Transcription
In Acts chapter 2, God is going to lay power in front of them now to do something that makes sense. We have to kind of remind ourselves in Chapter 1 that in chapter 1, verse 8, all the way back in the beginning, they were promised by Jesus that the Spirit was going to come. And in verse 14 of chapter 1, they were prayer-filled people. If they didn't wait for the Spirit of God to come before they started praying, they were praying people. In fact, they were peaceful, they were united together in 1:14, and they were prepared for the Spirit's coming because they were doing what Jesus had told them to do. They had chosen somebody and they had waited in Jerusalem. So here they are. All right, Lord, we're on an obedience. The Spirit's power isn't coming into the room to get a group of people who don't want him. They're ready, their heart is open, but he shows up.
Now, what's interesting to me is look at what happens when he shows up. First, look at verse 1. God chose the timing. The timing was God's. It says, "When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting." Remember that this is what time Pentecost is. Shavuot, what is the holiday for Shavuot? Pentecost, fifty, fifty days from what? Passover. What happened fifty days after Passover in the book of Exodus in chapter 19? The wind came down, the fire came down on the mountain, and what did God do at that moment, 50 days after the Passover? They were at the mountain of the law, and God showed up. Moses went up, and what did he come down with? The law, right? And the point is that in Shavuot, Pentecost, there was weird weather, there was fire, the people were all put together in one place at the base of the mountain. He went up, he came down with the law, and what were they doing? They were having a party that was not honoring to God. And so how many people died? 3,000. And in Acts chapter 2, there's weird wind, weird weather, they're all living with one accord in one place, and this time, 3,000 saved. And what you have is Pentecost 2, the sequel to Pentecost 1. And this is kind of metaphorically like what the New Covenant will be like for the Jewish people, but this one is a precursor to it. It's God changing the hearts of people and and them understanding what the Spirit of God and the empowering of the church is.
Now, what's interesting is that God chose the time and God showed up, but his his appearance was consistent with his word. That's what I want you to see. So when the Spirit empowered them, it's not that God came and all of a sudden they all bow before idols. When the Spirit comes, it's going to be consistent with what God has already been doing in his word. So he takes the example of Pentecost 1 or Shavuot 1 and makes a sequel to it. In in the second one, what's interesting to me is look what happens to them after the Spirit of God rests on them. Verse 3: "And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributing themselves, and resting on each one of them." It's not fire, it's the appearance of fire. They're not tongues like it's it's like little pieces of little flames. It looked like tongues in their shape. And so it comes down on them, and he happens to mention that they look like tongues because the next thing that happens is the people begin speaking in languages. It's a pun. He's not trying to say the fire was tongue. It's like they settled down and then it changed their tongue. Okay? It's not the gift of ears, it's the gift of tongues. God didn't have them all standing there babbling nothing, and everyone heard in their own language. That would be the gift of ears. This is they spoke languages they hadn't learned. Okay? So they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues. And literally, this whole word is actually from the word for tongue. As the Spirit was giving them utterance, they began to speak. And many people standing there, it sounded like babbling to them. But if they, if you knew what Bartholomew was saying, then it was in your language. So people had come together to Jerusalem from all over the Jewish world. They came with different languages. They streamed into the city of Jerusalem on the temple that day. The Spirit of God descended on these guys, and they began to hear, "Hey, there's eight, eight languages being preached over there." "Oh, it's their partying, I'm a party, and I'd like to hear my mother tongue." "Oh, that's great, I hear it in partying." "Oh, hey, I'm a, you know, I'd like to hear it in Latin because I'm out, you know, I'm Roman." "I'd like to." And so people were drifting over and hearing them in their languages.
Now, what's interesting is that's when when the Spirit came. But look at what happens after the Spirit comes. He specifically says, "Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Cappadocians, Pontus, Asians, Phrygians, Pamphylians, Egyptians, parts of Libya, Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." We're hearing their language. God was preaching to all of them. Look at verse 12 for a second. "And they all continued in perplexity and amazement, saying to one another, 'What does this mean?' But others were mocking and saying, 'They are filled, they're full of sweet wine.'"
