Acts 2:1-12 - Part 1

As Wes said, we are beginning in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

If you turn there with me to Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And as you're getting there,

! I hope that you take opportunities to thank all of the musicians in our church.

We have so very many that share the stage and swap out so graciously together.

I'm especially thankful for the way in which they prepare.

They are here earlier than most of you,

which likely means they got up earlier than most of you to get this together.

The guys that have to come and run the technology.

I keep mentioning we have this new board.

We're still sorting it out back there and figuring out all the technical intricacies of it.

I'm thankful that Wes and Liz worked to find us new,

Christ-centered, God-honoring songs to sing together.

So if you don't, be sure to take some time at some point to thank them.

It's not why they do it, but let's affirm them and keep them moving on in that process.

Our text for this morning is Acts chapter 2, verses 1 through 12.

Acts 2:1–12

And this morning we have the great privilege and joy before us to observe a significant watershed moment in the life of the church.

Everything changes after this.

If you have placed your faith in the personal work of Jesus Christ,

this is part of your history.

And it has great significance for your life in Christ.

We have before us the day in which God unlocked the power of the Holy Spirit and gave it to the church.

Beloved, this is God's Word to us.

It was written for His glory and for our good.

We would all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and to obey its commands.

And I begin reading in verse 1 of chapter 2.

And how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language?

We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.

And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another,

What does this mean?

Now before we pay close attention to today's text,

I want you to recall so far in Luke's record what has happened.

Chapter 1, verse 3.

We get a little summation of Jesus' post-resurrection ministry.

He presented Himself alive to them after His suffering by many proofs,

appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

So He has been with them, going out from amongst them and telling them more.

He's teaching them about the kingdom of God.

And then a command comes to them, verses 4 and 5,

to stay and to wait.

While they were staying with them, He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem,

but to wait for the promise of the Father, which He said,

You heard from Me.

For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

And then verse 8.

We see the promise of power for the fulfillment of their purpose.

And that is the gospel to the ends of the earth.

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

And you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

And then verse 9.

We witness the ascension.

And when He had said these things as they were looking on,

He was lifted up and a cloud took them out of their sight.

So we talked last week about the time in between Jesus' ascension.

What were they doing?

They were together and devoting themselves to prayer.

And they had a concern for what the Scriptures had to say.

They cared about apostolic authority.

They replaced Judas with Matthias in this time.

And then 10 days later, we see chapter 2, verse 1.

The day of Pentecost arrives.

And Pentecost means 50th.

This celebration is also known as the Feast of Weeks.

And for them, it was a yearly feast.

Happened all the time as subscribed by Leviticus chapter 23.

Leviticus 23 · chapter mention

We now know it as the day of Pentecost.

We don't continue to celebrate Pentecost the way they did,

but it's a day in the history of the modern church.

And what a day this was.

Now, there is so much to consider in this text.

And so I've decided I'll deal with it this week and next.

And if you're here with us last week, I really said to you, I expressed to you,

I really hope not to get off the preaching schedule that I set out for the year.

We're already off the schedule.

There's just too much in this text to deal with it well,

to aptly talk through it in a single week.

And so next week, we will look broadly at what is meant by being filled with the Holy Spirit

and the exact nature of its implications for us today.

There's a lot there.

I came to my study of it this week with certain assumptions that I found to be true,

but boy, did I find a lot of other understandings of this particular text.

And I really think we need to take some time to work through that.

What does it mean to be both baptized by the Holy Spirit and filled with the Holy Spirit?

And so let me just say to you, this week,

you ought to be studying and prayerfully considering what these things mean.

And then I'll do my very best by grace to speak about it next week.

There's so much here.

And I fear if we don't get it right here,

we're going to get very confused as we work our way through the rest of the book.

Okay, so I'm preparing notes.

I've got, as I have gotten fairly good at looking at pages of notes

and calculating that into minutes of preaching,

this morning, I said, whoa, this is an hour and 45 minutes by my quick estimation.

And so what I'm going to do this morning,

or what I did frantically at 5 a.m.

is I stripped out the historical context.

Okay, so I'm pulling that portion of the text out.

So we're going to look at verses 1 through 12 in that way,

and then we'll pick up and look at it in light of the filling of the Holy Spirit,

and that works specifically next week.

So hopefully that'll make this a much shorter sermon,

but still an important one.

So don't hear me saying I'm taking out unimportant details

and just throwing you historical context

so that I don't have to talk about it next week.

