Everyday Mission: Pentecost

Everybody's feeling good today. That coffee's going straight into people's bloodstream. It's great. Well, thanks, guys. Thanks for being here this morning. Yeah. Today is, if you don't know, today is Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost Sunday, which maybe you aren't familiar with the traditional church calendar. There's this traditional church calendar that kind of sits what days you celebrate.

Easter's on there and Christmas, and we're familiar with those ones, but there's all these other categories of days that are really common. And one of them, it was Pentecost. And Pentecost, if you don't know, is a pretty awesome day. It's probably one of the more awesome of all the, it's hard to choose, right? I love them all. Part of the church calendar, but Pentecost falls 49 days after Easter, right? So that means Easter was like seven weeks ago, which is hard to believe.

And that's because like, it falls that long after Easter. And that's because after Jesus rose from the dead, right? Which we celebrate on Easter, he appeared to his disciples and like hung out with them a lot and went all around the place and continued to teach.

And before ascending into heaven, right, which is how Jesus left the earth finally, and he's going to come back one day, before ascending into heaven, he told his disciples, we have it in Acts 1, not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father's promise.

Which he said, you have heard me speak about, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days, and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. So on Pentecost, we celebrate the fulfillment of this instruction that Jesus gave to his disciples, right? Because what the disciples did is they didn't leave Jerusalem.

They waited for the Father's promise, right? And we see that fulfilled in Acts 2. They waited for the Holy Spirit for seven weeks. They waited for Jesus to make good on his promise to baptize them with power by the Holy Spirit.

And as the Spirit comes down, which we see in Acts 2, and we're going to get there in a minute, as the Spirit comes down, this wave of mission begins to to sweep out from Jerusalem through these disciples and into the whole known world, starting in Jerusalem amongst the Jews, and then in Judea, you know, in Israel more broadly, and then in Samaria, even amongst the enemies of the Jews, and then into the whole world.

And we've just, I mean, spent a long time in the book of Acts about a year ago, you.

But today we're going to start a new series. It's kind of like doing Pentecost and the start of a new series. It's called Everyday Mission. And I had the slide, I had it out of order. Sorry, Sky. It's just called Everyday Mission. And my hope is that what we can do over the next couple weeks is think through how we can live lives of partnering with God, but just as normal people.

You know, like we don't need a specialist degree. We don't need, I think, particular qualifications to partner with God to be a part of His mission in the world. In fact, we can just be normal people and live normal lives, and we can partner with God to be a part of what He's doing in the world. And so I'm pretty excited, though, that the first day of the series lines up with Pentecost Sunday. It is not because of my great foresight or planning, I promise you. God, it always surprises me.

And I like it because this is really clear to me and I hope to make it clear to you that Christian mission begins with the Holy Spirit I mean it's clear enough from the text of the book of Acts which is really the recounting of the mission of God the advancement of the gospel going into the to the world that it begins with the Holy Spirit in fact Jesus like said you need to wait until the Holy Spirit comes upon you in power I don't think anyone

really would question the fact that at least in the historical account of the book of Acts, that the Holy Spirit is the inception point. The coming of the Holy Spirit is the beginning of mission. It's just a clear matter of chronology. The mission to spread the gospel does not begin in the book of Acts without the coming of the Spirit. But I think it's worth thinking about why that's the case for a minute together.

Because in those seven weeks, as the disciples are waiting, meditating, as they're just praying, as they are continuing to hope in Jesus because they've seen him risen and they realize he's about to do something really awesome. Hasn't Jesus already been crucified, right? Which is the heart of the gospel. Hasn't in those seven weeks, Jesus already been resurrected, which is really essential to what we would understand as the message of the Christian faith, the gospel.

So Jesus says in this time, he has been crucified. He has been resurrected. He has, in the interim of that, ascended into heaven. He's overcome death. So why is it that there's this seven-week period of time where the disciples are just told to wait and to hang out? Why is it that the gospel doesn't go out until the Spirit comes down? Why is it that this mission doesn't really begin in earnest until the coming of the Spirit?

