Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Acts 2:1-13, highlighting the significance of Pentecost as a transformative moment for the early church. He emphasizes that the Holy Spirit's arrival empowered the disciples, enabling them to boldly proclaim the gospel across language barriers, symbolizing a reversal of the Tower of Babel. The sermon calls believers to recognize the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in their lives and to actively share their faith with others, reflecting the mission of the church to spread the message of Christ globally.
Welcome and Church Information
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. Thank you, Piper, for singing one of my favorite songs there.
I have a lot of favorite songs. I say that a lot, but worship songs, just bringing our heart closer to the Lord is a great thing. And thank you for singing and worshiping with us this morning.
If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in Acts chapter 2 this morning. We are continuing through the book of Acts this morning and have thoroughly enjoyed preaching and studying through this book.
And our plan is to go through this book this year and just see what the Lord has for us, help our church be closer aligned with the New Testament church of Acts and what that looks like. And so we'll be in Acts chapter 2, verses 1 through 3, 13 this morning.
As you're turning there, we'll just give a quick recap. Last two weeks, we looked at Acts chapter 1 and we talked through the mission of the church and Jesus is giving his final words there to the church. And then the disciples and those that were following Jesus were stuck in this transition period.
What was it going to look like as the church was about to be launched and Jesus told them some specifics to go and to wait and to be in prayer for the Spirit to come. And they had to replace Matthias.
And so we talked through what that looked like of knowing God's will. And then today we get this experience that we're going to look at called Pentecost. And what an awesome, awesome experience that they experienced in this moment.
And then we get to continue to have in our day every single day of our life.
And so if you have your place there, we'll stand in reading of God's Word. Acts chapter 2, verses 1 through 13. It says, When this sound occurred, the crowd came together and was confused.
Each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astonished and amazed, saying, Look, aren't these who were speaking Galileans?
And how that each of us can hear them in our own native tongue. Parthians and Medes and Alameites, those who live in Mesopotamia and Judah and Cappadonius, Pontus and Asa, Figurus and Pamphylia,
Egypt and all the parts of Libya near Cyrene. Visitors from Rome, both Jew and converts, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them declaring the magnificent acts of God in their own tongues. And they were all astounded and perplexed, saying to one another, What does this mean? But some sneered and said,
They're drunk on new wine. Lord, I pray that you'll be with us this morning.
Prayer for Faithful Proclamation
Help us to preach your Word faithfully. Help me to do my diligence of making sure that your Word is proclaimed. And I pray that you'll help us to have open hearts and ears. In your name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. This moment of Pentecost was the moment that changed everything.
You can imagine in your own life, this is a moment that would have completely rearranged and changed your whole world.
You may look at different events in your life. Maybe it was your marriage day where your life was totally changed, radically changed, changed, hopefully for the good. It could have been a horrible situation for me in my life.
I talk on often of this when my mom and dad separated and I came home and I found out that my mom had left my family and I left my dad. This was a moment that radically changed everything about my life.
I could have been on One Direction and changed everything about my life, but the Lord saw fit that he continued to use in that situation. It could have been a tragedy that happened, maybe a car accident, something that just changed everything about your life. This is the moment of the church.
It wasn't just another festival in a Jewish calendar, but it was a divine turning point that ignited the church in a movement that was going to forever alter the course of history. This is something that we look back on and we study it as theologians, we study it as church people, but this is something that if this didn't happen,
imagine the world of uncertainty for a moment. Imagine a world where followers of Christ were uncertain. They were gathering in secret.
They didn't know what was going to happen the next day. The single moment of their life was going to be this unknown.
And in this moment, the Holy Spirit descended and the Holy Spirit equipped ordinary men and women with some extraordinary power that we see here through Scripture.
This movement happened with a small group of disciples and it exploded into a global mission that we would look back on today and we would say, because that event happened, we are sitting here today.
And I want you to understand the significance of this event because sometimes we don't even understand how huge this event was. And most of us in here, was anyone alive in 1944? Raise your hand if you were. 1944. Buford. A couple people around where Don was there in 1944.
And in this moment in 1944, June 6, 1944, the world was locked in turmoil. World War II was going on. The Allies looked like they were going to be defeated by the Axis forces. And if they didn't take bold action, this war that we were in was going to continue indefinitely.
