Champagne Supernova - Acts 2

“They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit…” (Acts 2:3-4)
 
As we read yesterday, LOVE’s final instructions to his disciples were for them to wait together and pray until the Holy Spirit clothed them with power.  Then they’d be ready to go out and carry on what he’d started.  That’s exactly what they did.  From that moment on LOVE was on the inside and in everything they went on to do, LOVE flowed out through them.  That remains our model for everything we do in life.  Everything rests on us knowing LOVE, for real, for ourselves and for letting it out at every opportunity.
 
LOVE does not wish to be contained.  On Good Friday the veil in the Holy of Holies had been torn from the top to the bottom.  50 days later, at Pentecost, the fire of LOVE’s spirit fell and “then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks” (Acts 2:1-4, The Message).  It was as if the bottle had been shaken, the cork flew off, and out bubbled the new wine of the LOVE’s spirit.
 
The result of LOVE’s fire, LOVE’s outpouring was profound.  Peter, an uneducated man, suddenly transformed, preached a blistering, provocative and fearless message.  “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”  Three thousand people were converted on the spot, even though to do so might mean the death sentence.
 
It didn’t stop there.  This new large community of faith – church in Jesus – devoted themselves to loving LOVE, to prayer, to obeying the teaching of scripture, and to loving one another (Acts 2:42).  There was incredible worship as, “everyone was filled with awe at the many signs and wonders” (Acts 2:43).  There was also a radically transformed society amongst them of the sort that has never been equalled by any attempt at enforced political social engineering (Acts 2:44-46).  Such difficulty, high standards and radical change might be thought as the preserve of a few.  Nothing could be further from the truth: “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).  As we continue to read through Acts we can see that the church was filled with the Holy Spirit over and over again.  LOVE never stops.  LOVE flows.
 
Countless people have decided to follow Jesus and obey LOVE’s ways since.  The worldwide church is now estimated at 2.2 billion people (according to Pew Research).
 
As we pray today, let’s ask the Holy Spirit to fill the church in Bournemouth once again.  Let’s ask that we might devote ourselves to prayer and scripture’s teaching, to loving one another, to prayer and worship, to the proclamation of the good news about Jesus and the transformation of society according to the principles of the Kingdom of God that he taught.  Let’s pray that every day in Bournemouth, we would see people responding to the stories of LOVE that we tell and live out.
 
“And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:47)