[Modified from May 31, 2009]
I. Introduction
-- turn in Bibles to Acts 2:1-21
Acts 2:1-21 (NIV)
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.
6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.
7 Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?
8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?
9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome
11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs--we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!"
12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"
13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine."
14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.
15 These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning!
16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 "'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
19 I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
20 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'
-- John Wimber was a charismatic preacher and one of the founders of the Vineyard Movement, which was the catalyst for spread of non-denominational and home churches that we are seeing in our area and throughout the country right now -- he's also widely known as the composer of "The Spirit Song," which was an early praise song that enjoyed quite a bit of popularity back in the 80's and 90's
-- Wimber came to Christ in the height of the Jesus movement in the 1960s as God moved through the hippies and the young people in those days -- he began reading the Bible -- starting with the Gospels and then went through the book of Acts -- and as he read, he got excited about what God had done in the early church -- about how God had ignited their faith and how the church was known for its love and for the presence of miraculous signs and wonders
-- after reading all of that, Wimber decided he wanted to be a part of it -- he went out and started visiting churches in his area, but he was disillusioned by what he found -- it was the same story at every church he went to -- the service was nice and polite and very structured -- it began exactly on time -- it ended on time -- and nothing much happened in the middle
-- Wimber looked at the people in the church and he asked them, "When are you gonna do the stuff? -- "What stuff?" they wanted to know -- "You know...the stuff -- the stuff from the Bible!"
-- Wimber had been reading about the miraculous conversions -- the healings and the deliverance from sin and the other miracles that took place in the early church as recorded in the book of Acts -- but instead of signs and wonders, he saw no sign of life at all -- no sign of anything that would make him wonder -- that would leave him speechless -- that would draw people in from all walks of life
-- all he experienced in the church was the deadness of the ritual that he had just sat through -- and his heart broke to know just how much of God was missing1
-- if we're honest with each other, we have to say that we know exactly what Wimber experienced in that church -- we've had our share of dry services -- of services without much happening -- of doing the same-old, same-old Sunday after Sunday after Sunday
-- we've experienced the same thing in our own lives -- even after coming to Christ and having our sins forgiven, our spiritual lives can become dry and powerless and rarely look like the lives of Paul or Peter or any of those mentioned in the Bible -- in fact, they rarely look that different from those around us who are not Christians
-- but this is not what God intended -- God intended for us to live amazing and exciting lives through Him -- He intended that we would walk through this land as shining beacons of light -- that we would live lives of such holiness and goodness and righteousness and power that when others looked at us, they would be drawn to the God who made us like this
-- this is the reason for this passage today -- this is the reason why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be with us -- this is the reason for Pentecost -- as Jesus told us in Acts 1:8, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you"
-- power for what? -- power to just come and sit through a church service for one hour a week?
-- no, Jesus sent us power through the Holy Spirit to overcome sin -- power to live holy lives -- power to speak the name of Christ to the world around us -- power to do wondrous signs and miracles in Jesus' name
-- as Rick Kirchoff says, “When God sends forth the Spirit amazing things happen -- barriers are broken -- communities are formed -- opposites are reconciled -- unity is established -- diseases are cured -- addiction is broken -- cities are renewed -- races are reconciled -- hope is established -- people are blessed -- and church -- [real church] -- happens.
-- Today the Spirit of God is present -- God is up to something. . . [so] discouraged folks [are going to cheer up] -- dishonest folks [are gonna] ‘fess up -- sour folks sweeten up -- closed folk open up -- gossipers shut up -- conflicted folks make up -- sleeping folks wake up -- lukewarm folk fire up -- dry bones shake up -- and pew potatoes stand up! -- But most of all, Christ the Savior of all the world is [going to be] lifted up.”2
-- doesn't that sound better than what we do now? -- doesn't that sound more exciting than the Christian lives we live now?
-- so, how does this come about? -- how can we see transformed churches and lives today? -- how can we experience for ourselves the dynamic life of Christ portrayed in the Bible -- lives characterized by purity and power -- signs and wonders?
