I want you to stop and think for a moment the feeling you have when you get something that you've really been longing for, right? Maybe it was like receiving the package that you ordered, which let's be real. We are completely spoiled right in today's age where you can think of something, order it off your phone and it gets delivered to your house with a matter of minutes or sometimes hours. It's crazy. Like just imagine trying to order something like 1000 years ago. You know, it's just like it'll come to you in 2 to 3 business years for decades across the boat or something, right? Like it's crazy like where we live in. So maybe you ordered something and it finally comes in the mail, right? Maybe you're at a fancy restaurant and you have your name in and your name gets called after a long wait and you can leave those peasants behind, right? Uh You know that feeling right when your name gets called to the table and you walk past everyone like it's me, I'm going, you have to keep it, no one else. Ok? Um Maybe it's waiting for your team. To win a championship. Right? You cheer every year and you have high hopes at certain season and you just, that's the struggle, the angst, right? And then you and your team finally wins and this is the joy and adulation that comes from that, you know, or maybe you're a Phoenix Suns fan like myself. And we're still waiting and waiting and waiting. But this is the year, ok? This is the year we're gonna win it and I can feel it and then I can, well, at least we'll delay the disappointment till the playoff time. But when you get something that you've been waiting for, you know, growing up in the Midwest, all the farmers, I was not one, but we were surrounded by the fields. And so there is that joy that comes from the harvest coming in, right? This long season, from planting something to harvest season, you receive it coming in. Maybe the waiting is a little more serious and maybe it, it's the waiting for a storm to end. Have you ever experienced going through a physical storm? The rain, the winds, you know, and then it finally clears the clouds, the clouds part, the sun comes beaming through. You have the smell of rain, but the fresh new day, maybe you were up all night, dark night of the soul and you take peace and solace and a simple sunrise. You know, some of the biggest moments in life, our most thought of memories come after seasons of waiting. If you've ever seen videos of soldiers coming home to loved ones. Those are great, aren't they? Right after seeing someone being surprised by the mom or the dad coming back from serving overseas to reunite with the people who've missed them. Maybe it's the arrival of a newborn after a long nine months, the little baby is here. Maybe it's the joy that comes out of graduation of finishing school. You know, maybe you're the teacher that's waiting for summer or maybe you're the parent that's waiting for the school year. I don't know what had you today. But like, you know, when you wait for something, maybe it's a wedding day coming in and it's here, right? There's this, there's this expectation, there's this excitement that comes when the wait is over. That's the morning or that's the title of this morning's message is the wait is over because what we're going to look at today is the wait is over. Moment found in acts chapter two. It comes with the coming of the Holy Spirit, the launching of the church movement at something that sounds very churchy called Pentecost. What is Pentecost? Where did it come from? Why does it matter? Why does it matter to you and me today? Well, that's we're gonna jump into, but it do me a favor before we jump in and if you're taking notes, go ahead and write this down, that your response to God is both personal and public. Your response to God is both personal and public that when the wait is over, when you receive what you've been longing for, it is a personal celebration, but it is one that is shared with the world around you. So before we jump into acts two itself, let's break down and give a little background or context to what actually is Pentecost. Well, the word Pentecost at its root just simply means 50. And so it's literally 50 days after the Passover or the First Fruits festival. And so you have the uh Passover, which is a celebration uh or remembering when God saved the people and called them out of Egypt. So delivers them from slavery over, you know, from the hands of Pharaoh. And so there's this remembrance of that that now is also connected with communion. That's what Jesus and disciples were doing in the upper room that night was passing over or practicing the dinner, the Passover Satur that actually Jesus comes in and says, hey, this bread, this represents me, this wine, this represents me. And so to this day, we still practice communion regularly here within the church. But it came originally from the Passover celebration where you have the next day because they didn't do anything on Sabbath. And so you have the first day after that, the day of first fruits, you actually hear the word first fruits in the New Testament a lot Jesus being the first fruits from among the dead. Jesus rises again there on that Sunday. And then you go seven weeks plus a day, so seven times 7, 49 plus a day because you don't do anything on Sabbath. And so now that gives you your 