Pentecost: Then and Now

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Ascension Presbyterian Church - Longwood, Florida  Rev. Christopher Brenyo "Pentecost:Then and Now" Acts 2:1-15 May 29th, 2023

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Please turn in your Bibles to Acts in chapter 2, the book of Acts in chapter 2.
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The focus of today is going to be on verses 1 through 15 primarily.
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We will come to the end of the chapter, we are not going to recount all of Peter's sermon today,
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Acts chapter 2. This is God's holy and infallible word.
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And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the
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Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.
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And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and were confused because everyone heard them speak in his own language.
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Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, Look, are not all those who speak
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Galileans? And how is it that we hear each in our own language which we were born?
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Parthians and Medes and Elamite, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining
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Cyrene. Visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.
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So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, Whatever could this mean? Others mocking said,
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They are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them,
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Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and heed my words, for these are not drunk as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.
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May the Lord be pleased with our consideration of his most excellent word. Pray with me.
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O Lord, we tremble in your presence, for you are holy, holy, holy.
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We also run to you as to a loving Father, knowing that you care for us in that very tender way.
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Holy Spirit, we pray today that you would supply the illumination, the unction, the power, light, and heat as we describe your ministry in the exaltation of Christ and his witness through the church.
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We ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated.
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The title of the message today is Pentecost, Then and Now. For those of you who need an outline to keep yourself on track,
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I'm going to supply that now and loosely follow it. First, I want to give the occasion of Pentecost, so write down occasion.
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What is the occasion of Pentecost? Second, we will consider the outpouring of the
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Holy Spirit. Third, we will consider the outcome of the outpouring of the
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Holy Spirit. And fourth, the ongoing work of the
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Spirit. One more time and then we'll begin. The occasion, the outpouring of the
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Holy Spirit, the outcome of the outpouring of the
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Spirit, and the ongoing work of the
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Holy Spirit. Pentecost, Then and Now.
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We are in an important season in the church calendar.
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We have been following a redemptive cycle and today marks the end of that cycle, which began with Holy Week, culminating in Resurrection Day.
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Last week, we celebrated Ascension Sunday, which occurs 40 days after the resurrection of Christ.
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The Ascension Day, of course, being the previous Thursday. Today marks the 50th day since the resurrection.
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The Feast of Weeks in the Jewish calendar, which is Pentecost, was a week of weeks.
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It was 7 times 7, which equals 49 days and it leads into the 50th day.
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That's how we arrive here on the calendar. This is why today is considered to be
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Pentecost Sunday. What I'd like you to put down, if you need this, this is kind of the main idea that I hope to convey in the message, it's this.
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The baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost is the start of His ongoing work in and through His people.
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The baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost is the beginning, the start of His ongoing work in and through His people.
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They have a mission to accomplish, and this is how the mission will be accomplished.
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I'd like you to turn back to Acts chapter 1. Our God and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, is a promise -keeping
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God. He says, and they were assembled together in verse 4,
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Luke writes, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and being assembled together with them,
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He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the
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Father. You'll remember He promised the Helper in John 14, and now He's on the cusp of Ascension.
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So in the calendar, we're last week, right here in chapter 1. And His last words before the
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Ascension are these. He says, You have heard from me, for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the
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Holy Spirit not many days from now. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked
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Him, saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And He said to them, it is not for you to know the times or seasons which the
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Father has put in His own authority, but you shall receive power when the
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Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all
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Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. You'll remember that Jesus has already commissioned the apostles and the church to make disciples.
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To take it to the whole world. And now He says, the only way this can be accomplished is if I send my
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Spirit to you. I should pause here. If the Holy Spirit does not work in and among us, we should shut the church down.
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If we're only going to employ mental and human strategies to grow the church, to proclaim the gospel of Christ, shut it down.
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If there's going to be the conversion of sinners, if there's going to be blessing of God, it's going to come through the operation of the
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Holy Spirit. The ingenuity of the Galilean fishermen is not going to be enough to take the gospel to the nations.
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They need to be empowered by God Himself from on high.
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The reason the Holy Spirit's going to come and power and remain is that we might be witnesses.
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It starts in these concentric circles in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
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That's the first kind of contextual things, and of course the glory of Christ being ascended.
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In the middle of chapter 1, it says they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called
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Olivet, and they went into an upper room. It says in verse 14, these all continued with one accord and prayer and supplication with the women and Mary and the mother of Joseph, Mary of Jesus, I should say, and his brothers.
