May 20, 2024 • 14 mins
Let's talk about Pentecost and the profound transformation it represents in the journey of every Christian. Pentecost, nesting seamlessly in the Jewish religious ceremonies, marked the birth of the church and the commencement of an era represented by the Spirit of God. The immense grace of Pentecost gave birth to a paradigm shift, the birth of the church era, wherein the presence of Christ found expression through the Church – His body.
We discuss how the Holy Spirit's indwelling resonates as a token of Christ's presence on earth. This episode encourages listeners to understand that they, as part of the Church – the Body of Christ, are the representatives of Christ on earth. The responsibility of portraying Christ fluently to the world rests on the believer's shoulder. Our actions either glorify His name or bring disrespect to it.
In this discourse, we highlight the significance of repentance and humility for the Christian. We explore how the act of true repentance spins us in a new direction leading to a divine transformation and an awakened consciousness of God's presence. The message of this episode rings clear – allow the Holy Spirit to guide your actions and acknowledge your role as Christ’s representative.
This episode also explores the Holy Spirit's gifts, highlighting wisdom, knowledge, and understanding as frequent blessings. The miraculous power of the Holy Spirit transforms lives and capacitates Christians for extraordinary tasks. Lastly, we conclude with a prayer for divine intervention, asking God to etch His word into our hearts.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:07):
Pentecost is an event that occurred regularly in the Jewish religious life,
and it was one of the festivals or feasts that people came for regularly every year in Jerusalem.
And it was called the Feast of Weeks. It was a celebration of the harvest, the spring harvest.
(00:33):
And those make more sense when you understand that there's different growing
seasons over there than what we have here.
In fact, if you visit Jerusalem or visit Israel, they'll tell you that they
have about seven growing seasons there because of the various climatological nuances of the region.
(00:53):
So with that being said, we understand this ceremony or this celebration as
being a Jewish regular occurring event,
and yet it was that occasion that brought about the birth of the church.
So, the death and resurrection of Jesus occurred coincidentally with Passover.
(01:20):
When we talk about the Lord's table, we remember that it was the Passover He
was celebrating, and it was the covenant of Passover that he was amending.
You know, he was creating a new covenant.
And with that in mind, this event that is the birth of the church was coincidental
with the Pentecost event,
(01:43):
and the event of the coming of the Holy Spirit was a kind of new covenant expression in itself.
That there's a new harvest, that there's a new season beginning,
and it is the season that we will call in the academic world,
(02:05):
they call it the church era or the era of the spirit era.
And we're living in that right now. We live in the church age.
It is the age of Christ's presence on earth expressed through the body of Christ,
which is the church, capital C. That's you.
(02:28):
So you are Christ to the earth today. You are Christ to the world today. day.
And that's what happened on Pentecost, is that the Holy Spirit came,
and in effect, Christ is imparted to all of us through the Holy Spirit.
And when people want to say, well, where is Jesus? How do I know he even really existed?
(02:52):
Well, he's alive today, and he expresses himself through me,
through you, through the body of Christ, through the church.
And that should be very encouraging and terrifying all at the same time for you.
The body of Christ then is expected to be Christ to the world,
which means that when we're not very Christ-like, we're not being Christ to the world.
(03:17):
And we're also kind of giving Christ a black eye.
We're sort of, you know, bringing disrespect to his name.
And the church that is filled with the Holy Spirit and in every way seeking
to be obedient to God is glorifying his name and calling people's attention
(03:40):
to him in all the right ways.
And I don't say that in this context to condemn or uplift Shiloh or any other
church, simply to say that if we understand the significance of Pentecost and
we understand the profound nature of the church as being the very expression
(04:01):
of Christ on earth during this church era,
then it should give us a sobering sense of responsibility.
Now, the trick for Christians is to not try so hard to do all of that,
and Christians have a bad habit of doing that, don't they?
Christians have a tendency to say, well, that's not very Christian,
(04:24):
as they point their fingers at each other,
or even I've seen pastors who spend an inordinate amount of pulpit time criticizing
other denominations and other religions as if that is somehow sanctifying the church.
