MAY 24 2026 | Pentecost – The Gift of the Spirit

Sea Change Church · "Pentecost - The Gift of the Spirit" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · May 24, 2026
Acts 2:1-4, Luke 24:49, 2 Timothy 1:7, Isaiah 40:31, Philippians 3, Exodus 19:18
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Well, praise God. We had a powerful, powerful first sermon and first Pentecost Sunday. Today is Pentecost Sunday. And Pentecost Sunday is the day that represents 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus when the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus' disciples in Jerusalem. And so that's where we are today in this passage. And if you have your Bibles, I'm going to read it. We're going to read this passage together. I'm going to give you a chance to go to Acts 2, 1 through 4.

I'm in the English Standard Version. Acts 2, 1 through 4. There's some in your pews. And we will read through this. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. Let's say one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind. And it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

This is a powerful passage. And I read it. And I want to, as you probably know, if you've been in the church a while, it is a passage that oftentimes focuses on the tongues portion of it, right? And that's pretty cool, right? The whole tongues thing and sharing that. There's been a lot of agreement, disagreement about this. But that isn't what I think is really the emphasis of what is happening in this passage. Before we get to something that Jesus said that preempted this moment, I want to say that the bringing of tongues really also points to the reverse of a curse.

If you remember the story of Babel, in the story of when, you know, there was Babel and they were building the tower to God. And then, you know, God divides them. He changes their languages so that there was disunity. There was no unity. There was no order. What you're seeing here, once again, is a curse that was Old Testament, that happened in the Old Testament. People were scattered. People did not have a one language to that being redeemed in the New Testament.

People are unified. They're all together in one place, the exact opposite. And then when they speak, everyone hears one language as is empowered by the Spirit. So today isn't about the actual, the gift of tongues. We can talk about that on another time. But I want to talk about where Jesus preempts this. So if you have your Bibles, turn back to your left and go to Luke 24. 24. That's the last page of Luke. So if you have your Bible, it's always going to be the last page of this verse.

Luke 24. And it's 24, 49. And this is powerful. Because what is undersold oftentimes in the New Testament, at least by our evangelical brothers and sisters like ourselves, and kind of more thought of from the Pentecostals, is that when Jesus called them to wait, they weren't just waiting for a good time. They weren't just waiting to get instructions, although they do get instructions. They were waiting for something.

We see it here in Luke 24, 49. And behold, Jesus says to them, I am sending the promise, that's key, promise, inheritance, of my Father upon you. And we see that in a moment that it was upon them. But stay in the city until you are what? Clothed with power from on high. If there is anything perhaps more undersold or maybe undervalued or maybe misunderstood, it is Christ's desire that his church be filled with power. That they be a people that live in power.

The last thing Jesus says to them before he is lifted up and flies away, which I think is his coolest miracle. Better than walking on water. They're flying. If we could all have one superpower, it's always flying, right? I definitely don't want to read minds. 100% don't want to do that. Verse 49. Let me read it again. Luke 24, 49. And behold, I am sending a promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

The word here in the New Testament is dunamis. Some form of the word power is used in the New Testament 180 times. I think it's only close to about 200 in the Old Testament. But that just shows, because there's a lot more Old Testament than New Testament, the importance of power. I want to encourage you to whatever search engine, however you search this week, to search verses with power in them. And begin to understand all the ways that we are called to live in power.

Let me give you a definition for dunamis. Dunamis. Dunamis. The Holy Spirit fills believers with dunamis, like dynamites. I believe that's where we get our word dynamite from. Explosive, supernatural power that shatters fear, transforms lives, and advances the kingdom, advances the kingdom with boldness and authority. I want to use the word supernatural. Supernatural. Because when we are speaking about the power of God, we are speaking about a power that you cannot harness without God stepping in and causing your actions, your abilities, your calling to be charged in a supernatural way.

Where you are harvesting something from heaven, something from his spirit to do what you could not do without him. Willpower is one thing. It will never go as far as dunamis power in order to change your life. It fills believers with that. I'm going to give just two scriptures. I don't know if they made them into your notes. You can write these down because on Saturday sometimes I rework the notes. But 2 Timothy 1.7 says, For God gave us not a spirit of fear or timidity, but of power and love and a self-control or some would say sound mind.