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In those days, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples. Altogether, the number of names was about 120.
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This is astounding because we celebrated not too long ago the triumphal entrance of the king into Jerusalem.
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Jesus came triumphantly riding on the colt, the foal of a donkey, into Jerusalem.
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He fulfills all of these prophecies. He's crucified. He dies.
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He's buried. He's raised again from the dead. He's ascended into glory, and there's 120 people assembled with the saints, with the apostles.
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They're called in this period to wait. I heard, I may have read this,
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R .C. Sproul said that there's a lot of waiting in redemptive history, and there's a lot of waiting in the
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Christian life. We're an impatient people. But Jesus says, not many days from now.
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And he wasn't being one of those people who said it in a cavalier way. He actually meant that these things are going to happen very quickly.
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Go to Jerusalem and wait. Gather together, pray, but primarily wait.
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And so we come to chapter 2. They call another apostle to fulfill the role, abandoned apostasy of Judas Iscariot.
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The lot falls on Matthias. They are intact. They have 12 apostles.
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They have 108, at least, other church members, and they're ready to wait for the
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Holy Spirit. This takes us to chapter 2 and the occasion, when the day of Pentecost had fully come.
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We've already described this. The Feast of Weeks was seven weeks after Passover.
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And of course, this is the second of three harvest feasts that require Jewish men to appear in Jerusalem in person.
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The first, the Feast of Firstfruits, corresponds to Passover. And it's connected to the
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Feast of Unleavened Bread. It's a very powerful image that Jesus would use the
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Jewish calendar, that language that Paul would use elsewhere. The kernel of wheat will fall into the ground and it will die.
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But then it will reap a harvest. Jesus is going to be planted dead in the ground, and he's going to be raised from the dead triumphantly, and this is going to start a harvest of resurrections.
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Not only of spiritual, but of a future bodily resurrection.
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The first feast, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, corresponding to Passover, was the barley harvest.
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It's the first of the harvest, the first crop to sprout up.
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And it connects it there, in this connection,
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I should say, these things go where the people assemble these three times, and it's connected to the harvest that accompanies it.
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The Feast of Weeks recognizes the harvest of the wheat. The firstfruits of the wheat harvest is the commemoration, is the time, it happens at this time of year in late
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May or early June, and this is something that happens after the early rains in this early part of spring and early growing season.
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There would be a harvest of wheat, and the people would see this as a great occasion to give thanks to God, and in fact, this
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Feast of Weeks corresponds most closely to our Thanksgiving. Bread being the staple of life, the wheat crop is coming in, we're not going to starve to death this year, and they rejoiced and gave thanks to God for His glorious provision.
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I think we may be at a disadvantage that we are so detached from the land.
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When you are praying for rain, and praying for the bugs not to eat your grain, and you're praying for a harvest that your survival and the survival of your family depends on, and I think that would draw you close to God.
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So here we have the Feast of Weeks, the second of the three harvest feasts that required the men to assemble.
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Christ is the firstfruits, and that connects so strongly to the resurrection language, and Paul uses that very powerfully in 1
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Corinthians 15. It says, but now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those that have fallen asleep.
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The occasion of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Jewish calendar, is used by God in redemptive history to point to and illustrate the realization of the resurrection of Christ and the future harvest of resurrections in Him.
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It says, for since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead.
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For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
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But each one in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are
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Christ's at His coming. Then comes the end when He delivers the kingdom to God the
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Father, when He puts an end to all rule and authority and power, for He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.
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The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. The Jewish calendar was illustrative and typological of Christ and His salvation, and it increases my conviction that we should have a greater appreciation for not only the
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Old Testament calendar but also the church calendar. These things are instructive to us.
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We are a liturgical and cyclical people by nature, and these things help us.
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Today marks the occasion of the second harvest feast, the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and this comes after that rainy season.
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There were spiritual advantages, as I just mentioned, to living in this time because you were so connected to the land and to the cycle of life and the need and provision of God, and so the people have assembled, they've descended upon Jerusalem and keeping the calendar.
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There's some other things that happened during this period. This event was also marked by baking two loaves of bread, reading the whole law of Moses, and there seems to be a connection to the anniversary of the law given at Sinai, though that comes later in the tradition.
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And, as I told Ruth this morning, they read the book of Ruth, in particular the gleaning section in which
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God commanded the harvesters to leave gleanings of grain on the edges of the field to provide for the poor.
