Origin Stories: The Outpouring at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13)

Intro

Here’s an interesting question: if you were able to go back to one historical event, any event through all of time, what would it be? It’s tricky, isn’t it, because a lot of famous events aren’t ones you’d actually want to be part of. You’d witness it, but you don’t really want to be part of 9/11, or the dropping of the atomic bomb in WW2, or the French Revolution, or any number of natural disasters. Most famous historical events are cataclysmic, they’re wide scale destruction. I definitely wouldn’t pick any of those.

Number one on my list would be being one of the disciples who got to witness the resurrection of Jesus. To go from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs like that, to see Jesus in his resurrection, I don’t know how you could top that. But I think number two for me might be the events of Acts 2. The initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples, and the dramatic growth of the church that came out of that. Oh man!

In one sense, this event has never been repeated. There was only one initial outpouring. You only get to make a first impression one time, right? But things like this have taken place throughout church history. Times when the Holy Spirit came upon and filled a group of disciples, empowering them to be witnesses to Jesus in a way that led countless others to life in Christ. We call these periods revivals. 

One of my favorite definitions of revival is that it is “the saints getting back to normal” (Vance Havner) We were made for this. We were wired for this as followers of Jesus. And yet so often, the church has slipped into an essentially mediocre existence. We stop depending on the power of the Spirit, we depend on our own wisdom and strength, and we can keep things together for appearance’s sake. But it lacks any power, any fruit. And it becomes so widespread we just accept the normalcy of that. We don’t even yearn for anything more. But remember, Acts is our origin story. This is who we are, this is where we come from, this is our foundation. We are fundamentally a revival people. We are heirs of the outpouring of the Spirit, and we need to be continually filled by the Spirit. That’s what “normal” is supposed to look like for the church!

So this morning, we’re going to look at this incredible historical event that has become known as Pentecost, but the whole time we’re going to be drawing lines between that event and our own day. Here’s the text:

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. ⁵ Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶ When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. ⁷ Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? ⁹ Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” ¹² Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³ Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

Acts 2:1-13

1. Preparation for Pentecost

a. The Disciples

I want to look at this in two sections: the preparation and the outpouring itself, and in each of those I want to look at it from two perspectives: the disciples and the crowds. First: the preparation of the disciples.

And the first thing to say here is that at first glance, the disciples weren’t prepared. Think about it. Jesus was telling them that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Concentric circles going out from Jerusalem, and they were being entrusted with the task of telling everyone about Jesus. But who were the disciples? For the most part, they were blue-collar workers from the rural region of Galilee. They stank like fish and they had unsophisticated accents. And they were supposed to convince the ancient world that this crucified Jewish man had been raised from the dead and was Lord and Savior. What chance did they have?

This was seemingly impossible even among their own people! In Jerusalem, you would have had these rabbis who knew the Bible inside and out, and these Galilean fishermen are going to teach them what the Scriptures are actually about? They’re going to convince these rabbis that the Scriptures are actually about this man the rabbis just had killed? One commentary compared it to a bunch of West Virginia hillbillies being commissioned to go persuade some PhD scientists from MIT about some point in chemistry. My apologies if you’re from rural West Virginia. His words, not mine. I can give you his name if you want to pursue an apology (Peter Wagner). It’s absurd, there’s no way!

But apparently, that was the whole point. In 2 Corinthians 4:7, Paul says “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” It’s like God has rigged it so that the only way the Gospel could advance would be by His power and not ours. And when you think about it, we’re not that much different. Here we are, in the 21st century, with a myriad of advancements and accumulated knowledge. And we as followers of Jesus are called to tell the world that a Jewish man from 2000 years ago is the Son of God and Savior of the world. How’s it going to happen?