Now, one of the things I don't understand in the Bible is why a bunch of guys would think you could get drunk and speak another language fluently. If that were the case, I'd have skipped language school and gone right to the bar. Okay? Because I've got to tell you, I've got years of trying to learn languages, and I don't do it well. I hack my way through languages, and people in foreign countries look at me funny, and they know what I want, but they can't understand why I speak like that. The point is, you know, and of course, my kids grew up, you know, my my oldest daughter grew up with the ability of just doing language like it was nothing, and her dad's going, "Here, I got this from the government, read it to me." You know, what do they want? Some of us are language-challenged. I always thought it was a weird kind of comment, "Oh, they're just speaking fluently in my language because they're drunk." But I think it was because they heard so many people babbling that they didn't understand.
Now, what I think is interesting to me, look at the after response to the coming of the Spirit. Number one, it brought skeptical reactions from the world in verses 12 and 13. People thought it was a prank, they thought they were drunk, they thought it was a gimmick. When the Spirit of God shows up and changes lives, expect someone to challenge your changes with nothing more than a gimmick or a prank. Expect it. Did you have a friend who knew you growing up, and then after you came to Jesus, you met them again, and it was weird because you're a completely different person? Expect them to be skeptical that you ever really changed. Expect them to be going, "Yeah, that's what you're telling me happened, but what really happened?"
The second thing is, expect that you need to clarify what God is doing. Look at verse 14. Peter gets up and he preaches a message. But when he preaches, he clarified what God was doing. And in chapter 2, verse 17, he says, "And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy." He said, "You remember that Joel talked about a time when God was going to drop a veil on the eyes of the Jewish people, and then later he would lift that veil, and they would all begin to prophesy." Well, this is the beginning of that, and he clarifies what it's all about. Well, all the way down to the end of his sermon, verse 37: "Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?'"
Here's the third thing. First, it's going to bring about skepticism. Second, you're going to need to clarify the work of the Spirit. Third, it's going to force people to make a choice about whether or not what you're doing is right. And so they were forced, "Hey, what do we do about this?" And Peter said, "Repent, each of you, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." That doesn't mean what you think it means. He's not saying join a church and go to a baptismal. They have never seen a church. There has never been a church. So when he says repent and be baptized, they've all been baptized to get into the room. They were baptized at the mikveh outside the temple. They couldn't have gotten into the temple and stood there if they hadn't gone through the baptism. So what is he telling them when he says repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus? What's the part that they picked out? Okay, from the Holy Spirit, they have been now convicted. Which part of Peter's command is weird to them? Which is new? Is repentance new for a Jew? In the name of Jesus Christ, they have already been baptized many times. You can't get into the temple without going through the baptismal pool of the mikveh. But it says you need to repent and now go back out the door, go back in line, and go back through the cleansing, and this time do it in the name of Jesus Christ. They have never heard of anyone going into the baptismal pool in Jesus' name. They've never heard this before. So, wait a minute, we've been baptized to receive the cleansing of God so that we could ritually be pure to come into the temple. What is this in the name of Jesus? When you do something in someone's name, what does it mean? When you pray in the Jesus name, what does it mean? So you're dependent. Number one, you're depending on them. You're when you pray in the Jesus name, you're depending on Jesus to actually be the power. You can't do what you're asking. He can. But it's not only that, you're giving allegiance to that person. You're saying, "I am aligning my life to that person." Something even more. When Adam named the animals, what was he doing? Taking responsibility. When he named his wife, what was he doing? Taking responsibility. And when you stand at the altar someday with the love of your life, if it's me or some other pastor, and they say, "Who gives this woman to be taken by this man in marriage?" You will give away your name of your father and take the name of your husband because your father's responsibility is given over to your husband. That's what the name is. That's why you change your name.
Now, what's interesting is that if you baptize in the name of Jesus, you're baptizing according to his power, you're baptizing under his authority, you're baptizing recognizing now he, he is over you. But something even more, you, you are taking, ladies, at your wedding, the character of your husband. Quite literally, you're taking his bills. Okay? If he's a sleaze, guess what? You just married a sleaze, guess what? You're gonna be tagged with that problem. If he's an upstanding man, you will gain the upstanding nature of his name, should you not defame it. When you pray in the name of Jesus, you're praying according to his character. Meaning, you don't pray for things Jesus wouldn't pray for. You don't pray for things Jesus wouldn't do. You can't ask Jesus to do things he says he won't do. That's not gonna work. So now they're baptizing according to the character, under the authority, trusting in Jesus. That's what he's saying. They've never heard that before.
