Spirit Sent, World Reached

Transcript

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[0:00] Well, our sermon text is Acts chapter 2, verses 1 through 21. This is the story of Pentecost Sunday from the Acts of the Apostles. It's a pretty long text, but it's a really good text. This is why we celebrate Pentecost, because as Pastor Victoria said, the church was born more or less on this day. It's an important day for God's work in the world.

[0:26] A little bit of introduction before we start reading. As you have probably seen, we've been in Acts a lot lately, because we're building up in this season after Easter. So Jesus is raised from the dead, and you could say, well, what next? And what's next is the Acts of the Apostles. What's the early church going to do?

[0:44] And what does Jesus tell them? He says, stay in the city. Don't scatter off. Don't go elsewhere. Stay in the city. Something is about to happen, something big. And they probably were thinking, well, what? And he kind of told them what, but he kind of also said, well, what? said they were maybe thinking what does it what will it look like and I love that Jesus doesn't spill absolutely everything out you're gonna receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you're going to be my witnesses that's what he said but what actually happened is all of that but in this very specific and amazing way as we'll see that they were able to speak in languages that they didn't know which is really a very powerful thing when you think about it because if you've tried to learn another language it's not easy it's a lot of work you have to unlearn a lot of things you have to learn a lot of new things you have to think in a very different way you can't learn a new language in a day that would be impossible it takes time energy resources but in a moment the disciples were able to speak in other languages and they were able to proclaim so as we read our text today I want you to listen and ask yourself what is this for what is what is God trying to accomplish like

[1:55] on the grand scale I mean we know what he's trying to accomplish but what is he trying to accomplish and what is he trying to accomplish but on the grand scale what is God doing here on Pentecost ask yourself that and then ask yourself well we know that they're speaking in other languages but what are they saying what do you think they are saying in those other languages right and then think about this what would you do if you were there in that moment what would you do how would you experience it so let's go to our reading I'm gonna read I'm actually gonna read from this nice leather-bound Bible that I have because it just feels better so I'm gonna put on my glasses that are even more powerful and that's that Acts chapter 2 let's go to the the scriptures chapter 2 verse 1 when the day of Pentecost had come they which is the disciples were all together in one place and suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind and it filled the entire house where they were sitting divided tongues as a fire appeared among them and a tongue rested on each of them and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability now there were devout Jews from every nation under

[3:20] heaven living in Jerusalem and at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each amazed and astonished they asked are not all these who are speaking Galileans that is maybe people who aren't that well educated and how is it that we hear each of us in our own native language Parthians Medes Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia Judea and Cappadocia Pontus and Asia Phrygia and Pamphylia Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene and the land of the Argonauts and visitors from Rome both Jews and proselytes Cretans and Arabs in our own language as we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power all were amazed and perplexed saying to one another what does this mean but others sneered and said they are filled with new wine but Peter standing with the eleven raised his voice and addressed them men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem let this be known to you and listen to what I say to you and to the end for some others for some for some for some for some for some for some for some for some for some and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heavens above and its signs on the earth below, blood and fire and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness

[5:09] and the moon to blood before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. And now, then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name, amen.

[5:33] Well, what a great passage of scripture. What a very powerful thing that happened on Pentecost Sunday all these years ago. I'm gonna ask us to look at our questions, those questions I asked you to think about. What is God doing? What are they saying? What are they saying? And what would we do if we heard it? Now let's go to what is God doing? And I wanna just point out this. It's amazing to me how everything hangs together in the scriptures. If you listened in on Good Friday, you would have remembered, you would remember that I talked about this word that Jesus said on the cross. He said, it is finished. It's from the Greek word telos or telos. It means that goal or this goal to achieve something in the distance. And his inflected version of it that he said was tetelestai. It was in the perfect sense. It was a mood so that it really was, was finished. Like what Jesus was doing was finished. It's accomplished and the goal is achieved on the cross. But God's work keeps on marching forward. And so even though Jesus's work is finished on the cross, God's work is now just beginning because Jesus is raised from the dead and the spirit is taking the next steps in the journey. And Jesus says as much to his disciples, he knows he can't stay forever.

[6:54] He knows he has to go to heaven. He knows he has to leave so that they will spread their wings and go. And he prepares them even for that. And he says, you're going to have power when the spirit comes upon you. The spirit will be your guide. The spirit will be your counselor. Your spirit will be your companion. John 16, 13, Jesus says, when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. Wow, this is good. So the spirit has this really, it's like he takes the baton from Jesus and God. That's a little too simplistic, but it really is kind of what's happening is Jesus says, I'm going to be with the father. The spirit is now going to take you on those next steps of this journey. My part is done, but there's more work to happen, okay? And so the spirit's arrival is God's way of enlisting humans into his grand work of redeeming and restoring all that he has made. And this is super important, okay?

