Acts 1:8 – You will be my witnesses – sermon notes
Acts 1:8 – “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses.”
What are all reasons you can think of why a person might not do an errand like that?
Can’t hear it
Don’t understand it
Think that it’s someone else’s job
Got something better to do
Think it’s too difficult
Don’t have the means
Don’t know how to do it
Don’t want to
In our Bible passage, Jesus’ followers had been given a task to do. “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After a bit of hesitation, they went about it. And that task has been passed on to us. What is holding us back?
All that is needed now is will power. If we have the will, God will provide the power. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.”
This is the power by which Peter was changed from a man who denied that he ever knew Jesus to a pillar of the church and who would readily go to his death for the cause of the gospel. It is the power by which the Lord added three thousand people to his church in a single day. It is the power by which the heart of Lydia was gently opened, so that she responded to Paul’s message. It is the power by which millions have been brought from darkness into glorious light.
But the task is still unfinished. Question: What is 750,000 miles long, reaches around the earth 30 times, and grows 20 miles longer each day? Answer: The line of people who are without Christ. There are at least 180 million committed Christians in the world. If the Holy Spirit plus 11 disciples were up to beginning the task, is there any reason why the Holy Spirit plus 180 million believers couldn’t set about finishing it off?
A little girl came home from Sunday School looking a bit downcast. “We were taught to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations,” she said. “But we just sat there.”
Perhaps we need to confess before God that up until now we simply havn’t cared enough. Certainly we need to pray that his Spirit would fall afresh on us, and make us into powerful witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ.