Beyond the Last Days | Acts

Remain standing as we read the Word of God from Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 2. We're reading Acts chapter 2, verses 1 through 21.

Acts 2 · chapter mention Acts 2:1–21

This is the Word of the Lord, so please give careful attention.

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 a 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 of these who are speaking Galileans?

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

Parthenians, Medes, Elamites, the residents of Mesopotamia.

Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia,

Phrygia, 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?

But others began mocking saying, They are filled with new wine.

But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed 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's only the third hour

of the day. But this is what was uttered to the prophet Joel.

And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit

on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

And your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.

On every male servants and female servants in those days, I will pour out my

spirit, and they shall prophesy.

And I will show wonders in the heaven above, and signs on the earth below,

blood and fire, and vapor of smoke.

The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the day of

the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord,

shall be saved. This is the word of the Lord.

You can be seated.

Let's pray together. Holy Spirit, we ask that you would come down and be with us.

Teach us Christ, even as you taught Christ in the days of Pentecost.

So teach us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

So, we continue through our study of the book of Acts. Last week,

looking at the reversal of the Tower of Babel.

After the nations had gathered at Babel to build a false gate to heaven,

the Lord confused their languages, their lips, their confessions, and scattered them.

And Genesis 11 tells us that all the nations that were scattered were sent across

in division, confusion, and hatred.

But here in our story, in chapter 2 of Acts, the Pentecost event is an event

by which the Holy Spirit of God comes down bringing Christ in the midst of these

people and as he brings Christ,

he regathers the nations that were scattered at Pentecost.

The word church, ecclesia, is usually translated as the called out ones.

But don't miss the point that they're called out. They're not just called out

and remain scattered as the people of Babel. They're called and gathered.

And they're gathered together in Christ and in his church.

In Christ and in the church, people from all ethnic and tribal and various backgrounds

are gathered together and brought together in unity, which is our strength.

Unity in Christ is the strength of God's people. And so now people of God are

speaking to God in multiple different languages all over the world and they're

all brought together in the name of Jesus.

Well, as this event is unfolding, what I wanna look at today is Peter's sermon,

at least the introduction to Peter's sermon.

We're gonna move faster and we're gonna move slower sometimes.

It's as if we're shifting gears to go up, pretend that we're on our way up to

Gatlinburg on a mountain and we have to shift into low gear.

So I wanna focus today's sermon primarily on just the phrase, the last days.

I'll pick up, don't worry, we'll make it to the mountain. and we'll go faster,

but I want to focus on the last days, particularly beyond the last days.

In our sermon this morning, in Peter's sermon, Peter introduces us to the last

days by quoting the prophet Joel, but now we're living beyond the last days.

So I'm going to keep asking the question, what now? What about now?

Do we as Wilmington Reformed Church want to be a Pentecostal church?

Ah, well, maybe it's not what you think, huh? Maybe being a Pentecostal church

is a church that remains in the unity of Christ together by his spirit and the

enduring blessings of that spirit that come to us at Pentecost and that remain

with us beyond the last days.

Beyond the last days. So let's look at Peter's sermon.

Acts chapter two, we see the people, they're brought together in this frenzy

of chaos. They hear noises, they hear things.

In those days, in an ancient world, like many places around the world,

if you start to gather a crowd of any kind, lots of people will come.

It's kind of amazing. Our culture is not as oriented to this as some cultures

are, but if you're in a culture where not much else is happening,

you go to a village, for instance, sometimes we would drive up into a village

and a white guy would get out.

By the time I made it from my car to the hut we were going to,

there were 70, 80, 90, 100 people. I said, where did people come from.

They saw someone, a crowd began to gather, and a bigger crowd began to gather,

huge crowds. That's exactly what happens here.

They come together. They heard the noise, by the way, the glory cloud presence

of the Lord drawing them together.

There's a lot of people. It's a bit chaotic.

