Intro:
In the collective mind of all people and cultures, there are a group of defining stories. These are the potent, lasting, almost universally known tales within a culture that give it the very identity that is shared and understood. Sometimes these stories inspire, create harmony and purpose; other times they entrench enemies and bitterness and violence.
When I say, for example, 9-11, I call to mind a defining story of airplanes flying into buildings and the most powerful military nation on earth going to war. When I point to an image of a cross, I call to mind a defining story of God in the form of an innocent man dying for others. The proliferation of the internet and the technology revolution is writing the next defining story. You get the point – at certain points, some defining event happens that “changes everything”. The story we read together in Acts 2:1-13 is a defining story in the redemptive plan of God for humanity. It is the story of Pentecost.
Acts 2:1-13
1 On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. 2 Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. 3 Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. 4 And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.
5 At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers.
7 They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, 8 and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! 9 Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, 10 Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” 12 They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other.
13 But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!”
The Text:
It is not a complicated story. It doesn’t need a ton of background in order to make sense. There aren’t a bunch of difficult Greek words or translation questions. The story stands on its own, and it is the defining story of the beginning of the Christian church. This is when the church was born. There is more to the story than I read for this morning – the rest of chapter 2 in fact – but we’ll leave that for the next couple weeks. The facts in this story are very simple:
1. Believers were together. They were certainly praying, probably sharing news and encouraging one another, and trying to figure out what to do next.
2. God shows up in power. The disciples are, and I quote, “filled with the Holy Spirit”. This is accompanied by supernatural activity in the wind and fire.
3. They told everyone. In fact, they were able to tell everyone in their own native language since the filling of the Holy Spirit was also evident in this story in the gift given of being able to speak languages they had never learned, in the tongues of all those people listed in the passage.
That’s about it. The details are there as well, but in its simplest form the believers are together and are filled with the Holy Spirit and then speak.
Desire:
This is such a familiar story that I wonder what your reaction is. Perhaps boredom due to familiarity. Perhaps vague interest in some new thing that I might pull out, some different insight that might make you think, “interesting…”. Or maybe reading this story gets you excited because you see again how God pours Himself out among His people, and really great things happen when God does that. Or maybe even a sense of longing, of desire for a similar outpouring of the power and presence of God in your life. I think the last one would be the best response – a desire to be full of the presence of God in your life.
Let me ask you really bluntly: do you want that? Do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit?? Because while we cannot make that happen (we are not in control!), we can prevent it from happening. If we don’t want God to fill us with His Spirit, if we don’t give God permission to fill us with His Spirit, He doesn’t fill us with His Spirit. Remember, God has said, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jer 29:13); “The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. (2 Chron 16:9); “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” (Matt 6:33). And those are just samples of a common theme – God doesn’t force-feed us Himself.
So let me ask you again – do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Keeping in mind several realities I’ll mention and many more that I won’t:
• If we invite Jesus to be our Lord, we have to let Him be our Lord – in other words, He is in control and not us. He is the Head, making the decisions and setting the direction and establishing the priorities about everything in our lives: our time, our material things, our focus (on ourselves or on others, and how Jesus keeps those in balance). If we won’t let Jesus be Lord, we won’t be filled with the Holy Spirit.
• It might get a little “weird”, and things certainly will change. I say that based on Scripture, which I see in this passage as well as others. The filling of the Holy Spirit was accompanied by a sound like a mighty rushing wind that was heard, and some strange fire-like things that were seen, and then a bunch of people speaking in strange tongues loud enough that “everyone came running” (vs. 6). And then they were all transformed.
• Others may not like it. Did you notice some mockery at the end of the passage? Same thing happens today, and sometimes from other Christians and sometimes even from those to whom we are close. Actually I see the origins of those in the “spiritual forces of evil” that Paul talks about in Eph. 6, because the last thing they want to see in more of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people.
• Ministry to others will follow. This is important because as I’ve been mentioning the last two weeks, the Holy Spirit is not given to us primarily for our own benefit and enjoyment – that is a “me-centered” view of spirituality that Scripture really doesn’t recognize. This ministry will be full of joy, evidence of the Kingdom of God becoming more real in other people’s lives, it could be tiring and hard for us, and at the end we’ll be filled with a sense of never wanting that to end.
So let me ask you a third time, do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit? This is a foundational question, so I’m going to stop talking for a few minutes while you make up your mind… Now keep your answer in mind, listen to the rest, and then during our Adult Ed time I’ll invite you to share your answer with your small group.