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You see, it's very important to remember that when you're in harvest season. It's time to remember the poor when you are prospering.
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And one other largely forgotten Old Testament reference that helps us bridge the transition between the occasion and the outpouring of the
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Holy Spirit, I'm actually going to ask you to turn there, is found in Numbers chapter 11.
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Please turn to the book of Numbers in chapter 11.
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I actually feel that this is very helpful to us to see the importance of what's going to happen here at Pentecost.
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I'll begin reading in Numbers 11. Children, everyone listen.
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If you need more motivations to not complain, please listen to this one.
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Don't be a complainer. Don't whine about what God has done for you and has given you.
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I'll begin reading in verse 14 of chapter 11. The people are requesting meat and Moses responds,
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I am not able to bear all these people alone because the burden is too heavy for me.
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If you treat me like this, please kill me here and now. He's saying this to God.
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If I have found favor in your sight and do not let me see my wretchedness.
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So the Lord said to Moses, gather to me 70 men of the elders of Israel.
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Now there is a school of thought, I don't know how sold I am on this. I like it, but I'm not fully convinced that this occasion is a year anniversary of the giving of the law.
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So this is being commemorated on the year anniversary of the giving of the law. I'm not fully there.
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I like it, but I'm not fully convinced. He says, gather to me 70 men of the elders of Israel.
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The Sanhedrin is being formed here in Numbers 11. The Sanhedrin that will later sentence
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Jesus to death, the Jewish ruling council, the 70 which represents the representative form of church government and civil government that we embrace is kind of formed here in Numbers 11.
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Gather 70 men whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them.
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Bring them to the tabernacle of meeting that they may stand there with you.
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Pay close attention now. Then I will come down and talk with you there. Moses goes and talks to God up on the mountain alone.
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The apostles and the three close apostles, they've been in a unique relationship with Jesus that other people don't experience.
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There's a principle here that's given us in miniature in Numbers 11 that has import in Acts 2.
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I'm going to come down and talk with you there. This is what he says. I will take of the spirit that is upon you and will put the same upon them.
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And they shall bear the burden of the people with you that you may not bear it yourself alone.
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Then you shall say to the people, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow and you shall eat meat for you have wept in the hearing of the
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Lord saying, who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt, therefore the
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Lord will give you meat and you shall eat. You shall eat not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor 10 days, nor 20 days, but for a whole month until it comes out of your nostrils, becomes loathsome to you because you have despised the
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Lord who is among you and have wept before him saying, why did we ever come up out of Egypt?
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I want to scroll down to verse 23.
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And Mord said to Moses, has the Lord's arm been shortened? Now you shall see whether what
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I say shall happen to you or not. So Moses went out and told the people the words of the
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Lord and he gathered the 70 men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tabernacle. Then the
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Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him and took of the spirit that was upon him and placed the same upon the 70 elders.
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And it happened when the spirit rested upon them that they prophesied, although they never did so again.
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That's also interesting. Verse 26, two men had remained in the camp.
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The name of one was Eldad and the other was Medad and the spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those listed, but who had not gone out of the tabernacle, they prophesied in the camp.
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But a young man ran and told Moses saying, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.
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And Moses returned to the camp and he and the elders of Israel.
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Now a wind went out from the Lord and brought quail from the sea and left them fluttering near the camp.
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It's about a day's journey on this side, about a day's journey on the other side, all around the camp, about two cubits above the surface of the ground.
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And the people stayed up all day, all night, all the next day and gathered the quail.
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And they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth, therefore, before it was chewed, the wrath of the
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Lord was aroused against the people and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague.
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So he called the name of that place Kibroth -Hadivah because they were buried, there they buried, the people had yielded to craving.
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Now the Lord has resided his authority, it seems, over Moses with assistance from Aaron.
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But now, as the progression of the nation Israel is unfolding, he needs more elders and he gives them his spirit.
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Now I'd like you to turn back to Acts chapter 2. Elsewhere in Numbers it says,
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When the people complained, it displeased the Lord, for the Lord heard it and his anger was aroused.
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So the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp.
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Thanksgiving is only for Thanksgiving, there's no grumbling allowed. Now in our text now, we're considering this occasion and now there's a transition.
