THE POWER FOR WIT ESS:

THE SPIRIT OF CRIST

ACTS 1:8 - REv. JOE MORECRAFT
Introduction
Evangelism is difficult because unbelievers
do not want to be evangelized. They
do not want to believe our gospel
message and so they suppress the truth
in unrighteousness being dead in their
trespasses and sins.
Becoming a Christian is difficult. In fact it
is impossible for us to turn ourselves into
Christians. Only God can do it. Living the
Christian life is difficult, because pockets
of resistance to God still remain within us,
which we call indwelling sin.
So then where do we find the power to
become Christians, to live like Christians,
and to make our witness effective in
the hearts and lives of those who are
still lost in their unbelief? In Acts 1:8
Jesus promises us such power: ... but you
shall 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.
Exposition
1. The Work of the Holy Spirit
in the Book of Acts
The first account I composed, Theophilus, about
all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the
day when He was taken up, after He had by the
Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He
had chosen, Acts 1: 1-2.
What Jesus began to do and teach before
His resurrection, He now continues to do
and teach. And the ministry of the risen
Christ is by the Holy Spirit. In the book of
Acts the Holy Spirit is not dissociated from
Jesus. He is the Spirit of Christ. The Holy
Spirit is the exalted Jesus Christ at work
in His church and in His world carrying out
His min istry, ad ministering a nd a pplyi ng
the promises of God's covenant and the
salvation from evil that Christ died to
purchase for us.
The work of the Holy Spirit in the history
of the church is to be understood in the
light of the first sentence of the book of
Acts. "The work of the Holy Spirit is the
extension of the ministry begun and now
continued by Jesus Christ Himself, and
the deeds of the church-the acts of the
apostles-are the fruit and expression of
that ministry."- Bruner, p. 156.
Believing this can save the church from any
recurring deism that says that although
God created the world and saved His
people in Christ, His personal involvement
in the life of that world has ended-He
has left man to live out his life within His
created order of things accord i ng to the
laws of nature without the uncomfortable
meddling of a God who intervenes in
history. The risen and exalted Jesus Christ
by the work of His Holy Spirit still involves
Himself in the life of His world to do in us
today what He did in the lives of human
beings before His resurrection. As He told
His disciples just before His death: I will
not leave you orphans, I will come to you,
John 14: 18, and this promise was directly
related to His other promise that He would
send His Holy Spirit into the world to bring
His presence near to us and to bring us
into vital union with Him.
A. Jesus continues to choose leaders for His
church. He is in charge of the church for which
He shed His precious blood. God has made this
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Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ,
2:36. (IIIus. Paul, elders, deacons, etc.)
B. Jesus continues to teach us by His Word
and Spirit, Romans 10: 14. He empowers His
messengers and illumines their listeners. The
hand of the Lord was with them, and a great
number who believed turned to the Lord,
11: 21. God's hand symbolizes mighty divine
intervention. When Paul preached to Lydia
the seller of purple fabric, it says that the Lord
opened her heart to respond to Paul's message
with the result that she became a believer in the
Lord Jesus, 15:14-15.
C. Jesus continues to do and act in our
behalf to save us from our sins and their
consequences. This point is made throughout
Acts in the frequent references to "the name of
Jesus"-there is no other name under heaven
given among human beings by which we must
be saved, 4:12. Luke's phrase that epitomizes
the prayer of dependence upon God in Christ for
salvation is And everyone who calls upon the
name of the Lord will be saved, 2:21. However
Acts makes clear that the name of Jesus brings
salvation only when it is invoked in faith. Some
exorcists tried to manipulate power to exorcize
demons by a magical use of Jesus' name but
failed in their efforts and were brought to
deserved shame and pain because they had no
faith in Him whose name is Jesus, and so the
man in whom the evil spirit was overpowered
them so that, naked and traumatized, they fled
out of the house, 19: 16. Why is faith so crucial
in using Jesus' name? Because His name, like
the name of the Lord in the OT represents the
person Himself, demonstrating His presence in
power and glory through His name. "So also in
Acts, Jesus' name wields power to save, for it
speaks of the presence of Jesus among people in
need, calling the desperate and the weak to rest
their faith in His strength and grace."- Dennis
Johnson, THE MESSAGE OF ACTS, p. 27.