And I think it's because the gospel is not merely a set of facts that we deal with in our brains. It's more than that. The disciples had all the information that we have, and that if we were going to go out and to tell people about Jesus, that we would tell them about. They knew all the things, they experienced the fact, they knew about his crucifixion, his life, his teaching, his death, his resurrection. The disciples had all the information. They knew that Jesus died,

that he rose again, that he ascended. They knew that he was the Messiah. Like as Jewish people, they were waiting for God to fulfill his promise to send the Messiah, the Savior, this person, this prophet king who was going to fulfill this particular role that God had set up for him to do. They knew what his death meant, its significance, that it was for the forgiveness of sins.

And they knew, I mean, they had faith. Certainly their faith wavered early on, but Jesus sort of restored them and encouraged them. And they continued to exercise faith and wait, and pray, and seek the Lord over the course of this time. Yet for seven weeks, nothing happens until Pentecost comes. And what happens on Pentecost is their faith, the substance of their faith, the gospel begins to bear fruit.

When the Holy Spirit comes, this message that they put their faith in, that Jesus Christ is Lord, that everything is about him, that he is his salvation, that his death and resurrection makes possible life and joy and peace and all the promises of God.

When the Holy Spirit come, that faith begins to bear fruit in them and their witness to the truth suddenly becomes sharp and pointed because this power that they've seen demonstrated in the life of Jesus that they can attest to, they say, yeah, he died. He really died. And he was risen again by the power of God. God really raised him to life. So they know those facts, but then they suddenly experience the Holy Spirit.

God is present with them. And that same power begins to be demonstrated in their lives. And things are different as a result of the Holy Spirit coming. They had the information before, but they didn't have the same experience of that power. Their faith, what they've been waiting upon is now bearing fruit when the Holy Spirit comes. These seven weeks, the disciples knew the truth. They knew the content of the gospel.

They had all the information they would need, but they didn't yet have the same kind of understanding and experience and like an experience of God's power. The theologian Karl Barth says this, and I just want to just put this out here just to clear something up. He says, truth would be truth even if it had no witnesses. It is the truth even though all its human witnesses fail. It does not live by Christians. Christians live by it. So they had the truth. They knew the truth.

They knew all these things that God promised to be true. They had faith that they were true and that faith was sustaining it. It kept them through those seven weeks, I mean, can you imagine? Seven weeks is a long time. Easter was a while ago. Can you imagine just being faithful and going back and waiting on the Lord and just being like, we don't have any idea what this Jesus guy is up to, but we're pretty sure it's going to be great. Their faith sustained them through this time.

And it's not like their faith made the truth true. They believed it, but suddenly something happens here on Pentecost and they are experiencing this life, the same life, the same power that brought Jesus back to life. They are acquainted with it in a new kind of way. They're now living by the truth. They're experiencing it. On Pentecost, the disciples didn't make the truth truthful. The truth was already truthful. They didn't, because of their experience, make the truth true.

The gospel is a set of facts that Jesus has through his life, death, and resurrection reconciled the world to God. He's forgiven sin. He is inviting people into new life with him. That is a set of facts that are true regardless of my willingness to witness to that truth. But on Pentecost, that truth bears fruit in these people as they are exercising their faith and waiting on the Lord.

That reconciled life that they've been invited into and that they know Jesus has made possible for them, it begins to overflow and they begin to live by this truth in a new and dynamic kind of way. The power that brought Jesus back to life lives in them suddenly. And we read about it in Acts 2, chapter 2, verse 1.

Okay, so we're getting into this moment. What happened? Okay, so Acts chapter 2, verse 1. If you've got a Bible in front of you, you can follow along. I'm going to have the slides up here. 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.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues as the Spirit enabled them. And now there were Jews staying in Jerusalem, devout people from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, a crowd came together and was confused because each one of them heard them speaking in his own language. And they were astounded and amazed saying, look, aren't all of these who are speaking Galileans?

How is it that each of us can hear them in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and those who lived in Mesopotamia, in Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts, Cretans and Arabs, we heard them declaring the magnificent acts of God in our own language. So what happens here on Pentecost is the spirit comes down and suddenly witness follows, mission follows.

The disciples are supernaturally, instantaneously proclaiming the mighty acts of God in languages that they do not speak in their natural abilities. These are just Galilean fishermen, Jewish fishermen who just speak probably a little bit of Hebrew and then they would have spoken Aramaic, right? Which is the language, the common language in that time.

