The Purpose of Pentecost (Acts 2)

“Presence, Participation, & Power”
[This post is also found on my Our Long View blog.]

We have been examining the text of Acts 2 for the last three weeks and today, on Pentecost Sunday, I would like to step outside of our series in Acts to answer the question, what is the purpose of Pentecost?

As a church that is “Pentecostal”, we recognize the importance of the Holy Spirit moving in our midst. We believe in the continuation of the Biblical gifts of the Spirit and are thankful for the fruit the Spirit brings. However, I think that even as a Pentecostal church we may miss the point that…

I) The Holy Spirit came so that we might have the presence of God living in us. (John 14:16-17)

We should not think of the Spirit as the Pentecostal Santa Claus who gives us all kinds of cool gifts to enable us to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. Rather we should see that the Holy Spirit is the gift, the gift of the abiding presence of God in our lives.

"The life that the Spirit gives is not some abstract thing. In fact, it is not primarily some thing that he gives at all. The Spirit gives us his very self, that we might know and enjoy him and so enjoy his fellowship with the Father and the Son."[1]

What could be better than that? It is by the Spirit that the Father and the Son indwell us and commission us as the church.  God’s eternal covenant, is reiterated throughout the Bible and contains statements such as:

• I will be your God—a call to know God faithfully
• You will be my people—a call to community, as his family (Ex. 6:7)
• I will dwell with you—a call to live in his presence (Lev. 26:11)

Neil Cole, writes, “I have come to understand church as this: the presence of Jesus among His people called out as a spiritual family to pursue His mission on this planet.”[2] Such a definition of church brings me to the next purpose of Pentecost.

II) The Holy Spirit came to invite us to participate in the ongoing mission of God.

If our purpose in life as Christians is to glorify God in the world (Eccl. 12:13; John 15:8), then how do we do this? By obeying his commands—however, this is not a legalistic formula but a relational dependence. God is relational and missional. His mission (what he does) is a manifestation of his being (who he is). God is outwardly focused and relationally inclusive. He wants to be in a relationship with his creation, not because of any need on his part but simply because of the overflow of his love. The mission of God is to “rebind the broken cosmos,” to redeem and reconcile the world. In the Holy Spirit, he invites us and then integrates us into that ongoing mission. We are an integral part of his plan.

When integrating into the mission of God, I once heard that four "D" words are a helpful checklist...

• Discover: What is God doing in this neighborhood? How is he pursuing and engaging the lost?
• Discern: How does God want us to participate? What can we offer? What can we learn?
• Do: Join his mission in obedience. When God opens the door to be witnesses what are we going to do? What is it we will say about God (Father, Son, and Spirit)?
• Debrief: Share with each other what you are doing, not to brag but to be mutually encouraged and accountable. We can't do this alone. We need to be considerate and cooperate with others. We are to be part of a body, a spiritual family, and a church. We must develop both our actions and reflections on those actions.

Last week we spoke extensively about fellowship, but are we willing to step into the mission of God, or are we content with managing our own efforts for our own purposes?

Defining the Task —The Great Commissions

As Jesus’ time with his disciples drew to an end, he gave them what is called the “Great Commission” (i.e. a mission beyond National and ethnic Israel) as differentiated from the local commissions given earlier (the sending the 12 and then the 70 to go into all the towns and villages of Israel that Jesus would visit). This commission is presented five times in Scripture, each time with a slightly different emphasis. I illustrate these by using the well-known “Five Flavors Lifesavers” candy. They are all lifesavers, just different flavors. So to, all five versions of the commission of Christ may have slightly different flavors.

1. The Discipling Commission[3] (Matthew 28:18-20)

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

As followers of Jesus, we are to “make disciples” What does discipleship mean?

• It means that we are allowing Christ’s teachings to actually guide our life’s journey.
• It means we (and they) are becoming more like Jesus.
• Jesus is the content of our discipleship.

So how do we make disciples? This text gives two primary ways. The first is “Baptism” representing not merely a religious ceremony but the transformation of a person’s loyalties expressed publicly. It is the outworking of repentance. Discipleship changes how we answer such practical questions as:

• How do I spend my time?
• How do I spend my money?
• How do I make my decisions?
• What attitudes and characteristics do I value?

And hidden within this list is a tricky discipleship detector. The true disciple of Christ comes to understand that it is not really an issue of my time, my money, or my decisions. If I understand the radical commitment of baptism I am dead to “my” and alive to Christ.

The second way we are to make disciples is, “By teaching them to obey Christ”. It is quite popular to use the metaphor, “the dust of the Rabbi’s sandals”  to illustrate this aspect of discipleship (Ray Vander Laan was the first I heard use it). The phrase refers to how a rabbi’s disciples either followed him closely on the dusty road to hear everything the master was discussing, or how sat on the ground at his feet to hear his teaching. So for us to become disciples and to “make disciples” we need to be doing what Jesus did. It has been said that “Genuine discipleship cannot happen apart from mission.” Jesus did it that way. He taught and trained his disciples while he was going about the mission of the Father! I suggest that it is the same today. We learn as we engage with what God is already doing around us.

2. Evangelizing Commission (Mark 16:15-20) 

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.

The flavor of this commission is in sharing the good news with “all creation” with the desired result being belief and baptism. While some debate this “longer ending” of Mark’s Gospel, all of the accompanying signs are attested in the New Testament and the Church Fathers.

At Pentecost, we received the same Spirit that Jesus received at his baptism in the Jordan River. What did he do? He preached the good news, healed those oppressed by the devil, came to seek and save the lost, and he made disciples…who would one day do the same.