Jesus is here tonight, teaching, acting,
saving, preaching, intervening in your life
through His Holy Spirit whom He has given
His church.
How will this truth affect what we expect
preaching to accomplish, what we expect
Sunday school classes, (and) Bible studies ... to
accomplish? How will it affect our hopes for the
resolution of conflict in the church, our hopes
for the fruit of sharing our faith with others, our
hope for the discipling of the world's peoples
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through missions? Because our King is not an
aloof designer or absentee landlord, but a living
Shepherd walking among His sheep, there is
hope for change in the church beyond anything
human ingenuity can invent. Our King is
intimately present and powerfully active as the
champion and chastener of His church.- Johnson,
p.28.
II. THE ROOTS OF THE
PROMISE OF ACTS 1: 8
A. THE BAPTISM WITH THE
HOLY SPIRIT
And gathering them together, He commanded
them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what
the Father had promised, "which," He said, "you
heard of from Me; for John baptized with water,
but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not
many days from now," Acts 1 :4-5.
What took place on the Pay of Pentecost
recorded in Acts 2 when the resurrected
Christ empowered His church for mission
by the Holy Spirit was the fulfillment of a
promise He had made to His disciples three
years earlier through John the Baptist-As
for me, I baptize you with water; but He
who is mightier than I is coming, and I am
not fit to untie the thong of His sandals;
He Himself will baptize you with the Holy
Spirit and fire, Luke 3:16. At Jesus'
baptism the Holy Spirit came down on
Jesus without measure not only to equip
Him in His humanity to be our Savior but
also that He might bestow His Spirit on
His disciples: (1). That Christ might be
personally known and glorified in the lives
of His disciples-He shall glorify Me ... He
shall receive of mine and show it to you.
He shall testify of Me, John 16:14, 15:26;
(2). That He might bring His people to faith
in and obedience to Christ the Lord-No
man can confess that Jesus is Lord but by
the Holy Spirit, I Corinthians 12:3.
B. THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER
At the end of the Gospel of Luke and again
at the beginning of the book of Acts we
find two versions of a promise by Jesus:
I am sending the promise of My Father upon
. ; .. --
Rev. Joe Morecraft
you .. , Luke 24:49 .... but wait for the promise of
the Father, about which you heard from Me, Acts
1:4.
These promises have specific reference to
Acts 1:8. In these words Jesus designates
the Holy Spirit as a gift promised by God
the Father, who would come upon God's
people with power enabling them to be My
witnesses from Jerusalem through all Judea
and Samaria to the ends of the earth.
Now, the question is this: when did God
the Father promise to empower Christ's
church by the Holy Spirit for effective
global mission? Answer: in the prophecies
of Isaiah.
A comparison of Acts 1: 8 with several
prophecies in Isaiah reveals that Acts 1: 8
is a composite of words and ideas from the
book of Isaiah (Septuagint).
Isaiah 32: lS-until the Spirit comes upon you
from on high
Isaiah 43: 10-Become witness for me ... says the
LORD God
Isaiah 43: 12-You are witnesses for me ... says the
LORD God
Isaiah 44:8----You are witnesses, whether there
is any god besides me
Isaiah 49: 6----I will appoint you for a covenant
of the people, for a light to the Gentiles,
that you may be for salvation to the ends
of the earth
Isaiah 45: 22-Turn to Me and be saved, you who
are from the ends of the earth; for I
myself am God, and there is no other
In other words, Acts 1: 8 brings together
three themes from Isaiah's prophecies
concerning the Servant of the Lord:
1. "The Spirit of God is poured out upon
God's people.
2. "God's people are His witnesses, testifying on
the basis of the saving acts that they have seen
that He alone is God and Savior.
3. "Their witness extends to the ends of
the earth, calling pagan nations to abandon
their idols and turn to the Lord for salvation."-
Johnson, p. 36.
These witness/servants of the LORD are
witnesses in the lawsuit the LORD has
against all idols and idolators inside and
outside Israel. He is suing these idols
for false advertising. Their worshipers
claim that they can hear prayer and
rescue them from danger and death. But
it is all a lie. They are nothing but dead,
blind, deaf stone and wood. In this case
of The LORD vs. The Idols both sides
have the opportunity to call witnesses
to substantiate their claims. The Idols
have no witnesses. The LORD has many
witnesses who can testify to His saving
power and to the fact that the LORD does
what He promises. They can support His
claim to be the only living God and only
Savior.
