Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Spirit's Message*

*May 21, 2000                Acts 2:14-41*

* *

*Introduction:*

 

How would you know if God had something to tell you?

He would try to get your attention, right?

The reason for that is that we often don't give God the attention he desires and so he must do something out of the ordinary to attract us.

When he does get our attention, we have the choice of discounting it as not from God, or listening attentively for what he is saying to us.

Has God ever tried to get your attention?

How would God go about trying to get your attention?

God got the attention of my friend Ivan when he got charged for a murder he didn't commit.

Now Ivan wasn't living a moral life, but he didn't commit a murder.

This was after Ivan called out to God for help not to slip into the same gang lifestyle of his brothers.

He didn't expect the kind of help he got, but God works in mysterious ways.

God put many things into place for Ivan at that moment he called out to God for help.

He put Ivan in jail awaiting charges.

He called a man to give his testimony in chapel service at the jail that brought Ivan to salvation by faith in Christ.

He called me to go into the jail in order to teach inmates about living out faith in Christ, and that is how I met Ivan.

God listened, used, and answered our corporate prayers for Ivan when I brought his need for growing faith and deliverance from gang membership to the church.

God arranged for further discipleship for Ivan by getting a Christian discipleship wing~/floor~/deck started in the jail where Ivan was enabled to go once I had brought him far enough to recommend him by knowing that he was committed.

Ivan eventually got released on bond and met a missionary who gave him a place to stay and taught him further.

Ivan applied late at MBI and started studies after having been approved over a standing waiting list and was given the funds he didn't have for his Bible studies through his missionary friend.

Ivan got started in a good Bible Church near his home and he and the pastor's daughter became engaged.

We could say that Ivan is being called by God for Christian work, perhaps even the pastorate that Ivan is studying for.

It is very likely that he will be one of God's champions here in the city.

Ivan had a fear of God and asked for help - however feeble his request.

Then God got Ivan's attention and Ivan listened and obeyed.

God was willing to move heaven and earth, to orchestrate all these events, for one of his children who asked for help.

God is willing to do that for you.

There may be some tough challenges involved, but God has good in mind for you.

There are a number of ways that God is able to get the attention of the one who wants the help.

Here is where God is able to do for us what we are not able to do for ourselves because we do not naturally listen to him.

But he does take the desire of a discerning heart and acts on your behalf.

Last week we saw how God began to do that for the scattered Jews who had gathered in Jerusalem for the celebration of Pentecost as he begins to build his church.

Specifically we discussed what we can know about the nature of the Holy Spirit from that event at Pentecost and what the Holy Spirit does for us.

We learned that the Holy Spirit is personal, understandable, and elective.

And he gives us intimacy, unity, and choice in God.

And no matter where we come from, he speaks our language.

Now with Peter's speech that follows in Acts 2:14-41, we will learn the content of the Spirit's message that will change the world by changing the heart of those who listen to him and obey.

This is the indwelling presence of God for believers in this present age that Jesus promised us.

When the 120 disciples experienced the coming of the Holy Spirit with the sound of wind and the appearance of fire, they began to speak in the tongues of the many languages of the Jews who were in Jerusalem at the time.

The God-fearing Jews out in the streets were attracted to this obvious power of God which was made manifest even outside the house where the disciples were meeting, and they came to see what was happening.

And the disciples were compelled by the power of God to take the Spirit's prophetic message out of the house and into the streets where they proceed to the temple courts.

It is quite fitting that the temple is their destination in the power of the Spirit where Peter now stands to address the crowd.

He begins by addressing their question of, "What does this mean?"

The end result of this blaze caused by the wind and the fire of the Spirit will be nothing less than amazing.

It will become a heavenly wildfire that cannot be contained by man.

The power of God, indeed the message of God, is now loosed upon the world.

*The Big Question: *Now that the Spirit has the attention of those who fear God, what is the Spirit's message to them?

But let us ask an even bigger question.

Why should I listen to this message?

It is because this is also the Spirit's message to you.

You also are the reason for the Spirit's coming.

The Spirit's message is also for you in these last days.

If you had observed the power of God displayed before your very eyes, wouldn't you also want to know what it means?

And it is as meaningful today as it ever was because we are even closer to the end of these last days.

And the power of the Spirit has not yet been taken from this world.

It was for them, it is for Ivan, and it is also for you.

*I.

Cycle One*

 

*          A.

Narrative vv.

14-21*

 

*          B.

Implication*

 

The Spirit's message is sobering about our need to be saved because of prophetic truth.

*          C.

Illustration*

 

          Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit in his response to the accusation of being drunk.

He answered admirably and with a sense of humor.

Indeed he was not drunk with wine but with the Spirit (Eph.

5:18), just like we need to be.

We met a young woman whom we have known in times past from Christian circles while we were on the Hike for Life last Saturday.

While standing and talking to her on the asphalt path along the lakefront a bicyclist behind us inadvertently grazed her shoulder.

She immediately exclaimed to us how "these people" don't like us on the path and oppose the right-to-life and she was hit on purpose.

Her attitude was not Spirit filled.

I told her it looked like an accident to me and she seemed to accept the fact that it could have been.

And I admit I struggled in my mind on one occasion along the path when a  person behind me could not get through and said quite pointedly, "Excuse me!"

For a fleeting instant I thought about responding, "Well, excuse me!"

But instead I said, "I'm sorry I was in your way."

But Peter is not apologizing to appease, he is proclaiming in order to save.

However, he is doing it with the sense and the power of the Spirit who is speaking through him.

It is not the message of the flesh but the message of the Spirit that will bear fruit.

*          D.

Application*

 

*II.

Cycle Two*

 

*          A.

Narrative vv.

22-28*

 

*          B.

Implication*

 

The Spirit's message is convicting about our need to be saved because we are responsible for Christ's death.

*          C.

Illustration*

 

V.

22 – miracles, wonders, and signs

 

/Many treatments of Jesus get bogged down in a discussion of the possibility of miracles; properly speaking, that is a philosophical rather than a historical or even a theological problem.

... All that need be noted is that ancient Christian, Jewish and pagan sources all agreed that Jesus did extraordinary things not easily explained by human means.

While Jesus' disciples pointed to the Spirit of God as the source of His power, Jewish and pagan adversaries spoke of demonic or magical forces.

It never occurred to any of the ancient polemicists to claim that nothing happened.

/

/   -- John P. Meier in the New York Times Book Review (Dec.

21, 1986).

Christianity Today, Vol.