Episode 3

Good morning everyone…I am so happy to see everyone here this morning. It is such a blessing to see you all and be with you this morning. I love getting to come together and worship together with my family every single week. Those of you joining us online this morning, this afternoon or this evening I want to thank you for being a part of our extended family. I want to also invite you to join us in person. We are here every single Sunday at 9:30am and we have the best seat in the house and a hot cup of coffee ready for you. Every single week we have a great group of people that come up here and make the coffee and create an environment here with fresh flowers and decor that is welcoming and inviting for you to be able to enjoy together, and this is all done by our amazing volunteers here at LRBC.

Hey, this week has been interesting hasn’t it. I mean there are things continuing to happen all over the nation, and really all over the world that are at odds with Scripture, and somehow we are supposed to stand up to those things and be the hands of feet of Christ. I don’t know about you, but I definitely feel inadequate to represent Christ in this world most days. There are days where I feel great and like I can represent Christ without issues, then there are other days where I feel like I hope no one sees the selfish part of me that is trying to creep out. Does anyone else feel that way, like there are days when I really battle my own desires and I have to very much rely on the Holy Spirit to keep myself at bay so that I can focus on the Lord and on focus on being a solid representation of God’s grace and truth. I am very grateful for the power of the Holy Spirit in my life on a daily basis, becuase without that strength, I am not sure how I would manage when I see things that are happening all around us.

That is why I am so grateful for the church and for the fellowship and encouragement that I receive both from this place, as well as from other Christians around the globe. I had some news this week, and I won’t go into it, but it was news that was not fun to hear. It was news that I have been expecting, but still, it was not a fun conversation. Well, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the strength of the global church I was encouraged and strengthen through the many prayers. Listen…that is the strength of the church, unity and prayer. We have been talking about that over the last couple of weeks.

Actually we started a brand new series a few weeks ago and we have been looking at the origins of the church. We looked a little at the origin of LRBC, which by the way, Sept. 9, 1984 was the very first service that was held for the newly formed LRBC. I was wrong about the date last week, but on September 9, 1984 a group of beleivers got together for the first public service of LRBC. Pastor Appleby came from First Baptist Church in Byron and brought the message titled “A New Testament Church Today”. This was part of the origin story of LRBC, and even this event was met with months and months of prayer beforehand where they prayed and discussed the potential of LRBC.

So that is the origin of LRBC…that is the first service of LRBC. What about the origin of the church, as in the global church. How did we get to where we are today…how did it all start. That is what we have been looking at over the last couple of weeks. We started this series called “The Book of Acts: an origin story”. We have had two episodes of this origin story, and this week we will be looking at episode three. Over the course of the last couple of weeks we have seen that, Jesus did not only give a job to the disciples, Jesus gave a job to the church, and I asked the question, When is the last time that you personally participated in the mission of the church? Now, I should take a moment to let you know that there are church invite cards in the lobby in order to help make this an easier job to participate in. You see, you can ask the question if a person goes to church, and then you can simply invite to come and be a part of what God is doing right here at LRBC. You can also invite them to join us online with the online version of this invite card. The thing is though that there is more than just inviting someone to church. There is a bigger task that is set out before us as believers.

So how do we accomplish this job that we have been given? Well, last week we saw how the believers handled it at the birth of the church. You see, prayer and unity are part of the preparation of the church. That is how they prepared to complete the giant task that was given to them. They prayed together, and they were unified in with one goal…Their goal was to be Christ’s witnesses....So here is the thing, as a church here in Leaf River we have a goal…there was a goal when LRBC was planted here and there is a goal now. That goal is to make be Christ’s witnesses here in Leaf River..So, how do we do that? Well, we start just like the beleivers did in Acts 1…Through unity and prayer asking God to give us wisdom and courage to do what he has called us to do. Then, we move and we begin doing what God has called us to do. However, that brings us back to the question I asked you two weeks ago. When is the last time that you personally participated in the mission of the church? That answer is important as that answer will tell you if we are accomplishing our mission as a church.

That’s not all though, this only brings us up to speed on the origin of the church. So, what happened next to the apostles? What happened next to birth the church? Last week we saw them preparing for something that they didn’t fully understand. Last week we saw them blindly preparing and getting ready to begin their task. We also remember that Jesus promised them that he would be giving them a helper in order to complete the mission of the church, and that is what we get to read about today. Today we are going to read about...

The Coming of the Holy Spirit...

Well, this is what we are waiting for! This is what is needed in order for the beleivers to be able to complete the mission that Jesus has given them. I mean, they cannot possible be prepared to tell the whole world about Jesus with just them. After all, there was only about 120 beleivers at this point. That means that from 120 people all of this started…all because of the one man, the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Ok, since this is what we have been waiting for…let’s dig in and take a look at this passage and see what we can learn about the origins of the church and how that impacts us today as the church.

