Day 8 — The Spirit Comes (Acts 2:1-4) | May 3

a Jewish harvest festival that drew pilgrims in from around the known world into an already crowded Jerusalem, the cities teeming with people, and while the disciples were all together in one place. Heaven broke through. Let's look at Acts 2, verses 1 through 4. When the day of Pentecost had arrived,

They were all together in one place, and suddenly a sound like that of a violent rushing wind came from heaven, and it filled the whole house where they were staying. They saw tongues like flames of fire that separated and rested on each one of them. Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. They began to speak in different tongues as the Spirit enabled them. So take the deepest breath you've taken all day. Slow down, deliberate. Feel your lungs fill. Think about what God is up to.

And breathing is one of these most basic body functions that your body does to stay alive. You don't think about it. But without it everything stopped. And so scripture uses this exact image to describe what happened at Pentecost. The one hundred and twenty were praying in a room, a violent rushing wind filled the house.

And the Hebrew word for spirit here is rauh, which means the wind and the breath. So when God created Adam, he breathed into him and Adam became alive. When Ezekiel stood in the valley of dry bones, God told the wind to to breathe on the dead and they came back to life. And now that same breath of God was filling a room full of ordinary believers and everything was changing before their eyes.

Luke describes these three signs and they're they're historical and and theological symbols all in one. Wind was this audible sign and you could hear the wind. Fire was this visual sign. You could see the fire. Tongues were the the inward sign. You could feel the tongues. Together they they formed a theophany.

A theophany just means a visible appearance of God Himself. When you combine fire and rushing wind, you get the relentless force of a of a forest fire. Anyone who's ever been near one knows that sound. You you realize very quickly that you are not in control anymore. And so the spirit arrived with that kind of untamable energy. And this idea of fire has deep roots. In the Old Testament, fire.

marked God's special presence. He appeared to Moses, remember, in a bush that burned without being consumed. He led Israel through the wilderness as a pillar of fire. The glory of God descended on Mount Sinai in fire. And there's a fascinating layer here. Larry Osborne points out that in Jewish tradition, Pentecost wasn't just a harvest festival.

It was also associated with the giving of the law on Sinai, which tradition says happened fifty days before the Passover in Exodus, and so the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost. would have had echoes of the giving of the law at Sinai. Why is that important? Well both events inaugurated a new era of God's relationship with his people. The law was written on tablets of stone to guide his people. The Spirit will now be written on the human heart.

That same fire then rested on each disciple's head. Think about that. Each one, not just Peter, not just the apostles. Every single one of those 120 believers in that room, men and women, leaders and followers, every believer gets an equal flame. And and so putting it in modern terms, in your church, the pastor

I don't get more flame than the congregation. The men don't get more of the flame than the women. Rich don't get more than the poor. Black don't get more than the Every Believer becomes like a a personal burning bush, carrying the presence of God. Inside them, and instead of dying, which is what should happen when fire and wind meet, people are coming alive. And then came the tongue.

Real languages that that would soon be understood by people from across the known world. This was the Spirit's announcement that the gospel is going global, that the message was never meant to stay in Jerusalem. It was always meant to be headed for the nations. And again the timing is noteworthy. Pet Pentecost was a harvest festival, the celebration of first fruits, and so farmers brought their first wheat to the temple as an offering to God, trusting that the rest of the harvest would be.

would follow. And these 120 believers in that room, they were the first fruits, if you will, of the church. Three thousand more would be added by the end of the day. And the harvest since then has never stopped.

Remember the main character in the book of Acts is the Holy Spirit. He has now arrived on the scene. He's not an impersonal force. He's not a warm feeling. He's not a force be with you kind of thing. He's not a theological concept. You know, to study from a distance. He is God Himself, the third person of the Trinity, and He is as close to you as your next breath. In fact, without the Holy Spirit, God has made no other provision for you to live the Christian life. He is the fuel.

Without him, you're a car on the side of the road with a full itinerary and an empty gas tank. The desire to get where you're going means nothing without the power to move there, and that power arrived on Pentecost, and the spirit who filled that room is the same spirit available to you and me right now. So what might a step of ordinary obedience look like today? Here's today's challenge.

Would you pick three ordinary moments today, maybe when you wake up, maybe in the middle of your afternoon somewhere, maybe before bed, and would you just pause for one slow deep breath and let that breath remind you of your dependence on the Spirit? Maybe you've just pray this breath prayer. Holy Spirit, I I need you like I need my next breath. Fill me. The spirit isn't hiding from you. He wants to fill it. He wants to guide you. He wants to empower you for the life.

Let's catch up again tomorrow.