The Spirit Takes Charge

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[0:00] But it's Pentecost Sunday, the day when the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh. It's one of my favorite days of the year. I put it way up at the top, like Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, of course, you have to have that, and Pentecost. And then for me, Reformation Sunday, because I grew up Lutheran. It was a big deal for us. Anyway, but our reading for today is Acts chapter 2, 1 through 21, the classical account of the day of Pentecost from the book of Acts. And this is week seven of our eight-part sermon series called Rescue the Bible in Eight Weeks. I don't know what I was thinking that I could talk about the whole Bible in eight weeks. It's really impossible. So we've had to make choices. And here's a little rundown of where we've been. Week one was about the creation. Week two, the fall. Week three, the promised land, especially we looked at Genesis 15, super important. important. Week four, the promised king. Week five, exile and return. Last week was the life of Jesus. Today we're talking about Pentecost and the church, very important to church. And then next week is our last one, and we're going to be looking at the book of Revelation. We'll be talking about the future hope. So that's going to be the Bible in eight weeks. And with that sort

[1:16] of background, I'm not going to give much introduction now to the reading. We'll just go straight into the reading. It introduces itself. So let's go to our reading from Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place suddenly there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm and it filled the house where they were sitting then what looked like flames of flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them and everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability at that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem when they heard the loud noise everyone came running and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers they were completely amazed how can this be they exclaimed these people are all from Galilee and yet we hear them them speaking in our own native languages. Here we are, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene. Visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs.

[2:46] And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done. They stood there amazed and perplexed. What can this mean, they asked each other. But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, they're just drunk, that's all.

[3:06] Then Peter stepped forward with the 11 other apostles, remember one was gone, the other 11 other apostles and shouted to the crowd, Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem. Make no mistake about this. These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o'clock in the morning is much too early for that. He doesn't know some people I know, but we'll go back to that. Nine o'clock in the morning is much too early for that. No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel. In the last days, God says, I will pour out My Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my spirit even on my servants, men and women alike, and they will prophesy. And I will cause wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and clouds of smoke. The sun will become dark and the moon will turn blood red before that great and glorious day of the Lord arrives. But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word, and we ask that you add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I'm going to go through the readings that we've had

[4:30] so far just briefly because there's a lot to cover here and just talk about the highlights of our old testament reading our reading from first corinthians and then our reading from acts chapter two so um one thing we find this great story from numbers about the the elders come out to the tabernacle the spirit rests on them they start prophesying really great like you wonder what it was like there what were they saying what were they it must have been great just just to hear them. And there were two men who got left behind, so to speak, I guess. They were just didn't get the message. They didn't check their emails that day, so they didn't go out. There they were back in the camp. And the spirit said, well, here's two more. So here in the camp, these two men, Eldad and Medad, they start prophesying too. And this is difficult for for Joshua because he's like, wait a second, we have sort of our, we have the spirit here and we're going to keep the spirit here. The spirit can't go do something else that the spirit wants to do. We have to keep the spirit in this one particular place. And Moses is like, what are you talking about? The spirit can do what he wants. In fact, this is a good thing because I

[5:45] would rather that the spirit, the whole camp be filled with the spirit. And isn't that great that That back in Numbers, there's these little breadcrumbs that God leaves all along the way. And the Bible is always pointing forward. Like in Genesis 15, where it says, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. All these breadcrumbs that lead straight to the book of Romans. You know, straight to the book of Galatians. And here's one where Moses is kind of wistfully saying, gosh, wouldn't it be great if all the people could have the Holy Spirit? Wouldn't that be neat? you know, and here's pointing forward to Pentecost, thousands of years later, and God in the fullness of time is making all these things happen. So the thing you take away from this lesson from the first Pentecost is the same lesson that Jesus gives to Nicodemus, which is the Holy Spirit does what the Holy Spirit wants. It's like the wind. It blows where it will. You can't say where it's coming from or where it's going. You cannot control it, and if you think you can control it, you have it exactly reversed the spirit controls you if you let it the spirit enables you to do things that you can't even do like speak languages that you don't know and then this that leads to our second