At The Bridge, we’re supposed to do it in one of the wealthiest, most post-Christian cities in the Western Hemisphere. BC is already affluent and well-educated. Deep Cove even more so! The percentage of Deep Cove residents who have a university degree or more is 20% higher than the BC average as a whole. Deep Cove households earn 75% more than the average BC household. How are we supposed to persuade people of what looks, in the eyes of the world, to be an unsophisticated message? Don’t misunderstand me. The Gospel is true, it’s solid, it’s grounded in historical evidence and makes sense of the world. It’s true. But at first glance to our world, especially considering its messengers, the Gospel seems unbelievable. It’s got to be by His power.

In other words, while they didn’t seem prepared, their insufficiency was actually a great training ground! In addition, the disciples were prepared because while they lacked formal education, they had been given a Jesus education. Jesus had spent considerable time with them, showing them how the Scriptures all pointed to him. We’ll see that come out in Peter’s speech later in Acts 2. We talked last week about how crucial it is that Christians today have the same Jesus-informed understanding of the Scriptures.

The disciples were also prepared because Jesus had hand-picked them for this mission. He had brought together this team, including the choice of Matthias to replace Judas in Acts 1. And despite all its diversity, there was a unity around what mattered. We read again and again in Acts that they were of one mind, that they shared a common devotion to things like prayer and the word and shared life together.

But most of all, the disciples were prepared for the outpouring through prayer. Especially given how unequipped they were for this naturally, what else could they do? What else did they have to rely on? They had to pray, there was nothing else! In Luke 24, Jesus told them to stay in Jerusalem and wait until they were clothed with power from on high. Which did not mean sitting on their butts and doing nothing. It meant prayer. According to Acts 1:14, the disciples were constantly praying for 10 days. The clear implication is that in Acts 2, when the Spirit comes, they are praying! 

One way of thinking about prayer is that it is making space for God to work. It is surrendering ourselves to His power, and inviting Him into our lives and the lives around us. When we are faced with a situation or task greater than we can handle on our own, which is like the entirety of Christian faith, prayer is what we have to go on! Is that not something God is doing in us as well? Where we used to struggle to get even a few people at Monday Noon Prayer, we consistently see 10 plus people now. A year and a half ago, it was like pulling teeth to get a 24/7 Prayer week going. This week prayer times were flying off the board. I’ve heard testimonies from some of you about how prayer has become more central to your life or business, and how that has changed things. And we see in Acts that God prepares His people for the outpouring of His Spirit through prayer. Doesn’t that get you fired up?

B. Preparation of the crowds

Now let’s talk about the preparation of the crowds. The time of year was a Jewish festival called the Festival of Weeks, also known as Pentecost. It took place 50 days after Passover, which was the festival that celebrated God’s deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. In Jewish tradition, Pentecost was connected with Mt. Sinai, where God gave the Israelites the law approximately two months after Passover. So you’ve got this act of deliverance followed by a festival connected with a gift from God from on high. Passover followed by Pentecost. The crucifixion followed by the outpouring of the Spirit. 

In the ancient world, there were all these pockets of Jewish settlements scattered among the nations. These were people who obviously no longer lived in Judea, they spoke the languages of their new home lands, but they still sought to be faithful Jews. Part of that meant visiting Jerusalem during the three major Jewish feasts. Pentecost was the feast that took place when weather, and thus travel conditions, were the most favorable. It’s quite possible that because of that, Jerusalem was never more full than during Pentecost. Some estimates have the population of Jerusalem as around 25,000-30,000 at the time, but swelling to 100,000-200,000 during feast times. The donkey traffic jams were a nightmare! Verses 9-11 cover 15 different locations these crowds had come from, which equate to modern day places like Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Italy, and Egypt. It’s not hard to see God’s plan here. Not only is there a connection between what God was about to do and the festival that people were celebrating, but never was there a more expansive and captive audience in Jerusalem than at that moment.

Not only was the festival packed with significance, not only was Jerusalem packed with people, but the time itself was packed with meaning. Verse 1 in the English says that the day of Pentecost came, but the Greek word is more descriptive. It has the sense of fulfillmen or fullness. It’s the same idea as in Romans 5, where Paul says “at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). Or in Galatians 4, where he says that “when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son” (Galatians 4:4). The time was full, it was pregnant.

A couple of historical things in relation to this. First, you had the Roman Empire at the height of its power, ensuring the safety of travel between places that was rare in the ancient world. Caesar didn’t know it, but the so-called Pax Romana accidentally made it really easy for the crowds to gather for Pentecost and for the good news about Jesus to spread. At the same time, the Jews themselves were caught up in turmoil because of Roman occupation. Big questions were being asked, tensions were running high. Within one generation of the resurrection of Jesus, an armed revolt in Judea would lead to the massacre of about a million Jews by the Romans and the destruction of Jerusalem. You can see how the time was ripe in terms of people’s openness to a message of salvation and the ability of that message to spread through the ancient world. The time was ripe.

As I speak/write those words, I think about our own time. Has it ever been easier to spread messages, for better or for worse, than now? Maybe travel is restricted, but because of technology, we have an ability to communicate broadly that the Romans couldn’t have dreamed of. At the same time, there is widespread turmoil and unrest. In my generation, most of us assumed the world would always be stable. We thought that the fundamental order would go unchanged, that freedom and democracy were givens. Suddenly, everything is up for grabs. The pandemic made us feel vulnerable, it introduced a fear and mistrust we hadn’t experienced before. People are asking big questions and seeking answers to make sense of the world. None of these things are unqualified positives, in the 1st century or the 21st. Misinformation, fake news, big tech censorship, so much of what is being talked about today in our society is because of the same dual reality: easy communication and social turmoil. But it does mean the time is pregnant for the good news of God’s deliverance through Jesus. Is God preparing us for something, for a new missional movement?

3. The Pentecost Event

a. For the disciples

So the disciples are all in the same place on the day of Pentecost. There’s some debate about whether they’re in the upper room of Acts 1:13 or actually somewhere more public, like in the temple courts. Regardless, they’re likely praying, because that’s what they were “constantly” doing, and the Holy Spirit shows up. The promised gift has come, all the anticipation and preparation comes to fulfillment, what Jesus said would happen happens. And there are a couple of sensory phenomena that accompany the fulfillment of the promised Spirit.

One is audible: a sound like a violent blowing wind. Can you imagine being one of the disciples and out of the blue, hearing something like this:

That would be spine-chilling! Now, it’s not that the Spirit actually is wind, but arrives with a sound like the wind. That’s a great analogy for the Holy Spirit. Wind and Spirit, along with breath, all translate the same word in Greek and in Hebrew, the two main biblical languages. Jesus, in his conversation with the Jewish teacher Nicodemus in the Gospel of John, said that the Spirit was like the wind, blowing wherever it wished (John 3:8). The Spirit is invisible, and yet is extraordinarily powerful, moving hearts and lives.

The second phenomenon is visible: the Spirit is pictured like tongues of fire settling on the disciples. Fire burns away the chaff, right? It purifies. Jesus said that the Spirit would convict the world of sin, revealing judgment and righteousness. The Spirit purifies, that’s fire stuff. Fire also sheds light. Jesus said that the Spirit would guide His people into all truth. Fire evokes the idea of passion. The Holy Spirit cultivates in us God’s own passion for truth, for salvation. And in the Old Testament, fire represents God’s own presence. He led the Israelites through the wilderness by a pillar of fire. He got Moses’ attention through a burning bush. He revealed His power to the Israelites in Elijah’s day by sending fire from the heavens and consuming a drenched altar. The Holy Spirit is the power and the presence of God now dwelling inside His people. The tongues of fire separate and rest on each one. Not just Peter, or a select few. All the disciples were together, 120 of them, and the Spirit rested on each one of them. The same Spirit, but indwelling each individual.

