The Power - Linda Bailey

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, good morning everyone, my name's Linda Bailey, part of the ministry team here at one, so great to have you with us this morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Feel free to keep your conversations going after the service if you haven't been able, if everyone hasn't been able to share that.

[SPEAKER_00]: new thing that they've done, then make sure that you continue to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we are currently in a series on Acts, and this is after the life, the ministry of Jesus, his death and his resurrection, and he ascends into heaven and before he does so.

[SPEAKER_00]: He asks the disciples to stay where they are in Jerusalem.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we are picking up this is the third week in our Acts series.

[SPEAKER_00]: and we're picking up from Acts chapter 2 and I'm going to read the first 13 verses all together with us anyway you can follow along either on the screen or in your Bible.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: When the Dave Pentecosts came, they were all together in one place.

[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

[SPEAKER_00]: They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there was staying in Jerusalem, Godfaring Jews from every nation under heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment because each one heard their own language being spoken.

[SPEAKER_00]: utterly amazed, they asked, aren't all these who are speaking Galileans?

[SPEAKER_00]: How then is it that each of us hears them in our own native language?

[SPEAKER_00]: Pathions, meds, and elements, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Kepadoshia, Pontus and Asia, Frigia and Panphilia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Syrin, visitors from Rome both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs.

[SPEAKER_00]: We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues, amazed and perplexed.

[SPEAKER_00]: They asked one another, what does this mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: Somehow I've made fun of them and said, they've had too much wine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the good wine that David was talking to us about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here we have this incredible story.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if I said to you, if I came to you and I said, ah, I've got a paper cut on my hand.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've stopped the bleeding, but it still really sings.

[SPEAKER_00]: What should I do?

[SPEAKER_00]: What are you going to tell me to put on my paper cuts?

[SPEAKER_00]: A bandaid, I know we're in church, you probably thought the answer was Jesus, but no.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, sorry, a bandaid, that's right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the thing about this medical thing that we use, we call it a bandaid, do you know that actually, that's not the generic term for this item.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is, and it had he's of bandage.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is only Johnson and Johnson, who branded it and copyrighted it to be called a Band-Aid, that no other company can call it a Band-Aid, but we all know it's so well to be a Band-Aid that when we think of this adhesive bandage, we automatically think of the word Band-Aid.

[SPEAKER_00]: As you can see, Johnson and Johnson have it proudly on their packaging.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is band-aid, pretty sure there's like a little copyright up there.

[SPEAKER_00]: So no other company can call it that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can see many other companies make it one of them just calls it plastic strips, because they're not allowed to call it a band-aid.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is true, I think, as well, when it comes to the term Pentecost, which we have heard in our reading today.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are churches and that there are Christians in our world today that call themselves Pentecostal Christians, or I'm from a Pentecostal church, and it gives us an idea of the expression of worship they may partake in when they're all together.

[SPEAKER_00]: And usually that is a fairly charismatic way, whether it's, you know, singing for extended periods of time, they might clap and speak in tongues, they might have lights and smoke machines and all these different ways of people expressing themselves in worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: However, I feel like this understanding of a pentecostal church or a pentecostal Christian has kind of taken the word pentecost away from other people who may not be as comfortable calling themselves that or wouldn't call themselves that because then people would expect them to express their worship in different ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: But, Pentecost is such an important part of our Christian faith as we've heard from Acts 2.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, outside of creation and Jesus' resurrection, this time of Pentecost that we read about in Acts 2 is so pivotal to us as Christians as it was to them back then, and is to us as Christians.

[SPEAKER_00]: living today and striving to be people who follow Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it is my hope that as we unpack Acts 2, you may leave here, not necessarily calling yourself a Pentecostal Christian or coming to a Pentecostal church, but that you will desire to be a Christian of Pentecost.

[SPEAKER_00]: because it is so important for who we are and for who God has called us to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want us to miss out just because your comfort levels or your expression of worship might be different to what we call it today.

