Acts 2:1-13: Pentecost!

[0:00] Father, we confess that your Church has made texts like this a battleground rather than food, a place to cast accusations against others rather than a deep truth and a deep mystery to which we should enter into.

[0:23] We ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would do a gentle but powerful work in our midst this morning and bring this Word from your Word deeply into our lives.

[0:33] And we give, Father, permission. In fact, we ask that this Word would not merely enter our lives, but that it would speak to our heart and rule in our heart. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Saviour. Amen.

[0:47] Please be seated. Amen. Thank you.

[1:18] It's loud and dramatic and creates a fuss and a bother. And it's like really, really, it's as if like if Hollywood was to do it, there'd be piles of noise and it'd just be very, very, very dramatic.

[1:35] But the surprising thing is that theologians throughout the centuries have described the Holy Spirit as the shy person of the Trinity. So for us, it should be a little bit of a shock that the shy person of the Trinity is introduced in such a dramatic fashion.

[1:56] Each of you probably knows somebody who's quite shy. So just imagine that you heard that when they, this very, very shy person, you hardly get a word out of them, that they went to this gathering and they came in in outrageous colors, singing at the top of their lungs and dancing and doing cartwheels.

[2:12] You'd think, what on earth? That's just a, that's what happened. Anyway, so that's what this is. It's a, it's a remarkable and dramatic miracle that we're going to look at. In fact, depending how you want to look at it, it's, it's a, it's a, a group of miracles, very dramatic about the shy person of the Trinity and God changing how he deals with humanity.

[2:33] From that moment to this moment until he comes again. So let's have a look. In your Bibles, it's Acts chapter 2. We're going to be looking at verses 1 to 13.

[2:43] If you didn't pick up one of these books when you came in, we have these very nice journal Bibles just of the book of Acts. And if you would like to have one, just ask us. We'd give it to you for free as a gift. Allows you to make little notes and everything on one side, your prayers, your observations, maybe your questions.

[2:59] And so here's how it begins. Verse 1. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. Now, I just want to stop here.

[3:11] Some of you know that I sort of do that. You know, one of the things I pray for when I'm doing a narrative, especially a narrative like this, is that I would tell the story and that I'd be able to clarify the story and defend the story and connect the story.

[3:28] But at the end of the day, trust that the one who tells the story, which is God, that he's going to do the work that only he can do. So just one of the things which is really interesting. This is on one level. This story is about this mysterious third person of the Trinity.

[3:43] And on one level, it's a text that you can meditate upon. It's a very inward text talking about God's resting in you. And we're going to sort of open all that up.

[3:54] But at the same time that it's a miracle, it's also profoundly historical. So, for instance, when it says here, when the day of Pentecost arrived, it doesn't say once upon a time, when the day of Pentecost arrived.

[4:08] And Pentecost is sort of how Christians refer to it in the Old Testament. It's referred to as the Feast of Weeks. And our Jewish friends would call it Shavuot. I don't think I pronounced that correctly.

[4:20] My pardon to my Jewish friends. Shavuot. And that's how they would refer to it. And it's the second of three harvest festivals that happen in the Jewish calendar where you celebrate God's goodness.

[4:33] But here's the significant thing. There's so many historical references in this ancient book and in the Gospels, which should really be understood as ancient eyewitness biographies, that scholars can date when Jesus died on the cross, either one of two dates.

[4:50] He either died on the 7th of April, the year 30, or the 3rd of April, the year 33 A.D. And for a variety of reasons, I think the 3rd of April, 33 A.D. is probably the date.

[5:03] And so what that means is this. What they're saying is if you go through and you read Luke and you read this and all the different historical references which he has, it means that on the 3rd of April, 33, Jesus died on the cross.

[5:15] And on the 5th of April, in the year 33, Jesus rose from the dead. The grave was empty. They never found the body. And at that point in time, he begins to appear alive to show that he's physically, bodily resurrected to a variety of people in a variety of times over 40 days.

[5:32] And it means that the 14th of May, the year 33, Jesus ascended into heaven. So that when you're reading the book of Acts, what sort of happens between Acts 1.1 and Acts, you know, about halfway through the book of Acts, that's taking place between the 5th of April and the 14th of May in the year 33.

[5:52] And then the text that we looked at last week, that happened sometime between the 15th of May and the 23rd of May in the year 33 A.D. because on the 24th of May, 33 A.D., this event happened.