They actually had some really fun things if you studied out. But in this moment, in this single decisive moment, everything changed. As thousands of Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy.
Terry was telling me that he's going to be there here this year in just a couple of months. He's going to be at Normandy.
He's going to be able to see this moment where we've seen pictures and we've seen videos of these soldiers coming on this insurmassable mountain that they were going to overtake and they were going to defeat the Axis. And it was going to be the beginning of the end of World War II.
It was the moment that shifted everything in the war. And ultimately, history itself was shifted because of this one action. Pentecost was the spiritual equivalency of this moment of D-Day. It was the invasion of God's power on this earth.
And it broke through the barriers of fear. It broke through the barriers of doubt and all the division that was going on because the church in this moment was divinely launched into Christ's mission of what the church was going to do. It was going to bring light into a world that was so desperately beat up by Satan.
It was so desperately beat up by the spiritual oppression of the wickedness that was all around them. And then this moment, Christ came in, the Holy Spirit came in and moved in a way that was going to be radically different.
Just as the soldiers on that faithful day moved forward with courage, the disciples in this moment who were timid and uncertain were now filled with boldness and they were speaking languages they had never known, proclaiming the mighty works of God. This is the moment of Pentecost.
And we're going to look at a couple of things in the moment of Pentecost. I've put that as your first blank because this was, as I said, the turning point of the church. My family, we like to build fires.
And I want you to imagine a moment you are outside. It's a nice spring day and you've gathered some sticks.
Maybe it's a fall day because all the sticks have fallen off and the leaves. And you've got the sticks there and you've got the fire built that you're going to ready to take on this bonfire.
You maybe even went out and you bought s'mores. You got your graham crackers and your marshmallows and your chocolates. Some people are weird. They do Reese cups.
That's just their own thing. Maybe you've even got your chairs sitting out. You're ready for the fire to happen. And you look around and you say, hey, who brought the matches?
And no one's got matches. Well, does anybody have a rock that we can maybe make some sparks? There's no rocks to be found. There's kindling there.
There's, there's no way to create a spark or a fire. And we're just sitting there looking at sticks and hoping that this fire is going to spontaneously combust. This is the church in this moment.
They're waiting in the upper room. Jesus told them to, to go to the upper room, to go back to Jerusalem and to wait for his supernatural appearing. And they're sitting there and they're waiting and they're waiting.
And they're like, well, what's going on? How long are we going to wait? What's going to happen? And in this moment, everything changed by the ignition of the Holy Spirit.
The ignition of the Holy Spirit happens in a way in verse two, it says, suddenly a sound like a violent rushing wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were staying.
Dramatic Entrance of Pentecost
This was a dramatic moment. This, this arrival of Pentecost was not subtle.
This, just this moment of Pentecost was not a quiet event, but it marked by a sound from heaven that resembled a mighty rushing wind. The other day,
I saw on Facebook, everyone was putting, did you hear that sound that was outside? It sounded like thunder or lightning. I didn't hear anything.
I didn't, I don't know what was going on. I looked it up and I think it was some plane that broke the sound barrier. And it made some loud boom, some loud moment.
Everyone was talking about it. It was dramatic. This is what happened here. The sound came from heaven, a mighty rushing wind. It said it sounded so loud that the, the people that were in the city came to see what was going on. It wasn't just the isolated to this room.
It was so loud that the community heard what was going on. This dramatic entrance signifies the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is not some little genie on a bottle that we put in our shirt pocket or on a shelf and we say, Hey, when, when I need you, I want you to come out.
No, the, the power of the Holy Spirit is greater than we can ever imagine based on this event that we see here in scripture.
It wasn't a gentle breeze, but an undeniable force that captured everyone's attention, leaving no doubt that something great was about to happen, that something great was taking place.
The sound itself was a metaphor of the transforming power of the, the human history been changed forever. I want you to imagine standing on a seashore this morning.
You're, you're standing out there by the beach and, and you're experiencing the waves come in and you begin to see often to a distance, the clouds begin to turn dark.
You begin to see the, the, the mood shifting in the moment.
And you're not realizing that the storm is bigger than what it is. And the closer it gets, the, the more violent the waves begin to get.
