A People Prepared: The Power of the Spirit

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0:00Amen. God is good. You know, the scriptures tell us, and we know if you've been following him, that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. And isn't that good news? I don't know whether you've had one of those weeks where you've needed that steadfast love of the Lord to rely on or not, but it's there. Praise God. I'm feeling very grateful right now for God's love and God's faithfulness. And I hope you are too. I'm also feeling very grateful to be here with you all, to be worshiping with you all. And I'm grateful for the sound of your voice and for the mutual spirit of the Lord that we share, that we're worshiping together in.

0:49So let's keep doing that as we examine his word and see what he has for us. We're diving in on the Holy Spirit today. Going all in on the Holy Spirit. For the next five weeks, we're going to wrap up this sermon series in Acts. Acts 1 and 2 is what we're doing eight weeks. And today and the next four weeks is going to be on this chapter. There's a lot in this chapter, a lot of great things about the spirit of God and about what it means, who he is, what he does, who he comes from, the kind of community that he produces. So this is, these are the kind of things that we're going to talk about.

1:30So the first two chapters, like I've said, are all about preparation. That's why I've been calling this sermon series, A People Prepared. The big themes of Acts, I have this slide for us. Here are the big three themes of Acts that you'll find all throughout the whole book. The kingdom of God, which is the place that we are in. If we are in him, we are in the kingdom. We can't always see it. It's not visible to our eyes. It looks small and unimpressive sometimes, but we are in the kingdom of God. The second thing is the promise of redemption. This is the story of redemption that God is working that actually surpasses time itself. The story that he is unfolding of redeeming people by the power of Christ, his sacrifice and calling and bringing to himself. And this is the story that we're in. This is the narrative that we belong to. If you're looking for a story for your life, if you're wondering if your life has an arc to it, well, find it in the story of Christ, of the purposes of God and the redemption that he's working, that he is unfolding. That's our story.

2:48We see this in Acts, how we can find ourselves in the story of God more and more. And the last thing is the reign of Christ. He is our ruler. He is here with us spiritually. He is driving forward all the action in the book of Acts. He is our ruler. He is our Lord. He's the one that we're following. We're not guessing. We're not on our own. We're not our own leader. We hear he's leading us forward faithfully. And he's doing it right now. And he's doing it here in Acts 2, even though he has already ascended to the father. So last week we watched how the disciples took their first steps of faith.

3:25They're walking by faith after Jesus had ascended. Before he ascended, he told them this. He told them, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will receive power. Jesus promised them power. It's coming in this chapter right here. And that power starts to change things immediately. It's a power that is immediately put to use. Um, I don't know why I thought about this. Um, but when people, I thought about when people talk about power, sometimes they're talking about their vehicles, the car that they drive. A lot of times guys can rattle, you know, girls too, but guys seem to be into it too, but they rattle off the horsepower, the torque, the zero to 60 time of their car. If you have a truck, you might know the truck's towing capacity. Um, you might know, uh, you know, you're not, you might know what it can do, but, um, it's more about what it can do than what it actually is doing most of the time. You know, you don't need that much towing capacity to bring home your groceries. Um, so it's not doing all of that power, but it can do it. And that's why we talk about it, talk about what it can do. Today. We look at the spirit of God as a, the power of God in the community of God in his story, driving forward the action. It's not just a power that can do something. It's not a power that just will do something. He is a power that is doing something. And church, we need to be reminded about this. The Holy spirit is working right now. He has not stopped working. He started working

5:12immediately and he is still working among us right then and right now. So what does this power do? Another thing we can hear power and we can think it means authority or control. What does Jesus mean? You will receive power. Well, he actually, let me finish the rest of the sentence here. You will be my, can you go back one Steven? Thanks. You'll be, you'll receive power and the Holy spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and all Samaria and to the ends of the earth. This is probably the most important verse in the whole book of acts. And here in acts two, we already see the fulfillment begin to unfold. So this verse is a guidance for us. It's guidance for how we read acts and we see it happen, begin to happen here in this passage. So let's, let's go in, let's go to the word of God, the living and active word from our good and holy and always truthful father who loves us in Christ. And one of the things the spirit does in us church is helps us understand his word, know what it means, where it hits our lives and helps us to put it into practice. So let's rely on his spirit in us as we read the word. And as we hear the word preached today, this is acts two through verse 13. This is the word of the Lord. 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 of fire as a fire appeared to them and rested

7:08on 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 that 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 were speaking Galileans? 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, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytites, Cretans and Arabians. We hear them telling in our own tongues, the mighty works of God.

