This is a modified
version of a sermon on Acts 2 that I preached at my church in April in a series on Acts
called “A Faith in Movement”. I have expanded some of the theological
explanations here and modified some of the applications or illustrations. My
hope is that this message/teaching helps you see what Pentecost means, why it matters, and how the transformed life of the community that we find at the
end of Acts 2 is the direct result of the presence of the Holy Spirit in their
midst.
The Holy Spirit is a topic that provokes
strong reactions. Some Christians respond to any talk of the Spirit with
enthusiasm. Others with fear. Some with confusion. Others with a nagging sense
of inferiority.
When I was
a missionary in Mexico I knew a missionary who attended a Pentecostal church,
and in order to become a member she either had to speak in tongues or be seeking to speak in tongues. She was a
mature Christian, yet God had not given her that gift yet at that point in her
life. What was she to do? I also met a couple from my church in their 60s who
had previously left a charismatic church in part because they felt pressured to
speak in tongues and made to feel inferior for not doing so.
In both of
those cases Acts 2 was used within a theological system to create a division
within the church between those who were more spiritual, who spoke in tongues,
and those who were less spiritual, who did not. I don’t mention these stories
to critique Pentecostalism. I respect the majority of Pentecostals as brothers
and sisters in Christ and, in spite of having some theological differences, I
recognize that often they have powerful ministries that deeply impact their
communities with the gospel. I have a lot to learn from my Pentecostal brothers
and sisters about living out my faith.
I mention
these stories, rather, because when many of us hear or read Acts 2 we are faced
with a nagging question: am I less as a Christian because I don’t speak in
tongues or profesy or perform miracles? What I want to show today is that,
first, Acts 2 establishes the radical
unity of all believers. Far from establishing divisions between more
spiritual and less spiritual Christians, Acts 2 shows that every person who has
repented and put their faith in Jesus is at an equal level spiritually because
we have all received the same Holy Spirit and we are all part of the same body,
the church. Second, I want to show that with
the power of the Holy Spirit we are called to participate—as a community—in the
mission that God has entrusted to us.
We won’t be
able to look at all the details of Acts 2, but today we will focus on seeing
what it says about the Holy Spirit and the new community—the church—that came
about as a result of the work of the Spirit in the life of these believers. We’ll
do so by looking at the context for what happened at Pentecost, what it was
that happened at Pentecost, and the result of what happened at Pentecost.
The context for Acts 2
We see in Acts 1:8 that Jesus
left his disciples with a powerful promise before he ascended into heaven. He
promised that when the Holy Spirit came upon them they would receive power to
be his witnesses. When we study Acts 1 it is clear that this power for
witnessing has something to do with the baptism with the Holy Spirit. We also
find that Spirit baptism is a significant theme in the gospels. All four of the
gospel writers speak of the contrast between John, who baptized with water, and
Jesus, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit (Matt 3:11; Mk 1:8; Lk 3:16; Jn
1:33). The baptism with the Holy Spirit is not a peripheral theme, but rather
essential to understanding just how it was that Jesus would relate to the new
community of the church. Luke picks up the theme again in Acts 1:4-5: “While
staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for
the promise of the Father. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is what you have heard from me; for
John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not
many days from now’” (NRSV).
It is clear
from Luke’s narrative that the believers had not yet received Spirit baptism
before Jesus’ ascension. While this may seem to contradict John 20:21-23—where
Jesus breathes on the disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit”—John’s
commissioning narrative is best understood as an anticipation of what would
become a reality at Pentecost. This is clear because in Acts 1, after the event
in John 20, they were not yet mobilized and engaged in mission. Instead of being
out and about among their fellow Jews announcing the good news that God’s
kingdom had arrived in the person of Jesus, who was raised from the dead, they
were in Jerusalem waiting. Waiting for something that would change them into a community
that was on fire for God and that brought the good news of the kingdom to all.