It's still very important because in those historical details,

we can see God's sovereign reign over redemptive history.

So that's what I want.

That's the goal of today.

The one thing I want us to see together from verses 1 through 12 of chapter 2

is God's sovereign reign over redemptive history.

He has always been in control of redemptive history.

He is in control of redemptive history here in Acts chapter 2,

Acts 2 · chapter mention

and He still is in control of redemptive history.

We find here this event that happens,

like the sending of, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

However, the disciples did not fulfill some special sort of requirements

in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

They hadn't worked out some type of equation,

and then they were filled.

This is entirely a divine act,

a work on God's part.

Now, you remember that Jesus commands them in verse 4 and 5.

They were commanded to stay and wait.

They're not commanded to pray that the Holy Spirit will come.

They're commanded simply to stay and to wait.

Now, certainly in between time,

we find that they're doing some praying,

but that is not what Jesus commands them to do.

I think it's wrong to assume that that is what they were doing.

They're praying for other things.

They're praying the way that Jesus taught them to pray.

They're praying that God's kingdom would come,

and God sends the Spirit.

Verse 2,

It being the Spirit,

the sound of the Spirit fills the entire house where they were sitting.

So they're gathered again in a house.

We can assume it's the same upper room that they've been part of in the end of Jesus' ministry,

and in these in-between days waiting for the day of Pentecost.

But we don't know exactly what they're doing.

But what we can know is that they weren't at this time praying.

The positions of prayer in their day were to stand,

to kneel,

or to lay prostrate on the ground.

Luke records it for us in this way.

He's clear to say in the house where they not just were,

but where they were sitting.

They could have been having a meal.

They could have been discussing the Scripture.

They could have been discussing their morning and how it had gone.

We don't know what they were doing,

but they weren't praying.

And I'm pressing at this with you,

not to mitigate the importance of prayer at all,

but to say they weren't working something out on their own.

The sending of the Spirit of God was not synergistic.

It was monergistic.

The pouring out of the Spirit was divinely decreed.

Let me further make the point to you.

The beginning of verse 2,

Luke records,

and suddenly,

which is to say it was a surprise to them.

They hadn't sorted out the equation.

They weren't doing the right things.

And then He came,

and suddenly there came from heaven.

They'd been waiting,

and here He is.

And it came from heaven.

He emphasizes their surprise and the source.

Their surprise and the source.

This is going to have much later significance into next week

as we talk more about the filling of the Holy Spirit.

So, the day of Pentecost arrives,

and they were together in one place.

Now, in order to see God's sovereign reign over redemptive history,

that He sent the Holy Spirit at this particular time,

in a particular way,

to show His sovereignty over redemptive history,

we must first understand,

as 21st century Christians,

the significance of Pentecost.

As a matter of fact,

it would be helpful to understand the feasts

outlined in Leviticus chapter 23

Leviticus 23 · chapter mention

as they present for us

a New Testament timetable.

This is very cool, beloved.

The way that God set forth the feasts

in order to fulfill in Christ

what those feasts were meant,

what they prefigured for us,

what they represented.

So, if you'd like to turn to Leviticus chapter 23,

Leviticus 23 · chapter mention

you can.

I'm not going to read much of it.

So, if you'd like to be there

just to see what I'm talking about,

but for further study,

at very least,

write down Leviticus 23

and go and look at this.

First, God prescribes the Passover.

The Passover feast.

And the killing of the Passover lamb

pictures the death of Jesus Christ,

our Passover lamb.

And this was when Jesus was crucified.

The Passover.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5,

last half of verse 7,

Christ,

our Passover lamb,

has been sacrificed.

So, Passion Week ends there

with Passover.

Jesus Christ is crucified.

The second is the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

And it celebrated the day after Passover.

It was an offering of the first fruits

of the grain harvest.

They came together and feasted

and made an offering.

Leviticus 23, 15 commands

that it be celebrated

the day after the Sabbath.

Now, in Jesus' day,

the popular interpretation

of that command meant

that the offering would always be

on a Sunday.

There were some competing interpretations

between the Sadducees and the Pharisees,

but the observed interpretation

was that of the Sadducees.

So, the Feast of Unleavened Bread

would have always been on a Sunday,

and it would have coincided

with Jesus' resurrection.

Tracking the timeline?

This pictures Jesus

as the first fruits of those

who have fallen asleep.

