Acts chapter 2 in the Pew Bible, you will find it on page 909, Acts chapter 2. I'm going to read verses 1 through 13. Hear now God's holy and inspired word. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. This is the disciples of Jesus. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind and it filled the entire house where they were sitting and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound, the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians. We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? But others, mocking, said they are filled with new wine." The grass withers and the flowers fade. The word of our God stands forever. We've come to Pentecost. Pentecost is a Jewish festival. It is the Feast of Weeks. We learn about it in Deuteronomy 16, and it occurs seven weeks after Passover. It is the 50th day after Passover. And Pentecost is a Greek word that simply means 50. just read what happens on this Pentecost. The disciples are gathered, not just the twelve with that new edition of Matthias that we learned about last time, but it appears to be these are the 120 or so that are spoken of earlier in chapter 1. They've been gathering in Jerusalem and praying and waiting since Jesus' ascension into glory. And this is what they've been waiting for. A sound from heaven like a mighty rushing wind comes upon them and fills the house that they're in. Tongues of fire rest on them so that they are then filled with the Holy Spirit. This is the baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire that John the Baptist promised Jesus would accomplish. John baptized with water, Jesus baptizes with the Spirit and fire. So the Holy Spirit has come upon them. And when they receive the Spirit, they begin to speak to one another in other languages. Now we have the word tongues here in our passage. It's used in two different ways here. First, it's used in verse three to describe the fire, the fire of the Spirit essentially that comes and rests on them. So tongues of fire, we might think of flames, something like that. And then second, it is used to describe the variety of languages that people begin to speak. In verse four, they begin to speak in other tongues. This word here, tongue, it simply means in its most straightforward way, tongue that is in your mouth. But from there, it also means language. And the idea here is these disciples are suddenly speaking in other languages, human languages that they did not know. And verse five suggests that these languages are from every nation under heaven. So there is in Jerusalem at this time, a diverse group of Jews, and they've gathered for Pentecost. They're from all different nations. The Feast of Weeks, they're there, and they spoke all different languages. And now Jesus' disciples come and they hear Jesus' disciples speaking their own language. Some of these multinational Jewish hearers are amazed and perplexed, verse 12, They see and know it is a miraculous occurrence to hear a simple Galilean speak your own language and you're from Asia or Libya or from Arabia and you're hearing it and you know it's a miracle. You don't know what it means, but they know it's a miracle. And then there are others, verse 13, that mock, say they're crazy, Galileans are drunk, they're filled with wine. So we've come to Pentecost. This is the event here in Acts 2. Coming to Pentecost, we have come to a climactic moment in scripture. We might even say the climactic moment in scripture. if we understand, as I think we should, that the death of Christ and His resurrection and His ascension, and then the sending of His spirit at Pentecost, form a closely related event. We might call it a redemptive nexus in those events. I'll try to say it another way. Jesus' death and his resurrection and his ascension into glory and the sending of his spirit are fundamentally a single event. each individual act bound up in the other. Yes, they took place on different days within a time span of just over a month, but they belong together. Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension, those are events that are aimed like a laser at Pentecost. Jesus, he died to unite us to himself. He died to indwell us and to make his home with us, to forgive our sins so that he could take up residence within us. And this is what happens at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit, which is the very spirit of Christ, comes and indwells his people. This is what Jesus teaches is going to happen in John 14. In John 14, he's preparing his disciples for his departure, not only for his death, but for his ascension. He won't be present physically with us anymore. And there's some concern if Jesus is physically gone, that doesn't sound good. What's it gonna be like? And Jesus says in John 14, 16, he says, I will ask the father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. even the spirit of truth. Jesus is promising his spirit, but listen to how he goes on to describe the coming of this spirit. He says, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you, he says. And he says, in that day, you will know that I am in my father and you in me and I in you. And he says, he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. And then John 14, 23, Jesus says, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him. And we, that is the father and the son, we will come to him and make our home with him. And then he says, I'm going away and I will come to you. This is all in the context of Jesus describing his spirit coming to dwell and dwell us. And he's describing himself coming to and dwell us and make his home with us. So there is this unity of a functional unity between the Holy Spirit and the person of Christ. So that to be filled with the spirit is to be filled with Christ. And that's the goal of a saving work. That's why this is such a climactic event. Jesus came to make his home with us. So we can think of his death and resurrection and ascension and the sending of his spirit as unified parts of the singular saving act of God. And so I think we can say Pentecost is the climactic moment, at least up until this point. There will be higher moments when Jesus returns in glory physically. That day is yet to come, but for now this is the highest moment as he comes to indwell us through his spirit. Now this is an event of inexhaustible wealth, I'm gonna move through the book of Acts at a pretty good clip, except for here at Pentecost. We're gonna slow down just a little bit because this is such an important moment and the treasures here are so very rich. Next week, Brennan McCafferty will be with us. He'll be preaching. And then the following week, we'll go a little deeper into Pentecost. We'll, Sunday night, that following week, we'll do a question and answer. in the evening, as we have occasionally done. This week, I wanna say just one thing, and it is an important implication of Pentecost, and it comes out of verses 12 and 13. That's where the crowds react to Jesus' disciples who have been baptized with the Spirit. And the crowds are stunned by these disciples. We saw that. Verse 12, some are amazed. perplexed, it's such a strange event, so extraordinary, so bizarre, it's weird. And it's so strange that some of them are intrigued and they ask, what does this mean? They wanna know more, what's going on here that is so different than anything I've ever seen before. But then others, verse 13, they aren't really intrigued. What they see is so weird in their eyes, their response is to mock these disciples and accuse them of being drunk. Just think about the nature of this event that prompts this either intrigue or scorn from the observers. What's happened? The Holy Spirit has come on these disciples as tongues of fire, and as he's rested on them and filled them, he's caused them to speak in a multitude of different languages, and he sent them out onto the street so that others hear their own languages miraculously being spoken. It's really bizarre, everything that's happening here. This isn't a normal day on the streets of Irwin, and it's not what you would expect if you're walking into town, and it's not a normal day in the streets of Jerusalem. And as Christians, to add to kind of the weirdness here, as it applies to us, is we believe that this baptism with the Holy Spirit, with all of its weirdness, is the very thing that defines who we are now. It defines our Christian lives now. The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 13, he says that in one spirit, we were all baptized. And he goes on and says, we were all made to drink of one spirit. And the point is, all of us, if you are a Christian, you have been baptized with the Holy Spirit. The moment you become a Christian, the whole church is made up of Holy Spirit baptized Christians. Now, we may not have the ability to speak in other languages as these first Christians did. but the life altering reality of the spirit in our lives remains in all of its weirdness because we are like them, Holy Spirit baptized Christians. You see that response, this seems so weird, so strange. from the people there. And what I wanna say, here's the one thing I wanna say by implication of all this, and it's keep Christianity weird. Keep Christianity weird, which is another way of saying live out of this reality that you are Holy Spirit baptized Christians, radically a different kind of creature than anyone else you're gonna meet on the street. out there. Now, look at this. Right away, the first sort of major point the book of Acts makes about the church's witness in the broader world is that it did not reach the world by becoming just like the world. It reached others. Others were attracted and came into this extraordinary fellowship Not through its ordinariness, but through its extra-ordinariness. The weirdness of this moment is intriguing for so many who witnessed it. They'd never seen a Holy Spirit-baptized Christian before. And Holy Spirit-baptized Christians are not normal people. You don't live by the same rules that the world lives by. You don't act in the same way as your neighbor. And you, dear friends, are Holy Spirit-baptized Christians. So by definition, in the eyes of the world, you are weird. You're weird. And so that's the one point for today. Keep Christianity weird. Now, we can look at how this applies to us with a couple of very specific examples, I think, as far as, you know, this weirdness as it plays out here, that kind of flows out of the first century and their baptism with the Spirit. And as we're looking at these couple examples, I think it's right for us to consider the baptism with the Spirit as an indicative, a New Testament indicative. By indicative, I mean simply a statement of fact. It's a truth that defines the reality of all Christians everywhere. The people who belong to Jesus, His church, you, you have all been baptized with the Holy Spirit. That's the indicative. That's the reality, statement of fact. But from the indicative, imperatives follow. So if we were to go back to chapter one in Acts and look at verse eight, this is the first example of kind of this indicative and imperative pattern that flows out of Pentecost. Jesus tells his followers, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. So that's the indicative. That's what God is going to sovereignly do in our lives. He's gonna baptize his people with the Holy Spirit. And from that indicative flows an imperative. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. This is the imperative of the great commission. Having received the spirit, we are given the task of taking the gospel of Jesus Christ into the world, the whole wide world. And this is where it gets really weird. Because here at Pentecost, this commission is amplified as the disciples speak in the languages of other nations. At Pentecost, through this multitude of languages that are being spoken, we discover that the church is not confined to the boundaries of a single nation. Remember in chapter one, the disciples of Jesus, they're thinking this way. They're thinking of a single nation and they ask Jesus about when the kingdom is going to be restored to Israel. And they want the boundaries up and the walls up. And that's how they're thinking. And when will it be restored to Israel? And a king on the throne and the physical land. And they're thinking in terms of national boundaries and earthly nations. And Jesus' reply to them is, You're going to be my witnesses beyond Jerusalem, beyond Israel, all the way to the end of the earth. The point is Jesus' kingdom is going to extend right through the borders of nations, and it's going to include all people, no matter language or nationality or ethnicity or race. This is weird. This is weird. Because we live in a world today that is defined by division, nothing but division, by an us versus them sort of, you know, that's the norm, that's what's normal. If you wanna be just like the world, if you wanna be just like the world, then embrace a zealous mindset of hatred or contempt or discomfort at outsiders, people that are different than you. I was in the jail visiting a few weeks ago, two weeks ago, in Allegheny County Jail, and a guy walked into the visitor entrance wearing a Cleveland shirt. It wasn't even a Cleveland Brown shirt. It was just a Cleveland shirt, like the city. Who wears a Cleveland, the city shirt? Well, this guy did. And the guards there in the entrance, the visitor entrance, just kept harassing him and harassing him because he had this Cleveland shirt on. And then an hour later, when we were leaving, they harassed him on the way out because he's wearing this shirt. Now, all in good fun. They weren't being mean. But that is an illustration of what is normal in our world. You like Cleveland? You're from Cleveland? Get out of town. What are you doing wearing that here? But the church is different, bizarre, weird, when it comes to these divisions of the world. The church is not defined by division or border or nationality or language. Instead, the church is defined by the Lord Jesus Christ. The division that comes from Babel is a curse. And it's a curse that highlights the pride of men in the division of their languages and nations. Pentecost is the beginning of the reversal of that curse. Calling men into the kingdom of God where entrance into that kingdom, it's not by pride, not by nationality, it's not by language, it's by humility and charity and unity and supremely entrance into this kingdom is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. reminded of a letter written in the earliest days of the church, maybe the second century. I've shared this letter with you before years ago, portions of this letter anyway. This is a letter written as a defense of Christianity. It's called Letter to Diognetus, probably written in the second century, maybe the third century. So not that long after the event of Pentecost that we're reading here. And its aim, the aim of this letter, it's a historic letter, is to defend Christianity by highlighting just how weird Christianity is. And listen to what they say in the letter. Here's part of the letter. And it's reflecting some of the realities of Pentecost here. It says this, Christians are not distinguished from other men by country, language, or by the customs which they observe. They do not inhabit cities of their own, use a particular way of speaking, nor lead a life marked out by any curiosity. Instead, they inhabit both Greek and barbarian cities, however things have fallen to each of them. And it is while following the customs of the natives in clothing, food, and the rest of ordinary life, that they display to us their wonderful and admittedly striking way of life. You hear what this ancient letter is saying. They're strange, it goes on. They live in their own countries, but they do so as those who are just passing through. As citizens, they participate in everything with others, yet they endure everything as if they were foreigners. Every foreign land is like their homeland to them, and every land of their birth is like a land of strangers. They exist in the flesh, but they do not live by the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, all the while surpassing the laws by their lives. They love all men and are persecuted by all. They're unknown and condemned. They're put to death and restored to life. They're poor yet make many rich. They lack everything yet they overflow in everything. They're dishonored and yet in their very dishonor, they're glorified. They're spoken ill of and yet are justified. They're reviled but blessed. They're insulted and repay the insult with honor. They do good, yet are punished as evildoers. When punished, they rejoice as if raised from the dead." The