They don't, they're not educated people, but here they are, they're supernaturally proclaiming the mighty acts of God in languages of all of these people who have gathered in Jerusalem from all over the world to worship God on this particular day of Pentecost, the celebration. And I just find it fascinating that there is no, in the narrative, there is no daylight whatsoever between this experience of the power of God that the disciples have, the Holy Spirit coming in them, and witness.

It's one and the same. The Holy Spirit comes, mission goes forward. The same thing. It's not two separate things. When the Holy Spirit is there, witness is happening. And I think that is true because to be a Christian is to be a witness. Don't think of witness like if you grew up in certain traditions, you know, witnessing was standing on the street and handing out tracts. So just in the more generic sense of the word, to be a Christian is to be a witness. It is to say something has happened.

Something about my life is totally different because I have seen something go on in it. And it has to do with Jesus. And it has to do with the Holy Spirit. And it has to do with God working in my life. And just like as I confess faith in Christ, I also have to confess the fact that I have witnessed something crazy and phenomenal. God is in my life suddenly. To be a Christian is to be a witness. I just, these things are categorically related.

I don't think you can separate being a Christian with being a witness. And I'd like to illustrate this. We're going to participate this morning, which everyone loves.

This actually is going to be fun I'd like to illustrate this with you all let's play a little game together it's called the hold your breath game and do you know how you play? You hold your breath so I'm going to put a timer up here in a second and everyone here is going to go and then you're going to hold your breath as long as you can the timer is only two minutes I don't think you'll make it past that, okay? So are you guys ready? are you prepared? do you feel prepared?

Are we feeling prepared? Don't worry, no one's going to call you up on stage you're just going to sit there and hold your breath you'll be fine Okay, all right. So let's get the timer ready, Sky. One, two, three. No, I'm not gonna hold my breath. You're gonna hold your breath because I have to talk, so I can't hold my breath. So you continue to hold your breath, okay? You continue to hold your breath as long as you possibly can, okay?

And here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna explain myself why I'm asking you to hold your breath here for a second. Because I know that this is true about all of you here. You are all alive. Think I know that's true. Yes, you're definitely all alive. That is categorically a part of who you are because you are a walking, breathing, eating, living person. You are alive. And to be alive simply requires you to continue to breathe. Other things as well.

But if you were to stop breathing for longer than two minutes, I hear you can get up to 24 minutes. But if you were to stop breathing for a long time, you would cease to be alive. Simply by going about your life, you are witnessing to the fact, is everyone still holding their breath? Keep holding your breath. You're doing it there. You're one minute in. Keep going. Keep going.

If you have to gasp for air, I mean, don't pass out. That would be really, I would feel bad about this illustration, but keep holding your breath. You are, by the fact that you're alive, you are witnessing to the fact that your life is sustained through your continuing to breathe. You're a witness to that. And some of you are about to prove it because you're about to go, anybody? Or did you guys not actually hold your breath? I was hoping someone would really,

we didn't have the kids. All right, you can breathe again. But what I was hoping is someone would go, because they were really trying to set the world record, right? And as you gasp in suddenly after trying to hold your breath for 90 seconds or 120 seconds, you are a very clear witness to the fact that a living person has to breathe. And so what I'm saying is that to be a Christian, to be alive in Christ, is to witness in the same way that to be alive biologically necessitates your breathing.

You just do it almost passively if truly you are alive. And were you to stop your life would cease pretty quickly do you get the point that i'm trying to make there i think it's clear enough you are all doing such a good job of witnessing to the fact that your life is sustained by oxygen all the time without without really intentionally doing it just because you've learned the art of life and you've learned that it takes breathing and here's the the thing. Sure.

Witnessing to God, telling people about God is something we need to do. I think it is prescribed. It is a practice that we can and should learn to do intentionally. But to a degree, if you are alive in Christ, if the Holy Spirit is in you, which if you have faith in God, if you put your trust and hope in him, then the Holy Spirit is in you. Then to a degree, you are living by faith and you are witnessing to the life that is in you it's it it is happening.

This theologian named Adam Netter, and I'm going to quote him a couple times this morning, so I'm sorry for being a little boring, same guy. He says this, the goal of knowing about God is not merely to understand, but to exist in what one understands. If you want to know how to witness, if you want to become an effective witness for the gospel, to share Jesus with other people, just as a normal human being, right? Then exist and live in what you understand.

