The Beginning of the End (Pentecost)

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Does anybody like ordinary life? Well, maybe you do. I think that sometimes we get kind of dissatisfied with the ordinary. Anybody ever been dissatisfied with ordinary? Kind of bored, kind of waiting for the next thing, looking for something shiny and extraordinary? Maybe your ordinary is not so good. Maybe it's not just boring; maybe it's bad. Maybe it's uncomfortable, maybe it's torturous and terrible, and there's a whole lot of suffering that comes with your ordinary.

I think that sometimes Christians, we also get into this state of mind that says, "Well, if there's nothing extraordinary going on in my life, then God is not really working in my life." And maybe sometimes our lives look ordinary, and that means that they look like other people's lives who aren't Christian. And we kind of think, "Well, what makes me as a Christian different if my life looks like theirs?" Or maybe that could go for our church too. Maybe we all look a little ordinary. You all kind of look like ordinary people, right? And we kind of think, "Well, if we've got the Holy Spirit, what's different about our church when we look so ordinary?"

Maybe you've gotten the memo already: today is Pentecost. We celebrate the Holy Spirit's coming to the church and remember how the Holy Spirit comes to us as well. And maybe we might ask the question, "Well, if the Holy Spirit comes, and the Holy Spirit is God, and the Holy Spirit is so powerful, then why do things look so ordinary? What's the Spirit doing?"

I think that there was an interesting reading this morning because we read from the Tower of Babel in Genesis. This is a really interesting story because the people of all the world—this is shortly after Noah's flood—by the time of the Tower of Babel, there were a whole lot of people on Earth again. And what God had told Adam and Eve originally, right at the very beginning of the world, was that Adam and Eve were not to just stay there; they were to fill the Earth, to spread out all over the Earth, to explore it and to take care of it. They were to fill the Earth, and while filling the Earth, they were to bear the image of God, to carry God's name into all the Earth and do things in His name.

And what you have at the Tower of Babel is a whole bunch of stubborn, arrogant people. Any stubborn, arrogant people here? All right, we've got a few honest people, good for you! A whole bunch of stubborn, arrogant people who even said, "You know what, lest we be scattered throughout the whole world, let's all stay together in one place." And they decide to build a tower. They had this brand new, cutting-edge, state-of-the-art technology called bricks. And they decide to use it, to use technology to glorify themselves. It's a good thing that never happens today! But they use this cutting, state-of-the-art technology, brick, to start to glorify themselves. And what do they do? They start to build a tower. And what's their goal? How tall do they want that tower? To reach the heavens. And why are they building a tower to reach the heavens? To do what? Glorify themselves! In fact, they even say, "to make a name for ourselves." You see how they're doing the exact opposite of what God commanded Adam and Eve to do? They're gathering together and staying in one place. And not only that, but instead of bearing the image of God, they're making a name for themselves. Instead of being dependent on God, they're building a tower of their own achievements. Humanity is not off to a very good start. Why? Because they crave the extraordinary. They were not satisfied, they were not content with the ordinary and what God had made for them and what God had commanded them. They wanted their own extraordinary, and so they built a tower to make a name for themselves.

But I love this next part. This is how you know that God has a sense of humor. God takes notice of what they're doing. I mean, He knew, and what does God say? God is actually using "us" pronouns, so He's talking about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all talking to one another, and it's like they're having a council meeting. And they say, "Hmm, let us go down there to see what they're doing." And I find that incredibly ironic, right? Because what was their purpose in building this tower? To get up to where? The heavens. And God is like, "Oh, that's pretty far down there. We better go down there and see what's up." Right? For all the achievement that they thought they were making, they had to go way down to see it.

And God, you know the rest of the story, God scatters their languages, which means that they can't work together anymore. And reluctantly, they obey God's commandment. Why? Because they don't know each other's languages anymore. They have to sort themselves into languages and then they scatter around the Earth according to language. There's kind of a judgment from God on their pride, on them making a name for themselves, on them craving the extraordinary apart from God.

Now, you fast forward to the day of Pentecost. And at Pentecost, you have something similar happening where God comes down. The Holy Spirit comes down. This time, He comes down to do something extraordinary. God is going to do something extraordinary. And what's really interesting is that Pentecost, in a sense, is a reversal of Babel, isn't it? Because at Babel, the languages were scattered, and they could no longer work together. They lost what they were united around, which was their language and their own achievement, them making a name for themselves. But at Pentecost, you have something incredible happen: the Holy Spirit comes down, not to bring judgment, but to bring His power.

