Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Today on Abounding Grace, we return to Acts chapter two. Pastor Ed Taylor says many miss the point of this text.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Acts chapter two, this section here is not about the gifts. That’s not the priority of this text. The priority of this text is not about the noise, the sound that comes in like mighty rushing wind. The emphasis of this text is not about the little tongues of fire that are although it's all pretty amazing, that's not the emphasis.

The emphasis is not even on the gift of tongues. The emphasis here is not even on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and God fulfilling his promise. Listen, the emphasis of this text is God himself, the promise keeper. That’s the emphasis of the entire scriptures.

Guest (Male): Good to be with you today. We'll meet up with Pastor Ed Taylor in Acts chapter two on Abounding Grace, so you might find your way over there right now. This portion of scripture records the day of Pentecost, but Pastor Ed is quick to point out that many totally miss the point of this message, thinking it's just about the gift of tongues.

The emphasis is really on God and how he keeps his promises. He's faithful and reliable in every way in our lives. Let's lean in and listen.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Now when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and one sat on each of them. And then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Notice with me again, verse one, the day of Pentecost fully coming. This is an exciting time in the city of Jerusalem. This was one of the three pilgrim feasts where all males were required to come to Jerusalem and celebrate this feast. It's a key celebration and the city is packed with people.

Remember the three feasts if you're taking notes. The first one was Passover. And when you celebrated the feast of Passover, you were commemorating and remembering God's faithful deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt. They were never to forget God's delivering power.

Secondly is this one, the day of Pentecost, the feast of Pentecost. This was the feast of the in-gathering. You could say it was a harvest festival. And they were to celebrate the provision of God as they would bring in the crops and thank God for them.

And then thirdly was the feast of Tabernacles where they build little booths and they sleep in them at night. They would be there to be reminded the feast of Tabernacles would remind them that God was faithful and took care of them in their wilderness wanderings. Isn't that beautiful? God doesn't want you to forget his faithfulness. He doesn't want you to forget his protective power, his provision, his presence in your life.

And all of these are fulfilled in Christ. But here's the thing. By the time you come to Acts chapter two, it had just become a religious activity. Not unlike some of you here today, you're just going through the motions. It's just religion. You're just doing it because this is the thing to do. You're doing it because you got kids and you got to show them you go to church, so we go to church, do our thing, and then we go live our own life. That's kind of how it is here. Except that it's worse here because the spiritual leaders, they are not leading the people properly.

The reason being is that they have rejected Jesus. So the temple is there, the priests are doing their whole thing, and God, his voice is silent. Why? Because he's already answered by sending Jesus. The answer is Messiah, the Savior. But what did the priests do? What did the religious elite do? They murdered him, rejected him.

Heaven is silent. But there's this little group. You got thousands worshiping up on the temple, but there's this little group of 120. You'll read whenever you read through the scriptures, there's always what's called a remnant. Just a small group of faithful. Everybody might be doing one thing, but there's always a small group of faithful people. Even Elijah was reminded of that. He felt so alone and the Lord said, "You're not alone, man. I got thousands reserved. Don't worry about it. You keep your eyes on me."

And there's this little faithful 120 people. That's who God's going to speak to. Not only is he going to speak to them, he's going to fulfill his promise of sending the Holy Spirit. It's really encouraging to me to know that in times where I feel like I'm forgotten, in times where I feel like I'm all alone, I'm not. The Lord is with me.

There might be all kinds of activity, I might feel like personally maybe today you feel like, "Oh, I'm overlooked. I'm being neglected." You're not. Let the world do whatever the world's going to do. You just be faithful. The Lord will meet you with the 120. The Lord will meet you in your little family of three or your little family of one. God is with you. He'll minister to you. He's going to show up just like he said he would.

Notice as they're coming together also in verse one that they were in unity. You can write next to it in verse one, "one accord," just write that word I shared with you, interdependent. That's what they are. They are together. We are in this together. That’s really what he's saying. They're in unity. We use unity and it kind of gets lost. Think of it as together.

Or like what we like to say here, we lock shields. We're in this together. We're fighting the right war with the right weapons and we're not fighting one another. We're together. We're fighting the real enemy. And that's what they're doing. They're waiting, they're worshiping, they're wanting the promise, and then suddenly, verse two, suddenly.

Let me pause on that for a moment and remind you because you know when you think of suddenly it almost always refers to bad things. I was going along and then suddenly this change and boom, it ruined my life, or boom, it hurt me. We think of suddenly like bad things only happen suddenly. But today the Lord wants to remind us in the text that good things happen suddenly too.

