Christ is Life Podcast

As a lot of you know, a few weeks ago, I was in Colorado at men's boot camp. And at these things, they usually show clips of movies, and one of the clips that almost always gets shown at these things is from the 1995 movie, Braveheart, where Mel Gibson stars in that he plays the the Scottish warrior William Wallace, and he's trying to lead his countrymen in this, this rebellion to free his homeland from the the tyranny of of King Edward, the first of England and and if you've seen the movie, then you know, there's kind of this one really pivotal moment in the movie where things begin to change. The scene begins with this kind of rag tag, small group of Scottish men who appear again to be small. They're weak. They're just kind of, again, this rag tag army of Scottish men that have been thrown together. They're standing together as this huge, organized, powerful army of England is beginning to assemble. And as you watch the scene unfold, these men to begin to get a little bit nervous. They get a little bit scared. They're fearful of what's going to happen to them that day. And so they start to turn around and leave. They're going, I am not going to die today on this battlefield for you. Soon as they start to turn away and walk away is when William Wallace shows up. William Wallace is riding in on a horse, and, of course, his face is, is painted blue, and he's he's got this presence about him. There's something different about him. He seems to have this power, and he rides with this power. And he's got this this purpose that you can just kind of see in his eye that stands out. And he gives this impassioned speech to his Scottish brothers that are there, about purpose, about power, about this strong presence that they have as a collective group, and it's this, this pivotal moment where he begins to rally them together, and they start to believe and chant, and they're they're ready to fight. They're ready to take this. These guys on, even though they're way outnumbered, the other group is way more skilled. They begin to fight with passion and like they are now a part of something that they believe that is way, way bigger than just themselves. And so it was this, this pivotal moment where they showed up on the hill and they're these weak, small, unorganized, kind of pathetic army, and then all of a sudden, they're emboldened, empowered in the next moment, and everything begins to change from that point on. It's a really pivotal moment in the movie, the disciples who have gathered together to wait in this upper room that we saw in Acts chapter one, are about to have a pivotal moment that is very similar to this one right here. It's such a pivotal moment that it impacts them as individuals, them as a group, and it was such a pivotal and powerful moment that you and I are still feeling and seeing the implications of what happened in this moment Acts, chapter two is one of the most important chapters in all of the Bible. We must understand and know what happened in Acts chapter two in the difference it made in their lives and in history and in each and every single one of our lives today. So I hope that you found acts. Chapter Two, you're ready to dive in. You're locked in, you're ready to go, because we're getting after it acts. Chapter two, verse one, when the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. So the question is, who is they? We're jumping into the first part of a chapter. Well, I kind of already told you, because we kind of referenced Acts chapter one already, but if you were here, you know, at the end of Acts chapter one, we're told that there are 120 believers, or so, those who had put their faith and trust in Jesus. They were following him. They were his disciples, and they had gathered together in one place to wait. They were waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit that Jesus had told them about, that we saw in Acts chapter one. This is what we looked at during the very first week of this series. Jesus gathered together with them. He had been raised from the dead just before ascending. Says, don't leave Jerusalem. Wait for the gift of my whole gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about, for John, baptized with water, but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. This is the gift that he had already talked and taught about. Now he was reminding them was coming. And he even goes on to tell them, in a few verses later that they were going to receive power when the Holy Spirit came on them. It was not going to be something they had in one moment, but they would have it in the next moment when this happens, and when that took place, that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So Jesus ascends, goes back to heaven after these things, these 120 men are just waiting together, men and women who have gathered together. And Luke gives us another little detail about the timing of this event. He says, When the day