The Church Is Born (Part I)
The Church Is Born (Part I) | The Book of Acts | 2:1-41 | Pastor Duane Smets
This an expository sermon on Acts 2:1-41. It covers the importance of Pentecost, why tongues are confusing and why worship matters. Particular attention is given to the theology of Pentecostalism and what kind of tongues the Bible speaks of. Emphasis is put on the God-centeredness of one’s outlook regarding this issue. This sermon was originally preached on February 12th, 2012 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
February 12th, 2012
The Church Is Born (Part I) | Acts 2:1-41
I. Why Pentecost Is Important
II. Why Tongues Are Confusing
III. Why Worship Matters
Introduction
Good morning. Well, we have kind of settled in a little bit now…we’re now a month into our 2012 sermon series going through, “The Book of Acts.” What we’ve covered so far is Jesus’ final meeting with his disciples who become Apostles where he gives them the important task of starting the church and taking the message of the gospel to the world. Jesus says to wait and pray for His Spirit’s coming before they start and then he ascends into heaven floating up in the sky and then disappearing in the clouds. So the disciples are waiting and praying for a period of about 10 days. During that time they select a replacement for Judas, who betrayed Jesus and committed suicide. Then they assumedly return to prayer and waiting until the day of Pentecost when the Spirit finally arrives.
When the Spirit arrives it’s a big deal and that’s the story we’re going to cover both today and next Sunday. It’s another gripping tale. Last week we had a financial scandal, a gory suicide and gambling…this week we’ve got a hurricane, fire, and what’s either drunkenness or something far better. I keep saying it, the Bible is by no means a boring book!
The title of my message is “The Church Is Born” and we’re looking at Acts 2:1-41. So let’s go ahead and read it, declare it as God’s Word and ask for his help to understand it.
Alright, before we really start and get into it I’ve got to tell you some stuff.
First, this is a very difficult passage to interpret for several reasons. Partly because it’s so long. The whole thing really all goes together, but because it’s so long it’s really easy to get lost in the details. Partly because there are a number of two-thousand year old first century cultural elements in play here which make it difficult to re-create and imagine what exactly happened. And partly because there has been a lot of division in church history over this text…not only between scholars and what they say about it but between whole churches and denominations that have split because of what’s here.
Someone was asking me this week how my study for Sunday was going and I told them it kind of felt like I was navigating a bunch of land mines. There’s a number of things related to this passage of Scripture that could very easily upset a number of you if I said one thing or the other. So I’m praying I don’t get blown up today.
That actually leads into the second thing I need to tell you…which is actually something I need to confess as sin and repent before you all about. I am not very good at a lot of things. There are many things in regards to my role as a pastor which do not come naturally for me that I do not particularly excel at and that is okay. Only Jesus is the perfect pastor.
But one of the things I am good at is the Bible. I say this not as a pride or ego thing, but I’m a good exegete. It’s the thing I spent the most time focusing on in my schooling and the thing I’ve excelled the most at in the fifteen years now that I’ve been studying the Bible and preaching…I know how to work with the Biblical text, paying careful attention to the words and letting them drive me to clear understanding of what’s being said.
In my opinion, this passage, rates along with a few other passages in the Bible as one of the top fives most difficult passages to exegete or interpret. It’s a very difficult text. I’ve actually prayed and asked God not to ever have to preach on certain passages of the Bible and this is one of them! I should probably stop praying that…cause he’s just going to make me do it to laugh at me. 
It was actually one of my biggest reservations about us going through the book of Acts…I didn’t want to have to preach about Pentecost. So here’s the thing. My original plan was to work through this whole section, all together and just breeze by the tough stuff. But as I was studying this week God really began to convict my heart about that.
2 Timothy 2:15 says this, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” The old King James version says, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” What that verse is saying is that there is a right way and a wrong way to divide, handle or interpret the Bible, the word of truth and that in order to do that correctly you’ve got to work at it and study and you are accountable to God for it. If you don’t do it, then you have reason to be ashamed before God. It is shameful that some “pastors” don’t study the Bible and preach from the Bible.
I take that passage very seriously in my job as a preacher and a pastor. So what I have to say to you at the outset here is, “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry I was going to slight you because of my desire to not want to deal with some challenging things in this passage. Repentance, not only means sorrow but a turning around…so in repentance my plan is to give this text two weeks. So we’re going to “The Church Is Born” part one and then next week part two and this week we’re going to dive into the tough stuff.