But the real way you sanctify the church is to embrace the Holy Spirit and to
(04:46):
repent of your selfishness, to repent of your self-centeredness.
It's really just a way of saying,
Lord, the longer I spend trying to be the best Christian in town or to be the
best Christian in my family or the best Christian in my church,
the more egocentric I'm being and the less able you are to express yourself in me.
(05:13):
You know, you have to get out of the way in order for Christ to be present and
visible to the world in you.
So, the birth of the church at Pentecost was marked by statements of repentance, mass repentance.
People repented. They repented of their shameful pride and their egotistical
(05:40):
sort of approach to life and their sort of classism and their temptation to
lord it over one another.
Other, just as Jesus said about the Pharisees, for example.
They repented of that, and they humbled themselves, and they asked the Holy Spirit to come in,
because one of the things that has to happen for true repentance to take hold
(06:04):
is to first acknowledge that you are a sinner separated from God because of your pride, basically,
and the next thing you have to do is repent of that, And then in the form of
the Holy Spirit, that repentance turns into a new paradigm for you.
The word repentance in the Bible literally means doing a 180,
(06:27):
but I think it could be better described as doing any direction other than the one that you're going.
You know, if you will repent, you will find yourself diverting from the path that you've been on.
Repentance puts you on a new path. Consider the prodigal son.
He had to repent and return home to the Father in order to be redeemed.
(06:53):
And this is the true sign of Christ in you, is humility, repentance.
And when you repent and you choose to move in a new direction,
well, if this is the direction you've been going all your life,
if this is the paradigm that you've governed your life by,
(07:14):
then it stands to reason that there's going to be an associated fear that you have after repenting.
Once you say, Lord, I realize now I've been going the wrong direction.
I repent of going the wrong direction. I want to go in a new direction.
Then the first thing that's going to happen logically is, so where do I go?
(07:34):
Where do I go now, Lord? What do I do now?
And that's actually a really good thing because the Holy Spirit is there to
prompt you and to move you in the new direction.
And what happens with a lot of us is that we embrace the Holy Spirit,
at least to the extent that we can consider ourselves saved and redeemed,
(07:57):
but we never follow that new direction.
And so for a while, we find ourselves standing still, and then for lack of a
new direction, we just go back to the same old direction, but now convinced
that we're born-again believers.
Believers, but if you're born again and yet you never get out of the cradle, you never grow.
(08:20):
I got a brand new four-month-old grandchild, and every time we see her on FaceTime
or something, I'm marking the progress.
I'm looking at the ways that she's growing.
Meanwhile, her older sister, who was the same, just seems to me, yesterday,
is chattering away, telling me all about her day at two and a half,
(08:41):
because in two and a half years, she's gone from being this infant who seems
almost like the development is imperceptible to being so remarkably vibrant
and alive and changing every day that it's hard to keep up, right?
Why, then, don't newborn Christians evolve the same way?
(09:03):
Why don't we mature the same way?
Why is it that so many Christians Christians will accept that they need to repent
and they'll accept that they need to have a new life in Christ,
and yet they will remain Christian infants and toddlers indefinitely.
Simply not willing to let the Holy Spirit do its thing and change them.
(09:28):
So we pray then for the Holy Spirit. What does that look like?
Well, the Holy Spirit in the Bible has given us examples of what we can see
when the Holy Spirit is alive and at work in someone. They're called gifts of the Spirit.
Now, these are pretty remarkable considering, you know, we, the frozen chosen,
(09:49):
are a little bit afraid of these things.
When we see them in our midst, we're a little frightened because some traditions
look for this and expect this to happen, and even to a certain extent will fake it till they make it.
And we don't really want to be, you know, disingenuous and inauthentic with
(10:10):
our relationship with the Holy Spirit, trying to pretend like the Holy Spirit
is speaking through us or doing certain things through us.
But at the same time, to resist that is also a shame.
And so don't be afraid if in your church prophecy happens.
