Promise Fulfilled

Introduction

Ruth Bell, a twenty-one year old daughter of missionaries to China, was studying at Wheaton College to be a missionary like her parents. She met another twenty-one year old student at Wheaton who was already ordained as a Baptist minister, named Billy. For Ruth, the meeting was unremarkable, but for Billy he would say, “I fell in love right that minute.”

A month later, Billy would muster the courage to ask Ruth out on a date, taking her to a concert of Handel’s Messiah. Apparently, this experience was more remarkable, as Ruth would write in her diary that night, “Bill is a real inspiration--because, I suppose, he is a man of one purpose and that one purpose controls his whole heart and life. He is dead in earnest yet richly endowed with the fruit of the Spirit...Humble, thoughtful, unpretentious, courteous.” Then she prayed, “God, if you let me serve You with that man, I’d consider it the greatest privilege of my life.”

For Billy’s part, he wrote home to tell his parents that he’d met the woman he intended to marry. But, his friends cautioned him about his enthusiasm, lest he scare Ruth away. So for the next six weeks Billy avoided her altogether!

Ruth decided to take the matters into her own hands, inviting Billy to a house party she planned on attending. Billy, however, countered her invite by inviting her to come hear him preach in Chicago, which took place on February 7, 1941.

After the service, Billy drove Ruth home and as he walked her to the door he said, “There’s something I’d like you to make a matter of definite prayer, I have been taking you out because I am more than interested in you and have been since the day we were introduced...But I know you have been called to the mission field, and I’m not definite.”

That night she couldn’t sleep and ended her diary entry with the thought, “Something big has happened.”

Ruth did pray, struggling with her love for Billy, an evangelist, and her feeling of a call to missions. But, as she prayed, God showed her that they truly would be fulfilling both calls together. Two years later, Ruth Bell became, Mrs. Billy Graham.

As we’ve seen in our study of Acts, the early disciples were told to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the promised Holy Spirit. Like Ruth Bell, they knew that something big was happening, but weren’t sure exactly what that would be. This morning we are going to see that promise fulfilled and how Christ’s church would begin bringing the Gospel to the nations.

Body: Acts 2:1-13

Verses 1-4

Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, was one of six special festivals for the Jews.

Pentecost is the Greek word for fiftieth because it took place fifty days after Passover and seven weeks after the first harvest (thus it is also known as the Festival of Harvest or the Festival of Firstfruits).

The original purpose was to express thankfulness to God for his blessing of the harvest. By Jesus day, it was also associated with God giving Moses the Ten Commandment.

Today, it is rightfully see as the birth of the church.

Ben Witherington: “Without the coming of the Spirit there would be no prophecy, no preaching, no mission, no conversions, and no worldwide Christian movement.”

First Church of Jerusalem are together (probably all 120)

Where they were at is insignificant. What’s important was they were unified together (as we saw last week, unified by their shared identity as sinners saved by grace, by their mission, and through a devotion to prayer). Additionally, they were somewhere near the temple, as will become important in the next verses.

...a sound like a mighty rushing wind...

Notice that it wasn’t a mighty rushing wind, but it sounded like that.

Think about a windstorm...

This was something that could not be ignored.

Throughout Scripture, the wind often symbolizes the Spirit of God.

In fact, the Greek word for wind (πνευμα) can also be translated as Spirit, depending on the context.

...divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them...

Throughout the Bible fire often symbolizes the divine presence.

What did it look like? Who knows!

What’s important is that Jesus promise of the Holy Spirit has come and God was about to do something incredible.

Luke uses metaphorical language because the focus is that God is doing a special work in and through His people. It’s not something that can be replicated or even illustrated.

...they were all filled with the Holy Spirit...

In the OT we see various examples of a person being filled with the Holy Spirit or having the Holy Spirit “come upon” a person in order to fulfill certain purposes (Joshua, David, various judges, and even Saul for a time are some examples).

In the NT we see a distinction between being filled with the Holy Spirit versus being baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Being baptized in the Holy Spirit is associated with initial conversion, i.e. when a person comes to faith in Christ. (Though, one cannot come to faith unless the Spirit draws them to Himself.)

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is not something that is repeatable.

And we can be baptized in the Holy Spirit, yet at the same time stifle and/or ignore the call of the Spirit on our lives because of the world, the flesh and the devil.

Being filled with the Holy Spirit, as we see here, is associated with ministry.

It’s more along the lines of what we see in the OT, in that God’s Spirit is producing the power needed to fulfill the mission God has given them.

This can happen often. But, one must be baptized in the Holy Spirit before he or she is going to be filled with the Holy Spirit for the mission.

And, if one is to be filled with the Holy Spirit, he or she cannot be stifling the work of the Spirit by obeying the pull of the world, the flesh and the devil.

...began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

In this case, they were filled with the Holy Spirit in order to speak genuine languages of the people who were visiting Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks.

The term “tongues” or γλοσσολαλια is used in different ways throughout the NT. However, the vast majority of the uses of the word has to do with an actual spoken language and was used to divinely empower the disciples to give witness of Christ to people from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

These are languages the disciples didn’t speak previously, and have now been empowered to speak in those languages.

Verses 5-13

...dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven...

While it might be tempting to think of Jews living mainly in Israel, since the Assyrian then the Babylonian invasions Jews had been dispersed throughout the known world.  This is called a diaspora.