[6:59] reading all these spiritual gifts that i can't do on my own i can't heal people i can't speak in tongues i can't give good advice honestly i can't don't come to me for advice i'll give you terrible advice especially if it's about gardening i'll help you destroy your garden but all these gifts i mean some of them are innate sure some people are better at them than others but the spirit and did you notice even in the reading from first corinthians the spirit gives the gifts to the people as the spirit wants to give to the people it's kind of like a spiritual lottery the spirit's in charge the spirit's in charge the spirit gives good gifts and we don't control it so that's kind of a really powerful thing to remember is that, introduced into this great history of the Bible and of what the Bible is about, there's these unknown, sort of unpredictable elements, which are beautiful. The Spirit does what He wants, but He always does something good. The Spirit gives all these gifts, but they're always for good. The spiritual gifts that He gives, it says they're never just to build one person up. In fact, if a spiritual gift were to build one person up, as it kind of implies there, that's some other spirit. And you don't want some other spirit besides the Holy Spirit.

[8:18] Like there's the Holy Spirit, but then there's other spirits with a small s. You don't want those spirits. You want the capital S Spirit. So if all these gifts are building one person up, that's the other spirits. The Spirit, the Holy Spirit gives gifts that all it does is build the body up. All it does is move forward with what God wants to do in the world. And if a spiritual gift presents itself and it's not doing that, then it's not from the Holy Spirit. So it's kind of an easy test. test but it takes discernment and luckily one of the gifts the spirit gives is discernment so that's good so always unity always building up the body that's what the spirit is doing um then we come to pentecost which is such a great story where the spirit is enabling this a very specific use of the spirit not all those other spiritual gifts that are mentioned in 1 Corinthians, only really one of them is operating on Pentecost Sunday. It wasn't a Sunday, actually. Only one of them is operating on Pentecost, and that is the ability to speak in a language that you yourself don't know, but is nonetheless intelligible by somebody else who doesn't yet have the spirit. So it would be the ability to speak in a foreign tongue that's

[9:31] an actual language. And there we get that wonderful list of all the people from all the places. It's a list of geographical names, but the names of the languages are different. So the people from Rome spoke Latin. The people from Elam probably spoke Persian and all the rest. So those are the different languages. And there was actually, I don't know how this happened, because I felt like there were more than 11 languages listed, but there were only 11 apostles. Maybe they had a few friends there, or maybe they took turns. Doesn't exactly say. But nonetheless, the people who had traveled to Jerusalem for Pentecost, for Passover, and then Pentecost, seven weeks later, they were there. And they were probably just about to go home. The festival was over. And on this near the last day of this whole thing, these Galileans, we will get to that in a second, start speaking in a language that only they know. And they're like, how are they doing this? It's amazing. So the God Spirit moves in in this really powerful way. And if you look at Acts, and it doesn't say that in our reading today, but every time there's a sermon in Acts, it's about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ without fail. And as I've said many times, if you read the book of Acts, it basically is a set of

[10:51] sermons about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ held together by various pieces of narrative. So that's one way of looking at it. One way of looking at Acts is it's a history. Another Another way of looking at it is it's a book of sermons about Jesus, his death and resurrection, held together by a bunch of stories.

