I Will Pour Out My Spirit | Acts 2:1–21 | Good News for Troubled Times

Watch This Sermon On Pentecost

In a week marked by fear, division, and unrest, this Pentecost sermon on Acts 2:1–21 reminds us of the power and clarity of the gospel. Pastor Mark Groen preaches about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit—not as a display of emotional excess, but as a purposeful act of God to spread the good news of salvation to the ends of the earth. At Pentecost, the curse of Babel is reversed, and a new unity in Christ is formed. This sermon invites weary believers to find peace and confidence in the sure promise that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Pentecost Truths in Troubled Times

Why does Pentecost matter in a divided and hurting world?

In a week filled with grief and unrest, this sermon reminds us that Pentecost is not about emotional hype but real hope. The Holy Spirit comes to empower gospel proclamation, heal brokenness, and offer unity in Christ where the world offers only division.

What does it mean that Pentecost reversed Babel?

At Babel, God scattered humanity through language; at Pentecost, He began to unite people through the gospel. The disciples spoke real languages, understood by diverse crowds, symbolizing that salvation is no longer bound to one ethnicity but goes out to all.

Does the Holy Spirit still break down barriers today?

Yes. The Spirit of God continues to unite believers from every background into one family. Racial, social, and national divisions are overcome through our shared identity in Christ. Pentecost is a picture of gospel reconciliation across every human divide.

Who can be saved according to the Pentecost message?

Peter quotes the prophet Joel: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” This universal invitation means no matter who you are or what you’ve done, if you turn to Christ in faith, you will be saved.

📖 Click to Show the Transcript of this Sermon

Well, on Wednesday, I had what I thought was a nice intro to the sermon about drawing a crowd. It involved a story from the Sunshine Christian Music Festival in Wilmer, back in February 2001. But since then, a story about drawing a crowd just doesn't feel quite as appropriate as it did on Wednesday. On Thursday, along with me, I'm sure that you saw live videos, whether it was on TV or on social media someplace. I saw the Target store that is about a third of a mile from where my daughter lives being looted. That kind of changed my perspective on everything. My fun little story about a crowd doesn't really seem appropriate.

We've spent hours probably glued to TVs or social media again, watching cities where many of us probably have family and friends burning, lives being destroyed, all triggered by injustice this week. I'm not a crier, but I'm not gonna lie. I've cried this week. I've spent the last couple of days starting this sermon and then deleting everything I had. Then I start again and delete it again. Because I felt like at any moment, something was going to happen that I would feel obligated either to address, or there would be some good news that would improve my mood, that would improve our collective mood, and provide direction for what to say.

I was waiting for news, and particularly, I was hoping for good news. Good news. That is literally the word gospel. That's what the word gospel means. It means good news. And that gospel that we believe is a declaration of victory by God the Son destroying sin, death, and the devil. My realization at that point is that I don't need to feel the burden of having something new to say. This is the same message heralded by believers that have found hope for nearly two thousand years, the same message you hear from me every week.

The story of Pentecost that we remember today is that no matter what is happening around us, no matter the circumstances that surround us, the message that comes out of our passage today is one of hope and unity in Christ. That is what we need more than anything today. The world desperately needs Jesus. So that is what will be proclaimed and offered today, just as it is every Lord's day. Pandemics, riots, or any other situation don't need insightful words from me. They need the gospel, the story of Christ and Him crucified, resurrected, ascended, and reigning on high. We are a people that is desperately in need of the good news.

With that in mind, we are going to approach our passage from Acts this morning. We're going to once again find ourselves with three points here today. The first is that the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples. They remained in Jerusalem as they were told, and the Holy Spirit comes upon them. Our second point shows why this was: it's to get the message of the gospel out. Lastly, we're going to see that this is precisely the message that Pentecost is about—it’s not a regional religion. Any person, regardless of ethnicity, is saved through Christ alone, not because of their ethnicity or anything that they have done or will do. They are saved because they call on the name of the Lord Jesus.

In Acts 2:1 through 4, we are at the days of Pentecost. It’s important that we understand, as I’ve said before, this isn't just a Christian holiday that we named after the fact. Luke didn’t say, “This is Pentecost, so I'll call it Pentecost.” Pentecost was a religious ritual feast that took place fifty days after the Passover, known as the Feast of Weeks. We understand that the crowds at Passover, like on Palm Sunday, were significant because Passover is a big deal, so there must have been a whole bunch of people coming to Jerusalem. Well, the gatherings for Pentecost would have been very well attended, just like Passover.

