The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit

Intro

Have you ever been to an abandoned carnival or amusement park? If you haven’t been to one, have you at the very least seen images of one?

Amusement parks are known to be places the invoke a lot of joy, laughter, and excitement.

But an abandoned amusement park invokes feelings of depression, creepiness, and a deadness in the air.

But why? What is it about an amusement park that can create both sets of feelings and environments.

Simply put, it is power. Think about it. An amusement park is full of lights, music, the sounds of the rides and the cheers of its riders.

There is the smell of the food and the noise of the families moving about the park.

But if you cut the electricity to the park, all of that goes away. You are left with food stands that can’t make anything, rides that become nothing more than statues, and no reason for people to be there.

It goes from exciting and full of energy to an abandoned, quiet, and sad reminder of it used to be. Of what it was capable of doing, but no longer can.

Power is essential for making the amusement park everything it was intended to be.

This analogy also in many ways describes the Church.

What is a Church without power? And I don’t mean electricity.

Today we are wrapping up a series I started at the beginning of the month on the topic of revival; the spiritual renewal and awakening of God’s people.

And each week we have been looking at moments in the Bible when God brought revival to his people. When God’s people gained a renewed passion and desire for the things of God that ultimately changed their community.

And so last, but certainly not least, we must consider the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit’s presence and power in any revival movement—locally or globally, in the home or in the community.

Remember, revival is not a man made event, rather a sovereign act of God. It is something that can only happen when it is fueled by the Spirit of God.

Power in the Text

As a pentecostal Church we are all familiar with the events that took place in Acts 2. I just preached on it a few months ago on Pentecost Sunday.

But today I want to focus in on not just what those early believers experienced that morning, but what the effect was that it had on the entire community around them.

Acts 2:1-4 NLT 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.

Remember, these believer were doing exactly what Jesus had told them to do. At this point Jesus has already been resurrected and has ascended back into heaven.

These believers were following his instructions to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit to come just as it was prophesied that it would happen.

Interestingly enough, Jesus knowing all things, told them to wait because he knew that the perfect time to give this gift was during the pentecost festival.

Remember, pentecost is not a Christian even, rather it is a Jewish festival.

The arrival of the Holy Spirit is recorded in the book of Acts as taking place during the Feast (or Festival) of Weeks, which we know as Pentecost.

The Festival of Weeks has agricultural and nomadic roots, and it’s also the occasion when the giving of the Torah is remembered.

So Jews were already gathered from across many nations when the Holy Spirit arrived.

This provided maximum exposure for not only what the people were about to witness, but for the message they were about to here.

The Bible tells us that they witnessed these followers of Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit and then they started to praise God and speak about all he had done not in their native languages, but in the languages of everyone who was present for the festival.

Acts 2:5-12 NLT 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.

It is important to note all of these Jews and Jewish converts from all over much of the known world were there that day. Signifying the breadth of participation in this event the global span of what was happening.

The arrival of the Holy Spirit is a spectacular one. We see that the people were completely amazed (v7). They were bewildered, possible even confused.

So Peter gets up and preaches the first recorded sermon of the Church age. Then Luke, the writer of acts goes on to describe this new community of believers that forms as a result of the Holy Spirit’s arrival.

Acts 2:41-47 NLT 41 Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day—about 3,000 in all. 42 All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.

43 A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. 44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. 45 They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need.

46 They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—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.

An extraordinary transformation of the people takes place when true revival happens. It changes how we live, work, and relate. It changes everything.

“In the city of Jerusalem there was realized a ‘restoration of the people’ who enjoyed the blessings given by the Spirit”

Big Idea/Why it Matters

The power of the Holy Spirit is rarely meant to be a private experience. The Spirit’s presence in the lives of men and women always enlivens whole communities. Without it, true revival isn’t possible.

And the sad thing is that there are Christians today who want nothing to do with the Holy Spirit.

Of course they would never say that. Because after all, the Holy Spirit is a member of the triune Godhead. So they want to acknowledge he exists, but they deny and reject his true purpose and power in bringing genuine life to the church today.

Some of this is done out of a lack of understanding and good teaching on the subject.

Some of this is done out of fear about something they can’t always control.

Some of this is done because of a bad experience in the past.

Some of this is done because the enemy is being allowed to use Church leaders to prevent the world from experiencing the kind of revival that we read about in scripture by removing any recognition of the source of these great movements of God.

It isn’t just Christians today. For the last 2,000 years we have seen the emphasis on the power of the Holy Spirit wax and wane over time.

We have see what can happen to the Church when it does. We have seen moments in Church history where we have looked more like an abandoned amusement park rather than a place where real joy and life are found.

Arguably, one of the best-known revivals in North America in the twentieth century became known as the Azusa Street Revival.

As one writer later described, “On the morning of April 18, 1906, a headline on the front page of the Los Angeles Daily News screamed of ‘Weird Babel of Tongues’ heard from a ‘New Sect of Fanatics Breaking Loose’ at a former livery stable at 312 Azusa St. in downtown Los Angeles”

Here you have Christians from all denominations gathered together in prayer because of the stale state of their Churches. Because they realized that what they saw happening on Sunday compared to what they read about in the New Testament didn’t line up.

They believed there had to be more. They were hoping and praying there was more. Until God moved in a way very similar to how he had moved in Acts 2.

And these followers of Jesus were filled with the Holy Spirit and started to speak in tongues and prophecy, just like we read about in scripture.

It was such a large move of God that even secular news outlets were reporting on it.

It was truly an extraordinary event for its time. Its preacher, William J. Seymour, was an African American man, thus undercutting racial and ethnic barriers of his day.

The revival lasted almost ten years and gave birth to Pentecostalism, across the global church, including Protestant and Catholic movements.

The Assemblies of God, who we are a cooperative Church with, was born out of this revival.

The resounding message throughout the revival was “Repent!” and the people responded.

Application/Closing

We are beneficiaries of that revival, and friends we are living in a time, a little more than a century removed from this event where we need to see revival like this again.

If we have any hope of seeing revival take place in our homes, Churches, and communities, then we have to get back to the place where we are inviting and expected the Holy Spirit to move in powerful ways.

We celebrate the Holy Spirit, who in the midst of a time of a famine of the Word of God, showered down grace from heaven.

We celebrate the Spirit who broke through centuries of dying and finally dead human tradition, to resurrect, renew, and recreate the church.

And we look to him to do it again for this next generation.

I’m not talking about creating hype and emotionalism. Churches have been trying to do that for decades now and it doesn’t work.

You can’t substitute the genuine work of the Holy Spirit with weird sensationalism, the latest hidden teaching that has now been discovered and made available as long as you buy their book to learn about it, naming and blaming everything on evil spirits and witchcraft, or crackpot prophecies that are more about grabbing a headline and a donation than they are about saving a soul.

You also can’t ignore the Holy Spirit by dismissing the gifts of the Spirit, explaining them away, or believing they died out with the 1st century Church.

You can’t rely of catchy songs, fancy buildings and facilities, and even great Christian programs to do it either. There is nothing wrong with those things.

How about we focus on the right things. How about we focus on the one thing that will actually make a difference. Because it is only by the power of the Spirit of God that true revival will happen.

And until we get back to that truth, don’t expect much to change.