Acts 2:1-14
The second chapter of Acts is so
important for our understanding of the church continuing to do Christ’s work in
the world, we are going to look at it several times before we’re finished with
it. I say things in this message I've said before but I do so because the ideas are important.
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This past New Year’s Eve (2003)
we enjoyed a meal with Roy and Rene Johnson at a little family-owned Mexican
restaurant in Amarillo. It was a nice
evening for reminiscing and catching up with the lives of our old friends. Our friendship with Roy and Rene goes back to
before they were married, even before they started dating.
Pat knew Rene as a colleague from
school and we both knew Roy from the Dawn Baptist Church. In fact, Pat and I used to take Roy, who was
then in his mid-thirties, out to eat occasionally. Privately we’d joke that we were on an outing
with the “singles’ department.”
One of the memories we talked
about concerned the evening I saw Roy working on the fire engine at the
volunteer fire department located across the street from the parsonage. I went over to talk with Roy but we hadn’t
talked long when the sky suddenly darkened and the wind began to blow, to blow
even harder than we were used to on the Panhandle.
We both decided to head for
home. Roy got in his pick-up and left
while I walked back across the street to our house. Within minutes the house began to shake with
the wind. We ushered the boys into an
inner hallway. I looked out the back
door just in time to see a metal building in our yard collapse. Then, suddenly, everything was quiet and
still.
About two miles away, on a
straight line from our house, another church member had lost several large
trees in her yard. Across the highway
from us eighteen boxcars had been blown off the railroad tracks. We had experienced a small tornado.
That old building in our back
yard was flimsy but not those battered and broken trees, not those
boxcars. It took raw power to accomplish
that.
The account of the Day of
Pentecost in Acts 2 depicts the birthday of the church, the day when the church
received the promised Holy Spirit and, with the Spirit, the power to continue
the work of the Risen Christ. The
tornado’s power aimlessly destroyed, the power of the Spirit allowed the new
Christians to build. The presence and
power of the Spirit transformed the disciples.
Pentecost marked a change in the demeanor of the disciples to such a
degree that observers would marvel at their tenacity and their sense of
assurance.
The events of this chapter in
Acts are so important that any church yearning to continue the work of Christ
will consider them carefully to discover any pattern they may suggest.
Let’s examine those events.
A Day to Remember
Pentecost is the Jewish feast day
celebrating the first fruits of the barley harvest. Some fifty days after Passover, Pentecost was
a holiday associated with the great rejoicing when no work was to be done. Although the feast didn’t have this
connotation in the Old Testament by the first century Pentecost was seen by
some as commemorating the giving of the Law.
According to some, the possession of the Law helped to define the Jews
as God’s people.
The disciples were all together
in some place (most likely in “the upper room” mentioned in 1:13). It apparently afforded privacy yet was close
to the temple that the crowds could immediately hear the activity.
In obedience to the Risen
Christ’s command the disciples had returned to Jerusalem to wait, and to
pray. They prayed with a marked
intensity and unity. After ten days it
happened. That day became a day to
remember.
1) There was an auditory
phenomenon in the form of “a noise like a violent, rushing wind.” The text doesn’t say there was actual wind
but a sound like that of wind. The language
suggests it was the sound of a violent wind but there was no damage. In both
the Old Testament and the New Testament the Spirit is often compared to the
wind or breath. The suggestion here
seems to be one of power, power to shake their world.
2) There was a visual phenomenon
in the form of “tongues of fire.” The
text suggests the fireball first appeared above the entire company and then it
split into smaller tongues that
rested over the heads of the individuals assembled.
Lenski: “Perhaps we may say that the flamelike
tongues appeared in a great cluster and then divided until a tongue settled on
the head of each one of the disciples.”
The experience was both corporate
and individual. The church as a whole
received the blessing and so, too, did the individual believers. But what was this blessing?
Luke explains that the disciples
had been “filled with the Holy Spirit.”
This is simply stated here with no real exposition but the epistles will
explain that the experience involves being under the influence of the Spirit,
being controlled by the Spirit.
3) The experience of the Spirit
was accompanied by another phenomenon:
the disciples began to speak in tongues.
The Amplified Bible offers this
rendering, “they began to speak in (different, foreign) languages, as the
Spirit kept giving them clear and loud expression (in each tongue in
appropriate words).”
While still experiencing this
strange miracle the disciples left the upper room and apparently headed toward
the temple. They couldn’t help but be
heard.
Remember the city was filled with
pilgrims, some having taken up more or less permanent residence, some who may
have been there just for the duration of the holy days.
