The Descent of the Holy Spirit (Part 2)

We will continue our sermon series in the book of the Acts of the Apostles this morning.

If you brought a Bible, you may want to make your way there to Acts, chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

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Luke, who wrote also the Gospel of Luke, writes the book of Acts to a man named Theophilus in order to relate the historical facts about what happened after Jesus rose from the dead and brought about really an explosive growth of Christianity in the ancient Roman world.

Just before Jesus ascended to heaven and be exalted to the right hand of God, he told his disciples that when the Holy Spirit came upon them, they would be his witnesses to the world.

And on the day of Pentecost, which we began to look at last time, the Holy Spirit did come upon them.

Come upon all who believed in Jesus.

Today we're going to look at part two of Pentecost.

We'll talk about the feast itself, the feast of Pentecost, and then we'll look at the four marks we see there of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

So let me read the passage again.

Get our bearings here in Acts, chapter 2, verse 1.

Acts 2:1

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place and suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting and there appeared to them tongues as a fire, distributing themselves as they rested on each one of them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

And now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven, and when this sound occurred, the crowd came together and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language.

They were amazed and astonished, saying why are not all these who are speaking Galileans, and how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born?

Parthians, medes, elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, judea, cappadocia, pontus, asia, phygeria, pamphylia, egypt and the district of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytites, cretans and Arabs.

We hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.

And they all continued in amazement, with great perplexity, saying to one another what does this mean?

But others were mocking, saying they are all filled with sweet wine.

Acts, chapter 2, verse 1.

Acts 2:1

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place who, the apostles, and about 120 of Jesus' disciples who had been following him before, and then they were praying together in this upper room.

Now, keep in mind, when they felt this violent wind, they're inside a room, they're not outside, and we talked about this last time.

That meant something.

God was trying to tell them.

Something from the outside is going to hit you.

We'll get back to that.

Uh, what was the day of pentecost?

Well, pentecost was a feast in israel.

Ancient israel called shavuot or called the Feast of Weeks.

The Hebrew word Shavuot means seven.

It was celebrated seven weeks or 50 days after the Passover, and Pentecost is just the Greek word for 50.

Originally, the Old Testament feast from early days, held 50 days after the Passover, was a time of thanksgiving to celebrate the first fruits of their wheat harvest.

What makes this Pentecost unique is the descent of the Holy Spirit on those who believed in Jesus, the Messiah.

And I think God may be saying to us in God's plan, the first fruits of the wheat harvest was really pointing to the first fruits of the Holy Spirit's descent on believers.

In fact, the first generation of Christians in that first century actually saw themselves because of Pentecost.

They saw themselves as the first fruits of the Spirit.

They're just the first.

We're somewhere generationally down the line.

They were the first fruits.

Here's what Paul says in Romans 8.

Not only this, but we are also, we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit.

We, meaning the apostles and those first century Christians, we've got the first fruits of the Spirit.

Even meaning the apostles and those first century Christians, we've got the first fruits of the Spirit.

Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

And what happened at this Pentecost was the fulfillment of really what Jesus promised his disciples would happen Before he died and rose again.

He told them when he went away he would send the Holy Spirit who would be with them and in them as Jesus' presence in them.

John 14, 16-20,.

Jesus said I'm going to ask the Father.

He'll give you another helper, that he may be with you forever.

That is the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive.

This is it.

Don't see him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and he will be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans.

I will come to you After a little while.

The world will no longer see me, but you'll see me because I live.

You will live also In that day.

You will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you.

It's a powerful, powerful promise.

And when the Holy Spirit descended on believers on Pentecost, they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

To help us understand the significance of that moment, luke includes these signs.

These unusual things happened to literally draw everybody's attention to it.

Mark this down.

It's like God saying look at this.

These things are telling you something about what's happening here.

These things were the marks, really, of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, which we're going to look at next.

When the Holy Spirit we read it just a minute ago.

When the Holy Spirit we read it just a minute ago in verse 12.

When the Holy Spirit descended on these believers at Pentecost, a crowd looking on at the wind, at the fire and the rest of the things said what does this mean?

And that's what we're going to talk about the first two marks we looked at last time.

First, there's this violent wind inside the room, as I mentioned earlier, and it was just telling every believer there you know what?

You are not going to fill yourself with God's Spirit with Jesus.

He's going to fill you.

It's going to come from outside into you.

He's going to fill you.

It's going to come from outside into you.

Jesus even referred to the Spirit as a wind coming upon the person when he explained the gospel to Nicodemus and what it meant to be born again by the Spirit.

So that was the first mark Something from outside you has come into you.

The second mark we see at Pentecost of what it means to be filled with the Spirit are these tongues of fire that appeared on every not just the apostles on every single person who believed in Jesus.

We talked about that last time In the Old Testament.

Every time God shows up to someone in a personal way as their God, he reveals his glory, and it is usually I can't think of any exception it says fire, flaming torch to Abraham, burning bush to Moses, a pillar of fire to Israel, and so on.

And at Pentecost, the fire on these believers was a sign of God's presence, was on them and in them.

And so, as we said last time, now, when the Holy Spirit fills believers, we become a burning bush.

We and Paul goes on extensively about this we are temples of the Holy Spirit.

We possess the fire of God in our heart as believers in Jesus.

And so when the Holy Spirit comes down and fills us, believers in Jesus, what he does and Jesus sent him to do this to make God's presence in us real to us.

So we know it, not just read it in a doctrinal statement, we actually know it.

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God.

Paul says in Romans 8.

But in Romans 5, he said he talks about the Spirit in this way, revealing how much God loves us, delights in us as His children.

Hope doesn't disappoint us, because the love of God has literally been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

So we would know that we have the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

So we would know that we have the Holy Spirit to make that real to us.

Like he did at Jesus' baptism.

The Holy Spirit makes God's delight in you, a believer in Jesus, as his son or daughter, and he makes it real to you.

You know it.

And after the violent wind and the tongues of fire, we see the third mark where we continue today being filled with the Spirit, in verse 13,.

When the Holy Spirit now hear me out on this.

When the Holy Spirit fills you, it looks like you're drunk.

See what they said in verse 13?

They're full of sweet wine.

It's pretty early in the morning, though.

That's what it looked like, you see.

Later on, the Apostle Paul picks up what happened at Pentecost and he says in Ephesians 5.18, don't get drunk with wine, for that's dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.

Being filled with the Spirit is like being drunk, and it's is like being drunk.

And it's not like being drunk.

It's like being drunk because you're filled with fearless joy.

You can do anything.

You've lost your inhibitions.

You've lost your inhibitions.

You've lost your fear.

They were speaking the gospel to people they didn't know, without inhibition or fear.

They were so joyful, they were fearless, so happy.

They were too happy to care about what people thought.

They were too happy to be afraid of anything.

That's what it was like.

It was like being drunk.

It looked like it because of their joy and their fear was gone.

When you see this joyful fearlessness and lack of inhibition.

It can remind you of being drunk, because alcohol does that.

To feel God's presence in you, to know that he delights in you and loves you as his child, makes you so joyful, it makes you fearless.

But being filled with the Spirit is also not like being drunk.

You know this science lesson today.

Alcohol is a depressant.

That doesn't mean it makes you depressed, you know that right.

It means it depresses your brain function.

The reason you are happy when you're drunk is because you are stupid, literally stupid.

Your brain has been affected.

You're less aware of reality.

That's why people drink, why depress my reasonable brain function.

So I don't have to think about that.

I need a drink.

The things when you're drunk, the things that bothered you when you were sober, don't, because you can't think straight, you can't reason your way back to reality.

Alcohol depresses your brain's ability to think and reason realities hidden from you and you are happy through stupidity.

But the Holy Spirit is not a brain depressant, just the opposite.

The Holy Spirit gives you joy through intelligence.

The Spirit's testifying in your spirit, not through stupidity, because he's showing you the reality of your intimacy with God through Jesus.

So open your eyes to that and the Holy Spirit makes you more aware of reality where it counts God's unconditional, eternal love for you through his son Jesus.

Eternal love for you through his son Jesus.

As a result, the things that were bothering you become small.

As we continue in the book of Acts, we'll see that over and over again.

Things that would make us panic, the early Christian disciples are like we're not worried about that.

The next strange thing we see a mark of the fullness of the Holy Spirit filling is speaking in tongues.

Oh, I can't wait to talk about this.

Okay, some of you may say well, isn't that Pentecostalism?

Person gets born again and they start speaking in tongues.

I'm going to give you a firm answer yes and no.

Okay, it's no, because the tongues that happened at Pentecost are not like the tongues we see in the rest of the Bible.

The Apostle Paul talks about speaking in tongues in 1 Corinthians 12, 13-14.

And there Paul says if you pray in tongues, you need somebody to interpret what you're saying, what you're praying, what you're praying.

Paul is assuming that if you pray in tongues, people are not going to understand you.

That's why you need an interpreter.

Notice what happened at Pentecost they spoke in tongues, but people understood them in their own languages.

They're amazed, they're astonished.

Aren't these Galileans?

Aren't these backwoods people?

Yeah, it was a miracle.

It was unique.

They were happy and joyful.

What were they talking about?

They weren't talking about being happy.

The text says in Acts 2.11,.

They were talking about the wonders of God in everybody's language all at once, and they were understood.

We hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.

Mighty deeds of God, especially the Old Testament scripture, refer to the miraculous acts of God to deliver, to save, to salvation.

Redemptive acts in history, through Israel's history.

You see it in the Psalms, like the parting of the Red Sea.

They were saved from the Egyptians.

These are the mighty acts of God.

Now guess what they're talking about.

Wow, jesus was the incarnate Son of God.

He became human for us.

He died on the cross, substituting himself for us for the judgment of sin.

What mighty works of God.

And the resurrection.

He defeated death itself.

Wow, talk about a mighty work.

They're talking about the gospel.

They couldn't get over it.

The Holy Spirit's giving them wisdom and understanding about what just happened through Jesus' death, burial, resurrection and ascension.

That means that this fourth mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit means to be so joyfully obsessed with the gospel.

You just have to tell others about the wonderful salvation in Jesus.

That's what they started doing.

And guess what?

The church started exploding, house to house, person to person which we'll see, by the way, being joyfully obsessed with sharing the gospel, telling people about it because of what God's done for you.

That's what God himself is focused on.

The scripture says he's not willing that any should perish.

That's where Jesus' heart is.

Go into all the world and make disciples.

That's what the Holy Spirit is sent to help us with the Trinity.

This is their will and plan Through us Acts 1.8,.

You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

You shall be.

Because of that.

You're going to be my witnesses In Jerusalem, judea, samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth.

If you are spirit-filled, you are not focused so much on how happy you are.

You are focused on the joy that came to you through Jesus and the joy that others could possibly experience, as you tell them.

So this fourth mark, spirit-filledness, is basically a joyful utterance and desire to share, fearlessly share, the good news of Jesus' mighty works.

Now I want you to see something here.

This is extremely significant.

I don't want you to miss this in the text.

This is the first presentation of the gospel that was preached to the world in every language at once.

God wants us to know something because of that.

Look at the list of people.

They're really literally from all over the world.

They'd come there for the festival Parthians, medes, elamites, mesopotamians, judeans, cappadocians, pontus, asia, phygeria, pamphylia, egypt, libya, cyrene, romans, cappadocians, pontus, asia, phygeria, pamphylia, egypt, libya, cyrene, romans, cretans and Arabs Across the known world of that day.

They're there and they're hearing the gospel in their own language all at once.

That's the miracle.

I don't think we've come to grips with this by a deliberate miracle.

God made sure that no single language or culture, no one language or culture, had any precedent over any other Christian church in the world.

They all got it at the same time.

No Christian group can say, by the way, we're the only religion that can really say this.

No Christian group can say they are the original.

Every language, every culture in the world was included there at that time and received the filling of the Spirit, the gospel message.

Christianity is unique, from all of the other regions in the world.

I'll have more to say about this as we continue in Acts, but it is remarkable.

Muslims will tell you that the Koran cannot be translated.

If you have an English copy, that's not the Koran.

The Koran is only in Arabic.

Apparently, god only speaks Arabic and because of Pentecost, christianity is totally different.

Muslims, you see, are a unified Islamic culture in the world, arabic language, arabic culture wherever you are.

Culture in the world, arabic language, arabic culture wherever you are.

That's not true of Christianity.

Because of Pentecost, christianity is the most diverse religion on the face of the earth.

Because of Pentecost, there's no one language, no one culture.

That's the right one for Christians.

What does that mean?

It means, when you believe in Jesus, wherever you are in the world, you retain your culture and become an Arabic Christian, an African Christian, a European Christian.

You're a Christian.

But if you want to really get down and understand Pentecost, you've got to go back to Genesis 10 and 11.

In Genesis 10, you see a long list of nations in the world and they all had one language.

Everybody could talk to each other.

Everybody there, one language, one people.

