans had difficulty pronouncing certain sounds and that they swallowed their syllables when speaking.
But as the Spirit gave them utterance, here the Galileans were speaking in a multitude of languages to a multitude of people from a multitude of nations.
Jesus loves to use supposed “backward boorish dolts” to accomplish His glorious purposes.
[ILLUS] The famous evangelist D. L. Moody was to have a campaign in England.
An elderly pastor protested, “Why do we need this ‘Mr. Moody’? He’s uneducated, inexperienced, etc. Who does he think he is anyway? Does he think he has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit?”
Another pastor rose and responded, “No, but the Holy Spirit has a monopoly on Mr. Moody.”
[APP] Are we content to be thought of uneducated and inexperienced so long as we are used by Christ? Are we content to be thought of as backward boorish dolts so long as Christ is magnified? Are we content to be scoffed at as weak or as fools so long as Christ is exalted in us?
God loves to perform His wonders through the weak. He loves to do the fantastic through those thought of as fools.
That’s good news for someone like me.
[TS] Part #2: The People Hear. The Spirit comes, the people hear, and now…
Part #3: The Nations are Glad (Acts 2:9-11)
Part #3: The Nations are Glad (Acts 2:9-11)
9 “Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.”
[EXP] Let’s try to get some understanding of these nations.
Parthians, Medes, and Elamites were all apart of the Parthian Empire which was located in modern day Iran.
Moving west, the residents of Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) were Jews who still resided between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what was once the Babylonian Empire.
Judea refers to the land of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, and Jerusalem specifically. At the time of Luke’s writing it was centered between the Parthian Empire in the east and the Roman Empire in the west.
Northeast of Judea, we have Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, along with Phrygia and Pamphylia, which were all located in modern Turkey.
Southeast of Judea, we have Egypt, Libya, and Cyrene along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
And then we have visitors from Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire.
These visitors may merit a special mention because Luke will end Acts with Paul on his way to stand trial in Rome.
These were Jews and proselytes—that is, Jews by blood and Gentiles who decided to live like Jews.
And then from an island in the Mediterranean Sea, we have the Cretans from Crete; and from the peninsula to Judea’s south the Arabs from Arabia.
All these people from all over the world, heard of the mighty deeds of God in their own languages.
Psalm 96:3 says…
3 Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.
This is what the Apostles and others were doing at Pentecost, telling of God’s mighty deeds, His wonderful deeds which have risen to crescendo in the life, death, resurrection, an ascension of Jesus Christ.
[ILLUS] Not too long ago we studied the Tower of Babel in Sunday School. When that event took place, people likely still told stories about the flood in Noah’s day—stories that had been handed down to them from Noah’s sons or grandsons.
They came to a plain, a large flat piece of land, and decided to build a tower to the heavens to make a name for themselves.
Why build a tower to the heavens in this flat place?
What did it mean for them to make a name for themselves?
They used bricks and tar for mortar, which was also used as a caulking for rafts and boats.
Why would they want to make their tower essentially waterproof?
Were they trying to save themselves from a flood like the one in Noah’s day?
Did they not believe God’s promise to never flood the whole earth again?
Were they trying to save themselves from the judgment of God?
God came down and confused their language and the people were scattered.
Genesis 11:9 says…
9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.
From the days of the early church fathers, Christian commentators have seen the blessing of Pentecost as a reversal of the judgment that took place in Babel.
At Babel, the language was confused and people were scattered across the earth.
At Pentecost, the language-barriers were overcome by the Spirit and people were gathered to Christ.
At Babel, I think God’s message was, you can’t ascend to heaven and save yourselves.
At Pentecost, God’s message was…
22 “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— 23 this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. 24 “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.
32 “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. 33 “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.
36 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.”
[APP] We can’t build a tower tall enough to save us from the flood of God’s wrath, but God has given us a strong tower in Jesus Christ.
He lived perfectly so that He could pay for our sin in His death and give us His righteousness in His resurrection.
He ascended to the Father’s right hand, the position of all authority in heaven and on earth; the position from which He intercedes for us now.
He sent the Holy Spirit to seal us for salvation and fill us to live as His witnesses.
Do you know this Jesus?
Do you hear the mightiest work of God in your heart as you hear about His life, death, and resurrection?
[TS] …
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
If you’ve never known Christ, come to Jesus today and be sealed for the day of salvation by His Holy Spirit.
If you know Him, give yourself more fully to Jesus today and be filled with His Holy Spirit so that you can live more faithfully as His witness to the ends of the earth.