With that here’s the plan, this morning we’re mainly only going to work up through verse 13 and part of verse 17. First, we’ll kind of overview the entire passage and talk about “Why Pentecost Is Important” then we’ll look specifically at “Why Tongues Are Confusing” and then conclude by seeing “Why Worship Matters.” So here we go, “Why Pentecost Is Important.”
I. Why Pentecost Is Important
Verse one starts out, “When the day of Pentecost arrived…” Pentecost was a Jewish Festival which happened once a year. Pentecost literally means “fiftieth” because it’s the fiftieth day after the first Sunday after Passover. Pentecost was also called the “Feast of the Harvest” because it happened in the time of year when grain was harvested. It’s May in our calendar year, and in Leviticus and Deuteronomy God instructed his people to go to Jerusalem, the capital city, the city of God and to offer a first-fruits, a tithe to God of the harvest in this Pentecost festival.
So basically, Jews lived all over Israel and many outside of it…but once a year everyone would make a trip to Jerusalem, sort of like how Muslims go to Mecca in the journey of the Hajj. They would go there and they would worship God and give a tenth, a tithe of all their harvest to the priests at the temple. It would sort of be like if you only gave money to the church once a year and you would just give 10% of your entire salary from the year.
When they did this, it was a not only party, a festival but a time of worship to God…a joyous occasion to thank him for his provision during the year. Jerusalem during Pentecost, would swell from a normal population of around one-hundred-thousand to over a million people. People would come from all over…some would stay at friends houses, some at hotels and tons would just camp outside the city.
So Pentecost was a big deal in and of itself annually. What we see in our text for today is that God, in His providence, chose to make one particular Pentecost in the first century after Jesus death, resurrection and ascension not just a celebration over the harvest of grain, but a celebration over the harvest of souls…souls who receive the Spirit, become Christians, are baptized, and join the founding members of Jesus’ Church on it’s first day of existence.
This Pentecost is important for three reasons.
One, because the Spirit came. You may remember from our very first sermon on the book of Acts a few weeks ago when we looked at Jesus’ words that disciples and his people in not many days were going to be “baptized with the Holy Spirit.” When we looked at his words we talked about how in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit temporarily come upon certain specific individuals for a limited time and purpose. But many of the prophets, like Joel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Isaiah spoke of time that God would send his Spirit and he would stay and be in all God’s people. The Spirit coming was an age changing movement of God in history.
Since Pentecost, every single believer in Jesus gets the Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:3 states clearly, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” And a few verses later, 1 Corinthians 12:13 says we are all baptized into one body and one Spirit when we believe. So today, if you are a Christian you have God’s Spirit in you. Ephesians 1:13-14 says the Spirit is God’s seal on us that we are his and have the promised guarantee of salvation. So we have no idea what it’s like not to have the Spirit.
But there was a time, prior to Pentecost when no one had the Spirit. The Spirit had not been active for nearly 500 years until Jesus came and said the “Spirit of the Lord” is upon me. Then, Jesus said when he left, when he ascended, he would send his Spirit, the Holy Spirit to be in and among those who believed in him as savior.
The Spirit is a massive gift and blessing of God unto his people. John Stott says concerning the importance of the Spirit coming at Pentecost, “There is no life without the Spirit who gives life, no understanding without the Spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the Spirit and no witness without the Spirit’s power…As a body without breath is a corpse, so a church without the Spirit is dead.”
The second reason Pentecost is important is because the Church was born. Now we can use the word, “church” in a few different ways. The word itself simply means “gathering”, but spiritually it means the people of God. Before Pentecost there was a church in that there was a people of God, who regularly gathered to sing praise to God, to hear the preaching of the Word and to offer sacrifices.
But it wasn’t usually called “church” before Pentecost. The birth of the church here in our text was significant because in it the Apostles officially broke off the religion of Judaism and out from under the authority of its leaders. That was a big deal. You can read early church era historical accounts of families holding full on funerals for Jewish family members who broke off and converted to Christianity. They considered them dead.
Yet this was exactly what Jesus had planned and intended. We’ll look at it more next week but Jesus told Peter about the day of Pentecost before it happened when Jesus said he would start and build his church (Mt. 16:18). In verse 14 when Peter stands up, an official proclamation…he preaches a clear and decisive message announcing a break off of Judaism and the start of something new centered on and gathered around the person and work of Jesus Christ. From that point on, “church” was no longer simply a spiritual gathering of God’s people but the new religious institution over which Jesus Christ ruled as Lord.