8:13And all were amazed and perplexed saying to one another, what does this mean? But others were mocking saying, they're filled with new wine. Pray with me. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you that this tells us what actually happened 2000 years ago. And thank you that through your spirit, we can see and we can follow you into what it means for us today. Such is your living and active word, Lord. It's profitable for building and for teaching up, for correction, for training and righteousness, Lord. And would you please, Lord, manifest your glory to us. Help us to leave behind earthly treasures that we might go to for security, earthly ways, worldly ways, Lord, fleshly ways. Help us to walk in the spirit today. We need that, Lord. We, Lord, we want to have life and life is found in you, you alone.

9:16So please, Lord, as your word goes forth with the power of the spirit, change us. Make us more and more your people who know you, who love you and who walk with purpose because we are known and loved in you, Jesus. In your name, we pray because you love us, because you're holy, because you died for us. Amen. Okay. So the power of the spirit, uh, this week is just on what happened. The next two weeks is going to be on Peter's, Peter's sermon. Peter gives a sermon to these people. Then we're going to do a, a, a, a sermon on how the people responded. And then finally the sermon on what the community that forms as a result. So this is a big, this is a big, big event in the history of redemption.

10:09Big. Uh, there are so many illusions, connections to the old Testament here. There's plenty that we could say about the Holy spirit, his role and all the ways that he works. We could go in a hundred different directions. We could, I could preach the rest of the year on the Holy spirit, right? And we, we, we are going to draw this chapter a little bit, but right for right now, I'm going to focus on what Luke emphasizes, what Luke puts before us in this passage, because there's a lot to learn here. He emphasizes two things. Okay. He emphasizes nations and he emphasizes language, nations and language. It's all over this passage, two things and two parts to this sermon. Okay. The power of the spirit is given is power to gather us in and it's power to send us out, to gather us in and to send us out. The nations that are gathered in here, tell us about the kingdom that we're in and all of the languages tells us the role that God has for us in his story.

11:21So kingdom and story are here in this passage. Okay. Here are the two sections. Here's the first one. The power to gather us in. There's a lot happening in Jerusalem at this time because it's Pentecost. This was called the feast of weeks or the feast of harvest in the old Testament. Eventually it became known by this Greek term Pentecost because it took place 50 days after Passover. Pentecost is a Greek word that means 50th. Now you can win it Bible trivia night.

11:59This is the middle of the three annual Jewish festivals, harvest festivals. These were a big deal. There were people that would come in from all across Rome. Jews from all across Rome would and did come into Jerusalem for this. There were worship services. There were offerings. There were many, many rituals. There was a lot going on. But this year at Pentecost, the biggest event of the feast didn't happen at the temple. It didn't happen in the local synagogues. Didn't happen in the public square. It happened in a house, just an ordinary house, a house where the disciples are. The passage says that they're in a house, probably the 120 that Luke mentioned just in the last chapter.