of Pentecost came, what is? What is that? What is the Pentecost? Well, this is 50 days after Passover. So 50 days Jesus had gathered together with the disciples, had the last supper, and that was the celebration of the Passover meal. And then he died on the cross, and He was raised from the dead. He met with them for 40 days, and then he ascended back to heaven. And so this is 10 days after Jesus had been resurrected. Now the other thing is, it's not just a number. The reason that this is important, and we're highlighting this Luke is highlighting this, is because this was also the celebration of one of the major feast that the Jewish people were gathered together to celebrate. This was called the Feast of Weeks that was celebrated during this time. You can read about it in Leviticus, chapter 23 but the law commanded the Jewish people to come together and to bring gifts and to present them before the Lord. And so this is significant, because not only do we have the 120 disciples that were gathered together in one place, but because they're in Jerusalem, and all of these Jewish people would have been traveling to celebrate this, this festival. We know that there's a number 1000s upon 1000s of Jewish people in the vicinity. They're not with them, but they're all around, and that's going to be significant for what we see happen in just a moment. So this is the scene 50 days after the Passover, the disciples have gathered together in one place. All of these other people are out and about and around. And here's what Luke says, happens suddenly, so not gradually, but I mean, all of a sudden, a 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 talk about a moment. I mean, you ever been sitting around just kind of waiting. Waiting is boring, right? It's so hard to just wait, and sometimes it's quiet and there's nothing happening, and you're just sitting around, and then to just experience that from the dead quiet to this sound of a blowing of a violent wind, and then they're seeing what appears to be tongues of fire around and then all of a sudden, they're speaking these languages that they didn't even know. I mean, talk about if that happened to you.
Can you imagine the setting and the scene and what they were thinking and beginning to experience in this moment. But I don't want us to just kind of go, okay, yeah, that was a big moment and go on. I want us to see what's really happening, some things that I think sometimes that we would miss about the significance and what's really happening. So we're gonna look at each one of these verses a little more closely and dive into them a bit more with some depth. First of all, Luke says, suddenly a sound, a sound like the blowing of a violent wind, came from heaven and filled the whole house. Now again, this was a sound. It wasn't an actual wind, but it was the sound of like a violent wind. You've been in a storm before. All of us have experienced thunderstorms at some level or another, and we've heard the sound of some really violent winds. If you've ever been in a tornado or a really strong hurricane, you've experienced it, to agree, a degree that some of. Us even never have. And when you hear that sound, and you can picture a violent wind, I mean, 100 plus miles an hour coming through, then the first thing that most of us think about is power, right? One of the things that Luke is trying to make sure that we don't miss is that this moment, this instant, is filled with power. You can't miss that this was not just some small like, this is a powerful moment.
But that's not all that's being communicated
here. There's so much more to it here, because the Hebrew words for the Hebrew and the Greek word for wind here, the same word can be translated wind. It can also be translated spirit, and it can also be translated breath. And so the Hebrew word Ruach and the Greek word pneuma. A lot of times, when it's used in Scripture, you'll sometimes you'll see it's translated when, sometimes you'll see it's translated spirit. Sometimes you'll see it translated as breath. Now, I don't want you to miss what we're saying, What's going on here, and in order to do that, we've got to leave acts and we got to go back. I mean, we got to go way back, like we got to go all the way back to the beginning in Genesis, chapter two, verse one. I'm going to read two different verses to help you kind of see this. The NIV says, Now the earth was formless and empty. This is the creation account. Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God
Ruach, that's not how
I spell it, but it's close enough. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And then in the NRSV, the earth was formless void, and the darkness covered the face of the deep while a watch wind from God. One translation says spirit. One says wind here, same Hebrew word, obviously translating it a little bit differently here. And so this is what we're told is happening. And then what happens right after this
creation?
