Earth, Wind, Fire

Acts 2:1-6 September 2, 2018 Pastor Chris Oswald

Audio coming soon

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Thesis God's presence with God's people producing God's praise is the only biblical definition of success, and true fruitfulness is impossible without first experiencing Christ's Passover freedom from slavery to sin.

Series

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Type

Expository

Tone

didacticpropheticpastoral

Method

redemptive-historicalcanonicalgrammatical-historical

What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

42 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Pastoral correction · unit #14

"Applies the basketball illustration: without God's definition you can be completely convinced you're winning while being completely wrong. Stakes the exclusive claim that Acts 2's definition is the only way to live."

Doctrinal loci· 14 surfaced

Sanctification · 10 Hamartiology · 8 Soteriology · 8 Theology Proper · 6 Christology · 5 Doxology / Worship · 4 Pneumatology · 4 Providence / Sovereignty · 4 Anthropology · 3 Bibliology · 3 Ethics / Moral Theology · 3 Covenant Theology · 2 Ecclesiology · 2 Eschatology · 2

Bible citations· 14

Illustrations· 5

The GPS Killer personal story · unit #11 — Illustrates the danger of living without a fixed definition of success through the dark analogy of a GPS killer — external forces hijack your direction when you lack internal clarity.
Running the Wrong Direction personal story · unit #13 — Illustrates through personal humiliation the danger of thinking you're winning when you're actually running the wrong direction — conviction can feel like affirmation when you have the wrong definition of success.
The Fragility of Self-Glory personal story · unit #26 — Illustrates fragility through the fading of beauty and strength — whatever you build your self-glory on inevitably passes away.
The Physical Poverty We All Face analogy · unit #27 — Extends the fragility illustration to the universal reality of physical decline — we are all headed to a poverty of choices where bodies fail us.
The Unprepared Heart and Early Freedom personal story · unit #37 — Illustrates through the common experience of young adults that freedom without heart-change leads to straying — you weren't prepared for freedom because your heart was still enslaved to sin.

Theological claims· 9

God is not redefining but fulfilling the meaning of the Old Testament festivals through the gospel: Passover brings a new kind of freedom, Firstfruits reveals Christ as the first of the resurrected harvest, and Pentecost declares a new kind of fruitfulness. unit #3
God's definition of success is God's presence with God's people producing God's praise — both inward worship and outward evangelistic overflow. unit #16
Because the God who seeks His own glory created a world thick with pleasure, danger, and beauty, seeking God's glory produces a full life, not an austere one. unit #24
Seeking God's glory is the antidote to austerity; seeking your own glory produces fragility because your success depends on uncontrollable external factors. unit #25
Because Passover precedes Pentecost historically, freedom always comes before fruitfulness theologically — you cannot be fruitful unless you are first freed from the enslaving power of sin. unit #32
Jesus is a better Passover Lamb providing a better freedom from a far worse slavery — the original Passover removed Israel from external slavery but could not remove slavery from the heart, which Christ's Passover accomplishes. unit #35
Christ's Passover shifts freedom from political/physical to spiritual, solving the wandering and squandering heart problem that has always prevented true fruitfulness. unit #36
Sin turns privileges and pleasures into prisons — true fruitfulness is impossible unless God first frees us from sin. unit #38
Self-control comes from Jesus doing a work in our hearts that frees us from slavery to sin — it comes from the new and better Passover. unit #40

Read it

Full transcript

34,177 characters 42 units ~38 min reading time

0 · Opens with cultural humor about the sermon title to create rapport and signal the sermon's three-part structure (earth, wind, fire) drawn from the text itself

You know, just about every week after I preach, Sharena will ping me on Basecamp and ask, "What's the title for this sermon?" And I always think, "Ah, who cares? Just make something up, Sharena. Come on. Quit bothering me." No, I don't think that. Well, this week, boy, I read the text and I thought, "Well, I've got the title right away." And the title, Sharena, you might want to write this down now. Is Earth, Wind Fire. Earth, Wind Fire. Okay, so if you're my age or older, you know that that's not just a great sermon title name. That's the name of a great band in the '70s who had the best jumpsuits, the best male jumpsuits of any performers in the '70s. And they actually wrote a song about September. So you can go back and check out the Earth, Wind Fire catalog on YouTube or the streaming facility of your choice.

1 · Reads Acts 2:1-5 aloud and invites the congregation to identify the wind and fire elements explicitly present in the text

But I said Earth, Wind Fire before we read the text because now as I read the text, I want you to see if you see why this makes such a great title. All right, beginning in verse 1: 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.

2 · Explains that the 'earth' element is implicit in Pentecost's identity as a harvest festival — a celebration of agricultural fruitfulness

All right, so I think you see the wind, right, in verse 2, and I think you see the fire in verse 3. Where's the earth? Well, the earth is found in verse 1. Pentecost was the Jewish festival of harvest. It was the Jewish festival celebrating the fruitfulness of God's blessing in their agricultural world It's their Thanksgiving, right? So that's where the earth is. The earth is in verse 1. It's a reference— Pentecost is a reference to bounty and fruitfulness.