The Holy Spirit comes down to bring unity, not in having the same language. In fact, the Holy Spirit does not reverse the languages; He does not bring them back to one language. Instead, He unites them around one message, one united, one consistent message, no matter what the language would be. And the Holy Spirit comes to unite them not in a tower of their own achievement, but to unite them in Christ, what the message is about. And by the way, that's the true way to heaven, isn't it? Christ, instead of a tower that reaches up to the heavens, it's Christ who brings heaven to His people. And the Holy Spirit comes in power to bring unity, not by the people making a name for themselves, but by bringing the name of God to His people and gathering them by calling on the name of the Lord.

This amazing thing happens at Pentecost. And we talked about it in the children's message, but the Holy Spirit comes down, and He gives the power to the apostles so that when they preach, people would hear the gospel in their own languages. And that, of course, jumpstarts, if you will, the Church filling the world and going to the ends of the Earth with the name of God.

But it starts when, right after the Holy Spirit comes, Peter stands up and starts preaching, right? He has the power of the Holy Spirit, and he has understanding from the Holy Spirit, and he starts to tell them what happened. He starts to explain what all these people saw and heard: that these people, that they hear this mighty rushing wind. And by the way, there are a lot of Jews and different kinds of people gathered in Jerusalem during this time for a feast. So there are thousands of people present. They see this amazing miracle of Pentecost happen. And so Peter explains what is going on and what Pentecost means.

If you read that from Acts chapter 2, which we read a few moments ago, Peter tells them that this is the beginning of the end. If you read that passage, it starts to sound like end times stuff, right? It's the beginning of the end, that this is the last step before Jesus returns. And you have some people there who start to mock them, right? They say, "Oh, well, you guys are just drunk." Which is a clear mocking and a clear rejection of this miracle that happened. I mean, have you ever heard a drunk person talk in a different language, like a real language? Of course, it doesn't happen that way. But they blow off the apostles as just being drunk. And I love Peter's rebuttal to that, right? He's like, "Men of Judea, give ear to my words and listen to what I say, because we are not drunk as you suppose, because it's only 9 in the morning." That all happens later. Right? I love how it's his first argument.

But then he tells them that no, this is the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the age of the resurrection. The Holy Spirit has come to distribute the spoils that Jesus has won from Easter: the spoils of victory. The Holy Spirit comes to bring the life that Jesus won by His cross and the forgiveness that Jesus won by His cross and the resurrection time, the resurrection age that Jesus has won by His Easter resurrection. The Holy Spirit comes to distribute to all the world. That's what Pentecost is. That's why it's the last step before Jesus comes again. We are living in the last days, and Pentecost has kicked that off: the last days where people hear about the Messiah and His victory in His cross, and people repent, and they come to faith, and they look forward to the day when Jesus comes back again.

You know, sometimes we refer to the Holy Spirit as the shy person in the Trinity. He's the shy one. But it's not because He's scared of people; it's because His job is not to point to Himself. Who does the Holy Spirit point to? Christ. The Holy Spirit is always pointing to Christ. That's what the Holy Spirit wants to do: is point people to Jesus, because He is distributing the power and the life and the forgiveness from Jesus to the world. That's why He's shy; He doesn't make it about Himself. He makes it about Jesus, because Jesus is the one who gives you life.

Now, check out what Peter says in Acts chapter 2:17-21. If you've got your bulletin or your Bible, you can read along with me. This is Acts 2:17-21, and this is Peter's beginning of his sermon here. And he says, "And in the last days it shall be," and this is him explaining what they are seeing, explaining that the coming of the Holy Spirit. And look how he starts: "In the last days." He's saying they've come; these are the last days. And it says, "In the last days it shall be," God declares—and he's quoting Joel here—"that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh." How do you know the last days are here? Because the Holy Spirit is being poured out. "And your sons and your daughters..." Oh, go ahead and raise your hand because it's talking about us. Raise your hand. There you go. "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men—old men, put your hands down, I'm joking—your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below: blood and fire and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

You hear what Peter is saying there? The Holy Spirit comes to you with His word so that you, dear Christian, might prophesy. Now, when I say prophesy, I'm not saying like be able to tell the future, although you know the future because it's in God's Word. You've been given that prophecy of what God will do. You know it, and you can proclaim the future, but you prophesy God's Word. Because you are a Christian, because you are a son or daughter of the Most High, because you belong to Him and the Holy Spirit dwells within you, you have the authority, even the privilege, even the responsibility of proclaiming and prophesying God's Word to others. It's the beginning of the end. This is what happens in the final days: all of God's people bear God's Word.

And that's what the Holy Spirit's power is. You know why we call Him the Holy Spirit? Because that's His power. The Holy Spirit makes ordinary things holy, kind of like you, ordinary you. He makes you holy. That's the Spirit's power. The Spirit brings Christ's reign to ordinary people, to an ordinary world, to make an ordinary world extraordinary, to make it holy. The Holy Spirit works through the ordinary, like you and me, to make things extraordinary.

