Positioned for Pentecost.

This is one of my favorite Sundays of the year. So maybe some of you, you grew up celebrating this or talking about this. Maybe this is new, but I am very excited to teach on Pentecost Sunday. So I hope you're awake today. I hope you're ready because I'm pumped.

So we are going to be in Acts chapter 2 today. If you have your Bibles with you, you can go ahead and turn there. And the title of this message is "Position for Pentecost." And we're talking about how can we today live positioned for Pentecost.

Every week we have our "so what is this all about?" and "now what do we do with this?" And so if you don't remember anything else, it's this: God pours his spirit out and we position ourselves to be ready. It's God who pours his spirit out, but we have the choice to position ourselves to be ready. And then now what? What do we do with this? Now that we know this, we live consecrated lives, which means to live set apart and fully devoted.

So this is what we're talking about today. And so we're going to read the passage of scripture, and then I'm going to give us a little bit of context about Pentecost. We're going to start in Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 1.

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. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked, "Aren't all these people who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Pontius, Asia." And it goes on and on and on. "Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, 'What does this mean?'" Some, however, made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine."

Acts 2:1-13

Let's pray today on this Pentecost Sunday. God, we thank you so much for your word that is alive and active. God we thank you that you speak to us today as we look back and we read the stories and the accounts of what took place on the day of Pentecost all those years ago. And God, we thank you that you are the same God that poured your spirit out then and you're pouring your spirit out now, here in these moments, in this place.

And so God, I pray that your words today, that God, we would not just hear these words but that we would receive them and that we would let them transform our hearts and our lives just like the people were transformed on that day of Pentecost. And so Holy Spirit, we just say, would you come? We welcome you in this place. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

When Did Pentecost Take Place

Okay, so Pentecost. We're going to start by answering these different questions. The first being: when did Pentecost take place? What is happening on this day?

The word Pentecost is derived from the Greek word "pentecoste," which means 50th. This was one of three different festivals that the Jewish people at that time would take what was called a pilgrimage. So they would all drop everything that they were doing, and they would go up and take their pilgrimage and worship God at the temple. And this was one of those festivals or those feasts. It's also associated with the first harvest of the year.

The Pentecost Day comes 50th because it was 50 days after Easter. These are all significant things. And so this is when God poured his spirit out on the day of Pentecost was when the Jewish people were all there gathered, celebrating this feast, celebrating this festival, 50 days after Easter. So they would come. Part of their tradition would be they would bring animals that they would sacrifice as worship to the Lord, and they would be gathered there together.

What Happened on Pentecost

So then what happened? God baptized his people with the Holy Spirit and fire. It says, "Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came across the house where they were sitting. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues as the Spirit enabled them."

And then right after this, we see the first sermon that Peter preaches here, this powerful sermon where he is preaching the gospel with power and authority. And he's starting to give us more of the why. It says they spoke in other tongues as the spirit enabled them. And I love that in Acts 2:41, later it says, "Those who accepted the message that Peter gave were baptized and about 3,000 were added to their number daily." So the church was birthed on the day of Pentecost when the spirit of God poured his spirit out. They were baptized with the Holy Spirit and received the promise.

I want to go back a little bit. If you look in Acts chapter 1 in verses 4 through 5, we read this conversation that took place. Jesus ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father. He said, "For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."

So we see that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. And so when we receive Jesus and we accept Jesus and we surrender our lives to him, we now have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the indwelling of God comes and is inside of us.

But what we're reading here is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which comes from this Greek word "baptizo." And so this means to immerse. Why is it important for us to know this immersion here? I want you to think about this. So when we say yes to following Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

But what's happening here is this second, this later occurrence that takes place where all of a sudden they're fully immersed in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. When you think of being fully immersed in water, you come out when you're fully in the water and you're going down under. When you come out, you're not dry in that moment. You're soaking wet. You're dripping. And if I were to just jump out of a pool right now and start walking, there would be water that would follow me.

If I were to jump out of a pool and go and give one of you a hug right now, you too would be soaked and drenched in that water. See, when we fully are immersed in the power of the Holy Spirit, then all of a sudden it's overflowing and everywhere we go, the Holy Spirit is flowing through us.

The significance here of Jesus saying, "John's going to baptize you in water, and it's going to signify that you are being fully immersed, but the Holy Spirit is going to come and fully immerse you in the power and the presence of God." That's what's happening here. So it's this outpouring, it's this overflow. To be baptized in the Holy Spirit is to have that overflow and that empowerment then to continue to do what Jesus called us to do: to make disciples.

