Spirit-Transformed Lives: Part 1

This morning will be in Acts chapter 2 this morning, and I

Acts 2 · chapter mention

would encourage you to turn there to Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

We have a number of verses that we will be reading.

If you're using one of our Bibles there in front of you, it

is found on page 909. Now, this is the first message

in in a short series that we're doing.

This two-part series, Spirit Transformed Lives.

We'll have it today. We'll skip a week.

Next week, we will not be in the series as next week is Father's

Day. So I will bring a message

related to men next week. Women do please still show up.

Hopefully it'll still be a good service for you, for you as

well. But I'll be speaking and

addressing primarily men and next week and then the week

after that on the 22nd, we'll finish up this short series.

Now, today's a special day. Many of you probably are not

aware of that, but some of you probably are aware that's today

is what we call Pentecost Sunday.

Pentecost Sunday is a day set aside to remember the life

changing events that happened on Pentecost Sunday in Scripture.

So here, as we begin our message, we're going to look at

a promised future. There was a future that had been

promised to those in the Old Testament as well as to those

who were followers of Jesus. Some seven weeks before this

moment, Jesus had been crucified and and risen from the grave,

and Acts tells us that he spent much of the 40 days following

his resurrection speaking about and telling people about the

Kingdom of God. Of course, we've just spent a

couple weeks talking about life in the Kingdom of God, life

living under God's rule and reign.

So this is what Jesus was doing and he told his disciples, he,

he said, he told his disciples not to depart from Jerusalem,

but to wait for the Holy Spirit, which he said they would receive

not many days from now. Their response to Jesus was to

ask questions about the Kingdom. Jesus are are you now going to

restore the Kingdom to Israel? You have to imagine that the

disciples were fired up. They were excited.

They're ready to storm the world to tell everyone about the

Messiah that had come, perhaps even to take on Rome.

The grave couldn't hold their leader down.

Surely Rome would be no match for him.

They were ready to take over the world and to set up the earthly

Kingdom. Jesus response to them was that,

well, this information is on a need to know basis and and you

don't really need to know what my father has planned and and my

father, he has all authority and he'll do as he desires and in

his timing, Jesus says, here's what you do need to know though

here's here's the important thing.

Acts 18 Acts 18 says 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. Then after Jesus said these

things, he ascended from the Mount of Olives straight up into

heaven. Then immediately a couple men in

white robes appeared to them, asked why they were staring into

heaven. Like, like you just saw Jesus go

into heaven, You know, like I think you would be, it would be

understood why you would be staring into heaven, right?

But they're asking, it's probably more like, hey, OK, now

do what you're supposed to do. So why are you staring into

heaven? And they informed and then

informed them that Jesus would be coming back in the same way

that he went. So the disciples, they

immediately after they stopped staring into heaven, they

immediately returned back into the city.

As they arrived back to Jerusalem, they started to piece

things together. OK, Judas is dead now.

So we're out one guy and and we need to replace him with someone

else. So they cast lots, which is kind

of like a, a Holy Spirit's controlled version of throwing

dice. They throw the dice, they cast

the lots, and it lands on Mattias.

And it's important to say that this is the last time in

Scripture that we see lots cast. You know, before this moment,

the Holy Spirit moved through this casting of lots.

But everything changes on this day.

So it's the last time this happens.

About a week later, people start pouring into Jerusalem from all

over the world. They were there to celebrate

Shavuot, which is Pentecost. Shavuot was was a feast.

It was also known as the Feast of Weeks.

Now this was one of three main festivals each year that

required able bodied Jewish men to travel to Jerusalem to offer

sacrifices and offerings on behalf of their families.

The purpose of this feast was to celebrate both the the early

spring harvest, the the first fruits that they had brought in,

as well as to remember the giving of the Torah to Moses on

Mount Sinai. The day of Pentecost itself was

special to the Jews as it was a tradition that they'd known

about for 1400 years. They've been practicing this

thing, well, say for, you know, some time in exile, but they've

been practicing this thing they knew about Pentecost.

So Pentecost is a Greek word meaning 50th.

So it literally refers to the 50th day after Passover.

Passover of course coincides with with our Easter season,

Jesus resurrection. Jews who had been dispersed all

throughout the Middle East, Asia and Europe had all come to

Jerusalem. They were all gathered together

in this place on the day of Pentecost.

So here we are 50 days after Jesus death, some 10 days after

Jesus ascension into heaven. So if you're able, would you

stand as we read from Acts chapter 2?

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Acts 2 verses one through 13. When the day of Pentecost

arrived, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there

came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it

filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided

tongues as the fire appeared to them and rested on each one of

them. And they were all filled with

the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues as the

Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in

Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven, and

at this sound the multitude came together, and they were

bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own

language. And they were amazed and

astonished, saying, Are not all these who are speaking

Galileans? And how is it that we hear each

of us in his own native language?

Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of

Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontius and Asia,

Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to

Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,

Cretans and Arabians. 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?

The others mocking said, They are filled with new wine.

You may be seated. So this moment is the is the

fulfillment of the promise that Jesus had made to them.

This is the promise fulfilled. When Jesus said they would

receive the spirit not many days from now, he meant it.

He said you'll receive the Spirit not many days from now.

And so here, just a few days later, they've received the

spirits. Jesus had told them he would

send the Spirit through the Father and it would bear witness

about Jesus and would lead them into truth.

And this may have helped them understand a little bit about

the Spirit, but something tells me they really weren't prepared

to to receive what was about to happen.

Would they perform miracles? Would they be turned into mighty

warriors like David or or Samson?

How do you prepare for this moment when the Holy Spirit is

going to come upon you? The Holy Spirit had fallen on

them as tongues of fire, so now they were indwelt by the Holy

Spirit. I suspect that some of you,

maybe most of you are like I was and are baffled by the the fire

sitting above each of these followers of Christ.

Well, you see what's happening here is this is a type of

hyperlink, if you will. When you're online, you're

reading an article or an e-mail and the text pops up often in

blue or some other way to make it stand out.

That is a sign that, hey, you can click this link and it'll

take you somewhere else. This has been written about

somewhere else, so you can go to that.

Well, this moment is a sort of hyperlink.

It's something, hey, this is happening now, but hey, this

thing, things like this have happened before.

So the fire appears above each person.

And as it does, it should draw your attention to stuff that

you've already read in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old

Testament. This fire is God's presence.

It's God's presence now. It's unfortunate, but for many

Christians, many Christians today have a nearly exclusive

focus on the New Testament because we're now, quote UN

quote, living under grace. And this is true that we are

living under grace. But this perspective can lead to

a bit of biblical illiteracy. Throw in some psalms and some

proverbs into your daily devotions and you call it good

rights. That's how so many Christians

today live. Meanwhile, they're ignorant of

what the first nearly 3/4 of the Bible has in it.

Allow me to explain some things to you, or actually to remind

you of some things that you probably already know, but

perhaps help you see some connections between them.

There were various instances in the Old Testament where fire

played a major role. When God called Moses, he, he

came to Moses in a fiery Bush and the Bush isn't consumed and

and God tells Moses that has as he's in God's presence, he tells

Moses to remove his shoes because he's in God's presence.

Then on Mount Sinai, when God made the covenant with Israel

and he and He gave them the law, there was a firestorm over the

mountain, a symbol again of God's presence.

When the Tabernacle was completed, God's glory came down

in a pill of pillar of fire, and it rested there and filled it.

And then at night what would happen?

The pillar of fire would rest over the Tabernacle.

In Second Chronicles 7, as the temple was being dedicated, fire

came down and it consumed the offerings and sacrifices.

Again, God's presence was being revealed in this place.

When we remind ourselves of the fiery moments in Scripture, and

there were actually more than even that, then it becomes

apparent that God's personal temple presence had our had

arrived on the day of Pentecost. Each follower of Jesus was now a

new temple of Jesus. They were mobile temples, if you

will, taking God's presence with them wherever they went.

So that's what the fire is that we see.

It's a sign of God's presence. Now here in verses 5 through 11,

we see God's power demonstrated, God's power demonstrated in this

moment. Now, I'd like to think I have a

natural penchant for languages. That's not to say that I'm

multilingual, but some things related to language come

somewhat naturally for me. For example, I spent a bit of

time studying Spanish. There were the three years in

high school. There was my first job at Taco

Bell. I actually did learn some

Spanish, a good amount of Spanish at Taco Bell.

That is not to say that all the Spanish I learned at Taco Bell

was good. Then I took several semesters in

college and numerous mission trips to Mexico.

I even thought I was going to minor in Spanish.