The LORD's witnesses, however, are blind,
42: 18-19, not physically, but spiritually-
You have seen many things, but have not
kept them; your ears are opened, but you
have not heard, 42:20. They are guilty
of spiritual inattention, their deliberate
ignorance of God's mighty faithful deeds.
So then, how can these blind eyewitnesses
be of any use in the LORD's lawsuit against
idols? The LORD Himself heals their
spiritual blindness and deafness, 42:6-7.
"Healed of their own blindness, they in turn
will guide the idol-blinded Gentiles out of
darkness into light, 42:18-20,43:8-10.
How will the LORD heal the blind and
deaf? This question is answered by an
agricultural metaphor, in Isaiah 44: 1-11, of
life-giving rain, the Israelite farmer's hope
and delight, as an image of the outpouring
of the Holy Spirit, the great hope of the
people of God inverses 3-5.
For I will pour out water on the thirsty land and
streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My
Spirit on your offspring, and My blessing on your
descendants; and they will spring up among the
grass like poplars by streams of water. This one
will say, "I am the LORD's ... and another will write
on His hand, "Belong to the LORD," and will name
Israel's name with honor.
This promise of God the Father is the root
of Christ's promise in Acts 1 :8, which verse
must be understood in the light of the
prophecies of Isaiah of which it is made.
1. The one who makes the promise of Acts
1: 8 is none other than Jehovah incarnate, the
Servant of the Lord, Mark 10:48, who is also
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the Lord of the church and the world. He is the
only Lord and Savior in contrast to all false gods.
Those whom He empowers by His Spirit are the
New Israel. "Those who worship Jesus as Lord,
who pray to Him and serve Him, bear witness
that He, not the idols, is the only God and
Savior."- Johnson, p. 44.
2. Being a witness for the LORD is not simply
recounting your emotional feelings and personal
experience in your life of faith. It is those who
have experienced subjective healing of blindness
and deafness by the power of God bearing
authoritative testimony to and declaring the
truth of the objective and historical events of
God's plan of redemption in Christ. God calls
upon us to bear witness to the ways in which He
has displayed His lordship and saviorhood in the
mighty acts of the gospel.
3. These Spirit-healed witnesses of the
LORD must carry their witness to the gospel
worldwide ... to the ends of the earth. Christ the
Lord is gathering His church as an international
family. He wanted His disciples to look beyond
their own ethnic group to the whole world. God
had chosen Israel to bring the blessings of
salvation to all the families of the world, Genesis
12:3.
4. The LORD's witnesses are to challenge
the gods in which people trust revealing all
their emptiness and impotence. "To bring
God's salvation to the ends of the earth,
Jesus' witnesses must unmask treasured idols,
encountering hostility from those whose security
is shaken by God's truth. -- Although the
community of the Lord's servant-witnesses is
characterized by a tangible love that is attractive
to outsiders, their testimony makes no peace
with any alternative to faith in Jesus. Religious
'solutions' apart from Jesus the Savior are
dangerous frauds with which there can be no
compromise or polite toleration. Jesus' witnesses
set out to conquer the world ... through the word of
the Lord."- .Johnson, p.49.
III. THE CORRECTION OF A
MISUNDERSTANDING BY
ACTS 1:8
And so when they had come together, they were
asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You
are restoring the kingdom to Israel?" He said
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to them, "It is not for you to know times or
epochs which the Father has fixed by His own
authority"," Acts 1:6-7.
With all of the awesome drama of the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
and His climactic promise of the Spirit, the
disciples began thinking of the end of time,
the consummation of God's kingdom and
the restoration of Israel. This frequently
came to their minds as they heard Jesus
preach. Jesus did not discourage this kind
of talk, rather "He puts it into a new kind
of power context. The full restoration of
kingdom power still waits for the day when
heaven gives up Jesus, when He will be
sent again by the Father. But here and
now the restoration power begins: not
in a body politic called Israel, but in a
body spiritual called the new Israel; not in
government chambers of ambition, but in
the church baptized in the Holy Spirit. -
- This dynamic means the beginning of the
end of history, the beginning of the end of
the age while this age is still going on ."-
Harvey Conn, A WORLD TO WIN, pp. 93,92.