These pilgrims were from every
part of the Roman world, at least the eastern part of that world. At least
fifteen nations are mentioned. Those
pilgrims marveled that these Galileans were speaking in their particular
dialects. Think about this, only a few
days before Jesus had told them they would be taking his message into all the
world; now, in a remarkable way the world had come to them.
At first, the crowd seemed to be
divided into two groups. Some of the
pilgrims heard the disciples speak of the “mighty works of God” and were
“beside themselves with amazement” and “puzzled,” wondering what it all meant.
Others, like critics of every age
who believe anyone at all excited about God is mentally unstable, declared the
disciples to be drunk—despite the early hour of the morning.
As unfair as that charge was, it
gave Peter an opening to speak, an opening he seized: He took only a moment to
answer the critics and spent the bulk of his message explaining what God was
doing.
We’ll look at the content of this
first sermon in the history of the church later, but for now I want to look at
the morning’s events as a whole. The
movements of this story have been repeated again and again in the history of
the church. They form a pattern that is
a precursor to the church experiencing spiritual renewal and greater
effectiveness.
The Pattern of Pentecost
The pattern is so simple we could
possibly miss it. In fact, I had until a
Lutheran pastor pointed it out to me.
Here it is.
1. They all prayed.
Jesus had told them to wait for
the coming of the Spirit. They spent
that time in prayer. United prayer. Focused prayer. The prayer time began almost as soon as they
had returned to Jerusalem after the Ascension.
Luke tells us in the previous chapter, “All these [disciples] with one
accord were devoting themselves to prayer….” (Acts 1:14) The phrase “with one accord” is
important. It suggests unity and
focus.
It would be wrong to say they
agreed on everything—time would prove they didn’t—but they did agree on the
things of unquestionable importance:
they were united in their determination to carry on Christ’s work in the
world and they were united in their recognizing their need of God’s own power
to do that work.
2. They all witnessed.
The furor that the subject of
“speaking in tongues” sometimes generates may keep us from seeing the important
matter in this event: The 120 believers,
both men and women, left that upper-room prayer meeting witnessing to “the
mighty works of God.” That’s at the
heart of witness, evangelism, sharing the gospel; whatever you may call the
task of calling others to faith will involve telling others what God has done.
I want you to keep something in
mind about these pilgrims who were attracted to the disciples that morning,
they were probably more cosmopolitan than we might imagine. Chances are the men and women in that
audience were trilingual—speaking Greek, probably a little Aramaic, and their
own dialect. The gift of tongues was not necessary to communicate with
them. The disciples could have spoken to
them in Greek, which was almost universally spoken in the Roman world. The experience of speaking in other tongues
was intended to capture their attention and to give affirmation to the
disciples.
Whatever else the experience may
have signified, it was confirmation that the disciples now had supernatural
power to communicate the gospel. And
they all had the joy of participating in that sharing of the good news.
3. A man
stood up to preach.
Preaching is one of the great
traditions of the Christian church.
Christian preaching was born on this day. Peter preached the first sermon.
The event reminds us that there
is a vital link between the witness of the individual Christian and the
preaching of the church.
[Throughout my career, I
continued to read how-to books on preaching.
Most were written by specialists who had studied speech, rhetoric, and
communication theory. Some writers
insisted sermons must have carefully crafted points, others insisted sermons
should have no formal points but should just elaborate one idea with no 1st,
2nd, or 3rd to clutter up the flow. I sometimes tried to blend my approach. Some writers became quite specific in their
instructions for preparing a sermon. One
of the first books I read said the introduction should take no more than 15% of
the sermon time; I would later read preaching books that said sermons should
have no introductions.
We should be glad we have such
specialists to teach preaching to young ministers but we can’t forget that some
of the most effective sermons were preached by untrained men or women who
simply had a burning message. The layman
who preached the sermon leading to Charles Spurgeon’s conversion would have
probably received a failing grade in most preaching classes, yet his single
convert would reach thousands with the gospel.
Remember, this sermon in Acts was preached by a fisherman.]
One of the themes running through
the Book of Acts connects the transformed lives of the Christians and the
proclamation of the gospel. Where men
and women lived obviously changed lives, the curiosity of onlookers was piqued and
a door was opened to share the gospel.
That happened when the crowd asked, “What does this mean?” and it would
happen again.
The Pattern of
Pentecost and Us.
It’s one thing to examine the
events on the Day of Pentecost and discern a pattern; it’s another to discover
how that pattern translates into our own situation. Still, it’s important we do so.
Have you heard about the
fifty-two penguins in the San Francisco Zoo?
