Pentecost Sunday: God Comes to His People, Rushing Wind & Tongues of Flame - May 24, 2026

Pentecost is the celebration and remembrance of the gift of the

Holy Spirit. Jesus had promised his

disciples, I'm going away. We read this passage.

He says you should be glad I'm going away.

When's the last time you were glad someone was going away?

I mean, if I had been hanging out with Jesus, I would not have

been glad that he was going away.

I was like, this is not good. I've, I've staked my life on

being with Jesus as one of his disciples.

I left everything to follow him so that I can have all of him,

just as we sang earlier. And Jesus said to his disciples,

you should be glad that I'm going away, because if I don't

go away, I cannot send to you, the advocate, the spirit of the

truth, the one who will be with you.

He says I cannot send him unless I go away.

And so he's fulfilling his promise.

Today in the life of the church, we celebrate Christmas, we

celebrate Epiphany, we celebrate Lent, we celebrate Easter, we

celebrate Ascension Day, Jesus ascending into heaven.

And so now we also celebrate ascension, not ascension, but

Pentecost of him giving the Holy Spirit.

God showing up. The Holy Spirit is God showing

up among us. This is the promise of Jesus.

We're going to read from Acts chapter 2, the experience of the

Acts 2 · chapter mention

disciples receiving the Holy Spirit and what that was like.

They had gathered in an upper room.

They had been in prayer together, 120 of them in a room

together, men and women waiting and praying to receive the gift

that God had given them. And so this is how they

experienced it. When the day of Pentecost came,

they were all together in one place.

Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came

from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated

and came to rest on each of them.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak

in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Now they were staying in Jerusalem, God fearing Jews from

every nation under heaven. When they heard the sound, a

crowd came together in bewilderment because each one

heard their own language being spoken.

Utterly amazed, they asked, aren't all of these who are

speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us

hears them in our native language?

Parthians, Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea

and Cappadocia, Pontius and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,

Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene.

Visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans

and Arabs, we hear them declaring the wonders of God in

our own tongues. Amazed and perplexed, they asked

one another, what does this mean for the disciples in that upper

room? They've experienced what we call

a theophany. A theophany is God appearing

Theo, God phony to appear, God appearing.

Throughout the Old Testament, we have lots of occasions where God

showed up in a theophany. Some of them were quiet, some of

them were just an accompanying person with Abraham and Sarah.

But on other occasions it was as if God was present in a storm of

wind and fire, or God was present in the wind, God was

present in the fire. And so we want to look at those

two metaphors that are present in the language of Luke in

trying to understand how God has appeared in this passage.

The Spirit he speaks of as a wind, a rushing wind, like the

breath of life. In that moment when the day of

Pentecost came, they were all together in one place, and

suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came

from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

Notice Luke is very careful in his language here.

He didn't say, and our robes were blowing in the wind.

He actually says there is the sound of a rushing wind.

That's what they were experiencing, an audible sound

that rushed in among them. The wind or the breath of God as

a sound, as a reality, is present at the very beginning in

Genesis. In Genesis 1 it says that the

Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

The Spirit of God was present in this creation moment, stirring,

creating a wind in that moment. In chapter 2 of Genesis, it says

that God breathed the breath of life into this inert body that

he had made from the dust an Adam, an earth creature, and

then God came and breathed the breath of life into a Dom.

This same word is used of the Spirit of God, this wind in

Exodus. The Spirit shows up in the

liberation of God's people when they're cornered at the Red Sea

and Egypt and Pharaoh are angrily pursuing them.

The people are in a panic about what they're going to do, and

Moses prays and God tells him to raise your hands in the wind

parts the Red Sea, blowing and creating away for them.

The Spirit of God is involved in creation, in the bringing of

life, and in the deliverance of his people.

In that moment, it is as if the people of God from Egypt are

born again as a new people. Paul would later use that

language to say they were baptized in that moment as they

crossed over from Egypt into the wilderness to become the people

of God. Job had an experience of God

speaking from a storm with a great wind that was present

there. And then Ezekiel, he had perhaps

what is one of the most famous experiences of the Spirit of

God, where God shows him a valley full of dry bones.

