Book of Acts
THE BOOK OF ACTS – Chapter 2
Week 4-
EMPOWERED FOR JESUS’ MISSION
What tends to happen is whatever your first church experience is, that becomes normative for you. You assume that we’re doing it right, and if other churches are doing it different, then they must be doing it wrong.
There’s three kinds of churches: churches where you sing with your hands at your side, churches where you sing with one hand up, and churches where you sing with both hands up.
The only way we really discover how the church should be is not by taking our experience and making it normative but by going to the Word of God and seeing what the will of God is.
THE HOLY SPIRIT EMPOWERS CHRISTIANS FOR MINISTRY
Let me preface by saying that here’s where we find ourselves in the story: Jesus is God, become a man, lived without sin, went to the cross, died in our place for our sins as our Savior, was buried, and three days later on a Sunday he rose from death conquering Satan, sin, death, hell, the wrath of God. Acts 1 tells us that he appeared for forty days, evidencing his resurrection with much proof.
He then told his disciples, “Do not go out and start your ministry yet. You need to wait.” Acts 1:8, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you. He will come with power so that you can be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, ends of the earth”—your city, your state, your nation, your country, the nations of the earth. That’s what he’s talking about. He then ascended into heaven, and then it tells us at the end of Acts 1 that for ten days, they prayed, they studied the Bible, they prepared their leadership, and they prepared themselves.
And today, we see Jesus’ promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit being fulfilled in Acts 2. And this is important: just as the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism in Luke’s Gospel to anoint and appoint him for ministry, so here Jesus is going to send the Holy Spirit on his people so that we can follow in the ministry of Jesus by the power of Jesus.
Let’s read it together beginning in Acts 2:1–3, where we learn that the Holy Spirit empowers Christians for ministry:
Acts 2: 1-3 ESV
1When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place—so it’s a church meeting of about 120 people— 2And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like”—
This is important: The Bible here is telling us something that happened; it’s explaining a supernatural, miraculous event.
Have you been in a situation where you saw or experienced something that was altogether new for you? You’re trying to figure out how to explain it to somebody else, saying, “Well, it’s kind of like this and it’s kind of like that, but it’s not like this and it’s not like that.” When you hear that language, what you’re supposed to understand is that the Bible here is straining to explain the supernatural in the constraints of the natural. So it was “like.”
It was “like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3And divided tongues, as of fire”—again, it’s “like” fire; it’s as of fire—“appeared to them and rested on each of them.
So the timing is Pentecost—this is a Jewish holiday. Before this, there was a major holiday called Passover, and it was celebrating God’s deliverance of his people from slavery and bondage in Egypt through the shedding of the blood of a substitutionary lamb, which all prefigured the coming of Jesus, our Passover Lamb who has been slain, that through him, through his shed blood, we receive our redemption, our Exodus, our liberation from Satan, sin, and death. And they celebrated it and then fifty days later—fifty, or _pente_—it was Pentecost.
This is fifty days after the Passover, and they’re meeting in Jerusalem around the temple, and the presence of God in the Holy of Holies and the people of God are together. The first believers in Jesus are gathered as the first church—about 120—and the Holy Spirit descends on them. He comes to empower them as he came to empower Jesus so that they might be on his mission—by his power. I want you to see that. And he comes “like” the wind and he comes “like” a fire. When he comes like this, you and I are supposed to see this as power.
We know that wind can be powerful. We have seen the wind through hurricanes and tornadoes. We have seen trees blown down even here…
And what you see is that the wind comes with power. It overwhelms; it overtakes. It’s this all-consuming unstoppable force. God the Holy Spirit is a person, but his power is like that.
I’ll give you an illustration.
Have you ever flown a kite? I mean in really flown a real kite? What does the wind do to a kite? The wind brings the kite to life. Makes it dance…(maybe find a video?)
The Holy Spirit is like that. He fills the believer. He lifts the believer. He brings life into the believer. And the believer’s life now is one that is dancing with the power of God. It’s like that. He comes like wind and fire. We know it’s like fire ’cause if their heads were on fire, this would not be good news, right? But it’s like tongues of fire resting upon their head.
