Biblical Blueprints, Part 1 – The Formation of the Church

Transcript

JRS 51
09/15/2024
Biblical Blueprints: Part 1 – The Formation of the Church
Acts 2:1-47
Jesse Randolph

There are about as many definitions of “church” these days as there are churches in the city of Lincoln. For some, the word “church” immediately brings up the idea of activity. They think of church as something they attend, like they would a baseball game or a Broadway show. You know, “I show up in my theatre-style seat. I sit, I observe. I check my text messages. I check Facebook. I listen, while the guy talks, from time to time. I people-watch. I nudge my friend or my spouse whenever I hear the guy up front says something that grabs my attention. Then I go home, only to do it all over again next week.” For some, the word “church” brings to mind a location. And they find themselves thinking that church is just a facility. A place with walls and doors and carpet and paint and chairs and the like. A place with a physical address, 1000 S. 84th Street. A place where the electric bill needs to be paid every month in order to keep the lights on.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There is a kernel of truth to both ideas. We do, in fact, as a church do activities. And we do, as a church, do them in this place, in this locality, Indian Hills Community Church. But the church ultimately is what? The church is an assembly. It’s a people. It’s a gathering. It’s a gathering of “called out ones.” That’s the definition of that underlying Greek word for church, ekklesia. It means the “called out ones.” The ones who, 2 Corinthians 5:17, for whom old things have passed and now behold, new things have come. The ones who, Galatians 2:20, have been crucified with Christ, so that it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us individually. The ones who, Colossians 3:3, have died and our lives have now been hidden with Christ in God. The ones who were once chasing headlong after the dark and wicked and evil things of the world. But now, Ephesians 5:8 says, we are “light in the Lord.”

So, we’ve got that ironed out. The church is a people. A gathering of “called out” people. A gathering of redeemed people. A gathering of saved people. But that only clears up part of the confusion that’s out there in the evangelical world about the church. There’s not only great confusion out there about what the church is. But there’s great confusion about what the church does. What our mission, our role, our function within the church ought to be. Is the church a place that ought to be feeding the homeless? And jumping into every social cause? Is the church to be this politically-engaged organism, that serves as a campaign headquarters for our favorite conservative political candidate? Is the church to be providing position papers on every issue that’s on the November ballot? Or, on the other side of the ledger, is the church supposed to, figuratively speaking, carve out a moat around the building and bring up the drawbridge and keep the world out, entirely?

See, the doctrine of the church, ecclesiology as it’s known, is full of interesting issues. And theological side trails. And frankly, potential pitfalls. That being so, with this being still a somewhat new era in the history of our church. And with this new year of ministry upon us. And with new folks joining us every week, I thought it would be good to spend some time, some concentrated time, studying God’s word about what it says about the church. That’s why we’re doing this five-week sermon series titled “Biblical Blueprints: God’s Purposes and Plans for the Church.”

Now, I’ll lay out just a bit of a roadmap for you, to give you a sense of where we’re going to go the next five weeks. Over the next five Sunday mornings I’ll be preaching five sermons from five different texts which highlight some aspect of what God’s Word says about the church.
This morning, we’re looking at the “Formation of the Church,” which will be a study of Acts 2.
Next weekend, next Sunday, we’ll look at the “The Foundation of the Church,” where we’re going to turn to Ephesians 2. And see how everything that we do as a church is ultimately to be built on Jesus Christ, His apostles, and the Word that He gave them. In two weeks, we’ll look at “The Function of the Church,” where we’re going to go to the Great Commission of Matthew 28:16-20. Where we’re going to see that our mission as a church is to make disciples. To go, to baptize, to teach them all that Christ has commanded. Week four, we’ll have a message titled “The Flourishing of the Church,” Where we’re going to study 1 Peter 4:7-11. And look at what God’s Word has to say about the importance of being connected to the body, to each other. And serving where the Lord has best suited us to serve, with the unique gifts the Lord has given us.
And then in that last week, week five, midway through October, we’re going to preach through Titus 2:11-14 in a message titled “The Future of the Church.” Where we’re going to spend some time to evaluate what it means to be “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Now, I’m really looking forward to preaching through each of those messages, Lord willing, of these next five Sunday mornings. I think the Spirit of God will use it to strengthen our church for the days ahead. But it gets even better. Because woven into this five-week series. We’re going to be participating in the two ordinances the Lord has given the church. Baptism, believers’ baptism, and Communion. We’re going to have a Communion service here, on one of these morning services. And we’re going to witness three baptisms.

And then, also, on Sunday nights, over this five-week stretch, we’re going to have five other pastors and bible teachers from the church, take us through these workshop-style messages on specific issues related to the church, and the church life. So, if you’re not a regular Sunday night attendee. I’d encourage you to become one. Start tonight. Go home. Take a nap. Watch some football. Water the plants. Enjoy the sunshine. And then get back here for evening service. As these gifted men will give us God’s Word about His design for how we are to function in the church.

