Acts chapter 2 this morning again. Acts chapter 2, we're going to spend most of our time in verses 4 onward, but let me open up my Bible and read the first couple verses just by way of reminder.
Acts chapter 2, let me just read a couple verses at the beginning and then we'll hop in at verse 4. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 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 of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.
And 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.
We've been talking about God's definition, the true definition of success being God's presence with God's people for God's praise. And that's just this pattern we see repeated. We begin all the way at the beginning of the Bible in the garden and carry our way through and see this is what God is doing. This is what God will accomplish in the world. He will place His presence with His people for His praise.
That's what our lives should be aimed toward. That's what our lives should be conformed to. This should be our definition of success. It should be our operational definition of success. We should be able to measure our investments in time and treasure and talents against this standard of success. Am I pursuing God's definition of success? God's presence with God's people for God's praise.
And today I want to talk a little bit more about how that actually takes place in the life of a church, how God's presence connects to God's people for God's praise.
6 · The pastor previews the sermon structure—five or six observations from Acts 2—and teases next week's sermon tracing Pentecost's Old Testament roots
Just, just a few observations from this text, and next week we'll go through a wild ride through the Old Testament seeing all of the references to the Pentecost in the Old Testament. And I think you'll enjoy that, so I hope you'll come back next week. But this week let's look at this text and see just 5 or 6 ways that the Lord is using His people and His presence, His Spirit, to bring about His praise.
7 · The pastor identifies the first observation: Acts 2 presents a stark contrast between a small group of 120 believers and multitudes of devout but lost Jews, establishing the recurring biblical pattern of God's people being surrounded by the unredeemed
The first thing that's probably noteworthy is simply this consistent pattern we see here unfolding elsewhere in the Old and New Testament, and that is simply that the church is surrounded by lost people. The church is surrounded by lost people. You see in this text a juxtaposition, a contrast between two groups of people. There's 120 followers of Jesus, and there are multitudes of what the text says are devout Jews in Jerusalem coming from all the nations.
8 · The pastor uses visual imagery—a white dot in a sea of black, a candle in an ocean of darkness—to help the congregation picture the stark numerical and spiritual contrast between believers and unbelievers at Pentecost
So you've got two groups of people, and if you're a visual thinker like I am, you can just imagine this small little white dot in a sea of black, this small little candle in an ocean of darkness. The picture here is of 120 brand new followers of Jesus surrounded by multitudes of people who are not followers of Jesus.
9 · The pastor unpacks the similarities and the critical difference between the two groups: both are devout Jews attempting to obey Scripture, but only the 120 have recognized Jesus as Messiah
Now, there's similarities with both groups. There's a lot of similarities with both groups. They're both Jews. The 120 in the upper room, they're Jews. The thousands and thousands and thousands in Jerusalem. They are Jews. They're both what we would think to be devout, meaning they're both attempting to obey what they believe the Bible has said, that what the Old Testament has told them. 120 have met this man named Jesus, and they have come to believe that he is the Messiah. And the multitude has not met Jesus, has not understood that he is the Messiah.
10 · The pastor makes the jarring theological claim that the multitudes surrounding the early church were morally good yet spiritually damned—a provocative formulation designed to unsettle the congregation's assumptions about goodness and salvation
So this first picture we see is of a tiny little church surrounded by a sea of people who are good people but damned people. They're good damned people.
11 · The pastor applies the theological claim directly to the congregation's lives, forcing them to acknowledge that their neighbors may be morally superior to them in observable ways
Friends, that's just the way life is. Do you understand that— I think you probably understand this point— that there are many people that surround your home that are probably better people than you? Right? I mean, do you understand that? I mean, it's just this thing. There are people living nearby who are kinder than you are. There are people living nearby who have better marriages than you have. There are people living nearby who are better at their jobs than you are. Right?
12 · The pastor heightens the application's emotional intensity by naming specific virtues their neighbors possess in greater measure, then delivers the sharp conclusion: without Christ, all these virtuous people are hell-bound
Do you understand that there are people living nearby who are just nicer and more patient and more level-headed than you are. And do you understand that all of those people, if they've not bent the knee to Jesus, if they've not been redeemed by the gospel, that all of those people are going to hell?
13 · The pastor draws attention to the theological tension in the text: the very people destined for hell are described as devout, and Peter will soon accuse them of killing Jesus, intensifying the paradox of religious devotion coexisting with damnation
Do you understand that in this moment— I love the tension created in this passage when it tells us that this sea of people The sea of people who are going to hell are devout. Right? The sea of people who are going to hell are devout. Later on, Peter says, 'You killed Jesus. You rejected Jesus. You missed Jesus.'
14 · The pastor reiterates the provocative formulation—damned good people—to cement the paradox in the congregation's minds and press the urgency of the gospel despite moral respectability
So you have this tension between extraordinarily nice people who are extraordinarily damned. They're damned good people.
15 · The pastor breaks the exposition to address the congregation directly, calling for an emotional response of compassion stirred by the reality of their neighbors' lostness
Friends, that should stir our hearts.
