Christ's Reign & The Church's Birth

Well, good morning.

Welcome to Sacred Mission.

My name is Jared, and I'm one of the pastors here at Sacred Mission.

And uh God has really been working on my heart over these past couple months about his faithfulness, how he is continually faithful.

And I love how we're beginning this new series through the book of Acts, where we see the reign of Christ and the birth of the church.

I'm someone who's always loved origin stories and resolve.

I love resolve.

I love when you get to the end of a movie or a book and you get to see it all fleshed out.

It's completed and you walk away from it feeling good.

You get to the end of a movie and they get married and you're like, but how many kids do they have?

And like, what happened?

Like, was it easy?

Like, you know, or a family or whatever the situation is, and you're like, you just want to know more.

And I don't know about you, but how often have you been completely locked in?

You're watching a movie, you're reading a good book, and all of a sudden across a screen it flashes to be continued.

And I'm like, oh, like this is not good.

Even when the words don't appear, you get to the end of a book or a movie, and there's just not that resolve, there's a cliffhanger, you're left in like you can't stop here.

You have to keep going.

Give us a little bit more.

That's how I judge movies.

I'm like, you're a terrible writer.

You didn't even give us any resolve here.

When we get to the end of the gospel of Luke, that's kind of how we're left feeling a little bit.

Not that Luke was incomplete, not that God's word was incomplete or anything like that, but there's just something that's left that you're going, well, I want to know a little more.

It feels unfinished, like there has to be something there.

And that's where the book of Acts picks up.

When we open up Acts, we're not starting a brand new story.

We're stepping into the continuation of what Jesus had already begun to do.

Luke reminds us in verse 1 that he had already written about all that Jesus began to do and teach.

That one word began is loaded with meaning.

It tells us that Jesus' work didn't end with the resurrection or even his ascension.

It was going to continue on through the church by the power of the Holy Spirit.

You see, the book of Acts is the bridge between the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the rest of the New Testament.

Without it, we'd have no roadmap of how a handful of frightened disciples turned into a global movement that turned the world upside down.

It'd be very confusing to go from the Gospels right into Romans and skip Acts.

You'd be like, wait, why is Paul saying this now?

Like, what happened?

Like, how is who's even writing to?

Like, what happened?

How did we get here?

And in these opening five verses of Acts, we're given a glimpse of this foundation.

We see a resurrected Savior in verses 1 through 3, that Jesus is alive not just in spirit, but in body.

He spends 40 days engaging with his disciples at different points about the kingdom of God.

The resurrection isn't the end, it's the launch pad into the beginning.

Then we'll see a promise in verses four through five that Jesus promises the Holy Spirit not just to comfort, although he is, but to empower.

The Spirit is the key to everything that follows in Acts between what Jesus has done and what he's about to do through the apostles and through us today.

This is not a story about what a few good men and women did as the church started and exploded in growth.

It's a story of what God would do through ordinary people when they were empowered by the Holy Spirit.

So today, as we begin our journey through Acts, I want to start with this question for you to think about.

Are you living like the mission of Jesus is still ongoing, or like it was just an ancient story with no impact on your life today?

Are you living like the mission of Jesus is still ongoing, or like it was just an ancient story with no impact on your life today?

So what I want to do is I want to begin with our main idea and then work from that throughout the rest of our time this morning.

And our main idea is this Jesus continued, how Jesus' ascension prepared us for mission.

So Acts 1, 1 through 5 invites us into a story that hasn't ended.

It's still unfolding, and we get invited into it to be a part of it.

Acts shows that Jesus' work didn't stop at the cross or the resurrection or even his ascension.

He continues his mission from heaven, sending his spirit to empower his people for witness.

So as we jump in, I want to quickly give an overview of the book of Acts and see how what we have recorded in Acts 1.8 actually comes to life.

So right before Jesus ascends, he tells us in this statement in Acts 1.8, he says this, 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 end of the earth.

Now, why would I touch here on verse 8 when that's not a part of our passage this morning?

Because when Jesus says, You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth, this is an outline of what actually takes place throughout the book of Acts.

In Acts 1 through 7, we see what takes place in Jerusalem.

We see the birth of the church, we see the arrival of the Holy Spirit.

In Acts 8 through 12, we see the church then spread to Judea and Samaria.