[7:49] Just think about that sentence that God wants to redeem and restore. God wants to redeem. In other words, he wants to rescue from captivity, pardon me, he wants to rescue from captivity all of us who are bound over to sin and death and the devil. He wants to free us from that prison, redeem us as his own people and take us to himself. That's his plan. And to restore us, to bring us back into holiness and to justice and into shalom. And not just us, but the whole world, like all of creation, God wants to take back into this huge embrace. Now, you would have to say, and this is true, that God has quite a lot of work cut out for him. How is he possibly going to do this in a world that seems to hate him or a world that seems to not even know he exists? There's all sorts of people who don't even reject religion anymore, don't even reject faith anymore because there's nothing to reject. They've never even heard about it. These are people in America. They have no idea what this is all about. If they hear anything about it, they hear it from the news. And honestly, the coverage in the news of Christians is not that positive. And a lot of that is deserved. I hate to say it, but it's true. And so if that's all they know, they're like, I don't think I want to join that religion.

[9:11] What motivation would I possibly have to join that kind of messed up club? Why would I do that? But nonetheless, God cares about even those people. He wants to redeem and restore them. That's his grand plan. And Pentecost is God's way of saying, this is what's happening at Pentecost, is God's way of saying, this grand plan is happening and the people whom I have chosen, my disciples, are going to be doing it with the power and ability that the Spirit gives them. That's what's happening at Pentecost.

[9:50] And I want you to think about how strategic, how strategic, how strategic this is. I've mentioned this before when we preach on Pentecost in the past, so I won't belabor it, but Pentecost is this time in Jerusalem where people from all over the world have come to celebrate. It's a festival, right? And they hear what the disciples say and they take it back home. And so the disciples do travel in the future, but on this particular day, they don't have to travel far and wide to preach the gospel because the whole world has come to them at this place, and at this time. And so sort of at a minimum, it saves a lot of airline miles for the disciples and they can keep those for a family trip to Disneyland or whatever else they want. If you look at a map, I'm kidding about that. If you look at a map, the places and peoples listed, and this is that long list that by the grace of God, I managed to pronounce okay, I think, that long list of people and places, that's more than a thousand miles from east to west that covers that, all that land, far more than a thousand miles. And in a few short days, the people who heard these voices, the speaking of tongues in their own language, are going to now return back to their homes and some, if they're close,

[11:06] will be there in a few days and some, if they're further away, maybe a month or two, but they're all going to go home and they're going to share what they heard, just like the Ethiopian official did with Philip. They carry this news back with them to where they are.

[11:23] Well, the next question is, what is being said? We're not told directly what they're saying, just that people can hear what they are saying in a language that only they know and they would not ever assume that somebody from Galilee, which is a bit of a backwater, would know how to speak. So we're not told directly what they are saying, but we have some pretty powerful clues in the rest of Acts. Acts. Every time, almost every time, pretty close to every time, every time people preach in Acts, they talk about one thing. It always shows up somewhere or other, right? And if you've been listening all along and I talk about this, and one way you could look at Acts is maybe a series of sermons with some narrative in between them that holds it all together. That's this one model, mental model, for the Acts of the Apostle, this book that we're in right now.

[12:19] These sermons all have one thing in common, which is the resurrection. It's always about an eyewitness to the resurrection. It's about the power of God in the resurrection. It's the resurrection. I keep saying it, right? This is the pivotal event in all of human history. Easter Sunday is our highest day. It's bigger than Christmas, which doesn't quite make sense, but it's bigger than Christmas for us. It has to be.

[12:47] They're the eyewitnesses to it, and it's imperative that the word gets out while they're still alive. And the resurrection is everything to us. I'll talk about that in just a second. I want you to remember back to our first reading, the reading from Ezekiel 37, which I love. It's one of the most haunting and kind of bizarre, but also beautiful parts of the Bible. It's good to read it from time to time, Ezekiel 37. And just to kind of recap, Ezekiel is having a dream, and in his dream, God begins to say, And just as an aside, I would pray that this would happen for you, that in your dreams, God would show you things. And I think God does. I think that has happened among us, and I pray that it keeps happening among us. And if you have a dream and God speaks to you, I want you to share it. Not today in the chat log. We're not doing chat log today during the sermon, but just share it in general. Other people need to be blessed by that. And we can also test it to see if it really is from God. You can get your brother, your sisters help in that matter as well. But I think it happens that God could show us things in dream. But Ezekiel has a dream, and God begins to show him things where he's taken out to a valley, and it's not just filled with corpses

[14:06] or newly dead people, right? These are dead, dead, dead, like dead a long time. People like really dead. You can't, there's no, there's really no hope of anything happening with these because it's just a bunch of dry bones. Like they've been there for so long that it's just bones left. It's bones as far as the eye can see in this valley.