[6:09] That's what Luke is saying. Luke is saying if you went back in a time machine, if you happen to be a waiter in the house where there's 120 or so people, you would see these things happen. If you weren't one of those, but you're outside and you went back in a time machine, you would see the things which are going to take place in a few moments.

[6:26] You'd see this. You'd see it. So on one hand, it's profoundly historical. On the other hand, though, of course, it's talking about the very, very deep mysteries of God.

[6:36] And as we'll see in a moment, the very, very deepest things of the human heart and our very, very deepest needs. And it's a fourfold miracle. Let's look at the first aspect of the miracle, verse 2.

[6:49] And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

[7:00] So this is a miracle of the ear, of sound. Now, some of you might, in fact, I was going to mention it. This is my first Sunday wearing two hearing aids. And actually, to tell you the truth, it's a little bit disconcerting.

[7:14] Just because my voice is very loud in my head at the 8 o'clock service, because my voice is so loud in my head, I had to ask them just to wave at me if I was speaking too quietly. But one of the things I discovered three years ago when I had this rare virus attack my right inner ear and give me moderate, severe hearing loss, is that I lost the ability most of the time to identify where a sound was coming from.

[7:39] So it's very disconcerting. You're walking along, and you hear somebody, and you keep looking behind you. And then I realize it's the person in front of me that I'm hearing. It's very disconcerting. Anyway, there's over 120 people here, and most of them don't have severe hearing loss.

[7:53] So they're able to identify that the sound was coming from up to down, and the sound is coming from above into the room, and it's turbulent.

[8:04] It's noisy. It's like you're hearing a hurricane. It's not like a little breeze. It's a tumultuous, loud, hurricane-like sound which fills the room.

[8:15] So it's a miracle that the ear can recognize. And then the next one is for the eye, verse 3. And divided tongues, as of fire, appeared to them and rested on each one of them.

[8:29] Now, this is a miracle of the eye. It's something which they see. Now, this is a very, very good translation, but there's something even more profound in the original language. I know there are many people in the room who speak multiple languages.

[8:43] I've spoken sometimes in gatherings where I've had to be translated, and in every one of those, you know, I've been warned, and you have to try to keep the, you know, try to have not more than about a dozen words at a time. Even less is better.

[8:54] And I try to get into a bit of a rhythm. You know, you say, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and I almost even move my body, and the next person says, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And occasionally, if you've ever been in that situation, I would say, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

[9:08] I'd say my ten words, and three paragraphs later, the other person stops speaking. And it's because, as you know, sometimes, like, the words in one language don't fit very, very easily into another.

[9:20] So when the Bible is translated, they can't add, at certain times, three paragraphs when there's six or seven words. So what's going on in the original language is this, that there's one fire that comes.

[9:35] Just one. So what they're seeing is they see one fire come into the room, and then out of that one fire, individual tongues of fire settle and rest on each person.

[9:47] So in the original text, it's not as if, I don't know, like Steve gets some blue fire, and Stella gets some green fire, and Louise gets yellow fire, and Victor gets, you know, dark blue fire, and it looks like we've all gotten different types of Holy Spirit.

[10:00] No, it's very clear in the original language that there's just one coming, and then it divides and separates, and there's a personal coming of the fire to rest upon every person in the room.

[10:12] And that's a miracle of the eye. But the next miracle is the most significant one that would make people realize it really is a miracle. Look what happens in verse 4.

[10:25] 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 a miracle of our inner self.

[10:40] You might think you had just been, something was going on, you hear a weird noise, and I don't know, it's just a weird noise. And all of us have maybe seen things that we know can't, we just misinterpret it.

[10:54] I mean, I just, just the other day, a fellow that I went to his funeral, like about six months ago, for a moment I could have sworn he was walking across the street.

[11:05] And I just realized he just looked like him. And maybe I need glasses, not for distances. I use my glasses for reading. And so maybe you could think that. But let me tell you, every single one of you, if you all of a sudden spoke, if all of a sudden you started speaking Mongolian, now that's a miracle.

[11:25] We're speaking, not everybody except Steve speaking, and Anton speaking Russian. Like, that's a miracle. And that's something very, very deep at the level of the mind, the heart, everything, that you can all of a sudden speak another language.

[11:41] And there's something else which is in here which is very, very interesting. If you notice in verse 4 again, it says, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

[11:53] Now, sometimes that can mean in the original language, ecstatic speech. But it's more customary to mean that this, it's simple, emphatic speech.