And I think the miracle of Pentecost is not so much the rushing wind of the Holy Spirit as He comes among the disciples. And the miracle of Pentecost is not so much the flames of fire that were above their heads when they started speaking. And the miracle of Pentecost is not so much them speaking in different languages or the people hearing in different languages. I think the miracle of Pentecost is this: that the Holy Spirit has empowered our ordinary words, empowered different languages—English and Chinese and Spanish and German and all these different languages—that He's empowered the ordinary to be able to deliver the extraordinary. You who maybe have never learned Greek or Hebrew—if you have, let me know, that'd be kind of fun—and you who don't know the tongues of angels, you who might speak English, maybe you might know another language, you can speak in English forgiveness of sins that actually forgives other people from God their sins. And you, dear Christian, in the English language, are empowered miraculously by the Holy Spirit through the English language to deliver eternal life, to apply God's promises to people. And of course, that doesn't just go for English; that goes for any language. That's the miracle of the Holy Spirit making our human languages being able to do divine work. He gives eternal life through the ordinary word. The Holy Spirit makes things holy, and He sanctifies us through the ordinary.

Now, at the beginning, I talked about how maybe sometimes we get kind of bored or dissatisfied with the ordinary. Maybe our ordinary is not so good, and it's a struggle, it's a challenge. Maybe your ordinary is torturous, and there's a lot of suffering that goes with it. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us through the ordinary. And maybe that's where some of us need to repent. I know that goes for me too, that we feel that if we're suffering, we despise God, or we're complaining to God that our suffering, we're not willing to suffer. And maybe we need to repent about that, because the Holy Spirit can use our ordinary, the good, but maybe sometimes even more so, the bad, to sanctify us, to make us more holy.

In fact, it's usually in the ordinary that the Holy Spirit does His best work, His most powerful work. Sometimes it's not going and finding the extraordinary that you have growth in your holy life. It's in the ordinary places, like your family or your friends or your relationships, or sometimes they can be kind of difficult, and especially at home, in the home and your family, that's where you're most likely to lose your temper, to get annoyed at somebody, right? And that is when the Holy Spirit is most working on you. Or maybe you've got a small baby who doesn't sleep at night. Yep, there you go, hi guys! That's where the Holy Spirit does most of His sanctifying work. Or maybe it's your struggles that you have, or your sins, or your temptations, or maybe it's going to a job that you hate and you can't wait to leave, or in your mind, and you try to make your mind more like what Christ's mind is. It's in those places, in the ordinary places, that the Holy Spirit makes us holy. It's where we learn to call on the name of the Lord.

And we call on the name of the Lord when we read and study His Word, and not despise His Word, not avoid His Word, not ignore His Word, but go to His Word and let it transform our minds. And we pray God's Word back to Him, and we bring the ordinary things in our lives to God so that He might listen to them and work in them and through them. And we trust God's promises no matter what, even if it seems like His promises would not come true. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes holy, and by the way, that means that He also speaks through ordinary things.

You know, I think it's amazing that the Holy Spirit, He doesn't say one line in the Bible, right? We make all of Jesus's words red, and we know that that's Jesus talking, right? And we also can see where God the Father speaks, right? But the Holy Spirit doesn't say a single line, except He kind of says every single line, doesn't He? Because the entire Bible, all of Scripture, comes from the Holy Spirit. And not only does He speak through the Bible, but He also speaks through you, because you know God's Word. You are called the priesthood of believers. You know, it's not just pastors who have the job of talking, even though you all get to stay quiet while I talk on Sunday mornings, right? But you, dear Christian, you have the authority, the privilege, the responsibility of bringing God's Word into your ordinary relationships, speaking His Word to your kids and to your grandkids, to your friends and to your co-workers.

And you may not feel very confident in doing that; you may not feel like doing that. But if you are a Christian and you believe in the Holy Spirit, then you must also believe that the Holy Spirit can use even you, even people like Moses who are not very well spoken, that He can use people like Moses and people like you to bring His powerful Word into relationships.

I heard a story this last week of a pastor who said that somebody new started coming to their church because one of their members would ride bikes all the time, and they had a friend who wanted to start riding bikes with them, and they invited them to do so on Sunday morning. And she said, "Well, you know, I actually go to church on Sunday morning." And the person who was not a Christian, never even heard of Jesus before, said, "You go to church? What's that about?" And she started to tell her, and she got really interested, and eventually she talked with the pastor and then she became a member of the church. So be careful where the Holy Spirit decides to use that. This person thought they were to go for a bike ride and ended up accidentally evangelizing their friend. And the same can happen for you. Be bold and confident in bringing God's Word into those relationships, because the Holy Spirit uses you as a witness.

Friends, we live in the beginning of the end, and the Holy Spirit is doing His work of making the ordinary extraordinary, making things and people holy, because He's here. That's Pentecost. In Jesus' name, Amen.