Acts 2:1-47 | Heaven's View

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Please take your Bibles with me to Acts chapter two.

And you will have to forgive me for the fly that won't seem to leave the pulpit alone.

So if I'm distracted, now you know why.

Acts chapter two.

Because Acts is an historical book that allows for deeper investigation and application, we will occasionally pause our study of the book of Acts to investigate some related themes and related concepts and doctrines.

And this is one of those times.

Anton has walked us all the way through chapter two over the last couple of weeks.

He didn't do it in great depth.

He told us that would take about six hours just for one sermon, if I remember right.

So we we saw the whole thing in two different sections.

But this morning I want us to step back even further and to look at Acts chapter 2 more broadly, asking questions about why this chapter is even in your Bible.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

I'm convinced that one of the critical problems of modern Christianity is the inability to see things from God's perspective.

We naturally focus on ourselves, don't we?

We focus on ourselves, we focus on our world, on what's in front of us, we schedule out our week ahead, we plan for what's going to be happening in our lives, and God's thoughts are far distant and too often very vague to our way of thinking.

And so we we sort of disassociate from God's way of thinking.

It takes work, it takes effort to think God's thoughts after Him.

I think Acts 2 is an example of that kind of struggle to see things from heaven's perspective.

We read the history here in this chapter of the coming of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Spirit, the resulting ministry of the disciples, the conversion of thousands of people.

All as part of the church's mission, right?

The fulfillment of Acts chapter 1, verse 8, where Jesus said, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and you will be my witnesses, beginning in Jerusalem.

Acts 1:8

And then we begin to view that personally, or maybe even as a church, because we hear it through the lens of the church's mission.

So our questions become individualistic, like, well, have I been baptized with the Holy Spirit?

Should I be speaking with different languages?

Or are we really doing our part of the mission?

Maybe even we ask from the end of chapter two, should we be sharing our money and our possessions just like the Church of Acts too?

Now it's not wrong to ask those kinds of questions.

But as with all of Scripture, we need to be able to arrive at the proper application.

But how do we do that?

Well, the first step is to ask what the author of Acts was doing by including this chapter.

In other words, why did he put it here?

Why did Luke record these events?

Anton gave us part of the answer over the last two Sundays.

Luke recounts a significant transition from one stage of God's program to another stage of God's program.

So Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection inaugurated a new covenant ratified by his blood.

Did I get that right, Anton?

All right, praise God.

I was listening.

So the mark of that new covenant is God's powerful creative work in making people new creations through the indwelling of his spirit in them.

So at the most basic level, Acts 2 is Luke's way of showing us that what Jesus declared to his disciples when they were eating that last supper in the upper room, what he said about the new covenant in his blood has come to fruition.

It's happened.

Jesus' word is fulfilled.

So from this point onward in Acts, the old covenant is passed, the new covenant is here.

And people become a part of that new covenant by faith in Jesus.

That faith is then displayed through repentance and baptism.

And that that picture of something like flames of fire.

You gotta rid yourself of that old Sunday school flannel graph picture.

I'm sorry, you flannel graph teachers, of the of the flames of fire on top of everybody's heads.

You gotta get rid of that.

Luke says it's like that.

Something like that.

And what he means is this is something unusual that's happening.

And when you tie it together with all of the instances of Scripture, what we find is that something like the flame of fire indicates God is here.

God's presence is indicated by fire.

The flames of fire are Luke's way of confirming John the Baptist's announcement that Jesus would baptize his followers with fire.

That old covenant sign of God's presence.

But that's the most basic level.

We're fulfilling what Jesus said.

There's another level that we should be aware of when we ask what Luke is doing.

And that is that Luke is establishing this new group of Jesus followers firmly in God's work.

The church's founding and its historical background in time and space on this planet are forever grounded in the coming of God's Spirit to indwell his people.

In other words, this isn't some chance set of circumstances from which a radical or fanatic group evolved.

It didn't just happen.

