Pentecost--God's launch plan

Bible

Acts 2:1–16 NLT

1 On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. 2 Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. 3 Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. 4 And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability. 5 At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers. 7 They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, 8 and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! 9 Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, 10 Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” 12 They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other. 13 But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!” 14 Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. 15 These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. 16 No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel:

Illustration—Product lifecycle

Today is the day in our church calendar when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. But what does this mean? What’s the big deal about this?

To help make that clearer, hopefully, let me tell you about something that is incredibly important to each and every one of you, but which you probably don’t know much about. You are affected by this every day in many ways. In fact, I could point to dozens of ways we are all affected by this right now. And yet the general public pays little attention to this hidden thing, despite its vast impact on them all.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about the product development process. Products like that projector, this e-notepad, the phone in your pocket, the computer running there, the Proclaim software displaying our slides, the shoes you’re wearing, the car you drove here, etc. etc. etc. We are surrounded by products that have been developed by teams of various sizes over varying periods of time. But all product development has some important features in common.

Let me illustrate with the software product development that I am familiar with.

First, a product must meet a need in order to be worthwhile. Yes, it’s true that there are plenty of products out there that don’t meet very urgent needs, such as luxury cars, or, say, diet water. But for a product to endure, it must meet a real, felt need.

Programmable computers are a great example of a product that meets a need. They are so useful that we put them in our pockets (smart phones), wear them on our wrists (smart watches), and buy them in many other forms such as tablets, laptops, smart TVs, and even the traditional desktop computer. The reason they are useful is because of software. But software is infinitely malleable, so how do you decide how it works, what it looks like, what it does? That involves doing market research, or perhaps you simply extrapolate from your own needs. At DreamSpring we brainstormed ideas and Mable’s team did lots of market research at this stage.

Next, products require time, effort, and skill to develop. The more complex a product, or the more difficult to manufacture it is, the more people you need. You need to be sure that the income from selling the product is going to more than cover the costs of developing and manufacturing it. If the product is something like software, which is usually doing something new, trying to estimate how much effort will be required to develop it is notoriously difficult. Project management, especially to a deadline, was always tricky for us.

In these first stages, product development happens in private. Some products, like, say, anything from Apple, are kept top secret. Most software is developed quietly, simply so that you can get the jump on your competitor. We shared some ideas with potential customers, in order to get confirmation that we were on the right track, but we kept things pretty quiet.

But, finally, you need to get the product into peoples’ hands. Most companies sell their products, because otherwise it’s difficult to pay your employees who develop and manufacture it. Getting people to use a product, especially if they have to pay for it, is not easy. They need to understand their need for the product, they need to be aware that the product exists and meets that need, they need to trust that it will meet that need, and they need to be able to get access to the product.

An important part of getting a product to people is the launch plan. If you can launch the product in the right place at the right time, then you can multiply how many people who need it get to hear about it. But you need to have the product ready for launch—you need to have the ability to deliver it, and it needs to do what you claim it can do.

For example, think of Apple’s famously iPhone launch events and the associated, endless queues.

When we launched products at DreamSpring, we took advantage of the annual smartphone tradeshow at the cavernous Excel Centre in London. Amidst all the excitement and media there even a small company could make a lot of noise.

Now, I’m not going to go into the topics of product support or refinement, because that’s not really relevant to my illustration. Indeed, you may be wondering why church has suddenly changed into a business development seminar.

What does this have to do with Pentecost?

God’s salvation plan

While God’s plan of salvation for all people is not a product, it does share many features with product development.

You see, God recognised that the greatest need of humanity is for relationship with him. We need that, but it is unavailable to us because our rebellion—sin—separates us from him. So, just as a great product meets a great need, so too God’s salvation meets our great need.

And, just like product development, God’s plan of salvation took time and effort. He started immediately. In Genesis 3 God assures Adam and Eve, through his curse on the serpent:

Genesis 3:15 NLT

15 And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

Throughout history God is at work, developing his great work of salvation. In fact, this is what the Bible traces through history. The nation of Israel was formed to bring this about, as God tells its father, Abraham:

Genesis 12:1–3 NLT

1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”

While this project wasn’t top secret, you could say that it was done in private. God worked in the little nation of Israel, which shrunk to the even smaller nation of Judah, to bring about the salvation of the whole world.