[SPEAKER_00]: That being said, as Pentecost teaches us, may we be open also to what God has in store for us, maybe even pushing ourselves out of what we consider normal or familiar or comfort as we explore.

[SPEAKER_00]: what this story truly means for us today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because Pentecost is so important to us, Jesus desired it for all of us, for every person who believed in Jesus, he wanted us to experience the Holy Spirit like they did in Acts 2.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, Jesus said in John chapter 16 verse 7, but very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away.

John 16:7

[SPEAKER_00]: Unless I go away, the advocate, the Holy Spirit will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus desires this for you, so let's explore what Pentecostraling means and what it means for us today.

[SPEAKER_00]: I look back at my Christian walk and I can see when I was about 16, I had an experience of pentacost in my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was a part of a team through Scripture Union that did a beach missions.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was down in a small coastal town called Port Campbell in the western district of Victoria.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we came together mainly a group of

[SPEAKER_00]: Young adults and youth came together to lead these teams and we would gather all the holiday makers together.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're still happening today and we would tell them stories from the Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: We would tell them stories of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'd play games with have activities and people who had never heard about Jesus who'd never heard or read the Bible would come and be a part of these programs.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thing about beach missions, they are amazing, but they are exhausting.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like you are up early in the morning, you are busy all throughout the day, you do events in the evening, you're too bed late.

[SPEAKER_00]: I got about a week through this particular beach mission, and I was spent, like I was absolutely exhausted.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we had just finished our morning program, and we'd had the really good idea in our planning that we would run an afternoon program, this particular day as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was foolish enough to do what you should never do when you are tired, and I sat in a comfortable chair.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as soon as I sat down, I just thought,

[SPEAKER_00]: That's it, I am done, like I have no energy, I am exhausted, I just cannot see how I could possibly get up out of this comfy chair and do anything for the rest of the day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as I was sitting there thinking and feeling so exhausted, knowing I had such a big day still ahead.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remembered a verse that I had memorized when I was in year 7, and it was Isaiah 4031, and it came to mind, and it's but those who hope in the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will renew this strength.

[SPEAKER_00]: They will rise up on wings like eagles.

[SPEAKER_00]: They will walk and not grow weary.

[SPEAKER_00]: They will run and not be faint.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as soon as that verse came into my mind, there were no eagles wings.

[SPEAKER_00]: However, I had suddenly filled with energy and motivation, my mind cleared so much that I was able to get out of that comfy chair.

[SPEAKER_00]: I continued throughout the afternoon's program into the evening all the way until bedtime.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I collapsed into bed, but as I thought over my day, as I lay in bed that night, and was reminded of what had happened when I thought of that verse in my absolute exhaustion.

[SPEAKER_00]: I realized that was not my power.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that was God's power within me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all I could say was, thank you, God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, God, because I had no ability to do anything for the rest of the day, but through God's power in me, something incredible changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God desires that for all of us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus talked about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He ascended into heaven because in bodily form, he could only do so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted the Spirit to come to do more than what he was capable of, and the empty right says it this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is clear from words of Jesus himself that God longs to give the Holy Spirit to people, and that all we have to do is ask.

[SPEAKER_00]: What the Spirit will do when he comes is anybody's guess.

[SPEAKER_00]: Be prepared for wind and fire, as we've heard in Acts 2, for some fairly drastic spring cleaning of the dusty and cold rooms of one's life.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we should not doubt that God will give His Spirit to all who seek Him, and that the form and direction that any particular spirit lead life will take will be, ultimately an assuming obedience and faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: the one that will enable that person uniquely to bring glory to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: God desires for us to be filled with His Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: He desires for us whatever that may look like.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever our upbringing might be, whatever we feel is an expression of the Spirit God desires that in fact he desires even more than that as we have read in Acts 2.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as believers, we can be open to be filled with His Spirit for power to do the things that we want, but even

[SPEAKER_00]: Could we even be open to even more of what God has in store for us?

