A New Beginning

Good to see you all this afternoon. Thank you for a wonderful weekend. This has been a fantastic Sabbath and Pentecost. It is good to be together and worship and honor God. Thank you so much for all of you who have contributed so much to make it a wonderful, wonderful occasion. Now, I was given a difficult time, and I've heard... Someone told me at lunchtime, well, it's your job to keep us awake this afternoon. Well, it did remind me of a story I heard about one minister who had gotten up in an afternoon service, much like this. And as he started to speak, he noticed, sure enough, there was this fellow that was kind of nodding in agreement, but way too much with his eyes closed. And it got a little frustrating for him as he was speaking, and he just couldn't take his eyes off of this fellow who was falling asleep. And finally, he got so irritated by it, he looked at one of the deacons and said, Wake that fellow up! And the deacon was just shocked that he said something to him. He took him by surprise, and all he could think of is, he said, You put him to sleep, you wake him up! So I'll try not to do that. Hopefully we'll be able to focus in on the Word, and we'll be able to stay awake. Because this is a very special day. It's a special day, the day of Pentecost, and there are so many unique aspects to this very day. You might say in one way, this is the time to begin. Now is the time to begin. And as we think about the day of Pentecost, it is a day of beginnings. Think of all the different things that were first to happen on this very day. I mean, some days are just more amazing than others, more special than others. As we were preparing to come down here, I'd heard about the park here and how many beautiful activities there were. They've got the swimming pool here, and they have lakes that you can fish in and all kinds of things. There's the trails and all of the beautiful things of nature that we're just surrounded by. And I was reminded of a story about a couple of guys that went fishing one day. They weren't necessarily the most brilliant guys in the world. They decided they were going to go fishing, but they were sick and tired from fishing from the shore. So they decided to rent a boat. And so they got in this boat, they rented, they rode out a little ways.

And sure enough, they started catching fish, just one after another after another. They were just hauling them in. And the one fella says to his buddy, he says, I wish we could mark this spot. He says, I can't remember catching this many fish ever in my life.

I mean, this is so amazing. I've got to mark this spot. Trent thought about it for a minute. He said, you know, I've got some chalk in my tackle box. So why don't I just put an X right here on the bottom of the boat? His friend said, you idiot, what is wrong with you? How could you be so dumb? He said, what if we don't rent the same boat next time? Well, when you think about it, try to make this joke fit into the sermon now.

X does mark the spot when it comes to Pentecost. It is the time to begin. It is called a feast of harvest. If you go all the way back to the Old Testament, go back to Exodus 23. It describes the feast of Pentecost, and it says it's the feast of harvest. But it doesn't stop there. It continues to describe this day of Pentecost as the firstfruits of your labors. So there's a first. It's a time to begin. It's connected with the harvest seasons in Palestine, around Jerusalem. And it's the firstfruits. And so those first crops that would come in toward the beginning of the year, the barley and the wheat, this is the time that's symbolic of what God's doing.

And I think that's an important place as we think about beginning. Now's the time to begin. The firstfruits are a beginning. Now, today's world, we're kind of removed from this whole idea of firstfruits. Probably not too many of us are farmers these days. It seems like less and less are individual farming families, and more and more are giant corporations that do all our farming for us here in America.

So we get kind of removed from even what a firstfruit would be. But the firstfruits are a beginning. And as you think about Pentecost, as that initial barley harvest was being brought in, the wheat harvest then that followed, all of it was culminated by the time they got to this day, to Pentecost. And so Pentecost represented what God was doing, the first ones that He was beginning to work with.

And so as His church, we are the firstfruits. And so no wonder the church began at Pentecost. At Pentecost is when God poured out His Holy Spirit. And in fact, some other amazing things began at Pentecost. And Christ Himself described these things. If you go over to Luke 24, in verse 44, we'll pick up a couple of things that Christ told the disciples after the crucifixion. So when we get to Luke 24, verse 44, you hear Jesus Christ is appearing to the disciples after the crucifixion.

He's been resurrected, but He's been among them for the last many days. In fact, He's with them for 40 days before He ascends to heaven. And during that time, we pick up that story in Luke 24, verse 44. Here He's speaking to the disciples. And He focuses in on this beginning. He says to them, verse 44, Luke 24, These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms concerning Me.

