Sunday, January 19, 2025 AM

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the day that you have made.

Thank you for this warm house in which we may gather together as a church family. Lord, we thank you for giving to us your promises, both made and kept, in your

Son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for this word. And we thank you for unveiled faces by your

Spirit to read about the glories of Christ as he reveals to us all who you are as our

God, our Maker, our Redeemer. We thank you for the joy of salvation, the many blessings therein, all that you have done and all that lay upon our horizon.

You give us hope. You give us confidence. We thank you that you are our good shepherd and that you shepherd us so well.

Pray that you would help us to read your word today in the light of your Son, Jesus, and be changed by it, be affected by it in just the way that you desire.

And we would be the amen on this earth of your will that is in heaven. We pray these things for the sake of Jesus Christ, the one with whom you are well -pleased.

Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 19.

And we're going to read verses one through seven. Acts 19, verses one through seven.

The book of Acts details many situations that were unique to that period of redemptive history.

It's important that we remember that. The time that we're reading about in Acts is very unique. If we don't remember that, then we might get some strange ideas about how to do church.

Think about Acts like you would think about 1 Samuel. 1

Samuel is a unique period in the history of Israel in that there were two anointed kings at the same time.

King Saul was the anointed king and King David was the anointed king, and they were both anointed at the same time.

And the strange interactions that would occur and the contest that would occur between them was a unique time in the history of Israel.

So also Acts, a unique time in covenant history. We have several oddities as we read through the book.

For instance, there was the casting of lots at a prayer meeting. That's pretty strange.

There was gospel preaching at a Jewish feast,

Pentecost. We have living New Covenant temple stones meeting in the courtyard of the brick and mortar

Old Covenant temple. Pretty odd if you think about it. We have the

Sanhedrin, the representative faithless Old Covenant steward forbidding the preaching of the faithful New Covenant steward,

Jesus Christ. We have Samaritans and Ethiopians, Italians, Cypriots, Phrygians, Galatians, Macedonians, Greeks, all manner of nations.

These Gentiles we read about in Acts, they are being gathered into Jerusalem just like the

Old Testament said, but it's not a geographical Jerusalem, it's the New Jerusalem. And things about the

Sabbath and the Lord's Day comes up, circumcision and baptism comes up, dietary laws, Christ's law of love, all these things are in the mix, they're all being sorted out, they're all being clarified throughout the course of the book of Acts.

What is clear in the balance of the whole testimony that Luke writes for Theophilus and for all the saints is that new wine cannot be contained by old wineskins.

And that there's no putting a new patch on an old garment. We are reminded of this again in our passage, having learned about Apollos and his further instruction by Aquila and Priscilla, we find another passage that emphasizes the need to move from the old covenant into the new and to rejoice in the blessings of the new.

If you're able, I invite you to stand with me as we read God's holy word, Acts 19 verses one through seven.

And it happened while Apollos was at Corinth that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus and finding some disciples, he said to them, did you receive the

Holy Spirit when you believed? So they said to him, we have not so much as heard whether there is a

Holy Spirit. He said to them, into what then were you baptized? So they said, into John's baptism.

Then Paul said, John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him, that is on Christ Jesus.

When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the

Holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now the men were about 12 in all.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Illegal immigration has been much on the mind and in the news, especially in the last couple of generations.

The continual desperate daring of folks unwilling to wait or unable to meet legal requirements begs the question, why?

And in the past, the sad little dangerous rafts in the

Caribbean, the inhumane conditions of cargo containers coming into ports, force our curiosity.

Just how bad are the places in socialist Central American nations in Cuba and China? These folks would do these desperate things.

And upon further reflection, how often do we see and hear folks who have sacrificed a great deal to immigrate legally go by the book?

And they've made it to America and then they rejoice in all these different benefits and advantages that they now enjoy.

And when we think about that, we are reminded as those who perhaps have grown up in the heartland of the

American empire, that we actually have a lot to be thankful for. A lot of things that we take for granted, but you know, it sometimes takes the outsider's perspective to be reminded of it.

When we have the outsider's perspective and we realize, oh my goodness, yes, I do enjoy a lot of benefits and a lot of good.

Now this passage is like that. This passage details the immigration of old covenant saints into the new covenant.

This is when they crossed the border. They left the old and they came into the new. And as we see them coming in and coming in properly, as they move from one covenant into the other, the superior blessing and lasting hope of the new covenant is thus emphasized to us for our encouragement.

Now, there is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ, either in the old or in the new.

Either saved by faith in his shadow or united to his revealed substance.

There is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ. And he is the mediator of a better covenant. And critical questions face the disciples here at Ephesus.

Some of these disciples need to be asked critical questions and they need to answer them in light of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, his ascension and his instructions in the great commission.

These are questions that are not only necessary for first century disciples in Ephesus, but they are good to ask for 21st century church folk right here and right now.

Two questions to ask this morning. The first one is this, into what have you been baptized? And that was

Paul's question of the disciples there in Ephesus. Into what have you been baptized? Secondly, have you received the

Holy Spirit? A question that for some people is somewhat confusing, but I do not think it has to be confusing as we look at this passage.

I want us to rejoice in the blessings of the new covenant and fully embrace all of its essentials.

And this is important, I think, for 21st century church folk, because sometimes when we observe that someone has some degree of interest in Christianity and some kind of intentionality about attending church and some sort of connection to Christian themes, we figure they're good to go.

This group of disciples here in Ephesus are in that same kind of category, but Paul goes ahead and asks critical questions and wants to know into what were you baptized?

Have you received the Holy Spirit? He doesn't leave them close by. It's no good leaving men in Goshen when

Canaan is wide open and Christ leaves none of his sheep outside the promised land.

Question number one, into what have you been baptized? Now, let's look at verses three through five.

Now, after he realized that these disciples here in Ephesus, they had not even heard that there was such a person as the

Holy Spirit. This caught Paul's attention, so he asks a very wise question, verse three.

And he said to them, into what then were you baptized? So they said, into John's baptism.

Then Paul said, John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.

And they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Now, this passage reminds us of a right and proper natural procession from the ministry of John the

Baptist to the ministry of Christ, from the greatest of the old covenant prophets to the mediator of the new covenant, the forerunner to the

Messiah, from the brightest of the shadow to the substance himself.

It is a natural thing to move from the baptism and the teaching of John the Baptist to the baptism and the teaching of Christ.

This is good. This is emphasized here in this passage and in other parts of the New Testament. As John the

Baptist said, I must decrease, he must increase upon hearing that the disciples of Jesus were baptizing more than he was.

That's the proper approach. Reflect again on 1 Samuel. There was King Saul jealous of David, God's anointed.

And you remember that Saul persecuted David because God had said, you are unfaithful,

Saul. I am tearing away the kingdom from you and giving it to another, a man after my own heart.

And Saul persecuted David and he wanted to kill David. He wanted to delegitimize David to do anything he could to retain his ownership of the kingdom and destroy

David. And in this, King Saul is much like the Sanhedrin and the stewards of the old covenant temple who were jealous of Christ and his disciples and persecuted them and killed some of them.

But John the Baptist is like Jonathan, Saul's son. Jonathan who recognized that David was the anointed and Jonathan who wanted

David to be king and Jonathan who wanted to support David. And John the Baptist is just like that. John the

Baptist is not trying to preserve the old covenant over and against the new. He wants the new covenant to come.

He wants to see the increase of Jesus as the new covenant mediator. So this is a right and proper thing that disciples who knew only the preaching of John the

Baptist would come all the way into the new covenant in Christ.

