Acts 2:1-13

Discussion Questions

• As Acts is a historical narrative and therefore descriptive more than prescriptive, what parts of Acts 2 feel unique to that moment, and what parts should characterize the church today?
• When you hear reports of Spirit’s work, especially in situations you can’t explain, do you default to curiosity or cynicism?
• Of the summary of how the Spirit impacts our lives (convinces, convicts, converts, connects, comforts & conforms), which one have you recently experienced most clearly, and which one do you most need right now?
• Recognizing that we need to “be being filled, because we leak”, what are your more predictable “leak points” (stress, conflict, fatigue, temptation, busyness)? What is a practical step you can take to build a refill rhythm into your week?

Transcript

We’re looking at the book of Acts and we’re in Chapter 2. We have the QR code up on the screen. If you would like the sermon notes and quotes, they will be available to you there. How many of you come from a Charismatic or Pentecostal background? Raise your hand. Okay. Just a few of you. Yeah. You’re going to be really excited today. We’re in Acts, Chapter 2. So, we’re going to look a little bit at the Holy Spirit, “God with Us, in Us and Through Us” is what we will call this. And, if you’ll turn there in your Bibles right now, Acts, Chapter 2, we’ll take the first baker’s dozen verses in just a moment. I’ll tell you, this passage is noisy. It’s visual. It’s disruptive in a very positive way. It’s astonishing. And it’s historically pivotal, really is. And especially when you think about redemption history. What does the Bible mean? Like phrases like the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Spirit, things like the gifts or being filled with the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit.

And why was the coming of the Holy Spirit so decisive? Just a significant event, as we’ll read today from Acts, Chapter 2, verses 1 to 13. Before we read the text, I want to thank the folks from around the world who joined us last week. We had some folks from South Korea, and we’re so glad, also Serbia; East Java, Indonesia; Surrey, British Columbia, Canada; Christchurch, New Zealand. I believe that’s one of our college students who’s studying abroad there who’s joining us or perhaps telling others to join us as well. And we’ve heard from several friends from the nation of India as well, in the recent weeks, so very excited that, the Lord has opened up the opportunity for The Village Chapel to have extended reach, via the internet together.

I agree with D.L. Moody, who once compared studying the Bible without the Holy Spirit to trying to read a sundial by moonlight. So, before we read Acts, Chapter 2, verses 1 through 13, let us pray to the Holy Spirit for illumination. Bow your heads with me, if you will: Holy Spirit, come be our Teacher. As we now give attention to the study of Your Word, we place our minds under its truth, our wills under its authority, and our hearts under its transforming power. Give us, we pray, a clearer vision of Your truth, a greater faith in Your power, and a more confident assurance of Your love for us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen and amen.

So, the text Acts, Chapter 2, verses 1 through 13: “And 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 of fire distributing themselves, and 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. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were bewildered, because they were each one hearing them speak in his own language.”

And they were amazed and marveled, saying, ‘Why, are not all of these Galileans who are speaking? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born?” And then there’s this table of nations Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, the districts of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs. “’…we hear them in our own tongues, speaking of the mighty deeds of God.’ They all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ [Verse 13] But others were mocking and saying, ‘They are full of sweet wine.’”

I can’t leave that last verse without making the comment that having been a young man, early in my testimony is not very peppered with a lot of really bad things. But when I was in college, I drank some sweet wine, so to speak. I could barely speak English at that time. I’m not sure this is a reasonable explanation from the mockers. I mean, I literally was, right under the influence of alcohol. Many people may think I am. And you can’t know? That’s not a good excuse. That’s not a good reason for what’s going on here. What happened here is something supernatural happened to them, and then something supernatural happened through them. And that’s why we remember the day of Pentecost, why we look back on it and we learn from it. And I want to suggest to you this morning that this is not just a one-time event. This is the beginning of something that God continues to do, and we are Acts, Chapter 29. The continuation of the story of The Acts of the Apostles.