Not at all.

Luke is legitimizing the church.

This early group of Jesus followers is not some vague, unknown set of fanatical kind of people who want to do something new.

No, they're connected with a very well-known group of people, the Jewish people.

They're connected with the Jewish faith.

And yet, out of that, God moves them to be distinct from that faith because of the new covenant in Jesus and the Spirit's residence in his people.

That's a second level of what Luke is doing.

Now, this morning, I want us to consider a third level of Luke's intent.

A level of his intent that supersedes all of the others.

So I want you to think of this of the umbrella over all of the book of Acts.

What is Luke doing?

Yes, Luke shows us how the gospel went from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth through the mission activity of the disciples.

He shows us that.

But why did that happen?

Yes, we should participate in that mission.

Individually and as a church.

Why?

What should we do about that?

Yes, the church exploded, it says in the last, in the last chapter, last section of this chapter.

It exploded in those early days, growing by the thousands.

Why?

Why?

Yes, the church is established and legitimized as a new group marked by faith in Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Why?

Why, why, why?

Friends, always ask why about your Bible, trusting that God gives you answers.

It will open up a new world of understanding Scripture for you.

Now the answer to these why questions is found in what Luke is doing in the book of Acts.

Luke records the Acts of God from heaven's view.

And Luke does this by grounding the Pentecost events in God's intent for his creation.

In other words, when we read Acts chapter 2, we should not simply have our minds wrapped around a single day in church history or maybe a period of a month in which the church is exploding by the thousands.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

We need to have our minds expanded to incorporate all of Scripture.

We must grasp that the church's mission, that our evangelism, and the growth of the church, all explored in Acts 2, result from God acting.

Acting in his creation to fulfill his intent for his world.

Now, what does that mean for us?

It means that Luke wants us to see what God did so that we might trust all that God is doing and participate in God's acts through faithful obedience.

God wants to tie our faithful obedience to what he is doing right now.

And what he is doing right now is tied to what he has intended for all of creation from the very beginning.

That's all introduction.

Let's get to it.

How do we see this?

How do we see that what Luke is doing here is tied to all of Scripture?

Well, you're gonna have to think theologically with me about all of Scripture.

Hopefully, we can walk through this together.

We can see this through multiple connections to the biblical story, but we have to begin before the beginning.

Before the foundations of the world.

And when we begin there, we find that Luke is reminding us that the world exists to glorify God.

And it exists to glorify God through particular means, through witness, through trust in him, and through faithful obedience.

You might be familiar with Isaiah 43.

Hopefully, after this morning, you're familiar with where Isaiah is in your Bible.

Later on, you can look at Isaiah 43, verse 7, where God speaks about people, human beings, being made for his glory.

Isaiah 43:7

That means that when we read of the creation account in Genesis chapter 1, we need to understand that God intended everything and everyone to magnify his greatness.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

That was his intent.

God created man and woman in and as his image.

At the very least, that means that something about us is like God and designed to represent him.

Now the language in Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2 presents Adam and Eve as rulers of God's creation.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

For example, Genesis chapter 1 and verse 28, God said, Let them subdue the earth and have dominion over it.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

That's a rule.

But they are not the ultimate rulers, are they?

God is.

God has made human beings to be like him in some sense and to represent him in his creation, ruling over it, subduing it, so that God might be in his creation and be represented by his creation through faithful, obedient witnesses.

Adam and Eve were eyewitnesses of God's glory, of his majesty and his grace.

And God called them in the midst of that very good and perfect garden to trust him.

He said that if they ate of the tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, their purity would vanish.

And death would begin to consume them and all of creation.

Not only that, they would be removed from God's presence.

You see, they were called to trust in God's goodness.

They were ignorant.

They didn't know about the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

That was part of Satan's ploy, wasn't it?

Oh no, you don't understand.

When the day that you eat of it, you will know.

There are things God hasn't told you yet.

I think you need to know.