If you are a follower of Jesus today, do you know this? You have fire inside of you! The fire of God’s presence dwelling in you! The mighty wind of His Spirit dwelling in you! Why are we content to live lives that look basically the same as others, only with a little bit less swearing? Why do we keep relying on techniques and strategies as churches as though that’s going to get the job done? Why do we think it’s acceptable to continue living double lives, acting one way around church people but another way during the week? Why do we remain lukewarm, believing that it’s just a different way to be a Christian? You have fire inside of you! The Holy Spirit, burning, purifying, empowering, enlightening, convicting, leading you! The power and the presence of God indwelling you, enabling you to do what you could never do on your own! 

The disciples are said to be “filled” with the Holy Spirit. This doesn’t mean, by the way, that they had this one experience and they were set for the rest of their lives without any need to be filled with the Spirit afterward. That’s how some people think about it, that once you become a Christian, you get the Spirit, and that’s that. You do get the Spirit, but that’s not that. That’s why in Acts, the disciples will be filled with the Spirit subsequent times, especially in response to prayer, especially in situations where they are needing a fresh empowerment. It’s why Paul, in Ephesians, instructs Christians, who already have the Spirit, to be filled with the Spirit, and he uses a continuous verb form. Be being filled (Ephesians 5:18). 

If you’re a follower of Jesus, you have fire in you, but the fire can grow cold. It can be quenched. And so the fire has to be tended to, the fire has to be fed. That’s why even though the exact events of Pentecost aren’t repeated, the same kind of thing Pentecost represented for the disciples needs to be a continual experience for Christians. It’s why we continually need renewal and revival as a church. Like Leviticus 6:13 says, like we talked about last week, the fire must burn continually, it can’t go out.

B. For the crowds

So the Spirit is poured out on the disciples- that’s the language, by the way, that the prophet Joel used in the Old Testament and that Peter quotes in his upcoming speech, that God would pour out His Spirit. The Spirit is poured out, the disciples are filled with the wind-like and fire-like Spirit, and they begin celebrating and proclaiming the wonders of God. But something strange happens, because the words come out in languages that they’ve never learned before. They are languages, however, that other people have learned before. Specifically, all of these Jewish visitors from all over the Roman empire whose first languages are those of their homelands. These Galilean fishermen, unsophisticated, uneducated, unimpressive in every way, are doing things there’s no way they should be able to do. And it raises a question: “what does this mean?” There is an openness to hear more.

There are a few things about this that I think are important to take note of. The first, from what I’ve just said, is that the interest isn’t across the board. Most are curious. But some are completely cynical. They dismiss the disciples entirely. They don’t hear coherent languages, they refuse to accept the possibility that something supernatural is happening here. Instead, they give the credit to alcohol. Jesus doesn’t usually bludgeon people over the head. For the most part, people have a choice, and there will always be people who reject him. You will not please everyone. You will not save everyone. 

Another note is about the tongues, which is another word for languages. People get confused because the Bible talks about the spiritual gift of tongues, which seems different from this. In 1 Corinthians especially, Paul talks about the gift of tongues and he tells the Corinthians not to use the gift in public worship unless there’s interpretation, because nobody will understand what they’re saying (1 Cor. 14:27-28). He says that when you use the gift, your spirit prays, but your own mind doesn’t comprehend what’s being prayed (1 Cor. 14:14). Paul seems to refer to this as “tongues of angels”- a heavenly speech that people can’t understand on their own (1 Cor. 13:1). What happens in Acts is very different, because there’s no interpretation required. It’s actual human languages being spoken.

On the other hand, I’ve heard stories of an overlap between these gifts. I read about a British pastor who only knew English praying for a Arabic man who was sick. He began praying in tongues as was his custom. The Arabic man was astounded because he heard the pastor in fluent Persian, followed by fluent Ugaritic, a dead language but one the Arabic man knew. The meaning in both languages was the same. Astounded, the Arabic man became a believer in Jesus and an evangelist to others. No wonder, given what he experienced!