So what
were they waiting for? The disciples were waiting for the event that would
forever change their relationship with God—the arrival of God’s Spirit in their
hearts, indwelling them and empowering them to take part in the mission Jesus
had entrusted to them in Acts 1:8. This qualitatively new presence of God’s
Spirit would be the beginning of the fulfillment of the promised new covenant
that God would make with his people—that God’s people wouldn’t just come back to
the land and fall back into the same sin patterns to face exile again, but that
God would put his Spirit in their hearts so that they might obey him. We find
this promise in texts like Ezekiel 36:26-27: “And I will give you a new heart,
and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from
your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you,
and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (ESV). Ezekiel
points to a spiritual regeneration that is completely dependent on God’s initiative
with the results that believers would have a new power for obedience that comes
from the presence of God’s Spirit in them.
The gospel
of John tells us to expect this mammoth change to come after Jesus was
glorified when it says in 7:37-39: “On the last day of the feast, the great
day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and
drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will
flow rivers of living water.” ’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom
those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been
given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (ESV).
Pentecost, then, marks one of the
great turning points in the history of God’s people. Up until this time the
Spirit came and anointed leaders for specific tasks, but he didn’t dwell in
people’s hearts. Not so any longer. Jesus told them to wait. They waited
because they all needed the Spirit. God was going to come to dwell in the whole
community, and the whole community would be mobilized for mission.
What happened at Pentecost?
So, what
happened in Acts 2? The first thing we see is that there was a great wind and
tongues that appeared like fire over each person. Verse 4 also tells us that “they
were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the
Spirit gave them utterance”. How should we understand this speaking in tongues
here in Acts 2? One thing that is relatively clear is that the tongues that we
see at Pentecost are different from the way the gift of tongues operated in 1
Corinthians 12-14. In 1 Corinthians tongues are a gift that require
interpretation if they are to be of benefit in corporate church gatherings.
Here in Acts no interpreters were needed because they were speaking known
languages for people from 15 different parts of the world that were there in
Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost.
In a strict
sense, the miracle of tongues at Pentecost wasn’t really necessary. These
people could have heard the gospel message and responded without hearing the
message in their mother tongue. Presumably these groups of pilgrims to
Jerusalem had gotten along just fine during their visit—perhaps they spoke
Aramaic, or knew Greek as a second language and were able to make do just fine
in Jerusalem with their Greek. If there were some who didn’t know the more
widely-known languages, we can assume that some in their group were able to bridge
the linguistic gap.
Nonetheless,
God decided to miraculously intervene so that these pious Jews from 15
different regions would hear the message in their own language. I think there
are various reasons behind this. First, it showed the disciples that they
really had received power to begin their mission. God had shown up in power,
and cultural differences were not to be an impediment to the gospel going
forth. Second, it caught the attention of the crowd. They might have thought
the disciples were drunk, but at least they were paying attention to them!
Third, it was a form of clear divine intervention that may have functioned as a
sign to those witnessing that the message the disciples preached really was
true. This may have been especially important because verse 5 tells us that the
Jews who heard their message on Pentecost were “devout” people. What does it
take to convince a devout, religious person that they are in need of divine
intervention in their life, that they truly need to repent of their sins? It
takes a mighty work of God to turn their world upside down and see that far
from being okay with God, they were spiritually needy people who needed to
respond to God’s Messiah.
Finally, and not least important, I
think the miracle of tongues at Pentecost shows that the gospel is meant for
everybody. The message of the gospel wasn’t just for the Aramaic-speaking Jews
who grew up in Palestine, it was for everyone equally. The gospel is a message
for all cultures and can be expressed in all languages. Far from obliterating
cultural differences, the gospel affirms the goodness of human cultural and
linguistic diversity while calling every culture to recognize its need for
Jesus and be transformed by the gospel. This diversity of cultures and
languages contributes to the beauty of the church and our grasp of facets of
God’s truth that we are often blind to when we only look at things through one
cultural or linguistic lens.
Peter,
then, stands up and makes a speech. Peter’s interpretation in 2:14-21 is
essentially quite simple: “this is that”—the pouring out of the Spirit that his
hearers had witnessed was the fulfillment of Joel 2:28-32. Peter’s citation of
this passage from Joel makes two central points: first, we have arrived at the
last days, when God was going to pour out his Spirit. Second, everyone who
calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. In other words, the significance
of Pentecost centered on the presence of the Spirit and salvation in the name
of the Lord, that is, in the name of Jesus.
