What is the greatest need in the entire world? It’s something each human must discover, though to be honest most of us weren’t looking for it at first. But the pain of life, and the heaviness of something we couldn’t explain, led us toward a reality of this life, that few want to openly discuss. It’s the presence of God. He drew us toward it, himself, when we were far away, so we owe it all to Him.
One day, a man named Moses was grazing his father in law’s sheep, and he came near a mysterious mountain. He saw a burning flame in the night, he inched closer, and a voice spoke from the fire, the presence of God had came to Moses, a man who wasn’t even looking for God.
God appeared to him as flames of fire. Indeed the scriptures say, our God is a consuming fire.
Moses learned to walk with God, and to see God work in mighty ways. God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt.
And God led the people of Israel to Mount Sinai, by a pillar of fire at night, and a cloud by day.
The God of the flames that met Moses in the wilderness, now was the God of the flames leading Israel to the Mountain.
And on that Mountain the Israelites received a glorious and beautiful gift, the law, the ten commandments.
Flash forward to the time of Jesus. The Passover celebration had occurred, and on the same day of the Jewish Passover, Jesus was crucified. And then, fifty days later, the festival of weeks took place, a Jewish festival that celebrated God giving the law, on Mount Sinai.
After Jesus was crucified, the disciples began to have these strange experiences where they saw the risen Jesus alive. Numerous times this occurred, and they were told, at the ascension of Jesus, to wait for a gift to come from heaven.
Acts 1:4-5, “4 Once when he (Jesus) was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. 5 John baptized with[b] water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
They were told to wait for this gift, of baptism by the Holy Spirit. This is a precious gift. More precious than any of us realize.
Because of this gift, I can sit in a hotel room in Traverse City, pray, and expect the Holy Spirit to guide me in writing a beautiful sermon from the heart of God. Without that I wouldn’t be able to. I could string together some scriptures, but it wouldn’t be in God’s agenda and will for that moment. I think we pastors, we have to learn to hear from the Spirit, otherwise, we end missing the will of God. And that is what we’re going to focus in on this Pentecost Sunday, is what it means to have and be led by the Holy Spirit.
So the eleven disciples, led by Peter, and the other believers waited patiently, wondering what this might mean.
Finally, the day of the festival of weeks came, what we today call Pentecost. Pentecost means “fiftieth.” Because it’s celebrated fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus.
It says in Acts 2:1-4: “On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. 2 Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. 3 Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. 4 And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.”
The God of consuming fire, who appeared to Moses in flames of fire, the God whose fiery presence led the Israelites through the wilderness, the God whose fiery presence filled the temple of Solomon and made a home with the nation of Israel, had now sent His very presence, a burning fire, within human beings.
God’s temple was no longer near a man, or in the camp of men, or in the city of men, but now within the heart of each man or woman who believed.
First point today, the Holy Spirit is God. You are the temple of God, the scriptures say. God is living inside of you. The fire of God burns within you now. You are the temple.
Glory to God!
It’s interesting that the Jews were celebrating the festival of weeks, which celebrated the giving of the law of Moses. Today, we celebrate the giving of the Spirit of God to us. The Spirit writes the law of love on our hearts.
As the Holy Spirit landed on the disciples they began speaking in new languages. Jerusalem was filled with over a million people during this time due to the festival of weeks. The people heard the wind and gathered around the disciples as they began speaking the glories of God to the crowds in their own languages.
Some in the crowd were confused and thought they were drunk. Peter, the leader of the disciples stood before the crowd of thousands who had gathered, and Peter began to give an explanation for all that was taking place.
Peter quoted from the Old Testament prophet Joel 2:28-32, “
17 ‘In the last days,’ God says,
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
18 In those days I will pour out my Spirit
even on my servants—men and women alike—
and they will prophesy.
19 And I will cause wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below—
blood and fire and clouds of smoke.
20 The sun will become dark,
and the moon will turn blood red
before that great and glorious day of the Lord arrives.
21 But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
The crowds in Jerusalem that day had witnessed something supernatural. They had experienced an intense wind, and heard Jewish men speaking in languages they didn’t otherwise know.
Peter points to the supernatural nature of the event. With the giving of the Holy Spirit, we should expect the supernatural to occur amongst us. We should expect divine healings, we should expect prophecies being spoken, we should expect people to have dreams from God, and experience visions. We should expect the presence of God at our meetings, in our homes, everywhere we go.
