Sermon Tone Analysis

Praise and Prayer

This morning we are continuing in our series on Instructions for the Church, still looking in chapter one of Acts, we have made it through the first five verses, now making our way into verse six through eight.

I had originally planned to go through verse eleven, but then I started studying and my notes started pilling up, there is a lot just for verse eight.

We have seen that Luke wrote the book of Acts as a continuation or a second part of the Gospel of Luke, in the Gospel of Luke it was about the things Jesus did and taught, now he is writing about the instructions to the disciples from Jesus that he gave with the power of the Holy Spirit.

This all took place after Jesus suffered, died, and rose from the dead, Jesus had appeared to them during his forty days between his resurrection and ascension to given them convincing proof that He had rose from the dead.

He also spoke to them about the Kingdom of God, and about the promise of the Father, also that they would be baptized by the Holy Spirit.

Which brings us to our text this morning, therefore, if you are able, would you stand with me in honor of the reading of the Word of God.

pray

I.

When is the Kingdom of God Vs. 6-7

When they had come together, the apostles, and Jesus, probable some of the other faithful disciples - those that had been following Jesus during his ministry were together in one place, in one area at one time.

We know that Jesus had a pretty good sized following as we see him send out seventy-two followers by two to go to every town and place.

Therefore, we know that Jesus had many that faithfully had followed him during his ministry, because he had trained and trusted these seventy-two enough to send them out before himself, to prepare the the cities for his ministry.

The apostles, and followers are all together, and they ask Jesus, Lord, are you restoring the Kingdom to Israel at this time?

All through the Old Testament it is prophesied about the Messiah setting up the throne of David, now it does not speak of the timing, but it speaks about the Kingdom of Israel being restored.

The apostles were expecting Jesus to set up the earthly kingdom that they believe the Messiah would set up, he did not do it before his crucifixion, but now he has been resurrected, back in v. 3 Jesus mentioned the Kingdom of God, now they are asking if he was going to restore the kingdom of Israel.

Even the Pharisees had asked Jesus about the Kingdom of God in Luke 17:20-23

The kingdom of God is not coming with something observable - the kingdom of God is where God rules in the hearts of those He has saved.

You will not see it - it is not visible to the human eyes, it would come quietly, invisible, and without the normal pomp and splendor associated with the arrival of a king.

Jesus did not deny that a earthly kingdom would be set up, there will be a literal kingdom, a literal earthly reign - it is what we call the millennial reign.

They were right as to the truth of it.

They were wrong as to the time of it.

This calls us to vigilance and anticipation.

It serves as an incentive for holy living.

It calls for living with urgency and ministering with passion.

Jesus said, it is not for us to know times - which is duration of a period.

He then said, period or some translations say seasons - which is marked by certain features.

We do not know about the time, when Jesus will, establish His kingdom, but we do know that He will.

Since the season of His coming cannot be known, and the Lord could return at any moment, we believers must be continually ready.

We must be Alert!!!

II.

The Power V. 8

Jesus in the same breath from v. 7 to v. 8 changes gears and in a big direction, He goes from the end of times if you will, from the millennial reign to His last words before He ascends to heaven, telling all His followers to go to the end of the earth.

So many times we get engaged in debate over things like when is the coming of the Kingdom of God, when will Jesus return, what is the proper form of baptism, what about speaking in tongues, when Jesus commanded us to go forth and make disciples and be a witness of his.

I have heard pastors and professors both say if the hill is not Calvary then it is not worth dying on.

Another words - if it is not - that Jesus is the one and only way to salvation and there is no other way.

Then let’s agree to disagree and go out and share the gospel message.

We to often get bogged down in debates with other believers about doctrine, instead of working together to reach the lost.

We must focus on the work at hand.

Jesus said, you - that is His followers, the apostles, and disciples but also all believers from that moment until the moment he returns for His followers.

He continues, will receive - for those that day it was future tense, for us today - as we seen last week, in Ephesians 1:13-14

We receive it at moment of conversion, when we get saved.

Jesus tells us we will receive power - the Greek word for power there is dynamis - which is where we get the word dynamite from.

The Holy Spirit gives us divine power.

Why do we need this kind of power?

Because, without it we will find ourselves in our homes behind locked doors, instead of engaging our culture without the power.

Jesus tells us there in John that we would do greater works - not in power, but in extent; Jesus never traveled over 200 miles from his home.

He is now promising resources to engage our neighbors and the nations.

We are to be conduits or channels, not reservoirs or holding tanks.

Where do we get this power, Jesus said, we will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you.

Jesus spoke multiple times about the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is with us and in us.

Jesus said here that it is our benefit that he goes to heaven and that we receive the Holy Spirit, if he remained on the earth, we would not have received the Holy Spirit.

But with the Holy Spirit we received the power, the dynamite to go forth and make disciples.