IV. THE CONTENT OF THE
PROMISE OF ACTS 1: 8
" ... but you shall 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."
A. THE NATURE OF A PROMISE
We must not go lightly over the point of
Acts 1 that the gift of the Spirit is the
prom ise of the Father. The bestowal
of the Holy Spirit on the Church on the
Day of Pentecost is not described as "the
opportunity" or "the responsibility" or even
"the privilege" of the believer in Jesus,
but THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER. "The
baptism of the Holy Spirit thus comes in
the name of promise not law, hence as
gift not challenge. The name of the Spirit
here also teaches us that the source of
the baptism in the Spirit is not human, it
is divine: the Spirit is 'the promise of the
FATHER."'- Bruner, p. 157. A promise is
something that is made and given freely,
Rev, Joe Morecraft
without price, cost or cond ition. It is not
based or dependent upon human activity
or merit. It is "a gift graciously bestowed
and not a pledge obtained by negotiation."-
Bruner, p. 157. It is a free gift that God
Himself promises to give, and since the
God who promises it is almighty and
faithful, there can be no doubt that all
His promises will be fulfilled to the fullest
extent and nothing in heaven, earth or
hell can stop God from doing what He has
promised.
B. THE PROMISE OF POWER
The promise of Christ is that He will give
His church supernatural power from on
High-the power of His resurrection, so
that every believer can say, I can do all
things through Christ who strengthens
me, Philippians 4: 13. He gives us all the
spiritual equipment we need and moment
by moment clothes us with His divine
strength to enable us to be effective in the
mission to which He has called us.
In the OT the LORD is the source of all
power. His power is unlimited, and by it
He is able to accomplish all His holy will.
The supreme display of His power in the
OT is in Exodus-Thy right hand, 0 LORD,
is majestic in power, Thy right hand, 0
LORD, shatters the enemy, Exodus 15:6.
In the NT Jesus Christ is the incarnation
of the almighty power of God. He is the
bearer of the power of the Holy Spirit and
He endows His people with this divine
power by giving them His Holy Spirit, and
with that power, He clothes them with the
authority to use it in His name and for His
glory. The greatest display of the power of
Christ is in His resurrection from the grave
by which He broke the power of sin, death
and Satan. And now He lives an eternal,
indestructible life, and by His power and
authority He rules the world.
The power with which Jesus clothes His
disciples is superior to demonic power-
You are of God, little children, and have
overcome them, because greater is He
who is in you than he who is in the world,
I John 4:4. It is greater than the power
of sin. He makes believers strong in the
Lord to resist and overcome the powers
of evil in their lives. It enables them to
be patient in persecution for Christ's sake
and to persevere in well-doing. He gives
them victory over sin along with a new
capacity to love others. He enables them
to minister effectively to each other and
He empowers their witness to the lost by
which He draws them to Himself and gives
them new life in Him.
Christ gives His disciples power because
His disciples in themselves are weak.
Weakness, and confession of weakness,
are the presuppositions of the working of
the power of Christ in us. When we are
weak, and we admit to it, then God makes
us strong as we d"epend entirely upon Him,
walking not in the flesh but in the Spirit's
all-sufficient and almighty grace.
C. THE PROMISE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
1. THE IDENTITY OF THE SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit of Acts 1: 8 is God the Holy
Spirit, the Third Person in the Godhead,
not an impersonal force, but a living,
personal, divine being. He is the Spirit of
Christ. Although their Persons are distinct,
their Presence is the Same, II Corinthians
3: 18. He empowers Christ's disciples with
the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of holiness,
Romans 1 :4. He separates God's people
from the lost world and consecrates them
to the service of God, enabling them to
turn from idols to worshipping the living
God in Christ. He separates them from the
world, He gives them a new heart and new
life in Christ along with the gift of faith by
which they receive Christ as their Lord and
Savior. He indwells their lives and works in
them to will and to do the good pleasure of
God, conforming them more and more into
the image of Christ.
It is only as they have holy characters that
believers can be effective witnesses, for
by their fruit you shall know them. Hence
the Spirit empowers believers for mission
as the Holy Spirit who qualifies them for
mission by transforming their characters
and enabling them to produce the fruit of
the Spirit in their lives-love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control, Galatians 5: 22-23,
qualities essential in a witness of Christ.
