It was five years ago on
Pentecost Sunday when I was invited to preach at Hebron on a Sunday morning. Please
know I am not surprised or disappointed if you don’t remember anything I said
that day.
I remember as a young Christian
thirsting to read the Bible for the first time in a serious manner, and reading
about people speaking in tongues. I had
no idea what this was talking about, and thought what’s the big deal! Everybody uses their tongue to speak. I also told you my first experience with
someone who experienced God in different ways than I ever heard. That person was my barber, and while he was
holding a pair of scissors at the back of my neck he began to tell me the
blessing of receiving the Holy Spirit. He
believed I should receive the gift of tongues at that moment. He locked the door to the shop, closed the
blinds, and prayed in a mixture of English and some other language I did not
know. After 10 minutes of nothing
happening to me I thanked him for caring for me, but did not believe I was
going to receive that gift on that particular day. That was also the last time I went to him as
my barber. Fairly or unfairly, I have
been influenced by this experience. For
Christians who are more inclined to receive and experience the miraculous gifts
of God, Pentecost Sunday is one of their high marks of the year. For Christians who hold a more reserved view,
Pentecost Sunday is probably not too much different than most other Sundays.
This past fall you had a series
from the Old Testament titled, “Divine Exposure.” Remember these titles: “Awakening,
Whirlwind, Voice, Wrestler, General, Torah, Laugh, Cry, Prayer, Altar, Son,
Seed, Song, Sight.” You looked at
different ways God revealed himself to his people, and each of these encounters
pointed to someone even greater who was yet to come. We know this one was Jesus.
In Acts 2 we read of “a sound like a rushing wind, tongues of
fire resting on each person, and people speaking in other tongues as the Spirit
gave them utterance.” I am guessing not many of us have had this type of
experience in our past. In
what ways do these experiences point us to Jesus, the one who has come and
continues to work in our hearts and lives? In other parts of the New Testament we read of a “dove appearing, buildings shaking, and earthquakes rumbling.” The scriptures are full of events where
God acts in dramatic, uncustomary, fresh, and extraordinary outpourings of the
Holy Spirit. I would also guess most of us at some time in our lives have wondered
why we don’t experience things like this on a regular basis? Are we missing these today? And can we be so intense in looking for these
extraordinary outpourings of the Holy Spirit, we may miss God’s miraculous work
in our lives in other ways?
Here are some questions for you
to look at in preparation for this Sunday:
- Pentecost was one of the Jewish feast days, only they didn’t call it Pentecost. That’s the Greek name. Jew called it the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of Weeks. It is mentioned in Exodus 23 and 24, Numbers 28, and Deuteronomy 16. Why do you think God decided to dramatically intervene on this day as recorded in Acts 2?
- Can you think of times in church history when God poured out His Holy Spirit in extraordinary ways? What happened during these times, and what was accomplished?
- In what ways do we see a fulfillment of Genesis 12:1-3 in the Acts 2:1-13 passage?
- In John 16 - 18 Jesus gives a long teaching before He dies about our dependency on and relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. What in these chapters is extraordinary, uncustomary, dramatic, and fresh?
