They began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled
them. Now they were staying in
Jerusalem, God fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.
When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in
bewilderment because each one of them heard their own language
being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked,
Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans?
Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native
languages? Parthians, Meats and Elamites,
residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Sireni.
Visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans
and Arabs. We hear them declaring the
wonders of God in our own tongues.
Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, what does this
mean? Some, however, made fun of them
and said they have had too much wine.
Then Peter stood out with the 11, 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. These people are not drunk as
you suppose. It's only 9 in the morning.
No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel in the last
days. God says I will pour out my
spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will
prophecy. Your young men will see visions.
Your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men
and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days and they
will prophecy. I will show wonders in the
heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and
billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to
darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great
and glorious day of the Lord, and everyone who calls on the
name of the Lord will be saved. Fellow Israelites, listen to
this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man
accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs,
which God did among you through him.
As you yourselves know, this man was handed over to you by God's
deliberate plan and foreknowledge, and you, with the
help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the
cross. But God raised him from the
dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was
impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
David said about him. I saw the Lord always before me.
Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices.
My body also will rest in hope, because you will not abandon me
to the realm of the dead. You will not let your Holy One
see decay. You have made known to me the
paths of life. You will fill me with joy in
your presence. Fellow Israelites, I can tell
you confidently that the patriarch David died and was
buried, and his tomb is here to this day.
But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on the
oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne.
Seeing what was to come, he spoke to the resurrection of the
Messiah, that He was not abandoned to the realm of the
dead, nor did His body see decay.
God has raised this Jesus to life and we are all witnesses of
it. Exalted to the right hand of
God, He was received from the Father, the promised Holy
Spirit, and has poured out what you now see and hear.
For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, The
Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your
enemies a footstool for your feet.
Therefore let all Israel be assured of this.
God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified both Lord and
Messiah. When the people heard this, they
were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles,
Brothers, what shall we do? Peter replied, Repent and be
baptised everyone 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. With many other words, He warned
them and He pleaded with them. Save yourselves from this
corrupt generation. Those who accepted His message
were baptized and about 3000 were added to the number that
day. So Lily's already said, but this
is a really big moment in the history of the church and
history of God's dealings with humanity.
And sometimes the events of a single day can change
everything. Maybe on a on a global level,
that might be we're at war or war is over.
It could be a medical breakthrough that will save
countless lives. It could be a political upheaval
or regime change that just changes events all around the
world. On a more personal level, just
think of a wedding day or the birth of a child.
The day before your life is one way, just as it's always been.
And then suddenly the next day everything changes.
And the day of Pentecost was a single day that changed
everything forever. And why was that?
Well, because in the city of Jerusalem that day in the early
years of the 1st century AD, God himself comes to dwell with his
people. All thanks to Jesus life, death
and resurrection. For us on the day of Pentecost
we've just read about, the living God comes to dwell with
his people through the Holy Spirit, and nothing will ever be
the same again. The living God who made us can
now dwell with and in us because our sins have been paid for by
Jesus. I was speaking with a friend
earlier this week about this pastor who just said message of
Pentecost. It's just, it's worth
celebrating maybe even more than the message of Christmas that we
do every year. And she said, actually it's a
bit like the message of Christmas.
And you can almost sum it up with Emmanuel, God with us.
That is what the coming of the Holy Spirit means.
It means Emmanuel, God has come to live with us and in US
through the Holy Spirit so we can enjoy intimacy with God and
partnership with God in this world.
This changes everything, the day of Pentecost.
And why is the coming of the Holy Spirit so life changing?
Well, the 20th century pastor and theologian John Stott puts
it like this. He says without the Holy Spirit,
the Christian life is impossible.
There could be no life without the life giver, no understanding
without the spirit of truth, no community without the unity of
the Spirit, no Christ likeness without the fruit of the Spirit,
no effective witness without his power as a body, without breath,
as a corpse. So the church without the Spirit
is dead. I hope we're getting the point
here. This is a big moment.
The coming of the Spirit changes everything.
It's God himself come to live with his people, to empower us
for new life with Him, and to live as His witnesses in this
world. So again, as we said, it's a bit
of a long pass. We're going to try and speed
through it and then finish with a few implications for us today.
