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Purpose! Newsletter - May 2023

Pentecost Sunday is May 28th. Let's talk about it.

1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Acts 2:1-4.

Church had never happened before.

One hundred twenty followers of Jesus had obeyed his command to return to Jerusalem and tarry or wait for the promise of the Father which was the descent of the Holy Spirit. So they returned and for nine days had prayer, the Word, and waited for the promise. Day ten was the day of Pentecost, a Jewish special day in which they celebrated God’s giving of the Torah to Moses on Mt Sinai. The Torah is the law of God as revealed in the first five books of the Bible aka the Pentateuch.

So on this day of Pentecost this Holy day comes as it had every year since Moses time. And this tenth day of the 120 meeting on the second floor could have been just like the other nine days. But the tenth day and the day of Pentecost converged and God decided to do something special.

I can hear the Father in heaven calling out Prophet Joel from among all the saints in heaven and saying to him, Remember that prophecy you gave hundreds of years ago? Well watch this Joel, I’m getting ready to fulfill it. God is true to his promises and he fulfills his word even when the world, the church, and the saints have forgotten it. Hallelujah! As a matter of fact, God is about to fulfill some words we have forgotten. Get ready. Amen.

Now just think if this was your first day in church. You wouldn’t know what to expect. Unfortunately, for the established church today those who attend regularly have a pretty good idea of what will happen. The church today is rather programmed that way. You can visit just about any church on Sunday morning and just about the same thing will happen in each one, at the same time.

I was in St Lucia in the Caribbean preaching some meetings and on a Sunday morning the Lord spoke to me and said, Preach on this:

Can God move in our church on a Sunday morning?

Little did I know they had the whole service planned and scheduled by the minute. The Pastor, in his elegant white suit sat next to me and pulled out the program from his coat pocket and began to rehearse what the service would be about. Respectfully I said to him, I don’t know Pastor, you may want to put that program away.

Well, all went as planned and soon the microphone was in my hand. I was about to follow the established pattern and I introduced my topic that I was going to preach about. Can God move in our church on a Sunday morning?

Suddenly it was like the day of Pentecost. Something unexpected happened. My sermon turned into an illustrated sermon. God began to move. The gifts of the Holy Spirit began to operate. I heard myself calling people out, prophesying, laying hands, praying. The church began to respond the pastor put the program away and we had as was testified later, one of the greatest meetings that church had ever had. In the afternoon when we finally left that service all I could hear was folks repeating the title of the sermon, Can God move in our church on a Sunday morning? And add to that, “He sure did move in our church today.”

See, I understand this first day of church here in Acts 2. God sovereignly moved in the room and the first day of church in history became an example for the church of history to emulate and follow. It is about that that I want to speak about today.

Some things happened on this first day of church that we should expect and look for in our church services regularly.

1. Unity, agreement, of one mind.

They were all with one accord in one place.

There was a human concerted effort among the 120 to be in agreement. This was before the Holy Spirit outpouring. It came about through times of prayer and an understanding of the import of why they were there. There were no schisms, no division in the house. It was suddenly time. Our suddenly is due too.

2. The Supernatural.

There should be a supernatural move of the Holy Spirit in every service. Now I have liked to talk about the sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. The visible tongues as of fire settling upon the folks is also an interesting phenomenon. But today I want to consider three elements of this outpouring that are outstanding and significant for us today.

The house was filled with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit was felt by each individual.

That is all well and good but not enough. That happens every week at some churches.

The missing element at times in the life of many attendees is this:

They were all filled with the Holy Ghost.

I encourage you today to allow the Holy Spirit into your life. On that day they spoke in tongues. You can do that today as you are filled. Then you may break forth in praise or worship. You may feel a cleansing in your soul like you have never felt before. No one who gives entry to the Holy Spirit goes away the same. We are to seek and expect the supernatural of God to take place in our church.

3. The word should be getting out about our church.

Verse 6: Now when this was noised abroad…

People should be hearing about your church. Someone should be telling someone that Someone is there who can help them. Tell them Jesus is in the house.

4. There should be an international, multi-racial, multi-ethnic element in the church.

It is not a White church, a Black church, a Samoan church, or even a Spanish church. It should be a people church. There are 17 different groups mentioned here in verses

9-11.

9 Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,

10 Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,

11 Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

There’s even some folk we don’t even like.

Everyone should be invited there and everyone should be welcome there. Bring some homeless folk in there too. That will alleviate the problem!

5. There must be some good preaching up in there.

Verse 14:

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:

Apostle Peter did some Word based, Christ centered, Holy Ghost anointed preaching.

Read verses 14-36. Peter quoted Joel and David. He told about the miraculous ministry of Jesus, his death, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension He declared Jesus is both Lord and Christ! He preached the Kerygma. That is the Proclamation of the Gospel message.

And as a result there should be some conviction and repentance.

37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?

38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

And there should be a warning attached. Verse 40 says: Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

Now go in a different direction. Follow Jesus

6. There should be some souls getting saved. Verses: 41 and 47

41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.

47 And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

7. Finally, there needs to be some steadfastness.

42 And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

Steadfastness is: fixed in direction; steadily directed, firm in purpose, resolution, faith, firmly fixed in place or position. That my friend is very lacking in the church. There are way too many fickle, flakey, and feckless saints today.

The first day of church in the book of Acts speaks to us today. May God move again in His church. May we have another Pentecost! Amen. -PJF-

And now a word from our Pastor

Acts 21:8, “And the next day we that were of Paul's company departed, and came unto Caesarea: and we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven; and abode with him.”

We discussed this verse in a recent Thursday night Bible Study on Zoom. We have been following the Apostle Paul on his journey from place to place and now verse 8 lands him in Caesarea in the home of Philip, the evangelist.

Luke makes sure to point out that this is the same Philip that he wrote about in the early chapters of Acts. The same Philip who was chosen with Stephen and five others to oversee the distribution of food for the widows. The same Philip from Acts chapter 8.

Paul, who is also known as Saul, was first mentioned in the Book of Acts at the stoning of Stephen. Acts 7:58, “And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul.” And, well… we know the rest of the story.

And now we see that Paul is a guest in the home of Philip. How did we get here? Given the history, what would they have to talk about?

Not sure when it happened, but at some point they had a difficult conversation about what happened many years ago at Stephen’s stoning. You might think that they just glossed over it and put it out of their minds, but I don’t think so. Forgiveness doesn’t work that way.

In order for forgiveness to take place, there must be a declaration of guilt (or confession) and then an apology. One doesn’t assume he or she is forgiven. A conversation must be had to clear it all up.

Perhaps it was during this particular visit that they had this conversation. All we have is what is written in the text above and it doesn’t say. But we can be sure that such a conversation was had at some point. Luke made sure to include that they were staying at Philip’s house. I believe it was his way of telling “us” that all was forgiven. -SAF-

Bibles to India

During the month of March we raised money for our partners, Reaching the Unreached Ministries, in India to purchase Bibles in the Telegu language for new converts and pastors that were in need. They were able to purchase and distribute 50 Bibles. Below are some of the photos that Pastor Vangivarapu Baburao and his team shared with us as they gave out the Bibles.

We are excited that the Word of God is going out in India! Thank you for being a part of this great work!