Bible Study Materials

Message

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PENTECOST

Acts 2:1-12

Key Verse 2:4

“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

Today is Pentecost, the 50^th day after Passover. As we know, Pentecost was a Jewish religious holiday, but for Christians we remember Pentecost as the day the promised Holy Spirit came from Jesus to all Christians baptized with the Holy Spirit. So today, let’s pray that through some time in the New Testament, we will apply what we receive about how to receive the Spirit, how to listen to the Spirit, how to speak by the Spirit, and how to receive and use the gifts of the Spirit.

Let’s read Acts 2:1-4. “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.”

The day of Pentecost was not a surprise. It had been spoken of often since the time of John the Baptist. For example, John the Baptist said in Matthew 3:11, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” John the Baptist pointed the crowds to the true baptism, which was not of water but of the Holy Spirit. One of Jesus’ first messages was about the Holy Spirit. He said to Nicodemus in John 3, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” The Holy Spirit was an urgent Gospel topic for Jesus from beginning to end. Most of what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit was during the Passion Week in the last half of John’s Gospel.

In Acts 1, Jesus told the apostles to wait in Jerusalem for the Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, saying, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The apostles needed the power of the Spirit to perform the mission Jesus gave them- and so do we. Let’s pray for the Holy Spirit to be an urgent Gospel topic we teach and preach. And let’s pray to do the work of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Surely we need the Holy Spirit to do God’s work even more than the apostles.

Why do we need the Holy Spirit so urgently? In some ways, I will speak to this question in the whole message, but I will speak of the most urgent reasons now. I already read one reason from John 3- we need the Holy Spirit to be born again spiritually, to receive a new and eternal life. And to be born again in this way is necessary to see and enter the kingdom of God, Jesus told Nicodemus.

Why is the Holy Spirit necessary to see and enter the kingdom of God? First, Peter stated in his Pentecost message, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Being baptized with faith in Jesus Christ, receiving the Holy Spirit gives us forgiveness of sins. It ends the separation between us and God so that we can come to God in His kingdom. We can come face-to-face with God.

Second, a new birth through the Holy Spirit is necessary because 1 Corinthians 15 says the perishable cannot inherit the imperishable. Our physical body is perishable, but the kingdom of God is imperishable. Our physical body cannot enter it. New birth through the Holy Spirit gives us eternal life with an imperishable body that can inherit the imperishable kingdom of God. This is related to the forgiveness of sins in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” When we are forgiven of sins, we move from death to life, and we do so in rebirth through baptism of the Holy Spirit.

I believe, but also hope and pray that every one of us has been baptized with the Holy Spirit. So the question here is how can we help those who urgently need to receive the Holy Spirit and be saved? First, we can obey Jesus’ world mission command in Matthew 28:19, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” We need to go and make others into disciples of Jesus, including baptizing them with the Holy Spirit. Those we are praying for need not only to be Jesus’ Bible students, but also need to be baptized into the Holy Spirit.

Second, we need to lead others to repentance, so that they can be forgiven and baptized with the Holy Spirit. As Peter’s Pentecost message says, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Third, we need to lead others to faith as Galatians 3 says, “[Jesus] redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.” Forgiveness leads to redemption, but redemption must lead to faith. It is only by faith that we may receive the Holy Spirit.

Fourth, we need to lead others to desire and ask for the Holy Spirit as Luke 11 says, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

And lastly, throughout all these things, we must pray and then baptize in the Holy Spirit as Peter and John did for the Samaritans in Acts 8. It says, “When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.”

Let’s lead others to baptism in the Holy Spirit. Let’s do so through our prayers for all those on our hearts who have not receive the Spirit. Let’s do so through our actions- leading them to repent their sins, to put their faith in the Gospel, to become disciples of Jesus, and to desire and ask for the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Let’s read our key verse, Acts 2:4. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

What happened when the Holy Spirit came? All of the apostles and disciples in the room were enabled to speak in other tongues. Look at verses 5-12. Further, they were moved by the Spirit to speak in all those tongues the wonders of God, which surely includes the Gospel message- the works of Jesus in the world, on the Cross, and risen from the grave.

So what must we do now that we have the Holy Spirit? Let’s see from the examples of people with the Holy Spirit.

We must listen for the Holy Spirit. Acts 8 says, “The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” Philip listened and heard the Spirit telling him to go to the Ethiopian’s chariot. And Acts 10 says, “While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.” Peter listened and heard the Spirit telling him to go with Cornelius’ men.

We must be alert for the moving of the Holy Spirit. Luke 2 says “Simeon…was righteous and devout…the Holy Spirit was on him. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts [When] the parents brought in the child Jesus…” Simeon did not hear the voice of the Spirit but felt His moving to go meet Jesus Christ. Luke 4 says, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,” It seems Jesus did not hear the Spirit’s voice but felt His moving into the wilderness.