Fire is most appreciated when it is cold and dark, amen? You’re out hiking, hunting, camping. It’s dark and it’s cold. You really appreciate a fire because it illuminates. You can see. It brings warmth and life and heat. The Holy Spirit is like that. Our lives and our world are cold and dark. And the Holy Spirit comes to illuminate Jesus and to warm our hearts to love Him. I want you to think of this every time you enjoy a fire.
We particularly enjoy fires, don’t we, when it’s cold and it’s dark? And so these are the outward symbols—metaphors—that the Holy Spirit is using to reveal his internal working. He fills us like a kite. He warms us like a fire. He sets us ablaze for the truth of God, and he illuminates the world in which we live.
FOUR THINGS ABOUT JESUS’ MISSION
So all of this happens on this day of Pentecost. There’s a couple of things I want to share with you briefly as we examine this together.
1. Jesus’ mission is not to take us out from the world but to send us in the world by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.
John 17:15-18 English Standard Version
15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
2. Jesus’ mission does not send us to a holy place—a temple or Mecca—but instead Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to make “us” a holy place, individually and corporately, as God’s people.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 English Standard Version
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
3. Jesus’ mission requires that the Holy Spirit sometimes works loudly and publicly, but at other times, quietly and privately.
4. Jesus’ mission requires that you, individually, and we, corporately, be filled with the Holy Spirit. We can’t be who Jesus has made us to be, and we can’t do what Jesus has called us to do unless we are filled by the power and the presence of the person of the Holy Spirit.
And so, I want you to understand that the Bible talks about us being baptized in the Holy Spirit. You’re going to read this language.
Ephesians 1 talks about being sealed with the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 1:13-14 English Standard Version
13 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, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
All right, this is a one-time event when you become a Christian. And then you’re going to read it repeatedly in the remainder of Acts and other places, like Ephesians 5, where the Bible talks about believers being filled with the Holy Spirit. Filled with the Holy Spirit.
Now let’s look at this a little more in depth.
Hebrews 6:1-2 New King James Version
6 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
So we see that one of those elementary principles is the doctrine of baptisms. Note that it doesn’t say the doctrine of baptism (singular), but baptisms (plural).
There are THREE BIBLICAL BAPTISMS that are mentioned in Scripture:
1. Baptism into the Body of Christ.
If you are a Christian, you are probably very familiar with this first baptism. The baptism into the Body of Christ occurs when you receive salvation.
1 Corinthians 12:13 ESV
13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
Notice here who the agent of this baptism is. When you received Jesus as your Savior, the Holy Spirit baptized you into the Body of Christ. In other words, when you were saved, the Holy Spirit baptized you into Jesus.
2. Water baptism.
It’s a very powerful and important step in each believer’s life—so much so that water baptism is part of the Great Commission that Jesus gave to His followers.
Matthew 28:19 NKJV
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Baptism in water follows repentance for your sins, and acknowledgment and acceptance of Jesus as your Savior. Water baptism is a tremendously significant experience in conjunction with salvation. However, if you get water baptized before you actually get saved, you just get wet!”
Water baptism is not just a religious ritual. It is a statement about the change that has occurred in your life as a result of the salvation experience. I like the way the Amplified Bible explains this in
Colossians 2:12-13 AMP
12 having been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him [to a new life] through [your] faith in the working of God, [as displayed] when He raised Christ from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh (worldliness, manner of life), God made you alive together with Christ, having [freely] forgiven us all our sins,
Being saved means that you stop going your way and start going God’s way. Your sinful, carnal nature is buried with Christ (that is what being submerged in water represents), and you are raised up out of the water (as Jesus was raised from the dead) to newness of life. When you get saved, you become a new person in Christ. Being baptized in water demonstrates that your old sin nature is cut off and that all things have become new in your life.
2 Corinthians 5:17 English Standard Version
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Still, you must have power to live victoriously—which brings us to the
3. Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 4:4-6 English Standard Version
4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Now may say that it says right there “one baptism” but notice, this same verse says “one Lord,” even though it is clear that there are three members of the Godhead. In fact, this very same passage of Scripture mentions all three members of the Trinity—one “Spirit,” one “Lord,” and one “God and Father of all.” One God. Three expressions.