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.”

Ummmm....well that escalated quickly…So, you know that I like to envision that I am there and I like to really dig into what it would be like if I were alive at that time. So, imagine with me for a moment that you are in Jerusalem and you are just doing your thing, celebrating the festival of weeks, otherwise known as Pentecost. This is a festival celebrating the harvest of the first wheat crops after Passover which is the celebration of liberation from Egyptian slavery. So, you’re just there worshiping and celebrating a good God. This festival is also tied with the time that Moses recieved the Torah, or the Law from God on Mt. Sinai . So this is a pretty big deal and there are Jewish people from all over in Jerusalem celebrating this event. Then…all of a sudden there is a big sound. This sound is like a booming sound that filled the entire house where these beleivers were sitting. But then....as if that were not enough, then there is this large flaming tongue came to them and then multiplied and a piece of it landed on each of these believers that had been together in the room where they were together. As if that were not enough, then they all started to speak other tongues as the Spirit led them to…WOW! Am I right here? I mean, look, Luke put together here three carefully constructed parallel statements all pointing to this one event that was happening.

a sound came: and it filled the house

tongues appeared: and one stopped on each of them

they spoke in other tongues: as they were filled with the Spirit.

The emphasis here is on the objectivity of the event. It was audible, visible, and manifested itself in the activity of inspired speech. The audible manifestation is described as coming suddenly from heaven. The picture is of a blowing blast of wind, like the roar of a tornado. Wind phenomena often accompany an appearance by God in the Old Testament.As a matter of fact the Greek term Pneuma which is used here has a bit of a double-meaning. This word brings to mind both wind, as well as Spirit. This is exactly what is meant to be seen here.

That is not the only place that that there is a double meaning. You see, the very next sentence that tells us about the flaming tongues. This is interesting because the term Glossa which is used here has a bit of a double meaning as well. This word brings to mind the physical tongue, as well as language. So here, the lapping flames that had the visible likeness to tongues enabled the believers to speak in inspired language. Again it was a question of a heavenly manifestation. Throughout the Old Testament the fire phenomena are used to depict the presence of God. Here the fire is described as separated.

Now, Luke had a very hard job here, so I want to be clear about something briefly. This passage does not mean that the Holy Spirit looks and functions like a tongue. It does not mean that the Holy Spirit always give the believer some gift of speaking in tongues. You see, Luke had the job of translating the transcendent heavenly picture into words. Luke is responsible for explaining something that is beyond ordinary human experience, and he chose to do that using these analogies within these sentences. But that is all of the event…that is essentially a moment in time, what happens next are

The Results of the Holy Spirit...

Here is the deal…You have these 120 believers that are in this room and they have all just been filled with the Holy Spirit and they have started to worship God in various languages. Do you think they are going to stay in the room and just play the silent game? No way, they immediately get up and leave the room and they are going all over witnessing and telling others about the Glory of the Lord. That is why people mocked them and thought they were just drunk. They were praising God in all different languages. Ok, so I will tell you that there are a couple of understandings and theories about this event that I want to walk you through, becuase its actually important when we think about our own task that lays ahead of us as a church and as beleivers.

Theory of angelic speaking:

This theory says that this is the same type of speaking in tongues as some believers would describe as essential to salvation. Paul specifically talks about this angelic language in

1 Corinthians 14:2 (ESV)

For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.

You see, this is a type of speaking in tongues that Paul says there must be an interpreter for when it happens inside of the church. This is also the type of tongues that would be experienced in a private prayer time between a person and God. Some believers would equate the ability to speak in tongue as a mark, or a fruit of the Spirit confirming your salvation. This is a good theory becuase it would lend well to the idea of them being drunk.

However, this does not really seem to hold much water when you realize that this experience did seem to involve some sort of intelligible communication between those in the Jewish crowd. Otherwise, they would not have said that they heard in their own language. This leads us to the

2. Theory of miracle hearing:

This theory says that the miracle was in the ears of the hearers, not the mouth of the speakers. This is a theory that many have held feeling that it is difficult to imagine these believers speaking in all of these different dialects. We see here that there were devout men from every nation under Heaven, yet they all heard these words in their own native tongue. This is a theory that makes alot of sense. You have many different dialects and many different languages, yet somehow they all understand what is being said. We can see that the believers were proclaiming and praising God, but that others were hearing and understanding what is said.