Don't be afraid if healing happens. Don't be afraid if someone speaks in tongues.
(10:34):
It's not the worst thing in the world. It can be a little frightening for people
who have never experienced these things.
But the Bible does tell us that when the Holy Spirit gets a hold of a church
and gets a hold of a Christian, things like that can happen.
I have found in my experience, by the way, I've never spoken in tongues.
(10:55):
I haven't resisted it, but I've also asked God, you know, should I speak in
tongues? And it hasn't happened.
So I'm not saying that these things must happen, But that we shouldn't be surprised when they happen.
We shouldn't be surprised when these things happen.
Here's the thing I have seen most relevant and most frequently in my experience,
(11:17):
wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
I can tell you that the Holy Spirit has been alive in my life and at work in
my life for decades because of the radical transformation in my nature and the
radical transformation in my capacity.
Capacity if I told you that I had grade school
teachers and even high school teachers who would
(11:40):
be astonished at what I've become at this stage in my life and the things that
I say now and the things that I do now and and the burdens I bear and so forth
that's not an understatement that's not an understatement you know.
So when I tell you that it's my way of bearing witness to what the Holy Spirit
(12:03):
has done to transform my life and my presence in front of you right now is an
expression of the Holy Spirit's transformation.
Because when I was in high school,
the guidance counselor said I should probably just join the military.
And that wasn't a compliment.
That was a way of saying that's about all it looks like you're really good for, you know.
(12:27):
And that was partly the impression that I gave, and partly because there was
this undeveloped, unawakened person that God knew was there.
And so in the same way, that is how the Holy Spirit works in you.
So recognize then that this Pentecost expression of the Holy Spirit is a vital
(12:52):
part of your Christian journey. and it would be a shame to ignore it.
We have no trouble expressing our joy at Christmastime and our joy at Easter,
but we have a very bad habit of ignoring the significance of Pentecost, even in the church.
And it is, in fact, the most profound of the three major holidays that we acknowledge.
(13:18):
Christmas is Christ coming to be with us and like us.
Easter is Christ redeeming us so that at Pentecost, we can be like Christ and with Christ.
He came down from heaven to be like us, to save us, and then invites us to be
a part of the heavenly family and be like him.
(13:39):
And Jesus said that if you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could move a mountain.
And what he's saying is that with
the Holy Spirit in you, there's nothing stopping you from being like him.
Unfortunately, though, there is this gravitational pull of sin that constantly
drags us back, and we have to repent and embrace the Spirit constantly.
(14:04):
Let us pray. Almighty God, thank you for your word now. Burn it upon our hearts
for your glory, we pray. Amen.
Music.
Music.
(00:07):
Pentecost is an event that occurred regularly in the Jewish religious life,
and it was one of the festivals or feasts that people came for regularly every year in Jerusalem.
And it was called the Feast of Weeks. It was a celebration of the harvest, the spring harvest.
(00:33):
And those make more sense when you understand that there's different growing
seasons over there than what we have here.
In fact, if you visit Jerusalem or visit Israel, they'll tell you that they
have about seven growing seasons there because of the various climatological nuances of the region.
(00:53):
So with that being said, we understand this ceremony or this celebration as
being a Jewish regular occurring event,
and yet it was that occasion that brought about the birth of the church.
So, the death and resurrection of Jesus occurred coincidentally with Passover.
(01:20):
When we talk about the Lord's table, we remember that it was the Passover He
was celebrating, and it was the covenant of Passover that he was amending.
You know, he was creating a new covenant.
And with that in mind, this event that is the birth of the church was coincidental
with the Pentecost event,
(01:43):
and the event of the coming of the Holy Spirit was a kind of new covenant expression in itself.
That there's a new harvest, that there's a new season beginning,
and it is the season that we will call in the academic world,
(02:05):
they call it the church era or the era of the spirit era.
And we're living in that right now. We live in the church age.
It is the age of Christ's presence on earth expressed through the body of Christ,
which is the church, capital C. That's you.
