In the Spirit’s Power

Acts 1: 1 – 11

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 25 May, 2008

GOD’S PEOPLE must be in mission. Matthew emphasises discipling. Mark emphasises preaching. Luke emphasises empowerment. John emphasises caring. But it is all mission.

Luke tells us, then he tells us again. In Acts, he details what he outlined in his gospel. It’s a message of empowered mission. It‘s a message of unstoppable mission. It’s about ever-growing influence, about a mission which doesn’t end until it covers the whole world.

In the gospel, Jesus tells his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they are clothed in power from on high.

In Acts, Jesus tells them that this power is Holy Spirit power. It’s a power that will drive them out through their own town, through the surrounding region and across the world.

This is the end of May, the end of Missions Month for NSW Baptists. But this is definitely only at the beginning of mission for Silver Street Baptist Mission.

We talk about mission: how much do we do? We are born again, but where is that Holy Spirit power to go out in mission? Are we still living between Easter and Pentecost?

Jesus tells his disciples,

You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

He tells them about power from the Holy Spirit, about being witnesses and about reaching their world.

This message is still vital for us today.

You shall receive power

One of the most lacking things in mainstream Christianity today is outreach power.

We are good at caring. We are good at studying our Bibles. We are good at organising. But we are abysmally bad at reaching a needy world.

False religions are filling the gaps we leave. Mormonism, Islam, Scientology --— they have a program which looks like the kind of thing you would expect from God. But it is not. God’s Spirit — the Spirit of Jesus — is not in it.

A recent UK report claimed that practicing Muslims will outnumber practicing Christians in that country within about 12 years. The research methodology was flawed, but the general thrust is true. In England, Islam is growing and Christianity is stagnant or contracting. How about Australia?

Our task is to preach the gospel, not to combat other religions. But, if we are not clearly engaged in mission, what can we expect?

The answer is Holy Spirit power.

There are outbreaks of revival around the world, and it is exciting to hear of. them. But where is it in Australia? Do we really long for revival in our land?

Before I really start today, I want to remind you about three things.

First, if you are a born again Christian, you already have the Holy Spirit because

...if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ

Second, if you have the Holy Spirit and he infills you, then that must be evident to others, or else it is not real

Third, if there is no evidence of the Holy Spirit in your life, you have to face the possibility that you are not really born again yet.

I know these are tough sayings, but let’s be realistic.

I said that if you have the Spirit and he infills you, then that must be evident to others. That is really to do with the power that Jesus promises. There should be visible evidence of Holy Spirit power in your life and in mine.

Our Pentecostal brothers and sisters say that the first evidence is power to speak in tongues. That is true for many. However, Paul asks whether all speak in tongues, and he clearly implies that not all do.

But there are other very clear evidences as well.

Some have power to evangelise.

Some have power to heal

Some have power to administer

Some have power to teach or to give valuable insights.

There are all kinds of spiritual gifts, and the Spirit of God gives them so that we have power for service.

What spiritual gift are you manifesting?

When you are born again, God delivers you from the dominion of darkness — from the realm where Satan rules — and transfers you into the kingdom of his beloved son, Jesus.

The only way we can be part of that Kingdom, the only way to be born again, is faith.

But the Kingdom also joins itself to you and me in a double–pronged way.

We are linked upwards by faith alone. The Kingdom is linked downwards to us by the fruit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit reproduces the character and the ministry of Jesus in you and me.

So, in any genuine encounter with the Holy Spirit, you and I will be becoming more Christ–like. That is what holiness means.

Also, in any genuine encounter with the Holy Spirit, you and I must begin manifesting the kind of ministry Jesus performed, because it is his Spirit within us.

That is an incredible truth. It sounds impossible, but it is the experience of men and women throughout history.

And that means that, if these things are not happening in your life or mine, either our spiritual lives are in a great mess or they never existed, and we have been fooling ourselves all along.

It’s that simple.

You shall be witnesses.

The second point Jesus makes is that the purpose of this work of the Holy Spirit is that you and I should be witnesses to him.

When I worked as a Town Planner I was often a witness in court cases.

We had an appeal in the Land and Environment Court from a chap whose application to run a commercial plant nursery from his yard in suburban Guildford was refused. Council had clear evidence that his operations already caused great problems to the neighbours.

He based his application on an interesting point of law. I wrote an argument against that point so that the Council would not feel bound to approve the application. My report became part of the documentation handed to the court.

Our barrister asked, “Who wrote this opinion?”

I told him, “I did.”

“You are not a barrister,” he said. “You don’t write legal opinions. You are here as an expert witness. It is your job to tell the Court what you, as a qualified Town Planner, have observed, about what impact this proposal has on the area. However, it is a good legal argument, and I will use it.”

That put me in my place.

I was there to tell my experience.

And in the Court of this world, you and I are Christian witnesses. First and foremost, our task is to tell what we have experienced of Jesus.

You might be the greatest theologian in the world, but your primary task is not to lecture people about theology, but to declare Jesus as you have experienced him.

The great theologian, Karl Barth, in many ways restored the place of the Bible in German theology.

A reporter once asked him what was his greatest theological discovery or insight.

