Sermon Extras

SERMON NOTES

Rooted and Renegade: Acts- Acts 2:1-47 “The Moment” Part 1

REVIEW> Last week we looked at Chapter 1 where Jesus told his disciples to wait for “the promise from the Father” and that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Well, we have arrived to chapter 2! 

INTRO> I want to start with a thoughts today, and it’s this: Moments make movements. Think back on historical movements:

• The signing of the declaration of independence, literally starts a nation! 
• Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address is the final blow to end slavery. 
• “Bloody Sunday” when they cross the Selma Bridge for the civil Rights. 
• The 60’s movement had woodstock. 
• Humans landing on the moon! 
• Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone! 

Movements always have a moment that makes them into a movement. Do you see where I am going with this? Rodney Stark is a secular historian who has written a few books that are very compelling about the growth of Christianity under the Roman empire. “Christianity did not grow because of miracle working in the marketplaces (although there may have been much of that going on), or because Constantine said it should, or even because the martyrs gave it such credibility. It grew because Christians constituted an intense community…And the primary means of its growth was through the united and motivated efforts of the growing numbers of Christian believers, who invited their friends, relatives, and neighbors to share the “good news.” . . . Stark estimates that in just 300 plus years… the Christian population went from the 120 to…. 30,000,000.

CONTEXT> Acts chapter 2 is the moment that Christianity becomes a movement. Of course the resurrection of Jesus makes any and all of this possible but it’s what happens on that day of Pentecost that changes everything, there is something at work that makes this SUPERNATURAL, not of man. Our big idea is…

Big Idea > The source of the Christian life is the Holy Spirit. 

“Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible. There can be no life without the life giver, no understanding without the Spirit of Truth, no fellowship without the unity of Spirit, no Christlikeness of character apart from his fruit, and no effective witness without his power. As a body without breath is a corpse, so the church without the Spirit is dead.” – John Stott 

APP> Now, I need to do something here. I need to bring some clarity to such a massive topic. In our area, I believe there are two great errors when it comes to the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit. 1) An unhealthy overemphasis 2) A unhealthy underemphasis 

A Theology of the Holy Spirt: 

1. As God’s person, The Holy Spirit is fully God and the third member of the Trinity. 
2. As God’s presence, the Holy Spirit is God with us. 
3. As God’s power, the Holy Spirit empowered the life of Jesus Christ and also empowers the life of believers. 

CONTEXT> Again, this week i keep going back to v 12 “What does all of this mean?” If the Holy Spirit is the source.. what do we get from the source?  I want to look at 3 quick things. 1) Power from the outside 2) Fullness on the inside 3) A message that is worldwide. 

1. Power from the outside. v1-3

• “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.” Acts 2:1-2
• Pentecost is the Jewish feast that was celebrated 50 days after the passover, celebration of the giving of the law. 
• notice the text “like the blowing of violent wind…” *ILL> Aunt BB and the wind blowing water to the inside of her house. do you know what kind of power has to cause that? 

APP> The power of God comes from outside of us to live inside of us. 

APP> This is completely countercultural! The culture says that all the problems are “out there” and you have the answer “in here” *ILL> Lori Gottlieb NYT article “What brand is your theapist” she talks about starting her business and nobody coming to get help… “Nobody wants to buy therapy anymore,” Truffo told me. “They want to buy a solution to a problem.” This is something she discovered in her own former private practice of 18 years, during which she saw a shift from people who were unhappy and wanted to understand themselves better to people who would come in “because they wanted someone else or something else to change,” she said. “I’d see fewer and fewer people coming in and saying, ‘I want to change.’ ”  Do you see that? “I need help, I need to change” (Inner Work with an outside solution) “They need help, they need to change” (Inner denial with an inner solution)

APP> The first step to being a Christian is confessing the fact that you are broken on the inside and only God has the power to make you whole. 

2) Fullness on the inside. 

• “3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Acts 2:3-4 
• Fire in the OT is always a symbol of God’s presence. Think burning bush, Abraham burning torch, Daniel , Moses Mt Siani. What does it mean that it “resting” on them. 
• 16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3:16-17
• “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,” – Romans 8:16

APP> When it comes to your salvation, God the Father planned it, God the Son paid for it and God the Holy Spirit applies it. *ILL> Thomas Goodwin was a seventeenth-century British Puritan pastor. He tells a story to try to get across this idea of the fullness of the Spirit. He says one day he was watching a father and a little son walking along the street, and they were talking, but at one point they turned to each other, and the father swept the son up into his arms and hugged him. His little boy put his arms around his father’s neck, and they hugged and kissed and said they loved each other. Then after that was done, he put the boy down, and they kept on walking. Thomas Goodwin asks was the little boy more a son in his father’s arms than he was down on the street? Legally, no. He was as much a son in the arms as on the street, as much a son on the street as in the arms. Legally, no difference. Objectively, no difference. Subjectively, experientially, existentially, all the difference.

3) A message that is worldwide. 

• It is very clear that the emphasis in the passage is that everyone is hearing the gospel int heir own language. v6, v8, v11

APP> The whole gospel is for the whole world! (Grace Muslim)

Big Idea > The source of the Christian life is the Holy Spirit. 

CLOSE> Dr. Thomas Long tell a story of one Sunday he was teaching on Pentecost. AS he was teaching about the wind, the fire, the languages he notice 3 little girls sitting in the front row.. 2 of them were bored and almost falling asleep… but one of them has eyes that were wide open and paying attention. After the sermon the little girl came up to him and said, “Oh Dr Long! Pentecost Sunday! sounds amazing… we must have missed that Sunday! 

“The beautiful thing about that is not that she misunderstood- the beautiful thing is… she thought it could happen in our church… her church… that God’s Spirit could have come down to our little congregation.” 

• Do you believe the Holy Spirit in just a moment can cause a movement in your life? 
• What is the Spirit of God saying to you?
• What are you going to do about it? 

Read Romans 8 verses?