50 days. And now there's this celeb Jewish festival called Pentecost. So Pentecost literally means 50 it's 50 days after the passover. And what that represents is actually a celebration or remembering of Moses receiving the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai. And so that was supposed to be the day that was marked where Je where Moses received the 10 commandments. And it's also connected to two different uh farming instances that happened in the community at the time. So at first Passover is connected to this barley harvest. And so Barley kind of looking back on being freed from the Egyptian slavery and then you have the barley harvest and then Pentecost represents really the new harvest which gives life there in wheat. And so Barley was used in times of difficulty. But then, and and and there's actually shafts used in, in the celebration and festival itself. But then wheat is brings life to your own family, but then also to others. So Passover in a nutshell represents freedom from slavery. Pentecost represents receiving new life, new commands from God. Now on a practical level, people from all over in different regions would gather in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. So there are people from many different regions that speak many different languages here to remember the life that God gives at the time was thinking of Moses receiving the law. But what we're gonna see today, it's also the same day that God then sends the Holy Spirit. And so it's just a really cool thing how it's connected. But let's go ahead and jump into the scriptures together. Acts chapter two starting in verse one, when the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place and suddenly they came, there came from heaven a sound. Now that word for sound is a Greek word where we get our English word echo. So in came an echo. It's pretty cool picture here like a mighty rushing wind and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. We actually have friends of ours who are planting a church as part of our network of vision. Arizona. They're launching in January of 2025 and they're actually naming their church echoes church. And so, and down in the Mesa Gilbert Queen Creek area and they're naming their church echoes church to really help people echo uh Jesus in their everyday lives. And it's based from that word from this verse so kind of a cool picture. And so they don't just see the wind, they actually have a sound like a mighty rushing wind. So picture being in a house and hearing the winds outside of your house and the trees moving. This is what they experience and then it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Now, verse three and divided tongues of fire appeared on them and rested on each one of them. Now, can we just pause for a moment? That's weird. We acknowledge that. Like some of you came into church. Fine. I'll go to church and then they're reading a verse where tongues of fire like like over people's heads. Like that's just an odd picture. Can we acknowledge that? OK. Let's explain a little bit of context of what that means. OK. So it's an image. So we don't know it not, not necessarily an actual tongue, but there's this picture of fire, but it's over each person. And I want you to hang on to this picture, this image because there actually is a biblical meaning behind it. And so we're gonna dive in. But for right now, just know that they hear this wind, they see fire that's over people's heads and then we're gonna see something else happen too. OK. Verse four. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance. So now they start speaking in the native language of the people that gathered together for Pentecost and they started to understand it. So if you had all these different picture, all the different languages in the world, so, you know Spanish or Portuguese or German or Japanese. Imagine all these people gathered in one space and then someone speaking and the person hearing in their ear, the native language. And so now they're all understanding and hearing the same message. And so there's this, this great picture and the Holy Spirit is really described as wind and then described as fire. So where does that come from? Well, we see it actually the word in Hebrew and in Greek is actually the same for wind and spirit. Jesus actually describes this in John three verse eight. He says the wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. So the Holy Spirit where the word is actually the same where we get our word wind moves and you can't see it. You don't know where it comes from. You don't know where it's going, but you can feel it, you can hear it, you can see the effects of it in so many ways. So too is the Holy Spirit. Now you have the wind, but then you also see fire. What does fire represent? Fire represents in the Bible, the presence of God, it represents the presence of God. And we know that because for example, in Exodus chapter three, Moses, when he has his encounter with God to say, go back and challenge Pharaoh and set the Israelites free. How does Moses interact with the presence of God? What does he see? He's a burning bush. Ok. So it represents the presence of God. Then you see in here when he receives the 10 commandments in Exodus chapter 19, you see different things like lightning and smoke all