[SPEAKER_00]: As I look at Acts 2 and look at this story of the New Testament Pentecost, there are a number of things that I see that the Holy Spirit does in this passage.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Holy Spirit reminds us of God's presence.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Holy Spirit inspires us to worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: and the Holy Spirit propels us towards God's mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to look at these three things over the next little while to have a look and get a better understanding of who the Holy Spirit is, what he does in our lives and what that can mean for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the first thing is the Holy Spirit,

[SPEAKER_00]: Alerts us reminds us of God's presence.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we read in Acts 2, there are a number of different ways that the people were reminded of God's presence with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now keep in mind, the people that this is talking about in Acts 2 are Jewish people.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are the people who

[SPEAKER_00]: the followers of the One True God so they would have understood a lot of the Bible stories that we have in our Old Testament already.

[SPEAKER_00]: It would have been a part of their culture, part of their upbringing, that they would have known the stories that we know from our Old Testament, they would have heard them and spoken them and recited them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we hear in Acts 2 that God comes

[SPEAKER_00]: Initially, like a sound, like the blowing of a violent wind.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Wind was actually something that was fairly familiar to those who had read the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wind, in this sense, this is a New Testament text written in Greek, so it would have been the word Numer, but in the Old Testament, the word for Wind was Ruaq, and it was the word that was associated with the Spirit, with Wind, with Breath,

[SPEAKER_00]: with a moving force.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we see this in a number of places in the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are lots.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've just got three.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know the words are really small on the screen, but let me quickly whip through them just to give us a sense that this was God showing us His presence.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right from the beginning in Genesis chapter one.

[SPEAKER_00]: We read in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now the earth was formless and empty.

[SPEAKER_00]: Darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

[SPEAKER_00]: The breath of God, the wind of God, was moving even from the very beginning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then in Genesis chapter 2 verse 7, as we hear of the first person being brought to life, then the Lord God formed a man, the Adam.

Genesis 2:7

[SPEAKER_00]: from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the rock, the move of God, in a life-breathing breath-windway.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not only that, but later on in the Old Testament we hear about Ezekiel, a prophet of God's, and God gives him a vision of being in a valley, surrounded by dry bones, and through God's instruction and through God's words, Ezekiel, the prophet commands these bones to come together, and form human bodies again.

[SPEAKER_00]: But God doesn't stop it there.

[SPEAKER_00]: He then says to Ezekiel, prophesy to the breath, prophesy son of Ben and say to it, this is what the sovereign Lord says, come breath from the four winds and breathe into these slain that they may live.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I prophesied as He commanded me and breath entered them.

[SPEAKER_00]: They came to life and stood up on their own a vast army.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a number of ways in the Old Testament that we hear of this wind, this breath, this movement of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so when we hear about it, when the Jewish people experienced it in Acts 2, it wasn't necessarily foreign to them in associating wind with a move of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he doesn't just stop there, does he?

[SPEAKER_00]: In Acts chapter 2 verse 3, it says they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

Acts 2:3

[SPEAKER_00]: There are even more examples of God moving in the Old Testament through fire.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, just a couple, I've tried to limited.

[SPEAKER_00]: I could have had so many.

[SPEAKER_00]: Exodus chapter 19.

Exodus 19 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: The people that Israelites, God's chosen nation, they've come out of Egypt, they've been redeemed from slavery.

[SPEAKER_00]: They go through the Red Sea and as they come to Mount Sinai, God meets with Moses and gives him the commandments, gives them the law to help them create a nation for themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it says in verse 17, then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire.

[SPEAKER_00]: The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace and the whole mountain trembled violently.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Israelites again earlier had experienced this idea of God being present through fire when they were going through the desert towards the Promised Land in Exodus 13.

[SPEAKER_00]: By day the Lord went ahead of them as a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light.

[SPEAKER_00]: so that they could travel by day or night.

[SPEAKER_00]: This concept of God being present through wind and through fire was not foreign to the people that it happens to.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, even John the Baptist said, I baptize you with water.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, in Luke 316, but one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of who sandals are not worthy to untie.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not unknown to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not unfamiliar, but Pentecost brings something different.

