It’s Pentecost!

Acts 2:1-13

June 4, 2006

Dr. Larry D. Thorson

^{Acts 2:1-13}

^{Ac 2:1} When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

^{Ac 2:2} Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

^{Ac 2:3} They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

^{Ac 2:4} All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

^{Ac 2:5} Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.

^{Ac 2:6} When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.

^{Ac 2:7} Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?

^{Ac 2:8} Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?

^{Ac 2:9} Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,

^{Ac 2:10} Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome

^{Ac 2:11} (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”

^{Ac 2:12} Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

^{Ac 2:13} Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine. ’”

Today is Pentecost Sunday. The word Pentecost means fifty. Pentecost was an ancient Jewish festival that occurred fifty days after the Jewish Passover. The “Feast of Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks as it is called in the Old Testament, marked the end of the spring harvest, a worship cycle that began at Passover and during which devout Israelite families praised God for God’s grace and bounty. Jews from all over the world speaking the language of their adopted country would return to Jerusalem for this festival.

Here’s what’s significant about Pentecost Sunday for us today. On the first Pentecost following Jesus’ resurrection Scripture says that one hundred and twenty followers of Christ were gathered together, waiting in a large room just as Jesus had told them to do when he left. In Luke 24:49 Jesus was giving his disciples some last minute instructions just before he returned to heaven: “I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

That’s what they were doing. In Acts 1:8 Jesus said “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Waiting is hard to do especially when you’re not sure what you’re waiting for. Suddenly something happened to them that felt like being hit with a rush of wind. It looked like tongues of fire landing on them. Each one felt the power of God inside, and they rushed out of that building into the streets telling people about the Christ in whatever language anyone understand even though they hadn’t learned those languages.

When those 120 left that room they fanned out from village to village and planting new churches with new converts. These new believers are the ones who went to Ephesus, Rome, and into Spain within thirty years. Its growth was absolutely incredible, spreading across the whole known world like a spreading flame.

As great as that expansion was in the first century, the spreading flame of Pentecost was greater in the past hundred years than in the first century since Christ. More people have come to Christ, more churches have been started, and more missionaries have gone to the ends of the world in the last hundred years than any other time in history. Right now is the greatest time of expansion for the church than any other time in human history.

I believe that a key factor in that growth is the result of what happened in a simple, working class neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles starting in April of 1906. Several lay Christians, not ministers, got together and held a prayer meeting in a home. Night after night they pleaded with God to pour out the Holy Spirit in a new and fresh way in the world. Others joined them and they eventually had to spread to another neighboring house. They didn’t stop. When they outgrew the houses they moved to a little clapboard church on Azusa St. in present day Japantown. That revival came to be known as the Azusa Street Revival and it fanned out across the world. Within forty years of that revival Campus Crusade for Christ one of the largest evangelistic ministries in the world today was started as was the Navigators one of the largest discipleship ministries in the world, as well as the Foursquare Gospel denomination, Biola University, Fuller Theological Seminary and the School of World Mission. These were all started within miles of that site as well as many others with world wide influence which are impacting the world in unprecedented numbers today. If you go to Azusa St. it’s just a short little block but you’ll see a small plaque there commemorating the great revival.

What happens in revivals is that usually a group of people will be praying for God’s power to fall down upon them. At first it won’t look like anything other than a simple prayer meeting but then all of a sudden something happens. The Holy Spirit comes down in an unmistakable fashion.

At the Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida the pastor strongly felt called of God to set aside Sunday evenings for intense prayer to unite his congregation. He had been preaching about revival for two years. He invited an evangelist named Steve Hill to preach at their Sunday night Father’s Day prayer meeting in 1995. Steve was only scheduled to preach one sermon that night.

At the end of his sermon the evangelist gave his invitation to receive Christ and all of a sudden manifestations of God’s Spirit started appearing in the room. People speaking in tongues while others having prophecies from God. Healings were taking place. It went on so long that they decided to do it the next night, and the next and the next. He preached over 600 times from 1995 to 2000, night after night.

Sometime around 2000 the Brownsville church experienced a split. The head of their school split off and started a new school and church next door to the old church. Not long after that the Holy Spirit manifestations stopped. The pastor and the evangelist just claimed they were trying to take the revival on the road and preach elsewhere. But the evangelist eventually left and planted a new church in Dallas and the senior pastor moved on elsewhere as well. The sin of division quenched God’s Holy Spirit and the revival ended.

Revival means to bring back to life. That’s what the Holy Spirit did on the first Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection. He brought life back into the confused and discouraged disciples. Pentecost is about reviving our tired, battered and sometimes misled souls. It’s not about putting a Christian name on a pagan holiday as the Roman emperor Constantine did with Christmas and Easter. It’s about being transformed. The pollster George Barna defines five descriptions of what happens to a person in revival…

___ "Behavioral change or repentance."
___ "Finding a deeper relationship with Jesus."
___ "Acceptance of Christ, conversion or evangelism."
___ "Engaging in specialized prayer activities."
___ "Renewing a person's spirituality or faith."
Revival is first and foremost a spontaneous behavioral change. Someone preaches about sin and spontaneously people start to repent of their wrongful activities and it’s not because of the eloquence of the preacher.

I used to coach high school track and I could coach students to briefly change their behavior in order to win races but permanent behavioral change is hard for people to make. That’s why the Holy Spirit came to change our behavior to become more like Christ. But as a church we have to want that change more than anything in the whole world before it will happen. In my 23 years as pastor in three different parts of the country I’ve seen great passion for building campaigns. I’ve seen passion for land acquisition. I’ve seen passion for carpet selection. I’ve seen passion for sports teams, “Go A’s”. I’ve even seen passion for mission projects. But all of that is ultimately meaningless without a Holy Spirit encounter with Jesus Christ.

I ask you today on this Pentecost Sunday, where are those passionate people of the First Presbyterian Church who are crying out for more of Jesus? My experience in this first year with you is that no one could ever accuse this church of being lazy in any way, shape or form. When something needs to be done, when money needs to be raised to help in a surgery, when something needs to be built, when volunteers are needed for rummage sales this church is there. If someone isn’t there to do a job they’re likely in the hospital, the mortuary or on a cruise ship. This is a church run by what the late Peter Jennings called “The Greatest Generation” the generation that got the job done. Many of you were of that generation when the economy collapsed in the Great Depression and you pulled together to rebuild it. You were the generation when the world was falling to tyranny across the Atlantic and Pacific made every sacrifice necessary because you so passionately believed in American freedom.

So again, I ask members of the Greatest Generation and those of us who follow you, where are those people of the First Presbyterian Church who are passionately crying out for more of Jesus? Where are those passionate members who would be willing to stand up in the presence of God, in front of their fellow church members today and make a public commitment that you want to be filled and empowered with God’s Holy Spirit in whatever way that takes? Who will stand and say I want to be a regular part of prayer meetings like the disciples had on Pentecost asking for God’s Holy Spirit outpouring on this church? If you have that passion right now will you stand and by standing tell God and the world that you want more of Jesus for yourself and for those around you. If you can’t physically stand just raise your hand. I’m going to pray for you and when I finish praying take a blue prayer card or a piece of paper and write “I want more of Jesus” and then sign it. There will be a plate in the aisle for you to drop it in. Let us pray:

“Dear God, thank you for coming to save us. Those who have stood have said to you that they want more of you. They have said they want more of you for their family and those who are moving into our Valley. Bless their commitment as you blessed the commitment of the 120 gathered in the upper room. Send your Holy Spirit afresh upon us and revive us for your glory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.