Partners Under the Promise

Introduction

What does a 10 year old and an 80 year old have in common? They need one another for their well-being. Josmitha Maria Dsouza, Anirban Chakraborty, and Neetha Kamath wrote an article last year about an experiement studying the effects of interaction with children on well-being among the elderly. They allowed children ages 7-14 to interaction with elderly people in a senior living facility ages 65 and over for 45-60 minutes weekly for 12 weeks. Results showed that these interactions increased self-esteem, self- reported health, decreased depression, and increased self worth in the elderly. In another instance like the Intergerational School in Cleveland OH, children also learn from the expereinces of the elderly and develop empathy and patience in classrooms rid of age segregation.

This concept of spending quality time and energy together is not a concept designed by Drs. Peter and Caherine Whitehouse at the Intergenerational School, nor was it developed by the Indian scholars in the expereinment we discussed. I’d argue friends that all the way in Exodus 23, we see the Festival of Harvest or the Feast of Weeks. One of the componets of this festival according to Deuteronomy 16:10 is that all able bodied Israelites were to take the trip to the temple in Jerusalem to hand deliver their offerings. There is a unified effort to bring gifts to where God is and celebrate the harvest God has brough to their lives. While in the OT and in Jewish tradition, these festivals celebrated God’s ability to move in the land and produce a harvest for them, here in our text we see the celebration of God’s ability to move in the people and produce a harvest in them.

The promise of God’s presence moves from Mt. Sinai, to the temple, from the temple into each of us.

Focus: God’s salvific hope for creation is manifested in the gifts the Spirit places in each of us.

Function: We should acknowledge God’s work in the lives of those around us as we join together in anticpation for The Lord’s glorious return.

Big Idea: As God’s people, we receive the promise of the Holy Spirit, and become partners in the promise through the Holy Sprit.

Context

Acts 2:17-21 is a quotation from the Septuagint (Greek translation of the OT from the original Hebrew) of Joel 2:28–32 “After this I will pour out my Spirit on all humanity; then your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will have dreams, and your young men will see visions. I will even pour out my Spirit on the male and female slaves in those days. I will display wonders in the heavens and on the earth: blood, fire, and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, for there will be an escape for those on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, as the Lord promised, among the survivors the Lord calls.”

Luke adds the distinction “and they shall prophesy” in verse 18 to accentuate Joel’s implication.

In both Joel’s prophesy and Peter’s citation, there’s good news and bad news.

Here’s the good news: verses 17-18 - a promise for partnership among gender, generations, and status

This text is calling for unity in the Spirit. The question is, “Why does the promise of the Holy Spirit desire for us to partner?”

Answer: Because salvation is not by race or law (OT), but by faith (NT), the Spirit needs a larger vessel to be poured through.

In other words, when more people are invited to the family reunion, you need more food and more cooks.

To Pour Down - verb. to flow from a much higher location to a lower one in spurts

The process of pouring involves two forces: filling and pulling. Filling determines the content of the pour, the pulling determines the direction of the pour

example of rain (evaporation lightens the water from the earth and stores it in the clouds, condensation forms in the clouds to the point where that water becomes heavy and gravity pulls it back to the earth as precipitation)

It is suggested that the pouring of the Spirit in the NT constrasts the droplets of the Spirit in the OT. In the OT there were manifestations of the Spirit present in the lives of specific people for a specific purpose. For exmaple, the Spirit came upon certain judges, warriors, and prophets in a way that gave them extraordinary power: for example, Joshua (Numbers 27:18), Othniel (Judges 3:10), Gideon (Judges 6:34), Samson (Judges 13:25; 14:6), and Saul (1 Samuel 10:9, 10). However, the Spirit later departed from Saul because of his disobedience (1 Samuel 16:14). (Thomas Nelson Bibles)

Emphasis: That’s why we need a faith family (Church). No, we dont come to church to get another “filling” of the Holy Spirit. We were already filled with the Spirit when we believed. We come to church to be encouraged to live out the fruit of the Spirit. As we are filled with the inspiration to live out the fruit of the Spirit, we are sent out to display the fruit of the Spirit because somebody out there needs to taste it!

Matthew 7:16 “You’ll recognize them by their fruit...”

Bananas - potasium, apples - fiber, oranges, lemons grapefruit - acidity, berries - antioxidants, and there are fruits in each and everyone of use that contrbitues to the fruit bowl that the world needs to live!