The church begins to expand through persecution and evangelism outside Jewish circles.

I think this is always a great reminder for us today that the greatest times of church growth and expansion always, always comes through when the church is persecuted.

Always.

Why do you think the underground church is ch is larger than the church in America?

Because they can't meet and gather.

They literally have to gather where no one knows.

I remember a few years back I I uh met a church planter, uh missionary in China.

I wasn't in China, I met him here, but he was from China and I asked him the question.

I could go back, I wouldn't have asked this question, but I said, How do you guys do marketing?

And he said, Oh, you don't.

You can't even tell people you're a Christian, you have to vet them out.

Sometimes it can take months or a year before you can even trust someone to even try to engage them with the gospel.

Because if you tell the wrong person, everything is shut down and you face persecution, prison, or worse, death.

The church, when it is threatened with violence and death, God always uses for his glory and the church's growth.

Have you ever noticed when things become normal and the church is kind of lacks, like it doesn't grow.

Then in Acts 13 through 28, we see it expand to the ends of the earth.

We see this through the Apostles Paul, the Apostle Paul's missionary journeys and the gospel's global mission.

If you want to know when the church was founded and how the church started, it's right here in the book of Acts.

And Acts is laid out exactly the way Jesus told us it would go in Acts 1.8.

So let's jump into our text this morning with our first summary in verses 1 through 3, and it's this: a resurrected Savior.

A resurrected Savior.

Right away, we see that Acts is a continuation of another book.

Luke starts with in the first book, O Theophilus.

He's not talking about Acts, he's talking about a different one, which tells us he's already written something he's addressed to the same audience.

When we look back, we find that this first book is Luke, the Gospel of Luke.

In Luke 1:3, he writes, It seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus.

Luke 1:3

So we know that Luke is the author of both Luke and Acts, and that Acts picks up right where the gospel left off.

If you were to look at Luke and Acts together, it is actually more words and longer than everything the Apostle Paul pinned in all 13 of his letters, which is wild.

We think Paul was the most prolific writer in the New Testament.

Luke actually wrote more than the Apostle Paul did in Luke and Acts.

And to place this in history, scholars believe that Acts was actually written in the early 60s before the Apostle Paul's death.

We can see this because Luke traveled extensively with Paul.

And Acts ends with Paul in Rome awaiting trial.

But Luke never goes on to mention Paul's death, his execution.

Nor does Luke ever mention the persecution of the emperor of Rome, Nero, in AD 65, but Luke does mention a very positive picture of Paul preaching the gospel in Rome for two years while he's in prison.

And I love, I love how the gospel spread throughout the Imperial Guard and into the Empire.

It was because the Apostle Paul would have prison or guards chained to him and he would talk to them about the gospel, and it would spread throughout persecution.

As a result, we believe this would place the writing of Acts in the early 60s, not 1960, but that like AD 60, just to give you an idea.

But the deeper question we need to ask is, and answer is why?

Why did Luke pin both Luke and Acts as one story?

When we look at Luke 1, or Acts verse 1, Acts 1.1, Luke mentions that he wrote the first book, the Gospel of Luke, that he dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.

Have you ever been in a situation where something just stops you in your tracks?

A time where you have to stop, you have to ponder, you have to think, and you have to go, ah, let me let me think through this a little bit deeper.

Have you ever seen those viral clips of people where they're it's it's in a building and they're walking along and all of a sudden they just run right into a glass wall?

And you're just like, oh man, that's kind of awesome, but painful for that person.

They kind of they they kind of look around, they're you can tell they're embarrassed, they kind of look around, and then they literally take one step and they hit another one, and it's just like, oh, this can't get any better.

Like it's so good.

They just don't see it coming.

They have to stop, they have to look, they have to go, they have to shake it off and keep going over and over again.

Well, that's exactly what this word in verse one should do for you.

It's meant to stop you in your tracks, make you pause, maybe even run into it again until you realize you can't just breeze past this.

Luke is intentional here in Acts.

He wants us to grasp that the gospel of Luke was not the end of Jesus' work on earth.

There's a tendency to believe and think wrongly, but believe that after the gospel, so after Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that Jesus ascended and he was done, right?

A deistic view of Jesus, right?

Kind of that idea that God created the world and then he spun it out and left it.

And he was like, well, good luck, we'll see how it goes.