And then I had a friend who was, I don't remember if she was

majoring or minoring in Spanish. I think she was minoring in

Spanish. And she invited me to attend

Spanish Lit class. I went to Spanish Lit class and

I immediately heard from the Lord I am not supposed to minor

in Spanish. Spanish Lit is just like English

Lit except it's in Spanish. I was not signing up for that,

and then in college I had the opportunity to sing in Spanish,

French, German, Russian, Latin, a little bit of English, except

for the Russian. I could piece together some

things because of the Latin base of the Romantic languages.

I can kind of make out some of what it was trying to say.

I found that I just naturally pick up some things that are

related to language, some of its intuition and just kind of

putting pieces together, have a natural gift for language.

But what I don't have, I don't have the gift of tongues.

These people here on this day of Pentecost, they are speaking a

new to them language. And I should have, should have

added that those words to them, they're on your note sheet.

They're speaking a new to them language.

These people here on the day of Pentecost, they hadn't spent

time studying a language like like I had done.

No, they just showed up and in an instant, suddenly they start

speaking another language they've not studied before.

Now, over the years there has been a a lot of discussion as to

what these tongues are. Are these languages or is it

some sort of ecstatic speech in an unintelligible language?

There's no doubt Scripture has actual languages in mind here.

Looking at verses 7 and 8, and they were amazed and astonished

saying, are not all these who are speaking Galileans?

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

language? Seemingly the whole world had

shown up for this moment. Oh my goodness, that doesn't

look as good as it did on my computer.

You can kind of see the world. Huh?

I thought the map was really way darker than that, but I think

you get the idea. You have Italy, Rome way up

there in the left. You have the Middle East and

Asia, more on the right, of course, Africa down there.

So this is basically the known world right here.

Literally people from all of the known continents at that time

had come to Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit was poured out

on these people and suddenly there's no language distinction.

Each person, no matter where he's from, is able to understand

what's being said. They all had different native

tongues, but now with the gift of tongues, the Holy Spirit is

empowering people to speak a different language.

They're saying, aren't these Galileans who are speaking?

How is it that I can understand what they're saying?

They're Galileans, they speak Aramaic.

I don't speak Aramaic. This was truly the power of God

is each person proclaimed the mighty works of God.

Verses 12 and 13 all were amazed and perplexed saying to one

another, what does this mean? The others mocking said they are

filled with new wine. So here we have the people

amazed. The people were amazed.

Everyone was amazed. Whether it was the follower of

Christ or the person who didn't believe in Jesus as the Messiah

that was foretold. Everybody found themselves

wondering what's what was the purpose of this event?

What did it mean? What's going on?

Why this loud sound like like a storm?

Why tongues of fire? Why the speaking in other

languages? Why did all these things happen?

And were these people drunk? If we look at verses 14 through

16, we see there, we see Peter's response.

But Peter, standing with the 11, lifted up his voice and address

them. Men of Judea and all who dwell

in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words.

For these people are not drunk as you suppose.

Since it is only the third hour of the day.

He's saying, hey, it's only 9:00 AM.

These people are certainly not drunk.

Then verse 16. But this is what was uttered

through the prophet Joel. Peter was about to give them a

history lesson. This moment had been foretold.

Technically they knew this because they were well versed.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, to be a Jew was to daily be in the

Hebrew Scriptures and to commit large sections of it to memory.

So here Peter is about to deliver what I believe is the

second most famous sermon in all of Scripture.

I would say the first, first most famous sermon in Scripture

is the Sermon on the Mount, I would think.

But here's the second most famous sermon in all of

Scripture. Peter empowered and now filled

by the Holy Spirit, he got up and reminded them that the

prophet Joel. He spoke about this moment, and

he proceeded to quote Joel 2. Looking at the screen, Joel 228

through 32 reads. And it shall come to pass

afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophecy.

Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see

visions even on the male and female servants.

In those days I will pour out my spirits, and I will show wonders

in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of

smoke. The sun shall be turned to

darkness and the moon to blood before the great and awesome day

of the Lord comes. And this shall come to pass,

that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

This is Joel 2. And Peter stands up.

And he quotes this nearly verbatim in his sermon.

He reminded the people, using a bit of apocalyptic imagery as

well, that this is the moment they've been waiting for.

They've been promised the Holy Spirit the the opportunity to be

witnesses to God's supernatural working.

This supernatural working, he says, was done through the

person of Jesus, who Peter goes on to say, perform miracles

among them. He was crucified and then raised

up because even death couldn't hold him down.

