Peter's Sermon Acts 2 (Acts 2:14-41)

We are fascinated by supernatural power. Superheroes, boy wizards, the paranormal, hidden secrets, multiverses. It's big entertainment business. But where are the stories of Jesus' power in all of that?

Will Sopwith, a scientist by background, takes us through Peter's sermon at Pentecost and makes a compelling case: the power we long for is available, but not on our terms. This was the birth of the gospel message, and it changed everything.

Waiting for Something You've Forgotten

Think of a time when you've been waiting ages for something. A gig you bought tickets for a year ago. The Olympics. Eurovision coming to Liverpool. A new baby. Meeting Mr. or Mrs. Right. And when it comes, it's completely different from what you expected, or because it's been so long, you've forgotten it's happening at all. Someone else has to remind you.

That's what's going on in Acts 2. The Holy Spirit has been poured out on the disciples, and Peter stands up to remind the crowd of God's ancient promises about the coming of Messiah. Messiah was a Jewish hero of faith who would put right everything wrong in the world.

The crowd that day were mostly Jews and converts to Judaism. They'd come on pilgrimage to Jerusalem from all over the Mediterranean for the annual festival of Pentecost. These were devout people who'd invested time and money, risked leaving families and livelihoods, to make what could be quite a challenging journey.

For many, this was a well-trodden path. An annual visit to the temple to observe familiar, well-rehearsed sacrifices done since the time of the Old Testament. What none of them expected was what happened: the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, followed by Peter's explanation.

New Power Now

Will calls his talk "New Power Now." So what was new?

First, Peter himself. Peter had gone from being scared of admitting to a servant girl that he knew Jesus at the crucifixion, to hiding in a locked room after Jesus died because he was scared of the Jewish authorities. And here he is, standing up and preaching in public in Jerusalem, the capital city of the Jewish religion, to thousands of people.

Peter was a fisherman. "Unschooled" is how the Bible puts it. Yet here he is delivering this eloquent, well-referenced speech drawing on different Jewish scriptures, confidently challenging this massive crowd to put their trust in Jesus, who just a month before had been enemy number one.

The difference is the Holy Spirit.

For some people, the change in Jesus' followers over the 40 days since his crucifixion is strong evidence of the truth of the biblical account. Consider the alternative: that this was all made up.

The intention of the Jewish leaders in crucifying Jesus was to kill the leader so the followers would scatter. You kill the inspiration drawing everyone together and everyone goes home. But somehow, within weeks, this angry, betrayed, grieving group of followers had come up with a story of resurrection that was not only fantastical, not only likely to get them killed, but also theologically seamless with all of Jewish scripture, accompanied by an outpouring of supernatural power, and then convincing at least 3,000 people within hours of its launch.

All achieved in 40 days by a traumatised group of unschooled men and women. Seems very unlikely.

The alternative view is that the whole account is actually true. Jesus rose again, appeared to his followers, and gave the promised Holy Spirit. That's why they were bold and excited, because they knew it was true.

No More Sacrifices

Here was a crowd of devout people worshipping God in the particular location of the Jerusalem temple, in the particular ways that Jewish scripture specified. This was their only path to God.

But Peter blows this out of the water. Jesus is the Messiah they've all been waiting for. No wonder the crowd were cut to the heart when they realised.

The real revelation is verse 38: "Repent, be baptised in the name of Jesus, and your sins are forgiven." No more animal sacrifices. No more pilgrimage to the temple. Just believe that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead and is able to forgive us. Jesus was enough.

You might be familiar with this message. You might have heard a street preacher, or heard it in church liturgy, or know it from a gospel song. But on this day at Pentecost, this was brand new. Truly the birth of the gospel message.

The difference is the Holy Spirit.

Power on Our Terms

But the pouring out of the Holy Spirit was also new. Peter reached back to a prophecy recorded by Joel at least 500 years previously. This prophecy described ordinary people seeing visions, dreaming dreams, prophesying, even young people, because of God pouring out his spirit.

In Old Testament times, God's spirit was just for the chosen few. A prophet here or there. The odd king. And it was temporary, just the odd occasion. What Peter describes here is being filled with the Holy Spirit as a continuous experience. It stays with you. No one had ever known the Holy Spirit like that before.

Will has a theory about why we resist this offer of power.

In Western cultures, we have a fascinating relationship with supernatural power. On one hand, we dismiss it in our hyper-rational scientific view of the world. We might scoff at miraculous happenings, or be cynical when we hear a story of someone being healed. As for raising the dead, really?