[14:30] And so the wind, Ezekiel is told to prophesy to the wind or prophesy to the breath or prophesy to the spirit. Like I said, it's all the same word, ruach. And when he does, these bones, they start to rattle and they start to shake and they start to come together. And there's more wind and they grow flesh and sinews. And skin and they're standing there lifeless. And then he's told again, prophesy to the spirit, prophesy to the wind and the spirit brings them to life. And these are God's people because they were dead. They were dead in their sin. They were dead in their separation from God. If you keep reading in Ezekiel 37, it says these were my people, right? They were dead in injustice. They were dead in greed. They lacked shalom. They were idolaters.

[15:21] But what does God do with dead things? His beloved people who have gone astray. He has this promise of new hope, new life and resurrection. And so this breath comes into them. And this is just a dream, but it's such a powerful dream. The breath comes into these bodies and they come alive.

[15:42] And Ezekiel says they are a vast multitude. I love that phrase. They're a vast multitude, uncountable. Uncountable. God's grace extends to thousands upon thousands upon thousands. And God's grace extends into the depths of death, far further in than you ever think anything could be resurrected from. And that could be true in your life for somebody you know, who says, I'm so far gone, there's no hope for me again. I probably told this story before. There was a man who came to a funeral at a church I served before.

[16:22] And as soon as the funeral was over, he shot out of the church as quickly as he could. And I went out to find him and I said, you left in a hurry. I want to find out who you are and what you're doing. And he told me who he was. And I said, we'd love to have you come back on a Sunday morning and just experience worship with this body. And he said, Pastor, if you knew what I have done, you wouldn't say that because if I step foot in the church, I wouldn't be able to do that. Again, God would strike me with lightning. That's what he said.

[16:55] But that's not so far that God can't redeem or restore or bring back to life. We may think that, but that's not the truth. That's not how God operates. There's no one outside of his grace, no one outside of his ability to redeem and restore. And even a pile of bones can become a living, breathing being.

[17:20] A vast multitude. So what is God doing at Pentecost? It's the same thing. Really, Ezekiel 37 and Pentecost, they go together. The Spirit blows. The faithful speak about the resurrection because remember, it took a faithful person in Ezekiel's story, him, to speak into those bones and prophesy to the Spirit that it should happen.

[17:46] The faithful people at Pentecost are speaking about the resurrection. They're talking about the resurrection of Jesus. Now we're not told, like I said, we're not told that directly, but it's got to be what they're talking about. They're talking about the resurrection of Jesus. And the gospel is that, is not only that Jesus is raised, but his rising is a sign and guarantee to us that new life is on offer. It's on offer. It's on the table. It's right there for us to take, to receive. It's for us. And never forget that. It's the most important thing in life. And we talk about what's really important in life, but what's important in life is the resurrection. You receive new life from the Spirit when you're born again. You receive it every day you breathe from then on, and you receive it when you die, and you wait for the day when you rise again to be with Jesus. The resurrection is important both for the life we are in now and the life to come. The resurrection gives you a new beginning and a new hope. It turns you into a new person. A person that the Spirit can guide and use to do what God wants you to do.

[18:58] God is sending the Spirit to bring new life and hope into the world, and he's using the Spirit and his faithful people to do it at a time and a place when it can most powerfully go out into the world. That's what's happening at Pentecost.

[19:12] Now finally, what would we do if we were there? What would you do if you were there? And I'm talking about the resurrection. I mean, you could be one of two people. You could be one of the disciples speaking, and that would be very exciting. Or you could be one of the visitors listening and saying, what is going on?

[19:30] What would you do if you heard somebody speak in the power of the Spirit? Because that would mean the Spirit was speaking to you. Now that's up to you, right? That's up to you what you do. Nobody can control that. The Spirit will prompt you, and you can ignore it. You can quench the Spirit. Or the Spirit will prompt you, and you can listen. And this adventure opens up for you when you listen. It's astounding. It happens a lot.

[20:00] And the question then is, can you take what you heard from the Spirit, and can you take it back to the far country that you're from? It's kind of metaphorically speaking now, right? Can you take it back like those people and become another one of God's faithful servants who speak about the resurrection?