And, and all of a sudden you hear the announcement of everyone to, to retreat and get back because this storm is coming in and it's going to be a massive storm.
And as this storm arrives, the waves begin to crash and it begins to take out piers and it begins to take out stairs that are leading down to the beach. And, and you begin watching the intensity of this storm come in.
And this is the moment of the Holy Spirit coming in to the church's movement, to the church is moving. What is going to do? It was an unmistakable, undeniable, all inspiring, dramatic experience for the church.
Something that these disciples would never forget and would empower them for the very end of their days.
So that when Peter was standing there and when Peter was about to be crucified and they went to crucify him upright, he said, I am not worthy to be crucified the way my savior Jesus was. And they said, crucify me upside down.
And so they took the cross and they spun it around and he was crucified head down instead of the way Jesus was crucified head up.
When James came before Pilate that we're going to see here in a couple of chapters where James comes before the king there and is asked about his faith, he cannot deny what the Lord had done in his life.
And you look at disciple after disciple who never turned their back on Jesus because of this dramatic experience that changed the course of history.
Visible Signs of the Spirit
So much so that we're sitting here today looking and studying about what God did 2,000 years ago.
But not only was it dramatic, but it was visible and tangible. Look at verse 3 and 4 again. They saw these tongues of flames. They rested on each one of them and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. The spirit arrival wasn't only heard, but it was seen.
There were physical tongues of fire that appeared. The Bible says it rested on each one of them and it symbolized a couple of things. It symbolized the purifying of what was about to happen. We're sinful creatures. We're made as perfect creatures. And then 6,000, 7,000, whatever years ago, we sinned in the garden.
We sinned before an almighty God and sin entered into the world. And this was a moment where we were purified and we were empowered. Fire in scripture,
I read this in one commentaire, often represents God's presence in scripture.
We see Moses in the burning bush. The fire of the burning bush represented God and the holiness of who he is. When we look at the children of Israelites, we see them guided by a pillar of fire. They were shown away in the desert through a fire.
And we see here that the disciples got to experience a flaming tongue of fire that was going to empower them and guide them for the rest of their life. This is the signification that God is now dwelling with mankind.
Not just as Jesus who comes into this world and spends 33 years, but an ever-ceasing, all-empowering moment where Jesus is with us. The Holy Spirit is with us.
Now I want you to think back. Oftentimes as we study through scripture, we see Moses in the burning bush.
And we say, you know, God, I wish I could have a burning bush experience. Have you ever thought about that?
I want to have a burning bush experience where God just appears to me in this burning bush. Maybe you fast forward a little bit and you say, man, if I could just be like the disciples, right?
They got to spend three and a half years with Jesus. Wouldn't that change my life if I got to spend three and a half years with Jesus? And as I think through that and as we think through this moment of Moses had one burning bush experience. One time it happened.
He never had another experience like that again. He saw God on the mountain and he got the Ten Commandments. We know some of those things, but it was a coming and going of the Holy Spirit. The disciples, they had Jesus around and some scholars say about a million people were inundated Jesus at any given time.
Thousands of people were flocking toward him. Will you heal us? Will you feed us? Will you teach us? Will you do these things? And even the disciples didn't have one-on-one experience with Jesus.
But in this moment, as we study through Scripture, we see that the Holy Spirit comes and he brings this moment where we are ever and forever in the presence of God himself because we have the Holy Spirit with us.
We don't have to worry about a burning bush experience. The Holy Spirit dwells within us. We don't have to say,
well, can I just have Jesus around for just a couple of years? We have Jesus inside of us through the Holy Spirit if we believe in him. These tongues are a symbolization of God passing on the mission to us and equipping us with the work that we so desperately need to do.
Universal Nature of the Gospel
And not only was it dramatic or visible and tangible, but it was also universal in verse 5. Look at verse 5.
It says, Now the Jews that were stayed in Jerusalem devout people from every nation under heaven. The scene begins to shift to this universal implications as we're introduced to devout Jews of every nation under heaven that are gathered here in Jerusalem.
This moment of Pentecost wasn't confined to a small group of disciples, but all of a sudden as the Holy Spirit indwelled among them, they immediately began to reach outward. They immediately began to go out and to tell other people.