Verse 45, He opened their understanding that they might comprehend Scriptures. So the implication is they didn't really get it fully up till then. Verse 46, then He says, Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. And notice verse 47. Christ says, And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

And you are the witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the promise of My Father unto you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high. Now, if you noticed it as we read through these, Christ talked about a beginning. He said, beginning where?

Well, here He says, beginning at Jerusalem. Well, what would start beginning at Jerusalem? Well, He says it was to be the first fruits of something to start at Jerusalem. Well, what was it?

Well, these events that He was prophesying about did come to pass. In fact, if we flip our pages just a little bit over to Acts chapter 2, we find this very event where the disciples are endued with power on high. And we know it as that day of Pentecost where God poured out His Spirit upon His people. And this miraculous event took place. So, as we skip over to Acts chapter 2, we find Pentecost was a beginning. Harkening back to the Old Testament Feast of Harvest, that Feast of First Fruits, the Feast of the Beginning of the Harvest, we have the Church beginning at Pentecost. And as that Spirit is poured out and they began to speak in different languages, to hear in different languages, amazing miracles were taking place, things that looked like fire were dancing all around. Can you just imagine this? It was quite an event. And as Peter described what was going on, he must have remembered what Christ had told them in Luke 24. Look down to chapter 2, verse 37. In verse 37, the people asked Peter. They said they were pricked in their heart. They said to Peter, What are we to do? Peter just got done telling them what this amazing miracle was all about, that Jesus was the Christ. They said, What should we do? What was Peter's answer? Verse 38, Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You see, it seems undoubtable that Peter had to remember what Christ just got done telling them a few days ago, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached beginning at Jerusalem. God's Spirit had just been poured out. Peter remembered remission and repentance, and he fulfilled that command that Christ gave. And as a result, what happened? Well, people were impacted. Lives were changed. Three thousand were converted on that very day. And this amazing beginning of the harvest started to take place. And God poured out His Spirit on this new beginning. In fact, if you do a study on Pentecost, especially in the Old Testament, oftentimes when you find the word firstfruits in the Old Testament, it's the same word that's used for beginnings.

For beginnings. So, oftentimes, there's a couple of different words for firstfruits. But one that's used very often throughout the Old Testament means beginning. So, sometimes it's translated firstfruits, other times it's translated beginnings. And so here we get to a spiritual harvest, not just the barley, not just the wheat, but now we have a spiritual harvest that Christ prophesied about, that repentance and remission of sins would begin at Jerusalem. And it began on this very day, today, the day of Pentecost. And so this day is a day of beginnings. In fact, this continues to carry over as well. Beginning the day of weeks. Pentecost is a cool holy day because it's got a number of days. Not only is it called the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Firstfruits, Pentecost, it's also called the Day of Weeks. And as we look to the New Testament, Pentecost can also be called the Day of Weeks. Now, why would that mean? Well, when you go all the way back to the days of Unleavened Bread, and you know Pentecost is that holy day that has to be counted. Well, we count seven weeks of harvest. Seven weeks of barley and wheat that are harvested up until the time of Pentecost. And so we have this seven weeks. Seven is a nice number of fulfillment. Firstfruit harvest is fulfilled when we get to Pentecost. And in the New Testament, the term Day of Weeks seems to point to this very day. Now, it doesn't happen too many times throughout the New Testament. In fact, there seems to be only three places in the New Testament where the Day of Pentecost is referred to the Day of Weeks. On the New Testament, oftentimes you'll read through a section of Scriptures, and you may not even see it. It may say in your translation, the Day of the Sabbath, or sometimes the Sabbath Day. And it's interesting when you compare the New Testament, which wasn't written in English. Do you remember what language the New Testament is recorded for us in? It was recorded in Greek. What language was the Old Testament recorded in for us? Well, mostly Hebrew. In Hebrew, when it says Sabbath, it is the Sabbath. That's all there is to it.

But when it comes to the Greek, it can be a little different. And we have to watch out for what exactly the Greek might be saying. Because oftentimes, it might say the Day of the Sabbath, but in the Greek, when you see the original language, it's a plural word. The Day of the Sabbaths might be a more specific translation.