And then you'll notice that Peter stands up and begins to quiet them.

There's mocking even. He's saying, you guys are, what are these guys, drunk?

Peter says immediately, no, it's nine o'clock in the morning,

basically. So he says, that's not what's happening.

It says, verse 14, Peter standing with the 11, lifted up his voice and addressed them.

Something about him standing there with the 11 that reminds us,

as we'll see throughout Acts, and eventually the attention will shift from Peter to Paul.

But here, Peter is the representative apostle. He's the first among equals.

And it is, as it were, he stands there with the 11 around him,

speaking on behalf of the apostles.

We don't always think too much about what it means to be an apostolic church.

We think a lot about what it means to be Presbyterian and Reformed and Calvinistic.

But to be apostolic, what does it mean to be apostolic? Well,

here we see Peter speaking on behalf of the apostles.

He begins to preach, basically.

It says he lifted up his voice and addressed them. There's two phrases.

He lifted up his voice. He basically had to get everyone quiet.

Listen, when someone says that, listen.

Like at the fellowship meal, someone will have to say that. Keep quiet. Let's pray.

We're about to eat. Someone will stand up and quiet the crowd. That's what Peter does.

And then another word says he began to address them. But he addressed them pointedly and with force.

He's basically preaching here. And he gives us an amazing, this is,

by the way, this is, when I read this sermon, even today, I read it and think, what a sermon.

I mean, if you jump down to the end of it, people are responding. They're crying.

They're wailing. They're saying, what do we do to get saved? hey, tell us what to do.

So it's a preacher's dream, actually, this kind of a sermon.

I mean, you get to the end of it and people are like, the closest I've ever

gotten was one time I said, and in conclusion, and some guy says,

no, keep going, brother, keep going.

It's it. It wasn't like it was it. I mean, I've had hallelujahs and amens along

the way, but this sermon is the sermon of all sermons.

It's basically one of the most powerful New Testament sermons that you'll ever

see or that's recorded. Because at the end, it's beyond revival.

It is thousands of people getting saved. So this is like an astonishing,

wonderful sermon worth paying attention to.

Raises significant questions even about preaching and apostolic preaching.

We should want apostolic preaching. I'm no apostle. They'll claim to be,

but I should preach like the apostles. Well, how did they preach?

Is there some sort of form you can see? Well, if by three points in application,

if that's what you think. There's no method like that.

But one of the things the apostles do, and by the way, as we go through Acts,

I'll draw your attention to the things that remain beyond the last days.

Prayer, preaching, sacraments, loving, unified fellowship among the saints.

These are the things that Pentecost brings to us that remain.

The other things are not going to remain because they're foundational.

So Peter begins the sermon. How does Peter preach?

By the way, preaching throughout the Bible is a unique thing.

It's the proclamation or the heralding of the good news of the gospel.

It's the proclamation of the work of God. It's exactly what it sounds like these

people when they were speaking in other tongues were doing because they said,

we heard them speak of the mighty acts of God in our own language.

What a glorious scene. There's multiple things going on here.

And preaching in acts is the primary means by which you're going to see the church grow.

You see miracles and signs and wonders and persecution and all kinds of things

that will help us as we live our lives.

But the fundamental issue that causes the church to grow throughout the book

of Acts and that remains beyond the last days is preaching, preaching Christ.

What do they do when they preach Christ? Well, you'll notice there's no pattern.

Again, like I said, they don't start out with an introduction,

and then you make sure your introduction is connected to your conclusion,

and you're driving to the conclusion like every good rhetorician would do.

I shouldn't say that because I don't always do that myself, so now you'll be

watching. But what do they do? Well, they preach Christ.

They proclaim Christ. You'll notice they also almost always do it from the Old Testament.

Sometimes New Testament preachers today hardly ever look at the Old Testament.

They use the New Testament exclusively.

But preaching in the New Testament, particularly Peter and Paul,

they're always using the Old Testament.

