Last week we talked about the two men on the road to Emmaus and how Jesus appeared to them and in so doing fulfilled a promise that was made before He was ever killed. The promise that He would be resurrected from the dead and then show Himself too many people afterwards.
On Easter Sunday we talked about the empty promises of God, the promises of the empty cross, the empty grave and the empty grave clothes. There is awesome power in these promises aren’t there?
Well, there’s yet another promise that we have all been given and the promise that I want to talk to all of us here today about is the promise that Jesus gave us concerning the Holy Spirit.
The day of Pentecost was an extraordinary day for the Church. In fact it was the Church’s birthday if you will. And it all started in Jerusalem after Jesus had ascended back into glory to be with His Father. The word “Pentecost” designates the 50th day after Passover, which was a Feast Day. Also known as the Feast of Weeks or Feast of Harvest. And here is what Luke wrote to us in Acts chapter 2 verses 1-21:
1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
5 Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and was bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 They were amazed and astonished, saying,” Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.” 12 And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others were mocking and saying, “They are full of sweet wine.” 14 But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. 15 For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; 16 but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel: 17 ‘AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS,’ God says,
‘THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL MANKIND;
AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY,
AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS,
AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS;
18 EVEN ON MY BONDSLAVES, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN,
I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT
And they shall prophesy.
19 ‘AND I WILL GRANT WONDERS IN THE SKY ABOVE
AND SIGNS ON THE EARTH BELOW,
BLOOD, AND FIRE, AND VAPOR OF SMOKE.
20 ‘THE SUN WILL BE TURNED INTO DARKNESS
AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD,
BEFORE THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS DAY OF THE LORD SHALL COME.
21 ‘AND IT SHALL BE THAT EVERYONE WHO CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.’
After reading this passage of Scripture, I want you to know that Joel prophesied the coming of the Holy Spirit to all mankind over 800 years before the Day of Pentecost actually occurred. And His prophesy was absolutely accurate and right on point.
Jesus told His disciples that when He was no longer with them physically that He would send the Holy Spirit of God to all people and that all who would believe on the name of Jesus would be saved and have the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is sometimes the forgotten part of the Trinity of God. Most people talk about God the Father and Jesus the Son and Lord and Savior but we only mention the Holy Spirit every now and again and I believe that we as Christians sometimes do Him a great disservice by not holding Him just dear and giving Him just as much honor and recognition as we do to God and Jesus even though they are all equal in power and authority.
The Holy Spirit is where the Church gets her power from but just as importantly He is where we as individual Christians receive our power from as well. Just look at the power that He gave to the 120 men that filled the upper room that day so many years ago.
When the Holy Spirit descended from glory into our world and the things that looked like flames danced over the heads of those present in that room, in that moment again the whole world changed. God has a way of doing that over and over again doesn’t He?
Those men who were just days prior wondering what was going to happen next were now probably hearing the words of their Master Jesus telling them about the Holy Spirit that He would send to them when He was gone and were saying to themselves if not out loud, “now I understand what Jesus was trying to tell me”!
Now they understood that this movement of God wasn’t over yet but was simply entering the next phase. These men now knew that they had a mission once again and that mission was to preach the Gospel to the entire world no matter what!
But as usual, God not only showed up but He showed out as well! God loves to make a point sometimes about His power doesn’t He? And this day was no exception. When the Holy Spirit had come upon these men they began to really feel the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through their bodies, hearts and minds. If any of you have seen any of the old Popeye cartoons and you saw that when he was down and Bluto was just wearing him out that somehow he would get a hold of some spinach and all of a sudden something miraculous would happen. Popeye would suddenly be re-energized, become super strong and defeat Bluto and save Olive Oyl and little Swee’pea.
In a way this was how I imagine the men on Pentecost must have felt. They had been knocked down, they were feeling defeated and some of the disciples had left and gone back to their families and felt like all was lost since Jesus left them. But the Holy Spirit came to save the day! When the Spirit of God came to them they were re-energized and given supernatural strength and power but instead of coming from spinach this great power came from God Himself in the form of the Holy Spirit.
