Today we continue our series through the book of Acts – a series we’ve entitled “Unstoppable.”   This morning, our text is the entirety of chapter 2.   Now, before we continue, I just want to mention that I’ve drawn liberally from material by Jeff Purswell, the Dean of the Sovereign Grace Pastors College, where I attended some years back.   I’m grateful to have had the privilege of being equipped for pastoral ministry by Jeff and I continue to learn from him still.

Before He ascended to the Father, Jesus promised his disciples (1:8)

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

As I mentioned last week, that verse forms a rough outline of Acts. From it, I summarized the message of Acts as follows:

The unstoppable ministry of Jesus continues
by the power of the Spirit
through the witness of God’s people

Jesus commanded his disciples to not depart Jerusalem, but to “wait” for the promised Holy Spirit.     In chapter 1, Jesus ascends, and the 12 disciples with others wait and pray in Jerusalem.  In all, about 120 individuals gather to earnestly intercede-to ask God to send the Holy Spirit as Jesus promised. During this time, Matthias was selected as the 12^th apostle to fill the void created by Judas, who prior to Jesus’ death betrayed Jesus for a sum of money.  Later, realizing what he had done, Judas tragically hung himself.    So now the stage was set for the Spirit to come.

Jesus has ascended.  The apostolic team is complete.  These 120 people are together waiting and praying with great anticipation.  You’ve got the 12 there.  Jesus’ mother Mary is there.  Jesus’ brothers were there.  It’s not hard to imagine the scene.  The air in that prayer meeting was thick with nervous excitement and tension.  They probably asked themselves and one another “Jesus said He is going baptize us with the Spirit.  What’s it going to be like (and feel like) when it happens?  Will it hurt?  Will it be in a dream or vision?  When He comes, will it be quiet or loud?  And how long will it be after the Spirit comes before the mission advances, as Jesus told us it would?”

After waiting a while, they perhaps wondered– “When will the Spirit finally show up?  Exactly how long will Jesus have us wait?”  Well in chapter 2, their questions are answered.  The Spirit comes, Christ is proclaimed and many believe.

That’s actually a rough outline of our story: The Spirit comes, Christ is proclaimed and many believe.

I. The Spirit Comes

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now this is pretty awesome; amazing things happen as the Spirit comes.   When He comes, He doesn’t come quietly, does he?  Luke tells us that suddenly there came a loud sound – “a sound like a mighty rushing wind.”   So, there’s a loud blast, a sound like a tornado. That the sense in the original language.

Also tongues, appearing like fire, rest on each of the 120.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues.  In other words, they uttered Spirit-inspired, Spirit-directed praise to God in other languages.  It’s amazing. God was doing something new; something that had never been done before.

However, though it was new, it wasn’t foreign to their understanding of how God manifests His presence.  You know  – we might read this and just think – wind, fire, Spirit–boy that’s cool, seems a little like scene out of Indiana Jones or Star Wars….  You know …“the force” is now with them and incredible things are happening.  Obviously- these people had never seen Star Wars or any of our movies.

However, they had read a lot of other stories – true stories – powerful stories from the OT of how God manifests His presence.    Those stories would have informed their view of what had just happened.   Let me explain.

In the OT wind signified God’s dynamic presence.  When God showed up somewhere wind was often the result.  In 1^st Kings 19, when God came to Elijah a great wind blew.  And in Ezekiel 1, as the throne of God approached, a wind came out of the north, signifying, “Here He comes, Yahweh is now approaching.”

So when the believers at Pentecost heard a sound “like rushing wind,” they didn’t think of special effects in some movie!  They remembered the stories from the Bible and thought “Elijah” and “Ezekiel”.  They heard the sound of rushing wind and knew that God’s Spirit, the wind of God, the breath of God was blowing upon them!

Similarly in the OT, fire signified God’s powerful presence.  Do you remember how God first showed up and spoke to Moses?  He showed up in a fire – in a burning bush.  And during the years of their wilderness wanderings, how did God lead His people by night?  He led them by a pillar of fire.

So when tongues as of fire came to rest on them, these early believers recalled the OT stories and knew God Himself had come upon them in power causing them to overflow in tongues of praise to God.  Pretty awesome, isn’t it?

God’s Spirit filling them, vs.4, also made sense.  Some of you may recall that in Ezekiel 37, God gave the prophet Ezekiel a vision of a valley of dry bones.  God told Ezekiel to prophecy over the dry bones.

