Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, thank you for gathering us together as a family today. Lord, help us fully celebrate your goodness in our lives. I don’t know what each of our week’s looked like, or what this coming week has in store, but I do know that your goodness will overwhelm us and flow through each of us.

It is by your Spirit that we are connected to you. Even these words that are being prayed over, it comes from your Spirit. Your Spirit in us understands our groaning. Help us lift up ourselves to you through your Spirit. Let your Spirit rest upon us. Let His power be manifested in our lives, testifying to the world about your awesome and wonderful works.

If there are any here whose hearts and minds have been closed to receiving you, maybe because they have hurts and scars, I ask that you would see them, hear them, heal them, and welcome them home. Help us have a heart like your own, so we could also see them, invite them, and serve them for your glory.  

Grant us clarity, encourage us, and empower us to live out the culture you bestow upon us as your beloved family. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Acts 2:1-13 ESV

¹When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. ² And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³ And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. ⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

⁵ Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. ⁶ And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. ⁷ And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? ⁹ Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, ¹¹ both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” ¹² And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³ But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.” (Acts 2:1-13 ESV)

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to paint a picture of the culture we embody as radical disciples of Jesus. Learning from the 1^st century church, we discovered that when we embody our culture, the culture given to us by Jesus, the impact is undeniable in our church, homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools.

Today, I want to explore the culture Jesus gave to us when family gets together. When you read the Bible, you know that Jesus loves a good family get together. His first miracle was in Cana making water into wine. His disciples were accused of eating and celebrating. He would invite himself over to people’s homes for dinner parties. He travelled with a posse.

So, when you host a get together or party, how would you describe it? Not as a sales pitch, but realistically? Is it:

• Wild / crazy / electric
• Laid back / chill / relaxing
• Tacky / funky
• Cool
• hectic
• Tense?

Turn to a neighbor that you didn’t come with and tell them your name and describe your next party. [wait 10 seconds]

How many of you would go to your neighbor’s get-togethers? Great, exchange numbers and ask for an invite.

Let me flip the question: how would you describe the get-togethers we have here at church every Sunday morning?

• long? boring? Hectic? Awkward?
• What about irregular?
• Traditional?
• Communal?
• Anybody think warm or welcoming?
• Does anybody have no feeling?

My goal today is to show you that our spiritual family’s culture of getting together because gathering with family is cultural, is meant to testify to the power of our God.

Here’s the first thing you to understand about the culture of our gatherings:

Point 1. God’s family meets together (v1)

Period. That is not a suggestion, that is not a matter of opinion. That is a statement. Family meets together. some family cultures do it and some don’t and those that don’t tend to have more fractured relationships, isolation, and loneliness, Let’s go to verse 1: When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place….

• Pentecost wasn’t some random day.
• Pentecost was actually a holiday.
• Pentecost is from the root word pente, in Greek, meaning fiftyeith. And it marks the day after a week of weeks, from the Jewish Feast of Weeks where the people of Israel receiving the law of God from Moses at Mount Sinai and it marked the day that the nation of Israel became a nation committed to serving God.

You see what happens on a holiday? The family of God gathers to meet together.

The cultural reason we gather as a family is to celebrate our commitment to our God, to being part of his spiritual family. We do this every Sunday – we celebrate through singing, praying, listening, eating, fellowshipping with our spiritual brothers and sisters, but also with our God. Do you believe God is here with us now? I know I do!

Pentecost as the holiday may still be a month away, but the practice of meeting like it’s Pentecost is for us right now. We prioritize every Sunday as the day we’re meeting with family. If meeting with your spiritual family is not a priority in your life, you’re not living up to your end of being a part of the spiritual family.

We need to prioritize meeting together because what kind of family are we if we’re not meeting with each other?

But it goes further than just our Sunday morning gatherings, we need to embody an intentionality toward meeting regularly with one another to celebrate our commitment to God. That means we get into small groups with each other. That means we serve together. That means we hang out together. That’s the culture Jesus gave to his disciples. In fact, that’s the culture God gave to the nation of Israel when he liberated them from slavery in Egypt. You look in Deuteronomy and God specifies various holidays and how the people of the tribes of Israel should celebrate.

Woah. Tall order. If family is an important part of the culture you want to embody, then gathering with them is a priority.

I know for some, the value of getting together with family is great in theory, but then you remember tree hugging uncle Ben, or racist aunt Patti and you choose not to gather because honestly, it gives you anxiety to be around them if they don’t straight up make you angry. In fact, you show up late and leave early because you’re more afraid Pentecostal Pete inviting you a prayer meeting than talking with uncle Ben or aunt Patti.

Just so you remember, Pentecostal Pete reminded me that there’s a prayer meeting at our church tonight at 6pm, he’s bringing pizza for dinner. Sure there are some in our spiritual family that have quirks, but ask your spouse if you have quirks they hate. And if they say those quirks are cute, they’re lying to you.

If the people in your family is the reason you don’t prioritize gathering with your family then understand when God pursued sent Jesus, his one and only son, to die for us, so we could be a part of his family, we were the ones he couldn’t stand. He couldn’t stand to be around us because we embodied the stench of sin, impurity, imperfection, and death. Before Jesus died for us on the cross, we were the uncle Bens and aunt Pattis.

