Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire and lighten with celestial fire.
Father, we ask that you would continue to pour out your Holy Spirit upon us,
that you would pour out your Holy Spirit and fill us with your Holy Spirit.
And as your Holy Spirit fills us,
Father, may your Holy Spirit help us to submit to your Holy Spirit
and to be dependent upon your Holy Spirit.
And to become more open and surrendered, Father, to you in the power of your Holy Spirit.
Father, we ask that you would do this mighty work in us today.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Please be seated.
Some of you might have heard this famous feminist line from the 60s or the 70s.
A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.
So just sort of keep that in your mind.
And we're going to look at a Bible passage before we look at Acts 2.
Something that Jesus said, just that we had that gospel reading a few minutes ago.
A little bit after that, John 16.
So it was the same context.
He's in the upper room with his disciples.
Judas is gone.
He's going to be captured.
All of that.
Andrew, could you put John 16.7 up?
Those of you who are regulars here know sometimes it's just very helpful for us to say the Bible passage together.
And so if you would join with me in saying this text out loud.
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth.
It is to your advantage that I go away.
For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.
Now we're going to read that text again in a moment because I just want you to get the full weight of it.
For many Christians, our daily walking life, we in a sense say, I need the Holy Spirit like a fish needs a bicycle.
Isn't that true?
For many of us, how we go through our days.
For many churches, how they organize their schedules.
How they think through their future.
In our minds and in our hearts, we say that.
We need the Holy Spirit like a fish needs a bicycle.
And for many of us, we actually don't entirely agree with what Jesus just said.
We don't think that it's better that the Holy Spirit is present here than if Jesus was physically present here.
For many of us, we would say, wouldn't it be vastly better than rather than having George up front,
we had Jesus up front.
Wouldn't that be vastly better than having the Holy Spirit in our midst?
That's how, in fact, many of us think.
So let's read this verse of Jesus together again.
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth.
It is to your advantage that I go away.
For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.
Note, he says, it is to your advantage.
The whole thing, him going away in the coming of the Holy Spirit, is to our advantage.
So just sort of mindful of that, let's go back to the text that we're going to look at this morning.
And it's Acts chapter 2, verses 1 to 11.
Or we'll probably look at actually Acts 2, 1 to 13.
And so if you have your Bibles, it would be great if you open them,
because what we see here is Jesus keeping his promise.
The Holy Spirit coming upon human beings in a completely new way,
as a result of Jesus dying upon the cross, rising from the dead, ascending into heaven.
There's, in a sense, a new coming of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus keeps his word.
God the Father keeps his word.
And this is the dramatic event, world-changing historical event,
that Luke, using eyewitness testimony, records for us.
So let's just read it and hear what it has to say.
It begins like this.
When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.
And just sort of pause there for a second.
Pentecost is one of three primary Jewish festivals that, in the Old Testament,
what we call the Old Testament, Jewish people call the Tanakh,
that all Jewish men in particular, but Jewish people,
were to come to Jerusalem three times a year.
And this is one of the three of them.
In your Old Testament, it would be called the Feast of Weeks often.
It's sort of interesting that Luke here uses the Greek way to refer to it,
not the Jewish way to refer to it, because Luke is writing to Greeks.
He's writing to pagans.
He's writing to us, not to a synagogue.
He's writing to us.
And he uses the word that we would understand, that we would tend to use.
And so it's one of the great three feasts where Jewish people from all over the world were to come to.
And if you think about it for a second, like if you lived in Jerusalem, you were there for it.
If you just lived in Galilee, you might be able to come to it fairly regularly.
But the Jewish people, if you hear what, when John was reading about Acts 2 and all those different nations,
it gives you a picture of the Jewish, how scattered the Jewish people were all over the planet.
And so if you were one of those Jewish people that were captured by Nebuchadnezzar and brought to the Babylonian Empire,
and you now live very, very far away, or if you were Jewish and you lived in Rome,
you would not be able to come to Jerusalem three times a year.
In fact, it might be a little bit like Muslims today with going to Mecca.
A good Muslim is to make one pilgrimage to Mecca once in their life.
And so for many Jewish people back then, they might only have one time that they would be able to go to Jerusalem.
That would maybe have been their prayer, that once, that God would allow them to live long enough and have the resources,
that once in their life they could go to Jerusalem for one of these festivals or maybe several.
And there's good archaeological reasons and anthropological reasons to believe that Pentecost was the time that the most Jewish people came to.
And the reason was, the weather was the best.
I mean, let's be honest.