Well, with those preliminaries out of the way it’s time to get into our first of our five Sunday morning messages in this new Biblical Blueprint series. And again, the title of this morning’s message is “The Formation of the Church.” This will be a study of Acts 2. And we’re going to get there in about 25 minutes, by my estimation. So, we have a lot of rabbit trails we’re going to go down before we get to our text. But I’m going to take us down a couple of side trails first. But I don’t want you to lose view of the main road of thought that we’re going to be on this morning. Our main road of thought today is to establish biblically when the church began. When the church was founded. You’ll hear me say this morning a couple of times the church has a birthday. The question is, when?

Well, let’s start with some historical observations. See, many Christians today tend to default into thinking that the church has always existed. Or that the church has always been around. And one of the ways that people have gotten to this way of thinking (in addition, frankly, to our own self-serving tendencies to think that everything is about us) is by neglecting two-thirds of the Bible, and what the Bible says, not just about the church, but about Israel. See, this is very unfortunate, and it’s very commonplace in our day. And it really starts with some popular-level theological resources and theologians who have gained traction and momentum in our day.
I’m going to throw one name out there, that many of you will be familiar with. The name is Wayne Grudem. A lot of people enjoy Wayne Grudem. We read Wayne Grudem. He’s especially known for his massive tome on systematic theology. It’s like a brick, like a paperweight that sits on many pastor’s shelves, mine included. Grudem says this about the church, he says: “The church is the community of all true believers for all time.” Now, when you first hear that you might think of what Grudem is saying is fine. We would agree that the church is made up of believers. This is a gathering of believers. But, what about that statement, “for all time”? Is that biblically-supportable? Is that biblically-defensible? The answer is no.

See, Wayne Grudem is what’s known as a covenant theologian. And I’ll try to keep this simple. But what covenant theology does, is that it essentially flattens out the distinction that God’s word makes between how He dealt with Israel back in the days of the Old Testament and how He is working in the church today. Covenant theology, and this is just a very basic set of definitions up here, is grounded in the presupposition that there is one people of God. And one program of God. And one purpose of God, which is the salvation of individuals through Jesus Christ.
Not only that though, but covenant theology teaches some form of supersessionism. An easier way of saying that is replacement theology. Meaning, men like Wayne Grudem believe that the church today, has somehow replaced the Israel of old.

Now, it’s important to note that Wayne Grudem is not out on some sort of theological island here. That form of Bible interpretation, and those biblical presuppositions have roots which extend back many, many, many centuries. All the way back to the days of Augustine. (You can say Augustine, it’s ok. I say Augustine.) Augustine was this fourth century, North African church father, who said things like this, “For if we hold with a firm heart the grace of God which has been given us, [and he’s speaking in a Christian context there] we are Israel . . . Let therefore no Christian consider himself alien to the name of Israel.” Grudem then says this, “The Christian people then . . . is Israel.” Did you catch that? The church according to Augustine is the new Israel. Israel as a nation has been pushed to the side in God’s plans and God’s purposes.

Now, to say that Augustine has been influential in the development of Christian thought and in Christian history, in really philosophy overall, would be a gross understatement. Augustine’s views on bible interpretation, his views on the church and Israel have had a profound influence going many centuries forward. He influenced the Reformers like John Calvin and Martin Luther. And then later, he influenced many later generations of Reformed thinkers.

To give you an example of what I mean. Here’s Heinrich Bullinger. He was a Swiss theologian in the 1500’s. He said this, “Now the Jewish religion, which I understand to be defined in time by circumcision and laws, is also ancient, seeing that it began partly in the time of Abraham and partly in the time of Moses. [to that we would agree, by the way, but then he says] But the Christian religion is older by far than such things.” In other words, Bullinger saw the church as being the new Israel. And not only that, he read the church back into the Old Testament. Saying that “the Christian religion is older by far” than even the Law of Moses.

Then there is Zacharias Ursinus. He was a sixteenth-century German theologian. He wrote, “That there is but one church of all times,” there’s that one people of God idea, “from the beginning to the end of the world, there can be no reasonable doubt; for it is manifest that the church has always existed, even before the time of Abraham.” You heard that right. The church existed “before the time of Abraham.” Indeed, he says the church has existed eternally, he says it “has always existed.”

Now, and you move up to the 1800’s. We have Charles Hodge, who was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. He says, “There is no authorized definition of the Church, which does not include the people of God under the Mosaic law.” The church, in other words, includes Old Testament Israel. That’s what he’s saying. He also said: “It is not a new church, but one and the same . . . It is found in the same covenant, the covenant made with Abraham.”

Louis Berkhof, writing in the 1900’s said that on the peninsula at Sinai where the Israelites were gathered as they were waiting to enter into the Promised Land… he says, the people of Israel became not only a nation, but “the church of God.” Now, serious question here. I don’t mean this facetiously. Do you think the people of Israel know that they were the church of God?