God's Spirit, God's wind, his his breath. We're told that he speaks in creation begins to happen. What happens when you speak, wind, breath, the Spirit of God is power at work, and all of a sudden, think creation begins to happen. Organization begins to happen. God's design begins to happen. We even see this reference whenever we turn the next to the next chapter in Genesis to get to the creation of man. It says, Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground. And watch this breathed. He breathed God's breath into his nostrils and the breath of life, and the man came into a living being. Genesis, one God's breath, Spirit of God, the wind of God, and things begin to be created. He begins to form. Man together. He his breath. He blows his breath, his wind, the Spirit of God, who is life itself into the dust, the man became a living being. And we are not just talking about a physical being. We're talking about all that God is physical spiritual being. There's a union in this moment between God and man, a spiritual union that is taking place with his most valuable and prized creations of them all, which is us, you and me. And so from the very opening pages of Scripture, we see the Spirit of God, the wind, the breath of God that's used to create all things and bring this spiritual union to those of us who are human beings his highest creation. Of course, we know this is Genesis chapter two. We get to the very next chapter, and all of a sudden, sin enters the world. Adam and Eve are removed from the garden. They're removed from God's presence and His power. The Spirit of God is no longer living in them. They become lifeless on the inside now, this is all of a sudden their biggest problem. It becomes everyone's biggest problem from that day on that would be born after them. Our biggest problem is not that we need to. Learn how to make better choices. We need to become a little bit more religious. We need to be better people. We're talking about people who are dead on the inside and therefore need a resurrection. This is what happens in the open God. We receive His breath, we receive the life, physical and spiritual and everything, and then it's removed, because sin is a barrier. And all of a sudden, we're dead and we're lifeless on the inside. And even later, after many years, the Prophet, or God gives the prophet Ezekiel, kind of this image to help see what we're talking about here, and even the plan that he had to deal with it. And so now let's move forward all the way to Ezekiel. This is from chapter 37 Ezekiel says the hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. It was lifeless. It was dead. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry, dry, lifeless, dead. He asked me, Son of man, can these bones live? Then he said to me, prophesy to these bones and say to them, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones. I will make breath enter you and will cause or and you will come to life. So I prophesied, and he commanded me, and breath entered them, and they came to life and stood up on their feet, a
vast army.
Think about
the small,
weak, unorganized, dry, lifeless on the inside, Scottish army that's standing on that hill, and all of a sudden there's a vast army standing on that hill in the next moment, talk about a pivotal moment. This is the description of here's how bad things really are. This is how bad sin affected the world. You are dry. You are lifeless. On the inside, there's nothing. There's no amount of good behavior that's going to make dry bones come to life. You need a resurrection. And this is in one moment, but on one day, one day in the future, this is what I'm going to do about I am going to breathe, and life will be created, recreated in that moment, and there will be a transformation that takes place. Guys, this is a reenactment. This picture is a reenactment of the Genesis creation story. There's dust dry. God breathes life into them. Then everything goes wrong. He's got to do it again. And then, I don't know if you remember this or not, but when we go fast forwarding all the way to Jesus on the scene now John, chapter 20, he's meeting with the disciples after His death, after his resurrection, before his ascension, and he says, And with that, he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. And so you've got God in the beginning, the Holy Spirit breathing life into the dust, into the dry bones. You've got separation. You've got him giving this word to Ezekiel, that one day he will breathe life into them. You've got Jesus now on the scene, the disciples sitting there, and he's breathing the breath, the wind, the Spirit of God, on them. And when we finally get to Acts two, the promise has come. The breath of God. He breathed on them in new life came all of a sudden. They had His life, His Spirit, His resurrection. In one moment, they're standing there, the weak, powerless Scottish army, men who were know nothings in the next life, they're new creations in Christ, filled with His power, filled with his presence, they were a vast army. This was a pivotal, pivotal moment in history.
Changed everything.
Changed everything for them.
Changed everything for us.
