Acts 2:14-17, 19-21 “Fellow Jews, and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘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… I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Purpose one for God sending his Spirit: He wanted his people to know. Before the completion of the Bible, he gave prophesies, visions, and dreams through his Spirit. The religion of grace isn’t something you figure out by logical deduction. We don’t instinctively believe that the way back to God is through grace, that the way past our sins is only his forgiveness, that the way to be saved is purely the gift of his Son. God’s Spirit reveals it.

Even with a completed Bible, it is the Spirit who lets us understand. I have heard the testimonies of so many Christians who will tell you they weren’t “reasoned” into Christian faith. Something happened through repeated exposure to the word. It is like a light bulb went on, and suddenly they just realized that these things they had been reading and hearing about Jesus were true. That is the Spirit’s power at work, teaching us what we need to know.

Purpose two for God sending his Spirit: He wants his people to speak. “Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.” They will prophesy. That doesn’t have to refer to predicting the future. It describes any preaching of God’s message. And it isn’t limited to professional clergy. It is included in the job description of your pastor. But God has poured his Spirit “on my servants, both men and women.” You may be afraid to speak about your faith. “I’m not very good at talking,” you say. So did Moses, you may remember. And God told him, “Hey Moses, I made your mouth, remember? I can make it work just fine.” And he says to us, “Hey Christian, I gave you my Spirit, remember? He will give you the words you need to say.”

Purpose three for God sending his Spirit: He wants people to be saved. Peter uses the Prophet Joel to walk us right through the New Testament era and the rest of history to the last day. Then, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” This is what Pentecost Day is all about. This is why God sent his Spirit on us with power. It’s not about giving us the ability to create some utopia here, a heaven on earth. It is not about giving us the ability to do neat little supernatural things to impress our friends and acquaintances. It is about fortifying our own faith and equipping us to share it with others, so that people can call on Jesus’ name in faith and be saved.

Acts 2:1-4 “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.”

Jesus was not visibly present to explain to these people, “This is what happening to you.” But the signs, the evidence, that the Spirit had come was about as clear as it could be without a voice from heaven saying so.

First, there was the sound of the wind, but not a wind itself. The very words for “spirit” and “breath” and “wind” are closely related in most languages. The sound of a hurricane, without so much as a gust or a breeze, was a clear way for the Spirit to announce, “I’m here.”

The appearance of something that looked like fire settling on each of them took them all back to the prophecy of John the Baptist, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But…he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” Is it possible to imagine this supernatural phenomenon could mean anything else?

So far all of this was just sound and vision. The clearest proof that this was the Spirit, and that he was coming with power, was the sudden change each person experienced. In an instant they became fluent in foreign languages, a lot of them. I know a little something about learning and speaking foreign languages. I’ve studied six of them. It’s not something a person just “turns on” in a moment. It is more than learning a new list of words for things. Other languages involve a whole different way of thinking, a whole different system for putting ideas together. Even the way your mouth and tongue forms sounds has to be relearned. Spanish-speaking people roll their “r’s” in a way I can’t. Swedish speakers have sounds similar to our “sh” sound pronounced in the back of your throat that I can’t imitate, and they round their lips to create vowel sounds we don’t have in English. On this Pentecost the switch was flipped, and suddenly a group of uneducated fishermen were fluent in the native languages of at least fifteen other countries–evidence of the Spirit’s power.

Where is our Pentecost? What is the evidence of the Spirit’s power in our lives? Don’t get caught up in the supernatural elements of the story. They were real, but they aren’t the main thing. I don’t have to tell you that some Christians today are set on having signs and wonders in their religion. They crave these demonstrations of supernatural power like an addict craves his fix. It’s not enough for them to live by faith. They need to see the miracles.

The problem is that people then get so distracted by the magic that they miss what Christianity is all about. Jesus performed many miracles during his ministry, but you may remember that he never did them for those demanding proof. And from very early in his ministry he actually discouraged people from telling anyone the miraculous things he had done. It led people to come to him for all the wrong reasons. He didn’t use his power to impress anyone. He certainly wasn’t interested in being their entertainer. If the miracles weren’t leading people back to God’s mercy and grace, something was missing.

In the case of Pentecost Day, the evidence of the Spirit’s coming was needed for a very specific reason. Jesus had told them to wait for it, not to start their ministry until the spirit had come. For ten days they had been waiting for it to happen. There needed to be clear evidence that now they had received the Spirit and his power. Otherwise, how would they know the time had come to go and preach?