[SPEAKER_00]: It reminds us of the presence of God, but this is different because it's not just one person experiencing it.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is all who believed being filled with the Holy Spirit, and it doesn't stop there, but it continues on as we read throughout the New Testament, more and more ways that people are filled,

[SPEAKER_00]: What does the Holy Spirit do?

[SPEAKER_00]: The Holy Spirit reminds us that God is present.

[SPEAKER_00]: Acts 2 was not a natural phenomena, was not something the disciples created for themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was the move of God, his very presence, through His Spirit filling the believers.

[SPEAKER_00]: and it inspired them to worship, which is the second point.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are read in Acts 2 at verse 11.

[SPEAKER_00]: All these people were together from all the nations, and they say, we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here they are just worshiping.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've been filled with the Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't even know if they're aware of everyone listening into their little worship session here, but they are worshiping and declaring the wonders of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just like we did this morning, like you are worthy of it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes when we sing and express it, it's these things over and over, that when we're filled with the Spirit,

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember when I was on my beach mission, and I was reminded of God's present, I all I could think was, thank you God, I was so in awe of wonder of what he would be willing to do in me, a 16 year old, in a tiny town, in the western district of Victoria, but he met me there, and all I could say was, thank you, God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I grew up in a church which definitely would not have called itself Pentecostal.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, in actual fact, it was probably quite opposed to Pentecostal expressions of worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look, we believed in the Trinity, but there were definitely different emphasis on different parts of the Trinity.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had God the Father, God the Son,

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, like an idiot, they were our present, but it was very different as to what we would focus on.

[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, when I, in my upbringing, experiencing what I did at that age, my response was, thank you, God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, God, the father that you would love me so much, that this is what would happen to me for this time, just for this day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, what was the Holy Spirit's response to that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is the Holy Spirit going, um, excuse me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, great, but I was the one who filled you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was the one who gave you that power.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was the one who got you out of that comfy chair, like, look at me, look at me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely not, because when the Holy Spirit moves, the Holy Spirit desires for us,

[SPEAKER_00]: to delight in God, in the entirety of God, in who He is, and to turn our eyes always to God, in such a way that we would worship Him and share in the wonders of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Way for me to kind of try and get my head around this is a couple of years before I started working here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I worked at the light, which is a Christian radio station here in Melbourne, and I was the producer of the breakfast show for a couple of years.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now my job was to help the breakfast show be everything that it could possibly be, and to make sure that the hosts on the breakfast show had everything they needed.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was there before they turned up in the morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was there often well after they went home.

[SPEAKER_00]: My name was not on the show.

[SPEAKER_00]: Most listeners didn't even know I existed.

[SPEAKER_00]: But my job was to work super hard to make sure that the hosts had everything they needed so that the show could be the best that it could be.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Holy Spirit is there to help us engage with God in such a way that it helps us be the best worshipers that we can be and it helps us to live our lives the best way that we can.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now the analogy does break down a little bit in the sense that the Holy Spirit is a part of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Scripture we read that the word is actually interchangeable.

[SPEAKER_00]: When it speaks of the Spirit of God, it's the same as the Spirit of Jesus, it's the same as the Holy Spirit, it's the same as this Spirit, those words are interchangeable, they are all amongst each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when we have an experience of the Holy Spirit, he desires for us to turn our eyes, to acknowledge that God is present, and to worship Him with all that we are, and to be in awe and wonder about who God is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because without the Spirit, we are so lacking in our worship and in our life.

[SPEAKER_00]: John's start just says it so incredibly this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible.

[SPEAKER_00]: There can be no life.

[SPEAKER_00]: without the life giver, no understanding without the spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the spirit, no Christ likeness in character apart from his fruit, and no effective witness without his power.

