Spirit of the Living God

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. 5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Big Idea

The Holy Spirit plays a pivotal role in the disciples’ witness in the world.

Acts doesn't just highlight the Spirit’s manifestation in the private, personal lives of individual believers, but also

This is the grand narrative of the Spirit’s empowerment of the community of believers.

The Spirit acts as a driving force, propelling the movement like a powerful wind, sweeping across the face of the Roman world and beyond.

The spirit- controlled believer is propelled by scriptural truths, empowered by the work of Jesus, and encouraged by those who have gone before them. With open eyes to deeper spiritual realities, the one who has the spirit’s empowerment endures the brokenness of the world with holy resolve. This individual, marked by love and through the power of the Holy Spirit, joins in God’s offensive against darkness and destruction. Through the power of the Spirit of God we unite with the triune God and His holy church to stand as an unwavering, unanxious presence. It is from that position that we are a major problem to the enemy.

Chandler, Matt. The Overcomers: God's Vision for You to Thrive in an Age of Anxiety and Outrage (p. xi). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

The Last Promise

Jesus’ last instruction to the Apostles concerned waiting:

“He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, ‘which,’ He said, ‘you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but

“.....Wait and you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now’ ” (Acts 1:4–5).

That was His last promise. They were going to receive power such as they had never imagined, a heavenly power, because the Holy Spirit was going to come upon them. It was not going to happen that day or the next, but soon, and they were to wait for it.[2]

Acts 2:1-2

you don’t have any idea what your up against - it would be really stupid for you to think that you can go out against the forces of evil and darkness - without the spirit of God.

You just don’t have what it takes to do spiritual battle without the spirit of God

Don’t try to be a hero

Don’t go it alone - you’ll fall on your face without having the spirit of God in you.

Introduction

Pentecost, also known as the 'fiftieth [day]', is a unique festival celebrated by Greek-speaking Jews. It occurs fifty days after Passover

and draws pilgrims from all corners of the known world to Jerusalem.

This pilgrimage is one of the three major Jewish feasts that require a visit to the Holy City. The name 'Pentecost' itself, meaning 'fiftieth ', is derived from its occurrence 50 days after Passover.

It was a feast of harvest.

That’s what it is called in Exodus 23:16 (cf. Deuteronomy 16:10).

In other words there was a beautiful symbolic significance: the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in extraordinary power was meant for witness and world evangelization.

And what is this but a great harvest in the field of the world.

And that is exactly what happened—3,000 people were harvested for God and given eternal life on the day of Pentecost, the feast of harvest.[1]

The Spirit fell on the entire community when they were “all together in one place.”

The Apostles were gathered in the house, and all of a sudden the sound of a mighty, powerful, overwhelming, rushing wind filled the place where they were sitting.

1. This circumstance should not be taken as a magic formula that guarantees the coming of the Spirit. Humans have no control over the Spirit and cannot manufacture his presence.

2. Like the wind, the Spirit blows where he wills, and the effects are not always so dramatic.

Sometimes the Spirit is like a still small voice.

The church must be alert to and responsive to this divine presence. [3]

We cannot make the Spirit come. When he comes, he comes suddenly.

He will never become anyone’s bellhop.

He loves and he serves. But he keeps his own hours. He knows what is best for us.

Illustration

In the summer of 1871 two women of Dwight L. Moody’s congregation felt an unusual burden to pray for Moody “that the Lord would give him the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire.”

Moody would see them praying in the front row of his church and he was irritated.

But soon he gave in and in September began to pray with them every Friday afternoon.

He felt like his ministry was becoming a sounding brass with little power.

On November 24, 1871, Moody’s church building was destroyed in the great Chicago fire.

He went to New York to seek financial help. Day and night he would walk the streets desperate for the touch of God’s power in his life.

Then suddenly,

One day, in the city of New York—oh, what a day!—I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name … I can only say that God revealed himself to me, and I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand.

I went to preaching again.

The sermons were not different;

I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted.

I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world—it would be small dust in the balance. (W. R. Moody, The Life of D. L. Moody, New York: 1900, p. 149)

He prayed, and he obeyed, and he waited. But he did not make the Spirit come.

He came suddenly.

When he came the effect was Pentecostal—not this time in the experience of tongues, but in the harvest.

When the Spirit comes in power, he comes suddenly—on his own terms and in his own time—and he comes for harvesting.[4]

i don’t want to go the way of a semi interesting keep half your congregation awake guy. i am increasing hungry for a move of God in our church.

The Sound and The Sight

On Pentecost, the mighty power of the Holy Spirit roared through a room filled with people whom Jesus had selected to be there to receive power from heaven to fulfill their mission in this world.

and they heard the wind.[5]

The sound of wind was a reminder of creation, a hint that a new creation was beginning. The old was giving way to the new.

the spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters.