And once this great power was given and accepted by the men there that day nothing was ever the same! They were given the power to preach and not just preach but to preach in the tongues of all the different nationalities that were there that day, people from all over the known world and this is where the Holy Spirit was showing out a little bit.
They were all hearing the life saving and life changing Gospel of Jesus Christ in their own language with a Holy interpreter. And one other interesting note, some in the crowd knew that these men were mostly from Galilee and therefore they knew for certain that they didn’t know how to speak in all the languages that they were speaking!
Now, some of the people there were skeptical just like people today are skeptical of the power of the Holy Spirit and not only rejected what they were hearing about Jesus but were mocking them as well. They said out loud that these men must be drunk because they thought that these great preachers were speaking gibberish and because they wouldn’t hear the Word of God that’s what they heard gibberish.
But those that wanted to hear the Word of God preached that day heard the Word preached! The men were not drunk but rather they were filled with power of the Holy Spirit! And because of the power that was given to them that day over 3,000 people gave their lives and hearts to Jesus that day!
But make no mistake here Jesus didn’t say that the Holy Spirit would be only for those 120 men or that He would only come for that time in history but rather Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would come to the earth for every single man, woman, and child who will accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
The Holy Spirit of God according to Jesus will do many wonderful things for us as believers.
In the Gospel of John chapter 16 verses 5-8 we read this:
5 “But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8 And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment…
This in my humble opinion is the greatest work that the Holy Spirit does in the world. It is one of His jobs to convict people of their sins. He did this in my heart and He did this in your heart as well and even though it wasn’t a pleasant feeling aren’t you glad that he did convict us all of our sins? I know that I am!
And in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 13 we read this: In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation-- having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise…
Of all the great things that the Holy Spirit does for all of us as believers, this work in my opinion is just as important as convicting hearts of sin. The security of the believer is one of the most important Scriptural doctrines in the Bible. Because of this work of the Holy Spirit we don’t have to wonder about whether or not we’re saved or if we sin will we lose our salvation because we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit into the eternal family of God and that is awesome news!
Another great work that the Holy Spirit does for us is to be our Counselor, our Comforter, someone who will always be with us in our hearts and in our lives. He gives us comfort in our times of trouble and stress. Not just words but supernatural comfort and aid when we need it most.
He is also the Spirit of Truth, In the Gospel of John chapter 16 verses 13-15 we read this:
13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.
The Holy Spirit is a teacher of truth. He will help you to rightly divide Scripture and He will also help you to discern whether or not what people tell you about Scripture is true or not. We need His guidance in this area because Jesus isn’t here anymore physically to teach us.
The Holy Spirit is also the giver of spiritual gifts and all of have them and He is the one who determines who gets what gifts when and changes them when the calling on our lives changes. We can read about this in 1st Corinthians 12 verses 4-11: 4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. 6 There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. 7 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.
The Holy Spirit is a wonderful gift giver and I am glad to be granted any gift that He sees fit to grant to me how about you?
As wonderful as Easter and Christmas are to us as Christians I think that the Day of Pentecost is just as important and unfortunately it just doesn’t seem to get the same recognition. People don’t flock to churches on this day and we don’t have big family gatherings at our homes after church on Pentecost but we really should!
What a great addition to a lost, dying, and hurting world! We as Christians know that we can’t function without the Holy Spirit but it’s my desire that the entire world know about the Holy Spirit and listen to Him as He convicts their hearts of the sin in their lives and tells them about Jesus and how He can save them and change their lives forever.
And while we may not be able to speak in foreign languages we can speak to people in ways that they can understand the Gospel through the power of the same Holy Spirit that enabled those 120 men to speak in foreign tongues so many years ago!
So my challenge for all of us today is to go out and start some conversations with someone who needs to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior and also go out and encourage believers who may need to hear a Word from God from the Holy Spirit through you and I promise that you will feel great joy and satisfaction in doing what God wants you to do! Amen!?