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The Power
In His High Priestly Prayer of John 17,
Jesus linked mission and sanctification.
He prayed to His Father in behalf of His
disciples asking that God would sanctify
them in the truth; Thy word is truth. As
Thou didst send Me into the world, I also
have sent them into the world. And for
their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they
themselves also may be sanctified in
truth, vss. 17-19. Just as He relates His
sanctification (in His humanity) by the
Spirit and Word with His saving mission in
the world, so He relates the sanctification
of His disciples by the Spirit and Word with
their evangelistic mission to the world.
Sanctification is not for sanctification's
sake, but for mission's sake. Without the
Spirit's sanctification, there is no church,
only the world.
2. THE COMING DOWN OF THE SPIRIT
When we become Christians we are
baptized with the Holy Spirit, 1: 5. Notice
the passive voice of the verb. It denotes
that this baptism is not the result of our
activity or effort, rather it is the action of
the Promiser and according to His will. It
is His free gift to us, 2:38-39. We are
said to be clothed with power from on
High, Luke 24:49. This is not a human
achievement, it is a divine gift that
originates from above, out of man's reach.
In 1:8, we learn that this supernatural
power is ours when the Holy Spirit has
come upon us. The Greek preposition,
epi, is prominent in Peter's Pentecost
sermon,2:17,18,19. It pOints to the
sovereign, gracious Giver and away from
the recipients. The Spirit comes upon
(epelthontos ... eph) us, He "comes from
above." He does not come from within
a human being, He comes from on high.
"That is, the Spirit does not arise from
within the emotional or spiritual life of
the recipient, He is not dependent upon
or subject to one's inner state. The Spirit
comes from above and upon, i.e., from
God."- Frederick Dale Bruner, A THEOLOGY
OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, p. 160.
3. THE RECIPIENTS OF THE
HOLY SPIRIT
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It should be pOinted out that this gift
of the Holy Spirit which Christ promises
His disciples on the Day of Pentecost is
given to EVERY believer present without
exception or qualification-from one
hundred and twenty at Pentecost to the
twelve at Ephesus, 19: 1-7. "There is no
record in Acts of any believer in a group
of believers failing to receive (or partly
receiving) the promised Holy Spirit when
He descended. The Holy Spirit comes as
inclusively as He does unconditionally."-
Bruner, p. 159. Therefore, Paul can say
that since the Holy Spirit indwells all
believers, if anyone does "not have the
Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him,
Romans 8: 9.
D. THE RESULTS OF THE SPIRIT'S
COMING WITH POWER
The bestowa I of the Holy Spirit on the
Church and its true members has a fourfold
effect: (1). It brings them into vital union
with the risen and exalted Jesus Christ;
(2). It brings them into the organic unity
of the Body of Christ; (3). It empowers
them to be effective witnesses of Christ in
this world; and (4). It makes them bold in
their witness for Christ.
1. THE BRINGING OF THE RECIPIENTS
OF THE SPIRIT INTO VITAL UNION
WITH THE RISEN AND EXALTED
JESUS CHRIST
The position of the (genitive possessive)
pronoun My in the original Greek sentence,
translated you shall be MY witnesses
accentuates that pronoun, emphasizing
that by the Holy Spirit the witness
belongs to Christ and is in His personal
possession. The bestowal or baptism of
the Holy Spirit is first and foremost a
power which unites that human being with
the living and exalted Christ, making him
one with Him, bringing him into vital and
intimate union and communion with the
risen Christ, so that he can be said to be
in Christ and have Christ in him. This
vital union is so real and so intimate that
whatever is true of Christ is true of the
believer; whatever happened to Christ,
happens to the believer; whatever Christ
did in His humanity on the earth, the
~ . Joe Morecraft
believer experiences the consequences of-
Therefore we have been buried with Him
through baptism into death, in order that
as Christ was raised from the dead through
the glory of the Father, so we too might
walk in newness of life. For if we have
become united with Him in the likeness
of His death, certainly we shall be also in
the likeness of His resurrection ... Now if
we have died with Christ, we believe that
we shall also live with Him, knowing that
Christ, having been raised from the dead
is never to die again; death no longer is
master over Him. For the death that He
died, He died to sin, once for all; but the
life that He lives, He lives to God, Romans
6:4-10.