Exist and live in the truth. If you have accepted, put your faith in the person of Jesus Christ, if you really believe that he died and rose again from the dead, if you really believe that in him you've had life and peace and reconciliation with God, then you live in that truth. And as you live in that truth, you will, as a function of that life, be witnessing to that truth.

Depend upon and live in the power of the gospel. Depend upon and live in the power of the spirit, which has brought you new life. Be a person who is living into the truth, and you will be a person whose life is witnessing to that truth. I really think that witness can be as simple as breathing. Not everybody breathes great though, right? My mom was trying to bring her dog to Europe, and she has a fancy dog, which if you know my mom makes it. Sorry, mom.

But she can't bring her dog to Europe because it's a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and I guess they have a type of nose that they're outlawed in Europe. I know, Europeans, right? Outlawing dogs, what's next? I'm sorry to the Europeans. I don't know. That was mean. I like Europeans plenty. But they've outlawed this type I get a dog because it can't breathe. Well, it like has like a, it's been bred. And so genetically it's nose is a little crushed.

And so they're like, that's, that's a cruel thing to let a dog like that live. Cause they can't breathe effectively. Yeah. So not everybody breathes well, right? Sometimes we have to learn to breathe well, and there are breathing disorders that people have. You know, people experience things like sleep apnea and stuff like that, right? Like, it is a dysfunction and a medical problem when we can't breathe well.

But I really do think that we can witness to the truth, and it can be as simple as breathing, but of course we do have to learn to breathe well.

We see kind of this playing out with Peter, right? So again, the gospel, the disciples are waiting. They wait seven weeks. Suddenly the Holy Spirit comes, and then they're just almost immediately out on the street, supernaturally proclaiming the works of God. And then what happens is that Peter, kind of one of the foremost disciples, he stands up in front of the crowd that's gathered because all these people are wanting to hear. They're seeing something very strange.

They're hearing the God proclaimed in their particular languages, and that's pretty amazing. And so Peter comes, he stands up, and he begins to explain to these people what's going on. So he says this in Acts 2, verse 22, okay? So this is his sermon. He says. People to nail him to a cross and kill him. God raised him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death. God has raised this Jesus, and we are all witnesses to this.

Therefore, since he has been exalted to the right hand of God, and has received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out what you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says, the Lord declares to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.

So the Holy Spirit comes down. The disciples are gathered, like they're filled with the Holy Spirit. They're supernaturally proclaiming the the works of God, proclaiming the word of God in various people's languages. And then Peter just stands up and he just simply describes, explains what's going on. He describes the truth and a truth that helps make sense to all the people sitting around witnessing what's going on, what is happening in front of their own eyes.

Why are these people able to speak these foreign languages? Why do they seem to be recipients of some kind of heavenly power? Why is there like this miracle playing out in front of these people? And Peter says, well, it's just because of Jesus. He is the Messiah. Jesus is the appointed one. He was sent to take away sin. He was sent to Israel and to anyone who would believe in him to give them this new life. And he's talking, so this is what God has promised in the scriptures from all

along. This is what Israel has been hoping for and waiting for, for thousands of years. It's Jesus. Jesus is the one. Peter just says, this is the truth. The reality is that Jesus is Lord. It's through him that the promise and blessing of God are coming down upon man, that God is being present with us. And it's his grace and love and his work that is making all of this possible. It's not a particularly amazing sermon. He's just saying, oh, you haven't heard? We've been talking about this for a

while. For the last three years, we've been following this Jesus guy. We think he's a pretty big deal. This is what's going on. Now God is proving to you that this Jesus, who you guys kind of crucified along with the religious leaders and the Romans, that he really is everything he said he was. He's Lord, he's Messiah. He's God himself. He's come for a purpose.

And this gets the people pretty worked up, right? Because obviously they're noticing, thing, man, something significant is happening here. People don't just speak in other kind of languages all the time. You know, there's this signs coming down, these wonders happening. And so they're a little bit freaked out. We read about it in verse 37. When the people heard this, they were pierced to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, what should we do?

And Peter replied, repent and be baptized each of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises for you and for your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord God will call.