As Paul would say, “If anyone is in Christ” (lit. “new creation”) (2 Cor. 5:17). Those who live in this era, post-Pentecost, are “those on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor. 10:11).

Something of the end, the new order of existence, has thus broken through into this present space-time continuum.

The breath of God has been felt! [

They saw fire, tongues of fire, appearing over each one’s head.

This was no ordinary wind.

This was the wind of God, a theophany, a visible manifestation of the invisible God.

The most common visible manifestation of God in the Old Testament was through fire.

In the Midianite wilderness, the theophany was a bush burning but not consumed, and out of that fire God spoke to Moses and changed the course of history.

When God led the children of Israel through the wilderness, He did so through a pillar of cloud and a pillar of smoke, or fire.

The judgment throne of God that went across the sky, the whirlwind into which people were caught up, was a chariot of fire, so much so that the New Testament tells us, “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29).

When God gave the law to the people at Mount Sinai, flames were visible on the mountain, symbolizing the power of the transcendent majesty of God.

The fire was symbolic.

1. Fire is a source of light.

Today we do not think much of fire as a light source because we use candles only for decoration,

but for most of human history, homes were illuminated by some flame.

One of the most important operations of God, the Holy Spirit, is to illumine the truth of God, to put a searchlight on it for our understanding.[7]

Not only does the fire symbolize the heavenly presence, the source of light and truth,

2. Fire also symbolizes warmth, and affection.

When Jesus rebuked the church at Laodicea in the book of Revelation,

he said, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth” (Rev. 3:15–16).

He does not want lukewarm Christians.

He wants Christians who are on fire, burning with a passion for the things of God.

When the Spirit comes upon a person, He kindles that spark.

He starts a flame that consumes the heart and soul so that the affection born that hour will increase in intensity as we grow in Christ, and the fuel for that fire is the Word, prayer, and fellowship with other believers.[8]

The Filling of the Holy Spirit

All the disciples present were “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:4).

All who have received the Holy Spirit are, therefore, “baptized in [or with] the Holy Spirit” or “filled with” the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit filling” or “baptism” is one of several designations in Scripture that describe the initiatory experience by which the Spirit takes up residence in the believer as Christ’s representative agent.

It is another way of expressing what Paul often gives voice to—union with Christ.

Every believer was filled with the Spirit, not just those who had engaged in some special act of consecration.

When Luke says that everyone received the fullness of the Spirit, he does not mean that they were all filled to the same extent with the gifts, but that each one received what was best for him to fulfill his own calling. [9]

What Christ did at Pentecost in pouring out the Holy Spirit, he did on behalf of the church—the church of which we are members through faith in Christ.

What features constitute the heart of Pentecost?

First, Pentecost signaled the presence of God’s glory.

Just as the thunder and lightning of Sinai had signaled the presence of the mighty God of Israel on the mountain, so, too, the wind-like, fiery-tongues-like phenomenon at Pentecost also declared that the Lord of Glory was passing by.

Pentecost was not what occurs to this or that disciple, but the presence of God himself in all his glory moving among his people, coming to his people, dwelling in his people, and filling his people.

Second, Pentecost signaled the intent of the Great Commission—world evangelism!

Our vision for the church is often clouded by prejudice and small-mindedness.

Too often the burden for missions is kept alive by a tiny minority of eager Christians who struggle to find novel ways to interest other Christians in missions.

The truth is that those who do not have a heart for missions do not have the heart of Jesus Christ.

The gospel breaks down the barriers of race, language, and color, and Pentecost gives us a glimpse of what that looks like.

Pentecost signals to us the sinfulness of racism and ethnic superiority.

Pentecost says to us that the church of Jesus Christ is composed of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation—as the covenant with Abraham had made clear when God said to him, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3).

Pentecost placards that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).

Third, the power manifested at Pentecost is indicative of the resources God intends to employ in the accomplishment of his great design for the church. The bride of Jesus Christ will be gathered and adorned by God's power, not man's power and ingenuity.

“I will build my church,” Jesus said at Caesarea Philippi, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).

Pentecost, while in some aspects unique, was a reminder that the church is always in need of the Sprit’s power to defend against the hostile forces of Satan.

Before Pentecost, the river of God’s Spirit blessed the people of Israel and was their very life. But after Pentecost, the power of the Spirit spread out to light the whole world—and with such power. Pentecost changed everything.

Fourth, what happened at Pentecost restored what was broken.

God is recreating his broken world.

What began at Pentecost will continue until the day when Jesus will return on the clouds of heaven to usher in the new heavens and new earth.

It is a small foretaste of what we can expect in the end.

The Holy Spirit, who comes at regeneration, came at Pentecost to indicate the temporary nature of this existence, causing us to anticipate and look forward to the coming of the kingdom in all its marvelous fullness.

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.[10]

The sight and sound of the presence of God is amazing.

To react with awe is altogether appropriate.