again, representing the presence of God. And Moses actually comes down from the mountain and he actually has a glow on his face, talk about like a biblical glow up, ok? Like he has to wear a veil because he interacted with the light that is God. And then when they had the early Tabernacle or temple, when the presence of God was there, there was a visible pillar of fire that represented the presence of God. So what's really fascinating about Pentecost, which again is remembering them getting the 10 commandments is that now you have fire, not in the temple, but on its people, it goes from the building to the body and individually over every believer. And so they are indwelled with the Holy Spirit. And so they have this image of fire to that context. Understood that wow, inside of them dwells the presence of God, not in a building, not in the Tabernacle, not in the temple, but in his people. That's pretty cool. Right now, Jesus himself actually practiced ministry through the Holy Spirit. He lived by the Holy Spirit. So he did not dip into his deity to live out his humanity. So we see this a few times. Let me just give you three references in Luke chapter three verse 2122. When Jesus is baptized, there's this cool picture of the voice of God coming down, AAA dove coming down and it says the spirit of God came down. So it marks the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. Then Jesus is led by the spirit in Luke 41 into the wilderness, and then he's led out of the wilderness in Luke 414 to begin his preaching ministry. And in fact, when you read the gospels, anywhere you see Jesus go, you see the spirit of God with him. And then Jesus actually tells his disciples that it's actually good that he's gonna leave because when he leaves, he's gonna turn around and send the Holy Spirit to be with his people. Don't take my word for it, take his word for it. And it's found in John 14 verse 16 and 17. He says, I will ask the father and he will give you another helper or advocate to be with you forever, even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive. Because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, you know Him for he dwells with you and will be in you. Then in John 16 7, Jesus says, nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go for. If I do not go away the helper or the Holy Spirit will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. So here's an image I want you to think about that. It's actually stronger for you. And I today than what the early believers and the early characters in the Bible had you see Moses had the spirit of God on him. When he was on the mountain Mount Sinai, the disciples were actually with Jesus. But when the church launched the largest movement in world history, what we have now is the spirit of God dwelling inside of us. That's why that's really what's happening. When we say, ask Jesus into our heart is that we're actually asking the Holy Spirit to dwell inside our soul so that we have the power of God inside of us, right? To help us choose right and wrong to, to obey God be before apart from God, we cannot do anything really except sin. But with God, we can do all things and it's not that we won't still sin, but we now have the option to choose righteousness to choose holiness, to pursue all the things that we can forgive others because God has forgiven us, that we can love and serve others because God has loved and served us, that we can treat people the way that Jesus has treated us. Why? Because the power of the Holy Spirit is now available to you and to me. Now, let's walk through a little bit of four connections that we see from Acts Chapter two to the greater picture of the Bible. OK. So I know this, it might seem kind of churchy, but the more you study into this, the more power you actually find. And so the first thing here is that the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost Acts chapter two actually reverses the curse of the Tower of Babel. So in the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, God creates the world we're doing OK, we messed things up. OK? We don't, we get to chapter three, we didn't get far like all of scripture, Genesis one and two and we messed it up, right? The rest of scripture were messed up and then eventually God makes everything right in revelation 2122. So we got four chapters where we're doing good. OK? We're four out of like 1000 like 289. However many chapters there are something like that. So anyway, we got Noah builds an ark, saves a bunch of animals, right? Creates a great Sunday school childhood story. But it kinda dark if you think about it, right? Like wiping out all of humanity and starting over, we're like, oh coloring page. OK. Anyway, um it's so true. Is it like, I mean, don't get me wrong like I love the Bible stories and I guess you gotta share like the stories at the right time, right? Like David and Goliath, like great story. Like every kid loves David and Goliath, we kind of stop the story when he goes and like beheads people afterwards. So we're like, that would be kind of a dark coloring page. Anyway, I'm getting off topic. Um, so you got no in the Ark. Ok. Restart of humanity, right? And we start messing things up again and, but you get to Genesis 11 and the people said, you know what? We're doing pretty good. We're doing