They're always going back. They're looking back to the promises of God.

They preached Christ in order to call their listeners to Christ and to a future in Christ.

Pretty powerful. They're calling people to Christ. That's why at the end of

the sermon, people are saying, what do we do?

How do we get saved? How do we know this Christ? What are we supposed to do

about the message we've heard?

They called men to Christ, and then they called men to look forward to the future

that they have in Christ.

They were always looking back to the promises in the old covenant,

connecting them to Christ, and then calling those people in those promises to

look forward to the future.

This idea of futuristic things, the fancy word that I'll use it from time to

time, it's not just to prove I went to seminary, is the word eschatology.

We hear it a lot in certain discussions.

Apostolic preaching was always eschatological. There, I said my fancy word.

They were always pointing to the future, to the things that were to come in

Christ. That's how they preached.

They called people to Christ, and then in Christ, they called them forward to

the future hope of Christ.

And this is what Peter is doing.

Peter's sermon is interesting. Again, he addresses the crowd.

He deals with the detractors, quiets them down, and begins to preach a sermon

about the last days, okay?

This is why I want to focus on this a little bit, because maybe some of you grew up like I did.

Maybe this sermon is just going to be for guys like me

or something i hope i hope not but i have a feeling that most of us when we

hear the phrase the last days we tend to think the end of the world i have friends

and i love these people they're my family members every time anything happens

it's the last days we're in the last days it's here brother,

i remember hearing this since the 1980s i remember my preacher said i think

mikhail gorbachev is the Antichrist.

Why is that? Well, he has this scar on his head. He had a scar on his head.

It must have been one of those things where he was mortally wounded like the

beast, but then he rose again from the dead.

Russia is also constantly connected to these last day prophecies as well.

So when you hear the phrase last days, what do you think? Usually people think,

well, it must be close to the end of the world.

Another friend said, you know, well, they weren't listening to the preacher

very well because we're in the last days.

You know, in the last days, they're going to have itching ears and they're going to do this and that.

Every newspaper article that's ever read by many people is read with perspective

of the last days. We're at the end. It's almost here.

This is nothing new. Throughout church history, there have been groups of people

who gathered together at the year 999 AD.

Because why? It was the end of the world. We're about to reach the year 1000.

People gathered in cathedrals all over to see the end.

It was way worse, way bigger than the Y2K question when we went to the year

2000. That was another big event.

In the 1300s, when there were plagues throughout Europe and the 1340s onward,

everyone was saying, this is it.

God is bringing famines and plagues. And you see it in those passages,

beware of wars and rumors of wars and famines and earthquakes. This is it.

It was in the 1340s.

Just so you know, they've always been wrong too.

Always. It's what, and I would recommend a little book called Last Day's Madness by Gary DeMar.

By the way, when I, as a pastor, recommend books, don't think I agree with everything

the author says in the book or everything the author ever has says or ever will say.

Just on this topic, it's a good book. Are we clear?

I get everyone has to make those qualifications because of other things.

But Gary DeMar's little book is a good one because he talks about this phrase,

the last days, particularly with regard to Matthew 24, but also with regard

to the Pentecostal period in general. What was happening at Pentecost?

People read newspapers today and they wonder if Russia is mentioned in the Bible.

Does Ezekiel talk about planes, ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs and all

these other things? Thank you.

Or Gog and Magog after oil or cattle? Which is it?

These are the obsessions of many people, especially since the late great planet Earth, Hal Lindsey.

And there's a movement, unfortunately, among many evangelicals,

sometimes called dispensationalism, which sees the Bible as a series of dispensations or periods of time.

And periods of time in which that one period of time is leading to the next period of time.

Very, very popular, especially since the early 20th century in America and the

Schofield Reference Bible and on and on.

And so when they look at the phrase, the last days, they immediately jump ahead

to what they think is going to happen in the future.