12:48They were all together in one place. They're sitting, Luke says. They're probably praying. They're having one of their prayer meetings, most likely. This house, this simple, humble house is where God fulfills the promise that he has repeated over centuries and over many scripture and prophets. This house is where it's about to happen. And as it happens, it cannot be missed. First, there's supernatural signs, a sound like a mighty rushing wind. Read carefully. There's no wind. There is sound like a wind. This sound coming from nowhere. Where is this coming from? So loud and overwhelming that it's filling the entire house. You ever been someplace that it's, it is just so loud, maybe a concert or at the airport or something. It's overwhelming sound. It's like when God appeared on Mount Sinai and there was a sound that terrified people. Where was the sound coming from? Well, Luke tells us it comes from heaven. A few days earlier, Jesus had ascended. Where did Luke tell us that he went? To heaven. The exalted Jesus is at work here. He is the one that is doing something in this house. The disciples are feeling excited. Their minds are worrying. They're thinking about how John the Baptist said that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And sure enough, divided tongues as of fire appeared and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

14:40Church, the whole Trinity is at work in this moment in the house. The promise of the Father of the Holy Spirit sent by the Holy Spirit sent by the exalted Son to the people in that house. That's what's happening inside the house. But did you notice Luke wants to tell us about what's happening outside the house too? All in Jerusalem. He says, now there was at that time dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews from every nation under heaven. These are Jews of what's called the diaspora. Those who were scattered from their homeland long ago through exile or invasion or simply moving. They've been scattered all over, all across the known world. Verse five, Luke could have ended right there, right? We get the picture. Yeah, there's a lot of different people in Jerusalem, Luke, from all over. That little statement in verse five would have been enough to give us the context. But look at the list in verses nine through 11. It is an exhaustive list of nations and places. It stands out among other historical accounts. It includes multiple continents. Three different continents are named here, included here. Multiple empires are named here.

16:04I'm kicking myself because I meant to put in a slide of a map, but you just have to imagine it. He starts in the east, outside the Roman Empire. He circles a little bit up north. He comes back down to Jerusalem and Judea and then he starts to go up again to the places where Paul will go later and then he goes out over to Rome and he comes down to Africa. He is covering everywhere. It is an exhaustive list. Modern day Iran, Iraq, Greece, Africa, Italy, all over the world.

16:40All of these Jews were born and lived in faraway places, but now they're back in Jerusalem. Some of them are visiting for the feast, certainly. They're pilgrims. They've come in temporarily, but Luke loses the word dwelling, which is indicative of something more than just visitors. Some of these people have relocated to Jerusalem. They have a shared lineage and religious identity, but culturally they're very different. They have grown up in very different places from each other. What do people do if they've grown up in faraway places, but now they have relocated to a place, to a new place? They find other people that are like them, right?

17:25That's what people do. They form a little micro community. Think about big cities like New York, San Francisco. All of these places have little ethnic enclaves. You might be familiar with things like Little Italy. That's a little, that's like a hundred years ago. Now it's more like Little Senegal, Koreatown, Little Odessa. If you go online, you can look up dozens of little ethnic enclaves in a place like New York City. The same thing is likely happening in Jerusalem. They're all Jews. They're not ethnically different, but they're culturally different. They're linguistically different.

18:06There's evidence outside the Bible for this. There are Jewish sources that tell us that in Jerusalem, there was a synagogue for the Alexandrian Jews, the Jews who had come and moved in from Alexandria. There was a synagogue for them. They probably formed it themselves. So all of these different Jews have come in and they're living in this big city, but they have differences, different linguistic, cultural patterns. But what happens when this thing happens in this house?

18:42They begin to speak in other languages in that house as the spirit gave them utterance. You think maybe these two things are connected? All these Jews living in Jerusalem that are different from each other culturally, linguistically, suddenly there's a house where a bunch of different languages are being spoken. Hmm. Is God up to something? You bet he is. And we can be sure this is a miracle of speech because of the words Luke uses. They began to speak as the spirit gave them utterance. Before anyone else is around, they are speaking other languages. Before anyone else can hear them, they're speaking.

19:21Based on how the crowds respond, we know that these tongues are human languages that they recognize. So I imagine it happens something like this. It's a compact urban setting. Compact in relative terms. Ancient Near East. Houses close together. Busy thoroughfares right outside. This is not some house out in the country where no one was around. There's people, it's feast time. There's people out and about all over the place walking. Houses are close to each other. It's feast season. And then there's a peculiar sound coming from one house as people are walking by.

