Last week we began to study the Day of Pentecost.  In the upper room the 120 heard the wind and saw the fire.  The Holy Spirit revealed himself in the wind and fire.  These two, in combination, are a remarkable metaphor for the Spirit.  The wind drives the fire. The sparks of faith of the 120 were blown into full blaze on that Sunday morning.  It began the witness which spread from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.  The wind and fire began the witness.

But we also noticed last week that the first gift of the Spirit was the gift of speech. Those whom the tongues of fire sat upon were able then to speak in different tongues; languages they had never studying or learned how to speak.  The 16 different countries, listed in verses 9-11, which had gathered in Jerusalem for the Pentecost heard their own native tongue!  This also is significant. Witnesses speak.  They speak so that others will understand.  They speak to others so the witness will be passed on.  It is in our words that the fire is spread from one person to another.  The Holy Spirit is about the words of witness which we speak to others and connect the fire of our faith to another and light them up for God.  

The first 13 verses of Acts chapter 2 are amazing.  The wind and the fire and the words were just the beginning of that Day of Pentecost.  In verse 14 of Acts chapter 2 Peter stood up to answer a question.  It was a question asked by the people there who heard the wind and saw the fire and understood the different languages; “What does this mean?”  That was the same question we asked last week as well.  What does all this mean for us?  Do we get the wind and fire and the words or was that just a one time thing?  The answer is yes.  Like the birth of the baby it was miraculous. The working of the Spirit in our church may not look like the birth, but it is no less miraculous or power filled.  It is just different. 

Peter stood up and explained this.

Acts 2:16-21 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:  "'In the last days, God says, 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.  Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.  I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.  The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.  And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'”

The Holy Spirit comes upon all people who call upon the Lord’s name; son’s and daughters, old and young, men and women.  This is Joel’s prediction of the fundamental difference in the LD or as I call it the AC; the Ascended Christ time.  We all are filled with the Spirit to speak in his name; to be witnesses! 

But that is not all Peter said.  In fact he is just getting warmed up.  He was just getting their attention.  In verse 22 he really begins the point of his sermon.  But before we keep reading in Acts chapter 2, I want to ask a question of this text.  I think this is really what Luke is doing with the rest of Peter’s Pentecost Proclamation.  Here is today’s question, what is the essence of our witness?  All of us are Spirit filled in order to be witnesses and witnesses speak for God, what, then, are the essential ingredients of our witness? If I am his witness what does he want me to testify?

Luke breaks it down for us.  Luke, on the birthday of the church, wants us to know the synopsis of the message.  Luke wants to be clear about the message.  He even says in verse 40, “With many other words Peter warned them…”  Luke is saying these words of his sermon are the heart of what we must share as witnesses.  Is it worth playing for?  Sorry, I have watched too much Survivor.  Let’s get to his sermon and break it down.  

Acts 2:22  "Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God…”

Let’s stop there and not miss his first point.  Our witness is based in the reality of the historical person; Jesus of Nazareth.  Our religion is not based upon forces of nature, or philosophical concepts.  Our witness is not based upon some obscure becoming one with the universe.  Our witness is to a real, live flesh and blood human born about 4BC and lived and died in Israel of the first century.   Our witness is about Jesus of Nazareth; the man. Now, watch the progression.

Acts 2:22  "Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.”

This man of Nazareth was a miracle worker.  This can hardly be denied.  All accounts of the man Jesus says he healed.  He walked on water.  He exorcised demons.  He calmed storms.  He fed the 1,000s.  This is what made him famous.  This is what brought the crowds.  This is what stirred the imaginations of the people.

What is fascinating is there had to be many in the crowd who really knew this first hand.  Can’t you see this? Someone in the crowd punches his neighbor, “He’s right.  My sister was mostly dead and he healed her!”  Another guy says, “I was there when he fed, what had to be 5,000 of us, with just a couple fish and some bread. He did it!”  Another one says, “I’ve got a cousin who was paralyzed and now he walks.”  “Well, that’s nothing.  My mother was dead. I mean we were at the funeral, dead.  And she is standing right there.” 

