This morning, we start a series through the book of Acts entitled “The Unstoppable Gospel” –  a title borrowed from our sister church, Covenant Life in Gaithersburg, MD which went through Acts a few years back.  Acts is a great book!  And I think we’re gonna have a great time over the next 7 or 8 months going through it.  I anticipate God will powerfully meet us.

Lets with some basic background facts.

Some of you may know that Acts is the second part of the two volume work known as Luke-Acts.  Luke wrote both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.  In the first century, these two books circulated as a single unit to the various local churches.

Now you might wonder, who is this guy Luke?  Well, Luke was a medical doctor.  He was also Gentile, or a non-Jew.  In fact, he is the only Gentile contributor to the NT.  Additionally, Luke served as the Apostle Paul’s travelling companion several times.

So why does Luke write Acts?  What is his purpose?

The answer is clear in verses 1 and 2 where we read:  “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.”

So Luke tells as that his first book, the Gospel of Luke, was about all that Jesus began to do and teach, suggesting that Acts is about all that Jesus will continue to do and teach.

In verse 9, Jesus ascends to the Father, yet his work in the world continues.

• Jesus’ bride, the church, had not yet been called out of the world.
• As Risen Savior and Exalted Lord, seated at the right hand of God the Father — there was still work to be done.
• The Gospel needed to reach to the ends of the earth!

Yes, on the Cross, his atoning work was finished.  However, all those Jesus died to save, had obviously not yet been saved.  It thrills my heart to consider that when Jesus came and dwelt among us as a man, His ministry and mission to the world in many ways had only just begun.    His birth, his life, his death, his resurrection and ascension were not the end of the story, they were only the beginning.

Jesus continued to minister by the power of the Holy Spirit through the apostles and the early church throughout the 28 chapters of Acts.  And Jesus’ ministry, by His Holy Spirit, continues in our day.

This is why one well known church-planting movement is called Acts 29.  They really believe in the ongoing ministry of Jesus until He returns again; and so do we.

The question is, now that Jesus has ascended,

• How is He going to get the job done?
• How is Jesus going to call His church out of the world?
• How will His saving purposes continue to advance?

Verse 8 answers those questions.  I want us to re-read it.  But first, you need to know, we will focus our attention primarily on this one verse today because it is the thesis, the main point of Acts, and therefore it prepares us well for the rest of the series.

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 (Acts 1:8).

So, there’s the answer to the question we just asked.  Jesus is going to get the job done; His saving purposes will continue to advance as the Holy Spirit empowers the witness of His people.

That’s the point of Acts.

The unstoppable ministry of Jesus continues
By the power of the Spirit
through the witness of God’s people

That brings us to our first point this morning.  The unstoppable ministry of Jesus continues

1) By the power of the Holy Spirit

How will God’s saving plan advance when Jesus ascends?  The Holy Spirit will come upon God’s people

• The ascended Christ, seated at the right hand of God, will pour out the Holy Spirit (2:33).  The Holy Spirit will come upon Jesus’ followers.
• The promise of the Father spoken of in vs.4 and in the Gospels will be fulfilled.
• Jesus vs.5 will baptize His disciples with the Holy Spirit.

Then, in that power, God’s saving purposes – will advance – as Jesus’ disciples go and tell others that this Jesus is the Savior of the world.

Now, I want you to note two words Luke chooses in this opening chapter to describe the Spirit’s activity: Baptism and power.   To baptize means literally ‘to submerse, to dip, to plunge.’  The word “power” in Greek is dynamis.  It’s where the English word “dynamite” is derived from.   These words speak of profusion, abundance, and power.  Throughout Acts, this is what we see – an outpouring, a profusion of the Spirit’s power: the Spirit saving people, filling people, transforming people, who take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

In Acts, the third person of the Trinity is not quiet, He takes center stage.  The Holy Spirit is mentioned over 50 times in Acts.  He manifests His presence and power everywhere!  It becomes clear that nothing is a match for the Spirit.  Not sin, not political forces, not persecution, not the spiritual forces of darkness – nothing can keep the Gospel from going forward; nothing can prevent God’s saving purposes from advancing.  They are unstoppable.

Now, here’s where I’m going with this: if the Apostles who had been with Jesus needed the Spirit’s power well, surely we do as well.

I can’t improve upon the way my Dad Bill Patton made this point in a sermon years ago.  He said “the Holy Spirit is to be an experienced reality in the life of every believer and every church.” He goes on to comment that in the NT age, “the church begins and continues its ministry in the same way Jesus did: full of the Holy Spirit, led by the Spirit, and in the power of the Spirit.”