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They've come to Jerusalem for the feast, it has a very rich historical context, there are many observances, they baked two loaves, they read the book of Ruth, they read the law of Moses, they had a wave offering, they gave thanks to the
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Lord, and something else happens. Look at verse 2, the outpouring of the
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Holy Spirit. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
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So they're sitting in the upper room, they're waiting on the
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Lord, they haven't done anything to drum up an ambiance of Holy Spirit blessing.
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Suddenly God acts and moves. And the roaring sound of a tornado or a hurricane, that roaring sound that we always hear about, that comes down from heaven.
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I don't know if there's any rushing wind, I don't know if their hair is blown back, but the roar comes and it's the
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Spirit coming and descending upon the people. It filled the whole house where they were sitting.
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Now I have to confess to you, I have a little bit of a Jew seeking a sign in me.
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I would love to see that. I would really love to see a mighty demonstration of God's power in that way.
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But this is not a normative thing, this is something that happens once in history in this way.
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And, another element it seems, it says it appeared to them as divided tongues as a fire, and one sat upon each of them.
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So we have the roaring sound of wind, in my mind it's a gust of wind that goes through the people.
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It's the presence of God Himself in the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.
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And on each of the people is a fire above their heads.
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As you know, fire has been chief among the theophanies of our
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God. Do you remember the occasion of Moses in the burning bush? Do you remember the pillar of fire in the sky at night, representing the power and presence of God?
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The image is one of power, of strength, of light, of heat, of illumination, and the people, the rank and file listed in that list of Acts 1, not just the apostles, kind of like the situation with the elders, the
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Spirit is now dispersed upon all the people assembled. All of the 120 have the
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Spirit filling them, equipping them, empowering them to fulfill their purpose.
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And what was that purpose? To be His witnesses. Not to just have an experience and feel good about Jesus ascending, but very purposeful.
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The Spirit falls on the 70 elders so they can conduct the business of Israel. The Spirit falls upon the church so they can fulfill their commission.
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They're all filled, it says, verse 4, with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the
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Spirit gave them utterance. Now we know from our text that this was not a secret prayer language.
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This was the language of the Parthians and the Medes and the Elamites, the Mesopotamians, the
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Judeans, the Cappadocians, those from Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, adjoining
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Cyrene, Rome, Cretans, Arabs, they all heard the wonderful works of God in Christ in their own dialect.
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Now doing ministry in Burma, I encountered something and some of my kids who were there went with us, my wife, one of the trips.
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There's something strange that when we have a time of prayer, we have recited prayers and sometimes we pray together silently.
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When the people over there pray, they each pray their own prayer audibly to God.
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And it is, it's not chaotic, it's not disorganized, it is incredible to hear in a language that I never could understand, maybe 100 or 200 people praying to God.
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Now if I would have started preaching in the Burmese language or even better in the Dai dialect, that would have been astounding in my ministry in Burma.
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And that's what happens here. These Jews have lived in other nations and of course this is an entree to the
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Gentiles being included. There's another sub -point that's pretty neat theologically. I think the two loaves of the feast actually represent the
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Jews and the Gentiles coming together as one body. It's starting to get unveiled here in chapter 2.
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This gospel is not just going out in Hebrew and Aramaic or Greek, it's going out in all of the dialects.
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This gospel message is going to go to the ends of the earth. It says in verse 5, they're astounded.
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Dwelling in Jerusalem, all these devout men from every nation, when they hear the sound of the rushing mighty wind, the outpouring, the pneuma of the
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Holy Spirit, the multitude comes together and they're confused because most of those 120 are
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Galileans, they're hillbillies, they've got a distinctive accent, and they're clearly articulating the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ in their own language.
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How is it that we hear each in our own language in which we were born?
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Verse 8, the promise that Jesus gave in chapter 1 on the cusp of his ascension is now coming to pass.
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It's an immediate fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy. Now here's where we get it wrong.
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We want a blowing wind and we want fire over our heads. I'm not sure how much we want to be empowered to accomplish the mission.
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Maybe the Holy Spirit does not fill us in a way that we find satisfactory in some measure is because we want to have an experience with God instead of to be empowered for service.
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If you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, it seems you need to be engaged in this mission of taking the gospel to every tongue, tribe, and nation and making disciples of your children and your community and preaching the crown rites of Jesus over all things.
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That would seem to be something the Holy Spirit would be active and engaged with.
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The end of the section says, we hear them speaking in our own tongues, this is verse 11, the wonderful works of God.
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So they're all amazed and perplexed and they said to one another, whatever could this mean?