They suddenly began swimming in circles.
When the workers drained their pool for cleaning, the penguins began
walking in circles around the bottom.
While the authorities don’t have a clear understanding of what the
penguins are doing at this point, they’re not overly worried. Penguins swim for hundreds of miles in the
wild so they’re not likely to get too exhausted.
Unfortunately, people involved in
a church that is going in circles can become exhausted, discouraged, and
frustrated.
By no means did the church in the
Book of Acts go in circles. How can our
church be like that? Like the early
church we need to focus on continuing the work of Jesus Christ in world.
We can do this by following that
pattern of Pentecost. What will that
mean?
(1) That church yearning to
continue Christ’s work will pray with unity of purpose.
In some cases it may mean
rediscovering that unity of purpose.
Some churches have become confused about that. In some cases it may mean establishing new
priorities. It will certainly mean seeing
ourselves and our talents in a new way, especially if we’ve been persuaded that
a few more training courses, a clever ad campaign, or any other gimmick is all
we need to draw people to faith in Christ.
It will mean seeking God’s power as if our success depended upon
it. Because it does.
(2) That church yearning to
continue Christ’s work will encourage each member to witness to what God is
doing in their lives.
The Christian who wants his or
her church to do more than merely maintain the status quo will be concerned
abut the impact of his or her life on the watching world. The lives and words of individual Christians
have always determined the effectiveness of the local church.
A quarter of a century ago,
Everett Harrison commented on the remarkable growth of the church in Acts: ”There
is nothing here to suggest that the increase was due to more public preaching. While the possibility of such preaching must
be granted, the more likely explanation for the growth of the Church at this
stage was the transformation observable in the three thousand. The impact of the few at Pentecost had
broadened and become the impact of the many.”[1]
David L. Larsen explores the
reasons why we pay attention to some people when they speak and concludes that
integrity of life and words is a crucial element in hoping to be heard. He writes, “The authentication of verbal witness by genuine life and
character—that is God’s plan…. Our
reaction to provocation [which comes in a variety of forms] can make or break our credibility as
witnesses.”[2]
(3) That church yearning to
continue Christ’s work will communicate the gospel creatively and clearly.
Certainly that will mean
supporting a pulpit that is faithful in opening up God’s Word and proclaiming
it.
At the same time, it will mean
using other ways to communicate the faith to those who would never listen to a
sermon. The Word of the gospel may be
spoken from the pulpit or over a cup of coffee during a private
conversation. It may be communicated in
a carefully crafted letter.
That Word may be spoken or
written; it may be expressed in standard syntax and style or in a novel,
dramatic form with vivid imagery and poetic cadence. Sometimes it may even be possible to speak
that Word with out the listener knowing you are invoking the Word.
For the past two Christmases
crowds have flocked to watch the exploits of a motley crew of fairies, dwarves,
men, and hobbits. I don’t know if the
producers of the films had this in mind but because they have so faithfully
followed the story from the Lord of the
Rings trilogy, they have also reproduced J. R. R. Tolkien’s Christian
world-view.
Some men and women, made curious
by the witness of Spirit-filled believers, will respond to a presentation of
the gospel as simple as that found in the Roman Road or the Four Spiritual
Laws. Some will require a fuller, more
detailed presentation.
If we truly hope to help these
people exchange one defective world-view for one based in eternal truth, we
will need to encourage our churches to make the communication of the gospel a
priority.
CONCLUSION
The late comedian Flip Wilson
used to portray a character named “Reverend Leroy.” Reverend Leroy led a congregation called
“The Church of What’s Happenin’ Now.”
Few of today’s churches are that blatant in their quest to appeal to a
new generation but many have freely jettisoned the vestiges of that church born
on Pentecost. Many of these churches are
growing, but more and more studies show that the commitment of those sitting in
their comfortable chairs is only there as long as the entertainment is
appealing and the sermons aren’t too critical.
We can be thankful for all they do reach but they don’t seem to have
found the way to continuing Christ’s work in the world.
At the same time, the answer is
not found in the example of those churches you see in almost every community,
those churches with the signs that say “Old Fashioned Preaching.” That always puzzles me. I’ve studied a little of the history of
preaching and I wonder what era of preaching their pastor has copied. Have these churches found the secret to
growth and effectiveness? No. The secret is not going back some fifty or
seventy-five years to find out how to do church. That’s not going back far enough.
As we begin to frame our mission
and vision as a church I hope we will continue to look back at this church born
on Pentecost: A church which wisely depended
upon God, a church which involved every member in witness, a church which
confidently and lovingly proclaimed its message.