And in Genesis, chapter 11, people get together, decide to build a great tower to heaven.

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

You know what that means?

It means they were building a new religion without God.

This was defiance of what God wanted.

They were proud and arrogant and God judged them.

You know how, confusing their language, they had to go their separate ways.

They didn't understand each other.

At Babel, they all had one language, but they couldn't understand each other.

That is quite a parable as we see it.

Beside Pentecost, the human race there was divided, but at Pentecost they all had different languages, but they understood each other.

You see what God's trying to say.

Those who were once divided by their rebellion are now united in God's spirit, and that's true for anywhere we are in the world.

That's because the judgment for pride and rebellion of the human race ultimately came down on Jesus and sets everyone free who believes in him.

The curse, the division, the disunity, the fire of God's wrath came down on Jesus so that those who believe in him could have the fire of the Holy Spirit right in them.

In Christ, god was reversing the curse of Babel and everyone who believes in Jesus receives the gift of eternal life.

Because Jesus endured the wrath of God for our sins, we are baptized, sealed, filled with the Holy Spirit at the moment of our conversion, and he allows us to really experience joy unspeakable.

Because of that, because of what God himself did for us.

While that's true, the Apostle Paul, as we continue the Christian life, in Ephesians 5, the Apostle Paul exhorts us, exhorts believers in the Ephesians church.

These are believers in the Ephesians church.

He says you need to be continuing to be filled with the Spirit.

We're filled with the Spirit at our conversion.

Why do we need to be continually filled?

He says don't be drunk with wine, for that's dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.

It's a command, but there's something else about that command.

If you notice, it's also a passive verb Be filled.

You're not filling yourself.

You see, you can't just grab the Holy Spirit.

Okay, I'm going to grab the Holy Spirit.

I'm going to my willpower, I just want the Holy Spirit in me.

You can't do that Just like Pentecost, something, the filling of something, happens to you.

You are not the subject.

Oh, what was that?

Well, I think Paul is discussing in that chapter in order for the Holy Spirit to fill us now as believers, to give us this unbelievable, fearless joy and desire to share, joy and desire to share, we need to make sure our heart is a conducive environment for him to dwell in continuing on in our Christian life.

And you know what Paul says in Romans 8?

A mind set on the flesh in actions that do not please God will only grieve and quench the Spirit in our lives.

That's all it's going to do.

Walk in the flesh, romans 8,.

For the mindset on the flesh is death.

The mindset on the Spirit is life and peace.

Because the mindset on the flesh is hostile toward God, he's writing to believers.

It doesn't subject itself to the law of God, it's not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

That's not a conducive heart environment for the Holy Spirit to be filling you and empowering you and giving you joy and letting you realize the love of God pouring out in your heart, because you've set that aside for your selfish interests.

To be filled by the Spirit, our heart needs to be tender and right.

He will fill us.

It's something that happens to us, but I'm convinced we must be completely surrendered to Jesus as our Lord and we must be loving him, not for his approval but to love him.

John 14,.

Jesus said he who has my commandments and keeps them, that's the one who loves me.

And he who loves me will be loved by my Father.

And I'm going to love him and I'm going to disclose myself to him.

That's conduciveness to being filled with the Spirit.

Only he can fill it.

You can't fill yourself.

You can fill yourself with wine, but you have to be filled by the Holy Spirit, and the only way to do that is to get your heart straightened out and in line with the Spirit, not the flesh and begin loving Jesus through keeping his word.

And when that's the case, there's no greater joy than to know God's love and presence is with you and in you.

The moment you believe in Jesus, become a Christian.

He sends his spirit right into your heart and you know it.

It testifies with our spirit.

We're children of God.

He adopted us.

So as I close in prayer this morning, I invite you to open your heart.

Look at Jesus, believe in him.

That invite you to open your heart.

Look at Jesus, believe in him that he came to save you personally, wants to be your savior, and as you open your heart to express that to him, you will receive the Holy Spirit.

Let's pray, father, thank you for Jesus, the Holy Spirit.

Let's pray, father, thank you for Jesus, our sin bearer, who rescued us from the penalty of our sin by taking the penalty on himself.

Would you help us to experience the fullness of your spirit in us?

Help us to learn to walk in surrender to Jesus and step with your spirit.

Help us to become joyfully obsessed with the gospel and, because of what you've used it through in our lives, help us to be joyfully obsessed so that we'd have a desire to share it.

We ask for this in Jesus' name, amen.