20:03And at this sound, the multitude came together, Luke says. Which sound? The sound of the rushing like wind or the sound of the languages being spoken? Well, no one comments about a rushing wind sound. What do they comment about? The languages being spoken. What they comment about is they can hear people talking like them. If you've ever been to a foreign country and you're in like a public setting, a crowded space, lots of noise around you, maybe a museum. You're in a cafe. You're in a public square.

20:36If one person in that crowd starts speaking your language, your ears pick up, right? You look over, you try to find them. You hear them amidst all of the crowd and the noise and the den, especially if they sound like you, right? If they have an accent kind of like yours, you're like, wait, where are you from? Right? You, you, you move towards them. That's what happens here. The crowd moves into this house, right? They're not out in the temple friends. They're in a house, but the crowd begins to move in like, like, like, like moth to a flame. It moves in. What is happening? They are drawn in because they hear people speaking like them. The Greek word translated language is dialectos. That means not just another language, but it can also mean another dialect, another manner of speech. These people recognize their own dialectos. These people are talking like me and they come to check it out. But once they get close, they're confused, they're like, what? That guy's a Galilean. What? He's not where I'm from. I'm from hundreds of miles away from here. My people have lived there for hundreds of years.

21:56His people have lived here and around. How is he? How does he sound like me? And then somebody else walks up and says, yeah, that she sounds like me. You're saying that she sounds like you and he's yeah, but they're all Galileans. How is this happening? What is this? What can this mean? The crowd builds the crowd, you know, a crowd attracts a crowd. The crowd builds excitement builds. People are coming in. They're all astonished and confused. The power of the Holy Spirit is already at work drawing people in together. You see that gathering people, Jews from all over the city. This is the first stage of fulfillment of what God had promised in a prompt, in a prophet like Jeremiah. Put up that, that, that Jeremiah passage. Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where that I have driven them and now will bring them back to their fold. And also in Micah, I will gather the remnant of Israel. I will set them together like sheep in a fold. The gathering of his scattered people from the nations, this is beginning to unfold here in Jerusalem at Pentecost. And they are not just in their own separate places. They are together. They are together. But listen, friends, we have to go back even further to find what God is doing here.

23:23Because what God is doing here, it goes back to ancient roots. We heard from Genesis 11 earlier. What happened there? The people came together. Why did they come together? Why did they get involved with each other? Why did they find so much success in building a city? Because they all spoke the same language. Back then the whole earth had one language and the same words. And they used those common words way back to elevate themselves, to make a name for themselves. They wanted to be secure and important, but they wanted nothing to do with God. God knew that this success would make them miserable.

24:10It's what happens when we succeed at our ambitions without him. We're miserable and we're trapped. So God mercifully, out of mercy and judgment, he steps in to thwart their plans. He confuses their language. The building project grinds to a halt. People scatter all over the earth, just like he intended. Human culture explodes into a hundred different directions, thousands of different directions, like a firework. The earth is filled and subdued, just like he intended. Pentecost is a progression of this story from Genesis 11. Some people call it a reversal of Babel, but I don't think that's true. If it was a reversal of Babel, God would have given them all the same language. He would have erased all of their linguistic differences, right? That would be a reversal. God could have done that, but he doesn't do it. This is the important point here. He could have done it, but he didn't.

25:12He makes a way through the spirit to bring people together without erasing their differences. In the kingdom of God, there is unity amidst diversity. In the kingdom of God, there is unity amidst diversity. He does it. He doesn't erase it all. He doesn't homogenize them. He brings them together through his own power. Now, I'm not saying that these people are all unified simply because they came to check out what was going on. I'm fast forwarding a little bit. We're going to get to how they respond later. It's their response to this that really unifies them, right? They need to respond and we're going to see that. But for now, I just want to emphasize this is a sign of the purposes of God and the power of the spirit. Do you see here? This passage tells us about the kingdom that we live in now. The Holy Spirit did not intend to make a singular Christian culture. That is not what God, that's not the plans of God. A singular, identical Christian culture. Nor does he make us all look alike. Like before Christ, we're all different and then we go through some machine and we come out and we all look like each other. No, that's not it either. This passage in Acts 2 shows us our place complex with different traditions. Acts 2 shows us that these are our people, diverse in language and in culture. At Pentecost, the power to unify was poured out and we're going to see it expand outward from Jerusalem to other people, to other people groups. Psalm 86, 9 says, all the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. All the nations will

