Getting Back To The Basics

Back To The Basics-1 8.docx

Acts 1:8

Vince Lombardi was the legendary football coach for the Green Bay Packers. One time they lost a game they should have won easily.

There was sloppy play and a lot of foolish mistakes

The next day at practice, he got the team together, reached into a bag and pulled out a football.

He then said to them, “Gentlemen, this is a football.”

It was a statement that it was time to get back to the basics

Christ is getting ready to leave His team and return to heaven, He left them with this challenge to be His witnesses not only at home but also to the very ends of the earth

A few days earlier, on a mountain in Galilee, He had given them the Great Commission, “All authority has been given to Me in Heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even to the end of the age

His commission to us was explicit; we are to make disciples by leading people to Christ

We are to mark these new disciples through baptism

And then we are to mature them by teaching them to observe all those things Christ commanded

Immediately before His ascension back to heaven, Jesus stood on another hill in Judea

There He reinforced this Great Commission by calling upon that small group to take His good news to the whole nation, not simply a few locals

It is a basic tenet of the Christian faith that we are all to be His witnesses to a lost and dying world around us

The call to evangelism to sharing the good news of Christ, is one of the most basic callings of the NT

Since the last words of those who leave us are always intriguing and important, lets look at this parting challenge

1) The Who Of Evangelism

a) You shall

b) This challenge to take the Gospel to the world is one Jesus gives to all of us

c) Two verses earlier, the disciples had tried to sidetrack the issues by asking questions regarding when Jesus would restore the kingdom

d) But Jesus did not say, “you shall be My chart makers or date keepers, but My witnesses—all of you

e) None of us are exempt from this basic element of Christian living, that is, to share the good news

f) We have to remember that you is a personal pronoun

g) That is speaks directly to us and who we are

2) The What Of Evangelism

a) You shall receive what

b) POWER

c) This is a great need of believers today

d) We all need power to live the Christian life

e) Perhaps the greatest difference between the first century and the 21st century church is summarized by two words

f) Influence and power

g) Today we pride ourselves on our influence

h) We seek to influence the decaying culture around us in various ways

i) But the early church did not even have enough influence to keep their leader Peter out of prison

j) They were virtually void of influence with the civil and legal authorities

k) But the more important news is they had enough power to pray him out of prison

l) Jesus used the word for power from which we get our word dynamite

m) We need some dynamite

n) We need this power to be His witnesses

o) The book of Acts is the story of a group of men and women just like us who—despite all the bigotry and bias of the Roman-ruled world—went out from a upper room to tell the story of a publicly executed Jew

p) They did so much with so little

q) How

r) They had dynamite nature about them

s) They had received power from on high

t) We need some dynamite

3) The When Of Evangelism

a) When did this power come upon the group of believers

b) When the Holy Spirit came upon them

c) There is no such thing as a Christian without power

d) Listen when we receive Christ we have the Holy Spirit

e) He takes up residency in us

f) Thus we have power

g) Have you ever gone out to your car, and went to try to start it and nothing

h) Only to realize that the battery was dead

i) Our car needs that power to start

j) I think some of us need that power

k) We need power that is outside of ourselves to energize us

4) The Why Of Evangelism

a) The Holy Spirit enables us to be witnesses