How many people say, I think I'd like to go holiday in Arizona in the middle of July?
You don't go to Arizona in the middle of July.
People who go to Florida for the winter, well, even people in Florida like to leave Florida in the month of July, right?
So the weather is just not very favorable.
So in terms of travel, in terms of weather, this, of all of the Jewish festivals, the weather was the best as a general rule.
So it might literally have been, there might have been anywhere between 100,000 to 200,000 Jewish people who were gathered,
not to have the Holy Spirit fall upon them because they were just devout Jews.
They wanted to be there for one of the festivals.
And this was the festival where the harvest was celebrated.
And it was a celebration of faith because it was the beginning of the harvest and they were thanking God for a big harvest.
So the harvest hasn't all come in, but they're thanking God for a big harvest.
They come to gather.
And that's why there's so many Jewish people here.
So let's go back to, we'll read verse one again.
Just sort of pause, keep your finger there if you want.
Now, the Holy Spirit is invisible.
Some of you have maybe seen some modern creeds where they'll talk about the Holy Spirit being unseen.
That's a terrible translation of the creed.
China is unseen, but you can get on a plane and see China.
The Holy Spirit is unseen because it's invisible.
And invisible is the more important way of understanding.
The Holy Spirit's invisible.
So how would you know if Jesus kept his word?
How would you know if he was going to send his Holy Spirit upon people?
You wouldn't know because the Holy Spirit's invisible.
And so what we're going to see here is a miracle, a mighty act of God, where God pours out his Holy Spirit.
If you read through Book of Acts, it's probably the case that there's 120 people in this room.
It's men and women, people who we know as famous people like Jesus' mother Mary and some of his half-brothers and half-sisters,
some of the apostles, all of the apostles, and then other nameless people, but probably about 120 people in the room.
And how will they know that God, that Jesus has kept his word?
So what's going to happen is that the miracle is going to have three ways for them to recognize that the invisible has just fallen upon them and rested upon them.
And as you can see here, the first is something to do with their hearing.
It doesn't say that the room is filled with a mighty wind.
In other words, if you went back in a time machine and you happened to be able to slip in the room, you wouldn't see their hair rustling.
It doesn't say that.
It says, look at it again, and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind.
It's like a hurricane-type sound.
And it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
Just to give a very, very partial thing, I don't know how many of you have been to Niagara Falls,
but when I went to Niagara Falls like a few years ago, I have not been there since I was a kid,
and I was quite far away from it, and then it dawned on me that there's this deep sound,
and I realized it's the falls.
And when you go really close to the falls, it's a sound that the body knows.
Like there's something physical about the sound, and that's what's being described here.
And for Jewish people, this is a significant thing because the Old Testament word for Holy Spirit is also the word for breath and for wind.
So it's resonant.
It echoes all sorts of Old Testament texts.
So they hear a sound, and it would be as if we were right beside Niagara Falls.
It's as if we were right in the middle of a hurricane or a mighty gale,
and a sound like that that the body feels fills the room.
And then in verse 3, we see the second sign that God is doing something invisible,
but a second sign that God's doing the invisible, and that's in verse 3, and it has to do with the eyes.
And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.
And notice here the language is not that it was fire, but that it looked like fire.
It's very, very, it would be as if you go back in time, or you know,
the equivalent of the Ottawa Citizen or the Globe and Mail or the National Post or the Ottawa Sun.
The reporters are there, and they ask people, you were in the room, like, what did you see?
And they say, well, I know it wasn't fire, because it didn't burn, but it sure looked like fire.
I don't know how else to describe it other than it looked like fire.
And actual tongues of fire came and rested upon every single person who was in the room.
Nobody was left out, men and women, apostles and people who are completely unknown to us,
just ordinary people.
It looked like fire, and it came and rested on each one of them.
And that's the second thing.
And once again, this image of fire for a Jewish person, this is a very, very powerful image.
In Exodus 3, how is it that God appears for the first time and reveals his very name?
He reveals his name as I am that I am, Yahweh or Jehovah, I am that I am.
He reveals it to Moses in a burning bush.
The bush is on fire, but it's not consumed.
And many, many times in the Old Testament, fire is a sign of God's presence.
So God gives a visual sign that he's doing something invisible and powerful.
But the third sign is actually the most important out of all of them.
And the third sign is verse 4.
Now, why is this the most significant?
It's the most significant because this is the sign that makes them realize that something dramatic has happened,
and it's actually in them.
It's affected them.