I'm just gonna watch.

Like, Jesus didn't do that either when we get to Acts.

He is still alive today.

The truth is that even after Jesus ascended, he's still at work through the Holy Spirit in the church.

This is why the summary of verses one through three is a resurrected Savior.

It's someone who is still alive even today.

And Luke is helping his readers understand that the gospel of Luke recorded what Jesus started, and now Acts is going to continue on with what Jesus will do even after his ascension, which we don't get to today, but we will next week.

What does Jesus do though in verse 3 when he's interacting with the apostles, with his disciples?

He presents himself alive as a resurrected Savior.

I think it's always a good reminder for us to think through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

You can imagine this would have been heavy on their minds as they're interacting with him.

They see the marks in his hands.

They watched him die.

They saw him rise again, and now they're with him.

What Luke wants us to grasp is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And we have to ask ourselves, sometimes we just need to be reminded and think through this a little deeper.

What is the gospel?

What sacred mission?

Actually, on our website, we have the gospel that we explain a little bit.

And I just want to go through that just briefly, a kind of an extrapolated view of the gospel.

We say this.

The gospel is beautifully expressed in the passage of Romans 5.8.

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The holy and just God over all creation looked upon the sin and rebellion of his people, which separated us from him with grace, mercy, and love.

So much so that he sent his son Jesus to deal with our sin and rebellion while we were still entrenched in it.

Jesus breaks into our world, declaring God's kingdom, living a perfect, sinless life, and then dying under the fullness of God the Father's wrath that was kindled because of our sin.

After his death, he was buried in a tomb, burying our sins in his body, and three days later he was raised back to life, declaring his mighty victory over death, sin, and the grave.

It is only through the work of Jesus that we can find forgiveness for our sins, be reconciled back to God, and await the day when the world will be made new again.

The gospel speaks to us all and deals with all of our sins.

In every area of our lives we see sin, Jesus offers us his perfect, sinless exchange.

Our sin for his righteousness.

No matter what we struggle with or what idols we face in our hearts, Jesus offers us a beautiful exchange of his victory for our failure.

That's the gospel.

That's what we believe, that's what we preach here at Sacred Mission.

And if you are here today and have professed faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, how are you actively applying that every single day?

If you have believed in the gospel but are still weighed down with the guilt of sin, the gospel says you are forgiven.

If you continually feel like you are trapped in shame, the gospel says you are loved and accepted.

If you are stuck in the same patterns of sin, the gospel says you have been set free.

The gospel reshapes every part of our lives.

This includes our marriages, this includes our parenting.

This includes our friendships, our work, and even our suffering.

It can be easy to get to the end of the day, especially if you're a parent and go, man, I failed again.

The gospel reshapes how you think about that.

And a reminder to then change, to grow, to not make that same mistake again.

And the reason for that is because we live not from a place of trying to earn God's approval, but from already being approved in Christ.

That's justification.

That exchange that happens, our sin for his righteousness.

Sanctification is that growing aspect of our lives where we're becoming more and more like Christ.

You're not earning anything.

Don't confuse those.

Don't mix justification and sanctification up.

You'll get into heresy.

And if you are here today and have never professed faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, why not today?

That's what Luke wants us to grasp from the gospel of Luke and then see in Acts how the gospel turned the world upside down for the glory of God and for our good.

Because when Jesus appears to them alive, he shows them by many proofs that he was physically alive.

He came to them during many days, during those 40 days, many times, from his resurrection to his ascension.

And what does Luke emphasize that Jesus speaks to them about during this time?

Well, verse 3, we read Luke talks about the kingdom of God.

Now, this is very significant.

This is not a new concept that Jesus was introducing or revealing during these 40 days.

This was the plan.

Even this summer, we preach through the book of Daniel in the Old Testament.

And we read this from the kingdom of God being mentioned in Daniel 2, 44.

And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people.

It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.

This is the kingdom that Jesus is bringing.

Right before Jesus begins his public ministry, and he's baptized by John the Baptist, we hear John the Baptist proclaim in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 3, verses 2 through 3 Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Matthew 3:2–3

For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.

So the kingdom of God was expected.

Throughout Jesus' life, he even preaches about the kingdom of God.

So another, it's not a surprise that Jesus is now engaging the apostles with this.