However, those who continued to practice their faith would still make the long journey to Jerusalem to observe the celebrations.  That is the case here, during the Feast of Weeks, i.e. Pentecost.

This list of places people were from here is less important than the fact that they recognized that the people speaking in their language shouldn’t be able to do so because they were uneducated Galileans.

Remember, Jesus disciples were predominately uneducated fishermen and laborers.  They wouldn’t be versed in foreign languages.

And yet, they were proclaiming the mighty works of God to this incredibly diverse group of people in their native tongue or their inherited language.

The disciples would have spoken Aramaic.  Some of them were probably at least familiar enough with Koine Greek to get by.  Maybe a few knew Hebrew.  None of them likely knew Latin.

But here, as we will see that they are speaking languages of many different people, far and wide.

This, of course, was because of the gifting of the Holy Spirit.  They didn’t simply learn these languages quickly.  God, through the indwelling of His Spirit enabled them to perfectly communicate in a language some within their audience could understand.

...we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God...

Not just any mighty works of God, as Peter’s sermon will show us. But, God’s mighty works through the person and works of Jesus Christ, specifically His death, burial and resurrection.

In short, the Gospel!

Two responses:

Some wanted to know what was going on, realizing that something important had happened.

Others thought these were just the ramblings of drunks.

No matter which response, Peter is going to see his opening and take it, as we will see over the next couple of weeks!

So What?

God fulfilled His promise of sending the Holy Spirit to fill the believers in order to accomplish the mission to proclaim the Gospel.

Throughout the NT we see the Holy Spirit is promised to the followers of Jesus:

Luke 3:16 ESV

John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Luke 24:49 ESV

And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

John 15:26 ESV

“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

John 16:7–11 ESV

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

Acts 1:8 ESV

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

In this passage, that promise is fulfill.

But, this isn’t a repeatable action. Meaning, God did this once in the life of the church. So, how does it apply to us today?

Three timeless truths we should believe this morning:

God still provides what believers need to fulfill the mission He’s given us to proclaim the Gospel to all people.

At the beginning of this series we saw that:

The Gospel is the only message and mission of the church.

The church is empowered by the Holy Spirit to fulfill our mission.

And, therefore, our calling as a church is to be Spirit-empowered witnesses of Jesus within the places God will bring us.

In God’s activity at Pentecost we are shown that God provides exactly what the church needs to fulfill the mission He’s given.

And while it necessarily looks different today, the promise still holds true.

You see, the book of Acts really is the book of God’s working in and through His people that would start a movement that would begin in a tiny little city in Israel and would eventually spread throughout the world.

In very simple terms, the book of Acts says: God did that.

And the same God who is working in and through His people in the book of Acts, works in and through His people today.

But the challenge is that His people are easily distracted. We will see this at times in Acts, we see this throughout Christian history, and it is true today.

God has provided us with everything we need to fulfill the mission to proclaim the Gospel to all people, but the majority of the church today will not do it. Why not?

There’s probably a multitude of reasons, I’m sure, but one that I believe is significant today is the Western church has been taught that what’s most important is that we find happiness.

And, if we aren’t happy where we are at, we need to find some place where we are happy.

We will be deconstructing this false belief throughout this series, but to begin, the biggest issue with this viewpoint is it changes the mission of the church. The church’s mission is no longer to proclaim the Gospel, but to make people happy so they stick around and we can expand our ministry offerings.

It’s a human-centric approach, not a God-centric approach.

Pentecost should be a strong reminder that the church has been, and always will be, a God-centric entity, in which God provides what the church needs to fulfill the mission He’s given us. But, we have to embrace and personalize the mission.

God often works in ways that can only be credited to Him.

This dovetails with the last point. The Pentecost miracle of tongues can only be attributed to God.

How many people have tried learning a language? Is it simple?

It typically takes a long time and a lot of effort to learn a language.

Then, to add to it, language has nuances...

Think about the difference between literally & figuratively...

And, within languages, there are sub-languages...

Teenage speak...

Football talk...

It takes time and work to learn these.

But, on Pentecost, the disciples were able to communicate the Gospel clearly to people from incredibly diverse backgrounds. God did that!

For years I’ve used this line in my prayers: “God, I pray that you would do something that only You can do and only you can get the credit for...”

My reason for this is that it’s too easy today to create a plan, work a plan, then suggest that God did it all.

Now, don’t get me wrong, God is part of our planning. God is part of our working. And God blesses our hard work.

But, too often I’ve wondered, “Exactly when did we allow space for God to show up?”

Book “When God Builds a Church”...

In fact, when God does something, He only should get the credit, because He often works despite our weaknesses, failings, and inabilities.

In fact, it is then when He gets the most glory!

God’s people will often experience resistance when fulfilling the mission He’s given us.

There were those who were amazed by the miracle of tongues at Pentecost. But, there were others who just assumed that the disciples were drunk.

This is a reminder that, no matter how incredible a work of God is, there will always be people who will resist it for their own reasons.

But, resistance should not deter God’s people.

In fact, resistance is often a sign that God is doing something and the devil doesn’t approve.

As Peter will show us next week, we need to continue to proclaim the Gospel and fulfill God’s mission despite the resistance, because it’s often then that God is going to do something incredible.