So looking at verses 1 and 2 here, the coming of the Holy
Spirit, Luke begins by by telling us his disciples we're
all together in one place. That's verse one.
If you hear last week, you know that refers to the 12 apostles
recently with Matthias joining their number, and about 120 are
their believers with them. And Luke tells us it's the day
of Pentecost. Now the day of Pentecost was the
day already before the coming of the Holy Spirit, and it was
called Pentecost because it came fifty days after Passover.
Literally, Pentecost is the 50th in Greek, and it was the
beginning of a Jewish harvest festival known as the Feast of
Weeks. And by the 1st century, it also
become a celebration of God giving the law to Moses of Mount
Sinai. This big moment where God
reveals his law to his people that he saved from slavery.
That's what it began to represent.
And it's now been 10 days since Jesus ascended into heaven.
And throughout Acts chapter 1, Luke has been making us wait
with the apostles and disciples. We've waited with them.
We've held on with them to the closing words of Jesus.
Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised.
And now suddenly verse 2, with the disciples all together in
one place, the Holy Spirit is poured out on them.
Let me read verses 2 to 4 force again.
Luke says. Suddenly a sign like the blowing
of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole
house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be
tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of
them. All of them were filled with the
Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit
enabled them. It's a huge moment.
What is going on here? Well, all the images Luke
records for us here are symbols of the presence of the living
God with his people throughout the Old Testament.
So very tells us first of all, there's there's a sound like the
blowing of a violent wind that represents the creative power,
the breath of God. So a violent wind in the book of
Exodus parted the Red Sea, open it up so that God's rescued
people could walk to freedom when they received the law at
Mount Sinai. There was a huge wind round
Mount Sinai, the sea. On the same mountain generations
later, the prophet Elijah encountered God and there was a
violent wind accompanying that. And then Luke tells us there
were tongues of fire resting and all of them.
That again represents the purifying presence of God and
the Old Testament fire often means God is cleaning up.
He is getting rid of the sins of His people from His presence.
Again, Mount Sinai, the Lord descended in fire.
Exodus 19, verse 18. Fire was present when Elijah met
with God. 1 Kings 19, verse 12. What is going on here?
Luke wants us to see the living, holy God has come near to dwell
with His people. And how on earth is that
possible? How can a holy God live with
sinful people here on earth? The difference is that Jesus has
come. Jesus has lived and died and
risen again. And because Jesus has paid for
our sin through his life, death and resurrection, the living God
can now dwell with his people. Look at verse 4.
Here Luke tells us all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in other tongues as the spirits enabled
them. Again here we learned the words
of God are proclaimed. See the prophets in the Old
Testament. Filled with the spirits, they
can proclaim the words of God to the world around them.
Now the spirit has come. All God's people are empowered
to be prophets. All can be witnesses to the
living God, to the world around them.
We have wind, we have fire, we have speech.
God himself has come near to his people, and he wants to speak to
them and through them, to the world he created and the world
he loves. It's a huge moment in the
history of the Bible. And again, look at those verses,
verses 1 to 4. Again, know how inclusive Luke's
language is here. He says what seem to be tongues
of fire separated and came to rest on each of them.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak.
Looks clear. The blessing of the Holy Spirit
is for the whole community of believers, not just Peter and
the other apostles, but all 120 of them present in that room.
The Holy Spirit is God's empowering presence in all his
people. And again, if you've been here
at all the last few weeks, we've already seen the apostles.
They play a unique and distinctive role in the history
of the church. We're going to learn more about
the apostles rules in the weeks to come.
But right from the outset, there is no two tier Christianity.
It's not like the apostles have the Spirit and the rest don't.
There's no idea of some believers with the Spirit and
other believes who like them. No, no, all of them were filled
with the Holy Spirit says, look, the Holy Spirit is the living
God dwelling in everyone who trusts in Jesus.
We'd see this is a huge moment. This is this is a new way of God
coming near to his people. There are echoes of the Old
Testament, but something new is happening here.
It's a unique turning point in salvation history.