[11:06] And when they were preaching, they were preaching, they had to have been preaching about the death and resurrection of Jesus, the gospel as it is. So that's kind of what happened, that kind of, that is what happened at Pentecost and it's by the power of the Holy Spirit. So this element that gets introduced in the Bible, and of course it gets stronger as we we get into the New Testament, but even in the Old Testament, like in Numbers, there's this spirit that comes into the world. It does things that people can't control. People try to control, but they can't control. It does things that people can't expect. There's other places where the Holy Spirit appears in the Old Testament, and it kind of reminds me of a little bit of Aslan in the books, the Narnia books. He's not the spirit. He's really Jesus, to give it away for you. But he's also a bit unpredictable. He shows up when he wants to. He disappears when he wants to. He does what he wants to. You can't control him. He's kind of, you know, he does his thing. I love that. I think C.S. Lewis kind of had maybe that connection, like this is not, this is a reliable person but not reliable in the way you think. He's reliably good. He's reliably always giving you what you need when you need it. But he's not going to walk you

[12:22] all the way through it all the time. He's not going to be around all the time. But the Spirit The Spirit is different even from that. The Spirit is with you all the time. And I think that's a great thing to remember when people are getting baptized. The Spirit is your constant companion now. When Jesus goes away, we didn't have time to read that one either, He tells the disciples, I'm about to ascend. And He ascends up to heaven in front of them. He says, I'm going to send what He calls My Spirit or the Comforter, the Paraclete. This is the companion. He will be with you always and He will guide you. you, He will be your companion, and He will inspire you. And so, in the absence of Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit lives in us. And there's a lot more we could talk about that. We're not going to talk about the Holy Spirit that much more today, just that there have been other sermons about it, we'll probably do more, but the Spirit is this most amazing power that lives within you, and it helps you to do things that you can't naturally do. Among them are keeping the law and all these other gifts that He gives. And so, for example, if you remember, there's a list in Galatians of all the fruits of the

[13:28] Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, and things like that. And these are the only things, if you ever do these things, you're not doing them. The Spirit's doing them through you. And as Paul says, against such things there is no law. So what he's basically saying is if you want to keep the law, which you should, you should realize that you can't, that's been a theme all throughout here, you can't. But the Spirit, if it's living in you, and He does, will help you keep the law. And when you are keeping the law, you don't even know you're keeping the law. That's the great thing because the Spirit is doing it for you. And the humility that comes from it is you never get to pat yourself on the back for it because actually you're always just looking at yourself saying, I need God's grace. Jesus Christ died for me on the cross. I'm ashamed of my sins. sins i come to jesus in great need as as a poor sinner and he washes me clean that's the life that we have and it's a beautiful life where we're really honest about who we are we're cleansed all the time by our relationship with jesus and the indwelling of the holy spirit and it sets us free to to do the things that god has asked us to do and there's a lot of joy and peace uh in that

[14:38] I've told this story to a few people in the church. I I knew a woman in Norway She just lived this way. She just She had she literally did not have a care in the world, but she had no money practically she didn't know where she was gonna live day to day, but she was sort of an evangelist and She Just when just when she needed stuff would show up that would help her so she had a car And I was like, oh you got a car. That's great. She's like, yeah, and then it broke down she's like the car broke down but that's okay and i'm like really yeah she said if god wants me to have another car i'll get another car you know and then a few weeks later somebody gave her a car you know and it just worked because she didn't worry about all that so she's just like spirit you give me what i need when i need it i if i need a car i don't i need a car if i don't need a car i don't need a car and to go through life like that is very hard when you're a planner when you're type type A, you know, it's very hard to live like that if you're an analytical person. And so I have a minor goal to be more like her. It's just, I call it a minor goal because it feels almost impossible. You know, it's like, when am I going to start that one? But I'd like to,

[15:49] I would like to live that way. All right. We're going to kind of go through some history because I realize I'm a bit, a little remiss because I've been trying to explain the Bible in eight weeks, And this is almost my last chance to really get to it. So I want to give you more of a historical take on what we've been pointing to all along. I've been hinting at it, but I want us to look at the Bible and use a lens to look at the Bible as there are a series, there's these connection points, these important points in time and history that kind of almost always look like this, that they're started by a a crisis. And they're resolved by this sort of inflection point where God acts in sort of a really wonderful or mighty way. And so that's, these moments happen and they're interspersed throughout. And a lot of our sermons have landed square on these spots. That's why they were chosen for these moments and these readings that we've had. So the Bible is a connection of important points in time in history. First, a crisis, followed by a pivotal moment of God's intervention. And I'm going to just list these quickly so you can just, you know, have to watch it later if you want to remember them all. But the very first crisis, interestingly enough, the very first crisis is the non-existence of everything except for God.

