As Wes said, we are beginning in Acts chapter 2.
If you turn there with me to Acts chapter 2.
And as you're getting there,
! I hope that you take opportunities to thank all of the musicians in our church.
We have so very many that share the stage and swap out so graciously together.
I'm especially thankful for the way in which they prepare.
They are here earlier than most of you,
which likely means they got up earlier than most of you to get this together.
The guys that have to come and run the technology.
I keep mentioning we have this new board.
We're still sorting it out back there and figuring out all the technical intricacies of it.
I'm thankful that Wes and Liz worked to find us new,
Christ-centered, God-honoring songs to sing together.
So if you don't, be sure to take some time at some point to thank them.
It's not why they do it, but let's affirm them and keep them moving on in that process.
Our text for this morning is Acts chapter 2, verses 1 through 12.
And this morning we have the great privilege and joy before us to observe a significant watershed moment in the life of the church.
Everything changes after this.
If you have placed your faith in the personal work of Jesus Christ,
this is part of your history.
And it has great significance for your life in Christ.
We have before us the day in which God unlocked the power of the Holy Spirit and gave it to the church.
Beloved, this is God's Word to us.
It was written for His glory and for our good.
We would all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and to obey its commands.
And I begin reading in verse 1 of chapter 2.
And how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language?
We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.
And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another,
What does this mean?
Now before we pay close attention to today's text,
I want you to recall so far in Luke's record what has happened.
Chapter 1, verse 3.
We get a little summation of Jesus' post-resurrection ministry.
He presented Himself alive to them after His suffering by many proofs,
appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
So He has been with them, going out from amongst them and telling them more.
He's teaching them about the kingdom of God.
And then a command comes to them, verses 4 and 5,
to stay and to wait.
While they were staying with them, He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem,
but to wait for the promise of the Father, which He said,
You heard from Me.
For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.
And then verse 8.
We see the promise of power for the fulfillment of their purpose.
And that is the gospel to the ends of the earth.
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.
And then verse 9.
We witness the ascension.
And when He had said these things as they were looking on,
He was lifted up and a cloud took them out of their sight.
So we talked last week about the time in between Jesus' ascension.
What were they doing?
They were together and devoting themselves to prayer.
And they had a concern for what the Scriptures had to say.
They cared about apostolic authority.
They replaced Judas with Matthias in this time.
And then 10 days later, we see chapter 2, verse 1.
The day of Pentecost arrives.
And Pentecost means 50th.
This celebration is also known as the Feast of Weeks.
And for them, it was a yearly feast.
Happened all the time as subscribed by Leviticus chapter 23.
We now know it as the day of Pentecost.
We don't continue to celebrate Pentecost the way they did,
but it's a day in the history of the modern church.
And what a day this was.
Now, there is so much to consider in this text.
And so I've decided I'll deal with it this week and next.
And if you're here with us last week, I really said to you, I expressed to you,
I really hope not to get off the preaching schedule that I set out for the year.
We're already off the schedule.
There's just too much in this text to deal with it well,
to aptly talk through it in a single week.
And so next week, we will look broadly at what is meant by being filled with the Holy Spirit
and the exact nature of its implications for us today.
There's a lot there.
I came to my study of it this week with certain assumptions that I found to be true,
but boy, did I find a lot of other understandings of this particular text.
And I really think we need to take some time to work through that.
What does it mean to be both baptized by the Holy Spirit and filled with the Holy Spirit?
And so let me just say to you, this week,
you ought to be studying and prayerfully considering what these things mean.
And then I'll do my very best by grace to speak about it next week.
There's so much here.
And I fear if we don't get it right here,
we're going to get very confused as we work our way through the rest of the book.
Okay, so I'm preparing notes.
I've got, as I have gotten fairly good at looking at pages of notes
and calculating that into minutes of preaching,
this morning, I said, whoa, this is an hour and 45 minutes by my quick estimation.
And so what I'm going to do this morning,
or what I did frantically at 5 a.m.
is I stripped out the historical context.
Okay, so I'm pulling that portion of the text out.
So we're going to look at verses 1 through 12 in that way,
and then we'll pick up and look at it in light of the filling of the Holy Spirit,
and that works specifically next week.
So hopefully that'll make this a much shorter sermon,
but still an important one.
So don't hear me saying I'm taking out unimportant details
and just throwing you historical context
so that I don't have to talk about it next week.