Now listen: This has got to be true of us as a church.  The Holy Spirit must be an experienced reality in this local church.  Biblically, this isn’t something optional.  This priority is captured in our mission statement.  In case you forgot here it is: Our aim is to be a people transformed by the Gospel, empowered by God’s Spirit, reaching our World.

Now let’s just think about that phrase “empowered by God’s Spirit.” As a local church, over the course of our five year history, we’ve talked a lot about keeping the Gospel as our main focus.   That’s important.  It’s crucial. It’s essential.  It will never change. The gospel is the central theme of the Bible and consequently, all ministry must keep the gospel as its focal point.  My commitment for as long as I’m your pastor, and Lord willing that will be a very long time, is as Luther said, to beat the gospel into your heads continually.

The ministry of the Spirit, and the Spirit filled life,
must never eclipse the ministry of the gospel and the gospel-centered life!

However, our experience of the Spirit does matter.  Because the Bible is breathed by the Holy Spirit, because the gospel comes in the power of the Holy Spirit and because the gospel age is the age of the Spirit poured out – all ministry proceeding from the Bible and from the gospel must be infused with the Spirit in ways actually experienced in the life of the local church.

So, why study the book of Acts?  Why now?  Well there are a number of reasons.  One of them has to do with this very point: As individuals, as families and as a church, we want to be characterized in increasing measure by the active pursuit of the broad and multifaceted work of the Holy Spirit.  We need all the help we can get to live in such a way that our lives bear effective witness to the Savior we proclaim.

Jesus says in Jn.16 ‘I must go so that another like me can come.’  This other person, like Jesus, is the One Jesus calls, “the Spirit of truth” and “Helper.”  Anyone here ever feel their need for help, for power?    I know I need God’s help to be the disciple, the husband, the father, the pastor God has called me to be, but sometimes I can live as if I don’t really need the Spirit, or only need Him in small doses.  Perhaps you can relate.

Look, if Jesus ascended to Heaven so that His Spirit might come to help, don’t you think we make a big mistake if we fail to pursue his Spirit so that we can receive from Him all of the help He promises to give?

Now let me get back to something I said a moment ago.  When I say that as a church, we need to be characterized by a pursuit of the Holy Spirit, I need to qualify that by saying we’re not looking to be characterized by a pursuit of the Spirit in the manner of so many charismatic and Pentecostal groups.  We will never give the pursuit of certain spiritual gifts like prophecy, tongues and healing the central focus that only the Gospel should enjoy.  We are committed to an understanding of the gifts that upholds the sufficiency of Scripture, biblical order, and God’s sovereignty.  These commitments protect us from the kind of problems, abuses and errors grievously common in some groups.

At the same time, in our pursuit of the Spirit, we must not ignore, neglect or look down upon select gifts, as many in non-charismatic churches do.  That’s not biblical either.  All spiritual gifts found in scripture are given to build the church and advance the Gospel and therefore we value them all.

I am grateful for the gifts the Spirit gives, but we need to recognize: The Holy Spirit is not just a spiritual gift dispenser. He does a whole lot more than that!  He regenerates hearts.  He sanctifies. He comforts.  He gives wisdom.  He illuminates Scripture to our hearts, He gives boldness to share the Gospel, He builds the church, and more.  We value the broad work of the Holy Spirit.

So here’s the bottom line:  As a church, we want to pursue the work of the Spirit in all the ways Scripture teaches so that we can effectively play our part, our small part, in the advancement of God’s saving plan.  So in the coming weeks we are going to allow Acts, we are going to allow this divinely-inspired book to inform how we do that.

So, the unstoppable ministry of Jesus continues, first, by the power of the Spirit.

Second,

The unstoppable ministry of Jesus continues…

2) Through the witness of His people

Let’s read vs.8 again.

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.

What’s the purpose, the goal, of the Spirit’s coming?  It’s that Jesus’ disciples from every age might be His witnesses – that our lives and words might testify to the salvation Jesus came to bring. In Acts, as the result of the Sprit’s empowering, the disciples bear witness to Jesus.  They proceed to take the Gospel from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria and to the end of the earth.

Verse 8 is actually a rough outline of Acts.  Luke was an excellent, well organized writer.

• Chapters 1-7 show the advance of the Gospel in Jerusalem and Judea.
• Acts 8 tells of the advance of the Gospel in Samaria.
• And chapters 9 – 28 show the Gospel advance to the ends of the earth.

