Amazed and Astonished

Everyone has a story of something that happened that impacted a relationship. Usually, these are traumatic or climactic experiences. When we go through something that is challenging, or scary, or something that demands that we make a decision of some consequence, it can have an effect on our relationships, particularly our relationships with those who we go through the circumstance with.

This can be family, friends, or even co-workers. When we go through a difficult or challenging situation, it can have the potential to either strengthen or weaken, or possibly end, the relationship. Or, as in the case we often hear about, a tragic situation, experienced with people who were previously strangers, can bring about brand new relationships. This has often been the case for veterans of wars, who forge lifelong relationships with their comrades.

When Jenelle and I were dating, we had an experience that was very scary. Going through it together brought us closer. We were in college, and we both liked the idea of storms. We heard on the radio that there was a bad storm in a particular area west of town. knowing the area pretty well, I thought we could drive to a place that would be safe where we could watch the storm from a distance.

However, the storm was not staying on the path it had started on. So eventually, we were on a strip of highway with no turn offs, with the storm bearing down on us, with no way to drive away from its path. First, the rain started, and became so strong that driving was no longer advisable, so I pulled into the median. Then, the wind came up. The wind was so strong that the car seemed ready to lift off the ground.

The radio reports were that there was a tornado in the area, and I remembered hearing that lying in a ditch was the safest thing to do. I’m not so sure having done it. So we went and lied in the ditch, the wind and rain whipping all around us. It seemed like we would be ok, but then the hail started. At first, it was pretty light hail. Feeling particularly gallant, I laid on top of Jenelle to protect her from the hail. But the hail was getting bigger. I knew it could be deadly, so we got back in the car.

There we were, inside the car, it was still rocking and felt like the wind was lifting two wheels off the ground. And while I have never been inside a drum, I thought this must be what it would sound like as baseball size hail pounded the car. By the time it was all over, the hail had broken out the windshield, both rear view mirrors, and left pock marks over the whole vehicle. $5400 damage in a few minutes, although it seemed longer.

We survived, got yelled at by my parents, and then we changed clothes and went out on another date. Many of you have your own story of being in a storm, or dealing with an illness, or job transition, or something else tragic. Most of us also have stories that involve a great victory in our lives, and our relationships with those we were with in those times was changed.

So with all of our experiences, I believe that there are three things that we can hope happen:

We can have:

An experience that begins a relationship

An experience that strengthens a relationship

An experience that renews a relationship

In Acts Chapter 2, we see an experience that does all three of these things. The powerful experience of those who were present when Jesus first filled people with the Holy Spirit changed everyone there in all of these ways, and that is what we will talk about this morning.

Acts 2:1–13 ESV

When the day of Pentecost arrived, 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. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the 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.” And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Here we see that story many of us have read or heard time and again, and we need to avoid the danger of saying, “yes, yes, we know this passage. Let’s move on” We do not know this passage as well as we should, no matter how many times we have heard it. We may know all the words, but have we fully experienced it? Or have we experienced it once upon a time, long ago, and are no longer experiencing it? The Day of Pentecost must be ours today, and every day. We must realize that as Christians we have access to the power of the Holy Spirit and we must operate it in it daily if we are to accomplish all that God has in mind for us to accomplish.

You may say, “I have the Holy Spirit”, but the community in Acts 2 that interacted with the first Christians were Amazed, astonished, and bewildered. When people encounter you, are the amazed, astonished, and bewildered at how the Power of God is flowing in you and through you? Are the people around you forced to make an inquiry as to what is going on in your life because the power of God is so evident that it is shocking to those around you?

If the church is to have any power today, it must grasp the concept that the Holy Spirit is available to us! The Holy Spirit, Jesus said (John 16:8-15

John 16:8–15 ESV

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. “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

So the Holy Spirit, as Jesus promised, came into the world to convict people of sin, righteousness, and judgment. The Holy Spirit is actively doing this in the lives of individuals. When the Word of God is preached, it is the Holy Spirit who convinces the hearer of the truth. When the Words of Jesus are spoken or read, the Holy Spirit is there, convincing people of the truth. When you take the witness of your testimony into your community, the Holy Spirit will use it to point others to Christ.

The Holy Spirit is the very presence of God in us! He glories Jesus Christ. And here on the Day of Pentecost, Jesus fulfills the promise by filling the believers with the Holy Spirit. Jesus fills us with the Spirit, and the Spirit glorifies Jesus. Jesus said he didn’t speak for himself, but for the Father. The Father glorified Jesus, the Spirit Glorifies Jesus, and Jesus glorified the Father. All three in unity, each taking an active role in the salvation process.