The hand of the Lord was on me, Ezekiel says.

And he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in

the middle of a valley. It was full of bones.

How many of you would be happy in that moment to be in a valley

of Boones? You'd be a little spooked out.

I know some of you don't even like to go walking where I love

to walk. I love to go walking in the

cemetery here in Vancouver. It's huge.

It's a park. It's where Vancouver goes to

remember, and it's a great place to walk.

But I know some of you have said, Craig, I'll never go for a

walk there with you because you don't want to go in a valley of

death, in a valley of bones. The language here is that which

is dried up, disconnected. And the Lord, it says, asked

him, Son of man, can these bones live?

And I said, Sovereign Lord, you alone know it goes on in that

moment to say that God told Ezekiel prophecy to the bones,

preach to the bones. Have you ever felt like you were

talking to dry bones? I met a pastor once.

His name is Fred Smith, quite famous.

He was on an airplane, and we were talking about his

experience as a seminary professor.

And he says, yes, I teach preaching.

And I said, well, what is that like?

You know, I've been to seminary and but what is it like these

days? And he says, oh, you know, one

of the things I do is that I have my students go to the

cemetery and preach. I'm like, really?

He says, yeah, if they can learn to preach to dry bones with

passion, they can learn to preach because that's what

they're going to do every Sunday.

So Ezekiel prophesied to the bones.

He preached to the bones, and it says that they began to move and

come together, and the sinews and the ligaments and the

muscles and skin, it all came together, but there was no life

there. Then he said to me, Prophecy to

the breath, prophecy, Son of man, and say to it, This is what

the Sovereign Lord says, Come breath from the four winds, and

breathe into these slain, that they may live.

So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath entered them, and

they came to life and stood on their feet, a mighty army.

Wow. What Ezekiel saw in that moment

was the Spirit of God bringing life to those who were dead.

Later in that same passage, God says I will send my spirit to my

people that they may live. This is what the breath of God

does. And so it's fitting that in

trying to explain this experience, Luke says in Acts 2

that they heard the sound of rushing wind.

Do you know, hearing is another theophany, another experience of

God appearing, and it's it came after the great catastrophe in

Genesis chapter 3, where death was now enlarged in its impact

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

on Adam and Eve on creation itself.

Death itself had gotten a grip through the lies of the devil,

and it says that the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord

God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

What did that sound like to hear God walking in a garden?

What had been the sound that they love to hear now became one

they feared, and they feared God, and so they hid from the

Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Have you ever been afraid and hid to hide yourself?

Maybe you hide in the open because you're afraid about the

true condition of your heart and life.

They hid among the trees, but the Lord God called to the man,

Where are you? And he answered, I heard you in

the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked.

So I hid. And God said, Who told you that

you were naked? The sound is the theophany, the

sound of the rushing wind. And the sound of the rushing

wind of God is not one that's meant to stimulate fear in us,

though we have lots of reasons for being afraid of shame, a

fear of the future. Oh, I don't know if I want God

to have that much access and truth of my life because He

might send me somewhere I don't want to go.

He might 'cause me to have to speak to people I don't like.

He might I I've heard all kinds of reasons.

He might take something away from me.

But God comes to breathe life again.

Why did God seek Adam and Eve in this moment to bring life to

them again? Why did God send the Spirit like

a rushing wind to bring life to His disciples who were hiding in

fear? The doors were locked in fear,

but the Spirit of God came like a rushing wind to breathe life

into them and to animate them, so that the church was born at

Pentecost. But the Spirit of God also comes

as a fire. It says that they experienced

the Spirit of God as tongues of fire, as the fire of God.

Notice it says they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire

that separated and came to rest on each of them.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak

in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

I would be anxious if I saw fire floating in the air.

What an experience. Luke is trying to describe what

he heard from the disciples in their experience of God in the

gift of the Spirit. But the theophany of fire is one

that's also present in the Old Testament, and one that had been

prophesied by John the Baptist. Moses experienced the fire of

God when he was in the desert, having run 20 years earlier away

from Pharaoh and away from Egypt.

Now in the desert, Moses was a shepherd and he saw a fire, a

burning Bush, and he makes his way towards it.

And the most mysterious thing about it was that the Bush was

not consumed. There was fire, but the Bush was

not consumed. And then he had a word that

spoke from the Bush to him that said, Moses, take your shoes

off, for the ground you're on is holy.

The holy making fire of God was present in that moment.

This is the theophany of fire and God appearing, making holy,

setting apart, purifying. In Exodus chapter 13, God's

Exodus 13 · chapter mention

presence with Israel was a pillar of fire leading the way,

and if the pillar of fire stopped, they stopped and made

camp. If the pillar of fire moved,

they moved with it. This was God appearing.

But in Exodus chapter 24, when God is getting ready to give His

Exodus 24 · chapter mention

word to Israel, Moses and the elders who went up the mountain

had to give a word to say God is a consuming fire.

Do not come up here if you have not consecrated yourself for

this moment and God is seen as a consuming fire.

It's almost that refiner's fire that's referred to by the

prophets, burning out the dross from metal so that it's

purified. In Genesis chapter 15, God shows

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

up as a fire in the night, a torch and a burning pot to

establish a covenant. And so that fire was this sense

of the presence of God. Again, setting aside Abram and

his family for the purposes of God in both in in Psalm chapter

Psalms 18 · chapter mention

18, David refers to both the wind and the fire as the

judgement of God. So when this appeared, when the

Spirit came, the prophetic word of John the Baptist about Jesus

is being fulfilled. John the Baptist says I baptize

you with water for repentance, but after me comes one who is

more powerful than I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear the

threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning

up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Therein is this judgement. Picture that that when the fire

of God appears, it is both a gathering and a separating.

Have any of you ever harvested wheat?

Anybody harvested rice? You have to gather it up and

separate the kernels from the rest of the plant.

The kernels of rice and wheat are what you want.

The rest of the plant is chaff. It's not needed.

The wind could blow it away, or you could gather it up and use

it as fuel for the fire. And so this is the picture of a

harvesting with fire. He's going to baptize with the

Holy Spirit and ultimately he will harvest with fire.

And so it's really interesting to me, the tongues of fire are

described and they're set in motion as an army to speak, not

an army with a sword, but an army with a tongue that can

speak the truth from a purified heart.

This is the birth of the church. Yeah, Go back and do that one

when God examines his church and an ultimate judgement.

Paul used this theophany of fire to remind us to be careful about

how we build, how we build on this foundation of Christ in our

life. And he says no one can lay a

foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus

Christ. If anyone builds on this

foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or

straw, their work will be shown for what it is because the day

will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire,

and the fire will test the quality of each person's work.

It's almost as if he's saying, look, the Holy Spirit comes

among us as a truth burning fire, and we get a little taste

of it now by the Spirit in our life.

The world should get a little taste of it now by the presence

of the church at UBC in your faculty in Vancouver, in Canada,

across the world, wherever there are believers in the church

that's present, the Spirit of God should burn as a word that

brings truth and truth that illuminates how we are building

our lives because of the presence of God among us.

The Spirit of God is trying to do that work to breathe life

into us and to purify our lives and to set us free to speak.

Some of you are afraid to speak because you believe yourself

disqualified because of sin in your life.

You hesitate to speak because sin still grips your life.

The flesh still has its way, and God comes like a burning fire, a

consuming fire. The writer of Hebrews says to

liberate your life, your heart, and your tongue so that you can

speak. Look what happens to those

disciples. The Spirit of God is empowering

them to speak to the nations. And now there is not a sound of

the rushing wind. There is the sound of many

tongues speaking many languages all at once as 120 people rush

out of that house into the streets and begin to preach.