So the question into what then you were baptized, you see, as soon as Paul hears that they are disciples but they don't know who the

Holy Spirit is, he says, well, that's a big problem because Jesus said, go into all the world, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Now, if you've not even heard that there is such a

Holy Spirit, into what then were you baptized? Because you're supposed to be baptized in the name of the

Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So surely you should have heard that there was a Holy Spirit. This poses a bit of a quandary, a bit of an issue.

Christian baptism is baptism in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

New covenant baptism is in the name of the Lord Jesus. He brings us into fellowship with the triune

God. We are immersed in the name of the Father, the Son and the

Holy Spirit. And these names signify the relations of the persons of the Godhead as well as God's relations to us.

It is because of Christ that we have a heavenly Father. It is because of Christ, the firstborn

Son, that we have our Sonship. Because of Christ, we are made holy and alive and in spiritual communion through the

Holy Spirit. Our baptism by immersion signifies our union with Christ's death and resurrection.

And by his person and work, we are brought to peace with the triune God, the

God of the Bible, the God who is creator, the only true

God. So Paul says, into what were you baptized?

Because you've not been baptized into that Christian baptism, that new covenant baptism.

So they said, well, we were baptized into John's baptism, but that was a temporary baptism.

John's was temporary. This triune baptism is the baptism that they need, but they were baptized under a temporary baptism,

John's. And Paul said, and John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who will come after him, that is on Christ Jesus.

So in Luke 3, as we think about Luke writing this to Theophilus, we go back to Luke's first volume, Luke 3, verses two through six.

And we read there that while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

And he went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

As it was written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the

Lord, make his path straight. Every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hill brought low, the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough ways smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

And so John the Baptist in fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah comes forth preaching that Jesus of Nazareth is the

Christ, the son of the living God. John comes forth preaching that who about Jesus preaching about the

Messiah. His baptism of repentance is a baptism on account of repentance.

He refused to baptize anyone who had not displayed fruits of repentance. People would come to him and he would say, no,

I'm not gonna baptize you. First, you need to show fruits of repentance in your life. Repentance is that inward change by the grace of God where there's a total turnaround away from self and sin and excuses and self -righteousness unto

God. And that inward righteousness is demonstrated, demonstrable by outward fruits.

And John says, until I see some outward fruits, I'm not gonna baptize you. And he wanted people to repent.

He wanted people to turn away from their excuses and their self -righteousness and their religious formality that was so empty.

He wanted them to get ready for the Messiah, the true savior. And his whole ministry really was wrapped up in glorious moments of pointing to Jesus and saying, him, him, look at him, pay attention to him.

How many times do we see John saying to his disciples, behold, the Lamb of God, behold, the

Lamb of God. Look over there, look at him. Even in Jesus' baptism,

John's baptism, his whole ministry of baptism there in the Jordan is signified by one baptism, one moment when he baptized

Jesus of Nazareth and the heavens parted, the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove and the

Father said from the heavens, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well -pleased. The entire ministry of John the

Baptist caught up in that one moment of Jesus Christ being honored. And so John says, yeah, you've been baptized and to the baptism of John, well, the whole point of John's ministry was

Jesus. The whole point of John's ministry was Jesus Christ. And so you need to be baptized in his name with his baptism.

And so there is a timely nature to this baptism. Now they are baptized.

So verse four, Paul says, John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him that is on Christ Jesus.

So the call is to believe, then what? When they heard this, meaning when they received this, when they accepted this, when they were in agreement with this, they were baptized in the name of the

Lord Jesus. Believe and then be baptized. That's the timing of it, right?

Once they believed and professed in the name of Jesus Christ, believing on him, then they were baptized.

The public consecration of a life in Christ makes that confessor fit to join the publicly consecrated community of the local church saying,

I am accountable to my King. I am accountable before all of you that I have been baptized in the name of the

Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I have a savior and his name is Jesus and I am owned lock, stock and barrel by him.

But this baptism by water is also paired by a transcendent baptism of the

Holy Spirit. Verse six, and when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them.