Because if any single one of you all of a sudden was to speak a language that you had never known,
you would realize that something unbelievably dramatic had happened.
If I started speaking Hungarian,
I know there's some people here who speak Swahili.
If Daniel starts speaking Swahili, I don't think he knows any Swahili.
You can just go around the room.
You know, if Neil here or his wife Cynthia starts speaking Mandarin,
that's the most dramatic aspect of this whole thing.
It's the one that makes them realize most that it's real,
and that it's not just real and external.
It's not just a weird vision and an auditory thing that they've heard,
that it's something that's actually happened inside of them and changed them.
And I'm not going to get into the discussion about how what's happening here in Acts 2
is a little bit different than what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians
about other types of tongues.
It's obvious in 1 Corinthians that it's talking about a different type of tongues
because there's a need for interpretation.
But, you know, we all know when we're,
like just the other day when I was in, of all places, Starbucks.
I know that's a real surprise to some of you,
but I was in Starbucks working on this sermon,
and off on the side there were two people talking.
I think it was Russian.
I don't know if it was Russian, but I know it was a language.
You just know it's a language.
It's not like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It's not, you know, we know that there's a language.
And there was another couple of people, they looked Chinese.
I don't know if they were speaking Cantonese or Mandarin or what,
but they were speaking a language.
And so all of a sudden, if I burst into speaking another language,
if you started speaking another language that you did not know,
you would know that something miraculous and powerful has happened to you
and in a sense is in you and has changed you.
And so you put the three of them together,
and you see that this is Jesus keeping his word.
And if you go on to read the rest of Acts,
you'll see that Peter understands that it's fulfilling ancient prophecies
of the last days of God's Holy Spirit coming upon people.
It's interior, it's real, and it would truly convince them.
But it's the next thing which is really, really, really shocking.
And it's the next part of the miracle,
which is the constant challenge to the church.
Because one of the constant challenges to the church
is that we will slide into the normal ways of the world
and want to create a type of religion
where people have to come to us and fit in with us.
It's a very, very powerful thing.
One of the things about, like in marriage,
one of the struggles in marriage
is that we don't realize that we have some aspects
of our family identity and practice,
which is just like ours.
And so the man has that and the woman has that,
and they get married,
and there can be a struggle over what type of soup you buy.
Well, of course it's Campbell's.
No, of course it's the cheapest.
Of course it's Crest.
Of course it's Colgate.
Of course you roll.
Of course you squeeze.
You know what I mean?
Like, of course the toilet roll goes in that way,
and the paper comes this way, not this way.
Like, what are you thinking?
Right?
And so it's very, very easy.
And then when it goes beyond that,
and then, you know, you're married,
and you have kids,
and the kids marry,
and so there's a new man or a woman
who's coming into the family.
You want the family,
you want the person to fit into the family.
And it can be a struggle.
It's just a natural human problem.
And so this is a dramatic miracle,
but if the miracle just stopped there,
well, it'd be just,
well, that's pretty cool.
God, wow, he gives his Holy Spirit.
The next part is where the real challenge comes
in terms of how we actually live our lives.
So look at verse 5.
Now, there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews,
devout men from every nation under heaven.
Remember, I've already explained that.
They've come for this feast.
There's archaeologists, anthropologists estimate
somewhere between 100,000 to 200,000 people
were probably there for this event.
Not all right there,
but in the area of Jerusalem for the holiday.
Now, there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews,
devout men from every nation under heaven.
It's obviously an exaggeration.
And at this sound,
the multitude came together,
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 how is it that we hear each of them
in his own,
each of us in his own native language?
Now, we're going to go back and look at this
because somebody might say,
that's not particularly shocking, George.
Well, what draws the crowd
isn't the sound of the rushing mighty wind.
What draws the crowd
is that when the rushing mighty wind comes,
you just imagine if all of a sudden
this room was filled,
people would,
some people would cower,
people would shout out,
and maybe people would start saying,
let's get out the door.
And it's a surprise
when you start shouting out
and you realize,
I'm speaking Hungarian.
You know,
somebody else is speaking Finnish.
I don't know.
You know, somebody else,
whatever.
And then as the Holy Spirit
comes upon these people,
it turns from shouts of terror
into shouts of praising God.
And as they're shouting to praise God,
that is the noise
that comes out of the room.
And it's obvious that the people,
the disciples and apostles,
they all,
maybe they start running out of the room
because it's a bit frightening
what's happening.
And then they just keep going.
And as they're going,
they're realizing
they're not shouting in fear,
but they're shouting
and they're praising God
in many languages.