I don't know about you, but I had a 2 Timothy 1.7 week. I had a week where every thought was trying to escape, run around like just rats in an old castle. And I was constantly trying to take them captive, those thoughts, and live not in a spirit of fear. Most people will understand what a spirit of fear feels like. But the power of the Holy Spirit has the ability to transform that you live no longer in fear. Now in this passage, remember it says that they were locked in.

When Jesus shows up before the Holy Spirit comes, earlier in the passage or earlier in the text in the Gospels, it says they were locked in the room for what? For fear of the Jews. For fear of those that would overtake them. But then Jesus comes. He speaks peace upon them. The Holy Spirit falls on Pentecost later on after that. And they go out and change the world. They go from being locked into a room, behind locked doors, out to a world where it says in Hebrews, some would be sawed in half, some would be eaten by lions, some would be killed, some would have beatings.

But they would do it for the sake of the gospel. How do you change from a person who is locked behind the walls of your heart, the walls of fear, to being a person who boldly goes out and proclaims the name of Jesus to the point where you might be sawed in half or speared in half or speared like I believe it was St. Thomas and killed or burned alive or boiled alive or fed to the lions? How do you become that person? You don't become it by thinking about it or reading a good book.

It is a supernatural change in your spirit that changes your heart. When Saul came down off the mountain, when he went at the beginning before he fell, Saul in the Old Testament, the precursor to David the king, it said that the supernatural power changed his heart and God can change your heart. God can give you a new heart. And that happens with power. And so what I would say as my thesis for the day is that most of us do not access the power that is available to us.

I love to be meek. We're going to inherit the earth. But God has called us to live in power. And sometimes displaying meekness in a situation is a power that will change someone else's heart because God knows what he's doing. And so on the level of 1 to 10, would you say if 10 being the greatest, where is your power? Are you someone in your spiritual life that focuses on power, the ability to see transformation? Let me give you a few ideas of what this means, this kind of power.

Power in the dunamis power is power to overcome sin. The thing that you were never able to let go of before, when we walk in power, you're now able to overcome that sin. It is boldness to witness. We spoke in a moment how they go out and they make a change. I have a friend, I'm discipling, Andres. He was in the first service. I called him out in the first service as well. He's a bold evangelist. He's 17 years old. And do you have any bold evangelist friends that are annoying?

Let me tell you why. Because you want to go get a burrito, right? And he goes, hey, before we get that burrito, there's a kid over there sitting on the steps. You want to go share Christ with him? And I'm thinking, no, I want to go get a burrito, bro. But his heart has been changed and he lives with a supernatural ability and boldness that he actually has in that capacity. He has a gift far beyond mine. Not that I can't grow in it.

What about supernatural peace? Philippians 3 says when you are in fear that it says he will give you a peace that transcends understanding. Most of us have a peace that is in alignment with understanding. You can't pay a bill. You're not in peace. The check comes. You get a check in the mail. And now you're in peace. Your girlfriend's upset with you. She calls you and says, I'm not upset with you anymore. I was wrong.

I love you. My wife has a big smile on her face right now. And all of a sudden you have peace, right? But the supernatural peace that only comes with power is a peace that says the check didn't come and wife still ain't happy. Or the girlfriend isn't interested anymore. Or whatever the situation is, it takes a supernatural peace that transcends understanding. That only happens with power. You can try to talk yourself into peace.

It doesn't last long. There is a supernatural peace. It's deliverance from spiritual oppression. Transformation of character. Strength and weakness. Unity among believers as we see here. Spiritual gifts. Fruit of the spirit. Operating through ordinary people. Freedom from fear and bondage. Endurance through suffering. Revival. Conviction. Changed lives. Salvation. The power of the gospel has the ability to take a person who is destined for eternal death and to give them eternal life.

How much power does that take? The only way I could describe it in my discipleship group with my Gen Z that I hang with on Thursdays, because I'm still trying to stay in the game, you know what I'm saying? I said, how much, if you had a nuclear power plan, how much nuclear power would it take? Even fission. How much would it take in order to give someone eternal life, to last forever, to flourish forever in eternity?

You couldn't have that much power. But the power of the gospel does, and Paul talks about that power. Oswald Chambers. I love you. I've never seen Oswald Chambers. He's kind of out of fashion right now, but he's a great devotional, old school. Just a little devotional every day, Oswald Chambers. He said the Christian life is not difficult to live. It's impossible to live. Apart from the power of God. I have found that out.

