Power Up
The Acts of the Apostles • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction
Introduction
As a Spirit-filled church, a study of the book of Acts should be something that we do annually. In fact, Spirit-filled or not, the Book of Acts is absolutely critical to understand as a church because of what the purpose of the book is.
Acts is about the ministry of Jesus being continued by the Church- Literally the physical body through which the Gospel was spread. What God began in the person of Jesus, the church took over and expanded.
Let’s take a look at the prologue together.
The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, 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, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
This Gospel was written by Dr. Luke- a physician in Jesus time. It is written to someone called Theophilus wish translated means “lover of God”. We don’t know if this is a real person or if perhaps Luke was just writing it to any lover of the truth that would come along. I tend to think it was written to a specific person, but that the use of the name Theophilus is used to protect the identity of the person to whom it is written. It was not written in a common Greek, but rather a high Greek which suggests that it was written to a learned individual. So we can guess that this is a continuation of an account being written to someone of some position in Rome.
Verse two makes clear that his previous book (The Gospel According to Luke) was only the beginning of the things Jesus did while He was on earth and Acts is the continuation. Luke makes a clear delineation that his first book was about the stuff Jesus did up until the time he was taken up, and after He had given His last commandments to the disciples. It is significant because Luke is laying out the case that what Jesus told His disciples after his resurrection was of particular importance because it was backed up by what Luke calls “many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”
So for 40 days, Jesus stayed with the disciples giving them last minute instructions, laying out a foundation for the kingdom. Very important things yes? Funny thing, as important as Luke says these things were, we don’t have much of it recorded. You would think that God would give us a clue. Well the fact of the matter is- He did!
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; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
We may not have had a full compilation of all of Jesus teachings, but the most important one of all is recorded here.
Jesus tells the disciples that they are to remain in Jerusalem to wait for the Promise of God. They understood the concept of baptism. They had all seen John baptizing people. The word baptism is βαπτίζω (baptizo) which means a ritualistic washing. So if one is baptized (made ceremonially clean) by water, how much cleaner will someone be that is cleansed with the Holy Spirit? But just how clean does this imply? The root form of the word means to make fully wet. So what the implication here is that we are not to just want a little bit of Holy Spirit, rather that we be soaked in the Spirit of God. Now, there have been arguments back and forth as to the actual form for water baptism- immersion versus sprinkling. While we don’t know for sure which it is, I can tell you that the only way to become fully wet through sprinkling would be to sit in the splash zone at Sea World and let Shamu sprinkle you! It is clear that Jesus’ intent was that we be fully immersed in the Holy Spirit.
Look exactly at what Jesus tells them to do:
Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 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.”
They were very much like we are. We often start chasing the inconsequential things about the kingdom. They want to make sure their eschatology is in order. But Jesus tells them, “no, look it’s not about that. Listen to me, I’m trying to tell you that you need to have the authority of the Father on you. You need the power of the Holy Spirit in order to do what I’ve called you to do.” Jack Hayford sums it up this way:
The power for effective witness that shakes the world comes from the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit in Acts 2. Jesus would never have assigned the church a task it could not do; and it is impossible to convert a pagan world with human energy, strategy, and power. Evangelism by a Holy Spirit-filled church involved in local, regional, and global mission is God’s plan to reach the world.[1]
With that in mind, it is pretty clear that Jesus thought the baptism in the Holy Spirit was crucial. They were not to go out and try to take the world by storm based on the head knowledge they had learned. Even if they had the right heart they wouldn’t be able to take the world.
So he answered and said to me:
“This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel:
‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’
Says the Lord of hosts.
So only by the Spirit of God was the church going to be able to go forth and do that to which God had called her.
Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”
So after Jesus gave them their instructions, He gets taken up into heaven. The law recognizes a deathbed testimony as being one of the only exceptions to the prohibition against “hearsay testimony”. In other words, the last words of a dying person are considered sacred. While Jesus wasn’t dying they were His last words. The last words of someone leaving are always weighty. It’s as if they’re making sure to leave you with the most important though last- to make sure you won’t forget it.
But God, in His very get-to-work nature makes sure that the final focus of the apostles wasn’t just gazing up looking heavenward pining for Christ’s return. The angels appear to them almost as if to say, “all right, there’s nothing more to see here, it’s time to get to work.”
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey. And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying: Peter, James, John, and Andrew; Philip and Thomas; Bartholomew and Matthew; James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot; and Judas the son of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.
The disciples did the only thing they knew to do. I remember when I was a little boy, my mom liked to shop at K-Mart. Well as much as she loved shopping at K-Mart, I hated the stuff she liked to shop for. Like any kid, I liked shopping for toys she once told me that if I ever got lost, to find someone in the store and they would make sure to get a hold of her. Well, that ended up proving to be the source of future embarrassment, because after I’d spent a while looking at toys, it dawned on my that my mother hadn’t surfaced to tell me my time looking at toys was up, so I’d go to the last place she was to see if I could find her. Of course, when she wasn’t there, panic would set in, so after finding the first store employee I could, and being taken to the famous blue light, my mom would hear over the store’s speaker system. “Would Irma Gonzalez please come pick up your son from customer service please?” It was her fault, those are the instructions she gave me. Jesus basically did the same thing for His disciples:
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;
So, Jerusalem was to be their K-Mart blue light and they were to wait there. And boy did God respond to that call.
When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
The Day of Pentecost was known as the “Feast of Weeks” and it was one of the three religious festivals that all Jews were required to attend each year.
“And you shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end.
“Three times in the year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the Lord God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
If you recall, Jesus was crucified on the Passover as a final atonement for sin was to be offered. Pentecost essentially a celebration of the harvest. What happens next is very fitting.
First, this incredible manifestation of a move of God breaks out. Many have incorrectly claimed that the Gifts of the Spirit were only for the apostles, but if we look at this account, it is clear that all 120 disciples received the gift of tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Just like that, an unscheduled revival meeting.
And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?”
Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.”
Do you see what is happening here? There is a genuine harvest happening. How fitting is it that this occurs on the day of Pentecost. This is also the antithesis for something that happened back in the Old Testament. Go there with me.
Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
In the Old Testament, God scatters the people because of their pride. He came down and confused their language! Ecclesiastes says”
A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
Did you catch that bit about the stones? well now read this:
if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Whoa! What is the significance? Why on the one hand would God scatter people that want to walk in unity and on the other gather together others to walk in unity?
Look, in all ways God is saying the work of the Gospel is not to be done by your own strength, it is only to be done by the Spirit of God. We cannot hope to have any kind of ability to even live a normal life except by the baptism of the Holy Ghost!
Conclusion
Conclusion
We have opened up the book of Acts and already have seen how God orchestrated the birth of the Church. We’ve seen it come into the world and have seen God fulfill the prophecies concerning it. We are the descendants and heirs to that heritage. This is the story of how we have come into being. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God has changed His mind about any of this. We are still operating under those instructions from Jesus: “Stay put until I fill you with power!”
Today I want to invite you to experience this power. God has made provision for His kids to live like they are supposed to. but for some reason, everyone seems to think that his blessing is a one-time thing, one and done. It isn’t we should be eager to experience the infilling with this precious gift from God each and every day.