So as Peter is just simply standing up, you know, the Holy Spirit comes, witness follows, and Peter just contextualizes what's going on. He's explaining to them what is the significance of what's happening. And Peter just proclaims the gospel. He talks about Jesus, and they ask, well, what do we do? How do we respond to this? Like, what does this mean for us? What can we do in light of what you've just told us? And Peter just makes it something simple. He just says, just repent and be baptized.

Just repent and be baptized. It's an interesting thing, right? Because Peter's just told them that you guys kind of, who've been, you've been the sort of people who are devout religious people. You've been waiting for God to come send a Messiah for like 2000 years. Your whole history, your whole culture, your whole identity as Jewish people is about waiting for this Messiah. Peter just told him, and you just killed him like seven weeks ago, you crucified him.

And they're like, oh no. We really messed up, and they're really worried, and they're really anxious. I mean, clearly, they're distraught by this. And you think that the response would be something like, I don't know. I mean, they're sort of anticipating things not going well. But Peter's response to them is, well, just do this. Just repent and be baptized. Just turn to God. Just go ahead and turn around. Just change your behavior. God's not actually that angry about it.

I mean, think about these people, right? They are religious Jews. They're devout people. And Peter's response to them is to repent. What does that word mean for you guys? What does repentance mean? I think for a lot of us, right, our kind of colloquial, the common way of using this word is just that it means like to stop doing bad things. But let's think about these people. These were people who had spent a a ton of money.

They were super religious. They traveled hundreds or thousands of miles when you didn't have airplanes. You had to ride a donkey, spent a ton of money to come to Jerusalem at this particularly, this feast time, right? The town is crowded with devout religious people. And he says, repent. Now, is he saying to them, stop doing drugs? Are these people doing drugs? I mean, you know, maybe, maybe, I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know every single one of them, right?

Are these people, is what Peter is telling them, are these people the sorts of people who are like up to moral, the things that we think about like morally problematic things, you know? Are they adulterers? Are they doing drugs? Are they like drunkards? Are they people who are just taking advantage of other people economically? Are they, you know, slave owners? And are they cruel, murdering people? And maybe some of them are.

But my guess is because these are people who probably have been pretty invested in living pretty clean that most of them are not. They probably are people who have their lives together, at least on the outward side of things. They're the sorts of people who could show up at church and everybody like, oh, yeah, they must be really solid because they have, you know, they seem to have it together. I don't think that what Peter is telling them is to just to stop doing bad things.

Because again, these are religious people. They're devout people. They're people who, at least by appearances, have their lives together. What the word repentance means is not merely like turning from obvious moral problems and sin in the sense of not doing bad things. is what repentance actually means. The Greek word is metanoia. And it really means just to have a new mind. So it's not the way we normally think of repentance as stop doing bad things, though that sort of is implied in that.

But it's to have a new mind. And I would actually think it's really just wake up to reality. I think repentance is waking up to reality. It's not performing so that we can earn God's love or favor. favor? I mean, at this point, these Jews have to know, man, they've just blown every chance at that. We've literally killed the Messiah we've been waiting for for all this time. It's not about kind of performing and earning God's favor. It's just waking up to reality.

So Peter's prescription to these people is wake up to reality and be baptized. Wake up to reality and commit yourself to this new kind of living and live according to this reality. It's realizing Jesus, though I don't deserve it at all, has already forgiven me. He's already reconciled my life to God. He's already known every terrible thing I've ever done, even the things that other people don't know about because I live a pretty clean life. He sees my heart. He sees my pride.

He sees my selfishness. He sees the stuff that I can totally successfully hide from all the people around me. He sees that stuff, and yet he has still done the forgiving and reconciling work to take away all that stuff. And so what Peter is saying is like, yeah, Jesus has come. He's Lord. He's Messiah. He's come to forgive sin. And you just need to, your response is not live a cleaner life. It's wake up to reality and live according to reality. Repent and be baptized.

Repent, wake up to reality, and then go ahead and live your life into that reality for the rest of your time. Mean, it's like he's telling them, just breathe. Stop trying to hold your breath. Stop trying to work against the way what God has designed things to do. Here he says, the Holy Spirit has come, and we're all here witnesses of the fact that the Holy Spirit is among us, that God is inviting people to relationships. So you can all just breathe. You can all just breathe.