And finally, the time was right. God sent his son Jesus to effect his plan of salvation, and Jesus did exactly as his father asked of him, and died for all our sins. It was now time to make this wonderful gift of salvation available to the world. How would God do this? What was his launch plan?

It turned out that God’s launch plan was weird. You see, Jesus, who you would expect to be the VIP at the launch party, had already returned to God! He wasn’t going to be there!

John 14:22–26 NLT

22 Judas (not Judas Iscariot, but the other disciple with that name) said to him, “Lord, why are you going to reveal yourself only to us and not to the world at large?” 23 Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. 24 Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me. 25 I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. 26 But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.

So we find a small bunch of disciples huddling in a room, waiting. And the Holy Spirit does come.

He comes at a time when people from all over the world had come to Jerusalem for Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks. Jerusalem was full of pilgrims, and the Holy Spirit exploits this.

As the disciples are filled by the Spirit, they spill out of the house, praising God and speaking of the wonderful things he had done. But they are speaking, by the power of the Spirit, in all the languages of the visiting pilgrims!

Wycliffe Bible Translators speak of their mission as translating the Bible into people’s heart language. You see, even when people can speak a second language fluently, it still doesn’t resonate in their souls like their mother tongue. Our mother tongues speak directly to our emotions, to our core, to our heart. Most of us are monolingual Australians, and it’s hard for us to really understand this. But, for example, when Mable communicates in Cantonese, she experiences something that English can never convey for her. This is, of course, why banning our indigenous Australians from speaking their own languages was such a grievous evil. And this is also why, when we are sharing the Gospel with others, we need to use the language and words of their hearts. Theological terms are not helpful in evangelism because we need to speak the language of the hearts we are speaking to, and lost hearts are not yet theological hearts.

And so the miracle the Spirit brings about at Pentecost is perfectly targeted to communicate most effectively and widely the message of good news. The ultimate Good News that God had made a way back to himself through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

While the story of Pentecost in Acts 2 can seem rather anti-climactic, it is, in fact, explosive. The end times are upon the world, and the message is communicated with a power and in a time and place that guarantees it will be spread around the world within months.

Why missionaries?

Given such an amazing launch for the church--for the final age of salvation--you might then wonder why the book of Acts continues. Why does it detail the missionary work of the apostles and later Paul? Why isn’t the fire carried out from Pentecost enough in itself?

Well, who here has watched commercial TV? Have you noticed those tiny, strange stories that constantly interrupt the show you are watching?

Why do you think those things, and I’m talking about advertisements, of course, why are those things repeated so often? Why do we still have ads for Arnott’s Shapes, for example, decades after they were first launched? Any ideas? [Wait for response]

Yes, the reality is that new people need to hear about your solution to their problems in their own language, but also people need to hear the solution multiple times in different ways before it finally clicks. It’s the same with the Gospel. We need to keep on sharing the Good News, over and over, in many different ways, to many different people.

How do we do this?

Now, you might be asking, “How do we do this? We don’t have millions of dollars for an advertising campaign, and what is the modern equivalent of the Feast of Weeks with all its pilgrims?”

The good news is we don’t have to do this. Throughout the rest of the book of Acts we find a refrain. We find it twice in chapter 2, once in chapter 5, and once in chapter 11. Many commentators use this refrain to divide Acts into different sections. Some also use it to discern the true purpose of the book.

What is this mysterious refrain?

Here it is in Acts 2:47:

Acts 2:47 NLT

47 all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.

The key here is that the Lord is adding to those who are being saved. The apostles were not winning people over. Their clever words and beautiful lives were not the key. The work and power of the Holy Spirit was the key. Sure, the Holy Spirit used their words and their lives, but he was the one who changed peoples’ hearts, including those of the apostles.

And so it is for us. We don’t need excellent marketing collateral or dynamic advertising or clever campaigns because day by day the Lord adds to our fellowship of the saved.

Our job is simple. To love and obey our Lord. To love our neighbour as we love ourselves. He’ll take care of the rest. Isn’t that exciting?

Let’s pray,

As we remember Pentecost, Lord, help us to remember this amazing event that we are still caught up in, thousands of years later: your extraordinary rescue mission for the human race. Help us glory in that. Help us cheer our good God on. Help us throw ourselves into loving and serving our Lord.

Amen.