[12:05] And so what they're getting is it's not so much that all of a sudden they're just jumping up and down and going crazy and falling all over the place. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that. But in this case, all of a sudden what they're hearing is simple, clear, emphatic, declarative, easy-to-understand speech with a type of power and boldness to it.

[12:30] And that's the miracle. We'll get to the fourth aspect of the miracle later on in the text. And the Holy Spirit is described right in these things in verse 3 and 4 that each individual flame comes and rests on them and it's filled.

[12:49] And the other thing which is in the original language and it's only partially there but it gets teased out as you read the rest of the book, that the Holy Spirit comes upon each one of them as a permanent possession.

[13:06] That's why it marks a change in how God is relating to His people on His planet, in His creation. That there's this sense of it becomes, the Holy Spirit becomes a permanent possession.

[13:23] Up until now, the Holy Spirit has come upon people for a moment or a season but now it comes upon ordinary people as a permanent possession. You see, what the text is saying is that this is all part of God's plan, that Jesus has sent this, that God sends Jesus to rescue us, to deliver us so that our sins will be forgiven.

[13:46] And when He dies on the cross and rises from the dead, when we put our faith and trust in Jesus, our sins are forgiven. And we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ, with all of His goodness and purity.

[14:00] We are clothed with that. And it's not just that, but we also become God's children by adoption and grace as the Holy Spirit comes within the believer and rests or dwells within ordinary people like you and me.

[14:16] And that's what the gospel is. That's the invitation to hear what Jesus has done and what He did it for you. And we share it in the hope that people will hear that and say, Lord, take me.

[14:30] I want to be yours. There's the news and there's the hope that the news will be responded to by ordinary people like you and me. And there's nobody so far from God. There's nobody so broken.

[14:41] There's that God will not do it for you. And there's nobody so rich and powerful and successful that does not need this. It is a humbling of us as human beings to know that this, what Jesus has done for us is for us.

[14:56] And the coming of the Holy Spirit is part of that forgiveness and clothed with the righteousness of Christ and becoming God's child by adoption and grace. And the Holy Spirit comes upon us. It's for ordinary people like you and me when we respond to the good news.

[15:10] It's so spectacularly wonderful. Years ago, I think it was in the 1600s, there was this sort of odd man named Blaise Pascal.

[15:23] He was absolutely brilliant and people will talk about how, in a sense, the beginning of computers can be traced back to him. All this brilliance. But he was also a very devout Christian. And he wrote these little pensées, these little meditations, and they didn't realize he'd been writing them his whole life until they died and they found it hidden.

[15:43] And they pieced it together and it's this book of sayings of his. And it's very, very well worth reading. If you'd like to read just the part that's sort of the most relevant for us, get Peter Kreeft's version called Christianity for Modern Pagans, which is like, he gives you the pensée and he gives you a little of some comments to help you to understand.

[16:04] It's an absolutely brilliant book. But one of the things that Blaise Pascal said, because he could already see the cultural despisers that were very present in Europe in the 1600s. And he said that if you want to share the gospel with somebody as an evangelist, to be an apologist, there's two types of tasks that you need to take upon yourself.

[16:26] One of them is the fact that every human being who's outside of the faith has reasons why the Christian faith cannot possibly be true. Everybody has them who's outside of the faith. And so as an evangelist or as an apologist, you need to figure out how to answer those reasons why, you know, Christianity can't be true because of this.

[16:45] And so you need to try to answer it. But part of his brilliant insight was that there's a deeper issue, there's a second issue going on. And that is, they don't want it to be true.

[16:59] They don't want the Christian message to be true. I mean, that was true with me before I became a Christian. I didn't want it to be true. Like, I just did not want it to be true. And so Pascal said then the person who wants to share Jesus with others not only has to think of ways to answer the objections but also to pray and use the imagination and creativity in such a way that the other person comes to the point where they want it to be true.

[17:31] That they're not wanting it to be true starts to go that, gosh, maybe it's true. God, like maybe it's actually true in a way that I need to respond to it.

[17:43] And that's the whole thing. Now, I mention all of this because on one hand, when we hear that the Holy Spirit rests on us and fills us, it's touching on one of the deepest fears.

[17:58] I mean, for those of you who are outside the faith may be watching this, it's an ongoing fear for Christians but it's definitely for those outside the faith, it's a deep fear.