Peter's just standing there and he's saying, look, see, this is what it means to breathe, to have a relationship with God, to trust in Jesus, to know that I'm right with God. I'm forgiven. God has surrounded grounded you with oxygen. There is an abundant supply of grace and kindness and forgiveness. And he's inviting you into a life with him. He has provided a kind of new life in Jesus that is so good. You don't have to go around trying to hold your breath or to see how long you

can make it. You can just breathe in new life. You can breathe in forgiveness. You can breathe in love. You can breathe in the grace of God. You can live by that every single day. And you can just become as you breathe and as you live a witness because you're experiencing the sustaining love and grace and kindness of God that's coming through Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ has bought for you. That same theologian, Adam Netter, says this about sin and repentance.

He says, all too often, we do not rely on grace. We refuse to receive our lives from Christ. we enter into conflict with him and thus into conflict with ourselves. And when that happens, our existence contradicts our essence. And we somehow strangely become who we are not. Sin is entrance into a kind of non-being, into a form of life that has no future, one that has already been put to death with Christ. In other words, sin is absurd. It doesn't add up.

It's like going to the track and betting your life savings on a dead horse. It is living, like what Peter is saying, he says, look it, here I am, God is demonstrating the fact that Jesus Christ is really special, that he's Lord, that he's forgiven. And your response simply needs to be to say, I guess God really is truthful, right?

And to live according to that reality and to stop living as if it's not true that God loves you and he's forgiven and he's He's been reconciled to you, and that he has a plan, and he has good things, and he's worthy of your trust. He's worthy of following after him. To not do that, Netterer at least says, is like, yeah, I like that image, going to the track and betting your life savings on a dead horse. That's not going to work out very well. It doesn't even make sense.

Repentance is turning from sin, and that includes, yeah, doing bad things, those things that are simply out of step with this new life we have in Christ, but it also includes the way that we constantly and that I constantly rely upon my own self to be my own savior, to be my own source of affirmation and my own kind of independent person who's good enough because I perform well enough.

Man, we can just get rid of that stuff. We can just receive from God all of his love and all of his grace and walk into it. And I think that's what a repentant life looks like. He goes on in verse 40, he says, with many other words, he testified and strongly urged them saying, be saved from this corrupt generation. So those who accepted his message were baptized. And that day about 3000 people were added to them.

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. And everyone was filled with awe and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed all the proceeds to all as any had need.

And every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and they broke bread from house to house and ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all people. And every day, day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. What I think is the most fascinating part of this Acts 2 narrative, this Pentecost day, is that, right, there's this powerful witness to the gospel.

There's this powerful move of God, which is leading to people's repentance. They're coming into kind of an agreement about what is real and what is true and who God is and what he's done in Jesus Christ. Right? And what follows from that, from kind of that acceptance of reality, is this reorientation of life around the truth. And this is not like, the disciples did not, they were not in the upper room for seven weeks planning this great move of God and all the discipleship strategies.

They weren't setting up special places and classes that were going to follow because they had no idea what was going to happen, right? There was no follow-up plan. Like you ever go to like a Billy Graham crusade or whatever back in the day, obviously, or something like that. And then, you know, you come forward and give your life to Jesus. And then there's a follow-up plan. And I'm not trashing that. That's a really good thing.

There should be follow-up. But what happens is that these people, 3,000 people come in, they accept the truth of the gospel.

And they just like suddenly, suddenly spontaneously without really anyone directing them without anyone setting up this plan they start to live different kind of lives again i don't think with these people it's different morally like i think that these were probably pretty together kind of people i don't think they were engaged in in like that much pretty obvious sin but then they start to live a phenomenally different kind

of life where they are breaking bread together they're sharing life together. They are just singing God's praises. They are caring for everyone's needs among their group, right? Just kind of spontaneously saying, well, if there's people who don't have need, we should just generously give, right? So there's just this transformed behavior and actions that flow from the Spirit coming in. And I just think that it's worth noting that life change is just a part of accepting reality.

If I suddenly realize that my life is sustained by breathing, then I'm going to start to breathe really regularly. I may be even going to intentionally breathe. I'm going to work on my breath so that I can be like a happier, healthier person.