So, is salvation because they got in the water? How do I know salvation isn't depending upon getting in water? Because later on, I can show you passages in the New Testament to say, "Repent and be baptized so that you will be saved." How do I know that you don't have to be baptized to be saved? Okay, clearly the guy who's hanging on the cross, that was going to be very inconvenient to take the entire cross, lower it into water, and bring it back up. Okay? That wasn't gonna happen. But that's not the only reason. I have friends who teach in churches that believe you have to be, you have to have a profession of faith, and then you have to be baptized to be saved. If you die between your profession of faith and your baptism, you are not a saved person. They believe that. And I say to them, "You don't really believe that." "Oh, yeah, I really believe it." "No, you know." "Yeah, I really do." Okay, two guys, you're in a foxhole, and one of them's saved and the other one's not. They shoot. Now they're down to their last bullet, one bullet in each gun, that's it. Now 500 guys are coming up the hill. They're dead. They know it. What do you tell the saved person to do? "Well, give the gospel to the other guy." "Yeah, but he can't baptize him." "So what's the point of telling him half the salvation message and then letting him die in his sins?" "Oh, well, God would make a special provision for that." "Really? So you're saying it's a necessity except for when you can't do it? Would God make a special provision for the other guy in the foxhole if, in fact, he hadn't received Jesus?" "Well, no." "Then one's a necessity and the other one's an option. You can't make them both necessities if God's gonna let you in when you only do one of them. So clearly, you don't really believe that. You just think you believe that." Does that make sense?
Here he says, "Repent." That is metanoia, is a change of life and direction. I want you to change what you've been doing, and then go out and publicly put yourself under the authority of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and I want you to do that so that you will be forgiven of your sins, and then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Why would they want to do it? Well, they'd want to do it to be saved, but that's not their major thing. They're standing here watching these guys empowered by the Spirit of God doing things they've never seen, and they would like to join their group. And so he says, "You want the Spirit? This is how you get the Spirit. You go out, having changed your lifestyle, committed to Jesus, get in the line, go through the baptism, publicly admit that you belong to Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of God will come to you." That sequence isn't locked. It's just what they told. This is a narrative, not a theology. So this is just telling them what to do. Does that mean that's how it happens for everybody? No, not necessarily. It means that's how it happens for everybody in this text. Remember that when you're reading a narrative, that doesn't mean that's the way every every time it works, because otherwise we all got to buy a fleece so we can find out whether God's will is whatever, and we'll do the Gideon thing. Okay?
Here's the thing. "For the promise is for you and for your children and and all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself." This is the first time Luke includes in the book of Acts that the promise wasn't just to Jews and the children of Jews, but also to people who are far away. So he inserts a hat tip for the Gentile there, even as many as the Lord will call, even if they're not Jewish. Okay? Now, what's interesting is it it forced the people to make a decision, and it pressed open the hearts of some of the hearers. What I think is interesting is what does it look like when people did what they were told? Okay? What did the early group of believers look like? Go to verse 41 and start picking out the kinds of things that they did. First, what's it say? "So let's say they went public." The first thing they did was they went public on Jesus. They were baptized, they accepted the message, and were public about their desire to change direction. How about the second thing that they did in verse 42? "Yes, but it's even more." The word "devoting" means it went to the top of their priority list. "They continually devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching." The roots, the roots, the root of all of it was not philanthropy, it was not even evangelism, it was truth. The first thing they needed to know is what do these guys teach. When you try to spring a movement from from relationship or mission and not from truth, you condemn it because it's truth that brings everything together. And what's interesting, it says they were devoted to the apostles' teaching. What else were they devoted to? "Fellowship." So following truth, the next thing was relationship. So you have biblical truth with biblical relationship, "to the breaking of bread and to prayer." So it says that they were also involved with one another on the on the eating together, and whether or not he's talking about the Eucharist and love feasts or whether it's just talking about meals, we can't tell, but it's includes both, I suppose. And then to prayer.