We don’t have to wait to go and tell. The green flag has been waved, the starting gun has been fired, and it is off to the races! Do you want evidence that you have received the Spirit’s power, as promised? Look no farther than your faith. “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” The gospel has had its way with your heart. You don’t just know what the cross means. You trust the forgiveness flowing from Jesus’ sacrifice for your salvation. That means the Spirit is working in your life, evidence that his power is at work in your heart.

Psalm 90:1-2 “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.”

God has been our dwelling place. There is a comforting picture of his constant care in that statement. God has been like a home around us. The help we receive from him is not so much like going to the doctor’s office. That isn’t some place you live. It’s some place you visit occasionally when you are very ill. God is more than someone we go to for an occasional visit. He is like home. We live with him and in him. He is the one who has been our constant protection from the elements. He is the one whose grace shelters our souls.

The word Moses chose for “dwelling place” suggests that it is something of a hideaway, an escape where trouble cannot find us. Wild animals often have homes that are camouflaged and hidden to avoid the attack of predators. When we are dwelling with the Lord, we are likewise hidden away in his protection from those who want to prey on us. The devil may “prowl around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8). But wrapped in the righteous life of our Savior, covered in the blood of his forgiveness, we are perfectly safe from the devil’s accusations.

This is where we have lived all our days as believers in him. God has always been our dwelling place, not only for us, but for our parents and grandparents before us and for our children and grandchildren to follow us, ‘throughout all generations.”

It’s not as though people have ever had different options here. “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.” Even before creation, our God is the one who stretches back forever without beginning. He didn’t replace some other god somewhere along the way. He didn’t come to his position by promotion, or succession, or acquisition. He has always been there, just as he will always be there. He is the only God there is. As we pray this psalm with Moses, we note that every day we have lived has been lived in his constant care.

Acts 5:31 “God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior, so that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.”

Political candidates campaign on promises they make to the voters. Once elected, many of them lose interest in keeping their promises. Jesus is installed at God’s right hand in heaven as rightful ruler of the universe. Does our Prince and Savior have anything to offer us today?

Peter’s words answer that question. Jesus is at God’s right hand so that he can give us his gifts. The first of those gifts is “repentance.” Jesus doesn’t spread the Christian faith by adhering to the old marketing principle, “The customer is always right.” I have been a part of paid market research focus groups in the past. Companies interviewed me and others to learn our opinions. Then they tried to tailor their products to our tastes. They assumed the customer must be right, and they changed to suit us.

Jesus does something counter-intuitive if you want to develop a following. He starts by telling you your ideas are all wrong. You and I have developed tastes and preferences that need to change. Our behavior and treatment of others is inappropriate. Our ideas about right, and wrong, and often God himself are backwards. He calls us to repent. He calls me to recognize that I am selfish, prideful, bossy, manipulative, dishonest, two-faced, ungrateful, lazy, lustful, greedy, impatient, and discontented. He calls me to stop defending it and rationalizing it, to feel genuine sorrow and regret.

But he does more than call us to repent. He gives repentance as a gift from God’s right hand in heaven. He exposes our sinfully wrong-minded notions in his word. He accompanies his word with his Spirit to convict us. He directs the events of our lives so that we are forced to come face to face with our true nature. He shows us ourselves in ways we never, ever wanted to know ourselves. He gives repentance to his people as a gift.

“Some gift,” we might think. But it is a gift, a gift of inestimable value. We will pay a doctor a great deal of money to uncover the physical deficiencies that are causing pain and threatening our lives. Only then can we get the right medicine to put us on the path to health again. How much more valuable is the diagnosis that uncovers the spiritual deficiencies that have condemned our souls!

Then we are ready to receive the other gift he gives from God’s right hand, “the forgiveness of sins.” However we have offended God, however we have hurt each other, however we have twisted God’s good gifts like sex or money, he does not hold these against us. He does not say that it was okay. It wasn’t. But he does not hold them against us. Our past does not determine how he will treat us in the future. Every day, every moment, we start off with a clean slate–as though we were as pure and as holy as an angel in heaven.

This, too, is more than an offer. It is a gift he gives–the gift he thought so valuable that he suffered death by crucifixion to make it happen. It’s more than a neat idea, a happy concept. Jesus’ sacrifice forms the real historical basis for God to forgive our sins. Now from his Father’s right hand he distributes it to us. He sends it around the world as he spreads his word. He washes us in it at our baptisms. He feeds it to us in his supper. His Spirit fans the flames of this good news so that it grows in our hearts and catches on in the hearts of more and more people. All this he does with the power and authority he enjoys from God’s right hand in heaven. Truly it is a gift that Jesus occupies such a place!