Maybe we should see it this way: The Holy Spirit, through the followers of Jesus as they go out into the world to preach the Gospel. It’s interesting to me that we don’t hear anymore about sounds of mighty rushing wind or tongues as of fire. Again, this happened once. It’s amazing because it indicates that something supernatural happened to them, and then something supernatural happened through them. It was not of their own doing, they were simply being obedient when Jesus in Acts, Chapter 1, verse 8 said, “Stay and wait. Stay in Jerusalem and wait because the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, will come and empower you to be my witnesses.” Acts, Chapter 1, verses maybe 7 and 8 or whatever. But right there in the first chapter, as Jesus is about to ascend, that’s what happens. This is the day of Pentecost. Yes, those of you who are raised in Charismatic or Pentecostal churches, we sort of harken back to that day and think about the day of Pentecost a lot, and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost means 50th day. So, it’s the 50th day after the Passover, the Passover in Jewish, calendar, and in their reckoning of the way their year rolled out was tied to the feast of weeks or the Feast of harvest, as it’s called as well. And it’s one of the three great major pilgrimages for Jews scattered abroad in the diaspora, or scattered around the Mediterranean, if you will, throughout the Roman Empire and the Three Great Feasts were those plays that happened each year in the Jewish calendar, that Jewish males in particular, would make an attempt to get back to Jerusalem and to celebrate the feast. One of those three feasts, Passover certainly being one of the biggest ones. It harkens back to that wonderful event where God heard the cries of his people in Egypt. 400 years of oppression, slavery and God heard their cries. They were simply crying out, and God heard that. And God intervened, took initiative and intervened and send a deliverer, a rescuer, now a pre-Christ figure, in a way, in the person of Moses, who basically said to Pharaoh, “Let my people go.”

And over and over ten plagues later, when God is continuing to exercise His mighty deeds, remember we read about that in verse 11, didn’t we? It wasn’t just ecstatic speech on the day of Pentecost. It was human languages that people could understand, talking about very specific things. What things? The mighty deeds of God. Verse 11. So, this isn’t really a text that if you’re sort of all, trying to make an argument for, the continuation of events like this and sort of, a supernatural display of a lot of things, and I’m all about God being supernatural. I have experienced this recently. I’m all about that. But this isn’t one of those occasions where we’re going to point to this and say, we’re going to duplicate this here at The Village Chapel. And for all of you who are watching online around the world that we’re going to look for, or we’re going to listen for the sound of a train, we’re going to listen for the sound of a mighty rushing wind. We’re going to look for tongues of fire and all that. That’s not this as a matter of fact. Those are pointing to something else, as do all of the signs and wonders that Jesus performed Himself. They point not to themselves, but to Jesus. And in this particular case, this event is about equipping God’s people to witness and to become His witnesses around the world.

And isn’t it interesting that on this particular day, all of those people from around the world are there so that they can go back home to all of those places they’re from and talk about this particular day, what happened, and the sermon that they’re about to hear. It’s the first of these 24 sermons in the book of Acts, and every single one of them mentions Jesus, the resurrected Christ. And it’s sort of giving us the idea, isn’t it, that on this day of Pentecost, these people see something supernatural happen, and it’s affirming the message they are hearing that Jesus indeed had risen from the dead. They go back to wherever they are from, all around. I don’t know if we have the map or not, but you look at that table of nations there and they’re from all over the place. It’s really amazing. And so, they’re going back there to these little pockets of people that they know family, friends and, and communities. And they’re saying it was an amazing thing that happened that day. We heard these people and they’re just Galileans. And that’s the same as saying they’re from the other side of the railroad tracks, the uneducated people from the north, the farmers.

Okay, it’s a little bit of a dig. It’s a little, you know, nasty in a way that they would say that because they wouldn’t expect the people from the north to understand Phrygian or Pamphylia or Latin or whatever it might be, if they’re from Rome. And so, they are astonished that God is done this and that God is doing it through those people, you know, from up in Galilee. And then they go back home and they tell everybody about what’s happening. And that just prepares hearts. That’s the sowing of seed that God will water and God will continue to nurture along the way. And we also have in the fact that, they’re talking about the mighty deeds of God. We also see here, don’t we, some of the echoes of what happened in the old Testament? You have the Tower of Babel, where the people build a tower. They want to build a name. They want to build their own city. They want to build their own fame. They want to reach the heavens. They want to discover God on their own or, you know, show how all powerful they are. And God scatters them by scattering their language into so many different tongues.