Life change is just a part of accepting reality. These people didn't change their lifestyle because they were like, the disciples were like, unless you start to be more generous and give more, and unless you start to, you know, come to church all the time, God's going to be really angry at you. These people experience the power of God in their lives. And suddenly they're like, just spontaneously, they start to live a different way.

They start to realize and understand, well, God is a generous and kind God. And so how can we, as people who have witnessed who he is, not ourselves be generous and kind? God is a God who has called us from distinct people groups, different languages, different locations. He's called us to the same like oneness in Christ. So how can we not share our lives and be a fellowship of very different people who care about each other and accept one another despite spite all of our differences.

It's just a response to the reality that's been revealed in Christ Jesus and by the Holy Spirit here on the day of Pentecost that life change comes. So look, my whole point in talking about these things is just to kind of get us set up to think about what it might look like for us to be normal people who are partnering with God.

But I think that we just have to understand that all that we're doing as Christians and as healthy Christians, I think that if we read especially Paul's letters, like what a healthy Christian does is simply keeping in step with the Spirit, just like breathing in according to our source of life, just like making use and practicing the things that will sustain us and be good for us as people who believe certain things.

Life change is not something that you're prescribed to do and that you have to do in order to just to kind of earn God's favor. Life change just comes when we just accept that the world is not what we thought it was. It's actually different. I think I've spent a lot of my life as a Christian. Thinking, looking for a model, looking for a person who I admire and I'll just act like them and then God will be happy with me. And I'm not saying role models are bad. Role models are actually good.

It helps us to figure out, imagine what our lives might look like to look to somebody who's further along down the line. But it's a different thing to think when I finally get my act together, then I'll be a happy, healthy, witnessing Christian. That's a different thing to think than simply understanding that to the extent that I just live into this reality, my life is going to change because I am living with and accepting, very different fundamental facts about what the world is like.

The worship team is going to come up here. I'm just going to have a few more thoughts here. I was, I was walking or watching, I don't know, like wasting time on the internet like you do. And there was this little video that came up on Facebook and it was about like the, the population of the United States. And it's like, it's like 80% of the United States lives like east of the Mississippi or thereabouts, pretty close to that.

In the 80% of the population of the United States lives more or less on the eastern side of the country. And then like 11% lives on the West Coast from us down to San Diego. And then in the 40% in the middle, only 9% of the population lives, right? So Eastern Washington all the way over to, I don't know, the plains, right? Rocky Mountains. And it was talking about why that is. And basically, it is because there is very little reliable water in that 48%, right?

We know that you've been to Utah or whatever, and it's a little on the dry side, right? And the thing about life, particularly up until very recently, you couldn't live in those places and survive because there wasn't enough water. It wasn't enough water to grow crops, right, and to eat. And there wasn't a reliable enough source of water to sustain a large population. I was thinking about that and I thought that it was just interesting because here's what is true.

It's true in our demography here in the United States is that people dwell well where there's reliable water. People move in and settle where life is possible. That's just agreeing with reality. It's a reality statement that living in the middle of the desert, and with respect to our friends in Las Vegas, that living in the middle of the desert at least will have some challenges. And what people have done is to just live where there can be sustenance.

And here's what I just want you to think about. It is not possible, I think, to believe the things that you believe or that you confess as a Christian that Jesus Christ is Lord, he's forgiven your sins, and for very much time, live in a way that contradicts that. Life change follows accepting reality because people will go and dwell near sources of water and sources of life.

Life change for a Christian is not like, oh, I've got to make God happy. I've got to earn his acceptance. It's realizing he has surrounded me with love and grace. And why would I live in such a way that contradicts that or runs from that? Why wouldn't I live or build my life in such a way that I depend upon him? The kind of life change that we see here in Acts 2 is that the Holy Spirit is in their life.

And he's signaling to them in power that they're loved and they're accepted, that they're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, all these things that we hear about in scripture, that they have a hope and an identity and a future because of what Jesus Christ has done. And they're just like picking up their stakes and saying, well, we better move towards the source of life. We better set up our tents and build our homes in the place where that sustaining life is present.

And so we change the way we live because we want to be nearer to our our God who cares about us. And we want to live the kind of life that he says is the good kind of life. And here's the thing. We're going to be talking about mission for the next couple of weeks, right? And I think we typically think about mission in terms of our institutions and how church organizes your life. But here's the most powerful driver of mission is your life and the way you live it.