Do you have a supernatural view of God? That through the Holy Spirit you can experience these sort of experiences? Or are you closed off to the power of the Holy Spirit?
I want to challenge you today, to have an expectation in your life, that since the Holy Spirit lives inside of you, you should expect to experience the supernatural aspects of God.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
The Holy Spirit is given yes, amazingly, so that we become the temple of God. And yes, so that the gospel can go across the face of the Earth. And yes, so that we can live a pure and holy life. But the Holy Spirit is also given for demonstrations of God’s power.
Prophesy, visions, dreams, healings, revival, are expressions of God’s power in the Earth. They are evidence that God is in fact at work in His people.
This is our second point today, Pentecost reminds us of the supernatural nature of our faith journey. Expect God to move in such ways in your midst.
I want to get into the main portion of our scripture for today, which is going to be Acts 2:32-41.
Peter has been giving a sermon, he’s started in the Old Testament, proving Jesus is the messiah, and showing in Joel how the Spirit’s coming was prophesied in the OT.
He talks about King David and the Psalms, all of it points toward Jesus.
Then in verses 32-33: 32 “God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this. 33 Now he is exalted to the place of highest honor in heaven, at God’s right hand. And the Father, as he had promised, gave him the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us, just as you see and hear today.
Peter portrays the gospel in the clearest terms, Jesus died, Jesus was raised from the dead, and Peter says, we are witnesses of this.
We all have a testimony of how God has changed our lives. Whenever I’m talking with someone and I see an opportunity to discuss Jesus, I go to my testimony. Jesus changed my life through a radical shift in my thinking.
Peter explains that the Holy Spirit was given by Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead. It happened on Pentecost, it happens today as well. Whenever someone believes on the Lord Jesus, and they really repent and give themselves to Jesus, they are born again in that moment, and the Holy Spirit is poured into them.
Verses 34-35 says this: 34 David himself never ascended into heaven, yet he said, ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit in the place of honor at my right hand
35 until I humble your enemies,
making them a footstool under your feet.”’[g]
Again, Peter quotes from the Old Testament, this passage is from Psalm 110, citing the deity of Jesus. Jesus is not merely a man, he is the Lord. Jesus Christ is seated in authority with God the Father now, in the throne room at this very moment. And the God the Father is working out His plan, to make all the enemies of the cross throughout all of history, to be a footstool under the feet of Jesus.
Next, verses 36-37: 36 “So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!”
37 Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”
This message of Peter’s combined with the demonstration of the Holy Spirit’s power through the disciples, those two things together, bring about a conviction in the hearts of the listeners, they are pierced.
The King James Version says they were "pricked in the heart." The Greek word here for pierced/pricked is katanyssomai (kat-an-oos'-so) which means…
I.to prick, pierce
II. metaph. to pain the mind sharply, agitate it vehemently
1. esp. of the emotion of sorrow (Source: Blue Letter Bible)
The people in the crowd are agitated, they are feeling sorrow, this is conviction, they are disturbed, they are pierced, pricked in the heart. Many of you know how many often unpleasant emotions accompany the journey toward the moment of salvation. We argue with God, we resist the idea of Jesus, we feel difficult emotions, we don’t want it to be true, we want our own way, we get angry, why would God allow this or that, we start to feel pressure in our hearts, pain, confusion, and then finally, as we walk through these emotions, we begin to come through the other side of wrestling with God, and we realize, it’s really true, Jesus really is God, and I really need him. And we ask the question, alright, what do I need to do?
Peter responds, verses 38-39: 38 Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away[h]—all who have been called by the Lord our God.”
He outlines the message clearly, repent away from your past sins, turn toward God, be baptized. And your sins will be forgiven. Then comes the Holy Spirit to fill you. Who is this message for? For Israel, for the children of Israel, and to those far away, even people into the future.
Lastly, verses 40-41: 40 "Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”
41 Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day—about 3,000 in all."
Peter says save yourself from this crooked generation, the same is true for us today. We live in a crooked generation. We’re called to a radically different life, than the culture we live in. It was true then too.
Those that believed the message, they took it to heart, they embraced and believed in Jesus, they were added to the church, baptized into the body.
Third and final point for today. What does all this mean? How do we fit it all together? What really happened at Pentecost? And what happens today when a new believer is filled with the Holy Spirit, or when a believer walks in the power of the Holy Spirit and they do a mighty deed for God?
