Declaring God’s Praises

Acts 2:4,11: All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak… declaring the wonders of God.

As soon as the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, their response was to speak out about the wonders of God. In a future sermon in this series we will look at the significance of the different languages they were speaking, but here we pause and note the simple point that an encounter with the Spirit of God leads to God’s praises being declared out loud to all around.

The Spirit as witness: When Jesus spoke of sending the Holy Spirit in John’s gospel, he called him the ‘Spirit of truth’, and explained that he would testify about Jesus. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is one of bearing witness to Jesus and making him known, and it is in the context of Jesus commissioning his disciples to be witnesses in Acts 1:8 that his promise to send them the Spirit came. At the heart of a move of the Spirit is the revelation of Jesus, and if we lose sight of this to focus instead on the gifts or phenomena themselves then we have missed a key part of what the Spirit is doing. 

Witness through words: The Holy Spirit bears witness to Jesus in many ways, including the witness he bears to our hearts, but one of the main ways that he does it is by inspiring words to be spoken. The Scriptures themselves are breathed-out by the Spirit inspiring human authors to write the very words of God (see 2 Timothy 3:16). This word is powerful (Hebrews 4:12) and accomplishes God’s purposes (Isaiah 55:10-11). The Pentecost story shows a different example of the Spirit stirring up words of praise. The immediate response of the disciples to being filled with the Spirit was to speak out and to give articulation to the wonders of God. As we experience God’s presence through his Spirit, there is a joy that we do not want to keep to ourselves, and we find ourselves declaring the goodness of this God who we are encountering to those around us. 

The Power of testimony: As we think about declaring God’s praises today, there are lots of different forms this can take. It is a part of our evangelism, and also our worship and our preaching. One particularly powerful way we ‘declare the wonders of God’ is through sharing testimony. Sharing testimonies is not only about telling the stories of when we first became Christians (although these are wonderful stories and are definitely part of it), but also of answered prayers, of healings, of prophetic words fulfilled, of encouragements given and much more. Because we believe that God is powerfully active in our lives and church today, just as he was for the early believers, it means there will always be stories to tell about what God doing. Our testimonies remind us that God’s work isn’t just something of the past, but is something that we participate in today. One author has described testimony as “Spirit-anointed storytelling”. As we tell others of what God is doing in our lives, the hearers and tellers alike are encouraged, filled with faith and motivated to go deeper in the life of the Spirit. 

Response: Create space for people to share testimonies of what God is doing in their lives.