It's still very important because in those historical details,
we can see God's sovereign reign over redemptive history.
So that's what I want.
That's the goal of today.
The one thing I want us to see together from verses 1 through 12 of chapter 2
is God's sovereign reign over redemptive history.
He has always been in control of redemptive history.
He is in control of redemptive history here in Acts chapter 2,
and He still is in control of redemptive history.
We find here this event that happens,
like the sending of, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
However, the disciples did not fulfill some special sort of requirements
in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
They hadn't worked out some type of equation,
and then they were filled.
This is entirely a divine act,
a work on God's part.
Now, you remember that Jesus commands them in verse 4 and 5.
They were commanded to stay and wait.
They're not commanded to pray that the Holy Spirit will come.
They're commanded simply to stay and to wait.
Now, certainly in between time,
we find that they're doing some praying,
but that is not what Jesus commands them to do.
I think it's wrong to assume that that is what they were doing.
They're praying for other things.
They're praying the way that Jesus taught them to pray.
They're praying that God's kingdom would come,
and God sends the Spirit.
Verse 2,
It being the Spirit,
the sound of the Spirit fills the entire house where they were sitting.
So they're gathered again in a house.
We can assume it's the same upper room that they've been part of in the end of Jesus' ministry,
and in these in-between days waiting for the day of Pentecost.
But we don't know exactly what they're doing.
But what we can know is that they weren't at this time praying.
The positions of prayer in their day were to stand,
to kneel,
or to lay prostrate on the ground.
Luke records it for us in this way.
He's clear to say in the house where they not just were,
but where they were sitting.
They could have been having a meal.
They could have been discussing the Scripture.
They could have been discussing their morning and how it had gone.
We don't know what they were doing,
but they weren't praying.
And I'm pressing at this with you,
not to mitigate the importance of prayer at all,
but to say they weren't working something out on their own.
The sending of the Spirit of God was not synergistic.
It was monergistic.
The pouring out of the Spirit was divinely decreed.
Let me further make the point to you.
The beginning of verse 2,
Luke records,
and suddenly,
which is to say it was a surprise to them.
They hadn't sorted out the equation.
They weren't doing the right things.
And then He came,
and suddenly there came from heaven.
They'd been waiting,
and here He is.
And it came from heaven.
He emphasizes their surprise and the source.
Their surprise and the source.
This is going to have much later significance into next week
as we talk more about the filling of the Holy Spirit.
So, the day of Pentecost arrives,
and they were together in one place.
Now, in order to see God's sovereign reign over redemptive history,
that He sent the Holy Spirit at this particular time,
in a particular way,
to show His sovereignty over redemptive history,
we must first understand,
as 21st century Christians,
the significance of Pentecost.
As a matter of fact,
it would be helpful to understand the feasts
outlined in Leviticus chapter 23
as they present for us
a New Testament timetable.
This is very cool, beloved.
The way that God set forth the feasts
in order to fulfill in Christ
what those feasts were meant,
what they prefigured for us,
what they represented.
So, if you'd like to turn to Leviticus chapter 23,
you can.
I'm not going to read much of it.
So, if you'd like to be there
just to see what I'm talking about,
but for further study,
at very least,
write down Leviticus 23
and go and look at this.
First, God prescribes the Passover.
The Passover feast.
And the killing of the Passover lamb
pictures the death of Jesus Christ,
our Passover lamb.
And this was when Jesus was crucified.
The Passover.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5,
last half of verse 7,
Christ,
our Passover lamb,
has been sacrificed.
So, Passion Week ends there
with Passover.
Jesus Christ is crucified.
The second is the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
And it celebrated the day after Passover.
It was an offering of the first fruits
of the grain harvest.
They came together and feasted
and made an offering.
Leviticus 23, 15 commands
that it be celebrated
the day after the Sabbath.
Now, in Jesus' day,
the popular interpretation
of that command meant
that the offering would always be
on a Sunday.
There were some competing interpretations
between the Sadducees and the Pharisees,
but the observed interpretation
was that of the Sadducees.
So, the Feast of Unleavened Bread
would have always been on a Sunday,
and it would have coincided
with Jesus' resurrection.
Tracking the timeline?
This pictures Jesus
as the first fruits of those
who have fallen asleep.
Raised from the dead
just as we are raised
from the dead in Christ.
