The Spirit, the Church, and the World

Friends, that's great stuff, isn't it?

Don't they do a wonderful job? My friends, the Word of the Lord

is before us. Just consider that for a second.

The Word of the Lord is before us.

Let us be attentive to the Word. In the first book of the

Theophilus I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach

until the day when He was taken up.

After He had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the

apostles whom He had chosen. He presented himself alive to

them after his sufferings by many proofs, appearing to them

during 40 days and speaking about the Kingdom of God.

And while staying with them, He ordered them not to depart from

Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he

said, You heard from me, from John, baptized with water, but

you will baptize, be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many

days from now. So when they had come together,

they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the Kingdom

to Israel? Jesus said to them, It is not

for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father is fixed

by His own authority. But you will receive power when

the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my

witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the

ends of the earth. And this is the word of the

Lord. Thanks be to God, gracious God,

gracious God, do that which we could not do on our own, but

take this word, improve our understanding of it for sure,

but improve our obedience to it. We pray through Christ our Lord,

we ask, Amen. Please be seated.

If you would grab your Bibles, I want to open them up to Acts

Acts 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1, the book of Acts chapter one.

A couple of years ago, Kelly and I went to movie theater together

and we saw a movie and we were watching the movie in about an

hour and a half in the movie came to a wonderful resolution,

came to a glorious resolution. The good guys won, the bad guys

lost. Love was in the air.

I was happy, satisfied, everything was wonderful.

And then the movie kept going and it kept going.

And of course it introduced new things and and took it in new

directions. And about halfway through the

new direction, I thought to myself, there the director made

a mistake here. He ruined the movie.

The movie was great where it ended, and yet now he's dragging

it on. But by the end of the additional

ending, when the movie finally closed, I sat there and thought,

wow, that last part really brought forward the story that

was in the front part. The front part really was the

story. But this long, drawn out

epilogue that they did really made it worthwhile.

It was. It was a benefit to have all of

that, and it would have robbed the movie of so much of its

punch if it hadn't had that latter part attached to it.

Some of you who have been around might know that for the past

three years, summers, sorry for the, for the past three winters,

we have worked our way through the Gospel of Mark.

And the Gospel of Mark, you might remember if you were here

with us, ended on that high note.

It ended on a wonderful spot where we saw the life, the

death, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And nothing could have been better than ending the gospel

the way that it did. And I suspect that's why Mark

ended that gospel that way and indeed why John and Matthew both

and the gospel somewhere in a similar position.

But Luke, however, goes on to continue his gospel in the book

of Acts. What we're going to do over the

next couple of winters together is that we are going to look at

the book of Acts and we have the risk of saying thinking to

ourselves, well, this is just an add on that.

The point is that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus

Christ. And now we just have this

additional material that we have to cover.

But if you've read the book of Acts, and I trust and I hope

that you have or that you will, if you've read the book of Acts,

you know that that's certainly not the case.

That Acts in itself doesn't just elaborate upon things, but it

teaches us exactly about the life, the death, and the

resurrection of Jesus Christ. Just like the movie was made so

much richer by the way the director put on the ad on this,

the director of scriptures, the Holy Spirit himself is going to

add so much to our understanding of the life, death, and

resurrection of Jesus Christ by looking at the book of Acts.

So I would encourage you to come alongside with me as we study

the book of Acts over the weeks to come.

What we're going to do is we're going to find three main themes.

These three things do not cover every storyline that happens in

Acts. Acts is a very rich book, as

many of you will know. It's full of wonderful stories.

It's full of wonderful teachings and directions for us as God's

people. But they do tend to flow within

three main caveats. And so we're going to talk about

those here today. We're going to see how they get

set up really well even in the 1st 8 verses that we've looked

at, particularly in verse 8, the Spirit, the church and the

world. The spirit, the church and the

world. If we want to understand the

depth of the beauty of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the

book of Acts is a marvelous place to be.

If we want to understand the richness, the fullness of the

church, not just the church that was 2000 years ago, but the

church that is universally today and expressed right here at

Hebron Church, there's no better place for us to go than the book

of Acts. If we want to understand the

world, particularly if we want to understand the world that God

has called us to specifically, there's no better place for us

to be than the book of Acts. Having said that, we can't

afford to lose sight of the point.

Grab your Bibles if you wouldn't look in verse one with me in

verse one, Luke writes this. Luke is the author now of the

book of Acts. So we'll refer to Luke off and

on during this time In the first book of Theophilus Theophilus is

a is an either an individual or it's a summary of a group of

people. Theo God, Phyllis loved so loved

by God, those who are loved by God, those who are loved by God

or those who love God. This is his second book that

he's written. The first book being the gospel

Luke. This is the second book he began

he wrote in the first book I have dealt with all that Jesus.

Now notice how it says this began to do and teach, began to

do and teach. Luke's intent and our intent in

reading the Scripture is to see what God is continuing to do and

to teach. Yes, the Gospel of Luke talked

about what Jesus began to do and to teach, talked about his life,

his death and his resurrection, his teachings, his guidance or

direction for us, all the things that lead to our embrace of

salvation. But the way that Luke begins

Book of Acts makes it clear that he expects us to understand that

what follows is also the work in life and teachings of Jesus

Christ. One of the great dangers that

comes for from the history of the church.

And if you're a church historian, you'll be able to

look back at periods of time and see where this abuse is taking

place. The people get fixated upon the

book of Acts so that we can learn things about the Spirit,

the church, and the world, and they lose sight of that central

focus of what the book of Acts truly is about.

And it's truly about Jesus Christ and one of the key things

in which we're going to have to fight and struggle with together

collectively. And I need you to hold me

accountable to make sure that I'm fulfilling my part.

And then when he's preaching and others when they are preaching

about these texts, that the focus of our of our attention is

not to be so caught up with the Spirit, the church, and the

world that we miss the fact that the intent of the author is to

communicate to us about Jesus Christ.

This is his book. This is his, a continuation of

his story. That's the way it's intended for

us to be read. And if we lose sight of that, we

are likely to fall into the trap that so many have in looking at

the book of Acts and be distracted by so many things and

disconnect that from the reality of Jesus Christ.

But we recognize that this book is about Jesus Christ.

Having said that, historically and traditionally the book of

Acts is shorthand for the longer statement, the longer title of

the book of Acts. And that's the book of the Acts

of the Apostles, book of the Acts of the Apostles.

And some of your scriptures might identify the book that

way, the Acts of the Apostles. And if you're interested, of

course, we learn, we're going to learn a whole lot about the

apostle Paul. We're going to learn certain

amount about the apostle Peter. We're going to learn a little

bit about Philip, a little bit less about Stephen.

We're going to learn very little about John.

We're going to learn very little about James.

And that's about it. We're not going to hear a whole

lot about Matthew and Matthias and Bartholomew and Andrew and

Philip. There's so many things about the

book of Acts of the Apostles, of the book that are not covered in

this book. And so historically, it's been

recognized by so many that this is really not the book of the

Acts of the Apostles. It's the book of the Acts of the

Holy Spirit. And we can see this right across

the board when we look in verse 2, verse 2, Jesus began to do

and teach until the day when he was taken off.

Jesus was taken up the ascension, which we're going to

look at next week after he had given commands through the Holy

Spirit to the apostles whom He had chosen.

Listen to the implication here. The implication is that Jesus

himself, while he is yet with the disciples, while he's with

the 12 men in the and perhaps the gathering of of men and

women who have gathered around him, while he is still with

those who are committed to him, He is speaking powerfully to

them, and yet they are hearing him through the Holy Spirit.

Now, one of the things in which we're going to have to work hard

at doing is undercutting this felonious notion that is so

popular in today's society that associates the Holy Spirit with

some mystical force. You know, this is the legacy of

Star Wars and so many things where we depersonalize, where we

take the person of the Holy Spirit, he and we turn him into

an IT and we treat him as though he is in IT.

And we are going to fight hard to make sure that you realize

that the Scripture never does that, that the Scriptures

recognize the personhood of Jesus, of the Holy Spirit.

And so we talk about him and what he does on our behalf.

And here's one of the things in which he does on our behalf is

that he speaks to the disciples. Now, again, this is not just,

this is indeed a historical account.

This is in a discussion of what the Holy Spirit has done for the

apostles, for the original 12 or 11 at this point.

But nevertheless, we also have a reality that the Holy Spirit

does that with us today too. In other words, when we're

looking at the book of Acts, we are tracing not simply ancient

history here, but we are tracing our history and our reality, our

current present. The Holy Spirit will continue to

speak to us, does continue to speak to us the Lord's words so

that we can learn, so that we can grow, so that we can

develop. Thank you somebody back there.

OK, here's one of the realities. This is I want you to Amen this

too. This isn't a side note for me

for a second, but here's the aside.

You're never going to learn the book of Acts If you come on

Sunday and hear me teach it. Yeah, thank you, honey.

You're never going to learn the book of Acts that way.

It's simply it, it's a 20 minute exposure to the book of Acts,

which is which will get drowned out by the rest of the stuff

that happens in your life. I beg you, commit yourselves

over the next couple weeks, while we're next couple months,

while we're looking at the book of the book of Acts to spend at

least twice in the week reading the chapter that we're focusing

on. We're going to be looking at

chapter one over the next couple of weeks two different times.

Read the book of Acts, read Acts chapter 1.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

I guarantee you if you do that it what we do here today will be

so much more meaningful, but the book of Acts will begin to stick

in your head. You will understand it so much

better. It's simply 20 minutes on a

Sunday morning simply cannot compete with everything else

that's happening in your world. So commit yourself just twice

more to read the book of Acts. Why?

What you're doing is you're opening yourselves up to exactly

what the Spirit does here in verse 2 that he speaks to his

disciples. I desperately want the Spirit to

speak to God's disciples here in this room.

And the way to do that is expose yourself to book of Acts Read it

every day. Of course, that's what I would

love. Read it at least twice and

you'll be amazed at how it begins to anchor itself in your

heart, in your souls. But of course, the focus of the

book, of the focus of the Spirit really comes to the four in

verse 8. So if you look in verse 8 with

me, this is Jesus now speaking to the disciples and he says,

but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

If you've read the book of Acts, you know that in the next

chapter, chapter 2, the Holy Spirit does indeed fall upon the

the, the disciples and the beginning, the birth of the

church. This is the Pentecost experience

and it's something that we're going to spend a lot of time

talking about. What does it mean?

The Holy Spirit comes upon the church and has filled the church

and has directed and LED the church and fills the church with

power. What's your, what's your

superpower? Your, your Daydream superpower.

If you're a daydreamer, actually, I, I trust that

everybody can answer this question.

What, what superpower do you wish that you have?

OK, when I, I'm a daydreamer. And so I, I've noticed that my,

my superpower has changed through the years.

When I was much younger, all I did is want to fly.

I wanted to be able to fly and stuff like that.

Are there Flyers out there? OK, then.

Then when I got when I got it, when I got to middle age, then I

really wanted to have super strength.

I wanted to be able to crush my enemies.

Oh, so you know, so I wanted to have super strength.

Now as I'm getting older, I noticed that I really yearn for

invisibility. And I suppose some some

psychoanalysts could have a gay old time with me on that score.

But you know, you have the the different superpowers that are

out there. The reality is that the church,

God's people, have this superpower.

We have a superpower and we fail to acknowledge it all too often.

This is a promise that Jesus makes again to his disciples and

to each of us through those disciples, that the Holy Spirit

will come upon us with power. The word power there is dunamis.

It's where we get the word dynamite and power and dynamite,

etcetera, is an explosive idea. It's a, it's an outward

manifestation of power. It's not potential, it's not

possibilities. It is the outward expression of

that possibility, the outward manifestation of the power that

resides and flows through God's people.

This is what God promises with the coming of the Holy Spirit,

which we recognize has been fulfilled.

We're going to get into this in a couple of weeks, but if those

of you who've been around church, you know it to be true

for God's people that we are embedded, we are filled with the

Holy Spirit. We are so filled with the Spirit

that we are blessed with the power of the Holy Spirit.

Then that has to explode out of us.

When it does not explode out of us, we are denying the very

reality of what God has given us here through the power of the

Holy Spirit, the blessing of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Boy, somethings happened to people.

What's in the water today? So we have the blessing of the

power of the Holy Spirit that will come upon you when the Holy

Spirit comes upon God's people. This is the power of the Holy

Spirit. When we look at the Holy Spirit,

one of the things now, this is one of the struggles that takes

place. It's so easy, again, to begin to

identify the work of the Holy Spirit then with something

powerful like the Force, you know, something that's going to

give my lightsaber zooming abilities or something along

those lines. This isn't specifically not what

the Scriptures are identifying it as.

We have the power, yes, but to do what?

And this is where the notion of the church comes into this

passage. Take a look at this text again,

verse 8. But you will receive power when

the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria,

and to the ends of the earth. There's two identifying marks

here for the church. The 1st is that you will receive

power. If we are to be the Church of

Jesus Christ, that explosive power of the Holy Spirit is to

be visible and manifest, and we're going to talk about how

that's the case. Book of Acts lays out for us how

that is manifest for us, and so I expect you to be able to be

attentive to that. If you are seeking to see the

Holy Spirit at work, I beg you to come along with me as we

study the Book of Acts together. Not only that, though, the

church. What is the notion of the church

here? Two different responsibilities.

One, that they will receive power. 2 that they will be

witnesses. We've already looked at the

first one, but to notice for a second that this is a collective

idea. Jesus is speaking not to us as

individuals, but to us as individuals in the midst of a

group setting. This is you all.

This is a way of identifying it both as you each to each of you

will be given this, and to all of you will be given this.

To each of us is given the power of the Holy Spirit, and to all

of us is given the power of the Holy Spirit.

That's the power. And then the second part of

being the Church is to be my witnesses.

Now a witness, I want to look at 4 quick things about witnesses.

Witnesses do four different things.

First off, they see something or experience something.

A witness is that I've witnessed it, I've seen it, or I've

experienced it. And the reality is for the

church is that every one of us sees or experiences Jesus

Christ. If you have not seen or

experienced Jesus Christ, if church is a function of what you

do Sunday morning, if church is something that you enjoy doing

because you like the people around you, or you think I'm

funny, or you like the music or something along those lines,

that's great. Please keep coming here, but

expect that you will have an experience with Jesus Christ

because that's what takes place in this room.

That's what takes place in the hearts of every believer that is

here. We witness Jesus Christ.

That is that we experience Jesus Christ.

We see Jesus Christ in our lives.

That's what it means to be a witness.

But it also means, secondly, to witness to the, to speak to that

in this case. Think for a second about being

in a witness chair in a court case.

You are a witness. Not only are you testifying to

what you have seen and experienced, but you are voicing

that. You are giving word to that.

Now I realize that people are different and they don't all

have the same giftedness. We all don't have the ability to

put into words that which we've experienced.

I understand that we are not all bold enough to take advantage of

those opportunities that come across our tables.

I understand that. But everybody, everyone in this

room. Is called to witness, to

experience, to to see Jesus Christ in their lives, and then

to speak of that. If you're building a court case,

a lawyer takes not just one witness, but a bunch of

different witnesses that all build together.

You are one building block that the Lord is using, that the Holy

Spirit is using to witness to His glory and goodness.

You might not be an important building block in your mind, but

you are important to Him. He has called you not just to

see and experience Jesus, but then to speak and witness to

Jesus Christ. Every one of us has that

responsibility. Thirdly, about witness.

This is where we get the word for martyr.

The word in the Greek is the same word for the word that we

use for martyr. To witness is costly, It's

sacrificial. It absolutely is anybody that

that proclaims the witness of Jesus Christ and thinks that

they're really good at it or that it comes easily to them or

they just have that gift or they just, and if you, if you think

that there are people that are like that out here, that's

simply not the case. A witness by definition is

costly and it's sacrificial. Now we nevertheless do so

because of the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is the connection in this verse.

We are empowered by the Holy Spirit so that we can identify.

Look, this is what I've seen. This is what I've experienced.

And I can talk about what I've seen and I've experienced even

when I realize it's going to be costly and sacrificial.

And fourthly, we're not told that we're witnesses.

We're told that we're witnesses to him.

That's the our text reads my witnesses.

But it's not so much in ownership.

Jesus is not saying there that you are mine and I own you.

He's saying rather, that you are witnesses to me, witnesses for

me, witnesses about me. And once again, this corrects so

much of our misunderstanding and failure as God's people to think

to ourselves that what we are talking about when we are

witnessing to Jesus is we're correcting every theological

mistake and we have to have all the right answers to everything.

We have to know our Bibles inside and out.

And we have to know what we have to do is witness to the

experience that we have had of Jesus Christ and of him alone.

That's what it means to be the church.

It's a fundamental understanding of the church is to have

received the power of the Holy Spirit and to be his witnesses.

And we're going to see this. If you want to see this played

out, if you want to see what heaven church is supposed to be,

come alongside with me as we study the book of Acts together,

the Spirit, the church, and of course, the world is modeled so

wonderfully here in verse 8 as well.

For we're told that we are to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea

and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

Now, if you're geographically oriented, you will recognize a

certain concentric circle nature of this Jerusalem, that spot

where the disciples were when they first heard the story,

Judea, the surrounding countryside, Samaria, the

countryside that is next beyond that, and then the ends of the

earth. The broadness of this.

This is the responsibility the disciples had to geographically

move out from this. But it's more than just

geographic. And we have that responsibility

again, as inheritors of the book of Acts.

We have that same responsibility to attend to the Jerusalem that

is around us, those people that are near and dear to our hearts,

our family, our friends, our neighbors, those who are close

to us, Jerusalem, to those who are geographically close by the

to our neighborhoods, to the city, to the church, to the

state, sorry, the state, somehow the geographic community that

would be reflective of Judea and Samaria and then to the ends of

the world. We have a responsibility to take

the gospel to the ends of the world.

Now, it's crucial to realize that Jesus does not say some of

you will be witnesses in Jerusalem, some of you will be

witnesses in Samaria, some of you will be witnesses to the

ends of the earth. He doesn't say that.

He says you, all of you, and consequently all of us will be

witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends

of the earth. How are we to do that?

How are we all supposed to quit our jobs and spend the rest of

our lives? No, clearly that's not what

Jesus has in mind, but he has in mind that you being empowered by

the Holy Spirit, being part of this body and community, will be

part of the witness of Jesus Christ.

That happens in Jerusalem, your Jerusalem, your family, friends,

neighbors, in your Samaria and Judea, the surrounding

countryside, and then to the ends of the earth.

How do you do that? 321321 OK, here's what I want

you to do over the next couple of weeks.

I want you to commit to doing this. 321 I want you to commit

to have to put three names in your heart.

Three names that are going to be guiding your prayers every

single day. Not when you remember to pray,

but you're committing to pray every single day.

Three names of Jerusalem, three names of your family members, of

your friends, of your neighbors. Three names of people that need

to hear the gospel message. Maybe not for the first time,

maybe they're long term believers, but three names of

people that you're going to keep in prayer over the next three or

four weeks, three or four months as we go through the book of

Acts together. 32 that you will put in your mind 2 institutions,

two organizations that are working in the community that is

around us either in Pittsburgh as a whole or in Pennsylvania or

in your local community, Penn Hills. 2 organizations that are

doing work. If you need ideas on some of

those organizations, one of them can be Heaven Church.

Pray for three individuals. 2 organizations in one place in

this world. When I first became a Christian,

this was back in 1980, four, 1984, my disciple said to me,

walk me through Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of

the earth. He said pick a place in this

world that you can pray for, that you can be passionate

about. And at that time the Soviet

Union, it was at war with Afghanistan.

And so I picked Afghanistan and for the past 40 years I have

prayed semi faithfully for Afghanistan.

Do you know what it's been like to see the church flourish when

when the Soviets left, and then to see the Taliban come in and

the church get squashed when it's there?

And to be praying as the United States is present in Afghanistan

and now the United States is not present in Afghanistan.

And to see God's work through the past 40 years because I have

been committed to praying for one nation where I will never

go, God willing, you know, as far as I know, I will never go

to Afghanistan because I've taken seriously the

responsibility that is laid upon me as part of the body of Jesus

Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit to pray for three

individuals, 2 institutions and one place in this world.

If you want to be see the world the way the Lord sees the world,

to seize it, see the Kingdom around you, God's Kingdom around

you the way that He sees the world, then I beg you to come

alongside me as we go through the book of Acts together.

Let's pray. Gracious Lord, we thank you for

giving us the gift of the Scriptures where we can see and

experience the realities of who we are as part of the Church of

Jesus Christ of the world that is around us, in desperate need

of Your love and your care, and specifically the power and the

work of your Spirit as He works and moves in our hearts.

Lord, we desperately need that kind of work in our lives.

And so we come to you, looking for Your grace and your

blessing, praying the way that you taught us to pray.

Our Father who aren't in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy

Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day Our Daily Bread, and forgive us our debts,

as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not in temptation, but

deliver us from evil. For thine is a Kingdom, and the

power and the glory forever.