This was planned.

Matthew 9, 35, Jesus, we read, and Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.

I love how Matthew, and that in the gospel there, when he talks about the gospel of the kingdom, then he talks about healing every disease and every affliction.

It's a picture of when Jesus fully consummates the kingdom, that that's what we'll live in, freed from disease, affliction, everything will be taken care of.

But it doesn't just end with Jesus' ascension.

Luke tells us many times throughout Acts that Paul proclaimed the kingdom of God over and over again in chapters 13 through 28.

In Acts 19:8, we read this and he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly.

Acts 19:8

This is Paul, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

Acts 20, 25.

And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.

Acts 28, 23.

When they had appointed a day for him, they came to him at his lodging in great numbers.

From morning till evening, he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets, meaning the Old Testament, what we know of today.

Acts 28, 31, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.

But you might be thinking, okay, well, what does this mean for us today if, like you're saying, the kingdom of God is here?

If Jesus inaugurated the kingdom, he started it when he arrived, this is the tension we live in.

There's a popular phrase out there called the already but not yet.

How would we define the already but not yet of the kingdom of God?

We'd say it's this.

So there's this tension that we live in every single day.

A few weeks ago, I had the joy, and I emphasize the joy of running a trail ultra marathon.

And uh, I mean, and and I'm not like I wasn't going in to win it, I was going in to finish it.

So just everyone hear that.

Um I knew I had no chance to win.

Even during one of my long training runs, I depleted all my electrolytes and thought I was gonna die, and I was like, I'm not doing this.

And then I did.

And it was during this time of running, I couldn't help think of the tension that I was living in in that moment.

It was 31.3 miles it took me to finish.

And as I was running, things felt pretty good.

Like it, I learned a lot of things during this.

Like the people who were really good at it walked the uphills, and I was like, that's brilliant.

I should do that too.

And thankfully I did it.

I wasn't like, I'm gonna beat them.

I was like, if they're doing it, there's a reason.

And I did that, and it helped a lot.

But I was running, things were going well, I was moving forward.

Every step I knew was like, okay, that's one less step I gotta take later.

Like, just keep going.

But with every downhill, the pain increased terribly.

I think people who don't run go, man, downhills are awesome.

It's like, well, until you do it, and then it's really hard and it hurts.

I had 7.75 miles left, and my right knee kept wanting to just lock up.

The more I bend it, the worse it got, and I just had to keep going.

It was it was this this mindset of I was I was hurting deeply on my leg, my body, like parts of my body, I was like, you use that when you run?

Like it was just this weird, ongoing thing, but like mentally I knew I could keep going.

And there was this reality, this tension I was living in, that both of these ideas could be true at the same time.

I could be hurting deeply in a lot of pain, but I knew I could endure and keep going.

And isn't this exactly what it's like spiritually living in the already, but not yet?

Because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are already redeemed, but we're not yet fully free from the presence of sin.

We are already citizens of heaven, but we're not yet fully living in the full kingdom.

We are already victorious in Christ, but we're still having these daily battles that we're fighting.

And the reality is that living in this tension should drive us deeper into humility.

Why?

Because it's only through Jesus Christ we can experience the kingdom of God.

Living in this tension should keep us hopeful.

Because it will only get better once Jesus fully consummates his kingdom.

Living in this in this tension should keep us eager because we long for Christ to complete what he began.

This is why we say every single Sunday, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

So, how do we live in this tension of the already but not yet in the kingdom of God?

And I believe we find our answer in our summary of verses four through five with a promise.

A promise.

See, when we look at verse four, we come back to Jesus telling the apostles not to depart from Jerusalem.

Now remember in Acts 1 8, we read that Jesus said, Once you receive the Holy Spirit, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria to the end of the earth.

Well, Jesus is telling the apostles that they need to wait in Jerusalem because the church and the spread of the gospel will begin in Jerusalem and then geographically spread from there.

But you need to wait.

Well, wait for what?

What do they need to wait for?

The promise of the Father, and which the Son Jesus had also informed his disciples of.

The promise that Jesus is referring to here is the coming of the Holy Spirit, which will come and we'll understand a little bit better about in Acts 2 at Pentecost.

But the question we have to ask ourselves is when did God the Father promise the Holy Spirit would come, and when did Jesus speak about it?