All this that the people had witnessed served to point them

to the Messiah, to Jesus. But this still begs the

question, what was the actual purpose of this occasion in the

speaking in tongues? Was the purpose simply to point

to Jesus or was there something even bigger going on?

Well, the followers of Jesus we're now empowered for a

purpose. There was an even greater

purpose here. Pointing to Jesus was only the

beginning. Once the Spirit indwelt people,

it would begin to change them and transform them in ways that

they hadn't expected. This was the beginning of what

we now call the church age. You see, before this moment, the

church proper didn't exist until here at approximately 30 AD.

And I know if you're doing math, you're like, hold on, shouldn't

it be like 33 AD? Yes, I know there's a bunch of

things with calendars. So they think Jesus was actually

born before 0. So that means with the calendar

things that it was probably around 30 AD when he died.

So this was a radically new thing, a new way for them to

live. In the Old Testament, the Holy

Spirit would descend on someone and would empower them for a

specific moment or purpose or calling.

It could be to lead people, it could be to do something

miraculous, to defeat an enemy, or even to play music as in the

case of David before King Saul. But the feeling of the Spirit

was something that was temporary.

The Holy Spirit would descend on someone for a purpose, and then

when the Spirit was done, the Spirit would remove himself from

that person. Thus David prayed in Psalm 51.

After he has confessed his sin to God, he prays, Take not your

Holy Spirit from me. But now everything has changed.

Everything has changed here. People are now in dwelt in a

permanent manner. They are permanently in dwelt by

the spirits and they are filled temporarily.

I understand that these things can be confusing, so I want to

help bring some clarity to the difference between the

indwelling of the Spirit and the filling of the Spirit.

The indwelling of the Spirit is what happened at Pentecost as

the Spirit came down on them in a permanent manner.

The filling of the Spirit is what happens when we're living

life according to the spirits. The indwelling of the Spirit is

what happens at the moment of salvation, at the point when we

make a decision to place our trust in Jesus.

You see, there's no subsequent baptism of the Spirit, as some

would call it. We don't place our faith in

Jesus and then seek out a special supernatural event or

moments where the Spirit comes into us.

No, the Spirit immediately indwells the heart of the

believing person. Being filled by the Spirit is is

what happens actually in our day-to-day walk with God.

Galatians 525 says if we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in

step with the Spirit. This is the filling of the

Spirit, our hearts and lives surrendered to His will.

Unfortunately, unlike the indwelling of the Spirit, the

filling of the Spirit is a temporary thing.

We go back and forth between moments of living in the flesh

and moments of living in or being filled by the Spirit.

So the task ahead of us as followers of crisis to make sure

that the moments in the flesh are much more rare and short,

and that the moments in the spirits are more persistent and

common. We want to make sure that that

we're continually trying to live in the spirits, persisting in

the spirit and the moments in the flesh much more rare.

God's people all all over the world who had receive the

indwelling Spirit are now called the church.

The church didn't exist prior to this moment, but with the Holy

Spirit's permanent and dwelling presence, each of us now takes

His presence everywhere we go. So Pentecost was the dawning of

a new era, but there was also another purpose that it served.

The gift of tongues on Pentecost ultimately served as a symbol of

unity. It was a symbol of unity first

of all. Immediately speaking, people

from all sorts of backgrounds had received the same Spirit.

Regardless of whether they were Jews or or converts, they all

received the Spirit. Verses 9 through 11 told us

Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans, as well

as people from Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia,

Pamphylia, Egypt, Cyrene, Rome, Crete in Arabia all received the

spirits. You saw the map a few minutes

ago. People from essentially all over

the world. Now, I can't overstate how much

some of these different groups of people disliked each other.

It's astounding that all these people, first of all, all these

people are all gathered together in one place.

It really was the work of God in them all coming together in one

place. But but then this moment is

going to serve as the blueprint as the church spreads.

Something similar to the Day of Pentecost happened three other

times in the book of Acts in chapters 810 and 19.

Now, why would God do this? Why not just say, OK, hey, this

moment on the day of Pentecost suffices.

This is the beginning of the church.

Why would he replicate this moment a few other times and

make sure that it's recorded for us in Scripture?

Well, the Pentecost experience of speaking in tongues was

replicated at each of these moments, and it's served to

authenticate the expansion of the early church.