In the very same way, there is one baptism but three expressions. There is the baptism into the Body of Christ when we get saved; there is water baptism; and there is baptism in the Holy Spirit.
So, let’s say you’re a new Christian and you want to figure out what your gifts are to serve Jesus. You’re asking the Holy Spirit to fill you and to show you what your ministry is. Let’s say you’re going to get married. You’re asking the Holy Spirit to fill you so that now you can learn to be a loving and faithful spouse. You’re pregnant and now you want to be parents, and it’s a great season. You’re asking the Holy Spirit to fill you so you can have that God-given instinct to love and to lead your children to the glory of God. You’re struggling, you’re suffering, you’re sick, you’re hurting, you’re asking the Holy Spirit to fill you, that you might persevere and, through your sufferings, learn more about Jesus and become more like Jesus.
“Recall that 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” Then in Matthew 3:11, John the Baptist, speaking of Jesus, declared that I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
What I want you to notice about these two verses is that in one case, the Spirit baptizes us into Jesus, and in the other, Jesus baptizes us into the Spirit. In the first reference, the Holy Spirit is the subject, or the one doing the baptizing. In the second reference, Jesus is the subject.
So let’s review the picture the Bible is painting here. When you are saved, the Holy Spirit baptizes you into Jesus. Then, if you are obedient to the Lord’s command, you are baptized in water. Then Jesus baptizes us in the Holy Spirit. Three separate events. You need the first to go to heaven. You need the second to be obedient. And you need both the second and the third to live a victorious Christian life.
THE HOLY SPIRIT OVERCOMES GOSPEL BARRIERSTHE HOLY SPIRIT OVERCOMES GOSPEL BARRIERS
That being said, we’re now going to look at what happens as they are filled with the Holy Spirit to use the language of the Bible. And what we learn is, first off, that the Holy Spirit empowers Christian for ministry.
Acts 2:4–11: “And they were all”—what? “Filled with the Holy Spirit.” So here’s a filling. Here’s a moment of filling. “And began to speak in other tongues.”
You heard of tongues? Kind of controversial. Churches have divided over it. Denominations debate over it. We’re going to discuss it. “As the Spirit gave them utterance. 5 Now, they were dwelling in Jerusalem”—they’re all together for this feast—Jews devoted men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound, the multitude came together.” It’s like the wind was almost like a siren that summoned everyone together. “And they were bewildered”—this is something supernatural—“because each one was hearing him speak in his own language.” Circle that in your Bible— “language.”
When the Bible talks of tongues, sometimes it talks about the physical organ in our mouth, and sometimes it talks about an angelic, heavenly language.
Sometimes it talks about a known earthly language, and here it’s talking about a known earthly language.
7And they were amazed and astonished, saying, ‘Are not all of these who are speaking Galileans?’ The Galileans were rural folk. They were country folk, fishermen, and farmers—not highly educated. Imagine someone who is not formally educated, from an area that is far away from a city, comes to a city and, all of a sudden, has this capacity to speak in another language with perfect pronunciation, no mistakes, and clear articulation. Say, “Well, that’s unexpected. I did not anticipate that Uncle Sy knew Portuguese. I did not see that coming.”
All right, it was a miraculous moment. And then the story continues. 8And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?” And then it lists these groups of people—9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes”—Gentiles who had converted to the Jewish faith—“Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues”—or languages—“the mighty works of God.” So, there are two barriers here: one is location, the other is language.
Here’s the big idea: the Holy Spirit absolutely loves Jesus and the Holy Spirit loves people, made in the image and likeness of God. And the Holy Spirit, because of his love, wants people to meet Jesus, amen?
That’s what we believe, right? What’s the Holy Spirit doing? Well, the primary thing he’s doing is introducing people to Jesus, people whom he loves—introducing them to Jesus, whom he’s always loved.