It's not just bad things. Good things can happen fast. Things can change very quickly. The Lord can change the whole trajectory of your life in an instant, suddenly. They didn't know when this was going to happen. They didn't know. They just said wait. But when it happened, they knew because it happened quick.

That's why I think too there's that sense in the scripture of us being alert, sober, sober-minded because things can happen in an instant and you want to be ready for them. You want to be alert so you can respond properly. Notice how he gets their attention. First of all, there's a sound. And Luke here describes it. He compares it to a rushing mighty wind.

So think tornado. Think catastrophe. Think loud, disruptive, attention-getting. Although it's a sound, it's actually not the wind. It's just a sound that's like the wind. And the sound notice in verse two filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then secondly, there appeared, so first he got their attention with their ears.

Secondly in verse three, now he's getting their attention with their eyes. Then appeared to them divided tongues. And whatever these divided tongues are, they looked like fire and sat on everybody. So that was pretty trippy. They're watching it all happen. There's this noise, they're just waiting, worshiping, and then boom, everything's happening all at once. There's sound, there's something with their eyes with these little fires.

And then verse four, then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. This is the fulfillment of Acts 1:8. Jesus said wait, you'll receive the power of the Holy Spirit, you become witnesses. Now it's happening. And it's happening in a very spiritually dramatic episode, I would say.

The mighty rushing wind is a great description of the move of God here. Back in John chapter three, let me show it to you. Would you turn back just to John chapter three for a moment? The Greek word for spirit here is pneuma. Whenever the spirit is referred to in the Hebrew, it speaks of the breath of God.

And then notice here in John chapter three as Jesus is teaching to Nicodemus in verse five. Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again."

And then check out verse eight. "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the spirit." And so the spirit now is likened to wind. You feel it, but you don't know where it's going or where it's coming from. And now you have the spirit of God combining with fire in your life and you could call this like a firestorm of God's presence that happened suddenly. Happened suddenly.

Church, if we're not in a position to be ready for the sudden work of God in this culture, we're going to miss it. And I don't want to miss it. I don't want us to be caught off guard and off on doing something and being involved in something while God is doing something in the culture. We're off doing our own thing. That's not God's will for us.

Getting caught up in things that have no eternal significance. They have no eternal significance. So we're a church all active and doing this and having this, and all the while people are lost, dying, going to hell, but we've got our cause and we've got let's go fight for it. No, no, no, no. Listen, God wants to work suddenly in us, empower us, and then send us into the world.

And here's the thing. Here's the thing about this section. It’s why I paused at verse four. You read this text and so many people miss the significance of the text because they focus on tongues. And they just want to argue about tongues. That's their big deal. I believe it, don't believe in it. This, it's that. And they just argue and argue and argue about tongues. Is it for today? Is it not for today?

On and on. And while they're arguing about it, they're actually missing the whole point of Pentecost and the whole point of Acts chapter two. You see, Acts chapter two, this section here is not about the gifts. That’s not the priority of this text. The priority of this text is not about the noise, the sound that comes in like mighty rushing wind.

The emphasis of this text is not about the little tongues of fire that are although it's all pretty amazing, that's not the emphasis. The emphasis is not even on the gift of tongues. The emphasis here is not even on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and God fulfilling his promise. Listen, the emphasis of this text is God himself, the promise keeper. That’s the emphasis of the entire scriptures.

But people get caught up in tongues and they miss the whole point. God is keeping his promise here. And over and over again if God's going to keep his promise with them, don't you think he's going to keep it with you? When the Bible says that what God began he's faithful to complete until the day of Jesus Christ, don't you think he's going to keep that in your life? He was promise keeper to these guys.

And this is your church. Acts chapter two is your church, your history. And God was faithful to them, he's going to be faithful to you. He's going to take care of that situation. He's going to keep his promise. He's going to speak, he's going to lead. The point is never the gifts. Ever, never. It’s always the giver.

He's the focus in this section. And what we learn about him is that God is utterly faithful and reliable in every way. Can I get an amen on that? You guys with me? God is utterly faithful and utterly reliable in every possible way in your life. And you can bank your life on it. The entirety of your soul.

Acts chapter two is God who cares about his people, cares about his promises, and he loves the broken, dark culture so much that he pours out on 120 people to go out and reach it. This is God's plan we learned previous studies to reach the world, this 120 people. Can you just step back for a second and wonder what's God's plan for this little church?