If you want to live a half-Christian life, it's pretty easy without power. And besides the power, the thing I've learned is the only way to access the power of God is to give up your own power. I always want to have just a foot in the game. You know what I mean? I just want to have a little bit of power. I want to be able to control things on my own if I can, right? But what God is saying is surrender is the key to power.

And so yesterday, as, you know, the devil was trying to kill me as he normally does. He's always trying to kill me. That's why I always say devil's trying to kill me. The Bible says that, right? Came to rob, kill, and destroy. Steal, kill, and destroy. I just began to speak the word of God because the word of God, it says, is living and active. The word of God has power. I began to speak that power that I do not have a spirit of fear and timidity.

And you will begin to see that things like prayer, things like the word of God, release supernatural power that will change your life. This week I had a moment where I had multiple moments because I knew it was Pentecost weekend. It was just a lot of spiritual activity in my life this week, a lot. Trying to sleep at night, not being able to sleep, just a lot of spiritual activity, a lot. And ups and downs, you know, trying to do different things, fasting, praying.

I actually took the challenge or tried to listen to more of the Bible, one minute more of the Bible than I did any other types of media. I actually pulled it off. The only way I could pull it off was to do a three and a half hour binge listen of the New Testament. That's the only way I could pull it off, which was hard. But it actually downloads into your heart and changes you because there is a power in the scripture when you release it on yourself.

But like I was saying, all these thoughts were coming at me. And I said to the Holy Spirit, I said, Holy Spirit, I don't know what to do. This is happening, this is happening. I was so like overwhelmed with all the lions of my life roaring at me. And we all have that, right? And I said, I need, James has asked for wisdom, so I need some wisdom. Tell me what to do. And then I just sat. And right away I got a thought. Go read that old text from Bishop Collins.

Bishop Collins is our bishop from Africa friend. If you've met him before, awesome. Always wears pink suits. I love his pink suit. More bold than me, great suits. And great words. And about two weeks ago, he sends me videos and prayers regularly. And one recently, this is non-secretary, one recently he said to me, hey, I'm up on a mountain right now and I'm praying for you with a bunch of my Nigerian friends. And we went up here to pray for you.

And I just hear guys in the background going, oh, let's pray for Adam. And I was like, yeah, let's go. Nigerian prayer for Pastor Adam. So I read it. And I went back to that text because that's what I felt like the Spirit told me to do. And it said, it said all these things. And it said, and when you have struggles, begin to worship because worship is a battle axe for the Lord. And worship is a weapon. And begin to worship.

And I didn't want to worship. I wanted to figure out my problems in my head. So I turned the worship on two songs deep. I just felt something that I couldn't do on my own. I just felt it release off me. It was incredible, the power of God. That is power. Power, if you want to live in power, you have to access the power tools of God. You have to pray. You have to fast. Some of the things that you are dealing with are only going to be released from your life if you fast.

Jesus says these only come out by prayer and fasting or will only be released off your life through prayer and fasting. And God does that. So we see that the day of Pentecost arrived, and there's a few things that are happening in this passage. Go back to verse 1. When Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind. And it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

And divided tongues as of fire appeared and rested on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues. Here's some things that are happening. One, you have unity. We are starting a new series next week in the book of Ephesians on the type of church we want to be. I need to do a better job at not just preaching but vision casting on who we are as a people. And I want us to be a church that is powerful on four corners.

The corner of your heart, the corner this church is on, the corner you live on, and the four corners of the earth. And I want us to go after that as a people that are maturing in Christ, being conformed to the image of likeness of God's son, Jesus Christ. So they are together. And the first thing we see is they are unified. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. I love the 300 or 400 people every week that watch us online.

Hello, I see you. We have them on all the different platforms. A lot of people watch online. But I would encourage you if you live here or if you're near here to be here, to come. It's great to get a Sunday off and watch from home. But to be a part of the community is a spiritual discipline. And it shows a unity. And there is a power when the people come together to hear the edification of the word and to be together in Christian community.

There is a power that you will not get if you're just regularly watching another team or show. So if you are not in a church, I want to encourage you if you're watching online, go find a great church and be a part of that church. And if you live here, come here. They're together physically. They're united spiritually. And the thing that really hit me this week that I really want to point out that I think is going to be key for some of you is that they were waiting expectantly.

