#17 The Spirit of Power for Outreach

I. Introduction
A. One of the wonderful blessings Christ gave us when He came into this world was the gift of the Holy Spirit (HS).
B. We have seen how the HS plays a number of different roles in the life of believer. First we saw His role in bringing us to be born again in the first place. Then we saw His ministry of promoting Jesus Christ in our hearts, then as the sanctifier of the human soul (producing the fruits of the Spirit in us), then as our Helper, our Paraclete, then as the Spirit of adoption, moving us to cry out “Abba, Father” to God. We talked about the indwelling of the HS, and the relationship between God’s Spirit and God’s law. Then we talked about the leading of the HS and the gifts of the HS.
C. Today in our final sermon we will talk about the HS as the Spirit of power for ministry and outreach.
D. Read Acts 1:6–9 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the HS 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.” 9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
E. About 40 days after His crucifixion and resurrection, 10 days before Pentecost, Jesus ascended to heaven in a cloud. But before He left, He instructed His disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the HS to be poured out upon them: “you will receive power when the HS 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.”
II. The HS is the One who empowers us to be witnesses of Christ in the world.
A. It makes sense, doesn’t it? It was the HS who came upon Jesus at His baptism in the Jordan when it was time to begin His public ministry, empowering Him in His witness in the world.
B. The proclamation of the gospel to the ends of the earth is integrally connected with the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost (see also Luke 24:46-49; Gal. 3:14; Acts 2:17, 38-39; 3:25-26).
1. The NT age is both the age of the Spirit and the age of mission. They are very related.
2. The Spirit of Christ moves among the people of Christ to spread the gospel of Christ.
C. The fact is: Christ is too great to be worshiped only by us (Is.49:6). All people must hear about His greatness and His gracious redemption, so that all people might come to worship Him.
1. The good news of how He came in human flesh, of how He died in our place on the cross to set us free from sin, of how He was raised in power on the third day, conquering death itself — this news is too good to keep to ourselves.
D. But even though God has given His people the responsibility to proclaim Him among the nations, we are not competent to do so on our own. God needs to do it through us.
1. So, in giving us the HS, He sends us power from on high to enable us to do what we couldn’t otherwise do.
E. Acts 1:8 “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.”
1. It doesn’t say, “But you will receive power when the HS has come upon you, and some of you will be my witnesses to the end of the earth.”
2. As a church we’ve had the privilege of sending out Melanie, Hannah, Richard & Carol, Michelle & Ben — that’s part of the fulfillment of this verse.
3. But it’s not all. There’s also “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea & Samaria.”
4. The HS does the work of turning people into missionaries. But here’s the thing: It is just some of them. God calls every one of His people to be missionaries wherever He places them. God doesn’t just empower us to enjoy His salvation. He empowers us to spread His salvation.
F. But aren’t there certain people who are gifted to do this?
1. Evangelism is never mentioned as a gift of the HS. Eph.4:11 lists “evangelists” along with apostles, prophets and pastor/teachers.
2. But this is an office, not a gift. There is a lot of evidence to show that this word “evangelist” here is being used as a technical term to refer to an apostolic delegate, and not to a church member who is good at evangelism. Evangelism is a task that belongs to us all.
III. How Does the HS Empower for Ministry? In many ways.
A. He gives us love and compassion for others.
1. John 3:16 God gives us His love for the world.
2. You see, God is the One who grants us, “according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man.” (Ephesians 3:16)
3. So He puts in us an increasingly Christ-like attitude, an attitude that wants to do good, that values others, an attitude that doesn’t just look past people, but recognizes each person as in need of the love of Christ.
4. This attitude causes us, when we come in contact with another person, to not just see him/her as a person who is there to take my money and give me a receipt, or a person who has come to fix something in our house.
5. He teaches us to look at others in the same way Christ looked at others. The HS is the One who puts love in our hearts: love for Christ, love for Christ’s kingdom, love for fellow sinners in need of Christ.
6. And there is power in love — love will drive you to do things that could never have been done otherwise.
7. The HS gives us an open-hearted, welcoming attitude toward people we don’t know.
8. 2Cor.5:16 talks about viewing others according to Christ, not according to the flesh, i.e. seeing them as fellow sinners in need of Christ, as creatures made in the image of God.
9. The first step of reaching others is getting to know them.
a. It involves getting to know who our neighbors are, our work associates, our classmates.
b. Jesus adapted His approach to who He was dealing with.
c. Paul’s sermons in the Bok of Acts were clearly adapted to his audience.
d. They first got to know their audience.