And God said, I'm going to allow you to go out because I'm going to break down every barrier, even the barrier of language. I'm going to allow others to be able to understand what you're saying and them to be able to understand what you're saying and you're going to understand what they're saying.
And I'm going to allow you to understand how great this is.
Cultures were broke down and all of a sudden this inclusive nature of the gospel that we see through the disciples was now expanded globally to everyone that was around them.
This is not just for one group of people, the Holy Spirit and this indwelling power of the spirit that we have in the church, but it is for everyone that is around us. I want you to imagine for a moment a global orchestra,
a symphony of people that are coming from all over the world to come and play music.
From what I understand, and I took a couple of years of music in middle school and high school, and the notes that are on the pages are universal. There's no language that comes to music notes. They're all the same. They're not different.
You go to Japan, they still have the same amount of notes.
And so they come here and you give them a sheet music and they begin to look at this music.
And all of a sudden you've got the violinist and you've got the organs and you've got the pianist and you've got the brass section and you've got the guitar section. And they all begin to get around.
And in that moment, the conductor gets up and he says, we're going to play. And everyone understands apparently that word. And they all begin to play in unison. Never speaking the same language, but all playing in this wonderful symphononic mixture of sound that is coming through diverse moments.
This is the moment of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is coming among people that did not know each other, that had never been able to speak to each other. And the Spirit came and empowered them to hear and to speak in this way that was a wonderful experience.
And as I was studying through this, my mind went to Revelation chapter 7 verse 9. In Revelation chapter 7 verse 9, it says this, John, who was around the throne and seeing all the different tribes, he said, I looked and there was a vast multitude of every nation,
tribe, people, and language, which no one could number. Standing before the throne of the Lamb, and they were clothed in white robes and palm branches in their hands. I didn't put verse 10 on there, but I'm going to keep reading. And they cried out with a loud voice,
salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb.
This is this universal picture of that the gospel is not just for me and my family.
It's not just for the ones that are around us, but it's for every single person that has ever been born.
And on this world, we have a responsibility to go and to tell them about this saving knowledge of Jesus.
That he came and he died for their sins so that they could live forever for him in this world and one day be seated in glory with him. This is the universal message of the church.
That we should be going out. And then I want us to look at verse 12 and look at the polarizing moment of scripture. You see, as the Holy Spirit enabled the disciples to speak these various languages, the crowds had mixed reactions.
You can imagine there were people in this city that had went to school with Peter. That maybe went fishing with the brothers James and John. Maybe they were someone who was in this crowd that said, I remember that Matthew. Remember that scumbag who took more money than what he deserved out of me?
He was a tax collector and he was mean to me and he took my farm away from me. He took my car away from me. He took these things from me.
And all of a sudden, Matthew was standing up in this moment and he's preaching and recording all these things that are going on. Luke, the doctor who's writing these things down.
There were some there that were amazed and perplexed that what in the world is going on. But there were others that began to mock the event. There were others that began to dismiss what was going on.
Maybe these men are drunk. They've got new wine in them. And I want us to understand that there are people that are always going to be for us in our life. And there's going to be people that are going to be against us in life. We see this with the disciples.
And oftentimes, if we're not careful, church, we will see that the ones that are against us will sometimes have more of an ear to what we want to do. And God says,
they're both going to be there. But remember that the one that is inside of you is greater than the world. And I have come to overcome the world. And I have come to bring salvation and freedom to the world. And there will be skeptics.
There will be wonders around us. And we have this opportunity to gather them around and say, look what Jesus has done for us. Look what Christ did for me on the cross. And we get to tell them about the Christ, the one who came to save us.
As they said in verse 7, look, aren't these those who were speaking Galileans? You see, as I began to think through this, we went to the beach at Christmas time.
And my son and daughter were there and were hanging out.
And we had got a memo that came across my phone that said there's going to be a magician that was going to be at the community center there at the beach. And if you want to come by, it's free. You can enjoy it.
And so we got there and the magician began to do all these tricks.
And he got through and he said, if you're a young person and you want to do some of these tricks, you can buy some of the things that I did at the back. So brother's like, dad, I got to buy these things. Dad, I want to be a magician.
I want to do these things. And so I said, well, how much money do you have left? And so he had about enough money to buy one of the wands.