And you go back and you look in Luke chapter three where John the Baptist has his ministry, he's been preaching about getting ready for the

Messiah. And in Luke three, verses 15 through 17, now, as the people were in expectation and all reasoned in their hearts about John, whether he was the

Christ or not, John answered saying to all, I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than I is coming whose sandal strap

I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

His winnowing fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

This baptism of the Holy Spirit, this immersion of these disciples in the

Holy Spirit, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the key signal, the sign, the proof positive of the new covenant.

Prior to the new covenant, the Holy Spirit, God indwelt the temple.

He had a presence among his people. He dwelt with his people, where? There was the tabernacle and then there was the temple.

And in the new covenant, where does God indwell in the new covenant? In the new covenant temple, which is what?

Which is who? It's you, it's me, the new covenant temple. The Holy Spirit directly indwelling the new covenant temple, the saints of God is a big essential difference between the old covenant and the new.

And it truly signifies the point, it is the meaning that we're trying to say with the water baptism.

Having been baptized in the name of Jesus in the name of the triune God, we're saying something about our identity and identity which has been forged in us by the

Holy Spirit himself. We are not baptized into Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

We are not baptized into the Judeo -Christian ethic, which doesn't actually exist by the way.

We are not baptized into life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We are not baptized into pathologies or intersectionals.

We are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the name of the

Lord Jesus who brings us into fellowship with the triune God. This is not an identity we choose for ourselves.

It is one crafted by God. It is one originally designed for us in creation and now bestowed to us in recreation.

That we are his. We have his name, his identity.

We're known by him. This identity is not false in our baptism because it is the public expression of the personal indwelling of the

Holy Spirit. I am in living union with Jesus Christ, the dead and raised, the righteous and reigning.

How? By the Spirit brought all the way to God who is my Father. This identity is not false, it is the public expression of the personal indwelling of the

Holy Spirit. All this is important because there is a tendency today that is not new, it is simply sinful.

We want to identify as. And this isn't an issue that is entirely the part of the alphabet group of the

LGBTQ plus movement. It is not a unique sin unto them. This sin has been present amongst all kinds of people in all sorts of situations.

I identify as. We keep choosing identities for ourselves, some sort of excuse.

Well, I'm a such and such, so therefore I get to act in this way and say these things. Well, I've experienced such and such, therefore this part of the

Bible doesn't apply to me. Rather than finding fresh ways to name ourselves, new qualifiers to add to ourselves, new allowances to be made for ourselves, we should own our name given to us in baptism.

Let me put it a different way. We do not get to express our faith in any old way we prefer. It has been designed for us, expressed for us, clarified for us in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That is into what we are being baptized. That's what we say when we are baptized in the name of the triune

God. Now, this question about baptism, of course, was sparked by a question about the

Holy Spirit, and I think we see their relation. Back in verses one and two, we're getting to this other question.

First question is, were you baptized? And this is pertinent for your identity, who you are.

But this other question, have you received the Holy Spirit? Now, look at verses one and two of chapter 19.

And it happened while Apollos was at Corinth that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus and finding some disciples, he said to them, did you receive the

Holy Spirit when you believed? But they said to him, we have not so much as heard whether there is a

Holy Spirit. Of course, then Paul has to ask about their baptism. Now, after that's settled, after the baptism is taken care of, now we have verse six.

And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke with tongues and prophesied that the men were about 12 in all.

And you read this passage, and I know what some of you are thinking, what in the Pentecostal praise hour is going on here?

But actually, when you think about the themes and the trajectory of the book of Acts, we're right on track to once again consider the superiority and the blessings of the new covenant.

And think about, first of all, this dynamic duo of Paul and Apollos.

Apollos was at Ephesus. So Paul left

Corinth, came to Ephesus, and then he left. Apollos comes to Ephesus, gets taught in more accurate fashion by Aquila and Priscilla, and then he goes to Corinth.