[17:10] This is really crazy. That's a crisis. It doesn't feel like a crisis because you didn't exist. It didn't feel like a crisis of the world or the universe because it didn't exist. But it was a crisis for God because he was alone. He existed before all time. We can't understand this. Carl, good luck. If anyone could explain it, you could, but I don't think you can.

[17:33] But time maybe didn't get created until the Big Bang. So there we go. Let's just set it aside. But that crisis was the nonexistence of all things. And God's intervention in that pivotal moment was to create. And chaos came. And from that point on, he began to form and shape and mold. and like a master craftsman this beautiful world and the crowning of all his creation was the people that were co-creators with him and some were created creators of themselves and his original design for humans was to be creative to work with him in the world to be stewards of it to attend the garden and for them to be companions with him when their day with work was over so God wanted to spend time with them and probably did many nights he he would come looking for them probably every night until that one fateful night when he didn't find them. And that's the second fall. That's the second crisis. The second crisis is the fall when they gave in to temptation. They hid themselves from God. And God's intervention, which doesn't sound that great, was he banished them from the garden, but he gave them clothing so that they could survive outside the garden. And he told them that they have to make their own food and they learned how to do it.

[18:43] And so he says, you can't stay here, but I'm gonna send you out in a way that I'm gonna protect you. And that was his great intervention then. And after that, in short order, we saw up until the time of Moses that humanity was increasingly wicked all along, like more wicked even than Cain. All of Cain's descendants were almost prideful that they were more wicked than him.

[19:04] And that was a crisis that was followed by the flood, the cleansing of the world, but also God's covenant never to do that again. So that God, remember I put this into the framework of always God always trying to rescue people, and but it always depended on humans cooperating with that that was always a challenge so that that was that crisis point was right before Noah and the intervention was the flood covenant super important then for Abraham there was a crisis of childlessness but that was followed by this super important chapter 15 of Genesis where God makes covenant again and counts Abraham's faith as righteousness so God is building this reputation as somebody who who makes a promise to his people and keeps his promise to people. The next crisis is the captivity in Egypt, but that's followed by God's deliverance. And then sort of a mini crisis, their idolatry, followed by God giving the covenant of the law. So that kind of is compressed right there, but there's these sort of flashpoints in the history of the Bible where people are always making mistakes or existence is not existing. That was a different one at the beginning. And God coming through and saying, I'm going to set the earth back on track, or I'm going to try at least. Then again, at the end of

[20:17] Judges, we see something similar to like right before the time of Noah. People are practicing evil all over the land. They ask for a king, and God gives them one with a warning. And all the while, he's pointing forward to the true king who would one day come. So God intervenes, but he also is intervention with a warning. Like, okay, I'll give you a king, but it's not going going to work out, I'm telling you. And from then point on, mostly bad kings. I mean, very few good kings, and even the good ones weren't that great. The evil of the kings and the continued idolatry drives, it actually drives God's presence and his protection out of the holy temple. So we saw that in Ezekiel. God leaves, and the people of God fall to foreign empires, and, but that's the crisis. crisis, the intervention is, or the pivotal point in history is that 70 years later God rescues them from captivity, brings them back, puts them in a place, you read Ezra and Nehemiah, where they can rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, rebuild the temple.

[21:18] And then last week we looked at the life of Jesus. We didn't name the crisis, so I have to backtrack a little bit here because it's a little more historical and it's a little more complex than just one event. but broadly I think of the crisis leading up to the time of Jesus was both a crisis and an opportunity. I guess that's an old proverb, right? And it had to do with the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had conquered most of the area around the Mediterranean, and they had unified the empire with roads and with order, more or less, and peace. Pax Romana, it was called, the Peace of Rome. That's the opportunity, the huge opportunity there. We'll get back to that. But at the same time, this is the crisis, the empire, this is documented, was collecting more and more taxes. And to do that, they were just extracting taxes. They would enlist people from the lands that they were taxing so that every country, not just Israel, had tax collectors like Matthew. And they would collect from their neighbors, pulling more and more taxes out of people. People were losing their lands. People were losing their homes. More and more people were being pushed into abject poverty and starving. And they were being driven into robbery.

[22:37] That was the only way they could survive. So you read the parable of the Good Samaritan. Even though it's a parable, it has this really interesting historical point. There are bandits in the parable of the Good Samaritan. And people listening to that would have gone, oh, yeah, that road's dangerous. We know that road. You know, they can just imagine, even though the Samaritan and the guy he rescues are fictional, because it's a parable, the bandits were a very real thing. There was brigandry, I guess you could call it, or banditry all around the land. And the penalty for that was crucifixion. Do you remember who was crucified next to Jesus? Two thieves. Wouldn't that put you off stealing? Oh, because here are the penalty for stealing. I don't know what it is. Depends on how much you steal. There it was your whole life in a very gruesome way. That just shows you how desperate people were, that it was still worth the risk to feed their families, to go to the cross themselves, even though the Romans, if they caught you, they would crucify you. So that was the crisis. It was a crisis of oppression, huge economic injustice, all sorts of people who wanted to overthrow the Roman Empire. So there was There was a deep political sort of feeling of anger towards the Roman soldiers and the

[23:59] Roman, sort of the Roman system of government that had been opposed on them. And you have to remember that even within the 12 disciples, you had two sides of this dynamic. Remember that Matthew was a tax collector, but he left his tax collecting and followed Jesus. And one of the other disciples was Simon the Zealot. Zealots wanted a political overthrow of Rome. They wanted a military and political overthrow of Rome. Just imagine what dinners were like, you know, with Jesus. Don't let Simon sit next to Matthew because, you know, they'll start, the fist fight will break out between those two, you know. So even within Jesus's group, there were these, it was still two of them, two out of the 12 were definitely marked by this crisis that Rome had brought to the doorsteps of all that world, all that part of the world.

[24:51] and that's why so many people wondered if jesus would be a military messiah they're like if he's a messiah at all if he's ever going to save us at all he's definitely going to save us from this thing that we experience oppressively every day every moment every hour we can't walk out our door without feeling it we have nothing in our wallet whatever they had as a wallet back we have nothing in it because of these people who are here all the time so whoever the messiah is he better better clear this up right and we remember back to the people asking God for a king give us a king who will make us great among the other nations give us a king that we can look up to and they want the same thing from Jesus give us this kind of king give us this kind of messiah and God it's the same thing it's always pointing forward God says well Jesus says but he's basically saying is the same thing. I'm not the Messiah you're asking for, but I'm the Messiah that you actually need. I am going to overthrow oppression, but I'm not going to do it with a sword. I'm going to do it a lot more subversively by changing one heart at a time. And it would take 300 some years for the Roman Empire, became a Christian empire, and even then it wasn't a great place. You know what

[26:06] I mean? So that's a different issue. We're going to actually get to that too. But it's always pointing forward the king you want versus the king that's actually good for you and even back when they asked for a king God was sort of holding out like yeah you want that kind of King someday I'm going to give you the true King now the true King has come in Jesus that's God's answer to the crisis that's his intervention into that moment of history was to send his son right and his big intervention in this crisis is to allow his son to be crucified by the Roman Even though he wasn't a thief, even though he actually hadn't done anything wrong according to their laws. And he was to be the payment that the covenant with Abraham demanded in case one side of the agreement broke faith. We talked about this last week. Do you see how everything is always pointing forward to Jesus? What happened to those animals when God and Abraham had their covenant was they were cut in half. And that was a warning. May this happen to anyone who breaks this covenant. God didn't break the covenant. covenant. So really everybody else had to be, Abraham and all his descendants had to be cut in half, but that wasn't working. So God, Christ said, I will go. I will satisfy the requirements

