"The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. 3To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. 4Gathering 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; 5for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
6So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” 7He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; 8but 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.”
Throughout history, there have been many great armies. There have been armies that have conquered nations. Armies that have defended nations. Armies that have established nations. There have been large armies, small armies and everything in between.
There is one constant about every great army. Every army that went on to make a difference in the world had one thing in common – they were all headed by a great leader.
Alexander the Great
Napoleon
George Washington
Dwight Eisenhower
Norman Schwartzkopf
Each one of these men has gone on to make his mark in history by leading great fighting forces.
But I want to talk about an army today that none of these men could defeat. In fact, all of these men together, with all of their military genius and all of their military forces and weaponry would not be able to defeat the greatest fighting force ever established.
There is an army – created thousands of years ago – that still exists today – that has won major victories in every nation of the world. Marching under the banner of one general, this army continues to fight and win wherever it goes.
Of course, I am talking about the army – the church – of the Lord Jesus Christ. This morning, I believe that God wants us to know that we are members of the greatest fighting force that has ever been established in the history of the world.
Turn with me to Matthew, chapter 16. (Read verses 13-20)
13Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” 15He said* to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18“I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. 19“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
Let me read verse 18 one more time. This is a very important verse:
“I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”
When Jesus said that he was going to build his church, he was not talking about a building with four walls, pews, a pulpit and a piano. He was not talking about establishing a fortress in which his followers could go into and protect themselves from the forces of Satan.
When Jesus said that he was going to build his church and the gates of Hell would not be able to overpower it, he was talking about a fighting force that would be so strong that even the gates of hell could not stop it! Literally, Jesus was saying that we would be invincible. There is nothing on earth that can defeat us.
He began this army with 12 men, one of which deserted. Today, what began as a small army now numbers around 1 billion strong! And Jesus said that we couldn’t be stopped. The kingdom of Light would overthrow the kingdom of darkness.
I wonder sometimes if that is how we see ourselves. I believe that in many respects, the church has lost sight of who we are.
As I have said before, I believe that the Church must be doing five things if we are going to be effective.
1. Worship – we must be glorifying God
2. Instruction – we must be training disciples
3. Fellowship – we must be loving one another
4. Evangelism – we must be winning the lost to Jesus Christ
5. Service – we must be caring for the needs of each other.
Oftentimes, we think of ourselves as a hospital. A place where we care for the wounded, the hurting and the needy.
You know how the world sees us? They see us like a country-club. A place that we go to every Sunday. A place where we gather with other people of similar interests for a good time of fun and fellowship.
Let me tell you what I believe we really are. I believe what we really are is an army. We gather every Sunday in the war room to plan our military operations. We train our soldiers, we heal the wounded, and we encourage each other for the task at hand. The battle ground that we are fighting on is the world. Satan and his forces are the enemy. The war is being fought for the souls of men women and children on a daily basis.
Let me say this: Thank God that we have an infirmary. We are a place that wounded soldiers can come to find healing and recovery. We are also a place where we can gather for fun and fellowship. But our main agenda is to prepare ourselves for the battle that we face Monday through Saturday in the world.
This morning, we are going to begin a series of messages on the book of Acts. I believe that the book of Acts is an introduction to the war that I am talking about. In this book we will meet the men and women that made up the early army. We will meet many of the early participants. Men like Peter, John, Stephen, Phillip, Barnabas and Paul.
In this book, we are given our fighting orders and we see – through the examples of others how they are to be carried out.
For the rest of this morning, let’s just focus on those fighting orders found in these first 8 verses.
The first order is found in verse 4:
4Gathering 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; 5for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
The first order Jesus gave was to WAIT.
He told them to go into Jerusalem and wait. Wait for what? Well, they were to wait for the promised Holy Spirit.
In other words, there was to be no warfare until they were empowered with the tools for it.
Imagine, if you can what would have happened if our soldiers had gone to Afganistan to fight against Al Quiado and the Taliban before the Jets, Helicopters, tanks, Armored Personnel Carriers and other essentials had arrived. What if they had gone ahead of the equipment and tried to fight the war with only their hand held weapons? Imagine the scene – hand to hand combat on land that we were unfamiliar with. What would the result have been? Obviously it would have been disastrous. We may have lost the war. There would have been thousands of casualties.
You know, I believe that this is the reason there are so many Christian casualties today in our spiritual warfare. So many of us have tried to go into the battle without the power that God has given us in the person of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said, “Wait for the promised Holy Spirit and then . . . “
Think about that. These men were already well trained soldiers. They had spent the last 3 ½ years in “boot camp” preparing themselves for the war. They had even fought some small skirmishes under the directions of the Lord. But now, as Jesus prepares to leave them, he instructs them to wait for the Holy Spirit.
Here is the question for all of us here this morning: If these men – who had been personally trained by Jesus Christ – had to wait for the power of the Holy Spirit, how much more do we need to?