[20:30] Can you take it back for them for some reason? Can you take it for them for some reason? Can you take it for them for some reason? Can you take it for them for some reason? Can you take it for them for some reason? Can you take it for them for some reason? Can you take it for them for some reason? Can you take it for them for some reason? Can you take it for them for some reason? Can you take it for them for some reason? Can you take it for them for some reason? know that we're safe in the Father's arms. And that peace and comfort and security that comes from that is a powerful thing other people will notice. So yes, we can do that. But there's some bad news in this. A little bit of bad news. Not terribly bad news, but it's how we often think about it. Because I think this often gets turned into a guilt trip for us. You need to tell people.

[21:12] Oh, by the way, you need to tell people. You need to tell people. Everywhere you go, you need to always be talking about this. And if you do that too much, then people will tune you out, or they'll be like, where did this conversation start? It's not natural. It's not kind of a normal conversation. And it seems like there's some people who just do this naturally, and they're evangelists. They're great. That's their gifting. And there's other people who are like, I don't know where to start. That would make me uncomfortable, that conversation. And sometimes we're not comfortable talking, or we have a small circle of people that we really connect with, with. Or there's, maybe we're almost completely alone almost all the time, and we don't talk to that many people all the time, right? The guilt can get kind of high on this, and I think that's one of the challenges that evangelicalism has had for a long time, is that has guilted people into sharing the gospel. And instead, it should have been a joyful thing. It should have been something that really was more about listening to the Spirit's prompting than always going out and trying to create opportunities that aren't possible, may not be there. So the good news is this,

[22:23] if we look at this, that it's the Spirit who does the work. Remember that. The Spirit does the work. The Spirit makes the miracle happen. Praise God. I can't make a vast multitude rise. I can't do it all by myself, but the Spirit can, and the Spirit does. All I need to do is be faithful. All I need to do is be available. And the Spirit can even work through us when we don't know the Spirit's working with us, which is the best way, because I think it keeps us from vanity.

[22:56] We need to do the things we can do and not get wrapped around the things we can't, not produce outcomes that we have no power over. What we can do is we can know what the gospel is. We can know about the resurrection of Jesus, and we can keep learning. Christians here, Christians at home, if you're listening, your work is never done. Discipleship is never completed. There is always more to learn, and all of it is good news. It should be a joy. Now there's that should word, so a little bit of guilt coming in, but it is a joy to keep learning and knowing what God has done. And I'll tell you the honest truth. I'm a pastor. I've been doing this for 20 years plus. I keep reading the Bible. I keep finding new things that are amazing to me that I never knew I was going to find. And I keep finding new things that are amazing to me that I never saw before. It's astounding. Like, this is a forever journey deeper into the mind of God. It's so satisfying. And discipleship is not static. You're not one and done. You keep learning, and you start with the resurrection. You start with new life, but Jesus keeps teaching us new things. And in this season that I'm in, God is teaching me about justice. God is teaching me about shalom. God is teaching me about what he

[24:13] wants this world to look like. And it's powerful, and it's a great thing. And I'm so glad that I'm here. And I'm so glad that I'm here. And I'm so glad that I'm here. And I'm so glad that I'm here. And it's heartbreaking, and it's convicting, and all of those good things. I'm sorely tried. I'm sorely tested. But praise God, I'm still eager to come back for more, as painful as it is. God is good. He'll keep letting you grow, and he'll keep making you grow if you commit to it. So what do we need to do? We just need to know what the gospel is, and we need to develop as disciples. And we live our lives and ask God to show us the people who need to know the gospel at the right time. And we need to know what the gospel is, and we need to develop as disciples. At the right time, at the right place, just like Pentecost. The right time, the right place for the right people at that moment. God keeps operating in this way. There will be a season and a time and a place in your life when it will be right for you to speak your witness to the resurrection by the power of the Spirit. It will come. You can't force it. You can't cram it in there. It will happen when it happens, and you need to be ready, of course, but God will show you. And when the

[25:14] time comes, the gospel will come. And it will come out in a language that other people can understand. And this is just an aside, is that language isn't the problem anymore. English isn't the problem anymore. I mean, I love that we're translating the Bible into other languages, and that's good, and people need to hear that. But I'm talking about people next door to me. They speak English, but Christians speak a different kind of English than they speak. And when Christians speak, they can't understand what we're saying, and that's a huge problem. We need to learn the language of this world so we can communicate the gospel. And that's a huge problem. And that's a huge problem. And that's a huge problem. We need to learn the language of this world so we can communicate the gospel and the language of this world, just like at Pentecost. We need to be in the world, and we need to follow the Spirit's lead to speak and act when the time is right. And what will the Spirit do? The Spirit alone has the power to say at the end, they stood at their feet, a vast multitude. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you again for your word. for the Spirit who teaches us to go to speak in his name, for the resurrection that we witness to.

[26:23] Send us out this day as your witnesses, your agents in the world. In Jesus' name, amen.