Text: Acts 2:1-4
I. The Meaning of Pentecost
A. Pentecost is a one day celebration that follows the Harvest Feast, Feast of First Fruits, or Feast of Weeks. This feast lasted for 7 weeks or 49 days. Pentecost is the next day, the 50th day.
1. Pentecost was the Jewish harvest-home celebration. People were encouraged to:
¥ Rejoice before Jehovah with their families their servants, the Levite within their gates, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, in the place chosen by God, for his name, as they brought a free-will offering, of their hand to Jehovah their God. Deuteronomy 16:10-11
¥ Reflect on the power and deliverance of God
B. The pinnacle of the celebration was the presentation of two loaves of unleavened bread made from the first-fruits of the wheat harvest.
1. With the loaves, two lambs were offered as a Peace Offering, and all were waved before Jehovah as a wave offering and given to the priests.
C. Other sacrifices were also made.
1. A Burnt Offering of a young bullock, two rams, and seven lambs, with a meat and drink offering, and a kid for a Sin Offering. Leviticus 23:18-19.
2. The whole ceremony was the completion of the dedication of the harvest to God as the Giver of the Harvest to whom both the land and the people were holy.
II. Pentecost is a Time of Celebration.
A. A Time of Celebration for Israel.
1. The law was given from Sinai, on the fiftieth day after Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. (Exodus 12, Exodus 17) - The appearance of God on Sinai is widely regarded in Christian Theology as the birthday of the Jewish nation.
2. In the Exodus from Egypt, the people were offered to God as living first fruits. At the Mount of God (Sinai) their consecration to him as a nation was completed.
B. A Time of Celebration for the Church
1. Pentecost is celebrated as the birthday of the New Testament Church. (Acts 2:1-4)
C. A time to Celebrate the possibility of New Believer’s.
1. Quote: Acts 2:38-39
III. Pentecost Today
A. Is a time of…
1. Celebration of the birth of the Church
2. Spiritual Sacrifice’s of Praise & Worship
3. Significant Giving
B. Is also a Spiritual Experience
1. Acts 2:41 (3000 saved)
2. Acts 4:4 (5000 saved)
Acts 4:7-10
7 And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done this?
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel,
9 If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole;
10 Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
3. Identifies Christians as those “who have the first fruits of the Spirit” - Salvation and Holy Spirit Baptism are the “beginnings” of a Spirit-Led Life! (Romans 8:23)
4. The Gentiles receive Holy Spirit at the house of Cornelius. (Acts 10:44-48)
C. Pentecost is an annual reminder that God still…
1. Endues with Power
2. Works Miracles
3. Baptizes Believer’s with the Holy Ghost
Closing: Practicing Pentecost
¥ Celebrate God’s Power and Deliverance with Rejoicing and Wave Offerings (Praise).
¥ Dedication of the Harvest unto the Lord, through Significant Giving, realizing that God is the Giver of it All.
Realizing that both the Blessing and the People are Holy unto the Lord.