point of this letter is Christians are strange, bizarre, weird. Their lives are not defined by the normal divisions and boundaries of human life. Their citizenship is not in this world. It's not found in any earthly kingdom. They are citizens of heaven. And this is all part of the imperative that flows out of the Pentecost indicative. We are witnesses for Jesus to the ends of the earth. His kingdom breaks through the barriers of nations and languages. Even people from Cleveland are part of the kingdom of God. The church of Christ is not defined by normal divisions that scatter man against man. The church is defined by a cross centered unity in Christ. Okay, so that's the first weird implication of this baptism in the Spirit. If you live as a foreigner here in this land, you're going to be weird to your neighbors. Here's the second weirdness that I see, there's many others, at least this initial introduction that flows out of Pentecost. And it goes like this, and again, following this indicative imperative structure, since you have been baptized with the Spirit, be filled with the Spirit. Okay, there's the indicative imperative structure. Indicative, we have all of us been baptized with the Spirit, 1 Corinthians 12, that's the indicative. And then from that indicative flows this New Testament command. It's an imperative. And it's a command that comes to us in Ephesians 5.18, where it says, be filled with the Spirit. So when an outsider looks at the church, what they're going to see if we're obeying this imperative is people who are filled with the Spirit of God, striving to be filled with the Spirit of God. And do you think that's gonna look normal to the world if that's what we're trying to do? This is where it gets weird. It's a powerful thing to be filled with the Spirit of God. In fact, when Jesus promises the baptism of the Spirit, I already read it in Acts 1.8, He says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. So Holy Spirit baptized Christians are powerful people. They are, you are the truly mighty men and women on earth today. It's just that Holy Spirit power isn't a normal power. It's really weird. So Ephesians 5 is vitally important to see this because it's the only place in Scripture where we are commanded to be filled with the Spirit. And I think Paul has in mind when he issues this command, the outworking of the full power of the Spirit in the lives of believers. That's why he says, be filled with the Spirit, because he wants that. power manifest in the lives of all of God's people. And again, the idea is you've been baptized with the Spirit, therefore be filled with the Spirit. Your life will be defined by the raw power of the Holy Spirit in every moment of your existence. That's the calling, that's the imperative. Now, how does the Spirit manifest this power in your life, in our lives? And here we can maybe speculate what we would like to see. Maybe it is in mighty miracles. Raising the dead, for example. Be filled with the Spirit and go out there and raise the dead. Paul raised the dead. You would think maybe that's where he would go when he says we're to be filled with the Spirit. But there's no command, no imperative in the New Testament to be filled with the Spirit and go out and perform miracles. That command is just not there. Certainly we believe in miracles. The Holy Spirit can and does miracles today. There's no command to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and go around and do mighty miracles nonetheless. That's what we would expect, what Paul, that's what we would expect, but what Paul commands when he talks about being filled with the Holy Spirit, it's really, it's just weird. Here's what he says, Ephesians 5, 18. Be filled with the Spirit. Important command. And he goes on. Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Ephesians 5, 18, be filled with the Spirit in the verses that follow. Did you hear that? To be filled with the Holy Spirit and all of its power. This is the Spirit of God. It is an infinite supernatural power. And it's come upon you since you've been baptized in the power of the Spirit. Therefore, sing. Make a melody to the Lord in your heart. Walk around all day every day doing that. Sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another. Make music. Be thankful. Submit to one another. It's weird. When the Spirit manifests its power in our lives, When we are filled with the Spirit, and this is such an important passage in this regard because it's the only place where Paul directly expounds what it means to be filled with the Spirit. We see all the time people are said to be filled with the Spirit. He's filled with the Spirit in the book of Acts. And now Paul tells us what it means to be filled with the Spirit. When we receive the baptism of the Spirit in power at the moment we become a Christian, then the great power of Christianity, it seems, resides in singing and in thankfulness and in mutual submission. This is not a normal power. It is surely, you might think, not the proper manifestation of power to battle the great evils of this world. We need a different kind of power, right? Isn't this a little bit naive? Because there's great evil out there. We need something else. If this is the power of the Spirit, then I'm going to go somewhere else, you might be thinking. We would want, I think, what about the power of domination? The power to bend wills, to bend nations, the power to do mighty, mighty works. We want Paul to say, be filled with the Spirit and go out and do mighty miracles and take over the world and show them who the