God was in their midst, and they were aware of the uncanny nature of it, even if they were not, at this stage, persuaded to do much else. Following the sermon that Peter preached, many were no doubt converted.

But now all that they were aware of was a sense of the holy in their midst, the One who cannot be categorized or pigeonholed. Whenever we sense God’s presence, we too ought to be reverent. In a worship service, when reading his Word, in prayer—God is the transcendent One, and we must acknowledge this with godly awe.

Amazement and Perplexity

In verse 12 the demonstration of God’s power in the miracle of tongues causes amazement and perplexity among everyone. “And all were amazed and perplexed.” But

The perplexity gave way to two very different responses. Some seriously asked, “What does this mean?” Others (in verse 13) mocked and leaped to a naturalistic explanation: “They are filled with new wine.”

This is the caution: whenever revival comes—whenever the Holy Spirit is poured out in extraordinary power—this division happens in the Christian community.

Some genuinely inquire as to what this is, and test all things, and hold fast to what is good.

Others stand outside and mock and write off the enthusiasm as merely human, “They are filled with new wine.”

It remains an undying desire and prayer in the hearts of so many of us at GCC that God would rend the heavens and come down and revive his church. and empower us for the final thrust of world evangelization. If this is true, what we need very much is discerning, expectant, open hearts that say, “What indeed is this?” and then listen for a biblical answer.

Others mocked! They suggested that what they had seen was an example of drunkenness (Acts 2:13).

This is a vivid example that miracles, in and of themselves, do not convert. “If only we had the Spirit as they did at Pentecost,” we might be tempted to say, “then everybody would be saved.”

But just as Judas could live in Jesus’ presence for three years and not be converted, so those present at Pentecost could witness the outpouring of the Spirit and not yield to God’s call to repentance and faith.

It is proof of the heart’s hardness: we are dead in trespasses by nature, unable to respond to the signs of God’s presence and power (Eph. 2:1, 5).

From Knowing to Experiencing

This is what happened to the disciples in Acts 2 when they saw tongues of fire and heard the violent wind.

It filled them with an overwhelming sense of the presence of God.

Until that moment, we can imagine them praying (Acts 1:14) and reciting to each other the 23rd Psalm and saying, “Though I walk through the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me,” and rejoicing that God was with them—he was right there in that very room.

How did they know it? The Bible told them so. Just the way we know so many wonderful things: “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Then suddenly, something happens that utterly transforms their knowledge of God’s presence into the experience of God’s presence.

They see fire on each other’s heads and they hear a loud wind.

They are filled not merely with a deductive certainty of God’s present reality, but with an experiential certainty based on the extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The fire begins to burn in their hearts (Luke 24:32) and in their mouths (“tongues of fire”), and the sound of the wind surrounds them and envelops them with the tokens of God’s power.

And they are simply overwhelmed with the greatness of God. And it begins to spill out in praise. Like John White, they are almost undone by worship—so much so that some people say they are drunk (v. 13)[11]

We should pray for the Spirit’s work to be made clear in our own lives.

“Come, Holy Spirit. Come into our hearts and dispel the unbelief and coldness that so often mar our relationship with our Father in heaven.

Reveal to us through the Scriptures how much our Savior loved us. You are the same Spirit who dwelt in him while he was on earth. You know him better than anyone else knows him.

Draw us to the feet of Jesus that we may once more fall before him in adoration and love. Amen.”[12]

Pentecost was a watershed moment in the history of the church. The day of Pentecost was that moment in redemptive history when God unlocked the power of the Holy Spirit and gave it to His church, not just for those who were gathered there, but to the church of every age and to every Christian throughout time. That wind, that fire, is as much for us today as it was for those gathered in the upper room. We are to be people of the Holy Spirit, as well as of the Son and the Father.[13]

[1]Piper, J. (2007). Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999). Desiring God. [2]Sproul, R. C. (2010). Acts (p. 40). Crossway. [3]Garland, D. E. (2017). Acts (M. L. Strauss & J. H. Walton, Eds.; p. 28). Baker Books: A Division of Baker Publishing Group. [4]Piper, J. (2007). Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999). Desiring God. [5]Sproul, R. C. (2010). Acts (p. 42). Crossway. [6]Thomas, D. W. H. (2011). Acts (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.; p. 29). P&R Publishing. [7]Sproul, R. C. (2010). Acts(p. 43). Crossway. [8]Sproul, R. C. (2010). Acts(p. 43). Crossway. [9]Packer, J. I. (1995). Introduction. In A. McGrath (Ed.), Acts (Ac 2:4). Crossway Books. [10]Thomas, D. W. H. (2011). Acts(R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.; p. 36). P&R Publishing. [11]Piper, J. (2007). Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999). Desiring God. [12]Thomas, D. W. H. (2011). Acts(R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.; pp. 37–38). P&R Publishing. [13]Sproul, R. C. (2010). Acts(p. 44). Crossway.

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