For the last several weeks we have been studying the events leading up to today, Pentecost Sunday. Up to this point in our studies, Jesus has:
They are immediately filled with the Holy Spirit and begin speaking in languages that they had not been able to speak before this time. As a result, they go outside and begin preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a large crowd of people. This crowd is so diverse that there are representatives of “all of the nations under Heaven”. The amazing thing is that each person hears the preaching being done in his or her own language!
The people are astounded to the extent that some think the Disciples are drunk. Then Peter delivers what arguably is the most powerful sermon on the Gospel of Jesus Christ that has ever been given. It was so powerful that over 3,000 people became believers right then and there! And it all stems from the refreshing wind and refining fire of that Pentecost morning!
Before that Pentecost event, before they had received the refreshing wind and refining fire that day, the Disciples were a timid, flip-flopping, wishy-washy group of believers at best. However, on the morning that the wind and fire of the Holy Spirit came to them, the Disciples were at last empowered by God to be what He had wanted them to be for the last 3½ years, but were unable to be.
For 3½ years Jesus walked with the Disciples, teaching and equipping them to carry on His mission after he had physically left them. But for 3½ years the Disciples were:
But on that Pentecost morning the Disciples progressed from being simply trained and equipped, to being empowered by God. And that is a monumental difference! Prior to Pentecost, whenever the Disciples got into trouble, they would hightail it back to wherever Jesus was for protection and comfort. Please note that I am not knocking them for that. After all, who better to run to than Jesus when troubles and trials come our way? In reality, if we would do that first when troubles start happening, we could save ourselves a lot of pain and failed effort.
After Pentecost, the Disciples (and we) no longer have to go searching for Jesus. He is in them (and us), through the Holy Spirit, empowering them (and us) to finish the work He had begun with them. In Acts 3, Peter and John meet a man crippled from birth as they are headed to the Temple. The man asks them for money, but they reply, “Silver and gold…no we have no money. But…we do have the Holy Spirit! Get up and walk!” On the day of Pentecost, the Disciples (the Church of Christ) became Jesus’ hands and feet on this Earth, so that together, with Him living in and working through us, we are a powerful agent of change for this world, if we choose to be so.
At Pentecost, after receiving the refreshing wind and refining fire, Peter went from being a scared, pathetic Disciple, who denied even knowing Jesus at the time of His arrest and mock trial, to the Disciple who is now telling a huge crowd of people that they need to personally know Jesus Christ in order to gain salvation! Peter was so filled with the power of the Holy Spirit that day that over 3,000 people were cut to their hearts and cried out, “What shall we do?” Peter responds, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:37-39)
Many people today ask, “What shall we do?” You know what? The answer is exactly the same as the answer Peter gave to the crowd that day so many years ago. We need to understand that we are never going to be what Christ has called us to be without utilizing the power of the Holy Spirit within us.
Those men and women gathered in the Upper Room that day had never seen or experienced anything like it before! Suddenly they were made new. With His refreshing wind and refining fire the Lord had changed everything! All of their doubts and fears were wiped away. Where they had, just moments before, been sitting midst feelings of dejection and rejection, they now felt the presence and awesome power of God through the indwelling of His Holy Spirit! They could sense that God was with them everywhere they went!
They instantly understood what Jesus meant when He had told them, “I will never leave you nor forsake you!” They understood that God was no longer going to dwell in buildings or tents, but was going to live in the hearts of His people now and forever. Paul writes in Ephesians 3:16-17, “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”
When a person comes to Christ through faith, he or she is made new by the refreshing wind and refining fire of the Holy Spirit. That is the message and promise of Pentecost. Again we turn to the Apostle Paul and see that he says in his epistle to the church at Corinth, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
As the Disciples of Christ looked about the room that Pentecost morning, they knew that something new was happening. The breath of God was breathing new life into them. Exactly as God had breathed life into His new creation, Adam, so now God was breathing life into His new creation, the Church. In both cases, we see that without the breath of God a body is a corpse. With the breath of God, a corpse becomes a living being.
Also in the Bible, fire is an analogy for purification and cleansing. A new creation has to be purified, cleansed and refined by God in order to be useful for service to Him. The refining fire sent by God to the Disciples that day, the “tongues of fire” that they saw dancing about them, were a sign to the Disciples that God was preparing them to serve Him as His new priests and messengers. They just had to tell people about the miracle they had just witnessed, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the One who made it all possible.
These Disciples, these believers, were empowered to preach the Word of God in each of the known languages of the people there in Jerusalem. Please understand, that when the Bible says in these passages that the Disciples were speaking in “tongues” it does not mean some strange, unknown languages, or what some call “angel speak”. No, it is clear that these passages refer to ordinary languages spoken by the different nationalities of the people there in Jerusalem at the time. It tells us that the Disciples were able to speak in languages that were previously unknown to them, but very understandable to those people to whom the Disciples were speaking.
What was so extraordinary was not the languages being spoken, but the fact that those who heard the message were so struck to their hearts that they responded by converting to belief in Jesus Christ in huge numbers.
See, for many people there, the religion of the Hebrews at that time had become a ritualistic, tired, ho-hum form of godliness without empowerment. There was religion, but there was no relationship with God. The Disciples now had that extremely close, extremely personal relationship with God and they wanted to tell everyone that they too could have that relationship through Jesus Christ. The result of their bold preaching in different languages is that some people said that the Disciples must be drunk! But Peter clears that up right away.
Folks, it is still that way today. There are people who will look for “rational” ways to explain away what the Lord is doing in your life through His Holy Spirit. Don’t fret! Don’t worry! Don’t be afraid! Don’t back off! For if God is with you, who can be against you?
Three thousand people wanted to know what could be done for them that day. They wanted to know if it was too late. They wanted to know if they had missed the boat and missed the blessing of the gift of the Holy Spirit. They wanted to know if they had missed being “made new creations”. The Good News is that the answer to those questions, those doubts, is “No!” Peter says to them, “This promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off.”
Think about that for a moment. The power of God to raise Jesus from the dead is the power He wants you to know and experience!