And yet we can't get enough of stories of power. Superheroes, boy wizards, the paranormal, harnessing hidden secrets, ghosts, monsters, multiverses, reincarnation. It's big entertainment business.

Here's Will's theory: Because the source of God's power is the Holy Spirit, to access this power we approach a person. To experience this power, we come into relationship with the source of this power.

In contrast, all the other powers we're fascinated by in our culture aren't about relationship. They're really about us. Our effort to train, to meditate, use the ways of the force, learn spells. The message is: if you work hard enough, if you discover the secret knowledge, you will gain power. It's all about your effort. And once learned, the power is at your disposal. You are in control. You choose how to wield it. You call the shots.

Kids dreaming of revenge on the school bully are firing lasers out of their eyes. It's seductive.

Will's theory is that as a society we long for power with which we can overcome circumstance. We're clearly fascinated by the stories of it. But we reject God's offer of power through the Holy Spirit because, if we're honest, we want it on our own terms.

What God's Power Looks Like

What does God's power look like? The healing miracles of Jesus. The wonders: calming the storm, turning water into wine. But also the possibility of forgiveness through faith, which is power in itself. That our lives would be transformed, that we could be forgiven of all our shame and start afresh.

The good news of salvation is described in the Bible as being accompanied by signs and wonders that back up the truth. We see this throughout the book of Acts.

Will shares his own experience: "I've seen people get immediately better from longstanding pain or illness when I've prayed in Jesus' name. I've seen pictures in my mind's eye when I've prayed for basically strangers that unlocked something emotionally for them when I've described that picture to them. I felt prompted to share specific verses or scriptures with people that has brought specific encouragement to a situation that I didn't know about. I've seen people released from oppressive, longstanding spiritual influences, a release that resulted in actual physical change in their demeanour."

He's also honest about the times it doesn't work: "I did bottle out of praying for someone to come alive again soon after they drowned, but my friends did. Sadly, the lad stayed dead."

But he's also seen countless changes in apparently intransigent situations as a result of praying for change. These are everyday examples of the power of the Holy Spirit available to those who choose to live in relationship with God.

New Power Now

By "New Power Now," Will means this: the days of hoping for a future Messiah, hoping for the outpouring of God's spirit as described in Joel's prophecy, coming month after month to sacrifice animals to be right with God. These days are over.

No more waiting. No more sacrifice. On this day of Pentecost, God's power in the Holy Spirit became available to ordinary people. Everyone.

Each one of us now can ask God for forgiveness and, by believing in Jesus, be released of that debt of sin. Just as 3,000 people did that day. Each of us now can receive the gift of the Holy Spirit as a result of that transaction of our shame for his forgiveness. The Holy Spirit who can transform your situation.

Peter declared this is for you, for your children, and those who are far off. The Holy Spirit is accessible to all.

What Will read about here in this first gospel message was completely new. It was a game changer. It changed the rules. It opened up, not just to the Jews but to everyone, all people, the possibility of coming to God. It demonstrated that the power that Jesus had to transform situations was now available to all of us when we put our faith in him.

It's just a prayer away, effectively, and a lifetime of practice in faith.

New power now. What will you do with it?

Conversation Street

What was the scene like when Peter stood up before the crowd?

John Harding had just returned from Israel and was able to paint the picture. The alleged upper room where this event happened is over the burial place of David. The city was rammed for one of the three main Jewish festivals: Tabernacles, Passover, and Pentecost. Jewish people had gathered from all over for a special moment of worship.

John noted there would have been mixed responses. Some, like we see in the passage, thought "that makes perfect sense. You've just explained everything I believed in a new and fresh way." And 3,000 were added to their number that day.

The passage talks about joy and rejoicing quite a lot. The men were thought to be drunk. Something exciting and loud was happening when the Spirit filled them. We tend to think of religious festivals or services as a little bit boring, but that's far from what's happening here. This was an exciting moment of God breaking out from the norm of what was expected.

How do you know when you've encountered the Holy Spirit?

Matt suggested the bottom line is you'll be joyful. John agreed but added more: "When I've asked to receive the Holy Spirit, because he is a gift and we can ask to be filled, there've been times where I've laughed uncontrollably. There's also been times where I've wept like a baby."

He shared one experience: "I stayed towards the end of a service and said, 'Lord, Holy Spirit, I really feel dry and weary in life. I need you. Come and fill me.' Quite unexpectedly, it was like my whole body vibrating for 45 minutes. I was snot and tears. No one dared go anywhere near me. But it did me good. It revived my heart, it encouraged me."