Now we're going to see in the weeks to come in the book of
Acts, when people come and put their faith in Jesus, they
receive the Holy Spirit. It's not He's not received in
all the ways that are mentioned here.
There's no mention of wind or fire elsewhere in the book of
Acts. We shouldn't expect to see those
same physical signs of someone receiving the Holy Spirit.
But the message of Pentecost is still one we need to hear
because God comes and dwells with all his people.
And there's a refrain all the way through the Bible.
God says again and again to his troubled, beleaguered people,
people struggling, He says do not be afraid, I am with you.
And now in a world post Pentecost, every believer in
Jesus can know with certainty the living God is with me.
He is dwelling in me and among his people.
Through his Holy Spirit. We can now live knowing that the
Lord is with us. We can now be His witnesses in
this world, and that's what the Spirit empowers the disciples to
do. In the following verses, verses
5 to 13 that Stuart read out to us, Luke introduces us to this
crowd in Jerusalem that day, verse 5.
Now that we're staying in Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast
of Weeks, God fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.
Straight away, right at the beginning of his book, Luke
gives us a glimpse here of the Gospel for all nations, verses
5. It's a 13 cause again, it's hard
to hide what is happening with the early disciples.
They're declaring the wonders of God together at full volume.
The crowd comes together in amazement and we learn more
about these other tongues. The Spirit enabled the disciples
to speak. So what are these other tongues?
Well, the crowd tells us in verses 7 and 8 and verse 11 they
are. The other tongues are the native
languages of the cried, the native languages of the Greek or
Roman world of the 1st century looks clear here.
These aren't the sort of tongues mentioned elsewhere in the New
Testament in One Corinthians 12 to 14, where those tongues are a
particular gift of the Spirit given to some believers that
require the Spirit to interpret no on the day of Pentecost.
The tongues here refer to intelligible human languages
different from the disciples own languages.
So the gift of tongues at Pentecost enables the good news
of Jesus to go to these God fearing Jews from every nation
under heaven, says Luke. And when Luke describes every
nation under heaven, he's not including nations that would
have been unknown to him at that time, so Australia or America or
Ireland, but actually he's referring to every nation under
heaven means just the Greek or Roman world, all the places
where Jewish believers have been scattered in the intervening
centuries. He names 15 countries and
peoples in verses 9:00 to 11:00. This was the whole known world.
And they're all here at Pentecost.
And by the power of the Spirit, they are hearing the good news
of Jesus. This was the birthday of the
global church, the first steps towards a church made-up of all
nations to which we belong today.
And as this crowd gathers to hear what's going on, there are
different responses to what is happening.
Some are amazed and perplexed, Luke tells us.
Others make fun of the disciples, saying they must be
drunk. So Peter stands up to explain
what is going on and what follows.
Peter basically has three big questions he's trying to answer
for this crowd. What just happened, Why has this
happened, and how should we respond?
Let's be through those three questions then.
What has just happened? What Peter tells them the
promised Holy Spirit has come. Verses 14 to 21, The promised
Holy Spirit has come. Peter begins by dismissing the
idea. They're drunk.
He says it's 9:00 in the morning.
That's not happening. And instead, before this crowd
of God fearing Jews, he opens up the Old Testament to them, the
Jewish scriptures, verses 16 to 18.
This is what was spoken by the prophet Jewel, says Peter.
In the last days God says, I will pour out my spirit on all
people. Your sons and daughters will
prophecy, your young men will see visions, your old men will
dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men
and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days and they
will prophecy. According to Peter.
Here the Jewish crowd are witnessing the fulfilment of
centuries old prophecy. The pouring out of the Spirit
was promised right the way through the Old Testament,
through prophets like Isaiah, Ezekiel and the prophet
mentioned here, Joel. Actually, the pouring out of the
Spirit was also promised much more recently by recent people.
This cry would have heard people like John the Baptist and Jesus
himself. And according to the prophet
Joel, the coming of the Holy Spirit is the sign we are now in
the last days. God's saving purposes for
humanity are going public, says Peter.
So the last days in the New Testament, quite an ominous
phrase. People think it's all like
apocalyptic stuff. I guess what it really means is
the period of time between the first coming of Jesus and the
second coming of Jesus. Jesus already said he's coming
back one day. The last days are between his
first coming and his second coming.