3 · Establishes the sermon's controlling redemptive-historical framework: God is fulfilling the OT festal calendar through Christ — Passover fulfilled in Christ's death (new freedom), Firstfruits in Christ's resurrection, Pentecost in the Spirit's coming (new fruitfulness)

Now, this is a significant detail. Luke wants us to see that all of God's gospel work through Jesus is happening on these key festivals, these key feasts. And I want us to see today that there is a unique thing that God's doing through the gospel as he repopulates the Passover category with a new kind of freedom and repopulates the Pentecost category with a new kind of fruitfulness. All right, so that's where we're going to be headed this morning, is to see how God has moved through these festivals which he set up. We're going to look back and understand what's going on in the Old Testament I'm going to move through this, see how God is using those Old Testament festivals to declare a new kind of freedom, a new kind of fruitfulness. Now, if you want to, you can turn to Leviticus 23. You don't need to. I'm not actually going to read from this, but it's actually quite interesting just to see it laid out before you. In Leviticus 23, this is where God's prescribing the festal calendar, and he begins by prescribing, ordering that the Sabbath be observed, right, every week. The next festival He prescribes is the Passover Festival. And we'll talk a lot about Passover this morning, so I'll move past that for a moment. Just realize that Christ died on Passover, right? You know that. And so there's God revisiting what Passover means. With the Gospel, and I would say, I don't even like redefining as the way to describe this, I would say fulfilling, bringing into its fullness, the full meaning of Passover is realized through Christ. Well, Jesus is resurrected on the next Feast you will see in Leviticus 23, which is the Feast of the Firstfruits. This is the Sunday after Passover, and you would go out into your fields and you would pick whatever is there, there would be some initial firstfruits from your fields, You would pick that and you would dedicate that to God. Now, the Bible makes it really clear, for instance, 1 Corinthians 15 and other texts, that Jesus's resurrection, his bodily resurrection, is the first fruit of God's harvest, right? He's the first fruit from the dead. So Jesus is resurrected on the Feast of the First Fruits and appears before God as that final, uh, form of God's work in the world. Jesus is the first harvest of what will become many sons and daughters physically resurrected to stand before Him in glory. So God's revisiting Passover and He's showing us a new kind of freedom. God's revisiting— I don't have good language for this piece of it. God's filling in the Feast of the Firstfruits with Christ. Christ is the firstfruit from the dead. And now we get to Pentecost, 50 days after Passover. So if you like to think through things chronologically, you can think about that Jesus, after He was raised, spent 40 days amongst His disciples. And then the disciples, after He was ascended, have spent 10 days gathered together in prayer. That's what Acts 2:1 is telling us. Acts 2:1 is saying that the day of Pentecost has arrived. And Pentecost was a feast, was a celebration of fruitfulness.

4 · Signals the sermon's practical destination (a biblical definition of success), equates fruitfulness with success, and previews the two-part structure

So this is going to be at least a two-parter, but at the end of this, we're going to actually be able to have a biblical definition of success, right? A biblical definition of success. Fruitfulness and success in the scriptures are synonymous. You can find passages where both are actually cited in the same passage. As synonymous. So we don't use the word fruitfulness often in the way that I'll be talking about it. So if it helps you, you can think about success, but the idea is the same. Fruitfulness and success, same thing in the scriptures. And before we're done today, and we'll also do this again next week, we will have a biblical definition of success. We will have a working biblical definition of success.

5 · Presents the second evidence that Acts 2 is about fruitfulness: Peter's quotation of Joel 2:28-29 appears at the climax of Joel's restoration narrative — a movement from wasteland desolation to green fruitfulness through God's rain and Spirit

Now, before I do that, I think I should at least kind of prove to you that this passage that you've heard so often is actually mostly about fruitfulness because you've probably not heard that before. So it seems self-evident to me, and so I didn't even think about this until this morning. And I thought, you know, it seems self-evident to me. I've been studying it for 2 weeks. Let me take a moment just to kind of walk you through some of the evidences that are in this text to show that this indeed, Acts 2, is indeed a passage about fruitfulness, a passage about success. So the first evidence is what I've just discussed, that this is taking place by God's perfect providence on the Harvest Festival, right? So that's the first evidence that this passage is about fruitfulness, is that it's taking place in God's timing on the Harvest Festival. The next one I would just point you to, and we'll get to this passage, this verse later, a few weeks from now. Verse 17, Peter begins to discuss Joel, the book of Joel, the Old Testament book of Joel, chapter 2, and I think he goes 28 and 29. That's God pouring out His Spirit on the people, and the men and the women receiving utterance from, prophetic utterance from God. From the Lord, receiving dreams and visions from the Lord. Well, the whole context of Joel, if you start verse 1, chapter 1, and read all the way up to where Peter goes, the whole context of Joel is that a horrible famine has settled in on God's people. And he describes this famine, God does in Joel, as something that has been both self-inflicted and not self-inflicted, inflicted by by external enemies. So that he talks about the locusts coming and devouring everything, and there's this whole picture of a wasteland, of God's land as a wasteland. I think it's in earlier, I think maybe verse 17 or so in Joel 2, it gets to the point where the land is so barren because of their sin and because of the enemy's pillaging of the land. That there's that famous refrain that appears all over Scripture, which is they say, why will the nations say, where is your God? You know, look at this wasteland, look at this devastation. Why would the nations say, where is your God? Well, as you progress through Joel, God then says, you know, pray, humble yourselves, repent, and pray for God to restore your land. And then as you progress a little bit further, God says, I will send the rain. I will send the former rains and the latter rains. And He begins to describe this desert place made desolate by sin, made into something beautiful and green and fruitful through God's work. That whole process is leading up to what Peter describes in Acts 2:17, when he references Joel 2:28-29, he's referencing the climax of God's restoration from desolation into fruitfulness. So that's another evidence that this passage is about fruitfulness.

