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Podcast: Behind the Scenes: Pentecost Sunday (Acts 2:1-21) · North Raleigh United Methodist Church Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Good day and welcome to North Raleigh United Methodist Church Behind the Scenes Podcast, where we sit down weekly and discuss this week's scripture and sermon.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Kevin Hall.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: I serve as the group's moderator and host, and joining me today is one of the senior pastors here at North Raleigh, Kevin Johnson.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Kevin.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hey.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being here.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Last week Laura was here.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's been the tag team on and off, and Laura finished the last series of I Love You But, and it was a great conclusion of No If, Ands, or Buts.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: And she talked about the parable of a good Samaritan.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: So today is a little bit different in the sense we're not launching a new series, but it is a very important event in our church and in the church's history.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: And what I'm talking about is Pentecost.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: This past Sunday was Ascension Sunday.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll ask Kevin, what is Pentecost Sunday?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: So for us Christians, Pentecost Pentecost is probably like high holy day number three in our church, right?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we got obviously Christmas pretty big deal, right?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus coming into the world and uh and Easter, his resurrection.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: And Pentecost is is the day we celebrate the giving of the Spirit and the birth of the church in really from that day.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: But Pentecost meant, you know, the word Pent is in there the 50 days.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: And that was describing 50 days after Passover was the Feast of Weeks.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so Pentecost was actually a Jewish celebration that was going on.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: So you would have had a lot of folks flocking to Jerusalem at this time to recognize the Feast of Weeks.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that was laid out in Leviticus, and we see that there.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: But uh Pentecost obviously takes on a different tone from Jesus' giving of the Spirit on this day forward.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: So but that that's kind of where it where it's the original uh thinking of uh as a Jewish holiday, and the as Christians have turned it into more of the birth of the church.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll get into a little bit more of why it is considered the birth of our church, um the apostolistic church.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna be in Acts 2, which is the beginning of the whole church.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's Luke finishes up his uh gospel and launches right into Acts, uh, doesn't skip a beat and starts right off with the um Jesus' ascension into heaven and then uh the instructions of stay here in Jerusalem because the Father is gonna send you the Holy Spirit.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where we are today.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna be reading uh again Acts in uh chapter two.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: But before we too much farther along, how about a word of prayer?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's pray.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus, we are grateful for the gift of your spirit.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: We ask that your spirit will guide our conversation today, that your spirit will guide us as we um seek to hear you through your word and uh and interpret it faithfully.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's in Christ's name we pray.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: So in Acts, Jesus has ascended, he's gone, he's given instructions to stay.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um but what is going on in the sense that they're meeting behind closed doors?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I so I do I I do wonder if if Jesus' followers are scared uh and don't really know what is happening, or if that's just how they took the if that's just how they took the instructions to stay.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um because that they had previously just made a decision about who's gonna replace Judas Iscariot as as as a disciple in their, you know, at least as one of the twelve.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I do I think there's a touch of they're not quite sure what to do, and they're they are waiting for this.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus said something was gonna happen, and so they're kind of waiting for it.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: They were just kind of in that period of waiting.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's really interesting.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: So whether they were concerned about being harassed or abused or not, I'm not sure.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um it may be that Luke's audience, who he's writing this to, was by that point concerned about harassment uh and concerned about that, but I'm not really sure in this case.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess there's probably still a little bit of fear involved.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um after all, Jesus was crucified, and those they were his followers, so I can understand them um being scared, but uh they stayed together um on the instrictions.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you look in chapter one, Jesus says, Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father they promised, which you've heard me speak about for John baptized with water, but in a few days will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: What did Jesus mean when he said baptized by the Holy Spirit?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that's what we are reading about, right?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: I I th I think it's an experience.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: What Jesus wants here is for his spirit.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the the the Holy Spirit is also the spirit of Jesus, where he's going to somehow give his spirit to these apostles so they can carry out his work, right?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so it becomes that he empowers the church to be able to do his work on the earth, even in his physical absence.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I think that's what he means by the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there are two baptisms because Jesus tells uh in Matthew what to um go out and uh spread the gospel, make disciples of men and baptize.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Tells so I think that is a literal instruction of baptizing with water.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So he's saying there's a separate baptism going on here of the Holy Spirit.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Later on, we kind of get that it goes hand in hand when Peter goes and baptizes uh the Gentiles, yeah, and they receive the Holy Spirit, and it's like it happens at all at the same time.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I think that example from Peter is meant to give us a picture of the preferred way, which is that someone would be baptized and received the Holy Spirit all in one kind of time.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: But this concept of being baptized by the Holy Spirit, right, gets taken by different church traditions in different ways.