In-Sync with the Spirit

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Intro: Stefanie

I have preached on this passage numerous times and every time I preach it I do so withe the idea that God is going to do something incredible. I get super excited to preach it because every time I read this passage I am filled with hope and confidence that God is still able to do today what He did in this passage.

Hint…it has little to do with the signs and wonders and all to do with the universality of the Gospel. What I means is that the Holy Spirit does not show up in this passage with a rushing mighty wind or tongues of fire to prove His existence…he does not even Come this way to pump up the disciples…He comes this way to bring focus upon the messaged of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit empowers us in this passage to communicate the message of salvation that we have all recieved.

Acts 2:1-21 NLT

They had all been in one place before.

The disciples had been in one spot before. So when we look at the first part of this passage it is important to note that the ideas was not that they were in one room. Think about it for a moment if that is all it took for Holy Spirit to manifest Himself to his people then this type of thing would happen all the time.

Think about all the times that you have been in a room of other believers…if all that was needed was that everyone was in the same room at the same time. This would means that man would have the means to summon God or Holy Spirit for whatever purpose that we wanted just by meeting under one roof....

However this is not how God works. Being in one place is more than being a physical space…it is about being in the same heart space and head space as the Holy Spirit. This is the most important aspect of the birth of the NT Church. When Jesus told the disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait and pray He knew that they were still not in sync with what He wanted them do do.

They had a head knowlege…I mean there was not one person that did not know who Jesus was…there was not one person that was not familiar with the OT prophecies that pointed to Jesus as messiah. What was missing was a real understanding of what it means to bring the kingdom of God to the world.

They were still at a surface level when it came to spiritual things so before the Holy Spirit could do anything they all had to desire the things of God more than anything else.

All of their waiting and praying was about getting in sync with what Holy Spirit was leading them to do. Once they were in sync with the Spirit they were finally able to understand that They were empowered for the purpose of communicating the Kingdom of God has come.

God is very real to us when we are in the same Heart Space, and Head Space of the Spirit. This passage is a wonderful instruction of how to make sure that our spirits are in sync with the Spirit of God and it starts with each other.

Sync your Spirit with the Holy Spirit.

Syncing with the Holy Spirit is dependent on the willingness of a group of people to trade their independence for complete dependance on the Leading of the Spirit. If the disciples in the upper room had not come together in this way then none of the other things that we will read about would have happened.

There is a story in Genesis 11 about people trying to build a tower to reach heaven. They were so united and so technologically advanced that they devised a plan to build a tower that in their mind to take them direct to God. I don’t know if they would have been able to accomplish this or not but the building of structure was not the problem.

The problems was that the people were trying to reach the heavens without the power of God. They were trying to demonstrate their own independence from God. …so God frustrated their pursuit by disrupting their ability to communicate.

They were not trying to get in sync with God they were trying to be equal with God. They had convinced themselves that their will was God’s will instead of acknowledging that God’s will was in fact supposed to be followed by them.

When ever people either intentionally or unintentionally replace the Spirit of God with the Human spirit pain is the result.

We live in a moment where I believe that a lot of people especially in North America are operating out of sync with the Holy Spirit. They have convinced themselves that they the arbiter or success and meaning and the result is a disaster.

We are more divided politically, socially, spiritual, and socially than we have maybe ever been.

The Sacred has been blamed for the ills of this world instead of held up as the salvation of the world.

Prejudice is rampant

Fear seems to be the overriding emotion of the day.

Agreement on purpose is often fought off instead of fought for

God’s people must be a people that have the same heart and mind about the world…We must love the world enough to let Holy Spirit help us think about ways to bring the message of ressurection and salvation to others.

For this to happen God’s people must come together in head space and heart space. Until this happens the American Church will continue to struggle. Secular interest will continue to trump the sacred…

Pentecost is thought by some to be the undoing of babble…Communication is true gift to us here. The gift is not the ability to do miracles or create a stir the gifts is understanding of and the ability to bring the message of the kingdom of God to the world Help of Holy Spirit.

We do not need another Pentecost moment…we must live into the one the God has already provided.

Learn the scriptural context to what is happening.

Peter quoted Joel 2:28-32 nlt

Joel 2:28–32 ESV

28 “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. 29 Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. 30 “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 32 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

This was what was happening…this is still happening.

Every great movement in history starts with a group of people devoted to a common cause. When this happens the physical meeting of such people take on an atmosphere that draws others to their cause. However if an individual or a group never gets to a place where they are able let go of their own destiny the Holy Spirit cannot and will not force them into being a part of God’s greatness.

We have an advantage over the original disciples in this regard. We do not have to create our purpose from nothing we have a record of that purpose in the form of Scripture ...66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation.

So as we Wait and Pray we have the ability to learn…Who, What, When and Where God wants us to take this message.

God is still pouring out his Spirit on us today.

Stefanie pointed out at the beginning of our time today…We have seen every thing from a telegraph, Old Fashion Crank phones, rotary phones, touch tone phones, bag phones, flip phones, and now Smart phones used to communicate with each other.

All of them were marvels at one time or another but it the most basic sense they all have one purpose…to communicate or connect people. At the end of the day this is the purpose we all have…to Connect people to God and others by creating a space where everyone can belong by being a multiplying community developing deep, growing relationships with God, our world, and one another.

When you and I are in sync with Holy Spirit and each other we are able to overcome anything and achieve anything that God has called us to!

This is the power of Pentecost…This is what the presence of God will achieve if we stay in-sync with God and each other.

We can overcome the evil and fear that seems to be driving our world today...political strife, misinformation, even pandemic. We can overcome job pressure, interpersonal turmoil, and destructive self talk. If we will sync ourselves to the sacred in this way.

Wait patiently on direction of the Holy Spirit.

Pray fervently for Clarity on Purpose

Learn from scripture maybe even start a journal writing Down what God is doing in your life.

Act on the Holy Spirits Prompting

The result of Acts 2 is summed up in Acts 1:8

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Communion…