No one in the crowd denied the miracles of Jesus.  God proved he was something special through the miracles!  And that should be part of our witness!  But keep going.  It gets bigger.

Acts 2:23 “This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”

Jesus died on the cross.  This was a problem to those Jews there that morning.  Messiah’s don’t die on Roman crosses.  Only those who are cursed by God die on a cross.  We would have hard time following someone who had died in an electric chair.  He was a criminal.  No, says Peter, not a criminal but part of an amazing plan!  The cross wasn’t a mistake. The cross was essential to the purpose of Jesus coming to this world.  The cross is where the forgiveness flows.  But Peter doesn’t really go there.   He just says, at this point, it is the plan.  From the creation of the world God knew those who were made in his image would tarnish that image by disobedience.  But he had a plan to send his son to the cross to pay the price. The cross was part of the plan.  Then Peter really moves to who Jesus is.

Acts 2:24   “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.”

Because of who Jesus is, death could not keep a hold on him.  Isn’t that an interesting metaphor?  Jesus is dead.  Death, personified, has its tentacles wrapped all around him.  By the power of his deity, Jesus ripped the arms of death off and came back to life.  I kind of see this like a huge octopus thing, in “Lord of the Rings” when they were trying to get through the door into the dwarf caves.  This monster called death has a grip on Jesus and he slices his way back to life.  Jesus is man.  Jesus is miracle worker.  Jesus is the plan.  Jesus died on a cross.  Death could not hold him!  Wow, that is a story I can get into to! 

Peter kind of takes a time out here to make a point his Jewish audience would appreciate, perhaps more than we do. 

Acts 2:25-31   David said about him: "'I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.  Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live in hope, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.  You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.'  "Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day.  But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne.  Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay.”

David, their most favorite king and hero, told that this was going to happen.  Peter says David predicted he would not see decay.  Well, he did.  Peter points off to where King David was buried.  “Go see David is really dead.” But what he was saying is, that Jesus – as a part of who David was – did not see decay.  As I said, this may not be as impressive to us as it was to them.  But here is the point.  Jesus was predicted.  The prophecies of the Old Book point to Jesus as their fulfillment and that is remarkable. 

Acts 2:32  “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.”

Something moved Peter from cowardice to courage.  We are talking the same place.  Peter may have been able to see where he stood and denied Jesus and where Luke told us Jesus looked at him and it broke his hard; remember that?  In the same place, less than two months later, in front of the same bunch of people, Peter is transformed from someone who was afraid to admit his connection to Jesus to someone who is standing in front of 1,000s proclaiming him as the Lord!

Something changed Pete.  Something changed the Eleven. Something changed the 120.  What was it?  Peter said it was the risen Jesus.  If not that, then nothing else makes any sense.  Peter was a witness to the resurrected Jesus!    Then Peter moves to the climax, the kicker of his sermon; the bottom line. 

Acts 2:33-36   Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.  For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."'  "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."

Jesus is now the Exalted One.  Jesus, now, sits at the right hand of God.  Jesus is both Lord and Christ.  It is not that Jesus became something he was not. Rather, in his exalted state, he now assumes the role of Lord over everything, the one who is the ultimate ruler.  And he is now the universal Messiah; the one who brings the kingdom of God to the world. 

In Peter’s sermon Jesus is progressively revealed from real man, to miracle worker, to God’s intentional plan, to the crucified one, to the one the tentacles of death could not hold, to David’s un-decayed descendant, to Exalted Lord and Christ.  And that is what is at the heart of our witness.  Bottom line: Jesus Christ was crucified, then risen and now exalted!  And that’s what it’s all about!

The power of these words is the power of the Spirit to enter these words and convict the listener.  The gift of the Spirit is the gift of power-filled words.  That is where the truth to change is. But that is next week’s lesson. Next week we look at what happens when the witness hits open hearts.  But the point of this sermon is we must incorporate the message of Jesus into who we are.  We are his witnesses! 

Last week our nation celebrated the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Among his many sayings is this one:

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.  That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

Our unarmed truth and unconditional love about our Lord will ultimately be the triumph of this world!