I have often said that God does all of the work of salvation. He does all the work. Jesus spoke the words of the Father, the Father glorified Christ, and spoke audibly that we should listen to Him, both at His baptism and at the Transfiguration. Jesus completed the work of redemption through the cross, and His resurrection, and his resuming the seat of power in heaven. And now He completes His promise by sending the Holy Spirit into the world, to allow His followers to be empowered, to be sanctified, and to be His witnesses in the world.

We see in the passage of Acts 2 that those outsiders, those who were not yet believers, were amazed, astonished, and perplexed because they were witnessing the power of God in a unique way. 15 languages at least are recorded. The people heard the mighty works of God proclaimed by men who did not know the languages they were speaking. The ones hearing knew there was a powerful miracle taking place, and it was beyond them being able to comprehend.

Here we see the very unique way that the Trinity of God transforms people, and in a unique way that you cant have one without the other. You see, one cannot come to Christ without having first having been convicted of sin, righteousness and judgment, and at the same time, they cannot be convicted by the Holy Spirit without the Holy Spirit having been sent by Christ himself.

The wonderful works of God are beyond our comprehension! The wonderful works of God defy our logic to explain! In human thinking, this would be called circular reasoning, or circular logic. Isaiah 55:8–9

Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We don’t have to understand every aspect of it, we simply must believe it! And if we believe it, we will experience it! The Holy Spirit is not contained to a formula that He must work a certain way in every circumstance. The beauty of the working of the Holy Spirit is that He operates in just the way He needs to to have the effect He must have. He does not conform to us, but as we conform to Christ, he becomes more and more free to do the work He desires to do in each of us!

The Holy Spirit has been called a gentleman. He will not force or pry His way into you. In the sanctification process, that is, our being set apart for God and purified and perfected, He is willing to work, but He will not force the work upon us. In empowering us, He does not force us to be His vessel, but stands ready for us to allow Him to do that Work.

The church today needs the Holy Spirit the same as the church needed him on the Day of Pentecost, but the church today is not always willing to prepare for Pentecost. Some of you may wonder what is Pentecost, why do we call it that? Well, the Jewish celebrations throughout the year were ordained by God. The people were to remember and thank God, and also to continually be seeking Him. Just as Passover involved sacrifices, so did Pentecost. The word Pentecost is derived from a Greek word meaning fifty. It was fifty days after Passover.

You may remember that Passover was when Jesus was crucified. It is more than coincidence that Jesus was crucified on Passover and the Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentecost. Jesus fulfilled the Passover sacrifice. The Holy Spirit came into the church on Pentecost. The celebration of Pentecost was also called the feast of weeks, because it was 7 weeks after the Passover. It was a harvest festival. It was a celebration of the crops being brought in. The people would bring their first fruits to God. This was required by the law of Moses, but more than being a requirement, to the devout Jews it was a holy sacrifice to God.

If you read further in Acts you find out what happened next on the Day of Pentecost: A harvest of souls. Just as many of us today desire to see a harvest of souls like on Pentecost, we also must prepare for the Day of Pentecost. The disciples of Christ were constant in prayer, committed to standards, and confident in God. Today, if we want to prepare for a new outpouring of the Spirit, we also must be constant in prayer, committed to standards, and confident in God. It must be our modus operandi. It must become part of our “best practices”. It must be our normal way of doing business to be constant in prayer, committed to standards, and confident in God.

If we make that a normal part of the way we do Kingdom business, then we can expect our own Pentecost. We can expect our own outpouring of the Spirit. We can expect the people we encournter to look at us and be amazed and astonished and perplexed, because the power of God displayed is so awesome and new and refreshing. Then some will mock, and some will listen. Some will walk away, and some will cling to the cross. Just as Jesus had many reject Him, he also promised that those who live for him, and preach His word will be mocked and rejected as well.

I believe that today as much as at any time in history, people are desperate to see the power of God. They are interested in the supernatural. If you don’t believe it, look at the most popular movies and books. Look at the cult leaders and their followers. Look around and see that the fields are white for harvest. Jesus compared the people who needed to come to him to a crop. He said to pray to Lord of the Harvest that He might send workers to take that crop in. He gives us the Holy Spirit to empower us toward that end.