And now this is such a great reversal of that. The people gathered, and then God opens the way for all those different languages to hear what? The Gospel. And again, we’ll get there in the sermon that we study coming up in the in the next few weeks. So, it’s like the opposite now, or the reversal of Babel, isn’t it? At Sinai also, God gathered Israel as His covenant people, and when they leave Egypt, when He delivers them from Egypt, they gather at Sinai as His covenant people. At Pentecost, the Spirit gathered, empowered, and then sent out their church to go on its new global mission at Sinai. The law was written on tablets of stone at Pentecost, the fulfillment of what Jeremiah 31 talks about the law being written on God’s people’s hearts. Sinai marked the birth of the Old Covenant people. Pentecost marks the public inauguration of the New Covenant community. And we folks sitting here today watching from wherever you are online, we are recipients of this Gospel once handed down by these saints who gathered that day at Babel. Humanity exalted itself. God confused their languages and nations were scattered at Pentecost.

God exalts Christ, languages are understood, and nations are united in the person and work of Christ. So, throughout the Old Testament, God’s manifest presence on Earth was often localized in one place, wasn’t it? Eden, going through the wilderness, the cloud, the pillar, the pillar of fire, the mountain, the tabernacle, the temple. We read of that all throughout the Old Testament, don’t we? At Pentecost, the dwelling place of God shifts from a place to a people. You are that people. We are those people. If we have trusted Christ as our Lord and Savior. So, I have entitled this sermon today “The Holy Spirit: God with Us, God in Us and Through Us” as well. So, we have the presence of the Holy Spirit with us. We have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, and we have the mission of the Holy Spirit as He works through us, through you, through me, in the world in which we live, in the city in which we move and work and play, and really in the world now, as we communicate with others via the Internet. Following Jesus’ instructions, His disciples had indeed stayed in Jerusalem waiting for God to move. They recognized that they needed more than they had.

You would think, you know, I spent about three-and-a-half years, almost maybe, okay, five years doing a three-year program in seminary. Okay. Now the disciples had three years with Jesus Himself. My seminary professors were great, but they aren’t Jesus. You know, they had three years with Jesus. And there’s a little bit of overconfidence, we know. And one of them in particular. Right. You know, Peter. Right. But they still needed more. And they had 40 days walking with the resurrected Jesus. And then He tells them to stay and wait. They still need something more. What is that “more”? It’s the Promise of the Father. It’s the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. It’s the illumination of the Spirit as they read the text, as they studied the text. And it’s the empowerment of the Spirit as they go out to preach, as they go out to serve, and as they become even deeper and deeper, the covenant community of God’s people, a living example of how the Gospel can fall freely from our lips and be visible in our relationships, and be the antidote to all of the moral sag in our universe.

They need the Holy Spirit for all of that to happen, and so do we. We are a diverse group of a variety of church backgrounds and traditions. I do want to clear up a few of the misunderstandings that may exist around the subject of the Holy Spirit today, if it’s possible in the few minutes we have together. The book of Acts is historical narrative, and I think it’s important for us to keep that in mind as we go through it. It’s intended to provide us an account of some things that happened, so it’s more descriptive than it is prescriptive. It’s not prescriptive here. We’re actually never told in the Bible to go out and be baptized in the Holy Spirit. We’re told to be filled with the Holy Spirit. “Be filled with the Holy Spirit” is the way you could read that as well from Ephesians being filled over and over and over again. Why do I need to do that more than once? Because I leak. And my flesh crowds out the work of the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Holy Spirit. And I need to be “being filled.” And we’ll read of Peter multiple times as he stands up. He’s filled with the Spirit, and he preaches more than just what happened here on the day of Pentecost. But you may have questions about the Holy Spirit as well.

Perhaps we’ll be able to touch on these. Who is the Holy Spirit? What is the role of the Holy Spirit? What is the fruit of the Holy Spirit? What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit? Lots of different phrases you may have heard along the way. I summed it up this way: The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, fully God, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Son, involved in creation, implies redemption and dwells in believers, sanctifies the church, and advances Christ’s kingdom in the world. Who wouldn’t want that? I need more of that. We need more of that. Look at what happened with this little band of 120 that gathered here on the day of Pentecost, because in the next few verses, we’re going to read how they multiplied from 120 to 3000, and then in the coming chapters, 2000 more. And that might be them just counting men at the time, the way they did things. So, it might be plus women and children. I mean, 120 to 3000 is a pretty massive dynamic explosion of evangelism.