(02:28):
So you are Christ to the earth today. You are Christ to the world today. day.
And that's what happened on Pentecost, is that the Holy Spirit came,
and in effect, Christ is imparted to all of us through the Holy Spirit.
And when people want to say, well, where is Jesus? How do I know he even really existed?
(02:52):
Well, he's alive today, and he expresses himself through me,
through you, through the body of Christ, through the church.
And that should be very encouraging and terrifying all at the same time for you.
The body of Christ then is expected to be Christ to the world,
which means that when we're not very Christ-like, we're not being Christ to the world.
(03:17):
And we're also kind of giving Christ a black eye.
We're sort of, you know, bringing disrespect to his name.
And the church that is filled with the Holy Spirit and in every way seeking
to be obedient to God is glorifying his name and calling people's attention
(03:40):
to him in all the right ways.
And I don't say that in this context to condemn or uplift Shiloh or any other
church, simply to say that if we understand the significance of Pentecost and
we understand the profound nature of the church as being the very expression
(04:01):
of Christ on earth during this church era,
then it should give us a sobering sense of responsibility.
Now, the trick for Christians is to not try so hard to do all of that,
and Christians have a bad habit of doing that, don't they?
Christians have a tendency to say, well, that's not very Christian,
(04:24):
as they point their fingers at each other,
or even I've seen pastors who spend an inordinate amount of pulpit time criticizing
other denominations and other religions as if that is somehow sanctifying the church.
But the real way you sanctify the church is to embrace the Holy Spirit and to
(04:46):
repent of your selfishness, to repent of your self-centeredness.
It's really just a way of saying,
Lord, the longer I spend trying to be the best Christian in town or to be the
best Christian in my family or the best Christian in my church,
the more egocentric I'm being and the less able you are to express yourself in me.
(05:13):
You know, you have to get out of the way in order for Christ to be present and
visible to the world in you.
So, the birth of the church at Pentecost was marked by statements of repentance, mass repentance.
People repented. They repented of their shameful pride and their egotistical
(05:40):
sort of approach to life and their sort of classism and their temptation to
lord it over one another.
Other, just as Jesus said about the Pharisees, for example.
They repented of that, and they humbled themselves, and they asked the Holy Spirit to come in,
because one of the things that has to happen for true repentance to take hold
(06:04):
is to first acknowledge that you are a sinner separated from God because of your pride, basically,
and the next thing you have to do is repent of that, And then in the form of
the Holy Spirit, that repentance turns into a new paradigm for you.
The word repentance in the Bible literally means doing a 180,
(06:27):
but I think it could be better described as doing any direction other than the one that you're going.
You know, if you will repent, you will find yourself diverting from the path that you've been on.
Repentance puts you on a new path. Consider the prodigal son.
He had to repent and return home to the Father in order to be redeemed.
(06:53):
And this is the true sign of Christ in you, is humility, repentance.
And when you repent and you choose to move in a new direction,
well, if this is the direction you've been going all your life,
if this is the paradigm that you've governed your life by,
(07:14):
then it stands to reason that there's going to be an associated fear that you have after repenting.
Once you say, Lord, I realize now I've been going the wrong direction.
I repent of going the wrong direction. I want to go in a new direction.
Then the first thing that's going to happen logically is, so where do I go?
(07:34):
Where do I go now, Lord? What do I do now?
And that's actually a really good thing because the Holy Spirit is there to
prompt you and to move you in the new direction.
And what happens with a lot of us is that we embrace the Holy Spirit,
at least to the extent that we can consider ourselves saved and redeemed,
(07:57):
but we never follow that new direction.
And so for a while, we find ourselves standing still, and then for lack of a
new direction, we just go back to the same old direction, but now convinced
that we're born-again believers.
Believers, but if you're born again and yet you never get out of the cradle, you never grow.
(08:20):
I got a brand new four-month-old grandchild, and every time we see her on FaceTime
or something, I'm marking the progress.
I'm looking at the ways that she's growing.
