Several years ago, the London Transit Authority had a problem. Buses were going right past passengers who were waiting at designated places to be picked up. They were at the bus stops, and the buses were sailing right past them. The London Transit Authority released a statement to explain their actions. The statement said it was impossible for them to maintain schedules if they always had to stop and pick up passengers. (Dave Stone, “Keep the Dust Off the Highchair,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 143; www.PreachingToday.com)
Funny, I thought that’s what transit authorities are supposed to do – pick up passengers. Do you know: some churches are like that? They get so busy maintaining schedules and programs that they forget what they’re all about. My friends, I don’t want us to forget what we’re all about as a church, so if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Acts 1, Acts 1, where Jesus Himself gives us our mission.
Acts 1:1-5 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 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; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (ESV)
The first thing Jesus wants us to do is…
WAIT.
He wants us to wait for the Holy Spirit. He wants us to remain. He wants us to stay put until God’s spirit comes upon us. For without God’s Spirit, we cannot do anything.
Now, we know, from 1 Corinthians 12, that all of us who have trusted Christ have been baptized by the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:13 makes it very clear, “By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” (ESV)
Every single believer, the moment he or she trusts Christ, is baptized by the Holy Spirit. That means the Holy Spirit comes upon you and dips you, or immerses you, into the Body of Christ. The word, “baptize,” literally means “to dip” or “to immerse.” When you trust Christ as your Savior, the Holy Spirit places you into the church. That means, my dear friends, that you are a part of something much bigger than yourself.
It’s kind of like this famous surfer, Laird Hamilton, riding a 65-foot wave. (Show YouTube video: At first he is being towed along the water by a speeding Jet Ski. Then, as Laird gains speed by the power of the Jet Ski, he lets go of the rope and you see him as a mere speck on a wave so enormous it defies comprehension. The wave curls and the surfer zooms down its face, propelled by a wall of water crashing around him, exhilarated by the ride of a lifetime.)
This is a picture of what God is doing in this world through His church. It’s like a wave so enormous it’s beyond our comprehension. And if we should we want to ride this wave, we soon learn that it travels so fast, we can’t do a thing on our own power. We can’t paddle hard enough to catch it. Instead, we need the Holy Spirit to tow us along to get us up to speed. Then when we catch the wave of what God is doing, there is not much we can do except hang on and enjoy the exhilarating ride! (Bill White, Paramount, California; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s what it means to be “baptized by the Holy Spirit.” He makes you a part of something much bigger than yourself, and the first believers were to wait for this baptism. They were to wait for the Holy Spirit to come and bring them into the wave of His church.
Now, we don’t have to wait for this particular baptism today – we already have it as believers in Christ. But there is a sense in which we must still wait on God. We must wait on God’s Spirit before we do anything else. We must wait for the sense of His presence; because when we go forward without Him, nothing of any lasting value happens.
We saw this during our own First Great Awakening, sparked by Jonathan Edward’s sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which he preached in 1741. It followed a style of sermon then preached to condemned criminals just before their execution. In that style, the preacher would stress the criminal’s imminent encounter with God and exhort him to repent. The newspapers published these sermons all the time, so most people in the day would have recognized the form.
Well, in a shocking move, Edwards applied this form to his hearers in Enfield, emphasizing the sinfulness of even respectable church folk. As he hammered home the instability of their position before God, he was in effect comparing them to condemned murderers, urging them to put their trust in Christ so they could instead experience God’s love and mercy.
This had a profound effect on those who heard the sermon in Enfield. Some in the audience screamed as they were convicted of sin; and then, there was joyful weeping from those who found forgiveness and grace when they put their trust in Christ.
But the power was not in the form of the sermon, as shocking as it was. We know this, because a few weeks before preaching at Enfield, Jonathan Edwards preached the same exact sermon to his own church in Northampton. There, his own flock responded, as far as we know, simply by shaking his hand and saying, “Good sermon, pastor,” as they all went home to lunch.