Well, there's a couple different passages in the Old Testament.

One is in Ezekiel 36, 26.

We read this and I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Or from the prophet Joel, chapter 2, verses 28 to 32, and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.

Joel 2:28–32

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.

Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my spirit, and I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke, the sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

So we have God the Father promising that one day he would send the Holy Spirit.

Then Jesus addresses this at different points in the Gospels, in Luke 12, 11 through 12, and when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.

Or when Jesus tells his disciples in John 14, 26, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send to my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Jesus told his disciples that the Holy Spirit would empower them for their mission.

Their mission for what?

Happiness?

Fun?

No, their mission for the church to spread from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

Do you notice the connection though from Acts 1 to even us today?

We are in the category of the end of the earth.

When you read that, that's you, that's me, that's us in America.

We were not there in that moment in Jerusalem where Jesus is telling his disciples, we are a part of the end of the earth.

When you and I were saved by God through the gospel of Jesus Christ, we were given the same Holy Spirit that they received back in Acts 2.

We've been given a mission, and it's not complicated.

We overcomplicate the mission of Jesus.

It's the mission of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's it.

But here's the problem I see with so many Christians today.

We're trying everything to change the world but sharing the gospel.

Let me show you what I mean.

Some of us believe if we can just pass all the right laws, then people change.

Others have this idea that if we just educate people enough, things will get better.

Some people have this idea, well, let's just give people more opportunities, then the world will get better.

Let's help people like have more self-help books and have people try harder and then the world will be different.

But here's the problem: none of these things actually change a person's desire or their heart.

Laws can restrain behavior, but they can't transform desire.

Education can inform the mind, but it can't change the heart.

You can make someone smarter, but you can't make them godlier.

Opportunities can open doors, but they can't fix what's broken inside.

You can change someone's circumstances and they will still be broken.

Self-effort might make you look better on the outside, but it won't heal the inside.

Now listen very carefully before you run out here and go, oh, she doesn't think we should do anything.

No, don't hear what I'm not saying.

I want good laws.

Okay, you can get involved.

You can do those things.

I want good laws.

I want people to have great education wherever you stand on the education point.

Like, I think people should have good education.

I think people should have opportunities.

I think that's great.

I want people to try harder and grow.

Like, I can't stand when people don't try.

I'm like, just try, just just take a step, just do something.

Like, but if you think laws, education, opportunities, and self-help alone will transform people, you are lying to yourself.

Only the gospel of Jesus Christ changes the heart.

Come on.

Like, are you kidding ourselves?

Like, you know how the mind has changed?

Because the heart's changed.

You know why people's behavior changes?

You know why I know this?

Because I have children.

I once was a child.

I'm like, you need to apologize.

Like, I'm sorry.

I'm like, you're not really sorry.

Like, come on.

Like, you're saying it, you're changing, kind of, but not really.

Like, because that's what I do too.

I'm like, I'm sorry.

I'm like, I'm not really sorry.

Like, my heart has to be changed.

That's what we need.

Our behavior won't change until our mind changes.

Our mind won't change until our heart changes.

And the only thing that will change someone's heart is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Come on.

And Jesus here in Acts 1.4 is reminding the apostles that they should not be surprised that this is about to take place.

He tells them, You've already heard about the promise from me.

The Holy Spirit was promised.

This wasn't an afterthought.

God, the Holy Spirit was part of the plan.

This wasn't like the Father and the Son got together and thought, man, we're losing them.

Let's go send out your brother.

Like, that's not, and number one, he's not their brother.

Forgive me for saying that.

He's not their brother.

But I'm not saying it wasn't an afterthought.

It wasn't like they were like, okay, things are really failing.

Let's send the Holy Spirit in there.

Like, this was the plan.

How is the kingdom of God going to advance?

Through the power of the Holy Spirit and the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Isn't it fascinating that as Luke opens the book of Acts, he highlights the two very things Jesus spoke about with the apostles during those 40 days: the kingdom of God and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

The kingdom of God would spread from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and to the very ends of the earth.

How?

By the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, where the Holy Spirit raises the spiritually dead to life.

I remember I lived in Flagstaff, Arizona, for quite a few years, a long time ago, and a massive forest fire broke out at one time.

And I can remember I have pictures of me playing baseball, and I'm out at shortstop, and behind me, there's literally planes flying, dropping off liquid, helicopters flying, dropping off liquid.

Apparently, things were terrible, but we could still play baseball.

So we did.

But I watched as this continued to happen for days and the fire would spread, consuming homes and neighborhoods and going up the mountain and just burning trees.

It became harder and harder to contain.

And later we found out that the fire all started from a couple of small kids playing with matches.

And it just became uncontrollable and just spread and spread and spread.

That's what the kingdom of God is like.

What began small in Jerusalem became unstoppable.

The spark of the gospel, fueled by the power of the Spirit, spread farther and farther until it reached the nations.

Acts is the story of that fire, a kingdom ignited, advancing and still spreading today.

We're part of this story.

And later in Acts 2, we'll get a better idea of what the Holy Spirit's arrival actually looked like and how it changed people's lives.

But here, for a moment, in Acts 1, 5, Luke draws a contrast, kind of pivots for a moment, and draws this contrast between John's baptism with water and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

This is what Luke said in verse 5.

For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

Luke is pointing forward to Acts 2, where we see the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

So what is the difference between the two?

Water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Well, when we look at what John the Baptist was doing, we can go back to the Gospels to see what was taking place.

For example, Mark 1, 8, we read this.

So the question we need to ask is what is the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

It's an important concept for the New Testament church for us today.

We could start by clarifying who is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

Well, it's Jesus.

Jesus is the one who does this.

John the Baptist made it clear that what he was doing is less than what Jesus will do in the future.

So then what is it?

I appreciate the way Wayne Grudum, a professor, theologian, and scholar, and author, how he defines the baptism of the Holy Spirit, he says this baptism in the Holy Spirit is a one-time event in the life of the believer occurring at conversion, when the Holy Spirit gives new spiritual life, cleanses from sin, and gives a clear break with the power and love of sin.

How do we know this is true?

Even the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verses 12 through 13, he says this for just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit.

Paul is very clear here that the body he's talking about is the body of Christ, which we know of as the church.

And how is someone brought into the body of Christ, the church?

Through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The moment a person places their faith in the gospel, they are united with Christ, brought into his body, and baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Now go back to Acts 1.5.

Jesus is preparing the apostles for what's about to happen.

You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

It's coming.

Even though in John 15, 3, Jesus could say to these same individuals, already you are clean because of the word I have spoken to you, yet they still had not yet received the Holy Spirit.

That moment was coming at Pentecost.

And as we'll see in Acts 2, Pentecost marks a turning point in redemptive history.

From that day forward, the Holy Spirit would permanently indwell and empower every believer, including you and me.

And that truth carries some powerful lessons for us this morning.

Think about the apostles for a moment.

They walked with Jesus, they had heard his teaching, they witnessed him heal many people, they saw crowds believe, yet they still needed the Holy Spirit.

The same is true for us today.

We cannot follow Jesus in our own strength.

So what difference does the baptism of the Spirit make in our lives?

I think there's a couple of ways from our passage this morning that we can see there's a couple of ways the difference the Spirit makes in our lives.

The first way the Holy Spirit changes your life is this the Holy Spirit gives us new life.

The Holy Spirit gives us new life.

At conversion, the Spirit makes us alive in Christ, cleanses us from sin, and breaks the power of sin in our lives.

That means that you and I are not the same person.

We have been transformed.

You've been made new.

The old has passed, behold, the new has come.

Listen what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8 11.

If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through a spirit who dwells in you.

Think about someone who has no heartbeat for a moment.

Picture them in an operating room, the ER, they're on a table, they're laying flat, there's no pulse, no breath, there's no life.

Then a doctor takes these defibrillator paddles and yells, clear, and hits them with it, and in an instant, hopefully that first time, that body jolts back to life.

They breathe, they gasp for breath, and there is life in them again.

This is what the Spirit does to us at conversion.

Spiritually, we were dead, no heartbeat, no breath of faith, but the Spirit of God brings us to life, raising us from spiritual death and gives us new life in Christ.

So how does that change your life?

Well, not only does the Holy Spirit give you new life, but he also gives you the power to live that new life.

I think sometimes we can get caught up in thinking, okay, I've believed, I've been saved, I have the Holy Spirit now, I'm just gonna go about my life and well, he saved me, but now I gotta do this on my own.