6 · Presents the third evidence that Acts 2 is about fruitfulness: the Spirit enables understanding across languages, reversing Babel's curse of futility and restoring fruitfulness

The third one would be that there's an undoing of Babel that occurs in Acts 2. Maybe you've seen that, maybe you haven't. We got to the very edge of that idea in verse 4 of chapter 2. And that's simply the idea that through the gospel, God will undo the confusion of languages which He inflicted on the world in the book of Genesis at the Tower of Babel. Now, why did God do that at that time? Why did God divide the languages? Why did He confuse the languages? Well, He did that as a judgment and a discipline to create futility. Right? If you actually go back and read that text, you'll see that the reason he did that was to frustrate their progress. It's a revisiting of the garden curse, which is to work the ground in futility. And so he frustrates and separates and divides them because they can accomplish less that way, less evil. So this reunion of Babel, the revisiting of Babel, is actually God bringing fruitfulness through the Gospel back into the world. And my goodness, if you know history, it's happened. The last 2,000 years have been spectacular when it comes to fruitfulness compared to the thousands of years previous to it. Really, truly. So there's another evidence that this passage is about fruitfulness.

7 · Presents the fourth evidence: Acts 2 is the fulfillment of the Genesis creation mandate (rule, subdue, be fruitful, multiply) through the new Adam and His bride making disciples

And finally, I think we've talked about this quite a bit, you're probably tired of me hearing about, or tired of me talking about it, But we do remember all the way back at the beginning of the Bible, when God issues commands, they don't go away, they're always fulfilled, and they're always fulfilled in Jesus. Well, God's original command to man, right, was to rule and subdue the earth and be fruitful and multiply. And I think we've shown repeatedly throughout the years, last year or so, that the fulfillment of that is Jesus as the new and perfect Adam, and His bride the new and perfect being perfected Eve. And the way that they're ruling and subduing and being fruitful and multiplying is how? By going into the world and making disciples. That's the final vision of God's original command to rule and subdue and fill the earth. So there are multiple layers and multiple reasons why I think that Acts 2 is God's way of saying, hey, I want you to see what success looks like. I want you to see my vision for fruitfulness.

8 · Signals the shift from exposition to application by introducing questions designed to establish the urgency of having a correct definition of success

Now, before I go on to give you a very clear definition of fruitfulness in this text, I just want to ask you a couple questions. I hope you'll realize how pivotal this issue is, this, this definition of success.

9 · Confronts the congregation with the reality that wherever they get their definition of success is their functional god — pressing the idolatry issue inherent in wrong definitions of success

The first one is this: we all get our definition of success from somewhere. We all get our definition of success from somewhere. Where do you get yours? Now, that's kind of a, you know, a bit of an easy— difficult question to answer, but you may not be able to answer it at this moment, but this one you can. Do you think that it wouldn't be too far of a stretch for me to say that the place you go to get your definition of success is your functional god. Do you think that's a stretch? Do you think that's just preacher talk there, or do you think that's probably legit? That the place you go to get your definition of success is your functional god. I don't think that's hyperbole. I think that's pretty, pretty accurate. So if you go to yourself for your definition of success, I think that's your functional god. If you go to the crowd, a particular crowd, I think that's your functional god. We are always in danger of outsourcing our definition of success to some lesser god.

10 · Presses the danger of having no fixed definition of success or allowing it to shift with circumstances — creates urgency for anchoring to God's definition

Second question: can you understand how dangerous it would be, or it is, to not have a firm definition of success at all? In other words, when I asked, would Where do you go for your definition of success? You may say, "I don't really know if I have one." And that would just be, to me, something that you should think of as, "That's not good." Right? That's not good. It's not good to not have a definition of success. It's definitely not good to spend another breath that God has given you on this life without a clear definition of success. And it's certainly not good for you to allow that definition of success to change like a weather vane depending on the prevailing winds.

11 · Illustrates the danger of living without a fixed definition of success through the dark analogy of a GPS killer — external forces hijack your direction when you lack internal clarity

You know, my kids and I used to invent stories on our long road trips and we would come up with, you know, some, you know, we just write stories in our heads and we talk them through. And we had one called the GPS Killer. And this was a guy who was a serial killer and he would hijack people's GPS while they're on road trips and he would send them to his cabin. You know, and then kill them, right? So, good morning! Cheerful thoughts, I know. Well, the GPS killer. I immediately thought of the GPS killer when I thought about this idea of going through life without a definition of success. You know, if you go through life without a clear, tattooable definition of success, then really what you're doing is you're allowing external forces to constantly hijack your sort of your whole inner GPS and drive you and steer you where they want you to go. You know, you've got to have a clear definition of success. We can't just say, well, that's something that maybe will come later.

12 · Presses the logic that the Creator's definition of success is the only one that aligns with reality itself — playing by your own rules cannot produce real winning

Third question, doesn't it make sense to have the same definition of success that the creator of this reality uses? To run the world? Doesn't it make sense to have the same definition of winning that the Creator of this whole thing uses and used to design it and build it and govern it and rule it? You know, you can't win at something by playing by your own created rules.

13 · Illustrates through personal humiliation the danger of thinking you're winning when you're actually running the wrong direction — conviction can feel like affirmation when you have the wrong definition of success

In 7th grade, I was tall, not as tall as Wes, but I was tall for my age. And everybody wanted me to play basketball. And so I kind of fell into the pressure to play basketball. I didn't like basketball. It was not physical enough. And so I did it, but I didn't like it. And I remember I sat on the bench most of the year. And they put me in a game. And I remember going in and getting a rebound and running down the court. I was totally free. Running down the court and just completely unencumbered. I'm not that fast. Well, I am now. I wasn't then. I'm super fast now. But I don't want to lie from the pulpit. So I'm running down the court, and I make the layup and realize that I had done the thing, like the second worst thing next to showing up naked to school. You know, and that is to make a shot in your opponent's— in your own goal. I ran the wrong way and made a layup. That was the one point I scored in basketball, in organized basketball. That was my last game. Everybody agreed that it was a mistake, that I had been unfairly profiled for my height. But you know, running in the wrong direction, I mean, I was fully convinced that that was the right thing. I was sure of it. You know, here's the funny thing. There were a lot of girls that I liked that were cheerleaders on that team. And I could hear them screaming. And I interpreted their screaming as cheers for me. You know? In the moment, like I'm looking at them like, "Hey, Angie, what's—" And I'm like, "I'm winning, right? I'm winning." No, I wasn't winning. They weren't cheering for me. They were yelling at me to turn around and go the other direction.