We must obey the Holy Spirit when we hear His speaking or feel His moving. Philip and Peter obeyed the Spirit’s speaking to them. Philip went to the chariot and Peter went with Cornelius’ men. Simeon and Jesus obeyed the Spirit’s moving. Simeon went out to meet Jesus and Jesus went out to the wilderness to be tempted.

We must go where the Spirit leads us as Philip did to the chariot to lead the Ethiopian to salvation, as Simeon did to meet Jesus, and as Jesus did to be tempted. We know that we must go where the Spirit leads us, for this is what our Bible teachers did to meet us and this is what we did to we met our Bible students. It was the leading of the Spirit.

We must stay away from the places the Spirit does not want us to go as Paul did in Acts 16, where it says, “Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.”

We must follow others the Spirit sends to lead us as Peter did Cornelius’ men. Then he could find Cornelius’ household, save them, and start the first Gospel ministry to the Gentiles. We that we must follow those the Spirit sends to lead us from our own experience of following the direction of our Bible teachers and pastors, which not only led to our salvation but to our leading others to salvation.

We must do the work the Spirit gives us as in Acts 13:2, which says: “While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Also as in this verse, we must acknowledge that different people within our churches are called by the Spirit for different purposes. Not everyone is a missionary, not everyone a preacher, not everyone a church planter. We need people with a variety of missions like the body needs eyes, feet, and hands to have a healthy body, says the Bible. Let us pray to recognize the special work the Spirit gives us and obey it for the sake of the health of the body of the church.

Acts 15:28 says, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements.” Lastly, we must only set rules or requirements that come from the Holy Spirit. The apostles did this in Acts 15 in answering the question of whether or not to require Gentile Christians to follow the rules of the Law of Moses. We must limit ourselves to rules from the Spirit because the Bible says that we are no longer under law but under grace.

How can we hear and obey the leading and moving of the Spirit? Romans 7:6 says, “But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” To hear and obey the Spirit, we must die to the Law of Moses and to the law of sin and death. We must accept our release from these laws and be changed in our ways. We must let go of our sinful desires and our legalism and we must serve in the new way of the Spirit.

For example, the former unwritten rules of UBF hurt many people and now there has to be a reconciliation committee to seek their forgiveness. Also, to have a rule about worship attendance, Bible study attendance, or offering often drove people away from the church – even though such attendance and offering is good and what God wants. Instead of having rules, let’s pray to follow the Spirit’s leading and moving to take care of others in God’s loving way.

Look at verses 6-12 again. What did the Holy Spirit filled people say at Pentecost? It was the wonders of God in every tongue of every nation under heaven in which there were Jews. Surely this was the leading of the Holy Spirit within them telling them what to say.

It was no surprise to the apostles that the Holy Spirit told them what to say. For Jesus told them in Matthew 10, “when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” And in John 15, Jesus said, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.”

What we say must be what the Holy Spirit tells us to say.

First, we must not worry about what to say, even in times of great stress or in times where it is very important what to say. If we want to say what is good or right, we only need to listen to the Holy Spirit. For example, when I worried about what to say and tried to come up with my own words in the time of trouble- my Ph.D. exam- I could not get the words out or say even what I knew well. But when I had prayed and was depending on the Spirit in my retry of the Ph.D. exam, then I did what Jesus taught. I did not worry what to say but allowed the Spirit to speak through me, both in a professional capacity and in testifying to God as why I passed.

We must also not worry about what to say when trying to speak of God or the Gospel, when inviting someone to church or Bible study, or of anything else we want to speak in ministry. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth will speak through us. The Spirit will testify about Jesus through us. The Spirit will advocate for us and be on our side as we speak to others.

In fact, we should not be speaking on our own but speak the words Jesus promised we would given to say by the Spirit. Even Jesus did not speak his own words. Jesus said in John 8, “I do nothing on my own but speak just what the father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone.” It means the Holy Spirit was with Jesus and spoke as the father directed him, just as. Luke said in Acts 1 “Jesus began to do and to teach…giving instructions through the Holy Spirit.” So if Jesus did not speak on His own but spoke by the Holy Spirit, how much more must we not speak on our own but speak by the Holy Spirit.

The apostles took this to heart. When facing the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:8 it says “Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people!”” Peter did not speak on his own but by the Spirit in the time of trial. Acts 6 says about the first martyr, Stephen, “they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave [Stephen] as he spoke.” Stephen could only speak wise things because he did not speak his own words, but spoke by the wisdom of the Spirit.