A third thing to note is that in the midst of the debate about what exactly is happening, we can’t lose sight of what it all means. Way back in Genesis 11, we have the story of the Tower of Babel, when the pride of humanity leads to God confusing their languages and scattering them throughout the earth. Acts 2 isn’t exactly the reversal of Babel, because the different languages still remain. But what happens is a unifying of those scattered people based on a shared message, a message that can be translated into every language, a message that can only be received through humble faith. The power in Acts 2 is a foreshadowing of what happens later in the book, when we find out that ethnicity and cultural background are now moot in terms of membership in God’s people. God wants everyone to know about the good news of Jesus. He’s going to send His servants to every tribe, language, nation with the good news. The crowds of Acts 2 are going to go back to their homelands and they’re going to tell others. They’re going to plant churches, they themselves are going to be filled with the Spirit, because the whole world needs to hear about the wonders of God in Christ Jesus!

And finally, don’t miss the fact that the miracle of different languages wasn’t enough on its own. The point isn’t the power. The point is who the power points to. In that story I just referred to, the pastor would have had to explain to the man who Jesus was. And that’s exactly what Peter will do in the rest of Acts 2. There is an openness created by the power of the miracle, and the job of the disciple is to work with that openness to tell people who Jesus is. Some people are so obsessed with the power, and others are scared off of the power altogether because of abuses they’ve seen. Both have lost the plot. The Spirit always glorifies Jesus, remember (John 16:14)? The power is always meant to point people to him.

Conclusion

For the 24/7 Prayer week we just completed, I’m usually one of the ones taking the middle of the night shifts. It makes sense. I’m the one initiating it, I’ve got skin in the game, you know? I just feel bad because taking the middle of the night shifts means I’m depriving you of blessing! Besides the near confrontations with skunks and raccoons that rule the night, those walks at 2am have been some of the best times of prayer I’ve had!

One night earlier this week, a lot of pieces just came together. I thought about how I’ve often complained to God about where He’s called me. I don’t mean I complain about being called to The Bridge Church, but this region as a whole. I’ve spent essentially the entirety of my ministry as a pastor in Greater Vancouver, one of the most affluent and disinterested in Christianity cities in the Western hemisphere. I wished he would have sent me to a place with more openness to the good news of Jesus. But on this walk, He helped me see that if that was the case, I might have believed that my own abilities could carry the day. I might have been persuaded that human means were sufficient to see real growth in a church. But instead, by calling me here, He’s shown me that it is only His power that can accomplish anything. There’s no grounds for human boasting when it comes to Gospel ministry in North Vancouver.

He also showed me how He’s been preparing me. I’m a guy who never heard the word revival until I was in my mid-20s. I grew up in churches that never talked about the Holy Spirit. And yet, for the last decade, He has given me this vision and thirst and burden for nothing else. He has led me to pastors and preachers throughout church history who shared the same. Does He give a vision and a thirst for His presence without an intention to fulfill it?

And He showed me how He’s been preparing our church. It pains me to think about those who have left our church for various reasons. I sometimes dwell on that and grow discouraged. But He showed me how so many more have joined us. And how many of those people share the same kind of vision for revival. How He’s sent us people with gifts of evangelism and intercession.

And He showed me how He’s preparing our community and our culture, creating a new hunger for things beyond this world and bringing people to our city from all over the world. I think that’s beginning to happen in the wake of the pandemic. Not only that, but like at Pentecost, the nations have flocked to this city. It’s a hub that collects and sends people out.

And it all leads me to this conclusion: God wants to do something incredible through us here. I don’t know when. I don’t know if it’s this morning, or some other time ahead. But I am convinced He’s preparing us, and that He’s preparing our community. Our part is to make as much space as possible for Him by being devoted to prayer, to His Word, to worship, to life together. Our part is to be set apart for Him, to surrender to Him. I’m telling you. If we follow the disciples’ example in those days of waiting in Jerusalem, we will see a fresh outpouring of the power of the Spirit in our day.