It isn’t that the Holy Spirit is not the one thing. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, a battery. It’s not a battery. It’s not just about you getting some energy or having an ecstatic experience of some kind, or a supernatural sort of spirit. No, no, no, the Holy Spirit comes to actually indwell believers for the purpose of empowering them to be witnesses to Jesus, to glorify Christ, and to also transform us. And this is all a part of the beautiful bouquet of things that come with the salvation God has put on offer for you and for me. Folks, it’s more than just dodging Hell. It’s way more than just sin management. It’s more than that. Yes, it does deal with our sin, but it’s more than that. It’s actually grace transforming you and me so that when we go through the trials, not yet, but when we go through the trials, when we have to sleep in the hospital room for our beloveds, when we have to stand beside a grave, when the report comes back and it’s not what we hoped, when the rest of all of our resources have dried up. When all of that happens in this world that continues to kind of run out of gas, run out of steam, run out of its ability to satisfy us, we then have an irresistible power within us, and an inexhaustible power within us, to be able to say, “Yet not I, but Christ in me,” just like we sang, see? And it actually makes a difference.

As regards the Trinitarian view of redemption, this thing that God is doing, the Father’s plan, salvation, redemption, the Son accomplished it, and the Spirit applies redemption. It doesn’t just mean that there are different modes of the Godhead. They are co-equal. They are one in essence, three in personality. And it’s a great mystery. We cannot fully understand or comprehend it. But God reveals Himself. Even though the word “trinity” doesn’t appear in the Bible, God reveals Himself over and over again from page one all the way to the end. As God the Father. You see the Spirit at work in Genesis, Chapter 1. You know from John, Chapter 1 that the Son was there as well at the creation event, and all the way through to the end, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, over and over and over again. The primary words in our Bibles are drawn from the primary Hebrew word is ruach. The primary Greek word is pneuma. Both ancient words are rich in meaning can also be translated wind or breath, not the creation event the Lord God breathed His life into the human beings when He created us. And that beautiful …and he breathes out.

That’s why we say all Scripture is God breathed or inspired by God, if you will. How many times, is the Holy Spirit referred to in the in the Bible – 93 times the phrase Holy Spirit? Those two words together appeared three times in the Old Testament, 90 times in the New Testament. And by the way, 56 of them are here in the book of Acts. So, I mean, there’s one book you want to go to and you want to learn about the Holy Spirit. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to give us a broader sort of look at the Holy Spirit today as well. But you go to the book of Acts, “Spirit of the Lord,” 28 times across Scripture; “Spirit of God,” 24 times, “My Spirit,” 18 times, “the Spirit” with a definite article is there 245 times. And that’s the way it shows up in my new American Standard Bible right here. Your English translation may have it just a little different in terms of the numbers. So please, you know, if you want to check, online or whatever, you can check your translation to see what you find there in terms of how often the Spirit is mentioned.

But there’s no shortage of mentions of God, the Spirit. Now, we see here that the Holy Spirit was present at the creation event is omnipresent. “Where can I go from your spirit?” Psalm 139 says, and the rhetorical question there is answered: simply nowhere. You can’t go anywhere and get away from the Holy Spirit. He, the Holy Spirit, filled Bezalel with skill to craft the tabernacle and its sacred object. I love that the Holy Spirit inspires creativity and craftsmanship. I love that. The Holy Spirit rested on the 70 elders of Israel, giving them prophetic gifts to help Moses govern their many other places. The Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Old Testament. We even read about how God promised to put His Spirit within us in a new way. As the prophet Ezekiel looks forward to what seems to coincide with Acts, Chapter 2. “Moreover, I will give you a new heart.” Thank God. “I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you.” You see, He’s within you and causes you to walk in my statutes. In other words, the Holy Spirit is the one that gives you the desire to walk in God’s ways.

See, folks, I know I’m a pastor and everything, but there are times I just don’t want to do what God wants me to do. I can’t want that. My “want to” is broken. What I need is the Holy Spirit redirecting my affections. If you’re wrestling with some misdirected affections, may I suggest you make it a serious matter of prayer to turn those affections over to the Lord? Be honest with Him. I don’t want what you want. God, help me to want what you want. You see? How do you know what God wants? It’s why we study through books of the Bible. Here at The Village Chapel. Do that. He’ll put His Spirit within you so that you’ll want to walk in His statutes. You’ll be careful to observe His ordinances. The Holy Spirit who inspired the writers of Scripture is co-equal with the Father and Son. We see that Matthew 28, don’t we? When Jesus tells His disciples, go out in the world and make disciples and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and of the Spirit, all three listed there. Okay. The Holy is involved in regeneration of Christians. In terms of all of who we are baptized as every believer into the body of Christ resides within every believer, leads believers in their walk, empowers believers for spiritual witness, is involved in our sanctification, transforms us so that we bear spiritual fruit, the fruit of the spirit right there.