In his own analysis of that First Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards said, “The word is the occasion for awakening, and a necessary one, but the Spirit of God does the work, and he ‘blows where he wills.’” As a result, people’s lives were permanently changed. They were made “humble, faithful, prayerful and holy.” Churches became earnest in worship and hungry for the word, and there were whole towns where “goodness” became “fashionable.” (Stephen R. Holmes, “A Mind on Fire,” Christian History, Issue 77, p.13; www.PreachingToday.com)
I believe God could do the same thing right here in Lyons, but we must wait on God’s Holy Spirit like Jonathan Edwards did and like the New Testament church did in the First Century.
The late Dr. A. W. Tozer once said, “If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.” (Alan Redpath in “Christian Life” magazine, Christianity Today, Vol. 29, no. 18)
Do you want to know why the early church was so effective? They waited on God. They waited in prayer for God’s Spirit to move, and then they moved with God’s Spirit. Look at it. After they left Jesus, verse 12 says…
Acts 1:12-14 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. (ESV)
Did you see it? – verse 14 – “All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer.”
On almost every page in the book of Acts, you see the early church waiting on God in prayer. That’s why they were so successful. In just the first 2 chapters of Acts, the church went from 11 apostles, to 120 believers, to more than 3,000 people in a matter of weeks. All because they waited on God in prayer.
How about you? How about me? How about us as a church? Prayer needs to be more than just some perfunctory, exercise we do at the beginning and end of our worship services. It needs to be a vital part of everything we do! That’s why we begin every elder meeting with a season of prayer for one another, for you and for the church. That’s why we spend considerable time on Sunday nights praying for one another and the church, asking God to use us every week to reach our friends and neighbors for Christ. Our men’s and women’s groups also devote significant time to prayer. We cannot get enough of it!
Prayer is the most important thing we do as a church, because God works in powerful ways in answer to prayer. That’s why Jesus asks us, 1st and foremost, to wait on His Spirit. Then, He wants us to…
BE HIS WITNESSES.
Jesus wants us to share what we know about him and to testify on his behalf.
Acts 1:6-8 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 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.” (ESV)
Notice, Jesus isn’t asking us to be His lawyers. He isn’t asking us to defend him, to come up with arguments proving His case. NO! He’s simply calling us to be His witnesses, to tell what we know about Him, wherever we are – in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
Marvin Olasky, in an article for World Magazine entitled “Evangelism for Introverts,” talks about a college student who decided to walk down Central Avenue in Phoenix at lunchtime and ask women to kiss him. He wanted to see how many people he would have to ask before someone took him up on it. After being repeatedly cursed, ignored, and slapped a couple of times, the 98th woman gave him a kiss. (Marvin Olasky, “Evangelism for Introverts,” World magazine, 10-07-06; www.Preaching Today.com)
Some people view witnessing about Christ in the same way. They think they have to approach 98 people cold turkey and ask them to trust Christ. Then they call it “success” when one responds. But what about the other 97 who might be more hardened than ever, more suspicious, and more wary of people approaching them on the street.
You see, the most effective witnessing is done in the context of our personal relationships when we ask God for opportunities to share, wait for the Holy Spirit to give us those opportunities, and then just simply tell what Christ has done for us when those opportunities arise.
Let me tell you, if we’re waiting on God’s Holy Spirit in prayer, He will give us such opportunities we never dreamed possible. In the meantime, we can just let the fragrance of our life speak for itself.
On the very first day of class in language school for missionary candidates, the teacher entered the room and, without saying a word, walked down every row of students. Finally, still without saying a word, she walked out of the room again. Then she came back and addressed the class. “Did you notice anything special about me?” she asked.
Nobody could think of anything in particular. One student finally raised her hand. “I noticed that you had on a very lovely perfume,” she said. The class chuckled.
But the teacher said, “That was exactly the point. [It] will be a long time before any of you will be able to speak Chinese well enough to share the gospel with anyone in China. But even before you are able to do that, you can minister the sweet fragrance of Christ to these people by the quality of your lives.” (Michael Green, in Alice Gray's Stories for a Faithful Heart, Multnomah, 2004, p. 95; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s what being a witness is all about. It is ministering the sweet fragrance of Christ by the quality of our lives. It is waiting on the Holy Spirit to give us opportunities to share, and then simply sharing what we know about Christ when those opportunities arise.
That’s the mission of the church. God asks us simply to wait and then to witness. Wait for His Spirit. Then witness of His Son.
Why? Why should we bother? Why should we go to all the trouble? For 2 very simple reasons. #1, because…
JESUS IS ALIVE!