And so oftentimes, we don't get out our Greek dictionaries, and we look up these words to figure out exactly what it's saying, because we read it in English, and we know what that means, and we take it for granted sometimes. But oftentimes, especially when you look into the historical side of things, look into the Greek words that are there, the Sabbath might not always mean a Sabbath Day. It can refer to Pentecost. It seems to point us in that direction. And as we think about this idea of beginnings, the beginnings of the harvest and then the completion of that harvest, the Day of Pentecost is connected in the New Testament to a day of weeks. Let's look at an example. Over in Acts 16, verse 1, here's an interesting connection between this Day of Weeks and Pentecost and beginning. Let's notice how it all kind of fits together here in Acts 16. We probably know this story. Here the Apostle Paul is on one of his journeys. And right at the beginning of chapter 16, he goes to Durbay, he goes to Lystra, he takes Timothy with him, and they go about what we would call Turkey today preaching the gospel. Well, as he's traveling around, he has this vision. He has a vision of something pretty amazing. And as we get down to verse 9 in chapter 16 of the book of Acts, he sees something in this vision. And in this vision, it says in verse 9, there stood a man of Macedonia, and he called out or he prayed to him, it says in the Old King James.

This man of Macedonia. Now Macedonia wasn't in Turkey. That would have been on the other side of, I suppose you could say, the ocean. The other side of that ocean, the other side of the sea where Europe is. So here's Paul in Turkey having this vision of a man that's over in Europe.

And this man in Europe says, come over and help us. And so as he calls out to him, Paul then wants to go over. He wants to go over to Macedonia, which would have been part of what we would call Europe today, not part of Turkey. And so what does he do? He goes over there, and as we see a little bit farther down, we came a straight course. It says to Samothracia and the next day to Neopolis. And once he's there, where is he? Now he is in Europe.

Well, this was the very first time that the gospel would have been preached in Europe. First time. It's a beginning. It's something new that was happening.

And I said, okay, what does that have to do with where we're at today? Well, notice in verse 12.

Verse 12, they arrived in Neopolis. They come to Europe, and it says we were in that city, abiding certain days.

So today we'd say they were hanging out for a while. They hung out for a few days.

Then what? Well, verse 13 says, then on the Sabbath... Well, guess what? This is one of those occasions in the Greek that the word for Sabbath is actually a plural word.

And so, more specifically, Sabbath. And on the Sabbath is what this is actually saying. Some translations even say, on the day of weeks.

Because normally when the word would be plural, as Sabbath, you would think of it as more than one, which would be several weeks.

You know, several Sabbaths makes up several weeks. And so this is a Sabbath, but it's a day of weeks.

And of course, when you begin to think about that, you have to count seven weeks to get to Pentecost.

And so it seems very likely that Paul comes into Europe, waits for several days, and then on the day of Pentecost, on the day of weeks, he begins to preach the gospel.

Does that seem to fit with what God is doing? That God has done amazing, special things on this very day. He began His church on this day.

Would it be too far-fetched to think He began preaching the gospel in Europe on this very day? Since Pentecost is a day of beginnings, beginning at Jerusalem, now we're spreading out to Europe as well.

So verse 13, we see, So here's that first preaching of the gospel. Certainly a beginning.

And in fact, it is interesting to note, a few years later, here at Neapolis and then Philippi, of course he's at Philippi now, he writes in his letter to the Philippians, maybe even thinking back on this very event.

If you flip over to Philippians 4, verse 15, let's notice what Paul wrote to them several years later.

Philippians 4, verse 15, we see Paul writing, perhaps, about this very event.

Philippians 4, verse 15, he says, Interesting that he harkens back to what? The beginning of the gospel.

The beginning of when he began preaching in Europe.

You know the beginning of the gospel when I departed from Macedonia.

So it seems that once Paul was in Philippi, he began to preach on the day of weeks.

Women came out to the riverside. The church was established.

And now it seems that he recalls that first event to the Philippians, saying, This was the beginning of the gospel to Europe. This is the beginning.

And when did it take place? It seems like it took place on this day.

This would be the anniversary, you could say, of that event.

A day of beginnings harkening back to Jerusalem when that first Pentecost, as God poured out His Spirit, fulfilling that prophecy in Joel, that God began to work there. And then those were called out in Europe as well.

And so we begin to see this beginning in the day of weeks.

And I think that's important for us to begin to think about as well.

You know, what's in our life, what's happening in our life where we need a new beginning?

That we need a fresh start.