1 Corinthians 15, 20,
Paul writes,
But in fact,
Christ has been raised
from the dead
the first fruits of those
who have fallen asleep.
Right?
To the audience he's writing to,
they get this.
They're very aware
of this system of feasts
that the Jews celebrated.
The third outline
in Leviticus 23
is Pentecost.
Right?
The Feast of Weeks.
It's a nether offering
of first fruits.
And let me read to you now
from Leviticus 23, 15 and 16.
You shall count seven full weeks.
That's why it's called
the Feast of Weeks.
Seven full weeks.
Seven days.
Right?
From the day after the Sabbath.
From the day that you brought
the sheaf of the wave offering.
You shall count 50 days
to the day after the seventh Sabbath.
Then you shall present
a grain offering
of new grain to the Lord.
So, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit
on the day of Pentecost
as the first fruits
of the believer's inheritance.
Are you catching the significance
of the timeline
that was set forth
in Leviticus 23
and that God now is following
in these events
in redemptive history?
He sent the Holy Spirit
on the 50th day
because it was the day of Pentecost.
It's not because the apostles
got something right.
Right?
It's monergistic.
He had already decided
this is how this will happen.
Right?
Praise God for His sovereignty
in all of these things.
Right?
Jesus sends the Holy Spirit
on the day of Pentecost
as the first fruits
of the believer's inheritance.
Ephesians 1, 13 and 14.
Paul writes,
So, God decrees
that the Holy Spirit
be sent to the disciples
on the day of Pentecost.
Isn't that incredible?
That just the very history of it
speaks so much
of who God is to us
in Christ.
And when he does this,
there's some audible evidence of it.
Verse 2 says,
And suddenly there came from heaven
a sound like a mighty rushing wind
and it filled the entire house
where they were sitting.
Now, I don't think it's proper
for us to understand
that there actually was
a rushing wind.
Right?
All of their hair
got incredibly messed up.
I don't think that's
what's happening here.
But Luke is grasping at metaphor.
He's trying to explain
what it sounded like.
And he says that.
And it's there in the Greek,
like.
And later on,
as he describes
the divided tongues,
he says,
as of fire.
Doing the very best that he can
with the language at his disposal
to help us to understand
what was happening here.
In both Hebrew and Greek,
the words for wind and spirit
are the same words.
And wind is often used
as a picture of the Holy Spirit.
Do you recall Jesus' explanation
to Nicodemus in John 3.8?
The wind blows where it wishes
and you hear its sound,
but you do not know
where it comes from
or where it goes.
So it is with everyone
who is born of the Spirit.
You see that symbolism there
and the Spirit comes
and you can audibly hear Him coming
like a mighty rushing wind.
There's also visible evidence.
Verse 3.
And divided tongues,
as of fire,
appeared to them
and rested on each one of them.
That was very commonly understood
that fire was symbolic of light.
And that may be a little difficult for us
because very few of us
ever see much of anything by fire anymore
because we have all this technology
around us
that generates light
in a much different way.
But for them,
this would have been
the only source of light
apart from the sun
and the reflective properties
of the moon
and the stars.
And so,
the fire itself
was symbolic of light.
The Holy Spirit illuminates,
gives light to,
the truth of God.
Jesus said in John 14,
verse 25 and 26,
These things I have spoken to you
while I am still with you.
But the Helper,
the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in My name,
He will teach you all things
and bring to your remembrance
all that I have said to you.
So, the Spirit of God
comes in this way
and consistent with the promise
that Jesus made concerning Him.
And this same Spirit
is ours today,
although He comes to us
in a much different way,
not like mighty rushing wind
and with divided tongues
as of fire.
This amazing transitional event
happened here.
We receive the Spirit
in a much different way,
but yet we still have
His power
and His illuminating purpose
for the Scripture.
Verse 4 says,
And they were filled
with the Holy Spirit
and they began to speak
in other tongues
as the Spirit
gave them utterance.
Now catch,
they're doing this
as the Spirit
empowers them for it.
They're not doing it
of their own accord.
They're doing it
under the guidance
of the Spirit of God.
and they're speaking
in other tongues.
Now we are going to get
to the complexity
of what that could possibly mean
in other texts.
But all it means
in this text
is that they've spoken
other known
spoken languages.
Here.
For sure.
Without a doubt.
That's what it means.
Verse 6, 7, and 8.
And at the sound
of the multitude
came together.
So all of these people
were gathered around
at this mighty rushing sound.
It's my presumption
that the disciples,
not just the apostles,
but all of those
that are there gathered,
come out of the house
and begin to speak
in these varying
known languages.
And they were bewildered
because each one
was hearing them speak
in his own language.
And they were amazed
and astonished,
saying,
Are not all these
who are speaking Galileans?
And that is to say
they're all from
the same region,
which is that they would have
spoken the same language,
but also Galileans
were not intelligent people.
Lay people, right?
These weren't
sophisticated city people.
Like, how could they
possibly know
all of the languages?
That's what they're suggesting.
Aren't they all Galileans?
Like, how is it even possible
that Galileans
would know
so many known languages?
And how is it
that we hear
each of us
in his own
native languages?
Right?
So they're speaking
in these known languages,
but what were they saying?
The last part of verse 11
tells us.
We hear them telling
in our own tongues
what?
The mighty works
of God.
They're speaking
in the languages,
the native languages
of these people,
so they can hear
and understand
what?
The mighty works
of God.
At the outset
of our study of Acts,
I set forth
some goals for us,
three goals.
Do you recall goal three?
Goal three was
to pay careful attention
to the means
and the ways
of the Holy Spirit
for our study of Acts.
Pay careful attention
to the means
and the ways
of the Holy Spirit.
I've said to you before,
the primary role
of the Spirit of God
is the exaltation
of Jesus Christ
in the salvation
and perfection
of His church.
The exaltation
of Jesus Christ
in the salvation
and protection
of His church.
This is His primary role.
It's going to help us
filter a lot of understanding
about the Spirit of God.
The primary means
is the Word of God
spoken
by the people
of God.
And here we see
the first record
of the ways
that that happens.
Speaking the Word of God,
speaking of the mighty works
of God
in the languages
of the people.
So He uses this
as a method
by which to tell
people that speak
other languages
about the mighty works
of God.
Now I want to draw
your attention
to the front of your bulletin.
God finds
very creative ways
to humble me
and to remind you
of my great need
of grace
in the typo
in the Charles Spurgeon quote.
I can't, of course,
misspell some insignificant word,
but it has to be
the third part
of the Trinity
that I call
the Holy Spirit.
So let me read it to you
as it should.
He said,
There will never be
any mighty work
come from us
unless there is first
a mighty work
in us.
No man truly labors
for souls
unless the Holy Spirit
has first
worked mightily
in Him.
No amount
of planning
or preparation
has any value
whatsoever
apart
from the power
of God
at work
in us
and through us
to accomplish
His purposes.
Set that very clearly
in your mind, beloved.
That's axiomatic
to understand
what the Christian life
should look like.
And we are so quick
and so ready
to run off ahead
apart from Him.
Stay and wait
for the power of God
that your ministry
might be effective
because apart from it
it will not be.
God is sovereign
over redemptive history.
He is calling together
His church
and we are merely
instruments
in His hand.
Another way
to see God's
sovereign reign
over redemptive history
is to consider
what has happened
on this day,
this day of Pentecost.
Right?
So it's a day
that God has set forth
hundreds of years earlier,
Leviticus chapter 23
and it's become
this festival
after the dispersion
of Israel
and the regathering
of it
and the dispersion
of it
and the regathering
of it
that there are
Jewish people
and there are converts
to Judaism
spread out
all over
the known world.
And Pentecost
as one of these
three major feasts
would have brought
together Jews
from far
and wide.
It's a unique day
that would have brought
these people
together.
The multitude
was in Jerusalem
for the worship
of God.
That's why
they had gathered there.
It was for the
proper worship
of God.
It was the perfect
moment in history
to begin
the church
of Jesus Christ.
The beautiful
opportunity
for the apostles
to begin to preach
that all that you
have practiced,
all of the Judaism
that you know
was meant to point
you to Jesus
and He has come
and He has died
and He has been raised
and He has ascended
that we might believe
in Him.
This is crucial
to the gathering
of those people,
the starting
of the church
and then later
we'll see in the
book of Acts
there again
they're scattering
back out
to take that good
news of Christ
to the world
around them.
Verse 5
Now there were
dwelling in Jerusalem
Jews,
devout men
from every nation
under heaven,
Parthians
and Medes
I'm not going to
read all that again.