God gave them fatherly direction, knowing what was good, but they had to trust that his word was good.

They had to trust that his purpose and his plan for all of his creation was for their good.

They needed to submit to God's rule over their creation.

They were not independent images, they were witnesses for the creator God who were called to trust him.

And that trust was to be displayed through faithful obedience.

We know how it turned out, right?

Adam and Eve ate the fruit.

They were driven out of the garden when they failed to witness properly to God's glory, majesty, and grace.

Because they refused to trust and follow him in faithful obedience.

Did you know we see that same pattern a few chapters later in Genesis chapter 11?

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

This is the famous, or perhaps better, infamous, babbling account.

Think through what happened at the Tower of Babel.

As the people on earth increased, Genesis 11, verse 2 says that they migrated from the east.

Genesis 11:2

They went east from Eden and they found plain, a large, broad place of land in the land of Shinar, and they settled there.

So far, so good.

This group is representative of all of humanity.

The author of Genesis presents the account as though all the people were there.

They built a city, and within the city they constructed a tower that we archaeologists call them ziggurats today.

A tower that they hoped would reach up to heaven, sort of to be a place where the gods could come down and meet with man.

Why would they do that?

Well, they engaged in the construction process, Genesis 11 4 tells us, because they wanted to make a name for themselves.

And so that they wouldn't be scattered.

They said, let's make a name for ourselves, let's make a place for ourselves so that we're not dispersed over the face of the whole earth.

Now that sounds okay in a simple read-through.

However, the author of Genesis is making a point.

God told his image-bearing, witnessing rulers to fill and subdue the earth by exercising ordained dominion over the creation.

God gave that command in Genesis 128.

Fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion.

And he repeated it again in Genesis chapter 9, verse 1, to Noah after the flood.

Genesis 9:1

God's intent for his creation was to be filled with witness image bearers.

God made a world designed for a single purpose: to magnify the Creator's majesty, glory, and grace.

But that plan came with intents.

His image bearers would gradually, as they increased, fill the earth to represent in themselves and through them his glory, greatness, and grace.

So the creation mandate was to trust God's goodness, to trust his word, to trust his command, and to walk in faithful obedience until the ends of the earth were filled with his glory through the faithful witness and rule of his image-bearers.

But Adam and Eve refused to trust God's goodness.

Years later, at Babel, all of humanity refused to obey God's creation mandate, to bear witness to him through faithful, obedient dominion to the ends of the earth.

In fact, it says they feared obedience.

God's command was to scatter, to keep on going until you reach the ends of the earth.

They didn't want to be dispersed.

They said, no, we want to stay together for our own safety, for our own protection.

But God's purpose will not be undone.

He forced them to disperse by instantly creating multiple languages.

And so that the text says in verse 9 of chapter 11 of Genesis, from there the Lord dispersed them, guess what?

Over all the face of the earth.

God's creation mandate will not go unfulfilled.

So in a short period, multiple linguistic groups formed nations of people comprised of image bearers who refused to bear witness to the glory, majesty, and grace of the mighty creator.

Do you see the inherent problems with the world in Genesis 11?

God's image bearers had become unholy.

With no one doing good, no one seeking after God.

They had altogether become corrupt.

Oh, they were filling the earth now at God's forceful work.

They were filling the earth with their wickedness.

The sin problem is no longer confined to Adam and Eve.

All people are now earning the wages of sin.

Therefore, the only way to fulfill God's purpose for his creation is for God to rescue.

His image-bearers from their slavery to sin.

The created images required recreation and empowerment to serve as witnesses of his glory, majesty, and grace.

God intended holy image-bearing witnesses to take his glory to the ends of the earth as they scattered.

But now the image-bearers are scattered over the earth, unable to even speak with one another.

The nations who spoke different languages now needemption.

So Luke wants us to remember that God has always intended this.

From the very beginning.

From before the beginning.

God intended to have a world of witnessing image bearers who, because of how he's made them, automatically reflect his glory and grace.