Meanwhile, her older sister, who was the same, just seems to me, yesterday,
is chattering away, telling me all about her day at two and a half,
(08:41):
because in two and a half years, she's gone from being this infant who seems
almost like the development is imperceptible to being so remarkably vibrant
and alive and changing every day that it's hard to keep up, right?
Why, then, don't newborn Christians evolve the same way?
(09:03):
Why don't we mature the same way?
Why is it that so many Christians Christians will accept that they need to repent
and they'll accept that they need to have a new life in Christ,
and yet they will remain Christian infants and toddlers indefinitely.
Simply not willing to let the Holy Spirit do its thing and change them.
(09:28):
So we pray then for the Holy Spirit. What does that look like?
Well, the Holy Spirit in the Bible has given us examples of what we can see
when the Holy Spirit is alive and at work in someone. They're called gifts of the Spirit.
Now, these are pretty remarkable considering, you know, we, the frozen chosen,
(09:49):
are a little bit afraid of these things.
When we see them in our midst, we're a little frightened because some traditions
look for this and expect this to happen, and even to a certain extent will fake it till they make it.
And we don't really want to be, you know, disingenuous and inauthentic with
(10:10):
our relationship with the Holy Spirit, trying to pretend like the Holy Spirit
is speaking through us or doing certain things through us.
But at the same time, to resist that is also a shame.
And so don't be afraid if in your church prophecy happens.
Don't be afraid if healing happens. Don't be afraid if someone speaks in tongues.
(10:34):
It's not the worst thing in the world. It can be a little frightening for people
who have never experienced these things.
But the Bible does tell us that when the Holy Spirit gets a hold of a church
and gets a hold of a Christian, things like that can happen.
I have found in my experience, by the way, I've never spoken in tongues.
(10:55):
I haven't resisted it, but I've also asked God, you know, should I speak in
tongues? And it hasn't happened.
So I'm not saying that these things must happen, But that we shouldn't be surprised when they happen.
We shouldn't be surprised when these things happen.
Here's the thing I have seen most relevant and most frequently in my experience,
(11:17):
wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
I can tell you that the Holy Spirit has been alive in my life and at work in
my life for decades because of the radical transformation in my nature and the
radical transformation in my capacity.
Capacity if I told you that I had grade school
teachers and even high school teachers who would
(11:40):
be astonished at what I've become at this stage in my life and the things that
I say now and the things that I do now and and the burdens I bear and so forth
that's not an understatement that's not an understatement you know.
So when I tell you that it's my way of bearing witness to what the Holy Spirit
(12:03):
has done to transform my life and my presence in front of you right now is an
expression of the Holy Spirit's transformation.
Because when I was in high school,
the guidance counselor said I should probably just join the military.
And that wasn't a compliment.
That was a way of saying that's about all it looks like you're really good for, you know.
(12:27):
And that was partly the impression that I gave, and partly because there was
this undeveloped, unawakened person that God knew was there.
And so in the same way, that is how the Holy Spirit works in you.
So recognize then that this Pentecost expression of the Holy Spirit is a vital
(12:52):
part of your Christian journey. and it would be a shame to ignore it.
We have no trouble expressing our joy at Christmastime and our joy at Easter,
but we have a very bad habit of ignoring the significance of Pentecost, even in the church.
And it is, in fact, the most profound of the three major holidays that we acknowledge.
(13:18):
Christmas is Christ coming to be with us and like us.
Easter is Christ redeeming us so that at Pentecost, we can be like Christ and with Christ.
He came down from heaven to be like us, to save us, and then invites us to be
a part of the heavenly family and be like him.
(13:39):
And Jesus said that if you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could move a mountain.
And what he's saying is that with
the Holy Spirit in you, there's nothing stopping you from being like him.
Unfortunately, though, there is this gravitational pull of sin that constantly
drags us back, and we have to repent and embrace the Spirit constantly.
(14:04):
Let us pray. Almighty God, thank you for your word now. Burn it upon our hearts
for your glory, we pray. Amen.
Music.
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