Ezekiel obeyed; he prophesied over the dry bones – and then there was a sound like an earthquake, the bones came together, flesh attached to those bones, and the breath of God, the wind of God, the Spirit of God filled those dead bodies and they came to life.  This foreshadows the day, Ezekiel prophecies, when God says, “I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live…”

So at Pentecost, the 120 understood that God was among them, manifesting His presence in power.

In vs.14 Peter brings more clarity as he begins to preach to the large crowd that gathered.  At the time, devout Jews from various parts of the Roman Empire were in Jerusalem for Pentecost, an annual festival celebrated 50 days after Passover.  Of course when they heard these common, uneducated Galileans speaking praises to God not in Aramaic, but in their native languages, it caught their attention.  They were blown away.

So Peter explains to them what’s happening. “He says look, what you’re seeing here fulfills Joel’s ancient prophecy, vs.17

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh…”

Now while there are similarities I think we need to understand that what’s going on here is far more than a powerful prayer meeting; its far more than what people might experience today when being filled with the Spirit.  Pentecost marked the beginning of the last days and the dawn of a new age, the age of the Spirit poured out.

Under the Old Covenant given through Moses, God poured out His Spirit on a few people – prophets, kings, priests, judges and others on special occasions, but in the New Covenant era God promised to pour out His Spirit on “all flesh.”    Among the 120, no one was excluded from the gift of the Spirit.  All received it, without distinction. It wasn’t just the apostles, it was everyone. And as Peter says later, the gift of the Spirit is for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, and their children, extending even to those who are “far-off” — us!

For centuries, this is what the entire nation of Israel had longed for, hoped for and waited for!  They longed for the day when God would dramatically intervene, save His people, dwell in their midst, and give His Spirit, not just to a Moses, or a David, but to all.

Turn in your Bibles to Jeremiah 31 (five books to right of Psalms).  This OT passage speaks of the New Covenant (Joel 2, Ez.36 are the other two).  The verses we fueled the hopes of Israel.

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,

So a new covenant is coming.  Jeremiah continues.  This new covenant will be…

“…not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. “

So the New Covenant is unlike the Mosaic covenant, the Covenant God made in Exodus 19, 20 and following, based on obedience to the law.

In contrast with that covenant Jeremiah declares…

“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. “

Unlike the OC, the NC is not based on law observance.  Instead, it’s based on God supernaturally writing His law on our hearts compelling us from within to keep God’s commands.  That’s one way the New Covenant is radically new-it’s internal not external.

Jeremiah goes on:

“And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. “

So here’s the second way the new covenant is new.  It’s comprehensive.  It’s all-inclusive.  Everyone shall enjoy direct access to God, apart from any mediator.  It’s not just God coming to Kings, Priests and others for special callings and tasks.  All will know God.  All will be filled with the Spirit.

Jeremiah continues:

“For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

That’s the promise of the Gospel right there.

So what’s the big deal about Pentecost?  Is it that the people spoke in tongues?  Not really.  I am glad they did.  However, tongues is not the main point of Pentecost.

• The point of Pentecost is that the final stage of God’s saving plan has been ushered in.
• The point of Pentecost is that as the sound of a rushing wind blows, as tongues of fire descend, as the Holy Spirit comes in power the new covenant age, the age of forgiveness of sins, the age of grace, the age of the Spirit poured out upon all God’s people, begins.

And this is the age we live in today.    The transition from Old Covenant to New Covenant has taken place.   Therefore we who have believed the Gospel have the Spirit.  He fills us.  He helps us.  He is with us.

Some of you here today sometimes wonder “Is God really with me?”  “Can I really please Him?” “Can I overcome this sin or this struggle that I’ve had for years” “Can I really love my wife as I should or my kids as I should?” “Can I overcome this habit that I can’t seem to get rid of?” “Can I share the Gospel with my neighbor, when I am just so fearful of what he or she will think of me?”   Or perhaps you wonder about another Christian that you love.  You think “Is God really with them?  Can He really help them?”

If you’re ever tempted to think that way, listen, you’ve got to get it straight in your mind what age we live in.  Ww live in the Age of the Spirit poured out.  So it’s not all up to us.  We have the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity living inside of us.  And Paul says the Spirit gives life to our mortal bodies, so most certainly we can overcome the flesh.  Our victory is not by our own strength.  It is “by the Spirit” And John says “greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world.”

So who is in you?  The Holy Spirit of God!  Who is he that is in the world?  Satan and his emissaries are.  Sin and Satan – they are no match for the Spirit of God.  So be encouraged. The Spirit has come and he is at work in you right now!

So, part 1 of our story is the Spirit comes.

Part 2 ….