[27:20] of that covenant. And thus he becomes sort of the new people of God and the new covenant. And in a lot of ways, the new Israel, which is really astounding. We talked about N.T. Wright. So this, it has to be said, is the final. We kept talking about how God's always trying trying and the people keep failing, this is the final and the best and the most effective time that God tries to rescue his people because he finally, it finally doesn't depend on them because they're undependable. Do you know any undependable people? Like people who don't show up when they say they'll show up or do what they, I mean, I have three kids. I'm not going to say if one, two, or three of them are like that or zero probably zero are they watching hello they're a whole home but you're not an undependable people this is God this is then dude if you know that then multiply that by 8 billion and now you know how God feels it's like all these people are totally undependable they never keep their deal they never keep their their end of the deal I guess I'll have to do it for them that's the only way I can actually save them I'm gonna send my son and so he leans completely into this original word from Genesis 15 where it's finally it's faith in the

[28:33] loving God who gives his own son that makes people righteous and fulfills the Covenant not them being able to do what they promised to do so you know I'm sure you haven't memorized you can truly say that John 3 16 has the whole gospel in it I'm gonna read it to you from the NIV because this captures it all for God so love the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life it's about faith so this is the new covenant it's a covenant of faith it's not a covenant of me being able to keep the law or keep my agreements because i can't he gave his son to do that for us and then whoever believes in the son will not perish but have eternal life This is these are the ones who were made righteous by faith. So that's the history.

[29:27] Crisis intervention, crisis intervention over and over again, but everywhere God's faithfulness is on display and our undependability really is on display. And it's all grace. It is all good news. Thank God that we have a God that does this. He is like, he is like, if you were to, this is going to to sound strange, but if you were to compare a dog to a God, if you were to compare, I said that wrong, if you were to compare God to a dog, which you should never do, but God is dog spelled backwards, so just remember that. But if you were to prepare, what am I having problems today? Okay, my drink is over there, but I'm not going to go get it. Actually, I'm going to go get it. Hold on.

[30:07] We're going to leave you with this thought about God and God. So, the meeting afterwards to church is to get rid of your pastor because he's comparing… I can't even say it. You know, I have a meeting after church today to kick the pastor out because he compares God to a dog.

[30:32] If God were a dog, he would be a pit bull. And a pit bull grabs onto something and never lets go, and which is bad. But in God's case, it's good. He's like, I'm going to rescue these people. I'm never going to let go of them.

[30:47] I have them in my grip. I am going to keep trying. Either until they get it or until my son dies. Because I love them so much. I'm not going to let them go. That's God. And yeah, that's what he does for us. So let's get to Pentecost. Again, this is the crisis. crisis, in this framework, we're going to put Pentecost in this same sort of crisis and intervention framework that I've been talking about. The crisis is Jesus has left. He's gone.

[31:24] And the crisis is a crisis of information. How does the world know about it now? Because this happened in a small place. Not a lot of people saw it. I mean, a lot of people saw it, but compared to the population of the world, not a lot. Now we get back to the opportunity. that the Roman Empire gave us, right? How do we get John 3.16 out into the world? How do we get Genesis 15 out into the world? That's the opportunity. Roman roads, Roman peace, it brings people from all over the empire to Jerusalem. They can travel there safely. They can travel there relatively cheaply because if you need protection, you have to pay a whole lot more to get there. And if you need to go a long way around, it costs more money. but if there's roads and they're well patrolled and there's peace in the land there's no wars going on they can get there this is important people from all over the roman empire converge these are jewish people but who have lived in other countries their mother tongue is actually that other language they speak probably speak aramaic or hebrew in their synagogues they come to jerusalem for passover super important they stay all the way until pentecost they're about to go home back on those same roads enjoying that same peace