What I want to tell you this morning in some ways is it's disappointing if you

like to read the Wall Street Journal with reference to eschatology and the end of the world.

It's not disappointing if you want to be a continuing Pentecostal church filled

with the Holy Spirit in the way that Pentecost brought us.

What does this phrase last days mean?

First and foremost, you need to understand when you read Bible context.

What's the context? Well, Peter

is quoting this prophet Joel about what's happening right then and there.

Okay. They were in the last days.

Okay. What about Joel? Joel himself. The prophet Joel is an Old Testament prophet

who describes a devastating locust plague that comes upon Israel,

that destroys them from God's punishment.

And then towards the end, Joel begins to speak of the great and dreadful day

of the Lord, which will bring with it both fire and blessings, harvest.

Now that sounds familiar since we've looked at that already,

haven't we? The tongues of fire, the harvest imagery of Pentecost itself as a harvest festival.

God is coming down and bringing judgment, separation of the wheat and the chaff,

and he's judging the nation of Israel and he's blessing the church.

Both things are happening simultaneously, fire and blessings.

Fire and blessings. Joel speaks

of a time of the restoration of all things and the hope of the future.

Not the end of the world, but in the last days, after these last days,

God will bring hope, restoration, peace, and a future for his people.

The day of the Lord in the last days will bring blessings to the whole earth.

It is mercy mingled with judgment upon the nation of Israel.

It's redemptive judgment.

God comes down and brings fire and judgment. And in the process,

he winnows with his fork and he separates and he blesses.

The phrase, the last day is not just used in Joel that way.

Isaiah chapter two, verse two says this, again, messianic prophecies about the

coming of Messiah, we call Jesus,

messianic prophecies about the coming in which he says this,

now it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house

shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above

the hills and all the nations shall flow to it.

Many people shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the house of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths.

For out of Zion shall come forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Isaiah speaks of that the last days as that time when Messiah comes and establishes

his kingdom and blesses his people.

Jeremiah 49, 39 says, it shall come to pass in the last days,

I will bring back the captives of Elam.

The nation of Israel was hoping for this day.

They were longing for this day. When they read their scriptures and they looked

forward to the future, they thought, when will the day of the Lord come?

For them, they thought of it entirely as judgment on the Gentiles.

When will God come and kill the Romans and get rid of the goyim,

get rid of the Gentiles, get rid of the dogs that live among us?

Instead, when the day of the Lord came, those people were the ones who were

actually judged and the nations were the ones who were blessed.

And at the time when Israel was looking forward to this, like in Joel,

they thought when Messiah comes or when the day of the Lord comes,

maybe then this cycle will be broken.

When you read your Bible, we were reading through Judges recently in our family

time, our devotions, as I said in prayer time, we're reading through it and

you read the book of Judges, it gets tiring, it gets exhausting.

And this judge came and ruled for this many years and then the Lord brought judgment.

And then they cried out and then another judge came and then they cried out

round and round and round, as if you're reading a similar story over and over

and over again, because you are.

This endless cycle of the nation of Israel coming to the Lord,

please help us, we're getting killed.

He blesses them. They rebel. He curses them. And on and on the cycle goes.

So when the Israelites, when the Jew, when you read your Bible,

you're thinking, maybe when the last days come, God will finally break this

cycle of judgment and blessing and judgment and blessings and bring blessings for sure.

Bring blessings permanently, which is exactly what he does in Christ Jesus.

Micah, the prophet in verse chapter four, verse one says, it shall come to pass

in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established

on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and people shall flow to it.

Many nations shall come and say, come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord

to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways, similar to Isaiah.

And the New Testament also speaks similarly of these last days,

not pushing them off into the end of the world, but putting them right in the

context of the days of the apostles in which we're studying the book of Acts.

As if, because it is, as if those last days were unfolding before our very eyes

in the New Testament, in the ministry of Christ, and now in the ministry of the apostles.