Acts 5:31 “God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior.”

After a team wins the Superbowl, where does the Most Valuable Player from the winning team go? Cue the music for When You Wish Upon a Star.  “I’m going to Disney World,” right? When a college or professional sports team wins a championship, there is usually a trip to the White House involved, too. If you have worked your way to the top of your field, if you have proven yourself the best person to lead in your area of expertise, what do you get? A corner office? A chair in the boardroom? Those are the right places for those who have distinguished themselves in their careers.

If you have redeemed the entire world from their sin, if you have drained all the fear and all the power out of death, if you sacrificed your life to do so but then took it back again, where is the right place for you? Of course, only one person has ever been able to pull off a feat like that. And there is only one appropriate place for him to be– at God’s right hand in heaven.

That’s where we find the one we call our “Savior.” That title–Savior–isn’t just a badge of honor. It is a term of endearment. It says such wonderful things about him. Before I need to know anything else about him, I need to know that his unfathomable love for me led him to rescue me from hell and save me for all eternity.

The Apostle Peter, the man who said this about Jesus, often referred to him as “Rabbi, teacher,” while he was on earth. And Jesus was that. He still is. He has much to teach us about life and love, and God and our future. But we do not follow him primarily as the wise sage or guru who shows us some superior philosophical system of living. He is our Savior.

The crowds of Jesus’ day sought him out as a Compassionate Healer, a miracle-working troubleshooter who could make sickness go away, settle the weather, and feed their empty stomachs. And Jesus still has the power to make our earthly existence a little less painful. We still pray for his merciful intrusion into our physical needs. We pray for health. We pray for rain. We pray for enough money to cover the bills and put food on the table, and rightly so.

But for us, Jesus is not mainly the distribution manager of heaven’s warehouses. He is our Savior. When you come to understand how utterly helpless you are to make amends for all your sins; when you come to realize how spiritually poor and penniless you are to pay for their guilt; when you come to see how relentlessly death is pursuing you, is there anything else you want him to be but your Savior– the one who rescues you from the eternal doom from which you cannot rescue yourself?

There is no higher pedestal on which our Savior could be placed than God’s right hand in heaven. There is no one who deserves it more. There is no one we could possibly prefer to rule our world.

Acts 5:31 “God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior.”

No Christian doubts that Jesus is royalty, royalty of a sort that far surpasses all the nobility in all the world.

But Peter’s understanding of the term “Prince” does not include some of the notions that word suggests to us nearly 2000 years later. The stress is not on making and enforcing of laws. That Jesus does this is, of course, true. But that is not his main concern with us.

When we Christians see Jesus mainly as heavenly law enforcement, we wind up with all kinds of distortions in our relationship to him. We feel less cared for and more watched. We experience less peace and more fear. We serve less freely, less joyfully, and more driven. A big, threatening, otherworldly cop tapping his billy club in his hand is not the picture of Jesus Peter wants us to see as we look to God’s right hand.

Nor does Peter choose the term “Prince” to suggest that Jesus is something less than the King. He is not junior royalty, royalty in training, rather than the Ruler of heaven and earth. Many times we would happily demote Jesus to such a figurehead position. Then we feel free to take issue with him on some pet desire of ours. I have heard otherwise sober Christians challenge a direct quote from Christ when they didn’t want to give up a selfish practice or let go of a cherished misbelief. We presume to be Jesus’ teachers, instead of his students; to explain to him how things really work or what is really right.

No, in calling Jesus Prince, Peter brings to mind another function of royalty. It is often forgotten in our time. In medieval times people believed that God had created three estates on earth: the clergy to pray, the nobility to fight and defend, and the peasants to produce food. The idea that the nobility had the responsibility to fight for the people they ruled was not unique to that time. It stretches at least as far back as the Kings and Judges of Israel. Every year King David went to war to protect his people against attackers.

This is the sense in which Jesus is our “Prince:” a hero or champion who will fight to defend his people. He didn’t leave us in the struggle with sin alone. He didn’t even give us a part in overcoming the debt created by our guilt. He took the whole battle on himself when he let our sin kill him in our place.

Nor did he sit back and watch the futility with which we attack death. The whole human race puts its collective heads together. We gather all our technology and medical know-how, and what do we accomplish? We drive death back a few months here, a couple of years there. The life expectancy for an average American grows or shrinks by a year or two. When he rose from the dead, Jesus didn’t merely extend our life expectancy. He destroyed death altogether. Now the life expectancy of the average Christian is infinity, because our Prince defeated our enemy and gives us life that never ends.