The last one I’ll mention, just to drive home this point, is Loraine Boettner. He was a mid-20th century Reformed theologian. Fun fact, from Rock Port, Missouri. Who said this, “When God says, ‘They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain,’” that’s a quote from Isaiah 11, by the way, he says, “let not the reader absurdly imagine that He had in mind only that insignificant elevation called Zion, in the southeast corner of the city of Jerusalem. ‘God’s holy mountain,’” says Boettner, “which at that time was the site of the temple and the center of the true religion, is the familiar and endeared name for the Church or Kingdom in the present Messianic age.”
Basically, Isaiah 11:9, is not about Israel, it’s about the church. To which I would ask, now, who’s being absurd? The one who takes God at His Word? Or, instead, Loraine Boettner?

Well, as we’re about to see, those who are finding the church in the Old Testament are taking exegetical leaps that have no biblical support. The church did not exist in the Old Testament. The church has not existed from before time. The church didn’t exist in the Garden. The church didn’t exist in Genesis. The church didn’t pre-exist Abraham or Moses. The church didn’t pre-exist Jesus’ incarnation. The church didn’t even exist at the moment of Jesus’ death, or at the moment of His resurrection. No, the church is a New Testament entity. And the church was birthed at a specific point in time. At a specific date on the calendar. The church has a birthday. And that day was Pentecost.

Before we get there, to the day of Pentecost and Acts 2 (I told you it would take me awhile) we’re going to make a couple more pit stops. But again, don’t lose sight of the big idea here. I want to get us to the place of biblical clarity and precision, about when the church began. When it was formed.

Ok, we’ve looked at some of the historical issues. Those are all the quotes. Now, I want to make some grammatical observations. And specifically, grammatical observations about the Greek word for church which is ekklesia. See, the folks who say that they see the church in the Old Testament. What they’ll do, is they’ll take the New Testament word for church, “ekklesia,” and they’ll say, well, that’s kind of like this Old Testament word for gathering, “qahal.” And they’ll make this argument that since people gathered in the Old Testament and since people gather in the New Testament and since in the New Testament that gathering is called the church, well, then it’s acceptable to call the people of God in the Old Testament the church as well.

Well, the grammatical reality is that the word in Hebrew, in the Old Testament for an assembly or a gathering, “qahal,” it means just that, assembly. I mean, there’s some instances in which it had some sort of religious significance. Where it’s a religious assembly that’s being referred to.
One of them is Deuteronomy 9:10, Moses there says, “Yahweh gave me the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God; and on them were all the words which Yahweh had spoken with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.” “Qahal,” it’s a religious assembly there.
But that word “qahal,” doesn’t always mean a religious assembly. It could just mean an assembly. Like people gather around a light pole. Or people gather around the water cooler, for instance, 1 Kings 12, it refers to a general assembly. 1 Kings 12 tells us, verse 3, that “Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam.” That’s not a religious assembly, it’s just an assembly. Not only that, you have in the Old Testament certain instances where that word “qahal” is used to refer to assemblies of people from other nations. In Ezekiel, that word “qahal” refers to an assembly of Egyptians, in Ezekiel 17:17. An assembly of people of Tyre, in Ezekiel 27:27. An assembly of the people of Assyria, in Ezekiel 32:22.

All that to say, these efforts to find the church in the Old Testament by assuming that the ekklesia, the church of the New Testament is the same thing as the qahal, the assembly of the Old Testament is a major grammatical leap. A major grammatical stretch.

Here’s another reason that the argument for finding the church in the Old Testament fails. It fails to account for what the Bible teaches about the church being a mystery. Something not previously revealed in former generations, i.e., in the Old Testament times. If you would, turn with me over to Ephesians 3. Where we’re going to learn about this collective gathering of Jews and Gentiles in one body, i.e., the church, being a mystery. Ephesians. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Go to Ephesians 3:4. I’m just going to kind of pick it up mid-sentence here. It says, “when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ.”
And then Paul, then fleshes out this “mystery of Christ” in verses 5-6 of Ephesians 3. He says, “ which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it was now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit: that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”
So, you see it there, the bringing together of Jews and Gentiles into one body is called what? Verse 4, a mystery. Which means what? It wasn’t previously revealed! And then, look again at verse 5, Paul there says, that this mystery was “not made known” in previous ages “as it was now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit.” There’s a cross-reference there, that would be in Colossians 1:24-27. The same ideas communicated by Paul there. Now, though the letters of Ephesians and Colossians don’t tell us precisely when the church began, they don’t identify the birthday of the church, they do tell us by virtue of that word “mystery” that the church didn’t exist in the Old Testament. If the church did exist in the Old Testament, it wouldn’t be called a mystery in the New.

Now, I’ve already mentioned how the Greek term “ekklesia,” has by certain theological camps, i.e., the covenant theologians, been imported back into the Old Testament. And with the suggestion that it’s the equivalent of the Hebrew term for assembly, qahal. Now, there’s another matter we need to work through, which is how is that term ekklesia, in the New Testament, actually used? In those twenty-seven books where do we see the word appear? And how often does it appear? And in what context does it appear? Those sorts of questions. Well, the word “ekklesia” appears 109 times in the New Testament to refer to the church. Meaning, it’s a common term. But it’s an unevenly distributed term. You see it sprinkled in the book of Acts. Especially in the second half. You see it sprinkled in Revelation. You see it, of course, all throughout Paul’s letters, and other letters. But it actually only appears two times, the word “church,” ekklesia, in all four Gospels. In both instances you’re in the Gospel of Matthew.
One of them is Matthew 16:18, what I read for the scripture reading this morning, “you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My,” ekklesia, “church.” The second one is in Matthew 18, which deals with matters we know of church discipline.

Actually, lets go over to the Gospel of Matthew. You’re probably wondering, when are you going to get into Acts 2? The answer is, I don’t know. Eventually we’ll get there, I promise. Acts 2, we’ll get there. But for now, I’m going to go to the Gospel of Matthew. Because there really is so much here, I want us to just get clear in our heads about what the scriptures reveal about when the church was founded. I want to make sure we cover this comprehensively.

So, Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew. This first book here in the New Testament. Go ahead and turn to Matthew 13. And the context here is super important. By way of reminder, the Gospel of Matthew presents Christ as the King of Israel. And this Gospel is centered on Christ offering the kingdom to His people, to the Jews. And the kingdom He offers them was the very kingdom they were expecting the Christ their Messiah to usher in. He tells them in Matthew 4:17 that the kingdom is at hand. He says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And then in Matthew 13:11 it says He revealed the mysteries of the kingdom to His disciples. Look at Matthew 13:11, He says, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.”

And as we work through Matthew 13, we’re going to see that He gives the people there, the Jews of His day, these various kingdom-themed parables. Which most of us have heard at some point. And which many of us have assumed are all about the church. But in context, these parables are about the kingdom that Jesus was then offering to Israel. A kingdom which Israel rejected. And a kingdom which, even from our vantage point today, hasn’t yet come.

For instance, one of these kingdom parables, is the parable of the sower. You can look at Matthew 13:19 there. This is Jesus explaining the meaning of the first type of soil in the parable of the sower. Note the kingdom language. Matthew 13:19, he says, “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road.” Drop down to verse 24, here’s the parable of the tares among the wheat. It says, “He presented another parable to them, saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away.” Drop down to verse 31, here we have the parable of the mustard seed. Matthew 13:31, He presented another parable to them saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is the smallest of all seeds, but when it is fully grown, it is the largest of the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.” Verse 33, another parable. This one is, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three sata of flour until it was all leavened.” Verse 44, another parable, a kingdom parable, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Verse 45, another parable of the kingdom, the pearl of great price, or the costly pearl. Again, “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” One more, verse 47, this is the parable of the net tossed into the sea. He says, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering fish of every kind; and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away.”

So, these are all parables offered in connection with Christ’s offer of the kingdom, to the people of Israel, in His day. And again, the people of Israel, as we read through these Gospel accounts, they reject His offer of the kingdom. And because of this, because of their rejection, Christ delays, defers the ultimate earthly establishment of His kingdom that is still yet future from our vantage point in the year 2024.

In the meantime, back in Matthew. This is all, by the way, if you’re losing track, keep focus on our main thought here, the establishment of the church. The birthday of the church. I’m getting us to Matthew 16, ok? You’ll see what I’m doing in a second. There’s a method to the madness. But keep going through Matthew 13. Now we’re going to see Christ receiving opposition from those outside. First, He is rejected in His hometown. Look at verse 53 of Matthew 13.
“Now it happened that when Jesus had finished these parables, He departed from there. And He came to His hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?’ And they were taking offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.’ And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief.” So, He’s facing opposition. After He delivers those parables.

Matthew 14, Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist, faces the ultimate form of opposition when he’s beheaded. Matthew 15, certain Pharisees and scribes confront and challenge Jesus. Look at Matthew 15:1-2, it says, “Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ‘Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.’” That instance where they’re confronting Him because Jesus and His disciples aren’t following the traditions of the day. Matthew 16:1, now the Sadducees are getting involved. So, it’s the Pharisees opposing Jesus. It’s the scribes opposing Jesus. Even the Sadducees, who hated the Pharisees, are now opposing Jesus.
Look at verse 1, “And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, ‘When it is evening, you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.” And in the morning, “There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.” Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times? An evil and adulterous generation eagerly seeks for a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.’ And He left them and went away.”