Galatians, Chapter 5. It’s not the fruit of Jim. It’s not the fruit of whoever you are, whatever your name is. I need to be more patient. No, you just need to surrender to the Holy Spirit and allow that fruit of the spirit to be born blossoming in your life. I need to love my spouse more. Yes, you do, that’s true. But why don’t you? When you run out of your love for your spouse, why don’t you let the Holy Spirit love your spouse through you? Because you are going to run out of your love for your spouse. It’s going to happen. You’re going to undulate like this in your feelings of love. And we have, unfortunately, done a horrible thing in reducing love to a feeling in the world in which we live. But we need to let the fruit of the spirit fill us. He, the spirit fills us with the love of God. Romans five says He distributes spiritual gifts to believers. Hallelujah! He seals us in Christ. You understand what that means? That’s massive. He has sealed you in Christ. If you’re having trouble feeling saved, stop measuring your salvation by your feelings. Trust the Holy Spirit who has sealed you in God’s salvation.

That’s amazing right there. We’ll be involved in resurrection of our mortal bodies. The gifts of the spirit. Yes, that’s an important category as well. I think that’s very important for us to be aware of the gifts of the Spirit. They are at work in this church: prophecy, service teaching. There are two lists, and I don’t think these lists, either one of them are exhaustive. I don’t think they were intended to be. I think the Holy Spirit is doing all kinds of things, but some of the things that are listed from the first century church included prophecy, speaking forth from the Lord, from the word of the Lord, service, teaching, exhortation, giving leadership, acts of mercy, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues, interpretation of tongues are any of those gifts? Have any of those gifts ceased? I don’t think so. Why would I want to say no? The Holy Spirit can’t do that. Why would you want to shut down the work of the Spirit?

There are a whole lot of things that go on in churches that they like to say that’s the Holy Spirit, but I’m not sure it is because some of that stuff is glorifying the person that’s doing it. When they call attention to themselves or when everybody starts to focus on, you know, this sort of movement of whether it’s rolling around on the floor, or holy laughter, swinging on chandeliers, whatever it might be. They’re focusing in on the sign and the wonder, not on what the sign and wonder point to. And the sign and wonder, if they’re from God, are supposed to point to Christ and glorify Christ. That’s a very easy thing to discern, I think.

The fruit of the spirit at work in our lives is joy, peace, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Raise your hand if you think the last one is the hardest one. Yeah, that’s a self-defining one, you know, because like, what is self-control? It’s controlling yourself. And I can’t do that. Again, I need the gift of the Holy Spirit to help me control myself. It’s when you bump up against that and you feel that urge to strike back at that person that said something about you, or when you feel that urge to gossip, when you feel the urge to be in the know and you want to be the one telling the story that really belongs to somebody else. Self-control. I can’t stop myself. Let the Spirit be the one to stop you. Surrender to Him and He’ll help you with your self-control, whatever the temptation is, whatever the lust or the craving or whatever it might be in your heart.

I’m going to summarize it this way because I love her alliteration. The Spirit’s role in our lives. He convinces us of the truth that happened on the day of Pentecost, as they heard them speaking in all of those different languages, they were speaking the mighty deeds of God. And we’re about to read that this massive harvest comes in. Remember the whole Pentecost thing, tied to that Jewish feast of weeks, was also called Feast of the Harvest. Isn’t that great? There’s this whole massive harvest that comes on the day of Pentecost, as the Holy Spirit convinces a lot of people of the truth and does the work of regeneration, revelation, and redemption. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin. How do I know if I’ve been listening to the Holy Spirit? Occasionally I ought to have a sense of Him convicting me of my sin. I get very uneasy with myself when we come to communion, and we say the confession of sin. I get uneasy with myself when I think, well, I’m not up there on that screen. I don’t see me up there. I must have gotten calloused in some way to the voice of the Holy Spirit, because I got news for you, even by saying I’m not up there on the screen, even by saying I can’t think of anything to confess, then I need to confess my arrogance, my pride, my closing my ears to the Holy Spirit. But He does that good work, doesn’t He? Converts us new creatures in Christ, connects us to the body of Christ, comforts us in our trials.

