(The following is the text of a sermon I gave on Pentecost Sunday at Huntley Community Covenant Church.)
So, does anybody know what today is?
Yup, it's the 49th day after Passover which means that it is Shavout when we celebrate the giving of the Torah –the Law of Moses – to the Children of Israel on Mount Sinah.
No, wait, we are Christians, so for us we celebrate Pentecost on the seventh Sunday after Easter.
It’s described in Acts 2, starting with verse 1:
On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. 2 Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. 3 Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. 4 And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.
5 At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers.
7 They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, 8 and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! 9 Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, 10 Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” 12 They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other.
As I was doing the research for this message, I learned that it is traditional for Christians to wear red on Pentecost, in remembrance of the fire of the Holy Spirit that descended on the believers.
That gift of the Holy Spirit is a big deal. I think it's as big as Christmas or Easter –and it's not because of the gift of speaking in tongues. I love our Pentecostal and Charismatic brothers and sisters in Christ, but that particular gift of the Spirit is not where I’m going.
See, prior to all of this, the Jews lived according to the law believing for the most part that keeping the law saved them.
I have been in Israel during Shavout and have watched Jews literally dancing in the streets with a big stuffed plush Teddy Bear of the Law, the Torah. They are very happy and proud that God gave them a document telling them how they should live. They literally embrace the Law!
But how has that worked out for any of us?
I absolutely love what happened in Acts 15: To summarize, Paul and Barnabas are preaching the Gospel to Gentiles in Antioch and a bunch of Jews get their noses all out of joint because they maintain these Gentiles absolutely cannot be saved unless they get circumcised. Paul and Barnabas argue vehemently with them to the contrary and the whole thing escalates to the point that the church sends them back to Jerusalem for a special meeting with the apostles and elders to settle this once and for all. So, to read from Acts 15:
7At the meeting, after a long discussion, Peter stood and addressed them as follows: “Brothers, you all know that God chose me from among you some time ago to preach to the Gentiles so that they could hear the Good News and believe. 8God knows people’s hearts, and he confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. 9He made no distinction between us and them, for he cleansed their hearts through faith. 10So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? 11We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.”
Bingo! Living by that law –trying to dot every I and cross every T– was a burden, a yoke that neither Peter or Paul or any of their ancestors could bear!
Why? Because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God! We can’t do it!
So while God delivered the Law from the smoke and fire and thunder from atop Mount Sinai, when Moses came down from that mountain, what did he find? Right! The people of God, God’s chosen people were already breaking that law all to pieces dancing around a golden calf and Moses threw those two stone tablets to the ground and marched right back up that mountain to see if he could beg God into forgiving them once again.
But, as Peter told the crowd in Jerusalem on Pentecost, everything had changed!
13But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!”
14Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. 15These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. 16No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel:
17‘In the last days,’ God says,
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
18In those days I will pour out my Spirit
even on my servants—men and women alike—
and they will prophesy.
19And I will cause wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below—
blood and fire and clouds of smoke.
20The sun will become dark,
and the moon will turn blood red
before that great and glorious day of the LORD arrives.
21But everyone who calls on the name of the LORD
will be saved!
This was the fulfillment of prophecy! This was a new era! God was doing amazing things in His people and this pouring out of the Holy Spirit would result in a change that would spread throughout the whole world! EVERYONE who called upon the name of the LORD would be saved and the law would now be written on our hearts!
Peter continued speaking:
22“People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know. 23But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him. 24But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip.
37Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”
38Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away—all who have been called by the Lord our God.” 40Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”
41Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day—about 3,000 in all.
So, here was this Peter guy, you know the fisherman from Galilee, up in front of this crowd, filled with the Holy Spirit and THREE THOUSAND people come to Christ in one day! And, if you go home and keep reading in Acts, what follows is an absolute tsunami of the Holy Spirit just ripping through Jerusalem with thousands and thousands more coming to Christ in the days that follow.
And, to me, there’s something absolutely amazing going on here. See, in Jewish culture at the time, young boys would be taught how to read and write and they would memorize some of the Torah, but only a very small percentage who showed exceptional intelligence and diligence would be able to go on to become big-shot rabbis. The rest would go back to learning a trade from their fathers. Peter was one of those “not-good-enough” guys. And it says so in Acts 4:13 where Peter and John are brought before a council of the religious big shots who are upset that they healed a crippled man in Jesus name:
“The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus.”
The gift of the Holy Spirit meant that God would now make His temple in the hearts of ordinary people like you and me –all the renegades, the rebels, and the runaways, all the prodigals who got a little lost along the way, every dream shattered, bruised and battered, barely hanging on every heartbroken, lonely soul sitting all alone and every outcast, stuck in their past, scared of letting go would now find guidance, comfort, counsel, and help in the Holy Spirit. The law was no longer destined to abide on dusty scrolls, but on living hearts of flesh!
The Holy Spirit’s transformation of Peter was so amazing that there are a few Bible scholars who maintain that First and Second Peter weren’t written by Peter because the language is “more polished and sophisticated” than one would expect from some “ordinary” fisherman like Peter. (Thanks to Pastor Joe Hassler for brining this to my attention.) To this day, the Catholic Church still claims that ordinary fisherman with “no special training in Scriptures” as its first Pope.
And it wasn’t just Peter! Those disciples who had spent three years following Jesus as the kings of not getting it, suddenly got it!
So, as I said, this gift of the Holy Spirit would absolutely change the world as the apostles and believers went out preaching and teaching the Gospel all over the known world and it was the Holy Spirit guided them, filled them, taught them, and gave them the words to speak everywhere they went.
But there’s more! Listen to what Paul says about the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 2: 13-14
13And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.
Yes, there’s that guarantee that no other religion in the world has. HALLELUJAH! We’re not just saved, not just blessed with a healed relationship with God, we are brought into the royal family of the Kingdom of Light as adopted sons and daughters!
It’s the seal of the Holy Spirit that allows us to cry out, “Abba Father!”
There’s much, much more about the Holy Spirit we could talk about today, but I encourage you to look up all the mentions of the Holy Spirit in the Bible and do a thorough study.
The bottom line is that we no longer have to try to earn our salvation through the Law. We don’t have to dance with that big Teddy Bear that held us in slavery.
No, as Paul wrote in Galatians 5:
16So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.
19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
The Father sent His Son to the world on Christmas as a gift to us. Jesus rose from the dead on Easter, redeeming us and winning for us the gift of eternal life, and the Holy Spirit was poured out as a gift to us on Pentecost – and what a wonderful and glorious gift it is! So let us praise Him for this amazing gift today! HALLELUJAH! AMEN!
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