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we don't have to go way, way deep into it, but offshoots of Methodists in the 1800s called the holiness movement start to say that, hey, if you come if you already have come to the altar and professed faith in Jesus and you've been baptized, well, you could come a second time and receive a gift of what they called entire sanctification, or where they're saying you're made sinless in this life receiving that gift.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Not long after that, that's probably mid to late 1800s, not long after that, in the first of the 20, in the first of the 20th century, the Azusa, street revival breaks out in California, which is from the holiness movement that was just one degree off of Methodists.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, from that movement is how Pentecostalism forms.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so they often refer in the Pentecostal charismatic traditions, being baptized by the being receiving baptism of the Holy Spirit often includes the gifts of tongues.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: And they would point to these texts and X too and have really good biblical interpretation, you know, really good biblical grounds for it.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so, so, so I uh you know, different traditions have interpreted that differently.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um I do think that the intent here is for Jesus to say the baptism of water is one thing, but what you really need is the experience of God's work within you, and that's what he's referring to.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and and and it's a gift, it's a gifting.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing you can do to earn this thing or something like that.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: To get it, make it happen.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: In other words.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're gonna be in Acts uh chapter two, verses uh one through twenty one, and Kevin's gonna read for us.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Suddenly a sound from heaven, like the howling of a fierce wind, filled the entire house where they were sitting.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each of them.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: There were pious Jews from every nation living under heaven living under Jerusalem.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: They were mystified because everyone heard them speaking in their own their native languages.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: They were surprised and amazed, saying, Look, aren't all the people who are speaking Galileans every one of them?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: How then can each of us hear them speaking in our own native language?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: Parthians, Medes, and Eliamites, as well as residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Libya bordering Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: They were all surprised and bewildered.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Some asked each other, What does this mean?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Others jeered at them, saying, They're full of new wine.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Peter stood with the other eleven apostles.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: He raised his voice and declared, Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem know this, listen carefully to my words.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: These people aren't drunk as you suspect.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: After all, it's only nine o'clock in the morning.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young will see visions, your elders will dream dreams.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: Even upon my servants, men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: I will cause wonders to occur in the heavens above, and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and a cloud of smoke.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: The sun will be changed into darkness, and the moon will be changed into blood before the great and spectacular day of the Lord comes, and everyone who calls in the name of the Lord will be saved.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Fellow Israelites, listen to these words.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's where it keeps going.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where we stop, I think.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, 21.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, exactly.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: It keeps going.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: He continues to address the uh the crowd.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Once Peter gets the preaching, he's filled with the Holy Spirit.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, exactly.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: So he's trying to explain everyone what is happening.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um those that receive the Holy Spirit obviously understand what's happened to them.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: They were told to expect it.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: He steps up, he goes, let me explain what's going on here.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you saw it, uh it would probably be wildering.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's tongues of fire.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: This is probably the only instance where you actually can kind of see the Holy Spirit.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Is it not?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think of any other passages in the Bible where anyone's actually seen the Holy Spirit, other than maybe the dove, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove upon Jesus upon his baptism.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: But it is a a fire.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: So is this why we wear red on Sunday?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it red has become the symbolic color, right?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's also what I mean, this is the one day of the year that pastors wear stoles that are red, other than at like ordinations and things like that.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: So um yeah, it's sort of that it I think the symbol of the fire and and and just of the kind of vibrancy of that day.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the gift, I guess, the Holy Spirit bestows upon them is able to speak in different languages.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: I guess kind of setting them up to begin their journeys to uh go out and make disciples, uh, to preach the word, uh, given the uh gift of being able to speak multiple languages.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's interesting, right?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: We often refer to the gift of tongues and stuff.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and there there is such a thing as a type of prayer language that you know some people are able to speak, or the gift of it's called Glosaleia in in in the Greek.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's not what this is talking about, right?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: This is talking about people that don't speak a language all of a sudden are able to speak it, right?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: But it tells us that people from all over the known world were here in Jerusalem for this festival and everything, and that they could all hear in their own language.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so what God is doing here, right, is enabling the apostles to be able to speak so that others are able to hear, right?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: And and it it's in Luke, we see this throughout Luke's gospel, and then the way Jesus speaks in Acts 1.8, right?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: When he says, You'll be my witnesses, right?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: In Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's a movement of the book of Acts, is going to move out to the ends of the earth.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: The gospel is gonna not be contained any longer just in Jerusalem or just in Israel, but is to the ends of the earth.