If you don’t know the sweet comfort of the Holy Spirit in your trials, let me just tell you the past couple of weeks the palpable nearness of God and the powerful prayers of God’s people have been our good. And that will be true for you too. As you turn to Him and trust Him, lift up the empty hands of faith and seek Him constantly. No matter what you’re going through, no matter where, no matter how exhausted you are, no matter how you’ve run out of resources. The Holy Spirit is called the Paraclete as well. It’s another word besides pneuma, Paraclete. Jesus used it in John, Chapter 14. He’s the one that will be with you and in you both. He will be your teacher. John, Chapter 16. So, you see that the Holy Spirit is really that aspect of the Godhead that we, on an experiential level, are to be constantly, relating to and leaning on and trusting and surrendering to in our lives. He comforts us in our trials. He conforms us to the image of Christ. So this is for a reason. It’s not just a to have a big, splashy, flashy day, a day of Pentecost where all this supernatural sensationalism stuff is happening. But it’s so that we might become holy people that were set apart to God, that were transformed, and that people who are watching will see in us the antidote to what’s wrong in the world because we start to live in right relationship with God and in right relationship with one another.

Couple quotes and I’ll wrap this up. From the fourth century A.D., Basil of Caesarea. “Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise, we ascend into the kingdom of heaven, we return to adoption as sons, we are given confidence to call God ‘Father,’ we become partakers of the grace of Christ, we are called children of light, we share in eternal glory.” And that writing, he goes on and on. And I just had to take that little snap. Alison McGrath: “God is both the goal of our journey and the means by which we find him. We come to the Father through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.” Wow, that is so succinct. I love that. Now, as for much closer to our time, some folks who have said some amazing things about the Holy Spirit. This observation from Tozer is very sobering to me when I think about the church. And here we are, 25 years. That’s great. Looking forward to the next 25 years. What’s God going to do here? What? How can we put ourselves in the right mindset and the right disposition of heart for the Lord to continue to do some amazing things through this church? And I was really sobered up by this quote, which I we’ve used before, but I wanted to put it up on the screen again.

“If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would have stopped, and everybody would have known the difference. If the Holy Spirit were withdrawn from the church today, 95% of what we do would go on, and no one would know the difference.” That’s him writing in 1950, 1960, right in there. He died in 63. I think it is. I don’t want that to be us, you know. You don’t want that to be us either, right? We want there to be stuff going on in here, in me, in you, in us; we want that to be the kind of stuff that can only be explained by a move of the Holy Spirit, not just a sensationalism thing, but a steady, consistent, maturing, growing move of the Spirit in our hearts, in our relationships, in the work that we do. We do well to join the disciples and the apostles in yielding our lives to the Holy Spirit. Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of a Spiritual Life: “True spirituality is not a superhuman religiosity; it is simply true humanity released from bondage to sin renewed by the Holy Spirit. This is given to us as we grasp by faith the full content of Christ’s redemptive work: freedom from the guilt and power of sin and newness of life through the indwelling and outpouring of his Spirit.”

Come, Holy Spirit, move in me, move in us. Turn our eyes to Jesus. Draw our hearts to You, Lord. Redirect our affections, renew our faith, our hope, our confidence in You, Lord. We pray for that in this body of believers. Remember, folks, the term Spirit-filled is not a title. It is a condition. Okay? You hear people in modern-day churches use it as a title. “Are you a Spirit-filled Christian?” I don’t know. Let me get on my knees and pray. Let me check with the Spirit and see if He filled me in the last ten minutes because I leaked about ten minutes ago when I was driving here. I leaked because somebody cut me off and I was trying to get to church on time. And the rest of the people in the household weren’t ready on time. Yeah. And I leaked and I just need more and more and more feelings. It’s not really about how much of the Holy Spirit you have. It’s about how much of you the Holy Spirit has. So important for us in our day and time.