There is however one problem with this concept though. You see, it sounds good to think about the beleivers proclaiming and glorifying God and maybe doing this in some angelic language, but then those that were present were hearing these words in their language through the miracle of hearing. Ok, but, this does leave us with one major problem with this view. You see, if this view is correct it presupposes the crowd has also recieved the Spirit. However, if the miracle was in the crowd’s hearing rather than in the believers’ speaking, why did Luke paint such a vivid picture of the Spirit coming on the beleivers…No, that doesn’t make sense. that leaves us with the

3. Theory of miracle foreign speech...

This theory states that Christians actually spoke in many different languages. You know, this really seems to be the best option that is left to us as the reader when you pay attention to the flow of Luke’s story. Theologian John Pohill explains it like this

Filled with the Spirit, the Christians began to speak in tongues different from their own. A crowd was attracted and utterly amazed to hear these Galileans speaking their languages, a crowd that represented the greater portion of the entire Jewish Diaspora (those living outside of Jerusalem) —John Pohill

This was clearly excited speaking coming from these believers. It was clearly unprovoked speaking, and potentially even yelling and singing. However, it was actually speaking as those from all around became interested in what was happening. I can imagine this..Like you have Peter yell that God is good in Arabic, and then again in Egyptian, and then again in Greek, and then again in a dialect of one of these languages, and again in another dialect that was distinct to a specific region. Then at the same time you have Mary, Jesus’ mother, singing that her son rose from the dead after paying the price for sin in all of these various languages as well. On top of that you have Mary Magdalene, who many of the men know, running around talking about how Jesus literally changed her life by taking her from her sin and into the holiness of God in every one of these languages as well. Guys, this was a chaotic event happening here. This was not a quite revival where they reserved the town square for a Bible Study kind of event. These many disciples, meaning Christians, were full of the Spirit for the first time in history. They praised God, they magnified his name, they even prophesied about God. Everyone was confused about what was going on. As Jewish people who believed in God, they knew this had to be a sign, but what did it mean? One thing is very clear though…The inspired speech of the Christians demonstrated the power of the Spirit that was clearly present that day.

So if this is what happened to the believers…What was

The Response of the Crowd...

This matters, becuase while we see massive things happening all around Jerusalem at this time, it really matters what others saw and heard at that time. You see, we have the benefit of 2000 years and the Bible in order to understand what happened, but those present that day did not. They had moments to respond. So, as these believers were out declaring the works of the Lord and signing and praising, what was everyone else doing. You had people there from all over. We read that there were Jews, proselytes (which means someone who used to worship multiple gods), Cretans (remember those guys), and Arabians. All of these men and women all understood the praising of the Lord. What they didn’t understand however was what all of this meant. They understood the words, but not the cause or reason for why this was happening. This made many ready…This made them gather and prepare for what is going to happen next. But not everyone was ready. Many were prepared to hear the explanation of these events that are about to come from Peter, but others just laughed and called them names. Others were more skeptical about what was going on all around them. They even said, There’s not spiritual power here, just a bunch of drunk people yelling in random languages. There was a division in the crowd based on their response, and right here we see, for the first time that without the element of personal faith and experience, even the most profound aspects of the good news are not accepted and can lead to skepticism and rejection.

So what about today? What will be the response of the hearer today? What will be the response of the church today? First of all let me tell you about the good news. Jesus Christ was born of a virgin Mary. He led a sinless life and he was crucified for my sin and for your sin. You see, the price for sin is death, spiritual death which is eternal separation from God. However, when Jesus was on the cross my sin and your sin was placed on his account and he paid the price with his death. That’s not the end of the story though, becuase after that happened he left the grave and was witnessed by over 500 people proving that what he said was true all along. Jesus ascended into the Heavens with the promise to return for those who have placed their trust in him and surrendered their pride to him. That is a super easy process that begins with you acknowledging that you are in fact a sinner in need of a savior. In talking with God you surrender your life and your pride for his life and his pride then you will in fact be saved. Listen, if that rings true for you right now I want to encourage you to message the church or message me directly. I would love to get together with you as we talk about your response to the good news of Jesus in your life.

Second, for the church, have we prepared for the mission of the Lord? Have we participated in the mission of the Lord? Becuase as we read this morning we have been empowered to complete the mission of the Lord, through the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirits empowering and gifts, the church can effectively live our lives faithful to God while expanding the kingdom and be his witnesses. Everything we have read in the last two weeks points to this moment. This is the moment of the beginning…This is the moment of the birth of the church…This is the moment we have been waiting for…But the wait is not over. Just like those in the crowd that day gathered to learn about what was happening I want to invite you to come back next week and hear what they heard. Next week Steve Wells will be taking us through the sermon that Peter preached on that day that the church was born over 2000 years ago. If you want to learn a little more about why a group of 120 people very quickly turned into a group of multiple thousands, and then millions and now billions in multiple countries around the entire globe, then come next week and hear the sermon that started it all...

Prayer