Here was Europe sitting right over there. Paul had been preaching and yet hadn't touched that area.

Hadn't been over to Europe.

Are there areas in our life where we haven't allowed God to touch and have His Word infiltrate our lives and change us?

I think that's part of the implication that God is bringing to our minds. As His firstfruits, God is working with us.

Is there any area of our life that we have not allowed the gospel in?

Maybe that's something He's reminding us. We better begin to do that.

We better allow God in every aspect of our life.

We can't keep Him out and claim to still be a firstfruit.

It doesn't work like that.

In fact, there's another example of this phrase, the day of weeks.

It's also in the book of Luke. If you want to turn to Luke 4, verse 16.

In chapter 4, verse 16, here we predate the beginning of the church, but a most significant event that seems to tie together with the beginning of the church, the beginning of the gospel in Europe, and something special in the ministry of Jesus Christ.

In chapter 4, Luke 16, we find Christ Himself.

And it says here, in verse 16, He came to Nazareth, where He'd been brought up.

And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read.

And so we're probably pretty familiar with this section of Scripture, because this is where Christ got the scroll of Isaiah, and He read from that scroll, and things were just starting in this ministry, this physical ministry of Jesus Christ.

Did you catch the phrase? As Christ is about to go into the synagogue, He's going to read from the scroll of Isaiah.

We find He went in on the Sabbath day.

And in the Greek, it is the day of weeks. That Sabbath is actually plural.

The Sabbath, the day of weeks, He went into the day of weeks. Is it possible that this took place on Pentecost?

Now, we can't prove it 100 percent. I don't think that's possible.

But boy, did some of the events that occurred point that direction?

If you look at verse 17, here it was delivered unto Him the book of the prophet.

So here's Isaiah, the scroll, coming to Christ. He opened the book. He found the place where it was written.

He reads. Does this fit with the day of Pentecost?

He starts out by saying, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.

That sounds like Pentecost. Boy, it sure does, doesn't it? The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering sight to the blind, to set at liberty them who are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. He closed the book and gave it again to the attendant, sat down. And of course, it says, All the eyes of them that were in the synagogue were fastened on Him. And He began to say to them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.

This day. Not any day, but could He be saying, This day, Pentecost, this day is fulfilled in your ears. The Spirit of the Lord was upon Him. The Spirit of the Lord is upon God's first fruits. And what happened that day? Something amazing began that day. Christ began to preach the gospel in power and authority in a way that had never been preached before. Preaching healing of the sick.

And of course, it didn't stop just with physical healing. But He talked about broken-heartedness, spiritual healing, giving sight to the blind. Not just physically blind, but those who spiritually could not see. And so, no wonder He said, This day is the Scripture fulfilled in your ears. And it is pretty interesting. If you do a little bit of research on Jewish traditions, guess what Scripture was traditionally read about every third year in the synagogues? This section of Isaiah on Pentecost. On Pentecost, they read this. Traditionally, this was read usually the second out of three years.

And so, does that point us in this direction that this was possibly a Pentecost day, then inaugurated the beginning of the preaching of the gospel, that Christ came in power and authority. And what does that mean for us? How does that impact us as far as our healing, and our spiritual sight, and the liberty and the freedom that we have, ultimately from sin? That we can be acceptable to God because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, because the Spirit was poured out. We were given that Spirit. And so, we have that Spirit of power and love and of a sound mind. And we are acceptable before our God. And in a way, I think, He's saying, now is the time.

Now is the time to submit to that Spirit and allow God's Spirit to work fully through us and in us. It is a time of beginnings. And Christ pointed to that very beginning.

And with God's Spirit in us, I mean, think about it. Can we have a new beginning? Can we have freedom from sin? Can we have repentance and forgiveness? Every time we ask for it. Every time we repent and want to change. He grants us that freedom from sin, that pardon. And so, if He's to Pentecost, it's an amazing day. And the connections throughout the Bible, that is one of the amazing things about the Word of God.

How interconnected it is, whether it's Old Testament, New Testament. How it all fits with all the different authors that put this together over thousands of years. And yet, it's consistent. There's one story that's told, and it's not inconsistent. It fits together and it makes sense. In fact, the Isaiah scroll was not the only traditional reading of the Jews. There was also another book that they would read, not every other year or so, but they read it every year.

You know which book that they would read every single year? And it's not that they did it, you know, hundreds of years after Christ, or it became some Jewish tradition after Christ was long gone. This was a tradition that went back almost 500 years before Christ. They would traditionally read this book, every Pentecost, every feast of harvest. They would read this book. It was the book of Ruth. The book of Ruth, they would read every single year, for hundreds of years before Christ came on the scene. Now, how many of you remember the story of Ruth?

Okay, all right, great, everybody, would you tell me what that story... Let's do a quick story of that story, because Ruth certainly ties in with this idea of harvest, ties in with the idea of beginning. So let's think about not just the day of beginnings, but the harvest and the beginning for Ruth. As you probably remember, Ruth was not a Jew.

She was not a Jew, but came in contact with a Jewish man. As the story goes, she was a Moabite, so she was from the family of Lot. She lived on the other side of the river. Well, the story goes there was a man and his two sons from Bethlehem. And it was a bad famine that year, so they decided, we're getting out of town, we're going where the grass is greener.

So the man packed up his wife, his two sons, and moved. Well, the two boys find some good-looking girls over in Moab. They get married. Oh boy, sounds like a story that's got a perfect ending, right? Well, the trouble just begins. The dad dies. So Naomi, the mom, is now a widow.

But that's only the beginning of the bad news. And if you remember the story, now one of the sons dies. So one of the daughters, the daughter-in-laws, is now a widow. And that's not the end of the story. Then the other son dies.

And so, just the ladies are left. So you have the mother and two daughters-in-laws. Now one of the daughters-in-laws is Ruth. And mom says, well, what do you want to do? We don't have much going on here. I'm going to go back. I'm going to go back home. You know, you guys can do whatever you want. And Ruth does something amazing. In fact, if you want to turn over to the book of Ruth, she tells her mother-in-law to go all the way back to Joshua, Judges. Then we can find the book of Ruth. If you go to Samuel, you're too far, like I am. We can come back to Ruth, chapter 2. Let's go back to chapter 1. Let's go to chapter 1 first. Ruth, chapter 1, verse 16. The one daughter-in-law says, nope, I'm not going with you. But Ruth says something different. Verse 16 of Ruth, chapter 1. Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following after you. She says, wherever you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people. And your God, my God. And so, if you put that into today's kind of thinking, what would that mean if someone said to you, Hey, I'm going with you. Wherever you go, you're going to church, I'm going with you. Your God, that's my God. If someone were to say to you that today, you'd say, wow, they're part of the family. They're part of the church. So here it seems almost like a type of conversion for Ruth. And it's interesting then to think of when this happened. And that points as to why the book of Ruth is read at this time of the year, every year, traditionally, for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. This was at...well, let's just read it for ourselves. Verse 22. Verse 22, Naomi's returning, and it says, And Ruth the Moabiteus, her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. Now they came to Bethlehem. Okay, that's where they left from. Now Naomi's back with Ruth. And when was it? At the beginning of the barley harvest. So here we are at this time of the year. All the events in the book of Ruth that follow now are all during this time. They're all about the harvest. They're all about the harvest of the first fruits. They're all about Ruth meeting this hunk of a man, Boaz, running into this fella, her future husband. Right? And all of these events take place within that first fruit harvest, the harvest of the barley and ending with the wheat. And so when we skip down just a little bit, look at verse 23 of chapter 2. We flip the page here, at least in my Bible. Verse 23, they were poor. Think about their condition. They're both widows, no one to take care of them. They're no family. They're out on their own. And so how are they going to be taken care of? Well, in the law of the harvest. We see that described here in verse 23.

Here it says, Ruth kept fast, or kept close, to the maidens of Boaz, to glean unto the end of the barley harvest and of the wheat harvest, and dwelt with her mother-in-law, dwelt with Naomi. Of course, as you think about, when did this grain harvest end? Well, it ended at Pentecost. And so in order for Naomi and Ruth to survive, they had to pick up the pieces of the harvest.

And so as Boaz, who was pretty well off, as his people were harvesting the wheat fields, they'd kind of cut the corners. They'd leave the corners of those fields so that all those who were poor would be able to go in and pick up all of those parts that were left behind, so that the poor were taken care of. And so here's Ruth. Sounds kind of funny, gleaning. It really means just picking up the wheat that was left by the harvesters.

So they didn't totally wipe out the fields and get every little bit, kind of like the big combines do today. They'd get every little piece, it seems, that are out in those fields. But back in this day, they would kind of cut those corners and allow those who were poor, those who were widows, to come in and pick up all the rest of that harvest.

And they called it gleaning. So Ruth would go in and glean with some of the others who were poor. And, of course, as the story goes, the owner, Boaz, who's the big harvester, starts to recognize this Ruth, and he tells his men, well, leave a little bit more behind so that she can pick up some of those things, and they could be well off because of this.

And so Ruth was gleaning these fields. They end up kind of getting together, and guess what? Before you know it, they were on Facebook and in a relationship. Okay, they didn't have Facebook, but... Ruth would go out and glean, take home a little bit more each time, and they'd have plenty for Naomi and Ruth. And it is an interesting thing. Once Boaz then begins to care for her, Boaz makes sure you've got a little bit more. And it's interesting, then, as they strike up this relationship, ultimately, you know, the hearts are going off, and the relationship begins. And Boaz finally wants to make her his wife.

And so by the time we get to near the end of the book of Ruth, if you go to Ruth 4, verse 11, there's a prophecy, kind of an interesting prophecy that's given here, that involves Boaz and Ruth. And it says, and this is about their wedding, all the people who were in the gate, the elders, said, we are witnesses of this union. We're witnesses of this marriage. And it says, the Lord make the woman, of course, this woman was Ruth, that's come into your house like Rachel and like Leah.

Always reminds me of the fiddler on the roof when I read this. You know how the Tevye sings, may you be like Ruth and like Leah? Right? Well, this is kind of like that. It's kind of that kind of blessing, but it's not only a blessing, it's kind of a prophecy. Well, let Ruth be like Rachel and like Leah. Well, what would that have to do with anything? Well, he describes that here, which did build the house of Israel.

And you do worthily in Ephrata, which is a little town next to Bethlehem, and that you would be famous in Bethlehem. Well, the interesting part that's prophetic about this is, put Ruth and Boaz together, it doesn't seem to mean too much, but then when you see they had a son born to them, Obed, and then he had a son named Jesse, and Jesse had a bunch of sons, and one of them was David, and you follow that line all the way down, and guess who you come to?

You come to Jesus Christ. And so we have this significance of Ruth with the first fruit harvest and this amazing significance of this gleaning as well, this gleaning that ended with Pentecost. And so we begin to think of it a little bit like this. Imagine Ruth, all right, gleaning the fields.

You know, what exactly was she doing? Well, most of the harvest was gone. Boaz men picked it all up. But who got the leftovers? Who got what they left for them, in the corners, and anywhere else that they could find them?

Well, Ruth. Ruth was. Some of the others would have as well. And as you think about her occupation, I guess you could say, she was kind of harvesting herself. She was making sure, because she was poor, that there was not going to be anything left behind. And as we think about the heritage that came through Ruth and Jesus Christ, I think there's more than just the fact that, you know, Boaz and Ruth got together, and through this line they produced Christ.

But there is a connection between Jesus Christ and Ruth herself. I mean, think about this concept of Pentecost and harvesting, and how it all fits together. Ruth was harvesting. She was going to make sure, because she was hungry. They needed food! Was she going to leave any of the wheat behind? Was she going to leave any of the firstfruits behind? No way! She was going to make sure she got... she picked them up! She wasn't Naomi and herself. She needed food! And so she was going to make sure there was nothing left over. Well, what is Christ going to do with the firstfruits? Is He going to leave some of us behind?

You're going to say, well, sorry, good luck. You're on your own. You see, Christ isn't like that. Christ has called us. And Pentecost, I think, is an amazing day of beginnings to show that God finishes what He starts. There's a beginning because there is going to be a completion. And Christ Himself, I think, pointed to this aspect and this connection between this beginning and this connection to Ruth as well.

If you go over to the book of John, John 6, this is the Gospel of John, John 6, verse 37. Christ says a couple of amazing things. I think that I know I've normally read over this and not really associated with Pentecost or firstfruits or harvesting or anything like that. But I wonder why didn't I see this? Because it is pretty striking once you've got to put it in this context. John 6, verse 37. Christ says, all that the Father gives me shall come to me, and him that comes to me I will no wise cast out.

Now, think of this as a little bit like cleaning the fields. Is Christ going to miss anybody? He says, I came down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will.