27:04come. And all of this happens because God comes to us. At Babel, we were trying to reach up to God. To be at the same level as him, but not be with him. God says, no, I've got a better idea. I'll come down to you. We are like the people in Genesis 11, building our own towers, using our unity for selfish goals. And Christ came to us as we were, factious, divided, hostile, selfish. He came to die for us. He came to heal us. He came us to give us the real security and the status that we crave, that we were made for. Everything that they were looking for in Genesis 11 is found in Christ. And we have it through faith in him. And when we do, we are united with a people that are diverse. Let us embrace and not resist the multicultural, multi-linguistic, multi-ethnic people of God. That does mean sometimes it's going to rub up against you and say, you know, that's not the way I kind of thought things are done. We need to learn to discern between our own human traditions and the actual way of the spirit and the way of discipleship that Jesus lays out for us. Okay. So he, the power of the spirit is a power to gather us in. Let's talk about the second point, the power to send us out. Let me throw an interesting wrinkle in this whole thing.

28:58At Pentecost, this crowd already had a common language. Okay. That's the little, that's the thing that, you know, when you realize it should make you scratch your head. It could have been Hebrew that they all spoke together, although that was more of like a religious language. It was spoken in the synagogue and the temple. Maybe it could have been Aramaic. Maybe they all spoke Aramaic, but certainly Greek. They all spoke Greek. We call it now Koine Greek. Koine means common.

29:25This was the common dumbed down version of Greek where all the differences from all the different parts of the empire and beyond, if those were all stripped away and it was the, it was the simplest form of Greek that everybody knew. Everyone speaks it, right? So this raises a question. If the disciples could have already communicated with every Jew that was in the city, why did God give them the ability to speak in other languages and dialects? He didn't need to do that. Well, here's why. Language is an integral part of our life. It affects who we form relationships with. It affects how we relate to them. It impacts the way we receive and process information.

30:18It influences how we feel and how we react. All of these things are easier when we are surrounded with people who speak like us. All of those things get harder when we're not. It's one of the reasons why home feels like home. The disciples and the other Jews in Jerusalem, they could have used Koine Greek to talk to each other, but both of them, the disciples and the people would have had to set aside their own native tongue and meet in the middle with some common language that was not their native tongue. They would have had to set aside their regional dialects, their vocabulary, the pronunciation, all of those things and adopt something a little foreign to them.

31:08Something that wasn't native to either one. Nikki and I saw something like this years ago. We took a trip to Europe and I can't remember if it was in Paris or Rome, but I'm pretty sure it was in Rome. That we were standing outside a restaurant. We were looking at the menu, deciding if we were going to go in and the host was standing outside on the sidewalk. He obviously spoke Italian and we hear this other couple walk up and look at the menu and they're speaking to each other. I forget whether it was German or whether it was Mandarin. They're speaking not Italian, not English. They're speaking to each other. And then they walk past us and they walk over to the host. And what do the host and the couple speak to each other? English. And it was a crazy moment of like, wow. They, all three of them adopted a language that is not native for either one of them. And it's our language. That's crazy. That's what, but see those three people, it's fine. If you want to get a table at a restaurant to speak a different language, it's fine. If you want to order dinner or get directions to the post office to speak another language, but the disciples had more important things to talk about than how to get to the post office, right? They had the things of God to explain to these people, right? The work of Jesus, his, his life, his death, his resurrection, what it all meant, all of the prophecies that it connected with, how God spoke of it. They had to speak about the future, about what God was doing, about God coming back and judging and how there is a way for forgiveness

