In this special Pentecost Sunday sermon, Pastor Daniel preaches from Acts 1:4-8 on the gift of the Holy Spirit given for powerful missions.
Spirit-Empowered Missions
Acts 1:4-8
Exegetical Main Point: Jesus promised power for witness and gave power for witness in the sending of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
Main Point of the Sermon: Seek the God who gives his Spirit for powerful and effective mission to the ends of the earth.
Introduction
I praise God for my parents faithful example to me throughout my life. Even now, the things that make their eyes light up and puts fire in their souls are the things of the Lord. During their recent visit they were sharing stories of faithful and godly men and women of the past whom God used extraordinarily for great revivals.
This conversation stirred my heart so I found a book of mine which documents some of these stories.
As I read I was struck by a common theme: these men and women were very ordinary people, like Jeremiah Lamphier, a Wall Street businessman in the 1850’s who’s little prayer meeting with fellow businessmen in New York turned into a daily meeting of over 10,000 faithful praying men and women. It sparked many more prayer meetings like it in other cities, and a nationwide revival with stunning results.
In his book A God-Sized Vision Collin Hansen records the events that followed in those years of revival. I’ll be quoting largely from it.
“In Boston…police officers jaded by violence and strife were shocked to see an outbreak of joy and goodwill among the uneducated and poor, black and white together.” Similarly, in Philadelphia, where prayer meetings were reaching 3000 attendees daily, “firefighters notorious for brawling with one another opened their halls to evangelists.” Denominations that didn’t often get along collaborated and participated in the revival, even sharing pulpits to demonstrate the core truths they were united around. Conversion stories poured in from every city. In each city, town halls, public squares, and churches were flooded with people.
The Chicago Daily Press reported “the prominent topic of thought and conversation…in our streets, in our places of business and in our homes [is] the subject of the religious awakening….It is upon the lips of Christians and of unbelievers.”
College campuses, likewise, erupted with revival leading to the unlikely conversions of intellectuals like Lottie Moon - after whom the Southern Baptist Missionary offering is named. Moon would go on to lead hundreds to the Lord as a missionary in China where she would spend her entire life. Her story has inspired many women towards missions.
The revival of 1857 and 58 brought reports from around the globe of its effects on society like this one: “The penitent owners of gambling saloons made them available for daily prayer meetings; southern grocery keepers rolled out their barrels, poured their contents on the ground and ‘abandoned the traffic [of alcohol]’; the chief of police in Atlanta, Georgia, maintained that the revival had so reduced the rate of crime that he could dispense with half his force; in the fourth ward of New York City many ‘haunts of sin and shame’ were shut up and ‘hundreds’ of prostitutes allegedly ‘rescued’” (God-sized Vision, 80-93).
These people and these stories are examples to us that God is still in the business of taking ordinary men and women who are hungry for him and using them to do the very things he did while walking on earth.
What set people like Lamphier and Moon apart? How can we see revival like this in our city and nation in our time?
The answer I read in these stories is the same pattern we see in God’s Word:
We must seek the God who gives his Spirit for powerful and effective mission.
Today I want to show you this pattern in the book of Acts. We’ll see:
GOD:
Jesus promised power for mission
The disciples prayed for power
Jesus gave the Spirit for power
Jesus promised power for missionThe book of Acts is the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, written by Paul’s companion and medical doctor, Luke. While Luke’s Gospel focused on what Jesus’s kingdom was like, the “Acts of the Apostles”, or the “Acts of the Holy Spirit,” as some have named the book, he shows how Jesus’s kingdom advanced after he ascended.
Right at the beginning of the book in 1:3, Luke tells us that the Kingdom of God was Jesus’s primary teaching topic during the forty days between his resurrection and ascension. It says that Jesus was “speaking about the kingdom of God.”
So it makes sense why this topic was prominent on the disciples’ minds. Verse 6 tells us that they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
That seems like a good question, doesn’t it? They had seen Jesus’s miracles, death, burial, and resurrection. So, now was the time for him to take the throne and begin to rule in Jerusalem, right?
Well, not quite. There was still another step in God’s plan of redemption that the disciples didn’t understand, which verses 4-5 begin to unfold.
4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
Yes, Jesus was king. Yes, he promised that he would one day reign on his throne with power, but the next step was for the disciples to… “wait”?
Wait?! What’s to wait for?!
The promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit.