Against the backdrop of their rejection of His kingdom offer - and the hostility that Christ was facing from all this opposition - and knowing that the cross was coming - and knowing that He needed to prepare His disciples for what was to come - and knowing that His disciples needed to be assured of who He was in His person and what His plans and His purposes were for the days ahead - Christ reveals Himself here in Matthew 16, as the Christ. As the Son of the living God. Who would build what? His church.

Matthew 16, look at verse 13, it says, “Now,” it’s our scripture reading from this morning, “when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, saying, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ And Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.’” Those words, “I will build My church,” My ekklesia, are in the future tense. Meaning, this is an explicit statement from Jesus that the church, from the time in history in which He said these words in Matthew 16, were yet future. The church did not at this point exist.

And then note this, this future organism that was to be known as the church, it says, verse 18, would be built on “this rock.” And obviously, there has been tons of historical debate and bloodshed, over what that rock refers to. There are those, especially in the Roman Catholic tradition, who say that the rock is Peter himself. Which conveniently props up their idea of papal succession. There are others that say that the rock is Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. I’m going to unapologetically skirt that topic entirely this morning. And save it for next week, when we get into “The Foundation of the Church.” And establish what the foundation of the church actually is. But for our purposes this morning, as we seek to flesh out this one question we’re seeking to answer, of when the church began,
note this: that what we can confidently say here in terms of when the church was formed, is that the church was built on something entirely new. Whether it was built on Peter himself. Or on whether it was built on Peter’s confession. The church was built on something entirely new. Which is a nice preview for the text we’ll be in next week in Ephesians 2:19-20, which says that God’s household, the church, is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone.” In other words, the church would be this new entity. This new organism. With this entirely new foundation being Christ Himself. Again, more on that next Sunday.

I said it would take about 30 minutes, I’m about right on target, to get to our actual text for this morning. Thirty-minute introduction. Thirty minutes of text. Let’s get to Acts 2. Thanks for your patience. We’ll go through this very quickly. By necessity, we’re going to need to go through this text in fly-over mode. And that’s ok. Going at Mach speed today is ok. Cause it serves our purposes of highlighting biblically that the church was established on a specific day. Namely, the day of Pentecost. Even though we’re way late, by the way, in getting to our text, I still have three alliterated points for you. I won’t let you down.

Alright, verses 1-13, here’s our first point, “The Power of the Spirit.” Look at Acts 2:1, it says, “And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together in one place.” So, the scene here is this: Jesus has told His disciples about His coming departure. That’s back in the upper room. He’s told them that when He departed He would send His Spirit. And, as we just saw in our review of the Gospel of Matthew, He had spoken already by this point of building this future organism known as the church. But it wasn’t until He ascended and the Spirit descended that the church would formally be established. And as we look here at Acts 2, note that it was the day of Pentecost where the Spirit descended, or the Spirit was sent.

Now, the day of Pentecost was this Jewish festival. And this festival came fifty days after the earlier Feast of Firstfruits. So, first came the Feast of Firstfruits. And then fifty days later came the Feast of Pentecost. That’s how the feast got its name. Pentecost comes from a Greek word meaning fifty. But the thing to really zero in on here is that this was a Jewish festival with Jewish people gathered. Meaning, when it was established, first established, the church was a Jewish church. The early church was born into a Jewish environment. Now, we’re not told exactly where these believers were gathered. As good as guess as any would be that they were in the vicinity of the temple there in Jerusalem. All we get here is in verse 1 that they were together. They were gathered. It was an assembly.

Now, look at verses 2-3, it says, “And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues like fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.” So, there’s this heaven-sent “noise like a violent rushing wind.” And the word for wind there can be translated breath. It’s a word that’s related to the Greek word for spirit, “pneuma.” And both of those words, “breath” or “wind,” come from a Greek verb that means to blow or to breathe. So, the idea here is that with this noise of this violent rushing wind, the blowing of this wind, the power of the Holy Spirit was at work in this place where these individuals had gathered.

Now, the reference in verse 3 here, to these “tongues like fire,” is also significant. Because it portrays the presence of God. We remember all those instances in the Old Testament where God’s presence was described in terms of fire. We think of the smoking pot and flame that went before Abraham, or Abram at the time, as God cut His covenant with him, Genesis 15. We think of the burning bush in Exodus 3. We think of the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night by which God led the Israelites. And then we have this reference here in verse 3, the “tongues like fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.” Taking this at face value (I don’t have all the time in the world to explain it) it appears as though these flames, indicating God’s divine presence, somehow came to rest on every single individual that was gathered there. I don’t have a way I can sketch that out for you. I’m just taking a text as what it says.

Now, look at verse 4. We’re going to have to campout here for a bit. Because verse 4 really cements the main point we’re trying to make here this morning. Which is that the church was founded on a specific day. That day being Pentecost. Verse 4 reads, “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.”