so good. In fact, we're going to build a tower to get to God and we're gonna build a tower so we can be like God and we're gonna build a tower for our names sake, our power, our position and we're gonna do it for us. Right? Well, that's pride in a nutshell. And so they do this. And so God calls down a curse to where now people who spoke one language now will speak different languages and they speak different languages. They can't understand each other. And so everything is spread apart fast forward a couple 1000 years here, right? To the time of Pentecost. Now, you have all these people coming from all these regions who actually read in a moment where these regions are, they come together, they're speaking different languages and yet they're hearing one language, one message, one unified thought and praising God together. And that's why I think it's so cool that you can go anywhere in the world. And if you come across believers, you will feel connected. I've been in parts uh in different mission trips, whether in El Salvador or Ecuador, Mexico, um you know, or all these different places and with people that I didn't know, speaking a language that I didn't understand. And yet there was this unified connection through the holy in the preaching of the word. It's pretty cool when that happens. Why? Because it reverses the curse of the Tower of Babel. It actually brings people together with a unified message of Jesus. Number two, if you taking notes is that the coming of the Holy Spirit mirrors the giving of the 10 commandments. That's what Pentecost was. It was a celebration of the giving of the 10 commandments. And now it's the celebration of the giving of the Holy Spirit. So the law comes with Moses, but then with Jesus comes grace and in the New Testament, you see repeated themes throughout the rest of the New Testament where grace and Jesus himself fulfills the law. So it doesn't negate it, but fulfills it and gives us something greater that it's not just based on what we do. It's based on who Jesus is and by receiving something that we don't deserve that our lives are transformed. And now we live in response to what God has done instead of trying to earn something that we could never get in the first place. And so it really mirrors the giving of the 10 commandments and it goes from law to grace. Third thing we see here is that the coming of the Holy Spirit actually mirrors the coming of Jesus. Luke who wrote acts also wrote the Gospel of Luke. And in Luke chapter one, you got some introductions and then Luke two is the Christmas story. That's what we read every year, right? And so the same author does an introduction and then introduces Jesus and then you get to act, he does an introduction and then he introduces the Holy Spirit. And so it connects the two and the early audience would connect the two. So I want us to do that as well. And then we get to the fourth thing here. And probably the most important is that the Holy Spirit represents the presence of God and the life of every believer. That's why today we're not gonna see like little tongues of fire over people's heads who get saved like it was for a context because you don't see that again in scripture. So that was, it's not the same thing, by the way, speaking in tongues as the speaking in tongues, that's reference in Corinthians. So we're gonna save that what that means for when we talk through Corinthians. But in this context, speaking in tongues is referencing that they actually spoke in a native tongue so that people could understand there's a visual re res representation of the Holy spirit, they receive that. And then Peter right after that. And we know it doesn't continue on because Peter actually doesn't say and you will receive a fire of a flaming tongue above your head. No, he says, receive Jesus. And so we see that continued on. And so there's this incredible power. So what do people do? Let's keep reading. Acts chapter two verse five, it says, now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven and the sound of the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished saying, are not all these who are speaking Galileans. Now pause for a second. Galileans were seen as like the uneducated, maybe something similar might be described today as like a redneck or something like this, like a culture like, oh man, like are these people really from here? Like speaking like, I think of like Jeff Foxworthy or some of those comedians, you know, and talked about that. Like they a about the comedians here going through speaking with the y'all and like w we contrib we attribute maybe education to someone speaking with an accent or where they went to college or where they grew up. And so whatever the everyday blue collar, everyday man or woman, common, lowest run language that is used. These are the Galileans and now they're hearing the praise of God in their native tongue and they're like, wait a second, when did Peter learn French? You know, like, he can't even speak English, like if it were today. You know what I mean? Like, wait a second. How do you know this language? How do you know German? Wait, why, how are you speaking Portuguese? How do you speak fluent Japanese? What's going on here? Like, aren't these Galileans? And so it goes on, it says in here verse eight. And how is it that we hear it