[18:10] Why? Because you see, well, okay, like I just told you, give your life to Christ and the Holy Spirit rests upon you and empowers you. Well, that's sort of cool. Like, who wouldn't want to have a superpower?

[18:22] Who wouldn't want to have a buddy with a superpower that you could just call them up and say, I have this issue? Who wouldn't want it that you're driving and the person's superpower could move all the, you know, the slow drivers out of the way so you can get there on time or just get you there on time?

[18:35] That's sort of cool to have a superpower. On the other hand, many of us, what we really want of God is, whether you're a follower of Christ or not, is that we get into big trouble and we'd sort of like for a moment for Christ, for God, just to come in and sort it all out, just to shut this person out, make this person realize they're wrong, you know, help you get more money to solve your finances and we would just like God to come in and just fix it, but if we're honest, then we'd like him to go away so we can get on back with our life.

[19:06] Thank you very much. And, but the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity and he cannot rest and fill you without possessing you.

[19:21] And that is our deep fear. The deep longing of our heart is to own ourselves. part of the problem that we have in our world right now is that love requires self-surrender and that's very, very hard.

[19:40] And, you know, we worship, in a sense, I did it my way. You know, we worship the idea of being the captain of our own soul and the idea of, you see, we talk about possessing the Holy Spirit, but really what it, what happens is the Holy Spirit possesses us, the Holy Spirit possesses you, so you can possess the Holy Spirit and begin to possess yourself.

[20:10] And that's a very, very deep fear that we have, that I am not my own. Now, um, Augustine, writing around the year 400, he has a very helpful line to help us realize where this idea of being possessed by the Holy Spirit that makes us worried, not just possessed to help us through this moment of loneliness, this trouble in our life, but a possession, an entering in to make his home within us that goes into all eternity, that he'll never let us go as to why this is good.

[20:57] Augustine had a very, very helpful quote. He said famously that, God, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless till they rest in you.

[21:09] Others have talked about how for we as human beings, since we were meant to be connected to God, there's actually a gap within us. You know, those of you who've lost a loved one when they die, it feels as if there's part of you that's just, that's gone.

[21:28] Those of you who've experienced the tragedy of divorce where you really love the other person you were betrayed, it's as if you feel that there's a part of you that's just been ripped out and now there's a hole there and you're not whole.

[21:41] And Augustine recognizes that because we've been created by the triune God that every, and we've rebelled against him and gone far from him that every human being has a part of them and we try to fill it with power, with pride, with money, with sex, with success, but they never fill that hole that only God can fill.

[22:02] And that's why he said, Father, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until he rests in you. So if you could put up the first point, Claire, what we see here in Pentecost is the Holy Spirit rests on you so that your restless heart can begin to rest in the one who made you for himself.

[22:28] The Holy Spirit rests on you so that your restless heart can begin to rest in the one who made you for himself. It's a beginning.

[22:40] The world, the flesh, and the devil will keep on getting us distracted as part of the reason why we need to gather and worship just to remember these important truths, to be in God's presence with others, to be accepted by others, to begin to make friends, to build community, to make a difference in the world and just remind each other, yeah, you know, yeah, this is what's true.

[23:03] this is what's true. And we begin to see this, that it's not an annihilation, but it's an answering of the deepest longing in our hearts in a couple of ways in the rest of this particular story.

[23:19] Of course, it's all the way through the Bible, but even within this story, we begin to see two particular ways how what I've just said is true. Let's continue going to verse 5. Now, there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven, and at this sound the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

[23:46] Now, this is just a very important small detail because remember, Luke is claiming that this is what actually happened. And so, what he's saying is because it's one of the three major festivals where Jewish people would come to Jerusalem, and they've already been there for the first one which is Passover.

[24:05] Some have stayed for the second one which is now and then there's the third one which is going to come up. And so, the city is crowded and what they hear is this profoundly loud, destructive, I mean, they might worry, like a hurricane type noise and so they gather.

[24:22] So, what's not happening, it's not as if there's a group of, you know, 15 people in a quiet, quiet room and there's a little bit of incense and a candle and maybe the odd little gong and everybody's all meditating and then, you know, after it's all over they say, you know, I just really had this feeling as if there was a noise and fire came upon us and they all said, oh yeah, that's what happened.