II. Christ Is Proclaimed

It wasn’t enough for the crowds to see a miracle.  It wasn’t enough for them to hear ordinary Galileans praising God in their native language.  They needed to hear the intelligible, clearly proclaimed word of the Gospel.  And that’s what Peter does.  After explaining that what they were seeing and hearing fulfilled Joel 2, Peter in verse 22 transitions to preach the Gospel.

Peter very simply tells them about Jesus.   He tells them about Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension.  That’s the Gospel.  Its God’s saving work in and through Jesus.  In its simplest form the Gospel is that “Jesus died for our sins.”

However, it’s important for us to note that Peter here is not starting a new sermon.  Its not like he just gave the Holy Spirit sermon and now it’s time for the Gospel sermon.  This is one sermon here.  So how do these two sections connect?  How do they fit together?

Well, here’s how: In verse 33, he says that this Jesus, the Jesus who lived, died, rose again, ascended to the Father, and is now exalted at the right hand of God, He, poured out the Spirit which they had just witnessed.

My friends, we must never drive a wedge between the work of the Spirit and the Gospel in either doctrine or practice.  On one hand, we dare not emphasize the Spirit and overlook the Gospel.  On the other, we dare not emphasize the Gospel and ignore the Spirit because the Spirit flows to us through the Gospel and applies the Gospel to our hearts.

So in our passage, empowered by the Spirit, Peter proclaims the Gospel.  He proclaims Jesus.  He bears witness.  He stands there and quite simply tells people what he knows about his friend, Jesus Christ.

This should give us great confidence to share the Gospel with friends, family, co-workers and neighbors.

• We don’t need a course in apologetics to begin bearing witness!
• We don’t need to be experts on world religions.
• We don’t need to understand every difficult text in Scripture.
• We don’t need to know how to answer all the questions that come our way.

Like Peter, we just need to stand in our homes, in the workplace, in our neighborhoods and bear witness to who Jesus is and what He has done for us.  We need to bear witness with our words and though our lives.  The Gospel must be on our lips and its power must be seen in how we live.

So, we have seen that the Spirit Comes, that Christ is proclaimed by Peter and then – the third part of our story…

III. Many Believe

Let’s read verses 37-41

“Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

So Peter bears witness to who Jesus is.  He shares the simple Gospel message. And 3000 people are saved in one day.   Now that’s power.  It’s the power that Jesus promised His disciples – divine enablement to boldly testify.  Here’s Peter, who a short time before, denied Jesus out of fear of what might happen to him.  In Acts 2, that same Peter boldly bears witness.  Filled with the Spirit, He proclaims the Gospel.  And what happens?  Exactly what Jesus said would happen.  The Gospel advances, beginning right in Jerusalem.

One day it was just the 120 together praying.  The next day, 3000 are added.  3000 are saved!

This should encourage us.  As a church, obviously we are not large.  However, from God’s perspective our size has absolutely no bearing on how God might want to use us.  By the power of the Spirit, through the witness of His people, God can take a small group of 120 and add 3000 – all in one day.  Do you believe that’s the God we serve?

Like the believers at Pentecost, we live in the age of the Spirit poured out.  So let’s not limit God.

Each and every day, let’s ask God to fill us afresh with his Spirit so that like Peter, we might boldly bear witness through both our example and our words to the power of the Gospel.  Let’s ask God to pour out His Spirit, and draw people here that they might hear the Good News of Jesus Christ and be saved.

Because as we’ve learned today, the Spirit comes, the gospel is proclaimed, and people believe.  That’s been the pattern throughout the history of this age, and I believe God is doing it here too.

Folks we have the Spirit.  He is with us. Sometimes it might feel like he is not with you, but He is.  We live in the Age of the Spirit poured out.

• By the power of the Spirit he saved the 120.
• By the Power of the Spirit he saved the 3000.
• By the power of the Spirit through the witness of his people, God saved you and me.

We have the Spirit.  He is with us.  Look at how the Holy Spirit continues to apply the Cross to our hearts!   Look at how he transforms us!  Like Peter we will never, ever be the same.  And Jesus promised that the Father would send the Spirit to us again and again, if we ask.  Paul commands us in Ephesians 5,

“Be filled with the Holy Spirit”

Let me encourage you, this week.  Ask God to fill you with His Spirit.  Be persistent.    As God begins to fill you,

• You will find enabling grace to proclaim the gospel to others.
• You will know and sense his power and his commissioning.
• You will want to do something.

As the Spirit of God touches us and fills us, we will be empowered, like our brothers and sisters in Acts 2, to boldly testify to who Jesus is and what He has done for us.

And many will believe.

PRAY