Who Is Pentecost For

So the next thing that we look at is: who is Pentecost for? What I love here is we see that God poured out his spirit on all believers. It says all believers, all nations, all genders, all ages. In verse 5 of Acts chapter 2, it says, "Now they were staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven."

I love this verse. Jews from every nation under heaven. This is such a prophetic moment here in scripture and it's significant that it included every nation. This prophetic glimpse is saying the Holy Spirit came to give power to all races, all ethnicities, all people, every tribe and every tongue someday will confess that Jesus is Lord and will bow before his feet. And this is a prophetic glimpse into what is to come. It's to say there is no chosen race or ethnicity. There's no chosen nation, but you are my people and I will pour my spirit out on all of you.

N.T. Wright says something beautiful about this: "The church is the single multi-ethnic family promised by the creator God to Abraham. It was brought into being through Israel's Messiah, Jesus. It was energized by God's spirit and it was called to bring transformative news of God's rescuing justice to the whole creation."

His spirit came upon all people as a reminder that the transformative good news of God's rescuing justice and mercy is for all people, and he will use all people to make that known.

Why Did God Pour His Spirit Out

So then we move into: why did God pour his spirit out? What is happening here even more? Why did he pour his spirit out?

God poured his spirit out to empower us so that we could have a deeper presence. It was this moment of this prophetic communication and fulfillment so that his power can continue to overflow and flow through us.

You see, in the Old Testament, when God would come in to speak to his people, we see that the presence would come upon a certain person at a certain time. Often we read about that in the prophets. Or you think about Moses. He would go and meet with God and he'd have a message and come back for the people.

In the New Testament, we see that Jesus came and he was God, fully human and fully divine. So now he's the presence of God walking right there beside people. And then Jesus said, "It's better for you to wait for the one that's going to come after me, the Holy Spirit, who now dwells within."

So now we don't have only these certain times where we can meet with God and hear from God and be in his presence. But all the time we have access to the power of the Holy Spirit within us. And we see him pouring out his spirit in these moments for that prophetic communication.

If you see what takes place with Peter, where all of a sudden he's given this word and he's given this message, and Peter's preaching the scripture and people's lives are being transformed. The Holy Spirit is not just for us to feel butterflies. It's not just for us to feel a little more comfort or even just to hear God's voice better. But the Holy Spirit is for us to be empowered to continue to share the message of that grace and that mercy and that hope to the people around us so their lives too can be transformed for all of eternity.

Pentecost, this day, is when we see the church arrive. I want to keep reading in verse 14. This is where Peter turns and addresses the crowd.

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd. "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you. Listen carefully to what I say. These people 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 your daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens 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.'

Acts 2:14-21

This is why God is pouring his spirit out, so that every person can know him and call upon his name and to be saved. And his Holy Spirit empowers us to do just that. This is prophecy being fulfilled. And it's even more prophecy saying there's more to come.

But here's what I love that I think is so significant too, is that Peter is the one that gets up to teach this. And Peter, this is 50 days after Easter. What did Peter do right after Jesus' death? He was the one that denied Christ three times. And in the same mouth that denied him is now proclaiming his good news for all people.

And this shows me right here firsthand again, just how redemptive our God is. And so maybe you're even sitting here today and there's things and there's reasons why you might think, "Well, God could not use me or pour out his spirit on my life in that type of way." There is always an invitation for us to turn to Jesus. There is always an invitation for us to surrender our lives to him and to let him use us and our stories and our words in ways that we could never even imagine.

N.T. Wright says the church exists to announce to the world that Jesus is its Lord. This is the good news. When it's announced, it transforms people and societies. Peter's life was clearly transformed by the gospel in a way that now he's willing to get up in front of people. And I imagine some of those people knew what he had done. They knew the ways that he had denied Christ. Yet he's getting up in front of them and he's letting the Lord completely transform his life and surrendering to him once again.

Where Did Pentecost Take Place

Here's the thing. God is pouring out his Holy Spirit. But the question that we have to answer today is: are we ready? The final question that we're going to talk about is: where did Pentecost take place? And it might not seem very significant why to answer this question, but if you've been here, I think two years ago, I talked about this.