Barth replied, “It is this: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

That’s witness. Everything else is just filling in the details.

There has been an outbreak of what looks like revival in Lakeland in Florida over the past couple of months. It is spreading because people are telling the good things that the Lord has done for them.

That’s the secret of being a witness.

Making disciples may need a move into deeper theology, but evangelising starts with declaring our knowledge of Jesus.

And that knowledge of Jesus comes from the work of the Holy Spirit within us. He brings to our mind all the things Jesus did and taught. That‘s his role.

A woman I once worked with had a new experience of the Holy Spirit. She had been a Christian for many years, but involved in a very conservative church, one that defined itself more by what it didn’t do and didn’t believe than by anything it did do or believe.

She left them and moved to the mainstream Church of Christ,

And they introduced her to the Holy Spirit, much as I am trying to do today.

The change was tremendous. One fellow I worked with said, “What’s happened to Fay? Is she taking happy pills?” Everyone knew that something good had happened. And she kept wanting to talk about Jesus, about how her life had changed, about how she felt that she was truly loved by God rather than constantly striving to please him the way she used to be.

That is what the work of the Holy Spirit is like.

When the Spirit comes on us, we want to be witnesses.

You shall touch the world

The final part of Jesus’ message is a message of reaching the world.

As a Town Planner, I have a geographical background. One of the first things I think about is, “Where”?

About five years ago, the Baptist Union wanted to close down Marrickville Church. They decided that we were little and old and the money could be used elsewhere.

All they thought was, “We need money, and that is a way to get money.”

I got a map, and plotted where the Baptist Churches were. I drew a 1km circle around each one.

Marrickville, Petersham, Dulwich Hill, Earlwood: we all pretty–well overlapped. But there was a vast triangular area without any Baptist witness. There is hardly even any evangelical involvement there.

I called it The Devil’s Triangle. I said, “God’s people have handed this area to the devil.” I looked at the problem geographically and spiritually, not financially. I said, “If you close churches like Marrickville, you abandon the front line in the battle against satan.”

They left us alone.

Jesus gave his disciples a geographical model for their outreach, and it embodies a principle that applies everywhere.

He told them, “Start in Jerusalem, spread out through Judaea, move into Samaria, and keep going until you cover the entire world.”

Applying that principle to us, we start where we are and spread out to the surrounding districts. It’s based on outreach and growth. The more you grow, the more you spread.

We had a financial crisis here. We were putting more money into overseas mission than we were into local efforts. And this pattern was how God showed us the way to turn our giving patterns around.

Have we Evangelicals sometimes been misled by preachers and teachers who say that supporting overseas missions is a formula for local growth? It is not. If we give overseas, if we evangelise overseas, and don’t build strongly at our core, eventually we have no more resources to put into the outreach, and we die, and they die.

But if we start where we are with what we have, and grow strongly; if we grow strongly with the aim of reaching out further and further, our local mission will grow, and remote mission will grow, too. Both will be healthy.

Furthermore, the areas of remote mission we reach out to will ultimately each become a station for further outreach beyond itself.

But what is the secret of all this? What is the core issue today?

It is so simple. The expansion of mission and the scope of mission are directly tied to the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst.

When the Holy Spirit directs our outreach, then our outreach will follow the Bible’s patterns. When the Holy Spirit directs our outreach according to the Bible’s patterns, God will be glorified. And when God is glorified through Holy Spirit–directed, Biblically–patterned outreach, the world will be changed.

It is all about Holy Spirit–empowered, Holy Spirit–directed witness. It is about witness which starts right where we are. It is about witness which spreads further and further until it fills the whole earth with God’s glory!

Conclusion

We have to make some choices as a church.

God has placed us here, to be a mission to the people of our location. He plans for us to do good, to heal, to transform men and women everywhere.

We have tested his power in a few instances of healing. We have tested his power many times over finances. We have tested his power in just enabling us to survive when we thought we should have shut down 26 years ago.

But we have not tested his power for reviving our church, we have not tested his power for bringing many to conversion, we have not tested his power to change lives for good.

In other words, we have put a lot more effort into seeking God’s power for our own blessing than we have put into seeking his power to bless others through us.

It is time to change.

God was speaking to us last week. Perhaps we are already in a process of change. Can revival be far away?

There are still several things for us to do.

First, we have to remember what we have been.

Do you remember this as a healthy, thriving church? It had its faults, of course. But it was basically OK. Maybe you experienced that in some other church. Remember what can be, and desire to have it again, only even better!

Next, we have to repent. That means humbling ourselves and acknowledging Jesus as Lord. It means praying. It means determining to seek God’s face.

The third thing is to do the things we used to do. I don’t mean, “Set up a new Girls Brigade Group; restart the Men’s Morning Meeting that Ivy Whitley’s dad used to attend 70 years ago.” I do mean, care for the needy in our community. I do mean, evangelise whenever we can. I do mean, find times to be together and to celebrate together as God’s beloved children.

John writes in Revelation,

^{2: 5} Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

We can act to make ourselves ready for an outpouring of the Spirit on our church — or we can wait until our lampstand is removed.

The choice is ours.

Let’s make it a choice for revival!

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2007. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)