And so he went by there and he bought it. And we're going through it. But the whole time, this is the skeptic in me. I want you to sort of see the background. I'm sitting there trying to figure out how this magician's doing all these tricks, these illusions.
How is he making the rings go inside of each other? How is he producing more cards than what's actually there? I'm trying to figure these things out. I'm a little skeptical of what's going on.
But my son and my daughter, they're just enthroned at what's going on. How is he doing this? He's got to be a magician. He's got to be doing something great. He's got to be doing something wonderful. And oftentimes in our life, we begin to be skeptics of what the Lord's doing.
We begin to say, wow, can God really meet those needs that I've got?
I don't know if God really understands how big of a need I have right now. Can he really come in and meet me where I'm at? Can God really come in and work in these things in my life? And where God says so often,
why can't you be like a child that just has childlike faith, that just trusts that I'm going to be there for them? I mentioned this morning Sunday school as the young people were practicing for tomorrow, for next Sunday as they have their youth service. Hudson was up here.
They were playing a song. And I always got a video. I'm sure she'll share it on Facebook later. But he's up here. I mean, he's just dancing away. He's loving it.
He's singing. He doesn't know the words, but he's just doing his little job. And he's having fun. And as we talked about this morning Sunday school,
how often is it that we're too ashamed to worship God like a little child?
We're too ashamed to trust that he is going to be the father that's going to take care of us, that he's going to be the one that's going to help us in those times of need.
As we were at a party last night and Hudson was downstairs and he ran into one of the poles and his face got a little red. What does he immediately do?
He didn't run to Scott. He didn't run to someone else that was there. He ran to his dad and he said, Dad, I need help. Dad, I'm in pain. He's crying. And what did I do? Suck it up, son.
Yeah, you get over this. No, I picked him up and I loved on him and I cared for him and I kissed him and I said, it's going to be okay.
You're going to be fine. And our heavenly father is the same way that says, come to me with all your needs and all your cares and I'll pick you up and I'll make things whole again. But oftentimes we forget to go to him.
And we see here that in this moment, the disciples' lives were radically changed. The moment of Pentecost happened and the church was completely transformed.
But we have to look at the meaning of Pentecost very quickly this morning. What is the meaning and why did this happen? Well, ultimately it happened for the very first reason, to fulfill God's promise.
The meaning of Pentecost was to fulfill or the fulfillment of God's promise. At its core, the Pentecost represents the fulfillment of God's promise to send his Holy Spirit into this world as a helper, as a guide, as someone that was going to be there for us in our deepest need.
Look at John 14. Maybe you can't look there, but you'll look on the screen. Maybe you write this down. John 14, 26.
Jesus said, I have spoken these things unto you that will remain, but in verse 26, but the counselor, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name. What will the Holy Spirit do? Will teach you all things and remind you of everything that I've told you.
You see, the Holy Spirit is here to help us, to remind us, to be a comforter, to guide us, to be that person that we can go to when there's no one else to turn to.
When you're sitting alone in a hospital bed and there's no one there, you've got Jesus, the Holy Spirit, to turn to.
When you're sitting at home and you don't know where to turn, there's no family around, there's nothing, you feel like everyone's abandoned you, you've got the Holy Spirit to go to.
Transformation Through the Spirit
You can turn to him and you can say, Spirit, I need you today. It marks here the birth of the church, this community that was energized by the Spirit to bear witness to Christ's resurrection.
A couple of months ago, we were able to put up a little building out back in my house and as we put this building up and got all the inspections done, I began to wire, my dad's an electrician, so he's taught me a little bit, and I wired the entire building up myself.
I put all the lights in and ran all the wires and wired in the bathroom and wired in all the different circuits. I think there's six or seven different circuits. I remember the first time power got turned on,
I turned the breaker onto the lights. If you've ever worked with electricity, you may have had this apprehension experience.
What's going to happen when I flip that switch? Is there going to be sparks everywhere?
Is there going to be some fire? Is there going to be something that I did wrong? We turned it on and my heart sort of sank for a moment. I flipped the switch and for the first time, those lights got energy to them. They began to shine.
I sat back and I'm like, man, I did that. I put all this together. This is great.