One of my favorite places in the world is the Southern Steps. God poured his spirit out on the upper steps of the temple, or what's called the Southern Steps. And why is this significant? Because the Southern Steps was a place where the people went often. At this time, which was the second temple period, this would have been the place where the Jewish people would have been their main entrance up into the temple. This is where they went for those festivals. This is where they went for those feasts. This was a part of their rhythms of prayer. They would go up into the temple. They would enter the southern steps to meet with the Lord.

So how do we know this? Well, again, this was the second temple period at the time. It says "Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came and filled the whole house where they were sitting." So we're looking at all these different clues in scripture.

In Acts chapter one, a lot of people think it was like an actual room, an upper room. Because in Acts chapter one, starting in verse 13, we read a story that took place here. It says, "When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James, and Andrew. Philip, and Thomas. Bartholomew, and Matthew. James, son of Alphaeus. And Simon the Zealot. And Judas, son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer along with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, with his brothers."

So this is why, because that was recorded earlier in Acts, a lot of people think that then the day of Pentecost took place like in the upper room. But I wanna talk about the power of the upper steps and why this makes more sense.

The temple of God was often referred to as a house, a house of worship. This is why even as a church, we call it like this is a house, this is a place of worship. So it's referred to as a house, and because it housed the presence of God. So they likely would have been up on these steps.

And another clue that we see is that when Peter gave this message and this sermon, it says it was about 9 a.m. And at that time for the Jewish people and their prayer rhythms, that would have been a call to prayer. So they had different times throughout the day that were these calls to prayer where they would all stop everything that they were doing and they would go and they would pray.

Then there's a mention here that Peter says they were baptizing 3,000 people. That is a lot of people to baptize. What would you need to baptize people? You would need baptismals. One of the things that you see if you're up on the Southern Steps, because it was a place where the people would come to worship and part of their worship was to bring animal sacrifices, before they would sacrifice the animal, they would bathe the animals. They would essentially kind of baptize them and prepare them for sacrifice.

So mikvahs are what the baptismals were called. The only place that there's enough mikvahs to be baptizing 3,000 people are up on the Southern Steps. So as people have continued to study where could this have taken place, this is the most likely location.

So then why is this significant to us? Why does that matter that we know where this took place? Because this was somewhere that they had been before. This was a familiar place to them. This was a part of their practice, a part of their daily obedience. This was a part of their rhythms of prayer. They had rhythms of making sacrifices unto the Lord. They had rhythms of stopping everything that they were doing, taking a journey that was not an easy journey to then, with all their animals, with all their children, with all their family, climbing up these steps so that they could go and worship God.

They set aside and set apart everything else that they were doing to be fully devoted to God and to be obedient to these rhythms and to these practices. This is powerful for us to recognize.

Sometimes we think that, like, what's the magic formula for God to show up and then to move and to do all these crazy miracles. And it's in their midst that he shows up. In the midst of their obedience, in the midst of their sacrifice, in the midst of their daily rhythm, God pours his spirit out. And I love this because God showed up in the middle of their lives, and they also chose to show up in the middle of their lives.

In the middle of probably a million excuses of why these people didn't have time to show up to the temple on this day, in the middle of their busy lives and probably having children and families and all of these responsibilities, they still showed up to pray and to worship and to be faithful and to be obedient. This is significant for us to know.

I wanna talk about today: what does it look like for us to position ourselves in that type of way? What does it look like for us to be people that are living so set apart and fully devoted to God that we are faithful to the rhythms when we feel like it, we are faithful to God when we don't. That we are people that are willing to keep showing up on the moments when we feel it and the moments when we don't.

It takes us positioning our lives, just like the people were in position to receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that day. About nine years ago. Actually, wait. I'm not sure exactly when this was. Early 2000s. When I was nine years old, my best friend played softball. I played soccer. They're different sports.

I'm currently trying to teach my niece that today as she was kicking a basketball around the kitchen. She played softball. I had never played anything close to softball and had no idea how to play softball. She had her first game coming up. And after, we were headed off to Awanas, our little church group that we had in elementary school.

We're headed to Awanas afterwards. And it's like the early 2000s, right? So I wasn't just wearing like everyday summer clothes, but I had my church shoes on because you had to wear your special church shoes. I still remember the white little sandals I had that were my church shoes. So I have my church shoes on. We're going to the softball game. I'm just there to watch, maybe get like a hot dog or something. And then we're going to church and I'm ready for this.

