Last week we talked about the difference between being filled by the Holy Spirit and being indwelled by the Holy Spirit. Anybody, believer or not, can have an experience of or feel the power of the Spirit. But he indwells, he makes his home forever, only in the hearts of those who truly surrender to Jesus Christ.

 

And because of that, the bible teaches that a changed life is the primary indicator that someone has truly come to faith in Jesus Christ. Because when God moves in, he fixes you up. You don't stay the same. Your life changes radically over time. This is why patience is so important when someone comes to faith.

 

A few years ago my mom met one of my former high school teachers at a dinner party. My former teacher asked whether I'd remained the jerk that I was in her class. My mom told her what I do just as the poor woman was taking a sip of whatever it was she was drinking. She choked it up. My mom got wet. The Holy Spirit has made a lot of changes in my life since I came to faith. If you'd known me the first few years of my Christian life you'd have had your doubts, “this guy is a Christian?” And you may still wonder. But God got in there and he started making changes I'm a totally different today than I was ten years ago. It pays to have patience with new believers. Through the indwelling of his Holy Spirit, God reshapes, re-forms and conforms believers to his Son Jesus Christ.

 

Now I'm afraid that last week I may've left the false impression that being filled with the Holy Spirit, rather than indwelled by him, is not a good thing. It is. In fact, when those who are indwelled by the Spirit are also filled by the Spirit, God's purposes are accomplished. My mentor in the faith Al Lawrence told me to pray daily. “Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit today that I might do your will and delight in your way.” Because it is through the infilling of the Spirit that you're given the power to do what God calls you to do. He calls the Church, he calls you, he calls me, to various tasks and missions. And then he gives us the power to accomplish those tasks or missions. He adds his omnipotence to our incompetence and things get done.

 

Take preaching for example. I'm always shocked by the effect of preaching. When my words are consistent with His Word, the Spirit acts in and through what I say. I just take a passage and do my best to explain it. That's all preaching is. But God takes my powerless words and applies his power to them in order to encourage, strengthen, rebuke or convict you in accordance with his purposes. So when you sense that I am speaking directly to you, usually, it's not me, the Holy Spirit is doing his work. This is true for any God ordained task; from teaching Sunday school, to serving at Shepherd's Bowl, to mopping the floor. When God fills people with the Holy Spirit, he adds his power to our weakness in order to accomplish his purpose.

 

This is what we see in Acts 2:4. Once the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit, they “began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” Notice that last word in verse 4. The Spirit “enabled” them. “Enable” means to “make able.” God gave them the ability to “speak in other tongues.” God added his power to their weakness to accomplish his purposes.

 

We need to be careful with this text. The temptation is to go off track and spend an inordinate amount of time on speaking in tongues. And we'll spend some time on it but not a lot for fear of missing the point. The disciples were not given the ability to speak in other tongues for the sake of speaking in other tongues. Pentecost was not a magic show or a circus. There was a purpose to this miracle.

 

Notice first that the disciples were not babbling. The Greek word used for tongues here is the same word you would use for “language.” They were speaking in “other languages.” They were speaking intelligibly, not babbling, but simply speaking in languages they did not know naturally.

 

Second notice the variety of languages represented in the crowd. Verses 5 and 6 tell us that “there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.” Pentecost was an important Jewish feast, so Jews from all ovmer the world had gathered. Verses 9-11 provide the details. But lo 0l1kjok at verse 6, “When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.”

 

Not only does the Spirit give the apostles the power to speak in languages that they do not know, but each individual in the crowd, regardless of nationality, hears the apostles in his own language. Verse 8, “each of us hears them in his own native language.”

 

So let's say you were to travel back in time and stand in that crowd. First, Peter and John and the others would come out of the room speaking Chinese or Latin rather than Aramaic. That's the first miracle. But you, speaking English, would hear them speaking in English. That's the second miracle. God adds his power to the apostles' speech and to your hearing so that human deficiency does not inhibit or keep his purposes from being accomplished.