The result of what happened at Pentecost
After
explaining that what they were seeing was the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy, Peter
seized the opportunity that these manifestations of the Holy Spirit provided to
preach the message of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. While we’ll
skip over the details of Peter’s speech, it is important to note its climax.
The climax of Peter’s speech is 2:36: “Therefore let the entire house of Israel
know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus
whom you crucified” (NRSV). This verse is a little perplexing for most of us at
first read. How could God make Jesus Lord and Messiah if he already was those
things, as Luke 2:11 hinted at? I think that in the light of Luke’s broader
narrative in Luke and Acts what he is trying to say is that Jesus already was
Lord and Messiah in one sense, but only after his resurrection and ascension
does he fully function as Lord and
Messiah, pouring out the Holy Spirit as part of the blessings of participating
in the Messianic kingdom.
The
reaction of the crowd is simple: if the Messiah has arrived, what should we do?
Peter’s response is simple: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the
name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive
the gift of the Holy Spirit” (NRSV). What Peter is telling them is something
hard to swallow for a pious Jew—you need to look at yourself as an “outsider,”
a person in need of God’s forgiveness. You need to convert.
In addition to having their sins
forgiven, Peter promised them something else—they would receive the gift of the
Spirit. If his hearers responded to the gospel message, they would experience what Peter and the rest of the 120 had just experienced,
the indwelling presence of God in them.
It’s interesting to note that we
don’t see an explicit repetition of the miracles of speaking in known languages
among the 3,000 who converted that day. We aren’t told that all performed
miracles, though it is clear that the apostles did so (2:43). This shows us
that the point of Pentecost for the 3,000 and for us isn’t so much about having
the exact same experience as the 120 disciples. Miraculously speaking in
another known language so that others might hear the gospel is not normative
for all believers. What is normative is
the pouring out of the gift of the Spirit on all who call on the name of Jesus
as Lord. The central point of Pentecost is that now, when one repents and
puts their faith in Jesus, the forgiveness of sins and gift of the Spirit are
available to all. This is why the New Testament says so clearly that “Anyone
who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Romans 8:9,
NRSV). So, there aren’t two classes of Christians: the more spiritual and the less
spiritual. Pentecost establishes the radical unity of all believers in a common
experience of the Spirit.
What is the baptism in the Holy Spirit?
What, then, can we say about the
baptism in the Holy Spirit? This is a point of much disagreement and,
sometimes, confusion among evangelical Christians. One time a couple of years
ago I went to receive prayer at a healing service at a charismatic mega-church
in the U.S. Being a very structured ministry, they had a sheet for me to fill out
with personal data, a description of what I was seeking prayer for and where I
sought healing, if I had given my life to Christ, and so forth. But I ran into
one field where I wasn’t sure exactly what I should say. It asked: “Have you
received the baptism in the Holy Spirit? Yes, no, or I don’t know.” Instead of
filling out that field I wrote an explanation: “I think so, but it depends how
you define it. You would probably say no.”
For many charismatics and
Pentecostals, though not all, the baptism in or with the Holy Spirit is
considered a second experience of grace, something that happens after conversion, and where speaking in
tongues is seen as the “initial evidence” of such a baptism. In other words, the
ideal would be that all believers would receive this experience and speak in
tongues. There are many reasons that I do not agree with such an
interpretation, such as the question in 1 Cor 12:30: “Do all speak in tongues?”,
which in both Greek grammar and in context clearly expects a negative response.
The point is that there are diversities of giftings. Speaking in tongues is one
gift—one that I believe God still gives today to some—but it is never presented
as a gift for all believers. It is one gift among many.
Perhaps most importantly, Acts 2
does not show a second experience of the Spirit that goes deeper than that
contemplated in verses like Romans 8:9, which says all who belong to Christ
have the Spirit. Rather, Acts 2 is the moment that the reality described in
Romans 8:9 began, as we see in verses like John 7:37-39 that said the Spirit
wouldn’t be given until after Jesus’ glorification. The disciples were true
believers before Pentecost, but they did not have the Spirit indwelling them.