Jesus continues in verse 8 of our text, The Holy Spirit has come on you - the reason the Holy Spirit comes on us is to empower and expand the kingdom of God.

That is so that we as born-again-believers have the power from the Holy Spirit to go forth and be witnesses and make disciples.

Jesus continues with, and you will be my witnesses - a witness sees something and tells others about it.

The apostles, and those that were with Jesus during His earthly ministry, and had seen him after his resurrection, could be witnesses to his resurrection, but we today, did not eye witness his resurrection, I did not see with my eyes Jesus after his resurrection.

But I can be a witness of Jesus, because I have experienced him in my life, I can witness to the fact that He is alive and that there is power in the name of Jesus, because I have witnessed it in my life.

I have witnessed his miracles in my personal life, things that I cannot explain, but know it is the power of God Almighty.

We are to be witnesses of these things, I have heard people say, well I do not have a testimony, let me say if you are a born-again-believer, you have a testimony.

Because before Jesus you were headed down a road that was leading to Hell’s torment and damnation, but one day Jesus came along, he may have sent someone, he may have used a song, a sermon, a story, but Jesus through the Holy Spirit, brought you to salvation.

He saved you from that torment of Hell’s damnation.

Therefore, you have that to testify about, to witness about.

Tell your Jesus story.

Acts 1:8 speaks of the irresistible march of Christianity.

This is the Great Commission.

That was and is the mission for the church until Jesus comes.

Jesus then list places he wanted the apostles and followers to go and be witnesses to go once they had received the power from the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said, in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

- this is the Lord’s master plan for world evangelism.

V. 8 has been referred to as an index to the book of Acts.

To see this unfinished task finished, ordinary people will have to be able to do extraordinary things because the Spirit of God is at work in our lives.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is not a luxury; it is an absolute necessity.

Let’s look at the specific places a little closer:

Jerusalem - was the apostles own community; this was neighbors, family, friends, people all around them.

For us this would be Citrus County, Inglis, Dunnellon, our surrounding areas.

Judea - this was their own country; same language, customs, culture, etc.

For us this is the United States.

Samaria - this would be considered their own continent; it represented the foreign culture with which they were most familiar because it was the one closest to them.

The Jews had deep-seated racial and religious prejudices against the Samaritans.

None of the twelve would go so God sent Philip, a deacon.

For us this would be, Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean Islands.

The end of the earth - Matthew 28:19-20

Last week I shared some numbers from the International Mission Board, about the unengaged and unreached people groups, I want to hit on that a little more and go a little deeper, according to some more research, there is more than 11,000 people groups in the world, and there are 3,105 Un-engaged un-reached People groups in the world, that is people groups where there are no Christian activity near them at all.

Then there is 7,283 un-reached people groups in the world, these are people groups with less than 2% of active Christian activity in their area.

With some of these groups having over 100,000 people in population.

This got me to thinking about how many languages the Bible is translated into, so I did some research, this is what I came up with, there is 7,378 known languages in the world, the Bible has been translated fully into 717 languages, and the New Testament has been additional translated into 1,582 languages.

They estimate that there is over 350 million people that still have no portion, that is any Scripture at all available in their language.

Well I went a little further with my research, I found that there is supposedly 7.9 billion people on planet earth, and then I research how many are counted or considered Christians, protestants - I found that it can be between 34 and 40% and so I did some google math and figured that would put us say some where around 62 to say 64% of the people are lost which gives us a number of roughly 5 billion, that is billion with a B.

Let’s bring it a little closer to home the United States supposedly has a population of 332 million people with a estimated 48% protestant Christians - which gives us 175 million unbelievers to 157 believers.

There are supposedly 350 million churches in the United States, which they say, 80% of are plateaued or declining.

Of the 350 million there are 51,133 that are Southern Baptist, with a membership of those Southern Baptist churches of 14 million as of 2020.

Let’s really narrow this down, Citrus county has a population of 155,582 people with an estimated 30% protestant Christians.

That gives us 70% of our counties population is lost according to my research, which gives us 108,907 people in Citrus County that are lost and dying and going to hell.

To take it even closer, I have a survey from 2016, that shows a study of a five mile radius of our church, which in 2016, there was 10,173 people in that five mile radius, I believe that number probably has grown pretty good since 2016, but if we go off our County estimate of protestant Christians, maybe bump it up to 40% for our area just for the heck of it.

That would say we have 60% unbelievers in our area, that is saying that there are 6,103 people that are lost with in five miles of our church.

That is people right here in our back yard, that is people that God has place in our area for us to minister too, for us to reach, to share the Gospel message too.

Now I do not know how accurate these numbers are, as the ones for our area are from 2016 they very well could be higher, a lot higher, and then I think of what Jesus says in Matthew 7:21-23

This got me to think, that there are a lot of people that say they believe in God, that they go to church, but as Jesus said, not everyone who says Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven.