Here is the link to Acts 2.

The followers of Jesus are gathered together waiting and praying, the Spirit of God descends, and the church is born. What Jesus promised would happen happened. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (1:8).

Why? So people could be saved. Twice this word appears in Acts 2. In his sermon, Peter admonishes those listening: “Be saved from this corrupt generation!”

Then at the end of the chapter, the narrator points out that Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Saved. It means “rescue, deliver, heal, and restore.”

So Scripture assumes there’s a situation we need to get out of or we have a condition that needs transformation. We’re not where we’re supposed to be in life. We’re not who we’re supposed to be. We aren’t living or believing or loving as we should. We have a corrupt human nature that needs spiritual transformation.

And according to the gospel, being saved is only possible through the person of Jesus. Everyone needs Jesus.

But then I find myself wondering. Do we get this? Do we really believe it?

What’s more important to us in this age of declining church attendance? To have more people in pews on Sunday or that people are being saved? There’s a connection between these two things but they are not the same.

Jesus sent the Spirit of God to give birth to the church so his followers could be witnesses to who he is. Because people–people we know and people we don’t, people we love and people we don’t much like–need rescue, deliverance, healing, and saving.

As Christians and as churches we need to be a witness. And when the church is obedient to and responsive to Jesus, we are a witness. But we need the power of the Spirit to be witnesses. These believers waited together in prayer until God poured out his Spirit.

What are we willing to do?

Maybe the church needs some saving of its own.