No, no, no.

He gives us the power to live that new life, which brings us a second way the Holy Spirit changes our lives.

It's this the Holy Spirit empowers us to live for Christ.

Here are some ways that the Holy Spirit empowers us to live for him.

The Holy Spirit empowers our faith.

The Holy Spirit deepens our prayers, the Holy Spirit strengthens our obedience.

The Holy Spirit equips us for mission because we have the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.

I think sometimes we believe we have to live in our own strength and our own power.

And I think sometimes we're we're we need to be reminded that God is faithful, we are not.

Even this week.

Woke up at 4:30, anxious, stress about some work type things going on.

I started going, oh, I started thinking to myself, and I was like, oh, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on.

First thought that came to mind is God has been faithful.

He's always been faithful, he's continually faithful.

God has been working on my heart the past couple months on faithfulness.

Everywhere I read in the Bible, I continually see his faithfulness.

And then in that moment, by the power of the Spirit, this wasn't in my own strength.

I had a thought pop in my head, you're the faithless one.

Quit it.

I had to be reminded of how good God is, how faithful he is.

Maybe what you need to hear this morning in your own life is that the Christian life is not self-powered morality, but Holy Spirit-powered mission.

Pentecost was the start of a new era.

From that day on, every believer receives the Spirit at conversion and is empowered to live out the mission of Jesus.

This is what Jesus continued is all about.

We are carrying out the mission that Jesus started, the only mission that matters.

So, what does the baptism of the Holy Spirit make?

What difference does it make?

He gives us new life.

He gives us power for mission.

The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead now lives in you.

That means you don't walk in your own strength anymore.

It should drive you to be more obedient to God because of how much he loves you and he's given you the ability and strength to do that.

This is why we say you don't carry yourself to the table when you come and have communion, Lord's Supper, as the body of Christ.

Jesus carries you there.

It's not in your own strength, it's not in your works, it's in his work.

You don't fight sin on your own.

You don't carry out the mission of Jesus on your own.

You have resurrection power within you.

So the question we need to answer this morning is this Are you living by your own strength or are you walking in the Spirit's power?

Pentecost was not just the beginning of the church, it was the beginning of your story as well.

Because from that day forward, every believer receives the Spirit, every believer is empowered, and every believer is sent.

We have to grasp that we are not spectators in the story of God.

We are spirit-filled participants in the only mission that matters.

Who in your life needs to hear about the gospel?

Who in your life needs to be called out in their sin?

Who in your life needs to love Jesus more?

So I want to encourage you today to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, to depend on the Holy Spirit, to live on mission for Jesus that all may know the joy of his salvation.

Church, can you imagine what would happen if we really lived this out?

Imagine if our marriages, our parenting, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, and even our suffering would look like if we were people that were filled and walking in the Spirit's power every single day.

The same Spirit who set the world on fire and acts is alive in you.

Like, just think about that for a moment.

How incredible is that?

Like, we just go about our lives and we're like, oh, it's cool.

I'm I'm a follower of Christ.

And it's like, you have the Holy Spirit, you have God and His power dwelling within you.

Is that not incredible?

Like, I don't even think about that enough.

Like, imagine if we really dwelled upon that throughout the day.

If we called up, I had someone approached me after the service and said, said, Why do you think sin is so easily entangled, like entangling us?

And we just talk about, and I said, I think it's because we have we have such a high view of sin and a low view of God.

We don't actually dwell upon how good God is.

Like, if if we and I think we think praying without ceasing is, I did that, I gotta be on my knees all day long.

That's not a reality, guys.

Come on.

Like you have to work, you have to parent, like you have a kid constantly saying your name, like whatever it might be, like you are busy, but praying without ceasing is constantly thinking about it and calling out to him.

Like, if we did that more, what would this world look like?

How would your work look?

How would your parenting look?

And I'm preaching to myself here.

I need to be reminded every single day of how good God is.

When I think about how great he is, it drives me to be obedient.

Why?

Because he loved me first.

I'm not earning his love, I'm working from his love.

Like incredible.

That same Holy Spirit who set the world on fire in Acts is dwelling within you.

The mission of Jesus didn't stop at the ascension, it continues even through us today.

And that is the only mission that matters.

That to be continued from Luke to Acts, it continues on with you and me.