14 · Applies the basketball illustration: without God's definition you can be completely convinced you're winning while being completely wrong

If you don't have a clear, God-given definition of success, you may think you're doing the right thing, you may think you're headed in the right direction, you may think that the world is in agreement with you, even perhaps that the Bible is in agreement with you, and you could just be dead wrong all around. So this idea of having a clear definition of success is essential, and I believe Acts 2 is a unique passage in some ways, and in some ways not a unique passage. And then it gives us God's clear definition of success. It's the only one that God has. It's the only one you should have, and it's actionable. What do I mean by actionable? You can act on this definition of success. You can pursue this. You can make this your life. You can make this your heartbeat. You can tattoo it on your forehead if you choose. This is absolutely 100% the only way to live. How about that for exclusivism right there? I just said this is absolutely 100% the only way to live.

15 · Re-reads Acts 2:1-5 to set up the extraction of God's definition of success from the text

Now let's look back at that text again, verse 1, Acts 2, and let's see if we can pull this out. 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.

16 · Delivers the sermon's central theological claim by extracting from Acts 2 the three-part definition of success: God's presence with God's people producing God's praise

So here's God's definition of success: God's presence with God's people producing God's praise. God's presence— wind, fire, filled with the Spirit, all signifying God's presence— with God's people. They were all together. The fire rested on each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. God's presence with God's people producing God's praise. Verse 5 continues, now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men of every nation under heaven. And at that, this sound, the multitude came together, and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And this is God's presence in God's people producing God's praise both inwardly and outwardly. The inward praise of the congregation overflows onto the streets, and many come to faith in Jesus.

17 · Presses the exclusive, total, absolute claim that God's presence with God's people producing God's praise is the only definition of winning — the telos of all history

Guys, I really do want you to understand, this is the only definition of winning. This is the only one. This is the point of life. You need to spend your whole life, all your life, seeking this: God's presence, in God's people, producing God's praise. God's presence and God's people producing God's praise. This is the Creator's fully realized version of success. This is where all of history is heading. This is how it's all going to end. This is what winning looks like, and God will win. If you want to be successful, you will seek this and this alone. With all your heart. God's presence in God's people for God's praise.

18 · Offers brief defense of the claim that God's central motivation is His own glory by citing the repeated biblical refrain 'for the sake of my name' and pointing to Piper's full argument

Again, this standard to me seems self-evident. I think if you just went through the scriptures, you could go through list after list of God saying, I will do this, or I will do that for the sake of my name. God's sole motivation, his essential motivation in action, is to bring praise to his name. For all of eternity. And I'm not going to walk you through the first 4 chapters of John Piper's book, Desiring God, to prove that to you. He does a good job of picking every verse you could possibly think of in the Scriptures and laying that out for you. If you need convincing that God's central goal, that God's definition of winning is that He is seeking to produce His praise by putting His presence in His people Read the first few chapters of Desiring God. Don't even have to read the whole book.

19 · Anticipates the objection that God seeking His own glory is vanity and answers: it would be vain if God were not God, which is precisely why we should stop seeking our own glory

So, one thing I will do before we go on is just ask the simple— answer a simple question that often comes up when you realize that that's God's central purpose, that's His definition of winning, that's how He is, that's why He is doing everything that He's doing. Isn't God vain in seeking this? Isn't God vain in seeking His own name to be praised for all of eternity. And I would just say, yes, if God were not God, it would indeed be vain for Him to seek His praise as the end of all things for all of eternity. And that's why you should stop doing that, right?

20 · Exposes the heart issue: we object to God seeking His glory because we want to be God ourselves — our lives are already a glory hunt, just aimed at the wrong object

Most of the time when we listen to the objections we have against the nature of God, we find that we don't have an objection against the action God is taking because we do the very same things. We have an objection to God being God. We want to be God. The truth is, is that most of us, our definition of success is the same as God's, just ending on us and not on God. The truth is that most of us, if we really were pressed to give a definition of how our lives have operated and been guided for the last whatever number of years, the answer has been very similar to God's. We have been seeking for our name to be glorified amongst the people of the world. Our objection to God's action of doing everything for His praise is self-indicting. Because if we were to slow play the tape of your life and ask, now why'd you do that? Now why'd you say that? Why didn't you do this or say this? The truth is, is that it's all been a massive glory hunt. All of it.

21 · Offers pastoral hope: the fact that we're already living for glory means we're structurally close to the right answer — we just need God's help to redirect the glory to its proper object

This also means, by the way, that we are really close to getting it right. We need God's help. We'll talk about this more next week. We need God's help to move off of seeking our own glory and seeking God's glory. But the truth is, is that we at least have the basic idea down, which is to live our whole lives for another person's glory. We're not that far off. God can redeem this. He can make this true.

22 · Delivers the sharp prophetic word: seeking anything other than God's presence with God's people for God's praise is wasting your life

But we need to understand that this isn't optional. And we need to understand that if you are not wholeheartedly seeking God's presence in God's people for God's praise, you are wasting your time. Your life. You're wasting your life. That, that's just as simple as it gets.