-- well, it all starts with holiness -- it all starts with the commitment to be holy in all we do because God is holy -- it all starts with the belief that God will make us holy and will empower us to do mighty things in His name
II. Holiness -- Positional and Progressive
-- last week, we started a new sermon series on holiness as we talked about Jesus washing the feet of His disciples -- just to jog your memory, we talked about the fact that Jesus came for two reasons
-- first, Jesus came to give us a bath and cleanse us from unrighteousness -- that's what He meant when He told Peter in the Upper Room that if you've had a bath, you are clean and only need your feet washed
-- Jesus gave us a bath by becoming our substitute on the cross -- He took our place on the cross -- He died for our sins so that we might be forgiven of our sins and have eternal life with Him -- in the church, we call this "justification" -- another word is "salvation" -- it's the life-changing event that occurs when we receive Jesus as our Savior
-- another way to think of this is to realize that justification or salvation is the start of holiness in our lives -- we call the holiness of the cross, "positional holiness"
-- because Jesus substituted His life for ours, our position -- our standing -- before God has been changed -- the Bible says that we were once objects of wrath -- far away from God because of our sin -- now, we are near to God because of what Jesus has done for us
-- or, as Paul writes in Ephesians 2:6, God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms -- our position has been changed -- we have moved from being members of this world to being part of God's Kingdom
-- the second reason we said Jesus came was to wash our feet -- just like He washed the feet of His disciples -- in other words, Jesus came to wash off the dust of this world so we could walk through the world with clean feet
-- in the church, we call this "sanctification" -- it's just a fancy way of saying that Jesus came to make our walk holy -- to make our lives holy -- to make our behavior match our position so that we might experience His power working through us
-- in sanctification, Jesus becomes our substitute for life -- in other words, Jesus lives in us and through us to allow us to live a life of holiness instead of the life we would live without Him
-- it is Christ's righteousness within us that sanctifies us and delivers us from sin -- we have to keep in mind that the Jesus' death on the cross did not only pay our sin debt and offer us forgiveness from sin, but it struck at the very capacity to sin -- the cross broke the chains of sin in our life --it destroyed the power of sin and opened up the path to living a life free from sin
-- that's what most of us think about when we consider the word "holy" -- we're talking about sanctification -- another term for it is "progressive" holiness -- it is how we make Jesus Lord of our life -- it is how we show Him our love
-- we do this by following His commands and living lives in obedience to Him -- progressive holiness or sanctification is becoming holy in our behavior -- letting our outside begin to match our inside
-- This is the area where the church and where Christians are failing today -- more than anything else, it is a lack of holiness that has led us to experience powerless lives and churches -- it is a lack of holiness that has led us to continue to be trapped and plagued by sin just as much as the world
-- if we want to experience the dynamic life that Christ called us to -- the dynamic life that we see portrayed in the men and women of the Bible -- then we have to start with holiness
-- the good thing is, we don't have to do this on our own -- actually, we can't do this on our own -- we are totally incapable of doing good -- of being holy -- in our own lives -- so, we need someone else who can live our lives for us -- who will substitute His power and His righteousness for our own -- someone who will empower us to be obedient to God and to quit living lives of sin on a daily basis
-- that's where the Holy Spirit comes in -- the Holy Spirit is the source of holiness in our lives
III. The Holy Spirit
-- that's what this passage from Acts is all about -- it tells us about the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost
-- Pentecost didn't just start with the New Testament -- it was actually a Jewish religious celebration that commemorated the day when the Israelites made their way to Mt. Sinai after they left Egypt -- when they got to Mt. Sinai, God met them there and gave them the law -- this moment, more than any other, defined the Israelites as a nation, as the people of God
-- about 4000 years later, God sent the Holy Spirit to the church on the Day of Pentecost -- and just like the giving of the law defined the nation of Israel, the giving of the Spirit defined the church -- it gave birth to the church and to the miracles and wonders and signs that were supposed to be part of the Christian experience
-- let's look at this passage about Pentecost and see how we might receive and experience a fresh outpouring of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives today
-- look back at verse 1-4
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
-- as this passage opens, we read that the disciples were all together in one place -- now that can mean a couple of different things
-- first, it can mean a literal place -- Luke might mean that the disciples were all together in the Upper Room or they were all together in the temple or in some other area -- that is probably the case