We will see a few verses down the page here that there would have been people from all over the Roman Empire. What we see is that the disciples were actually gathered together for this celebration, probably wondering if what Jesus told them to wait for would ever happen. And then, a sound like a mighty wind rushed through the house. Throughout Scripture, the word wind is used to describe the Holy Spirit, and this is a mighty coming of the Holy Spirit.

This manifests itself in two ways. First, we know the story: divided tongues as of fire appeared and rested upon them. This is symbolism, just as important as the idea of wind representing the Holy Spirit. Fire purifies, and they now have power as the messengers of the church. The other way that the presence of the Holy Spirit is made known is the most interesting part of what we read today: they begin to speak in other languages by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Speaking in tongues had a purpose. It wasn’t about chaos or ecstatic utterances; it was about the gospel going out. The purpose is to get the message out, to share the gospel. This sign, speaking in other languages by the power of the Holy Spirit, was about the proliferation of the gospel. Can you imagine spreading the word about something in the first century? I’m old enough to remember when getting the word out about something took a really long time. Word didn’t used to spread instantly like it does now.

Recently, I’ve come across some videos on YouTube of old concert videos of my favorite Christian metal bands from high school. I was watching one, clearly recorded by someone who brought their video camera, and later captured and shared it with the world. I thought, I remember hearing about this show at Cornerstone Festival in Illinois. How in the world did I hear about this? Then I remembered I used to subscribe to magazines that came every other month. I heard about this two months after it happened. That would have been speedy compared to how the word traveled in the first century.

How did the word get out in the first century? By word-of-mouth. But there were boundaries—you couldn’t just go to Google Translate and tell somebody, here’s the gospel. I couldn’t call up translators or get a copy of the Bible to take to somebody. I couldn’t tell them to go on a Bible app. News used to travel very slowly. The message of the gospel going out in the lifetime of the apostles was absolutely important because they were the authority, the ones who’d been with Jesus. They had to get the message out in their lifetime. We know that before the temple was destroyed in the year 70, the message of the gospel went as far as modern-day Great Britain in less than forty years. This event, this idea of Pentecost, is about the message getting out. This message was vital, and so these apostles were blessed with this ability to proclaim in other languages on the day of Pentecost.

This spreading of the gospel message is our second point today, as we get to verses 5 through 11. As I said, people would have come from all over the Roman Empire for the Feast of Weeks. Over the course of the Old Testament, we saw that the people of God would be gathered by God into Israel, but then they rejected God, turned away from Him, and were sent into exile. Then God would bring them to repentance, and some would return. Through the course of this, many people would not return. They would get married, do all kinds of things, and stay where they were exiled to. But they held on to their religious rituals and their faith as Hebrew people.

By the first century, there were so many people scattered throughout the Roman Empire, known as the Diaspora or Dispersion. They would return to the Roman Empire for festivals like Passover or the Feast of Weeks, but they didn’t all know Hebrew or Aramaic. They spoke the language from another region. Imagine you’ve traveled a long way to get to Jerusalem and may not have come in contact with anyone who speaks the language from your homeland. Suddenly, you’re hearing people who don’t look like they should know your language speaking to you.

It’s so important for us to understand today what’s happening here. A few weeks ago, we finished up our time in the first part of Genesis with the story of the Tower of Babel. At that event, there was confusion. Salvation was going through the Hebrew people, the thread of redemption we’re following, the line to Jesus, the one who would destroy the work of Satan. The Hebrew people were the cradle for that message, for that Messiah. The word of God was in their language. They were the ones. It was exclusive.

But now the message is going out. The Tower of Babel is being undone at Pentecost. The word of the gospel isn’t going to one people anymore; it’s going out to all people. What is happening at Pentecost is undoing Babel because now, regardless of language, by the power of God through the Holy Spirit, the message of salvation is going out into the world. Now the people of God are from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

For us, this is the message of Pentecost. Look around you. We’re spread out differently than normal; maybe you can’t see people as well as normal. We are not exactly the most diverse bunch here. But if you look at the person next to you, you can tell they probably aren’t Hebrew, right? Because what happened? The gospel crossed ethnic lines. The church has done its work, and it’s brought us together. It went across those ethnic lines and made us one family. We are brothers and sisters, not only with each other but with our friends across the street, down the road, in another town, across our nation, and our brothers and sisters around the world, regardless of what language they speak or their ethnicity. The message of the gospel has united us.

We are a unique people, given the gift of repentance and the forgiveness of sin, united not by our zip code or our favorite sports team. The unity we have in Christ is in Him, in Him alone. That brings us to our third point for today: anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. First, we have to look at the fun part of this story, right? Peter begins to speak and address the confusion of the people that are gathered together. I just love this part of the story. They think they’re drunk. What alcohol makes somebody speak in another language coherently? That must have been some interesting alcohol they had back then.