Raised from the dead

just as we are raised

from the dead in Christ.

1 Corinthians 15, 20,

Paul writes,

But in fact,

Christ has been raised

from the dead

the first fruits of those

who have fallen asleep.

Right?

To the audience he's writing to,

they get this.

They're very aware

of this system of feasts

that the Jews celebrated.

The third outline

in Leviticus 23

is Pentecost.

Right?

The Feast of Weeks.

It's a nether offering

of first fruits.

And let me read to you now

from Leviticus 23, 15 and 16.

You shall count seven full weeks.

That's why it's called

the Feast of Weeks.

Seven full weeks.

Seven days.

Right?

From the day after the Sabbath.

From the day that you brought

the sheaf of the wave offering.

You shall count 50 days

to the day after the seventh Sabbath.

Then you shall present

a grain offering

of new grain to the Lord.

So, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit

on the day of Pentecost

as the first fruits

of the believer's inheritance.

Are you catching the significance

of the timeline

that was set forth

in Leviticus 23

and that God now is following

in these events

in redemptive history?

He sent the Holy Spirit

on the 50th day

because it was the day of Pentecost.

It's not because the apostles

got something right.

Right?

It's monergistic.

He had already decided

this is how this will happen.

Right?

Praise God for His sovereignty

in all of these things.

Right?

Jesus sends the Holy Spirit

on the day of Pentecost

as the first fruits

of the believer's inheritance.

Ephesians 1, 13 and 14.

Paul writes,

So, God decrees

that the Holy Spirit

be sent to the disciples

on the day of Pentecost.

Isn't that incredible?

That just the very history of it

speaks so much

of who God is to us

in Christ.

And when he does this,

there's some audible evidence of it.

Verse 2 says,

And suddenly there came from heaven

a sound like a mighty rushing wind

and it filled the entire house

where they were sitting.

Now, I don't think it's proper

for us to understand

that there actually was

a rushing wind.

Right?

All of their hair

got incredibly messed up.

I don't think that's

what's happening here.

But Luke is grasping at metaphor.

He's trying to explain

what it sounded like.

And he says that.

And it's there in the Greek,

like.

And later on,

as he describes

the divided tongues,

he says,

as of fire.

Doing the very best that he can

with the language at his disposal

to help us to understand

what was happening here.

In both Hebrew and Greek,

the words for wind and spirit

are the same words.

And wind is often used

as a picture of the Holy Spirit.

Do you recall Jesus' explanation

to Nicodemus in John 3.8?

The wind blows where it wishes

and you hear its sound,

but you do not know

where it comes from

or where it goes.

So it is with everyone

who is born of the Spirit.

You see that symbolism there

and the Spirit comes

and you can audibly hear Him coming

like a mighty rushing wind.

There's also visible evidence.

Verse 3.

And divided tongues,

as of fire,

appeared to them

and rested on each one of them.

That was very commonly understood

that fire was symbolic of light.

And that may be a little difficult for us

because very few of us

ever see much of anything by fire anymore

because we have all this technology

around us

that generates light

in a much different way.

But for them,

this would have been

the only source of light

apart from the sun

and the reflective properties

of the moon

and the stars.

And so,

the fire itself

was symbolic of light.

The Holy Spirit illuminates,

gives light to,

the truth of God.

Jesus said in John 14,

John 14:25

verse 25 and 26,

These things I have spoken to you

while I am still with you.

But the Helper,

the Holy Spirit,

whom the Father will send in My name,

He will teach you all things

and bring to your remembrance

all that I have said to you.

So, the Spirit of God

comes in this way

and consistent with the promise

that Jesus made concerning Him.

And this same Spirit

is ours today,

although He comes to us

in a much different way,

not like mighty rushing wind

and with divided tongues

as of fire.

This amazing transitional event

happened here.

We receive the Spirit

in a much different way,

but yet we still have

His power

and His illuminating purpose

for the Scripture.

Verse 4 says,

And they were filled

with the Holy Spirit

and they began to speak

in other tongues

as the Spirit

gave them utterance.

Now catch,

they're doing this

as the Spirit

empowers them for it.

They're not doing it

of their own accord.

They're doing it

under the guidance

of the Spirit of God.

and they're speaking

in other tongues.

Now we are going to get

to the complexity

of what that could possibly mean

in other texts.

But all it means

in this text

is that they've spoken

other known

spoken languages.