16 · The pastor applies the Acts 2 pattern to the present moment, insisting that the congregation's immediate neighborhood mirrors Pentecost—they are surrounded by morally superior but spiritually lost people
The simple fact of the matter is, is that this morning as we gather in this church, we are surrounded by homes full of people who would outshine us in all sorts of ways. They may indeed be, in the raw material of personality, better people, right? But they're lost.
17 · The pastor cites Peter's later declaration of exclusive salvation through Jesus to reinforce that religious devotion and moral goodness cannot save apart from Christ
Later on in Acts chapter 4, Peter says to some more of these good people, 'There is no name, no other name under heaven by which men may be saved.'
18 · The pastor generalizes the pattern seen at Pentecost into a recurring biblical theme: God's people are distinguished not by moral superiority or intellectual achievement but by their salvation and knowledge of Christ
So this is this moment that is repeated over and over again in Scripture where God's people are surrounded by not God's people, right? And God's people are not necessarily better. God's people don't necessarily have everything figured out. God's people are saved. God's people have been introduced to the truth about Jesus Christ, and they're living a life based on grace.
19 · The pastor articulates the expected response to living surrounded by the lost: a heart stirred with compassion that desires the salvation of unbelievers, explicitly ruling out any merit-based pride
And as they live this surrounded life, not because they're special in any kind of way that they can boast in their own merit, but as they live in this sort of surrounded environment, their heart is stirred by for those who don't know Jesus, and they want those who don't know Jesus to know Jesus.
20 · The pastor makes a diagnostic theological claim: lack of compassion for the hell-bound is not a personality difference but a spiritual pathology—evidence of broken spirituality requiring pastoral intervention
As I said last week, it is abnormal, it's anti-natural to not be stirred by hell, to not be stirred with compassion for those who are going there. It is a symptom— let me play doctor for a minute— this is a symptom of a broken heart, a non-functioning spirituality that doesn't feel compassion for those who are going in hell. This is a symptom of a spiritual disease.
21 · The pastor returns to the text's visual picture and connects it typologically to Jesus Himself, who embodied the same surrounded-by-lostness pattern and responded with compassion even toward His persecutors
And so you have these 120 people surrounded by this sea of lostness. That's the first thing we see here. We know that Jesus is moved by this. We know that this is a very picture of Jesus Who came into a world of brokenness, who came in as the sole light into a world of darkness and was repeatedly moved to compassion even for those who persecuted Him.
22 · The pastor applies the first observation with force, insisting that awareness of the lost surrounding the church should produce emotional disturbance—particularly for those who've never encountered a gospel-saturated community
The church is surrounded by the lost, and that ought to bother you. That ought to bother you that there are so many people today in this neighborhood who don't know Christ. That ought to bother you that there are so many people who haven't even had the chance to reject the clear gospel of Jesus Christ because they've never been in a gospel family before. They've never seen it. They've never seen it.
23 · The pastor signals the second major observation: the Holy Spirit's internal work in the church naturally overflows into external witness
Second point: that which is inward flows outward. That which is inward flows outward.
24 · The pastor articulates the principle that internal realities inevitably manifest externally, grounding it in Jesus' teaching about the heart's overflow into speech
What we see here is something happening inside the body that flows to the outside of the body. This is just a simple biblical principle. The inward flows to the outward, right? Jesus says in other places that whatever's in your heart will come out eventually out of your mouth, right? Whether that's good stuff or bad stuff.
25 · The pastor applies the inward-to-outward principle to Pentecost, defining evangelism as the natural overflow of the Holy Spirit's corporate work within the church rather than a distinct, separate activity
And what we see in this case is a corporate inward thing, a thing that the Spirit is doing in the church that flows to the outside of the church. Evangelism, sharing the gospel with others, is simply the spilling over of the Spirit's work in the body. It is the spilling over of the Spirit's work in the body.
26 · The pastor traces the movement in the text: the believers are engaged in Spirit-empowered internal dialogue that is on the verge of spilling out into public witness
You see that here? They're gathered in prayer, the tongues of fire appear, the wind comes in. Verse 4, 'They're filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.' What's happening right now is this inner internal corporate dialogue. This is a conversation happening in the church. Now that conversation is about to overflow onto the streets.
27 · The pastor makes the critical claim that external witness depends on internal reality—the church cannot give to the world what it does not possess within its own community
Friends, we can't export what we don't have. We can't export what we don't have. What you'll see here is that these believers are speaking to one another with Holy Spirit-enabled speech, and then it overflows onto the streets. It overflows into the streets.
28 · The pastor pivots to direct application, making an uncomfortable assertion: the congregation does not speak to fellow believers with sufficient boldness, setting up the sermon's central challenge
Let me propose this: Do you speak to other believers with boldness? I don't think so. Not enough.