So then, the result of the power of the
baptism of the Holy Spirit according to
Acts 1: 8 is first of all not what we do but
what we become. The greatness of the
baptism of the Holy Spirit is that it is
precisely the event joining a person to the
ascended Christ forever, and in such a way
that the recipients become HIS, i.e., true
Christians. "The power of the Holy Spirit
is His ability to join men to the risen Christ
so that they are able to represent Him.
There is no higher blessing."- Bruner, pp.
160-161.
Being brought into vital union with Christ
and possessed by Him is a prerequisite for
our being His effective witnesses in this
world. Why? Paul answers in Romans
7: 4-you were made to die .to the Law
through the body of Christ, that you might
be joined to Another, to Him who was
raised from the dead, that we might bear
fruit for God. Without Christ we can do
nothing. Unless we are abiding in Him,
as a branch to the trunk of a tree, in vital
union with Him, we can bear no fruit for
God, we cannot live the Christian life,
we cannot bear the fruit of the Spirit, we
cannot be effective in harvesting fruit for
God from this world through evangelism
and world mission.
2. THE BRINGING OF THE RECIPIENTS
OF THE SPIRIT INTO THE ORGANIC
UNITY OF THE BODY OF CHRIST
Those baptized with the Holy Spirit are not
only in union with Christ, they are organic
members of His Body, the Church.
For even as the body is one and yet has many
members, and all the members of the body,
though they are many, are one body, so also is
Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized
into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether
slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of
one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but
many, I Corinthians 12: 12-14.
Ch rist is the Head of the Ch urch. The
Church is the Body of Christ. And the
Holy Spirit is the source of this organic
unity, so that the church can be called the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit, II Corinthians
13:13. From Christ the Head, the Spirit
brings into our lives spiritual life and
power which flows from one member
into the life of another member as each
member recognizes his or her place in the
Body and seeks to build up each other in
love-speaking the truth in love, we are to
grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the
head, even Christ, from whom the whole
body, being fitted and held together by
that which every joint supplies, according
to the proper working of each individual
part, causes the growth of the body for
the building up of itself in love, Ephesians
4: 15-16.
It is not as solitary individuals detached
from each other that Christians enter the
world with the gospel, it is as a covenant
community, a unified Body, a loving family,
a city of God, a triumphant kingdom, a
Divinely-chosen, Blood-bought, Spirit-
filled Church that we prove ourselves to be
blameless and innocent, children of God
above reproach in the midst of a crooked
and perverse generation, among whom
(we) appear as lights in the world, holding
forth the Word of life .. , Philippians 2: 15-
16. And, as Jesus promised, the gates of
hell will not be able to resist the advance
of the Church.
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:-._ -1
The Power of WitneJJ
3. THE EMPOWERING OF BELIEVERS
TO BE EFFECTIVE WITNESSES OF
CHRIST IN THIS WORLD
As those who belong to Christ and His
Church, Christ empowers us by His Spirit
to be His effective witnesses in this world.
With the baptism of the Holy Spirit on the
Day of Pentecost was begun the global
expansion of Christianity in the power of
and effected by the Holy Spirit through the
witness of the Church and the preached
Word.
Almost all the references to the Holy Spirit (in the
book of Acts) are associated with the missionary
witness of the church. The giving of the Holy
Spirit at Pentecost launches the witness of the
church and adds three thousands members to the
rolls on that first day.- Harvey Conn, A WORLD
TO WIN, p. 96.
The meaning of the Day of Pentecost is
not the drama, miracles and excitement,
it was the preaching of the gospel of Jesus
Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit that
led to the conversion and baptism of 3000
people from allover the world. The effect
of the pouring out of the Spirit upon all
flesh, as Joel prophesied, was the powerful
preaching of the Word of God. When Peter
and John were called on the carpet for
healing a lame man in the name of Jesus,
Luke notes that Peter boldly proclaimed the
risen of Christ to his critics, being filled
with the Holy Spirit, Acts 4:8. When Paul
was filled with the Holy Spirit...immediately
he began to proclaim Jesus in the
synagogues, 9: 17,20.
The guide for evangelism is the wise hand of
the Holy Spirit. The power for missions is the
sovereign power of the Holy Spirit. The incentive
for world evangelism is the driving force of the
Spirit. .. - Harvey Conn, A WORLD TO WIN, p. 96.