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so all of a sudden, the Spirit enables them to be able to go out and to be able to share even when it's not their native tongue.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And with this bewilderment, a couple of people uh claim uh they must have had too much wine.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, there's wine probably involved, because like you said, it is the celebration.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Pentecost is the uh holiday, and Peter uh steps up and assures them that they have it.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it that sometimes when we don't understand something, we want to make fun of it or um reduce it in size by saying, Oh, they're just had too much wine.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a kind i we do it today.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder why it is.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to hard to accept.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: But Peter um clearly states it's not o'clock in the morning.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, this is not what's going on.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: He shuts that down pretty quick.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Peter didn't go to a frat house or anything, but yeah, so he shuts it down pretty quick.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: And but he does say uh he stands with the eleven.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: So are is it just the apostles that receive the Holy Spirit then?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: It seems so, at least right here, and then that later on in this text, as as those who hear Peter are baptized, that they're going to receive the Spirit at their baptism as well.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it seems like this is for these apostles.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's the implication to me, is that they're filled with the Spirit, they're able to speak in these other languages, and then all their these others are able to hear in their own language.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: And Peter takes uh the leadership role and stands up and speaks for all of them.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Is that why we consider this the uh birthday of the church?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and and because right, this is the first time when the apostles without Jesus are drawing people to follow after Jesus, right?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: So all of a sudden 3,000 people are brought into the way of Jesus and he's not there.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: Usually when you're gonna follow someone, you're following them because they're around, right?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is pretty phenomenal that that so that's that's a lot of it, right?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: And and they're so all of a sudden what we get, and what and really the end of Acts 2 is really why it becomes about the birthday of the church, because it talks about what this group of people ends up doing and how they end up living together in community, sharing everything they have and living as the church.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that's really where we get this kind of birthday of the church type of thing.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's not it's not Pentecost Day only, it's Pentecost Day, and what it launches is this movement, this movement of the church.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: And and Peter is the leader of the uh of the new church.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think Peter is the de facto leader because Peter is always the loudmouth, right?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: But Jesus also said to Peter, right, you're like, You are Peter, and I'll I'll build my build my church on this rock, right?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: So he told Peter.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: And um but James and John are going to play a really, really crucial role in the Jerusalem church as well.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: And and Peter, James, and John, you know, we've looked at other times when we've talked in other gospels where where those three are kind of held up as the kind of closest ones to Jesus, and they truly do take on the leadership role here in Acts, at least for the first eight or nine chapters before we get to the Paul story, right?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: So in Jerusalem, it's Peter, James, and John sent out, becomes Paul, and then Silas and Timothy, and but but Paul with those taking taking the message abroad.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're talking about uh Pentecost on this um episode of um of the podcast, and we've gotten into started talking about Peter and the birth of the church and everything else, but let's take a minute, put the emphasis back on the Holy Spirit.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit doesn't get a lot of credit a lot of times.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: So often we're reading the Bible and we're talking, we talk a lot of honored people want to reference us naturally, we're Christians, Jesus, yep, and then of course God.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit is center stage, is the star of this show.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, in the Holy Spirit, you could say if you read Luke carefully, you could say the Holy Spirit might be the main character of Luke's gospel.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Or at least this at least the Holy Spirit's really, really present, right?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: From the beginning of Luke, even one and two, where you read the Christmas story there, we read the Annunciation stories.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: People are filled with the Holy Spirit all over the place.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: In ways that Matthew, Mark, and John do not talk about the Spirit.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, John does right at the very beginning, and it was the Word, and the Word with the and you kind of sense that the Holy Spirit is the word.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not it's not it's not that spiritual.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, they're all but but Luke really labels the spirit as this character.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then in Acts, the spirit is the spirit really is the character who drives the narrative.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I think it's really, really interesting.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: I the um the spirit in Christian theology, right?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: The spirit often doesn't get the same due because the spirit's role a lot of times is is is to highlight and point to Jesus.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the spirit where you think of it as God, the Word of God, uh the wisdom of God.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: God sends the Holy Spirit.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, obviously.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: But it's also interesting, right?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because we, you know, even when we talk to kids about Jesus, we say, Well, do you have Jesus in your heart or something like that?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: And really, no, you have the spirit in your heart.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, right?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: You you have the Spirit in your heart, and the Spirit is bringing the presence of Jesus into your life, right?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, we can get real deep into that, which I'd like to for a moment.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um I took, I was telling Kevin before this, as we were talking about the podcast.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: I I took a class um with Dr.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: Jeremy Begby at Duke Divinity School, and he's the phenomenal lecturer.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: I took a class on the Holy Spirit, uh basically a pneumatology class, and pneuma is the word for spirit.