Now, when that happens, their dependence upon God becomes their, one of their critical features. So when you looked at the Christians, based based on verse 42, give me a description or a profile of a Christian, an early follower of the Way, in verse 42. Limit yourself to verse 42. What were the things that characterized them? I see four things. First one is truth. Second one is relationship. Third one is food. Amen. Hallelujah. Fourth one is prayer. In other words, they spent time together. They spend time with a priority of the teaching of the Apostles. They spent time in prayer, and they managed to get fellowship meals in there, which I believe is fundamental to anything that you want to accomplish. If you don't eat together, you're just not doing it. Okay? So in other words, people that gather in a big stadium-sized room and call it church, but don't know anybody else before or after the meeting, that's not a church. It's a Bible study, it's a seminar. When you start locking your lives together, you become a church.
"Verse 43: Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe." Can I just make a note about something? The feelings aren't wrong, but the feelings are after the truth. They didn't come in, and then the sound man put the sound on low, then they released the steam, shh, the lighting went down as as the room was getting ready for the stir of the Spirit. That's that's feeling, and it's fine, but it's supposed to follow truth, not precede it. It's not ambience, it's the response to God touching a heart. "And they began to feel a sense of awe. And many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles." The original group is over there, and they're healing people and all kinds of stuff going on. "And all who had believed were together and had all things in common." What's that mean? They became incredibly generous. How many of you borrow your roommate's clothes? Okay? So here's the truth. When you get together and you become part of each other's lives, then all of a sudden you wear each other's stuff, or not. Yeah. Here's the thing. I mean, honestly, I didn't bring any of my good clothes to college because everybody would take them. So I just brought my really nasty ones, and I didn't have to look really good, but nobody ever took my stuff. The important thing, you know, there's some things, by the way, I draw a line. Toothbrushes. I just do. I'm just saying. Okay? Deodorant, toothbrushes. These are things you just don't share.
Now, go to the end of this. It's interesting because I love the profile of the Christians. Look at what happens. I want you to take from verse 37 to the end of the chapter, even though we're halfway into it, and I want you to ask, what does an authentic fellowship with Jesus Christ look like? If you're in a real church and it's on fire for God, what is the response like? First of all, I want you to just remember that in verse 37, that people are preaching the word, and people are being changed by it. That's one of the marks of an authentic fellowship. The people are preaching the word, and people are being changed by it. Second, I want you to know that there, there are people who are generally asking the question, "What do we do?" That we're so clear on our preaching that they're asking the question, "How do I live this?" They're not saying, "Well, I theoretically like to, you know, engage this thought." It's about lifestyle. They're asking them, "What do we do?" I think if you're in a place where God is really at work, repentance is a norm in a church of Jesus Christ. Where God isn't working, the Spirit is alive. I'm sorry, I was wrong, should not be an unusual phrase because I've got to tell you something. Boy, you cannot work on our staff and not say, "I am sorry, I was wrong," because most of us are, lots of the time.
How about this one? In verse 38, he says, "I want you to be baptized." Oh, what is baptized? Oh, it's the word we translate as baptize. There are two words, and I want you to understand the difference between them: bapto and baptizo. And I'm going to tell it to you in a way that I think you'll remember it. There's a fellow, an ancient physician from 200 BC called Nicander, and he tells you the difference between these two words, and it's about making pickles. He said, if you take a cucumber and you want to make it into a pickle, you bapto it briefly in boiling water, stick it in boiling water and take it back out. Okay? Then you baptize so it in marination fluid. Marination fluid would be something like salt, vinegar, oil, depends on what you want the flavor to be. Sometimes they put lemons in them, depends on what you're, what you're looking for. Okay? So if you, by the way, if you put honey in it, you're gonna get sweet gherkins. If you put vinegar in it, you're gonna get kosher dills. Okay? So you all know the difference between those two kinds of pickles? Have you ever eaten one thinking it was the other? Okay? All right. So baptizo means you marinate it. You stick it in there and keep it in there. It has to do with either the length of time or the, you, you toss it in. This is an emphasized word. This is a, a blanching of something. It's where you put it in very quickly and take it out. Okay? Some coffee, I think, is actually taking a bean and going like this in water. They call that coffee. Okay? This is good coffee. But that, that would be an example of just like that. Did you ever have chicken soup where I think it's sort of as like a chicken ran through water and they served it as soup? You know what I'm saying? This