Okay, what is the Father's will? That all which he has given me, I should lose nothing. So Boaz was collecting the firstfruits. Why, they are piling them in. But boy, there were some that... Wow, were they left behind? Nope. Ruth was coming behind and picking them all up with the other maidens. They were making sure there was not one little bit that was going to be left behind. So he says, I'm not going to lose anything, but we'll raise it up again at the last day.

And he says, and this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which sees the Son and believes on him may have everlasting life. And I will raise him up at the last day. Of course, then we can begin to see this connection. And a little while later, if you look at verse 44, No man can come to me except the Father which has sent me, draw him. And so the Father is drawing us together. And of course, then he says a little bit later, it's written in the prophets, They shall all be taught of God.

Every man therefore that has heard and learned of the Father comes unto me. And so we see Christ kind of in the role of Ruth, in a sense, making sure the harvest is going to be complete. Making sure that that work that was started in us. Why, doesn't the Scripture say that? He that started a good work in you will say, Well, I hope you finish it.

Good luck. You're on your own. No, he says, I'm the Alpha and the Mega. I started a good thing in you. I will see it to completion. And so just a couple of pages later, look at John 10. John 10, he points out this very thought. Verse 28. John 10. Verse 28. And he says, I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. Old King James says, No one's going to pluck them out of my hand. See, the plucking kind of carries this little bit more of a vision of a harvest.

Right, because Ruth was plucking. She was gleaning. Well, nobody's going to get though, because they belong to me. They belong to me. That's what he's saying that. And of course, that's exactly what he says. My Father which gave them to me is greater than all. No one is able to pluck them or snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. So you almost have this image. You've got the Father who owns the field. He's the Boaz collecting everything. And you know if there's anything that might be left around the corners? They're going to be left behind.

God's going to make sure that Christ will finish the harvest. And so can you imagine Christ almost in the role of Ruth, going about gleaning every little stalk of each and every one of us. Making sure we are a part of that harvest. And so God designated, as we saw, God designated those that would be His first fruits. Those that would be a part of that harvest. And Christ is going to make sure that they will all be reaped. That we will be included. And no one. No one is going to pluck them out of His hands. So Pentecost is such an amazing day because it should give us great hope.

We should have great confidence because of this day. We can have an assurance that our great God is never going to give up on us. He will never leave us. He will never forsake us. No one can take us out of the hand of God. Now, we ourselves could choose to go a different way. But nobody else is...it's not even possible. It's not possible. And so when we think of Pentecost as this marvelous day of great beginnings, we can begin to see that we are the first fruits of God.

Yes, the church began on this day and continues now. And we're looking forward to that great spiritual harvest, which kind of connects us then to great beginnings, have great endings. Right? Has a great ending. Something's to come. There is a big ending that's on the horizon. Think of Pentecost all the way back in the Old Testament. Yes, it was the beginning of God's people going into the Promised Land. But it was also the end of something. It was the end of slavery in Egypt. Pentecost marked the end of Egyptian slavery, and Israel became a nation. They became God's people. They became God's family.

You look at the story of Ruth. It ended her contact with her own people in Moab. And she came to know and understand God and became a part of His people, became a part of Israel. Jesus Christ initiated the preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom of God. It seems on this very day.

That means that Old Covenant passed away. It is done. It is finished. And we are under the terms of the New Covenant. We have the spiritual requirements of God's law. Fast forward to the ministry of Paul. One phase of the ministry of Paul ended as He moved out of Turkey into Europe. And the gospel began to be preached anew.

And it seems on this very day. Now, as you think about that as it relates to our lives, I think the same thing is true. Doesn't Pentecost remind you this is the end of our old way of living? Because we've been given the Spirit of God. And having the Spirit of God marks the end of that old man, that old way of thinking, that sinful way of life.

We don't have to be locked into sin. We are no longer slaves of sin. We do sin, at least for right now, until ultimately we're spirit. But we're not locked in. We are not slaves because we can repent. And we can change with the help of God's Holy Spirit. And so we have the end of the old way of looking at things. We now have the Spirit of God, and we have a new beginning. We are the beginning of the first fruits of God's harvest. And he says something remarkable, I think, that ties all of these things together.