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: So we talked about when you asked about wind, yeah.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, spirit, wind.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um so we do see the spirit as showing up as like wind in other places in the Bible.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's the other place.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um But he talked about the five moves of the Spirit or the five things, kind of the five activities of the Spirit among persons, that's pretty incredible.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it touches a lot on this X passage, but I think it also would help help our listeners think about the Spirit's presence.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: So the first thing he says is the Spirit unifies.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so we he we see in this passage, right, they were all together in one place, and and and the spirit's purpose in this text is so that all of the people are hearing the same message.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: They're all able to hear the word of God.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: They're all able to hear so so the spirit unifies.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um his second point with that is is the spirit opens us out.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: So so the spirit enables persons to give themselves to each other.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um so so so the spirit this this is how the spirit always is giving away.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: The spirit is is giving gifts.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the spirit is is other facing all of the time, right?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: So the spirit opens us out towards each other.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: The spirit then also, so the spirit unifies, the spirit also though particularizes.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so by particularize, I mean the spirit gives particular gifts to particular people at particular times.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: So we'd say, well, that person has the gift of of healing, or that person has the gift of preaching, or that person has the gift.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: We we're able to say that, and then the spirit is giving these gifts to you for a specific reason.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, when we talk about Paul and the gifts of the Spirit, uh the other text we're going to use on Sundays, 1 Corinthians 12, and Paul talks there, there's many gifts, but the same spirit.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: That the spirit is able to gift each of us to do our work in God's church.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um so the spirit particularizes.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and and so it's not just the spirit unifies, but then the spirit also gives the gifts that we individually have.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then the spirit also the spirit previews.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so that means that that the spirit gives us a picture of what life is like in the future of of God's realm.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so so, in other words, the way in which this early church lived together is a preview of how heaven is going to be.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: And there's aspects of that in what the spirit gives us.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: So the spirit helps us to live and gives us a vision of of um of what God's realm is supposed to be.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: Paul talked about this as the first fruits, the down payment, the seal, right?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's what that's what he calls the spirit in life.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Of those places.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then the final move of the spirit that Dr.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: Baby talked about is that the spirit plays jazz.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so the spirit does something new.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: The spirit improvises.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: The spirit plays on a theme and does so it's this unpredictability of God that is also beautiful.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's it's it's it's a riff that we've heard, but it's it sounds a little different.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that the spirit is doing that new work always in our midst, right?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so those five things together unifies, opens us out towards each other, particularizes, uh uh previews and plays jazz.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: Though those ways of thinking that the spirit is really, really active in our lives.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: And in I the Spirit is what empowers us as a church today.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: The spirit is what empowers you and me.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: The spirit draws us closer into relationship with God.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: I like to think that the spirit is the one who is who first drew us into relationship with God's very self, and that the spirit is who sustains us on the daily.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um so so often I I think we don't recognize the spirit's work, but the spirit's doing a lot uh because the spirit is, you know, part of the mystery of the Trinity is that wherever the spirit is, the whole of the Trinity is present.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so when the Spirit is here, well then Jesus and the Father are here because the Spirit can't go anywhere without them.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's it's this crazy mystery, and it's I think really cool.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so it is.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you think about it, um, like I said, we don't give the spirit as much credit as we should or talk about the spirit as much as we do.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy to picture Jesus, have a picture of Jesus in my mind.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh even though we're not supposed to make images, idols, images of God.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: We all have an image of God of this old man sitting on the throne in the cloud.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was established as as a as a child, and it's hard to get rid of.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: It really kind of is.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: But there's no established look or understanding of a spirit as a child.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Just by definition, right?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to understand as a child.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that notions of understanding the spirit you carry into adulthood, at least myself, are hard to envision.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Pneuma, the breath.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: You can see when God breathes in the atom.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: That again, the Holy Spirit is there.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the Spirit is Word, is power.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: The Spirit has so many different roles to where it seems like Jesus has this role.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: God is the overseer of the of its creator, and the Holy Spirit is everything in between, which is just too much to group and put in one thing.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like you just talked about it.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's even got five roles that you could look at.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, sure.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, if you look at if you look at any of the creeds, right?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: So the other way to look at this theologically is to say what do we say when we say like the Nicene Creed, for instance, right?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: If you look at it as really three paragraphs, right?