Pentecost Sunday

Intro

When the COVID-19 pandemic began to impact the U.S., leader after leader— from local mayors, to governors, to the president of the United States— made almost daily public speeches about the virus and its effects on their respective communities.

And oftentimes the leader would issue a proclamation. For example: nonessential employees were sent home, restaurants and bars were closed, schools were shut down, and parks were closed.

Each of these proclamations affected the people to whom they were directed, both in their daily lives and their relationship with the world.

While each of these proclamations might have been different, depending on geography and the leader’s judgment, they were all related to the central idea of protecting the community from the coronavirus.

Today we’re going to start a series called “Proclaim,” looking at some of the many public proclamations made by the early church, found in the book of Acts.

Though different, these proclamations all had a central point in common as well: the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

And all of these early sermons/messages, if applied to the life of the hearer, could have a profound effect on their daily life and their relationship with the world.

A Distinction

But what is interesting about these early sermons is that they were preached by men who not all that earlier had scattered when Jesus was arrested and whose fear lead them to deny, betray and abandon Jesus.

And now all of the sudden in the book of Acts we see these completely different men. Men whose entire disposition had been changed. They went from fearful to faithful. They went from weak and easily scattered to strong pillars in the community of faith.

Their fear kept them from the cross, but that fear was gone when we get to the book of Acts and they are preaching everywhere to anyone who would listen regardless of the risk that it posed to them.

What happened to change them so dramatically is what we celebrate every year 50 days after Easter, and that is Pentecost Sunday.

More specifically, the day God poured out his Spirit on those early believers.

There are some who call today the Church’s birthday as if it did not exist until this moment. But you know as Pentecostals I don’t see it that way.

When I read the scriptures I see the Church birthed on the day Jesus was resurrected because it was that evening that the Bible says Jesus breathed on his disciples and they received the Holy Spirit. It was in that moment that the Church was birthed because it was in that moment that the first humans were made alive in Christ.

So then was this the event that brought about the change needed for these men to preach these bold sermons in the book of Acts that we will be looking at over the next several weeks? No

If it was then Jesus would never have had to say in...

Acts 1:4 NLT Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. 5 John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

Acts 1:8 NLT 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.”

So what was the point of Jesus giving them the Holy Spirit back in John on the evening of his resurrection if he still had to baptize them 50 days later?

Indwelling is the work of the Holy Spirit in you to...

open your eyes to spiritual truths

allow you to understand spiritual things

see your sin and recognize when you are sinning

to encourage, guide, direct, and instruct the believer

The baptism is the work of the Holy Spirit flowing through and out of you into the world around you to...

be an effective witness

be used in the gifts of the spirit as a means of edifying the body and as a sign to the unbelievers around you

boldly proclaim the truth of the gospel in a way that is spirit led and effective

So as we look at these sermons over the next several weeks, we need to understand that what these men were doing was proclaiming truth that they did not have to power or the boldness to proclaim on their own, but were empowered to do so by the Holy Spirit who filled them on Pentecost.

Power in the Text

So for the first sermon we are going to look at today we are looking at what happened immediately after those first believers were baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:1-4 NIV When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

The Bible goes on to tell us that because this was the Pentecost festival, one of the major religious Jewish festivals of the year, there were Jews from all over who had come to celebrate and so when they see this they are amazed.

They hear men who did not know their native language praising God in it as if they did. And there is some confusion and so Peter, the very one who betrayed Jesus by denying him 3 times stands up and begins to preach the first recorded sermon in the history of the Church.

The sermon takes up the majority of Acts 2, but for our purposes today, we’re going to focus on the last part of it, in Acts 2:22–36. We will see three direct appeals Peter makes that were relevant for his audience and are still relevant for us and those around us today.

The first appeal Peter makes is to the hearers’ experience of the power of Jesus. Jesus, Peter says, was a man who did mighty works and power. Peter goes on to point out that the audience is well aware of this

Acts 2:22 NLT 22 “People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know.

