Pentecost Sunday 2010
The Church You’ve Always Longed For
Acts 2
What does the Church you’ve always longed for look like?
Imagine it for just a moment! What do you long for in a church family? What have you experienced that has been great? What things don't you want to be in a church family? What does the ideal church look like to you?
A. For many of us it’s the Acts 2 Church.
What made the Acts 2 church so good? It was that the Holy Spirit was at work powerfully in and through the believers. That’s what Acts chapter 2 is all about, it’s like a field manual for people who want to know what a healthy church looks like.
1. The presence of the Holy Spirit changes people! (vv1-21)
What happened was dramatic – the Holy Spirit descended with a noise like the blowing of a violent wind and in what looked tongues of fire over each of the believers. As He entered into each of the believers they began to speak in languages they had never learned. Many Jews from all around the Roman Empire had come to Jerusalem
(By the way this is also called “Shavuot” or the Feast of Weeks. It’s the time when the Jewish people celebrated the giving of the Law at Mt Sinai, and also brought in the firstfruits of their harvest as an offering to God. Don’t you love the significance of that? As people celebrate the giving of the law God sends His Spirit, who is the One who helps us to live God’s way. As people celebrate the harvest God has given them, God begins a new type of harvest – a harvest of souls for His Kingdom. I love that!)
When people came to investigate the loud noise they heard Galileans speaking about God in the languages of their own countries, and it blows their minds!
We read in verses 12 & 13: Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” 13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”
Some people discerned that something supernatural was going on and wanted to know more, but others just ridiculed. So Peter addresses both – he challenges the mockers and instructs the curious. He first explains the significance of what the believers were doing according to the Scriptures they had at the time – the Old Testament. Then he goes on to say “Men of Israel, listen to this…” (v22) and he proceeds to preach the gospel. That’s the second sign of a healthy church.
2. The gospel is preached (vv22-41)
This message that Peter preaches is a great example to anyone who wants to preach. The Holy Spirit is at work in Peter to turn him from a denier of Christ to a preacher of Christ, and I want you to notice how Peter does that.
1. He preaches from Scripture
2. He explains what the Scriptures mean
3. He applies the Scriptures to their current situation
4. He gives clear instruction about how to respond
I love the way verse 40 says “With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them..” – you really see Peter’s heart for the people he is speaking to and you see how important it is for them to listen and respond.
Healthy churches are marked by clear, faithful preaching of the gospel and by a culture of response to the gospel.
As we’ve covered what happened on day one we have to ask if this was supposed to set a pattern for what would happen afterward. Should we hear a noise every time the Holy Spirit comes to live inside a person, should there be a tongue of fire alighting on them and should they speak in a language they’ve never learned? If the answer is yes, then I’d say most of us are in trouble! Yet there are people who see things happen in the book of Acts or in other books of the Bible and make them into rules – because something happened once or even many times then it should always happen. Obviously that is faulty reasoning.
Let’s broaden our focus to look at how the last verses of Acts 2 describe the regular life of the early church to see how that helps us…
3. The details may change but the pattern remains! (vv42-47)
We can see in verse 42 that the preaching and teaching of the gospel continued, and people were devoted to it. So obviously point 2 still applies – the proclamation of the gospel and response to it continues to be a sign of a healthy church. We read in verse 47 that God added to their number daily those who were being saved, which means that people were hearing the gospel and responding in repentance and faith.
The rest of the things that we read about in these verses fit into our first point – the presence of the Holy Spirit changes people. But this time, the evidence of that change is different. We read of people being devoted to fellowship with one another, eating together, remembering Christ and praying together. We read about financial generosity toward one another and praising God together. We read of miraculous signs being performed by the Apostles. We don’t read about any more loud noises or tongues of fire or even speaking other languages, but clearly these Christians are showing evidence that the Holy Spirit is within them – their whole lives are being changed. And people are noticing the difference that God is making in their lives, which is opening doors for the preaching of the gospel just like it did on day 1.
When the Holy Spirit works powerfully in a group of Christians like He did on Pentecost Sunday, the result is always transformed lives that reflect His presence and the preaching of the gospel. The details might change – the preaching of the gospel for example might look more like a conversation over a cuppa than a challenge to a crowd, but the gospel will be proclaimed nonetheless.
So how do we see more of the Acts 2 Church in our church? How can we see more evidence of the Holy Spirit within each one of us through radically transformed lives, and how can we see greater effectiveness in our preaching of the gospel?
B. The power to be the church you’ve always longed for is within each of us
1. It’s already happening, we just want to see more of it!
The more you get involved in the church the more you get blessed by seeing how God is at work in and through people. We’ve been talking about stewardship recently, and the overriding principle is that with God has entrusted us with everything good in order to glorify Him, enjoy His blessing and be a blessing to others. I see that happening all the time in lots of different ways. That’s evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in people’s lives. Different people tend to show it in different ways: for some people it’s a dedication to service and putting time and energy into doing that, for others there is a real generosity in financial giving, for others there’s a graciousness and a desire to quietly encourage, for some it’s in the way they are coping with difficult circumstances or coming alongside someone in need. For some it’s the way they stand firm against temptation. We could go on and on listing ways that people in our church are showing evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in them.
I was blessed by the efforts of our mission committee in running the quiz night and the way that so many people contributed in so many different ways. It’s happening, it’s great and I think we are only going to see more of it. We are becoming the church that you long for because God is here and He is at work in us! How can we experience more of His power in making this happen?...
2. We access that power not by focusing within, but on letting the Holy Spirit focus us on Christ
There’s a whole bunch of Scriptures that teach us about this, but the best place to start is to go back to the time when Jesus was promising the Holy Spirit to His followers and explaining what the Holy Spirit would do.
We read in John 14:23-26
Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
The Apostles had first-hand teaching from Jesus. The early Christians had it passed on to them verbally by the Apostles and we have it passed onto us in written form in the New Testament as the Apostles remembered and applied the teachings of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. That same power working within us helps us to remember and apply all that Jesus has taught no matter what our circumstances might be.
That’s why what Chris taught us last week is so important – we need to invest time in listening to the Holy Spirit as He points us to Jesus. The power is within us, but the focus is outside us – Jesus Christ and all that He has taught us.
One day every person will see Christ with their own eyes and will acknowledge Him as Lord. The Holy Spirit helps us to see Christ through the eyes of faith and live with Him as Lord every day until He returns or we go to be with Him.
For the last month we’ve been considering the topic of stewardship – what we do with what we’ve been given.
Whether or not we become the church that we all long for really depends on what we do with what we’ve been taught as the Holy Spirit continues to remind us and challenge us to be obedient to Jesus.
Will you glorify God? Will you enjoy His blessing and share that blessing with others?
If we get really serious about glorifying God and blessing others with our personal finances, we will enable this church as a whole to glorify God, enjoy His blessing together and be a blessing to others in ways that we have not been able to before. God has given us all the resources we need, we just need to allow His Spirit to teach us and remind us how to use them.
The same is true for where we are investing our time, and in how we are investing in our relationships. Give the Holy Spirit the opportunity to speak to you about these things. Let Him help you put the teachings of Jesus into practice in your life and God will be glorified and we will all be blessed. We will be the church that you long for.
Don’t make it someone else’s responsibility. Don’t fall for that selfish consumerist idea of shopping around for a church that meets your needs but requires the least from you. You won’t find God’s blessing that way.
Read Acts 2:42-47 again in your own time and ask God “What should this look like in my life?” Then do it.
The only thing holding us back from being the church we all long for is our willingness to listen and obey.