29 · The pastor presses the application further, arguing that failure to pursue fellow believers' souls with bold, intrusive love guarantees failure in external witness
Do you actively communicate and demonstrate concern for the souls of those attend church with? Are you getting up in people's business in a loving, compassionate, Holy Spirit-filled kind of way? Because if that's not happening, then you certainly won't see any overflow outside the church, right?
30 · The pastor intensifies the application, invoking the membership covenant to remind the congregation they have covenanted to pursue one another spiritually, and insisting that internal failure guarantees external failure
If you're not going out of your way to get into the lives of those you go to church with If you're not going out of your way to cross the threshold from small talk into spiritual conversation with those that you go to church with, with those you've promised to do this very thing, by the way, in the membership covenant. If you're not doing this in the body, you most certainly will never find yourself doing this outside the body.
31 · The pastor defends his interpretive move, arguing that he is not stretching the text but merely unfolding its implications: Spirit-empowered speech within the church establishes the pattern for witness to the world
This little pattern we see in this moment, and I'm unfolding it, I don't think I'm stretching it. I think I'm just unfolding the implications of what we see in this moment, is that the Holy Spirit does a work in the church, and that that work involves speaking to one another, and that that speaking to one another becomes the pattern for how they speak to the world.
32 · The pastor uses a personal illustration from his own parenting experience, admitting his fear of addressing difficult personal topics with his adult children despite once having the most intimate access to their lives
So friends, I'm a father of 3 teenagers. Well, not really teenagers, a couple of them are 20, but you know, it's so strange. Like, I used to wipe their rear ends. And now I'm afraid to talk to them about the personal and very important stuff in their life.
33 · The pastor extends the illustration, naming his own specific fear and diagnosing it as cowardice that will inevitably spread to all his other relationships if left unaddressed
But I want to tell you, just like, just, just, just, this is where I'm at. So if I'm afraid to ask my daughter where she is in her physical relationship with her soon-to-be fiancé, if I'm afraid to ask her that then that's simply what? A cowardice that will unfold in my relationship with everyone else.
34 · The pastor adds a second personal example—failure to pray with his wife—as another instance of cowardice that metastasizes into broader relational patterns
Guys, if I'm afraid to pray with my wife, that cowardice will unfold in the rest of my relationships.
35 · The pastor introduces the concept of corporate sin through a conversation with Victor, defining it as a sin so pervasive within a community that its exposure produces collective disturbance
So here's the heart of the matter. Someone asked Victor a couple weeks ago, what do you think a corporate sin is? Chris has said the word corporate sin. What is a corporate sin? And Victor said, It's a sin that a whole group of people don't see until you bring it up and then they freak out.
36 · The pastor names what he believes is the congregation's corporate sin: niceness—a fear of crossing into spiritual conversation that allows brothers and sisters to remain trapped in hidden sin for years without intervention
So what if the corporate sin is niceness? What if the corporate sin is a fear of crossing the threshold from small talk into spirituality? And what if as a result of that you've had people deeply ingrained in hidden sin for years. And what if you didn't pursue them? What if you didn't cross the line? What if you didn't ask the hard questions?
37 · The pastor applies the corporate sin diagnosis to external witness, arguing that failure to pursue believers uninvited guarantees failure to pursue unbelievers
Well, if you didn't do that, that same pattern will be expected to show up in your neighborhood and in your work and elsewhere. If you can't pursue your brothers and sisters even when they don't ask for it, then you most certainly will not pursue those who don't know Christ.
38 · The pastor presents the first hypothetical scenario: a marriage with obvious authority inversion that everyone sees but no one addresses, challenging the congregation to examine whether their silence constitutes love
So, for instance, say you go to some church with someone for years, you've known them for years, and it's evident to everyone in private conversation that in their marriage there's a deep inversion of biblical authority. And you see it, and many of the other brothers and sisters see it, and no one says anything. Do you love them?
39 · The pastor presents the second scenario: chronic unreliability that everyone observes but no one confronts, again questioning whether silence constitutes love
Suppose you go to church with someone for a long time who's just pretty obviously a flake. There's a lot of yes saying and a lot of no doing. And you see this behavioral pattern because you go to church with them for years, and you see this behavioral pattern of flakiness. Do you talk to them? Do you press in? Do you try to help them with that? If not, did you love them?
40 · The pastor presents the third scenario: a chronic pattern of anti-authority attitudes that everyone discusses privately but no one addresses directly with the person, challenging whether private concern without confrontation constitutes genuine love
Suppose you go to church with a guy who's been a regular feature of your church, of your community group for years. And he's pretty obviously got an anti-authority streak that's really showing up repeatedly. There seems to be a lot of talk about his opinion, a lot of talk perhaps about leadership. And when a group of friends that are talking about this guy know, like, this guy, man, like, we love him, but he's got this problem with authority. Did you talk to him about this? Did you seek him out with the power of the Holy Spirit and seek to love him by speaking to him about his sin?