[24:42] You know, I even felt like I could be, you know, speaking other languages, yeah, that's what I all felt like happened. Well, nobody saw it, there's no evidence for it, it's just people all talking like that. No, this is part of the public aspect of the miracle that we'll find out later that over 3,000 people gathered because the noise was so loud and the other thing about it is that it helps us to understand how this is all happening in Jerusalem, it's happening 50 days, remember I said that, excuse me, that this is happening on the 15th, 14th of May, sorry, the 24th of May, 33, and on the 5th of April, 33, Jesus rose from the dead in Jerusalem and so, you know, nowadays, there's just in the paper, somebody in Oklahoma got the, got executed capital punishment and it's reported in the paper but, you know, there's only a couple of people there who see it but when the Romans crucified people, they intentionally did it in as public a place as possible because the terror and revulsion was part of the purpose.

[25:58] The sheer causing terror to conquered populations into slaves and low status individuals was in fact not a bug but a designed feature and so, literally, thousands of people saw Jesus die, literally, thousands of people would have known that the grave was empty and, you know, this is a challenge for our skeptical friends.

[26:22] Generally speaking, skeptics don't actually look at the evidence for the resurrection. They just dismiss it but what else could account, we're going to see in a few moments that 3,000 people, over 3,000 people came to believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead.

[26:39] Like, what started the Big Bang? Right? It must be true because I found it on the internet when I looked but according to the internet, 2.4 billion people on the planet call themselves Christians.

[26:56] Now, even if a large number of those aren't real Christians, that's really astounding. We have this small, tiny thing in Jerusalem of a man dying on a cross and then three days later we have one woman say she saw him alive and then there's more and then there's more and then there's thousands of Christians and then there's Christians in Samaria and then there's Christians in Asia Minor and then there's Christians in Rome and then there's Christians in Europe and then there's Christians in Africa and it goes on and on and on and on and on and on like a Big Bang that goes from this one explosion and what can account for that other than the real resurrection of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit?

[27:38] There is no better explanation than that. There is no better explanation than that. But what was the small thing about our hearts being restless?

[27:51] Well it's sort of look at verse 7 it's a small feature that we might not notice and they were amazed and astonished saying are not all these who are speaking Galileans and how is it that we hear each of us in our own native language and it's going to give the languages which I'll read in a moment.

[28:12] So here's the thing what they recognized so Galileans by and large were rural working class people who weren't educated so when they heard when the Parthians and Medes and all those were hearing their local dialects and local languages they were hearing people speak their language perfectly but with a working class Galilean accent.

[28:46] So it would be as if God gave me the gift of tongues to speak French all of a sudden and I'm not speaking Parisian French maybe I am speaking Parisian French but it's very very very clear that I'm an Anglophone I have an Anglophone accent.

[29:00] So that's one of the things which is so beautiful about this you see as the Holy Spirit doesn't come and all of a sudden try to make these these Galileans as if they're very very well educated rich you know Jewish people who've mastered these languages flawlessly they've mastered them flawlessly but they still keep their working class sounding accent when they speak these languages.

[29:20] You see the Holy Spirit when he comes upon us and fills us he does not annihilate you like as I said the Holy Spirit possesses us so that we can possess the Holy Spirit and begin to actually have self-possession which of course is one of the great desires in our age to have self-possession we read things about how to have self-possession how to practice mindfulness and all sorts of other types of things to try to give us some type of possession of ourselves we go to self-help gurus who can talk about how it's really you know you can control all sorts of things but the hardest thing to control is yourself the hardest thing to have is to actually possess yourself and that's what the Holy Spirit does and it doesn't do it by annihilating us but by keeping you in your individual in your individuality and then the second thing is this just sort of as we start to draw to a close they start to tell the languages Parthians and Medes verse 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia and just sort of pause there's the Roman Empire that goes like this and then I guess from your point of view down here there's another empire called the Parthian Empire basically Iran and Persia and so it's the Roman Empire and this other neighboring empire and then the other thing is that from the point of view of all these nations from Jerusalem's point of view it's north, south, east and west that's sort of how it's if you went on the map and you saw it that's what they're doing not in a you know like a clock order but just here and here and here and here and so