This is the moment here in Pentecost where the Holy Spirit comes into these individuals for the very first time and he flows like electricity flowing through them and their light could not contain what was going on and they
had to go out from this room and they had to tell people about what the Lord was doing. Pentecost was the moment when God's Spirit empowered the people to shine the light of the world to the world, not to keep it to ourself.
But not only was it a fulfillment of God's promise, but it was a personal and corporate transformation. It says that the tongues of fire rested on the disciples in a personal way, but yet in a communal or corporate way. Each individual was touched, but they had a unified purpose.
This moment should remind us that God's work is not to be done just right here in and of ourselves, which we should do.
We should fill ourselves with the Spirit, but it should be a moment where we go out and we tell the world about what he's done in a community manner, where there is this moment where we just have to tell people what Christ has done for us.
We have to tell people this amazing transformation that's happened in my life. It's a moment where we get to be a part of a bigger picture.
I'm not an artist by any means. If you see my handwriting, as Colleen pointed out this morning, how wonderful my handwriting was. So I type everything out because I can barely read my handwriting as well. But I want you to imagine just for a moment an artist.
An artist who has this mosaic of tiles, and they're all different shapes and sizes, and this artist begins to pick out this piece and put it here and take this piece from over here and put it there.
And by the end, that artist steps back and he sees this mosaic that's done with hundreds, if not thousands of pieces that he's put together into this beautiful picture that he's designed.
And people come from all over the nation and states to see this mosaic that this artist has put together.
This is the church. The church is hundreds and thousands and millions of people that look different, that act different, that talk different, that smell different, that are different, and the Holy Spirit puts them together in a unified picture.
And he says this is the church on mission together that are going out to reach the world for the glory of God. And we've got to ask ourselves, church, is that us? Are we transformed by what the Lord has done?
And are we in this personal transformation to reach those that are around us?
But also the Pentecost represents the empowered mission that these disciples were going to go through.
This was a declaration of God's mission for the world and His Holy Spirit to equip the followers to carry out the mission together. You see, the disciples, they were once fearful. The disciples, the disciples just a couple of months before this,
were in the garden with Jesus as He was going to be betrayed. The soldiers came in and Peter thought, I'm going to be the guy that's going to take care of business, right? I'm going to pull the sword out and chop the guy's ear off.
And Jesus said, no, no, no, we don't do that. He picked up the ear and He put it back on him. And it says, as Jesus went to His trial, all of His disciples fled.
And only one came back for the moment of His crucifixion, John, the one that He loved. And as they began to see this and as they began to sit in this upper room, I'm sure these disciples, now Jesus is gone again. They're fearful. They're uncertain. We left Him once. Now He's left us.
Maybe He's just going to abandon us. Maybe we're not going to get this overwhelming power that is going to happen from on high. But Jesus, as He always does, fulfills His promises.
And He fulfilled His promise here by empowering them through the Holy Spirit. It's almost like a coach that comes in to the team that's losing at halftime and he gives them the pep talk and he says, hey, we're going to go out and we're going to do something great and we're
going to win this second half. And He gets them energized. He gets them pumped. And He sends them out to do their mission.
Wish it would have happened last night for UNC, but it didn't. And we were praying and hoping that would happen.
But we began to see that the church got the pep talk and ultimately the pep talk came and the Holy Spirit came and fulfilled their mission. And they went out and they began to preach and teach to all these people.
But then we see one of the most important aspects of what happened at Pentecost in my mind. And I labeled it like this. It was a reversal of Babylon. I'm sorry, a reversal of Babel.
Pentecost symbolized the reversal of the Tower of Babel, where God one moment scattered humanity and confused their languages.
He said, man is doing too much wickedness because they are all in unison and they're talking and they're working together.
And so I'm going to confound their languages so that they're spread out among all the world. And we see in this moment where God says, now I'm going to bring back this unity among all people. I'm going to allow this Galilean over here to speak a different language.
I'm going to allow this fisherman to speak a different language to this group of people.
And we see the label of people that were there from all around the world that had come to Jerusalem for this moment. And we begin to see the Spirit uniting people and enabling them to understand one another and to ultimately seek reconciliation through the Holy Spirit.
Maybe you're here this morning and you need that reconciliation from the Holy Spirit.
