On Mission: Reaching our Jerusalem Acts 1:8
Missions Emphasis Month '23 • Sermon • Submitted
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· 723 viewsThis was preached during our missions emphasis month and was used to roll out "Saturate USA" to our church.
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Introduction:
Introduction:
The book of Acts is a unique book in the canon of Scripture. It is the record of the early church and the rapid spread of christianity around the world. If it were not included in the scriptures we wouldn't have any record of the early church apart from what we could glean from the epistles. It is also the book that teaches us the most about the work of the Holy Spirit. It’s actually a perfect seg-way from the Gospels to the rest of the New Testament. In fact, it is written by Luke, the same man who gave us the most detailed account of the life of Christ and the man who’s book we are currently walking through together and will pick up again in March.
1 The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, 2 until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen,
Luke is the only writer of scripture who records for us the post-resurrection ministry of Christ. Upon his resurrection Christ spent 40 days on the earth being seen of others and giving His disciples some final instruction.
Luke 24 records for us for us the details of Christ resurrection in vs.1-12. Then in vs.13-35 we are given the account of Jesus encounter with two men walking on the road to Emmaus. Apparently Jesus some how had altered his appearance because these disciples didn't recognize him as he explained the scriptures to them.
27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
Then later in vs.32 after Jesus had revealed himself to them they said:
32 And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?”
Acts 1 picks up immediately after the close of Lukes gospel and, in a sense, is a continuation of Lukes Gospel narrative.
We pick up that narrative in Acts 1:4-5
4 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; 5 for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
He had already alluded to that promise in Luke 24:49
49 “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for this final conversation Christ had with his disciples. Nearing the end of this conversation he promised them that the Holy Spirit of God would come upon them in just a few days, that happened in Acts 2.
Acts 1:6-8 record the final words of Christ to his disciples before ascending into Heaven.
6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Notice, there final question to Him was an earthly question about when he was going to set up his political kingdom. Instead, Jesus gives them in very clear terms their mission in His spiritual kingdom. This is the same mission for all of God’s children.
v.8 is the key verse for the entire book of Acts and it is where we will focus our attention for the remainder of our time together this morning.
As we examine:
Defining the mission.
The scope of the mission.
The power to carry out the mission.
1.) Defining the mission?
1.) Defining the mission?
Acts 1:8 (NKJV)
8 ...and you shall be witnesses to Me...”
That’s it! That is the mission! We are to be “witnesses” for Christ!
Jesus command to the eleven men gathered their to hear him extends to us today. The job of the church today is to be Christ’s witness in this world. That is we are to testify of Christ to those who do not know him.
The message of Christ that we are to witnesses of is a simple message.
Jesus, is God come in the flesh; he died to [pay for our sins; he was resurrected; now He is exalted in Heaven; He calls us to believe in him in order to receive forgiveness of our sin.
This is the good news (Gospel) of Christ.
There is nothing to join, no system to climb, just believe and receive Christ.
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
We don’t get to be water boys who sit on the sidelines watching the mission unfold. We have to roll up our sleeves and go to work carrying out the mission.
This is why the early church exploded all across Asia like it did. No one set on the side lines, every single believer got busy telling others the message of the Gospel.
You can’t leave the mission up to the “professional christians”. Its not just the pastors job, or the missionaries job to be witnesses. It’s the job of every believer.
“You, shall be witnesses to Me.”
2.) The scope of the mission.
2.) The scope of the mission.
Acts 1:8 (NKJV)
“...in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Notice, the mission is supposed to spread far and wide.
If you have been attending church for some time, you have no doubt heard these words many times, perhaps so much that they have lost impact and meaning to you. If you are new to the faith and church, I want you perhaps for the first time to feel the weight of Jesus words.
These words were no doubt shocking to the disciples.
Jerusalem- That’s where they crucified Jesus.
Judaea- They were rejected there.
Samaria- They didn't like Samaritans, they were half-breed jews.
The ends of the earth- Gentiles?
A command like this would have been socially and ethnically unheard of to this group of Jewish men. Yet, that was Jesus command and obedience to it would mean stretching these men past their comfort zones.
That is the story of the book of Acts though.
The disciples carried out the Lords mission to the letter.
Jerusalem was filled with the preaching of the Gospel and 3,000 were saved in one day Acts 2.
As those people would have left Jerusalem following the feast days, the gospel would have went with them all over Judaea.
4 Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.
Then we read in Acts 8:5 we read this:
5 Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them.
