I. Intro & Summary.
A. Intro.
1. Today is Pentecost Sunday. This is the day when almost 2,000 year ago, Father poured out the promised Holy Spirit.
2. For 10 days the disciples waited in the upper room out of obedience to the Lord. And on the 50th day, the Spirit was poured out from heaven.
a. From the resurrection of Jesus (Easter) to Pentecost is exactly 50 days.
b. Acts 1:3 Jesus appeared to His disciples for 40 days after the resurrection
c. Acts 1:1 “When the day of Pentecost had fully come..”
3. Pentecost was the fulfillment of OT prophecies & promises of the indwelling Spirit.
a. Joel 2:28&29 “I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh…”
b. Ezekiel 36:26&27 “I will put My Spirit within you…”
c. Isaiah 44:3 “I will pour My Spirit upon your offspring…”
d. Jeremiah 31:33 “I will put My law within them… write it on their hearts…”
4. REGARDING Jer 31:33 and the Law written on our hearts.
a. Jewish holiday of Shavuot occurs 7 weeks after Passover, coincides w/Pentecost.
b. One of the things celebrated at Shavuot is the giving of the Law on Sinai.
c. So it coincides w/Pentecost because the Law is now written on our hearts.
d. Messianic believers: be sure to focus on the substance and not the shadow.
e. Col 2:17 festivals, new moons and sabbaths are a shadow of Christ, Who is the substance, the Fullness of what those things pointed to.
B. Summary.
1. There are so many wonderful implications of from the Day of Pentecost that we can take
away from meditating on it.
a. God’s faithfulness to fulfill His Word.
b. God’s kindness to give us His own Spirit, to have this treasure in jars of clay.
c. The law of God now written on our hearts.
d. To have His Spirit always with us.
e. The gifts of the Spirit to build up the church.
f. The fruit of the Spirit to make us like Jesus.
2. These are all manifestations of God’s grace that none of us deserve and we should pay careful attention to all of them. But the aspect of Pentecost that I want to focus on today is how the Holy Spirit gave birth to the body of Christ and forever made us His own special people.
3. It’s because of Pentecost that the church exists as a spiritual nation on the earth, distinct and different from every political nation and ethnic group.
C. The Birth of the Church.
1. I have already shared how Pentecost was the fulfillment of OT prophecies, but it was also
the birth of the church.
a. About 9 months before Pentecost, Jesus conceived the church with His words.
b. In Matt 16, Jesus was at Caesarea Philippi with His disciples, He asked them who men said that He was.
c. When He asked His own the same question, Peter said “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
d. And Jesus said “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but My Father Who is heaven. And on this rock I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
2. The church was conceived that day when Jesus spoke those words, and about 9 months later, at Pentecost, it was born of the Spirit.
3. So as we look at Pentecost today, try to keep this in mind. Because the Lord wants to show us who we really are in Him.
a. The Body of Christ that will grow up into the full stature of Christ.
b. His own special people.
II. The Text.
A. The first text: Acts 2:1-13
1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
5 And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. 7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?
8 And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” 12 So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?” 13 Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.”
1. Ironically they were filled with new wine— the promised Spirit of the New Covenant.
2. Summary of main points:
a. Disciples gathered together in obedience to the Lord.
b. Waiting in the upper room for the Spirit to be given.
c. The Spirit is poured out and appears as tongues of fire. (Distributed, not divided)
d. Jews from all over the ancient world gathered together. (15 regions)
e. Hear the disciples speak in tongues & understand in their own languages.
3. To really grasp what the Lord did at Pentecost, we need to look at another passage.
B. The second text: Genesis 11:1-9
1 Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. 3 Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. 4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” 5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
C. Comparison: Pentecost was the reversal of Babel.
III. Interpretation: What does this mean to us here today?
A. The church is the work of the Holy Spirit, not the work of man.
1. This may seem obvious but while we know this as a fact, we tend to have a hard time putting this into practice.
2. In Babel, they endeavored to build a tower with bricks. In the OT, God instructed that any holy altar was to be made of stone that was untouched by a tool or any kind of implement. Natural stones not shaped by human hands.
a. Bricks represent the work of the flesh, our best human efforts, etc.
b. But stone represents the work of God, as stone is formed by nature.
c. 1 Peter 2:5 says that we are living stones built into a spiritual house.
3. We are often tempted to build with brick instead of stone. We build with programs and anything that we think will attract and keep people. We borrow heavily from the business world and try to put systems in place.
4. But the church that is born of the Spirit and built by the Lord is a supernatural work. The Spirit gathers us, unites us, leads us and ministers to us.
a. Ps 127:1 “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.”
5. We need to recapture the essence of the early church and pursue spiritual activities like prayer, worship, fellowship and study of the Word. (I’m greatly encouraged by our Wed nite services.)
6. Jesus spoke the church into existence, but the Spirit brought it to life. We can organize a meeting, but only the Spirit can make us come alive.