Two ways people responded in Acts, Chapter 2, verse 12: What does this mean? What is this? They’re seeking, right? They want to learn. They’re open. Right? So, they’re curious. But in verse 13 it says, no, “These people are filled with sweet wine.” That’s the bah humbug curmudgeon. Yeah, that’s what that is. No, it couldn’t be a move of the Spirit. So, somebody asked me the other day… I had coffee with a fella who comes to church here. He said, “What do you think about, like, Azusa? What do you think about Asbury? You know, what do you think about all these times when there’s, you know, all this kind of stuff going on seems to be a big revival like it is.” And I go, here’s what I think I want to be: Verse 12, not verse 13. I don’t mean I understand all of what might be going on in one of those movements at any given point in time, but at the end of the day, you judge a tree by its fruit. And so, you look. Is Jesus being glorified? You ask that question. Is the Gospel going forward or is it all just about that particular moment of sensationalism? And that’s the best answer I can possibly give, it’s that we continue to be open. Lord, come move among us. Yeah.

I mean, I remember when we first got this building, you guys, we were first meeting in here. All these windows were made of eight-inch plexiglass. It bent in the wind like this. And whenever the wind was blowing like a good Nashville storm, you could hear it blowing through the little places where the caulking had given way. And I kept thinking every now and then the first time I heard, of course, I thought of the Holy Spirit here. Everybody make room, you know? But no, it’s just our eight-inch plexiglass. And now we have these solid windows, and so if we hear a mighty rushing wind, it might be the Holy Spirit. But I’m so glad that the Lord gave us verse 12 and 13 there, and sort of put it there. How do you respond? Are you a seeker or are you a scoffer? When you hear people talk about the work of the Holy Spirit? I want to be a seeker. I want to know, what are You doing, Lord? And what would You like to do through me? And if all He says is, “I want you to be faithful to this person or to that group of people. I just want you to be more faithful to this group of people. I just want you to not walk around angry all the time.” Whatever He says, I want to hear from Him. I want to say, what does this mean? I want to be open to Him, and I want to do what He wants me to do.

What’s happened or is happening in my heart, my soul, my mind, my life that can only be explained by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit at work in my life? As dark as the world is out there, as crazy as it is sometimes to be a group of people who are a non-anxious presence in a very anxious world is at least going to turn some heads. And when they ask you what’s going on here, you say, “The Holy Spirit is moving through us and pointing us to Jesus and drawing us to the redemption that’s on offer through Him, so that no matter what goes on in the world around us, or in our own private little world, we trust Him.”

Let’s pray: Lord, thank You for this amazing event that in some ways does continue today. I totally see why You caused such a splash there, and it created this world-wide movement as it as it began to spread around the Mediterranean like it did. We see that. Lord Jesus, help us to take advantage of the fact that we can look back through history and read this story and see what You have done and recall, like they did in verse 11, the mighty deeds of our God. And we open our hands, the empty hands of faith, and we want to receive from You whatever You would like to do through us as individuals and as a church. We pray that You would move among us, transform and change us into the likeness of Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen and Amen.

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs:

“Come Thou Almighty King“ by Felice de Giardini, Tommy Bailey, Sarah Gehri, Nathan Mickle & Tom Yarbrough
“May The Peoples Praise You“ by David Zimmer, Ed Cash, Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, and Stuart Townend
“Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me“ by Jonny Robinson, Michael Farren, and Rich Thompson
“Revive Us Again“ by John Jenkins Husband and William Paton MacKay
“Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois
All songs are used with permission. CCLI License no. 2003690

Looking for our Hymns of the Week or resources to worship anytime? We’ve curated a playlist of hymns TVC Worship has led over the years on our YouTube Channel!

Call To Worship: Eternal God

ALL: Eternal God, You set Jesus Christ to rule over all things and made us servants in Your kingdom. By Your Spirit, empower us to love the unloved and to minister to all in need. Then at the last bring us into Your eternal Kingdom, where we may worship and adore You and be welcomed into Your everlasting joy. We offer this prayer through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Classic Prayer: Cornelius Plantinga

O God, Your people give You hearty thanks for Your matchless grace… Rescuer of the shamed, You reach into human pits to lift the fallen. We sink into addiction, and You come to heal. We sink into folly, and You come to correct. We sink into corruption, and You come to sanctify. Refuge of all who suffer, we look for shelter in the shadow of Your wings. Rain and hail and wind beat on Your wings, but they do not fold. They are spread like Jesus’s arms on the cross, spread out to protect all who seek shelter beneath them. O God, wondrous in love for sinners, we give You thanks for Your saving grace. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

TVC Prayer Ministry

TVC Ministry: TVC Children’s Ministry
Vocation: Non-Profits
TVC Mission Highlight: Compassion International
Praying for the Persecuted Church: Mali

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