Hey, God, do it again!

Steve Brown:
Hey, God, do it again! Let’s talk about doing it again on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. I’m Matthew, executive producer of the program. Our host is Steve Brown. He’s an author and seminary professor who teaches the God’s amazing grace is the key to a life of radical freedom, infectious joy and surprising faithfulness to Christ.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hope you guys had a great weekend, as I always say, because I want you to encourage your pastor. I hope your pastor’s sermon was as good as my pastor’s sermon. I get, I haven’t been traveling much during all this pandemic thing, but used to be almost everywhere I go, somebody would come up to me, and say wherever it was, hey Brown, my pastor’s sermon last week was better than your pastor’s sermon. And when I hear that, I rejoice. If you have your Bible, we’re studying the book of Acts and we’re up to the second chapter of the book of Acts. One of the seminal most important texts in the entire Bible, because this is where God put gasoline in the engine. And the engine took the people in the car, into the world and the world was turned upside down. And this is where it began. Jesus says, promised it and as always, he delivered it. And in the second chapter of Acts, he delivered it with power. And we’re going to spend some time, maybe even a couple of weeks in this particular chapter, just talking about Pentecost and seeing if it’s reproducible and if it is, what can we do to see God do it again? Before we turn to that second chapter let’s and then we’ll get down and study. Father, we remember when you did it at Pentecost. Boy, did you shine? That was something else. And Father, during the history of your family on earth, you’ve done it a number of times kind of like that, but we’re a dry and thirsty land. And Father, would you pour out your Spirit again? Would you do it again. Father, you know, the people who are listening to this broadcast and you know the hard places and the soft places, the tears and the laughter, the pain and the joy. Remind us that you’re a sovereign God. The sovereign God, and that you’re good all the time. And that every circumstance is from your hand for your purposes, your glory and our benefit. You gotta remind us a lot Father, because we forget. And then Father, we pray for the one who teaches on this broadcast, that you would forgive him his sins, because there are many, we would see Jesus and him only. And we pray in Jesus name. Amen. I’m kind of, and this is a very, very long text and I think I’m going to take most of the broadcast today to simply read it to you, because it’s important. And then we’ll study it over the next two or three weeks. This is what Luke, the physician writes.

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues of fire distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men of every nation under heaven. And at the sound of the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and wondered, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians–we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” but others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.” but Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; yay, and on my men servants and my maid servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And they will show wonders in the heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, and the great and manifest day. And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ “Men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man arrested by you, attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know–this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loose the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him, “‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; moreover, my flesh will dwell in hope. For thou will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let thy Holy One see corruption. Thou has made, known to me the ways of life; thou will make me full of gladness with thy presence.’ “Brothers, I may say to you confidentally of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a profit, and knowing that God had sworn an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon the throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh seek corruption. But Jesus God raised up, and of that we are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you see and hear. For David did not ascend into heavens, but he himself says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make my enemies a stool for your feet.’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

And I don’t have time to read the rest of the chapter. But I must say that you cannot send a critical letter to me about this particular broadcast, because it was all from God, every word of it from his word, as we look at what God did in the first century. And we would like to see, do again, I’m going to talk a lot about it over the next couple of weeks, but. I was there when God did something like that. It was called the Jesus movement and it swept across America in amazing and wonderful ways from college campuses to universities to churches, and during that time, I was a pastor in the Boston area and a number of college students were going to our churches from Harvard and MIT and Wellesley and Eastern Nazarene and a number of others. And we saw God do something that was plane amazing. Kids started coming off the streets. The church started changing, revival started taking place and sometimes late at night, I remember. And I think about those days and the excitement of it and what God did in so very many lives all across the country. And sometimes just before going to sleep, I pray Jesus, could you do it one more time. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve. Wow. How great was that just reading through Acts 2 or, or, or at least most of it. Today, we looked at Acts 2:1-36. And tomorrow we’ll read some more, than circle back to drill into that text, the rest of this week. Do hope you’ll join us. Well, if you didn’t know, in addition to this show, Key Life, we have a weekly talk radio show called Steve Brown Etc. And one of the perks of doing that show is getting to meet some very interesting people. And one of those interesting folks is radio host and author Brent Hansen. On an episode last year, we discussed Brant’s book called The Truth About Us: The Very Good News About How Very Bad We Are. It’s a surprising and also humorous look at how we fool ourselves. We have that whole conversation on a CD, and if it’s okay with you, we’d love to drop you a copy in the mail today. Just call 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] and ask that CD. If you’d like to mail your request, send it to

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