Pentecost


Sermon Notes: Pentecost.

What a day it must have been! The Apostles did their best to wait and watch for the promises of God, just as Jesus instructed them. But the kind of waiting they were asked to do was no ordinary waiting – they were waiting on God. It was the waiting room of all waiting rooms, because what followed was beyond anything they could ever imagine in their wildest dreams. God showed up with power. This is the very thing Jesus spoke of in His ministry, John 14:15, ‘If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth’. Acts 1:8, ‘But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power’.

The Holy Spirit’s arrival that day was truly remarkable and life changing, not only for the followers of Jesus, but for all those who have chosen to follow Him ever since.

Jesus had spent 40 days speaking into the lives of His followers, 40 days of communicating really important information to them, but then He left, and that was a miraculous and awesome sight, breathtaking, no human words to describe the ascension of Jesus up into heaven.

But what now? Where do the disciples go from here?

The first thing that Jesus had said to them we find in Acts 1:5, ‘In a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit’. V8, ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth’. And so the disciples realized that something really significance was going to happen in the coming days. So what do the disciples do? They gathered together and they waited, and they prayed. ‘When the day of Pentecost came they were all together in one place’. V2, ‘Suddenly the sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them’.

The central focus of these moments is that all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit has been present and active since the beginning of time, the Bible tells us that He was there at the creation, He was present throughout the Old Testament, He was present at the birth of Jesus, and present in and throughout the life of Jesus. He was with the disciples, but here in Acts 2 we are confronted and see a completely new dimension of the Holy Spirit’s presence and activity. He comes in a new way, and He invades the lives of those first followers of Jesus. God was injecting – breathing – blowing into His disciples a new dimension to their lives.

The waiting that Jesus said they were to do is over with power from on high! What is happening is humanly speaking impossible, this is unnatural – this is supernatural! They hear what sounded like a violent wind, and they see what seems like tongues of fire, and when they open their mouths they are enabled to speak in other languages. And what’s people response to what’s happening? V7,‘Utterly Amazed’. The crowd is astonished, as I’m sure the disciples themselves where!

Spirit filled Christians affirm what God has done, they celebrate and praise Him verbally – the Holy Spirit inspires praise! And the crowd in Jerusalem on that day, they listened, they were struck by these believers declaring the wonders of God right in front of their very eyes, and it provoked a reaction in the crowd – v12‘Amazed and perplexed’. Although there were others who made fun and mocked the disciples and even accused them of being drunk.

But on that day 3000 different people, of different nations, languages and cultures are drawn together into the one church of Jesus.

Come Holy Spirit, ignite our hearts and inflame our spirits that we may burn anew!