When you read that, they sound like a violent wind came in in this moment, don't miss the connection between God's breath that created all things. Works and must recreate, because there's nothing you can do to recreate yourself. This is the work of God and His love to come for us, and we're just through the first verse that we were diving into deeply acts. Chapter two, verse three, they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated them, the sound of the violent wind, the breath of God. Now tongues of fire. We'll talk about the tongues a little bit more, but now let's focus not on the wind, but the fire. Fire was a significant image in the Bible, fire represents God's presence. As a matter of fact, when you think of fire and key kind of pivotal moments and things that were influential, many of you may have even thought all the way back to Moses when you think about fire. I mean, Moses is, is, is hanging out tending his flock one day, and all of a sudden he sees what a bush that's on fire, but it's not burning up. And he goes over to the bush, and he hears the voice of God. He has an encounter with God. He's in the presence of God, and His life was changed forever. Fire FIRE represents his presence. A few chapters later in Exodus, we even see that a pillar of what a pillar of fire goes before the Israelites at night, symbolizing that God's presence was with the Israelite nation. And so then, when we go back to Acts chapter two. What Luke is trying to communicate here is that God's presence was here. God breathed life. There was power to recreate, and God's presence was entering the scene. One moment, God's presence wasn't there, the next moment, his presence was there in a different way, a powerful way. One of the things that we need to take notice of when Luke is saying this too, that again, we can easily, kind of just skip over, is notice that it came to rest on what
each one of them see in the Old Testament.
When you talk about the pillar of fire and going with the Israelites and God's presence. We're we're talking about a collective group at the Israelite nation. We're talking about him kind of coming in and and going, there was no permanency to it. But this is different. Now we're talking about the presence of God on the scene, coming to rest individually, inside each one of them to a point now where they would never, ever be alone again, and they would have access to all of God all
of the time.
This is not just what happens to the disciples when they put their faith and trust in Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but when you and I put our faith and trust in Jesus, he breathes new life into us, and his pillar of fire goes with us, dwells in us to where we have access to Him and His power all of the time and so in just these two verses, we see that God comes with power. He comes with his presence, but now we see that he fills them with purpose. Verse four says all of them. Notice again, there's 120 believers who are gathered together here, he doesn't say, the 12 received the Holy Spirit. All 120 of them received the Holy Spirit, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. We're going to talk about this again in just a moment. But what I want you to focus on right now is that word right there where he says he enabled them. The Greek word there is, did a me. In this Greek word, did I mean, means to cause something to happen, to bring something about, to produce something. In other words, the Holy Spirit comes in His presence and His power breathes into them, and then he begins to produce and create new things in and through them. He does the work in them, and now he's doing the work through them. He's the one that's causing this to happen. This wasn't their ability or anything that they did. And what we're going to see in just a second is that he does this not for their benefit. Oh, that's really cool. I'm speaking in these tongues. Yay. God, thanks for my benefit. No, no, he does it for other people. People's benefit, to be a part of His kingdom, work, to seek and to save the lost, which is what Jesus said he came to do in Luke and so now that's his purpose. He put it in the disciples, and is using them to accomplish his purposes. He fills them with power, His presence and now his purpose. And watch how it plays out. Now they were staying in Jerusalem, God fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. Why? Because it was Pentecost, because of the Feast of Weeks, because they've come together for this celebration. But now they they hear, when they heard the sound of the violent wind that we read earlier, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken, utterly amazed. They asked, aren't all of these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs. We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, what
does this mean?