Therefore, we today are living in the last days, the age of the
church, the age of opportunity when the church go into the
world proclaiming the good news of Jesus before Jesus returns in
glory. And in those last days, says
Joel, the Holy Spirit's poured out on all God's people.
We've already seen that in verses 1 to 4, but it's really
significant. Again, our Bibles have in
translation often have gender inclusive terms to kind of
really reflect the fact that actually men and women are
included in this. So I mean, that's not the
original Greek, but but we we reflect that on our modern
translations. But here in Jewel, it is
absolutely emphatic. In the original Greek, it is
your sons and daughters will prophecy.
Your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men
and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days.
That's not a translation decision of an English person.
That's Jewel's prophecy and Peter's message.
On this day, the Spirit is for all believers, and that's
significant because in the Old Testament the Spirit does
appear. The Holy Spirit appears at
various points, but often he appears to help particular
people, significant people, for a particular work of service at
a particular moment in time. So the Spirit comes on kings
like Saul and David, prophets like Joel, great warriors like
Samson in the book of Judges. But Nigel tells us the Holy
Spirit's poured on all God's people, men and women, young and
old, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.
In verses 19 to 20, we learn of signs of God's power and
judgment that will come in these last days.
Some of them actually happened on the first Good Friday you'll
prophecies. The sun was turned to darkness
again, that happened when Jesus hung on the cross.
Some of these signs are for the future before Jesus returns.
But in this meantime, verse 21, salvation is offered to all
people. Jewel is emphatic about that.
Peter is emphatic about that. Verse 21, everyone who calls on
the name of the Lord will be saved.
Salvation is offered to everyone through faith in Jesus.
A key work of the Spirit now that he's come is to rescue and
save everyone who puts their faith in Jesus.
So what just happened? Peter says the promised Holy
Spirit has come. Why is the Spirit come now?
Peter tells us because the risen and exalted Jesus has poured him
out on his people. The real cause for the coming of
the Holy Spirit, says Peter, is Jesus life, death, and
resurrection. Again, it's really striking here
that instead of focusing on the Holy Spirit alone in what he
says, Peter directs our attention again and again to the
saving life and work of Jesus. Why?
Because without the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, a
holy God could never have come near to us in the person of his
Spirit. It's Jesus who's won the Spirit
for us, Jesus who pours out the Spirit on us.
And it's through faith in Jesus that any of us can receive the
Holy Spirit. This Peter's talk is all about
Jesus. I hope you could see that in
verses 22 and following Peter tells us Jesus was a man just
like us. He says verse 22, Jesus of
Nazareth, he, he had a hometown, he had a family, but but
actually he was a man not like us.
He was he was accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and
signs. He was special, He was unique.
And this man, Jesus was crucified.
Verse 23 This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate
plan and foreknowledge, and you with the help of wicked man, put
him to death by nailing him to the cross.
It's amazing to remember to remember where all this fits.
This is 50 days after the crucifixion.
There were people in this crowd, men and women who 50 days
previously had screamed crucify him, crucify him.
When Jesus was on trial, some of these same individuals sitting
here listening to Peter, we remember Jesus, didn't we kill
him. We learned 2 amazing truths
about the cross here in verse 23.
One, that the crucifixion of Jesus was part of God's plan to
save a people for himself. Peter said Jesus was handed over
to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge.
The cross wasn't an accident, wasn't a tragic mistake.
It was part of God's saving plan.
But at the same time, says Peter, the crucifixion of Jesus
was the work of evil people, and Peter holds them responsible for
that. You with the help of wicked man,
put him to death by nailing him to the cross.
At the cross we see two things that that they're just baffling
to us, but they are taught again and again in Scripture.
On the one hand, God is sovereign over all things.
He's working on his saving purposes in human history.
Human beings are always responsible for their actions.
God's sovereignty never takes away our responsibility.
That is what Peter's telling this cried about the cross.
And as far as the people in the crowd know well, Jesus, he died,
didn't he? 50 days ago?