But in God’s grace and mercy through Jesus Christ, we became his family. We are his beloved children who meets together to celebrate our commitment to our father because he is committed to us.

Not only is God’s family characterized by meeting together,

Point 2. God’s family gathering is marked by an indwelling of His Spirit (v4)

Verse 2.

 ² And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³ And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.  ⁴And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit…. (Acts 2:2-4a ESV)

When our family meets together God, the Holy Spirit comes from heaven and fill us each with himself.

Luke is depicting the fulfillment of the promise of God when Jesus ascended to heaven – the gift of the Holy Spirit who will always be with those who believe. But here’s what he is hitting home for us when we receive that gift and are meeting together: expect the supernatural.

Answer honestly, are we coming to our spiritual gatherings, our church, expecting God to do something supernatural?

I know I don’t always. Family, the things we would witness if we came to expect God to do something supernatural in us and through us every single time we meet together. Have we become so numb to the supernatural work of God that we take it for granted?

• Does it just feel like the AC unit is blowing too loudly or too much?
• Is the tingling feeling you get in your legs just a Charlie horse forming because I’m only on point two of my sermon and you missed breakfast?
• Or have you written off God as a clockmaker that just watches his creation tick away?

Whatever the reason, don’t miss what God is doing when we gather. Look at what Luke says, and you should highlight these phrases in your Bible, “suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house….” The supernatural work of God was present in their gathering and Luke is saying there was nothing like it, so he had to make comparisons to other things we know so we could imagine what the supernatural would be like.

• Luke explains when the Holy Spirit came “suddenly”
• Luke explains where the Holy Spirit came from – from heaven
• what the experience was like – like a mighty rushing wind; and
• the purpose of his coming – to fill each of the persons in the entire house.

15 months ago, Kate experienced a seizure. This seizure went for over 90 minutes. The doctors and nurses strapped her to a bed tranquilized her because none of the medicine they use to treat the seizures were working. Helplessly Michelle and I watched our child writhing in paralysis until her eyes closed. Where was God? Where was his supernatural power?

Then waiting for Kate to wake up felt like an eternity. What made eternity feel worse than it already was were the doctors trying to prepare us for the worst, full or partial paralysis, or brain damage so severe that Kate would not live normally again but we wouldn’t know until she woke up and they were able to run tests. About 24 hours later when Kate woke up, she was different. She couldn’t talk, she couldn’t walk. She was angry.

For a week the doctors ran all sorts of tests and the tests kept coming back with results that said something is wrong, something is broken. The tests kept showing them that Kate was still having seizures but her body wasn’t acting like she was having seizures. So they kept us in the hospital until they had no other tests they could run. It felt like when God needed to do something supernatural, he left us instead.

Isn’t it interesting how if you have an inexplicable medical diagnosis, you can’t find a doctor willing to meet with you? After being rejected by lots of doctors, we got to a neurologist who was willing to work with us. And she’s looking at all the charts and tests and doing her own analysis of Kate and says this: “It doesn’t make sense, but here’s my expert opinion: God took care of it. You can live your life trying to find out why Kate’s brain don’t line up with the expectations of the natural world, or you can live believing God made her this way.”

God is the god of the impossible, he does things in us and through that are not normal. Our father in heaven is not normal. Our faith is not normal. Every other faith tradition and religion in the world says you have to earn your right to hopefully be accepted by God. But our God says, “Come to me you broken and lost. I’ll show you love, acceptance, and give you my spirit who will never leave you.”

So when we get together as a spiritual family, expect God to do things that are not normal because being filled with the Holy Spirit is not normal. And we are God’s family filled by His Spirit.

The early church expected God’s Spirit to be present when they gathered, it’s why they gathered so frequently. So, we need to expect him to be present with us when we meet.

Let me give you some examples of our God doing the supernatural at our gatherings:

• When a person admits his or her sins, believes in Jesus as his or her savior and confesses Jesus as Lord, God has done something supernatural. That person went from being condemned and destined for death to being freed for an eternity with our heavenly father.
• When there is reconciliation and restoration in relationships because people at odds with each other extended the forgiveness God gave them to each other because they were united by Jesus under the scripture through the Holy Spirit, that’s supernatural.
• When the sick, broken hearted, and lonely find healing, wholeness, and acceptance, because the culture of hope permeating at our family gatherings, the Holy Spirit did the supernatural by changing a physical and mental disposition.

When Luke gave us the picture of the Holy Spirit “divided tongues as of fire resting on the gathered people,” he was describing what we theological know as the supernatural work of sanctification. Sanctification is an act of God by which he, through his Spirit is conforms us into the image of Jesus. When God’s fire, that is the Holy Spirit, is resting upon his child, God’s Spirit purifies our motives, habits, and actions to be perfect like our savior.

The Holy Spirit upends the natural order for God’s order. Don’t doubt it. Don’t close your eyes to it. Don’t close your ears to it. Believe it and expect it in your life because what we do at our gatherings gives God’s Spirit a willing canvas to do his work of sanctifying.