You see, the Father had made a promise through the prophets, which Jesus describes here as a baptism. Not a water baptism like John’s, but a Holy Spirit baptism. The disciples had already been dunked in water symbolizing their repentance and submission to God and his kingdom, but they had not yet received the promised baptism, or indwelling, of the Holy Spirit. They needed to be dunked, as it were, with the Holy Spirit of God.
Where does the Father promise a Spirit baptism in the Scriptures? In many places, but most explicitly in Joel 2, the passage Peter would preach from just after he received that baptism on the day of Pentecost. Peter paraphrases it well in Acts 2:17-18. Flip there if you would.
17 “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
So, why did the disciples need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit? Joel 2 says they will be baptized in order that they might prophesy. This word prophesy sometimes refers to predicting something in the future, but more commonly it is used to refer to those speaking or writing by divine inspiration. In other words, the Father promised to give the Holy Spirit so that all people, men, women, sons and daughters, young and old, even you and me(!), would be empowered to speak a divine message, namely the message that God has come to save the world through Jesus and his kingdom – this is the Gospel we preach, the one message by which men are saved!
The Spirit would be given to “all flesh”, that is every believer, so that not just the prophets and priests, not just pastors and leaders, but that all of God’s people could bear witness to this Good News.
So when the disciples asked about the timing of the kingdom, Jesus taught them this truth that the Spirit must come first so that they could be witnesses. The kingdom would advance in this way. Look again at verse 7:
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 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.”
Simply put, Jesus is saying don’t worry about the end times, focus on the mission I’m calling you to now. You’re going to be my witnesses to the ends of the earth, and you’re going to do it in the power of the Spirit.
You see, even as Jesus was uniquely empowered by the Spirit throughout his ministry, the disciples would receive the same power for theirs.
So Jesus didn’t send them out immediately, but told them to wait. They knew their mission – “Go and make disciples of all nations” – but they needed power. More than any strategy or organization, they needed the power that God promised to give them.
So, in verses 12 and following, we’re told that after Jesus ascended to heaven that the disciples obeyed and went to Jerusalem and waited. But their waiting wasn’t passive. Let’s see what they were doing. This is my second point.
Jesus’s disciples prayed for power
Look at verse 14 with me.
14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Notice two characteristics of this prayer meeting.
One, we’re told they prayed with “one accord”. That is, they were all after the same thing – united hearts.
Two, they were “devoting” themselves to prayer. In other words, this was not a onetime event, but something they did consistently.
This waiting was active. They came together consistently and prayed with fervency and expectancy. Though we don’t know what all they were praying, surely they were asking the Father to fulfill his promise to pour out his Spirit.
And were told that about ten days later, when the day of Pentecost arrived, that while “they were all together in one place” (Acts 2:1), presumably praying together, the Spirit came like a mighty rushing wind and filled the house where they were sitting.
Wow! What an answer to prayer!
Church, there are many things to point out in this great text, but I want to emphasize this point: unitedprayer is the vehicle to great moves of the Spirit.
This is true in Scripture and this is true in history. When God’s people come together consistently and with united hearts eagerly expecting God to work through their faith-filled prayers, he works.
What is it about prayer that moves the heart of God, you may ask? Among other things, it is the posture of dependence. The very act of praying is an admission of our dependence on God, and our dependence on God moves his heart. Where God finds people who know and acknowledge in prayer that they are little help to anyone without God, that the task is far too great, and our abilities far too small – there he finds a people through whom he can work.
Prayer slowly but surely humbles us; it helps us become less and God become great in our eyes. It invites God to reign. And when God reigns in a person’s life they become conduits through which his power can move.
And what is it about united prayer that moves the heart of God? Similarly, when we people unite in prayer there is a shift away from any trust in any one person’s leadership and ability, or even the strength in our numbers, to a humble corporate cry that says, “God, we need you!”
When we draw near to God in dependence, he is able to draw near to us and move in power through us. This move of power is exactly what we see unfold in Acts 2. Let’s see this in the point.
Jesus gave them the Spirit for power 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
These verses record the birth of the church of Jesus Christ. Praise God for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now, we don’t have time to get into all the details of this incredible chapter, but I want to point out a few things.
One, the Spirit came on “all” of them who were there praying. God is no respecter of wealth, status, age, gender, or anything else. God the Father gives the gift of the Holy Spirit to anyone who has faith in Jesus. And what could be a greater emphasis of your value to God than that he would generously give himself completely, intimately, to you and me, ordinary sinners.