All of this, very simply points us to the presence of God. I was talking to a district superintendent, and he said what we need more than anything is the presence of God in our services.
Pentecost was the presence of God joining with His new body of Christ on Earth. We need the presence of God in our lives. If you’re a believer today, you have the Holy Spirit within you already, meaning the presence of God. But, do you act on it? Do you live in His presence? Do you invite Him in? Do you get in tune with the Holy Spirit within you, and let Him lead your day? That is the difference.
What if we really lived surrendered to the Spirit? Well, look at what happened on Pentecost.
Can you imagine 3,000 people getting saved in one day? That is an amazing moment in the history of the church.
Maybe this morning, like the crowd before Peter, you’re feeling cut to the heart, and you’re thinking, what can I do? How can I see the Holy Spirit work in mighty ways in my life? And more so, in the life of the church I'm part of? The answer is simple, if we want to see revival, if we want to see a new day, and a new season, we need to trust in God, repent of our sins, and cry out to God in prayer, and ask Him to move.
Pray for your church. Pray for the future. Cry out to God, and we believe God will move in mighty ways. Its time to repent, and ask God to move again in our midst in mighty ways. God can do anything! Do you believe?
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Have you ever see the movie Scarface? It’s a fictional portrayal of Tony Montana a Cuban immigrant who came to the USA and ruthlessly fought his way to the top, with the famous slogan, the world is yours. Drugs, crime, money, all of which led to his inevitable downfall.
Now, few of us have the ruthless drive and vicious immorality of a Tony Montana, but to a lesser sense, all of us here have struggled and do struggle at times with the big three battles in this world, the battles with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, mentioned in scripture.
And many of us have felt very driven toward money, pride, power, a pride of life similar in some ways to a Tony Montana. Today we’re talking about this battle with something called coveting.
And I want to suggest to you today a different mindset for our journey through this world, (next slide) that of Etienne de Grellet, a Quaker missionary who said:
“I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
-Etienne de Grellet, Quaker missionary
Most of us are not either Tony Montana or Etienne de Grellet, but somewhere in between. So today we will examine this struggle, of being on the fence, and how to find our place with both feet in the kingdom of God. We may never be to the level of a Quaker missionary, but, we can be firmly planted in God.
Starting in James Chapter 4, verses 1-2: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.”
What causes us to be upset within ourselves? What causes us to then get into fights and cause drama with others? Ultimately, James tells us that it’s from our desires within us that have gotten out of control. And yes, this is talking to Christians. So for Christians, we can struggle with desires that get out of control.
This makes sense, this world offers many allurements, things that we want. Our desires get so out of control that we even kill to satiate them. This is an extreme example. But here in Gary we hear about it sometimes, someone killed someone else. And it’s sad. It all has it’s source in coveting.
What is coveting? It’s a desire that has gotten out of whack. It’s become abnormal, too powerful. Or, it’s desiring something God doesn’t want us to have.
We’ve all experienced this as well. Whether it’s with drinking, or gambling, or lust, or love for money, or anger or hatred, or just cutting ourselves off from the world. A desire within us, has gotten us too big, and is messing with our ability to live right.
It continues, verses 2-3: “ You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
As our desires get out of whack, we naturally become less and less spiritual. We aren’t asking God, we’re just chasing what feels good. We don’t receive, because we don’t ask. But, even if we do ask, we’re asking for the wrong things, we’re asking God for more money, or to send us pleasure, but, it never is enough, and God doesn’t answer prayers centered on our selfish pleasures.
Next: 4 You adulterous people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
The idea of being adulterous here, points back to the Old Testament, when Israel was supposed to be devoted to the one God Yahweh, but instead, they kept worshipping other gods along with Yahweh, which is obviously adulterous.
This scripture we all need to remember, if you choose to be a friend of the world, you become an enemy of God.
What does this mean? It’s been much debated. But in general, to be a friend of the world, which is something we want to avoid at all costs, is to be in love with the things of this world. It goes back to verses 1-3, allowing all of our desires to get out of control, where we are coveting everything in this world around us.
Instead, we should be heavenly minded. We should hold things of this life loosely in our hands. And this will make it easy to let them go when we must.
As Billy Graham said, “My home is in heaven. I’m just traveling through this world.”