41 · The pastor presents the fourth scenario: parenting failure visible to the community, contrasting private gossip with direct, loving confrontation that points both to sin and to the Savior
Suppose you've got a situation where the children are pretty obviously in charge of a home, and this is your brother and sister in Christ, and you love them, but it's pretty clear the children are in charge. Do you just talk about that when you go home to those that you know won't be upset or offended? Or do you seek out people in their brokenness, press in with steadfast love and boldness, and say, 'I'm seeing this. I know that's not going to feel good for me to point this out. I'm seeing this. I'm also seeing a Savior. Let me talk to you about both. How can I help you?'
42 · The pastor presents the fifth scenario: someone who abandons the church without explanation, questioning whether silence in response to such departure constitutes love and what Spirit-empowered speech would look like
Suppose you go to church with someone for years who thinks it's appropriate, okay, to simply leave church without offering any reason. Do you love them? What does bold, Holy Spirit-filled speech look like in that case?
43 · The pastor reiterates the sermon's controlling logic: internal failure to cross the threshold into difficult spiritual conversation guarantees external failure in witness
Because if we can't learn to cross the threshold from small talk into the deep spiritual things with our own brothers and sisters in Christ, Nothing will be exported out into the world.
44 · The pastor names the core problem: the congregation spends countless hours in trivial conversation with fellow believers while avoiding soul-level engagement because such engagement is inconvenient and potentially messy, and this internal poverty guarantees external barrenness
I just want you to think about this. How many times have you had conversations with your brothers and sisters about entirely non-eternal, mundane things—politics, sports, their home, their vacation plans—and failed to pursue their souls? Failed to speak to them in the deeper places of life? Failed to cross the threshold into difficult conversations because, let's be honest, you just don't love them enough to get messy. It would be entirely inconvenient to your own life to enter into a conversation with someone else in which they may be offended, right? In which they may point out your sin. In which you would have to be open and honest and humble. It's difficult, but whatever is happening in our relationship, in our speech, in our love here is all we can export out there. That's what we have to export.
45 · The pastor makes the controlling theological claim explicit: biblical faithfulness requires learning to initiate uninvited hard conversations with grace and truth, and practicing this skill within the church is the prerequisite for effective witness outside the church
So we must see in this text and in many other texts that there is that faithfulness and fruitfulness involve learning to cross the threshold from small talk to soul talk, learning to initiate a hard conversation. And this is key: learning how to initiate a hard conversation without being invited, and doing so with grace and truth. And if we can't practice that on one another, then we have no capacity to do that in the world.
46 · The pastor signals the third major observation: the Holy Spirit's work within believers often remains opaque until it overflows into external witness
Number 3: Much of the internal work of the Spirit only makes sense when it is shared.
47 · The pastor articulates the principle that the Spirit's internal work often remains mysterious until it overflows into external witness, at which point its purpose becomes clear
Much of the internal work of the Spirit only makes sense when it is shared. So a lot of what the Spirit is doing in your life and what the Spirit is doing in our church will only make sense once it gets out of our life and out of the church and into the streets.
48 · The pastor offers careful exegetical clarification, distinguishing the tongues at Pentecost from the ecstatic prayer languages discussed in 1 Corinthians, citing Sam Storms to support his interpretation
Look with me again at, let's say, verse 4. Acts 2:4, 'And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.' Now, as best as I can understand, these tongues are not the ecstatic languages spoken of in 1 Corinthians 12. I think the authority, the theological authority on a right use of charismatic gifts would say the same thing. Sam Storms, he says these are languages. This isn't the ecstatic kind of worship or prayer language that you may think of that does appear later in Scripture and is endorsed later in Scripture in 1 Corinthians 12, for instance.
49 · The pastor paints the scene: 120 believers spontaneously speaking languages they've never learned, receiving a supernatural missionary gift enabling them to communicate the gospel in the hearers' native tongues
What's happening here is that— now picture this. 120 people in a room, as the Spirit is giving them utterance, they're speaking in other languages. They're speaking in Phoenician. Right? They're speaking in other languages. Do they know these languages? No, they don't know these languages. The whole idea is that they're being given this missionary gift in which they're allowed to communicate the gospel to the world in a language that they understand.
50 · The pastor clarifies the mechanics: the unbelievers are not receiving an interpretation gift; rather, the believers are actually speaking the unbelievers' native languages, which is why they understand
And we see as this progresses that the people who hear these languages, they hear them, they're not believers in Jesus. They're hearing the gospel. So they're not receiving some kind of interpretation gift from the Holy Spirit that allows them to understand just generalized tongues. No, they're hearing their language. That's because the disciples are speaking their language.
51 · The pastor emphasizes the bewildering nature of the Pentecost experience—fire, wind, unknown languages—and notes that the purpose of these phenomena only became clear when they overflowed into public witness
This upper room was 7 layers of weird already. There's a lot of strangeness going on here. There's tons of fire, there's wind. But there's this thing that's happening where the people of God are speaking in other languages. And it's sort of like, what is this? What is this about? What is this for? And only when it spilled over onto the streets did they understand what it was for.