Two, we see that everyone who received the Spirit began to speak in other tongues “as the Spirit gave them utterance.” There is a lot more in the Scriptures about speaking in tongues (e.g. 1 Cor 14), but in this case, each one spoke intelligibly in languages not their own “the mighty works of God.” That is, they were empowered beyond their own ability to be a witness.
Three, the disciples were empowered by the Spirit for bold witness. Notice in 2:14 that Peter, standing with the other eleven, the same man who denied Jesus three times just a few weeks earlier and the same men who had deserted Jesus because of fear of the people, now stood together to declare the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ in the face of those who crucified their Lord. There is a noticeable difference in humans when the Spirit of God is present. We are no longer limited by our personalities, weaknesses, or even our particular giftings.
Finally, their preaching brought about conviction and conversion. Verse 37 tells us that when the audience heard this they were “cut to the heart” saying “what shall we do?” And that day “three thousand souls” received Christ and baptism and were added to the church.
The promise had been fulfilled. The disciples prayers were answered and they were given power for witness to the nations.
And the Holy Spirit was that power.
YOU
Perhaps you are hungry to see revival, to see the kingdom advance like this, and you have been asking Jesus similar things to the disciples: when will the kingdom come? Where is the fruit? Where is this power we see in Acts and in the revivals of history?
Church, if the Spirit of God is the power behind the Pentecost revival we just read, and the power behind the great revivals of history, then the same truth applies today, we must seek God who gives his Holy Spirit for power.
We must again confess as a church, it’s not by our strategies, our leaders, our particular giftings, or anything else that we will have power for fruitful witness, but by our trust in the God who is still empowering his people for his mission by the Spirit.
In his writings on revival, the famous Reformed London pastor Martin Lloyd-Jones argued that “every revival is a [kind of] repetition of Pentecost… [he said] it is the greatest need of the Christian Church at this present hour.” (p. 26, A God-sized Vision)
In other words, we need God to pour out his Spirit on us afresh.
Now, before I say more on that, I need to explain an important difference between what happened at Pentecost in Acts 2 and what we are asking for today.
You need to know that we have already been given the Holy Spirit. We don’t need another Pentecost like the one recorded in Acts 2. The promised gift of the Holy Spirit poured out at Pentecost is for everyone who calls on Jesus.
So, if your trust is in Jesus today, not in your own righteousness or good works, but in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection for you, then, know that the Holy Spirit lives in you. The moment you put your faith in Jesus was the moment that you were baptized in the Holy Spirit so that your body becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit!
And not in part, but in whole. If you are in Christ, you cannot have more of the Holy Spirit in the sense that one person is a quarter full and another person is three-quarters full because they’re a little better, etc. No, but you and I have equally been baptized with the same Spirit.
But listen carefully to me. Though all believers have been baptized by the Spirit, we do not all walk in the Spirit’s power equally. *REPEAT*
Many Christians live without knowledge of the Spirit’s presence and without dependence on the Spirit’s power in their lives.
One pastor compared this type of Christian to someone who lives off the grid. They have access to power, but they choose not tap into it.
It’s not that the Spirit never came to them or that he left them, but simply that they do not ONGOINGLY seek God for the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Listen to pastor and president of the Southern Baptist Convention, J.D. Greear, on this point:
“Throughout our lives, we are to be continually re-filled with the Spirit for mission and to walk with God [emphasis mine]. That’s what Ephesians 5:18 tells us. “Be filled [with the Spirit]…[“Be filled”] is a present imperative, meaning literally “be being filled.” Always. Continually.”
Again, I’m not talking about another Pentecost experience. I’m definitely not teaching the Pentecostal doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, where every believer is first saved, but must then must receive a second baptism in the Spirit. No, I believe that is a dangerous teaching that gives the impression that some Christians are varsity and others J.V.
No, but the Scriptures do teach that if we are not seeking and depending on the Spirit of God ONGOINGLY for our mission and for our holiness, but rather slipping in to a self-reliant Christianity, then our mission and our holiness will fall short.
Greear says, “If you are a Christian, you have the Spirit! The question now is, Does He have you?”
I love this question, “Does he have you?” This question gets at the heart of the matter. It’s not only ignorance or lack of dependence that hinders us, but that many of us are filled daily by things other than the Spirit. Are you filled with wine, by a relationship, some dream, or something else, or does the Spirit have you? Are you filled by him consistently.
We see in Acts a people who ongoingly seek God for the Spirit. Turn to Acts 4:29.
