Today's message is called how the first church started. So how the first church started. It is Pentecost Sunday and we are gonna see how the very first church has some components in it that still apply to us today. So we're gonna look and answer the question, what is Pentecost? And then why does it still matter to us today? And so here is the truth though that the disciples themselves had no idea what was coming. And it reminds me of that saying to never underestimate the power of small beginnings. There are people and businesses and careers that change from small to just big time. For example, I think of the hall of fame, football player Kurt Warner. Kurt Warner spent his life training to become an NFL athlete, but he was not drafted. His life did not go as planned. And he found himself bagging groceries and stocking shelves at a local grocery store. And so imagine training and prep prepping your whole life to be one thing to then find yourself isolated, stocking a shelf in a grocery store and no one watching. But yet it was from that moment that things would change. And he would get his opportunity and he would go to lead some of the most prolific offenses in NFL history and he would lead two NFL teams to the Super Bowl and the Rams and the Cardinals. And if it wasn't for the stinking toes of the Steelers receiver on that one pass, the Cardinals too would have won themselves a Super bowl. But imagine Kurt Warner looking back on his life, having experienced all that he had experienced and yet it started from a very different place. Now, think about the church for a moment. We're gonna be in acts chapter two. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open there. But if, if we're picking up the story, Jesus died on the cross, he was their leader. They thought he was gonna come in and physically rule Jerusalem and maybe Rome and take over the world. But Jesus was not speaking of a physical reality in that moment, he was speaking of an eternal spiritual reality that was even deeper and he would die on the cross, pay for our sins and then rise again on the third day. And he said, this is great. And so for 40 days, Jesus went around teaching and preaching, but then he tells the disciples, hey, I'm leaving, but it's to your benefit. And in fact, in acts 180 says, but you will receive the power when you receive, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And so he lays out what would be the remainder of the book of acts. But he says I'm going, but you're gonna receive power and something big is coming. And so he ascends and for about 10 days, the disciples are just hanging out. You ever been in a classroom? And the teacher leaves the person who's supposed to lead the group leaves and then everyone's just kind of twilling their thumbs. Like, what do we do now? That's basically the disciples. And if you think about the disciples, they didn't have a great track record. At that moment, they didn't have a building, they didn't have power, they didn't have money, they didn't have influence. They didn't have this massive following and of the 12 core people, Judas betrayed them, Peter denied him. He got restored, but that's still pretty recent. And then Thomas doubted him and they didn't know how to replace Judas. So they basically drew straws and said, oh, you Matthias, you come in. So they drafted in a new guy, all you're leading now too. And they're sitting in this room like Jesus told us to wait, wait for what? I don't know. But what do we go? What do we do from here? And they get to this day called Pentecost? And what's interesting about Pentecost is that it's a Greek word that literally means 50 and the reason for the word 50 OK? It's not 50 cent OK? It's not here like there's like disciples here are like, oh yeah, 50. We're gonna celebrate this number. OK? It, it really, it was a festival of weeks. It's a festival or a feast of the harvest because in Palestine, there were two major harvest seasons, there was a spring harvest and then there's a fall harvest. And in the spring there was actually two harvests. So after Passover, the day after Passover was seen as a celebration of first fruits. So if you think of first fruits offerings and things like that, what they would do is that was the beginning of the barley harvest in the spring. And so they would, they would celebrate the first fruits of this barley harvest. And then 50 days later, everyone from the surrounding areas would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. So people would speak different languages because they were from different tribes, different areas that's important in a moment. And so they would gather together for the celebration of the harvest. And it was sometimes called the, the feast of weeks. And the reason being is that seven times seven plus 49 is because there are seven weeks. And so it was almo and there were seven days in a week. So it's almost like a week of weeks, seven times seven plus a day. And so that's why they call it the feast of weeks because seven weeks after the barley harvest, they would come together from all over the area and then they would celebrate the wheat harvest. And so everyone's gathered together in Pentecost. And so there's a bunch of people in town, a bunch of relatives in town, if you will, the disciples are just chilling because Jesus was appearing to people for 40 days. And so for about 10 days, the disciples are like, ah, I don't know what to do. And so they just kind of sat in a room and now this is where we pick up our story. But if you're taking notes, I want you to write this down that the church started in a moment and then launched into a movement. The church started in a moment but then launched into this movement that is still growing and moving today. And the reason that Pentecost is so important for believers today is that some of the core components are still the core components to what it means to start a church today. And so we don't