32:48and for reconciliation through Jesus. They had to talk about all these things and they had to talk about how to work it out in a person's life, how to be a part of this new community, how to walk together. It would be so clumsy and ineffective to use Koine Greek for all of that. Such personal and important conversations, right? It would hinder how they talked, how they understood, how they connected with each other. But now they have been empowered by the spirit to go out and speak to the other person in their language, in their dialects, with their manner of speech, their idioms, their vocabulary, their accents. The disciples have been supernaturally equipped to do what Jesus told them they were going to do. Go into all nations, making disciples, teaching them. The spirit enables an outward mission that crosses cultural barriers. That's the point that I'm building towards. And I want you to see this.

33:54The spirit equips you for that outward mission to cross cultural barriers, to proactively go to other regions, other dialects, other nationalities, other people groups. The disciples can now meet with people where they are, speak as they do, relate to them on their turf, and they will. Acts is the continuation of this. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, to the ends of the earth. The whole direction of God's people has been changed.

34:29It's no longer, if you want God, you come to us. Now it's, if you need God, we'll come to you. This is the same direction. People of God, living in the story of redemption. This is the same direction that we ought to feel and act with, a going outwardness. If you are in Christ, you too have been equipped. You too have been propelled outward. Even if you don't move, you are still propelled outward. This is not just for missionaries. We're all propelled outward.

35:08Lord, you can relate to a wide variety of people, my friends, regardless of how different they are from you. You can, through the Spirit. And the more you lean into this, the more you will learn that it's true. You can. God will help you. And what we have to share, it's not a philosophy. It is not a get in shape program. At Pentecost, the crowd said, we hear them telling the mighty works of God. They're speaking about Jesus, the Messiah who lived and who died and who rose again. And we come with the same message. The only life-changing news that we have is the redeeming work of God in Jesus Christ.

35:56We are filled with the Holy Spirit in order to speak of God's work. I searched the scriptures this week about the filling of the scriptures, the filling of the Spirit. And wouldn't you know it, I found a consistent pattern. Wherever there is filling, there is speaking. Filling, speaking, filling, speaking. It goes back to the Old Testament. After the Exodus, God took a share of the Spirit that was in Moses and put it on 70 elders so that those men could help him lead. After they get that Spirit, they begin to prophesy, to speak of the mighty works of God. Saul is unexpectedly filled with the Spirit. He wasn't a prophet, but he starts prophesying, speaking of the mighty works of God.

36:46Saul's servants get sent out. They get near some prophets. The Spirit falls on them and they prophesy, speaking of the mighty works of God. Fast forward when Elizabeth greets Mary. And John the Baptist in Elizabeth's womb leaps because he gets near Jesus in Mary's womb. And Mary, I mean, and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. And what does she do? She exclaims a blessing over Mary, speaking of the mighty works of God. And then Elizabeth's husband, Zechariah, when he names John, he's filled with the Spirit. And even though he hasn't spoken for nine months, he speaks. And what does he speak? The mighty works of God. Filling and speaking, filling and speaking. This pattern keeps going in Acts.

37:36The biblical message is clear. Friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, if you believe in him, if you've trusted in him, you are filled with the Spirit. There is always room for more filling. We're going to talk about that later. But the filling of the Spirit in you is for the speaking of the mighty works of God. That's one of its purposes. Yes, the Spirit helps you understand Scripture and pray. The Spirit cries out within you, reminds you that you have a Father who loves you.

38:09You can call him Abba. But don't forget, one of the reasons why you've been filled with the Spirit is so that you can speak about the mighty works of God. This is beyond just your own testimony, friends. You've got to tell how it was you were changed, what God did in Christ, explaining the Scriptures and talking about the way of salvation. Look around in the room. We are the ends of the earth. We are. We are the ends of the earth. We are the Gentiles to whom the gospel has gone.

38:48We have been gathered in and yet we have also been sent out to a world full of different people who need to hear. They've got to hear about the mighty works of God. And we can do it in the power of the Spirit, only in the power of the Spirit.