The Spirit moves us beyond ourselves and gives us a heart and a passion (and compassion) to reach out to the lost—joining Jesus as he continues to seek and save the lost. Successful evangelism is taking the initiative in the power of the Holy Spirit, backed up by a loving, godly life, and leaving the results up to God.

3. Preaching Commission (Luke 24:44-47)

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Preaching is rooted in the time spent with the Lord, seeking a Holy Spirit-led understanding of the word, and it calls for a decision on the part of the hearer.  

In the early church preaching connected the dots between what had been written in the Old Testament and how those scriptures were fulfilled in Christ Jesus. But beyond information, preaching brings us to our need to repent and receive the forgiveness of sins that Jesus offers to us. Preaching shows us the answer to the problem our sin is Christ and him alone! There is only one gate by which we can enter. Jesus is that way.

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit expanded his work of opening our minds to understand the Scriptures. There are many throughout history whole have come to saving faith in Jesus simply by reading the Bible. This is the work of the Holy Spirit!

4. The Sending Commission (John 20:21-23)

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 

The Father sent the Son and the Spirit and now sends us but we are not on our own—they all go with us. Michael Reeves (Delighting in the Trinity) builds on this verse as he wrote,

“The disciples should not have been at all surprised. Jesus had told them he would be resurrected, and he had told them that “whatever the Father does the Son also does” (John 5:19). The first thing the Father does, of course, is love the Son, breathing out his Spirit on him. Just so, doing as his Father does, Jesus breathes out the Spirit on his disciples. In fact, he had already said to them: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (John 15:9). But the Father also sends the Son; and doing as his Father does, Jesus thus sends his disciples. Like Father, like Son. That entirely changes what mission looks like. For it is not, then, that God lounges back in heaven, simply phoning in his order that we get on with evangelism so that he might get more servants. If that were the case, evangelism would take a lot of self-motivation—and you can always tell when the church thinks like that, for that’s when evangelism gets left to the more adrenaline-stoked salespeople/professionals. But the reality is so different. The truth is that God is already on mission: in love, the Father has sent his Son and his Spirit. It is the outworking of his very nature.”[4]  

We have received the same Spirit that Jesus received at his baptism in the Jordan River. What did he do? He preached the good news, healed those oppressed by the devil, came to seek and save the lost, he made disciples; he loved us to the end and beyond. Today, as a result of the work of Christ and his sending the Spirit at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit moves us beyond ourselves and gives us a heart and a passion and compassion to reach out to the lost—to seek and save the lost. In being sent we are actually joining the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as they go!

5. The Witnessing Commission (Acts 1:8)

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

The word for “witness” comes from the root that is transliterated as “martyr”. All too often witnessing for the resurrection of Christ has been punctuated with the death of the witness. Jesus needed intimate fellowship with his Father and the filling of the Holy Spirit to see his mission through to the end on the cross. We are no different in our dependence. It will take the power of the Spirit for us to stand strong to the end. Such endurance is not found in a stoic approach to doing our duty. It will take transformed desires, the desire that comes from seeing our triune God as he really is!

Summary of the 5-Flavored Commissions

John Amstutz ably summarizes these five flavors of the Great Commission into one concise statement with the two imperatives (commands) underlined,

"Going as my witnesses in the power of the Holy Spirit, preach the good news of repentance and forgiveness of sins in my name to everyone, baptizing those who repent and believe. And make disciples by teaching them to obey all I have commanded. Do this beginning in Jerusalem to the ends of the earth—and I will be with you to the very end of the age."

Our ability to integrate effectively into the ongoing mission of God is due to the fact that we are not going on our own.

• We go in the same Spirit as Jesus
• We go in Jesus’ authority,
• We go with Jesus’ power
• We go with Jesus’ continued presence (John 10:37-38; 14:9-13, 20-21; 17: 20-23)

As the Church—we are a people called by God and sent to participate with God in mission. We are a body that is sent by the Spirit. We don't gather for our own sake but for the sake of others…

Discipling—“of all nations" How? Baptizing and teaching to obey.

Evangelizing—sharing the good news with all creation!

Preaching—the repentance and forgiveness of sins by faith in the risen Christ.

Sending—is not taking over but joining a missional God in his loving task.

Witnessing—speaking the truth of what Jesus has done in love, to the end.

III) The Holy Spirit came to empower us to live faithfully, bear good fruit, & glorify God in the world.

From the very beginning, the plan of God has depended upon the power of God not the strength of mankind. Abraham was a landless, heir-less, nobody with the promise of God who was going to change all that, for the good of the whole world. It was as a result of Pentecost that the fulfillment of that promise expanded beyond one nation to many,

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 

  And I will make of you a great nation,

  and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 

         I will bless those who bless you,

               and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you

                                             all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

(See also Gen 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:13-14)

If you don’t believe me, perhaps Galatians 3:14 will convince you,

"He redeemed us in order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit."

In review, the primary purposes of Pentecost include:

• The Indwelling Presence of God (The Father and the Son, by the Holy Spirit)
• Integrated Participation in God’s On-going Mission
• Spiritual Power of God to fulfill our mission assignment

Pentecost. Perhaps such a day is worth remembering.

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[1] . Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith (Kindle Locations 1326-1328).

[2] Neil Cole, “Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens." In Perspectives on the World Christian Movement 4th Edition, edited by Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne, 643-45. Pasadena, CA: Institute of International Studies, 2009.

[3] The titles for these five commissions are taken from missiological lectures given a number of years ago by Foursquare pastor, missionary, and professor, John Amstutz.

[4] Reeves, (Kindle Locations 1610-1625).