THE LOCATION BARRIER
Now, there are barriers. There are barriers that need to be overcome for people to meet Jesus. One is location. So the Holy Spirit overcomes location by waiting until the day of Pentecost when people have come from multiple nations to one location. And if you looked at a modern-day map, they’re coming from Iran, Turkey, North Africa, Crete, Rome, Arabia, Egypt, Syria, across various smaller parts of the Middle East, and also Israel, parts that we would perhaps call the Holy Land. So, these people are all coming together, and he waits until they’re all in one place. And if they meet Jesus and are filled with the Holy Spirit and then return home, they return home as missionaries.
I want you to see that we do believe that churches should be planted everywhere, but we have a particular affinity for those crossroads where people groups and nations come together or gather.
THE LANGUAGE BARRIER
Secondly, there is the language barrier, and these people have different languages. They can’t communicate with one another. Perhaps you’ve had this frustration. How many of you have traveled internationally, and you don’t speak the language? And it’s just really frustrating ’cause it’s hard to get anything done. Or perhaps there’s someone who has come to your place of employment, your education, or your neighborhood and you really want to love them, serve them, and help them, but they don’t know English and you don’t know their language. And it’s really hard to figure out how to get that relationship sorted out because the communication barrier’s a very real one. That was the case here. They’ve come from different nations, and they speak different languages. So, how would the Holy Spirit overcome that barrier to connect people with Jesus, because he loves them both?
BIBLICAL USES FOR TONGUES
That leads us into the discussion of something called tongues. You heard of it? How many of you have heard of this debate? OK, it’s a big debate. It’s going to occur repeatedly in the book of Acts where people speak in tongues.
What I would say is, whatever your church experience is, for a moment, set it aside and let’s see what the Bible has to say.
If I could summarize it (very simplistic way, not comprehensive), I believe that when the Bible speaks of tongues, it does so in two primary ways: one that is private and one that is public.
And so, let me look with you in the Bible. What we’re going to do is we’re going to move from Acts, which is the historical record of what happened, to 1 Corinthians, where there’s some theological explanation of these things. 1 Corinthians Chapters12–14 are primarily on what is called spiritual gifts, which includes this gift of tongues, or languages.
OK, I want you to know that sometimes you’re going to experience God in ways that are supernatural, in ways that are unusual, in ways that are unique. And what this does is it humbles us. What this does is it shows us that, though God has called us to love him with all of our mind, our mind has certain limitations. We need some humility—God is not just an idea to be pondered. He’s a person to be enjoyed.
USE #1 FOR TONGUES: A PRIVATE, UNKNOWN HEAVENLY LANGUAGE FOR PRAYER
To that end, I want to talk about the first use of tongues biblically—and that is a private, unknown, heavenly language for prayer, OK? Private, meaning something you do with the Holy Spirit, not necessarily in public. Unknown—this is not a known language of the earth. It’s a heavenly language; it’s the language of the angels. And this is what some would call their prayer language. In 1 Corinthians 13:1, Paul says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels...”
Here’s my question to you: what’s the official language of heaven?
I have not been there. Apparently, it’s some angel language. See, we on earth have languages so that we can communicate. Angels are created beings who dwell in the presence of God, and they are ministers and messengers, and they communicate with one another. We see in places like Isaiah 6 that they actually sing out loud and they worship God—“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.”
So apparently the angels communicate with God and one another in a language that is a heavenly language. Apparently, God’s kingdom has a language. Just like the nations of the earth have primary languages, so the kingdom of God has a language.
Now, some of you say, “This is very supernatural.”
Yes, we’re dealing here in the miraculous. We’re dealing with the presence of God. We’re getting a glimpse into how things work in God’s presence with the angels. I want you to have some sense of how majestic, wonderful, and amazing it is that we even get to know about these things.
Paul says,
1 Corinthians 14:2, 4
“For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God.”
If he were speaking to men, that would be public. Not speaking to men, speaking to God—that would be private. God knows what he’s saying. The Holy Spirit knows what he’s saying. If people listened in, they would not know what he or she was saying.
“For no one understands him”—all right, this is the language of the angels—“but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.
4 The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.”
He’s distinguishing here between public and private uses of what are called spiritual gifts. These are supernatural endowments and enablements by the power of the Holy Spirit.
There are lists of them—1 Peter 4, Ephesians 4, 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12—that list these spiritual gifts. What he’s saying is, some edify us. They build us up personally. Others are to be used publicly for the building up of others.