And people are astonished. Well, they are speaking my

language with a Galilean accent. I remember when I was trying to

learn French when I first came to Canada, I thought I'm going

to be a citizen of Canada. I should speak both official

languages of Canada. And so I got a set of cassette

tapes on how to learn French. And every morning I would push

that button and it would have me parrot back the French.

Ultimately, Ellen said this is destroying my peace in the

mornings. And I did not learn French, but

my friend Pierre was exploring Jesus and he was from Quebec.

And so I got a French and English New Testament and we

would sit and we would read the Bible and he would say, oh, read

to me in French. And so I would read to him in

French and he'd say, you have an accent.

But on this day, all those listening to that 120 preachers

speaking multiple languages, languages they didn't know said,

how is this? You speak with a Galilean

accent, You're speaking my language.

And this is what I hear. I hear you declaring the wonders

of God in my language. And this was the sign of the

presence of the Spirit, communication that touched not

just the head, but the heart, and announced the glory and

beauty and majesty and awesomeness, the wonderness of

Jesus Christ. This is what the Spirit of God

is meant to enable. All of them were filled with the

Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues as the Spirit enabled

them. Now that we're staying in

Jerusalem, God fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.

And when they heard the sound, a crowd came together in

bewilderment because each one heard their own language being

spoken. It's all as if the Spirit

functioned that day as a universal translator.

Why? Because the universal love of

God had been expressed in the person of Jesus Christ, in the

work of Jesus Christ at the cross, in His death, His burial,

His resurrection and ascension, the universal love of God had

been expressed for all. It includes all who will make

the exclusive claim of their own life that Jesus is Lord.

This is the move of the Spirit of God to enable you to

communicate, to talk, to speak, and for some of you to learn

languages, to learn culture so that you can intermingle with

others and share the gospel of Jesus.

You become Google Translate because it's translated not just

by the words of your mouth, but the very life of the sincerity

of your love for Jesus and for His Church.

When we surrender to Jesus, He fills us with His Spirit.

This is what He's promised. Those 120 disciples had been

preloading surrender into their life.

They were open for God to do something.

They were open for the gift and Spirit of God to arrive, and

when He did, He had full reign in their life.

He fills us with His Spirit so that we can know Him.

He fills us with His Spirit that we can become like Him.

He fills us with His Spirit so that we can join Him in His

mission. This is the very mission of

Origin Church, is it not? We joyfully invest in

relationships to spark, do you hear, to spark a life journey

with Jesus. We are the theophany of God most

often utilized by God these days.

We are not secessionists who believe somehow the Spirit of

God and the gifts have stopped. No, we believe they continue the

promise of Joel to to Israel that their sons and daughters

would prophecy. We still believe.

We still believe that all the gifts of the Spirit operate with

men and women who have surrendered their life to Jesus

so that they may invest in relationships and spark a life

journey with Jesus. And this is what a life journey

with Jesus looks like. I want to get to know you more,

Lord. I want to become like you, Lord.

I want to join you in your mission.

Come Holy Spirit, come in a moment we are going to celebrate

the ultimate in the theophany of God.

The God appeared in the person of Jesus Christ in flesh and

blood, and the invitation to the table is open to all who would

confess their faith in Christ. He is Lord.

The invitation to receive the bread is to remember the body of

Jesus broken for us. The invitation to receive the

cup is to remember His blood was poured out for us, for the

forgiveness of sin, and to establish a new relationship

with us and all who would believe.

And it's His Spirit that animates us in the ministry of

both Word and Spirit, like Ezekiel, we could have a lot of

words. We can have a lot of words.

And it appears that they have a impact.

Oh, people got together. Look at the crowd in this

valley. But there was no true life there

until the Spirit came. And you have been invited not to

a ministry of just words or acts of service.

You have been invited to a ministry of the Spirit as well.

Are you learning such a life? Are you learning such a life of

dependence on the Spirit of God to empower the words and service

of your life? That's the question for us to

hold in this moment before we receive the Lord's Supper.

Let's stand together.