This morning, we are to worship Pentecost Day all together. True, we have different nationalities this morning, which fits perfectly for the Day of Pentecost.

As you all may know, a special event happened on Pentecost day which is one of the Jewish people's festivals. For this festival, they offered the first portion of their harvest: crops of wheat -- it had been long observed by the Israelites in the time of the Old Testament, but today, under the grace of the New Testament days, they just offered some bread made of ground wheat.

On this special day of Pentecost, God's Holy Spirit descended down onto each one of those believers who were present there. It may sound very strange to some of you, but it was just a fulfillment of the Word of God; John 14:16, Acts 2:17, 33.

God had promised this would happen long before Jesus was born into this world. It was about 600 years before His birth.

Please see Acts 1:14. The disciples and some ladies had been earnestly praying for the Holy Spirit to come down upon them for as many as ten days. On the descent of God's Spirit, they were remarkably changed; they had been 'O.K.' Christians before then, being short of the strength and power needed to be effective witnesses. John 20:19 tells us: the disciples were so afraid of the teachers of the Law that they hid themselves inside of a house. They trembled, and were scared. However, with the strength of the Spirit, they were totally changed into spiritually strong people.

In Acts 2:2, Doctor Luke describes the scene as like a wind-blowing, a flame and a tongue. Now, let us fix our eyes on the "blowing wind" today. Remember when God the Father created Adam? God blew His breath into Adam's nose. Then, Adam became a living being. Read Ezekiel 37:1-10. In this part, God also blew His breath into the dead bones. He promised Ezekiel that those dead people would be brought back to life by God's breath. This part always reminds me of the Japanese people today. They are spiritually dead. But, this part also encourages me very much. With only God's breath, they will be brought to life.

Jesus Himself blew on His weak disciples after He arose, saying "Receive the Spirit." Immediately, after the happening on Pentecost, Peter and John started to speak out. Read Acts 4:13. They had been so changed that people mistook them to be drunken. They might have indeed looked so, for they were so different at that moment from other normal people. Peter's strong preaching led 3,000 people to baptism that day -- this is how the first church was born!

There are various beautiful points in this first church; it was a mega-church of over 3,000 people. It is a matter of fact that one church can not take care of so many people by itself; I heard there were about 300 house churches as well in the first church. Another point about this church was that they were having fellowship constantly, sharing things with one another, etc...

We have been learning about the purpose of a church in this world now for the last couple of weeks. And now we can find five necessary points in a church:

1. to teach Christians; bringing them into spiritual maturity.

2. to share with one another, and have fellowship.

3. to worship together.

4. to serve and wait on other people.

5. to go out and do evangelical work.

They could do all of these on only the strength of the Holy Spirit.

Ep.5:18. This is God's command for us: to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We are to be thirsty for the Holy Spirit to descend upon us and fill us up.

Translated by Junko Okamoto - Edited for the Net by Shido
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