now in our own language? What language? What actually lives? It lists 15 different um areas and I can't pronounce words. So I'm just gonna read and we're gonna struggle together, but here we go. So we have the Parthian, we have the meads, the Elamite, the residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia. We have Pontius in Asia. We have Phya and Pam and Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians. We hear them telling them in our own tongues, the mighty works of God. Now, why would you list those things? Because these are real places with real people and real languages and he's writing into the theophilus to give the orderly account of what God's doing. And so you can go to those people and be like, hey, is this true and like you can go and see the languages happening at that time. So how did people respond? Verse 12. And they were amazed and perplexed saying to one another. What does this mean? But others mocking said they were filled with new wine. They thought they were drunk, right? They thought who? I think those disciples went one too many Jesus weddings. You know what I'm saying? Like they had a little too much of the bubbly. Right? Like, and it's understandable that if you have an uneducated, fearful group of people with no money, no power, they are now boldly proclaiming something in a language. They didn't previously understand. You could see where someone might appear drunk. Well, Peter gets up and he starts, he gives the very first sermon of the church's history and he starts off as any good sermon by saying, no, we are not drunk. Ok? And in fact, let me tell you what actually is happening. And so he quotes the prophet Joel says, this is fulfilling the prophets and then he gives four evidence for Jesus. He gives Jesus Christ himself because again, we're 50 days removed from the, from the resurrection. It's like a month and a half away from when Jesus rose again. And for 40 days, he appeared to people and then 10 days, the disciples now are waiting. So we're 50 days removed. So that's not that long. And he's saying, here's Jesus, he did all these things. Then he talks about, uh he actually quotes David in the Psalms. We studied the Psalms this summer. We shared how David actually had some prophecy of the upcoming Messiah. So he quotes David who all those early Jewish people valued and viewed on the Mount Rushmore of leaders. And so he quotes David says, hey, he fulfilled that, that prophecy. Then he talks about the witness of believers, hey, listen to us, look at us like we couldn't do what we're doing apart from God. And then he talks about the Holy Spirit working in and through us explaining what just happened with the whole tongues of fire and wind and all of this stuff. And so he gets to the end. And the very last statement of the sermon we see in verse 36 really gives us the thesis of the sermon. And he says, let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. So the whole sermon, the very first sermon in church's history is about Jesus and it's Jesus that he is Lord and that he is Christ. Another way to think about it is he is Lord and he is Savior. And again, we're 50 days removed in the town where it happened. This fisherman who was terrified and ran away and denied Jesus 5050 days ago, stands up before the very leaders that killed Jesus and goes and you killed him. The same group of people that just killed their whole movement leader, the guy that was afraid stands up and said, this is why we can do this and it's your fault. So how do people respond? Well, in the very first sermon in the coming of the Holy Spirit, you see three different responses that I think we're still seeing today. The first response we see from scripture is that some were shocked, some were shocked like, wow, that's a lot. That's an understandable response, isn't it? That would be a little crazy if you were there. If you put yourself in Jerusalem there, you just there for a wheat festival, right? Waiting for my favorite band or pharisee leader to get up and talk. OK? I got a t-shirt for the festival. OK? It's Pentecost 33 ad W OK. Um And you're going through and then all of a sudden you hear this mighty rushing wind. Everyone gathers together, the lowest common denomme stands up. They got fire over their heads. They're speaking in my language. They're preaching of why Jesus came like, wow, that's crazy. Here's the tough thing though is that just because you acknowledge something and you're shocked, doesn't mean it impacts your life, right? A couple of days ago. Uh up at the Y MC A, we were leaving uh kiddos practice and I saw like there's like a fire up in North Cape Creek. They didn't want to see that fire, right? What do you do if it's something kind of off in the distance? We take our phones out, we take a picture as if that's gonna do something. Right. And then, and then what do we do next? We google it. Right. That's what we do. And then we text someone that's usually what we do. We see something like, wow, that's crazy. Oh, that's wild. Ok. Like, ok, what happened? Right. Hey, did you see that? Right. Same thing. Right. There's a car accident, there's a fire, there's this event going on, there's lights, there's something, there's a new restaurant. We're like, oh, what's this? Oh, but just because you're shocked, you're like, wow, that's