52 · The pastor applies the principle to the congregation's present experience, arguing that many of the confusing or frustrating elements of their lives and church will only make sense when shared with unbelievers
There are so many things in your life that are confusing to you that have a perfectly beautiful explanation when you share it with the world. There are so many inconveniences and obstacles in our church. So many weird things that we're just like, what is going on here? Why is this happening? Why is God doing this? And if we remain hermetically sealed, we'll never know.
53 · The pastor makes a crucial theological claim about divine purpose: God's work in believers' lives is designed not merely for their own benefit but for the blessing of others, and the church cannot fully understand God's work without overflow into the world
Because just as in this case, so much of what God is doing in your life is not about you ultimately. Remember that God loves you, He just doesn't love only you. He will take you through situations in life for the purpose of blessing other people. So that a church doesn't really understand what's happening here without overflow into the world. This stuff doesn't make as clear a sense.
54 · The pastor introduces a personal illustration from his previous church: the conversion of Natalie and Sekou, framing it carefully to emphasize God's work rather than human accomplishment
Last week we had Natalie and Sekou Kelsey here. They're the last people who came to faith in Jesus at my last church, and you heard their story, their testimony. If you were here last week. And if you weren't, it's on Basecamp. We're not gonna post it publicly. I haven't heard back from them about whether they want to do that or not. I want to hear that from them. But you heard this testimony, and I just, I didn't want that testimony to have any smell of being, look what we did. I wanted that testimony to be like, look what Jesus did.
55 · The pastor recounts a conversation during a drive through Iowa where he expressed frustration over the lack of conversions and received the unexpected counsel to fast for seven days
But I remember driving home about a month before I met them Driving home from Minnesota, and I'm looking out at this desolate— in northern Iowa, the desolation that is northern Iowa. It was like the permafrost. Anyway, it's gray and gross, and I'm talking to another guy, and I'm saying, 'I just want to see someone saved. I just want to see someone come to know Jesus. I feel like we're just at this impasse, and I don't know what to do.' And he says, like this is actually what he said, 'You should fast.' I'm like, 'Okay.' It's like, 'You should fast for 7 days.' 'Okay, I'm with you.'
56 · The pastor continues the illustration, describing how he and several others committed to a seven-day corporate fast with nightly conference calls for mutual support and prayer
Why aren't we saying 'we' right now? You know, why is it me? I mean, I think it's, you know, you go to the highest body fat percentage and appoint that person. They're gonna suffer the least. Anyway, so this thing just came out, you know, you should fast. It's like, well, can we fast? Can a bunch of us fast? Like, okay, I'll do it with you. And so a number of us prayed and fasted for 7 days and would get together every night on a conference call and we would talk about how our day went and so on and so forth. We would pray together and then the next day and the next day and the next day.
57 · The pastor reveals the climax of the illustration: only last week did he realize that the corporate fast preceded his meeting Natalie and Sekou by less than a month, connecting the internal spiritual discipline to the external fruit of conversion
Totally corporate ministry, totally corporate prayer, totally totally connected in that purpose. I didn't understand until last week that that preceded the conversion of Sekou by less than a month. I— or not the conversion, but our meeting them by less than a month. I did not connect those things until last week, that this period of corporate prayer and fasting God used in whatever way that God uses our efforts God used to lead these two people to Jesus.
58 · The pastor applies the illustration to the congregation, arguing that much of God's confusing work in their lives will only come into focus when they engage with unbelievers
So only when the things that are happening inside flow outside do we really have perspective and clarity about what's going on. There are many things that God's doing in your life that will fall into perfect perspective, or at least much more perspective, once you start living life amongst those who don't know Jesus, for, with those who don't know Jesus.
59 · The pastor introduces the Fall Fiesta event as a practical embodiment of the inside-overflowing-outside principle, describing the party atmosphere and activities planned
You know, this idea of what's happening inside overflowing into what's happening outside is sort of behind what we're doing with the Fall Fiesta coming up next month on October 20th. This is something that Ange and Victor did 2 years ago at our church in Belleville, and it was this great, beautiful kind of block party feel. You know, we have all sorts of cool things are going to happen. We've got the— we've got a big meal planned, we've got the bouncy house, we've got a movie showing, we've got, you know, games and piñatas and face painting and so on and so forth.
60 · The pastor explains the theological purpose of the Fall Fiesta: to allow the church's internal reality—joy, peace, shalom, celebration—to overflow visibly into the neighborhood
And it's really just this effort to let what's actually happening on the inside of our church overflow to the outside, because the quintessential central nugget of what's happening on the inside of us is fiesta. It is joy. It's a celebration. And we've got so many obstacles to overcome and so many sins to repent of, but when you boil it all down and you look at the basic central nugget of the whole thing, it's shalom. It's joy, peace, rest, togetherness, unity, encouragement, and we want that to flow on the outside.