Listen to the words of the Prophet, Isaiah:
Yet those who wait for the LORD
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.
Notice what Isaiah says: Those who wait upon the Lord
They are the ones who will gain new strength, they will mount up with eagles’ wings, and they will run and not get tired.
How often do we find ourselves running ahead of God? Trying to win a battle before we have the power to fight it?
I believe that we can work under our own power for two years and still accomplish more in 2 days when we are empowered by the Holy Spirit.
One of the great needs of the church today is the need to wait. We have this strong desire to run ahead, always doing, always working, always striving. And God says “Wait.” Wait for me. Wait for the Holy Spirit. Wait for the power.
You will have victory, but first you must have the power. We need – individually and corporately – to learn to wait.
Learn to wait – as Moses did – spending 40 years in the wilderness learning to trust God so that He could lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
Learn to wait – as Paul did – spending 3 years studying and learning before he began his ministry to the Gentiles.
Learn to wait – even as Jesus did – spending 40 days in the wilderness before he began his public ministry.
We all need to learn to wait. Wait daily upon the Lord for the Holy Spirit to empower us for the day. Spend time in prayer – just waiting upon God to give us power and direction.
Do yourself a favor. Don’t just spend time giving God a list of requests and complaints.
Together, let’s learn the lesson of David in Psalm 40:1-3:
I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay,
And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fear
And will trust in the LORD.
There is a second order found in these passages. Let’s look at verses 7 and 8.
7He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; 8but 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.”
The second order Jesus gave was to WITNESS.
In other words, Jesus said to stay in Jerusalem until you have the power to fight, and then attack.
The 21st Century interpretation of this passage is:
“Stay in Jerusalem, build a huge structure, purchase a piano and organ, preach and pray. Then, these wonderful acts of piety will attract people from Judea, Samaria and the remotest parts of the earth.”
But, that is not what Jesus said. He said that we are to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and everywhere on earth. We are to “Go” We are to make disciples. We are to be a fighting force attacking the enemy and his strongholds wherever we are.
Jesus envisioned a force moving into the world and conquering it. He told Peter and the others that the Gates of Hell would not overpower us. We would have victory.
Here is a fact. If you were to study history, you would quickly discover that any time an army builds a fortress and stays inside, trying to defend it – the war is lost. Eventually, a bigger, stronger, more sophisticated army will come along and destroy both the fortress and the “army” inside.
Notice that Jesus did not say that the gates of the church would be able to withstand the attacks of the enemy. He said that the gates of the enemy would not be able to withstand the attacks of the church. If we are gong to be obedient to Jesus orders, we have to move outside these walls.
As God’s Army, empowered by the Holy Spirit, what is our objective? The answer is found in Matthew 28:19-20:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
The command of this passage is to make disciples. That is the battle we are fighting. We are to be winning people to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The strategy is simple:
Go – attack
Baptize – win
Teach – make new soldiers
How do we do this? We will be looking at that question as we study the early church in the book of Acts.
One thing that I know we are going to learn is that we must never stop being witnesses. We must never stop fighting the fight that God has given us. We will see in this series that there is much to being a good witness. 2 things will become clearly evident:
1. We must live our lives out before the world in such a way that they recognize the Lord Jesus Christ in us.
2. We must testify to the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord of our lives.
A Sunday School teacher once asked the class I was in: “Does living next door to a dentist give you healthy teeth?”
The answer is “Of course not.”
For you to have healthy teeth, the dentist must care for them. If he isn’t willing to help you, you probably won’t have the healthiest set of chompers you could have.
The same is true for your neighbors. Just because they live in the same vicinity as a Christian does not assure that they will know or ever hear about Christ.
If we are not willing to be his witnesses, they may never hear of our Lord. Not only must we walk the walk, we must talk the talk.
The Battle of Antietam in 1862 lasted for 12 hours and ranks as the bloodiest day of the Civil War, with 10,000 Confederate casualties and even more on the Union side. "At last the sun went down and the battle ended," wrote one historian, "smoke heavy in the air, the twilight quivering with the anguished cries of thousands of wounded men."
Though militarily a draw, the mediocre Union General George McClellan was able to end the brilliant Robert E. Lee’s thrust into Maryland, forcing him to retire across the Potomac. How was this possible? Two Union soldiers had found a copy of Lee’s battle plans and had delivered them to McClellan before the engagement.
In some respects, we are no match for our adversary, Satan, whose wiles we are told to be wary of. But as with General McClellan, our enemy’s plans have fallen into our hands. We know his usual strategies – we know how he works. We know how to have victory. First, we must wait for the power of the Holy Spirit and then we must attack the enemy’s territory with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. With the knowledge of the enemy, given to us by God’s Word, and the power of God’s Spirit within, we can attack the enemy on his ground and have great victories for the Lord Jesus Christ.
May we – the soldiers of the cross – go on to have great victories in our homes, in our schools, in our communities and around the world.