crazy. It doesn't move to your heart. So you just kind of move on. Some people respond to church that way, right? They hear a story of life transformation. They hear a story of a church serving the community or the gospel, being preached or they hear some music that's saying being more like Jesus and they come in, they're like, wow, OK. That's kinda crazy. And they just kind of nod your head and they move on. I hope as a youth pastor, uh, for 12 years, I would work with middle school and high school students and I sometimes would go to the school lunches and let me tell you, you could not have more different lunch experiences. Uh, you go to middle school or elementary school lunch and you feel like a rock star. Like I would walk into these public schools with pizza and uh, like, for our students and stuff and they're like, oh, it's Baster John. Wow. Yeah, geo pizza. Right? High five. And everyone's excited. I was like, oh, that is cool. And I did middle school first and I was like, ok, that's cool. That's fun. And so I thought I was gonna get the same experience going into public high school. And so I brought in pizza and we had it planned and my own kids, like from the youth group ignored me. Like they walked in, they were like, who's this guy? Right? And like, I was like, are you serious? Like you asked me to come and bring pizza and I'm bringing pizza and you acted and like, and at best at best I would walk into a group setting and be like so and then their friends will walk by and like, oh, hey, Pastor John, how you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on here, right? I wonder how many people respond to God that way. They're just kind of like, oh, cool, nice. What's up? Right? They never actually embrace the reality of what the truth of the gospel actually means for them, right? Some were shocked but then just moved on with their life. Second response people had is some were mocked or some mocked others. We live in a culture that openly mocks the Christian faith, right? But if you think about it, it's a little weird because I always wonder like if you, if you experience mocking or persecution or something in your life, I want you to pause for just a moment and think about what the alternative is because people are mocking faith in which we're saying we're created by a God who loves us on purpose and for purpose, you take that out of the equation. What is left those poor Christians with their God who made them on purpose and loves them and gives them stuff and wants to have a relationship with them. Not like me, I'm smart because we came from nothing and we have nothing and there is no meaning and I have no way to describe love or goodness and people can do whatever they want because when we die, it doesn't mean anything anyway and we'll go and then be forgotten. Oh OK. It's actually not great. Like I personally believe like it takes more faith to be an atheist than to even be a Christian. Like I understand an agnostic where like, I don't know, right? Like I don't know, there's a lot of people, a lot of questions wherever you are in the spectrum, I just invite you to be curious and I invite you to ask questions and really wrestle with what is truth. Where did we come from? Where do we go when we die? How do we escape suffering? How do you describe good and evil? Where does beauty come from? Where does love come from like it makes the most sense. If you go to the word of God. Now, apart from God, I can't explain it. But what I can tell you is this is that God will not be mocked. And if you wanna challenge that you can, but know that the very civilizations that tried to wipe out and Christianity no longer exist. And it says in here that the word of God will stand forever. And I would hesitate to mock the God who made and saved you because he's also just and he is righteous and he is holy and we have to respect the name. Some people are shocked. Some people mocked, but there was a third group that we wanna acknowledge today and that is some people were rocked and by that, I mean, they were rocked to their soul and it changed everything within them again. Don't take my word for it. Let's see what happens after Peter preaches. The very first sermon verse 37 Peter said to them repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Christ. Oh and sorry, I skipped a verse 38. But that's OK. So we'll go back to 37. So now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of the p hey, what do we do? What do we do with this, this, this, this, this change? Like what are we, what are we supposed to do with this message? Peter says in verse 38 says, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises for you and for your Children, for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord, our God calls to himself. And many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation. Here's the key verse, verse 41 says, and those who received his word were baptized and there were added that day about 3000 souls. I love verse 41 because it gives clarity to where there's confusion in verse 38 because he says, repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. And so you can think, well, you need to be baptized to be saved. But really what he's doing is that people are receiving Jesus and because they're receiving Jesus, their next step of obedience is