We get to her game. And all of a sudden, I don't even know how it happens, but they're like, "Hey, so we didn't have enough girls show up. And if we don't have one more girl that's between like eight and 10 years old get out on the field right now, we have to forfeit the game." Of course, I can't let all these girls down, right?

So the coach, I didn't ask, I did not say "put me in coach," but somehow next thing you know, the coach put me in and I'm playing shortstop. And when I say I played shortstop, I think that's a position. Maybe I was on second base next to my friend the whole time because I had no idea what this position was. So I'm like, I'm just going to stay on second base with my friend.

So the coach puts me in. I've never played softball. I don't even know the position I'm supposed to play. I've never been to practice. And so guess what? The ball comes my way. And of course I don't catch it. Why would I catch it? I've never practiced. I don't know my position. I know nothing about the game that I'm trying to play in this moment.

I think about this sometimes when it comes to God and him pouring his presence out. Because when the day of Pentecost came, the people were positioned. The people were ready. They had been practicing. They had been praying. They had been faithful to show up. So when God poured his spirit out, they were ready to receive. They were in position.

God is pouring his spirit out. God has poured his spirit out. And he will continue to pour his spirit out. And so the questions that we have to answer is: will we position ourselves to be ready to receive? What does this look like? How do we position ourselves for Pentecost?

Positioning Ourselves for Pentecost

I believe that it's living consecrated lives. The people all throughout scripture, when we see God pour his spirit out, there's this pattern of consecration. Joshua 3:5 talks about this, where Joshua tells the people of Israel, "Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow. The Lord will do amazing things among you."

Consecrate yourself today for tomorrow. The Lord will do amazing things among you. God did, he does, and he is doing amazing things among us. What does it look like for us to live set apart? To live lives of sacrifice? To live lives of surrender so that we can be fully devoted, all in, and obedient to the ways of Jesus?

One of the things that I was preparing for this week that I really felt the Lord put on my heart for our church for this summer is, I don't know that we've ever really done anything quite like this, but to invite us into kind of this theme and this invitation for us to have a set apart summer. A set apart summer. A summer of consecration. A summer of leaning in closer to God and all that he has for us. A summer of saying, what are the things that we need to leave behind? What are the things that we need to let go of so that we can make space to be fully devoted to God?

One of the things that I note here in scripture is that not everyone would have been there. And I wonder how many people missed out on what God was doing because they were not in position and they weren't ready. And when I think about what's happening in the world around us, I know that I don't even have to say much for people to start to maybe feel overwhelmed and anxious about the things that we see when we turn on the TV.

And I don't think the answer is always to just not look at the news, right? Like sometimes, yes, it's overwhelming and we need a break. But the answer for us as followers of Jesus is not to just turn everything off, but it's for us to say: how do we position ourselves to let the power of the Holy Spirit empower us and flow through us so that we can do what we were called to do? What we're invited to do, which is to usher in the kingdom of heaven right here in this city.

What does it look like for us to spend this summer, to carve out this time, these weeks, these days, these months, to live fully set-apart lives? I believe it starts with us taking our eyes off of ourselves, taking our eyes off of our circumstances, and to set our gaze on Jesus. To set our eyes on him.

What does it look like for us to pray more for other people than we do ourselves? What does it look like for us to make room and position ourselves for the Holy Spirit to baptize us and fully immerse us again?

The good news is today that we don't have to do this on our own because the Holy Spirit came to empower us to do that. But I think that there are some steps that we can take. I mentioned these Southern Steps several times, and one of my favorite things about them to know is that if you go and you look up close and you're standing there at the Southern Steps, that not all of them are the same depth or width.

Some are really, really short, and you can hop up it in one step. And others are long, and it's like three steps before you're hopping up to another step again. They're not the same width. They're not the same depth. And that's what it's like when we're taking steps towards Jesus. There's going to be moments where it's like, oh, that was so easy. That was like, yes, the Holy Spirit flowed through me and it was easy and it was natural.

There going to be other times where you're feeling exhausted and tired and worn out, and I don't know if I can take another step. But keep taking that next step because as we continue to be faithful in the daily steps of obedience, that is when God pours his spirit out over and over again. And we don't just want God to pour his spirit out to flow through us. We need God's presence and his power to pour out and to flow through us.

Because Jesus empowered us with his Holy Spirit to not just receive it for ourselves, but so that we can be a part of his strategic plan and seeing his kingdom come. We need the power of the Holy Spirit to flow through us. But here's the thing. The Holy Spirit was not the promise that we're always going to feel good and feel close to God. But it's the promise that we are close to him, even when we don't feel it.