I worked so hard
at pronouncing those
right once.
You've got the text
before you,
right?
I'm going to read
from you
from MacArthur's
commentary on this
and actually
I'm going to have
to pronounce those
again because
he talks about them
here.
But he just sums
all this up
and says this
so well
and I just want
to give him
the proper credit
due him
for this
and give you
some explanation
of who all
these people were.
So there were
Jews living in
Jerusalem
at the time
of Pentecost,
devout men
from every nation
under heaven.
Those who went
to the trouble
to make the pilgrimage
were obviously
devout men.
They traveled
far distances
to be there
at this time.
The phrase
from every nation
under heaven
is an idiomatic
expression meaning
from many lands
or from all
of the nations
where Jews
had been dispersed.
It was a broad term.
Parthians lived
in what is modern
Iran.
They had never
been conquered
by the Romans
and remained
their bitter enemies.
Medes partners
in empire
with the Persians
in Daniel's time
were now part
of the Parthian
empire.
Elamites lived
in what is now
southwestern Iran.
They too were part
of the Parthian empire.
The residents
of Mesopotamia
lived between
the two great rivers,
the Tigris
and the Euphrates.
Great numbers
of Israelites
had been deported
to that region
by the Assyrians
and Babylonians.
Not all had returned
to Palestine
at the time
of Cyrus' decree.
Judea should probably
be constructed
in the broadest sense
as all the region
once controlled
by David and Solomon.
That would explain
the absence of Syria
from the list.
Cappadocia,
Pontus in Asia,
Phrygia and Pamphylia
were all regions
in Asia Minor,
modern day Turkey.
They had a large
Jewish population
as did Egypt,
particularly in the city
of Alexandria.
It was in that city
that the Septuagint,
the Greek translation
of the Old Testament,
had been produced.
The districts
of Libya
around Cyrene
were west of Egypt
on the African coast
of the Mediterranean Sea.
Josephus,
a Jewish historian,
mentions a Jewish
population there.
That there were Jews
in Rome
as well as Gentile
proselytites,
so converts to Judaism,
is obvious
from the Emperor
Claudius' expulsion
of them some years later.
That's recorded
in Acts 18.2.
Cretans were from
the island of Crete
off the southern
coast of Greece.
Arabs were Jews
living in the kingdom
of the Nabataean Arabs
located south
of Damascus.
And so they are people
from far and wide,
from all around
what is mostly known
of the world
in that day.
Of course,
there are people
much further than that,
but this is the
perfect orchestration
of events,
right,
brought together again
by God's sovereign reign
to jumpstart
the rapid expansion
of the church.
We find the church
on three continents
in one generation
after this,
right,
watershed,
amazing moment
in redemptive history.
And verse 12 says,
And all were amazed
and perplexed,
saying to one another,
What does this mean?
They're not wondering
what the words,
the mighty works of God,
are, right,
but they're speaking
the mighty works of God,
the Old Testament works
of God up to this place.
Quite likely,
some new information
about the kingdom of God
coming in Jesus Christ.
I don't think verse 12
is meant to mean
that they're scratching
their heads
and they need clarification,
but they're saying,
This is a major day.
What does this mean?
Right?
Here are these people,
these Galileans,
speaking in all
of these various languages.
What does it mean?
And it marks this
massive transition,
a new economy
of the Holy Spirit,
the life of the church.
Further in chapter 2,
Peter stands up amongst them
and tells them
what it means.
It's the fulfillment
of Joel chapter 2,
which speaks of the
outpouring of God's Spirit
and the coming judgment
of God.
And the end of that
from Joel 2.32
in Acts 2.21,
Peter says,
And it shall come to pass
that everyone who calls
upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved.
And we see the conviction
of the Spirit
in the lives
of the early church
and this massive expansion
of that number of disciples,
that about 120
that we see
in chapter 1
gets blown up
to thousands
upon thousands
in just a matter
of days.
What an amazing event
for us
to observe
together.
And beloved,
this is
our history.
It's part of our story.
It has implications
for today.
And I hope
you've seen
God's sovereign reign
over that story.
We are part
of God's
redemptive purposes.
You,
if you've placed
your faith
in the person
and work
of Jesus Christ,
have a place
in this story
and it is
a glorious one.
Let's pray together.