Consequently, God always intended to redeem those language groups who departed from their image-bearing responsibilities.

So God always intended for the scattered nations to be redeemed.

So what does he do?

He calls somebody out of those nations, Abraham.

And he says, Through you all the nations will be blessed.

We see God's program continuing.

Psalm 98, verse 3, one of many psalms, speaks of the ends of the earth seeing God's salvation.

Psalms 98:3

The prophets repeatedly spoke of God redeeming the ends of the earth, as we heard in our reading from Isaiah this morning.

So Luke speaks the language of fulfillment.

Luke and his history shout, God is keeping his word.

We can't miss that.

Because as we see, secondly, Luke is reminding us that God's intentions for his creation will be fulfilled.

You don't step in front of God and say, uh-uh, not gonna happen.

No, Luke says it is happening.

What God planned from the beginning, it's here, it's now.

You see, God isn't a person with good intentions who never has follow-through.

We know that from Scripture itself.

God said in Numbers chapter 23, verse 19, God is not a human being.

Numbers 23:19

He's not not a man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change his mind.

No.

Has he said, and will he not do it?

It's a rhetorical question.

Has God said something that he won't bring to pass?

No.

Has God spoken about something and never be able to fulfill it?

No.

God does what he says.

In contrast, false gods are those kinds of things that might be said to have good intentions, but who never follow through.

And so God compared himself, or actually contrasted himself, with those false gods in Isaiah 46.

He says, Remember this and stand firm.

Recall it and bring it to mind, you transgressors, you image-bearers who refuse to follow through.

Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other.

I am God and there is none like me.

Okay, so who is this God that's speaking?

He says, I'm not like any of the other gods that you you might hear about.

I'm different.

How is he different?

He goes on to say, I declare the end from the beginning.

What that means is when he starts at the beginning, the end is already determined.

It doesn't matter about the time gap in between.

And from ancient times, things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.

I have spoken, I will bring it to pass.

I've purposed, and I will do it.

God will fulfill his intended purpose for his creation, regardless of how impossible it might seem.

And at the end of Genesis 11, it feels pretty impossible.

How will God fill his earth with image-bearing witnesses when they can't even communicate with one another anymore?

God will fulfill his intended purpose.

And most importantly, for Luke, God said how he would do it.

He told us how.

You see, God promised through the prophet Jeremiah that he would perform heart transplants by removing dead hearts of stone with hearts and replacing them with hearts of flesh that would respond to him and his word.

God said through the prophet Ezekiel how that would happen.

He says that his spirit would come and perform a recreative work and bring new life.

And he pictures it like a valley of dead bones, of dry bones.

And Ezekiel sees them coming together and back to life.

Through Isaiah, God said that he himself would come as a suffering servant to ensure that God's saving work would go to all the nations, even to the ends of the earth.

And God promised that his servant, the Messiah, would suffer, he would be put to death for the curse of sin of those evil image bearers, that he would be buried and that he would rise again as the first fruits of God's mighty work to have his world filled with witnessing image bearers.

And as Luke specifically points out in Peter's sermon, God promised that that would all happen one day through his spirit coming, recreating the hearts of people, redeeming them by the blood of the Lamb, so that they would declare the wonders of God to the language groups of the world.

On a day that God just happened to bring people from the four corners of the world all together in one place.

Just by chance.

No, friends.

This is what God is doing.

He's determined the end from the beginning, he's purpose, and he will bring it to pass.

He knows exactly how to bring it to pass.

Notice what Peter said in Acts 2, verse 23.

Acts 2:23

This Jesus, the complete and perfect image of God, the exact representation, Paul calls him.

This Jesus displayed God's glory, majesty, and grace with mighty works and wonders and signs.

But this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.

Peter's sermon here on shows us that Pentecost is not first and foremost about the Holy Spirit.

It's not about people coming to Christ.

It's not about people speaking different languages.

It's about God's definite fulfillment of his definite plan.