[32:42] right and this divine intervention at that moment is to use the spirit now the spirit is getting involved in God's work in the world the divine intervention is to use the spirit to build up the body of believers not by making some of the Apostles look amazing and in fact they didn't look amazing and they didn't sound amazing because some somebody said those guys are from Galilee that's like saying those guys are from the wrong side of the tracks really these are these are yokels what do they know they can't they must all be drunk because nobody's that smart you know especially those people so the Spirit doesn't make these disciples look amazing but the Spirit gives them the ability to do something that they themselves could not do and that was to spread the gospel in in the mother tongue of all those people who would shortly go back to their own countries and share what they heard. So Pentecost is this divinely miraculous information explosion event that was facilitated by the very same crisis that caused some of this to be necessary. So Pentecost is a pivot point in history, and it's also the fulfillment of another longstanding theme we keep coming back to. you. And that's that you have to remember that God doesn't play favorites. It seems like He does.

[34:02] Sometimes God doesn't play favorites. And when He said He had a chosen people, it wasn't because He liked them better. That would be impossible for God. He loves everybody the same. He did not like His chosen people better. He didn't love them better either. He chose them because He hoped that they would work with Him in the garden, so to speak, like the garden of the world. And they would be the ones to bring light to all the other nations. That was his plan. They failed at it. Always God's plans that depend on us fail. God's plans that depend on God always succeed, of course. So that didn't happen. So now at Pentecost, that's another change in how God is doing things. Instead of God's chosen people, we get the church. Not a people chosen by DNA, but by faith. And they're self-selected. They are the ones that's open to all. It's not, you have to have, it doesn't mean you have to have a relative to join a church. Quite the opposite. The only way to actually become part of the church is to believe. And the only way to really get kicked out of a church is to not believe. And we don't really kick people out for that, but at some point we would. And if I ever say something, you know, if I start comparing God to other animals, then

[35:10] you can kick me out too. If the pastor says something wrong, then the pastor's got to go. So, we are the ones, the church is the new Israel. The church is the new chosen group of people, not by DNA, but by faith, whose job it is to bring a light to all the nations. So, that's our work.

[35:32] So, that was history. Now, let's go to today. And we're almost done. We're doing good here, actually. Next week is about the future. So, all we can talk about today is today. Because next week is about the book of Revelation. and I'm going to say this about the last 2,000 years. We're going to cover 2,000 years of history really quick here. How has that been? How has the church done in the last 2,000 years? Don't get me started because I'll be here for another hour. I'll say there's been some ups and downs. The good news is that the new covenant in Jesus has meant a lot to the world, okay? And you might ask yourself, what would the world look like if Christianity did not exist for the last 2,000 years. And I think some skeptics and pessimists would say, oh, the world would be a lot better off. I'm not sure they're right. I don't think they're right. But it would also be unrealistic to think that the church had not made a lot of bad contributions to the world. The church has made the world a worse place in many ways. So the answer is a little more complex. The church has done some evil things, but it's also contributed some great good. And that's definitely worth unpacking sometime is to say the church makes mistakes the church also has done

[36:42] some things right a lot of great things have come out of it but we're the ones that are tending the garden now and I think sometimes we need to pull up some nasty weeds in our own garden first you go start with your own burn and because those weeds they leave some seeds and those sprout up so we need to pull those out by the roots we need to collect all the seeds that get away from us at first so that they don't come back. And I'm talking about bad, bad sort of church practices today. My favorite one to complain about is Christian nationalism, but there's a whole bunch of other ones that we don't like. And this is not an unusual thing for the church to do. The early church, this was happening a lot. There's a whole list of heresies. They all have funny names. They're actually fun to read about. They were actually bad. These were actually bad beliefs that were going to lead the church into a lot of bad actions, bad for the church and bad for the world. And the early church had to confront them and censure some people or excommunicate some people who just kept trying to lead the church in the wrong direction with some bad beliefs. We call them heresies. And always they did it with the truth of the scriptures.