What does he want to do? Like what does he want to do through our lives? Who's going to be reached that isn't reached yet? What's going to be birthed out of ministry that will reach and minister and serve and be the church in our community, in our workplace? They were given the promise and now God's beginning to fulfill it, and the promise comes to you too.

So when you come up to this text, I don't want you all caught up in tongues, I don't believe in tongues, I wasn't raised in tongues. Listen, set that aside. I view tongues differently than you do, Ed. Okay, okay. I'm not going to argue with you about it. That's okay. I don't want to argue about it. It's fine. You have a different view, fine. I'm going to walk away and I'm going to move on. If you want to keep arguing, you're going to have to go to a mirror and argue with yourself. I’m not going to go there.

And because I'm a Bible teacher, I want to give to you our view of tongues here. We believe it exists, we believe it's for today, we believe it can be exercised, we believe it's not given to everyone. But let me give you a definition just for a few moments of tongues. Because here as you look at this gift, it can be easily distracting. And as you're distracted, I don't want you distracted anymore.

The gift of tongues by definition is a heavenly language by which a believer communicates to God where human language is incapable. So here we see it as a heavenly language that was interpreted in their own language according to verse six or the Greek word there is dialektos. They could understand it in their own dialect.

Because notice in verse five, in Jerusalem there, there was devout men from every nation under heaven. And all this activity got their attention according to verse six. And then it says at the end, they heard them speak in his own language. Look at verse eight. "And how is it that we hear each in our own language in which we were born?" Notice in verse eleven, "Cretans and Arabs, we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God."

Later on this gift was misused in the church in Corinth and Paul spent some time in 1 Corinthians 14 correcting that. Now I have taught on this in more in-depth in those studies. So on our website, on our app, there's a section there of spiritual gifts or you can just go directly to Romans 12 or 1 Corinthians and I've taught specifically in 1 Corinthians on the gift of tongues and interpretation in tongues.

But for us today, let's consider in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says that the gift of tongues is something that speaks to God in verse two. In verse four, the gift of tongues is a self-edifying gift. So you are edified when you exercise it. In verse five, compared to the spiritual gift of prophecy again in the broader gathering, it is less important than using the gift of prophecy. We learn that in verse five.

And then in verse six, this is 1 Corinthians 14, it's not understandable in the body without an interpretation and it's better to teach than to exercise this gift in a group of people. And then finally in verse twelve, when you think of spiritual gifts and tongues in particular, just think about edifying the body more than edifying yourself. And that'll lead you in what gifts to exercise because according to verse 40 of 1 Corinthians 14, God loves everything to be done decently and in order. And we went through that in depth.

When we think about it, language, when you think about language in its very essence, language is really just an agreement between two people that certain sounds mean something. That’s all really language is. Where right now I'm speaking and making noise with my mouth, hopefully articulating words that you understand, you understand the sounds I'm making, and then you understand the word I'm trying to say, and you know the definition of it, and now you understand what I'm saying. That's all language is.

Like when I was teaching recently at that pastor's conference in India. Dialing in, I was doing exactly what I'm doing right now. Making sounds of the only language I know, English. That’s the only language I know. And so as I was speaking in English, there was another guy on the other end that understood the sounds I was making, and he understood them, and he then turned them around and then he started making completely different sounds.

Completely different. I had no idea what he was saying or how he was saying it, but the people in front of him, they had an agreement with him that those sounds meant something and they totally understood it. You know how I know? In one of the times I didn't do this on purpose but it's good for illustration. One of the things I said when I was saying, I asked for a response so that if they understood and they agreed, I said just raise your hand and say amen.

So I said that and then the guy he said his and guess what the people did? They raised their hand and said amen in a whole different set of sounds. That's language. You guys with me? Let me give you a test, okay? Here's the test. When I say the word "this," you understand that "this" means "this." Yes or no? Yes means yes, no means no. How do we how do we do that?

I made a sound, you understood it, you responded with a sound that I understood. That's just language. That's all language is. It's an agreement of sounds. And a variety of sounds depending like you know you think about what language they were speaking, I don't even know what dialect they were speaking in India, but it was something that was very foreign, not anything that I understand.

But the same is true with Arabic, I've been in Arabic countries, Hebrew is hard for me to understand, Chinese, Japanese. It's very hard. But all it is is just language has divided us all these years, but in the Lord by faith in Jesus, we're all together. And every tribe, tongue, and nation from every language that you can think of going to be worshiping Jesus at the throne. That’s just incredible to me. And it's something I want to experience more and more in my own life.