Meanwhile, Paul comes back through Galatia and Phrygia and comes down to Ephesus. Paul and Apollos, they're just like ships in the night, but you know what?

They preach the same gospel. And so they are agreeing with one another and preaching

Christ. It's interesting that in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 10,

Paul says, now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing.

And there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Why does he say that? For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household, also known as the grapevine, that there are contentions among you.

Like, I want you to be together in this. Now I say this that each of you says,

I'm of Paul or I'm of Apollos or I'm of Cephas or I'm of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?

Were you baptized in the name of Paul? And so just a reminder, Paul and Apollos weren't out there trying to build out different camps, different groups of followers to be in contention with one another.

They're both out there preaching Christ, proclaiming him. There's one gospel.

Now many, many preachers, many different people, many different problems in different eras, but there's one gospel and we all have the same need to depend upon the

Holy Spirit. Now these disciples at Ephesus, now I had made a statement last week where I was contrasting them with Apollos.

Apollos seemed to be in a better situation than they were and I still think so, but I didn't get the sense immediately on my preview reading of Acts 19, one through seven, that these men were actually genuine saints saved on the way to heaven.

I thought that they weren't. But upon further study and reflection, I realized that indeed they are.

The term disciples, as you see there, where Paul found some disciples there in verse one and finding some disciples,

I went and checked throughout the book of Acts, every single place, all 27 places that that term is used, it's used of saints, of people who are on their way to heaven.

Perhaps they are in a situation where they're looking forward to the finished work of Christ, being saved by faith united to his shadow and thus to his substance, or perhaps they're on the other side of the cross and looking back on the finished work of Jesus Christ and that's them being saved in disciples.

But either way, that term is used everywhere in the book of Acts of the saved.

So I stand corrected. But it is to the point of the passage that sinners got saved in the old covenant, having never even heard of the

Holy Spirit. Does that sound a little odd? They didn't even know it was the

Holy Spirit, but they're still saved. So do you leave them in the old covenant?

No. No, because the old covenant is passing away. They have begun to hear about Christ, they've begun to hear about the gospel, but like Apollos, didn't have all the details.

And they had not yet received the Holy Spirit. Now, how was salvation the same under the old covenant as under the new?

Well, as Jesus pointed out to Nicodemus, even in the old covenant, you had to be born again.

If you're a teacher of Israel, you should know this by now. And so the spirit had to bring you new life, even in the old covenant, if you were going to believe and be saved.

That righteousness did not come by the works of the law back then or now. Righteousness was always by faith, as proven by the salvation of Abraham.

And that Jesus Christ, as the Lamb of God, is the one who takes away the sins of the world, even of those who lived prior to him, and that he is their only resurrection and life.

And the experience of salvation, however, is a little different, the experience of it, not the substance of it, but the experience of it is different in the new covenant.

For here now, we have the spirit as a mystery revealed, and we're not putting faith into the strangely shaped shadows of Christ in the old covenant, but in the full glorious revelation of Christ.

And the experience is different because in the Old Testament, you could be a full -fledged member of the old covenant and go to hell.

But in the New Testament, in the new covenant, the boundaries of the covenant and of salvation are one and the same.

So the experience is a little bit different. But look at these disciples that Paul comes to.

Consider them zealous, hearty lookouts on Mount Pisgah, surveying

Canaan, he doesn't leave them there. He says, come on, come all the way over, come all the way in.

And he asks them this diagnostic question. He said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?

That is not a question that makes sense in our day and time, but it makes perfect sense for the book of Acts.

As old covenant believers are coming into more and more knowledge and awareness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and are being brought over fully into the new covenant.

So they said to him, we have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. Now, did you see the normal expectation that Paul starts with when he asks, did you receive the

Holy Spirit when you believed? That is the normal expectation. That has been the norm all along.

Paul has been preaching the gospel and doing mission work for a long time. And he's asking these disciples, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?