He was, He was crucified. We saw it, we saw his body
hanging on a tree. But actually Peter has amazing
news for them. Verse 24 onwards, Jesus is
alive, says Peter, but God raised him from the dead,
freeing him from the agony of death.
Why? Peter tells us because it was
impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
He says you saw a weak man crucified in the cross.
Actually he is the Lord and Messiah, and he is far stronger
than even death. Death tried to take him, Death
tried to keep him, but he just broke free because he is Lord
and He is God. Peter quotes from a couple of
Psalms, Psalm 16, Psalm 110, to show what has happened, to show
that the Old Testament was always pointing forward to this.
Then he comes to climax, verses 32 to 33, where he says God has
raised this Jesus to life. We are all witnesses of it.
He and the other disciples exalted to the right hand of
God. He has received from the Father
the promised Holy Spirit and has poured on what you now see and
hear. Why is the Spirit come?
It's come because the risen and exalted Jesus has poured him out
on his people. The Holy Spirit, God himself,
can now dwell with us because Jesus has put an end to the sin
of his people. He's defeated sin and defeated
death. The Spirit of God is the gift of
God, one for us by the Son of God.
He's the gift of the risen and exalted Jesus.
It's a huge amount Peter's communicating here, but he ends.
He wraps up by actually looking for a response from his hearers.
Verse 36. He says, therefore, that all
Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus whom you
crucified, both Lord and Messiah.
And he asks the people to respond to that.
It's not enough, says Peter. Just to listen to this, I'm
going to give you an interesting account of how Old Testament
prophecy has been fulfilled. Or, or you can just look at us
and yeah, that's nice. And go back on your way.
No, he wants a response from the crowd.
It's not enough just to be drawn to Jesus or attracted to Jesus,
or to Christian community or to be just looking for answers.
There comes a point when we each need to decide, will I put my
faith in this Jesus or put my faith in someone else?
Will Jesus be my Lord or will someone or something else be my
Lord? Do I believe Jesus is who he
says he is? Will I receive the Spirit or
will I say no thanks, That's not for me, for Peter, how should we
respond? He spells it out for them.
He says repent and be baptized. Verses 36 to 41.
Look at verse 37. When the people heard what Peter
had said, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the
other apostles, brothers, what shall we do?
We need to hear just the almost a sense of hopelessness there
because up to this point, all Peter said he spelt out just how
badly wrong they were about Jesus.
That guy that you called to be crucified 50 days ago, He's
actually the Lord. He's the Messiah you've been
waiting for. And actually that could be the
end of Peters and he says, sorry guys, you had a chance.
You blew it and he's coming back to judge you.
That's that's for the crowd is at this point going buzz, what
shall we do? Is there any hope, Peter?
Is there any way back from what we've done?
We have killed the Lord and Messiah sent by God to save us.
Is there any hope and it's actually by verse 38, the hope
comes, the good news of Peter's message comes Peter isn't just
announcing God's judgement on his enemies.
He's offering forgiveness to everyone who will by the knee
before this Jesus verse 38, Peter replied, repent and be
baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the
Holy Spirit. How how does the cried respond
to Peter's message? Very clearly Peter says we
should repent. Let's turn around, stop running
away from God and start running towards God.
It's a complete change of direction for us and we should
be baptized. Baptism here, a sign of faith,
dying to your old way of life, rising again to a new way of
life, asking Jesus to be Lord and rescuer of your life.
And if we do that, says Peter, he offers us 2 gifts, the
forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, the
forgiveness of sins being washed clean from whatever we have
done. Jesus forgives his enemies if we
come to him and the gift of the Holy Spirit again, that's God
himself come to live with us. It's not like, well turn over a
new leaf and you're on your own. It's turn over a new leaf and
then let me come and live with you, says God, to change you, to
empower you to follow Jesus in this world.
Repent, be baptized, and the gifts are the forgiveness of
sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and those gifts offered
by Peter to the crowd are accepted by 3000 people that
day. Verse 41, it was he accepted his
message, were baptized and about 3000 were added to their number.
That day, 3000 people received from God through faith in Jesus,
forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Christian Church was born that day, worshippers of Jesus,
witnesses to Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And it continues to this day, including this church family
that we're sitting among this morning.