Over in the book of 2 Peter. 2 Peter, right at the very beginning of that letter, chapter 1, he reminds us of God's awesome promises when it comes to this Feast of Weeks, this Feast of Harvest, this Day of Pentecost, the Day of Weeks. 2 Peter, chapter 1, in fact we could probably begin right at the beginning of that chapter, 2 Peter, chapter 1. As he begins his letter, he says, Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who obtain like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

That's us. This letter, in a way, has been written to us. We have obtained a precious promise, and it's all by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that makes it possible. It's through his sacrifice that we can be righteous, we can be just before God. And then he says, verse 2, Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. How would that be possible? How would it be possible to have grace and peace multiplied in our lives? Well, he tells us.

He says, as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. We've been given the divine power of God. We have God's Holy Spirit. Pentecost reminds us how God poured out His Spirit on this very day. And God has poured out His Spirit in our lives. When we were repentant and we were baptized and we had hands laid on us, God filled us with His Spirit.

And we were given power over sin. We were given the power of Jesus Christ living in us and living through us. The power to overcome. The power to have God's very presence within us. And so that's what we have. We've been given those things that pertain to life and to godliness. And it says, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and by virtue.

And it says, of course, verse 4, we've been given exceedingly great and precious promises. Remember, if you read that story in Acts 2, this was a day of promise, a day of beginnings.

He promised to pour out His Spirit. We read about that in the book of Luke. He promised to do it, and He did do it. And He continues to do it in our lives. And we are partakers of that very special promise that God made. And then He tells us the implications of that promise, the implications of having the Spirit of God. And so He says that through these, you may be partakers of the divine nature.

We participate in the very nature of God. God has given us His essence. He's given us His Spirit. We have Christ living in us. We partake of the divine nature. We have that guarantee. We have that down payment to eternal life. And if the Spirit of God is in us, Paul says, we will be like Him when He appears.

We will be resurrected when Jesus Christ returns. And so Pentecost reminds us of all of those things, that we are partakers of the divine nature of God. You talk about an awesome beginning. What an amazing promise that comes by way of the Feast of Pentecost. And so He says these are the amazing promises, the exceedingly great precious promises that God has given to us. And by that promise, and through that Spirit, He says we've escaped the corruption that's in the world. We can come out of sin, and we can become more Christ-minded.

We can have the mind of Christ. And so then He says, because of all of these things, because Pentecost has started us on a new beginning, now we've got to do something about it. We've got to do something about it, because we're at the start, and we're looking forward to the finish line. We're looking forward to the time that Christ would return. And so as this Feast of Harvest comes to an end, we've got to continue on. We've got to be ready for this great spiritual harvest.

And so Paul says, here's what you do. Read through verse 5. He says, give all diligence by doing some things. He says, here's what you've got to add to your faith. And He gives a whole list of things. And you could say, we've got to grow.

We've got to grow. Imagine the harvest. It's not going to go anywhere unless the crops grow. And so as God's first fruits, we have to continue to grow. No matter what the weather is like out there, and of course, sometimes this time of the year, the weather can be pretty crazy. Sometimes it can be icy cold. Sometimes it can be 90 degrees. And that crop has to last. It has to grow. It has to continue to prosper. And so we do, too. No matter what life brings us, we have to grow. Grow in grace. Grow in knowledge. Up until the time that Christ will return. And so hopefully the Feast of Pentecost reminds us of those very things. That this is the time to continue to rededicate ourselves to God's way of life. We're looking forward to the ultimate spiritual harvest. Can we rededicate ourselves on this day of beginnings? On this day of weeks? To make this almost a kind of starting line. To continue to have a deeper dedication to God our Father. To sit in their lives more fully to Jesus Christ. To allow God's Spirit to work more powerfully in us.

That's what Pentecost should be about. Submitting not just one area, not just one part of the field of our life, but every corner, every inch, every nook of our life we want to be committed to God the Father and to Jesus Christ. Pentecost should remind us of those things and the fact that this is the time.

This is the time that we can come to God the Father and Jesus Christ and have that unity of the Spirit. To be like Christ said, I and my Father are one. And so we can be like that as well. Be His people and be close to God and allow that Spirit to work in us in a way that it never has before.

And you know, at this very day, we're reminded of that fact that now is the time. Now is the time to begin.

Well, we really appreciated being here. Thank you for inviting us and having us here. Happy Pentecost to all of you. Now let's continue to go on.