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Well, the church is now, in this moment, equipped to be an effective witness for Christ.
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And it should be noted that the book entitled the Acts of the
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Apostles should be entitled instead the Acts of the Holy Spirit, working through men.
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Watch what these men will do from this point forward. They will go into any fire, into any mouth of the lion, they will suffer any indignity for the glory of Christ because they have been struck, they've been touched, they've been filled with the
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Holy Spirit. The book of Acts recounts what happens when people are filled.
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Well, it takes us to the third point, the outcome of this outpouring.
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It's interesting that the Holy Spirit and both the
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Father and the Son seem to be intent on using the scripture and using the Jewish calendar to articulate the message.
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We have no other message than that has been revealed to us in scripture. Peter's glorious message that he gives in Pentecost starts with a quotation of the prophecy given by Joel, then he expounds upon it.
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Verse 22, men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which
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God did through him in your midst. As you yourselves also know, him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death, whom
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God raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be held by it.
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And he quotes David, verse 29, another section, men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch
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David. He's both dead and buried, we can visit his tomb. But verse 30, therefore being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that the fruit of his body according to the flesh he would raise up the
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Christ to sit on his throne. And he foreseeing this spoke concerning the resurrection of the
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Christ that his soul was not left in Hades nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up of which we are all witnesses.
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Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the
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Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see in here.
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For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself, the Lord said to my
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Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies a footstool.
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I want to talk about an interesting conversation when you have the covenant name of God telling
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Kurios to sit at his right hand.
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That discussion we had this morning, Psalm 110. God says to God the
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Son, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. How is that going to be accomplished?
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It's going to be accomplished through the church operating under the powerful operation of the
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Spirit in them. You see, we swing between two strange poles.
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We reject a supernatural working of God because we're afraid of abuses of some of our friends in the charismatic movement.
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We have to navigate a narrow path here. We're people who believe in a supernatural work of God.
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In fact, every one of you who professes Christ today were born of the
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Spirit according to John 3, Jesus' own words. What's the effect?
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What's the outcome? Let the whole of Israel know assuredly that God has made this
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Jesus whom you crucify, both Lord and Christ. And they hear this, they're cut to the heart and said to Peter, what shall we do?
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And they say, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gifts of the
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Holy Spirit for the promises to you and to your children and to all who are afar off, as many as the
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Lord our God will call. I want to pause here because in my thesis statement
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I mentioned the baptism of the Spirit. You see, baptism is very significant. Do you know
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Jesus' earthly ministry, He's a 30 -year -old man fulfilling all righteousness in relative obscurity.
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Why don't you think about that? The incarnate Son of God for 30 years lives, works, obeys and honors
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His parents and does all of these things and nobody knows about Him really. But what happens?
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What's the inauguration of Jesus' earthly ministry? His baptism in the Jordan. The Holy Spirit descends upon Him.
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The Son of God, Son of Man is filled with the
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Holy Spirit. If He needs the filling of the Holy Spirit in His humanity, how much more so do we?
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You see, the baptism that's coming, the baptism of the
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Holy Spirit on Pentecost that happens is the inauguration of the ongoing work of the
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Spirit in the life of the church. And what they do when they're filled with the Spirit is they preach
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Christ. And those converts and their children and all the people they go to, as many as are far off, as many as He will call, all of them get filled with the
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Spirit and become soldiers in this conquesting army which is nothing short of world conquest for Christ.
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As Paul said in his own day, the Gospel had gone out into the whole world in 35 years.
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The Gospel, the message of Jesus Christ. They have no internet, they have no telephones, they have no cars, they have no planes, they have no motorized boats.
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The Gospel of Jesus Christ went to the nations. This only happens because they were filled with the
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Spirit. Well, the last thing
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I want to point out to you under this heading is in verse 41 it says those who are gladly receiving this word were baptized and that day about 3 ,000 souls were added to them.
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And this is the glorious outcome and isn't it interesting on the harvest day, the wheat harvest celebration, we have a first fruits harvest of souls.
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How many tens of thousands and millions of Christians have been harvested since then?
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Let's go on to the fourth thing which is our next verse and that's the ordinary working of the
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Spirit. Pentecost was a historical anomaly.
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What happens here is not replicated but there is an ordinary working of the
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Spirit and it really centers around the activity of the church. Look at verse 42.
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This is a verse that Mark and I strive for as we lead the church. It's more developed, it's got more flesh on the bones, but this is basically our mission.
