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Scripture Reading: Acts 1:8
Empowered to be Witnesses
Intro:
People chase power. Our society is obsessed with power of all
kinds.
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Benjamin Franklin tried to harness power. Electronics,
Gas
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It is all over the news. The upcoming presidential
election boiled down is about one person having the power. Imus
recently misused power on the radio and caused a mess.
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When I was a child He-Man had a sword which he pulled he
stated “By the power of GraySkull, I have the power” and was
transformed from Prince Adam to He-Man.
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In fact many of our entertainment and even some music is
about having power. It is a part of our community. Need some
examples? Star Wars, any police or war show, a lot of rap music,
all the reality TV.
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Christians also have disillusions about power. We can
watch certain programs and see that people promise God’s power
moving on our behalf usually based on our faith or financial
contribution.
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Others in a response to that extreme decides to say that
God doesn’t move in any way like that and even the miracles of
the Bible don’t exist anymore.
Acts 1:8 has a discussion of God’s power and how that is to
influence our life.
Verse Background:
Last week was an Easter week in which we experienced the death
and resurrection of Christ.
From that period Christ remained on earth for 40 days teaching
concerning the kingdom of God. (Acts
1:3)
When He left He instructed them to wait for “what the Father had
promise, which we heard from Him” (Acts
1:4)
The promise was the Holy Spirit (Acts
1:5)
Before Christ leaves we see Him promise once again in Acts 1:8
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon
you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all
Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
Prop: We will engage in a study of how the Holy Spirit
empowers us to be witnesses (Acts 1:8).
I. We will first begin by looking at
Acts 1:8 and discussing one of the main purposes of
power.
The word for power is dunamis – which means potential for
functioning in some way
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Science has two descriptions of power – potential energy
(energy at rest/possible power, potential must be concerted into
kinetic power in order to produce) and kinetic (energy at
work/in motion)
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Energy means power to work/act; force against resistance
The purpose of the Holy Spirit’s gift of power is to be
witnesses unto God.
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I have been in Churches where the Holy Spirit’s power was
lusted after for their own purposes. Is revival for us or for
His glory?
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I wonder how many are willing to have give God
unconditional rights to use them in whatever way.
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Henry Varley who inspired Moody said, “The world has yet
to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who
is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.”
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DL Moody (shoesalesman) The world had yet to see! with
and for through and in! A man! Varley meant any man! Varley
didn’t say he had to be educated, or brilliant, or anything
else! Just a man. Well by the Holy Spirit in him, he’d be one of
those men. And suddenly , in that high gallery, he saw something
he’d never realized before, it was not Mr. Spurgeon after all,
who was doing the work: it was God. And if God could use Mr.
Spurgeon, why should He not use the rest of us, and why
should we not all just lay ourselves at the Master’s feet, and
say to Him, “Send me! use me!”
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The key I suppose is to allow yourself to be used and not
place God in a box to use Him for our own purposes. Voluntary
submission!
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Indeed this power from the Holy Spirit is necessary for
any type of witnessing.
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Charles Finney said “receiving the baptism of the Holy
Spirit is indispensable to ministerial success and the
conversion of soul.” He also stated “Without the direct teaching
of the Holy Spirit, a man will never make much progress in
preaching the Gospel. The fact is, unless he can preach the
Gospel as a real experience, his speculation and theories will
come far short of preaching the Gospel. “
There are numerous ways in which the Holy Spirit empowers us. He
is our Teacher, allows us to do miracles, acts as a Counselor
and Comforter. For the sake of time I will focus on two that
aren’t usually covered by others in connection with being
empowered by the Holy Spirit or for witnessing.
There are usually two sides of a coin when speaking of being
empowered by the Holy Spirit. One group focuses primarily on the
supernatural not allowing God to equip us in practical ways.
Others will deny the supernatural and sometimes make the Bible
the third part of the Trinity and rely on very natural abilities
and skills.
1. The first way the Holy Spirit empowers us for witnessing is
through prayer.
- It is about Divine Relationship, Fellowship with
the Almighty.
- As a prerequisite I am not talking about praying in tongues
although I will not deny that capability.
- I am speaking of all our prayers. The connection between
prayer can be seen in Luke 11:1-13
and the context of this passage is amazing.
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In Luke 10 we can see the
70 going out and witnessing and even the demons being subject to
them
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We see the story of the Good Samaritan.