The prophets who came after the Pentecost did not speak their own words, but by the Holy Spirit. For example Acts 11 says, “One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.)” And Acts 21 says, “he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’””

When we speak our own words, we are powerless. But when we allow the Spirit to speak through us, we have God’s power. Let’s pray to speak by the power and words of the Holy Spirit.

How can we speak the words of the Spirit? One way is to follow the example of Acts 4:31,

“After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” We must pray for the Spirit to come and speak to us and through us, especially to speak the Word of God.

Another way is through 1 Corinthians 2:13 “This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.” We can speak the words of the Spirit by letting go of our human wisdom and submitting to the Spirit’s teaching. We can learn the words taught by the Spirit, and speak them to others. We can learn spiritual realities from the Spirit and in turn speak them to others with the Spirit’s words.

Finally, there is Acts 5:32, “We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” We have our own personal testimony and witness of what God has done in our lives, but we must cowork with the Spirit to share our testimony because the Spirit in us is also a witness to our personal testimony, and the Spirit has God’s words about it.

Let’s pray to always speak the Words of the Spirit in ministry and at every other time we receive them. Let’s always listen for the Words of the Spirit and have a learning mind for the teaching of the Spirit so that we will grow in our relationship with God and will be able to share these teachings with others.

The work of the Holy Spirit is not just for the benefit of others, so we may tell them what God wants us to say, go to them when God wants us to help them, or preach to them for their salvation. The Holy Spirit works for our benefit and blessing as well.

There is a hybrid blessing that blesses both us and others. For example, we each receive a blessed gift from the Holy Spirit as Jesus said in Acts 1, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you”. Look at our key verse, Acts 2:4, again. At Pentecost, all people in the room received the gift of speaking in another tongue as the Spirit enabled them. I believe each person received one different language to speak and many different languages were given as gifts, as detailed in verses 9-10.

In the same way, today different people receive different gifts of power through the Spirit, as 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 says. “To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues.”

There are other gifts of power as Acts 2 says, “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.” Let’s pray to find and use our blessed gift of power from the Spirit. It benefits us to bear fruit in our lives and gain treasure in heaven, but also benefits others by giving leading them to salvation or spiritual knowledge.

There are also blessings from the Spirit that are purely for our benefit. “[We] are the children of God.” (Romans 8) We have “rivers of living water flow[ing] from within [us]”. (John 7) You have “wisdom and revelation, so that you may know [God] better.” (Eph 1) We “have access to the Father”. (Eph 2) We have “God’s love” (Romans 5), “life” (Romans 8), “righteousness” (Romans 14), freedom (2 Cor 3), unity (Eph 4), understanding (Colossians 1), power and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1). And, of course, most famously we have the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5)

May God help us to take full advantage of our blessings from the Holy Spirit so we will be spiritually free, powerful, wise, holy, and life-giving people. Amen!

Finally, the Holy Spirit works inside us for our benefit. For example in Peter’s speech in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit gives us godly dreams to inspire and direct us. The Holy Spirit gives visions such as Stephen and John seeing into heaven or see the message of God like Peter and the scroll of animals. The Holy Spirit gives prophecies, so we can know the future and what God will do.

What else is the work of the Holy Spirit inside us? We must know so we will let the Spirit do His work.

The work of the Spirit is to be our Advocate with God and man. (John 14) It is to teach us all things, even the deep things of God, so we understand what God has given us in the Gospel and all its consequences. (1 Corinthians 2) It is to guide us into all truth, and remind us of the truths spoken by Jesus. (John 14 and 16) The Spirit’s work is to put to death the misdeeds of the body, to help us in our weakness, and know how to pray. (Romans 8) The Spirit’s work is our transformation into Jesus’ image (2 Cor 3) through sanctification (2 Thessalonians 2) and justification (1 Cor 6). And it is to give us “psalms, hymns, and songs” (Ephesians 5) to sing and make music to the Lord and to teach and admonish one another with.

In our Pentecost passage today, we were reminded that we have the Holy Spirit. We were reminded that through the Holy Spirit, God speaks to us, moves us, works inside us, gives us power and gifts in order to do His work, and bears fruit in us of blessings like love, joy, and peace. Let us pray to listen to the Spirit and watch for His moving, so that we will obey God’s will for what we say and do, where we go and don’t go. Let’s pray to speak not our words, but only the words of the Spirit especially in ministry and in our relationships with others God put in our lives. Let’s pray to find and use the power and special gift of the Spirit to make a healthy church and to do the work of God He made us to do. And let’s pray to grow through the Spirit in Jesus’ image, in knowledge, and in holiness.

Let’s read our Key Verse, Acts 2:4 “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

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Attachment:

• Pentecost_message.docx