23 · Anticipates the objection that seeking God's glory exclusively sounds austere and thin — like moving from color to black-and-white or from a full diet to manna

You know, oftentimes when we talk about this idea that all of life is for God's praise and that my sole motivation should be to see God's presence in God's people for God's praise, we start to think of austerity, that this is a very thin way to live, right? That that seeking God's praise in all things is sort of like turning off the color on the TV and going back to black and white. It's assuming that making God the center of everything dims the quality and enjoyment of everything. Or even more so, like we're moving from eating a full diet, right, of all sorts of foods to only eating one thing. Like, you know, manna, this sort of like, okay, that moving from the way you're living your life right now to living a life solely devoted to God's presence and God's people for God's praise would somehow be austerity.

24 · Refutes the austerity objection: if God has always sought His glory and created a world thick with pleasure, danger, nuance, and beauty, then seeking God's glory produces fullness, not thinness

But assuming that I'm right in saying that God has been doing this all along, right? I think the Bible says very clearly that what God has been about the whole time, before there was time, is seeking His praise, seeking His glory. Assuming that's true, then I just would tell you to look around and look what He's doing. Does this look austere to you? Does this look like thin soup to you? You know, after you're in the hospital, they give you chicken broth and it's just barely food. You know, it's just barely food. It's not, it's really not mostly food. It's mostly not food. It's just barely food. I think we think of seeking God's glory as moving into the barely food category. But if all that God has been about this whole time was to seek His own praise, was to bring glory to His own name, to build up an eternity of praise for His own name. Well, look what He's done. Look how He's acted throughout creation history. Look what He's made. Look how He's blessed. Look how thick life is. This is not a thin soup, folks. God's not a monk. He's not a cheapskate. He's not a stoic. The world is thick with pleasure and danger, and it's a world created by someone seeking his own glory. And if you seek God's glory singularly, only, fully, completely sell out to it, your life's not going to be thin soup. It's going to be full of pleasure and danger. It's going to be full of nuance and difficulty and ups and downs. And hard things and sweet things, because that's who God is. God's all those things.

25 · Claims that seeking God's glory is the antidote to austerity, while seeking your own glory produces fragility because it depends on factors outside your control

So if anything, making God the singular purpose of your life, seeking God's presence in God's people for God's praise, if anything, that gives you the antidote to austerity. That gives you the antidote to the thin soup problem. Here's the thing, as long as you seek your own praise, your life is incredibly fragile. And your ability to win is incredibly dependent on a whole bunch of things outside your control.

26 · Illustrates fragility through the fading of beauty and strength — whatever you build your self-glory on inevitably passes away

You know, just as soon, you know, I raised two girls, two beautiful girls. You know, just as soon, and I've seen them go through awkward and the whole thing, Some of them are still moving through. But just as soon as you're this pretty girl, you realize, "Well, I'm kind of pretty." As soon as you kind of realize this, as soon as it starts clicking there, it starts to pass away. Beauty fades. A guy realizes, "You know, I'm actually pretty strong. I actually have..." physical capabilities. You know, I remember hiking on 20-mile hikes and then, you know, coming into camp after a 20-mile hike and playing football the rest of the night with my friends. You know, you revel in this and you think, you know, this is— this makes me feel good about myself, this makes me feel good, you know. And then it fades. Whatever, whatever you're using right now to seek your glory is just so fragile.

27 · Extends the fragility illustration to the universal reality of physical decline — we are all headed to a poverty of choices where bodies fail us

You know, there's a physical poverty to which we are all headed. If you've ever been poor, poverty is the absence of choices. You know, it's just like, I don't have any choices. Wealth is the multiplication of choices, poverty is the absence of choices. You know, we're all headed to a physical poverty Every one of us will get to a place where our bodies will not do what we want them to do. And it will get worse from there. They'll start doing things we don't want them to do.

28 · Applies the illustrations: seeking your own glory produces fragility, but seeking God's presence with God's people for God's praise produces antifragility — success independent of external factors because it depends on God's unchanging purposes

So your plan, as it's progressing right now, to live life for your glory, is dependent on so many factors that are fading, fragile, and outside of your control. But a person who seeks God's presence in God's people for his praise can move through every kind of season of life and still win and still be successful, because that person's success is not dependent on external factors. That person's success is dependent on on the God of the universe doing what he wants to do. So there's a beauty in being antifragile, as a popular author wrote a few years ago, antifragile. Not only can I endure hardship, but hardship actually makes me better. Well, pursuing God's presence in God's people for God's praise is the only way to live a truly antifragile life. Acts 2 is the unfolding of an antifragile fruitfulness. A lot of it looks like fun. A lot of it looks like exaltation and goodness and joy. And some of it looks hard, but all of it, friends, all of it, every bit of it looks like winning. Because God's presence in God's people for God's praise will continue ad infinitum. That's the way God is moving all of history.

29 · Warns against apportioning life between God's glory and self-glory — divided loyalty wastes both and places you on a railroad track toward destruction because you cannot serve two masters

Now, I want to say one last thing, and that is simply that if you are pursuing this, God's praise, with 40% of your life and some other vision, some other definition of success with 60% of your life, you're wasting both. This is the one case where diversifying your portfolio is going to create danger for you. Stop, just stop. Just stop doing, trying to do two things. The Bible's really clear, you're on a railroad that you can't get off of when you try to serve two masters, you have no choices. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. You cannot serve two masters. You will hate one, you will love the other. Just stop.