-- but, there is a different meaning to this that we need to understand -- for the first time since Jesus had brought the disciples together, they were in one place in their spirit and in their understanding -- they were of one accord
-- now, that's not referring to the type of car they drove -- it's referring to their state of mind and it's remarkable that Luke records that all the disciples were of one accord at this time
-- if you read through the gospels, it's obvious that this was seldom the case -- the gospels tell us that the disciples constantly bickered and quarreled with each other -- they constantly wanted the best places at the table and the highest positions in the kingdom -- they were constantly jockeying for position -- but, now, something has happened
-- Jesus has died and come back -- their sins have been forgiven -- and Jesus has spent the last 40 days with them in an intense Bible course -- teaching them how the Old Testament Scriptures all pointed to Him and His ministry
-- and, so, for the first time since we have read about the disciples, we find them in one place -- physically and spiritually -- they are of one accord and they are finally ready to be baptized with the Holy Spirit
-- contrary to popular opinion, the disciples had already received the Holy Spirit by this time -- in John 20:22, we read that after Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them, "He breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." -- the Holy Spirit already lived within them -- but the disciples couldn't experience His power because they were not open to His presence
-- it's the same way with us -- once we have been saved -- once we have asked Jesus to forgive us of our sins and live within our hearts, He sends the Holy Spirit to indwell us -- to live within us
-- the problem is that we don't really believe it -- we don't let the Holy Spirit work through us but continue to try to live life in our own strength
-- the first step to holiness, then, is being open to the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives -- if you are saved, the Holy Spirit is already there -- we just have to believe it and allow Him to substitute His power and His righteousness for our own -- that is what the disciples were doing in this passage
-- and, as they opened themselves up to God's presence, Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples like a mighty rushing wind and in tongues of fire that rested on them
-- this is not the normal way the Spirit comes upon us now -- we don't see the Spirit coming upon anyone else in the Bible in this way -- but this was what the disciples needed at this moment
-- Jesus had ascended to heaven 10 days earlier -- and, for the first time, the disciples were truly physically alone -- so they needed to hear God's presence -- they needed to see God's presence -- and so the Spirit came on them and baptized them in power in this miraculous way -- it was what the early church needed to know that God was with them
-- now, as soon as the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, Luke tells us that a crowd gathered because of the noise and commotion -- when is the last time you heard of people being drawn to a church service because of the noise and commotion? -- but that's exactly what happened here
-- Peter began to preach to the crowd and to tell them the good news of Jesus -- he recognized that what was happening was the fulfillment of the promise that God gave to the prophet Joel -- skip down to verse 17-21
17 "'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
19 I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
20 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'
-- God was pouring out His Spirit on all people -- men and women -- young and old -- everyone who turned to Jesus for the forgiveness of sins would now receive the Holy Spirit in their lives -- this gift of God was for everyone -- from the youngest Christian to the oldest saint -- all could receive and be filled with the presence of God in their lives
-- and with the coming of the Holy Spirit, the church would experience signs and wonders -- transformed lives and changed hearts -- with the coming of the Holy Spirit, we would be empowered to live holy and obedient lives, following Christ's commands and walking in His paths and not the paths of the world
IV. Closing
-- this is what God considers normal for Christians and churches -- this is what we should expect in our worship services and in our lives -- this is our goal -- and this is what we're going to be focusing on over the next several weeks
-- if you are not experiencing signs and wonders in your life -- if you are not living lives of obedience to God -- if you can't describe yourself as "holy" -- then I want to encourage you to open yourself up to the presence of the Holy Spirit
-- I can't think of any better way to do this today than for us to come together in one accord and receive Holy Communion this morning -- to receive within us again the power and presence of the living Christ -- to come before His table for cleansing and the forgiveness of sins and to rise from the altar filled with His presence
-- I'm going to close in prayer right now and then we'll share Holy Communion together
-- let's pray
1Modified from sermon by Rodney Buchanan, Pentecostal Power, http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=59048
2Modified from sermon by Rodney Buchanan, Pentecostal Power, http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=59048
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