[SPEAKER_00]: As a body without breath is a corpse, so the church without the spirit is dead.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like they are strong words,

[SPEAKER_00]: But they are so true.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are missing out if we are not open to all that the Spirit has for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because God desires for us, Jesus wondered us to have the Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we are open to who the Spirit is and to be filled, then our lives are going to be so much better off.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are going to be reminded of God's presence.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are going to be in awe and wonder of who he is that we can't help but praise and not only that, but it is going to inspire us and motivate us and propel us towards the mission of God and his call on our lives today.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Acts chapter 2 verse 6, it says when they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment because each one heard their own language being spoken.

Acts 2:6

[SPEAKER_00]: This was a change for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was something new.

[SPEAKER_00]: They couldn't believe that they were hearing about the wonders of God in their native town.

[SPEAKER_00]: It went beyond just those that were gathered.

[SPEAKER_00]: It went out into what God says was the nations.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus desired for us to go out into the nations and do the same thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Matthew 28, the great commission.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus came to them and said,

[SPEAKER_00]: all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me before go and make disciples of all nations.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I wonder for those that were there at the time in the first century.

[SPEAKER_00]: The idea of going to all nations, like was that almost a foreign concept for them?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they didn't even have cars, they couldn't even get to the next town quickly.

[SPEAKER_00]: Today, yes, fuel prices are very high, but we have the ability to travel.

[SPEAKER_00]: all around the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, already within this room, people have traveled to different countries, even this year through the amazing wonder of airplanes and flight and what we can do.

[SPEAKER_00]: That we have an understanding of all nations now.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what about back then?

[SPEAKER_00]: Today, was this just so far beyond their comprehension?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, unless you are intrigued, you tended to stay within your own community.

[SPEAKER_00]: Would it be like saying to us today, go forth then, baptizing all in every planet, go forth to the moon and tell people about the wonders of God?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it can be done right.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've just had Artemis too come back for people head out to the moon to get around it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I see it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not like something you and I, the average person would do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not that you're not capable, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure there are some budding astronauts in our midst, but it's almost beyond our comprehension.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, Jesus calls us to this, but he doesn't leave us to do it on our own.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the spirit filling us that gives us the capability to do things that are beyond our comprehension.

[SPEAKER_00]: Romans 8, 11 says, and if the spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your model bodies because of His spirit who lives in you.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the Holy Spirit, that is who we have access to, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead that moved in incredible ways through Pentecost and through all of Scripture that we see, that is who God wants us to be filled with.

[SPEAKER_00]: in order for us to turn our eyes to God, to be amazed at His wonder, to worship Him, and to be propelled forward, to do His mission here on earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: This also is a link to an Old Testament story that the people would have known.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's called the Tower of Babel.

[SPEAKER_00]: You may have heard this one.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is all the way back in Genesis.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've had creation, we've had Adam and Eve and the stories of their family.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've had the flood and Noah's Ark and Noah's family being saved when all else was destroyed because of the evil in their hearts.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the earth is now repopulated and growing, but unfortunately the evil wasn't taken out of the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And people are still filled with evil and greed and selfishness.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we read this story in Genesis 11.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the whole world had one language and a common speech.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then they said, come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we may make a name for,

[SPEAKER_00]: ourselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise we will be scutted over the face of the whole earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord said, if as one people speaking the same language, they have begun to do this, building for themselves, a kingdom for themselves here on earth, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: come let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth and they stopped building the city.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is why it was called Babel because they're the Lord confused the language of the whole world from there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: This story which was a foundational story for the Jews that they knew.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was God confusing the language, because all they were doing was building up not a kingdom of God, not the kingdom of heaven here on earth, but a kingdom for themselves, where they were not trusting in God, they were not relying on His strength or His power, they were doing it for their own good.

[SPEAKER_00]: I even heard one theologians say that this had come just after the flood,

[SPEAKER_00]: And what do they do?

[SPEAKER_00]: They build a tall tower.

[SPEAKER_00]: A tower as tall as they can.

[SPEAKER_00]: And was that so that even if God sent another flood, they would feel protected.