Something's going to happen when you encounter the Holy Spirit because he's going to bring power, transformation, and breakthrough into your life.

Have you seen the miraculous?

John shared several personal experiences. His nan was healed pretty instantly of Parkinson's disease. She went from having tremors and shakes, wandering around town so they'd have to go look for her, to just changed in an instant.

His youngest son had been swimming in a river in France where they found a dead cow floating. His son’s ears had swollen up and the opening had closed. He was in a lot of pain. John anointed him with oil like the Bible says, and within three seconds it had completely healed.

He remembers being a kid with no food in the house, no money, incredibly poor growing up. They sat at a set table ready for food because his mum was convinced God would provide. There was a knock on the door. A bag of food.

John said, "For me, the miraculous has been an aspect throughout my Christian life. I don't put my faith trust in that." He appreciated Will's honesty and vulnerability in talking about the times where we believe for the miraculous and we don't get the miraculous.

What's the difference between self-help Christianity and real faith?

John expressed concern about certain types of modern Christianity that have made it like a self-help movement. "I'm on this personal quest, a bit like I might do some yoga classes or a particular type of diet. I'm trying to find a way to improve my life."

But what Peter is doing here is calling people into relationship with Jesus, in community together. He's calling them into something that's not for them to do, but for them to receive. It's about inviting forgiveness and God's Spirit to transform our lives.

There's effort to the Christian life, but the effort is about receiving and surrendering and keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, and pressing into community in all its various forms together.

Matt agreed. Self-help in some respects is good. You need to take responsibility, you need to stop messing about. But fundamentally, there are things you cannot do without the grace of God. You can't just get your head down and plough through it.

John explained further: "We're all called just to surrender before Jesus and for him to do some of it for us that we could never have done for ourselves." He quoted 2 Corinthians 3:18-19 about the role of the Holy Spirit who transforms us into the likeness of Jesus. "It's not through trying to be really good and avoiding being really naughty. It's just about keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus."

What does "cut to the heart" mean?

John said there's a massive difference between conviction and condemnation. For us in Christ there's no condemnation.

When it says "cut to the heart," there's something they're doing which is opening their heart to allow God to come and touch their hearts. As opposed to the Pharisees and Sadducees who just said no, not even going to consider for a moment that maybe what Jesus is saying is true.

Often the message of Jesus has this polarising effect. It rarely leaves us neutral. It forces us to either humble ourselves and think, "Do you know what? Maybe I've not got this right. Maybe there is a God who knows best for my life."

That's where you get into repentance. From the Greek "metanoia," which means to change our thinking, to line our thinking up with God's thinking. And we know how God thinks because he's revealed it to us through his word.

How do we avoid progressive Christianity?

Matt raised the concern that we live in a culture where we try to tell ourselves we're not wrong because we're "living our truth." We don't like to face up to what the Bible calls sin. So we redefine it and go, "We can't be wrong because we're just living our truth." That puts us at the centre of everything.

John responded: "Jesus never said to you, 'You do you.'" What Peter does in this talk is not come up with something new. All he's doing is calling people back to something ancient, proven and tested. The God of the ages, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, revealed to Moses in the Torah.

A lot of progressive Christianity is trying to deconstruct those things to come up with something new, which effectively is you at the centre of your life. There's no Christianity where the self is the lord and boss of my life.

John's nan used to say there's a throne in your heart and it's only space for one. Either you can sit in it and think you know best and live your life your way, or you can invite Jesus to come and do that.

Your Next Step This Week

Here are practical ways to respond to this message:

1. Pray for the Holy Spirit — John's encouragement: find some space on your own and say, "Holy Spirit, could you do that for me? Could you fill me like you filled those people? Could you come and touch my life and begin transforming my life in that way?"

2. Consider the evidence — If you don't believe the story of Jesus, ask yourself: why do people like Will Sopwith and others really believe it? The simple answer is because it's become their story, their experience.

3. Move from self-help to surrender — The effort of the Christian life is about receiving and surrendering and keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus, not trying to improve yourself through your own effort.

4. Receive rather than earn — God's power isn't earned through effort or secret knowledge. It's received through relationship with the Holy Spirit.

5. Open your heart to conviction — There's a difference between conviction and condemnation. Conviction is humbling our hearts to consider that maybe we don't know best, maybe what God says could be right.

It's Just a Prayer Away

Peter quoted Joel's prophecy: "I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams." Young, old, men, women, servants. Every barrier is broken down.

The Holy Spirit is accessible to all. New power now. It's just a prayer away, effectively, and a lifetime of practice in faith.

What will you do with it?