I invite you to turn with me this morning to that Pentecost story, Acts 2. The first 13 verses we'll read together. Acts 2, considering the first four verses. As indeed the faithfulness of God is placed before us as we see His faithfulness to the small church of that time. In chapter 1, verse 15, we read, In those days Peter stood up among the believers, a group numbering about 120 at that time, including the apostles. Acts 2, beginning at verse 1. Hear now God's Word. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound 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. Now there were staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, the crowd came together in bewilderment because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked, Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? How then is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus in Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene, 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. There ends the reading of God's holy Word. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, No doubt, Christ's followers, again, the 120, including the apostles, were still somewhat bewildered. It was all quite surreal. The crucifixion, death, resurrection, ascension of Jesus. Really all quite unbelievable. Yet, they knew that it was true because they had seen Him, they had spent time with Him, They had talked with the risen Lord. They had been given their marching orders by Him. In Matthew 28, He says, 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, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. And in Acts 1, verse 8, He said, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. They had been given their marching orders, Go and make disciples. You will be My witnesses. But how? You see, at this time, yet they were pretty much in hiding. They were avoiding the public eye. And who would believe anyway? Because this One who said He would be with them until the end of the age, He was nowhere to be seen. However, Jesus had also said something else in chapter 1, verse 8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be My witnesses. You will receive power. You will be witnesses by My power. And He had also spoken of the Holy Spirit before and referred to the Holy Spirit as a helper, as a counselor, as a comforter and how they needed that. But also Jesus said of the Holy Spirit in John 16, beginning at verse 13, but when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own. He will speak only what He hears. And He will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to Me by taking from what is Mine and making it known to you. But what did all of us mean? And how would they know? Well, once again, Jesus, though absent, made it clear without a doubt as the Holy Spirit was poured out preparing the church to fulfill her marching orders. As this church was first of all enlivened for Gospel proclamation. And of course, we know this took place on Pentecost. Now again, when we hear the word Pentecost, we think of it as exactly this, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. However, Pentecost was for Israel and established holiday. It was one of three along with Passover and along with the Feast of Tabernacles, one of three feasts that Israel was commanded to observe. Pentecost was also called the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Harvest. In essence, it was Israel's Thanksgiving Day when they would celebrate the end of the wheat harvest and acknowledge that the harvest is the Lord's who is the one who gives and sustains life. On this feast day, the Jews would gather together to celebrate those things. And on this particular Pentecost day, the Jews were gathered from many places to where they had been spread. In verse 5 again, Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. And then a bit later, we're told some of the places. Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus in Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene. Visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, all gathered together. But they weren't the only ones gathered together that day. The disciples, again, that small church was gathered together, staying in Jerusalem as Jesus had said for them to do. And on this Pentecost Thanksgiving day, we read in verse 2, suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. And we know as verse 4 tells us, this was none other than the promised Holy Spirit who came from heaven. Jesus was fulfilling His promise. And the Holy Spirit came accompanied by a sign, the sound of a mighty wind. The wind represents the Holy Spirit in the original languages, the words for Spirit can also be translated as wind and breath. In Genesis 2, verse 7, we read, Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into His nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. With a vision of the valley of dry bones, Ezekiel in Ezekiel 37 prayed that the Lord God would breathe on the dry bones that they might live. And when that prayer was answered, the Lord in verse 14 interpreted that as saying, when He said this, I will put My Spirit, and He's talking about His Holy Spirit, I will put My Spirit in you and you will live. In John 3, verse 8, in Nicodemus, Jesus said, The wind blows where it wishes. You hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone born of the Spirit. The wind represents the Spirit of God who is the very breath of God. And what an awesome sign. Boys and girls, it was an awesome sign because it was only a noise. There was no real storm or wind or weather pattern that would cause this noise to make sense. In our day, there would be nothing distinguishable on the Doppler radar. The disciples didn't feel the wind on their faces. Their robes weren't flapping in the breeze. Yet we are told this sign filled the whole house where they were sitting. And we are to understand that the house was filled with a content. There was something there. And it was not wind. But it was the very presence of the Holy Spirit. It was the powerful presence of the one and only life-giving Holy Spirit of God who gives new life, who gives new birth to dead hearts, who gives that breath of God that makes one alive. Just as Jesus said to Nicodemus that He must be born again, born from above. Indeed, the Holy Spirit of God is the one who gives that new life, who regenerates. Here, we're not talking about that regenerating work though because the disciples were already believers. But here, the Holy Spirit enlivened, gave new life to the church in essence. This was the birth of the New Testament church because it was a new age. It was no longer an age of shadow and promises, but it was an age of fulfillment, the age of gathering the church from throughout all the earth. And the Holy Spirit of truth, as Jesus described Him, came to enliven the church with an understanding of the truth of Jesus Christ in a way that the church had not comprehended before. And the church and believers would be then, secondly, equipped for Gospel proclamation. And that equipping is evidenced also by a sign. The sign of equipping found in verse 3. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. There were two outward signs that signified the coming of the Holy Spirit. The sound of that mighty blowing wind and the appearance of fire. And we are to understand, I believe, that it was one fire that separated and distributed itself to rest on each one of them. And we know from our consideration of Scripture at other times and other places that the sign of fire in Scripture pointed to the presence of God. To the presence of His Word. We think of Moses in the burning bush or Israel in the pillar of fire or Elijah's altar that the fire of the Lord came down and consumed. Or in Malachi 3, we read, For He is like a refiner's fire. Or Hebrews 12, verse 29, For our God is a consuming fire. Fire in Scripture is a sign of the presence of God, but also it is a symbol of purification, of cleansing, and as well of judgment. Fire is used to refine gold and silver to remove the impurities. And the fire of God, we read in Scripture, consumed Aaron's sacrifice, demonstrating that God had set Aaron and his sons apart, that He had sanctified them to His service, accepting Aaron's sacrifice. And then that very same fire that sanctified Aaron and his sons became a fire of judgment that consumed Aaron's wicked sons, Nadab and Abihu, because of their disobedience, for disobeying God. Fire in Scripture is a symbol of the presence of God and His Word. God and His Word go together. They are inseparable. Here we are being shown that the church would be equipped by and with that one word of the Gospel which is powerful by the work of the Holy Spirit. As Paul says in Romans 1, For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for the salvation of those who believe. The Holy Spirit came to set the church on fire, as it were, with the truth of Jesus Christ. taking of what is Christ's and making it known to the church, taking His deity, His glory, His majesty and power, taking His righteousness and satisfaction, taking His return to judge the living and the dead, taking His crucifixion and resurrection and ascension and making it known to the church. The Holy Spirit equipped the young New Testament church, Which is still true for us today. The Holy Spirit equipped that young New Testament church with new life to understand the actual value of Christ's cross. So that by the operation of the Holy Spirit, believers might be crucified with Christ. And through the Holy Spirit, God's people enjoy the new life of Christ's resurrection, including the forgiveness of all of our sins, that confidence and fellowship with God both now and forever. And in His power, believers seek and love things above where Christ ascended and is seated at the right hand of God. The Holy Spirit, verse 4 says, filled all of them. Not one believer is without his or her measure of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit filled all of them with this knowledge of faith and with the fire of the Gospel. But notice, He also equipped them to speak and preach that Gospel represented by the shape of tongues. The disciples were called to preach and to teach and to witness and not only were they given the content, the things of Christ, but they were promised a tongue to speak with a mouth with words to say. It is the Holy Spirit who fills the tongues and mouths of believers with the truth to speak. Apart from Him, we have nothing to say. Apart from Him, we are not able to speak. on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ. He fills the tongues and mouths of believers with that truth to speak. As Jesus told the disciples before in Luke 12, the Holy Spirit will teach you what to say. And beloved, the Holy Spirit did empower the apostles. We see throughout the book of Acts the boldness of those who preach. Boldness to face arrest and beating and death because they were filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit. We see that immediately in Acts 4, verse 13, when they, and that is talking about the rulers and the elders, the chief priests, when they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled and ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. The power of the Holy Spirit filled them, equipping them for their task, equipping them to carry out their marching orders that were given to them by their Captain, Jesus Christ. The power of the Holy Spirit filled them to preach the truth of the Gospel that purifies those who believe that message but consumes those who reject it. The proclamation of the fiery Word of God by God's grace softens and melts the hearts of those who believe but hardens and crustifies, as it were, those who reject Him. And the blessing of the Holy Spirit fills all who are born again and believe by God's grace. Indeed, all are equipped in different measure. However, beloved, the evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit is not speaking in unintelligible tongues. But the evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit is witnessing for Jesus Christ. About nine times in the book of Acts we read about those who were filled with the Holy Spirit and each time we see one thing in common and what it is is that they began to testify boldly to Jesus Christ. Evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit is witnessing for Jesus Christ to the truth of Him and to His saving love. Beloved, does that describe you? Does it describe me? Are we on fire for the Lord? Or do we hide our light under a basket? Is this true of Escondido United Reformed Church that we are indeed filled with the Holy Spirit on fire for the Lord to spread the Gospel message? You see, God is pleased to use those who wait for Him and who desire to be useful to and to be used of Him. The power of the Holy Spirit gave life to and equipped the young New Testament church to fulfill her marching orders, Finally, thirdly, evidenced through Gospel proclamation. Verse 4 says, All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. What glorious evidence of the effect of the Holy Spirit upon these believers! Indeed, evidence of the Holy Spirit coming was the wind and the fire. And this ability that was given to them demonstrated that the Holy Spirit was indeed in them, empowering them here to overcome the language barrier. In verse 8, those who heard say, then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? What a demonstration of power! This was not some gibberish that no one could understand that needed some sort of interpreting, but in an instant, the Holy Spirit gave them the ability to speak in foreign languages, something that takes us years of