They were waiting for the Holy Spirit to arrive doing what Jesus said. Now, I would say if there's one thing in our society that we are no longer good at, it's waiting. Everything is instantaneous. And if there's one thing that the Jews understood, it was waiting. They were waiting for Jerusalem. They were waiting for the Lord. They were waiting for a king. They were just waiting on God over and over again. And this week, as the devil was trying to kill me, if I may say again, I got to exasperated at a point because like you, I'm fighting spiritual battles.

And I got exasperated and I said, Lord, Holy Spirit, because I just want to talk to the Spirit. Show me what to do. I don't know what to do. Tell me right now what to do. And I just wait until I get an impression or I just wait. And the Lord spoke to my heart. He said, I want you to wait. Just wait. And I was like, well, what good is that? And then I remember, you know, let's get to business. You know what I mean? I don't need no waiting.

Because what happens during waiting? I just get bored and go on my phone. You know what I'm saying? But it's interesting if you read Isaiah 40, 31, there is a spiritual power that is released in the waiting. Not after the waiting, in the waiting. It says, but those who wait for the Lord shall what? Renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint.

Do you need to renew your strength? Then we need to be content waiting for the Lord. You know, it's easy to wait for the Lord to do something while not actually waiting for him. You're trying to make it happen on your own. You're not paying attention to him. Time's passing. You can have time pass and not be waiting. It's like if there's a bus stop and there's a bus going somewhere. And you're somewhere else and you're doing something else.

And you've missed it because you're not waiting in that location. And the location is with the Lord saying, I will wait upon the Lord. And so I sat there for a half hour, 45 minutes. And I began to just wait. And I found that waiting brought me the peace that I thought I was going to have to do some other tool. But the Lord said, this is the tool today. So some of you, God is saying, I want you to renew your steadfastness in waiting.

Because waiting produces, it says, proven character in the end. It produces character by that waiting. And that's one of the reasons that God used it. They were waiting expectantly together. And as a church, we want to be waiting. We want to be waiting for the movement of God upon our city, upon our household, and upon this nation. Second thing, go to verse 2. Verse 2 says, and then suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind.

And it filled the entire house. What I love is that there's a wind came from heaven this time. But once again, this is pointing back to creation. That it says, you know, and there was tongues. There was speaking when God was in the Old Testament. He spoke things into creation. There was obviously sun, moon, and stars. And here you have wind. You have a looking back to the beginning and to the creation. But now there is a new creation that is happening.

It is a new creation in Christ. And you see an atmosphere. People often say that worship, I heard it this week. I was doom scrolling. And for just a few minutes. And I got to a place, they said, oh, worship is just, all it is is just so emotional. And I didn't watch the rest of the thing. I just flipped through it because I didn't want to hear them just squawk about the church and how bad the church is and how bad worship is so they can get clicks.

And so I scrolled by it. But I thought to myself as I read this, what is worship meant to do? Granted, God's given us emotions. But it's meant to create an atmosphere. And what you see here is you see an atmosphere in this scripture. The first thing, the day arrived. There's a sound from heaven, a rushing wind. And then it filled the entire house where they were sitting. It wasn't internally, it wasn't in them yet. And you're going to see a progression here, right?

And watch what happens. There's going to be the wind and the sound of a rushing wind that comes. Then it'll fill the presence, the presence of God. It'll fill the atmosphere. The whole place will feel like God. The next step is it rests upon them. And the spirit of God rests upon them. So now it's upon them. And then finally, the final step, it indwells them. And this is the completion of what Jesus did on the cross.

Because we were kicked out of the garden because of our sin. We lost presence with him. And so God slowly began to rework. Because his plan was always not to rest upon us or to dwell among us. His purpose for power is to dwell within us. And we have the entirety of the Godhead through the Holy Spirit within us as living testimonies, as a living tabernacle that we go through. I want to say that sometimes we don't feel that presence.

It's oftentimes because we don't create that atmosphere. One of the best things you can do is to create an atmosphere. An atmosphere of worship. An atmosphere of praise. An atmosphere of thanksgiving. This week I had some difficult things. I've mentioned that like 15 times now. I'm going to say it again. And the Lord said, I want you to give thanksgiving. I was like, oh. It was like so hard to get out from my teeth to say thank you, God.