30 · Personalizes the call to undivided loyalty: being 'true all the way through' means betting everything on God's presence with God's people for God's praise — anything else wastes your life

I said a number of months ago that my whole goal in life is to be true all the way through. Well, that means not apportioning my definitions of success. That means betting it all on one. And going all in on one vision of winning. And that vision of winning involves seeking God's presence with God's people for God's praise. And do that with every bit of my life. Friends, if you're not doing that, you're wasting your life. And if you are doing that, you'll never lose your life.

31 · Signals the shift from the definition of success to the Passover-Pentecost relationship — freedom before fruitfulness — and previews next week's continuation

Well, I want to keep this connection to Passover and Pentecost for the remainder of our time. And then next week, we'll go forward and discuss this more, you know, forward into the text. But I want us to just remember this sequence of events because it really is key in our understanding of what fruitfulness looks like and where fruitfulness comes from.

32 · Establishes the theological principle derived from the festal calendar order: freedom always precedes fruitfulness — you cannot be fruitful unless first freed from sin's slavery

So in the same way that Passover precedes Pentecost in history. Passover comes before Pentecost in history. The Jews were released from their slavery in Egypt and then brought into the Promised Land through much difficulty of their own making, brought into the Promised Land, and there they found a fruitfulness, a measure of fruitfulness. So in the same way that Pentecost— or Passover comes before Pentecost, we need to understand that freedom always comes before faithfulness. Freedom— oh, I'm sorry, freedom always comes before fruitfulness. Freedom always comes before fruitfulness. You can't be fruitful unless you're free. You can't be fruitful unless you're free. In order to pursue and possess the faith, the fruitfulness that God has for you, you must be free from the enslaving power of sin.

33 · Explains why detailed exposition of Passover is necessary: the disciples lived and breathed the festal calendar, so understanding it is essential for modern readers to grasp what they instinctively understood

So I want to go through the Passover story quickly, because if you'll think about it, these disciples are full of this stuff. The, the festal calendar is a part of who they are. All that they're seeing God doing, from the sacrificing of his own son during the Passover, the raising of Jesus during the first fruits, the, the coming of the Holy Spirit during the Pentecost— this is just second nature to them. In order for us to navigate these texts, we kind of need to make it not second nature, but we need to take extra time to understand what would have just been immediate for them. So we wanted to take some time here to just close out thinking about the connection on the calendar and in God's order between freedom and fruitfulness.

34 · Recounts the Exodus Passover narrative: famine drove Israel into Egypt, they became slaves, and God freed them through the blood of a lamb applied to doorposts, sparing them from judgment

So just to go back, there was a famine in the land that caused all of Israel to join Joseph, the brother they'd sacrificed, uh, you know, and I mean in a bad way, uh, the brother they'd given up to join him in Egypt in order to survive. A famine forced them into Egypt originally. They're there for centuries and become slaves of the Egyptian government. They are in literal slavery. They have no choices. They are in old-school slavery. God's work in the original Passover was to bring them out of that physical slavery, right? And that he did through the offering of a lamb that was shed, the blood of which was shed on the doorposts over the homes of the faithful. God spared his people from the passing judgment of death on the Egyptians and made them free. And that was how Passover was celebrated for a very long time.

35 · Establishes the typological fulfillment: Jesus is a better Passover Lamb providing better freedom from a worse slavery (sin), solving what the first Passover couldn't — the removal of slavery from within the heart

Jesus came and said, inferred, demonstrated that his death would bring a deeper freedom, right? His death, his Passover death, he was a better lamb for a better freedom from a far worse kind of slavery. What we see in the story of the Passover is the opportunity to step immediately into faithfulness, but that is delayed because they are not actually free. You know, they say it's an 11-day journey or something from Egypt to the Promised Land. They could have been shucking corn, you know, to, you know, a couple weeks after being freed from slavery. They could have walked out of that slavery into fruitfulness. They could have used that freedom to go into fruitfulness, but they could not because the Passover provided originally could remove a man from slavery but could not remove slavery from the heart of man. They were all bound up inside to sin. They remained slaves to sin. And Jesus coming and offering of himself As the new Passover lamb gives us a new freedom, a deeper freedom, a truer freedom where we are no longer slaves to sin.

36 · Summarizes the typological shift: from political/physical freedom (Exodus Passover) to spiritual freedom from sin (Christ's Passover), solving the root problem preventing fruitfulness — wandering, squandering hearts enslaved to sin

So this is the basic shift, the basic redefining of freedom we see with Passover. From a political freedom, from a physical freedom, to a spiritual freedom. Christ's sacrifice is a better freedom for us. It, it makes us free in a different way. Which solves the basic problem that has always stood in the way of our true fruitfulness. Our basic— the thing that basically keeps us from fruitfulness. And Christ, in offering Himself as a sacrifice to free us from sin frees us from the wandering and squandering hearts. That's the thing that keeps us from fruitfulness.

37 · Illustrates through the common experience of young adults that freedom without heart-change leads to straying — you weren't prepared for freedom because your heart was still enslaved to sin

Now, plenty of 18 to 20-somethings have experienced this very thing. I experienced it just a little earlier because I was especially rebellious and an early bloomer in my rebellion. But many of us have experienced straying from the Lord as we reach our first taste of freedom. Right? That we get this first taste of freedom and we stray because we were not prepared for the freedom that we received. That's true of all of us.

38 · States the controlling principle: sin inevitably converts privileges and pleasures into prisons, which is why God must first liberate the heart from sin before fruitfulness is possible

Here's the basic adage: sin turns privileges and pleasures into prisons. Every time. Every time. You get privileges, sin will turn it into a prison. You get new pleasures, sin will turn it into a new prison. That is how our sinful hearts work. So we could never enjoy, never experience true success, true fruitfulness, if God didn't do something about our sin. If freedom doesn't come before fruitfulness, we cannot have fruitfulness.