[30:48] Parthians verse 9 and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia and Judea and Cappadocia and Pontus and Asia Phrygia and Pamphylia Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome both Jews and proselytes Cretans and Arabians we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God that's what they're hearing and all were amazed and perplexed saying to one another what does this mean but others mocking said they are filled with new wine which just goes to show by the way that you can have the most remarkable event and the most remarkable argument and people can still be flippant and it's been that way for thousands of years that's sort of what that means so what's going on here is that the wonderful things of God well here it is if you could put up the final point that would be very helpful the Holy Spirit delivers you from the crushing burden of proud self-centeredness to the glorious liberty and joy of humbly praising the true and living God the Holy Spirit delivers you from the crushing burden of proud self-centeredness to the glorious liberty and joy of humbly praising the true and living God see this our hearts are restless till they rest in him and well you know here it is one of the important things to learn in life and try to figure out is when you're being convicted of having done something wrong and when the voice in your head or the voices around you are accusatory voices accusatory is different than being convicted of doing something wrong accusatory is you know

[32:37] I'm ugly I'm never any good I'm a terrible person like it it just completely it's like a a boot kicking you and a fist pushing you down and it can be hard sometimes to distinguish them but there's these accusatory voices and some of us maybe we came here today experiencing them some of us maybe in a long season of it all of us have had at least some seasons of these accusatory voices you know crushing us and if you've been in a season of accusatory voices or if you've gone to some counseling therapy about it one of the things that they often try to do is to try to have you get you see it's very self-centered and what you need is something that maybe will help you to forget yourself for a bit and maybe some of us have experienced this and maybe it's you go to a concert or something and all of a sudden the music is just really glorious and for a while you forget about yourself and you're caught up in the music or maybe you go off into nature or something and you realize for a moment that just you've been enjoying the trees and the views and for a brief moment you've forgotten about yourself caught up outside of yourself and the accusatory voices are gone and you see one of the things and a secular counselor will never tell you this is that one of the things that we need

[33:53] I mean it's very good of course to preach to yourself and say you know you're loved by God you're loved by Christ he's adopted he'll never let you go but even more important is to stop thinking about yourself and to praise God and what we see in this story is this profound self-forgetfulness where they're caught up in praising God the true and living God and this points to what the Holy Spirit is going to do in our lives is that not only do we get comfortable with the fact that we really need to be possessed by God and live in Him and have Him as our identity that it's this profound act of grace that there's nothing within us that He's ever going to discover that He didn't already know when Jesus died for us and to begin to rest in Him so that our restless hearts have rest and to be taken out of ourselves more and more so that we not only are able you see it's also when you are able to praise God and taken out of yourself that you can also start to see the needs of the world around you it's a it seems counterintuitive but it's actually very deeply intuitive that if you sort of get yourself out of navel-gazing all of the time and praise God then you actually also see His world and you see everything in the world that can just that can be done to His glory and honor and that's this profound work of the Holy Spirit and there's more

[35:27] I want to say but I'm going to stop with that and there's a missiological text which is really there and it's just so profoundly I guess the third thing about how He doesn't crush you to have you possess you is the fact that your heart language is respected and that you praise God in your heart language it's what should give us this impetus to realize that what unites us with other Christians is our praising of God and to seek to so share the gospel with people and other of every people group because we know that God wants people from every people group to praise Him in their heart language let's stand please stand just bow our heads in prayer Father later on in the book of Acts you're going to tell us that that the early Christians were learning to walk day by day in the fear of you and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit trusting you to do your work in the world and use them and we ask that for ourselves

[36:36] Father if there are any here or any watching who have not yet given their lives to Christ Father we ask that your Holy Spirit bring them to that point where they call out to you that Jesus would be their Savior and their Lord and Father for us you know Jesus is our Savior and Lord and you know how the world and the flesh and the devil are bending ourselves we're bending ourselves out of shape and the world and the devil is bending us out of shape and the crushing burden of our pride and of despair and you know Father those of us struggling with shouting accusation deep into our hearts and so Father we call out to you and ask Father that you would grip us with this wonderful news and that your Holy Spirit Father would move in our hearts so that we might know that we belong to you and that our hearts might rest in you and that as our hearts rest in you that you will lead us to this self-effacing praising of you and being able to declare your wonderful deeds in the heart language of all the people groups in the world

[37:44] Father do this wonderful work within us and we ask this in the name of Jesus your Son and our Savior Amen in the name of Jesus of God in the name of Jesus thank you and have three for nosotros and have thank you for their love and I know all the time and the way Dios and the you so I find out as ours we ask and of all the people to do this for you as well as wouldus before Gen