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We see Mary waiting at the feet of Jesus! Voluntary
submission
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Right after these verses there is an example of the power
of prayer to engage in spiritual warfare
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We see Jesus give this outline of how we should pray.
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In it He mentions His kingdom, our needs, forgiveness,
and leading
Lord’s prayer –
Our denotes … Father denotes…
hallowed – APImp3S Your name must be made holy - further
explained with following verses (also in Matt your will on earth
as in heaven)
come – AAImp3S – Your kingdom must come –
Matt 6:33
Give – PAImp2P – You must give us our daily bread – daily bread
has many implications – daily needs explained further by
forgiveness and deliverance – Manna can’t be stored up – Jesus
the living bread John 6:35&48
forgive – AAImp2P – You must forgive our sins
as we forgive – PAI1P – progressively doing - a necessity in
prayer he who is loved much forgives much –
Luke 7:47
lead – AAImp2S – You must not lead us – God does not tempt us (James
1:3) but does allow us to be tempted (Job)
- Right after this prayer we see persistence.
- God encourages us to ask with expectance knowing
He is a good Father who gives namely the Holy Spirit
- Looking back at the prayer Jesus taught us to say we can’t
really experience it without the Holy Spirit. It goes back to a
dependence upon Him.
- Prayer allows us to commune with our Father and to start
seeing people and situations as He does.
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John 14:12-17 also has
the same idea of praying. The idea that we can ask anything in
His name, both miraculous and normal, and the Holy Spirit is our
Helper even in this task.
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James 4:2-3 shows us many
of our motives for praying and a few verses later in
James 4:5-6 speaks of the Spirit
dwelling in us and of humility, that is being dependent upon God
as a child its parent (Luke 18:16-17,
Mark 10:14-15, Matthew 11:25)
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CH Spurgeon said: Prayer is a spiritual business from
beginning to end, and its aim and object does not end with man,
but to reach to God Himself. For such prayer the work of the
Holy Ghost Himself is needed. If prayer were of the lips alone,
we should only need breath in our nostrils to pray. If prayer
were of the desires alone, many excellent desires are easily
felt, even by natural men. But when it is the spiritual desire,
and the spiritual fellowship of the human spirit with the Great
Spirit, then the Holy Ghost Himself must be present through it
to help infirmity and give life and power, or else true prayer
will never be presented. The thing offered to God will wear the
name and have the form, but the inner life of prayer will be far
from it.
2. Another way the Holy Spirit empowers us for witnessing is
through service to others.
Our days have seen many types of evangelism
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Lifestyle evangelism is a type that if you live a good
life in front of others then they will see something different
and want to be converted
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Often evangelism is confrontational, either by open air
preaching, door-to-door evangelism, or even social issue
activists.
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There has been a movement that is called servant
evangelism uses various methods such as handing out water on a
hot day or light bulbs or various other usually inexpensive way
to touch someone’s life in a “practical way”.
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Those who focus on miracles hold crusades and prayer
meetings to watch God move.
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And none of these ways are bad in and of themselves.
A way that is often neglected is serving others…and I mean
really serving others. Investing your life and resources to meet
others real legitimate needs. You meet them in a place of their
actual need.
- St. Francis of Assisi said “Preach the Gospel at all times and
if necessary use words.”
- There is another phrase that says “They will never care how
much you know until they know how much you care.”
- Matt 25:31-46 speaks of this
(interesting compared to Matt 7:21-23)
- James 1:27 also speaks of pure
religion
- Additionally by close context in Luke
10 & 11 one could connect the prayer with witnessing in
several ways to include the Good Samaritan.
- Nothing was recorded to have been said in any of these
services but people who were really in need were offered
services
- I remember reading one place in which said that part of the
reason that Christianity was so successful in the beginning was
the “Romans help Romans, Greeks help Greeks, Jews help Jews. But
Christians help everyone.”
- I was reading a book for school and a phrase caught my eye
that said “To the spiritually mature, every person, no matter
who, is Christ.”
- In hospital I was having a hard time ministering to people who
were not Christians or those who were tragedy Christians…I met
an Atheist and wondered how I could minister to him effectively
respecting his beliefs, while I was concerned for his eternal
soul – Then someone asked “I wonder why brought him into your
life?” and that changed a perspective for me.
With all this being said, I would think it would be unwise to
limit God how He must work, but these are two examples that I
have seen God work in my own life and I don’t think I have ever
heard connected with the power of the Holy Spirit.
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This also does not mean I am to neglect making disciples
as the Matt 28 commands
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