39 · Expounds Proverbs 25:28 to show that a heart unchanged by the gospel is like a city with broken walls — all potential, treasure, and goodness squandered through lack of self-control

You know, Proverbs 25:28 is one of the most devastating Scriptures I've read in a long time. "Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control." Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control. The idea is that a man who hasn't had his heart changed by the Gospel is like a city where the walls have been broken down and all of the good things, all of the potential, All of the treasure, all of the goodness is just squandered because he lacks self-control, he lacks self-discipline.

40 · Establishes the source of self-control: Jesus's Passover work freeing the heart from slavery to sin — connecting the principle to the redemptive-historical framework

Well, where does self-discipline and self-control come? It comes from Jesus doing a work in our hearts that frees us from our love of sin, our slavery to sin. It comes from the new and better Passover.

41 · Concludes by stating the sermon's controlling redemptive-historical logic in one sentence: you were freed to be fruitful — Passover freedom exists for Pentecost fruitfulness

Now, we're going to wrap up because we've just covered a lot, and we'll go back to this again next week, but I want to leave us with this idea: you were freed to be fruitful. You were freed to be fruitful. That's the basic idea. You were freed to be fruitful.

Where this fits

Recent preaching context

The three sermons immediately preceding this one in the preaching schedule.

Jul 15, 2018

The Holy Spirit as a Gift

The Holy Spirit is God's gift to all believers in Christ—given by divine initiative, not human merit—and our stewardship of this gift through certain Spirit-honoring habits determines the degree to which we experience the Spirit's power and presence in our lives.

Acts 1:6-15

Aug 5, 2018

Prayer Precedes Power

Prayer precedes spiritual power and growth, and recovering a culture of prayer requires both addressing practical cultural barriers to stillness and corporate worship and embracing the gospel truth that God is glorified when we bring Him our neediness.

Acts 1:12-14

Aug 26, 2018

When God Gives Us What We Demand

Our life problems are no problem to God, but our pride in responding to those problems—manifested through coveting, impatience, and ingratitude—provokes God's discipline, which often takes the form of giving us exactly what we demand.

1 Samuel 8:1-9, 12:1-25

September 2 · This sermon

Earth, Wind, Fire

God's presence with God's people producing God's praise is the only biblical definition of success, and true fruitfulness is impossible without first experiencing Christ's Passover freedom from slavery to sin.

Acts 2:1-6

Earlier in the corpus · September 22, 2019

A prior sermon on Acts 2:46-47

You preached this same passage. Worth re-reading before the next time this text comes around.

Take it further

Discuss · apply · pray

Small groups

6 discussion questions

What does Acts 2:1-6 show us about what was happening when the Spirit came at Pentecost, and what made that moment significant for the disci…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week we trace the arc from God's definition of success, through the liberation Christ accomplishes in His Passover, to the fruitfulness that flows from freedom — discovering that you were freed to be fruitful.

Prayer

A Prayer for Freedom and Fruitfulness

Father, we come before you in awe of your character: you are a God who does not merely command obedience but grants freedom, who does not de…

Family table

What Does Freedom Make Possible?

This prompt invites your family to connect the idea of freedom (from the Passover part of the sermon) to what becomes possible afterward. Li…

Couples

Freed to Bear Fruit Together

What did the sermon reveal to you about what true spiritual success actually looks like — and how does that differ from the definition you'v…

Memorize

Acts 2:4

This verse captures the sermon's central claim that God's presence with God's people producing God's praise is the only biblical definition of success — it shows the Spirit-filled believers immediately overflowing in praise and witness, demonstrating true fruitfulness. It anchors the theological progression: freedom from sin (Christ's Passover) makes possible the Spirit-empowered fruitfulness (Pentecost) that marks genuine spiritual success.

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

What does Acts 2:1-6 show us about what was happening when the Spirit came at Pentecost, and what made that moment significant for the disciples gathered in Jerusalem?

Acts 2:1-6

→ How does understanding Pentecost as a Harvest Festival (not just a one-time event) change the way you think about what God was doing?
The sermon claims that God's presence with God's people producing God's praise is the only biblical definition of success. Where do you see that definition at work in Acts 2, and how does it differ from the definitions of success you encounter in your daily life?
Why does the sermon argue that Passover must come before Pentecost theologically—that freedom must precede fruitfulness? What does that sequence tell us about what sin does to us?

Leviticus 23

→ What's the difference between being physically freed from slavery (as Israel was in the original Passover) and being spiritually freed from slavery to sin (as Christ accomplishes)?
The sermon uses the phrase 'sin turns privileges and pleasures into prisons.' What does that mean, and can you think of an area in your own life where a good gift or opportunity has become enslaving rather than freeing?

Proverbs 25:28
According to the sermon, how does Christ's Passover accomplish a freedom that the original Passover could not? What does the gospel actually free us from that enables us to be truly fruitful?

1 Corinthians 15

→ How does being freed from slavery to sin (not just external circumstances) reshape the way you approach obedience or self-control this week?
If God's definition of success is His presence producing His praise in and through us, what would it look like for your small group, your family, or your workplace to actually pursue that definition instead of competing definitions of success?

Draft · pending review

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

Monday Leviticus 23

Leviticus 23 anchors the three festivals in God's rhythm of redemption and abundance. The sermon shows that these are not abolished but fulfilled in Christ — each one remade to speak a better gospel. As we read the festival calendar, we see the architecture God built into Israel's year pointing forward to the Passover, Resurrection, and Spirit-empowered fruitfulness we now possess in Christ.