We’re told that a little while later, after the disciples had already been given the Spirit, following the release of Peter and John from the officials, a group of disciples “lifted their voices together to God” saying 29 “And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
This was a group sold out for Jesus’s mission. The Spirit had already been given to them. They had already seen signs and wonders and preached the Word boldly, but here they continue to seek God for power, declaring their need for him in face of opposition.
And we’re told the result in verse 31:
31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:29-31).
This looks like another Pentecost! They set their hearts and minds on the Gospel, and appealed to God in dependent prayer, and were met by an outpouring of the Spirit for more powerful and bold witness.
What I believe this text shows us along with many others (e.g. Ac 4:8; 13:9, 52; Eph 5:18) is that Spirit-filled believers should seek God for fresh fillings of his Spirit to empower their mission.
Why? Because we know we are powerless without him.
Again Martin Lloyd-Jones is helpful here. He says,
“…We spend our lives in busy activism, instead of pausing to realize the possibilities, instead of realizing our own failure, and realizing that we are not attracting anyone to Christ, and that they probably see nothing in us that makes them desiring to come to him…”
In other words, we are content with status quo. We are content with not seeing people come to Christ through our ministries, through our witness.
He continues, “The inevitable and constant preliminary to revival has always been a thirst for God, a thirst, a living thirst for a knowledge of the living God, and a longing and a burning desire to see him acting, manifesting himself and his power, rising, and scattering his enemies.” (Lloyd-Jones, Revival, 90-91)
That’s what it looks like for the Holy Spirit to have you. We thirst for God. We crave to see God’s Spirit moving in power. It becomes our greatest longing, and we daily recognize our lack in ourselves and our need for God’s Spirit for power.
Ongoing dependence on the Holy Spirit manifests itself in constant prayers that say, “Father, we need your Spirit for power.” “Father, we want to know you more and see you working through us to make yourself known.” “We want it more than we want our comfort, more than we want our plans, more than we want anything.”
And we remember as we pray, God has already proven his willingness to give his Spirit. It is more about your heart willingness than God’s willingness. Seeking God for the Spirit simply accesses what he has already given by opening our hearts to what God wants to do in and through us.
So, we must seek him. Those who do, the Bible and history has shown, are met by God’s willingness to use ordinary men and women, ordinary churches like ours, in mighty ways.
Missions
We see in 1:8 that Jesus gave the Spirit to empower the disciples first to witness in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. But in the same sentence, we see that he also called them to witness to the ends of the earth. So let’s consider for a moment how our passage connects to global missions.
Jerusalem was the disciples local mission field, moving out also to Judea and Samaria. “The end of the earth” was the global mission. But I want you to see that this mission, near and far, is the same.
Spirit dependent Christians will not only care about the lost in their neighborhoods and cities, they will care about the lost of the nations – even those out of sight and mind. Jesus is the Savior of the world!
Our hope is that as we seek God for his Spirit together, all of us will receive power to witness Jesus to our neighbors, AND that all of us will be eager to send and some of us willing to go to the nations with the Gospel.
We already have a handful of people planning to go from our community, but we pastors are praying for ten or twenty more in the next decade who would be ready and willing to go to the most unreached and unengaged peoples of the world.
For those who are unfamiliar with those terms, Unreached People Groups are those who are statistically below 2% Christian as a whole, and therefore, do not have enough followers of Christ or resources to evangelize their own people (Joshuaproject.net). Another category is unengaged people groups who have no known church planting work happening amongst them. Can you imagine? Living and dying without hearing the Gospel!
We want to be a church of local missionaries who are passionate about sending global missionaries to unreached contexts. Again, this is not a competing goal but complementary.
How is it that God is going to accomplish the promise that people from every tribe and tongue would be amongst his church? Through ordinary people like you and me with Spirit-filled dependence on the God who promises to build his church.
The question is do you want to be a part of it?
The way to be part of it is, first, to surrender your life to Jesus and his Kingdom. Are you following Jesus? Today is the day! Come talk to me. Second, it is to start praying diligently yourself and with others, whether in your MC or DNA’s or your spouse or any other believers, for God to pour out his Spirit on us for powerful mission.
When we do, I believe the Lord is going to lead many of us to more radical hospitality with neighbors, more bold witness to co-workers and friends, to seeing healings and other miracles. And I believe the Lord will lead some more of us to move to uncomfortable and challenging places across the globe for the sake of the Gospel.
Jesus conclusion:
Let me remind you today that the Good News of Jesus is not that you are enough for him in this mission of making disciples, but that he has promised to always be with you, that he will always be enough for you and strengthen you for the mission he has called you to.