Each of us is responsible to take our part in this harvest. What will you do? In the spiritual realm, every day is harvest season. I grew up in the Dakotas, where there is a lot of grain farming. I will never forget visiting a client on a large corporate farm in ND. I was there to investigate a grain bin that had collapsed. It was morning and the fields had too much moisture for the combines to start. As I was talking with the owner of the farm, a man came tearing into the farmyard on a four wheeler, and yelled something about the field being ready to harvest. They were constantly measuring the humidity in the fields so that they could start as soon as the humidity was right.

The response of those farm workers in the yard reminded me of a military drill. Men were moving quick, hopping into combines and grain trucks. The owner of the farm said I have to go and walked away from me. I was left standing there in amazement to see a small army of farm workers departing.

I preached last week a sermon titled “A Sense of Urgency”. I posed the question, “Where’s your sense of urgency?” Think of the harvest time when I saw the men scrambling to get busy. They had a sense of urgency. They were moving. However, there is another factor that allowed them to take advantage of the moment and get moving. You see, the farm equipment sat ready. There were 8 John Deere Combines in the machine shed, ready to move. There were two or three semis ready to be filled with grain. Men had spent time making sure they were in working order and ready. The farm manager had carefully kept track of which fields would be ready to harvest based on when they were planted, and had been tracking their progress all summer.

You see, the farmers were constant in preparation, committed to standards, and confident in the farm manager. If we want to be ready to take in the harvest around us, we must be constant in prayer, committed to standards, and confident in God. You see, the day of harvest does not just happen one day. It starts much earlier. The soil must be prepared. The seeds must be planted. The crop must be watered and tended to. The plants must bear some fruit. There is a ripening that takes place.

We cannot expect a good harvest when we don’t do the work. We are the workers. We are the farm hands who are responsible to take in the harvest of souls around us. To take in the harvest, we must be empowered by the Holy Spirit.

If we must be empowered by the Holy Spirit, then we must ask ourselves whether we have been prepared for the Holy Spirit. And if we ask how we are to be prepared for the Holy Spirit, we will find passages like we find in Acts, where the church was constant in prayer, committed to standards, and confident in God. If we don’t do the work, we cannot expect the harvest.

So with all of our experiences, I believe that there are three things that we can hope happen:

We can have:

An experience that begins a relationship

An experience that strengthens a relationship

An experience that renews a relationship

If you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, that was an experience that began a relationship. And on the Day of Pentecost, the disciples of Jesus had an experience that began a relationship with the Holy Spirit. He was now in them and with them.

Acts 2 also records an experience that strengthens a relationship. By receiving the Holy Spirit, the disciples had their relationship with Jesus strengthened, and we should hope for this as well. By allowing the Holy Spirit in, we are strengthening our relationship with Christ by becoming sanctified and by being empowered to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Finally, it was an experience that renews a relationship. The disciples received the Holy Spirit from Jesus, and certainly recognized Him as the baptizer or filler of the Holy Spirit. Believers who are filled with the Holy Spirit can tell you that the Holy Spirit renews their relationship with Jesus and makes it sweeter all the time.

Christians empowered = Communities impacted. Many people here are just as anxious as I am to see our community impacted for Christ. God’s way of reaching people for Him, especially beginning on the Day of Pentecost, is through the church. And Oasis Church is simply a local body of believers that is part of the worldwide church of believers.

I believe we want to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to impact our community. However, it doesn’t just happen outside of our willingness to be used by God. We must be willing to be used by God, and we must look to scripture to find out how we can best be used by God. We have a wealth of information in the Bible, but how can we use it unless we study it?

We know that the first believers prepared for the Holy Spirit and the harvest that followed by staying in prayer. How can we hope to have their experiences without preparing ourselves by constant prayer? The first believers, we see, and the letters from the apostles we find in the New Testament, present the need for the church to be committed to standards. We must have high standards for ourselves and our fellow believers if we want to experience the power of God in our lives and in our church.

Finally, the believers in Acts were confident in God. They had good reason to be confident: They had witnesses the ministry of Jesus, His miracles, His resurrection. We have these things recorded, as well as our own testimonies of healing, but more importantly, we have testimonies of the greatest miracle of all: The saving power of Jesus Christ.

The early church was constant in prayer, committed to standards, and confident in God because they had an example to follow: The example of Jesus Christ. He did all of those things, and they were His disciples. Today, we are called to be not just believers in Jesus, but followers of Jesus, or disciples of Jesus.

If we desire to experience God like the Acts believers did, a good start would be to do what they did. My prayer for our body of believers is that we would become like Christ by imitating Him. And if we imitate Christ, then we can expect to have all of the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through us, just as we read about in Acts. Let’s pray.

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