61 · The pastor makes the provocative theological claim that throwing parties is one of the most biblical activities a church can engage in, arguing that the church should excel at celebration and hospitality
And so this is just one of those examples, one of those opportunities where you can say, you know, let's as a church get together and let's just throw a party. That seems to be one of the most biblical things you can do, is throw a party with your church. I'm actually being quite serious. One of the most biblical things a church can do is throw a party. And we should be good at it. We should get used to it. We should do it so frequently that we've just got the administrative pieces down. We should be good at throwing parties and inviting the world in.
62 · The pastor issues a concrete call to participation in the Fall Fiesta, emphasizing the need for full congregational involvement and making the case that excellent celebration is essential gospel witness
So October 20th, we're going to do that very thing. We're going to have this party in the parking lot, and we're doing our best to invite everyone in the neighborhood through social media, and we'll be doing direct mail this week. We would— we need everybody here to be there. We need all hands on deck, especially if you speak Spanish. But if you don't, you'll be fine. It's not like— it's not like they're only going to be Spanish-speaking people there. We anticipate there will be some. We want to get together and just have a good day celebrating God's goodness to us in full view of the neighborhood that the Lord has placed us in. So there's a sign-up sheet in the back. There's a base camp where this— a lot of this is being planned out. You'll hear more about it every week, but please hear what I just said. October 20th, we need you there. There's a million things to do. We want to do a good party, not a lame party. We've all been to lame parties. We don't— that doesn't show the gospel. Lame parties don't show Jesus. Good parties show Jesus. So, so please help us throw a good party, a good fall Fiesta.
63 · The pastor signals the fourth major observation: authentic Spirit-empowered witness should produce confusion among observers
Point number 4: if the world isn't confused, we're not doing it right.
64 · The pastor reads the text showing the crowd's bewilderment at hearing their own languages spoken, establishing confusion as a normal response to the Spirit's work
Verse 5: now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at the sound, the multitude came together, and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.
65 · The pastor liberates the congregation from perfectionism in gospel communication, insisting that God designed different communication styles and that clarity is not a prerequisite for faithfulness
I think don't let the lack of clarity in your communication— some of you are better speakers than others, some of you are better communicators than others, some of you it's a very long trip through the woods to get to the point, and others it's quick. God made you that way. Stop worrying about it. Seriously, stop worrying about being the most clear communicator of the gospel in the history of the world.
66 · The pastor uses Sekou and Natalie's testimony as an illustration of faithful but imperfect gospel communication, normalizing theological imprecision in new believers' witness
Last week when we had Sekou and Natalie share, they're new Christians. There are going to be multiple places in their understanding of things that will need to be adjusted theologically over time. There's not a ton of absolute clarity in many of the ways that they share the gospel with their neighbors and with their friends. It's okay. It's okay.
67 · The pastor makes the provocative claim that confusion among hearers is not a sign of failure but a sign of success, because God's work transcends human comprehension
If people aren't confused, you're not doing it right. Because what God is doing is so far deeper and more above what our brains can conceive that confusion is often a great sign that God is at work.
68 · The pastor applies the principle directly, giving permission to share the gospel even if the communication is bumbling or the witness's life contains obvious hypocrisies, because confusion is the natural response of the unregenerate mind
If you have to bumble through your testimony, or even if you have these glaring hypocrisies in your life, It's okay. It's okay. Tell people about Jesus. Tell people about what He's done for you. Yes, you will probably not— you will probably be confusing. They will probably be confused. The Bible says that the natural mind cannot comprehend the things of God.
69 · The pastor uses the analogy of band practice with the windows open to describe how the Spirit's work at Pentecost accidentally overflowed into public view, producing confusion because it defied categorization
In this particular case, these believers are accidentally, quite accidentally, making such a show of it The speech is overflowing onto the streets. It's sort of like band practice, you know, with the windows open. And everybody's hearing it, but they're just entirely confused because it doesn't fit a neat category.
70 · The pastor applies the principle to the congregation's witness, arguing that when unbelievers encounter authentic Christian community, their stereotypes should be shattered, creating confusion that opens space for the gospel to enter
You know, so often as we've invited people into our lives who are not followers of Jesus, the whole thing confuses them. The whole thing just confuses them. They look and they have all of these stereotypes and expectations. Expectations, and then they live with us for a week or two. It's like, man, he doesn't fit a lot of the expectations I thought he would have, and his wife's even more outside the box. The stereotypes get broken, and in that confusion, the truth of the gospel can enter. We're supposed to be confusing people to the world. The world's supposed to scratch their heads at us. If it all makes sense, it ain't God.
71 · The pastor reiterates the fourth observation as a memorable slogan, cementing the principle that confusion is a sign of faithful witness
So if you're not confusing them, you're not doing it right. That's number 4.
72 · The pastor signals the fifth major observation: faithful witness inevitably produces criticism and misunderstanding
Number 5: if you aren't being criticized and misunderstood, you're not doing it right.
73 · The pastor reads the text showing that the crowd's response to Pentecost included both perplexity and mockery, establishing that criticism and misunderstanding accompany genuine Spirit-empowered witness
Verse 12: And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? But others mocked and said, they are filled with new wine.