getting baptized. And so that's why it says those who received his word, those who believe, believe, what believe that Jesus is Lord and his savior, right? They commit their lives and they believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross as payment for sins. And that when he rose again now provides the only way to heaven, forgiveness for our sins and new life. And when you believe that it says you will be saved, right? And their lives were radically changed and the church was born. The wait is over. The movement of God is here. The Book of Acts is still happening and alive today because God is still moving today. Your response to God is both personal and public. It's personal because it's a decision you make. It's a decision your parents can't make for you. Your neighbor can't make for you. You have to decide. OK. Am I shocked? Am I gonna mock or am I gonna be rocked, challenged and changed by it? But then it's public because then it goes and impacts your life and everything that you say and do and it's not perfect, but it's honest, it's real, it's authentic and that early change, the dwelling of the Holy Spirit changes everybody. There's a fascinating story that's, it was in the news recently. There's a gentleman named Russell Brand who uh he's interesting to me because he is not church like he's got a crazy past uh sleeping around drugs, raunchy comedy like over the top language. He is not a churchy person. Uh but he like publicly came to Jesus this spring. So this is not commentary on his previous life, nor is it commentary on what he's gonna do in the future because I don't know, like, I don't know how stories are gonna unfold. But what I find fascinating is that he shared in there that actually it was after reading the purpose driven life by Rick Warren and seeing how he responded to his own son, uh suicide, like the lowest of low. And somehow he had this peace and he thought about his own crisis in his life. And he's like, man, I, he got him curious and he started reading scripture and he started seeing God move. And then in April, he got baptized by Bear Grylls. Like if you're gonna get baptized by someone, that's kind of a cool like survival. Like he's a sur survival this guy, right? So he actually baptized them. It's a crazy story. Uh Anyway, so he was being interviewed last week and I thought I just wrote down this quote and I wanna share it with you. And so he was publicly sharing, he said, because he was in the middle of an existential crisis. So, again, not churched very worldly. He's seen the highs of worldly success, the lows of worldly Brokenness. And here's what he said. He said, people do their level best to make Christianity absolutely tedious as possible. They make it seem like there's nothing to see here that there's nothing to interest you that you don't need to pay attention. But like, it's quite amazing that God came here in the form of a man and sacrificed himself that we may be redeemed. Like it's amazing that that happened. And he goes on to say later, he says, I didn't make a choice. There is a surrender that happened. I'm not saying that I'm without shame. I'm not saying that I'm without fear. I'm not saying that at points, I don't feel compromised and uncertain. I'm saying that since being baptized, since becoming a Christian, since surrendering to him, I feel his presence continually. I feel it now. I feel it in this moment and I feel free Nicole. I think of one of my students named JD who uh got baptized and um and he came out of the water. And I remember asking him, I said, how do you feel? And he goes, I feel awake. So the question is, how will you respond to the message of Jesus? How will you respond to the word of God? Will you let it rock you to your soul, to respond personally, to surrender your life, to trust Him as Lord and Savior and then live publicly changed by that to share it with others. Because if we truly believe the Holy Spirit is in us and there's nothing that can stop us. Church. There is no addiction that God's love is not deeper still. There is no darkness that God's light cannot shine in no sin, so broken that God cannot forgive you. We forgive others because God forgave us that we can love and serve others because He came down and served us. And when we were broken and when we were messy and when we were lost, and we were away. He reached down, took on the form of a man died on the cross rose again and sent the Holy Spirit to dwell inside of us so that we can launch this movement. Love God eternally experience God abundantly and to live ultimately free in Him. Amen as available to you and me. But it's about time church. Let's live power of the Holy Spirit in us. Let's pray dear dear God. If there's somebody in this room who doesn't know you God, I pray that they would put their faith in you right now. Believe that you are Lord and Savior just as 3000 people did. In that first sermon, God, I pray that they can respond, personally, put their faith in you. God, we commit our lives to you. But God may, we also live in a public way to where our words and actions reflect the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us. We commit our lives to you. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for loving us. I mean, we live as people filled with your spirit today. Your son's name, we pray.