He's expecting a yes, he gets a no. The need for this examination is because all these nations are being grafted into Christ as the

Old Testament promised. And even Jacob gets to come to Zion. And when

Jacob comes to Zion, they participate fully in the new covenant as living stone to the new covenant temple.

So they need to be indwelled with the Holy Spirit. A related question, how is the

Holy Spirit's ministry the same under the old covenant as the new? Of course, he was fully active in creation, in providence.

The Spirit of God is by His power, by His sustaining sovereign power, we breathe, we live, we move by the life -giving presence and power of the

Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit revealed the truths of God to the prophets who wrote down God's inspired, inerrant, perfect words.

The Holy Spirit brought new life to dead sinners. And the new covenant is different than the old experientially in this way.

In the old covenant, we have the Spirit coming upon servants of God in special moments, in temporary times to greatly aid them for particular causes.

The Holy Spirit would come upon those who had been anointed to certain tasks and then

He would raise them up to accomplish great works for the cause of God.

And then we don't see that indwelling, that special focus continuing.

And so we also have the Holy Spirit's work more hidden than manifest. As these disciples of John didn't even know that there was such a person as the

Holy Spirit. But now things are radically different in the experience.

Spiritual life is not optional. We do not live in a time when basic assent is meaningful.

You can't just basically assent to the ideas of the gospel and basically agree with the standardized truths of the gospel and then consider yourself a real genuine member of the new covenant, no.

Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Is this belief more than information?

Is this belief more than just considering it to be true? Is this belief where you have entrusted yourself to Jesus Christ as your

Savior, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? It's a good question.

And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them. There's a delay here, isn't there, between them believing and them being anointed with the

Holy Spirit, being baptized and being in the water and being baptized by the Spirit. Why this delay?

The same delay happened in Acts 8, and we talked about it then. The delay is intentional to teach us something.

Remember that Jesus said in Acts 1 .8, you are to be my witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth, right?

Those are the three areas of gospel salvation promised in the Old Covenant. New Jerusalem, reunification of North and Southern kingdoms,

Samaria and Judea, and the coastlands, the islands, the uttermost parts of the earth.

The three areas where there was promise in the Old Covenant of the future

New Covenant. So when you get to Acts 8, here are Samaritan believers, and there's a pause between them believing and them receiving the

Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands by the apostles. Why was there a pause?

And why is there a pause here about these disciples who only knew the baptism of John?

Why is there a pause? It is a full measure of silence. It's a whole rest on the score for the sake of a glorious crescendo.

Something is being emphasized here. How vital is it that these Samaritan believers know that by the authority of Jesus of Nazareth, the

Holy Spirit has come upon them, and indeed they have been reunited with their brethren under King Jesus?

How important is it for these Jews to know that by the authority of Jesus of Nazareth, that the Holy Spirit has come upon them and indwelt them, and that they are now part of the

New Covenant temple? How important is that to be emphasized in their lives, to recognize I have crossed over,

I am now full -fledged member of the New Covenant. Very important. You remember how important it was for Israel to know right where they crossed the

Jordan? Do you remember what they did? They stopped. We're gonna build a big pile of rocks to talk about how the 12 tribes came over.

What's happening here? The moment saying right here, this is when you crossed over fully into the

New Covenant, when the Holy Spirit indwelt them. So when

Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, they spoke with tongues and prophesied, and the men were about 12 in all.

And so these details of the laying on of hands, this Pentecost moment is this laying on of hands and this speaking in tongues and the prophesying and the

Holy Spirit coming upon them, this is the fourth so -called Pentecost, if you will, that we have in the book of Acts.

And they're all connected in this sense. Whenever and wherever the margins are, that's where the gospel salvation for all kinds is clearly and consistently emphasized.

What about all of these Jews from all over the empire who were gathered there in Jerusalem whom

Peter pointed out and said, you crucify the Lord of glory. Can they be saved? What about these

Samaritans who live in that northern cursed area that nobody wanted to go to? Can they be saved and be a part of the new covenant?