This life is temporary. The New Jerusalem is eternal.
Verses 5-6 expand on this: 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
‘God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.’”
I think verse 5 is better translated, His spirit within us jealously longs for our affection.” You’ll see in the margin of your Bible that it gives several alternative translations for that phrase because it’s somewhat unclear in the original Greek.
God is jealous for our affections, is the key here. Which is stated in the Old Testament. God is jealous for our hearts and God will not accept divided affections within us. He’s jealous for our entire heart, as He should be, He made us, and He wants our affections. It’s a holy attribute of God, His desire for our heart. Just like a husband or wife should jealously desire the affection of their own wife or husband. The romantic love belongs to only them. Our heart passion belongs to God not the world.
Yet we also see in verse 6, Yet God gives more grace. God is patient and forgiving of us in this process.
There is a solution to all these uncontrolled coveting desires within us. And it starts with the end of verse 6:
"God opposes the proud, but shows favor the humble.”
This is the key. If we are struggling with uncontrolled desires, we need to humble ourselves before God.
Next, verses 7-10 expand on how to humble yourself, if you find within yourself out of control desires:
“7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”
Let’s walk through this process...
First, we want to submit to God. Get quiet, and go into prayer with God. Father, I admit I’ve allowed my desires to control me. That’s idolatry, and I want to ask your forgiveness. I humble myself before you God, Lord, have mercy on me. I turn these desires over to you, please take them from me, in Jesus name, amen.
Next, we’ll want to address the spiritual warfare aspect of this battle. Resist the devil, and the devil will flee from you. Often times our desires our disturbed because the enemy is whispering to us and tempting us toward evil. So you’ve got to speak the name of Jesus, and tell the enemy to be gone!
Come near to God, and God will come near to you. Again, this is seeking God honestly, returning to your Father with all your heart, not just words, but really getting in deep in prayer and turning over your heart to Him.
Wash your hands you sinners, it says. And purify your heart. This is the key: Repentance. When we’ve got desires that are out of control… we want to humble ourselves, pray, seek God’s face, yes, resist the devil yes, but ultimately in all this we are finding a place of repentance.
That is a power word in the Christian faith, repentance. Lord, I repent. It pictures one who is facing toward sin, and they turn 180 degrees away from it, turn their back on sin, and turn their face toward God. They are forgiven. And the sin is now behind their back, they don’t see it anymore, they are focused on God. The sin is gone, and the affections are back where they should be, on God himself. That is true repentance. It’s not just turning from sin, it’s turning toward God.
The desire, or affection that was once focused on the sin, is now off the sin, and onto God. Thus the sin is defeated, because it’s lost it’s place of love in our hearts.
Notice also the scripture today says to change our emotions, to grieve and mourn when we’re caught in the sin of coveting. Change our happiness to grieving and crying. That’s wisdom too. There is a time for joy, yes. But there is also a time for sorrow and grieving, and expressing our sadness to God.
In all this, as we humble ourselves and repent, God will lift us up from that place of mourning, and restore our joy, and the sin of coveting will be defeated. And that is cause for celebration.
If during this message, God brings something up in your heart, I want you to pray and repent. If God brings it up, repent of it, Lord I turn away from that sin and I turn toward you. Lord please forgive me by Jesus’ blood. It’s real and powerful. And that’s how many revivals have started in Christian history, a small group of Christians repenting honestly before God.
James is going to bring us to two more key topics before the end of chapter 4, but remember again, as we dive into these topics, let God speak a word to you right now, and be quick to grieve, humble yourself, turn and repent and get that sin under the blood of Jesus.
Next, verses 11-12: "Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister[d] or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you – who are you to judge your neighbour?”
Do not slander others. And do not judge others. Think right now about someone who has harmed you recently. Your feelings of pain are valid. Your confusion and frustration is valid. The wrong they did to you matters before God. All of that is true. However, you must not slander them to others, or judge them in a way that you sit on the throne to declare them worthy of condemnation.
This is so common for us, when someone hurts us, we slander them, and then we judge them by condemning them.
Now, it’s valid for you to go to a friend, after someone hurt you, and say, this is what they did, and it hurt. That’s not slander, you are speaking truth. But, if you take it further and declare they are bad, or you begin spreading rumors, now you are sinning.