Then the third reason why Pentecost is important is because of mission. From the very start, The Church is demonstrated by nature to be a missional movement. In verses 9-12 we see fifteen different people groups and their languages, from all over Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth gathering to hear the gospel preached and after they hear it 3,000 of them (not counting women and children) become Christians and are baptized.
That’s how every church plant ought to start off, with a bunch of baptisms of people who became Christians! The Church is by nature defined by Pentecost to exist for the praise of God and the winning of souls.
Jesus had said, not to go out and start the church yet but to wait until the Spirit came and that when the Spirit came his power would come and enable them to be witnesses to the nations. And that’s exactly what happens. The Spirit comes in power. Then what is the very next thing we see? Peter standing up and witnessing of who Jesus is and what he did.
So the three reasons Pentecost is important are because: (1) the Spirit comes, (2) the Church is born, (3) and the Mission is launched. Thus Pentecost ought to remind us that having the Spirit is a blessing of God, that the Church is central to God’s purpose and work in the world, and that mission is meant to flow in and through the church.
Do you treasure the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity? The life He gives, the truth He imparts through his Word, the unity he grants, the power he gives us to live for Jesus and proclaim Him? Do you care about he Spirit?
Do you treasure the Church, the structure and institution through which God calls believers in His Son to commit to and advance? Do you care about the Church?
Do you treasure the Mission, the great task Jesus has asked his followers to fulfill in spreading the message of who He is and what He has done so many might be saved? Do you care about the mission?
When it comes down to I think these are the main reasons Pentecost is important. But there is a reason I do not think it is important for us. So let me address a sticky issue I don’t want to get in trouble with God for ignore it.
There are many individuals, churches, and a couple whole denominations who look at and read this passage about Pentecost and their conclusion is that what happened on that special Pentecost in the first century, when the Spirit came and the church was born need to happen again for each individual person. Thus they call themselves “Pentecostals.”
The idea is that each person, who is or wants to be a Christian needs to have their own personal Pentecost, where in an event separate from belief in Jesus as savior, the Spirit comes upon them, baptizing them or filling them, with the result that they speak in tongues. If you don’t speak in tongues then that’s a sign you haven’t had your Pentecost yet and you don’t have the Spirit and still need this baptism of the Spirit.
We’ll talk about tongues in a minute but we don’t even have to go there to address this. There is nothing in this text, whatsoever that insinuates that this special event on this special Pentecost was ever meant to happen like that again. In fact if it did, it would take away from the significance of the event itself.
Pentecost is the last major act of Jesus before he returns. There are seven major acts of Jesus: when He created everything, when he was born into the word, when he died, when he rose, when he ascended, when he sent his Spirit (Pentecost) and when he will return.
I don’t want to spend a ton of time on this, but I’ll belabor one step further. If we were going to be consistent and say that each person ought to have their own personal Pentecost in a two-step two-stage experience like the disciples here, evidenced with speaking in tongues…then to be consistent with that method of interpretation we would also then need to say that there would need to be supernatural wind, fire and fifteen different nationalities present or it doesn’t count and you don’t have the Spirit.
That just doesn’t work. We have to remember and keep in mind that often, throughout the book of Acts it is describing events that took place and not always prescribing, giving instructions on what ought to take place. Make sense? Description versus prescription.
Alright. I know that may be tough for some of you to hear, especially if you grew up in the Pentecostal tradition. I did and it has been a major journey for me in grappling with the biblical text here to come to grips with that. What we have to decide is whether what we believe is going to be determined by what the Bible says or by what we’ve experienced or been taught. And it’s pretty clear here that it is completely and totally outside of the author’s intent here to make his readers think they need to have their own personal Pentecost.
Okay let’s move on…it’s only gets worse and more messy. So rather than sidestep it let’s actually have a real Elephant Room today in this next point, “Why Tongues Are Confusing.”
II. Why Tongues Are Confusing
It’s tough to know where to begin here. Everybody doing okay? Too bad we don’t have like a bell between rounds or something.
Let’s start with getting the scene in our minds…at least what we know for sure here. Verse 1, they are all together in one accord in one place…probably still in that large upper room in that estate in Jerusalem where 120 of them were staying and praying. Then all of the sudden there is a LOUD mighty wind “phphphph” that rushes in, then it erupts into FIRE swirling about the room until it comes to a stand still, divides into bunch of individual flames and goes and rests upon every person’s head in the room! Then each person spontaneously begins praising God declaring his mighty works in some form of tongues.