And we'll learn more about the power of the Spirit at work in
that church next week when we look at their new life together.
There's a lot here. How should we respond to the
coming of the Holy Spirit 2000 years ago at Pentecost?
Just a few reflections as we finish, and we're going to
unpack these as we carry on through this amazing book of
Acts. First thing I wanted to see is
this. The Holy Spirit is the greatest
gift God can give to us. He's the gift of himself.
Through the Spirit living in us, we can now have close personal
relationship with the living God, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit really is God
himself come to live in US and with us.
The message of Pentecost that my friend said Emmanuel, God with
us always and forever. We need to see the connection
here. The Holy Spirit dwells with us
thanks to Jesus life, death and resurrection.
Again, Peter's focus is not on the Holy Spirit in and of
himself. It's on Jesus, what he has done
his saving work so that we can have the Holy Spirit.
It's possible in in church history and human history get so
transfixed. I want a bit of that power that
the Holy Spirit offers. We always think like get that
without all that grim cross repentance stuff.
The answer Peter gives us? No, the Holy Spirit dwells with
us thanks to Jesus life, death and resurrection.
The Holy Spirit. This is a holy God.
How can he live with people who are not holy?
Only because Jesus has paid the price for our sin.
We cannot have the Holy Spirit without faith in the saving work
of Jesus. But building on that, we can't
follow Jesus without the help of the Holy Spirit.
Without the Spirit, the Christian life is impossible.
With the Spirit, we can live as witnesses for Jesus.
Again, sometimes we maybe different church traditions
don't talk as much about the Holy Spirit to the point we can
maybe think, well, yeah, that's may be fine for some Christians,
but but I think I'm fine without.
Actually, no is the testimony of God's Word.
No is the testimony of Acts, whose prophets promised the Holy
Spirit to God's people in the Old Testament because because
they knew you need the Holy Spirit.
You cannot do this on your own, in your own strength.
We cannot live as witnesses for Jesus in this world without a
daily dependence on the Holy Spirit.
That's why Jesus told the disciples wait for the Spirit.
And that's why the Spirit came at Pentecost and comes to the
lives of every believer who puts their faith in Jesus.
We need to depend on the Spirit in prayer together if we are
going to live for Jesus and live with Jesus in this world as a
church family. We need to learn that
dependence, to pray together, to listen to the Spirit in God's
Word together, to let His Word shape us more than the words of
culture around us. We need to pray for one another
that we would know the presence of God with us as we live for
Him in this world, the Holy Spirit.
He is not an optional extra for the Christian life or someone
certain church traditions need and others don't.
Without the Holy Spirit, the Christian life is impossible.
But with the Holy Spirit, that gift that Jesus won for us and
pours out on everyone who puts their faith in Him, we can enjoy
intimacy with God together and partnership with God together.
Enjoy intimacy with God. The New Testament says it's by
the Spirit we cry out, ABBA, father, Dad, help me.
That's the Spirit in US. It's the Spirit.
He unites us to Christ so we can say I am in Christ and Christ is
in me because of the Spirit. It's through the Spirit that the
love of God is poured out into our hearts.
Romans 5 verse 5, the Holy Spirit gives us intimacy with
God, close personal relationship, knowing the God of
the universe loves us, welcomes us, accepts us, dwells with us
because of what Jesus has done. And the Spirit also gives us
partnership with God. Amazingly, the New Testament
says regularly we are Co workers with God and that's madness
without the Spirit. Yeah, God, you do that.
But I'll, I'll cover this bit. We'll be fine.
No, it's only because the Spirit is in US, empowering us that we
can be used by God to build His church in this world.
We can't save anyone, but the Holy Spirit through US can
transform lives and bring repentance and faith to people
as we proclaim the good news of the life, death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. Intimacy with God and
partnership with God. That is what the Christian life
is all about that is what the day of Pentecost one for us the
message of Pentecost Emmanuel, God with us.
The invitation Peter leaves with a crowd is the invitation Luke
leaves with us how we respond, we repent.
You'll put our faith in Jesus, and His Holy Spirit will empower
us to live for Jesus and with Jesus.