Can you think of a better place to see Jesus as our Princely Protector than at the right hand of God? There he has all the weapons he needs to defend our faith. This Prince at God’s right hand is fighting on our side.

Acts 6:2-4 “So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

The Twelve Apostles believed a ministry of love was important. They made this ministry of love a major thrust of the early church’s program. They created seven new positions to oversee the work. These were the original deacons–not members of a committee to run the property or make decisions, nor some kind of junior priests. They were men who made sure that poor women didn’t go hungry. In Greek, a deacon is a table-waiter. That is more or less what these men did. Their work gave hands and feet to the church’s love. It also enhanced the church’s main mission, which we will examine momentarily.

Before we do, it is worth noting that our congregations don’t usually have thousands of members. In our context, not so many live in extreme poverty. That doesn’t make our expressions of love less important. They still fill genuine needs. They give evidence that our faith is genuine. Ministries and programs that address the things our neighbors hunger for, like a support group, food drives, or financial classes, are still a legitimate part of a Christian church’s priorities.

But the ministry of the word is paramount. Isn’t that what the Apostles were saying? “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God to wait on tables…. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

The Apostles wanted the widows fed. They just didn’t want to do it themselves. That was not hypocritical on their part. They clearly understood that they had more important work to do. They understood how the urgency of getting the food to the people who needed it could cannibalize all their time. The church lives on the Bread of Life. Jesus said man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Father. Without literal food, these widows might die and go to heaven. Without spiritual food, they might die and go to hell.

So, the Apostles understood that for the church, and for their own calling, the ministry of the word was paramount, primary, supreme. That’s not hard to see, is it? From the U.S. Postal Service, I receive a bag once a year to support a food drive for a local food bank. It is a fine thing for them to do. But it isn’t their main mission. If the mailman spent all of his time gathering donations for the food bank and didn’t deliver the mail in a timely way, we wouldn’t be happy. It’s not just a matter of preference. Our society, our economy, depend on the mail going through to function.

Whether they know it or not, the whole world is depending on the church to deliver the life-giving word of God. Not everyone likes to hear the gospel. But almost everyone likes it when someone does something kind. It is easy for the church to get distracted from its mission. American Family Association founder Don Wildmon once explained this in a little parable that went something like this:

Once upon a time there was a community on the coast of the northeast where many shipwrecks took place. There were hidden rocks, and storms often came up quickly. So a concerned individual decided to build a life-saving station. Some friends and neighbors joined him. They bought boats and life vests and even built a lighthouse. Soon they were saving lives, preventing serious injuries, and preserving families with their work.

They did such good work that more and more people joined them. They bonded together and held fellowship suppers and social events at the lifesaving station. After a number of years some of them decided that the old building needed repairs. They built a new one, bigger and more beautiful, and they hosted all kinds of activities in the building.

Eventually, many of the members weren’t willing to go out on the boats to rescue sailors, so they hired professional lifesavers to do the work for them. Then that got expensive, and they needed the money to support all the activities at the life-saving station, so they stopped paying the professionals. Years later someone asked what the purpose was for the life-saving station, and the answer was, “Why of course, to have a place for our community to get together and to host all our activities.”

You get the point, I think. The church is God’s life-saving station. Kindness and love are important. But only the word of God introduces people to their Savior. It is a message that shows people how their sins have been taken away and their relationship with God repaired and restored at the cross. It is a message that replaces the fear of death with the promise of life in Jesus’ empty tomb. It is a message that plants this faith home in human hearts. That message needs to go out from the church to rescue a world drowning in a sea of sin and death. No one else is going to do it for us. If a church isn’t delivering this word of God as the main reason for its existence, then it has mixed up its priorities and lost its true purpose.

Acts 6:1 “In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.”

There were no food stamps in the First Century A.D. The government social safety net as we know it didn’t exist.

That didn’t mean there was no help for the poor. The church conducted a ministry of love from its very beginnings. The Christian church in Jerusalem grew rapidly. You remember that in one day, the day of Pentecost, the membership jumped by 3000 people. A short time later the church had doubled in size again. You can imagine some of the challenges this posed for the early Christians. How do you keep track of all these people? There were no computers, no church management software, no Excel spreadsheets. It takes a long time to write down five or ten thousand names and addresses by hand, a lot of paper on which to write them, and a lot of people to keep them all straight. It is not too surprising that once in a while someone might fall through the cracks and be forgotten.

Some of these first Christians were wealthy enough to have property they could sell and give to support the early church. Some of them were quite poor. Widows were particularly vulnerable. Sources of income were very limited for women. If you were still raising children there was no daycare to speak of. Remarriage was often a woman’s best option to stay alive, but most men preferred a woman who had never been married, and men died significantly younger on average. Across all nations and cultures, hungry widows were an acute problem.