74 · The pastor makes the claim that criticism and misunderstanding are inevitable in faithful gospel witness and pastoral ministry, insisting that these responses are not evidence of failure but of faithfulness
If you're not being misunderstood, criticized, you're not doing it right. You're so fearful of sharing the gospel with someone or even, friends, just openly talking to another believer about their sin. Let me tell you something, I do that for a living. You're going to get misunderstood and you're going to get criticized. Like, that's just part of the deal. But neither of those things are evidences of failure.
75 · The pastor makes a crucial theological distinction: human failure and losing are compatible with divine success, but fatalism and laziness are not—calling the congregation to faithful effort regardless of visible results
And I just want to say one thing just as an aside. You know, failure as you know it is entirely compatible with God's definition of success. Failure as you know it is entirely compatible with God's definition of success. Fatalism is not. Losing, let me say it another way with more alliteration, losing, losing, is entirely compatible with God's definition of winning. Laziness is not.
76 · The pastor reiterates that confusion and criticism are positive signs of God's work, pointing to the biblical pattern of Jesus Himself being criticized and suggesting that similar responses to believers' witness indicate they are on the right track
So it's okay to be confused. It's okay to be criticized. In fact, those are good evidences that God is at work. The confusion that is spun off from God working is all over the Bible, right? And the criticism of Jesus appearing, people criticizing Jesus, maybe I'm on to something. If people are confused and critical, maybe I'm on to something.
77 · The pastor signals the sixth and final major observation with emphatic repetition: every believer must become a prophet
Number 6, you must, you must, you must become a prophet.
78 · The pastor reads Peter's sermon at Pentecost, focusing on Peter's citation of Joel's prophecy that God would pour out His Spirit on all flesh, resulting in universal prophetic speech—sons, daughters, young, old, male servants, female servants
Look at verse 14. But Peter, standing with the 11, lifted up his voice and addressed them, Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and my female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
79 · The pastor continues reading Peter's citation of Joel, teasing next week's sermon on Old Testament connections while completing the quotation's cosmic imagery and climactic salvation promise
There's a really cool Old Testament connection I'm not going to get to this week. Come back next week. They shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and the vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
80 · The pastor summarizes Peter's argument: God's plan to liberate the earth from sin's fruitlessness involves releasing His Spirit on all His people, turning them all into prophets who speak God-honoring words even when those words are weird or misunderstood
So Peter is saying that it was God's intention to liberate the earth from its, its sin-induced fruitlessness, to liberate the earth by releasing His Spirit on His people, and that His people would pour forth God-honoring speech— sometimes weird, sometimes misunderstood— pour forth God-honoring speech. And that this moment in which the Holy Spirit is given to all believers through this 121st is the outflow of God's plan to turn all His people into prophets.
81 · The pastor steps outside the exposition to address those who feel least equipped for prophetic boldness, making the pastoral claim that their very discomfort qualifies them as ideal prophets
Now, I want to say one thing. I think this probably goes without saying. If you are saying today, 'Gosh, that's the one thing I'm not, Chris. That's the one thing I'm not. Like, I'm not a prophet. I'm not okay being initiating in that way. I'm not okay being direct.' I'm just not a prophet. Let me tell you something. Please, please believe me. You're going to make the best prophet.
82 · The pastor continues the pastoral aside, contrasting those naturally drawn to prophetic boldness (who will make the worst prophets) with those who feel unqualified (who will make the best prophets), urging the latter to step into their weakness
Because there's some people here who are like, that's right! We need more prophets! You're going to be the worst prophets. Those of you who are saying, that's just not me. Like, to be that direct and bold and be willing to be misunderstood and to initiate and to step into people's lives. People's situations and to just be willing to be weird. That's not me, friends. Let me just tell you something. Please, please, please try. There will be so much fruit from you stepping into this weakness. You'll make the very best prophets.
83 · The pastor defines what it means to be a prophet: willingness to be misunderstood, boldness, emotional vulnerability, compassion, intercession, cultural alienation, persecution—and notes that God uses such voices powerfully in cultures addicted to niceness
Being a prophet means being willing to be misunderstood. It means being bold. It means wearing your heart on your sleeve. It means bleeding with compassion, aching in intercession. It means being misunderstood in your culture. It means being persecuted. And God uses the prophetic voice to such great effect. Especially when a culture is drunk on niceness.
84 · The pastor makes a cultural diagnosis using the metaphor of literal chemical intoxication in the water supply, arguing that American culture is so addicted to emotional comfort that it is spiritually inebriated
And we are drunk on niceness. Did you know that we can go to the water supplies around the United States and we can do samples and we can find all sorts of antidepressants and all sorts of anti-anxiety drugs in the water supply? They're that pervasive that they're actually, you know, before filtration, actually in the water supply. Friends, our culture is drunk, it is inebriated, it is high on feeling okay.
85 · The pastor applies the cultural diagnosis sharply: continued niceness without prophetic truth-telling is enabling the culture's addiction, serving the believer's comfort rather than the neighbor's salvation
And we've got to speak as prophets to a world drunk on niceness. And you, friends, you Being merely nice to your neighbors one more year is like handing a drug addict on the street a $20 bill. You're not helping them. You're helping you. You're helping you feel better. You're helping you move along to the next thing.
