Theme: The gift of the Spirit
Text: Acts 2:1-21; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13; John 20:19-23
Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day that Jesus Christ began His ministry through the Church with the coming of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost simply means “fiftieth” and the presence of the Holy Spirit removed the veil to reveal its prophetic significance. Both the Law and the Holy Spirit were given at Pentecost. The giving of the Law and the giving of the Holy Spirit led to completely different results. The giving of the Law resulted in death, the death of 3000 Israelites. The Law points us to sin and that no one, apart from Christ, was capable of keeping the Law. The giving of the Holy Spirit resulted in life, the life of 3,000 people. The Holy Spirit results from the grace of God and leads to life. The gift of the Holy Spirit continues to give life today and the harvest that began on the day of Pentecost, continues today, and will continue until the end of the Church age.
The Holy Spirit, the agent of Pentecost, is a person. He is not a force or a thing as some believe. He is a person and the Scriptures confirm this by the personal ways in which He responds and the personal things He does. The Bible also makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is God and we rightfully speak of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is seen in the attributes that are given to Him and which are without exception, the attributes of God. He is eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. The Holy Spirit gives spiritual life so that we can relate to God. God is Spirit and we can only worship God in spirit and in truth. We all need the Holy Spirit and whatever He did on the day of Pentecost He is still willing and able to do today.
To understand Pentecost we need to see it in the light of Babel. At Babel, an ambitious people wanted to build a great city with a high tower reaching to the heavens but God confused their tongues and scattered them. At Pentecost, the disciples preached the good news of Jesus and all those present heard it in their own languages. Two completely opposite events, at Babel God created confusion and scattered, and at Pentecost, He created order and gathered. At Babel, the introduction of different languages or tongues brought an end to the ambitions of men. At Pentecost, the introduction of one language or tongue marked the beginning of the preaching of the good news of Jesus to the nations of the world. At Babel the people wanted to reach to the heavens, to be famous, and to control their future destiny. They wanted to be like God, and they used their skill and know how to do it. Baked bricks and tar was the key to their fame and future, much the same way people today speak of cell phones, computers, the Internet, and genetic engineering. Today some are using technology to be “like God,” to declare independence from God, to make a name, and to control the future. There is nothing wrong with technology, just as there is nothing wrong with baked bricks, tar, and high towers. It is what we do with them and why we build them. When our faith, hope, and trust is in our capabilities, when we use our technology to reach up to the heavens, to become famous, to amass wealth and fortune, to seize control of our destiny and shake our fist at God, then we are committing idolatry. Today are we not putting our trust in technology? Technology cannot save us and bring us to heaven. It cannot secure our destiny. Only Christ can do that by giving us eternal life.
The purpose of Pentecost is to confirm God’s acceptance of Christ’s perfect sacrifice. The presence of the Holy Spirit is proof that Christ had arrived in glory at the Father’s right hand. The presence of the Holy Spirit is to reveal and glorify Christ. He is the One who enables the believer to understand the revelations of His perfect sacrifice. He reveals what His sacrifice has made available to all believers. The Holy Spirit empowers the believer to witness and to serve. We constantly need His power if we are to serve God effectively. With the presence of the Holy Spirit the scattering of the people, which began with the building of the tower of Babel, is reversed and God begins to gather His people into one household. At Pentecost it was not human beings but God who was at work and at the centre of attention. The disciples did not preach about themselves and their own accomplishments, but about God and what He had accomplished in His Son Jesus Christ. When the disciples were saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, they understood the plan of God and the ministry of Jesus far better than they had ever understood it before. They had been very slow and limited in their understanding, but the moment the Holy Spirit came, they had a totally different understanding of the ministry and the message of Christ. They were also empowered and became extremely bold. Before they had lived in fear, even after the resurrection of Christ, hiding behind locked doors and not willing to stand up to preach and proclaim the truth. They made very little impact on the people and Jerusalem was hardly changed or affected by the death and resurrection of Christ. The moment the Holy Spirit came, however, that changed. Peter boldly told the Jewish people in Jerusalem the whole story of Jesus and the part they played in His crucifixion. The whole of Jerusalem immediately felt the impact. Within a short time of His arrival, many thousands had gathered and before the day ended, 3000 unbelievers had been converted, baptised and added to the Church. The Holy Spirit did not come to the Church on Pentecost to make us feel better about ourselves, but to send us into the entire world with the Gospel. God has saved us to be a blessing and the greatest blessing in life is to lead another person to Christ. This is the reason for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ has fulfilled His promise to His followers by sending the Holy Spirit. The gift has been delivered. It is up to us to receive Him if He is to be of benefit to us.
We can only receive the gift of the Holy Spirit when we acknowledge our sin of rejecting Christ. Jesus Christ presented Himself to His people in Jerusalem, even as the prophets had foretold. He did not only come with the claim to be the Messiah, but God Himself testified to His identity and authority through the signs and wonders He performed through the Holy Spirit. In spite of all these evidences, He was rejected as the Messiah. He fulfilled the prophecy about His death by being nailed to a cross and His resurrection by appearing to many witnesses after He rose from the dead. God not only raised Jesus from the dead but has given Him all power and authority. The only response to the sacrifice of Christ is to call upon His name. This is the only way to be saved. There is no salvation without repentance and belief in Christ. This is the only way for God to forgive sin and spare us His judgement. It is the only way to receive the promised gift of the Holy Spirit.
When a loved one leaves us on a journey, we always urge him to write and inform us of his safe arrival. It is only when a letter arrives in the loved ones own handwriting, postmarked with the name of the place, that we are sure he has arrived. On the day of Pentecost the disciples received a personal letter from Christ postmarked heaven, the Holy Spirit, confirming that He “had arrived at the seat of all power and authority.” The presence of the Holy Spirit leads the believer into a full understanding of God’s revelation to man. When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and the disciples began to speak in other languages, Peter explained what was happening by quoting and interpreting a prophecy by Joel. Almost half of what Peter said was a direct quotation from the OT, and his teachings on these Scriptures was applied in a most vivid way to the events of Christ’s death, resurrection and the coming of the HS. As soon as the HS came to indwell them, their understanding of Scripture was supernaturally illuminated. Their previous doubts and confusion were immediately replaced by clear understanding and right application of Scripture. The same thing also happened to Paul, who had been trained by Gamaliel, a famous teacher of his day. Yet in spite of all his training and knowledge, Paul in his early years had no understanding of the correct application of Scripture. He understood the cross as the evidence that Jesus was under the curse of God. “Cursed is he who hangs on a tree” was the word of Scripture and therefore Jesus could not possibly be the Messiah. When he received the Holy Spirit, he understood everything perfectly. He then understood that Jesus was made a curse because of our sins so that we could be delivered from the curse and enabled to enter His abundant blessings. When we “call upon the name of the Lord,” God forgives us our sin and delivers us from the curse so that we can enter His abundant blessings. Are you enjoying Christ’s blessings? All you need to do is to accept God’s offer of salvation.
The story about the Titanic is about man’s misplaced trust in his own inventions and resourcefulness. “Not even God could sink the Titanic,” they claimed at the start of the voyage. They were so confident that they did not even carry enough life rafts to cater for all the passengers. The latest technology assured them that the ship was unsinkable. And yet, ironically, the very technology that was thought would make the Titanic "unsinkable," made her sink even faster. Human effort without Christ is doomed to failure and this is why the mission of the Church is to proclaim the mighty acts of God so clearly that all may hear and believe and be saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the greatest single help that God has provided for believers who sincerely desire to enter into all the fullness of victorious and fruitful Christian living. We all need the Holy Spirit. Indeed Jesus places an obligation on all believers to seek Him when He says “If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” On this day of Pentecost let us ask the Lord to fill us with the power of His Holy Spirit. Amen!