The Holy Spirit is not the promise that we're always even going to be aware of the ways that he's moving in our lives or the ways that he's flowing through us. But it's the promise that he's doing it, even when we're not aware of it. The Holy Spirit is not the promise of this instant comfort and gratification. But the promise to guide us closer to the Father, whose kingdom is coming to rule and reign.

His spirit's being poured out. His kingdom's coming. Will we position ourselves? God pours his spirit out in their midst, the midst of their prayer, the midst of their worship, the midst of their daily rhythms. But the people that showed up, in their midst of the busy lives, of the schedules, of the excuses, of the everything else that could have taken priority, they showed up.

I wonder even today how many of us we step into this place saying, "I need a miracle from God," knowing that it's through him that we can experience that transformation and that power. And I want to ask you a really honest question today: are you showing up?

Are you showing up to meet with God and to hear his voice through scripture? Are you showing up to church? Are you showing up to pray and to talk to him and to bring your whole selves? Are you showing up?

And my heart, when I ask this question today, I want you to hear, it's not to shame you. But rather to encourage you that God is showing up. Will we show up too? And what happens when we show up too?

Because I can't help but wonder how many of us don't show up, are afraid to show up and have honest conversations with God. We're afraid to show up and to open his word and to read scripture because we're believing the lies about how we're showing up.

I'm sure that there were people that were present there that day that they were feeling so excited and expectant and ready, and fully aware of how holy and awesome God was. And I bet that there was also people there showing up that they're just like, "I don't know, this is what we do, and I'm going through the rhythms, and I'm pretty tired if I'm being honest. I don't know that I even want to be here." And I'm sure there was a lot of people that was everything in between.

But the common denominator, they showed up. In the midst of their everyday lives and everything they were walking towards, they took that next step. They kept walking and God poured his spirit out.

And I believe today that God wants to do the same thing here in this place, right here in our midst. And so I'm going to invite you to stand tonight, and we're gonna do something a little bit different.

But the first is, I want you to take a moment and to even begin to reflect. And we're gonna be talking about this even a little bit next week at table night: how do we position ourselves for a set-apart summer? How do we position ourselves for Pentecost?

It's answering the questions. This week, reflecting on where do I need to live set-apart? What do I need to say goodbye to? And then how can I be fully devoted? What do I need to be fully devoted to? Is it rhythms of prayer? Of scripture? Of gathering with another person? How do I need to take a moment and live set apart and fully devoted in the same way that they centered everything around being faithful to practicing the presence of God, being faithful to going to the feast in the temple?

How can we center our lives around that today and position ourselves for Pentecost?

But before we do that, or I want you to do that now and throughout this week, the next thing that I want us to do tonight is just take a minute and to pray together. And then we're going to close in a time of worship. And one of the things that I love is that when we think about the day of Pentecost, it's like they were just like this. It's a normal Sunday. There's nothing super special. But they were gathered together, and they invited God's presence into their midst.

And so we're going to take a few minutes, and then I'm going to come and lead us back into just a time of worship. But I want you to go ahead and gather with just two or three people around you and to just have one person just begin to pray and to welcome God's presence into the midst and to begin to just pray over each other, pray over the city. And to just do that for the next few moments.

If this is something that's like new for you, it's okay to just observe as well. But we're going to do that for the next few minutes. We're going to just gather in groups of two or three and to just pray, invite God's Holy Spirit to come, and then we're going to close in a time of worship.

And so you can go ahead and find people to pray with. Yeah, so God, we just thank you again for this Pentecost Sunday and the reminder that you are still pouring your spirit out here among us. And so God, we just say that you are welcome here. Come. We want more of your presence.

And so Lord, would you continue to just reveal to us what it looks like to live set apart? Would you continue to show us how we can live consecrated lives that are fully devoted to you? Lord, if there's things that we need to remove from our lives, things that we need to step away from, even for these next few months, so that we can position ourselves for more of that Pentecost, more of the outpouring of your spirit, would you speak?

Would you show us? Would you give us the boldness to even say those things out loud and to make them happen? Lord, would you continue to empower us to be faithful people that are faithful to pray and to be in your word and to hear from you and to show up when we feel like it and when we don't? When we're tired and when we're excited, would you give us the strength to continue to show up, knowing that you are pouring your spirit out?

So God, we want to be ready. We thank you, Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen.