Acts 1:8 - August 29, 2009

Acts 1:8: “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.” NIV

Pentecost – Part VI

Having looked at four keys to unlocking Pentecost for the church today, let’s look at the primary purpose of God’s Pentecost-al visitation. The giving of the Spirit is a wonderful, priceless gift of God to his people, because it is the very personal presence of God himself. How amazing that the Spirit comes and makes Christ know to us in our inner being, seals us for salvation (Eph 1:14), and comes and comforts us with the personal love of God. How precious that he guides and counsels us (Jn 14:16), comes and transforms our character into the likeness of Christ (2 Co 3:18), and confirms in our deepest place that we are children of God (Ro 8:16)! This is the remarkable reality of being in-filled and re-generated (brought back to life) by the Spirit of God. All of this given by the Spirit is vital - the bread from our Father in heaven for our life on earth (Luke 11:13).
But more than this, though not less, is God’s strategic purpose in sending his Spirit. God’s burning desire is that all men might know that he is truly God, that he is good and full of abounding mercy and love. He wants the world to know that his plan of faithfulness, ever since man’s first turning away, has come to bear upon the affairs of men, and he has decisively reversed the power of evil, sin, injustice, and death. This is what he has done in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. We the church, are those who are the partakers in this great reversal. But the sending of the Spirit is not simply that we can partake, but that through that partaking, filled and empowered, we will bring this great reversal to the world!
Back in Genesis 11, the people in that day were scattered all over the earth because of their wickedness. It was in this context that God promised Abraham, “through you all peoples on earth would be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3). In other words, the very people just scattered would one day be blessed through Abraham. The beginning of that promise arrived on that first day of Pentecost when the God-fearing Jews from all over the known world were gathered in Jerusalem. It was to them that Peter and the other disciples first witnessed the wonders of God in Christ (Acts 2:11). In other words, God was beginning to reverse the curse of Genesis 11 with the arrival of the Spirit.
No wonder – this was a huge prophetic and symbolic sign accompanying the instruction that Jesus gave to the disciples: “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.” (Acts 1:8). The books of Acts documents for us that this small, insignificant bunch of Jewish men and women turned the known world upside down in a generation (Acts 17:6)! And early tradition has it that the Apostle Thomas made it all the way to southern India, and the Apostle Paul made it to Spain, before returning to Rome where he was martyred.
If this was the case for the early disciples – then it is the case for us! The Spirit of God is a pearl of great price, the gracious gift of God's personal presence to us, his children. But God’s heart is to reach the world - through us. Come Holy Spirit, have your way in us, so that by you "all peoples will be blessed through us." We say Lord, "Here we are, send us!”