have time to walk through all of the verses of acts chapter two, I encourage you to read all of acts chapter two. But basically, here's the structure if you like structure and notes. And so the first couple of verses talk about how the Holy Spirit came down. So the Holy Spirit comes down and then Peter stands up to preach the first sermon of the church. And it's kind of intense and we'll look at a couple of verses here. And so Jesus was preached and then you see people respond and so then lives were transformed. And so the Holy Spirit comes down, Jesus has preached, lives transformed the Holy Spirit. Jesus transform lives. I want you to hang on to those three components. And let's break these down together. The first part, the Holy Spirit came down. Let's pick up the story in the first four verses of chapter two. When the day of Pentecost arrived, this is the feast of the harvest, feast of weeks. They were all together in one place and suddenly there came from heaven. A sound like a mighty rushing wind. I pause there for a moment. What does the wind symbolize in scripture? We learned in other places like the gospel of John, that the same word for wind in John chapter three is the same word for the Holy Spirit. And so this picture of the Holy Spirit is described like wind because you can't see the wind, but you see the effects of the wind. And so here's all these people, there's the 12 disciples, maybe 100 and 20 total followers here, just kind of hanging out trying to figure out what's gonna happen next. And whoosh, the rush of the mighty rushing wind and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And now here's a crazy picture and this gets weird. I'm just setting you up. It's weird, but let's read it and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. Huh? A divided tongues of fire appeared like, so not just like a light bulb moment, a tongues of fire moment on each person and it might not have actually been fire, but they didn't know how to describe it. And so they just described it like what they saw and so it, it looked like fire. Now, why is that important? What does fire represent in the Old Testament? Fire in the Old Testament represents the presence of God. Let's share a couple of examples. Moses encounter God in what was called the burning bush. And when God calls Moses to go back and free the Israelites from the Pharaoh and the Egyptians, he spoke to Moses through a burning bush. Then you have when he's on Mount Sinai and he's getting the 10 commandments, you also have this picture of a pillar of fire over top to the point where moses' face is glowing so much that he has to wear a veil before he interacts with the people. So when he gets to 10 commandments, there's again another pillar of fire. And when the ark of the covenant is on the move and they have the Tabernacle, the picture of the presence of God is that a pillar of fire is over the Tabernacle and over the ark of the covenant. And so when you see this pillar of fire. When you see this unexplainable presence of fire, you understand that there is the presence of God. So what does this mean for us? Well, the fire isn't just on the house, the fire is individually on the people. So what that means is that the spirit of God is not just in a place, it is now in His people and the same power, the same presence, the same clarity of communication like you have a tongue. So this picture of speaking communicating is given not to a place but to his people. And so the power of the Holy Spirit now is dispersed and individually within each believer, such a cool picture. And it says there in verse four, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance. Now we're going to keep our conversation in context of this chapter today. And so there's some considerations for what speaking in tongues is at a larger scale. But for this particular case, I'm just gonna stay focused in here that this case, this chapter, this moment, what he meant was that the people were speaking and sharing the gospel, but it was not some utterance that could not be understood, but rather they were speaking and the people began hearing the words in the language that they understood. So people from different tribes, different areas who spoke different languages gathered for this feast of the harvest. And there are thousands of people and the apostles go out to start speaking. And now all of a sudden they understand them. It would be if somebody here speaks German or somebody speaks Japanese or someone speaks Portuguese and I'm speaking English, but you're hearing it in your original language. And so people hear this miraculous language and this message simply 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus. And so this incredible picture of what's happening. And so what do people do? Well, they gave the same response that I think we probably would today, they must be drunk. Really? That's what they said. They're like, wow, we knew these Christians were crazy. But what is this? Right? And then Peter stands up and he's like guys, we're not drunk. It's nine in the morning. He really, he says that he says, in fact, we're fulfilling the prophecy found in Joel that says that the spirit of God will come on us and that you would speak and others would understand like, whoa. And he says, I'm not just gonna stop there and he goes and he preaches. And so that's the second thing is that the first one, the Holy Spirit comes down. The second one, Jesus was preached and this is not your feel good self help message. Let me just read a couple of verses to you and you'll see what I mean. Verse 22 and 24. It's the middle of a sermon here. And it says this men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man arrested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst as you yourselves know this means that they were there. They were physically present at the miracles of Jesus is this Jesus as if there were other ones. I don't know if there's a Jesus or Jesus or somebody there with the name of Jesus. There's this guy Jesus. No, this Jesus, the one who did the signs, the one who walked on water, the one who fed the 5000, the one who healed the leper. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and the Foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed him. Well, where's the coziness in the fields? But see that accusation could honestly extend to us. Why? Because it was our sin who put Jesus on the cross. And it's when you acknowledge the sin that you have in your own life that we become astonished by the grace that was offered. And these are people who literally saw Jesus die on the cross and then rise again and, and he was talking to people because Jesus spoke to people for 40 days and this is day 50. So we're not talking years and years ago in some myth and some last uh legend, we said, hey, remember 10 years or 10 days ago. You remember last week when the risen savior was talking to you, this Jesus, he says in verse 24 God raised him up. And I love this phrase loosening the pangs of death. It's like death had this grip. It says, but it is not possible for him to be held by it. My daughter Chloe, you know, we'll, we'll wrestle and we'll play and sometimes she'll grab my wrist with her little hands and she'll grab and like I got you daddy. And I'm like, oh no, oh And then when I'm kind of done like, all right, next thing that's Jesus with death. Death itself is like, got you Jesus three days later. OK, I'm done. It is not possible for the pangs of death to hold them. He says, for God conquered death. And if God conquered death, that means that grace is possible, that forgiveness is possible. And then he goes on and he actually in the message, he shares three testimonies. He shares the testimony of David. How that actually fulfilled prophecy of David. It shared the testimony of the apostles themselves. Look, I denied him just recently. I'm a Fisher. Why would you listen to me? But here I am. Why? Because Jesus conquered death. If Jesus conquered death, what can you do to me? And then he shows the testimony, oh, not to mention, you just saw little fires on people's heads and you're understanding me right now. Where does that come from because then he goes on and so we have the Holy Spirit comes down. We have the message of Jesus Christ is preached. It's not about how you get your life, right? It's about how Jesus can give you life and then lives are transformed. People respond, people respond. Let me just read two verses for you out of this passage, verse 4142 for those who received his word, were baptized. In other words, they were not baptized to be saved because they believed they received his word. They then responded by getting baptized. And so they believe in Christ. And then they made the conscious choice to show their belief through baptism, which is a symbol of death on the cross, burial and resurrection. And it says, and they were added that day about 3000 souls. And if there were 3000 people saved, there's probably even more in the crowd. And for those that love excel spreadsheets, you gotta love the fact that they count it. Maybe it was the fact that it was Luke writing this and he's a doctor. It's very specific when he talks about fishing, he's like they caught this many fish. And here are 3000 people. I think they also shared because they couldn't believe it. They were just in a room twiddling their thumbs wondering what in the world they're gonna do. The spirit comes on them. Jesus is preached, lives are changed and now boom, 3000 people who, by the way, many of which speak different languages are gonna take that message back into the village. So then what did they do? Verse 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers. So doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, communion prayers and then they were charitable and they would share with each other. They lived differently. It's not that you need to change, to receive the gospel. It's that when you receive the gospel, it changes you. When you receive the grace of God and the Holy Spirit in your life, it changes how you think, how you give, how you live, when you receive that grace, you then live that out. And what is it that they were living out? Well, Jesus before he went up to heaven, before he ascended in those 40 days, he said this in Matthew 28. He said, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And then teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age to go and make disciples baptize the people that believe in me and teach them to live differently, to love. One another as I have loved you. And so this message starts to spread and even changes people like Paul who was formerly known as Saul, who was persecuting Christians. The spirit comes in his life and he's radically changed to where he writes things like this. Second Timothy 21 and two I mentioned earlier this morning, he says you then my child, Paul Wright and Timothy be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust to faithful men who will teach others also. Isn't it interesting that during a celebration of a feast of harvest, the church starts, I wonder a little bit if the disciples thought back to win in Matthew nine. Jesus said the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. And in the celebration of phy physical harvest, God says, no, there is a spiritual harvest for you and I'm going to give you the power to go do it. And this isn't some story that's nice. This isn't some legend or some myth. This not only happened but it was a moment that started the church that then launched into a movement that's still happening today. Earlier, I shared with you the power of this missions organization, the Timothy initiative that's planting churches and a lot of their stories. I'm gonna be real with you. Sounds like something similar to the Bible. Like sometimes I read this like ah that was cool, but that wouldn't