The early Christians distinguished themselves by the way they took care of each other. Several times in the early chapters of Acts Luke talks about the impressive generosity with which they provided for each other’s needs. A little more than a hundred years later the Roman writer Lucian thought he was criticizing Christianity when he observed that they did not spare trouble or expense in caring for the interests of their own community, and that they believed, as Jesus taught, that they were all brothers. Love and kindness, not just a pleasant sentiment but a proactive way to treat others, marked the first Christians. It flowed from their faith in Jesus’ great love and kindness for them in the sacrifice of his life on the cross. As John concludes in his first letter, “Since God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11). This reputation was one of the reasons so many people were attracted to the Christian faith.

So we come to the issue in Acts 6. A rapidly growing church was having trouble keeping up with all its members and their needs. They had the desire to love and care for each other, but their organization lagged behind their growth. Jesus’ Twelve Apostles knew that they had to come up with a solution. Before we delve into that, let’s pause to consider what they did not do.

They did not excuse themselves or the church from living out the kind of love that looks out for a brother or sister in need. They did not say, “You know it takes a lot of money to pay the rent, and support the pastor and his family, and send missionaries. We can’t afford to be a charity, too.” I have heard church leaders object that it is not the church’s mission to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or shelter the homeless. Technically they are correct. Jesus did not establish the institution for that per se.

But love more or less summarizes the individual Christian’s entire life. Can we somehow lay it aside when we start to work together as a group? We may not have the resources to feed and clothe the entire world. The early Christians weren’t trying to take care of the entire city of Jerusalem, either. But they took care of their own, body as well as soul.

The average Christian today gives just two to three percent of income to support his church, and only a tiny fraction of that for any other charity. We don’t have less than the early Christians had. We possess the same grace, the same forgiveness, the same freedom from sin, the same certainty of heaven. Materially, our lives are easier, not harder, in almost every case. The example of these early Christians is an opportunity to examine our own generosity and repent where needed.

Acts 4:33 “With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.”

There is a scene in the movie Dead Poets Society in which Prof. John Keating, played by Robin Williams, is asking his class at this boys’ school why language was invented. They struggle to give him an answer, one student finally weakly proposing, “To communicate?” To which Professor Keating replies, “No. To woo women.” Which, of course, is only partially true. But it illustrates inherent power of words.

For four long years of a long distance relationship I faithfully wrote letters to my wife every other day, and look at where we are today. Words change people. They mold us. They change our minds and change our wills. They inspire us to love and sacrifice, or to fight and destroy. They start wars. They win elections. And yes, they woo women and get them to say, “I do.”

It is no wonder that the Apostle Paul later wrote, “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” Words are the tool God gives us for creating faith in people, building it, and passing it along to others. But now we are talking about something more than the natural power language and communication has to change people. Now we are talking about the supernatural power of the Word of God.

A message about a man executed as a criminal and then raised to life again isn’t a likely candidate to demonstrate the natural power of words to change people. Torture, execution, and death are not appealing or popular topics, except for a few morbid people with an unnatural interest in that sort of thing. Resurrection from the dead isn’t a rationally convincing claim given the experience of most people with death. I do funerals. Every dead person I ever buried is still dead.

But this was the powerful witness of the apostles. “With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” Their power wasn’t the delivery method, loud voices or bold assertions, though it may have involved them at times. Their power wasn’t funny stories or emotional appeals. Some of them may not have been very good public speakers by most standards. The Apostle Paul says that he was not.

The power lay in the supernatural power of the gospel to convince hordes of people to believe words people might otherwise consider foolish. On the first official day the apostles had on the job, the day of Pentecost, the words convinced 3000 people to be baptized. A short time later this new religion counted 5000 men, besides women and children. Then we hear of a large number of priests, previously the sworn enemies of this faith, joining their cause. The apostles had the faith to keep on talking about Jesus’ resurrection in the face of threats, jail, beatings, even death, and this powerful witness was the quintessential face of their faith.

The message hasn’t changed. Neither has its power. Maybe we fear that people won’t believe us if we tell them what we really believe. The Bible appears so unscientific. It is ancient, counter-cultural, unfamiliar to more and more people. But it worked on you. Something still happens when God’s word of grace is unleashed on human ears, regardless of race, culture, or previous beliefs. Hearts change. People believe. Souls are saved. Let’s not be afraid to put God’s word into play where we live, and let its powerful witness work its wonders.