For that they would have to wait for Jesus to baptize them with the Spirit at
Pentecost.
Nonetheless, Pentecostals emphasize
something very important that many of the rest of us often forget: the baptism
of the Spirit is not just about the
Spirit indwelling us. We can’t be content to just know we have the Spirit while
not letting ourselves be transformed by the Spirit’s presence. The Spirit
indwells us in order to empower us to carry out God’s mission in the world. God
wants us to be witnesses to Christ and, in order to speak boldly about the gospel,
we need to be constantly filled with the Spirit. Many experiences that a
Pentecostal might call baptism in the Spirit are valid, they just aren’t the
main point of Acts 2 or what the terminology of Spirit-baptism is really
getting at in the Bible.
The consequences of the Spirit’s presence in us
The presence of the Spirit, then,
is the central reality. But the presence of the Spirit has consequences. This gift of the Spirit is to transform us
to live a radically different kind of life.
The first thing we notice about the
effects of the arrival of the Spirit on the 3,000 converts is that they were
incorporated into the life of the community. This was no individualist “me and Jesus”
gospel. In fact, it is probably instructive that Acts 2:41-42 doesn’t tell us
that 3,000 people accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, as true as
that may have been. Rather, it tells us: “So those who welcomed his message
were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. They
devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of
bread and the prayers” (NRSV). For these 3,000 new converts baptism was a
fundamentally communal way of making the commitment to follow Jesus as Lord.
When Luke tells us 3,000 people were added, we might ask what they were added
to. While the word “church” does not appear explicitly, it is clear from the
context that to respond to Peter’s sermon meant becoming part of this new
community. When God saves us he doesn’t just become our Father and give us his
Spirit so that we might relate to him as sons and daughters. He also gives us
brothers and sisters with whom we are to devote ourselves “to the apostles’
teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers”. This communal
dimension of salvation and the experience of the Spirit is highlighted
beautifully in 1 Corinthians 12:13: “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized
into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of
one Spirit” (NRSV).
The life of the new community
was characterized by four basic components: the apostles’ teaching, fellowship,
breaking of bread, and prayer. Dedication to the apostles’ teaching was
essential because the New Testament still had not been written. Listening to
the apostles was the way to know what Jesus did and taught. This teaching by
the part of the apostles was a fundamental part of fulfilling the Great
Commission of Matthew 28:18-20. Jesus called his disciples to make disciples of
all nations, to baptize them, and to teach them to obey all that he commanded
them. From the first week of the life of the church, we see them putting this
into practice, starting from Jerusalem as Acts 1:8 had said.
For us
today dedication to the apostles’ teaching means that we must let our lives be
permeated with Scripture. While it is easy for some of us to fall into an
overly cognitive focus, where we know lots of biblical truth that we don’t put
into practice, the problem is not study in and of itself. Less study is not the
solution, but rather more action. Study
is important because the stark reality is that we cannot put into practice what
we do not know. God has given us his word. Are we ready to listen? Many
years ago Michael Card wrote a song that beautifully expresses the importance
of hearing God’s voice in Scripture, called “Will You Not Listen?” Part of the
song says:
Is not He who formed the ear
Worth the time it takes to hear?
Should He who formed our lips for speaking
Be not heeded when He speaks?
Will you not listen?
Why won't you listen?
God has spoken love to us
Why will you not listen?
If we aren’t listening to God’s voice in
Scripture, we ought to examine what attitudes might lie behind that fact. Dedicating
ourselves to the study of Scripture doesn’t have to take one prescribed form.
It can happen individually, and there are a lot of ways of doing private devotions. But in the early church it happened primarily in
community. In the church we are to hear and respond to God’s word, as individuals
and as a community.
This brings us to our second point, fellowship. The
Greek word for “fellowship” simply means something like “having things in
common,” whether that be activities, food, or other things. The key point is
that they were involved in each others’ lives. We see in Acts 2:44-45 that
fellowship implied a radical generosity and hospitality: “All who
believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their
possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need”
(NRSV).