happen today. No, it happens today. Let me just share another quick video of disciple making happening in unlikely places. Go ahead and watch this video. I'd like to tell you a story, a story about what happens when people meet Jesus, an actual account of disciples making disciples. This is Samuel. He's just an average guy from Myanmar until God gets a hold of Samuel's life. Then his life goes from ordinary to extraordinary. He surrenders his life to Christ joins TT I. And the domino effect begins, Samuel leads Nanda to Christ and Nanda joins TT I and leads Sy to Christ. You get the idea. Now, when we first met Sai, he was a monk who studied from childhood to become a Buddhist missionary. His plans were thwarted when a witch doctor placed a curse on him. Si knew how to cast spells as well but nothing he did worked. He was cursed and no power was strong enough to break it. Then Nanda introduced him to Christ whose power freed him and saved him. The man who was once a Buddhist missionary is now att I leader who trains disciple makers to reach his nation for Christ. Disciple makers like Aya Sai led Aya to Christ who led Lon Long to Christ, who led Sandy to Christ. Sandy knew she had to share the gospel with Maya. Maya was a widow with three young Children. She worked tirelessly from dawn until dusk to provide for her family but still barely made enough to survive. She felt life wasn't worth living until Sandy told her about Jesus. She gave her life to Christ. But when her community found out, they mistreated her and chased her out of the village. But not even that could stop Maya from telling others about Jesus. So when she met Shine, she led her to Christ, all these new believers joined TT I and became disciple makers. When Shine got the gospel, she gave it to Amala. Amala knew her brother Ken needed Jesus and she knew just where to find him because he'd been living in a cave for more than 20 years there. In his cave, he meditated and burned incense, offering prayers and mantras there. He stayed until Amala showed him to Christ. He came out of the cave and began following Jesus. Now he's att I church planter. Ken went on to lead Zenji to Christ who led Khan to Christ for those keeping track. That's 1212 disciples who made disciples, who made disciples in Myanmar. And it's not just happening in Myanmar. It's happening all around the world. This is a story of disciples making disciples. This is the story of how we get the gospel to everyone everywhere. This isn't just some story in a book there on Pentecost, Sunday. The church started in a moment and launched a movement that's still growing today. And the process is still the same. The Holy Spirit comes down, Jesus is preached and lives are changed. And so how can we respond? What can I do today? What can you do today? We just offer two responses. First one is to join God's family. 3000 people received the gospel that day since that day, people have been receiving Jesus each and every day all around the world. And if God can work to start that church with those people, in that way, if God can reach some of the most unreached people, groups in the world, in these remote villages in these remote places, do you think God can work here now today in you? Yes, amen. So receive Christ today and I encourage you to pray with me in just a moment to receive Him into your life. And the second thing we can do as a church is that we can join God's mission. It's not that the church itself has a mission, but rather it's the mission of God that has a church. He gave the great commission and the great commandment. And then when the Holy Spirit came, the church started. So the church doesn't just have a business plan. The church is fulfilling God's plan to go into all the nations and all the world and make disciples and why you think. Well, I don't know if God can use me. Yes, he can and he will, if we receive the Holy Spirit into our lives, if we tell others about the story of Jesus, and then we live in a way that is different, people will notice. And if we can live and go and make disciples, we're living out God's story. Some of you can help start churches today by giving some of you might not. But I wanna challenge you to go deeper and say that all of us can join God's mission right now and begin praying for somebody to share our story with, to share God's story with to go and make a disciple in the name of Jesus. So that this movement of God can continue reaching people all over the world even right here in our community. Will you pray with me dear heavenly father? We just thank you for your son. Thank you for how you started the church in a miraculous way in a way that we cannot describe apart from you, Mr God, as your spirit came down, we ask that your spirit be present here with us as Jesus was preached, God. We believe that your son was the son of God, that he is both Lord and Savior, that we cannot make it to heaven on our own, that we are all sinners, that it was our sin that put Jesus there. But but God, when he rose from the dead, when the pains of death could not hold him, not only did he conquer death, but he covered our sin and he made forgiveness and purpose, joy, and love and grace possible. And so we believe in you Jesus and we commit our lives to you. We ask that you would forgive us our sins, that the Holy Spirit would come in and dwell inside of us and that you would change us from the inside out. Then we could live transform lives and to steer your message and to disciple others. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for loving us. Help us to live in a way that makes disciples that continues to grow your church and to build your body, not for our glory, but for yours. And as you work all around the world, I pray that you would also work right here right now in this room. And so if somebody is here to receive you, God, I pray that they would respond to you. Thank you for saving us and your sons. Let me pray. Amen.