Later, Acts chapter 3, verse 24, it says, Yes, and all the prophets from Samuel

Acts 3:24

and those who follow, as many as have spoken, they have foretold of these days.

Which days? The last days. In Hebrews, it says, God at various times and in

various ways, in chapter one.

Spoke to us in times past by the fathers, but he has in these last days,

spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things,

through whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory

and the express image of his purpose, upholding all things.

Hebrews, the last day. Acts, the last days.

Peter himself in 1 Peter chapter 10 or 1 verse 10 says, Of this salvation the

prophets have inquired and searched carefully,

who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching at what manner

and what time the Spirit of Christ who was with him was indicating when he testified

before the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

Down to verse 20, 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 20, He indeed was foreordained before

1 Peter 1:20

the foundation of the world, but has been manifest in these last days to you.

We're not in the last days. They were in the last days. They were in the latter times.

The last days were the final days of the transition between the old covenant

and the new covenant, between the coming of Messiah and the establishment of

his kingdom and the movement forward of that great kingdom that he would establish.

And we are heirs to those promises. Sometimes if you look at the book of If

you're like me anyway, I read those stories and I'm like, man,

wouldn't it be great to have a healing service like that?

Wouldn't it be great to have someone that we've all known our whole lives who's

crippled or blind or lame just say, maybe this is just a preacher's dream,

but just say, in the name of Jesus, stand up and walk.

And you're like, wow, that would be, wouldn't that be great?

No, you don't seem too excited.

I think it'd be awesome to just be able to have the miraculous signs and wonders

that we see in the days of the apostles.

And sometimes there are, and there are entire denominations who say,

not only is it wonderful, we're doing it, man. We're on.

We want those miracles. We want those signs. We want those tongues.

We want all that activity.

We want the blessings that the apostles had. But we're heirs of the promises

of the kingdom beyond the last days.

We're living beyond the last days. You're like, oh, what a bummer.

No, it's not. Because there are even greater things upon which the foundation

of all these prophets and visions and dreams and wonders,

we're building on the foundation that they gave to us to build even greater

things, more powerful things, the kinds of things that are much more difficult

than signs and wonders, I might add.

Building on the days of the apostles, we should be motivated.

How does it motivate you?

I mean, the preacher comes up and says, instead of saying Russia's the Antichrist

and Azerbaijan is part of the beast and all these other things,

I just say the last days are over.

Like, no, I want signs and wonders.

Sorry, the last days are over, but there are better things yet to come,

greater things to come, more powerful things to come, more beautiful than all

the signs and wonders to which those signs and wonders pointed,

to Jesus Christ himself, who was given to us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

It should motivate us. We shouldn't be down like we need those things.

But what do we draw then? What do we think about when we think about this?

Because, again, you read the Bible and you say, it says very clearly, right?

It says in Corinthians that these things will pass away.

1 Corinthians 13 is interesting, isn't it? It says, Now faith,

hope, and love abide, but of these three things, the greatest of these is love.

This is a section quoted a lot at a lot of weddings.

Paul is telling us that the greatest, most powerful thing that the kingdom of

God and the gospel of Jesus Christ will bring us is love, love for one another,

unity and kindness towards one another.

If the miracle signs and wonders have passed away, what do we have now?

Now we have the greatest of these, which is love.

We want to be and should want to be a Pentecostal church, small p,

not a denomination large p, Pentecostal church. What does it mean? How do you know?

Ask the question. We should be asking our questions as a church.

Is the Holy Spirit really at work here?

Because no one's jumping, screaming, shouting, or howling or laughing.

There's been no healing services and there won't be, not as long as I'm here.

How do we know then? Because, by the way, beloved, we should want the work of the Holy Spirit.

We should long for it. We should be yearning for it.

Are we together? Good. Well, how do we know? What's going on?

Well, two people, and then I'll close, two people that will help us with this.

Because I struggled with this when I was in college. I was in seminary.

When I become a pastor, I want a church that has revivals.

I want revival in my church. I grew up on revivals, by the way.

You knew we were having a revival because every single summer,

it would say June 13th through 17th, revival.

I wondered if, I guess God paid attention.

I mean, revivals, we had it every summer. We had a preacher that came from Tennessee

and would scream and shout and tell stories and try to get everyone there saved

again and again and again.

And to me, as a child, it was like, well, it feels like revival because there's

a lot of activity. They sing special songs.

Once in a while, they even stood up and clapped. Baptists don't do that very

often, but we once in a while, and I thought, wow, there's activity, there's revival.

How do you know when the Spirit of God is at work? If activity alone is not

the indicator, or should activity be the indicator?

Great help from a theologian named Jonathan Edwards, an early American theologian

who lived and worked in the colonies.

I recently heard Sinclair Ferguson try to claim him.

He said, you know, they were still a British colony in those days. But he's American.

Jonathan Edwards was a preacher in Northampton, Massachusetts,

during such an extraordinary time that even history books in public schools

will talk about a period of time called the Great Awakening.

And Jonathan Edwards was a preacher at that church, and there were many things

happening in his church.

People were shouting and crying out, similar to what you see in the book of

Acts here in this sermon.

And Edwards was extremely happy until there was so much activity,

it became distracting. He wondered, is this revival?

Is this the work of the Holy the Holy Spirit, what's going on?

In some cases, people believe they heard the Word of God tell them to kill themselves, and they did.

So Edwards is like, time out.

Do we know if the Holy Spirit is at work in a group of people like us?

How do we know? Is it activity?

Is it signs and wonders and tongues and screaming and shouting?

There was even a quote-unquote revival in Canada years and years ago called the Laughing Revival.

People were laughing. There's even been people who bark.

They bark out loud and people say, man, something's going on there.

That church has the Spirit. Or do they?

Edwards was really perplexed by it because he wanted his people to respond to

the word of God, to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

But how did he know whether it was really this Holy Spirit? Edwards did a serious

study. You can go online and find it. It's beautiful.

He spoke, he said, when you look at activity, even mysterious activity that

you can't quite explain, he said, you know, not only Christians can do that.

You could go, I could take you to a place in Uganda where there's a sign out

front, where there's a witch doctor and he could do things that were inexplicable.

He could do things that were strange and you could go to places where they would

sing and dance and shout and scream until they were worked into some sort of

a frenzy and people are falling down in trances and all kinds of things.

Edward said, wait a minute, if it can happen among a witch doctor and it can

happen in the church, then how

do we know the difference between the Holy Spirit's work here and there?

Or do we? And his answer is we don't.

Because falling down in trances and screaming and shouting is no evidence of

the Holy Spirit, not in and of itself.

Edwards said, no, if we can't tell the difference, how do we know?

Well, we know by simply looking at the scriptures. And when the scriptures describes

the work of the Holy Spirit, he describes love and unity in the church.

And this is ancient, by the way. And this idea that Pentecostal gifts are normative

for the church is very rare.

Throughout most of church history, very few churches have really ever believed

that the apostolic signs should continue, continue, continue.

What continues in the life of the church is the most powerful thing that a church

can have, love and peace and unity in Christ.

That's how you know if a church is filled with the Holy Spirit.

And that's how we should want to be if we want to be a truly Pentecostal church,

which we should, small p, remember? This is being recorded, small p, Pentecostal.

These things will pass. 1 Corinthians 13, verse 8 says, love never ends.

1 Corinthians 13:8

As for prophecy, listen to this. I don't know how our Pentecostal brothers can

miss it. As for prophecies, they will pass away.

For tongues, they will cease.

Sometimes we're called, you're a cessationist. Well, it says right here, they'll cease.

Make it a noun. Yeah, I'm a cessationist. It's what the Bible says.