And that is particularly true in the moment that we live in. Okay. I want to read this other, this last quote from this guy, and then we're wrapping up. He says this, the human condition is such that you have to choose how to live from among options that rule one another out. That has always been the case. But during times of rapid cultural change, the range of competing visions of the good broadens, and contradictory ways of thinking and living multiply and exist alongside one another.

During such periods, the need to consciously decide what to believe and how to live becomes more pressing and more difficult. In a pluralistic context, committing oneself passionately to one option among many may seem arbitrary, irrational, and absurd, but the inevitable alternative is to drift along in the current of contemporary society and thus away from a life of integrity and coherence.

We live in a time of pluralism, and I'm not bagging on pluralism. This is just the times we live in, right? The United States is a melting pot, and the internet is whatever the meltiest of all melting pot is. It's a molten lava pit where everything is coming together.

And you, as people, have more ability to live any way you want, to organize your life according to any principle, because you are wealthier than any generation before you, and you live in the country that is still extremely powerful and affords you so many options, so many endless options for how to organize your life. And not just you, me too. I'm living in the middle of all of this.

And what I want us to be very clear about is that you're, and we talked about this in our last series, you're totally free. You can live any kind of life that you want to live. But if you want to be a witness, if you want to be a functional, breathing, living kind of human being who's enjoying and experiencing the life of God, then you are going to have to choose what kind of life you're going to live, where you're going to settle.

And I just want to encourage you guys to be intentional and thoughtful about that. What kind of life do you want to live? Because honestly, the life that you live in the midst of a multiplicity of options is going to be your most powerful tool to witness. We can be, and I think it has been the call of Christians and people who know God, we see this in scripture, to be distinct people in a world that seems to think that everything is equally good.

We can be people who are distinct, people who have said, actually, we believe that reality has shaped a certain way and that it is pointing to the fact that Jesus Christ is. Is a good and the best and even the only source of hope for any of us. And so we're going to live in a way that is consistent with who He says He is and what kind of life we're called to, not to perform or to earn, but simply because that's how we sustain ourselves.

We believe there's this good life with Him, fellowshipping with Him, walking with Him. him.

Having been forgiven, we think that that's a good thing, and so we're just going to go ahead and live our lives according to that plan, according to what he's called us to, to live lives of integrity and coherence, to live life according to that reality. And so what I want us to do, and it's just as we prepare ourselves for this upcoming series, is just to take a moment now, and you just go before the Lord. So if you could just stand up for a second.

Just stand up for a second. We're going to worship, but I just want to pray for us, and then we're going to take some time. We're going to worship, and then Katie's going to come up, and she's just going to, anything that's on her heart, she's going to lead us in sharing. But like, this is it. Holy Spirit comes down. The apostles are filled with the Spirit. Peter witnesses, and then the the option for the people listening is, how do you respond?

How do you respond to that? How do you respond to the work of God among you? How do you respond to the gospel being lived out? How do you respond to witness? And this is the thing that we have to do all the time.

And so I just want to do this together. I just want us to go before the Lord and just ask that question. So Holy Spirit, we invite you in this place. We believe that you, like this promises of you coming down. It's like you say in your word here, it's for all generations. It's for as many as the Lord would will and call. And we believe that by faith, we can step into all the promises. We confess, God, that we don't always know how to breathe well.

We have not become experts even in how to sustain our own life. And the response is not, you know, that we need to feel ashamed, Lord. We leave the shame behind because you've forgiven us all of our sin. But Lord, we want so much to live into the life that you've called us to. And so, Lord, as we just take some time to worship, Holy Spirit, would you convict us?

If there's something in our life that's just inconsistent, incoherent, that is not in keeping with the reality of the things that we confess? Where would you teach us what to do with that? So God, we wait upon you. Holy Spirit, we ask you to be here as we worship you, Lord. Would you speak to us? Would you reveal things to us, Lord? Would you teach us to just repent of those things and leave them? So we just wanna wait on you for a moment and then we'll worship.

Lord, thank you for your faithfulness. And thank you that you're not angry even when we err so mightily, even when we are persistent and stubborn and prideful, that, Lord, there's mercy upon mercy and grace upon grace. Lord, we rely upon your grace. Let's just worship together.