Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 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.”
Peter Addresses the Crowd
14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 “ ‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
19 I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
20 The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
21 And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
Listening guide
How do you do at gathering groups?
“were all together in one place” (verse 1) … “in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven” (verse 5)
“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit”(verse 4)
You need a _____________________ _______________.
A ___________ group has a supernatural spirit.
“each one heard their own language being spoken.” ……. “bewildered and amazed!
God gathers a great group!
Discussion questions
Sermon
Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost
Peace Lutheran Church
Nathaniel Timmermann
May 23, 2021
How do you do at gathering a group of people and getting them rallied to a cause, then getting it done?
I think the first time I was really responsible for a couple of other people was in high school. I was first chair of the baritones so I was responsible for leading our practices. Not a big job. Only 3 of us. Tough days. I was a sophomore. Other guy was a senior. He was not happy letting me direct us.
Teens for Life. That wasn’t too bad. We were all pretty motivated.
Another one that was a complete failure. I tried to get a group of pastors to work together and publish materials. One of the challenges in our group of churches, our denomination as we call the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, is that we just don’t publish many materials. What I mean is, we don’t produce many materials that you can buy and use. Some of you know this because I’ve commented how if we want to have a Bible study on a book of the Bible, we basically have 1 option. My solution for this a few years out of school was to try to get a few fellow pastors together to start publishing.
I wanted 4 of us to work together and on the basis of our credentials to try publish professional materials. They totally shot me down.
Even today, 131 Youth Crew – joint project for our churches to have meaningful discipleship for our high school students. Definitely hard. Lately another pastor has gotten excited and participated more but we can’t get any lay people to invest.
Getting people together, getting them to work together is hard, and getting them to stay together is hard. I know part of that is I’m not good at it. I'm constantly working on getting better. But the bigger part of it is its just hard.
What we’ve got today is an event where people come together. We call Pentecost. We got that name from the Jews who came from all over the world to participate in this event that happened 50 days after Passover. On this day, the apostle Peter preached a sermon and amazing things happened.
We’re told on that day 3,000 people believed. There were 120 people who were adherents of the Christian faith before that sermon, and afterwards there were 3,120. We’re not sure quite how soon, but as you read along, we’ll see in the book of Acts within just a couple of days another 2,000 joined.
There was explosive church growth, and it didn’t end there because we know Christian faith swept through the Roman Empire.
I’m not saying this text is a guidebook for getting people together. If you’re sitting there saying, I want to get my family that is just fighting and disconnected all the time, I want to get them together, I can’t give you a set of steps to fix it. Or if you’re saying, I’ve got my friends in high school and I want to get us together to fight illiteracy, this won’t give you all the steps. If you have some cause you want to advance - you shouldn’t use this text as a guide for making a group to advance your cause. What this text does, you get the basic element for a great group.
Development
The first thing is to be a great group, you need more than just the normal tools and skills.
Luke wrote “were all together in one place” (verse 1) It appears that they’re together. It looks like they’re together. They were all together in one place. They look like a group. It’s even more than that.
Let me show you three things about them. 1) their cause 2) their tactics and 3) their creed. Luke says these people “in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven” (verse 5) What do we have here?
The people are in Jerusalem. If we look at it more closely, they’re in the temple. And they are God fearing people. These are not people who have gathered just for any mission or any cause.
This isn’t a bunch of video gamers. Not that that’s bad. This isn’t a group of people doing yoga in the park. Again good. Unless you’re me. I just break. They’re gathered for religion.
Religion is the highest cause that anybody has in their life. Why are there? What are they trying to do? You think, this must be the most solid group possible. They’ve got this really high cause.
They’ve also got good tactics. It says they are “God-fearing.” What that means, the technical term is they are proselytes. They’ve passed through the system to join in. The cause isn’t just a high cause, they’ve also got a great structure to bring people on board and then advance the cause. They’ve got tactics.
And last, it says they’ve got people from every nation under heaven. What does that mean? It means they are incredibly, radically inclusive. Secular creed. This is the most inclusive cause. They’ve got people from everywhere.
Look at this. This group has a good cause. Good tactics. Good creed. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a group that was more diverse, more unique and still together.