What we’ve got here is what’s called a theophany. A theophany is a physical appearance of the presence of God. They happened on several select occasions in the Old Testament and a few times in the life and ministry of Jesus. Here’s a few examples:
• When God first called Moses he appeared to him through the fire of the burning bush.
• After the Exodus when God led his people out into the wilderness to the promised land he did it by having them follow a could and a pillar of fire.
• When Moses went up on the Mount Sinai and God gave him the ten commandments fire consumed the mountain.
• When Elijah had the stand off with the prophets of Baal, fire came down from heaven and consumed his water soaked offering and then later he was taken away on a chariot of fire.
• When Solomon finished building the temple fire blew down from heaven and filled the temple with the glory of God.
• In Ezekiel God shows him a vision of a valley with a bunch of dead bones and God’s Spirit blows in and his breath on the bones brings them to life.
• When Jesus is baptized the Spirit descends down from the winds of heaven in the form of dove.
There are tons of examples in the Bible of fire and wind as physical signs of the presence of God. Right before Jesus started his ministry, when John the Baptist encountered Jesus at that time he spoke some words about him. Luke, same author as Acts, records him saying, “He (Jesus) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” And then Jesus later says, “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 (John 3:8).”
So this scene at Pentecost is no less than phenomenal. It’s a major theophany where God fulfills both the prophesies of Jesus, John and the prophets and does so in by overwhelming every one of the physical human sense. The sound of the wind overwhelms their ears. The sight, smell and feel of the fire among them stunned their eyes, nose and skin. And the words erupting from their tongues stimulated their mouths to praise.
This scene is a big deal. Now apparently after this happens the 120 disciples who are gathered in this large estate house must have moved this prayer and worship meeting outside or to the temple because in verse 6 we read that a multitude gathers and we know from verse 41 that this multitude was in the thousands.
It’s tough here to tell exactly what happened…maybe they recognized the Spirit had come, had sensed his empowering presence and intentionally went to the temple to carry on the service there or maybe they just had to eventually go outside because the fire and smoke was too much to take indoors.
Wherever they are, verse 6 says the multitude gathers because of the sound of their praising God in tongues. And here is where the questions start to abound concerning these tongues. So what I’m going to do is present to you both options and then tell you what is most important about the tongues regardless of what position you take.
There’s basically two camps here, what I’m going to call the glossolalia camp and the xenoglossia camp. The Greek word behind tongues here is “glossolalia.” It’s the same word that gets used by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12-14 to describe what is universally recognized as ecstatic utterance in unintelligible noises and inarticulate babbling of no known human language.
Like all things, they may be used for the glory of God or not and in the ancient world you had tongues such as these used by demonic cults like the oracle of Delphi and you had them used in the church at Corinth for the edification of the church. Those who “speak in tongues” in this way today have been recorded by experts who have analyzed it and confirmed it’s no intelligible human speech…from a human perspective, just nonsense. But from Paul’s perspective akin to the speech of angels (1 Cor 13:1).
Now, the big question for us here is the tongues spoke in Acts glossolalia like in 1 Corinthians? Because the text puts a huge weight on all these 15 different ethnicities showing up and hearing their own native tongue or language. Which is another phenomena there are various historical accounts of, some good some bad.
This phenomena over time has come to be called xenoglossia to differentiate it from glossolalia and is when a person is able to speak in a known human language they never studied or learned. It has occurred in cases of supposed demon possession, Christian missionary preaching in foreign places and in some seemingly common instances. Explanations range from it being supernatural spiritual thing to reincarnation and the memory of a past life and language one spoke or that it’s just a hoax.
So here you go, I’ve got arguments for both sides. It’s almost even.
Xenoglossia
• Verse 4 is explicit that the miracle of the Holy Spirit here is on the believers, who enables them to speak. Nothing is ever said of a Spirit miracle on the crowd enabling them to hear their own language when in reality it was glossolalia being spoken.
• In 1 Corinthians 14 is explicit that if glossolalia is spoken, there must be an interpreter and we don’t see any interpreter here in Acts.
• Peter’s interpretation of the event begins with a quote from the book of Joel which starts out saying the Spirit enables prophesy, which is speech that imparts the knowledge of God, not unintelligible sounds.
• The focus of verse 11 says people were amazed by the content of the speech declaring “the mighty works of God” not the medium of strange tongues.
• In Genesis 11 men attempt to ascend to heaven building the tower of Babel and in judgment God creates different human languages. Here at Pentecost God descends from heaven and unites the human languages.
• Verse 7 points out an astonishment that Galileans, who were known as uneducated men would be able to speak in their own native language without having studied it.