When we expect God’s spirit to sanctify the gathered, we find

Point 3. God’s family gathering attracting those searching for God (vv5-13)

Let’s read verse 4 again.

⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

⁵ Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. ⁶ And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 

Do you see what is happening here? When the family of God gathers and the Holy Spirit is present, I’ll tell you right now the Holy Spirit is always present when there is a disciple of Jesus, people who are not yet in the family of God but in close proximity are drawn toward the gathering.

I don’t care if you come from a pentecostal background or a Baptist background. The speaking in tongues as the Spirit gave utterance Luke is talking about here – no matter how you cut it, that’s supernatural. I can’t explain what is, I’m not smart enough. But I do know it’s purpose and that’s often better than knowing the mechanics of something. When the Holy Spirit gives you tongues to utter, you are sharing the hope and power of the gospel to the people in close proximity to you in a language they understand because they don’t speak the language of Christianity. They speak a different language, they speak the world’s tongue where values and worldviews are different so the words we use have different meanings. But you can speak that language, maybe it’s to a bunch of corporate finance guys. Or maybe it’s to policy makers. Or maybe it’s to parents. Or young professionals. Or gamers. But the Holy Spirit gave you the ability to code switch between the language of faith and the language of the world, so use it as you have utterance.

All of you should have this little piece of paper on your seats. On the side that says, Around the Brook. These are our church family gatherings that are happening apart from our Sunday gatherings. Here’s what I want to say about all these gatherings with your spiritual family: they are opportunities for you to invite people in close proximity to you to your spiritual family gatherings so  they can encounter the supernatural power of God through the Holy Spirit.

We print these papers out for you to take home and put on your refrigerator or your bathroom vanity, whenever you look at them, ask yourself, “who can I invite?” You speak their language, be their guide, their translator at the gathering.

Verse 7.

⁷ And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 

Amazing isn’t it? When people think of you one way, and you speak to them in a way they understand? It changes their attitudes and thoughts about what you’re saying. Verse 9.

⁹ Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, ¹¹ both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” ¹² And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³ But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.” (Acts 2:4-13 ESV)

I want to leave you with this one last thought:

Big Idea: Our family gatherings testify to the power of God

This list of nationalities here are ordered from Eastern most to Western most in the known world in the first century. Luke is just making sure we know that God reach goes as far east as it does to the west and encompasses every nation in between.

Our family gatherings testify about God and it reaches the known ends of our world. It crosses ethnic and political lines, social and economic divides, and languages.

What do you think these people heard in their tongues about the mighty works of God?

You know what I think they heard, I think they heard, God so loved you that he sent his one and only son, Jesus Christ, not to condemn you for your sinfulness, but to gift you, who couldn’t obtain eternal life on their own, eternal life. Jesus did this by living sinless, and then by laying himself down to be the sacrifice required for our sin. Then he died the death we should have died. And God, having found his son guiltless, vindicates his son Jesus by resurrecting him from the dead, and we witnessed his resurrected body. So, having been vindicated and justified by our savior’s blood, we have hope, not to be condemned to death, but new life in eternity. That’s what I think they heard.

But I don’t want to mislead you. Look at verse 12? “And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’” Our gatherings testifying about an all loving Father and the resurrected Jesus Christ will cause some to question the meaning of the testimony. That’s exactly why our family has a gathering called Alpha, so people can question, “what does this mean?”

That same testimony will also cause some to mock our faith, our culture, we see that in verse 13. “But others mocking said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’” Mocking our faith and berating it isn’t a new 21^st century phenomenon. Our faith was despised for way longer. But that doesn’t mean we change our testimony of who God is and his the mighty works for us. We’re going to get more into this next Sunday.

Regardless of how our gatherings are received, one thing cannot be denied: when our spiritual family gathers to celebrate our commitment to God, God’s Spirit does the supernatural in each of us, sanctifying us, so through each of us, we would testify to the world of his great power.

• What would happen if we prioritized and committed to a culture of gathering with our spiritual family?
• Which one of our neighbors, colleagues, classmates, family members would be drawn in to witness and experience the supernatural power of God?
• How would their lives be supernaturally changed?

Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for gathering us. For all of us, we know we were first invited to this gathering by somebody experiencing your supernatural power through your Spirit. We are so grateful we decided to come. Now that we’re here, we have an expectation that your Holy Spirit will rest on us, sanctifying us, doing supernatural works in us to make us more like your Son, but also doing supernatural work through us, testifying to an unbelieving world that you are alive and still do the impossible.

I ask for the supernatural right now. If there people sitting here questioning the feeling or thought they have is stirring within them about the reality of who you are, speak to their hearts and minds directly so they know that you pursued them in love and poured your son out as a sacrifice for us. Let them accept the adoption and love of an awesome and almighty Father.

For those here who have stopped showing up to our gatherings with expectation of the supernatural, renew and refresh them by your spirit. Let us all expect you to come powerfully and wonderfully.

Help us prioritize gathering with our spiritual family to celebrate our commitment to you. Give us the courage and the utterance to invite others to witness your power, grace and mercy. We pray these things in your son’s holy name. Amen.