And it's the many languages
which draws the people.
Louise and I,
in the fall,
we'll be celebrating
our 35th wedding anniversary.
And so 35 years ago,
after we got married,
we went to Quebec City
for our honeymoon.
And the end of October
in Quebec City
isn't tourist season.
You know,
there's the summer
and then there's the winter,
but late October,
November is not really tourist season.
And we went to Quebec City
for our honeymoon.
And after we'd been there
a few days,
Quebec City is very,
very French.
And after we'd been there
a couple of days,
we were in a place
and, you know,
I hadn't entirely realized
that you never hear
English spoken.
Like you just never hear
English spoken.
And I had this brief moment
of what it must feel like
to be an immigrant
who comes to this country
and they don't,
and they come to this country,
they've come from a country
where they don't speak English.
Because Louise and I,
we were in this place,
maybe it was like a,
like a,
anyway,
like a food court
or something.
And all of a sudden,
about two tables over,
we heard a table
of people speaking English.
And it,
whoa,
they're speaking English.
like I had this tiny little window
of what it must be like
for somebody to come from Syria
or China
or Pakistan
or a country
where English isn't
the primary language
and what it must be like
to never hear your own language
and all of a sudden
be somewhere,
especially for the early immigrants,
the first person maybe
to come from a country like that
and all of a sudden
hear their language spoken.
And so,
you know,
there wouldn't have been
a whole lot of people
come from like
way north of
northern Persia
and they might only have
rudimentary Greek
or Latin
or rudimentary Hebrew.
They might have really
been struggling
to try to be understood
and all of a sudden
they hear their language
being shouted out,
shouted out.
They notice it,
they come running.
They come running
to hear their heart language.
God uses their heart language
to draw them.
Not so much
the other signs
and the crowd
wouldn't know about
all that other stuff,
but God uses their
heart language
to draw them.
And
the other thing
which is so neat
about that,
look at this,
verse 6 again,
and at this sound,
now that we know
what it is,
the multitude came together
and they were bewildered
because each one of them
was hearing them speak
in his own language
and they were amazed
and astonished,
saying,
are not all these
who are speaking
Galileans?
This is really important.
It's a really important thing.
Many of us,
one of the reasons that,
you know,
that quote from Jesus
about us not thinking
the Holy Spirit's of value,
one of the deep fears
that we have
is that the Holy Spirit,
that if we get close
to God,
that it will annihilate us,
that it will somehow
hurt us,
that it will somehow,
getting close to God,
getting the Holy Spirit
bigger in our lives
will somehow diminish us,
and that's our deep fear.
But here we see
in the text
that when the Holy Spirit
comes upon people,
it doesn't diminish us,
it makes us more human,
because it would be
as if I speak in Hungarian,
and there's actually
somebody here
who's a native Hungarian speaker,
maybe a couple,
and the wife turns
to her husband and said,
he's speaking in Hungarian,
and he has a Canadian accent.
See, the Holy Spirit
doesn't come upon them,
and all of a sudden,
they are speaking,
if it was English,
Oxbridge English.
They're speaking English
as if,
and this is what Galileans
are hillbillies, right?
The Galileans
are hillbillies.
They're rural,
lower working class,
not as well educated,
and in most cultures,
there is a lower working class,
uneducated speech pattern.
We can often pick it out.
Not as, you know,
maybe not as much
in city areas,
but especially in rural areas,
in some parts of Canada,
in many other parts of the world,
there's a distinctive way
of speaking.
So God doesn't take away
the fact that they're
lower working class,
and uneducated,
and now have them speak
the equivalent of
Oxbridge Hungarian.
They speak good Hungarian
with a Galilean accent.
Actually, Andrew,
could you put up
the first point?
This is the important,
one of the really important things
for us to get
from this text.
Evil erodes and removes
human differences,
but the Holy Spirit
makes us more ourselves
and redeems uniqueness.
Evil erodes and removes
human differences,
but the Holy Spirit
makes us more ourselves
and redeems our uniqueness.
On Wednesday,
my wife and I
had supper with another couple
on Elkin Street.
We were at the Clock Tower
Pub on Elkin Street,
and, you know,
we're just sitting out there
having a really,
it was a really nice evening,
having a nice time,
and we start to realize
that across the street
at the Human Rights Memorial
that there's a band
being set up,
a small band,
and that they're playing
some instruments,
and they're just singing
different things,
and all of a sudden,
I realize they're singing
a praise song.
Whoa!
I had my back to turn around,
look,
and it was a praise song.
It was a song we sing here.
And then,
because I'm really thick sometimes,
maybe lots,
and it clues in on me,
oh, the big pro-life march
is tomorrow.
This is probably something
connected to that.
So we continue,
you know,
Louise and myself
with this other couple,
we're having a nice,
you know,
chat and meal,
and all of a sudden,
one of the others noticed
that there's a group
of about 20,
25 people
coming towards
this display,
and they're carrying banners,
and here's the big thing.
There's two men
who have red bandanas
covering their face.
A young man
only wears a red bandana
to cover his face
when he wants to intimidate
with violence,
right?
Or a woman.
They don't want to engage
in free speech.
They want to stop
free speech.
They want to intimidate
with violence.
And sure enough,
it was a group
of hardcore activists
who came to take over
the space.
And so we finished
our meal,
and we went over,
the four of us,
probably all for
different reasons,
but all of us
went over
because we wanted
to support them.
I'm old.
You know,
God loved them.
The three people
up on the stage,
they all looked like
they were,
you know,
like 18,
19,
20 people.
There's just a few
other people around,
and we just wanted
to support them.
And these people
come and they sort of
try to take over
the stage,
use their banners
to cover them up,
and eventually,
but you know that
there's this threat
of violence
which is there.
And in fact,
it turned out
that this was a spot
for a prayer vigil
to end abortion.
And eventually,
lots of people
start to come.
The organizers,
of course,
are calling the police.
The police come
and they do nothing.
And you know
that there's going
to be some violence.
There was eventually
some small violence.
The pro-life crowd,
I'm not trying to make
any political statements here,
and I'm not definitely
saying that people
who are in favor
of abortion
are all going
to be violent
like some of these
people were.
But there were
four young women
who were there,
and they were,
it was really
quite remarkable
and quite,
I think it affected
me more
than it affected
my wife
because the other
couple had gone
by then.
There was just
an amazing amount
of anger
and hatred
as they went
around the crowd
expressing their
anger and hatred
when not blowing
their whistles
and shouting,
including shouting
things like,
we'll be here
tomorrow
and you should
fear us.
In front of police
who of course
do nothing.
And anyway,
here's the thing
for these four
young women
who are just
so obviously
radiating
anger and hatred
and probably
some type
of deep woundedness
as well,
but you don't
know any,
you don't notice
anything distinctive
and unique about them
because the hatred
and the anger
has overwhelmed
them
and removed
human uniqueness
and difference.
And that's
what evil
and vices
do in our lives.
A man
who is consumed
with pornography
loses
his distinction
and uniqueness
as he's captivated
by the screen.
A man
or a woman
who's drunk,
a room of drunk
people are all
very,
fairly similar.
They might think
they're being
really witty,
but they're not.
And so what we see
here in this miracle
is it's really amazing
because the deep fear
of our lives
is that as the Holy Spirit
comes more deeply
into our lives
or as we get closer
to God,
that God will
somehow diminish us.
but it's a lie
that we tell ourselves.
The fact of the matter
is that when we
give ourselves
to evil
or we give ourselves
to vice,
it's evil
which removes
human uniqueness.
It's evil
which removes
human difference.
But when the Holy Spirit
comes,
we keep our accents.
we become
the selves
that we were
really meant to be.
Our uniqueness
is increasingly
redeemed,
not removed.
And so this is
one of the really,
really powerful
things about this text.
And just look at it again
because there's another
powerful thing
about this text
that addresses our hearts.
Let's read it again.
Verse 6, 7, and 8.
And at this sound
the multitude came together
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 how is it
that we hear each of us
in his own native language?
And that's going to give
a list of a lot of languages.
Here's the next thing.
Andrew,
could you put this up
on the screen, please?
Jesus did not launch
and empower
a come-to religion.
He launched
and empowers
a go-to faith.
I mean,
this is a great tragedy.
You know,
one of the things
that happened
in the first,
like one of the reasons,
like when you look
at the book of Luke
and you want to have
a sense that the book
of Luke
or the book of Acts
or anything in the New Testament
that it's accurate,
not only are there
thousands of manuscripts,
literally thousands
of manuscripts
in Greek,
which is the language
that was written,
but there's thousands
of manuscripts
in Latin.
They translated it
into Latin
and thousands
of manuscripts
in Syrian
and many other languages
that in the early days
the Christian church
understood
that it wasn't,
that Jesus hadn't empowered
a come-to religion.
If you want to know
the gospel,
yet God will learn Greek.
You know,
if you want to be
a devout Muslim,
you have to learn
7th century Aramaic.
And for many Jewish people,
although it's not
an actual doctrine,
it's in fact
their practice,
is if you want to really
read the Old Testament,
the Tanakh,
you have to learn Hebrew.
And of course,
the church has been
guilty of it.
You know what,
at some point in time,
several centuries later,
the service becomes
all in Latin.
It's part of the
English Reformation
and the Reformation,
generally,
you know what was
the first important,
the first real work
of French written?
You know what it was?
Calvin's Institutes.
Those of you
who are a bit familiar
with history
know that the thing
which revolutionized,
that really the beginning
of written German
as an important language
was Luther.
And in the English Reformation,
it was Tyndale and Wycliffe
and the English Bible
and then the Book of Common Prayer,
of which we are
part of that legacy.
And, you know,
but it's just more than that.
It's very, very easy
for congregations to say,
we just want to sing
the hymns that we like.
We just want to sing
the musical forms
that we like.
We just want to have practices
the way that we like.
And of all those people
out there,
if they want to know the truth,
they've got to fit in with us.
But Jesus doesn't,
didn't launch
and doesn't empower
come to religion.
He empowers and launches
a go-to faith.
And that's why churches
should not only be sending
to all over the world,
but that even in our community.
See, this is so, so, so important
because, you know,
one of the things about human beings
is that we get frightened
often by differences.
And this is such
a profound challenge.
And I don't know
what it is that you're frightened.
Maybe some of you
are, you know,
tremendously frightened
of people who live in Rockcliffe.
Or maybe some of you
are tremendously frightened
of people who would vote conservative.
Or people who would vote NDP.
Or maybe you're frightened
of people who are struggling
with transgendered issues.
Or maybe you're frightened
of people who dress like
really, you know, punk
or really gangster.
Or you're frightened
by people who are, like,
deeply involved
in the gay community.
And that's a human problem,
by the way, folks.
That's a human problem.
And this text is saying
that as the Holy Spirit
has a role in our lives,
it's going to make us look
and not see them as enemies.
But to cry out to God
and say,
Lord, are you calling me
to learn how to speak
in such a way
that they can hear?
That's what the Holy Spirit does.
And that is so important
for us to lose that fear
of the other.
And rather than looking
at the other
as a threat
that we would fight
or persecute,
to look at the other
and say,
Father, could you pour out
your Holy Spirit upon them?
Could you pour out
your Holy Spirit upon me?
I don't know how on earth
to begin to talk
to somebody
immersed in the world
of 70 different genders.
Father, help me to learn
how to talk,
how to pray,
how to love,
how to share.
Pour out your Holy Spirit
upon me, Father.
Please, Jesus,
pour out your Holy Spirit
upon our church.
Obviously, we have to speak
in the tongues of people
who come,
but, you know,
in all of our structures,
you never sacrifice
the gospel,
you never sacrifice
the Bible,
but there's a whole lot
of other stuff.
We just need to be sensitive
of what,
how they hear,
what they speak.
We were once they.
Right?
And, you know,
here's the other thing.
Let's look at the text.
The Holy Spirit,
it's funny,
you know,
when we often think
of the Holy Spirit,
we think of emotion.
You know,
we think of charismatic
gatherings.
Some of you joke,
I'm not making it,
I'm not putting it down,
you know,
you joke about how you
used to wave the flags
and dance and,
you know,
run around the room
and there's lots of emotion.
It's definitely not
Anglican and stayed.
You know,
that old Anglican
lethargy,
I mean,
liturgy
that Anglicans
are,
you know,
so historically famous for.
But,
you know,
what's causing the emotion?
Let's look a little bit here.
We'll see,
there is in fact
deep emotion here
in the text,
but we see
that the Holy Spirit
is touching our emotions
in a bit of a surprising way.
Actually,
Andrew,
if you could put up the point
and then we'll read it
and we'll see.
The Holy Spirit
touches our hearts
to redeem
and change
our heart.
The Holy Spirit
touches our hearts
to redeem
and change
our hearts.
And here,
you have to understand
that the heart
is not referring
to the emotion,
but that the heart
is referring
to that part
at the sort of
deep within us
out of which
our emotions
and our thoughts
and our will
and our aesthetic
experiences
arise.
And in a sense,
you know,
sometimes when I'm
counseling people
about things
that are going
on in their lives,
I try to have them
to think about
how they emotionally
react to things.