In the first century, Rome, which was the capital of the empire, was sometimes referred to as “the end of the earth.” So it’s fitting that Luke’s narrative concludes in Acts 28 with Paul under house arrest in Rome preaching the Gospel because it demonstrates that Jesus’ promise to His disciples in Acts 1:8 was already partially fulfilled!  Within the span of three short decades of Jesus’ ascension, the Apostles took the Gospel literally to “the end of the earth.”   The Gospel took root and the mission advanced in Judea, Samaria, Rome, Europe, Asia etc… It’s remarkable!

And how did it come about?  By clever church-growth strategies?  By a great music program or children’s ministry?  By having a certain critical mass to start with?  No!  The mission of the ascended Christ advanced: By the power of the Holy Spirit, through the witness of His people.

That’s it.  It’s that simple.

And God still works the same way today.  Jesus promise in Acts 1:8 is for us – and in a sense the last chapter of Acts has yet to be written.  As we bear witness to Jesus, to Who He is and what He has done– the Gospel will go forward, it will advance!   Jesus’ ongoing ministry, through his people, is unstoppable.

With the abrupt way he ends his book, Luke implies there’s more to come!  In Acts 28, there’s no climactic scene.  Jesus hasn’t returned.  Paul is just there, in Rome preaching the Gospel.

What does this mean?  Richard Longnecker answers:

Luke’s instinct in closing his great work as he did was completely right.  In seeming to leave his book unfinished, he was implying that the apostolic proclamation of the gospel in the first century began a story that will continue until the consummation of the kingdom in Christ.

John Stott says likewise:

The Acts of the Apostles have long ago finished.  But the acts of the followers of Jesus will continue until the end of the world, and their words will spread to the ends of the earth.

You know what?  This makes me be so grateful to be alive, so grateful to be a Christian!

This passage reminds me that God created me for a reason.  God saved me for a reason.  And it’s not so that my wildest earthly dreams might be fulfilled.  It’s not even so that I can be a morally upright person, live a good life, have a happy marriage, raise God-fearing kids, die and go to heaven.   That’s not ultimately why God made me and saved me.  And it’s not ultimately why He made you and saved you either.

God created you and created me so that our lives and words might bear witness to the glory of the One who has saved us!

The word Christians typically use to describe what I am talking about is evangelism.  It’s a loaded word.  Sometimes just saying the word invites guilt because most of us intuitively know we don’t care about the lost as we should and we should be doing a better job telling people about Jesus.

However, as we study Acts in the coming months, I think there’s going to be an adjustment in our thinking.  I think we will find that we shouldn’t view evangelism as a duty alone but also as the overflow of the Spirit-filled life.  I trust you know – this takes us in a different direction with evangelism than “just get on with it, just do it, alright”

In my preparation for this series and this message, I was struck by something that Jeff Purswell said when I was at the Sovereign Grace Pastors college years ago.  He said that in Acts, “Witness is not so much obedience speaking, but an overflow of the Spirit in which people can’t help but speak.  There is an overflow of witness that comes naturally.”

As I read that I thought, “OK, so here is something we as Christians don’t talk about very often when the subject of evangelism comes up.  We talk about duty – and that can be good to an extent– but I think we miss what Jesus’ call to bear witness is all about if we just say “You better get out there and start sharing the Gospel, without also saying ‘seek the Spirit!  Be filled with the Spirit.  Pray for more of the Spirit’s activity in your life so that you might be one who can’t help but to speak – to tell others about Jesus.’”    Another way to say this is: in Acts, the call to evangelism is not guilt based – it’s Spirit based.

Just think about it.  Why in the world would Jesus tell his disciples to wait for the Spirit to come, if they could effectively conduct the mission without Him?  And if the 12 apostles were filled with the Spirit, not only at Pentecost, but again and again, throughout the book – how much more do we need to be filled with the Spirit again, if we are to be effective witnesses?

This just makes me so thankful for Jesus’ words in Matthew 7: 

What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

God will give us the Spirit if we ask.

We are going to go through an evangelism course very soon in Care Groups.  We are waiting for the materials to be re-printed so we can order them.  I am excited about that.  I’ve seen parts of the video’s, I know the pastors well who produced it.  It’s going to help equip us to share the Gospel with others.  But listen: The Proclaim course itself isn’t going to make us effective in evangelism.   God, by His Spirit will make our witness to this community and to our family members and friends effective.  God will continue his ministry through his people.   He can’t be stopped.  God will fill us with the Spirit.  God is going to help us.

We know this to be true because as we see in Acts:

The unstoppable ministry of Jesus continues
By the power of the Spirit
through the witness of God’s people

PRAY