There is an inteisified verocity to the dispensation of the Spirit in the NT in a way that requires a larger vessell to hold the essence and desire of the Spirit. Here in our NT text, the droplets increase to an outpour extended over people and not a person for the purpose of the salvation of humanity. There is a filling and a pulling.

Sons and daughters prophesy (to reveal a future event by divine inspiration).

- Key:One can become prophetic by growing in knowledge of the word of God.

Young men see visions (awake) - Old men dream dreams (asleep): we could get caught up in the semantics and make disctinctions between dreams and visions, but I love what Sarah Horton from Ouachita Baptist University says on this matter in her thesis,

“God used both dreams and visions to speak to many of his people, as well as many foreigners--even pagan worshipers, such as Abimelech (Gen 20) and Nebuchad nezzar (Dan 2, 4). In fact, when it can1e to "ousiders, uninitiated, or those who had no access to prophets," dreams were often a first choice for divine communication. 14 In God's first communication with Abraham (then Abram), he appeared in a vision to establish the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 15); later, he reaffirmed it through a dream to Jacob (Gen 28). Among the prophets, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, and Zechariah all received their prophetic messages through visions…In the NT, the book of Matthew records how God sent dreams to Joseph, the Magi, and Pilate's wife. The book of Acts recounts stories in which Paul and Peter both receive visions, as well as Ananias and the Gentile Cornelius. The last mention of a vision in the Bible occurs in Revelation 9, where John implies that he received the whole revelation through a 14 John Walton and Andrew Hill, The Old Testament Today (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004). 7 vision. So we see that again God sends dreams and visions both to his people the Jews/Christians, as well as to people outside the faith.”

Through their poetic wordsmithing, the prophets are actually referring that all people, regardless of their gender and age and regardless of whether they are asleep or awake, are able to receive messages of God as a result of the Holy Spirit who dwells in them.

This is evident when you continue to read Acts. In Acts 21:8-9, the four daughters of Philip the evangelist are prophets.

Paul receives a vision of a man inviting him to Macedonia in (Acts 16:9) where he and Silas consequently bring their jailor to Christ after God broke their chains in prison.

In Acts 11:28, Agabus prophesizes the spread of a terrible famine throughout the Roman Empire, as well as Paul’s arrest in Acts 21:10-11.

Peter is summoned by an unsaved Gentile named Cornelius, who sees an angel in a vision in Acts 10:3-7. As a result, he and his family are baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Emphasis: We should be ever grateful that we serve an audible and visual God, who desires and determines not only to speak to us, but show us.

Here’s the bad news: verse 19 - a promise for partnership among the heavens and the earth

These wonders and signs point to the future judgement of the world comsumated in the return of Christ. A

Blood, Fire, Cloud of smoke - can all be viewed in the context of war in which a victorous nation would burn down the conquered city after its demise, leaving behind bloodshed, fire, and clouds of smoke.

This is some bad news…depending on where you are in the fight. If we celebate a conquering King we have to recognize that the King has enemies that need to be conquered. As Christ has already overcome the world

But wait, there’s good news: verse 21 - a promise for salvation

Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999) (I Will Pour out My Spirit)

If war broke out tomorrow in the Middle East with terrible bloodshed and earthshaking ferocity, and began to draw the whole world into conflict, would that be a sign that God’s purpose for our day is not a great spiritual awakening but only a bleak downward spiral of calamity and moral collapse till the end?…No. On the contrary, there is a promise that in the last days the Spirit will be poured out on all flesh—all the nations will be reached. The true church of Christ will be awakened and revived and sent with extraordinary passion and zeal and prophetic power, and—right in the midst of terrorism and war and persecution and natural disasters—the flaming end-time church of Christ will finish the Great Commission, and welcome the King…O, my dear Bethlehem friends, I want us to be a part of that bright, bold, prophetic, Christ-exalting, risk-taking, end-time band of disciples—taking the clear and glorious message of verse 21 everywhere, no matter what: “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

The Holy Spirit isnt impressed with your degree, your zip code, your whip, your boo, your membership in the organization, your blue check on instagram, your clear status at the TSA, or your points at Chick-Fil-A. The Holy Spirit helps you to recognize the name.

The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run in and are safe

At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess

Heave an and earth will pass away but There is a name I love to hear...