King is. That's what we think Paul should say. But he says, be filled with the Spirit and sing. It's the power that he gives in his spirit. Now here I'm reminded of a character in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series. Please forgive me. You know it's coming every once in a while. And the character is Tom Bombadil. If you've read Lord of the Rings, Tom Bombadil, maybe we can argue, we can debate this. I'll be happy to discuss afterwards. He may be the most powerful character in the whole story of mighty and powerful characters. Tom Bombadil. And somehow in his power, his might and his power, he built a home in the middle of these two evil lands, the old forest and the Barrow Downs, surrounded by evil. And he's got this happy home there, well-cultivated. And the thing about Tom Bombadil is by all outward appearances, he's a fool. He's just a fool. He's dressed in almost, it seems like the clothes of a jester. He didn't make it in the movie. So if you've only seen the movie, he's actually in the books. You gotta go read the books. He comes dancing and hopping through the forest with these giant yellow boots and blue coat and he's carrying flowers, water lilies. His face is wrinkled with hundreds of lines of laughter. And the main thing about Tom Bombadil is he's singing. He's constantly singing. He just has this pure joy and delight in the creation around him, in the company of others, in his wife. He's grateful and joyful as a man, and he sings and dances and hops around. And when evil threatens to destroy the helpless little hobbits on their journey, twice, Tom saves them by his singing. He exercises power over evil. He confronts the full wrath of evil by singing. And I think the point that Tolkien may want us to see with Tom Bombadil, who looks like a fool, is that there is a far greater power than the normal, ordinary powers that this world knows. And that is the power of the Spirit in the life of a believer, which can cause them to sing as they confront even the greatest evil. And for us as Christians baptized in the power of the Spirit, this exceedingly great power of the Spirit is best manifest in song. Because song, and specifically psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, song brings us near to the heart of God. Like Tom Bombadil, the Spirit-filled Church of Christ is at its most powerful when it is united in song. And we might look like fools and jesters to the world. But the devil has no defense against the songs of the people of God, because there the power of the Spirit is manifest in all his might, in all his light. It is in our song that we recognize audibly and in beautiful unison that we belong to the kingdom of God. We belong to a king and kingdom that is not of this world and rage as he may, Satan cannot touch us. And the command stands, the imperative, it's weird. Be filled with the spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody of the Lord with your heart. So I need to close here. I just want you to see this morning, to see how weird it is to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And I want to suggest if we're looking outward and we want to be faithful in our witness to the watching world, the best way we are faithful in our public witness is by being extremely weird Christians who are filled with the Spirit of God in the most radical ways imaginable. Just think of your neighbors. Your neighbors are consumed with the normal things that define human life outside of the kingdom of God. They're consumed by the pursuit of money, advancement at work, the pursuit of pleasure, the pursuit of entertainment, the pursuit of earthly power. They're just glued to the cable news day in and day out. And all of that is perfectly normal. Perfectly normal. Exactly what you would expect. We are not going to be witnesses to the ends of the earth by being normal in this world. We have something so very different to offer them. It's the power of the Holy Spirit to unite people across nations and languages to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the power of the Holy Spirit to fill us with thankful song right in the middle of a dark and evil world. It's the power of the Holy Spirit to break into this world and usher us into the kingdom of God so that more and more as the Spirit fills us and directs our steps, we look less and less Like the citizens of any earthly kingdom, we look less and less normal, more and more weird. We cannot possibly reach this world by being just like this world in its pursuits of pleasure and power. We'll see as Acts unfolds, the gospel grips so many hearts precisely because of its strangeness. If we have been baptized with the Holy Spirit, and we have, Our neighbor should look at us and either, verse 12 from our passage, be intrigued and ask, what does this mean? Or otherwise, our neighbor, verse 13, should mock us. Either way, we need to keep Christianity weird. Let's pray as we come to the Lord's table. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, and thank you for the gift of your Spirit, which has rested upon all of us. And we pray that we would live out of the power of your Spirit, that we would devote ourselves to knowing what it means to be filled with the Spirit, and to living out of the Spirit's power in our lives. And to do that, We need Christ because He is our strength and our salvation, and in fact, it is His Spirit that indwells us. And so, as you grant us your Spirit, grant us also Christ, even as we come to this table, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. We'll stand as we come.