Glossolalia
• A crowd of that magnitude would not likely have gathered simply because a group of 120 people were all speaking 15 different languages all at the same time. It would just sound like the normal noise of a crowded room. It makes more sense that they were speaking in unison in a strange tongue that their mind was able to translate into their own native language.
• Three times, Luke explicitly references the uniqueness of their “hearing (2:6, 8, 11).” Thus the Spirit could have not only done a miracle enable the disciples to speak but may have performed a miracle on the ears of some in the crowd to hear and understand.
• Those who understood were amazed. Verse 13 says their were “others” who seemingly did not hear their own language and thus thought the disciples were drunk. Hearing glossolalia sounds much more like drunk speech than hearing a person speak a language you don’t know.
• The theophany of fire described in verse 3 as dividing into “tongues of fire” may allude to the tongues spoken in the next verse as being supernatural angelic tongues rather than known natural tongues.
• Peter’s immediate explanation using the passage from Joel points to things of a supernatural character like dreams and vision, to which unknown tongues find more affinity than natural languages.
• If the Holy Spirit was also performing a miracle of hearing on the crowd then the Spirit is acting as the interpreter prescribed in 1 Corinthians 14.
• The feeling or mood of the text lends more to something supernatural like glossolalia that could not be as easily explained as xenoglossia.
So that’s it. That’s the arguments for both sides. And I’ll tell you what, there are strong arguments for both. I honestly don’t know which is correct. I promise to always be honest with you, if I’m not sure on something. And I just don’t know here. I actually kind of lean toward the glossolalia explanation. And I will say this. Last week I said, because of what Scripture teaches about Apostles that you have to be at least a semi-cessationist, believing that some things for the early church were only for them and ceased (like there being no Apostles for today).
But I’ll also say this, there’s nothing I’ve ever found in Scripture that says supernatural things or miracles still can’t take place today…so I don’t think you can be a full cessationist. Instead I think we just need to be careful, because 2 Thessalonians 2:9 says that Satan can do all kinds of miracles too…so just because something miraculous may take place doesn’t necessarily mean its from God. So I’m open with caution. 1 John 4:1 says to test the spirits. That means exercising a level of caution and skepticism but not anti-charismaticism…I think that goes too far.
Mark Driscoll, the president of our Acts 29 network describes himself as a charismatic with a seatbelt on. I describe myself as a charismatic with a five point harness and a helmet on. And yet I do believe we need the Spirit and his work among us and we ought not quench the work of the Spirit among us as 1 Thessalonians 5:19 says. Sometimes some of you are too reserved and you need to loosen up a bit, get a little charismatic you know…sing loud, lift your hands, spontaneously start praying.
So see, I’ve offended everyone now…both the Pentecostals and the anti-charismatic cessationists.
Okay, enough of that. I’ve tried to be really fair and honest with you and as I said earlier in our day and age I would have been doing you a disservice not to talk about this stuff in detail today. I want you to be taught well and when it comes down to your conscience to be held captive to the Bible, not my opinion or interpretation. Sometimes you guys can take what I say is truth too easily when you need to be able to see it from the Bible yourself.
So here’s what is really important when we talk about tongues…what you’re doing with your tongue! The whole point and purpose of the gift of tongues isn’t so much over what kind of miracle it was but what the disciples were doing with their tongues.
Here’s what the book of James says about our tongue. He says, “The tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things…no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing…(this) ought not be so (James 3:5,8-10).”
What we need is God to change us and overtake our tongues so it does not become something used for evil but for the glory of God. I’m afraid too often that the debate over tongues has brought unnecessary division and strife to the body of Christ. With our tongues we debate tongues in a way that bites and devours one another. It ought not be so.
So my plea is for us to exercise grace with one another. If you speak in tongues, like the ones in Corinthians…that’s cool. We love you. Pray away as you speak to God (1 Cor 14:2). But we’re not looking to re-create Pentecost here, so it’s either gotta stay at home or quiet under your breath in our worship services. If you don’t speak in tongues have grace for those who do. Let’s all just have grace for one another.
Alright, let’s move on to our final and shortest point for this morning, “Why Worship Matters.”
III. Why Worship Matters
All I want us to do with this short point is look intently at verse 11. It says “we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty wonders of God.” One of my biggest problems with tongues is that the focus gets turned on that gift rather than the giver…tongues become the big topic rather than God. And whenever that happens, it’s not good.
The weight of the text here is on worship. They are proclaiming the mighty works of God. Now what mighty works do you think they were praising and thanking God for?