Because how we react
emotionally
shows what we value,
shows what we long for,
shows what we trust in,
shows what we are
putting our hope in,
shows what we think
gives us meaning
to our lives,
shows us what we fear.
And so I say,
I'm not asking you
to change your emotions,
but the next time
you feel that,
like I'll maybe have them
tell me a situation
and ask them
what the emotion is
that went along with it.
And for many of us,
we just think
that our emotion
is natural,
but one of the gifts
I can give in counseling
is say,
well, I wouldn't react
emotionally to that at all.
Like I wouldn't have
that emotion
if that was the thing.
I often tell them
a story from my past
of two people,
me and another person,
experiencing the exact
same thing
with having radically
different emotions
as a result of it,
you know,
in the presence.
And I said,
so ask yourself
what it is
that your heart
is seeking,
longing for,
giving meaning to.
And so what is happening here
is that the Holy Spirit
has come into them
at the level
of their heart
and it's changing
what they put their hope
in and trust in.
You see,
that's why,
you know,
when I was a non-Christian
or, you know,
those of you
who have been non-Christians,
if you hear
that somebody
has given their life
to Jesus,
your heart sinks,
you go,
oh no.
Oh.
You know,
I remember
in my early days
of my Christian faith
that dealing
with parents
or trying,
I mean,
I was just a kid
so I couldn't really
deal with it,
I'd just pray about it,
but their kids
become a Christian
and it's not,
whoa,
my kids become a Christian,
they're not going
to be doing drugs
like they were doing before,
they're going to be drinking less.
It was actually
almost for some parents
as if it was worse
that they'd become
a Christian
than that they were
coming home drunk.
But for a Christian,
it's praise God,
did you hear that Sarah
just became a Christian,
she gave her life
to Jesus?
See what's going on there?
To change in what we value,
what we put our hope in.
And that's why
when the Holy Spirit
falls upon
these disciples,
all of a sudden,
you see the natural
human reaction,
natural,
natural human problem
is that if we can't do
something that we can boast
in about ourselves,
we feel unhappy.
But if we do things
that we can boast in
or brag about,
we do feel happy.
And it's a very common
human problem
that when somebody else
does something
that they can boast in
or brag in,
if we don't care for them
that much,
their success,
so that they can boast,
makes us sad.
Isn't it?
Be honest.
We're not all perfect
with Jesus yet.
It's a human problem.
And so,
but one of the things here
is that the disciples
aren't going out
saying,
whoa,
be honest here for a second,
whoa,
we were in church
on Sunday
and it sounded like
we're in the Ottawa
little theater,
it sounded like
there's probably
about 120 people here
and it sounded as if
rushing wind came in
and tongues of fire
and I was speaking
Hungarian
and Daniel was
speaking Mandarin
and Joey was speaking
Swahili
and we'd be thinking,
whoa,
just wait till I tweet this.
Wait till I put it
on Facebook.
For some of us,
people will buy me beer
for years
to hear this story.
And not just the cheap stuff,
they'll buy me good beer
for years
so I can tell them
the story again.
but they're not
thinking to themselves,
they're boasting in God,
not themselves.
It's touched their hearts.
We have to sort of,
you know,
let's just read
the rest of this.
We'll close it up
fairly quickly
but there's a couple
of final things.
Look at verse 8.
I'll just try to read.
And how is it
that we hear,
each of us
in his own native language,
Parthians and Medes,
Illamites and residents
of Mesopotamia,
Judea and Cappadocia,
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.
See, Andrew,
could you put up this prayer?
I think it's number four.
Here's a prayer
we need to pray.
Lord, please give me
the gift of tongues.
Please help me
to tell of your mighty works
in words that touch the heart.
You know,
I've shared with you,
you know,
the Holy Spirit coming
doesn't make us
apologetic ninjas
or evangelistic ninjas
and we always have
the right moves
and we can parry
the other blow
and we can knock them out.
A lot of times
you tell people about Jesus,
you share something,
it just,
it goes south,
it goes bad,
it goes wrong
and that's fine.
God just calls us
to be witnesses,
not to be superstars
because the real work
is the work
of the Holy Spirit
and we just need
to walk away
and say,
Father,
I don't know
what happened,
I tried to do my best,
help me to do better
in the future
but may you pour out
your Holy Spirit
upon that person.
You're sovereign,
pour out your Holy Spirit
and then in the future,
Lord,
help me when I tell people
just an act of witness,
Father,
please give me the words
so that your Holy Spirit
will touch their hearts.
Give me the gift of tongues.
And just look at the response,
by the way,
this is really important.