That plan, that intention of God was foreknown.

It was no surprise.

God intended to come in human form, to die on a cross, to be buried, and to rise again.

That plan was definite, it was determined, it was set in place, it was fixed.

God had a plan for his world and a plan to bring about that plan to fruition.

God knows what he's doing.

God planned to redeem his rebellious image bearers.

Because he intended to fill his world with witnessing image bearers who rule over his creation with faithful obedience, reflecting his glory, majesty, and grace.

We see that plan in other ways.

There's the Holy Spirit being the promise of the Father.

He promised to send his Spirit to live in his recreated people and to empower them to fulfill his purpose.

In fact, Peter's sermon in Acts 2 is all about fulfillment.

We see that in at least three ways.

He proclaims the fulfillment of God's intent and the coming of the Spirit to bear witness to God's great works.

What do they hear?

They were amazed and astonished in chapter 2, verse 7 of Acts.

Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?

In other words, these are people who are not just Jewish and they speak Hebrew.

They might know some Aramaic, they might know some Greek.

But no, they have a particular dialect that comes from that place.

You know, we all have different dialects even within the English-speaking world.

They have a very specific dialect.

How is it then that I'm hearing them speak in my own home dialect and language?

How is it that we hear verse 8, each of us in his own native languages, verse 11, telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God?

Let me just pause right there and read for you a section of Psalm 145.

Remember that I said that I was basing part of my prayer off of that, and that we would conclude with that?

Well, guess what?

We're going to go there in the middle of it too.

They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness.

They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds.

Listen to Acts 2, verse 11.

Acts 2:11

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

Do you not think that God planned that?

He's fulfilling it.

He's fulfilling that with the coming of the Spirit to enable that.

Peter also tells us that he's showing us that the fulfillment of God's intention in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

He shows the fulfillment of God's purpose to have witnessing image-bearers around the world by having God-fearing Jewish people who have been scattered around the globe.

The areas that he represents in verses 9 and 10, the Parthians, the Medes, the Elamites, the residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, parts of Libya, and Cyrene, those are the four entries of the compass.

That's Luke's way of saying God is already at work fulfilling his plan by bringing these people from the four corners of the compass all together.

He is having them hear the gospel, have their hearts recreated, have them repent, be empowered by the power of the Spirit, go home to their parts of the world as recreated, witnessing image bearers.

Good luck opposing God.

What he has begun, he will bring to fruition.

God began his renewing work with twelve Jewish men.

Uneducated, smelly fishermen, some of them.

That work expanded to about a hundred and twenty disciples.

And on Pentecost, God renewed image bearers from a multitude of language groups who would return to their homes, witnessing to the dispersed peoples of the world about God's mighty works in the person of Jesus Christ.

Let me summarize that for you.

On Pentecost, God redeemed Babel.

This is the essence of Acts 2, particularly Peter's explanation of it.

He says, Jesus is risen, exalted, and ruling his kingdom from heaven, but he's still acting in his absence.

That's why I've titled this whole Acts series, God Acts.

What Luke represents is not merely what he sees or what he's observed or what he's heard from people.

He is doing that, but he's arranging it all as though God is the one who's speaking.

This is heaven's view.

Jesus is still working, he is fulfilling the divine intent by pouring out the Holy Spirit to indwell believers and empower them to serve as his witnessing image bearers.

And Jesus is still doing this today.

In you, in me, and in all of his people until he returns.

So we see a third thing that Luke is doing.

He wants us to show that God's people witness about God's Acts.

That's all that's happening in Acts 2.

Whether it's in your own native language or in another language that God somehow causes to come out of you, they're just telling the amazing mighty works of God.

They are witnessing to God's glory, majesty, and grace.

Last week, Anton led us to see the results of Pentecost.

People were convicted by hearing of God's mighty works.

They repented at Peter's preaching.

They were baptized, they were added to the church, which was increasing daily.

In that sense, there's no church without the mission, and there's no mission without the church.