Our Part And God’s Part:
In this story as I’ve outlined it there are some things that the believers do, and some things that God does. The believers take the first action – they get together seeking God. We know this was a fairly regular occurrence from chapter 1, though Luke does not give us details about whether it was daily, a couple times a day, or sort of constant as people came and went from some common place. But it is noticeable in the intentionality of it – the people of God were together. I don’t think it is a far stretch to assume that they were also very open, eager, and willing. During this 50 day period, Jesus has been sometimes appearing and teaching and being with His disciples, and so I’m pretty confident in suggesting that as they met, they were open and eager to obey. When the risen Lord appeared and gave them some instruction or teaching, I think they did it – immediately and without question or argument. After all, they were listening to the resurrected Son of God.
This is an easy point for me to apply to us, because those of you listening to me speak these words have done likewise! We are together, I believe with the purpose of seeking God. So that is good!! But did you really come expecting to meet God? Expecting to offer your love through worship, expecting to hear God whisper into your life, ready to hear His challenge to you, willing to do anything and everything God asks us to immediately and without question or argument? Desiring to be filled with the Holy Spirit? And taking that a little deeper, is once a week on Sunday morning the only time we get together with other Christians to seek God and pray together, and if so do we really believe that is enough to sustain our walk and witness? Hard questions, I recognize that.
The second part is God’s part, and this is completely up to God. He answers the request, exceeds the expectations, and comes in power. No human can manufacture this – and if you ever read a book or hear a speaker tell you that if you just do A, B, and C, you WILL be filled with the Holy Spirit, put it down or walk away. As soon as they say that, they put you back in control which leads to one of two things: spiritual pride if something does happen (because you did what you were supposed to do and you were in control of the result), or guilt if nothing happens (because obviously you must not have done it right if the result was not right). You and I are not in control of when and how God reveals Himself in power – that is up to God, not to us. Keep the time frame in mind here even in the context of our story. This is 50 days – almost two months – after the resurrection and the evening when Jesus breathed on His disciples and said “receive the Holy Spirit”. It is ten days since they watched Jesus be miraculously lifted up into heaven. They have been meeting together constantly, seeking God continually, most likely daily, for almost two months before this happens. Once again, because it is up to God and not them.
The third part is that those who are filled with the Holy Spirit let everyone else know about it – they make some noise, and others listen and are changed. If we skip the second part, we’ll just be making noise and no one will be changed, so the teaching is that we need to wait on God’s outpouring of His Holy Spirit and then follow His leading before jumping into this, which leads us back to being together and seeking God.
But I Don’t Want To Be A Freak…
I think this is an underlying fear many Christians have of being filled with the Holy Spirit – that God will turn us into some freak show. Unfortunately we have this image of “spirit-filled” people who are, often, freaks, but may I suggest that is not what actually happens when people are genuinely filled with the Holy Spirit? There may be some strange manifestations, perhaps that is true. But those are generally just the starting point – the demonstration that God is filling – and not the end result. So let’s not get hung up on that, unless at the root of it is that we have a greater fear of our image in front of others than we have a love for God and desire to be filled with His Spirit.
So what does it mean to be genuinely filled with the Holy Spirit? Let me over-simplify: it means we are empowered to love more deeply, more passionately, with more power to transform, and more in line with the essential person God created and dreams for us to be. See, being filled with the Holy Spirit does not make us someone we are not – the transformation is from the broken people we are into the whole people that God created us to be in the first place. God doesn’t take someone to whom He has given sharp minds into emotional reactionaries. And He doesn’t take someone who is deeply feeling and turn them into heartless analyzers. Being filled with the Holy Spirit means we are set free to love.
Listen to Lloyd Ogilvie’s (Acts: The Communicators Commentary. Word Books, 1983. p. 60) explanation:
The Spirit never bypasses our humanity; He transforms it and then flows through it. The miracle of Pentecost was that the followers of Jesus became capable of warm, inclusive love. Each in his or her own uniqueness became free of the limits of the categories of personality. I believe the extrovert was deepened and the introvert released. They were free to love each other, and, as we shall see, they were given an unquenchable love for people in the world.
We all need the fire of the Spirit to convince us of the fact that we are loved unqualifiedly and released to love unreservedly. The undeniable test that we have been baptized with the fire of the Holy Spirit is a new and deeper capacity to love.
Conclusion:
So does anyone other than me want to be “convinced of that fact that I am loved unqualifiedly and released to love unreservedly”? That is what happens when we are filled with the Holy Spirit.
Our part is to decide and to seek. To invite, even if those things take getting together with like-minded Christians every day for months before we see “something” happen. It is worth it, if the result is knowing how loved we are and being free to love others completely. It is really not an option if we are to call ourselves Christians.
I encourage you all to stay for the second part, and explore these ideas in a small group discussion with some questions I’ve prepared. If you didn’t join a group last week, just find one this week and sit with them and interact with the questions on the handout page at the back. I’m going to pray a very simple prayer to close: “Come Holy Spirit… convince us that we are loved and release us to love. In Jesus’ Name.”