Tongues then is an agreement with God. He makes this agreement. And tongues is an agreement made by God that when a believer utters ecstatic sounds inspired by the Holy Spirit, they are interpreted and understood by God as prayer and praise that comes deep within my soul. So the mind of the person is engaged, but it's not leading to full understanding.

It’s a communication that bypasses the mind. The speaker knows what he's doing but doesn't necessarily understand what he is saying and yet is edified. And this is the problem. Because whether you realize it or not, our culture has made us very much rational, logical, pragmatic people to some, some are more than others.

Nothing wrong with any of those characteristics by the way, except when they dominate your life. When they dominate your life and this is what it's like, this is what it's like. When they dominate your life, you begin to dismiss the spiritual and the supernatural. You dismiss anything like "Well that's from the Lord." I don't believe that. "Well why not?" Because I don't understand it.

And here's what it sounds like. We live in a culture like I need to understand it. If I understand it, then I'll do it. And I want to understand it. And that's our sense of learning and growing, again, another great attribute. But what it's led to is this. If I don't understand everything, I won't do anything. And a lot of people live their life like that.

You go through a difficult time or you're faced with a new opportunity, "I just don't understand how can this be?" Listen for those words because that is you in the place of "I will not move forward until I get the answer to this question." And when I'm in a place where if I don't get the answer to this question I won't move forward, what you're doing is you're living by understanding.

Now of course things can be explained, again, you want to look at this in the broader sense. But I know for a fact there are people listening to me right now, this describes your life. You don't step out in faith for anything because you don't really understand. And because you don't understand, like you look at tongues "Ah, I would never even be open to that. It doesn't make any sense to me." Oh, okay.

So the whole eternal God is now limited by you doesn't make sense to you. And you're not open. And you're not willing to obey and follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Let’s back up a little bit. Let’s do something more simple. You're on your way to work and you just decided to get a donut run, you want to bless everyone. So you go down on Parker there, the Shipley's Donuts, you get in the drive-in line, you order.

But as you're the second car in, you get this impression to say, "You know what? Get the donuts, but also I want you to pray for the girl that's going to stick them out the window for you." And you're like, "Oh no, why would I do that? I'm late, I'm going to be late to work. Why would I do that? That can't be the Lord. I'm just here for donuts." And the Lord goes, "No, you're actually not here just for donuts. You're here because I want you to pray with that gal."

"I don't know, I think I just want to get my donut. I'm just here for donuts. I don't understand why would I ever want to pray with I don't have time." And you start explaining it away and explaining it away and explaining it away. But could you ever consider that even the desire for donuts was so that you could be connected with that gal at the window so you could be prompted by the Holy Spirit so you could just pray with her?

And you're like, "Well what if I do that, then everybody's going to wait, wait, wait." They've been waiting for ever anyway, so they can wait some more. It's no big deal. "Well I just don't understand." Nobody said you need to understand. How would you ever know the kind of upbringing she had? How would you ever know? Single mom?

How would you ever know the difficulty of her getting to work or the bus being late? How would you ever know she can't pay her bills? How could you ever possibly understand that? Just obey God. And then when you obey God, he'll start to reveal things to you. And then you find out, man, I think I need to come back and order donuts every Friday because I just want her to know that there's a God in heaven that loves her. It's not even about tongues. You guys with me? It’s not about tongues.

I mean you can hold whatever view you want on tongues, that's great. But you know what's more important is the glory of God manifested in our city. The glory of God living through your life.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. You can hear this message again online at aboundinggraceradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen through our app, search for Ed Taylor in the App Store or Google Play.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Hi this is Pastor Ed and I'd like to tell you about my newest book. It’s titled Letting Go of Your Past. God has been using this book. It's only been out for a few months and already so many are being set free and moving forward and gaining new insight on how it is to deal with the resentment in their life, or the anger, or the unforgiveness, or what it is to heal from deep traumatic hurts.

This little book is filled with wisdom of the Lord to help you move forward. Letting Go of Your Past is the title and you can get it right now wherever you get books or at calvarystore.com. Calvarystore.com. If you need any help you can always call us. The number here is 877-30-GRACE.

Guest (Male): We'll send you a copy when you support Abounding Grace with a gift of $25 or more. Our number 877-30-GRACE. That’s 877-30-GRACE. You can also order online at calvaryco.store. Calvaryco.store. Abounding Grace is made possible through the generous support of our listeners.

And as we continue delivering God's word one verse at a time, we're looking to our listeners for help. Together we can reach people with the love and truth of Christ and make a difference in these last days. To make a secure donation, drop by aboundinggraceradio.com or call 877-30-GRACE. Thank you for listening today. Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church Colorado here in Aurora.