As for knowledge, it will pass away. The last days of the apostles were going

to come to an end, and they have.

For we know in part, we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes,

the partial will pass away.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part,

then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

So now, it's the end of that love section, or beginning of it.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.

How do you know if we're a church filled with the Holy Spirit, we love each other?

Isn't that what Jesus said? They will know you by your unity, by your love.

They'll know it. They'll see it. And that's where you see the work of the Holy

Spirit in a church. That's what we should be striving for. That's what we should be longing for.

The great Saint Basil of Caesarea wrote about this in the 300s AD.

Get Edwards from the 18th century. Get your American fix. And you can go to the ancient church.

Saint Basil wrote a book, a very good book. This is also online for free.

It's called On the Holy Spirit. and he's reflecting on the same kinds of things. Where do we know?

Where do we see the spirit at work? When you look around and say,

where's the spirit of God at work?

Most people look for activity, screaming, shouting, tongues, what?

But St. Basil says, no, it's love, peace, unity in Christ.

He said, the spirit works through the right teaching of the beautiful words

of God written to the inspiration of the spirit.

Faithful Bible teaching, where we see the Spirit looking into the depths of

the meaning of the Word of God through the obscurity of the letter as through a veil.

So now the mystery is opening up in the teaching and preaching of the Word of God.

This intertwining of the so-called body and spiritual sense,

he says, we fix our eyes on Christ.

In short, the Spirit beautifies His church to the preaching of Christ from every page of Scripture.

Is your preacher preaching Christ? You know, the spirit of God is working to

be at work in him and in you.

St. Basil said also that the spirit of God shapes his church through her liturgical rhythms in worship.

The Holy Spirit is inseparable from the Father and the Son. For if you are outside

of him, you will not worship him at all.

Thus, Basil made a point that worship and prayer in the spirit is evidence of

the work of the Holy Spirit and the life of the church.

Third, he also says the Spirit makes his church virtuous, which for Basil is

synonymous with a good life, the good life.

Sin is ugly and it cannot satisfy to the lasting pleasures that we're called

to, but the Holy Spirit brings virtue in us through Jesus Christ.

Everything that needs holiness, he says, turns to him.

All that live virtuously desire him. He perfects others, but he himself is lacking.

He is the source of holiness and intellectual light for every rational power's

discovery of truth, supplying clarity, so to say, through himself.

He is like a sunbeam whose grace is present to the one who enjoys him.

St. Basil was encouraging us to delve into the depths of what it means to see

the spirit of God at work.

It means the solid, Christ-centered preaching of the word of God received by

the people of God who then respond to God, respond to Christ by loving him and loving one another.

You want to be a Pentecostal church? Love one another.

I got no miracles. I got no signs. Love each other.

You want to see the Spirit of God gather others here to this church? Love each other.

People are attracted to the beauty of love. Love is inexplicably beautiful.

It draws people to it. Sometimes when they don't even know what they're seeing

because they need that love.

The love of Jesus Christ in us and living amongst us one anothering.

As we care for one another. As we love each other. People will want,

every church I've ever known that is filled with the spirit in this way has always grown.

If slowly by slowly, they still grow because why? People are attracted to that love.

People long for that love. And if we as a local church want to grow,

live in Christ and love one another.

If you seek the power of Christ and the Pentecostal church, Christ in us,

Christ with us, this is the power of Pentecost.

Amen? Let's pray.

Father, we long for that. We want that here at our church.

We want the work of the Holy Spirit to be present, to be evident,

to be known. And Lord, we need, therefore, to love each other.

We've already heard that it's good and pleasant when brothers dwell together

in unity. It's like oil in the beard of Aaron going down on his collar.

It's like the dew of Mount Hermon. It's such a blessing, Lord,

when brothers love each other and live and worship in unity.

Help us as a church to do this.

Help us as a church to long for this. And bless this church,

Lord, in the love and unity of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.