Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost – 50 days after Passover, the feast of Harvest.
I. The Holy Spirit consumed . . .
Consumed - to fill somebody's mind or attention fully
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. Ephesians 1:13–14
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, Ephesians 5:18
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. . . If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-23, 25
1. Jesus is recognized as sweet and glorious in our hearts: “the mighty works of God.”
2. God works through His people to make the good news of Jesus known.
3. The lost turned to Jesus and are saved.
The Holy Spirit is not a force we can control. He is God. If He so chooses to work in our midst in ways that we can’t explain, so be it.
II. . . . a community of believers . . .
God works in a united body of believers.
III. . . . so that they would communicate the gospel . . .
God wants to make Himself known through His people. Romans 10:13-15
Known languages that they did not previously know or Unknown utterances and God gave those who listened the ability to understand.
We get so caught up in the mystery of the tongues that we miss the point – God was powerfully working through His people to make Himself known to the world.
IV. . . . to all countries.
God love all people. People of every nation, language, race, and social status. God supernaturally works to make his message known to all. Either speaking through His people through known languages or leading them to speak in unknown languages while giving understanding to those who are listening.
The illustration of physical healing – God can bring healing instantaneously or through modern medicine. God can overcome barriers to the gospel either instantaneously or through long and tedious work of His people. Kacy worked 4 years to translate stories from His word to the language of the Manika people. He chooses. Either way He promises the empowerment of His Spirit.
Pray for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit of God to bring us greater intimacy with Him, conviction of righteousness, boldness and wisdom to share, illumination of His Word, direction in our life, opening the eyes of the lost to their need for Jesus.
Jesus promised power to evangelize the world.
The lessons of history give a strong support for this—namely, that crucial breakthroughs for the gospel have come because of periodic extraordinary outpourings of the Spirit. Jonathan Edwards, the leader of the Great Awakening 200 years ago in this country, put it like this:
From the fall of man to our day, the work of redemption in its effect has mainly been carried on by remarkable [i.e., extraordinary] communications of the Spirit of God. Though there [is] a more constant influence of God's Spirit always in some degree attending his ordinances, yet the way in which the greatest things have been done towards carrying on this work, always have been by remarkable effusions [i.e., outpourings], at special seasons of mercy. (A History of Redemption, Works, vol. 1, p. 539)
In other words, from time to time, God has moved in extraordinary ways in the history of the Christian movement. He has poured out his Spirit in fresh, new, uncustomary, dramatic ways. These times have been called times of revival or awakening or reformation.
Pentecost was the first of these great outpourings on the Christian church, and until the task of world evangelization is completed, I believe it is our duty to pray for fresh seasons of the extraordinary outpouring of God's Spirit—to awaken and empower the church and to penetrate the final frontiers of world evangelization.
1. Every Christian receives the Holy Spirit is the sense of being sealed by the Spirit and baptized into the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirits affirms and assures our salvation.
2. Every Christian should continually seek to be led by the Holy Spirit and filled with the Spirit of God. In so doing, the Holy Spirit makes Jesus sweet to our hearts, leads our lives, prompts us to service of God and righteous living, and transforms our character to that of Christ.
3. God has the sovereign right to pour out His Spirit upon an individual or community of believers in a fresh and special way to affirm the gospel, empower for special tasks, and to make Himself known as great and good.
4. We must pray that God would pour out the Holy Spirit in our midst in fresh and mighty ways that brings us into greater intimacy with Him, empowers us for greater service, brings righteousness to believers, and awakens the lost to their need for Jesus in ways that we cannot explain apart from Him.