In other words, we start to see more about what these tongues that we've been reading about really are. These are not the same tongues that we see Paul describing and talking about and addressing in the church in First Corinthians. These are actual languages. These were languages and dialects that the Galileans, the 120 disciples, that were there, did not know how to speak. They didn't know all of a sudden, this moment happens, and in the very next moment, they're speaking in a dialect that they didn't know how. Why? Because of the word we looked at earlier, didn't he? God enabled them to do so. It was for his purpose. He caused it to happen. He's the one who produces. He's the vine. They're now the branches. He produces things in and through them. What did he do? He produced in and through them these dialects to declare the wonders of God before the people and why? To gather the people around so that they would be amazed and perplexed and go, What in the world is going on here? God needed to create a scene in order to get people's attention to now declare to them what's actually happened in this moment, so that now he could reach them too, with the good news of Jesus Christ, which is exactly what is going to happen and what we're going to look at next week now that Peter is filled with the breath of God, he breathes through him words spoken out to the crowd that's going to come and 3000 people are going to be saved, and now there's going to be 3120 of them, who are filled with God's presence and His power and His purpose, but he filled the disciples with it first, so that he could do this work in them and through them. Now, even though this is true, and even though that's what we're going to see next week, not everyone's going to believe, and we see that in the last verse that we're going to look at here, because he says some however, made fun of them and said they have had too much wine. We'll see next week. Peter says, it's only nine in the morning, right? This isn't what's happening here, but my point is, is that some people, when the spirit is causing things to happen, when he's producing things to happen that is when some people are not going to get it, they're not going to respond positively, they're not their hearts are going to be hard, they're not going to be open to what God is doing. And so sometimes that's going to happen in your lives as well, but don't take it personally, because it happened to them too, and even though it happened to them, we see something great happen next week. Whenever we get into verses 14 through 41 we look at Peter's speech and how the crowds, they didn't let it deter them in that way, they took advantage of that moment. Okay, so let, let's, let's recap We said earlier that Acts chapter two is a significant one of the most important chapters in all of the Bible. We need to know what happened. We need to know what it means, and we need to understand what it means for you and I today, again, what we saw here in Acts was a a pivotal moment in the lives. Of the disciples, guys. From here on out, everything changes again. This was what we were looking at, the disciples, the picture of them before this moment came, and then this is the disciples after that moment came. Pivotal moment that we're seeing here. All of a sudden they're filled with God's presence, His power, His purpose. And the rest of the book of Acts is filled with this presence, power and purpose in them and through them, to declare the wonders and the glory of God and to bring more and more people into His kingdom. And it's gonna be so much fun being able to see how he does this in and through them now, and the things that it means that it happens for us today. But again, when these guys are filled with this, I mean, they speak,
and because it's God's breath now, lives
are changed. They pray with the authority of Jesus and prison doors are gonna open. I mean, these guys are going to heal diseases. People are going to be redeemed, and their lives are going to be transformed and changed. This was the birth of the church. The birth of the church. We're gathered here together today as the church because of what happened in Acts chapter two in the formation of the church on that day, things were never the same, never the same from that moment on, and they will never be the same again. But again, we are not just talking about some cool event that happened in history. Man, how would have been great to be a part of something like that. Well, if you've put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, you've experienced that.
I mean, you really have experienced that
his presence dwells in you, his power dwells in you. His purpose has been put in you. You may not have heard the sound of a rushing wind. You may not have, have have all of a sudden, saw tongues of fire. May not think that you're filled with this purpose, but you are filled with each and every single one of those things. And so these are the questions we're asking, if you're filled with this pillar of fire God's presence dwelling in you. Are you interacting with his presence?
Do you know he's
with you, and he's going with you each and every day, and are you looking for his activity? Are you drawing upon his power? Are you just going through the motions of the day. Are you participating with him and his purposes through you? You and I get to wake up every single day and go on this adventure, living in the story of God, His kingdom work like his purposes, His power, His presence causing things to happen that make eternal difference. And sometimes we wake up and just go, yep, gotta go make the coffee. Gotta go scratch off my to do list. Well, what if a pillar of fire was going with you that day?
What if the one who causes Kingdom work to happen is going
to do some things in you and through you, if you're looking for them, to participate with him, and things that can make eternal impact to people all around you guys just don't miss life in the Spirit. If you've said yes to Jesus, you have it. You are in the spirit. You're always in the Spirit. You have life in the Spirit. Are you experiencing capital L, life in the Spirit? Don't miss his presence. Don't miss his power. Don't miss his purpose. And if you've never put your faith and trust in Jesus and you haven't received His presence, His power and His purpose, man, I'd love to give you an opportunity to pray and receive His free gift of salvation in this moment, let's bow our heads and close our eyes.