Maybe you're here and you're a broken vessel that is just broken from the inside out. And you need the Master to come along and pick up all the pieces and carefully break out the super glue and begin to put that vase back together as only he can.
Need for a Fresh Touch
Maybe we're here this morning and we're saying, God, I just need a fresh touch from you this morning. I need to feel the Holy Spirit's power in my life like these disciples did so many years ago. I've lost my fervor.
I've lost my spirit. I've lost what you've given me. And I need a fresh anointing this morning.
Maybe we're here this morning and we just need God to restore and mend divisions that have been among us. Where God comes in and he mends people. He mends their hearts in only the way that God can. Because he reversed Babel.
He brought us back together in unity in this moment. As Terry comes and plays, I want to give us one powerful story that I came across this week because I was studying about 1970 up in Kentucky. There was a revival that happened place. It was called the Ashbury Revival.
You may have heard that this happened similarly just a couple of years ago. Same college, Ashbury College in Kentucky was at a routine chapel service. And unexpectedly, this chapel service turned into a week-long spiritual awakening.
As students were praying and worshiping, some big things happened. I want you to hear this. The Holy Spirit moved in a tangible way. Ultimately, it led to repentance. It led to renewed faith and spontaneous testimonies.
News of this revival spread all across the nation, all across the world. And people from all over came to witness what God was doing. Just like at Pentecost, an outpouring of the Spirit happened and it could not be contained.
I want us to ask ourselves as I take a moment just to pause here. Has the outpouring of the Spirit happened on you and can it be contained? Or is the Holy Spirit working inside of your life so much that you just have to tell someone?
It cannot be contained. There's no vessel that can control it. There's no vessel that can contain it.
And we are not strong enough or big enough in our own selves to contain what the Holy Spirit can do. And if the Holy Spirit has come into our lives, only one thing can happen and that is it overflows out of our life.
And just like at Pentecost, this outpouring of the Spirit couldn't be contained here. And it led to lasting transformation of individuals and communities.
Church, this morning, just as Pentecost ignited the church and spread across the world, revivals like Ashbury remind us that God is still working today.
He's still pouring out His Spirit among us. He's still living in a reality that lives can be changed, hearts can be transformed, if we just simply humble ourselves and come before God and say, God, I need you today.
Empowerment of the Holy Spirit
Pentecost reshaped history. It reminded us that God's power transforms and is accessible to every single person, no matter how small, no matter how old, no matter how you look, what you wear,
whatever your status is in life, the Holy Spirit in Pentecost can happen in your life
if you will just take a moment to trust in Him. Maybe you're here this morning and there's never been a moment where you've trusted in the Lord as your Savior. Or there's never been a moment where you said, Lord, I need you in my life. Maybe you're here this morning and say,
Pastor James, I've never had a moment like this where this rushing wind came in me and I couldn't help but tell people. I want us to really take a moment and examine our life and say, has there been a move of the Holy Spirit in our life?
Has there been a move where the Holy Spirit was working so much that we can't help but tell someone about what He's done for us? This is an empowerment of the Holy Spirit in our lives and ultimately a global invitation for people to receive redemption in their life.
Church, we are to be just as the disciples here that as soon as this happened, it says that the people around them were perplexed and saying, what does it mean? And they began to tell them about what Jesus had done for them. Is that what we're doing?
Are we going out and telling people? Is that our mission in life is to bring the Lord into every single scenario of our life and say, I need to tell someone about Jesus today. I have to tell someone about Jesus today.
I have to go across the street. I have to send a text message and say, hey, do you know about Jesus?
Do you know what's going on? Do you know this man who changed my life forever? Or are we just content with sitting in the upper room and keeping everything to ourself? The church should be going out and telling others because that's what the church did here at the beginning of Acts. Let's pray.
Lord, we love you. We thank you for what you've done.
Lord, I pray that you would help us to have our own Pentecost experience. I know it's not going to be just like this. I know your spirit works in a completely different way now. And you work in a way that is totally transformational for each and every person in here.
And I pray, Lord, as we go into our time of invitation, if there's one here that doesn't know you. I never want to take that for granted. Maybe there's someone here, young or old, who's never accepted you, that today would be that day. In your name we pray. Amen.
Thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Pleasant Grove. Please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.
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