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This is the mission of every New Testament church. They continued steadfastly in the
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Apostles doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers.
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Then fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done through the
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Apostles. Now all who believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need.
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It's also interesting that that was the message of the gleanings, a drumbeat message of the church and her witness is care and concern for the poor.
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So it's something we have to keep thinking about as we're kind of a poor congregation in terms of compared to others, but the money that we do have, we have to think about caring for the poor in the spirit of this.
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The widow, the orphan, the diaconal funds that we talk about. And they begin to be united together.
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They started in one accord and they're more deeply united because they have the presence of God with them.
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Verse 46, they continue daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house.
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They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising
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God and having favor with all the people and the
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Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. That's the powerful working of the
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Holy Spirit. Now brethren, we're
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Reformed people. We are lowercase s stoics in our demeanor.
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We don't want to get caught in any hasty, exuberant outworkings, but I can tell you today that I would love nothing more for the
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Holy Spirit to come upon the elders and the members of Ascension Presbyterian Church.
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I don't want signs and wonders, I want the activation and appreciation of the substance which we now possess.
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We have the self -same spirit. The spirit that led
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Peter to preach at Pentecost, we possess the same spirit. The spirit who led 3 ,000 souls in that day, that marvelous occasion of harvest of souls, that same spirit is at work in us.
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It should be noted, I think we never, rarely talk about this, we think about maybe the
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Apostle Paul as the greatest teacher in the history of the church.
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There's a great argument for that, but really it's the third person of the
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Trinity who's the greatest teacher of the church. Every word was inspired by him, and every word that's inspired by him gives glory to the
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Son, and every word that glorifies the Son glorifies the Father. We need to take full advantage of the ordinary means by which the
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Holy Spirit works. We need to continue steadfastly in the
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Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers, and believe together and to meet each other's needs.
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Well, I have a brief word of application here, and we conclude. It would seem to me that it would be fitting for us to pray to God that we would be filled with the
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Spirit, not that we would experience some ecstatic utterance, but the full vent of the
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Spirit's working would be present in the life of this church and in you individually and in your family. I think it would be a very hopeful, expectant prayer to offer, that we would be filled with the
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Spirit. Second, and this is very terrifying,
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I don't believe the Spirit ever fully departs the believer or the church, but we don't want to quench the
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Spirit with sin and unbelief. Your sin brought into the sacred assembly could harm our body.
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It's not just your private sin that only God knows about, it could be sin that's hurting the church, so repent of every known sin so that God's judgment may not fall upon us, the church.
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You see, we're united to Christ and we're united to each other. If one of us is off doing terrible things, the
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Spirit could be quenched. The Spirit is given not for us to feel good and to flop around on the floor, but that we would be
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His witnesses, that we would preach Christ and Him crucified and risen and ascended.
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That's what the Holy Spirit empowers. And brethren, wouldn't it be amazing if we could say of Ascension and the
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Lord added to the local church, Ascension Daily, those who are being saved. We know
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He's doing it globally, wouldn't it be wonderful if He did it locally with us. Today I think you need to next give thanks to God for His abiding, empowering presence among us.
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You see, the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost and He never left. Your birth was the work of His Spirit.
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Our unity, our purity, our peace as a church is His doing. Whenever the gospel is faithfully read and preached, it's
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His doing. He's here. He's with us. And you and I have to make full use of the ordinary means of the
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Spirit's working. We offer prayers and they are unintelligible and it appears that the
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Spirit takes them and makes them intelligible and effectual. He delivers the
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Word. He inspires, He illumines, He interprets, He energizes the
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Word. He blesses the sacraments. He knits us together in fellowship and prompts us and leads us to bear each other's burdens and to serve one another.
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Brethren, the Holy Spirit has fallen at Pentecost not only historically, but here and now.
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Let's pray together. Oh Lord, we thank you for the season.
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We thank you for the ordinary days, the ordinary Sundays which will follow. We long for Advent again.
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Lord, we confess that we are a people who are easily satisfied with mental stimulation, intellectual assent.
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I pray that you would make us hunger and thirst for the powerful working of your
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Spirit in us. That we would love to preach
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Christ and Him crucified. That we would be the witnesses fit for service to make
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His glory known. And I ask, oh Lord, that you would fill everyone in this church corporately with your
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Spirit. That we might not only enjoy the communion we have with the
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Trinity, but that we would be faithful workers and laborers in this glorious harvest field.