Here.

For sure.

Without a doubt.

That's what it means.

Verse 6, 7, and 8.

And at the sound

of the multitude

came together.

So all of these people

were gathered around

at this mighty rushing sound.

It's my presumption

that the disciples,

not just the apostles,

but all of those

that are there gathered,

come out of the house

and begin to speak

in these varying

known languages.

And they were bewildered

because each one

was hearing them speak

in his own language.

And they were amazed

and astonished,

saying,

Are not all these

who are speaking Galileans?

And that is to say

they're all from

the same region,

which is that they would have

spoken the same language,

but also Galileans

were not intelligent people.

Lay people, right?

These weren't

sophisticated city people.

Like, how could they

possibly know

all of the languages?

That's what they're suggesting.

Aren't they all Galileans?

Like, how is it even possible

that Galileans

would know

so many known languages?

And how is it

that we hear

each of us

in his own

native languages?

Right?

So they're speaking

in these known languages,

but what were they saying?

The last part of verse 11

tells us.

We hear them telling

in our own tongues

what?

The mighty works

of God.

They're speaking

in the languages,

the native languages

of these people,

so they can hear

and understand

what?

The mighty works

of God.

At the outset

of our study of Acts,

I set forth

some goals for us,

three goals.

Do you recall goal three?

Goal three was

to pay careful attention

to the means

and the ways

of the Holy Spirit

for our study of Acts.

Pay careful attention

to the means

and the ways

of the Holy Spirit.

I've said to you before,

the primary role

of the Spirit of God

is the exaltation

of Jesus Christ

in the salvation

and perfection

of His church.

The exaltation

of Jesus Christ

in the salvation

and protection

of His church.

This is His primary role.

It's going to help us

filter a lot of understanding

about the Spirit of God.

The primary means

is the Word of God

spoken

by the people

of God.

And here we see

the first record

of the ways

that that happens.

Speaking the Word of God,

speaking of the mighty works

of God

in the languages

of the people.

So He uses this

as a method

by which to tell

people that speak

other languages

about the mighty works

of God.

Now I want to draw

your attention

to the front of your bulletin.

God finds

very creative ways

to humble me

and to remind you

of my great need

of grace

in the typo

in the Charles Spurgeon quote.

I can't, of course,

misspell some insignificant word,

but it has to be

the third part

of the Trinity

that I call

the Holy Spirit.

So let me read it to you

as it should.

He said,

There will never be

any mighty work

come from us

unless there is first

a mighty work

in us.

No man truly labors

for souls

unless the Holy Spirit

has first

worked mightily

in Him.

No amount

of planning

or preparation

has any value

whatsoever

apart

from the power

of God

at work

in us

and through us

to accomplish

His purposes.

Set that very clearly

in your mind, beloved.

That's axiomatic

to understand

what the Christian life

should look like.

And we are so quick

and so ready

to run off ahead

apart from Him.

Stay and wait

for the power of God

that your ministry

might be effective

because apart from it

it will not be.

God is sovereign

over redemptive history.

He is calling together

His church

and we are merely

instruments

in His hand.

Another way

to see God's

sovereign reign

over redemptive history

is to consider

what has happened

on this day,

this day of Pentecost.

Right?

So it's a day

that God has set forth

hundreds of years earlier,

Leviticus chapter 23

Leviticus 23 · chapter mention

and it's become

this festival

after the dispersion

of Israel

and the regathering

of it

and the dispersion

of it

and the regathering

of it

that there are

Jewish people

and there are converts

to Judaism

spread out

all over

the known world.

And Pentecost

as one of these

three major feasts

would have brought

together Jews

from far

and wide.

It's a unique day

that would have brought

these people

together.

The multitude

was in Jerusalem

for the worship

of God.

That's why

they had gathered there.

It was for the

proper worship

of God.

It was the perfect

moment in history

to begin

the church

of Jesus Christ.

The beautiful

opportunity

for the apostles

to begin to preach

that all that you

have practiced,

all of the Judaism

that you know

was meant to point

you to Jesus

and He has come

and He has died

and He has been raised

and He has ascended

that we might believe

in Him.

This is crucial

to the gathering

of those people,

the starting

of the church

and then later

we'll see in the

book of Acts

there again

they're scattering

back out

to take that good

news of Christ

to the world

around them.

Verse 5

Now there were

dwelling in Jerusalem

Jews,

devout men

from every nation

under heaven,

Parthians

and Medes

I'm not going to

read all that again.