And yet. And yet. And here is the big but. God says, if you want to need a great group, you need something else. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit”(verse 4)
· Like a lot of you, I’ve been on sports team. Good group.
· Like a lot of you, I watch NCIS and I love watching the dynamic of the team as they work together. I think that must be a great team to be on.
· I’ve been part of exclusive musical groups
· I’ve been part of volunteer teams that have a great cause.
And still for all of that, none of that compares to the moment when we come together as a group of people here at Peace and we’re singing “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” ….
Or we’ve just heard that great gospel that I’m forgiven and loved and accepted in Jesus Christ despite the fact that I’m terrible and a mess. We’re looking at each other and the Spirit is in this group. Its almost silent in here and we look at each other and we just revel in the great news.
To be a really great group, you need something else. You need a supernatural spirit.
Look at this. You are absolutely missing out on an amazing thing in life if you don’t want to be with other people. If you are so private in life that you don’t let anyone in, you don’t have any idea of what life is all about.
But at the same time, even if you’re about religious activities with other people, you’re about worship together, you’re about prayer together, and you’re about Bible study together, but there is not spirit there, you don’t have a supernatural spirit, you still aren’t there.
You’ve got to have a supernatural spirit. Luke would say you have to have the Spirit.
A great group has a supernatural spirit.
Part 2
That supernatural spirit makes you into a truly great group. Luke said, “each one heard their own language being spoken.”
People from all over the world are hearing the gospel in their own language! What an amazing thing! And did you notice how the people were feeling? They were both bewildered and amazed! Did you catch that?
I’ve been in situations where I’ve been bewildered. I remember getting off the plane in Athens Greece at like 12 pm.
(any example of something that is both bewildering and amazing - maybe my One China Team meeting where we spoke a mixture of Chinese and English)
What Pentecost started is still happening. I used to read this story of Pentecost and think, wow, that’s a neat story. Too bad it doesn’t happen anymore. Then I realized, wait a second, this still happens today. Pentecost wasn’t the end. Pentecost was just the beginning.
Christianity is the most universal religion out there.
“The sociologist Rodney Stark has researched the historical data, and he surmised the following growth statistics: We know, and we’re pretty sure this is accurate, by ad 40 there were approximately 1,000 Christians in the Roman Empire (probably outside Jerusalem) By ad 100 that number has risen to about 7,500 Christians in the Roman Empire. By ad 150 there are about 40,000 Christians in the Roman Empire. By the time we get to ad 300 there were approximately 1.2 million Christians in the Roman Empire, representing roughly 2 percent of the entire population. By ad 350 there were as many as 34 million Christians in the Roman Empire—more than half of the entire population.”
That was just the beginning. Today Christianity is the most diverse group in the planet. It is the most even racially and culturally spread out. There are equal numbers of people who identify as Christians who live in Europe, North America, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa. Over 60 percent of Christians live in the Global South, and the center of gravity for Christianity in the coming decades will likely be increasingly non-Western.
God gathers a great group.
Action
Friends, I want you today to be part of this great group. Get this supernatural Spirit and be part of God’s great group.
It is absolutely true that God the Holy Spirit moves when and where he pleases. I’m fascinated to see the great growth of Christian churches that has taken place in the last 20 or so years. There are churches in certain places that have experienced just explosive growth.
· (1857 New York City the Fulton Street Revival – about 10% of Manhattan was converted in 2 years)
· Toronto Blessing – 1990s started maybe in Toronto
· New York City -
· There is a church in Vancouver Canada. Fairly irreligious city. They started the church in 2010. By 2016, they baptized more than 1,000 people. Now get this. When they started, the core group was 16. As they started, three of them lost a parent. You catch that. A group of 16. 3 of them lose a parent. And in 2016 they baptize a thousand people.
· In Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela places like that, do you know how many people come to Jesus every day? 3,000!
· Even a church in our own denomination just a few years ago almost doubled in one year.
The Holy Spirit goes when and where he pleases. He is poured out. People start talking. And they say, “Jesus save me. You’re my Savior and Lord.”
And you can be part of it too, when you say, Jesus is my Savior and Lord. If you’re not lying, if you honestly say what has been given you to say, then you are part of it too. You’re part of God’s great group.