Peter sets them straight, though. It’s not drunkenness; it’s the promised work of God. This is what God was going to do in these last days. As we move to verses 17 through 21, “last days” doesn’t mean the very last days, as if you’re going to run out of time. It means that the Spirit will be poured out on all flesh. This doesn’t mean that the Spirit goes to every last person. When it says “all flesh,” it isn’t meaning that every last person ever will now have faith and believe. Scripturally, “all flesh” means all ethnicities of people, not just the Hebrews, but the Gentiles too—you and me also.

What else does this Scripture promise? It promises that sons and daughters will prophesy, and old men shall dream dreams. Even the male and female servants will receive the Spirit of God. Again, what does this mean? The idea we see here is that all categories of people will be in the family of God. Every last barrier for people coming to faith is torn down in the family of God. How are those barriers destroyed? Right there at the end, it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

By calling out to Jesus for salvation, we trust that the truth of Christ living for us, dying for us, rising again for us, and ascending to the right hand of the Father for us is our salvation. If we don’t share it, how will they hear it? God has called His church, He has called us, to proclaim the good news. In these troubled times, we dare not be derelict in our duty. There is discord, there is hopelessness. We must proclaim the gospel. To those who do not have faith, may God use that proclamation to bring them to faith by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We also have a call in our lives to remind our fellow believers of this good news. The story of salvation and trust is not only how God brings people to faith, it’s how His people are built up in faith. A reminder of the gospel of God’s grace, as it seems so much of the world is in shambles, may be the most powerful thing that you can do in this coming week: to remind a sister or brother in Christ that Christ died for them. That good news is our source of joy and peace. We so desperately need to hear it all the time. It is vital for us.

As we step out into the world this week, there are important things that we need to remember, some things that challenge us. The first thing that I believe we need to remember is that true unity only comes through the gospel. Why is that? It’s because it destroys barriers. It puts ethnicity aside. It makes people who don’t look the same family. Our hope isn’t what you and I can do to make the world better. Our hope is in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. That’s it. That’s our only hope.

No amount of works is going to bring you into the family of God. No amount of our works is going to fix the world. Salvation through Christ is entirely the work of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s also the only source for true unity because the work of Jesus is reconciliation—not the kind of reconciliation that the world tries to bring about, but reconciliation with God. Being reconciled to God is the source of unity that we should be seeking, because it truly is our only hope.

That brings us to our second application for today: we need to remember how God has blessed us today. In the midst of everything that’s going on in the world, where are we today? In His sovereignty, many of us have returned together to worship. God gathers His people through His word and Spirit, and that’s what we’ve done today. We come together to hear the gospel, to receive hope, and then to go out into the world to make a difference and to proclaim Christ.

Here we are today. We’re able to encourage one another. We’re able to hear the gospel proclaimed. We’re able to feel the joy of being the people of God that is gathered. So remember that blessing as you go out into the world this week. The final application: call on the name of the Lord. I don’t know how you’re doing, but you may have gotten the hint from the beginning of the sermon that I’m not doing so hot this week.

I trust in the sovereignty of God, absolutely. I believe that He is working all things together for good for those who love Him. Nothing is wavering. But right now, I’m a bit weary, and I bet you are too. I don’t know if for me it’s having a child in the area where the riots are, or because I haven’t been sleeping well because I’m interested in the news. I don’t know. But one thing is true: I’m not the guy who regularly prays, “Lord Jesus, come quickly.” It just isn’t something I normally would say because I’m generally an optimistic dude. I don’t usually think that way.

But in the last four days, I prayed it more times than I prayed it my entire life. I’m also not the guy who cries at the news, but I’ve seen things that break my heart. I know for a fact I’m not the only one. I can see it on your faces. Our passage today ends with the answer for what is ailing us: call on the name of the Lord, and trust that you will be saved.

It’s a sure promise. If you have fear, call on the name of the Lord. If you’re fatigued, call on the name of the Lord. He saves by His grace, and you can have confidence that He will bring you peace at the end of the day. That’s our hope that we’ve called on the name of the Lord. Through His word and Spirit, He reaches to us, and He saves us from despair. He saves us from struggles that we have. He gives us a peace that passes understanding, even when things seem hopeless.

Call on the name of the Lord, and trust that He has saved you, is saving you, and will save you to the very end. He is our great God and King, and He saves His people. That is the hope we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Looking for hope in a weary world?

Pentecost reminds us that God's Spirit brings life, unity, and purpose. Watch more Pentecost sermons and explore what it means to belong to the global Church empowered by the gospel.
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