In chapter 8, the Holy Spirit fell on a group of Samaritans,

and we're quite familiar with the feud between the Jews and

the Samaritans. In fact, this is enshrined on

our hearts through the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Good

Samaritan being the one, the hero of the day, which was

completely unexpected to save this Jew.

These two groups despised each other.

But chapter 8 told tells us that the Samaritans had hands laid on

them and then they received the Holy Spirit.

Now, the text doesn't explicitly say that they spoke in tongues,

but it's widely believed among theologians that they too spoke

in tongues when they received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And this gift served to demonstrate that they, too,

Samaritans, were part of this new movement of Jesus followers.

You can imagine these Jews who had received the Holy Spirit.

Oh, hey, we're Jews, and we've just taken this next step of

placing our faith in the Messiah.

So we've received the Spirit, but oh, the Samaritans, we're

not as inclined to believe that they're part of this movement

that we're in. Oh, but hold on.

The supernatural thing that happened to us just happened to

them. It must be the Holy Spirit

working in them. There's always been room at the

table for the foreigner. Always.

God was always making provision in the law for the foreigner to

join them. But now, Now God's Kingdom is

going to look drastically different.

The Kingdom had started with the Jews, but that was only the

beginning of God's design, as the light of God spread like

wildfire among the Gentiles. Sure, they're different.

Sure, they speak a different language.

They have some different customs.

Maybe they'd like to have some bacon once in a while.

That was a joke. Thank you.

But no. This speaking in tongues, this

this moment when the Holy Spirit comes on to them serves to

authenticate that they truly are believers in Jesus Christ and

part of the universal Church. So as we close and consider the

final aspects of Pentecost purpose, we revisit Jesus last

words in the Gospel of Matthew. He'd been resurrected and told

his disciples to meet him at a specific mountain up in Galilee.

And there he said these famous words that you're well familiar

with. Would you read these two slides

out loud with me? All authority in heaven and on

earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make

disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of

the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching

them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am

with you always to the end of the age.

This, of course, is the Great Commission.

Jesus had given his followers this awesome task.

Go and tell all the nations about him.

How in the world were these largely uneducated men from

Galilee supposed to accomplish the Great Commission?

Would it simply be telling people all that Jesus had told

them? No, that's not the full extent

of it. And that brings us back to where

we started in Acts 18. You will receive power when the

Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.

Jesus says you'll be my witnesses here in Jerusalem,

around Jerusalem and Judea, and then even in Samaria.

Yes, they are too. And to the end of the earth.

The first half of Luke's writing the Gospel of Luke closed with

Jesus saying, I'm sending the promise of the Father upon you.

But stay in the city until you are clothed with power.

Stay there until you're clothed with power from on high.

The power Jesus promised at the end of Luke's gospel is the same

power Luke immediately picks up on in his second book, the book

of Acts. You will receive power.

Jesus was saying. I'm not leaving you hanging out

to dry to try and accomplish this task on your own.

No, I'm giving you all the power you'll need to make all corners

of the earth hearing about me a reality.

They were imbued with power from on high.

We are imbued with that very same power.

The task ahead of us is great, but the power working in us to

make it happen is even greater. That's the importance of

Pentecost. This morning as we close out my

message, I told you we would be using this prayer on the back of

the sermon note sheet. And I understand it may be a

little different for for some of you to use a scripted prayer,

but I love to incorporate scripted prayers into my own

personal time of devotion. Sometimes someone else is able

to say something in a way that they just say it better than I

than I could. So I'd love to use scripted

prayers occasionally. So we're going to pray this all

out loud together. So would you pray this with me?

Almighty God, I thank you for the presence of the Holy Spirit

in my life. I know that the Spirit is always

present, always working, but the stresses and struggles of life

can mean that I don't recognize the Spirit.

I may even close myself off from the Spirit's work.

But still, in Your grace, You promised that the Spirit is

given to me, a testimony to the covenant you made with me.

I pray that you renew me in my faith with the power of Your

Spirit. Send the power of the Spirit

over me. In faith, I open myself to the

Spirit's work in my life. O Holy Spirit, work through me.

Guide me into all truth. Lead me deeper in faith, inspire

my prayers and work forcefully through those prayers and

stretch me beyond my comforts to the places of ministry and

witness. Come Holy Spirit's come, fill me

anew, set me a fire, breathe in me and work through me.

Amen.