[SPEAKER_00]: They would feel safe that it's not a God's power that's helping them.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they're relying on their own strength and their own power.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet we hear in Acts 2.

[SPEAKER_00]: a reversal of the Tower of Babel.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're now what is God doing, but He is bringing people together under the same language, many languages so that all can know who He is.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that all can hear the Word of God and it has a huge impact.

[SPEAKER_00]: Peter goes on in this passage gives an incredible sermon to explain who Jesus is, he is the Messiah that they had been waiting for, and in verse 41 it says those who accepted his message were baptized and about 3,000 were added to their number that day.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was not their ability to speak in different languages straight away like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was not their ability to be able to communicate such an incredible message about Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was not their ability that allowed 3,000 people to come and be affected and their hearts changed in order to know more about God.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was only through the Spirit of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was only through being filled with the Spirit on this day of Pentecost.

[SPEAKER_00]: That things changed through God's power and God's ability, not our own.

[SPEAKER_00]: Keith Warrington says the Spirit desires to speak more often than we might expect.

[SPEAKER_00]: What may be even more startling is that he wishes to speak through us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our role is to listen for him and then to communicate his message, be it in a church or the office, the home or the school, amongst Christians or not in a declatory mode or as a whisper, to a group or an individual, his desire is to reveal Jesus and our privilege is to be part of the process.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we think about our own power, our own capabilities, you're right, we're not enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have what it takes to make such an incredible change in people's lives and in our world.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we believe in the one who does.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has the power, and he has the desire for each of us to experience the power of the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that our lives may be changed as we turn our eyes to God and we worship Him and that through the Holy Spirit filling us, we may be propelled to go forward,

[SPEAKER_00]: And as they came together, as this new community that came together as the first church, the first new testament church came together, they came and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to do that this morning as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are going to share in communion together, the breaking of bread that the early church did that has been done for thousands of years now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is a way for us to declare that in our lives, we believe Jesus is the Messiah.

[SPEAKER_00]: We believe that he died.

[SPEAKER_00]: We believe that it was his body that was broken and his blood shed on the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we believe when we remember communion that it didn't just stay there, but he rose again from the grave through the spirit of God he was resurrected.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is our desire to live more and more like Jesus every day.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we come forward for communion, that is the commitment you're making, that you believe that Jesus is the one, that Jesus is the Messiah.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they also prayed together.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going to actually provide an opportunity for prayer today as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to, as I pray, I'm going to invite the communion team in the prayer team, maybe you're on the ministry team or you're an elder of our church.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to invite you forward to pray for people as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: Last week we had this opportunity to be prayed, to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: You may not have been here or you may not have had the chance to come forward for prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could come forward for prayer for that after taking the elements.

[SPEAKER_00]: of the communion.

[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe today, it's there is something in your life where you need God's power.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where you feel that you know that you are not enough, that you don't have the power, the resources, the capabilities, might be a broken relationship that you want to speak God's spirit into.

[SPEAKER_00]: It might be a situation at work that you are feeling like you don't have the power or the control to do anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: It might be a breakthrough in finances.

[SPEAKER_00]: It might be something to do with your health or someone else's physical or mental health.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have access to the power of God through the Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when we come together and pray for each other,

[SPEAKER_00]: We can ask for God's spirit to fill us, to change these things that are happening in our lives, and He desires for us to have it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let me pray and then I'll walk us through our communion time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Spirit, we are so thankful that you are not bound to a temple or debt bound to a place or a time.

[SPEAKER_00]: But through Pentecost, you have come here on earth to continue the mission of Jesus, to bring heaven down here on earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so Holy Spirit, as we come to this time of communion and prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: We ask that you will meet each of us exactly where we are at.

[SPEAKER_00]: That we will be filled with your spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that we will know that you are present, that we will be able to worship you in what under an inch truth of how great you truly are.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that we will be spurred on to spread your word and to make God glorified here on earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: We pray this in your mighty name, Amen.