That’s a big deal. Phillip took the gospel to people who didn't look like him, act like him or even have the same culture as him.
31 Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.
Philippians 4 even tells us that the gospel of Jesus was even being whispered in the halls of Caesars own palace.
22 All the saints greet you, but especially those who are of Caesar’s household.
Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free, male and female, Jew and Greek, learned and ignorant, clasped hands and sat down at one table, and felt themselves all one in Christ Jesus. They were ready to break all other bonds, and to yield to the uniting forces that streamed out from His Cross. There never had been anything like it. No wonder that the world began to babble about sorcery, and conspiracies, and complicity in unnameable vices.
Alexander Maclaren, Exposition of Holy Scripture, Volume 10 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1974), p. 228.
The mission is to be witnesses of the gospel and the scope of that witness is the entire world. That means across the street, in the poor neighborhood, in the rich neighborhood, in the hispanic neighborhood, in the black neighborhood, and all around the world!
Listen, don’t tell me you care about those people you’ve never met on the other side of the world when we don’t even have a burden to reach those without Christ in our own backyard.
The scope of our mission is all over the place. We must be preaching the gospel to everyone, everywhere, all the time.
3.) The power for the mission.
3.) The power for the mission.
Acts 1:8 (NKJV)
8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;...”
In Acts, it was about 10 days from this moment that the Holy Spirit fell on the believers gathered in the upper room in Jerusalem like “tongues of fire.”
They went out from that upper room with the Spirit of God inside of them and witnessed with power like never before.
All over Acts, you see the disciples and later Paul filled with the sprit and preaching and teaching in power and people coming to Christ.
Believer, understand that they didn't possess some special endowment of power that is foreign to us. The Holy Spirit of God that was upon them is the same Holy Spirit residing on us. We receive him the moment we come to Christ.
You’ve had the power of God residing in you from the very moment you trusted Christ.
He will give you the boldness you need and the words to say, if we would just be obedient to the mission.
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
Church, Acts 1:8 is a command of Christ not a suggestion and when we get busy obeying Christ command to be his witnesses, to everyone, everywhere, he blesses the effort.
The beautiful thing about the Lord’s command, is that he always gives us the power to obey them. If you are a believer this morning, you have the Spirit of God residing in you. He’s a constant power source that equips you to be about his mission.
As your pastor, I understand that the task of reaching the world is monumental. I also understand that the task to do so has been given to us and we have a plan for you and I to reach the world. Id like to share it with you in the few moments I have left:
To the end of the earth- We have strategically partnered with organizations like CORE and OTAN through men like Nate Beil, Jacob Cooper and Al Doomy to reach unreached people groups with the gospel. This partnership relies on our designated offerings to missions through something we call “Faith promise giving.” That is something where we as individuals/families pray and ask God to burden our hearts with an amount that we pledge to give through the church specially designated for missions. be it weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or annually. We add up those pledges and set our monthly missions giving according to those pledges. Yes, that takes faith. It takes faith on your part to trusty God to provide and it takes faith on our part to trust God t provide to you, that you then will give and allow us collectively to give to the missionaries we support.
Judaea and Samaria- Through our partnership with the SBCV a part of what we give to them each month is shared with NAMB, IMB, and 6 Seminaries. In this we have a hand in planting churches all over the state of Virginia as well as all over north America and the world. Darrell Webb will be here on March 5th to tell us more about how we can participate in that mission through things like the Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon special offerings and several other areas of ministry we can participate in.
Our Jerusalem- I’m excited about our partnerships for world, national and state evangelism and ,mission. But, we have a local mission as well. We need to reach Winchester with the gospel. We’re going to do this in a multi-pronged approach.
In our new budget, we are allocating .05% of our offerings each week to be set aside in order to be spread three ways between AbbaCare (getting the gospel to those who are at a crisis point and helping them to choose life), CCAP (providing for food, shelter and clothing in our local community) and Practical missions (helping fund trips, projects etc). All of this is dependent upon the congregations acceptance of the budget next Sunday night. We will discuss this more then.
We have partnered with an organization called “Saturate USA” to equip and mobilize our church to deliver the Gospel to every home in the 22603 zip-code.
Insert Saturate USA video/ then explain how this will work for our church. Including a war map in our lobby.
Friends, we have a monumental mission given to us by Christ to be his witnesses. To our Jerusalem, our Judaea, our Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Would you join with me this morning and commit yourself to the task?