What about Cornelius, this Italian, this Roman sympathizer? Can this Gentile be saved?

What about these disciples of John the Baptist who are over here in Ephesus?

Can they be saved? Are they fully in? Can they be brought all the way into the new covenant? Yes. So we have these four

Pentecost moments. This is not programmatic for today.

This is emphasizing that those believers who were in the old covenant immigrate all the way into the new.

Immigrate all the way into the new. The Samaritan believers, the God -fearers in Cornelius' household, these disciples of John the

Baptist in Ephesus, they immigrate all the way into the new covenant fully and properly.

This is not a pattern to be repeated today. This is not a technique that we're trying to replicate.

If you're in, you're in native -born to the new covenant. You didn't start off in the old and come into the new.

The old covenant passed away. It's no longer here. It's gone. When we get saved, when we're born again, we're brought in all the way into the new covenant all the way from the very beginning.

There's that transition period is done. We're not in the middle of the last days of the old covenant and the starting days of the new.

We don't live there. We don't live there. When we look at this text, we are reminded of the importance of the

Holy Spirit. Let us not forget that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the

Trinity, that He is fully God, that He is sovereign and righteous and free. We're not reading here about a technique that we're supposed to be using or some sort of program we're supposed to replicate.

The Holy Spirit is not a force to be directed. He is no fool to be manipulated.

We're not in charge of Him. He's in charge of us. What Jesus says in Nicodemus in John chapter three, verses one through eight.

The Spirit intentionally inspires Luke to tell these four Pentecost stories, all of which, if you keep track of the elements, remove our ability to systematize the

Spirit's power like Simon Magus wanted to do. In the first Pentecost and in the third

Pentecost, there's no laying on of hands to receive the Spirit, but there are in the other two. In the second one, there's no speaking in tongues or prophecy.

In the third one, baptism comes after the Holy Spirit's arrival. There's no way to figure out a pattern. And why would you?

Why would you be trying to recreate some sort of formula? What's the motive? It's actually not that complicated at all.

The question is, have you received the Holy Spirit? If you have believed, then yes, of course.

Jesus promised the gift of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit indwells all believers.

Romans chapter eight, verse nine says, but you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If indeed the

Spirit of God dwells in you, none, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. So if you belong to Jesus, you have the

Holy Spirit. That is clear and as plain as day.

And when we watch old covenant saints immigrate into the new covenant and consider all the wonderful blessed changes that come to them because of that, we remember that outsider's perspective of what we have long enjoyed in Christ.

And we should rejoice in that. It is not enough to stand on Mount Pisgah's lofty heights and not cross over through the divided deep of the

Jordan. We are reminded in this passage of what Jesus said about John the Baptist, that the highest heights of the old covenant cannot compare with even the lowest valley of the new.

We are not old covenant believers having to immigrate into the new. We can already right here and right now rejoice in the blessings.

We have assurance of being the child of God. We have the strengthening of the Lord. We have the renewing of the

Holy Spirit. We have his guidance. We have his intercession. We have his joy and we have his peace and we have his hope. Do we know that?

Do we rejoice in that? Do we depend upon the Holy Spirit? Do we pray in the Spirit? Do we walk in the

Spirit? Are we being filled with the Holy Spirit? We don't control him. We don't own him.

We don't run him. It's quite the reverse. Do we appreciate the blessing?

Do we rejoice in the blessing of the Holy Spirit's life in us?

May it be so. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the day that you've given us. We thank you for this word.

Thank you for showing us the story that all at once gives us the contrast, but also reminds us of the consummation of the covenants in Christ.

Thank you that you give us your Holy Spirit, another comforter, that we are not orphans, but we know you as our

Heavenly Father, and that even now our prayers lifted to you are brought to you by the power and the intercession of your

Spirit. We thank you for these blessings and pray that you would help us to rejoice in them. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.