Jesus has been raised from the dead. Jesus conquered sin and death.
Acts 1:3 “He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days…”
This is what motivated the early church. It set them on fire!
Max Lucado describes the scene in the upper room in those early days of the church. He says, “As you look around the room, you wouldn't take them for a bunch who are about to put the kettle of history on high boil. Uneducated. Confused. Calloused hands. Heavy accents. Few social graces. Limited knowledge of the world. No money. Undefined leadership. And on and on.”
“No, as you look at this motley crew, you wouldn't wager too many paychecks on their future. But something happens to a man when he witnesses someone who has risen from the dead." (BI# 3803; 3/1992.24)
Christ’s resurrection set them on fire, and it should set us on fire as well!
Josef Tson was a Romanian pastor and teacher who suffered terribly under the Communists before the collapse of the Iron Curtain. In a sermon he once preached, he talked about a particularly nasty session he had with an interrogator. It left him very discouraged until the Lord met with him and helped him understand what was happening.
The next week the interrogation began again, but everything was different. Tson says, “At one point [the interrogator] stopped and said, ‘Mr. Tson, who visited you this weekend? I have in front of me a different person than the one who left here. Somebody came and changed you completely. I have to know who came and visited you.’”
Tson simply replied, “Jesus visited me and made me ready for the battle again.” (Lee Eclov, Vernon Hills, Illinois; www. PreachingToday.com) You see…
Jesus is not just another dead, religious leader. Jesus is not just some great, dead teacher. He is the Lord of Life!
Confucius’ tomb is occupied. Buddha’s tomb – it’s occupied. Mohammed’s tomb is occupied. Jesus’ tomb – it’s empty!! And His is the only one.
That’s why we wait, and that’s why we witness. Because we have something to share that no one else has – Jesus is alive, and He visits with us every day to get us ready for battle. More than that…
JESUS IS COMING AGAIN.
Jesus is returning to this earth, and His return could be today.
Acts 1:9-11 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (ESV)
Jesus is coming back again, physically, in the flesh. First, He’ll come for us, His church. Then, He’ll come with us to set up His Kingdom on this earth, and we will rule and reign with Him forever! If that doesn’t motivate us to be His witnesses, then nothing else will.
That’s exactly what started the Evangelical Free Church movement in the late 1800’s. Those Scandinavian believers were so sure that Jesus was going to come again in their lifetime, that they organized their independent churches and Bible studies, agreeing to cooperate together, for the express purpose of spreading the Gospel around the world before it was too late. That’s how the Evangelical Free Church of America was born.
D. L. Moody, a businessman who led hundreds of people to Christ in the last half of the 19th Century, was once asked, “What is the secret of your success?”
He replied, “For many years I have never given an address without the consciousness that the Lord may come before I have finished.”
The Lord could come before the sun sets tonight. How would that make a difference in your plans this afternoon, if you knew for sure He was coming tonight? Is there anybody you need to tell of Christ yet? Is there someone who needs to hear, before it’s too late, that Jesus died for them and rose again.
There is an old story about a young man that applied for a job as an usher at a theater in the mall. The manager asked him, “What would you do in case a fire breaks out?”
The young man answered, “Don't worry about me. I'd get out okay.”
That's how we respond sometimes. “What would you do if Jesus came back tomorrow?” “Oh, don't worry about me. I'd get out okay.” But we’re ushers! It’s not enough just to get out ourselves. We are responsible for helping others get out. (Illustration Digest, March-April-May, 1993; www.Preaching Today.com)
So ask God for opportunities to share and wait on His Spirit. Then, when those opportunities come, witness about His Son.
In Hot Springs, Arkansas, you'll find the Morris Antique Mall. Nothing on the inside distinguishes it from dozens of other antique stores in town. There's a musty smell and dusty relics from the past. But if you look closely at the outside of the Morris Antique Mall, you'll see that before it was an antique store, it was a church building. (Michael A. Howe, Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching; BI# 2378; 7/1998.1525)
Tell me, what’s to prevent this place from becoming just a resting place for dusty relics some day? The only thing that will keep that from happening is if we never forget why we’re here. We’re here to wait and witness – wait for God’s Spirit, and then witness of God’s Son until He comes again.