I worked so hard

at pronouncing those

right once.

You've got the text

before you,

right?

I'm going to read

from you

from MacArthur's

commentary on this

and actually

I'm going to have

to pronounce those

again because

he talks about them

here.

But he just sums

all this up

and says this

so well

and I just want

to give him

the proper credit

due him

for this

and give you

some explanation

of who all

these people were.

So there were

Jews living in

Jerusalem

at the time

of Pentecost,

devout men

from every nation

under heaven.

Those who went

to the trouble

to make the pilgrimage

were obviously

devout men.

They traveled

far distances

to be there

at this time.

The phrase

from every nation

under heaven

is an idiomatic

expression meaning

from many lands

or from all

of the nations

where Jews

had been dispersed.

It was a broad term.

Parthians lived

in what is modern

Iran.

They had never

been conquered

by the Romans

and remained

their bitter enemies.

Medes partners

in empire

with the Persians

in Daniel's time

were now part

of the Parthian

empire.

Elamites lived

in what is now

southwestern Iran.

They too were part

of the Parthian empire.

The residents

of Mesopotamia

lived between

the two great rivers,

the Tigris

and the Euphrates.

Great numbers

of Israelites

had been deported

to that region

by the Assyrians

and Babylonians.

Not all had returned

to Palestine

at the time

of Cyrus' decree.

Judea should probably

be constructed

in the broadest sense

as all the region

once controlled

by David and Solomon.

That would explain

the absence of Syria

from the list.

Cappadocia,

Pontus in Asia,

Phrygia and Pamphylia

were all regions

in Asia Minor,

modern day Turkey.

They had a large

Jewish population

as did Egypt,

particularly in the city

of Alexandria.

It was in that city

that the Septuagint,

the Greek translation

of the Old Testament,

had been produced.

The districts

of Libya

around Cyrene

were west of Egypt

on the African coast

of the Mediterranean Sea.

Josephus,

a Jewish historian,

mentions a Jewish

population there.

That there were Jews

in Rome

as well as Gentile

proselytites,

so converts to Judaism,

is obvious

from the Emperor

Claudius' expulsion

of them some years later.

That's recorded

in Acts 18.2.

Cretans were from

the island of Crete

off the southern

coast of Greece.

Arabs were Jews

living in the kingdom

of the Nabataean Arabs

located south

of Damascus.

And so they are people

from far and wide,

from all around

what is mostly known

of the world

in that day.

Of course,

there are people

much further than that,

but this is the

perfect orchestration

of events,

right,

brought together again

by God's sovereign reign

to jumpstart

the rapid expansion

of the church.

We find the church

on three continents

in one generation

after this,

right,

watershed,

amazing moment

in redemptive history.

And verse 12 says,

And all were amazed

and perplexed,

saying to one another,

What does this mean?

They're not wondering

what the words,

the mighty works of God,

are, right,

but they're speaking

the mighty works of God,

the Old Testament works

of God up to this place.

Quite likely,

some new information

about the kingdom of God

coming in Jesus Christ.

I don't think verse 12

is meant to mean

that they're scratching

their heads

and they need clarification,

but they're saying,

This is a major day.

What does this mean?

Right?

Here are these people,

these Galileans,

speaking in all

of these various languages.

What does it mean?

And it marks this

massive transition,

a new economy

of the Holy Spirit,

the life of the church.

Further in chapter 2,

Peter stands up amongst them

and tells them

what it means.

It's the fulfillment

of Joel chapter 2,

Joel 2 · chapter mention

which speaks of the

outpouring of God's Spirit

and the coming judgment

of God.

And the end of that

from Joel 2.32

in Acts 2.21,

Peter says,

And it shall come to pass

that everyone who calls

upon the name of the Lord

shall be saved.

And we see the conviction

of the Spirit

in the lives

of the early church

and this massive expansion

of that number of disciples,

that about 120

that we see

in chapter 1

gets blown up

to thousands

upon thousands

in just a matter

of days.

What an amazing event

for us

to observe

together.

And beloved,

this is

our history.

It's part of our story.

It has implications

for today.

And I hope

you've seen

God's sovereign reign

over that story.

We are part

of God's

redemptive purposes.

You,

if you've placed

your faith

in the person

and work

of Jesus Christ,

have a place

in this story

and it is

a glorious one.

Let's pray together.