So, just a brief time-out here. Note all the Spirit references so far. In verse 2, we have the reference to this “noise like a violent rushing wind.” We have this idea in verse 2 of this “filled the whole house where they,” had assembled, “were sitting.”
Now, in verse 4 it says they “were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” And that they “began to speak with other tongues.” That word for tongues there means spoken, living languages. Not ecstatic utterances. Not unintelligible gibberish. In other words, they were speaking known languages to each other. Languages that had been spoken before. Though they had never spoken those languages before. And how were they doing this? Well, it says by the Spirit. They spoke “as the Spirit was giving them utterance.”

And what we have here in verse 4, really verses 1-4, is the first ever instance of Spirit baptism. Which is the means by which an individual is placed into what? Into the body of Christ. Into the church. Turn with me, if you would, over to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians. To the right of Acts you have Romans. After Romans you have 1 Corinthians. And let’s pick it up in chapter 12:7. Here Paul is giving a list to the Christians in Corinth about the various types of Spirit-given gifts that were then in operation in the early church. And look at 1 Corinthians 12:7, it says, “But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.”
And then look at this in verses 12-13, “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”

Did you see that language there in verse 13? By “one Spirit.” Which is Who? The Holy Spirit.
We ‘were all baptized,” it says, “into one body.” And that body is what? The body of Christ. The church. Meaning, when we are saved, when we are regenerated, when we are justified, we are “baptized.” We experience a spiritual baptism. Which is known as the baptism of the Spirit, or Spirit baptism. We’re placed, at that moment, not into water, but into Christ. Specifically, into Christ’s body. Which is the church. That external ritual that we witness, when somebody gets baptized in water, is just an outward manifestation, or an outward representation of what has already happened on the inside, as they’ve been placed into Christ through faith. We’re reminded of Romans 6:3, also speaking of this idea of being baptized, placed into Christ. Romans 6:3 says, “Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Paul, there, is talking about Spirit baptism. It’s a spiritual reality.

But, back to 1 Corinthians 12. What Paul is saying here is that these Christians at Corinth had been placed into Christ. They had experienced Spirit baptism. They had been placed into the church. And for our purposes, what we need to note here is that what Paul wrote to the Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians 12, about their Spirit baptism. When he writes that, he’s not describing something that had happened for the first time at Corinth. Rather, Spirit baptism had already occurred for the first time in our text, at the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, as those individuals who were gathered there at that feast at Pentecost came to faith on that day,
it was there at Pentecost that the church, that this organism that Christ had foretold and predicted in Matthew 16, welcomed its first members as they underwent Spirit baptism. It was here, at chapter 2, at Pentecost, that the church and the church age officially began. It wasn’t back in Genesis. It wasn’t back in the Garden. It wasn’t before the foundation of the world, like I sited all the covenant theologians earlier. It was at Pentecost.

Now, you might be thinking, “Wait a minute. The text here in Acts doesn’t say anything direct or specific about being baptized in the Spirit. Oh, but it does. Go back one page, or one chapter, to Acts 1. We’ve been in Acts 2, but now look at Acts 1, which anticipates what we see in Acts 2.
Just to give us the full context here, we’ll start right at the beginning, Acts 1:1. Luke says,
“The first account, O Theophilus, I composed, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after he had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over forty days and speaking about the things concerning the kingdom of God. And gathering them together,” verse 4, “He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you heard of from Me; for John,” verse 5, “baptized with water,” these are the words of Christ now, “but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’”
The Lord’s mention here before His ascension of the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit - as He says, verse 5, “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” - is what we see described in Acts 2. That’s when the Holy Spirit came. That’s when the Holy Spirit rushed. That’s when the Holy Spirit filled. That’s when the Holy Spirit baptized these early new believers into this new organism known as the church.

And not only does Acts 1 point to the establishment of the church in Acts 2. So, too, does Acts 11. Turn with me over to Acts 11, please. As you’re turning there, Acts 11, the scene here is Peter is reporting to the Jerusalem church how he had started preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. Remember his vision of the sheet, all the animals on it, in Acts 10? His visit with Cornelius? Then he starts preaching to the Gentiles. In Acts 11, he’s reporting on the fact that the gospel has been going out to the Gentiles. Look at Acts 11:15, these are the words of Peter to the Jerusalem leaders. He says, “And as I began to speak . . . the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning.” That reference to “the beginning” is to what? Pentecost, Acts 2. And then Peter says, “And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say,” this is the Acts 1:5 reference again, “‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’” What all of this shows, and I hope you’re tracking with me, is that through the baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost, the body of Christ, the church, came into being. The church of Jesus Christ has a birthday. It’s the day of Pentecost, in Acts 2.

Back to Peter’s sermon. The Spirit has descended on those who were gathered there. The Spirit had filled those who were there. He had baptized those who were there into the body of Christ. The church. The newly established church. He had moved them to “speak with other tongues,” as we saw in verse 4. And now, look at the reaction of those who witnessed all of this. Look at verse 5, it says, “Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. So they were astounded and marveling, saying, ‘Behold, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the district of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs – we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.’”

Translating it for today, this would be like if you traveled to France this week. (Blessed person that you are, to travel to France this week.) And you, an English-speaker, are surrounded naturally by French speakers. And then all of a sudden out of nowhere you find yourself speaking Mandarin and perfectly. But not only that, all these native French speakers understand you speaking Mandarin perfectly. There would be this sense of awe and astonishment and bewilderment. That’s like what’s happening here.

This was truly an incredible scene. So incredible, in fact, that it brought about, not only bewildered, but a scoffing response from those remaining unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem. You see that in verse 12-13. It says, “And they all continued in astonishment and great perplexity, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others, mocking, were saying, ‘They are full of new wine.’” This was just too unbelievable to the unbelievers in the crowd. The only explanation they had for what these tongues speakers were doing was that they were drunk. But as we’ve already seen, it was, this is our first point, “The Power of the Spirit” which was at work.

Now, the second point, if you’re a note taker is this, “The Preaching of the Sermon.” “The Power of the Spirit,” point two is “The Preaching of the Sermon.” Note what comes right after the church is birthed, after the church is born. What comes is a sermon. A sermon in which Peter brings out God’s Word to bear in bringing conviction on these members of this newly established church. I mean, if you wonder why a church like ours has historically and faithfully committed itself to preaching the Word, line upon line, verse upon verse, every week. Sure, it goes back to 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul saying to Timothy, “preach the Word in season and out of season.” But also, we have Peter’s example here. Where when the church is first formed, what does he do? He gets about to preaching. And his sermon runs from verse 14 all the way down to verse 40.

Let’s pick it up in verse 14, it says, “But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: ‘Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words.” And then he says, “For these men are not drunk,” verse 15, “as you suppose, for it is the third hour of the day.” Paraphrase, it’s only 9:00 a.m., these men aren’t drunk. Actually, what’s happening here is the fulfillment of prophecy. Look at verse 16, he says,
“but this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says, “that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on My male slaves and female slaves, I will in those days pour out My spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will put wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it will be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”

Peter here is quoting from Joel. Joel 2, an Old Testament book. Joel 2:28-32. And in doing so, what he is saying here to this gathering of Jewish people here, this newly-established church, is that what they had experienced there on the day of Pentecost was in partial fulfillment of what the prophet Joel had prophesied hundreds of years before. This wasn’t total fulfillment. There was no blood moon happening yet. “The great and awesome day of the Lord” hadn’t arrived yet. It hasn’t even arrived today. But there was partial fulfillment with the Spirit being poured out and these early believers now speaking in tongues.

Peter then gets into the heart of his sermon, verse 22-23, he says, “Men of Israel, listen to these words; Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God did through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know – this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of lawless men and put Him to death.” Peter, you’ll note, was quick to note that God was sovereignly involved in Jesus’ death. He was, it says there, “delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.” This plan was foreknown and foreordained by God going back to eternity past. The crucifixion, in other words, was no accident. It was all part of God’s set purpose and plan. But, at the same time, there was human responsibility involved. Specifically, the beginning of verse 22, he says, “men of Israel”. “Men of Israel” were responsible. And those “men of Israel” were the ones who put Jesus into the hands there of “lawless men” it says, meaning, the Roman Gentile overseers, to be crucified.

Verse 24, “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.” Praise the Lord for that truth. That Jesus not only died, standing in our place as a divine, sinless substitute. But He rose. He defeated the grave. He defeated Satan. He defeated the power of sin and death for all who would believe.

Turning to verse 25, Peter, again he’s speaking to Jews here, he brings another Old Testament prophecy, which was fulfilled through Jesus’ resurrection. He says, “For David says of Him, ‘I saw the Lord continually before me; because He is at my right hand, so that I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue exulted; moreover my flesh also will live in hope; because You will not forsake my soul to Hades, nor give Your Holy One over to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of gladness with Your presence.’” So, Peter is right in the middle of this preaching to this crowd on Jesus’ resurrection. And he goes to Psalm 16, which has this familiar language about “You will not forsake my soul to Hades, nor give Your Holy One over to see corruption.”

And a natural question that those hearing Peter might have had is: was David there speaking of himself or of someone else, namely, the Messiah? And Peter anticipates and answers that question. Verse 29, he says, “Men, brothers, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. And so, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to set one of the fruit of his body on his throne,” that’s a reference to the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7:31,
“he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither forsaken to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.” Peter’s point is that since David, the patriarch, the king, was dead and buried, he says we have his tomb, that means David couldn’t have been referring to himself in Psalm 16. He, instead, was referring to the Christ, the Messiah, and His coming resurrection.

Moving on, verse 33, Peter appeals to yet another Old Testament scripture. This time it’s Psalm 110:1. Look at verse 33, it says, “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this which you both see and hear.” In other words, it was through the ascension of Christ as He returned to His exalted position at “the right hand of God,” that the coming of the Spirit, the pouring out of the Spirit, the baptism of the Spirit took place. Which was all in fulfillment, by the way, of what Jesus told His disciples in the Upper Room, in John 16. John 16:7, he says, “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Advocate,” the Holy Spirit, “will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.”

Back to our text. Back to Peter’s sermon. Verse 34, he says, “For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, until I put Your enemies as a footstool for Your feet.”’” That’s a reference to Psalm 110:1. And the main idea here, I know its a lot of prophecy fulfillment we’re looking at here, the main idea here is that just as David was not in Psalm 16 speaking of his own resurrection but rather the resurrection of the Messiah, so too, in Psalm 110:1, David wasn’t speaking of his own ascension, or his own sitting at the right hand of the Father. But was referring to the Messiah, God the Son, being in that position.

Verse 36, Peter drives home his point. With power and conviction, he says, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ – this Jesus whom you crucified.” So, Peter didn’t tiptoe around the topic. He cut it straight. He wanted “all the house of Israel”, as it says here, to know that they had murdered their Messiah.

As we turn to verse 37, look at what Peter’s sermon brought about. It brought about conviction. It says, “Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Men, brothers, what should we do?’” Since the Jews had crucified their Messiah, who was now risen and exalted. What was left for them to do? What could they do now? Look at verse 38, “And Peter said to them . . .” He said, “Walk that aisle.” Right? “I see that hand in the air.” “Son, write the day of your conversion on your bible.” “Ask Jesus into your heart.” Is that what he said? No. He said, “Repent,” “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” The command was clear here. They were to repent. I’ll get into what that baptism phrase means there in a couple of weeks. When we get into what the church is to do. How it is to function. What it’s not saying though here, just by way of preview, he’s not preaching baptismal regeneration. He’s not saying, you must repent and be baptized to be forgiven.
The main idea here is repent to be forgiven. And one of the fruits of repentance will be, you will be obedient and be baptized.

Reading on, verse 39, he says, “For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” And that language about God calling people to Himself. Is very reminiscent of Romans 8:29-30, which says, “those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers; and those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified.”

And then, verse 40, “And with many other words he solemnly bore witness and kept on exhorting them, saying, ‘Be saved from this crooked generation!’” The men of Israel were guilty of this horrendous sin. They had killed the Lord of glory. Nevertheless, because God is patient. And God is merciful. And God does not wish that any would perish, but that all would come to repentance, Peter here noted that God’s judgment would be abated for any Israelite, in front of Peter on that day, if they were to repent and believe upon the Messiah.

That brings us to our third and final point this morning in this very fast flyover of Acts 2. We’ve seen “The Power of the Spirit.” We’ve seen “The Preaching of the Sermon.” And last, it this, “The Provision of Salvation.” Look at Acts 2:41, “So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. And fear came upon every soul; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were dividing them up with all, as anyone might have need. And daily devoting themselves with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Now, we’re going to look more intently at what life looked like in the early days of the church, in the early life of the church in a later message in this series. We’ll explore what “the apostles’ teaching” was. What “fellowship” and “breaking of bread” and “prayers” all looked like. But as we wind down here this morning, I want us all to note one thing. In this passage, verses 41-47, there’s this repeated use of the same verb by Luke. We learned in the Gospel of Luke that Luke is intentional about word choice. And he uses the same word, both in verse 41 and verse 47.
Look at verse 41, “and that day there were added about three thousand souls.” And then drop down to verse 47, the very end there. “And the Lord was adding to their number daily those who were being saved.”
Those three thousand souls were added to what? The church. The Lord was adding to the church. The church He had just formed, by sending His Spirit on this day, the church’s birthday, Pentecost.

So, there we have it, “The Formation of the Church.” The church’s birthday is what? The church’s birthday is Pentecost. We looked at “The Formation of the Church” today. Next Sunday, we’ll look at “The Foundation of the Church.” But not before we come back tonight, to hear Pastor Mike’s, speaking about what it means to sow, invest our lives into the church.

Let’s pray. God, thank You for this time in Your Word this morning. Thank You for Your perfect plan and design for the church. Thank You for the clarity of Your Word. Thank You for the ways in which You have governed all of history for all time. Starting with Israel. Now, in the church age in which we live. And we know that there’s a glorious future, both for Israel and the church. We thank You. We thank You for who You are. We thank You for being a God who reveals. We thank You for the privileged position we have as members of the church of Jesus Christ. I pray that today, and through this entire series, we would reflect on what it means to be a part of the church. And through that, we would be more faithful members of the church. And in being so, we would bring You great glory. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.