86 · The pastor issues a direct call to prophetic ministry, assuring those most afraid that they will excel precisely because they lack the personality-driven sinful motives that plague naturally bold people like himself
Please understand it is God's will with God's Spirit that He do a work in you that overflows flows in prophetic love, prophetic boldness, prophetic authority. And that those of you who are the most scared to death of what I'm saying right now, you will be great at this. You'll be great at this. Because there's not all the personality junk that's in the way that someone like me has to contend with. Where a decent portion of it is always sin.
87 · The pastor introduces Paul's statement that all who desire godliness will be persecuted, then exposes the common interpretive move of watering down 'persecuted' to include minor social discomfort in order to feel like the verse applies
I wonder if you've ever thought— Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:10, he says, well, in verse 12 rather, he says, 'All who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted.' And I wonder if you've ever read that and you've thought, I don't think I'm persecuted. And maybe, if you've done like I've done, in order to feel good about yourself, you've really, really, really, really watered down the definition of persecuted. So you'd be like, well, there was that one person who didn't like me for a month. Got some serious shade from that.
88 · The pastor makes a sharp diagnostic claim: if you're not experiencing persecution, the problem is not that 'persecution' needs a weaker definition—the problem is you may not be living a godly life
I don't think the solution to that verse is to water down the word persecuted. I think the solution is to be open to questioning whether or not I'm living a godly life.
89 · The pastor unpacks the context of Paul's statement, showing that Paul defines 'godly life' by his own missionary life—teaching, conduct, aim, faith, patience, love, steadfastness, and the persecutions that resulted from his mission in specific cities
Paul gives definition of what he means by godly life in the verses that preceded. In verse 10, he says, you, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life. What's Paul's aim in life? My faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, which persecutions I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
90 · The pastor makes the critical interpretive claim: for Paul, 'godly life' is not cultural conservatism but missional engagement—telling devout religious people they are hell-bound without Jesus, which is what produces persecution
As Paul is using the term godly life as shorthand for for a life on mission, for a life in which he is following Jesus into the world. He's getting persecuted in Antioch and Iconium and Lystra, not because he homeschooled his kids and voted Republican, but because he's telling these devout people that they're going to hell. Without Jesus.
91 · The pastor synthesizes the exegetical work into a clear theological proposition: godly life equals missional life—pursuing others for God's praise by applying the gospel both inside the church and outside, which inevitably produces persecution
He, for Paul, which I think we should listen to him, he's an apostle, you know, for Paul, godly life is synonymous with a missional life. A life spent pursuing others for the praise of God, applying the gospel both inwardly and outwardly. That life is a godly life, and that life will lead to persecution—prophetic persecution.
92 · The pastor reduces the proposition to a memorable slogan with childlike simplicity: no evangelism, no godly; no mission, no godly; no pressing out, no godly—then repeats Paul's statement as the confirming authority
Not doing those things, no doing those things, no godly. No godly. No evangelism, no godly. No mission, no godly. No pressing out, no godly. But all who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted.
93 · The pastor makes a corporate diagnostic claim: the universal church lacks prophetic boldness, not just this local congregation but the church everywhere
As a whole, not just here but everywhere, the people of God are lacking a prophetic edge to their life.
94 · The pastor issues a humorous dismissal to those who naturally agree with his call for prophetic boldness, signaling they are not his primary audience and need to rest rather than act
And I want to end by by saying those of you who think amen, you just go home and take a nap. Those of you that like totally agree with me right now, just, okay, thank you. Go home and take a nap.
95 · The pastor models the prophetic speech he is calling for, scripting out exactly what it sounds like for a conflict-averse believer to confess years of false niceness and begin speaking hard truth with love—naming the self-protective motives and repenting of kingdom-building in place of God's kingdom
Those of you who are scared to death of this, my goodness, you don't understand the extraordinary potential that is locked up inside those fears. Because when you, oh kind-hearted soul, decide that you're gonna trust the Holy Spirit and you're gonna step into what feels like thin air and say, you're I love you, but you need Jesus. And I'm sorry for being too nice to you for years because I wasn't loving you. I wasn't. I was loving myself. I was loving this little life I've created for myself, knowing that if I started talking to people about their sin, it would be like opening all the doors to my house and letting all of the chaos in. And I was busy creating my own kingdom rather than living for the kingdom of God. And so I'm sorry. I want to say some hard things to you, but I hope you know that all those years I was nice to you is because I do love you. I thought I was loving you, and I'm trying to love you now.
96 · The pastor closes with a doxological vision of what happens when the Holy Spirit empowers naturally kind people with prophetic boldness—amazing things happen—then transitions to closing prayer
My goodness, when God in His Spirit empowers not the natural-born jerks like me, but the nice people. When he empowers the nice people with boldness, amazing things happen. Let me pray.