is it. Okay? That's that's the chicken was bapto. Now, if you get good chicken flavor in it, that's baptizo. Okay? The word here is a word for doing it either with repetition or with great force. That's what baptizo is. In the early church, the way they did it was bapto was they went in and dunked themselves in a room by themselves in a mikveh. After the people heard this, they began to do it in the form of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and they began doing it with repetition. Name of the Father, name of the Son, name of the Holy Spirit. How I know that? Because the second century record of the church, everybody did it that way. It was always in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, the Holy Spirit. The reason we do in our church that specific form is because it's the oldest form. It doesn't make everybody else's wrong. We're not saying that. We're just saying it's an old, old form. And in fact, I can take you in places in archaeological sites where the baptismal, if I'm flying over it and look down, it actually looks like this. It's around that with a set of stairs going up to it, and inside you stand up there and you'd step down inside a center that is down low, it's like three feet, and then you baptize yourself in the name of the Father, and you saw it, name the Holy Spirit, and then you come back out. That's the ancient method of doing it. That's this is a baptismal that you'll find in Byzantine sites in about a hundred different sites around archaeologically in the Holy Land and around the Mediterranean. So the ancient way of doing it was to baptize oh, that is with repetition or great force, as opposed to going and what they had already been doing, the bapto. They were told to do something different. Okay? At any rate, you don't have to get all caught up in that, but it just to help you explain what it is. Yeah, they did because you're doing it by yourself. Just try. I mean, unless you're good at the limbo, I don't know how you're going to do that backward. Remember that you're standing in here by yourself. Nobody. When you're baptized by someone, it means they're standing outside. They're not getting wet. By the way, this was done on the Saturday night before Easter Sunday, and it was done in in the nude. When you've joined the church, the deacons all gathered around, and you stood there with nothing on, so there was nothing to hide. And you came in, you turned to the west, announced Satan in your past life, turned around, God inside, baptize yourself in each of the three, and the fourth one is the one you entered and exited on. And so baptized into the cross. It became quite a literal feature from Romans 6.
Yeah, now we got to assume that there's not a bunch of naked Jews frolicking into the Jordan, right? Remember that the method of baptism was not specified in Scripture, only the command of baptism was. So you could go through the Hebrew Scriptures, there's no such thing as baptism. By the time you get to Matthew, John's down there baptizing people. Where'd it come from? It wasn't in Malachi, but it showed up in Matthew. Babylon, they went into the Exile, and they understood Ezekiel 34, 35, 36, and 37. "You will come into your land, and then you will, I will reach into your heart and sprinkle clean water on you, or wash you with clean water and make you clean." They thought, "If we want God to kick out the pig-eating pagans and bring us our own people, what we have to do is repent and then go into the water and get wet." I think John adapted the method because I just can't see them doing it in the nude in the public by the Jordan River. And I think they went into the Jordan, I don't know, clothed or, you know, with wine cloth, I don't know exactly what it looked like, but they went in and they got into the water. But theirs was about the coming of the kingdom. John was preaching, "Do this so the king will come and then the kingdom will come." Well, the king did come, but they rejected him. And so he, so he actually adjusts the message in this mystery that he unfolds. My point is only this: I don't think it's the method that is prescribed that is the essential piece. It's the message that it is. So I have friends that go to churches that sprinkle. I have friends that go to churches that dunk you backwards. Friends that go to churches that dunk you three times forward. Here's the thing. Whatever you're doing, would you please make sure that the message is clear? Okay? That that it's, I mean, my friends who go to our churches that sprinkle, they do that because they say that, you know, salvation is when the Spirit of God comes down on you. So they do that as a symbol of that. That's fine. I don't have a problem with that. I don't think that's what they were doing here, but I, I understand why they're doing it. I think what happened in history is that there was a development. The earliest method is in a room by yourself in the nude at the South porch of the temple. That's the earliest method historically. That's a fact. Then we have John showing up, and I'm thinking it's not in the nude, and it's not in a room by yourself. It's in public. So I'm thinking there's clothes. I don't know that Luke, but it just sounds Jewish to me. So you know, it just doesn't sound like, yeah, you know. And I think I, of course, that could have accounted for why there are so many people attracted to it. The other, the other side of it could be, here you have them dunking, dunking apparently, I think multiple times. Then later on, people develop for practical