Here’s what Paul is saying: I want you to have a private, personal, passionate relationship with Jesus AND I want you to have a public congregational, corporate, passionate relationship with Jesus.
I want you to worship Jesus all by yourself and with us.
That’s what he’s talking about. And so there is this private, unknown, heavenly language for prayer, OK?
I don’t want to make you feel comfortable when I ask this question, and be honest, “How many of you have this gift?”
Okay, some of you are like, “I know what we’re talking about. I pray in tongues. This is my time with the Lord.”
So, for maybe the majority, or around the majority of Pebble Hill Community Church, this is their private, personal, passionate worship connection with the Lord through the Holy Spirit.
You know what’s beautiful? It’s never been divisive here. We’ve never fought, argued. This has never been an issue because of spiritual maturity. There’s never a problem with spiritual gifts. Sometimes the problems are around spiritual maturity. If you’re not spiritually mature, then the gift becomes divisive. If you are spiritually mature, then the gift does not have to become divisive.
It's not about “speaking in tongues”.
Here’s what I would say: everything good that has happened here, the Holy Spirit did. Anybody that has gotten saved, the Bible that has been taught, the gospel moving forward—that was ALL the Holy Spirit. I don’t believe that we can do ministry but by the power of the Holy Spirit.
USE #2 FOR TONGUES: A PUBLIC, KNOWN EARTHLY LANGUAGE FOR EVANGELISM
OK, now that leads me to the next right use of tongues, the Rosetta Stone spiritual gift. The second right use of tongues is a publicly known earthly language for evangelism. And this is exactly what we just read in Acts 2. These people love Jesus. These people have not yet heard about Jesus, and they speak different languages. So, the Holy Spirit will allow the people who do know Jesus to talk the people who don’t yet know Jesus so that they can have an opportunity to come and meet Jesus, all right? This is a bilingual gift and when we say “tongues,” people get confused, so let’s just call it “languages” ’cause the word literally means languages. And again, with the growing number of people who speak Spanish, if the Holy Spirit wants to give me this gift, that would be amazing if I could also preach in Spanish.
But here’s how we read it, Acts 2:8: “And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own”—what? “Native language?”
Do you see that that’s different than the language of angels? That’s an unknown heavenly language. Here are some known earthly languages: Portuguese, Chinese, English, Spanish. That’s what we’re talking about, a known earthly language.
What this is here is God overcoming something that happened earlier in the Bible and foreshadowing something that happens later in the Bible. In the first ten chapters of the Bible, everybody spoke the same language. And then in Genesis 11, something happened called the Tower of Babel. You probably heard about it.
1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words,
So they decided, “We don’t need God or his kingdom. We can be God with our own kingdom, and, in fact, we’ll build ourselves a tower so we can sit on top of it like God and rule and reign from the heavens.”
4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
Their vision was a global government without God, in rebellion against God, where people were ruled over by leaders who thought they were God.
Can you fathom that world? You’re talking about absolute, total oppression of the earth. And it was made possible because they all spoke one language. And so what it says is that God judged them. But it was also an act of love: God scattered them and he confused their languages, and Genesis 11 says that’s when languages were born as we know them. It’s to protect people and to love people, because the only thing worst than conflict between two nations is one nation that thinks it’s the kingdom of God with a ruler, who thinks he’s God and has total control over everyone on the earth, without any opportunity to unseat him.
So, what happens then is we have the language barrier. Here in Acts 2, we see that the way we overcome the language barrier, the national barrier, the cultural barrier, is by coming around Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. The nations are not unified just around multiculturalism or some vague commitment to peace or to mutual understanding but around Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And this foreshadows +
Revelation 7:9–10 ESV
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
We will be gathered around the throne of Jesus—people from every tribe, language, tongue—and that we’ll all be singing Jesus’ praises together. And he’s in the center, and he’s on the throne. And I believe that we’ll be singing that heavenly language, and that language barriers will be no more. And so, what’s happening in Acts 2 is, the Holy Spirit is showing Jesus has dealt with a sin problem, and this unity and reconciliation and supernatural love between people is ultimately going to be that way forever in the kingdom of God.