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Acts 2
!
Introduction
Last week Carla and I watched The Poseidon Adventure.
It is a movie about a passenger ship that is hit by a huge wave and is flipped over and begins to sink.
While it is sinking, a group of passengers follow a person who is a minister.
They go the opposite way of everyone else and with effort a group of them manage to escape.
The minister who leads them is not the type of person you would expect a minister to be.
Early in the movie while the ship is still floating, on a Sunday, he preaches and what he says is, “don’t bother praying, just work hard and you can help yourself.”
Of course in the movie, that is the philosophy that is followed as they make their way through the ship to the one place where they hope to find a way out.
Whenever his ideas were expressed, I found myself thinking, “no, no, no help comes from God, He is powerful to save and to help, do pray.”
But the ideas of that minister are not that far from the way we often think and live.
How many of us have not tried to figure things out ourselves?
How many of us live as if we will succeed by trying harder?
Sometimes I wonder, “Do we trust the power of God?” “Do we let God lead us?”
An event happened 50 days after Jesus rose from the dead that introduced a new way of living for everyone who is a follower of Jesus.
It reinforced that God is present among His people and at work in their midst.
Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day we remember that event and so this morning, I would like to invite you to examine Acts 2 in order to be encouraged and challenged.
As a way of looking at this passage, I would like to focus on two questions which are found in the text.
In verse 12, the people asked, “What does this mean?” and in verse 37 they asked, “What shall we do?”
!
I. What Does This Mean?
!! A. What Happened?
Let us read about what happened in Acts 2:1-12.
We need to remember that the day of Pentecost follows the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.
Jesus died on what we have come to know as Good Friday.
Then three days later he rose from the dead.
Forty days later, he ascended into heaven and ten days after that this event took place.
All of these events are critical events in salvation history.
What an unusual time!
The day of Pentecost was a Jewish festival which occurred fifty days after Passover.
It was a celebration of the beginning of harvest.
Many people were in Jerusalem for this celebration.
It is uncertain where the disciples were.
The text says they were in a house, which would be an unusual way of referring to the temple.
They may have been at the home of one of the disciples, somewhere not too far from the temple.
While there, the sound of a strong wind came into the house.
We notice that it wasn’t necessarily windy, but the sound of wind was heard.
Then tongues of fire separated and came to rest on each of them.
The tongues of fire remind us of several other times when fire manifested the presence of God.
For example, we think of the burning bush when God met with Moses in the wilderness and the pillar of fire after Israel left Egypt and were traveling through the desert.
But what is unique about this fire is that the flames “separated and came to rest on each of them.”
The presence of God was not only present with the whole community, but was present with each of them.
This is an important new development.
As this happened, we read that they were filled with the Holy Spirit and the manifestation of the presence of the Spirit was that they spoke in other tongues as the Spirit enabled.
It is important to note that the ability to speak in other languages came from the Spirit of God and was controlled by the Spirit.
The miracle of speaking in tongues seems to have been both a miracle of speaking and of hearing.
In verse 4 it says they were able to speak in other tongues and in verse 8 we read that those listening heard them in their own language.
In verse 6 it says that people heard the sound and gathered together to the sound.
Was it the sound of the wind that brought all the people together or was it the sound of the disciples speaking in other languages?
Since the same word, “sound” is used of the wind and what brought them together, I suspect it was the wind which brought the people together and then as they gathered, they heard the disciples speaking.
What the disciples spoke was praise to God.
We read in verse 11 that they heard them “declare the wonders of God.”
They came from all over, from Mesopotamia, Judea, Asia and even Rome, but they were all people who belonged to the Jewish faith.
They recognized, because the speakers were all from Galilee, that this was something unusual and amazing.
Twice it says that the people who heard “were amazed.”
!! B. What Does it Mean?
Then we read that they asked, “What does this mean?”
That is a good question!
Peter stood up to answer the question and we see the effect of the power of the Spirit immediately in that Peter was not his usual rash, impulsive self, but spoke with confidence and Biblical accuracy.
He first of all addressed the mockery of some who thought that this was an evidence of drunkenness.
How interesting that people can be so blind to a divine event!
Are we ever blind to a divine event?
The answer which Peter gave comes in two parts.
First of all he indicated that this was the fulfillment of prophecy.
Secondly he made a connection of this event to Jesus.
What does it mean?
It means that what God spoke about in the Old Testament has been fulfilled.
God didn’t just make these things up as he went along.
He had a plan that reaches back to the beginning of human history.
He prepared people to understand the plan and announced it and now it was being fulfilled.
It means that the last days have come.
Today people often wonder if we are in the end times.
Well, according to this verse, we are.
How is that true?
Before Jesus, there were still important things that had to happen before the final events happened.
Now that Jesus has come, there are no more events that need to happen.
Jesus could return and the world could end at any time.
These are the last days.
What does it mean?
It means that the Spirit of God is being poured out.
In the past, the Spirit of God had always been present.
The Spirit of God was present at creation, involved in the work of creation as we read in Genesis 1:2 that "…the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."
The Spirit of God had been given to various people in the Old Testament in order to accomplish God’s purposes.
For example, in Judges 6:34 we read that, "… the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon…" But something significant was happening now.
The Spirit of God was being “poured out on all people.”
When we read “all people” we should make sure we read all of the passage and recognize that “all people” means, as verse 21 says, “those who call on the name of the Lord.”
But the broad distribution of the presence of the Spirit to all those who follow the Lord is a new thing, a unique thing and a powerful thing.
The presence of the Spirit is not limited only to those who were special servants of God.
He was going to come on all.
The presence of the Spirit of God was not limited to men.
He was going to be poured out on “sons and daughters,” “men and women.”
That tells us there is equality for all in the kingdom of God.
The presence of the Spirit of God was not limited to mature believers, but would come on “young men and old men.”
What does it mean?
It means that God is personally present with His people from now on!
The Holy Spirit is identified as a “gift” from God.
We need to distinguish between the gift of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit.
The gift of the Spirit is the presence of the Spirit, essentially the presence of God with all God’s people.
The gifts of the Spirit are the abilities, the things the Spirit gives us to use for His service.
The gifts of the Spirit are great, but the truly great blessing is that God has given us His presence.
What an awesome gift this is!
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