reasons. By the year 68 to 72, people were baptizing in dirt. The problem was that the temple was falling, and the Christians were on the run, and they were in the desert, and there wasn't any water. So they were dashing dirt on you, calling it baptism, why? Because they didn't have any water. That's they were trying to do something and give them a break. They don't have any other way to do it. And so they're at a place called Pella, and we have early record of baptism in dirt. In the history of baptism, what had typically happened is people start doing it a certain way for a practical reason, and then somebody writes a theology a hundred years later as to why that's the right way to do it. But usually, it starts because of a practical reason. So if you want to know more about that, baptism in the time of Jesus is one of the DVDs you can borrow from Ben's office and take a look at it. I'm standing in the Jordan River telling a story and dividing out all the different baptisms. But for our sake, here's my point. My point is, when they came to know Jesus, there was a rending of their hearts, a request, "What do we do?" There was repenting, there was, there was public profession, but there was also something else. There was in verse 38, the receiving of the Holy Spirit and the coming of the Spirit for empowering. And they were also recognizing the promise that was given. This is verse 39. They were recognizing the promise, "for you and for your children and for those who are far off." They understood that this was a fulfillment of God's word. This, the Spirit's coming, wasn't out of the blue. God had said this was going to happen.
And what's interesting is notice the seven experiences they had that come right from verse 42 to 47. The first one is instruction, Didache. They were instructed in the Apostles' teaching. The second one is participation, that is, they fellowshipped. The word Koinonia comes from coin-toss, which is the word for common. They had things in common. Verse 43: "There was a manifestation of the Spirit of God that his leaders flowed with the power of the Spirit and the manifest presence of God, and people reverenced and worshiped that God was being made known in the place." I see that there's also a contribution. They started because the people knew what God wanted, they started to give their stuff. I see in verse 47, "There was an attraction." It says, "They were praising God and having favor with all the people." That is, when God is moving, people are coming towards you. When God is moving and the Spirit of God is alive in your midst, you're not repulsive, you're attractive. I mean, there's Christians that honestly, you just walk into the room and you're thinking, "Who would want to join this?" Oh, victory and J's Oz. I mean, really. Come on. I think it's interesting that they had favor with the people. But it's not only that. Look at the evangelization. "And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved." Can I suggest to you, the text does not say it, but somebody was giving the message of the gospel. How do I know? Because people were responding to it. And they don't respond when they don't hear it. It means evangelism is not a program, it's an overflow of the walk with the Spirit. Evangelism is an overflow of your walk with God. The reason we don't evangelize in the modern church is because most people aren't walking around dominated by the Spirit of God. So they turn it into a program and bought three books and franchised it and went to the seminar instead of having the Spirit. So they got the methodology. Guys, listen, in the absence of real bond, method becomes the subject. That's why you go on the Publix rack and go see the Cosmopolitan magazine, and it talks about methods of sex. You know why? Because they don't have love. When in the absence of real bond, all you can talk about is technique. That's all you've got. I'm going into churches and I'm hearing more and more about techniques of evangelism and less and less about dedicated time to allow the Spirit of God to get hold of people. You're not going to Madison Avenue people into the kingdom. You can't. You can't bring in some kind of big Broadway production and Broadway them to Jesus. Okay? Because I don't think you're getting real converts out of that. I think what you're getting is a lot of nonsense. Yeah, I have to modify that by saying that, you know, one of my friends was saved because a drunk priest read John 3. So God can show up anywhere and do anything. You can't tell him he can't. But that's not a reason to get drunk and read John 3 out loud in church. Okay?
Okay, so we get to the end of chapter 2, and what we have is a story of the empowering. Before we're going to go to lunch, and when we come back, here's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the first steps of the gospel. Now we have a church, we have called out people, and the first steps of the gospel are going to happen in chapter 3. But you know what's interesting? Right after the first steps, there comes the first persecutions. And right after the first persecutions, there comes the first internal disruption where they're arguing with one another. Why? Because that's what churches are. A group of people who are saved, who come together. The world doesn't like them, and then they turn on each other. And the Spirit of God will prevail in the story, but it won't be because the people were so good. It will be because God is good, in spite of the fact that we are a bunch of crackpots. I don't have to bring to you.