study to master. In an instant, the Holy Spirit gave them the ability to speak in these foreign languages, but in these different languages to speak the one and the same truth, proclaiming, as verse 11 says, the wonders of God. In an instant, our God was undoing the confusion of Babel. You remember the Tower of Babel, boys and girls, you remember that story after the flood? Back in Genesis, when man began to populate the earth once again, man in his arrogance decided that he wanted to build a city up to the heavens and all stay together and never be divided. And that was not what God's plan was. So God confused the languages. He confused the people with different languages. They couldn't understand each other. It sounded like a bunch of confusion. Sometimes if we can't understand one of our children when they're talking, when they're little, we might say, now stop your babbling and speak clearly. Their languages were confused. And thereby the Lord divided mankind throughout the face of the earth. Pentecost overcomes Babel, not by all people speaking the same language once again, but by the language of the one and only gospel of salvation going out to all the people, uniting the people of God in one faith, one hope, one Lord. And this preaching in all the languages of the people was a sign of guaranteed victory. That God's Word will accomplish its purpose as Isaiah 55 says. That Christ's church will be gathered through the ministry of the Word through the church of Christ, either with us or without us. This day of Pentecost, traditionally a time of feasting and celebrating the ingathering of the harvest and celebrating God's gift of life on this day became a feast of ingathering the church from among the nations, as we're told later on, the 3,000 believed that day. A sign of victory, of the great spiritual harvest of souls, because of the effectiveness of the Holy Spirit upon hearers of the Gospel. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that we can sing, Breathe on me, breath of God, so shall I never die. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that one is able to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ by faith being transformed by the Holy Spirit into a living sacrifice, as Paul says in Romans 12. And we today, beloved, so many years later, are still fruit of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. We are still a part of that Pentecost church. As those enlivened and equipped as believers by God's grace, and those who are called to give evidence of that by seeing that the preaching of the Gospel continues and by striving to be used to give a reason to anyone who asks for the hope that is in us, as Paul says in 1 Peter. By being witnesses for Jesus Christ. Beloved, do you have a conscience that's troubled by and hates your sin? Do you ask for forgiveness daily? Do you rest in the work of Jesus Christ alone? Do you desire to live according to the truth of God's Word and to His glory? Do you desire God's will be done more than your own? Do you look forward to heaven? Do you desire that others may know Jesus and His saving love? I'm not asking if you and I do these things perfectly. I know we don't. But if these things characterize you, then my point is not that we are to become proud or arrogant or think that we deserve something, but instead to humbly praise God for the work of the Holy Spirit in you and me. Apart from which none of this would be true, apart from which we would have no interest in the Lord Jesus Christ, apart from which we would think that Christians indeed had simply had too much wine. Instead, we are called to humbly praise God for the work of the Holy Spirit in us as He has taught us the truth and applied the truth of Jesus Christ and His love to your heart and my heart. Indeed, we are to confess that we often fail miserably in our representation of and our witness for Jesus Christ. Sadly, at times it's hard to tell if our witness is for or against Him. Yet we are to be comforted as the Holy Spirit continues to work and convicts us of our sin and brings us sorrow for our sin because He also lifts our eyes to Jesus Christ and the cross reminding us again and again and again and over and over as we need reminding us that we too are recipients of the very same grace of God through Jesus Christ that we are called to witness to the world. Beloved, may our earnest prayer be that the Holy Spirit would be busy and active in our hearts and lives moment by moment by breaking down our resistance to His work because of our sin. By building us up more and more in that most holy faith. By giving us greater courage to joyfully demonstrate and speak of the love of Jesus. By granting us wisdom and strength to recognize and resist Satan's flaming arrows of temptation and deception. By keeping us from following our own paths of desire and instead leading us by the light of God's word. by more and more filling us, making us faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ that the world may see our faith, might see our good deeds as Jesus says in Matthew, and by God's grace be brought to glorify our Father in Heaven. May our earnest prayer be that our God would continue to raise up and equip faithful workers, maybe even some from among us here, to preach and teach and testify to the wonders of God. Our beloved, praise be to God for the gift of the Holy Spirit to apply the work and the truth of Jesus Christ, gathering those He came to save and to equip them to be used of Him to gather His church until His bride is complete and ready for the day of Christ Jesus. Praise be to God for the gift of the Holy Spirit through whom our Lord Jesus Christ is with us always to the very end of the age. Amen. Let's pray together. Gracious God, our Heavenly Father, we must confess that Your work is indeed in so many ways mysterious to us. Your work through Your Holy Spirit. Yet we thank You for that powerful influence in our hearts and lives. That presence. The Holy Spirit who has taken up residency in the church and in the hearts of believers. Father, indeed, equip us. Strengthen us by Your Spirit to be used of You. Forgive us, Father, when we become frustrated that we don't see the results. When we feel helpless because we cannot convert people. then help us to remember that that's exactly true. We cannot do it. And that is not the task You have given to us. But You have called upon Your people to preach the Word, to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And You have promised to give us that which we must say and to enable us to say it. Father, give us opportunity. And when You give us opportunity, help us to see these opportunities. and to glory in Your work in us, in Your church, even as You continue to prepare the Bride of Christ for the day of Christ Jesus. Father, hear our prayer. For Jesus' sake, and in His name we pray, Amen.