(1) Then they have some rapport with people so they will listen.
(2) And then they knew how to approach them with the Truth.
B. But not only does the HS give us love for others, He helps us not to fear men, which is one of our greatest obstacles in spreading the word of Christ.
1. “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a Spirit of power and love and discipline.” (2Tim.1:7)
C. There’s one more way the Spirit empowers us in outreach that I’d like to mention: He gives us hope.
1. 1Peter 3:15 “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.”
2. Where does that hope come from? Romans 15:13 answers that question: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
IV. Weakness and Boldness
A. This is what the HS can do in us. This is what they HS wants to do in us. But this is often not the way we are. We don’t feel very bold. Sometimes we don’t feel very loving.
B. But the Scriptures give us encouragement when it comes to this. It tells us we can pray.
1. Acts 4:29 records the prayer of a group of God’s people after Peter was delivered from prison by the angel: “And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence.” The answer comes in v.31: “And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak the word of God with boldness.”
a. This story is here to encourage us about what can happen when we pray.
b. The authorities were just about to execute Peter for preaching the gospel. Now he had been sprung from prison. Did they expect the authorities to give up? No, they knew the authorities would come back with a vengeance. It was enough to send a chill down their spine. They were tempted to run and hide. They were tempted to wilt in the face of the threats.
c. Instead they prayed for boldness. They knew they should be bold but they didn’t feel bold. They felt weak. It was because they felt so weak that they prayed for boldness.
d. Likewise we pray for boldness because boldness isn’t in us. Boldness comes from the HS working in our hearts.
2. I find this story so encouraging! We don’t have to just sit around feeling guilty for being timid.
a. We can pray! God calls us to pray boldly for boldness.
C. In Eph.6:19-20 Paul requests prayer from the Ephesians: “Pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”
1. We see clearly again here that even those who are filled with the Spirit still have a sense of weakness and timidity which they feel within them.
2. But here we see that they must resist that timidity by pleading with God to give them the strength to be bold.
D. However, the HS doesn't necessarily change the way we feel. Sometimes He only changes the inner determination we have to do what God wants — irrespective of how we feel. We can’t just wait until we feel strong.
1. This isn’t the power of feeling strong. Sometimes it is the power of feeling weak.
2. God’s power is made perfect in our weakness (2Cor.12:9).
3. Paul begged his friends to pray for boldness. This is where it must start. We must pray for revival in our souls and ask our friends to pray for us as well.
4. Please pray for revival in my own life. I want to be like this. And I hope you do too. We need lots more prayers that God would fill us with His Spirit of bold and loving outreach.
E. Acts 8:1-4 is a marvelous example of HS power in spite of human weakness: “...on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles... Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house; and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison. Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.”
1. This is an amazing story. Think about what these people were going through. They had left jobs and homes, they had grabbed only a few things before they left town. And now they were displaced, homeless, without provisions.
2. And yet, amazingly, as they scattered, they preached the gospel.
3. They weren’t all caught up in worrying about worldly things like what to eat and where to stay.
4. And even though they were in great need, they were able to be concerned about others.
5. Picture this scene: A few Christian families come into a town, fleeing from persecution. The people of the town have houses, they have jobs, they have food to eat.
a. Do the Christians think of themselves as the needy ones? No, they recognize that it is the people who have homes and jobs and food that are the needy ones. Why? Because they’re without Christ.
6. The fact that they were fleeing persecution also gave them a hearing that they could never have had otherwise. It seems obvious that part of the openness of these hearers was because they were impressed by the Christians who were bold and joyful in spite of being hated and hunted and homeless.
7. If they had not accepted the persecution as from God, if they had just felt sorry for themselves, they would never have been able to take advantage of this opportunity to plant churches and proclaim the gospel.
8. If we were in those circumstances, wouldn’t our first inclination be to get discouraged by the displacement and the stress of fear and persecution?
9. What a ministry we can have through interpreting troubles as divine opportunities to testify to those who otherwise we would never had contact with and who would have been much less willing to listen!
10. What a precious story God has given us! And how we need to hear it.
V. Conclusion
A. As we come to the end of this series on the Helper Jesus sent, it’s understandable that we’re not bold, or that we’re not very loving, or hopeful, or spiritually hungry. But what sense does it make if we don’t fervently pray for these things?
B. And so we end this series where we began, with Jesus saying, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” (Luke 11:13)