[37:55] That's why the scriptures are so important. It was always the scripture that was the antidote to false teachings. Always an appeal to scripture and an understanding of the gospel. So just a reminder and then we're done. We're the chosen people. We're the ones called to bring light to the world. So we have to be light ourselves. That's the first step. So we need to be a healthy community that's rooted in the scriptures and the gospels and moved by the spirit to do things that we can't do. So on Pentecost we have to open ourselves up to the spirit. What what it will do. And so we need to pull some weeds where we can and we start in our own garden. We start in our own heart. What have I started to believe that's contrary to the gospel?

[38:40] What inventory do I need to take of my own belief system? Where would it not withstand the scrutiny of Scripture? Where would it not withstand that? Can I be honest with myself and deal with it? And then we all need this Pentecost moment where we're able, with the Spirit's breath, to tell people here and everywhere around the world what the gospel is so everybody has a role to have the spirit sort of breathe into them to build up the body but also to share the gospel and that's gonna be an important thing for our church in this next season I think that we're in that's why your pastors are gonna go off to discipleship training class in Wildwood New Jersey or evangelism training class and the the schedule is really daunting because a A lot of it is sort of book learning and seminars, but half of it is they're like, go out and do it now. So we're going to be walking along the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey, talking to strangers, and I'm terrified, which tells me this is exactly the right thing I need to be doing because otherwise if it was easy, I shouldn't go. I'm terrified, and I'm an extrovert. Good luck to the introverts, but we'll get there. Not everybody has to do it exactly the same way. The Spirit will teach you how to share the gospel with somebody that's near you.

[39:50] so that's the bible so far and uh i'm excited about this real quick one or two people and i'm just going to ask a question i think we actually have time because um because we skipped the children's sermon uh in light of everything like the whole grand scheme of things so far and eric could you bring the microphone forward we want people at home to hear this one or two volunteers all of this history in light of how god rescues the world the role of the church that we're in what is god telling you what is the spirit pushing you towards just one or two people what is what's new that you've learned what aha moments have you had and is the spirit pushing you today to do something or what have you learned that's new that really opens up the scriptures for you a lot of choices there so i know i i'm not going to say them all again but raise your hand if you want to share yes deborah it was a good sermon reminding me to evangelize right yeah the apostles did it but they didn't do it did they who did it the holy spirit did it through them if we're afraid so i'm just gonna have to let the holy spirit work work with me in in New Jersey, and then when I get home, it won't be as frightening anymore, hopefully.

[41:15] Natalie's laughing. Anyone else? Thank you, Deborah. What's come together for you? Somebody asked a volunteer, I'm gonna feel really bad. Come on, Zach. Yes, Brian. because of who I am with all of my proclivities and weaknesses I'm learning that the spirit is sovereign he's in charge he'll cultivate in me what he wants to cultivate and pull up the weeds that need to be pulled up praise God thank you, yeah that's exactly it yes Jack we're on a roll now this feels good i was thinking back on what you said regarding the roman empire and the the the oppression that it had and how i was thinking back on jesus's miracle of the fish and the bread and how impactful that would have been in that environment it just made me think that he would have been a very popular subject yeah to starving people that was a huge thing yeah yeah that's good thank you yeah Karen I like the reminder that even though the Israelites were chosen they failed and we know that God still wanted to work with them yeah and I think that's a beautiful reminder of ourselves because we always fail and yet god still loves us and he's still going to work with us and um you know it's just thank god for the holy spirit yeah and his ability to um really give us the words we need when we need them and that will be my prayer

[43:23] for you hans eric as you go yeah to the boardwalk and that god will surprise you yeah with conversations and with individuals and the reminder that your story is different from the other person that might be with you and that god will bring the right person to you to have that conversation yeah the freedom is not having to worry about things like that you know like like that lady oh if i need a car i'll get a car you know the car broke i don't need a car something else will come up yeah good well let's stop there that was great