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I believe, you know, we believe in the Father, Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, believe in Jesus Christ, his only son our Lord, who's, you know, you know, proceeds, you know.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: And we sorry, his only son our Lord, who is and we talk about his life, his death, his resurrection, right?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: And and and that he will come again, right?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: But then we get to the Holy Spirit.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: If we're in the Apostles' Creed, we say, I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, forget, but all of that is part of the work of the Spirit, right?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: So rather than saying, I believe in the Spirit and all these other things, those all fall under it.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I prefer like in the Nicene Creed, I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and Son is worshipped and glorified.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: He has spoken through the prophets, I believe, in the Holy Catholic Apocalypse and Apostolic Church, acknowledgement baptism for the forgiveness of sins, right?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like all of that all falls under the work of the Holy Spirit, right?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: So the work of the church today is part of the Holy Spirit's work.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's not to say we're just like in the age of the Spirit now and it's not connected to the age of Jesus or something like that.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: But there is some truth to where Jesus, upon ascending and gifting the Spirit, that we are in a we're in the age of the Spirit where we await Jesus' return, and the Spirit helps us to live in that in-between space.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: To a certain degree, we're we are the apostles who are waiting once again, right?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: For the Holy Spirit.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in uh Paul's or Peter's uh instance or case, all the apostles and any other for everyone else's benefit, that you could see the Holy Spirit descend upon them, which was much easier to st understand and explain what happened versus I've had too much wine.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it reminds me of uh uh when Jesus is is talking um and they hear God's voice and he says, That was for you, not for me.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh because he could always hear God's voice, but there's that's time when he and uh wants to be seen.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: I wish we could see this Holy Spirit a little bit more.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I think that's part of the key, right?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: Is to ask for it and then also looking for it.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's part of this preview's kind of thing.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's looking for where the spirit's on the move and where the spirit's letting loose, even though we don't we don't see it like tongues of fire alighting someone's head, right?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: So well, I mean, I don't remember my baptismal.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we do that to young, young babies, small, small infants.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: So there's not a whole lot of opportunity to maybe feel the Holy Spirit descending upon us or filling us with the Holy Spirit.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder if if if um we did it later in like some of the other churches.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: If you might f feel a Holy Spirit, well, I think so, but I also don't think it's I don't think it's only connected to the sacrament of baptism, right?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I think people have these experiences, you know.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, for a long time um we had lots of folks going on things like a walk to Emmaus or something like that, an experience like that where they were having a really deep experience of their Christian walk, or maybe people have had it on a on a retreat type of setting, or they've, you know, some are folks who have gone through Stephen ministry training, maybe they had a really deep experience with that.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's been in a Bible study or in a small group where the spirit just is powerful and palpable, or they or you know, different folks and different it could be the spirit falling on you in out in nature and just looking at the grandeur of everything and realizing the gift of God.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I do think we have times where we're drawn by the spirit into God's presence.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and and sometimes we we try to explain those away or other things like that rather than just being blown away by the goodness of God in that in that space.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I do think that's that's part of the challenge of adulthood, right?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: Is is staying open to how the spirit might be moving in in our in our lives.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that I think that's why Jesus is like, hey, it should probably look like these kids a little bit more, right?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like because they they kids don't have a problem seeing the divine, they don't have a problem and and then we get stodgy, you know?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: We get yeah, we get too too realistic uh too often and won't believe in the unseen.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and again, like we said, it's easy to picture God or Jesus and believe it, and then when you can't picture the Holy Spirit, no, it falls it falls to the side.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: But and uh wrapping up uh today um in our discussion of the Holy Spirit, um it well, it's it's obvious that it only descended on it's not obvious, believe it that they only descended on the apostles, but Peter goes into his rest of the uh scripture reading how it's not that Joel will envision it who pours out the Holy Spirit on all people.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: So even though if this day in Pentecost that we celebrate the beginning or the baptism of or maybe the of the church, the beginning, the birthday, might have been just the apostles receiving it that day, but it's obvious that he says it's open for everyone.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: For all to receive the Holy Spirit.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: So well, Kevin, thank you very much for uh joining us today.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoyed the discussion.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: I and look forward to the uh sermon.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh do you see it uh concentrating uh in one way or the other?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what direction are you gonna go with it?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I mean I think I'd I uh definitely gonna be talking about the spirit's activity and what that does and what it means for us.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know yet where it'll go beyond that.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we always talk about it receiving your spiritual gifts from the Holy Spirit.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we talk about it quite often in that sense, but we never give it credit for many of the other things that the Holy Spirit can do for us.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: As well.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: So all right.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I look very much forward to it.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: I want to thank uh everyone for uh listening today, and um, we'll be back again next week.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: So until then, may the love of Christ be with you always.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: So goodbye, everyone.