Remember I said
that the Holy Spirit
coming upon us,
it preserves,
it makes us more ourselves,
it preserves our freedom.
Look at the response
of people
to this Pentecost day,
verse 12 and 13,
and all were amazed
and perplexed,
saying to one another,
what does this mean?
But others,
mocking,
said they are filled
with new wine.
The Holy Spirit
touches each of these people,
all of the people,
and some of them
are really thinking,
whoa,
what's going on?
If you read the end
of the story,
3,000 people
give their lives to Jesus.
We don't know
how many were there,
maybe it was just 5,000
listening or what it is,
but it isn't that everyone
gives their lives to Jesus.
Some of them just say,
oh, they're drunk,
goofballs,
gosh,
you know,
you bring in these
hillbilly Galileans
and they come to places
like Jerusalem
and they defecate
all over the place
and they,
you know,
they urinate
and they get drunk
and gosh,
I wish they'd just go home.
And others say,
whoa,
their heart's being touched.
Could you put up
the next thing?
Oh, actually,
put up the John quote again.
Could you all say this
John quote with me again,
please?
Nevertheless,
I tell you the truth,
it is to your advantage
that I go away,
for if I do not go away,
the helper will not come to you,
but if I go,
I will send him to you.
Because of the death
upon the cross of Jesus,
Jesus dies upon the cross
and he bears my doom
and he offers me his destiny.
It's an act of sacrifice,
an act of exchange,
and I can receive it by faith.
And when I receive it by faith,
God's power comes upon me
to make me right with himself.
And when God's power comes upon me
to make me right with himself,
because I have just trusted
that I cannot deal with my doom
and my own,
I'm trusting Jesus to do it for me.
I'm trusting his death
and resurrection.
I'm trusting him
as my Savior and my Lord.
Jesus gives to every one
of the people,
everyone who gives their lives
to Jesus,
ordinary people,
he gives the Holy Spirit.
And apart from that,
the stole of the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Spirit might come
and visit us.
He might come
and try to convict us
of things that we do
that are wrong.
But he comes
and he's like a visitor.
He comes and he convicts.
But when we give our lives
to Jesus,
even an ordinary person,
the Holy Spirit,
rests upon us.
He dwells in us.
He makes his home in us.
Andrew, could you put up
the next point, please?
Before the death
and resurrection of Jesus,
the Holy Spirit
might visit a person.
Now, Jesus pours out
the Holy Spirit
to live in ordinary people
who trust Jesus
as their Savior and Lord.
Friends,
if you haven't given
your life to Jesus,
maybe right now
you're thinking
that I am the biggest idiot
in the world.
And that's fine.
But for some of you,
if you haven't given
your life to Jesus
and you are at all thinking,
it might very well be
that the Holy Spirit
is prompting you
to give your life to Jesus.
You are experiencing
right now
the Holy Spirit's
work in your life.
And so,
I ask you,
I urge you
to not resist
but surrender.
To cry out and say,
Jesus be my Savior,
Jesus be my Lord,
come Holy Spirit,
live within me.
There's no better time
than right now
to do that.
And for all of us,
I'm going to ask you
to stand right now.
Andrew,
could you put up
the final prayer?
For all of us,
I ask you to stand
in closing.
For some of us,
we just need to pray
this prayer
because we're Christians.
Because if we're honest
with ourselves
that the way I began
the sermon
that we in fact
are living our lives
saying,
I need the Holy Spirit
like a fish
needs a bicycle.
And now you realize
you need the Holy Spirit.
You need to surrender
and be filled
with the Holy Spirit
and live in the power
of the Holy Spirit.
And for some
who haven't given
your lives to Jesus,
you've called out
to Jesus right now
and this is also
your prayer.
Maybe it's your
conversion prayer.
And I invite you
to pray it with me
in closing.
Dear Lord,
please forgive me
for not believing you
when you said,
nevertheless,
I tell you the truth.
It is to your advantage
that I go away.
for if I do not go away,
the helper will not
come to you.
But if I go,
I will send him to you.
Lord,
you have kept
your promise
by giving your Holy Spirit
to your disciples.
Please make me
a disciple of Jesus
gripped by the gospel,
living filled
with your Holy Spirit,
submitted to your Holy Spirit,
dependent on your Holy Spirit.
In Jesus' name,
Amen.
Father,
pour out your Holy Spirit
upon us.
Make us,
Father,
an Acts 2 church
so that we might not
boast ever in ourselves
but boast in you.
This we ask
in Jesus' name.
Amen.