These miracles were done in their midst. Peter doesn’t have to prove the power of Jesus: his contemporaries were witnesses to it.

We do not have that luxury when we proclaim the good news of Jesus. What we do have, however, is a knowledge of our own transformation: the person we were to the person we have become.

We are new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). What Peter is doing is a form of personal testimony: he uses firsthand experience to point to the power of Jesus in our lives.

Sometime I think we get stuck on this idea that to be an effective witness I have to have all of this scripture memorized and be an expert in theology and apologetics, and while there is certainly an important place and role for those things. Don’t discount the power of your story.

And the good news is that the story of Jesus isn’t a fairy tale. It isn’t a made-up story about someone whom we wished had lived, or an allegory for how we should live;

he was a real person. He was born, he lived, and he was crucified and rose from the dead. That’s the next appeal Peter makes: to the historicity of Jesus. This is found in...

Acts 2:23-24 NLT 23 But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him. 24 But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip.

Acts 2:32-33 NLT 32 “God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this. 33 Now he is exalted to the place of highest honor in heaven, at God’s right hand. And the Father, as he had promised, gave him the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us, just as you see and hear today.

He was handed over, was killed, was raised up—and we have seen it.

The proclamation of the gospel is rooted in a firm point in history. It isn’t something we vaguely suggest may have occurred at some point in time: it happened outside of Jerusalem, when Pontius Pilate was governor and Rome was in charge of the known world.

It really happened, and Peter makes that point clear. Why does this matter? What difference does it make if the crucifixion and resurrection are grounded in history?

One reason it matters is this: it shows us that God cares about our world enough to enter into it, and he chose a certain time and place to do so.

Finally, Peter spends the bulk of the last section making an appeal to Scripture. This is in...

Acts 2:25-31 NLT 25 King David said this about him:‘I see that the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. 26 No wonder my heart is glad, and my tongue shouts his praises! My body rests in hope. 27 For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy One to rot in the grave. 28 You have shown me the way of life, and you will fill me with the joy of your presence.’

29 “Dear brothers, think about this! You can be sure that the patriarch David wasn’t referring to himself, for he died and was buried, and his tomb is still here among us. 30 But he was a prophet, and he knew God had promised with an oath that one of David’s own descendants would sit on his throne. 31 David was looking into the future and speaking of the Messiah’s resurrection. He was saying that God would not leave him among the dead or allow his body to rot in the grave.

What’s worth noting is that the point of appealing to the Scripture in this passage is so the hearers would understand that the resurrection of Jesus is true and is from God.

This is the point of his message, upon which all the rest hangs: Jesus rose from the dead. It doesn’t matter if he merely did mighty works among them. That didn’t stop people from crucifying Jesus.

It doesn’t matter if they were witnesses to his death. In the Roman Empire, public execution was very common. Remember: Jesus wasn’t the only criminal executed that day.

What matters is that the end wasn’t death but rather life after death. Resurrection! Jesus rose from the dead! And because he rose, the apostles now have God’s Holy Spirit in them and flowing from them. That is why they were able to speak boldly to the crowd that day.

Applications/Closing

Finally, Peter gives his audience the good news of the gospel. He does it in an interesting way, though:

Acts 2:36 NLT 36 “So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!”

It’s easy to mistake this and read here an anti-Jewish passage, something akin to the Bible saying, “The Jews killed Jesus.” But as Tim Keller points out, “Rather, this is part of the gospel message for every human being. Until we see that our sins cost Jesus his life, that we were the cause of his death—we will not be ‘cut to the heart’”

Peter wants to make sure all his hearers understand how their sin made them participants in the crucifixion of Jesus. He wants his words to cut to their heart so they will want to repent and commit themselves to the Lord. And that is exactly what happened; about 3,000 people came to faith in Jesus.

When was the last time this message cut your heart? We need to remember today that while we celebrate pentecost, it came with a price. So I invite you today to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit that you might proclaim as boldly.