Messages with Meaning


Sermons delivered at Sanlando Springs by Pastor Jack Parrott

Let's Celebrate

Acts 2:1-13
Presented May 18, 2008, © Dr. Jack Parrott
I. Introduction

  1. What do you celebrate during the year? Birthday? anniversary?
    1. "I'm in Charge of Celebrations" is a book about a Native American woman who goes out into the desert and observes the wonders and beauty of nature around her. She records what she finds and creates her own celebrations. Everyday is a day to celebrate. That is a very biblical idea.
    2. Psalm 145:7 (CEV) They will celebrate and sing about your matchless mercy and your power to save.
    3. We must celebrate the small things if we expect God to bless us with the great things!
  2. The coming of Jesus as well as the coming of the Holy Spirit in fullness mark a new age in Christianity. Much is being transformed
    1. See 1.26--this is last time the Jewish system of choosing people by lot is used in the New Testament; thereafter people are chosen through with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.)
    2. This also marks the transforming of pagan and Jewish holidays into celebrations with Christian meaning. Three Christian holidays to celebrate: Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. Today is Pentecost Sunday.
II. God is with us (Matthew 1.23)
  1. Jesus is God (Mark 1:1)
    1. Do you want to hear God? Listen to Jesus. Do you want to see God? Look at Jesus. Jesus said "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14.6). Jesus is God made in "human likeness" (Phil 2.7)
    2. Jesus combines holiness and human-ness. He is both MIRROR and MODEL.
      1. You ask, what is God like? Understand Jesus and you will have a better understanding of what God is like.
      2. How should we live? Study the life of Jesus in the Gospels. He models for us the godly life, the moral life.
  2. Jesus is God coming to us in the real world.
    1. Have you ever said, 'Religion is useless; it's not real. Religion is spiritual; this is the real world.' Study the life of Jesus and you discover in Him God became a common man. His was a humble beginning and common life, with good days-bad days, weddings, funerals, acceptance, betrayal, applause and rejection, life and death.
    2. There is not anywhere that God is not; there is not any time that God is not...there is not an event or time that God does not understand because He is in that moment.
    3. Perhaps it is that we like Jesus because he is so like us. Without the mistakes and character flaws to be sure, but we sense he understands our troubles because he knew so many of our struggles.
  3. Christians pray, "Thy kingdom come...." The dawn of the kingdom of God has come over the horizon of eternity with the coming of Jesus.
    1. The kingdom will come in fullness at 'high-noon' when King Jesus returns to continue His reign on a new earth.
    2. Until then know this: Jesus reigns from heaven over His spiritual kingdom. God is with us. He has not left us alone.
III. God is for us (Romans 8:31b-39)
  1. God created us to have a relationship with Him. Evil enticed us to rebel from that relationship.
    1. In 1974 members of a radical group called the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped Patty Hearst, the granddaughter of billionaire William Randolf Hearst, and brainwashed her into accepting their misguided and illegal lifestyle. Two months later, on April 15, she and three others robbed the Hibernia Bank in the Sunset district of San Francisco. She was later arrested, found guilty, and eventually received a presidential pardon because it was determined that she duped into adopting the ways of the lawbreakers.
    2. Throughout history many have been duped into believing the lies of Satan. We have rebelled from the laws of God, and we have received the penalty of our sins. We sit in the prison house of eternity, having received our death sentence. But thanks be to God, Jesus has come to our defense!
  2. God does not leave us along with our problems
    1. Leslie Newbigin (Journey into Joy): "The cross is the ultimate protest against things as they are, in the name of what ought to be...the world as it is not God's last word."
    2. Paul gives five affirmations in the form of five questions which re-assure us (Romans 8.31b)
      1. If God is for us, who can be against us?
      2. If God gave us His Son, won't He give us all we need?
      3. Who can possibly challenge God's choosing of us in Christ?
      4. If Holy God justifies us, who possibly can condemn us?
      5. Who (or what) can separate us from the love of God?
    3. God is with us in our battles. Through Christ we overcome all that seeks to overcome us. The cross is our victory.
IV. God is in us (Acts 2)
  1. Do not go into battle alone. Recognize that the Holy Spirit is with you in the battle.
    1. Psalm 118:6 (KJV) The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?
    2. God stands against all that stands against righteousness.
         On October 13, 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral affirming, among other things, the supremacy of Scripture and salvation as being by grace alone through faith alone. Ten years later, in 1527, Luther was in the midst of some of the most difficult years in his life. In April, he was so dizzy that he was forced to stop preaching in the middle of a sermon. He had become so depressed by the opposition of other pastors and teachers who were speaking out against his beliefs that he could hardly go on. During the summer and on into the fall, Luther wrestled with depression and illness. He wrote his friend Philip Melanchthon, "I spent more than a week in death and hell. My entire body was in pain...." But he was not alone in his misery. In August, the plague had erupted in Wittenberg. Many of the townspeople left the town in fear. But Luther, along with his pregnant wife, considered it his duty to remain and care for the sick. With his house as a hospital, he watched as his own son became ill and many of his friends died.
         It was in that environment that Luther wrote "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" which includes the words, "Did we in our own strength confide / Our striving would be losing, / Were not the right Man on our side, / The Man of God's own choosing. / Dost ask who that may be? / Christ Jesus, it is He...."
    3. You ask, what hope do I have? Christ is our hope. He not only stands with us, He stands in us!
    4. Put on the spiritual armor God provides. (Ephesians 6:10ff)
    5. Let God do His work in you so that He can do His work through you.
      1. He gives you the attitudes (Galatians 5.16-26)
      2. He gives you the abilities (Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12)
      3. N.T. Wright (Simply Christian): "Without God's Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God's Kingdom."
V. Conclusion

   The Karre language of equatorial Africa proved to be difficult for the translators of the New Testament, especially when it came to describing the work of the Holy Spirit. There was nothing like our word for Holy Spirit in their language. One day the translators came across a group of porters going off into the bush carrying bundles on their heads. They noticed that in the line of porters there was always one who didn't carry anything, and they assumed he was the boss, there to make sure that the others did their work. However, they discovered he wasn't the boss; he had a special job. He was there should anyone fall over with exhaustion; he would come and pick up the man's load and carry it for him. This porter was known in the Karre language as "the one who falls down beside us." The translators had their word for describing the Holy Spirit.

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