B. The church is an organic body, not an institution.
1. This point grows out of my last one, in that we need to see the church as the body of Christ and not as an institution of human making. Again, we have heard this before, but it remains mostly a fact instead of a value that we live out.
2. Pentecost was not God making a new religion, it was God creating a new people.
3. There is a great deception among Christians where the church is viewed as a public institution, much like a public school, a library, a government agency, etc. instead of for what it really is — a community of people gathered together by the Holy Spirit.
4. If we see the church as an institution, we show up whenever we feel like to take whatever we need. We become consumers instead of servants, patrons instead of family members. If we don’t like the programs, the music, the message or the people, we simply move on and try the church down the road.
5. But if we see the church as the holy community it really is, we come to serve one another and worship the Lord.
6. Here is the most beautiful thing to me about being the body of Christ. Just as our spirit gives life to our natural body, the Holy Spirit gives life to the body of Christ.
7. Without the Spirit, the body has no life and is unable to accomplish any spiritual work. And the church is not held together by shared interests or ideologies but by shared life.
C. The church is God’s answer to Babylon.
1. Babel is the Hebrew form of Babylon (Gr). All throughout the scriptures Babylon represents rebellion, human society without God and witchcraft. In the book of Revelation we see the final conflict in the last days is between two cities, Babylon and Jerusalem (the New Jerusalem).
2. The idea behind Babel/Babylon was to build a human society without God empowered by witchcraft. The idea behind the New Jerusalem, which is a holy city, is a people gathered to be the dwelling space of God, His own nation.
3. In the last days, the antichrist will try to counterfeit for himself what God has already accomplished in the church. The antichrist will try to create for himself his own people from the nations who worship his image and bear his mark.
4. As we approach the last days and the return of the Lord, we must remember that we are God’s answer to Babylon. As the church, we stand as the true people of God in the earth, gathered by the Spirit and baptized into the body of Christ.
5. Have you heard of a one-world government? The New World Order? The Illuminati? Instead of watching hours of YouTube videos about them, we would be much more effective if we embraced our calling as the church, the body of Christ.
6. In know there are many strong opinions about the rapture, but the answer to the antichrist’s counterfeit church is not to take the true church away, but to shine with the glory of God as Jesus did.
7. In the Parable of the Tares, the tares were allowed to grow until the harvest, and then the tares were gathered first, before the wheat.
a. Matt 13:40-43
40 Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. 41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
8. This calls for a deeper discussion on the events of the last days, but let me suggest that it would be better for us to prepare to be here through the tribulation and be surprised by the rapture (If it happens before) than to prepare for the rapture and be disappointed if it happens after the tribulation.
IV. Application: How then shall we live?
A. Pursue unity with God and one another.
1. Vs 1 “…they were all with one accord in one place.”
a. What we should notice is the great degree of unity that God gave them.
b. one accord: Gr homthymadon
c. from the Outline of Biblical Usage…
A unique Greek word, used 11 of its 12 New Testament occurrences in the Book of Acts, helps us understand the uniqueness of the Christian community. Homothumadon is a compound of two words meaning to “rush along” and “in unison”. The image is almost musical; a number of notes are sounded which, while different, harmonize in pitch and tone. As the instruments of a great concert under the direction of a concert master, so the Holy Spirit blends together the lives of members of Christ’s church.
2. The unity that can only come by the Spirit as we yield to Him.
3. Ephesians 4:1-5
1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, 2 with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, 3 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
4. Unity is not produced by sameness, it is produced by surrender. The Spirit is not trying to erase our differences, He is trying to harmonize them.
B. Gather with the saints as often as you can.
1. In the days that followed Pentecost, we see the result of this unity— the restoration of fellowship with God and one another.
2. Babel produced confusion, Pentecost produced communion.
3. Hebrews 10:24&25
24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
4. It is the Holy Spirit Who gathers us, so to resist gathering is to resist the Spirit. The Spirit gathers, but the flesh isolates.
V. Closing thoughts.
A. Recap.
1. I’m grateful for tongues and the gifts of the Spirit. I’m grateful that the Law is now written on our hearts. But I also want to remember that the Spirit has restored our fellowship with God and one another.
2. Just as Jesus is the unique Son of God, the only of His kind, we are the only spiritual body on the earth.
a. We must be built by the Spirit.
b. See the church as one another and not as an institution.
c. And realize that God has called us to stand as the true body of Christ against the counterfeit of the evil one in the last days.
3. Do you’re part in preserving the unity of the Spirit in love.
4. And submit to the Spirit’s gathering as He pulls you into the assembly. Just as the disciples obeyed the Lord’s command to gather and wait— and they waited for 10 days— obey the Spirit and the Word that calls us to gather together as one.
B. Closing prayers.
1. To take the first steps towards unity, is there anyone that we need to forgive? Is there anyone that we need to ask forgiveness?
2. Do we need to repent to the Lord for seeing His body as a public institution?