For whom
are we willing to sell property and share so freely? Perhaps if we’re honest we’ll
say that we wouldn’t do it for anyone. But, if there were someone we would do
that for, it is almost certainly for someone who is family. These first followers of Christ saw their
fellow believers as family. The model of generosity here also challenges a
common Christian mentality about generosity: a lot of people seem to think that
if they tithe they have done their duty. God gets his 10%, and 90% is left for
me. But the model of life we find at the end of Acts 2 shows that 100% of our
resources belong to God. Every one of us has to be radically honest in
evaluating our priorities. How do I spend my finances? How do I spend my time?
Am I stewarding everything I have in
a way that seeks the best for the community of believers? I know I still have quite
a ways to grow in reaching that point.
One aspect
of having things in common was the breaking of bread. Breaking of bread may
refer to sharing regular meals in common or may refer to the Lord’s Supper. I
find it most likely that both are in view here, especially considering that the
two weren’t nearly as distinct in the earliest churches as they are today. The
key point is that the early Christians ate together. Simple, to be sure, but
profound. Eating others’ food and entering their homes is one of the most
important ways of building community. When one lives as a missionary in another
culture, it becomes obvious quite quickly how important it is to accept the food
that one is given. To reject another’s food is to reject that person and their
culture; to eat together establishes the relationship.
Finally, they prayed together, constantly
recognizing their dependence on God and seeking for God’s kingdom to expand
further. And expand it did. People converted daily (2:47). These may have been
people present at Pentecost who needed a little more time to process and be convinced.
Maybe they were others who were absent. Regardless of who they were, the
community was mobilized immediately, and God kept intervening miraculously
doing miracles through the apostles (2:43).
Acts 1:8
was being fulfilled! Not just the 120, but now over 3,000 believers had God’s
Spirit dwelling in them and giving them power to testify to the gospel with
their words and to live a transformed life of radical generosity in community.
Conclusion
Pentecost was the democratization of
the experience of the Holy Spirit. It’s not that there are no longer leaders with
more authority and responsibility in a church. But now the Holy Spirit dwells
in every believer, not just leaders anointed for a special ministry. Part of
what Pentecost shows us and we find as a reality in the rest of Acts is that every believer is anointed with the Spirit to
be a part of God’s mission. As Joel had prophesied, the power of the Spirit
came on sons, daughters, young men, old men, and male and female servants. In
the church, ministry is the work of all, because we all have been given
important gifts and roles in body, the church. No gift is more important than
another. There is no hierarchy of gifts where some are more spiritual or more
important. All are equally indispensable parts of the body.
What, then, are some final take away
lessons from Pentecost for us today? First, we are called to live out the
reality of the power that we have been given. The Holy Spirit already lives in
us! But we don’t always live with his power. We must seek to be filled with the
Holy Spirit in order to see in our lives the kind of Spirit-transformed community
we find in Acts 2. From Pentecostals we can learn the importance of living in
the power of the Spirit that indwells us, recognizing that God desires to
transform us and work through us far more powerfully than we often allow him
to.
Second, we are called to experience
the Spirit’s power in community. None of us has all, or even the majority, of
the spiritual gifts. The Holy Spirit gives each of us power to play out our
part in building up the church and participating in his mission in the world.
How are we using these gifts for the good of the body?
Third, mission flows from the
organic life of the community. God calls us to be dedicated to things like the
apostles’ teaching through the study of Scripture, to fellowship, to sharing
meals together, and to praying together. While church programs are not bad in
themselves, it is difficult to sustain successful programs without this organic
community life. Programs ought to be a structured expression of organic community
life and a context for deepening that life, not a replacement for it. The world
skeptically looks at a church who looks far from the reality we find in Acts 2.
Before many will believe, they want to see that this gospel and this kingdom we
talk about actually transform lives in reality. So, God is calling us to be a
living example of what we preach with our words through the way we live in
community.
We can only do this when God himself
indwells and renews our hearts. So, let us live out the reality that that is
what God has done for us in establishing the new community of the Spirit on
that Pentecost nearly 2,000 years ago.
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