4. THE MAKING OF BELIEVERS BOLD
IN THEIR WITNESS FOR CHRIST IN
THE WORLD
Holy boldness in witnessing for Christ is
a distinctive feature of New Testament
evangelism. This boldness, parrasia, is
characterized by openness and plainness
of proclamation with urgency and liberty
of speech, not by insensitivity and
25 the COUNSEL of CHALCEDON
abrasiveness, On the Day of Pentecost,
Peter preached his great sermon with
obvious boldness, 2:29. Now as they
observed the boldness of Peter and John,
and understood that they were uneducated
and untrained men, they were marveling,
and began to recognize them as having
been with Jesus, 4: 13. After praying, Lord
take note of their threats, and grant that
Thy bond-serva nts may spea k Thy word
with all boldness ... they were all filled with
the Holy Spirit and began to speak the
word of God with boldness ... and with great
power the apostles were giving witness
to the resu rrection of the Lord Jesus,
and abundant grace was upon them all,
4:29,31,32. (See also 9:27,28,13:46,
14:3,18:26,19:8,26:26,28:31.)
This holy boldness is a gift of the Holy
Spirit which conforms us to the image
of Christ, whose life and ministry was
marked by this boldness. It has three
central elements: (1). Its roots are in
the witness's switching his trust from
anything in himself to Christ's Spirit
working through him; (2). It shows itself
in the confrontation of lost people with
their peril and establishes their need for
the gospel with confidence in the authority
of the risen Christ; (3). It has at its heart
clarity in the proclamation of the cross and
resurrection of Christ as good news for the
lost.
What are the prerequisites for boldness in
witness: (1). Openness to God in prayer, I
John 3: 22, (2). Openness to God's Word, I
Corinthians 3:21; (3). Faith in Christ; and
(4). Love for human beings.
V. THE GLOBAL STRATEGY IN
THE PROMISE OF ACTS 1:8
The Spirit of Christ empowers Christ's
Church for a worldwide mission, stretching
to the very ends of the earth. Our witness
must be personal, local, regional, national,
global, to friends and enemies, of all races,
ethnic groups, nationalities and languages,
to the rich and the poor, the powerful and
the weak, the educated and the illiterate,
the cultured and the uncultured, for Christ
did purchase for God with (His) blood
people from every tribe and tongue and
! ..
&r. Joe Morecraft
people and nation, Revelation 5:9. And
we must not rest from our world mission
until the earth will be full of the knowledge
of the LORD as the waters cover the sea,
Isaiah 11:9; for God has promised us that
all the ends of the earth will remember and
turn to the LORD, and all the families of
the nations will worship before Thee. For
the kingdom is the LORD's, and He rules
over the nations, Psalm 22: 27-28. For God
so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son that whoever believed in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life,
John 3: 16.
It would capture the essential geographical
outlook of Luke to entitle the Gospel of Luke,
"From Galilee to Jerusalem," and the Book
of Acts, "From Jerusalem to Rome."- Floyd V.
Filson, APOSTOLIC HISTORY AND THE GOSPEL.
The goal of the ministry of Jesus before His
resurrection was Jerusalem; but the goal of
the ministry of Jesus after His resurrection is
Rome, i.e., the whole world, Acts 1: 8. "So when
the Acts ends with Paul in Rome preaching the
gospel, Luke must mean that now from the
center of the world the gospel is beginning to go
out in all directions to all parts of the Empire.
For Luke, Paul's preaching in Rome is not just
a local evangelistic programme; it is or at least
symbolizes and sets in motion the broad Empire-
wide fulfillment of Acts 1 :8. The gospel center
has come from Jerusalem, (where redemption
was accomplished), to Rome, (where redemption
is applied), and is beginning to spread out from
there in all directions."- Filson
Practical Applications from God's Word
for ALL Areas of Your Lifestyle
Biblical Basics
V The foundation for a complete
Christian worldview
V Insights from the most noted
scholars throughout history
Business & Politics
V The dehate for our future is not
liheral vs. conservative ideas. hut
non-Christian vs. Chrlitlanideas
V Ten traits of successful leaders
Everyday Life
V Our partIcular calling
V How to turn America hack to God
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