Acts 2:1-21
Drawing on the Power of God
A few days after the Thanksgiving holiday of 2016, Eric Heffelmire was working on his GMC truck at his family home in Vienna, Virginia. As he recalls, “I was on my back, face up, and I was trying to get some corroded brake lines when apparently the jack slipped and fell down on me.” He continued, “The minute the jack slipped, there was an almost instantaneous, real strong smell of gasoline, and then just, whoosh!” He recalls, “I thought they’d be pulling out a dead body later in the evening.”
Fortunately, his 19-year-old daughter Charlotte was home from the US Air Force Academy on Thanksgiving break. She heard the noise and came flying into the garage, barefoot, five foot six, all 120 pounds of her. She saw her dad and still can’t fully explain what happened next. Charlotte recalls, “I lifted [the truck] the first time, he said ‘OK, you almost got it. Finally managed to get it out, it was some crazy strength, pulled him out.”
Once her dad was out, she jumped into the truck, still on fire, threw it into four-wheel drive, and drove it, on three wheels, out of the garage. Then she closed the garage doors to help contain the fire, and got everybody out of the house, starting with her sister’s baby.
“I just did what I had to do, so I don’t feel like a big hero or anything,” Charlotte said. She was recognized with a Citizen Lifesaving Award by the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue and later received a $10,000 check from Shutterfly on the Ellen show.
Every so often we hear a story like Charlotte’s of superhuman strength in time of need. People do the seemingly impossible, and they have no idea how they accomplish it. What if a power like that was available to every Christian believer? It is! The Holy Spirit is our power source for when God wants to do the impossible through us.
It all began with a promise Jesus left his disciples right before he ascended back to heaven. You’ll find it in the chapter before today’s reading, Acts chapter 1, verses 4-8:
On one occasion, while he was eating with them, [Jesus] gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized in water, but in a few days you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. ... You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
The word for “power” here is the Greek word “dunamis,” from which we get our English word “dynamite.” Notice it’s not a power that the disciples have on their own. They have to “receive” it when the Holy Spirit comes on them. And that power, God’s power, will enable them to be God’s witnesses at home, and wherever they go, throughout the known world.
At Pentecost, God brought the known world to them. And through that extraordinary event, he birthed his church. Please listen to the story from Acts chapter 2:
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”
14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning!
[Then he shares how all this is a fulfillment of what the prophet Joel had predicted long ago. Skipping down to verse 22...]
22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.”
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!
Pentecost was one of the big three feasts of the Jewish year. The word “Pentecost” means “50” in Greek, because the feast falls 50 days after Passover. As with the other two great feasts, Pentecost would have drawn displaced Jews from all over the known world, all coming to Jerusalem to worship together during this sacred time. People gave thanks to God for their harvest.
God chose this day to send his Holy Spirit into the lives of the 120 women and men believers gathered together in the Upper Room. God’s Spirit was about to bring a different kind of harvest: after Peter’s sermon, 3,000 new believers would come into the church family overnight, thus commemorating the birth of the church.
The cities I read about in verses 9-11 include not only Israel but also modern-day Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Italy. If you draw a line from Jerusalem out to each city or country mentioned, the 15 areas jut out like spokes on a wheel or rays of the sun. Literally, God fulfilled Jesus’ promise in one day, as the gospel spread to the pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem that would take it home to the uttermost ends of the earth. God would later add another layer to the fulfillment as he allowed persecution to scatter believers out of Jerusalem, thus spreading again the gospel message.
In the scripture following today’s passage, you can read about how the once denying Peter, now filled with the Spirit, preached with boldness to thousands, and thousands of people committed to making Jesus Lord of their lives. The famous preacher, A.J. Gordon, said, “Before Pentecost the disciples found it hard to do easy things; after Pentecost they found it easy to do hard things.”
The impossible became possible because Jesus’ disciples were filled with Holy Spirit power. Jesus’ promise was fulfilled. God’s power was there. God’s power, Holy Spirit power, can do the impossible. It can overcome barriers of prejudice and doubt. It can accomplish what cannot be accomplished by human strength. God’s power can spread the gospel across the known world in a single day.
Pastor Bill wasn’t too satisfied with the spiritual life of his church. So he got up on a Communion Sunday and announced, “We’ll be having prune juice for Communion today.” When asked why, he replied, “If the Holy Spirit won’t move you, the prune juice will!”
The Holy Spirit was at work back in Old Testament times, too. Leaders like David, Samson, Elijah, and Samuel were filled with the Spirit and did mighty things for God. Yet what changed at Pentecost is that now the Holy Spirit comes to stay. Back then it came to a specific person for a specific mission. That’s why David could pray in Psalm 51:11, “Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.” But beginning with Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to reside in each new believer at the moment of salvation.
The story today is all about God’s power, dynamite power. New Testament scriptures talk more about being “filled” with the Holy Spirit. Every believer has God’s Spirit within him or her. The question is, “Are you allowing the Holy Spirit to fill you, to lead you?” The Bible says we can “quench” or “grieve” the Spirit of God when we do not listen to him, when we go our own way. Yet, when we yield to God’s way, we open ourselves to an outpouring or filling of God’s Spirit.
It’s kind of like my coffee cup. When I fill it too full, which I often do, the coffee spills over the brim, leaving marks everywhere—floors, car, my shirt, my pants. In the same way, when we are filled with God’s Spirit, it spills out of us, leaving marks everywhere, marks that God is at work.
In today’s story, believers were filled with the Holy Spirit to be “witnesses,” to share what they had experienced with Jesus with others, people very different from them. And so it is with us. We are to pray and wait and watch, and allow God to fill us with his Spirit so that we will have the right words at the right time and the right place to share with a neighbor or a family member or a friend, to talk of Jesus’ love, Jesus’ forgiveness, Jesus’ guidance, Jesus’ hope, Jesus’ peace. That’s what the Holy Spirit does when he makes us a witness.
In the early church, Pentecost became so important a holiday that it ranked second only to Easter. These early Christians understood the importance of the Holy Spirit filling them for service. What about today? What if Pentecost were more important to us than Christmas? Can you imagine? Can you imagine that kind of priority, to want desperately for God to fill us so we can share well with everyone we meet what Jesus has done in our life? Think of it! God wants to use us for his work! Is there any greater honor than that? Let us pray:
Lord, help us to contemplate the assignment you have for us, along with the 120 gathered that day: You want us to be witnesses of all that you have done in our lives. Help us to be ready to share, to be filled with your Spirit and led by your Spirit. That way, you get the glory, and your strength through us enables us to do what we could never do on our own. We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