But if we can, let's turn that dial back a bit.

There is no mission without God acting with intent in the first place.

There is no church without God taking rebellious and stained images and remaking them into the image of Jesus.

And there is no mission without the eternal intent of God to fill his earth with his presence through his witnessing, ruling image-bearers.

What does that mean?

Well, that means first and foremost that the church is not yours nor mine.

It's Jesus' church.

It's his work.

Furthermore, the mission is not the church's, but Christ's.

No, everyone who trusts Christ and is remade in his image is a missionary.

And the mission is not over there, but right here.

We have to cease thinking of missions as overseas or somewhere else.

It is.

But it's not just that.

We need to see the mission field as wherever God places us.

Because we exist as his image bearers, as living witnesses to his glory, majesty, and grace.

And if all of that is true, then we ought to see that effect, that outworking of Christ's work.

Look at Acts 2, verse 42.

Acts 2:42

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and prayers, and awe came upon every soul.

And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

And all who believed were together, had all things in common.

They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

The devotion that we see here is astounding.

So what's happening here?

Are these early versions of socialism or Marxism?

No, not at all.

The devotion to the Word of God, the love and fellowship of new believers for one another, the consideration of others as more significant than ourselves, seen through the support of others in the body, is the demonstration that God has called people to himself, he's brought them to repentance, he's filled them with his spirit, he has forgiven their sins, and he saved them from the crookedness of society that has existed since at least Babel.

That's a long sentence.

Do you see what God's doing?

And he said from the very beginning, this was what he was going to do.

God's work in those lives on the day of Pentecost reversed the inward-focused preservation of self rooted in the Garden of Eden and Babel.

These are God's witnessing image-bearers, bearing witness to God's glory, his majesty, and his grace.

And God used their devotion to Scripture, their fellowship together, their sharing and support of one another to expand their witness and grow his church wherever they might be.

What does that mean?

We return all the way to the beginning.

Luke wants us to see what God did.

Why?

So that we might trust what he's doing.

Trust his actions.

And so in follow-through, participate in what he's doing through faithful obedience.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, you are a new creation in Christ.

If God has called you to believe in his son, you have been given his Holy Spirit to empower and enable you to be a holy, witnessing, image bearer in his mission, wherever on this planet he has placed you.

Does your life exhibit that work of God?

Luke wants us to see God's acts.

Because it is God's work.

And he works in and through us as he fills the earth with his witnessing image bearers.

That's freeing, friends.

God does not place the results of his work in your determination, in your efforts, in your strength.

God will begin things and God will end things.

And in the process, he has ordained the means to do that, which, in other words, says God will give you what you need to accomplish his work.

And he has given you himself, his spirit, which is all you need to be where you are and to be a witnessing image bearer to the mighty acts of God.

I don't know how to speak about the gospel, I hear often.

So tell what you know about the mighty acts of God.

Leave the rest to him.

Because the results speak for themselves, don't they?

People spoke of the mighty acts of God, and 3,000 people were added to the church.

We're mere instruments in Jesus' hands.

And Luke wants us to see all throughout this book, look what God is doing.

And if you are hearing this and you have trusted in Jesus, and God has made you all new so that you might be where he places you, a proper image bearer, witnessing to his glory, majesty, and grace.

So wherever we are, we relinquish ourselves to his work, his work through us by submitting ourselves to the Spirit of Christ.

The work is his.

Will we be faithful, obedient instruments?

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, that is our prayer.

Did we who gather here to be encouraged and edified and to fellowship and serve one another?

We want to be faithful, obedient instruments.

Lord, we trust in your creative power to make us new.

We trust in your power to work in us through your Spirit to be who you've made us to be.

Lord, drive out the sense of selfishness and self-centeredness that keeps our mouths shut.

Enable us to be not just in who we are and in how we live and act, but also in our words, to be people who declare the mighty works of God.

We ask this for your glory, Lord Jesus.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.