But you know, I was reading in John Christosom, which is an old saint. And he said, really powerful, we are always praying to be delivered from our sufferings and never willing to sit in the sufferings of Christ to understand him in our sufferings. And he said, what would it be like if we could just tarry a moment in the suffering? I thought, man, that's a 2,000-year-old word if I ever heard one, right? To sit there in that suffering and to give him thanks.

And I just tried to say the best I could in the midst of this, God, as difficult as it is, thank you for allowing me to be conformed to the image of your son in this suffering. Because there's only one way through experience his suffering that we experience the power of his resurrection. It is through the fellowship of his suffering, it says in Philippians, that you might experience what? The power of his resurrection.

And so we have an atmosphere in verse 2. In verse 3, I told you there's a manifested presence. Divided tongues as fire appeared to them and rested on each of them. This goes back to Mount Sinai. This is once again what the Old Testament is going to be confirmed in the New Testament in a new way. Exodus 19.18 says, now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. This was a mountain that you could not walk to, that Moses was told to tell the Jews, tell them not to get close, not even an animal.

If anybody touches this mountain, they will surely die. They will be this. When this fire comes upon the mountain. But now we are there. We come to a new Mount Zion, it says. We come to a new mountain, it says in the scripture. And now the presence of the fire rests upon individuals. But God wasn't through there. Because like I said, his desire is always to be within us. Verse 4. And some of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Incorrect. All of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. This is the power of God. And I would say, what does that mean? It means now all of a sudden they have gifts. We talk about those gifts, right? You have the gifts of prophecy, word of knowledge, discerning of spirits, tongues. You have all these gifts, gifts of healing. We are a church that believes in all the gifts are still available today. I'm not a cessationist.

I don't believe that they ceased at the end of the apostolic age. But we are in a new apostolic age where those gifts are available to all of us. That's what I believe and what we believe as a church. And we see that there is gifts. But oftentimes we eagerly desire the gifts, but we scorn the fruit. And I was telling my Gen Z discipleship group this week that you can get to heaven and have all the gifts and no fruit.

And I don't know how that's going to go for you when you get there. But you can get to heaven never having had one gift, but being adorned with the fruit of the Spirit. And I have a feeling Christ will recognize you. Because it says that some people say, depart from me. What? I never knew you. I never knew you. And so the Spirit then is this. The Spirit is what empowers us. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, self-control.

I missed one earlier and I probably missed one again. I think there's nine. But as we go through this, that is what he gives us when he indwells us. We should be becoming more and more gentle as we grow in Christ. We should be becoming more and more kind. More and more generous as we grow in Christ. I realized at one point in my Christian life, I'd had about five years where I just plateaued. It looked a lot better than a lot of other Christians.

Because I'm good at it. You know what I mean? I'm faking it until you make it. You know, just kind of. But I knew in my heart I wasn't maturing. I wasn't, you know, less covetous. I wasn't less whatever it is. I wasn't more gentle. It just wasn't happening. And so the key then is to grow in the maturity in Christ. And as a church, as we go through this Ephesians series over the next four weeks, we want to be a church that grows.

Are you growing in Jesus Christ? You're only going to grow in power. You have to go get the power, understand the power, the authority you have in Christ, and walk in it and understand it. This week we sold out. I told them we were going to sell out. If you come, I should have got more. This is just the study guide. I want to encourage you to read this book, Bondage Breaker. It's one of the best books I ever had. I think it's sold out before second service both times, so I'm going to have to get more.

So they're just voracious. They're like hyenas that first service. They get back, ha, ha, ha, and just take all the books. I want to encourage you. You can buy it online. It's called Bondage Breaker. But it will help you with addictions, with all the things that we've been kept in bondage with. And it talks about power and authority in Christ. So I want to end with this. I want to end with this practical takeaway. The Christian life is not to be defined by surviving in weakness, but in walking in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I want you to be people of power. I want to be a person of power. And what that's going to look like is the ability to harvest power that is not only within us, but is heavenly, that comes from heaven. That will change your family. That will change your home. That will change your city. That will change your nation. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family.

That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family.

That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. That will change your family. This will change your family. You all change your family. We're like you. mana to this is the family. mana to you.