Tuesday 1 Corinthians 15

Paul's extended meditation on Christ's resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 establishes Christ as Firstfruits — the guarantee and pattern of our own resurrection to come. This passage unveils why Christ's Passover matters so profoundly: He conquers not just external enemies but death itself, the ultimate expression of sin's enslaving power. In Christ's resurrection we see the freedom no earthly deliverance could ever provide.

Wednesday Joel 2:28-29

Joel prophesies a day when God's Spirit is poured out on all flesh — sons and daughters prophesying, young and old seeing visions. This is the promise Peter quotes at Pentecost to explain what we're witnessing: God's presence with His people, breaking out in testimony and worship. The measure of true success is not numbers or programs but the manifest presence of God producing a people who cannot help but praise and proclaim.

Thursday Proverbs 25:28

Proverbs 25:28 compares a man without self-control to a city with broken walls — defenseless and destroyed. But the sermon reveals that self-control isn't mere willpower; it's the fruit of Christ's work freeing us from sin's enslaving grip. Without that deep liberation, even our good gifts become weapons against us. We discover that genuine self-control flows from the freedom Christ purchased at the cross.

Friday Genesis 1

Genesis 1 reveals God delighting in His creation — pronouncing it good, calling us to fill the earth and multiply. The sermon's logic becomes clear: we were made for a gloriously full life, not diminished by God's reign but enriched by it. When we're freed from sin's slavery and aligned with God's glory-seeking purpose, we inherit the abundant, dangerous, beautiful life He always intended — not escape from the world, but genuine flourishing within it.

Draft · pending review

Pray together this week

A Prayer for Freedom and Fruitfulness

Father, we come before you in awe of your character: you are a God who does not merely command obedience but grants freedom, who does not demand fruitfulness from enslaved hearts but sets us free to bear fruit that glorifies your name. We confess that we too often settle for hollow definitions of success—climbing ladders that lean against the wrong wall, measuring ourselves by metrics that shift with circumstance and cannot satisfy. We have known the prison that disguises itself as privilege, the way our pleasures become our masters when sin still reigns in our desires. We are wandering, squandering people apart from your liberating grace (Proverbs 25:28).

But we rejoice that Christ is our better Passover Lamb, having accomplished what the old Passover could never achieve: freedom not merely from external slavery but from the enslaving power of sin itself. In the gospel, you have done a work in our hearts that breaks sin's dominion—you have shifted our freedom from the merely political or physical to the deeply spiritual, solving the wandering heart that has always prevented true fruitfulness. Because Passover precedes Pentecost, we have been freed that we might be fruitful (Acts 2:1-6).

We ask, therefore, that by your Spirit you would strengthen us to believe this liberation is real and active in us now. Grant us the grace to cease pursuing our own glory through fragile metrics, and instead to find our deepest joy in seeking your glory and seeing your presence dwell among your people, producing praise both in our gathered worship and in our evangelistic overflow. Teach us that your definition of success—your presence with your people producing your praise—is the only design for human flourishing. Fill us with such freedom in Christ that our privileges no longer become prisons, and our potential no longer lies squandered.

To you, the all-glorious God who has freed us through your Son and sealed us by your Spirit, we commit ourselves as a people freed to be fruitful. Accept our worship and use us in your harvest.

Draft · pending review

Sunday-evening family table

What Does Freedom Make Possible?

For the parent

This prompt invites your family to connect the idea of freedom (from the Passover part of the sermon) to what becomes possible afterward. Listen for their examples — they'll reveal whether they understand that freedom isn't just escape, but enablement for something better.

Pastor Chris talked about how the Passover freed the Israelites from slavery so they could do something new. Think of a time when being freed from something — maybe a bad habit, or a fear, or something that was holding you back — actually let you do something good or helpful that you couldn't do before. What was that freedom, and what did it make possible?

works for ages 8+ — younger kids can listen and share simple examples with help from parents

Draft · pending review

Couples · three questions over coffee

Freed to Bear Fruit Together

What did the sermon reveal to you about what true spiritual success actually looks like — and how does that differ from the definition you've been living by?
Where do you sense that sin still holds one of us in slavery, keeping us from the fruitfulness God intends for our marriage, and how might Christ's Passover freedom speak to that captivity?
How can we pray for each other this week to live more fully in the freedom Christ has already won for us — asking Him to break whatever enslaving pattern still has a grip on our hearts?

Draft · pending review

Memory verse this week

Acts 2:4

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Why this verse: This verse captures the sermon's central claim that God's presence with God's people producing God's praise is the only biblical definition of success — it shows the Spirit-filled believers immediately overflowing in praise and witness, demonstrating true fruitfulness. It anchors the theological progression: freedom from sin (Christ's Passover) makes possible the Spirit-empowered fruitfulness (Pentecost) that marks genuine spiritual success.

Draft · pending review

Where this was preached

About the church

Providence Community Church

Lenexa, KS
Sundays · 10:00 AM
About us · What we believe

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# Providence Community Church

A church preaching expository sermons through the books of the Bible.

## Sermons
- [The Holy Spirit as a Gift (Acts 1:6-15, 2018-07-15)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2018/07/the-holy-spirit-as-a-gift)
- [Prayer Precedes Power (Acts 1:12-14, 2018-08-05)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2018/08/8-5-18-raw-dr000559)
- [When God Gives Us What We Demand (1 Samuel 8:1-9, 12:1-25, 2018-08-26)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2018/08/8-26-18)
- [Earth, Wind, Fire (Acts 2:1-6, 2018-09-02)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2018/09/earth-wind-fire)

## About
- [About the church](/about)
- [Plan a visit](/visit)

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