We’ll see this in depth next week…but verse 12 gives us a clue. It says they wanted to know what this work of God, they were singing and praying about meant. From verse 22 all the way down to 38 what do we see Peter explaining the meaning of?
Check out verse 22, “Men of Israel, hear these words…” Here’s the answer to your question, “what does this mean?” “Jesus of Nazareth…” And he unpacks the gospel for them. What was everyone singing and praying in tongues about? Jesus. The mighty work of God in sending Jesus into the world and having him die on the cross for sin and rise again! It is the most mighty work God has ever done in all of history! The life, death and resurrection of Jesus!
Now here’s the cool thing. The Spirit comes on Pentecost and some crazy stuff happens. What’s the first reaction of God’s people? Worship! They start praising Jesus…and that is what spawns this whole sermon by Peter on the gospel. And what is the result after his sermon? 3,000 people become Christians and get baptized!
Worship is what begets the mission of the gospel. Worship matters because it keeps us God-centered, keeps us glorying in the gospel and it compels us to bring others into worship with us.
In his book, “Let The Nations Be Glad” John Piper has one of the best explanations of mission I’ve ever come across. He says, “Mission exists because worship doesn’t.” So worship is the starting place, then out of our worship we run out into the highways and byways bringing in all kinds people from different ethnicities and cultures and backgrounds so that they might worship too.
Worship by nature is meant to be missional. Worship matters because in it we declare how great our God is because of what he has done for us in Jesus!
Some of your friends simply need to be here so they can see how much you truly enjoy worshipping God. We’ve got to overcome this view and attitude that church is boring or duty or just a religious routine.
We need to come here and sing our guts out worshipping with all that we are because we love our God so much and so thankful for what he has done. We need to do real business with God repenting of sin and having him work in our hearts. When others see that all of us here are messed up and need Jesus too then they will begin to think that maybe he is what they need too.
Who in your life right now would see you in a totally different way if they saw you worshipping? Maybe they think they know you and understand who you are but there is this whole aspect of your life in being a Christian and a worshipper of Jesus that they have no clue about and what that is like for you.
Worship matters because God means to use it to have the effect that souls are added to the number of the church. So let’s be worshippers and pray those in our city will be drawn in to hear us declaring with our tongues the mighty work of God in Christ for us!
Conclusion
In conclusion today as we prepare to receive the Lord’s Supper I want to ask you how you think God would have you respond to the message of His Word today?
Maybe you’ve thought Pentecost was unimportant…you don’t treasure the Spirit, don’t love the church and don’t really care about mission. Maybe you simply need more of God’s Spirit to be at work in your life? Maybe you’ve had a bad attitude or some bad views about church that you need to repent of and have God change? Maybe you’ve thought missions is just something that supposed to happen only overseas or that you don’t really need to be a part of a local church to do?
Let’s treasure Pentecost and its importance together this morning as we remember and respond to the great move of God on that day.
And tongues. Maybe you speak in tongues and you’ve prided yourself in being a better Christian than others or looked down on others because they don’t. If so, you need to repent of that today. Maybe you don’t speak in tongues and you’ve looked down on those who do as being foolish and wacky for it. If so, you need to repent of that today.
Maybe your tongue is just plainly rotten full of poison, you use it for tearing others down and rarely for building up and you need God to change your heart so that out of your mouth comes praise. Ask him to do that. I need some of that today. Sometimes I’m just quick to speak spite towards others.
And how about worship…the gospel of Jesus Christ is great and glorious. As the old hymn says, “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise!” Do you know why the gospel is so great and such a mighty work of God?
It’s because there was nothing we could do to save ourselves. We’re sinners. We’ve all sinned against God and it’s a great, great offense. Sin is not just a light mistake, it’s an eternal offense against God. We cut him out of our lives when he made us to live for him.
And yet God had grace and took on human nature in Jesus by coming into this world and being born as a little baby…grew up and never sinned against God as we have, but went to the cross to take our place and as God died an eternal death to pay for the eternal death in hell we deserve. And then! Then, Jesus rose again and offers new life to us by His Spirit. Through our faith and belief in him we make a great exchange. He takes our sin and forgives us and we take he life and receive him.
It’s a mighty work. The best and most glorious work God has ever done, even greater than creation itself. We worship because of what he has done. If your soul feels dead to worship you need to catch a glimpse of the gospel anew and the way you do that is realizing what a screw-up you are, how bad it is but how much God has done to save you.
So let’s all stand and prepare to respond in whatever way God would have us today. Let me pray.