 

God creates a mini-United Nations. Have you ever watched someone giving a speech at the UN? People in the audience wear headsets and as the speaker speaks, translators translate for those who do not understand the speaker's language.

Here, the Holy Spirit is both the speaker and the translator and people of every language and nation are brought together, unified by language.

 

We're told in Genesis that as human beings multiplied and populated the earth, their pride reached to heaven. They began work on a tower that they hoped would enable them to shove God off his throne. They wanted to become like god. That's the essence of pride in fact. And so, Genesis tells us, God confused their languages so that they couldn't work together.

 

It is a common sentiment today that togetherness, community, unity among peoples and even religions is the most important thing and that it is something for which we ought always to strive and if some aspect of biblical truth gets in the way of unity, then we must be rid of this truth. But God says no. He said no at Babel . God loves unity but real unity not unity based on a lie. Truth comes before unity because it is only in Christ that God holds all things together. Every human endeavor to build world peace that is not based on the truth of Jesus Christ will ultimately fail. God has revealed his plan for peace in the middle-east and in Ireland and between various nations and his plan for peace is Jesus Christ. But the world rejects Christ and so the world rejects peace and unity and togetherness.

 

But at Pentecost, God reversed Babel and for a moment and for a purpose filled the apostles with his Spirit and in Christ and through Christ and because of Christ erased the divisions between nations and languages. What was the purpose?

 

Look at verse 10, “We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues” They were praising God.

 

Think this through. The disciples were gathered in one room worshipping in verse 1 before the Spirit came. Then the Spirit came filling them with divine power to speak in other tongues, in order to do what? To worship; to declare the wonders of God. So what does that tell us about God's purposes? It tells us, once again, and I'll bet you're tired of me laboring this point but don't blame me, blame the scriptures, that God's priority for the church and for each individual is worship. Worship comes first. He erased the barrier of language for the sake of worship. Worshipping God is the primary reason you are on this planet and so to the extent that you allow anything else to take precedence or priority over regular heartfelt sincere loving worship of the living God, your life is out of whack. People don't understand this. And so they neglect it. People come to me for counseling and their life is in shambles, and the first thing I do is check priorities. Are you praying daily, are you studying the bible, are you at bible study, are you going to church, I haven't seen you…always the answer is no. And people wonder why their lives are spinning out of control. God's priority for the Church and for every human being is worship.

 

But the only way to worship properly is to worship in the right Person. Notice who worships in this text. Is it the whole crowd? No, it's the apostles. The ones who know Jesus Christ are worshiping. Those who do not know him are watching those who do know him worship in Spirit and in truth. The Spirit fills the apostles to praise God and he has brings people of every tongue and nation together to hear his praise.

 

Now glance down at verses 13-36. What's that? It's a sermon. Peter, still speaking in another language, proclaims to the crowd still hearing in their own language, the truth of Jesus Christ. He identifies Jesus as God the Son (22) he shows them their sin, their guilt before God (23) He tells them that God in Jesus Christ let himself be killed in their place to bear the punishment for their sin and that he rose again on the third day (24-36). And he tells them what they must do to take hold of the salvation Christ won, repent and surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior (38).

 

If God's first priority is worship his second is to make worshipers, to bring people out of the darkness into the light so that they can truly see his glory and find everlasting life and that's where we'll pick up next week.

           

For today, we can say at the very least, two things. First, if your life is not centered on worship, your life is not centered. We've already spent a lot of time on that in this series so I'll just state it and move on to the second thing. Whatever you do, if you're doing it in accordance with the revealed purposes of God, you can trust that the Spirit will equip you to do it. God will add his power to our weakness to accomplish his purpose. This is why “can't” isn't a Christian word. Some of you were trained at the life and witness courses to walk people through the first moments after they came to faith. But a lot of people chickened out. I can't do that. I don't know enough. I'm scared. I'm not the right person. No you can do everything God commands you to do, not through your own power but by the power of the Holy Spirit.