If we slander or judge, we are in fact judging and slandering the law of Jesus, which is the golden law, to love your neighbor as yourself. If we slander and judge, we are actually slandering and judging Jesus’ perfect law of love. Who are you… to judge your neighbor? There is only one judge, and it’s God, not me, not you.
Lastly, verse 13-17 “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’ 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”
James hits on a completely different topic to conclude the chapter.
What we really see here, is James is addressing the key issues that make war with our souls.
The big three mentioned in 1 John 2:16: “For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.”
The lust of the flesh is our internal coveting getting out of control. The lust of the eyes are what can cause us to be in love with this world. And the pride of life is what James is getting into lastly here.
The pride of life is all about achieving things in this world and taking pleasure in the accomplishments of this life before love for God.
I actually asked AI what the pride of life was, and it said, “In a Christian context, "the pride of life" refers to a strong desire for self-exaltation and self-gratification, often associated with seeking recognition, status, and material possessions. It involves finding pleasure in worldly achievements and possessions, rather than acknowledging God's grace and seeking his glory.”
Often times I’ve found AI answers to be deceptive and misleading, but in this case, I think the AI is correct.
And this fits with our scripture for today, it pictures someone boasting about moving to a new area and doing business for a year and making money. But again, humility is the key. We should always keep God first in the plans we make. And when we speak, we should phrase it as, if it’s God’s will, we will go and see these plans succeed. Submit your plans to God. Keep God at the center.
Boasting in our arrogant schemes is sinful. So if you battle with boasting, again, repent and seek God’s forgiveness. Boasting in our plans is a symptom of the pride of life. Instead, recognize you are temporary, we are just a cloud of vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Like a flower that grows, blooms, then fades and dies.
Then at the very end we get this tidbit from James “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”
This is a scripture I try to live by. I’ll often sense that God is leading me to do something, could be simple, go talk to one of my staff members, or even go take a nap, these I call “nudges from God.” And I think many of us just naturally follow these nudges. But, we also get this scripture, that if we know the good we’re called to do, and we don’t do it, it becomes sin for us.
Now, every nudging from God is not a sin issue. God gives us free will for a reason. Yet I do believe there are certain nudgings that are critical, and if we refuse the leading of the Holy Spirit, it’s sin. And we’ll need to repent and ask God’s forgiveness in that circumstance.
In conclusion today, we put it all together… the challenge in living as a Christian is that we still battle the sinful nature within us, though we also have the Holy Spirit within us helping us to choose the right.
Nevertheless, at times the desires of this life can cause us to lose control of our desires and become covetous. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life can take over. Slowly we start to drift toward being more in love with the world than we are in love with God. We become double-minded. One foot in the world, one foot in the Kingdom of God. This double-minded situation leaves us miserable, constantly torn between God and this world. Our lusts and desires control us, and we end up in fights and quarrels and drama. We want God but we want the world too. So we’re divided, and this divided state puts us in danger of being regarded as an enemy of God.
The solution to this miserable situation is to humble ourselves, seek God honestly, mourn and grieve over our divided heart, resist the devil who is leading us astray, and at the proper moment, we repent, we submit to God, and we give Him our whole heart. And God moves in and suddenly, he’s all in all to us. We jump off the fence, with both feet in the kingdom of God.
We fall in love so much with Jesus Christ, that our love for the world’s pleasures fades away. And it’s suddenly all about Jesus Christ.
And then, the Lord lifts us up in honor. Because we belong to Him. And we’ve crucified the desires of the flesh.
Additionally, at the end of the chapter we also discussed not judging or slandering others, but allowing God to be the only judge. And we also addressed avoiding the pride of life, and instead submitting our plans to God’s leading, and obeying the nudgings of the Holy Spirit.
Amen. So that is the challenge from God before us. We’re going to pray, and repent, and offer our hearts to God afresh today. We are going to renounce any adulterous love for worldly pleasures, and turn to Jesus.
Prayer: Father, we mourn and grieve over putting things in the world, pleasures before you. We know this is wrong, yet we did it anyway. We’ve allowed pleasures and desires to take control. And we want that to stop. Father please forgive us for embracing the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Forgive us please for slandering others, and judging others. Forgive us for taking pride in our own plans. We renounce these past ways. We offer you our hearts and ask you to consecrate them. Set us apart from the world, for holy sacred use. We repent of our sins. We repent of coveting. We turn toward you Father, in Jesus name, amen.
